“They are safe here,” he said. “As safe as I can keep them.”
Kate allowed herself to embrace the comfort his words afforded and they rested in silence for a time before Monteray said, “Wing is expecting that I will talk with him tomorrow, and I will. But I need to find a reason to keep him — both of them — here for as long as possible.”
“You don’t think they’ll stay? Where else have they to go?”
“The only thing that kept Wing alive after he escaped Rieeve was a promise to Commander Lant. Once he fulfills that promise, then what will he choose?”
“But he’s with his brother now. Surely that’s enough?”
“It might be,” Monteray admitted, “but their people and their family are not all that they’ve lost, Kate. Neither of them are the men they once were.”
Kate didn’t know what to say. Monteray’s fingers played absently on her shoulder.
“And Wing,” he said, his voice uneasy in the dark, “I think he blames himself…”
“Blames himself?” Kate asked.
“For what happened in Rieeve.”
“How could that have possibly been his fault?”
“It follows. His people thought he was the Leader of Legend, Merehr. According to Lant, Wing never accepted that title or calling. I’ve read the Rieevans translation of the Ancient Writings. The things it says the Leader will do, it foreshadowed a profound evil. Maybe they meant the Ka’ull. I don’t know. So it is, with writings of that sort.”
Kate felt sick inside. Even if the poets and prophets who had written the book had some sort of insight, a sense not unlike Monteray himself possessed, still it was unhelpful as far as Kate could tell. A warning might be a warning, but what good did it do? Unless one could see the path, the way all the pieces that made up a people, a valley, a continent fit together, what could truly be done?
Ultimately, she didn’t care about all that. What she cared about was how some old writings could make a very good, very kind man, who had already suffered the loss of his family, his home, his people, believe that it had all been his fault.
She didn’t care what anyone else might say, such a thing was evil.
She wondered if Sep — Nien — somehow felt the same way? If he bore the same burden?
Laying her head into the curve of Monteray’s shoulder, Kate breathed and closed her eyes, resting into his deep solidness. There, she could let go of some of her incredulity, sadness, and anger. She’d felt a kinship, a familial love for Nien from the moment she’d found him laying half dead in the snow down by the river. He’d quickly become a member of the family. She could not imagine anyone having the arrogance, the tenacity to make such a man feel unworthy.
Kate snuggled deeper into the fold of Monteray’s arm. He was right, she too hoped the brothers would stay. If such had been the way of it for them back in Rieeve, at least she and her husband could help them see that not all people chose to believe in a god that was so much less kind, so much less compassionate and loving, than a mere mortal could be.
Chapter 62
If You’ll Stay
I n the room upstairs, Wing drew a steadying breath and looked Nien over. “I haven’t asked how you are. You said the Monterays saved your life.”
Nien drew himself up. The shedding of tears appeared to have left him weak but relieved and a little more like himself.
“I don’t remember much of the journey here, but Kate found me and patched me up.”
“I’m surprised you chose to come here. Monteray aside, it still seems a risky proposition.”
Standing, Nien stretched his legs. “I don’t know that I actually decided it. I know I was dying — I think my body just took me. Once I made it here, I wanted to forget why I’d come.”
“So, it was you who gave them this name — what was it?”
“Sep.”
Wing’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t understand. They would never have guessed, had you given them your real name, that you were Rieevan.”
“But Nien is not a common name for one of my people.”
“My people?” Wing mouthed.
“The history between our two people is a troubled one.”
“Our two people?”
“You know what I mean, between the Preak and the Legranders,” Nien said tiredly.
Wing swallowed. “I’ve never thought of you as anything other than my brother — not once.”
“I am that, and I am Rieevan, you know I am. But here it’s something different.” He looked at Wing. “Stop worrying. Things are good here.” Nien paused. “Really good. You’ll see.”
“Why didn’t you just tell them who you are? It’s Monteray. Don’t you think he’d believe you?”
Nien stood and walked over to the tall open window that looked down upon the river. “I didn’t want them to know who I was or where I was from. Not at that time.” Wing watched his brother take in the view outside the window. “My coming here was a good thing, the best thing. I needed a place to recover, a place to” — he hesitated — “hide. Being here has been a blessing. I have work, a place to sleep, food. Monteray has even offered to pay me.”
Wing shook his head miserably.
Nien glanced back and saw Wing’s indignation. “You don’t understand.”
Wing’s reply was sharp: “You’re right in that.”
“It drove a knife through me to see you on the floor — on your knees.” Wing flashed him an angry glance. “Your school. The Cant. You’re a teacher! A warrior!”
Nien met Wing’s ire with resignation. “That’s what I was, Wing.” He spread his hands. “Look at me now.”
Wing felt his belly roll. He didn’t want to look at him. He didn’t want to accept what Nien was trying to show him. They had known one another, or so Wing had always felt, much longer than a single lifetime. For Wing, looking at Nien was like seeing the very best part of himself. Now Wing realized that he had been so caught up in his own questions, in the sadness and sweetness of having Nien back, that he’d failed to see what that night had done to his brother.
With unease, Wing did as Nien asked, and looked at him…
Nien was undone.
There, in his face, in the way he held his body, in his brown eyes that no longer glinted and played in the light that shone upon them; it was all over him. He looked much like Wing himself had when he’d gazed upon his own reflection in the stream after escaping Rieeve.
“Maybe,” Nien said. “People weren’t meant to live through such a thing. Maybe...”
Nien couldn’t speak the rest of his thought, but Wing knew what he didn’t say. He didn’t say: You may see me standing here, but I really died back there, too.
The room fell silent and Wing conceded that he, too, was no longer who he’d once been either. He and his brother were alive, but they were merely beings — alive, breathing in and out, but only existing.
“There are mornings,” Nien said quietly, “I’m not sure I have the will to draw breath.”
It took Wing a moment, but when he raised his face, he found he could only echo the thought: “Nor I, brother. Nor I.”
Though the night was late, Wing and Nien could not bear to part. Chancing making nuisances of themselves, they stole down the long flight of stairs and out into the night. They walked together toward the small cabin in the distance, enjoying the sound of the river and the feel of each other’s company. Once inside the cabin, Nien built up a fire and the two sat down beside it, warming their hands.
After a time, Nien asked, “So, you’ve grilled me on why I came here. Why did you?”
“Same as you — Lant,” Wing replied.
“Lant?”
“When Pree K came to find me in the fields…”
“ — you said you saw him,” Nien said, nodding his head. “So, he made it out.”
“No,” Wing said. “Lant said Pree K had been at their home, not in the castle.”
“You met with Commander Lant, then?”
�
�I saw him, yes. He wanted me to deliver the plans to Master Monteray.”
“Lant made it out then,” Nien said softly to himself. “Did he...?”
“He was wounded. By the time I returned to get the plans from him, he’d died.”
Nien nodded slowly and Wing hated seeing it, as if Nien had to accept the Commander’s death all over again. “You have them, then?”
Wing nodded.
“Where are they?”
Wing reached into his shirt and drew out the leather-bound rolls of parchment and Mesko paper he had carried against his body for so long. Pausing, he held them in his hands.
Nien cocked his head at him. “What is it?”
“Nothing.”
Nien studied the rolled parchment in Wing’s hands, and Wing felt his brother reading him as he might have the pages.
“Though Lant must have felt as if he failed,” Nien said, “his Plan brought us together again.”
Emotionally drained, the brothers fell to Nien’s bed and into a dead sleep. Side by side they slept away the rest of the night and far into the following morning.
Wing was the first to awake, doing so as if startled from a bad dream. Heart pounding, he glanced around, remembering where he was.
“Great,” he mumbled.
Nien woke up as Wing began to scramble for the door.
“Monteray’s going to wonder what I’m doing out here,” Wing explained, fighting with a blanket clutching at his right ankle. “If you don’t want him to know who you are…”
Nien glanced outside. The sun was well up. “Too late for that,” he mumbled. “Just uh, go down to the river. He’ll think you got up early for a swim or something.”
Wing nodded and clumsily found his way to the door, the blanket trailing behind him. Stumbling down to the river’s edge, he plopped there in a spot of sun, sat for a moment, and then flopped onto his back.
Through the grasses from behind the cabin came a familiar dark shape.
“Good morning,” Wing said.
Lucin came up and dropped himself down at Wing’s side, leaning against him amiably and heavily. His weight, which was becoming considerable, pushing the air from his lungs.
“Easy, brother,” Wing said adjusting his legs before reaching out and draping his arm over Lucin’s sun-warmed back. Further down the bank Wing saw the carcass of a fish. “Caught yourself some dinner last night, did you?”
Lucin had closed his eyes, content beneath the sun and Wing’s arm.
Wing found contentment as well, curling his fingers into Lucin’s black fur, reveling in the heat from the big black body at his side and the sun on his face. They dozed for a time and Wing woke feeling pleasantly heavy, Lucin still beside him.
Still labouring under the weight of disbelief of everything that had happened, Wing felt as if he could sleep for two more days.
Yawning, he checked his shoulder. It was sore but not as stiff as it had been. Looking out over the river, he decided a swim might offer some mental clarity.
He was right.
Gasping as the cold morning water snatched his breath, Wing shook his head, wiped the water from his eyes and, floating to his back, swam a few strokes, turned himself about, and dove. When he resurfaced he was laughing and staring right into the eyes of Monteray’s daughter, Tei. Auburn hair fell about her slender shoulders, and her thin blouse was pulled loose, clinging precariously to her small breasts.
Taken by surprise, Wing paddled upright and got his feet under him not realizing he was close enough to the bank to stand. The water swirled well below the juts of his hipbones, the soft black hair over his pubic bone moving just along the surface of the water.
Tei stood as she had been, her eyes traveling unabashedly over his body. The fact that his chest was terribly scarred by the shy’teh attack did little to dissuade her interest. Neither did Lucin’s presence. The cub had moved off, his bright green eyes watching her.
“Is that your pet?”
“Not exactly.” Wing glanced at Lucin. “Sort of.”
Tei’s eyes had begun to move over his body, taking in the scars stretching across his chest and shoulder; they seemed to intensify her fascination rather than curb it.
“I brought you down some clothes,” she said, holding out a pair of light brown leggings and beige shirt as if they were an offering.
“Thank you,” Wing said, a slight chill touching his body as his hair dripped across his face and back. He hoped that might end their conversation. It didn’t. She stood, her eyes checking Lucin’s position, before returning to him. He wasn’t sure what she was expecting and so said, “Thank you, again. I’ll get them from the bank in a moment.”
With a disappointed shrug, Tei set the clothes on the bank and began to walk away, glancing back at Lucin as if to make sure he wasn’t about to chase her down and eat her, and then back at Wing as if wishing he would.
Once Tei had finally about-faced, Wing climbed from the river and laid down to let the sun dry him, wondering if Tei were lurking somewhere in the grass behind him. Sufficiently dry, he rolled over, brushed the grass and dirt off himself and tried on the new clothes. They felt wonderful, a comforting change from the thick leather hides.
Gathering up his own clothes, Wing glanced up at the house and stopped short. Monteray had said he’d hear what Wing had come to Legran to tell him in the morning.
This was the following morning.
Finding Nien had eclipsed everything that had happened since leaving Rieeve.
But eclipses were short lived.
Before finding Nien in Legran, the thought of delivering the plans to Master Monteray and then returning to live alone or die in the mountains was the greatest relief Wing had hoped for.
Now there was Nien.
What did that mean? It was everything. But was it enough? In going back to live in the mountains there was the chance that Wing could try to forget who he was, what he’d been, what had happened. He could separate himself and his life into two entirely different ones.
But if he stayed in Legran with Nien, his brother would be a constant, living reminder of that other man, the man Wing had been in Rieeve.
So that leaves me with only two choices — again, Wing realized unhappily. Stay here and live with the shame, or return to the mountains.
Wing glanced back at the cabin where he knew his brother lay inside, sleeping.
Returning to the mountains now, knowing Nien was alive, was unfathomable.
But if I stay, Wing thought, do I tell him the truth? Wing squeezed his eyes shut.
Keeping his silence and his secret promised agony. The thought of telling Nien, however, was even worse. It would be cruel. His brother had been there that night. He’d fought. He’d tried. He’d worked all his adult life — both with the school and with the Cant — to try and help their people. He’d done his part; paid such a high price. Nien deserved whatever scrap of peace he could now glean, a peace he’d achieved by lying to Monteray and Kate. He didn’t want who he’d been either. He, too, wanted to forget. To live his life out as someone else. What was there left to be responsible for anyway? Their people were gone. Their valley under the control of the ones who’d murdered them.
Agitated over his mental jargoning, Wing grasped onto the surety of that one thing: Whether he stayed or left Legran, telling Nien what he’d seen, that the horrifying vision he’d had more than once back in Rieeve had been not only of others, but of their people, that he’d known what was coming, was something he would never do.
Wing started up to the house.
For now, he’d go meet Master Monteray as they’d planned and then...
Then.
He’d make the rest of that decision tomorrow, or the next day.
Monteray looked up from the dining table as Wing came in. “You look refreshed,” he commented.
“I am. And thank you for the clothes, they fit nicely.”
“I’m glad. There are not many men in Legran that could fill them.�
�
Kate and Tei came in, followed shortly by Nien, and the five of them dined in relative silence before Monteray asked, “I imagine you may want to rest awhile from your journey?”
Wing looked at him, then at Kate.
“You are welcome to stay with us if you’d like,” Kate said, her face so radiant and warm that Wing felt his heart respond to her in a way he had not felt since being in the presence of his own mother.
Surprised as much at his emotion as with their offer, Wing said, “Yes, thank you. I would.”
“And how are you with a builder’s tools?” Monteray asked, a twinkle in his eye.
“I have experience,” Wing replied.
“Good. Then I will receive the message you came here to give me. We can meet in the Mietan after breakfast — it’s the structure to the northing of the house.” Monteray took a long drink from his cup. “I am grateful that you’ve agreed to stay. The warm turns can pass quickly in Legran, and I’m sure Kate would like to have the rest of the house finished by then.” He winked at his wife and then nodded to Nien. “Wouldn’t mind some help, would you?”
“Of course not,” Nien said.
And just like that Wing found the decision to stay or leave had been made for him.
The family finished up breakfast and Wing went to the cabin to retrieve the Plan. He found Monteray inside the beautiful, one-roomed structure that stood apart from the main house. Weapons of various sorts were arrayed carefully, even elegantly, along the walls. Most were different, but others rather closely resembled those used by the Cant. There were also plaques of metal and wood, their coats blazoned in a strange but beautiful language. Wing made a slow turn in the middle of the room, his feet moving smoothly across the polished wood floor, his eyes directed up toward the ceiling as it soared nearly forty steps above him. A circular pane of stained glass fitted the apex of the grand structure, casting a brilliant spectrum of light into the room.
“You like it?” Monteray’s voice seemed to emanate from the four corners of the Mietan.
Wing tore his eyes from the ceiling. “Very much. It is perhaps one of the most beautiful rooms I have ever seen.”
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