by Ellyn, Court
He embraced her tightly, something he had never done before. A moment passed before she responded, patting him lightly on the shoulder. He released her, and she said, “Oh, dear boy. It was the ogres that almost killed us. They would have done had you not found us. And I wager you have seen your share of such creatures by now, haven’t you.”
“Perhaps.”
She cast him a grin rife with mischief. “No secrets. You must tell me what you have seen. What you have learned.”
“You weren’t watching from the window with Mother?”
“She sent the household to cover, but did not stay herself, silly girl. I felt the ground shake. You did that?”
He answered with a hesitant nod.
Silver and crystal clinked as Alovi backed into the library with a tray. Servants followed with place settings, a basket of bread rounds and cheese, and tureens steaming with delectable fragrances.
“Feel better?” she asked, setting the plates and goblets out on the table.
A fine, pinging headache lingered, but Kieryn said, “This place is better than any infirmary for me.” He went to the windows overlooking the garden. The rose bushes and vines of lady’s lips had shed their color, and the night blossoms had long since bowed to the cold, but the fountain still splashed in Thyrra’s silver light, and the majestic andyr burned fiery burgundy, even in the dusk. It all brought Rhoslyn to mind. Thinking on her caused a sudden, uncomfortable twinge to nip his belly and scratch at the base of his brain. He’d felt the same—only far stronger—when Kelyn had received his wounds. Had something happened to Rhoslyn? Or did he only miss her so deeply?
“Did he tell you what happened?” Alovi was saying. Etivva answered with a silent gesture. “I couldn’t see over the wall, so you must tell us, son. Did you make the fire?”
“I should’ve done it differently,” he said, dampening her enthusiasm.
“But, son, you saved us—”
“Yes, and for that reason I’m not sorry I killed them. But, Mother, think about it. One hundred and fifty men. Against one. I … I didn’t think it would be so easy.” He sank to the window bench. “But, then, it’s always been easy when need required. Ease doesn’t make it right. I should’ve let the garrison handle it and supported them only if things became dire.”
“No, my lord, I disagree,” Etivva said. “How many of your people were spared because you did not stand by? We heard what happened at Tírandon. What a sin to withhold such a gift when your people need it.”
“And if the Fierans had brought an avedra? Would you call withholding his gift a sin? Or a blessing?”
“Your father,” Alovi began, throat tight around the words, “would have been so proud of you.”
“He would’ve been afraid!”
Alovi grimaced in sorrow, and Kieryn regretted his outburst. Sighing, he added, “I did what I did because I had to, and it’s no victory for me. Why do the people not cheer when I discover a bit of forgotten knowledge or write a song?” He shook his head at the ridiculousness of the idea. “I did a good service for my people today, yes, and they can see and appreciate that, but it’s only half the story. There are new widows in the world tonight, and some children will never see their mothers or fathers again. That’s why I should’ve considered my actions more than I did.”
His mother took him by the shoulders; her green eyes were hard and without sympathy. “But you acted. Doubting yourself now will do you no good. All you can do is remain loyal to what you believe in, and let what is past guide your decisions in the future. There is no perfect path a man can walk. Perhaps, once, it was so, but we messed things up for ourselves, and now we must do the best we can, and find the courage to live with the consequences. When your heart fails you, look to the things you believe in. Tell me, Kieryn, what is it you believe in?”
His mother’s words left him feeling as humble as a wayward supplicant in the presence of a priestess—or a goddess—and some moments passed before he could speak. He glanced at Etivva and the shelves of his beloved books, and nearly said, ‘Knowledge,’ but he considered how much of this knowledge had been proven false or uncertain in the past months. He considered all manner of things worthy of faith, trust, admiration, but one answer kept rising to the top of the list. “My family. I believe in my family.”
Alovi smiled and tenderly brushed a wayward lock from his forehead.
He shrugged, adding, “And I suppose I was able to help Kelyn heal. This gift is good for more than just killing after all.”
“For that, you have my praise,” Alovi said. “Come eat before everything gets cold. Tell me of your brother and these wedding plans of yours.”
~~~~
48
Along the seaside cliffs, the duke’s funeral pyre burned brightly. The fragrance of rich oils did little to mask the stench of scorching flesh and bone. Out of the north, a hard wind blew cold, and clouds drooped like wet rags, so that the ashes rose only a few feet before swirling down the cliff side and into the sea.
Highborns too young , too old, or too infirm to march south with the rest of Evaronna’s fighters filled the Burning Yard. They huddled in the lea of the palace, dressed in their finest state uniforms and heavy, somber cloaks. In the city below, all business had ceased for the day. Shops and warehouses, villas and inns had closed their shutters and dimmed the lamps. Tradesmen and sailors, longshoremen and Salamanders, craftsmen and fishwives, gathered along the southern bank of the Liran River to watch the ashes fall.
Seated with the family at Rhoslyn’s request, Kelyn felt shabby in his mended surcoat and mail hauberk. He refused to wear the sling and look the wounded hero or pathetic invalid in front of all these people. He could be an invalid tomorrow. But he was no longer preoccupied with his vanity. Discreetly he watched the highborns and household gathered in the Burning Yard. Long, gray faces, every one. Harac’s people had loved him. Kelyn wondered if he would be able to earn this kind of devotion from his own people.
Beside him, Rhoslyn’s grief bordered on hysterics. She fell into the arms of her handmaid, and her aunt bent over her trying to shush her. “Not here, Your Grace,” she said. Rhoslyn muffled the keening sobs inside a lace kerchief, but was unwilling to stop them altogether. Rorin of Westport watched her, dry-eyed and calculating, as if he had conveniently forgotten that she was betrothed to someone else. On Kelyn’s left, Princess Rilyth stood with her son. Drem’s face was the pale hue of one who saw the sun too seldom. He tried to restrain a cough. His mother nudged him in the ribs. “Stop it,” she hissed. “You can’t afford to be sick any longer.” Love their duke or not, they were all preparing to make a move of some kind. If only Kelyn could read minds.
It was all backwards, he thought. He should be with Mother; Kieryn should be here. Ah, curse the Fierans, their bloody pikes and arrows, and shadows that come in the night.
The wood of the pyre shifted, and the flames spat sparks and ash skyward. The turners raked together the embers, added more wood and more perfumed oil, and Rhoslyn could bear it no longer. She leapt from her chair, escaping Halayn’s grasp, and ran for the cliffs. There, a stair cut into the rock led her out of sight. The highborns mumbled and stared and shook their heads sadly, but none went after her. Lura was in no state, crying nearly as hysterically as her lady.
At last, Halayn looked to Kelyn and begged, “Go bring her back, please. We’ll take her inside and give her some brandy. It’s enough.” He complied with a silent pat to her hand. Others followed then, perhaps hoping to see a spectacle, but with one gesture, Kelyn ordered them to stay put. His face must’ve reflected his contempt, for none challenged his order.
Atop the cliff, he glanced warily down at the crests breaking madly on the sand and stones of the narrow beach. Like his brother, Kelyn had lost his breath at his first sight of the Great Fire Sea, and though he marveled at it, he held no more liking for it than Kieryn did. Descending, he hugged the cliff closely.
The duke’s private dock jutted out into the breakers, and R
hoslyn wildly paced the foam-wet planks. Seeing Kelyn following, she screamed, “Get away from me! Leave me alone.”
As much as Kelyn disliked his orders and his obligation to his brother, he couldn’t forsake them. He climbed down to the sand and onto the dock. The sea surged and growled beneath the boards.
Rhoslyn rounded on him and flung her grief like stones: “Why didn’t the Goddess take him when she had the chance? His illness, the sea, anything would’ve been better than … oh, Goddess, he deserved better than …”
Oblivion, Zellel had called it. Utter destruction. How could a man suddenly not be? Souls went into the Light, where the Father judged them and the Mother cared for them. That a soul could be consumed, turned into nothing, with all its memories and passions and hopes, was incomprehensible. Rhoslyn must’ve understood better than Kelyn did, for she was in a rage. “Damn her! Damn you, why didn’t you fight for him? Mother-Father of nothing. Oh, I hate you. I hope the shadow feasts on you.”
Kelyn tried to quiet her, take her arm, lead her back to the stair, but she pulled away. “Why didn’t you fight? All fancy in your armor, you could’ve done something. Zellel could’ve tried, but he didn’t. And me … I just stood there, screaming. And where in all the Abyss was Kieryn? He promised me. He promised. Oh, to hell with all of you and your brave words and empty gestures.”
Blaming Kieryn when he hadn’t been here was too much for Kelyn. He grabbed the duchess by the arm and snapped, “There was nothing any of us could do.” But he was wasting his breath. Rhoslyn wouldn’t see reason. She shoved him aside and started back along the dock. Foam sprayed across her path; her feet slipped, and down into the sea she tumbled. She gave one thin cry before the sea rushed over her, as if it would avenge the curses she had thrown at the Goddess. Kelyn dived belly first onto the boards and reached. A swell lifted Rhoslyn for one instant and he saw the terror in her eyes, the water in her mouth, the desperation in her fingers reaching up. He caught her by the wrist and hauled her from the sea. The stitches in his shoulder burst. He grit his teeth and pulled her close. She clung to him, her face hiding against the silver falcon, while she wept different tears.
When she had cried herself to exhaustion, Kelyn helped her climb the stairs along the cliff side. At the top, Halayn swept her away. Lord Erum wrapped his cloak around her and helped carry her past the pyre and the whispering highborns. Kelyn pressed at the pain in his shoulder; his fingers came away bloody. “Damn,” he muttered and found Rhoslyn gazing over her shoulder at him. It’s all backwards, he thought and followed, in search of a surgeon.
~~~~
Zellel worked fast, stuffing manuscripts and scrolls from his own collection into a leather knapsack—the same he had carried to Windhaven nearly twenty-four years before. The funeral pyre had burnt out, the somber dinner ended more than two hours ago, and the guests had been shown to their rooms. The corridors and parlors were quiet; now was the time to do what had to be done. Without lengthy goodbyes and explanations.
He was nearly finished packing when he heard a shuffle of feet in the corridor and a soft knock on his door. He groaned but didn’t argue when Halayn let herself in. She held his staff and stared at him in astonished silence. He must look strange to her without his robe. The green velvet still smoldered in the hearth. In plain woolen shirt and trousers with his black-and-silver hair braided down his back, he couldn’t make his intentions more obvious, but Halayn hedged around the issue. She was good at that.
“We missed you in the Yard,” she said, eyes darting over him, the knapsack, the room.
“I didn’t miss seeing it.”
“Zellel,” she said with a sigh, “you had to know it wouldn’t be long before we lost him.”
“But not like that!” he snapped. “I failed him time and again. I could not save him the loss of Rhosamund, or heal his illness, or save him from the evil that killed him.”
“Could you have saved him, Zellel?”
His hands paused on the buckles of the knapsack. “I don’t know. To my knowledge, no avedra has fought a rágazeth and lived to tell the tale. I don’t know if such an evil can be defeated by any but Ana herself.”
“Then why be burdened with this guilt?”
“I should’ve done more! Let it take me instead, anything, I don’t know.”
Halayn laid a gentle hand on his forearm. “Please, Zellel. Rhoslyn will need you just as much as Harac did, probably more. And what of Kieryn? You can’t abandon your apprentice.”
“If that thing hasn’t caught him and killed him by now, it will, and I won’t be able to save him either.” Aye, Lothiar had surpassed himself. No avedra—or human, for that matter—would be safe as long as he commanded such an evil. The old bastard had won the day yet.
“So you’re running!” Halayn’s eyes sparked an angry green fire. “You’re a coward, old man.”
Zellel rounded on her, rage a blaze in his gut, but it died quickly. Why rage against the truth? “I’ve always run,” he admitted. “Even from the Society in Dorél, when … ah, never mind. This time I’m running back to the place I started. I crossed a continent to get here. Now I will cross a sea. Of all the places I’ve been, I’ve not yet seen Dovnya’s ice-bound shore, nor the Fire Mountains of Valrosk. And I’ve only seen the meadows of Roresha from a distance. There is still much to do beyond these walls, lady. And then … then I will go home to Heret. All my people will be dead, but the dolphins will be there.” Silently, he added, Maybe they will be singing instead of screaming. So they can sing me to sleep.
He cleared his throat gruffly, afraid he had become sentimental. “If Kieryn returns, give him the staff. Maybe he will use it to greater affect than I did.” He slung the bulging knapsack over his shoulder and bowed over Halayn’s hand. “May Ana bless you all your days.” He left the palace without another word, bound for the harbormaster’s office to book passage aboard the first outgoing ship, and he bid farewell to the western shores of the world.
~~~~
“He didn’t even take his mule with him,” Aunt Halayn said, indulging in a second glass of brandy.
Rhoslyn lay curled under her blankets, eyes and body aching from days of weeping. The brandy had let her sleep, and every time she woke, Lura gave her another glass. She decided she was a weepy drunk and gave into another rush of tears. Zellel abandoned her, too? “But why? What about the rest of us? Did he only love Father?”
Halayn gazed into a place far away, a world of secrets Rhoslyn knew nothing about. “A man has his own needs, and who can stay him?”
“And we don’t?”
“Of course we do, and don’t expect a man to understand them either.” She set her glass aside. “In truth, it grieved Zellel too much to stay.”
Rhoslyn hugged the coverlet close under chin. “I wish I could run away.”
“And abandon your people? Whether you fulfill your duty to them is your choice, Your Grace. Run if you want. Leave your country in disarray and despair, right now when it needs you most. I can no longer order you as if you were a child.”
“Order me?” Rhoslyn groused. “No, you’ll change tactics, from orders to persuasion, like you just did, and not subtly either.”
Halayn smiled, guilty as charged. “You will be the duchess your father knew you could be, not because you must, but because you are. One day at a time, one decision at a time. It won’t be easy, but you already understand that. Your first obligation won’t be too difficult, I think.”
Rhoslyn sank further under the coverlet. “What obligation?”
“Check on your patient. He had to spend some time with the surgeon today. So you must … rather, I advise you … to get up, get bathed, get dressed, and go pay your respects. And it wouldn’t hurt to apologize for putting you both in danger.”
Rhoslyn huffed, but did as she was advised.
She chose a gown of rose-colored velvet in the hopes it would make her look less gloomy, but she decided the color only made her eyes seem more red and puffy. Ah, to hell
with it, she said, and rapped lightly on the door of the Blue Room.
“No need to knock, man,” came the reply. “Just come in and set it on the table.”
Rhoslyn tiptoed into the vestibule, feeling a ridiculous bout of nerves. Peering into the room, she found Kelyn sprawled in an armchair before a blazing hearth. An open wine bottle dangled from one hand. Fresh bandages bound him about the chest and little red dots flowered on the gauze. Head heavy, he turned and blinked at her. “Oh. You’re not the butler.” He tried to rise.
“Don’t get up,” Rhoslyn said, hurrying forward.
He fell back with a grunt. “Good. I don’t think I can.” Seeing her frowning at the blood, he added, “Odd. It hurts worse this time around. Doctor says the scars will be worse now, too. It’s no thorn on a rosebush, but I guess we’re even.”
It took Rhoslyn a moment to piece together his meaning. “Oh,” she said, rubbing her thumb over the crescent-shaped scar under chin. “I’d forgotten.”
Kelyn squirmed as if he were uncomfortable, but it wasn’t for the reason Rhoslyn suspected. He pointed at the gray undershirt thrown atop a bureau. “Er, modesty demands … if you be so kind, Your Grace.”
“I think I preferred the rudeness of ‘Duchess’ from you,” she said, fetching the shirt. Kelyn was so drunk that he seemed to forget he’d asked for it and simply clutched it like a ragdoll. How long had he been at it? A second bottle occupied the round table between the armchairs. A small bottle of milky white liquid. Rhoslyn read the label. “Poppy wine? Along with Doreli red? Are you trying to kill yourself?”
