The spark of amusement, and the bright fondness that it kindled, came from Alban; confusingly, it felt like his own.
There is debate among healers on the ethics of saving a patient from the effects of their own stupidity. Some feel it only encourages unhealthy behavior. In the link, Alban could not even pretend the sternness such a thought implied.
Saving me from my own stupidity was how this all started.
And, oh, the rush of—love, Grace help him, there was no other word for what Kieran felt from Alban, the joy at having this thing between them, whatever it was, however fleeting it must be. The sense of preciousness for how easy it would have been for them to have never met at all.
Deep as the link went, Kieran in that moment could not say whether the surge of love within him merely came from Alban, from the link, or whether some of it, maybe an even half of it, was his.
And in that moment, if Alban had said let me in in a different context, Kieran would have said yes. And meant it forever.
But Alban, Grace bless his practical soul, focused on the headache Kieran had nearly forgotten in his dangerous bliss. Kieran, mind conjoined to his, saw the healing, knew the healing, in that moment as easy and as instinctual as breathing and as focused as a ray of light through a lens that could kindle a warming fire or burn through flesh. He knew what healers hid, perhaps even from themselves. Realized how constrained the Leas had been in the war, because this power could be turned into a deadly weapon.
Never, Alban said through the link. It is anathema.
Knowing in that moment what it was to be a healer, to touch and to cherish the power of Grace, of life itself, Kieran understood that no healer would ever commit the acts of destruction he knew to be theoretically possible, because in doing so they would destroy themselves utterly.
You see, Alban thought to him.
Yes, came not as a word, but as a wordless, all-encompassing affirmation.
He called Alban Prince of Light as a jest, but he truly was. Made of light. Blessed by Grace. Life informed not by the rigid rules of honor, as Kieran had been raised, but by Grace itself.
“It is not so easy as that,” Alban said, slipping from the bond that had become too intense to sustain. “When I am healing, yes, then I feel the Grace in my soul. As you do sometimes when you play, I have seen it. But in the ordinary, in the everyday, it is not always so easy to discern between the Grace’s will and my own. We, too, have rules for that reason, though we do not believe in holding to them over the pull of the Grace. For instance, rules about not leaving an injured person out in the snow to die slowly, no matter that he is an enemy. No matter how arrogant and difficult he might be.”
Kieran laughed.
“I was too annoyed that day to hear the Grace,” Alban admitted. “But the rules were enough.”
“I was fortunate then.”
“We both were.”
Enough of the link remained for Kieran to know how Alban felt about having him in his life. Too strong a feeling for how impossible and fleeting anything between them must be.
Alban had banished his headache and the nausea, but Kieran felt drained.
Alban slid away and stood. Kieran felt cold where Alban had been pressed against him, but he felt a strange sort of relief as well.
“I have to go,” Alban said. “I...”
Kieran saw he was fumbling for an excuse. “I understand. This morning was a bit,” he fought for a word that wouldn’t address things they both would rather not face. “Tiring.”
“Yes, tiring,” Alban echoed.
Without meeting Kieran’s eyes, Alban slipped out of the room.
#
Inside his own room, Alban closed his eyes and leaned against the door. They had made progress toward merging bardic and healing magic, he was sure of it. Kieran would want to continue.
And, oh, so did he. Wanted it so badly that he knew it was a bad idea. Because he was already far too attached to Kieran, and this was only going to make it worse.
Kieran would insist they continue, and Alban could not deny him.
So they continued, day by day, while the days grew longer again. Practiced until, while in the link, Alban knew where Kieran would take the music the moment he did, and Kieran thought with Alban’s knowledge of healing. Practiced until the two arts twined first, then merged.
They spent occasional evenings with Sheary and his friends, until Kieran relaxed among the Leas and they ceased to consider him an oddity. Rarely, they encountered Trodaire in the halls—tense moments, but otherwise without incident.
#
The remains of his father’s harp still leaned in the corner where one of the Leas had left it that first night. He avoided looking at it; his stomach hurt every time he saw the splintered pieces.
It was time to accept the finality of the loss.
When Alban came to check in on him after dinner, he must have read something in Kieran’s face, because he asked instantly what was wrong.
“Nothing,” Kieran said. “Just—could you help me with something?”
“Of course.” Alban put a hand on his shoulder, sending concern through a shallow, nonintrusive link.
Kieran took a deep breath. “This is probably going to sound ridiculous to anyone not a bard but, well, my father’s harp. The one I had when I came.”
A flow of empathic sadness through the bond. “You know it probably can’t be repaired.”
“I’ve known it was beyond hope since that first night in the snow. I may be a fool, but I’m not delusional.” He took another deep, steadying breath. “It’s time—past time—to let go of the pieces.”
“We thought it best to let you decide when to do that.”
“Thank you.” He paused and nodded. “I’m ready. But I’d like to do it right.”
To anyone who wasn’t a serious musician, this was going to sound crazy. After all, they were talking about a hunk of wood with some bits of metal.
“Tell me what you need,” Alban said softly, gently.
“I—” The words stuck in his throat. He swallowed. “I’d like to burn it.”
“All right,” Alban said. “Will the fireplace do, or do you need a bonfire?”
“The fireplace.” He couldn’t imagine doing this out in the open, where Leas he didn’t know could gather and mock. “But with the crutches, it would be hard to pick up and carry the pieces.”
“Take the chair by the fire,” Alban said. “I’ll bring it to you.”
Kieran took up his crutches and hobbled over to the chair. Alban gathered up the shattered harp in his arms and brought it to him, laying it down as gently as he could, but the wood still creaked and pieces scattered across the floor. Kieran picked up the nearest piece, a six-inch section of what had once been the soundboard. The harp was finished, and yet it felt like murdering a love to reach out and feed that first piece to the flames, to watch it blacken and be consumed.
Alban put his hands on Kieran’s shoulders and formed a one-way link, offering silent support without intruding on his grief. The best that Kieran had hoped for was for Alban to humor him; he had known the healer was too kind to mock him outright. But this stolid, somber sympathy told him that somehow Alban understood what this meant to him.
He picked up another piece, the top half of the pillar and part of the neck. He touched it to his lips and consigned it to fire. Piece by piece, he fed the harp to the flames, down to the last little splinter.
Alban picked up a piece that had fallen and rolled away when he was moving the harp, a carved and gilded wooden rose that had once adorned the shoulder of the instrument. “The carving is intact. It's still beautiful.” He handed it to Kieran. “You should keep it. I can have someone sand down the rough edges so they don’t give off splinters.”
Kieran closed his hand over the bit of wood. “Thank you.”
#
Eventually they were ready to show Alban’s father what they could do, and he agreed to let them try it under his supervision on
a live patient. Finding a Leas willing to have a Scathlan take any part in his healing proved more difficult, until one of Alban’s cousins broke his arm in a fall from a horse and specifically asked for them.
Alban had to smile at the look on Kieran’s face when he learned that they were to do their first real healing. It perfectly mirrored how he had felt faced with his own first attempt at healing. He told Kieran what his father had told him then.
“Relax, you’re ready for this. And if anything does start to go wrong, I’ll be there to put it right.”
His father would be there too, watching them both, but Kieran wouldn’t find that thought nearly as soothing as Alban did.
Evoy, arm held to his chest, gave them a wan smile from his bed as they entered his room. “Ah, I see you brought his harp, good. I’ve been curious about what the two of you were up to.”
Alban shook his head. “You didn’t have to fall off your horse to get the first look.”
Evoy grinned. “Wasn’t my idea. That black bitch of a mare has a wicked sense of humor.”
“Let me see what she did to you this time.”
Evoy held out his arm, and Alban gently turned back the sleeve. There was no visible displacement of the bone, and the swelling had not yet started. He placed his hands over the arm, and his healer’s “sight” confirmed his initial impression. A simple break, possibly just a hairline crack.
Nothing that truly required an experimental technique, but also nothing that could be badly endangered by it either.
Kieran pulled over a stool and took the harp from its wrappings. He shifted closer until his shoulder brushed Alban’s hip, giving him just enough contact to initiate the link. Their minds touched, embraced, joined. Then the moment when Alban knew Kieran had sensed another’s injury for the first time with a healer’s knowledge, smiled at the sharp spike of his concern.
As injuries go, it is not so bad. Your break was far worse.
Kieran put his hands to the strings of his harp. Show me how we fix this.
Alban took their link deeper still, until Kieran was thinking with his knowledge, until Alban heard with a bard’s ear the sound Evoy’s healing would take. Then they were healing and playing together, a duet so harmonious that it was impossible to say where one performer began and the other ended. They breathed together, and Alban could feel the pulse of their hearts, beating in unison.
They ended together too, on the same note—no wait, there were no notes to healing magic. Or were there? Was he the bard or the healer? Scathlan or Leas?
He swayed a little, and the other set aside the harp and reached up to steady him.
So if the other had the harp, that made him the healer. Alban, prince of the Leas. The other was Kieran, then, the Scathlan, his beloved Fool.
He jerked awake then, pulled out of the mind-link. Mercy of the Grace, had Kieran heard that last thought?
“Are you all right?” Kieran asked him, and then turned to Alban’s father. “Is he all right?”
Father appeared on his other side, tilting his head to look into his eyes, brushing his awareness with the standard healing link, so paltry and remote compared to what he had shared with Kieran.
“Just exhausted,” Father pronounced. “It is not unusual, especially for healers trying a procedure unfamiliar to them.” He turned to Evoy and reached for his arm. “If I may?”
Evoy nodded permission, and Father examined the limb with touch and with a healer’s inseeing. He raised an eyebrow.
“If I didn’t know he fell off the horse only this morning, I’d swear this injury was weeks old.”
Fifteen
Sheary insisted on throwing a celebratory dinner for them that night. Kieran would be more embarrassed did he not know that the Leas grasped at any excuse for a party.
Had the Scathlan ever been like this, before the war, before the queen’s long sleep? Ready to grab at any chance for joy? If so, would they be like this again, with the queen restored?
Throughout the dinner, he dodged questions about the new healing technique, and how hard it would be for others to learn. Kieran thought he would be leaving the Leas with new healing methods in exchange for their forbearance in allowing the research. But the more progress he made with Alban, the more he realized that, when he left, he would be taking nothing with him and leaving nothing behind.
The duet required a mind-link between two highly compatible individuals. He and Alban shared something incredibly rare; even among those with the compatibility to form a mind-link, the depth of theirs was like something out of legend. The odds of them finding another compatible elf came to nearly nil. To find another of the right talent that connect so deeply—that only happened once in a lifetime, and rarely even that.
Was everything they worked so hard for to come to naught?
Not for naught, if it woke his queen, restored hope to his people. Once, that would have been all Kieran wanted, all he dreamed.
Now he regretted that Alban would be bereft of their bond once he left. He lay awake sometimes at night, thinking about it. For himself, he would miss the bond, would miss Alban terribly, but he learned young to bear loss. Alban, though, his bright, sweet Alban was not made for sorrow.
He and Alban continued to work on melding music and healing, finding the joining easier each time. It should scare him, how easily he lost himself in another, but this was Alban, this was safe. At Toryn’s suggestion, they tried their duet on an old injury. To Kieran’s surprise, Eamon, the Leas veteran who had been with Alban that first night on the mountain, volunteered to be their subject.
They could not completely heal the damage, not with a wound so old and so deep, but Eamon limped less after, and reported after several treatments that his leg no longer pained him so much on cold mornings. It felt good, so good, to make things better, to lessen pain and promote healing. Better, even, than calling forth beauty and joy with a tune. He wished this union, and the magic that came with it, would never have to end.
Kieran’s own injuries were healing quickly. A side effect of their work, or so Alban told him. All that healing energy also healed the healer. The weather warmed, and the snows had begun to melt. Soon it would be possible to return to his people.
The problem remained of how to use what he had learned to wake the queen. He needed Alban with him to heal with music. He would not risk his friend by bringing him among Scathlan, even if Alban could be persuaded. He fell asleep thinking about the problem one night, and for the first time in a long time dreamed his queen’s dreams.
Woke to Alban on his bed, shaking him, calling his name.
“I could hear you screaming,” Alban said, when Kieran opened his eyes. “In my mind, I could hear you screaming. Terrible, it was so terrible.”
Kieran pulled him into a tight embrace to comfort them both, Alban’s hair soft and silky beneath his cheek. He pressed a kiss to the top of his head. Alban shifted in his arms and caught his lips in a desperate, open-mouthed kiss. Kieran responded with the passion of a man drowning.
And then pulled away with regret. “We can’t. You know we can’t. Aren’t things complicated enough already?”
Alban drew breath to protest, and Kieran braced for his words, determined not to be persuaded to follow where his own heart and body wanted to go. But Alban subsided with a sigh.
“At least let me stay here tonight,” Alban said after a few moments.
“Alban—”
“Just to sleep,” the Leas cut him off. “What I felt in the dream...so hopeless, so horribly, achingly empty.”
Kieran could think of so many reasons why this was a bad idea, starting with what Toryn would do to him if he found out. But having suffered the queen’s dreams so many nights himself, he could not leave Alban alone with the memory.
“Just to sleep,” he echoed.
When he pulled Alban into his arms, he contrived to wedge the heavy fold of blanket between their lower bodies. It helped. A little. A very little.
#
He woke to the sound of a knock on the door to Alban’s room. Alban’s empty room. In his arms, Alban startled awake and raised his face to Kieran’s.
Sweet Grace. He was dead, and he hadn’t even done anything wrong.
Another knock, and a young woman’s voice calling softly for her prince.
“She’s to leave breakfast for both of us with me,” Alban murmured in his ear. He slipped into the mind-link. Keep still. She will assume we’re asleep in our own rooms and leave the tray.
Yet Kieran could feel the flicker of doubt in Alban’s thoughts, blending with the dread of his father finding out where he had spent the night.
Another knock. Alban flinched in his arms. Then the sound of the tray being set down. The sound of footsteps in the hall. Kieran held his breath. Did the steps hesitate, just a bit, at his door? No, of course not, there would be no reason for her to suspect.
The steps turned down the staircase and faded. He hugged Alban closer, but resisted the urge to press a kiss to the bare skin of his neck. Kieran felt the muscles of Alban’s back uncoil, felt the heartbeat beneath his hand slow. In the mind-link, they counted a hundred breaths together before Alban slipped from his mind and his bed.
“I’ll go get our breakfast, shall I?” Alban asked with false cheer.
Oh, my Prince of Light, that was too close. Never again. I may be the reckless Fool, but I cannot allow you to drag yourself into danger with me.
The situation could have been much, much worse. They were both decently dressed and leaning over the book, arguing about the interpretation of a particular paragraph when Alban’s father knocked on the door, then opened the door as soon as Kieran called out, “Yes?”
Toryn, usually so regal and controlled, panted from running, his face pale and grave. “There’s been a hunting accident. The injuries are beyond anything I can mend with conventional healing. It’s time to put the bardic healing to a true test.”
“Are you sure?” Kieran didn’t think he was ready, not for something where a life hung in the balance.
Where Light Meets Shadow Page 12
