Except they hadn't accomplished anything yet. All they'd done so far was survive.
Carey still waited for healing, healing that couldn't happen until Camolen's magic stabilized. Jaime may have started the stabilization process with Anfeald's couriers, but even Anfeald was only one precinct among many; only the peacekeepers had the authority to go to the source of the problem.
Peacekeepers!
She thought it loudly on the inside and snorted her emphasis on the outside, gaining the startled attention of everyone within the bubble. She pawed the ground, making it as clear as she could that the snort was no random thing. That her agitation was of significance.
"She's right," Arlen said. "We need to get moving—the sooner the peacekeepers have this information, the sooner Camolen can begin recovery. The sooner Carey can begin recovery, eh Lady?"
Jaime gave him a blank look as Lady stopped her pawing to snort more gently at Arlen, a rolling snort.
"How did you—"
He grinned at her. "I can't suddenly read her mind, Jay. It's a continuation of a conversation we had not so long ago." He started to replace his hat on his head, gave it a second look, and sent it winging into the mangled forest, where it caught on a jagged protrusion and swung. "No more of that ," he said. "And this shirt—it goes, at the first opportunity."
"You cannot imagine our relief," Dayna told him, checking the cinch on Wheeler's horse. Arlen smiled—but sobered quickly enough as he helped Suliya to her feet on his way past Wheeler, not pausing with the effort; his gaze stayed on Lady and when he stopped before her, she gave his shirt an affectionate nudge.
"You've got a choice," he told her. "You can go back to Anfeald and take the chance to see Carey, or you can help us get to the peacekeepers. If you wait to see Carey . . . you might miss him."
His meaning was clear enough to a horse with Jess in her mind. In an instant, she pricked her ears toward Anfeald. Carey . Her life had always been about Carey, one way or the other. She could not abandon him now.
And that meant that despite her yearning, despite her fears, despite her intense need to resolve that which had come between them, she had to go to the peacekeepers. With the rest of the horses shaky and upset, Lady was the one who could lead them swiftly to the peacekeeper hold, finding the shortest detours around meltdowns once they reached the trail again, taking the lead with the confidence to keep the others from faltering.
She knew one thing for certain—it would be Jaime she carried. She loved Arlen dearly, but if he never found his way to her back again it would be too soon for her; the next time, she'd dump him sooner and with much more purpose. She moved the short distance across the crowded bubble to Jaime, carefully stepping over Ramble's tail and hind legs. Jaime watched her uncertainly, a roundly athletic woman with flyaway hair and a few more lines by the edges of her mouth than not so long ago, and when Lady dipped her head, the gesture of a horse politely reaching for her bridle, Jaime said, "Are you sure? I mean, hells yes , Lady, I would be honored, but you know . . . he might not be there when we get back."
In the background, Arlen offered, "Simney will go to work as soon as Anfeald stabilizes. And the sooner we reach the peacekeepers—"
Neither Jaime nor Lady responded to him; Lady only dipped her head to Jaime again. Jaime reached out to stroke Lady's arched neck, running her fingers over the spellstones braided into her mane. "I'm supposed to tell you . . ." she said, and hesitated, but in the end got the words out. "He's sorry. Whatever happened . . . he's sorry."
Lady blinked; she ducked her nose and rubbed it along the inside of her front pastern, full of feeling and self-knowledge a horse wasn't meant to have, and wondering if the bittersweet pain of it would hurt any less if horses could cry.
Chapter 30
Carey never got enough air. His heart raced to make it happen, faltered when nothing helped. He sat propped up in his own bed, alternating between utter terror and a more comfortable haze of disbelief, no longer strong enough to do so much as wipe his own chin clean of the blood that came up with every cough and gurgle. Maybe he simply no longer saw the point.
Or maybe he was lost in other things. More important things. Jess, I'm sorry. Jess, I did my best . . . and we both know it wasn't enough.
He wouldn't have said it out loud if he could; he was never alone. Simney or Cesna or even Gertli; someone always sat by his bedside, sometimes in pairs. Sometimes they cried. Sometimes they murmured things they thought would comfort him, and sometimes Simney chanced using a simple pain relief spell—he recognized that one—or other spells, basic things nonetheless risky in Camolen's spell-twisted environment but which seemed to help make the breathing easier. They argued over it when they thought he wasn't listening, so Simney chanced to murmur fiercely, "I know it might go wrong and kill him! Do you think I'd do it if he weren't about to—" and then cut off, but her words had been obvious enough.
It didn't matter; they were right. And he wasn't listening, not really.
Jess, I'm sorry.
Until that hour after endless hours when Cesna sat holding his hand and said brokenly, softly, "It's all right, Carey. You've waited it out longer than any of us thought you could . . . but the basic spells aren't enough anymore, and we don't—we can't—" a hesitation, one entirely filled by the somehow still astonishing sensation of taking a breath and getting no air with it, over and over and he knew what she meant to say and he knew he was tired and he knew . . .
No more I'm sorry. Now, perhaps, time for good-bye . Exhausted and grieving and so full of regret that it welled up to trickle down the side of his face, mixing with blood. Gently, Cesna wiped it clean . . . but her hand trembled. He barely felt it. He felt his heart race, he felt his breathing hitch . . . slow . . .
"Carey!"
He was beyond recognizing voices, or knowing how many heartbeats had passed since Cesna stopped talking and started crying. This new voice came right to his ear, fierce and earnest. "We're cleared to work real magic, Carey—Linton just came in with the biggest collection of spellstones you'd ever hope to see, and Arlen's contacted Natt from the peacekeepers—he said things are stable enough that if we want to take the chance—"
She stopped, pulled herself together, and said simply, "It's going to be all right, Carey. Give me a few more moments, and we'll get you eased. It'll take awhile, but you're going to be all right. You have to be.
I just promised Jess."
Jess . . . one more chance . . .
Awakening.
A long time coming, and slow.
Vague awareness came first, a sensation of warmth and then vague soreness. A healing kind of soreness, the kind that comes after exertion. He opened his eyes to the familiar view of his own ceiling, the unique patterns of carved stone over the bed. No one hailed the flicker of his eyelids; after a long moment of consideration, he turned his head to confirm that he was alone in his own bed, in his own bedroom. An unfamiliar table sat in the middle of the room; someone, until recently, had been keeping enough of a watch to take their meals here. On the short, tile-topped bedside table sat a glass pitcher and tumbler; cool moisture glinted on the outside of the pitcher, revealing the water's freshness. The room held the diffuse light of either dawn or twilight; he wasn't sure which. The room contained neither permalight nor normal glowspell, although a stubby candle sat on the bedside table.
Eventually, he sat up. Discovered he didn't tremble; he didn't cough. He didn't bleed. The dull ache remained. Healing left to go.
He slid out of bed, found himself clad in light sleeper bottoms, and wondered who'd had the honors. He gulped a tumbler of water, then half of another, and padded barefoot over old and comfortable rugs to the window. A touch confirmed what he thought he perceived—the window spells back in place.
Anfeald couriers had spread the word . . . lights out in Camolen. Back to the glowspells that had served them so ably, so long.
Outside, light still filled the sky, more so than he would have guessed from the dim n
ature of the room; the stretching shadow of the hold across the road confirmed twilight. In the distance, two riders emerged from the woods, skirting the small blot of a meltdown and cantering easily for the hold.
He'd know that movement anywhere. Not the choppy nature of the dark bay's gaits, but the collected ease of the dun, and the quiet seat of her rider. After a moment he picked out the lanky frame and uneasy, elbow-flapping style of the second rider, and gave a short laugh. Arlen . Jaime had said he was alive, but somehow until this moment . . .
Eventually he'd learn how and why. For now it was enough to know it was true. Arlen was alive, and he'd come back—from the peacekeepers, most likely, and with Jaime and Lady at his side.
Lady. His stomach tightened suddenly, a frisson of unexpected emotion. He hadn't been sure he'd have this chance . . . that he'd live to try for it, or that she'd be here if he did. He needed to grab some pants, throw on a shirt, test his legs on a slow trip down the stairs to greet her— But something kept him at the window. As the light faded, shadows disappearing into true twilight, he stood straight-armed against the sill, swaying just enough to remind himself it had been a close thing after all. And in the twilight, a lone horse cantered out again, stripped of her gear, scrubbed clean of her sweat and saddle marks. Cantered out in a leisurely fashion, carrying herself just as beautifully as under the guidance of Jaime's expert riding. His fingers tightened on the stone sill, struck by her beauty and by the fact— She was leaving.
But not far out, she came to a light stop, and she raised her finely-molded head to look back over her shoulder. Not at the door to the barn from which she'd come, but higher. To this window.
For a moment, he stopped breathing, thinking—hoping—she might turn around.
She gave a little flip of her head—a challenge—and cantered on.
But he'd gotten the message.
His place, this time, to go to her.
Chapter 31
Lady grazed alone. Ramble, newly and permanently crippled, had a spot of honor in the sick stall within the hold stables as the wound closed, and from Jaime's daily reports, did well enough with the confinement, newly mannered and newly adored. Suliya cared for him, Jaime said. Suliya who'd turned down her family's urgent pleas to return home, who took lessons without argument, and who still cried over a man who'd had so much integrity he'd died for someone he'd once taken orders to kill.
Pleased as she was for Suliya, Lady knew how to snort in all the right places so Jaime knew that the young woman nonetheless had next to no chance of ever riding her again. And Jaime only laughed and said, "Good for you." After that, on occasion, Lady changed to Jess when she saw Jaime coming.
The first time, she was startled at the changes in her body—her exquisitely tender breasts, her propensity for the hiccups, and her odd wish for potatoes fried in hot spices. Jaime, too, must have noticed something, for after that someone came to the open pasture every day with an offering of light grains mixed with the drooling-good supplement Lady had never before needed. Otherwise Jaime didn't mention the changes; neither did Jess. They talked about Jaime's decision to move to Camolen permanently, and her plans to bring Sabre along and start a new school here in Anfeald. They talked about Camolen's excruciatingly slow recovery—for although the magic had stabilized, the services infrastructure remained down and the landscape ravaged—and of Arlen's intense amusement at the new Council's delirious relief at his reappearance. Jaime brushed out the snarled tangles of Jess's dun and black hair, expressing mild sorrow at its wild-horse raggedness.
As Lady, Jess spent considerable time staring at the dark spot along the hold's face that had once been her bedroom window—hers and Carey's. As Lady she missed him; as Jess she hurt beyond words, and so only became Jess for Jaime. She knew from Jaime that he'd healed well, worked hard, and spent as least as much time as she staring back out that window.
But there was a rightness in her time here. Enjoying her gallops, her dozing, the pleasure of a good roll, the increasing awareness of new life within her even so early in its growth. She accepted food but no one's touch; she kept her manners but made her own rules.
Finally, he came. With the insects buzzing a summer morning symphony in the rolling, horse-dotted fields around the hold, he walked the long path to her far pasture and paused by the always-open gate, a soft blanket tucked over his arm, an apple bulging out of one hip pocket, and uncharacteristic uncertainty shadowing his eyes and making worry lines in his forehead.
In his free hand he held not a bridle, but a bitless sidepull.
He, who had never ridden Lady once she'd been Jess. Never talked about it. Never faced the physical reality of who she was.
She came to the gate and dropped her head for the sidepull, a simple headstall with reins attached to a soft cavesson. And then she moved next to the old tree stump by the gate, used by years' worth of riders for just this reason. Carey left the blanket over the gate, stirring gently in the breeze, and the apple by the gate post. He stood on the tree stump for a moment, facing her sturdy dun back with its thick black stripe, the one he'd traced so often in its fainter iteration down her human spine.
Patience.
The very patience he'd given her in her early training, in her struggles with balance and the restraint of her natural exuberance and acceptance of rules, she now gave back to him. Sweeping her long tail at the flies, flicking an ear at the squeaky twitter of birds, she waited.
Finally, his weight settled onto her back, as gently as ever.
How she'd missed it!
After a moment he relaxed, giving her the faint lift of seat that once meant move off and now meant he was ready if she was.
She took him out into the woods, letting him ease into the habit of working with her—of supporting her when she needed it, of reminding her and pointing things out to her instead of commanding and ordering.
In truth, it was all he'd ever done once she'd come into her own as a courier horse; all he'd ever needed to do. He had somehow forgotten that along the way.
They returned home at a passage, an airy floating trot that Jaime had taught her and Carey had never felt, and he laughed out loud when she offered it. She stopped at the gate, a perfect square halt, neck arched and high, reins loose on her neck. He hesitated, much as he had when mounting—a reluctance of a different nature. But he slid off, and when she swung her head around for removal of the sidepull, he scratched the itchy spots behind her ears just like he always had, running a wistful hand along her spellstones.
Not many of them left.
She gave a good shake, the summer breeze cool on her back where he'd been sitting, and eased into the pasture, realizing for the first time that the rest of the hold had limited today's activities to the nearer pastures. Horses going in and out, grooms spreading wheelbarrows of stall pickings, the daily round of fence inspections . . . no one came near.
Carey lifted the blanket and settled it over her withers, a soft fold of material that came to her elbows and smelled of their rooms even though she'd never seen it before. And then, astonishingly—awkward as ever after he'd been riding and his body started to stiffen—he sat before her.
"I almost didn't have the chance to say this." He hesitated, struggling with the words even now, his face full of the death he'd touched. "I almost died, not having you, and it was worse than the dying itself. I had to think about that. A lot."
She bobbed her head. She knew.
"Once," he said, "you came and sat at my feet, newly human and still willing to give yourself up to me."
She stood stock-still, hoping too hard to move.
Carey buried his face in his hands, then scrubbed those hands over his lean features and through his hair, leaving it entirely mussed, a warm, dark-rooted blond in the sunlight. "It's got to go both ways, Jess. It's taken me far too long to realize it."
She gave a huge sigh of relief, of hope fulfilled and heart overflowing. She changed for him. The blanket was wonderful about her human should
ers, soft and caressing and full of bright colors her horse's eye hadn't been able to appreciate. But it did nothing to hide the swell of the child within her, the early months of the long equine gestation translated into a shorter human term.
Carey froze, taken completely by surprise; struggling. He knew where she'd been, who she'd been with, in those days of running from easternmost Camolen to Anfeald. He knew her mare's seasons. He floundered, muscles stark as a clenched jaw—and then he glanced up to the window she'd watched for so long, looking at that room where he'd almost died. And he let out a long, slow breath and he said softly, "Hey, Braveheart."
She sat in the grass next to him, surprised by her own awkwardness and of the instant opinion it was best to be a horse if pregnant. She said simply, "We were horses. We did horse things."
"Mm," he said thoughtfully. He touched her long, ragged hair; he smoothed the thin healing scar on her shoulder, his outward calm belied by the unsteady nature of his touch. "Maybe that's the way it had to be."
She thought of the moments she'd sat beside the tree and cried, coming to accept this very thing. She looked away from him. "Yes. I think so."
He startled her with a playful poke to the same leg he'd been stroking. "Ay," he said, a clear imitation of Suliya. "How about you come stay with me for a while, and we'll do human things?"
She said, "Yes."
For Carey—finally— awakening.
For Dun Lady's Jess . . .
Legacy fulfilled.
THE END
Changespell Legacy Page 37
