by James Wyatt
Gaven hardly dared to breathe as another agent of House Orien examined his papers. She stared at them a long time, reading each word carefully, and Gaven felt sure she would recognize the forgery. When she handed the papers back to him with a smile, saying, “Enjoy your trip, Master Lyrandar,” he could scarcely believe it. He shot several glances back over his shoulder as he walked to the coach, certain that she was summoning a Sentinel Marshal to arrest him. But apparently the forgery was a success. He and Senya boarded the coach, settled into a pair of comfortable seats, and began to relax as they started to move.
Only when they were up to full speed did Gaven stop looking out the windows and actually look around the coach. It was similar to the lightning rail coach—the well-appointed ones, not the steerage cart—but on a smaller and slightly less lavish scale. Instead of a private compartment, they had a cushioned bench with a high back, affording them some privacy. The ceiling was elegantly carved with the unicorn seal of House Orien. There were no passengers in the only other seats Gaven could see, the ones across the aisle to his left.
He drew a deep breath, savoring the woody smell of the coach, and let it out slowly. He turned his gaze back out the window, trying to ignore the warmth of Senya’s body beside him, and watched the mountains drift slowly past. The effect was hypnotic, and his eyes started to droop.
“Who’s Rienne?” Senya’s question jolted him fully awake. He didn’t remember ever having mentioned Rienne to Senya.
“You tell me,” he said. He wasn’t going to give more information than he had to.
Senya laughed at his guarded answer. “That’s what you called Juni, remember? The gnome on the lightning rail? The guard asked your daughter’s name, and you said Rienne.” She watched his face, and he concentrated on keeping it impassive. Her smile faded. “Do you have a daughter?”
“No,” Gaven said. “I just gave him the first name that popped into my head.”
“But whose name is it?”
Gaven turned to look out the window again. “Before … all this happened, I was to be married.” He glanced at Senya and saw her eyebrows rise. “Rienne came from a minor noble family, and our marriage would have been advantageous to both our families. House Lyrandar is always looking for political alliances while officially maintaining the neutrality demanded by the Edicts of Korth, and the families it makes connections with stand to gain a great deal of wealth and prestige.” He paused. “So that’s who Rienne is.”
“A nice arranged marriage, then?” she said, leaning closer. “Loveless? Passionless?”
Gaven turned to look past Senya out the windows across the aisle.
“Was she human? Is she an old woman now?”
“She’s a Khoravar, elf-blooded like me.”
“And she’s in Vathirond? All this time I’ve been helping you reunite with your long-lost love?”
“No, she lives in Stormhome, as far as I know.” He scowled. “Seeing Rienne again is not a priority.”
“Oh, I see.” A mischievous smile crept onto Senya’s face. “The romance ended badly?”
Gaven scowled, and Senya’s smile disappeared. “My life ended badly,” he said. He waved his new papers in her face. “I’m living someone else’s now.”
He turned back to the window and smiled grimly at the clouds darkening the afternoon sky.
* * * * *
As soon as she stepped into Krathas’s office Rienne knew that there was news of Gaven—and that it wasn’t good news. The old half-orc’s face spoke volumes.
“There’s been an incident,” he said.
Rienne put a hand on a chair back, then stumbled around it to sit down. “What happened? Is he dead?”
“I don’t think he’s dead, and I’m not even sure what did happen. There are people working hard to keep this quiet.”
“Tell me.”
Krathas took a deep breath, then plunged in. “What I hear is that a team of Sentinel Marshals captured Gaven on the lightning rail near Sterngate.”
“Captured him? But he escaped.”
“Apparently. There was some kind of storm between Sterngate and Starilaskur, and one carriage was blown open.”
“Blown open?”
“Sort of funny, isn’t it? They call it the lightning rail, but then a lightning storm does this.” Krathas smiled weakly.
“One carriage—the one where Gaven was?”
“It appears so.”
“So he called in the storm and used it to escape. That means he’s in Breland somewhere.”
“Probably. Quite possibly trying to get here—that lightning rail line runs through Starilaskur and on to Vathirond.”
“There’s something else,” Rienne said. Krathas’s eyes were fixed on his desk.
“One of the Sentinel Marshals was killed,” he said.
CHAPTER
22
The coach stopped too often, but never for long. At some point in the night, they had a longer stop to bring a new driver aboard and change the magebred horses that pulled the cart, but even so, Gaven figured they were moving most of the day. And within two days of leaving New Cyre, the coach pulled into Starilaskur, eastern Breland’s largest city. They stayed in a hostel that night, which was a vast improvement over trying to sleep sitting up on the coach’s bench. The next day, they boarded a new coach bound for Vathirond.
Another two days of endless rolling and bouncing, punctuated with fitful attempts at sleep or conversation, brought them almost to Vathirond’s gate. Gaven awoke from another nightmare to a child’s loud voice in a bench near the front of the cart.
“What is it?” the boy said.
“I’m not sure, sweetie.” The child’s mother kept her voice low, trying to calm him. “Probably a dragonhawk.”
“But dragonhawks live in Aundair. We’re still in Breland.” He sounded as though he couldn’t believe his mother’s ignorance.
“But we’re in northeast Breland now, actually not far from Aundair.”
That seemed to satisfy the child, and Gaven closed his eyes, settling back into his bench with a smile. Then Senya, sitting by the window, hit his chest. She was staring intently out the window.
“What is it?”
“Look.” She pointed out the window and up, skyward.
He leaned over her and peered out, trying to follow the direction of her finger. At first he saw nothing but the gray clouds that had been hanging in the sky for days, glowering but never quite getting around to storming. Then he saw a shape flying in the clouds. Presumably, the same shape the child had seen.
“That’s no dragonhawk,” he whispered.
“Vaskar?”
“Probably. It’s big enough.”
“Where’s he going?”
Gaven glanced at the sun, still low in the sky. “More or less eastward. To the Mournland. To raise the Sky Caves of Thieren Kor.”
They watched the dragon soar in and out of the clouds for a long moment.
“What do you think it will be like, if the Storm Dragon succeeds?”
A vision from his nightmare flashed into Gaven’s mind: numberless legions of soldiers marching beneath bone-white banners bearing a blasphemous rune, leaving carnage and devastation in their wake. Senya and the coach around him suddenly fell away, and he stood on the desolate plain in the army’s wake. Vultures flapped their heavy wings and peered at him sidelong before returning to their grisly feast. In the distance, above the marching legions, dragons soared among the clouds.
“Gaven?”
He was back in the coach, though he still felt the clammy air of the battlefield on his skin. Senya stared at him, eyes wide, her back pressed against the window. He curled around his stomach, resting his forehead against the smooth wood of the bench in front of him.
“Are you all right?” Senya whispered.
“Do I look all right?”
“What is it? What did you see?”
He turned his head back and forth, feeling the wood against his skin. Senya put a te
nder hand on his back, and he tried to concentrate on the sensation of her touch.
“I don’t want to see any more,” he said. “I just want to be here, now. Blind like everybody else.”
* * * * *
“Lady Alastra?”
Rienne looked up from the cup of warm wine she cradled in her hands. The messenger was a young half-orc cursed with a face that could break mirrors, with wide-set black eyes and a nose and mouth that were both like ragged holes in his gray skin. He wore a sleeveless shirt that showed off his muscles, and his black hair was cropped close to his head.
“Yes?” she said, trying to smile.
He looked awkward, uncomfortable around women perhaps. She noticed a flush in his cheeks, and he didn’t meet her gaze. “Krathas sent me,” he stammered.
“Of course he did. You have news?”
“I’m to tell you that he has arrived by Orien coach. Er—not Krathas. He’s the one who told me. But I don’t know who he is. Uh, I mean, I know who Krathas is. I don’t know who has arrived by Orien coach.”
A brain to match his face, Rienne thought. “I do. Thank you.”
The messenger’s smile revealed jagged rows of crooked and broken teeth, and did nothing to improve his looks. Rienne returned the smile as best she could, then ignored the boy as he murmured some pleasantry, bowed, and made his exit. She sipped her wine, trying to calm her nerves and her pounding heart.
Gaven is here, she thought. Now what?
* * * * *
Gaven was dimly aware of Senya saying something beside him, just as he had vaguely noticed the busy plaza they stood in. But the thing that had captivated his attention since they emerged from the Orien station was a ship, ringed with a circle of dancing flame, floating in the air across the plaza. She was moored to a tower that proudly flew the kraken banner of House Lyrandar. A Lyrandar airship.
He had to fly one.
His mind spun, trying to remember all he had learned about the research his house had been doing, trying to make these ships work. The ring of fire must be a manifestation of a fire elemental bound to the ship, probably granting her propulsion rather than levitation. Piloting the ship, then, was almost certainly just a matter of imposing one’s will on the elemental bound into her, not too different from piloting an oceangoing Lyrandar galleon. He wondered if his dragonmark would help him do that—his lack of a mark had hindered him in his previous attempts to pilot galleons.
“Gaven!” Senya pulled on his arm. He tore his eyes away from the ship—the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen—and looked at her.
“What do we do now?” she said.
Her question jolted him back to the present, and to something that he had been turning over in his mind for days. “I’m not sure we do anything.”
“What?” She arched an eyebrow at him.
“Listen, Senya. I meant to have this conversation with you back in Korranberg, but we got so caught up in … things, and I never got around to it. But now that we’re here, you could go anywhere you want, do anything you want. It doesn’t make any sense for you to shackle yourself to me, especially since there’s a strong possibility of real shackles in my future. I have no idea what I’m going to do, and I don’t want to tangle you up in whatever mess I end up making. I think we should go our separate ways.”
“Without me you’ll be bound for the cold northeast in a week’s time.”
“I can handle myself. And besides, I know people here.”
“After all these years? People move, you know. Or die.”
“That’s not the point.”
“The point is you want to get rid of me.”
“Yes,” Gaven said. He watched her eyes narrow and her nostrils flare in anger.
“Too bad. I’m not leaving.”
Gaven sighed. “Senya, I appreciate all you’ve done for me already. I have enjoyed your company these last couple of weeks. But I couldn’t—I don’t want you to suffer because of your association with me.”
“It’s too late for that. Ever since the lightning rail, they know me.”
“Those people won’t be bothering us again.”
“No, but I’m sure they checked the passage records in Korranberg. They know who you’re traveling with—they know my name. And that’s all they need.”
Gaven put his hands to his temples. “I’m sorry, Senya. I wish—”
“You seem to have forgotten that I chose this. Not just in Darguun, either. I was in this up to my neck when I got on that wyvern’s back in Q’barra. I’ve made my choicees. So what do we do next?”
He shook his head. “Let’s see if Krathas is still alive.”
* * * * *
“Lady Alastra, there’s one more thing you should know.” Krathas spoke cautiously, and Rienne moved her hand to Maelstrom’s hilt instinctively.
“What?”
“Gaven has not been traveling alone. He has a companion.” Rienne raised her eyebrows, and Krathas flushed. “A woman.”
“That’s his business,” Rienne said, trying to ignore the icy claw touching her heart.
Krathas was visibly relieved. “Just thought you should know.”
“I appreciate your concern, wasted though it may be.”
Krathas inclined his head in a small bow.
“So where is he now?” she asked.
“On his way here.”
“Krathas, would you do me the favor of allowing me to greet Gaven alone?”
“Of course, Lady.” Krathas got to his feet and worked his way around his desk. He laid a hand on her shoulder and smiled. “Olladra’s fortune.”
Rienne returned his smile warmly. “Thank you.”
As Krathas shuffled out the door, she sank into his desk chair, her heart racing. She’d been in Vathirond nearly two weeks, working with Krathas, waiting for this day. She had rehearsed her eventual meeting with Gaven in her mind so many times, but it was different each time—she had no idea how he would respond to her, what he might say to explain his behavior, whether he would forgive her for hers. And in her mind, it had always been the two of them, trying to pick up where they left off all those years ago. She’d been so naive.
“Here it is, right where I left it.”
It was his voice, just outside the door. Her mouth went dry.
“Looks like it hasn’t been painted in thirty years.” A woman’s voice.
Rienne drew a deep breath through her nostrils and let it out slowly through pursed lips. Then the door swung open.
In her mind, this encounter had always started the same. She was cool, a little distant, aloof. Her voice low, she said, “Hello, Gaven,” and he was thunderstruck, surprised. She began with the upper hand. The reality was drastically different.
He stood framed in the doorway, so beautiful to her eyes. She was overwhelmed with a rush of the love she’d felt so strongly, so long ago, and had worked so hard to suppress these last decades. Then came a wave of remorse—this was what she had done to him. The weight of twenty-six years in Dreadhold was clearly visible on his face and in his posture. His hair was long and unkempt, and his face looked haggard. Then she saw his dragonmark, and she gasped.
“Rienne.” His voice was flat, betraying no surprise or emotion.
The woman stepped into view behind him, peering over his shoulder into the office. She was an elf, pretty in a fey sort of way, with eyes too big for her face and stained with blue makeup. Her lips were full and also painted, the bright red of a streetwalker, and she wore heeled boots and a chest-hugging coat to match. Rienne scowled.
“Rienne?” the woman said. “So she is in Vathirond after all. What a nice surprise!” The red lips twisted into a sardonic smile as she looked at Gaven.
This was nothing like Rienne had imagined.
“Where’s Krathas?” Gaven said.
Rienne stood. “‘Where’s Krathas?’ Hm. It’s good to see you, too.”
Gaven stepped into the room. “I’m s—no, I’m not sorry. What do you expect me to say?�
�� His voice and his face came alive with anger. “The usual pleasantries don’t seem to fit. The last time I saw you, a pack of Sentinel Marshals were dragging me out of the room. You put on quite a show of grief, as I recall. No, Rienne, it’s not good to see you. I didn’t come here to see you, I came to find Krathas. Where is he?” Without waiting for an answer, he stepped into the room and started peering into the shelves that lined the walls.
“Well said, Gaven,” the streetwalker chimed in.
Rienne put her hand on Maelstrom’s hilt and stepped around the desk to face the woman. “Would you leave us? We have a lot to talk about.”
The red lips pouted, but the mocking smirk lingered at their corners. “And miss all the fun?”
Rienne noticed the woman’s hand settling on the hilt of her own sword, which she hadn’t seen before. Perhaps she wasn’t a streetwalker after all.
“We haven’t been introduced,” Rienne said. “I am Rienne ir’Alastra.”
“Yes, I know. The one Gaven was to marry. I gather it ended badly.”
“And your name?”
“Senya Alvena Arrathinen.” Rienne heard the first hint of an elvish lilt in her voice.
Gaven began looking around the desk.
“Pleased to meet you, Senya,” Rienne said.
“Remember what Gaven said about the usual pleasantries?” Senya smiled and blinked her too-long eyelashes at Rienne before dropping the smile and stepping past her into the room. “What are we looking for, Gaven?”
“An adamantine box, about the size of a small book, but thicker. Maybe two small books.”
Rienne felt a surge of fury replace the love and guilt she had felt on first seeing him. “You will not ignore me, Gaven.”
He glanced at her, then bent to open a desk drawer. “I’m not ignoring you, Rienne. I just have nothing to say to you.”
“Well, I have some things to say to you.”
“Go ahead.” He slammed the first drawer shut and slid another one open.
“Don’t you think I deserve an explanation?” she said.
