He opened his eyes, his mouth twisted with disgust.
“So we go to Easterly Point.” Bray sat down at the foot of Yarrow’s bed.
The door opened and the doctor stepped in, followed by Adearre.
“Awake at last,” he said, opening his bag and making a shooing gesture at Bray. He inspected Yarrow and pronounced him in sound health. “Try to take it easy for a few days,” he advised. Yarrow assured him that he would. The doctor turned to leave.
“Wait,” Peer said. “You should have a look at Adearre’s gunshot wound. Make sure it’s healing properly.”
Adearre rolled his eyes at his friend. “It is fine, Peer.”
“Still, I might as well have a look,” the doctor said, clearly interested. Bray suspected bullet wounds weren’t terribly common, even in the capital. Adearre sighed in resignation and led the doctor to his own room for privacy.
“Should we wait a few days before we start out then?” Peer asked, after the door had shut.
“No,” Yarrow said, “I’m fine. We should set out tomorrow—I want to get to the bottom of all of this.”
He stood up and stretched. “Vendra must be involved.”
Bray had already come to this conclusion, but hadn’t wanted to throw it in his face.
“She must have wanted to send us off course,” Peer said.
“Or,” Yarrow said, his tone darkening by the word, “there was something unpleasant waiting for us at that warehouse outside Che Mire.”
Bray thought this likely too, but again she held her tongue.
“Where’s Ko-Jin?” Yarrow asked, looking around as he noticed his friend’s absence.
“He went to see Arlow after we went to the post office,” Bray said.
Yarrow closed his eyes and a small smile crossed his face.
“What?” Peer asked.
“Oh nothing,” Yarrow said. “That just explains why he feels so annoyed.” He pulled his robes straight and tucked several loose hairs behind his ear. “I don’t know about the rest of you,” he said, striding for the door, “but I could use a drink.”
“You’re up awfully early.” Yarrow handed his trunk to a stableboy. Their carriage trundled up the drive, harnessed and ready to depart. The morning sunlight washed over them, watery and insubstantial. Peer, Adearre, Bray, and Ko-Jin directed the servants with their luggage.
“What?” Arlow asked. “You thought I wouldn’t send you off?”
“I didn’t send you off when you left,” Yarrow pointed out.
“For which I will never forgive you.”
Yarrow laughed and placed his top hat firmly on his head. “How is the wound?”
“Healing admirably, I thank you.” Arlow darted a look at the Chiona. “Can I have a word…in private?”
Yarrow nodded; he led the way around the side of the inn, to the small gap of browning grass that served as a yard.
“Ko-Jin apprised me of everything yesterday, but it would seem you’ve had a change in plans. He said you might be going to Adourra but now you’re heading to…”
“Easterly Point,” Yarrow supplied.
Arlow’s dark brow furrowed. “Why the change of course?”
“We received a tip.”
Arlow began to pace, his hands clasped behind his back. “But you also had a clue that your culprits were in Che Mire, yes? And I thought you were concerned for Vendra. So why go to Easterly Point?”
Yarrow rubbed the corner of his eyes with his thumb and index finger. “It would seem that Vendra is not entirely honest.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Her feelings betray her.”
A slow smile spread across Arlow’s face. “I didn’t realize you liked her so much,” he said, elbowing Yarrow significantly. “Does our Bray have competition after all?”
Yarrow didn’t want to explain what had really happened—how his mind had opened. It was too strange and too recent. “I’m sorry if it comes as a shock. Her dishonesty, I mean. I saw you two talking at the ball. It seemed as if you liked her.”
“Well, yes,” Arlow said dismissively. “She’s an attractive woman. I like them by course. But I’m worried about you, Yarrow. If she’s involved there may be other Chisanta as well. You aren’t the best fighter. I’d hate to see you get hurt, or worse. Is there anything I can say to persuade you to just go home? Go back to your library. You aren’t gifted in any way that makes you a threat.”
Yarrow might have been ruffled by this slight had he not felt his friend’s genuine concern. “I have to see this through, Arlow,” Yarrow said. “I’m too involved now to go back to my library, as you put it. But don’t worry, I’m traveling with some thoroughly threatening companions.”
Arlow frowned, clearly dissatisfied. “Very well. Keep your head down, mate.”
Arlow embraced him, patting him on the back. Yarrow said goodbye and headed back to the carriage. Ko-Jin, Peer, and Adearre had already climbed inside. Bray sat perched upon the driver’s seat, looking luminous in the warm morning light.
“Yarrow, would you drive with me?” she asked. He barely contained the smile that tried to spring to his lips. This was a much better start than their previous departures.
“I would be glad to,” Yarrow said.
He ascended to the front seat, took a deep breath, and immediately regretted it. Accord, even in the rich district, smelt foul and stale. He could barely wait to get back into the country. There would certainly be plenty of nature and fresh air to absorb along the way. The trip would take more than a week.
Yarrow looked over his shoulder, to where Arlow leaned against the gate to the inn. He offered his friend a parting wave and a smile.
“We will see each other soon,” he said, when he saw how dismal Arlow looked.
“I imagine we will,” Arlow said. He waved back as Bray flicked the reins and the horses sprang into motion.
Four days of rain and hard travel passed in damp, dreary succession, but Bray’s spirits remained unaffected. In moments of idleness—which, while traveling, were most moments—her lips would curve into a betraying smile, her mind linger deliciously on fancies that made her sincerely glad Yarrow Lamhart could read only feelings and not thoughts.
She glanced sideways at Peer in the driver’s seat beside her. He scowled up at the drizzling sky and, when he felt her gaze, turned that scowl upon her. From within the carriage, Adearre’s musical voice said something indiscernible and Yarrow and Ko-Jin laughed. The lines of displeasure on Peer’s face deepened.
“What’s with you?” she asked.
“Nothing.” He twitched the reins with unnecessary force. “You know I’ve no love for the rain.”
She’d never known him to be so irritable, especially over anything as inconsequential as the weather. Of their usual party of three, Peer was always the most stalwart, the most easygoing.
“You’ve been in a mood of late, and it has nothing to do with the weather.”
She watched the muscle in his jaw twitch. He glared out into the swirling gray mist and did not respond.
She crossed her arms before her. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, but stop glaring at me like that. I’m allowed to be happy.”
He leveled a black look at her. “Aye, we’ve all got the right to be happy. So, should I be wishing you joy then?”
“Of course not. Nothing’s happened yet, Peer. Nothing has changed.”
He snorted, a cold derisive sound. “Nothing’s happened. Isn’t that always the case? Three fearsomest words in the Dalish language—‘I love you.’”
The light, misting rain left a sheen upon Bray’s cheeks and nose and slowly dampened her coat. She barely noticed; her mind was too occupied in its attempt to unravel Peer’s meaning.
“Are you saying I’m a coward?” she asked.
His brows drew together and his mouth turned down. “Not talking ’bout you.”
“Then what are you talking about?”
“Nothing.” He pu
lled up sharply on the reins. “We’ve arrived.”
So they had.
Before her stretched the Painted Mere. It was, without doubt, the most beautiful place Bray had ever seen; a massive lake with water as clear as glass, its bed comprising hundreds of thousands of colored pebbles and stones, ranging in hue from yellow to blue to red—spreading like a jumbled rainbow for leagues and leagues. A half-moon of green mountains, bruised purple by patches of heather, bordered the north side of the lake. She, Peer, and Adearre had been there many times during their travels, but the sight never ceased to inspire awe.
Peer guided the horses to a spot near the shore, far enough away to still be firm and dry—or as firm and dry as any ground was like to be after so many days of deluge.
Bray tried to engage Peer in further conversation, but he hopped down from the seat and turned his broad back to her. She let out a frustrated sigh and walked towards the lake as the others filed out of the carriage. Yarrow joined her at the water’s edge.
He let out a long, slow whistle. “I’ve read about this place. The words didn’t do it justice.”
Bray opened her mouth to respond but was cut off. “Sight-seeing can wait till we’ve set up camp,” Peer said, his tone sharp.
Yarrow’s dark brows rose, but he shrugged and helped unload the trunks.
An hour later, with their camp attended to and several trout sizzling over the fire—courtesy of Ko-Jin’s unexpected fishing skills—Bray watched the sun set over the lake and praised the Spirits for the reprieve from the rain. It had left the ground soggy and the fire had been decidedly difficult to light, but the quiet, now that the pattering of raindrops had ceased, was like magic to her ears.
“What shall we work on this evening?” Yarrow asked.
“Your Tearre,” Bray said definitively.
“Oh, and why not your Ada Chae?” he asked, a teasing smile crossing his lips.
“Because your Tearre is much worse than my Ada Chae,” Bray said.
“And what qualifies you to judge the quality of an Ada Chae?”
“You haven’t gotten to the Aeght a Seve. I have, if you recall.”
He offered her a suggestive smile. “I recall.”
Bray flushed and stood. “Come on then, up!”
“Yes, sir!” He hopped to his feet. He seemed in an especially good mood, she thought. His smiles were infectious.
She led the way apart from the group, closer to the water. She could hear the lapping of the tide on the shore.
“Close your eyes,” she commanded. His eyelids shut obediently. “Imagine a second version of yourself, your Mearra, standing just across from you.”
A crease formed between his brows—the one, she had learned, that signified he was truly concentrating.
“Make him solid—give him detail.”
Bray paused, allowing him time.
“Is he there?”
Yarrow nodded.
“Now, imagine what he is thinking. What he is feeling.”
“I’ve got him,” Yarrow said, a proud cast to his voice.
“Great. Now reach out and touch him.”
Bray watched as Yarrow’s hand extended and his fingertips brushed against something invisible to her. She couldn’t believe it. He really had advanced with the Tearre.
“Hit him!”
Yarrow swung and his fist stopped short in the air, as if making contact with something solid. He ducked and spun on his left foot, then raised his arm to parry a strike.
Bray beamed—he was really doing it!
He stumbled, as if hit, then rolled on the ground, grappling an unseen foe. He struggled there for a solid minute before finally laying still and opening his eyes. He smiled triumphantly, his chest heaving with the exertion of the fight.
Bray sat down on the damp grass beside him, cross-legged.
“That was incredible,” he said, breathing heavily and looking up at the specks of stars that had begun to appear in the royal blue sky.
“Did you sense the Aeght a Seve at all?” she asked.
“Yes.” Yarrow pulled himself up to a sitting position. “I tried to relax and let myself go there, but I couldn’t.”
Bray couldn’t help but laugh. What a Cosanta thing to say.
“You don’t enter the Aeght a Seve through passivity and relaxation. You need to be in a kind of fervor. You thrust yourself into it.”
He raised an eyebrow at her choice of words.
“Oh, you know what I mean. It’s not a meditation like the Ada Chae. It’s meant to inspire vigor. You need to change your mindset if you mean to enter through the Tearre.”
“Still,” he said, “that was quite good.”
“Yes,” she acceded with a nod. “It was quite good.”
Without a word, Yarrow bounded to his feet and held out a hand to pull Bray up. She took it, and when she was standing upright, neither of them let go. Instead of walking back to the camp, the orb of warm firelight at their backs, they began to walk away, along the shore of the lake. The sun had finally fallen behind the mountains and the scenery had taken on the deep colors of evening. Insects buzzed happily in the long grass.
“What do you think we’ll find at Easterly Point?” Yarrow asked.
Bray looked out over the moon-lit ripples. “I honestly don’t know. This isn’t like anything we’ve investigated before. I’ve never even heard of a criminal Chisanta.”
Bray stopped. They had traveled a good distance from the others. She let go of his hand and began pulling off her boots and stockings. She rolled up the legs of her pants.
“Going for a swim?” Yarrow asked with a laugh.
Bray smiled at her reflection in the water. “The first time I came here with Dolla,” she said, wading out into the lake, “she told me that she’d looked her whole childhood for a purple stone. She grew up near here and her mother had one.”
Bray crouched, but it was too dark to discern the colors. She fished out a few and held them up to the moon light—yellow, red, green. She let them plop back in the water, sending ripples.
“Come, help me,” she said. “I’d love to find one for her.”
Yarrow sighed dramatically. He unbuttoned his Cosanta robes and pulled them off. He looked strangely out of character in only high-waisted pants and a white undershirt. He removed his boots and rolled up his pant legs, then waded in after her.
“It’s freezing, Bray!”
He fished out a handful of stones and held them up, as she had done. They must not have been purple either, as he let them fall back with a plunk. The water splashed Bray’s arm, raising goosebumps.
“Watch it!”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” he said innocently. Then he sent a deliberate splash, and the front of her jerkin was soaked with water.
“Yarrow!” she said, backing away from him. “That wasn’t funny!”
“Really?” he said. “I thought it was funny.”
She stuck her tongue out at him—something she surely hadn’t done since she was ten years old.
He raised his hands as if surrendering to her arrest. “I’ll stop. I promise.” He smiled in an entirely criminal way.
“I don’t trust you,” she said, taking several more steps back. Her foot tangled in riverweed, and she tumbled backwards, landing on her backside with lake water nearly to her shoulders.
“Yarrow!” she said again, wrenching herself up clumsily, her clothes clinging wetly to her body.
He laughed, a deep delighted sound. “Don’t look at me. That was your doing alone.”
Bray was half furious, half on the verge of laughter. She began to splash and kick with all her might, determined to make him as cold and wet as she was.
He came forward and attempted to pin her arms to her body. She phased, and he fell face first into the water.
She nearly fell over herself, she laughed so hard. He came back up to the surface, sputtering and shivering, flinging his wet braid over his shoulder indignantly.
“Truce?” he
asked.
A gust of wind assaulted her wet flesh and she shuddered. “Truce,” she agreed.
As her laughter and merriment faded, she began to notice that Yarrow’s white shirt clung to his lean chest. That his hair was plastered wetly to his forehead. That he looked, for lack of a better word, beautiful. Something deep within her stirred, wanting him.
He reacted. His eyebrows shot up in surprise, and then a slow smile crossed his face.
She felt her face burn. “That isn’t fair.” She pointed a dripping finger at him. “It’s humiliating, you knowing what I feel.”
“No.” He took several great steps through the water until he stood just before her. “It would only be humiliating if the feeling weren’t reciprocated.”
He put a wet hand to her face, his thumb running along the line of her jaw, and looked down at her with those soft gray eyes of his, as he leaned in.
She could not wait—she pushed herself up to the balls of her feet and met him halfway. His lips touched hers softly, a question. Hers responded with fervency, an answer.
And then there were no doubts. Only intimacy. Only vehemence. Only tenderness. In short, only the perfect expression of a thing so many years in the making.
And no disappointment.
As they crossed the Bentall River for the second time in so many days, Yarrow finally saw Easterly Point sprawled out before him, a moderate-sized port city at the base of a small finger of land that jutted out into the Eastern Ocean. At that finger’s tip they would find the ruin of the old Chisanta temple—their destination.
Adearre clicked his tongue and reined in the horses, guiding them off the road and behind a copse of pine trees.
He noticed Yarrow’s confused expression. “We cannot simply saunter into town. We will have to be more circumspect if we do not wish to scare our prey off.”
Adearre hopped down into the grass as the others filed out of the carriage. Peer unharnessed the horses while Adearre pulled a trunk down from the roof. He unfastened the buckles and swung open the lid, revealing a neat pile of rough civilian clothes.
“What are these?” Ko-Jin asked.
Division of the Marked (The Marked Series) Page 27
