Cephrael's Hand: A Pattern of Shadow & Light Book One

by McPhail, Melissa

  “A bit of chance and a lot of luck,” he answered, which wasn’t an answer at all. He crossed arms before his bare chest and regarded her with open admiration. “You only grew more beautiful while I was away. I didn’t think it possible.”

  Alyneri grunted skeptically. “Flattery comes cheap, Ean.”

  “And abundant,” he agreed boldly, “for I can think of nothing I’d rather speak of right now than your beauty.”

  When she didn’t answer him, he posed, “There’s a certain irony in this, don’t you think?”

  “Really?” She paused with her back to him, hands white as they gripped his goblet of tea. “I don’t see how.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  She pressed lips together against the truth of it, grateful to let his gaze pierce her back instead of her heart.

  “Admit it, Alyneri. You went to great pains to avoid seeing me—coming way out here to the country so as not to be anywhere near Calgaryn when I arrived home, and what happens but I show up as if to spite your best efforts.”

  Alyneri closed her eyes and forced a swallow. She was ill prepared for this meeting today of all days, what with two nights where she’d barely slept and Farshideh lying cold upstairs…

  “Perhaps there’s a reason we’ve been thrown together this way,” he suggested.

  “Well of course there is,” Alyneri answered, finding the strength to face him somehow. She turned with tea in hand. “You’re here because you were injured, and I am a Healer. These things just aren’t complicated, Ean.”

  The prince settled her a level look. “Alyneri, you know perfectly well what I mean.”

  Alyneri arched her right eyebrow in unconvinced response as she walked to his bedside and set the goblet in his hand. He gave her a cheerful grin as he looked up at her. Dear Epiphany, how could she not have recognized him? “You saved my life, you know.”

  “I am aware of it, yes.”

  He ignored the cup and held her gaze. “Thanks are in order.”

  “Your gratitude is sufficient.” She tried to move away, but he captured her hand.

  “Why do you flee, Duchess? Is my company so loathsome to you?” He tugged on her hand, all smiles and innocence.

  She cast him an annoyed look, though she felt a smile forming beneath it. Ean had always been able to make her smile. “Absolutely,” she returned, granting him the banter he seemed to crave, though it took more than she imagined to find the strength for it. “You’re a cad and wretch and I want you out of my house immediately.”

  He laughed. “That’s the Alyneri I remember. I dare say you had me frightened for a moment.”

  He released her then, but her escape was bittersweet.

  After a moment, Ean said, “We were true friends once, if I recall.” He was watching her curiously.

  “We were,” she reluctantly admitted.

  He cracked a smile as he gazed at her. “You do realize you’re standing about as far away from me as you could possibly be and still remain in this room?”

  Alyneri looked and discovered that she was pressing herself against the wall beside the door to the infirmary. She could do little more at that point than play along, however; so she bit her lip and gazed upon him in consternation. “If…if I may speak openly, Your Highness?”

  “Please,” he offered in earnest.

  “It’s your breath, Ean,” and she pressed fingertips beneath her nose, adding, “I simply cannot bear the stench of it.”

  “All right then.” Ean held up both hands in surrender. “I will leave you be. If you don’t want to tell me what’s bothering you, I cannot make you confess. But come, sit with me.” He indicated the chair near his bed, which Tanis had occupied the night before. “I have so many questions.”

  Alyneri pressed her lips together and slowly submitted to his will. “I confess, I have questions of my own,” she confessed as she returned to his bedside.

  “Come then. Let us pool our information and perhaps we will find some answers.” To humor her, Ean sipped his tea and then said as she was sitting down, “I must get word to Calgaryn. Have you parchment and pen, and a bird to send?”

  “Of course.” She rose to attend to it, but he caught her hand again.

  “In a moment—seven hells, Alyneri, do you so despise my company that you can’t grant me even a few minutes of your time?”

  Alyneri felt her lower lip trembling and caught it between her teeth. She shook her head.

  “Well then, sit, Duchess.” She sat. “Now then, do you know anything of the man who brought me here?”

  Alyneri stared at him. “Don’t you?”

  Ean shook his head. “I know nothing of him beyond his nature. Not even why he risked himself to save me.”

  “Save you? Ean, I cannot fathom how this all—”

  He held up a hand to quiet her. “Yes, yes. I know. I’ll tell you everything.”

  And so he did.

  Alyneri listened attentively while Ean spoke of his night landing, of the battle and Creighton’s death, and of the days following his capture. She was horrified to learn of the things Ean had been through. While she believed him wholly, it yet seemed so fantastic and unreal, so terrible and tragic, that she found it hard to imagine.

  When Ean was finished, Alyneri sat in silence for a long time just trying to gather herself. She wished for all the world that she might’ve had fewer involvements with val Lorian princes altogether, for they seemed to court Death while courting her, and Death was a jealous mistress.

  Eventually Alyneri pled a moment to herself. She rose and retrieved parchment and pen for him, and wax to seal the missive. All the while Ean wrote, she tried to think of a way out of this…a way to escape from her connection to him. She felt trapped by Fate—for surely there was Fate in this meeting, Ean must be right about that much—but she couldn’t see any way to distance herself from the prince short of fleeing the kingdom. Wasn’t it bad enough that he’d forever claimed her heart? Did he have to own her destiny too?

  When Ean was finished, Alyneri handed off his letter to her chamberlain to send to Calgaryn by household courier and returned to Ean’s bedside, a part of her wondering how long she would have to bear his company in her home, another part wishing it was forever.

  While she brooded, he watched her quietly. “What has come between us, Alyneri?” he asked after a moment. “What happened to our love?”

  She glanced up, saw his cheeky grin, and gave him a withering look in return. “It was a childhood crush,” she managed the lie perfectly. “Nothing more.”

  “Age has wizened you.”

  Alyneri sighed. Keeping up the banter was truly draining on her today, for her reserves were so low already. “Life has wizened me,” she sighed.

  “I would that the past had not been, also,” he agreed. “If my death could bring back my brothers, I would gladly walk to meet it. But what could’ve happened to so jade you against me—oh…I see….” And he must’ve truly seen then, for his lighthearted expression faded. “We were all taken from you, weren’t we—myself, my brother your betrothed, your own mother….When the Dawn Chaser was lost, your whole world changed.”

  Alyneri turned him a fierce look full of anguish, but her gaze quickly hardened to anger—anger that he’d seen so deeply into her heart, and that it clearly meant so little to him. She stood and pressed out her skirts. “This was fun when we were children, Ean, but I cannot make a game of batting words about with you all day any longer.” She picked up a package wrapped in sackcloth from atop a dresser, one of Tanis’s errands in town yesterday. “These are for you.” She placed the package where he could reach it. “Tanis will be available for anything else you need.”

  Ean looked confused. “Alyneri, I was only—”

  “My seneschal passed over last night!” she snapped, spinning him a desperate look. She’d meant to carry on with proud determination, to show him she was a child no longer, but her voice broke in the speaking of Farshideh’s loss, and she could say no mo
re.

  “Oh, Alyneri…” and his tone held such sorrow on her behalf. “I’m truly sorry.”

  Ean’s heartfelt sympathy was more than she could bear. She shouted at him, “If you’d never come here, she wouldn’t be dead! ’Tis your fault she was taken from us!” and she fled from the room in tears.

  Rushing down the hallway, Alyneri pushed past a befuddled Tanis, out through the loggia, and veritably flew down the very steps up which the zanthyr had carried Ean the day before.

  Reaching the gardens, she ran.

  Nineteen

  ‘If harm needs be done, do so. The sweet well of mercy

  is brackish with the tears of sacrifice.’

  – The Agasi wielder Markal Morrelaine

  at the Battle of the Citadel, 597aV

  Franco was spared what he feared was certain demise at Raine’s hand by—as he decided in hindsight—what could only have been divine intervention.

  In the very moment when Raine was reaching for him to no doubt delve more severely and deeply into his thoughts, the Truthreader withdrew his hand and clapped his other hand across it. His diamondine eyes took on a far-away look, and he stood for several moments utterly still.

  Just when the hairs were starting to rise on the back of Franco’s neck, the Vestal shook out of his stupor and dropped his arms to his side. “So.” He settled a disquieting gaze on Franco. “We shall resume this discussion at a later time. We must travel immediately.”

  Franco barely hid his relief, for all the good it did him to try to hide anything from Raine. There was no way the Vestal was ever going to trust anything he said ever again. Franco admired and respected Raine immensely, and it pained him to lie to the man. “I am at your service, as ever, my lord,” Franco said with a heavy heart. “What is your will? As it happens, we are in an advantageous place for travel.”

  But when Raine told him, Franco groaned. They’d just passed through Dheanainn seven days earlier and now meant to return from whence they started! At least with a weld at his disposal, their return would be instantaneous instead of as laborious as the journey north had been.

  Raine cracked a smile at Franco’s reaction, but despite the discord between them, it was quite without malice. Franco had noticed that the man was ever just in his dealings with others. Very probably, until Raine had proof of some treason, he would go on treating him with the utmost respect and courtesy. “I am sorry, Franco,” the Vestal apologized, referencing his request. “You have been forgiving of my demands upon you these past weeks, and especially in this last trip, and I’m probably not paying you enough to compensate for your sacrifice of time and energy.”

  “You’re not paying me at all,” Franco pointed out.

  “Oh, yes,” Raine cast him a droll smile, “there is that.”

  Franco frowned at him and then turned and gazed out into the still pool. The weld glowed invitingly. If only he could travel its path to somewhere relaxing, like Jamaii. He had friends on the island, friends of the female persuasion—pirates all, of course, but they got along well enough. Franco sighed as he gazed at the expanse of water between himself and the weld, not relishing wet boots for the next two days. I suppose there is nothing to be done for it except to walk.

  As if hearing the thought, Raine motioned with his arm. “Lead away, Nodefinder.”

  Grumbling about the state of his already over-taxed boots, Franco sloshed out into the pool with Raine close behind.

  “My oath-brother shares your pain, Franco,” he remarked idly. “No doubt Björn would as soon turn the water to ice as walk through it. He mislikes getting his feet wet. Once, when we were on a mission in the jungles of Bemoth, he spent an idle hour building a bridge of air with fifth-strand patterns rather than traversing a river no more than thigh deep at midpoint.”

  “That seems an awful lot of trouble,” Franco agreed. “Why not simply make your boots proof against the water?”

  Raine shrugged. “Too mundane, I suppose. He tends toward the dramatic.”

  “You suppose…” Franco glanced at the Vestal. “Did you not ask him, my lord?”

  Raine gave him a rueful look. “Clearly you have never met the Fifth Vestal.”

  “Not under any amiable circumstances,” Franco muttered, relieved he was able to answer truthfully about that at least.

  “My oath-brother never answers a question directly. It interferes with his passion for lengthy discourse. Add to that an ego so dense that the bedrock of the very realm would shatter against it, and one soon realizes that the fewer questions asked, the better.”

  “I wonder if that isn’t a result of the influence of the fifth upon its Adepts,” Franco mused. “Not that I mean to advocate for the Fifth Vestal, my lord, it’s just that…well, Markal Morrelaine and I are well acquainted, and I’d be hard-pressed to believe his ego could be any less immense.”

  Raine smiled softly. “Perhaps you’re right, Franco. I would like to believe it so.”

  They reached the weld, and Franco held a hand for Raine to wait. “If you will give me a moment to travel ahead, milord, and open the channels.”

  Raine nodded.

  Franco stepped through the portal.

  Travel within a weld was not the same as through a node or a leis. It was a central hub for the very pattern of the world, and energy surged around Franco as he moved within its domain. A torrential wind roared in his ears such that communication would’ve been impossible for him, yet not even the frayed edge of his cloak trembled beneath the ethereal force. Still, every hair on his body stood on end, electrified, as energy pooled and collected around him and then streaked on. He was a rock in the frothing waters of a raging river; without his right of blood and birth to work the patterns of this Traveling as innately as he worked his own breath, he would’ve been instantly swept into oblivion.

  To see with the eyes of an Espial while standing within the hub of a weld was to see an immense net of silvery pathways merging, diverging, converging into infinity. To understand them, to know where they led…this was a journeyman Espial’s most arduous—and potentially disastrous—task; but no Espial was admitted to the Master’s Guild who had not demonstrated his competence at navigating a weld field with or without a map.

  Standing amid the frothing energy stream, Franco found the path to Dheanainn and then stepped back out of the weld. Raine was waiting patiently for him.

  The relative silence of the divining chamber was dramatic to his accosted hearing. Franco took a moment to recover, to find his breath, to still his heart. One did not become the focal point for the energy of the world without being drained by its passing. He pressed hands over his ears and dropped his jaw a few times to clear his ears of the bellowing roar that still seemed trapped within. Finally, he mustered his resolve again and pushed his weariness aside. “This way, my lord. If you would be so good as to place your hand upon my shoulder, as we have done in the past…”

  Dheanainn was the largest of the Wildling cities, and like its population, its weather was fierce and unpredictable. As they emerged from the weld into the city of Dheanainn, the air was humid and thick and the streets were wet from showers. A bank of dark clouds was moving off to the north toward the mountains, a swath of jagged granite peaks.

  Raine procured horses from one of his many contacts scattered throughout the realm, and they rode east, toward the province of Malchiarr. Malchiarr was Geshaiwyn country, and Franco would as soon not run into any of them. He made a point of avoiding Shapeshifters when at all possible, and especially Geshaiwyn. As a race, generally, they had an alarming sense of humor.

  Raine had mentioned nothing of the nature of their errand, nor who had contacted him in such an unusual manner. Franco was well traveled and knowledgeable in his field, but he admitted that when it came to Patterning, there was a great chasm of knowledge as yet unknown to him. Raine, conversely, seemed to walk with certainty across this vast uncharted terrain.

  They were not long out of the city when they came to two hea
vy, iron-worked gates blocking a shaded drive that led up into the forested hills. Franco recognized the lion crest upon the verdigris metal. “Marc Laven? Last I knew he’d vanished into the wilds of Avatar.”

  “This is his ancestral home, I believe.”

  “What is our business here, my lord?”

  “Alas, she told me nothing of the matter. Only to come straightaway.”

  She must’ve been Alshiba Torinin then. The First Vestal, now the Alorin Seat since the Fifth Vestal’s betrayal, was the only woman who might command Raine d’Lacourte to attend her heel like a pup.

  “If I may ask, my lord? How was she able to contact you?”

  In answer, Raine held up his hand and the oath-ring he wore on his middle finger.

  “Oh, right.”

  Franco had heard that the Vestal oath-rings were powerful talismans, but their secrets were well guarded. He wondered why Raine trusted him with the knowledge.

  The Truthreader dismounted and pushed the gates wide to let Franco through with the horses. It was testimony to the Fourth Vestal’s personal code of honor that he used his own magic only out of necessity and never as a display of power; most certainly not to do something so mundane as opening a gate, though it would’ve been the simplest thing in the world for him to do.

  They rode up the road in silence, sheltered from a rising wind by a border of towering moss-covered oaks, their thoughts following different paths. Traveling the weld had put memories of Dagmar into Franco’s head, and remembering the Second Vestal brought a smile to his lips. Dagmar Ranneskjöld was called the Great Master by his Guild, for his talent at the craft was mastery indeed. Artistry, even. Dagmar could do things with the nodes that no one could do.

  The Great Master could reroute the pattern of the world itself.

  Thinking the thought scared him a little, and suddenly he wondered if it had been Dagmar that moved the weld to Calgaryn. He prayed it wasn’t so. He desperately needed to believe that the Great Master remained incorruptible.