Ice Forged (The Ascendant Kingdoms Saga)

by Gail Z. Martin

  “Geir is one of Lord Penhallow’s men,” Blaine said, hoping his pointed gaze silently impressed upon Judith and Edward the importance of that relationship. “He’s talishte, so he’ll need… special quarters.”

  “Oh, my,” Judith murmured.

  Geir gave a smile that was charming in spite of his long eyeteeth. “My dear lady,” he said with a deep bow. “I swear that I will cause you no trouble at all. I’m quite adept at hunting for my own provisions in the forest. I give you my word that none of the mortals loyal to Lord McFadden will come to any harm.”

  Blaine wondered if he was the only one to hear the nuance in Geir’s vow. Meaning that anyone who is disloyal had better watch out.

  Judith recovered her poise and managed a sociable smile worthy of court. “Of course, Sir Geir. Please forgive my surprise.”

  Geir’s charm never wavered. “Nothing to forgive, m’lady. Completely understandable, given the circumstances.”

  Kestel ended the awkward moment by stepping forward. Blaine gave a silent sigh of relief. “And this is—”

  “Mistress Kestel,” Judith finished, her tone utterly neutral.

  Kestel’s expression was equally unreadable. “Lady Judith,” she said with a fluid curtsy.

  Blaine’s gaze flickered between the two women, trying to discern the nature of their acquaintance. “You two… know each other?”

  “We crossed paths in certain circles at court,” Judith replied.

  Kestel gave a quick glance in Blaine’s direction. “Before you ask—or even think it—no, I was never a companion to your father.”

  Judith surprised Blaine with her knowing chuckle. “You were out of Ian’s league. You drew a much better sort of suitor, and Ian’s tastes were more savage than civilized,” she said with more than a trace of bitterness.

  Judith looked to Blaine. “Are the two of you—”

  “No, not at all,” Blaine replied quickly.

  “No, no, no—just friends,” Kestel said in the same breath.

  Blaine met his aunt’s gaze. “I took a wife in Edgeland. Her name was Selane. She died of fever.”

  Judith looked down. “I’m sorry, Blaine.”

  There were so many things Blaine longed to ask Judith, not the least of which centered around Carensa and what had become of her, but an awkward silence descended over the group, and Blaine became aware of just how badly they needed to make themselves presentable. Judith, too, seemed to struggle between playing the gracious hostess and her hunger for details. With a sigh, she brightened, and Blaine knew that for now, the hostess had won.

  “You must all be tired and hungry,” Judith said. “Edward will see you to your rooms, and I’ll have someone draw baths for you.” She blushed. “Our meals aren’t quite the fare they once were, but no one’s gone hungry yet. I’ll see that food is ready for you when everyone’s had a chance to be refreshed.” She looked to Geir, and took a deep breath.

  “Sir Geir,” she said gingerly, “If you’ll inform Edward of your requirements for safe quarters, he’ll find you something suitable.”

  For the first time in their acquaintance, Blaine spied a hint of laughter in Geir’s eyes at Judith’s discomfort, but Geir’s manner was charming as ever. “Please don’t worry overmuch, m’lady. I’ll be quite content with a wine cellar or other belowground vault so long as it has no windows or outer door.”

  Edward nodded, as if hosting a talishte was an everyday occurrence at Glenreith. “That won’t be difficult. I’ll see to it right away.”

  The others followed Edward up the long, sweeping stairway to the second floor. Blaine noted how marred the once-beautiful balustrade had become and how worn the treads were, details that would never have gone without maintenance in the old days.

  “Your room is where it always was,” Judith said quietly, jarring him out of his thoughts.

  Blaine looked up, caught by surprise. “You didn’t clean it out?” he said with halfhearted humor.

  Judith linked her arm through his. “Don’t be silly,” she said quietly. “Even though we didn’t think you would ever return, I couldn’t bear to part with your things. You’ll find it much as you left it, if a bit dustier.”

  “What about Carr and Mari?”

  Judith sobered. “Carr went off to war with the king’s troops and never returned. Like so many of the young men, he just disappeared.”

  Blaine caught his breath, stunned. “Mari?” he said, knowing Judith could hear the despair in his voice.

  “Blaine!” Blaine looked up at the shout. A young woman came running down the corridor. Her dark hair was unbound, and it streamed behind her as she ran. She barely stopped when she reached him, and threw her arms around Blaine, clutching him to her so hard that he could scarcely breathe.

  “Mari?”

  Mari covered his cheeks with kisses. “I can’t believe you’re back! I didn’t believe Edward when he told me. I’m so happy to see you again!”

  Mari drew back, and Blaine got a good look at her. Just a half-grown girl when he left, Mari was now a pretty young woman. Her features were thinner than he remembered, due no doubt to the manor’s circumstances, but her eyes were bright and the fear that had always darkened her gaze was gone. He took a second look and saw that Mari’s face was more careworn than it should have been for a woman who was barely twenty-two years old. Mari continued to chatter on excitedly, not noticing his assessment.

  “You have a nephew, Blaine! I can’t wait to introduce you to him, but he’s sleeping,” Mari continued.

  Blaine shot a look toward Judith, alarmed. Judith shook her head slightly. “I’m sorry that you missed Mari’s handfasting,” Judith said as Blaine gave a sigh of relief that the child was not his father’s. “Her husband, Evaret, went to war with Carr and also did not return.”

  Mari’s chatter abruptly stopped. Blaine took her hand. “I’m sorry, Mari. Of course I want to meet your son.”

  Mari swallowed hard and nodded. “You couldn’t know. We had no idea whether or not you were still alive. We wrote letters for so long, but nothing ever came back to us.”

  Blaine felt a surge of anger at Prokief. “I never received them. I would have paid whatever the smugglers asked to have gotten any letters from you at all.”

  Mari gave him another fierce hug. “Crazy world, huh?”

  “I’m beginning to realize just how crazy,” Blaine replied ruefully. They reached the door to his room, and Judith touched Mari’s arm.

  “Perhaps we’d best let your brother get a bath and change his clothes. You’ll have plenty of time to trade stories.” She looked quickly to Blaine. “You are staying, aren’t you?”

  Blaine nodded. “If you’ll have us. And we’ve got some important business to discuss, later.”

  Judith drew a deep breath and then managed a worried smile. “Absolutely. But first, I’m certain that a hot bath and a fresh change of clothing will help. By Esthrane’s stars! Here we are, keeping you talking, with no regard to how far you’ve traveled or how tired you must be.”

  You have no idea, Blaine thought.

  Blaine walked into his room at Glenreith and let the door close behind him. He could hear shuffling in the attached parlor as servants brought in warm water and a tub for him to bathe. For the moment, he stood transfixed, feeling as if he had crossed into a netherworld where time had stood still in his absence.

  His room was, as Judith said, much the way he had left it. Only a light film of dust covered the books on his desk and the surfaces of the furniture, testimony to the fact that someone had bothered to dust fairly often while he was away. No one expected me to ever come back, but Judith and Mari kept the room for me, like a memorial, Blaine thought. He realized that he was holding his breath, and willed himself to step farther into the room.

  It was so like he remembered that for a moment he felt as if the last six years had never happened. He felt as if he had just come in from the hunt or from lending a hand in the fields, as it had always been. Only ba
ck then, I’d have heard father thundering about, cursing me or Carr or the servants. It was never this quiet when he was alive.

  He moved slowly around the room, as if in a daze. His boots made prints in the dust on the carpet as he walked over to the bookshelves. Blaine’s finger traced the leather spines of his favorite volumes, which were just where he had left them. Beside them on the shelf, a clever wooden puzzle lay next to a small silver statue of a dragon, a long-ago gift from his mother. He smiled sadly as he looked across the shelf, at the clumsily carved wooden bird Carr had made for him as a young boy and at the carefully knotted token Mari had once given him, the day she was playing at being a princess and had named Blaine as her champion.

  Neither of us ever thought it would be true in real life, Blaine thought. And unlike Mari’s games of pretend, it didn’t end happily ever after.

  He moved farther into the room, still captured by the past. His writing desk had been cleaned off, evidence that someone, sometime, had made the room presentable after his departure. Blaine did not doubt that he would find everything as he left it in his wardrobe, and in the desk drawers.

  I know all these things were mine, but they belong to another life, another person, he thought. I’ve been “Mick” so long I barely recognize “Blaine.” Gods forgive me, I once lived such a soft life and never even knew to be grateful.

  He had moved around the room to stop at his desk, and as he glanced down at the dusty quills and yellowed parchment, one item made him catch his breath. Blaine’s hand shook as he reached out for a small silver frame. The delicate oil portrait of a young woman stared back at him, unchanged by the years. Carensa, Blaine thought, surprised that the stab of longing he felt was so strong after all this time.

  For a few moments, he stood without moving, staring at the portrait, lost in thought. Quiet rapping at the door startled him.

  “M’lord? Your bath is drawn,” a servant’s voice called from outside the door.

  “Thank you,” Blaine replied absently. “That will be all.”

  With a sigh, Blaine set the portrait back where it had been and turned away from the desk. He went to the wardrobe and rummaged through its contents until he found a tunic and trews that would be suitable to the weather. As he stripped off his old clothing, torn and filthy from travel and the fight outside the gate, his gaze lingered on the brand scar on his right forearm. “M” for murderer.

  If I’d have had any inkling of the full consequences of what I did that day, would I have ever had the nerve to kill father? Blaine wondered. I was willing to die. I thought that would be the end of it. Would it have changed anything if I’d still have been here when the magic died? Mari would have had more years of abuse. I probably couldn’t have stopped Carr from going off to the war; I would have likely gone with him. I’d have married Carensa and probably left her a widow if the war took me like it took Carr. Perhaps it doesn’t matter which road was taken. There seems to be sorrow and despair regardless of the choices.

  Wrapped in the old robe he found in his wardrobe, Blaine found himself alone in the sitting room. He felt chagrined that he had carried his sword with him, yet caution had been the foremost lesson of the years in Edgeland. The servants had left him to his bath and had poured a generous portion of whiskey into a glass on a small table beside the tub. In the candlelight, the room revealed little of the shabbiness that Blaine knew would be unmistakable come daylight. Resolutely pushing dark thoughts from his mind, Blaine dropped the robe and laid his sword aside, then slid into the hot water, which was gently scented with lavender.

  Only then, when he had sunk chin-deep into the water, did he allow himself to relax. Blaine closed his eyes and took a sip of the whiskey, willing himself to dwell neither on the distant nor on the recent past, and to banish his worry about the future. Just for a few, precious moments, he focused on nothing more urgent than the delectable experience of soaking clean of the sweat, blood, and dirt from the journey home.

  The water grew cold far too quickly, and with a sigh Blaine climbed from the tub. He dried himself off and finished the whiskey in his glass. On a side table, the servant had set out a bowl and a razor. A large mirror hung on the wall with enough light from the candles in the wall sconce that he stood a chance of shaving without butchering himself.

  He paused, regarding the reflection that looked back at him. Mirrors had been scarce and expensive in Edgeland, and over the years, he had caught only glimpses of himself in windows or still water. Who in Raka is that man? Blaine wondered, meeting his gaze. He’d been just twenty when he was exiled; now the man who stared back at him looked older, careworn. Fine lines were etched around the corners of his eyes from squinting against the harsh glare of the Edgeland sun. He did not remember the hard set to his mouth, nor the steel in his blue eyes. With several days’ growth of dark beard, he looked rough, and much more wary. Pleased that he only cut himself once with the straight razor, Blaine finished his shave and wiped off the blade. He slipped a shirt from his wardrobe over his head, and was surprised to find that it now fit too snugly across the arms and chest. It took a few moments to find something that he could wear. All that time in the mines and on the herring boats apparently put some muscle on my bones, he thought. When he had dressed, he tied his damp hair back at the nape of his neck, disdaining a formal queue. It’s a little late to be putting on airs.

  Once again, the servant’s tapping roused him from his thoughts. “When you’re done, m’lord, Lady Judith desires your company in her parlor.”

  “I’ll be there,” Blaine replied. Bathed, shaved, and dressed, he looked almost respectable, and he headed for the door, wondering how it could be that he felt like a total stranger in his childhood home.

  “I know you must be tired,” Judith said as Blaine entered the room. His aunt’s private parlor looked just as he remembered it. The walls were covered with expensive wallpaper in a delicate floral design, imported from the Far Shores. Judith’s furniture had a fine-boned, feminine sense, far different from the dark woods and sturdy pieces in his own room. Candles glittered around the room in silver and crystal sconces, and over the porcelain-tiled fireplace hung an oil painting of Judith, her late husband, and their two children, along with two favorite hunting dogs.

  The candlelight flattered both the room and its occupant. On second glance, Blaine could see where water had stained parts of the ceiling and wall, where the elegant wallpaper was coming loose, and where the imported rug had gone threadbare in places.

  Judith smiled from her seat on a small couch and beckoned for him to take the chair across from her. Between them lay a small plate of tea biscuits, a decanter of brandy, and two glasses. Even by candlelight, Blaine could see that the fine crystal was chipped and that the silk upholstery of the seat cushion was rubbed thin in places. Judith had also taken advantage of the time since his arrival to change her gown. Her dress was much less elaborate than what Blaine remembered her favoring, and it was frayed along the hem.

  “Please, have something to eat,” Judith said, pouring drinks for both of them. “I know you’ve been up for a long time, but I’ve sent the servants to set supper for you and your friends. The food will take a little while, and I thought you and I could talk for a bit, before we join the others.”

  “You never used to play coy with me, Aunt Judith,” Blaine said, taking the proffered glass of brandy and leaning back in his chair. He crossed his legs, feigning a level of confidence that currently eluded him, and he wondered whether Judith’s cool demeanor was likewise just a bluff. “What is it you want to ask me without the others around?”

  Judith blushed and looked down. “You always preferred to come straight to the point, Blaine,” she said, swirling the brandy in her glass. It occurred to Blaine that Judith usually chose sherry over brandy or whiskey, and wondered if the change in liquor was coincidental or a concession to harder times and bitter memories.

  “Are we unwelcome here?” Blaine’s voice was carefully neutral.

 
“Of course not!” The outrage in Judith’s eyes seemed real. “Glenreith will always be your home.”

  “But we’ve upset things, showing up like this,” Blaine supplied, guessing at the reason for her discomfort.

  Judith shrugged. “We feared you were dead,” Judith said quietly. “Having a ghost walk through the front door takes a bit of getting used to.”

  “A ghost with outlaw friends and a vampire bodyguard.”

  Judith managed a faint smile. “That, too.”

  Blaine found that the brandy did nothing to take the edge off his mood. “I really never thought I’d come back,” Blaine said quietly. “Even after Velant fell, we guessed that whatever havoc the death of magic brought to Edgeland, it had worked more chaos here in Donderath.” He paused, and the silence stretched out between them.

  “Believe it or not,” he finally continued, “I’d made a decent life for myself in Edgeland. I earned my Ticket of Leave, which meant I was a colonist instead of a convict. My mates and I pooled our earnings to buy a homestead and build a sturdy little house that kept the cold out. Had a right nice little farm going, and hard as it might be to picture it, Kestel was quite at home tending the chickens and the rabbits and the sheep.”

  Judith chuckled. “I’d have had to see that to believe it.”

  Blaine stared down into the amber liquid in his glass. “After I left Velant, I made a handfasting with Selane, a lass from Bodderton who’d been framed for a theft she didn’t commit.” He knew his voice was thick with bitterness. “Not exactly a hardened criminal,” he added, then paused. “Until the fever took her, we were as happy as I guess anyone could be in Edgeland.”

  For a few minutes, both Blaine and Judith were silent. Finally, Blaine forced himself to ask the question that had haunted him since his exile. “After I left, what happened to Carensa?”

  Judith looked down at her hands and then raised her head to meet his gaze. “She mourned you,” Judith replied quietly. “In the weeks after your ship left, Carensa refused to eat, until she collapsed. She took to her bed, and we were afraid we might lose her.” Judith paused. “Finally, she rallied. She asked her father to allow her to enter the women’s university, to study astronomy and become a scholar.”