Nightfall placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder and shook gently. Drowsy, brown eyes flickered open, and the stable boy sat. Pieces of straw clung to his brown hair. He studied Nightfall for several moments. Obviously recognizing him and recalling the generous tip on their arrival, he smiled and leapt to attention. "What can I do for you, sir? Should I get your horses ready?"
"No. Thank you. We can handle that." Nightfall offered a silver.
The stable boy rose quickly, gaze locked on the coin.
"I’d like you to go to the men’s inn room, get my master’s pack and mine, and quietly pass them through the window." Nightfall described their gear.
The stable boy nodded. Though it must have seemed an odd request, he did not question it.
"Then, I want you to find a woman named Kelryn. She might he in the women’s overnight room." Nightfall pressed the silver into the boy’s hand. "She’s in her early twenties. Has hair as short as mine, and it’s white like an old person’s."
The stable boy stared at the payment. "Is she the one I saw with you earlier today?"
"Yes. Good. Give her this message. Just hand it over, and don’t tell her anything. Then meet us by the packs. No matter what Kelryn actually says, tell my master that she claimed she’d wait here till we return.”
"All right.” He placed the silver into his pocket.
"I’ll give you another if you do that all correctly and quickly.”
The stable boy grinned.
Nightfall did not bother to swear the boy to silence. So long as Nightfall mentioned nothing about their destination, the boy could say whatever he liked to protect his own innocence, even the truth. There was nothing inherently illegal about assisting patrons, especially a foreign prince; and the boy would have had no way to know he helped fugitives.
The stable boy trotted off to play his role, and Nightfall gathered the horses’ gear.
As night deepened, the crowd in the He-Ain’t-Here Tavern thickened, then waned to the small group of patrons who had paid for lodgings. Kelryn sat at a table by the unlit fireplace, alone, becoming more alarmed the longer the absence of Prince Edward and Nightfall stretched. She knew she could no longer assume they had just stepped out and would soon return. Something had happened to them, though whether a voluntary escape from her or trouble she had little information to surmise. She knew only that, earlier in the evening, one of the Mitanoan travelers claimed to have overheard them talking about joining the Tylantian contests. She doubted Edward would leave her without explanation, but Nightfall would do everything in his power to strand her and talk the prince into doing the same. She knew no one better at manufacturing emergencies.
Tears welled in Kelryn’s eyes, smearing the color to a pasty green-brown. Love ached within her, a burden she felt certain she could never shed. Though understandable, Nightfall’s hatred cut like shards of the broken swan, and she felt as if her heart had shattered with it. Truth, if he would listen, would have to win him back; but even that did not seem the answer. Although it would exonerate her, the explanation might hurt him more than just letting him believe she had betrayed him.
Memory assailed her brutally then, as it did whenever she allowed her thoughts to stray to the ugliness she could never forget: the man on the floor twisting his body to escape the agony the sorcerer gleefully inflicted. The screams that cut straight to the heart and seemed to turn her insides into liquid. The driving need to do something, anything, to stop the cruelty, and the fear that had paralyzed her into a shocked and helpless silence. The knowledge that any action on her part would only have meant death for them both did not assuage the guilt she lived with every day.
Kelryn gritted her teeth, forcing the image away before it solidified. From experience, she knew that, if the details became clear in her mind, the picture would haunt her through the remainder of the day and nightmares would terrorize her sleep.
“‘Excuse me, ma’am."
Glad for the interruption, Kelryn glanced to her right. A boy dressed in the same gray linens as the serving maids stood at her elbow.
Kelryn tried to keep her voice steady. "What can I do for you?"
"Here." The boy tossed a scrap of parchment to the table. Without further explanation, he turned and headed toward the outer door.
"Wait," Kelryn said, many questions coming to her at once. She could never recall a messenger not waiting long enough for a tip, at least.
But the boy ignored the call, scurrying outside before Kelryn could shout for him again. She let him go, more interested in the parchment. Although illiterate, she knew a few words, mostly ones Nightfall had taught her; and the two had developed a sparse language of hand signs and pictograms during their courtship. She unfolded the parchment. Nightfall had used the picture code, his handwriting bold and crisp. He had drawn only two symbols. The first, a gently waving series of lines, meant love. He had penned it neatly, then slashed over it with dark, brazen lines to indicate an error. The only other marking took the shape of a guiding arrow.
Kelryn crumpled the parchment in her hands, driven to tears by the implication. She knew he intended to tell her that the feelings he had once held for her had been a mistake; and the arrow pointed for her to go away. She folded her arms on the table, buried her face between them, and let the tears fall where they would. She found herself pinned in place, hopeless beyond moving but not beyond suffering. The love symbol and its covering lines seemed like a branded impression against her eyes, a picture that would never fade. It’s over. Kelryn tried to let go of all the promises and hopes for the future, but they clung, a fiery agony that made the tears come faster.
Why do I care? Kelryn had asked herself the question too many times to need an answer now. He’s a thief and a killer: Yet Dyfrin’s words returned to haunt her: "I think what he struggles with most is that deep inside he’s a good man, fighting to become the demon his mother and the populace named him. If he committed half the crimes ascribed to him, he’d have to be quintuplets; and I know it’s closer to a tenth of the burglaries and a hundredth of the murders. And every one, no matter how necessary or deserving haunts the conscience he doesn’t even believe he has. Why do you think he plays so many people? With each one, he tries to escape the very thing he believes he has to be. He has no realization of how much time he spends in other guises compensating and consoling the families of those he robbed or killed. But I know."
Kelryn had listened raptly with a skepticism deeper than she would have believed anyone could allay. But Dyfrin had done so, countering every question and quelling every doubt. That he knew Nightfall as well or better than Nightfall knew himself swiftly became obvious. More eerie, he seemed to understand her to the core as well. Only later she discovered the explanation, knowledge that had cost her the man she loved, a fear that would not leave her, and evil dreams that lasted long into the day. So innocent. So simple. And yet nothing had held such a price. If Nightfall would only let her tell him, he would understand.
The burden Dyfrin had placed on Kelryn would not allow her to surrender. "Someone has to break the cycle, Kelryn; and that someone is you. I admit, I worried that you would hurt him and drive him deeper into the abyss he doesn’t realize how much he wishes to escape. But now I know you truly love him. You can help him. He needs you."
Kelryn remembered how those words had made her feel at a time when she still grappled with the realization that the man she had fallen in love with was the world’s most notorious and vicious rogue. All she had ever wanted was a normal life, never to change the world or any person in it besides herself. Yet Dyfrin convinced her. Nightfall was not the wanton killer the citizens believed him; and, unlike the conscienceless mercenaries who could only be controlled or executed, Nightfall rehabilitated could become a boon to the very continent that had so long cowered to hear his name. "Why me?" she remembered asking, the burden too much for one common dancer to carry.
"He loves you."
Kelryn had thrown the answer back at Dyfrin. "He l
oves you, too. And for much longer."
Dyfrin had worn a pained expression that showed he understood, but the matter had too much significance to allow for doubts. "I’ve done what I could. I showed him the other side of life and relationships at a time when he needed it. I demonstrated that love and pain don’t have to go together, that loyalty does not always lead to betrayal, and gave him as much self-worth as an impoverished street orphan could have. Without those things, he would have been lost, every bit the night-stalking demon so many believe him to be. I’ve done all I can. Now, he has to know that I’m not unique in the world, that others can be trusted. And he needs to learn it from a woman."
Utter panic had suffused Kelryn then, the need to run from a responsibility she had no competence to handle. She still lived amid the wreckage of her own less than adequate home circumstances. To help her family eat, she had lied about her age and started dancing at twelve. By thirteen, she had needed to sell her body as well. No matter the notoriety of the source, Nightfall’s gentleness had made her feel special, and his obvious love for her had turned sex from a chore and duty into the beautiful and joyous thing she had always heard it should be. She owed him, wanted to do what she could for him, and Dyfrin understood that as he did everything else about her.
Kelryn’s crying slackened to a trickle as gentler scenes from the past paraded through her mind, but realization of the tragedy that had followed their conversation jarred her back to the present. She would not abandon Nightfall until she forced him to listen and he understood what had really happened. He could believe her or not. He could react in any fashion that suited him. He could still choose to leave her, and she would handle that as it came. But she would not let him do so without first hearing the truth. Without the facts, he could only assume, and he could do little else but believe she had betrayed him. Yet, though she had considered it a thousand times, she still could not discard the realization that the truth might hurt him more.
Kelryn regathered her composure. She raised her head, studying the tavern through tear-glazed vision. No patrons remained. The serving girls wiped and rearranged the tables. The bartender restored bottles, bowls, and mugs. She rose, stretched, and headed through the door to the rooms beyond. Gathering her supplies, she went back into the common room and slipped out into the night. Any direction seemed as good as another when she had no way to know for certain where Edward and Nightfall had gone, so she followed her only lead.
The road to the eastern cities did not take Kelryn far before exhaustion overrode her. Determination had driven her until that moment; but, as the sun rose higher in the sky, the decision to chase randomly after a stranger and a man who hated and mistrusted her seemed foolish. In the cities, she was protected. Here, she felt vulnerable and alone, prey for woodland creatures as well as the bandits or rapists who menaced those who dared to travel without armed guards. And, though it made little sense for one without a natal talent to fear them, she worried about sorcerers most of all. She had seen the pain they could inflict, and the memory obsessed her.
As if to personify Kelryn’s fears, a man stepped casually from the brush. He wore unwrinkled linens, finely tailored. Light brown curls fell rakishly across his forehead, and his dark eyes examined her like prey. He held Ka doll in his hand, apparently fashioned from the same grayish mud as the pathway. She recognized him at once as the sorcerer who had ambushed Edward in her room, the one the prince had called the Iceman.
Kelryn gasped, taking an involuntary backward step. Her heart rate trebled in an instant, and images of blood and death scored her vision until the man in front of her seemed to disappear. Terror froze her in place. She prayed for someone to come, anyone who might frighten the sorcerer away; but she stood alone on the broad stretch of road. She glanced about wildly, desperate for escape though her limbs would not obey her.
The wizard smiled. "If you’re looking for a place to run, don’t bother." He held the mud doll in one hand and seized its foot in the other. Suddenly, he twisted.
Agony shot through Kelryn’s leg, and she collapsed to the ground as much from startlement as pain. "Stop," she sobbed. "Please stop." Ghosts plagued her, a body striped with wounds. Splashes of blood on wall and ceiling.
Ritworth released the foot. By all natural law, the mud should have crumbled in his fingers; but the figure returned to its created shape, strangely pliable in his grip. He continued to study Kelryn calmly, the smile etched in place, as if he found as much pleasure in control as in the pain he inflicted on her. "Don’t try to escape. Answer my questions honestly, and there’ll be no more pain."
Kelryn remained in position on the road as the pain receded, her eyes still aching from the crying jag the previous night. She drew all her courage together, forcing away the images and managing whispered speech. "What do you want from me?"
”Information."
"I don’t know anything.”
"Let me ask the questions first." Ritworth came closer, standing directly over her, his face cruel and his eyes reflecting a happy madness. “Where are the prince and his squire?"
Kelryn whimpered, despising her weakness. "I don’t know."
Ritworth buried a fingernail in the gut of his figure. Pain doubled Kelryn over, and she snaked into a knot to escape it, without success. She screamed.
Still composed, Ritworth removed his finger, and the anguish settled to a dull throb. "I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that and ask the question again. Now, where are the prince and his squire?"
Pain and fear drove tears to Kelryn’s eyes. When she swiveled her head to display her integrity, she saw him through a blur of moisture. "Please. They left without me. I don’t know where-" This time, the agony speared through her back, and she felt as if she would snap in two. She screamed repeatedly, welcoming the hovering promise of unconsciousness.
Apparently realizing he would lose his information source to oblivion, Ritworth restored the shape of the mud doll. "Damn it, woman. I’ll find a pain that makes you talk if I have to inflict it by my own hand!"
Kelryn sobbed, curling into a helpless ball that only seemed to further enrage the Iceman.
“Talk, damn you. Talk."
"I-" Kelryn managed, obligated to say something. "l-just-"
Another man spoke from the brush, his voice ominously familiar. "She doesn’t know, Ahshir Lamskat’s son. Or should I call you Ritworth, too?"
The Iceman stiffened and spun to face this new threat. "Who are you?"
Kelryn’s fuzzy thoughts would not let the identity of the second man come into focus. Though she believed herself rescued, something about the voice shot shivers of dread through her. She loosened her muscles cautiously, moving slowly as much from fear of retribution as from discomfort. The pain seemed to disappear as swiftly as the magic inflicting it, but one glimpse of the newcomer’s middle-aged face with its neutral brown hair and ghost-pale eyes brought a crampy ache that had nothing to do with sorcery. She vomited, sick from terror and pain. Two sorcerers stood before her now, and she could not handle even one. She slumped to the ground.
“Does my name matter?" the more recent arrival said.
"I could make one up as easily as you did."
Ritworth’s response was a sudden harsh word accompanied by a gesture Kelryn remembered well. She cringed as he flung his ice spell at the other sorcerer.
As quickly, the newcomer pointed at a site directly in front of himself, mumbling. Where he indicated, the air seemed to shimmer like heat haze over dark earth. Ritworth’s magic entered the area and slowed to a crawl, its intention visible as icicles and crystals stretching toward its target. The blue-eyed sorcerer stepped aside as the spell crept toward him. Once through the band, the magic apparently returned to its normal speed; because, an instant later, a patch of ice slopped onto the road.
Frost dusted the more recent arrival’s brown bangs. "Nice," he admitted, unruffled.
Ritworth’s face puckered and reddened. He threw down the mud doll, slamming the br
eath from Kelryn’s lungs and sending bruises aching through her limbs, pelvis, and rib cage. She struggled for air as the wizards exchanged spells that came to her only as slashes of light and pin-point sparks across her vision. When she finally managed to breathe, they stood where they had, glaring at one another, as if daring the other to attack first again.
The newcomer broke the silence. "Ahshir, I didn’t come to hurt you. I have a proposition.”
The Iceman’s eyes narrowed. "A sorcerer make a deal with another? You mistake me for a fool."
"Listen to what I have to say first. Then you decide."
Kelryn remained in place, throbbing in every part as if she, not the doll, had gotten hurled to the packed roadway. She wanted to block out the sounds and scenes around her, to silently creep from the road and become lost in the forest. But pain held her immobile, and something about the blue-eyed sorcerer’s voice soothed and drew her to trust him. If not for the memory of him towering over another, inflicting torture that sent his victim writhing and seizing in a frenzied, panicked desperation to escape, she might have given her loyalty without understanding why. Horror and hatred overcame the gentle magic he used to help persuade, at least for her.
Ritworth, however, had no previous experience with the newcomer to prejudice him. He remained coiled and watchful, but he did listen. "Speak your piece, then."
"My name is Gilleran, and I’m the chancellor of the kingdom of Alyndar." The blue-eyed one kept his gaze locked on the Iceman.
Kelryn tensed, preparing to fast-crawl away. The movement roused pain; and she squirmed, driving her focus to his words to avoid the pain but pretending deafness. She wriggled toward the mud creation, certain only that she wanted it out of other hands than her own. Any further movement would require motivation she did not have. The constant ache sapped her of drive, and vivid memories of the agony this sorcerer could inflict all but paralyzed her.
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