Broken Lords: Book Two of the Broken Mirrors Duology

by A. F. Dery

  He pulled the door shut before she could answer, and waited until he heard the key scrape in the keyhole before he headed downstairs and back outside to his pallet. He welcomed the cold night air as he laid down again, as it seemed to clear his spinning head.

  His mind kept going back to sitting next to Kesara by the fireplace, and he kept just as persistently pushing those thoughts aside in favor of dreading another day folded in half in that carriage, until sleep at last granted him peace once more.

  Kesara woke at dawn, the first pale rays of sunlight leaking like spilled milk through the mottled glass of the window pane. She stretched gingerly in the unfamiliar bed, still not entirely accustomed to the new infirmities she felt in her bones, though not really disturbed by them. Although the bonding had come in time to save her life, she had been sufficiently weakened by both the delay and the abrupt severing of the temporary bond that had come before it that she was finding herself easily fatigued. It was all she could do to stay awake during the day, and though she suspected Lord Eladria- Thane, she reminded herself- wouldn’t really mind if she dozed off all day long in the carriage, she couldn’t help but feel a certain sense of obligation born of courtesy to remain as alert as possible in his presence.

  It was a presence whose continuation she couldn’t really explain. It seemed obvious he was uncomfortable in the carriage- she felt the ache of his stiff muscles even if he did not- so why did he remain? She had thought at first that perhaps he had been nerving himself up to discuss something with her. Just what that might be, she didn’t know, but she still knew so little of the High Lord and what went on at Court that she rather hoped he would begin some sort of tutorial for her without her having to ask. Such information did not seem to be forthcoming, however, and she was still reluctant to bring the subject up. Even though they were bonded now, she was still a foreigner in his eyes, or at least, she thought she was.

  I don’t really know what he thinks, she thought ruefully, relieved anew that he apparently did not know what she thought, either. Perhaps it was the fatigue, or perhaps it was normal- she was no longer in any contact with any of her fellow Mirrors or her teachers to be able to ask- but her thoughts kept returning to their bonding ritual, and though she tried to distract herself with other thoughts or with speculations about their upcoming visit to the High Lord, it was to the ritual and the look in Thane’s eyes that her mind unerringly went back to. She couldn’t imagine what he would think if he knew that, but judging from the alacrity with which he’d sprung up and returned to his chair the night before, she doubted it would be anything amiable.

  Her cheeks burned and she groaned as she recalled it. What was I thinking? Was I thinking? He didn’t seem offended, at any rate. He had seemed a little odd to her, however.

  Of course, everything about him seemed odd to her now. He behaved just the same now as he had before their bonding, confirming in her own mind that he must not have felt the way she had. That shouldn’t have surprised her at all, and yet, she felt strangely saddened. Disappointed, even, which was ridiculous.

  Yet he was astonishingly, painstakingly solicitous of her in a way she had never expected. She couldn’t even describe her own shock when he’d suddenly agreed to bring her with him to Court, despite his previous misgivings. He’d done that just to please her, she was sure, and…it made no sense. She had been assured time and again by her teachers that the needs which the refrere could sense through the bond could easily be dismissed or ignored or even, for those with the motivation and temperament, tuned out entirely, with time and patience. She had heard from the very lips of bonded Mirrors of just that occurring, and had heard the stories of Mirrors killed when deemed inconvenient or obnoxious by those they were bonded to, stories never meant to reach her, or the other students’, ears, but which never seemed to fail to.

  But Thane seemed to insist on addressing every little need that came into his awareness. He had even somehow realized that she yearned to be close to him the evening before, when she’d finally broken down in exhaustion and guilt in front of him. Was that even, properly speaking, a need? she wondered, and yet it must have been, for he had known about it.

  Kesara sighed, shaking her head to try to clear it as she got out of bed. She dressed and cleaned herself up as best she could, knowing full well that it made little difference. Another long day crammed into a carriage with the Dread Lord, struggling to remain conscious would be sure to quickly reverse any improvements she happened to make regarding her general appearance.

  Perhaps if I encouraged him to ride today, she thought, feeling a little guilty at the idea. After all, she didn’t want him to think that she was shunning his company or something. Maybe he sensed that she did want to be near him and was just trying to respond to that. She had no idea anymore. Being a Mirror was supposed to be such a straightforward thing, she thought glumly. When did it all become so complicated?

  As if answering her thought, she heard a polite knocking at her door, followed by an obnoxiously cheerful “Time to go, Kes!”

  She took a deep breath and unlocked the door, pushing it tentatively open. Thane stood in the hall in a pose of such exaggerated casualness, leaning against the wall with one long leg crossed in front of the other, that it made her fight back a smile.

  “Good morning, milord,” she said politely.

  “Good morning, miss,” he answered, just as politely. “Did you rest well?”

  “Just so, milord,” Kesara lost the fight against smiling. “And you?”

  “It was most adequate, thank you, miss,” Thane said. His lips remained compressed in a neutral line, but his brown eyes twinkled at her. “Did you need to eat something before we go?”

  “I’m not hungry,” she said cautiously.

  “I know, but I thought I’d ask anyway.” Thane motioned towards the stairs and she obediently started walking. “We won’t be stopping for quite a while. Going the long way around means long days on the road to get there on schedule. The High Lord does not appreciate tardiness.” There was something about the way he said this last that suggested he was parroting it from some source that was, to her, unknown.

  “Um, yes, and about the long days, and the traveling…” Kesara took another breath to steel herself, grateful that she was walking in front of him and could conscientiously direct her gaze to the stairway she was presently descending rather than have to make eye contact. “It’s just, well, milord, it’s not that I don’t…uh…value your company…”

  “Are you breaking things off with me, Kesara?” Thane asked in a woeful tone from behind her. “Are you tired of me so quickly? Let me guess, it’s not my fault, and you’ll always cherish me like the friend you never had.” She turned at the landing to face him and saw him smiling the tight, close-lipped smile she knew he wore when he was trying very hard not to smile openly.

  “Oh, milord, you are far too perceptive for the likes of me,” Kesara said, lowering her eyes demurely and digging her fingernails into her palms in an effort to stop herself from laughing. “You have it just right. I’m so glad you understand. I was so afraid you would make a scene.”

  “I’m still very tempted to do so. I can’t tell you how I’m suffering in this moment,” Thane said gravely, but there was a tremor in his voice that gave him away, along with the slight shaking of his shoulders when she looked back up at him.

  Somehow, his amusement gave her courage, and as they stepped outside the inn, she blurted out in a rush, “Just ride your horse, milord, please. I’m really tired and all I want to do is sleep, and I don’t feel right doing that when you’re obviously just cramming yourself in that carriage on my behalf.” She watched him uncertainly as he made a show of thinking it over, rubbing at his chin thoughtfully.

  “It’s really nice when you just say what you’re thinking, you know,” he said at last. “You might just spoil me if you keep this up.”

  Kesara let out the breath she’d been holding. “You’re not upset? I don’t want you to think
the wrong thing.”

  “Too late,” Thane said sadly. “I think lots of wrong things. I can hardly help myself. But fortunately, in this case, you’re asking me to do what I’d rather do anyway, so right or wrong, how can I be upset about that?”

  Kesara thought that over for a moment, but before she could say anything else, she found herself standing outside the carriage, and Thane was looking at her intently with such a serious look in his eyes that she felt a momentary pang of anxiety that he might actually be upset after all.

  “Milord?”

  “Kes, why are you so tired?” he asked bluntly. “You never used to sleep so much. I know you’ve been through a lot recently, but it’s not anything more than that, is it?”

  Kesara frowned, taken aback by the question and the intensity in his face. “N-no, of course not, milord. I’m just still recovering…” she hesitated. She didn’t want to bring up what had happened when she’d been bonded to him temporarily. Even though she couldn’t sense or take away any emotional pain he might experience, she still had no desire to cause it.

  But he seemed to make the leap without her. “I did this, didn’t I?” he asked quietly.

  “No, I did, by my own choices,” Kesara told him firmly. “I’ll be fine, Thane. I just need to sleep. By the time we get to Court, I’ll be as good as…well, as I’ve ever been.”

  “If you need anything, you’ll tell me, won’t you? I can’t always interpret what the bond tells me,” Thane said in a low voice.

  “All I need right now is some rest,” she assured him, then thoughtfully, “And maybe a fire, wherever we stop tonight?”

  Thane inclined his head, relaxing visibly. “That much I think we can manage.”

  “What the hells is keeping you lot?” Graunt bellowed from the other side of the courtyard. “You had all day yesterday to chit-chat with rabbits, lad. Let’s get on with it before you have to bury me here.”

  “How exactly would you bury her here?” Kesara wondered, looking doubtfully at the rocky ground. It appeared the inn’s rear courtyard had been left unpaved as a matter of redundancy.

  Thane tugged open the carriage door and gestured inside. “Get some sleep, Kes. Your mind’s going strange.”

  “Going?” Kesara muttered under her breath as she complied. She thought he wouldn’t hear her, but he chuckled low in his throat as he shut the door.

  The next few days passed in a fog. Kesara napped fitfully in the carriage by day, and curled up by a fire or, on occasion, in a bed at an inn by night. When she woke, she felt bleary eyed and muddled, as though always woken too soon from the middle of some dream. But by the week’s end, her head was starting to clear, her episodes of wakefulness lengthened, and she now barely noticed the new aches and pains she was carrying around, just in time for another of Thane’s headaches to descend.

  “Going to Court…disturbs you, doesn’t it?” Kesara asked him carefully at camp that night. They were now in the country of Almryn, bordering the Western Range of the High Lord. The roads had gone from cobblestone to some smoother paving Kesara had never seen before, and they wended their way in smooth dark trails through deep green forests shrouded in light mist. It was lovely and vaguely reminiscent of Ytar, except that it was still too cold for Kesara’s comfort.

  They were seated next to each other on a fallen log before a small fire, Kesara picking at the remains of some sort of stew one of the soldiers had made and Thane filling his pipe for the first time that evening.

  “Disturbing…that might be a good word for Court,” Thane said dryly, tamping down the tobacco in his pipe. “Why do you ask?”

  “You’re getting another headache,” Kesara said.

  Thane grunted. “Graunt shared her theory that they are stress related, I take it. Well, it’s as good a reason as any. I do find being at Court stressful, that much is certain.”

  Kesara hesitated, unsure as to what the reception to her next question would be, and took her time stabbing a piece of what she hoped was potato with her fork. “Is there anything I should know before we get there, milord?” she finally asked.

  Thane by this time had lit the pipe and he slowly exhaled smoke as he said, “Ah, I wondered when we’d come to that. Truth is, Kes, I’m not the most refined or diplomatic of rulers by far. Generally speaking, you could take off your clothes and dance on the tables and the only thing anyone would find surprising is that you are a foreigner in Lord Eladria’s company. Not that we Eladrians normally go in for that kind of behavior, mind you. It’s just the point that the other nobles at Court generally expect anyone or anything associated with me or my homeland to be barbaric and uncivilized. You will doubtlessly hear no end of little comments to that effect, from the servants as well as the nobles. They would not dare to go too far- most of them fear me too much for that- but they know I generally ignore the truly petty trifles and they take full advantage of the fact. I advise you to ignore it as well, but if anyone troubles you or says something you don’t understand the reference to, you need only ask me when we’re alone.”

  “I understand,” Kesara said, watching the smoke rise from the end of his pipe.“This stresses you? That they think you’re a barbarian?”

  Thane snorted. “No, I am a barbarian. Why should it bother me that they think so? What ‘stresses’ me is that I’m on a short leash when I’m around the High Lord. I give the man a tremendous level of respect, and I try to be worthy of the respect and trust he has shown me in return. It is most difficult to pretend to civility that I don’t in fact possess around those who deserve anything but that from me. Malachi will be there, and as much as I’d love to just separate his head from his neck and be done with it, I will be forced to plead my case like one of my own petitioners at Judgment day and accept that whatever penalty he receives will no doubt be far less than what he deserves.”

  “I’m not certain things are as straightforward as you seem to think they are, Thane. What you have told me makes sense, and yet…why would someone who had been your friend once take such measures as he did? He had to know it would come to the High Lord’s attention sooner or later. Does he really hate you so much?” She was practically burning with curiosity to know where such avid dislike would come from, and she was sure he had to sense it through their bond, but she could not bring herself to question him about it directly and he was obviously not volunteering the information. He had always been open enough with her, but somehow she had the impression that this was not a subject to go barging into at the moment.

  “I don’t honestly know the answer to that, Kes, but I am sure we will find out when we get there,” Thane said grimly.

  Kesara considered this a moment, then asked,“Who are your allies at Court?”

  Thane looked down at her, nearly dropping his pipe. “What a strange question! We’re all allies in the Union. Yes, even Malachi and I, which makes the sting that much keener, doesn’t it?”

  “No, I mean, is there anyone especially sympathetic with Eladrian interests? Someone who doesn’t stoop to the pettiness you mentioned?”

  “Uh, what, like a friend or something?” Thane took another puff on his pipe, looking bemused. “Not that I know of. I’m in favor with the High Lord, but generally, I don’t seem to get along very well with the rest of the Court on what you might call a social level.”

  “I see,” Kesara said slowly, eying him anew. “Really, you don’t seem so very difficult to get along with to me, milord. Or so uncivilized as you suggest.”

  Thane gave something like a smirk in the direction of the fire and said, “You met me under much different circumstances than most do, Kes. There’s really no valid basis for comparison here.”

  “Do you act so differently at Court than you do around me?” Kesara persisted.

  Thane gave her a tight-lipped smile. “Not really. My behavior isn’t really the issue. If you think about it, I should be even easier to get along with when I am forced to behave myself around the High Lord, shouldn’t I?”

&nb
sp; “Then what is it?” Kesara abandoned all efforts to finish her dinner, staring at Thane’s profile in puzzlement.

  Thane turned his head and looked her directly in the eyes. “You really have to ask that?” he asked, so softly that even right next to him, she had to strain to hear him.

  Kesara felt heat flood her face as she suddenly realized what he was getting at. “Your appearance can be…intimidating, milord. I won’t try to tell you otherwise. But surely it isn’t so important as all that?”

  Thane’s face was unreadable as he said mildly, “Well, that depends on how you define ‘all that.’ Appearances are very important at Court. Your appearance, for example, could either be to the benefit of my reputation- because I apparently ‘obtained’ a rare commodity, if you will forgive such vulgarity for a moment- or to my detriment, that I am so weak that I must require the services of one with your abilities. The odds are stacked in favor of the latter impression, given that my feelings on foreigners are so well known. It might give anyone planning to test the cracks in Eladrian offenses all the impetus they need, or even cause me to lose favor with the High Lord, rendering such an event more likely than not. Not that this concerns me. No one has ever invaded Eladria successfully since we cast out our first occupants, centuries ago.”

  Kesara stared at him, stunned. “Is that why you did not want to bring me? I would have stayed if you told me to. I did not realize I’d be to your detriment if I came.”

  Thane’s eyebrows knit together and he shook his head. “No, I told you my reasons. And while it would be unfortunate to lose favor with one as powerful as the High Lord, it wouldn’t be the end of the world, nor a permanent state of affairs, if I can help it. I do not welcome the prospect of battle on Eladrian soil if I am suddenly perceived as the weak link in the chain, but I am confident in our defenses and in our men. I’m not trying to blame you for whatever is to come- it was ultimately my decision whether to bring you or not, and I do not regret my choice.” He looked away from her, towards the fire again. “It’s a comfort to know you will be there, actually. There is no one for me to talk to anymore except Graunt, and she is sufficiently disgruntled at accompanying us to not be very sympathetic company, in case you somehow failed to notice.” Kesara had, in all honesty. She had barely seen or heard Graunt since they departed, but had attributed this to the fact that she had been spending most of her time asleep of late.