by Amy Bai
Annan raised an eyebrow, his dark eyes flickering over her dust-covered person. "We didn't wake the neighbors, I hope," he said softly, which she supposed was intended to be a jest. The soldiers at the bench were looking at her and Annan one after the other, like spectators at a jousting match.
"So far as I can see, you don't have any of those, Lieutenant," Kyali said. "I arrived here unexpectedly. Your man offered to take me to the guardroom. I figured I ought to know where that was. Now that I do, I'll leave you to your rest."
"She came out of the wall," the soldier who'd led her here blurted, then looked embarrassed when Kyali glowered at him. She'd rather not have these passages become common knowledge.
Annan's sharp gaze grew sharper still and he set his mug down decisively. "Not another word on that to anyone, Wendel," he murmured, striding to the door. "Lady Captain, perhaps I could accompany you back to the guard hall?"
Neither she nor the soldiers had time to object. Annan edged her out of the threshold, nudged the other soldier—Wendel, Kyali reminded herself—inside it, and shut the door firmly.
"There are passageways in the walls?" Annan asked, his voice gone softer than ever, nothing but calm curiosity on his smooth-shaven face. Up close, which was something she'd managed to avoid being with this particular Cassdall until now, she could see that he was younger than she'd first guessed. Perhaps not much older than she herself was. How he'd ended up at the head of a prince's guard was a point of curiosity.
Then again, here she was at the head of considerably more than a lord's company of personal guard, so what was the bloody point in wondering?
"Apparently," Kyali said, just as soft, mimicking his tone perfectly.
She couldn't say what it was about him that provoked her, but it seemed like every time they were in the same room, they were digging at one another. She found she was tired of it today. She had far larger things to worry about.
"Will you show me?" Annan asked, dropping his barbed politeness for something far more annoyed-looking (it cheered her immensely, which was probably an unworthy response, but there it was), and Kyali shrugged and turned toward the open hallway. Her own dusty footprints marked the spot. She reminded herself to sweep that away, then shoved inward at the hidden door. Dust billowed out.
Annan coughed, waving a hand in front of his face.
"How far do they go?" he asked, following her in.
"I only just discovered them. I'll send someone in to map them out."
"Don't do that. My—" There was a shuffling and a thud, and he hissed. She should probably have warned him to duck. Too late now. The passage door hung open behind him, limning his hunched form in wavering shadows of torchlight. Ahead was darkness. "Damn it, it's blacker than night in here. I should have lit this."
In the faint light from the corridor, she could see the candle he'd pulled out of a pocket.
What sort of person carried a candle in his pocket? He probably had a sandwich in there, too, in case he got hungry. He was fumbling around again, and she realized he was looking for flint.
Annan was not only irritating, he was more than a little strange.
Kyali spent a handful of seconds arguing with herself, then sighed and glared at the barely visible wick. It was almost worth the headache to see his eyebrows rise in the flickering light, when it caught.
"…thank you," Annan said doubtfully, eyeing the flame.
"Don't mention it. Ever. You were saying?"
"Ah." He held the candle out, peering around, and pulled the heavy door shut. He began to edge carefully forward. "I was saying, let my men do it. They're bored. And this is their sort of work."
Kyali frowned, following behind him and not liking it much. "Their sort of work is crawling in ancient tunnels?"
"Now you're deliberately misunderstanding. I thought we were going to give up this battle of wits and snipe at one another openly? Captain?" He took the right branching, evidently following her earlier footsteps. He looked back, meeting her eye for a second, and the candle was close enough to his face that she could see the sharp slant of his smile.
"Fine," Kyali said, and coughed. "Their sort of work is spying and sneaking."
"Was that so hard?"
"I take it there's an actual purpose to this particular line of open sniping, Lieutenant. Maybe we could arrive at it before we arrive at the other end of this tunnel."
Up ahead, Annan came to a halt, turning to face her. The candle flickered between them, illuminating swathes of dust kicked up by their passage. He was taller than her, and broad enough to take up most of the passageway, and she could feel herself flinch deep inside where the memory of any man at close quarters would always equal pain. Her fingers itched for a blade.
She didn't let herself move, though. She stared up into his face, fighting a profound, encompassing rage that had nothing at all to do with him, annoying as he was. She hoped her eyes weren't sparking, but judging by her pulse, they must be.
"Oh, I think you've guessed it," he said. "I am offering our services as couriers and spies to your cause. Most of us look similar enough to your people. We can move around in your kingdom unrecognized. We've far more experience than you at such things. We're good. Surely you've thought of it already, Captain."
She had. And it made so much damned sense she'd been chewing on the disagreeable taste of it for weeks, unwilling to ask for that kind of help. It was dangerous work. Not everyone they sent into the lowlands would come back, and those that were caught wouldn't...
She wasn't thinking of that.
"I have," Kyali said, without any mockery this time.
"Well, now you don't need to ask, Captain. We are offering. It was actually Prince Kinsey who suggested it."
"Generous of him," she murmured, and didn't miss the defensive flash of the man's eyes in the candlelight when he thought she wasn't sincere. It surprised her. But, she supposed, it would take a certain kind of loyalty to follow an exiled scholar-prince out of your kingdom and into someone else's war. "I did mean that, Lieutenant. And," she added, trying not to sigh—she'd probably choke on dust if she did—"I do accept your offer. We could use the help."
"Yes, you could," Annan said coolly, tension in every line of him.
Kyali huffed, acknowledging the point, and waved him forward. She was tired of standing in this ancient, fusty tunnel.
"Separate command," she said after a few moments, watching the silhouette of his shoulders, and snorted when they dropped noticeably with relief. So that was what he'd been worried about. "I assure you, Lieutenant, I have no desire to add any more men to my command than I already have, and while I spent the first five years of my studies acting as a courier, most of what I know about spying is how to apply the information it gains me."
"You were a courier?"
The unguarded astonishment in his voice was a little insulting. She made an effort not to bristle. It didn't work very well. "Nobody suspects a girl," she said.
Annan hmm’d, pausing at yet another branching of paths to run his hand along the wall. "I suppose not. Not a bad idea."
"Not unless you brought girls from Cassdall trained in combat. I'm not sending anyone down there who doesn't know how to kill as well as hide."
"Fair enough. We can meet tomorrow to work on locations, persons of interest, specific information you need. I'll want a handful of soldiers from various provinces who can mind their tongues, so my men can learn their speech and dress. Barring complications, they ought to be ready in a week."
Either they were indeed very good or he was just that arrogant. "As you say, Captain."
He nearly walked into the next wall, too busy looking back at her in shock. It almost made her want to smile and she bit her cheek, thinking of ice. "Her Majesty will agree," Kyali added. "You ought to be of equal rank. It will make things simpler."
And it would. And she had almost two thousand men where he had a hundred, so she didn't think she was giving away anything she might miss later. That was qu
ite likely another unworthy thought, but she had her own men to think of, and Taireasa, and she didn't care.
Much.
"Never thought I'd get a promotion on this tour," Annan muttered. He stopped, looking down at her footprints ending at a blank wall. "'Here we are. Where did you start from?"
"Just past the library."
"Ah." He brushed at himself, frowning. "Maybe I ought to go back the other way."
"Your choice," Kyali said, amused, and for once without that tang of bitter fury under it. That felt—odd.
Unexpectedly, Annan held out a hand. She shook it after only a moment's hesitation, feeling gritty dust, the rasp of calluses, warm strong fingers closing over her own—thinking of ice, of snow, of anything at all but the fact that he was too near, the space was too small, the memory of agony and failure too close to the surface of her mind. Her stomach did a lazy flip. She breathed carefully. "If your men could find some way to move some of this dust while they're exploring, I'd be grateful."
That word felt odd, too.
"I'll see to it," Annan said. "Captain."
* * *
"Now breathe," the old lady commanded.
Taireasa pulled in a large breath and held it until sparkles appeared at the corners of her eyes. She looked at Saraid.
"Dear gods, breathe out, too," Saraid said, laughing—it was always startling when she laughed, like hearing a tree speak—and Taireasa let the air in her lungs out with a faint whimper.
"I'm never going to get this right," she moaned. She was, after three days, already comfortable enough with this extraordinary woman to gripe in her presence. The fact of that kept surprising her: she couldn't remember the last time she'd trusted somebody this quickly. Certainly none of the court wizards who'd filled her head with dry theories of the workings of magic had inspired this kind of confidence.
"It's because we share a similar Gift, young queen, and because your court wizards were, at best, philosophers with vague dreams of magic—and yes, you will. In fact, you are."
That was so very unnerving.
"You'll be doing it yourself soon enough," Saraid said serenely, patting her hand.
"I think I'd rather not."
"Best get used to the notion, Taireasa Marsadron. Your Gift won't go away just because you fear it. Learn to wield it or it will wield you."
That was a familiar command—her father had told her the same thing about rulers and flaws. The memory was so clear that grief got her by the throat, clutching with swollen fingers, and she gulped air, pushing it out carefully. For whatever reason, that did it: the flame she'd been trying to picture turned, suddenly, to a pool of still water that held steady in her mind, and all around her the world went blessedly quiet as the never-ending hum of minds thinking, wishing, wanting that filled her head these days slid away.
A thing fell into place inside her, a thing that had been missing without her even knowing. She was suddenly aware of urgency and curiosity equal to her own, hovering just outside the precious bubble of silence she'd somehow created within herself.
"Oh," Taireasa said, astonished and grateful beyond words. "Oh."
I should have guessed it would be water, came a voice, right inside her head. She swallowed back a yelp of pure surprise. Fire was never yours—
The rest was drowned in a welter of regret and memory, and Taireasa raised her head so fast the movement echoed down her spine, because it was Kyali she was seeing, Kyali younger and scowling with effort, fire weaving around her fingers. Kyali before the world had made her grim and cold and distant. Kyali her other half, Kyali truest friend.
She didn't know she was crying until Saraid brushed a hand gently over her face.
Taireasa flung herself to her feet and went to look out the window, trying to get her breath back, to quiet the ache in her chest. The mountains looked back at her.
"The world is not kind, young queen," the old woman said softly. Taireasa could feel the heat coming from her thin frame when she came to stand by the window beside her. "We have to be that to one another."
She had no idea what that was supposed to mean.
"It means try again, Taireasa. This time, reach for me, and think of what you want."
What she wanted was to curl up on her bed and weep until sleep took her dreamless into the dark, but there was no such thing as dreamless sleep anymore, and never time for that these days in any case, and this was as good a distraction from her sorrow as any. Taireasa shut her eyes, fumbling around in herself for that sense of otherness, and found Saraid waiting for her. She was met with grief and iron resolve and patience like the sea, boundless and ever-changing, made strong by many long years of life. Those years echoed around her, rising up, framing the world in image and sentiment.
It was a mind to get lost in, more than the match of her own.
Taireasa thought of that sense of urgency she'd felt, that was surely Saraid's, and wanted with everything in her.
Saraid crumpled instantly, a puppet with cut strings, her hands flying up to her temples.
"Oh dear gods," Taireasa cried, and knelt to take Saraid's arms.
"No," the old woman gasped. "I'm… all right, Taireasa. I am. I'm sorry I frightened you." She pushed herself upright, shook her head. The lines on her face had turned to furrows. She kept her eyes shut. "Truly, you can let go now, you're still pushing at me—"
"I'm sorry. Saraid, I'm sorry! I don't know what I did. Please let me help you up."
Saraid laughed weakly and allowed herself to be pulled over to the chair by the hearth. "You did exactly what I asked of you, poor child. I just never imagined you'd be so strong, good gods! That, for my arrogance. You could blow my mind away like a leaf on a whirlwind."
That sounded like something she had already done once before. Taireasa caught her breath at the memory of Kyali's pale, stunned face on a hilltop over a valley filled with Western soldiers, the way expression had seemed to flow back into her features. She had done something like this to Kyali that day: her anger and love had opened a door between them.
Dear gods.
"Oh, Taireasa," Saraid said, sounding both tired and sad. "You may be able to make what you want from what you have, dear girl, but first you must accept what you have."
That made as much sense as the last piece of advice. Taireasa wondered wearily and a little irritably if she was going to spend her lessons with Saraid trying to decipher an endless series of cryptic utterances.
"There are worse ways to spend an afternoon," she said, because those were precisely the words Saraid was opening her mouth to say, and the old woman tipped her head back and laughed and laughed.
"Oh my, well done," Saraid said. "I haven't been surprised like that since I was—well, nearly your age. How refreshing. And yes, there are indeed worse ways. I believe you know a few, Taireasa Marsadron."
That called to mind things she never wanted to think of again. Taireasa drew a breath, and another, and pulled that clear pool back to the center of her thoughts until silence surrounded her once more.
The slow clap of hands roused her from the stillness.
"Well done again, child," Saraid said as she got to her feet, grunting with effort. "Gods, but you learn fast. No, don't look so worried. You’re not the first to test my boundaries, just—I admit—the only one to actually get past them. It’s a hazard, teaching magic to the young. You want everything with so much urgency. Ah, but I ought to be going. You've appointments. And you ought to bid young Devin goodbye: I'll be taking him along when I go, so that Measail can teach him out where windows and walls aren't likely to suffer for it."
Devin had told her that. And packed a day ago, and begged her not to hold the farewell dinner she'd planned. It wounded her, but it wasn't unfair. Devin had suffered a great deal lately, first losing his father and then, in all the ways that mattered, his sister. She wished there were something she could say to help him understand, but there was still so much guilt in her, so much pain. And it would only hurt him w
orse to know.
Oh, she wished so badly that she had someone to talk to about these things.
Taireasa stared at the chair, trying to remember what the subject had been. She could feel Saraid's curious mind hovering at the edges of her thoughts. "Wanting is so important a part of it, then?" she asked, a little desperately.
"Magic is perception and intent, Taireasa," the old woman replied, winding a shawl about her shoulders. Her silver hair gleamed. "Wanting is a sort of intent, though one must be careful about it. You, especially, will have to learn to govern your heart as well as you do your head. Yours is a Gift very much of the heart, and the better you govern your own, the better you will govern others’."
"Why would I do that?" Taireasa asked, and shrank under Saraid’s sardonic look.
"You are a queen, are you not?"
She didn’t like the direction this discussion was taking at all.
Saraid shrugged and spread her hands: There you are. "You already do. Every ruler has some hold on her people’s hearts. You can’t argue it would have been useful a few months ago."
A point.
Crown shall harbor all their hope. Maybe her Gift would teach her how to do that. Gods knew she found little to hope for in this new, lonely life.
"Must you go?" Taireasa sighed, and the old woman grinned at her.
"I'll be back. I can't stay inside walls for more than a handful of days before I get restless. I need the mountain air. Meanwhile, remember the pool, and to breathe. Think of the structure of the world. Your court wizards weren't good for much, but they weren't wrong about that. Fire, earth, air, and…" she came forward, tapping a gnarled finger on Taireasa's breastbone, "—water. Less use than breathing, but not useless. I'll see you in a few days, Your Majesty."
"Please don't call me that, Saraid."
"It's what you are," she replied, not without pity.
"It's not all I am."
"No, Taireasa. You are much more than that." Saraid's face was as calm as ever, but compassion and sorrow flickered in her eyes and also in the mind behind them… which shuttered itself tightly. Taireasa carefully didn't let her face give away that she'd noticed that.
