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

by McPhail, Melissa

  She arched a brow. “Do you question the eyes of a falcon, Prince of Dannym?”

  Fynn rode forward to join them. “What’s Cayal off about?”

  “We’re being followed,” Ean told him, nodding over his shoulder.

  “I knew it!” Fynn peered at the dark spot that was a horse and rider. “Left to themselves, things always go from bad to worse.”

  Ean gave him a withering look. “Thank you, Fynn, for that helpful insight.”

  “I’ve said all along we should’ve taken the river.”

  “Yes, I remember.”

  “The trip would’ve taken half as long and been twice as comfortable,” he added. “You have to admit at this point that it wouldn’t have mattered, Ean. The whole realm knows you’re traveling with Alyneri by now. Might as well go to our deaths in comfort.” To accentuate his dramatics, he looked sadly down at his boot, the heel of which was still stained from his treading in something unpleasant that morning. He shook his head again. “Nature abhors people.”

  Gwynnleth cast him her first smile of the day. “I quite agree with you there, Northerner.”

  Rhys kept staring at the zanthyr. “Do you think he’s a threat, Your Highness?”

  Ean kept his voice calm, but his heart was racing. Could it be him? “No,” he answered Rhys after a moment. “As long as he stays only a shadow on the horizon, he’s too far to harm us and too far to catch. He just wants us to know he’s there.” Ean looked to the Avieth feeling anticipation rising like deep-sea waves to break against his chest. “Why do you say we’d have clashed with him already?”

  Gwynnleth shrugged.“He’s been following us for days.”

  “Days,” Rhys repeated, giving her a hard look, “and you didn’t think to alert us?”

  “I told you, if he intended you harm, you’d already be dead.”

  And would you have tried to stop him? Ean wondered. Sometimes he really wasn’t sure what to think about the Avieth.

  Still, hope filled him at the idea of reuniting with the zanthyr who’d rescued him what now seemed so long ago. Ean had the sense that if anyone could help him understand his talent, the zanthyr could.

  But what are the chances it’s the same man? He dared not let his hopes rise too high for fear of the plummeting fall he would face should it be a different creature. He cleared his throat and asked the Avieth, “How do you know that man is a zanthyr?”

  “A zanthyr!” Fynn repeated in surprise, having missed Gwynnleth’s earlier pronouncement. He threw out a hand and proclaimed, “Well that just proves my point! A zanthyr, by Belloth’s rotten black balls! What could be worse?” He began muttering to himself about the evils of zanthyrs.

  Gwynnleth gave him sour look before turning back to Ean to answer, “It’s not as though the creatures are hard to recognize.”

  “Really?” Ean arched brows. “I guess I wouldn’t know, having met only one myself.”

  “Oh?” she looked mildly interested. “Which one?”

  Ean broke into a rueful grin. “He didn’t actually give his name.”

  “Typical.” Gwynnleth cast an ill-humored look over her shoulder. “They all have the same haughty, holier-than-thou, arrogance about them, and not a one but isn’t as insufferable a creature as ever walked the realm.”

  “Wait, I’m confused,” Fynn said. “Are we talking about zanthyrs or Avieths?”

  She cast him a withering glare.

  “And just how many zanthyrs have you had the pleasure of knowing, Gwynnleth?” Ean asked.

  “Even one is one is too many.”

  For no reason he could fathom, Ean got a sudden wildly improbable idea that yet seemed the only explanation for Gwynnleth’s skill with a blade. So he countered with, “Yet, if I’m not mistaken, a zanthyr taught you swordplay.”

  Gwynnleth stared at him in astonishment. Her mouth opened as if to question how he could know such a thing, but it seemed words failed her.

  Ean looked back to the road ahead grinning from ear to ear. To have perceived one of the Avieth’s deep secrets was truly gratifying.

  “He should get bonus marks for that one,” Fynn told Gwynnleth.

  “This is not a quiz for extra credit,” she snapped at him.

  “But you’d make such a lovely tutor. All the boys would fantasize about you. I’m fantasizing about you right now, actually.”

  “What a coincidence,” she remarked coolly. “I am entertaining a fantasy about you as well.”

  Fynn grinned happily. “Does yours involve a whip, fudge sauce and a tambourine?”

  “No,” she replied, narrowing her gaze. “Rather, my swords and a lot of blood—yours particularly.”

  “See,” Fynn said, looking to Ean. “I told you she was the kinky type.”

  “Fynnlar,” Ean murmured. “Behave.”

  “No one ever tells stories of the well-behaved, Ean,” Fynn argued. “I intend to be immortalized in song.”

  “How shall the verse go?” Gwynnleth posed. She pressed a finger to her lips and said in singsong fashion,

  “This is the story of Fynn,

  Who partied a little too fine,

  He thought with his prick,

  And picked up a trick,

  Who drowned him in a tub of his wine.”

  “That was a limerick,” Fynn remarked, casting her an indignant look, “and not a very good one—it didn’t even rhyme correctly.”

  “I kind of liked it,” Brody offered from behind.

  Gwynnleth blessed him with a twitch of a smile.

  “Traitor,” Fynn accused the Bull. “I should fire you.”

  “You can’t fire me,” Brody rumbled. “I serve Prince Ryan.”

  “Technicalities,” Fynn muttered.

  ***

  As the sun was setting over Chalons-en-Les Trois, Sandrine du Préc heard a knock upon her parlor door and looked up from the letter she’d been penning. She was due to embark for the Cairs the following morning, but thus far her affairs were taking more time than she would’ve liked to conclude. So it was that she sounded less than welcoming as she called, “Entrez.”

  Her chambermaid poked her head through the parting of the door. “Madame, a courier is here for you.”

  Sandrine set down her quill. “A courier from whom?”

  “He will not say, madame, but his Veneisean is atrocious.”

  “Very well. Show him in.”

  While the maid retrieved the courier, Sandrine rose from her desk and adjusted her gown in the mirror. Assured that her assets were on their best display, she turned just as the door opened again and a man entered. Though she’d never met him, she suspected immediately for whom he worked. All of Morwyk’s men had the same ill-disposed set to their jaw, as if intent upon dragging the kingdom by their teeth.

  “Well?” she inquired in the common tongue, arching one ice-pale brow. “What have you?”

  “A token of my good faith,” he replied, withdrawing a card from within his vest.

  Sandrine turned it over and saw a violet wax seal imprinted with the signet of House val Rothschen but twisted slightly in a way that only Sandrine would recognize as Ianthe’s mark. So…my dear cousin has placed her bet with the Duke of Morwyk, but has her husband, I wonder?

  Sandrine handed the card back to the courier. “And your message?”

  The man glanced around the room. “Is it—”

  “We are quite alone, I assure you,” she remarked in annoyance.

  “’Tis well, madam,” he replied then, “for my message is one of the utmost secrecy. Your cousin places her faith in our mutual acquaintance and asks that you do the same. Mayhap you discern of whom I speak?”

  “Mayhap,” she repeated flatly. By the Hand of Temperance but the man was tedious! “State your business and be done with it. I am due to leave upon the morn and cannot spend all evening awaiting the denouement of your visit.”

  The man looked slightly miffed at her abrasive manner. “The matter concerns the Duchess of Aracine. I was
told you made her recent acquaintance.”

  Hearing this, Sandrine seated herself by the fire, eyeing the man all the while. “I have. What of her?”

  “Our mutual acquaintance would very much like to meet her.”

  Sandrine’s interest was piqued. “Why?”

  “I am not at liberty to say, madam.”

  “Then I am not at liberty to help you. Good night, sir.”

  He frowned at her, not moving toward the door.

  She poured herself a glass of wine from the decanter at the table to her side and sipped it quietly, regarding him over the rim. After a long moment of this, wherein the courier was obviously weighing his options, he finally snarled an oath and blurted, “His Grace is most interested in the duchess’s…heritage and wishes to question her in more detail upon the matter.”

  “A letter may be most efficacious to this end,” Sandrine pointed out.

  “His Grace wishes to do the questioning in person, madam.”

  “Indeed, and what has this to do with me?”

  “It came to His Grace’s attention that you may be in a position to help him…acquire the duchess.”

  Sandrine laughed. “Acquire her?”

  “His Grace has heard of your skill and was told you were a woman of…information.”

  “His Grace is not misinformed,” Sandrine confirmed. “I do happen to know whence the duchess is heading and how best to gain possession of her person without also acquiring her guards. But my services come at a cost.”

  “His Grace is prepared to reward you for your assistance. Agasi silver—”

  “Is not the kind of cost I am speaking of,” she informed him with a predatory smile.

  He cleared his throat. “I was instructed to gain your help at…any price, madam. Secrecy is of the utmost, and the marchioness assured us of your fidelity and discretion.”

  Sandrine’s smile widened. “Take a seat,” she advised, “and I shall tell you how to snare the sweet little rabbit.”

  ***

  Ean’s company made camp that night within the half-mile of forest between road and river. Rhys remained edgy, and he led several short expeditions through the woods and back along the road, but he returned each time looking sullen and ill-humored.

  “No sign of the zanthyr, Your Highness,” Rhys grumbled as he retook his fireside seat beside the prince for the third time.

  Ean grunted without looking up from studying the flames.

  The captain stroked his beard, looking frustrated. “I just don’t see how he can vanish like that! One minute there and the next…”

  Ean shrugged. “I knew you wouldn’t find him.”

  “But we were so close! Three bounds and I would have had him!”

  “Three bounds and he would have run you through,” Gwynnleth returned, pinning the captain with her hawkish gaze. “Be thankful he didn’t want to kill you. Why else would he have vanished, save to avoid confrontation?”

  “That zanthyr vanishes at whatever time will most annoy whoever is in front of him,” Alyneri observed.

  Ean looked at her curiously. “How do you know that?”

  She shrugged. “If it’s the same infernal creature as brought you to Fersthaven, he disappeared right in front of me for no reason whatsoever. It’s not like there wasn’t a door three steps away.”

  “Sounds about right,” Rhys grumbled.

  Ean regarded her intently. He hadn’t realized that she also suspected the zanthyr was the same man, but then it followed that Alyneri would’ve reached this conclusion; she had a quick mind and could be quite logical when the matter didn’t concern her personally or emotionally.

  Alyneri looked up and noticed him watching her. She held his gaze. “What do you think he wants with you, Ean?”

  “I haven’t the first clue.” But I have hopes.

  “You, Avieth,” Rhys said. “You said you knew this zanthyr. Who does he work for? Why would he be following us?”

  Gwynnleth snorted. “He works for no one but himself.”

  “Every man has a master,” Rhys argued.

  “Then his master is none but our Maker, for no man upon this earth might order the creature to do anything.”

  “What about a woman?” Alyneri posed. “Do you have influence over him?”

  “Less than the sea upon the shore,” Gwynnleth returned with uncharacteristic bitterness. “I might beat and batter and accomplish nothing.”

  “Not nothing,” came a deep voice out of the darkness.

  The zanthyr entered their campsite from between two trees, from a place several would later swear was empty seconds before. Ean sat up swiftly, and Rhys drew his sword with a scrape of steel, glaring hotly at the creature.

  The zanthyr ignored him. He hooked his thumbs in his sword belt and grinned at Gwynnleth, finishing, “Your attempts were at least memorable.”

  She rolled her eyes and looked away.

  ‘The zanthyr is an elusive creature with questionable motives…’ Raine’s words sprung to mind as Ean stared at the man he recognized, feeling both relief and anxious unease. He wondered for the hundredth time what kind of creature was honest enough to admit that he wasn’t worthy of trust?

  Ean waved at his bristling captain. “Sit down, Rhys.” He gave him a long, uncompromising look.

  Reluctantly Rhys sheathed his sword, but he remained standing. Bastian, Cayal and Dorin all rushed back into camp, but each stopped short upon seeing the zanthyr standing there, their faces framed in surprise.

  Ean admitted the man was even more impressive than he remembered. In fact, he was downright intimidating.

  Taller than the tallest of them, with the powerful build of a warrior, he wore britches and a vest of supple black leather belted over a heavy black tunic. Broadsword and daggers were secured at his belt, and a heavy greatcloak floated like liquid night at his feet. Raven locks fell in loose curls to his shoulders, and piercing green eyes stared out from an ageless face. The strong lines of his jaw and the perfect balance of his features seemed those of an ancient beauty, like a fine statue from a civilization long lost. As he faced them, he appeared both terrifying and compelling, a powerful combination.

  After the prince waved the captain off, the zanthyr smiled a feline sort of smile and brushed past Rhys without as much as a sideways glance. Rhys muttered something unintelligible save that it was derogatory and heatedly retook his seat, all the while eyeing the zanthyr with obvious distrust. Ean, however, was regarding the creature thoughtfully, and Fynn was trying hard not to regard the zanthyr at all.

  The zanthyr seemed to note all of their disparate reactions, and he chuckled to himself as he took a seat by the fire, across from Ean and next to Tanis. “Ahh…my prince,” he sighed as he settled into a casual pose of relaxation. He spoke with a deep, throaty sort of voice akin to a purr but echoic of a growl. “It is good to see you well and whole.”

  Ean kept his eyes pinned on the man. There was so much said and not said in that simple statement, so many near-fatal encounters since last they parted. Did the zanthyr know of any of them, or all of them?

  “Whole at least,” Ean replied, “albeit narrowly so.” Then he added quietly, “But I suspect you know all about that.”

  The zanthyr smiled. “Tracking your every move through my crystal ball, perhaps?”

  “More like as not he’s in bed with your enemies,” Rhys grumbled. “Everyone knows a zanthyr will play both sides, and only a fool trusts one of the creatures.”

  Ean ignored the captain’s remarks. “Since that very first day,” he said, holding the zanthyr’s emerald gaze, “I haven’t been able to stop wondering why you risked so much to protect me.”

  The zanthyr arched a brow in sly humor. “There was little danger to me personally.” His emerald eyes flickered over the remainder of the company, taking everyone in.

  “What I want to know,” Rhys demanded, “is what was in it for you?”

  The zanthyr shrugged. He began tracing an intricate, looping p
attern in the dirt with a gloved forefinger. “I was bored and in need of diversion,” he answered without looking up. “I offered my services freely; then and now.”

  “Services!” Rhys scoffed. “What services might these be? What need have we of a capricious creature who knows a few stolen tricks?”

  The zanthyr arched a solitary raven brow, untroubled by Rhys’ barbs—clearly the captain was beneath his contempt. “How would you know what a zanthyr can or cannot do, Lord Captain Rhys val Kincaide?” He settled the captain a disturbingly cool gaze then. “We are not so different, you and I. We have similar purposes.”

  “And what might those be?”

  “My motives are my own,” the zanthyr replied, “but it should be painfully obvious that I intend none of you harm.”

  “And why should we take your word for that?” Alyneri challenged then. She was clearly growing irritated with the creature’s haughty ambiguity—not to mention that his history with Farshideh and Tanis made him even more suspect. “You’ve given us no reason to trust you.”

  The zanthyr looked Alyneri up and down with a mocking smile. “The fact is, Your Grace, I don’t require anyone’s trust. Though it would be clear to most that at any point I could have claimed the lives of everyone here, there are always some who need more time to reach the obvious conclusion.” He looked her up and down again in one smooth sweep, and added with aloof indifference, “Evidently, we cannot all immediately see what is plainly before us.”

  Alyneri’s mouth dropped open. “How dare you insinuate that I am slow witted!”

  “On the contrary, Your Grace,” he returned in quiet amusement, “you take my words as their truth resonates within you, not as they were intended.”

  Her mouth dropped open again. “Why—why that’s no better! I am a duchess of the realm and a Healer to the crown of Dannym! Have you no respect?”

  A dark dagger appeared in the zanthyr’s hand—there was no telling from whence it had come—and he tossed it into the air, making it flip three times before he caught it by its deadly point. “As you choose to grant trust only once earned, Your Grace,” he replied casually, “so do I choose to grant respect in the same manner.”