Where Light Meets Shadow

by Shawna Reppert

  “I received a missive from the Scathlan queen,” his father continued.

  Though the sun was warm, Alban shivered in the breeze. By the rumors from their mortal trading partners, there was evidence of increased mining and smelting and metal craft in the Scathlan stronghold, but no increase in trading. Whatever the Scathlan made, they kept for themselves, and their mortal neighbors worried that they stockpiled weapons.

  The Leas could only share their concern, and with more reason than most.

  “She proposes a meeting between us, so we can talk out our differences.”

  “Will you go?”

  His father’s gaze fell to the distant black mountains. “I have no choice. If there is a chance to avert war, we must try. Though I’ve no idea how we will come to agreement, since her issues, so far as I know, stem from past actions that I cannot and would not change.”

  “Is it safe?”

  Father took a deep breath. “I believe so. The Scathlan hold honor in high regard. I cannot imagine that they would violate a truce.”

  “Where will you meet?”

  “There is a royal hunting lodge on the old border between our land and theirs, from the days when we met once a year to hunt and celebrate together. From the times when elf-kind was more numerous and mortals less so, and Scathlan and Leas held all the land between the black mountain and the white.” He chuckled. “I do not envy them the task of making it ready. It has long been vacant.”

  “A hunting lodge?” Alban asked. “I somehow can’t imagine Kieran’s queen choosing anything so rustic.”

  His father chuckled. “There is very little rustic about it. It is built to Scathlan taste, for all that it stands aboveground. All stone and elegance, with marble fountains in the courtyard, though I believe Leas planned and planted the formal garden.”

  It had to be a good sign that the Scathlan queen wanted to talk. Surely it meant that the Scathlan were not committed to war, there would be no point otherwise. Only what was there to talk about?

  “I thought to take you with me,” Father continued. “It would be an opportunity for you to see diplomacy firsthand, and it will reassure the Scathlan that I intend no hostility. But I need your assurances.”

  “You think I would embarrass you?” Alban tried and failed to keep the hurt from his voice.

  “Not in any ordinary sense, no. You have always been a good son and an ideal prince.” His father took a deep breath. “There is a chance, no, a likelihood that Kieran will be there.”

  Of course, the queen would bring her bard. There would be meals together, and music, as part of the diplomatic proceedings.

  “I will not ask you to stay away from him. For one, it could be seen as a slight, and we cannot afford to give the Scathlan more cause to claim against us. For another, if there is ever to be peace between the kindreds as there once was, I believe it must start with friendship between individuals.”

  Alban was embarrassed to note that his pulse had quickened with the prospect of seeing Kieran again.

  “But I need you to remember that, whatever our hopes may be for this meeting, for the time being the Scathlan are enemies. Kieran is loyal to his people. I need to know that you will be loyal to yours. Whatever your personal feelings are for this bard, you cannot let them stand before your duty, as you did while he lived with us. If you cannot promise me that, tell me now and I will leave you home.”

  He had badly disappointed his father in the past. He would not do so again.

  “I understand. Kieran’s loyalty is to his people, and my loyalty is to my own. I will not make you regret including me.” Alban looked off to the distance for a moment, then faced his father once again. “I’m sorry I helped Kieran to wake his queen.”

  His father put a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t be. I gave you permission to work toward that end, even knowing what it might bring. The Scathlan are still elves, if only distant kindred to us. We act on Grace, not expediency. It is, perhaps, what separates us from mortals. Maybe that is why they are more successful than we, despite their short lives. I fear that someday, like the ice dragons and the trolls of the northern mountains, we will fade into a dream and be remembered only in song. At least let us make it a beautiful dream and a happy song.”

  #

  Trying not to fidget, Kieran stood in the queen’s retinue as they waited to receive the Leas. He brushed invisible lint from his black tunic—he had chosen the black in the hope that it would make him look older, more responsible, but he felt like an imposter. For all that he held the title of royal bard, he still wasn’t accustomed to people taking him seriously. He felt like any moment someone would call him out for trying to wedge his way in among his betters.

  He wasn’t entirely sure why he was here in the marble-floored receiving hall, standing with the queen and her retinue as they prepared to greet the Leas delegation. The queen had brought him to entertain in the evenings, but that didn’t mean he had any place among her advisors. For that matter, he couldn’t say why the queen had called this meeting with the Leas at all. He could only hope it meant that she had finally considered his words regarding the Leas and their role in waking her, but she had given no other sign of having heard him.

  The queen sat in the center of their half-circle, regal and still, seeming almost as much a statue as she had in her long sleep, with her council and her private guard arrayed around her. Even Brona at her side looked untouchable, hair piled atop her head in an intricate braid, dress stiff with elaborate gold embroidery.

  An advance rider from the Leas had announced the party’s arrival, and the queen had determined that her court should greet them before they would be shown to their rooms. At the time, it had seemed a courtesy, but when the Leas came into the hall, Kieran was not so sure. The Leas were clearly exhausted and in travel clothes still, mud on their boots and at the hem of their cloaks, undoubtedly at a disadvantage compared to the Scathlan in their finery.

  His breath went tight as they approached. No reason to be nervous. He had met Toryn and his retinue before, shared meals with some of them. And here he was the least member of the Scathlan retinue, unlikely to come to any notice at all.

  The queen stood as they approached. Toryn bowed to her, a slight incline at the waist to acknowledge a lady that was his equal, and introduced his party one by one, starting with Alban who stood beside him looking, oh Grace, even more breathtaking than Kieran remembered. Their eyes met, and Alban looked away.

  Did he regret what they had been to each other?

  Toryn introduced Sheary as part of his escort. When the king turned to the next member of the party, Sheary caught his eye and winked. At least Alban’s irrepressible cousin had not changed toward him.

  Toryn finished his introductions, and the queen introduced her retinue, starting with Brona, then moving on to Riagan and the other advisers.

  “And I believe you already know my bard, Kieran,” she finished. “I understand I have you to thank for his safe return.”

  “It was an honor and a pleasure to have him as a guest,” Toryn replied.

  The words were a mere formality, and Kieran could not read anything in the tone. He tried to make eye contact with Alban, but the prince looked straight ahead into the middle distance.

  “You will want a chance to rest and change and refresh yourselves. We will meet again at dinner. It has been too long since we broke bread with our Leas cousins. And then, on the morrow, we will have much to discuss.”

  #

  Bathed, rested, and dressed in more formal attire, Alban felt no more ready to face Kieran over dinner than he had been in the receiving hall. He hadn’t been prepared for what it would be like to see his—friend? Former friend? Lover of one night?—among the Scathlan, among Alban’s enemies, as though Kieran were part of a force arrayed against Alban’s kind.

  He saw nothing of the reckless Fool he loved in that unsmiling, black-garbed Scathlan. Could not imagine him unbending enough to melt into him mind-to-mind, soul-to-s
oul. Could not imagine him ever flashing a teasing smile as he called Alban his “Prince of Light.”

  Enough. This was not about him, not about his feelings for a Scathlan bard that had forgotten him soon enough. This was about averting a war that would leave too many dead or scarred in mind and soul.

  Alban straightened, checked his image in the mirror, and went to meet his father to walk down to dinner.

  A white linen cloth edged with silver embroidery covered the long table. The goblets were of intricately worked gold, and even the plates and utensils gleamed golden. Whatever hard times the Scathlan had known, they still had much of the pretty metal of which they were so fond. He had to admit that the setting was lovely in the candlelight.

  The formal seating placed him beside Brona, the Scathlan princess. He found her a warm and engaging conversationalist and very interested in finding out about him. He obliged, sharing with her the same stories of hunting mishaps with which he had entertained Kieran and stories of pranks his cousins had played on him and the few, sweet times he had gotten the upper hand.

  He returned her questions with his own, wanting to know more about this companion of Kieran’s youth. She was frank in her answers, and her light sense of humor almost hid the loneliness of growing up set apart by her rank from her peers and having a mother she knew only as a living statue.

  He could see why Kieran liked her so much. He liked her himself and felt so at ease with her that, when she asked him about Kieran’s time with the Leas, he answered her more openly than he perhaps should have, for Kieran’s sake as well as his own.

  He stopped short of admitting that he loved the bard and, of course, he omitted that on one stolen night they had been lovers.

  Why, then, had she taken his hand briefly, squeezed it, and told him that she hoped it would somehow all work out between them?

  Throughout the dinner, Kieran sat on a stool in the corner, harping. Alban steadfastly refused to look at him, stopped himself from wondering if he’d had a chance to eat earlier. Alban no longer had responsibility for the bard’s care and comfort. Then Kieran started to play the Ballad of Heart’s Solace. He didn’t sing the words, but Alban would know that tune anywhere. Against his will, his head turned to the bard, their eyes met, and Alban knew that Kieran had not forgotten one moment of their time together.

  Heat crept into his cheeks, and he could only hope the dimness of the candlelight hid his flush.

  When the dinner was over, Kieran contrived to press against Alban’s side as they left the room. Alban felt his mind yearning toward him and, without thinking, formed the mind-link.

  Missed you, Kieran told him in a rush. Meet me at midnight in the garden.

  But they couldn’t hold the link for long without being obvious, and Kieran was gone again before he could reply.

  Missed you. Those two words sent a tingling warmth through him. He had felt their sincerity through the link, and the familiar touch of Kieran’s mind told him that, no matter his garb or his company, beneath all existed his beloved Fool.

  His father had explicitly said he need not stay away from Kieran, but he probably had not intended such permission to include clandestine meetings. For that had been the intent under Kieran’s words.

  He had promised his father, promised solemnly and in all sincerity. Kieran the Fool might be his lover, but Kieran the Queen’s Bard remained a potential enemy. Had there been time, he might have negotiated a more appropriate time and place for a meeting, and with less secrecy. Had there not been an undercurrent of urgency in the request, it might have been easier to resist. Whatever Kieran had in mind, it went beyond a lover’s tryst.

  Would it be a betrayal of his father’s trust to meet with him and find out what he wanted to tell him? Could he leave Kieran waiting for him in a dark and empty garden?

  Twenty-one

  Kieran sat on a marble bench in the overgrown tangle of a garden, harping as he waited, trying not to feel the cold of the stone seeping through his breeches as the last echoes of the twelfth bell faded into the darkness. The distant moon, perfect in her fullness, was his only companion.

  Perhaps Alban would not come. He had seemed so remote since that first moment in the receiving hall. Had there not been that moment during Heart’s Solace when their eyes had met, he wouldn’t have had the courage to attempt the link. He might have imagined the emotion in Alban’s gaze during the song, but what he felt in the link could not be mistaken.

  He started to play the song again and, as if conjured by the tune footsteps trod along the winding path between the trees. His heart leapt. Then Alban came around the last bend and into view, pale hair silver in the moonlight. Kieran set aside the harp and rushed across the clearing, pulling him into an embrace.

  Alban stiffened in his arms.

  Stunned, Kieran pulled back to look at him, though he couldn’t make his hands leave his shoulders. “Have I offended you in some way? I know you didn’t want me to leave, but Alban, I had to.”

  “Because your loyalty is to your people. As my loyalty is to mine. I’m not sure I should have come.”

  Kieran squeezed his shoulders. “Maybe we can find a way for our loyalties to our peoples to not be a division between us. Alban, I’ve told the queen how I could not have wakened her without your help. It took a while for her to listen, but today, just before dinner, she finally heard what I had to say. She wants to meet with you—”

  Alban frowned. “She had every opportunity to talk to me at dinner.”

  “She wants to meet with you privately.”

  Alban pulled back, shaking his head. “I will not go behind my father’s back. Too many times already I chose you over the duty I owe to him.”

  True enough, and it hurt Kieran to know the pain he’d caused, but this, this was different. This meant a chance for them not to be enemies.

  “No, please, it’s not like that. She only wants a chance to know you as I do, as Alban, not as Toryn’s son. Please, she is waiting right now in the pavilion just down the path.”

  Alban stepped back. “You brought me here under false pretenses.”

  “Name of Grace, Alban, can you really believe I’d do you harm?” Hurt resonated in Kieran’s voice, and anger too, as he grabbed Alban’s hands and held them to his chest. “Link to me then, damn you, and see the truth of what I say.”

  #

  Alban formed the link, more forcefully than he should have, and Kieran yielded before him, drawing him in so that he spiraled down to the core of Kieran’s soul, until he saw what Kieran had not yet admitted to himself, saw how Kieran loved him as he loved Kieran, saw that his beloved Fool remained unchanged and steadfast in his feelings. Saw the absolute sincerity of his desire for peace between their peoples so that there could be peace between the two of them, peace if not something more.

  He opened his eyes and saw tears running down Kieran’s face.

  How could he have doubted Kieran, having known him so well? His thoughts went briefly to the carved wooden rose Kieran had left behind, a gift of something precious and irreplaceable to show Alban what he had meant to the bard.

  “Do not cry, beloved Fool. What will your queen say, when we go before her, if she sees I have made you cry?” He squeezed Kieran’s hands, and sent through the link all the desperate love he felt for the bard.

  As Alban’s words registered, Kieran gave a brilliant smile.

  Did he break with his father’s trust? Not really. . .well, maybe. What else could he do? It was not just for Kieran’s sake, but for all their sakes, Scathlan and Leas together. The hope of peace was so fragile; this might be the only chance.

  Kieran put the harp in its case and slung it over his shoulder, then he took Alban’s hand and led him farther down the path to where the queen waited in the shadowed pavilion.

  Leas would not have called anything with a pavilion and gardens a hunting lodge, but it seemed the Scathlan did everything in a formal and grand style or not at all. Roses and lilacs scented the night bre
eze. As they ascended the steps, the queen rose from one of the carved stone benches that curved inside the edge of the pavilion. She smiled, but Alban remembered the touch of her dark, cold dreams and shivered.

  “So you are Toryn’s son,” she said.

  “Yes, your majesty,” Alban politely used the Scathlan title, though it felt foreign on his tongue.

  “You might have been mine.”

  He was his mother’s son as well as his father’s, but he held a diplomatic silence.

  “You are very like your father. I loved him once, so beautiful and so proud, like a soaring hawk with the sun on his wings.” Remembered fondness warmed her voice for a moment. “I felt you, joined with my bard, the night he woke me. You are very powerful.”

  “Thank you,” Alban said, though the tone did not make it a compliment.

  Beside him, Kieran shifted, as though he also sensed something wrong.

  “People have forgotten, though, that I, too, am powerful. And I have grown more powerful, not less, during my long sleep. And now, beloved child of the Oathbreaker, I shall have my revenge. Leas won the last war, perhaps they shall even win the next. Seeing you, I almost regret my plan. But nothing, not even my own regret, will prevent me taking from the Oathbreaker that which is most precious to him.”

  #

  Kieran saw his queen rise up, vengeance in her eyes. Backing away in horror, Alban spread his hands in a gesture of peace.

  I didn’t know, Alban, truly I didn’t. But without the link, Alban could not hear him.

  The queen began to sing, low and then high, a horrible banshee scream of rage and dark grief and death, with power behind it, power that had been stored and redoubled over a lifetime.

  No one could stand against that voice.

  Kieran backed up until he hit one of the benches and then he sank onto the cold, unyielding stone. There was no time to get help, and no one to stop this. His hands went to the only weapon he had, drew the harp from the case and found the strings.