Casting In Stone Book One of the Averraine Cycle
Page 19
It couldn’t, of course. This was just a tiny grain of calm and quiet that would end soon enough. Once the sun rose, we’d have that long walk back down to Rhwyn Vale, and then there would have to be explanations, and actions, and changes. All those old uncertainties would come crowding in.
Guerin sat down beside me.
“What will you do?” he asked. He had a knack for uncomfortable questions, Guerin had.
I shrugged.
“You could go back, you know. He misses you. He would find a way to daub over the cracks, if you give him the chance.”
“I can’t.” I said. “I can’t do that anymore. Kill to order, I mean. I - I want these things to mean something, if they have to happen at all. I want them to mean something to me, I guess. And besides, Einon doesn’t need me, or anyone else, to act for him. He’s not a boy, anymore. It’s better that he rules alone.”
“Will you stay on here, then?”
I considered that.
“Owain doesn’t need me either. Nor Delwen. They’ve borne the weight of this for too long, without the right to make it their own. Someone in Birais’ entourage must know the proper form for deeding lands over to a faithful vassal. I’ll have to see that done before I go.”
“And after that?”
“I have no idea. There’s always that ship to Fendrais, though.” And I fell silent, because the appeal of exile, never that great, was gone entirely now.
“Well,” Guerin said, eventually, “You could come to Orleigh, you know. There will always be a place there for someone with courage and honour, who knows what really counts.”
I turned my head, and tilted it back to look at him.
“Are you,” and I heard just the slightest tremor of amusement in my own voice, “Are you offering me a job?”
“Idiot,” he said. “I’m offering you a life, Caoimhe.”
I didn’t think I was the real idiot here, and I said so. He disagreed.
“I’m bloody hell to live with,” I said. “You wouldn’t have a moment’s comfort again, ever.”
“I’ll take my chances. I’m not precisely anyone’s golden hero of legend, either, Caoimhe.”
“No,” I agreed. “What in the name of every filthy demon of hell possessed you to crash into me back there, come to think of it? If that’s the kind of behavior you engage in normally, it will be a pretty short marriage. You’re likely to die before you’re thirty, doing things like that.”
We’d forgotten we weren’t alone. Well, I had, anyway.
All of them, kings, witches and nameless soldiers, were having a fine laugh at our expense.
Apparently, neither of us cared.
Epilogue
It was silent now, a kind of quiet he knew only too well. He’d had long years, tens and tens and tens of years of that quiet. He had begged for forgiveness, he had begged for release, and he had cursed the old hag, too, he had cursed the darkness, but nothing had ever changed.
Nothing, until the witch had come to him, with her shallow little dreams of dominance, and he’d convinced her so easily of a better way. It had been effortless, really, she’d done most of the persuasion herself. A word here, a hint there, and she’d run headlong into his plans. She’d been so willing, so eager to betray anyone and anything for the promise of greatness, and never once had she doubted his willingness to share the Power, the stupid cow.
And so he’d told her where to look for answers, told her what to do, even told her what sort of vessel to look for, where he could plant the seed of destruction best.
But now, when the screaming finally stopped, he had known the bitter truth. He flung the corpse away in disgust, because it had done its work, after a fashion. It had not been enough.
He was free, oh yes…and yet, not free. He had thought it might have worked, there at the end, to suck out the life from that hapless boy the bitch had brought him, and in a way, he’d been right. In that moment of Changing, he’d spoken Words of great power, that no one but he alone in this world today knew, and for just a single grain of the glass, he thought that he might have done a Thing that no other mortal had ever accomplished.
Well, and so he was free, indeed, free to wander, impotent and ruined, a kind of shadow, without the threads of power that the Well provided, should he leave it for too long.
Too late, he’d seen the danger. Too late, when that seeking force latched onto this horrid little clinging human groveling at his feet, and the Changing spells had caught her, too, and shared with her that single tie to the Well, even as she was caught in the binding spells. And now she was reaching deep, scrabbling for the Power, disbelieving, not understanding what her fate now truly was.
She was drinking it in, in the blind hope that enough might free her. He remembered that he had done that, too, long ago. He could have told her it was useless, and a trap, but then, why should he?
Hers had been the original mistake, after all, for not making sure that the little sow wasn’t playing her lover false and was pregnant with another man’s child already. She should have made sure of the girl.
He shouldered her aside. He still retained the need, and he was still the stronger one here. He was aware, even as he drew in the forces, that they were no longer as truly his as they had been, that in fact she had as much right to them now as he, but she did not know that, and she gave way without a murmur, crawling a little way off and hugging herself to herself, waiting till he might let her take them in again.
And so the cavern was dark again and silent as it always was, mostly, and time slipped by unnoticed, and they grew fat with the pleasure of the Well, nursing their angers, and they grew stronger, both of them, or so they believed.
And it came to them both, after a time, that there might be another way, to have the vengeances they craved and to be truly free.
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Morgan Smith has been a goatherd, a landscaper, a weaver, a bookstore owner and archaeologist, and she will drop everything to travel anywhere, on the flimsiest of pretexts. Writing is something she has been doing all her life, though, one way or another, and now she thinks she might actually have something to say.
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