by Jenna Rhodes
He waited. Swear broke out and poured down his face, his neck, his torso, as though he stood in a downpour. His skin danced with the fiery ache of the poison, and his heart sped up to the rhythm of an unheard but frantic drumbeat. His hand shook. It swelled slightly, crimson around the puncture marks. His vision blurred as he stared at himself, wondering if he had miscalculated.
Then his eyesight cleared. His pulse calmed. The feeling of a thousand crawling snakes under his skin began to retreat. The fire was the last to bleed out of him, leeched away by the approaching dusk, and he did not know how long he’d stood, waiting to see if Daravan’s antidote had been strong enough, still remained potent enough in his body, to keep him alive.
His horse threw his head up with a snort. He cleared his mind and then his throat before speaking a Word or two to calm his animal. Then, to calm himself, he walked to the river’s bank and knelt, dashing the chilled water over his face. He had outlived the intentions of Quendius once again. As the water dribbled off his cheekbones and chin, he trailed his hand back into the tide to cup a drink.
That’s when he felt her. Saw her, with every fiber of his soul. She touched a river somewhere, thinking of him. This was no mirage the Ferryman taunted him with, no threat Quendius had laid upon him. He saw her by another river, a northern stream, blue-white with cold water. Rivergrace lifted her head as if sensing him as well, her eyes searching across the current, looking for him. But she was not there for him, nor was he for her, except by the fleeting touch of the passing river. He would warn her, but the moment passed, leaving him only with the knowing of that instant. Nothing more did it give him. No warning and no comfort.
Chapter Five
"WHERE IS MY father?” Bregan stepped down from his carriage, sunburn aching on his skin, the taste of salt from the southern sea still on his lips. He’d driven all day and night to return to the guild, and the horses blew and foamed where they stood exhausted in their harnesses while the guild lads hurriedly attempted to unbuckle and lead them off.
“In his offices, Master Oxfort.”
“Turn them out. They won’t be good for much, I think I lamed the right wheel horse.” Bregan leaned back into the carriage and grasped a small bundle he’d wrapped in his coat. “I want the boxes returned to the guild vaults. I have an inventory on them and if anything, anything, goes missing, it’ll be your head or your hands. Understood?”
The head lad bowed stiffly.
Bregan turned abruptly and made his way through the guild to the elaborate rooms that comprised his father’s offices, not caring who had to scramble out of his way. The Oxforts had built this branch of the guild and although he was only the son, this was his kingdom as much as it was his father’s. Or so he had thought until Daravan had tossed a gory souvenir into his lap and told him of an ambush.
He did not knock. He burst through the great double doors, striding past the sputtering secretary who manned the outer lobby and into the vast room which housed Willard Oxfort.
His father looked up from a stack of papers and his face immediately creased into a heavy frown. “I may be old, and I may be contemplating retiring, and you may be my heir, but I do demand respect.”
Bregan ignored him. He tossed his pungent bundle onto the desk, scattering papers and scrolls in every direction. His coat lay damp and sticky with ichor from the thing it encased. “As do I. Smugglers, you said. Opportunists who think they might have found a mote in the eye of the Jewel of Tomarq and who might sail our coasts with profitability to both of us. So you sent me to strike a few deals. Inconsequential but intriguing, you said.” He fisted his hands and leaned them on the desktop. “You sent me into an ambush, dear father, and if the Gray Man had not been there, you would have lost your goods and me into the bargain. Or perhaps that was the bargain.”
Willard Oxfort lifted his hand, pen still gripped in his fingers, his cuff ink-stained, and stopped just short of using the stylus to open the crude bundle in front of him. His dark gaze flicked to Bregan’s face. “The Vaelinar knew of the meet?”
“He was there before me.”
The frown creased even deeper. “We have a leak from within our walls, then. It is well for you, this time, but it must be stopped. Our business, ” and the senior Oxfort tightened his jaw on that, emphasizing his last words, “must remain within our boundaries. As for the other, it was to be a discreet meeting with no more than privateers. What is this, then?” He poked at the bundle with his pen.
“Daravan asked that you see if you can identify it.”
“I should know the remains of a petty seaman?”
Bregan unfisted a hand, lifted it, and shrugged aside his stained coat to reveal the remains within. Truncated arms lay curled on the leather, paws bloody and clawed. Willard choked a breath inward. All color fled his face.
“What is this?”
“He asks that of you.”
Willard dropped his pen and held his now empty palm over the things. His hand shook slightly. He let out a shallow breath before answering, “Raymy.”
“You’re certain?”
“Aye. A scout hits our coast every now and then, as if testing our resolve and our Shield. I’ve seen this perhaps twice in my lifetime, once trailing at your grandfather’s heels and again just after I had married your mother. You can’t mistake it once you’ve seen one.” He flipped the stiffening coat back over the arms. “We can’t know that it was an ambush. The Gray Man was there, interrupting whatever might have occurred.” He scrubbed his hand over his sweating face. “Quendius meddles and has dragged us into it.” He shoved himself away from his desk. “I shall be retiring to my estates for a bit while I handle this matter.”
“And I?”
“You shall send word to Daravan that it is Raymy. Use one of the Vaelinar birds. It will find him, no doubt.” Willard gave a disapproving grunt of the magics involved. “Tell no one else. We have strategies to consider.”
Bregan straightened. His father’s words had not mollified him. He would have his own options to put into place. He left for the guild nests, uncaring of what his father might do with the gory bundle he’d dropped in the middle of guild business.
“Get on with you, now. Ye’d think touching the water would kill you. Slide in, or it’ll be me you have to fear.” Nutmeg tossed her head, thick wavy amber hair falling over her shoulders and down her back, her hands on her hips, her mouth in a twist of disdain. The object of her scorn sat in his carriage chair, one brow quirked, knowing that if he got to his feet, her nose would be about navel level on him, but that did not diminish her scolding one bit. With her standing and him seated, they were nearly of a height. She buried the end of the torch she carried into the rocky bank of the underground cavern as if to emphasize her determined words. Her voice filled the hollow with its rich, Dweller accent and no-nonsense tone. Yellow light flickered from the torch, which flared wildly before settling down to cast a golden glow over the pool’s black waters. Sunlight rarely found its way here under the rocky roof and it could have been midday or midnight for all they could tell. A faint aroma lay over the cavern and its pool. It smelled of herbs and a touch of sulfur, neither pleasant nor unpleasant. He wouldn’t want to drink it, he thought, as he stared into its inkiness.
“It’s late,” Jeredon answered apologetically. “Tomorrow would be a better time for this.”
“There’s never a time for this. Right hand for the queen, all matter of problems, all the councils you hold. It wouldn’t be late this eve, but you dallied all the day long.” She crossed her arms across her white peasant blouse and laced vest, her full bosom bouncing just a touch. “Th’ water’s hot, they tell me, day or night, so there’s no reason for you to be malingering.”
“It’s always better when you’re in here with me.”
Nutmeg’s cheeks flushed. “As sweet as that exercise is, it’s not putting you back on your feet.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that.” Jeredon leaned out of his chair and dipped a hand i
nto the water lapping the stony bank at his feet. The water indeed held a heat from the heart of the earth which had birthed it. The pool circled his hand with invitation. “Being her brother means obligations, Nutmeg.”
“A-course it does. And you being on your feet, hale and hearty, would make all that much easier on everyone, wouldn’t it? Don’t think I haven’t seen the scuff marks from dragging your boots across the council floors, walking on the crutches when you shouldn’t be. I know you’ve been up when the doctors told you no and what would be best for you. This—” And she jabbed her pragmatic Dweller hand at the grotto. “This is what the healers ordered. Now strip down, or I’ll do it for you.” A glint in her eyes and the dimple in her chin told him she would do exactly as threatened, and enjoy it.
Truth to tell, if she’d been a Vaelinar woman, he’d enjoy it, too. But she was scarcely more than a girl even amoung her own people, Rivergrace’s adopted sister, and had lived a mere fraction of his years. She had none of the willowy sharpness of the Vaelinar about her, and her thick hair waved down over rounded ears, and as she gave an impatient huff at his silence, her curvaceous bounty seemed to breathe an invitation to him that he had no intention of answering. Yet she filled his arms as no other, and shared her sweetness with him as if he’d been her only lover, and he supposed that he had. He cared too much for his time with her. He was a prince, and his life was as much for Lara to barter as her own.
Jeredon stripped off his tunic and shirt, slinging his weapons harness over the arm of the wheeled carriage chair that had become his second home. As good as a hot soak sounded, the stubborn streak in him reared its ugly head. What was it some men found irresistible in bossy women? Give him a quietly determined lass like Sevryn’s Rivergrace in place of his sister Lariel or this Dweller force of nature who glared him down now. Although, Jeredon reflected, Rivergrace might well just crook a finger at Sevryn who would then use his Voice, sweeping him into the watery basin whether he willed it nor not.
He’d evidently been moving too slowly because the moment he slipped his boots off, Nutmeg dropped her shoulder to the chair and gave a shove, tipping it over and dumping him into the pool with a sputter and surprised wave of his arms. The hot water claimed him. His near-numb lower body failed him as he knew it would, but he stayed upright as he flailed his arms about, churning up the pool. The sight of Nutmeg shedding her own clothes down to her simple white chemise stopped him, and when he stopped struggling, the water bore him and he could sense a rocky ledge under feet which deigned to feel as little as possible.
Nutmeg hopped in. “Don’t be looking at me like that. I’ve been swimming with my brothers since I was knee-high to a shadow.”
“I’m not looking at you in any way at all, but if I was, it was only to see if I were bobbing right side up or upside down.” He managed to sound rather contrite, he thought.
“Don’t be pouting, it isn’t fit for a Warrior Prince.” She reached over and took his hands.
He managed a snort.
“Now,” she told him. “Practice your striding, with the water holding your weight.” Her small firm hands bore calluses as did his, something he scarcely found on the hands of a Kernan woman although the Vaelinar women fought and trained at trades and crafts just as any man might. Only the lower classes of the women of Kerith worked as hard as Nutmeg had in her young life. Dwellers were the salt of the land, and they all worked, a sturdy practical people with a riotous sense of fun. She gave him no respect as the Warrior Queen’s heir and second-in-command; whatever he got from her, he’d earned as himself. She drew Jeredon toward her as he tried to take halting steps and strained to command legs, feet, and buttocks that no longer seemed to belong to him.
He had feeling. Not much, but some. And there were days when he experienced a violent stinging up and down his afflicted limbs, so sharp and angry that he thought he’d fallen into a hornet’s nest, and it almost drove him crazy because there was nothing he could do about it. Better that than no feeling, no hope at all, the healers told him. The roadways from his legs to his mind had not been severed but harshly bruised and battered. They healed excruciatingly slowly, and no one could tell him if he would heal completely. He mourned the loss of himself. Nutmeg hounded him about it. Better to feel something than be dead flesh. He knew that. He knew it, but liked it not. He could barely remember the days when he’d first begun walking, a hundred years and more ago by Kerith reckoning, and he hadn’t had as much trouble then. Was he relearning now or just reminding his body that it knew what to do when it healed, that it knew how to heal?
Nutmeg towed him after her. “Now, just drift. Let me do the swimming. You be a lazy log in the water.” She swam on her back, the chemise slicked to her lush body, as unconscious of herself as his legs seemed to be of their mortal state.
Jeredon closed his eyes, letting the hot waters soothe him. He had to admit it felt good. It felt bracing. He could nearly stand on his own without braces or crutches and his backbone did not scream in pain where he could feel it, or ache dully where he nearly could. No. In these waters, he could just float and be. They swam in circles for a long while.
The warmth of her hands around his left him. He opened his eyes to find himself a good ways away from the rim of the pool. The torch had burned halfway down. Nutmeg clambered out and perched on a flat rock.
“You can’t leave me out here.”
“I’m not leaving you anywhere. If you get left, it’s ’cause you gave up.” She cupped her hand to rest her chin in it, gaze considering him.
“I couldn’t walk in if I wanted to. There’s no bottom here.”
“You’re certain of that?”
“I can feel enough to know when something is solid under these dead feet and when something isn’t.”
“Swim in, then.”
“Swim? I can’t kick.”
“Neither can a four-legged animal, in the way you mean, and I’ve seen quite a few lakes swum by them.”
Jeredon grunted. She wanted him to paddle in, half crippled, dragging his dead weight after him. Well, why not? He’d drown out here eventually if he didn’t. With powerful thrusts of his arms and shoulders, he brought himself closer to the rim where she observed. He scraped his shin on an underwater rocky ledge then, a burning pain that flared and numbed almost as quickly, and tried to get his feet under him.
His body wouldn’t, couldn’t respond. He let out a sharp yell of frustration and then clamped his jaw tight on his anger. He raised his eyes to Nutmeg’s. Her mouth opened, but he beat her to it. “I know. Let the water hold me.”
She nodded.
With a deep breath, he forced the tension out of himself. The pool gathered around him as if it were a being, holding him, cradling him, and when he sculled again, he propelled himself to the water’s edge, and heaved himself out with the last flagging energy of his arms. He sat panting for a moment.
A feeling shot down his left leg. Not a pain, but a feeling. He rubbed his thigh. The touch of his hand made an impression, though faint. A tear in his breeches showed him where he’d barked his shin underwater. It would bruise but whatever bleeding it had done, it had finished, and the minerals of the pool had washed it clean.
“Finished?”
“More like done in, but, aye, I’m finished.” Jeredon took a deep breath. He reached for his crutch and the carriage chair, and Nutmeg came to help him as well, and between them, they got him seated. He felt tired but good. The twisted throbbing in his back had gone, without his even realizing it had been there all day, for days, bothering him.
“We’ll come back tomorrow.”
He inhaled. “Might be a bit soon for that, but the day after. I’ll make time.”
“Your promise on that, then. I won’t spit as we’re all clean.” She held her hand out for a shake, an impish gleam in her eyes.
He shook it solemnly.
He could have done worse for a nursemaid, he thought, as she dressed him, then herself, and got behind the chair, help
ing to push it with a determined grunt even as he propelled it with the force of his arms upon the wheels.
Something dribbled upon his face, two or three drops, and he put his head back to see if the cavern roof overhead seeped with moisture, as grottoes often did, but it seemed dry. He put his finger to his cheek and tasted the drops.
Salty, as if someone crying had splashed upon him.
He said nothing but bent his will upon the carriage chair to get it moving quickly.
Chapter Six
THE MOON CUT a thin line through overhanging clouds, the edge of its image limned in faint pink and gold. Quendius tilted his head back to observe it. The sky held winter in its grasp but had not yet chosen to release it. The weather and the illumination served his purposes. He saw well in the dark, perhaps from the years he’d spent mining in tunnels and caves, perhaps because of his otherwise useless Vaelinar eyes. It was not a Talent, no, but it was a thing he could depend upon and use to his advantage.
He reined his horse to a halt and tied it to a shrub, fragrant leaves crackling and filling the air with their aroma as he twisted the leathers into a knot. His horse immediately dropped his head to crop wearily at a few browning spears of grass as Quendius pulled his sword and moved into the stand of fine, vibrant aryns lining the valley. The blade, a precursor to and much less than Cerat, sent a weak hum along his fingers and into his wrist, the vibration wrought by the lesser Demon which inhabited it. A violent being, as all Demons were wont to be, it made sure the sword would strike with uncanny accuracy into the flesh, and strike deeply, but it was no Souldrinker. That one you dared not draw without blooding and blooding well. That one Quendius had only wielded once, and it had nearly torn the soul out of him before Narskap had picked it up and managed it, at a terrible cost to himself. Narskap, being what he was, referred to himself only as the arm of Quendius, for he had no will but that which Quendius gave him. The howling fits which came upon Narskap could last days or weeks, and Quendius had no doubt it was part of the price he paid for having conquered the Souldrinker.
