He caught his mam’s eye, saw her mouth pursed in an angry line, then followed her pointed glance down to his own hand. He’d been reaching out, wanting to touch and know.
He jerked his head and pulled his hand back.
There was no blast of magic to signal the rite’s completion, no flash of bright light, no chorus of otherworldly voices. Instead a soft new power swelled to lap at his core, so serene and intimate it felt almost unseemly to greet it here in company. A gentle burst like nothing he’d ever felt before striated out through every limb, every fingertip, as though he were touching the fine, fragile hem of the gossamer robes of Duwies herself.
It was beautiful and forever, though it was only a moment or two. When Milo started paying attention again, the prayers were only just tailing off into completion and everyone around him was still calmly watching him as though nothing extraordinary had just happened. Milo stood in the center of the circle, trying not to vibrate, surrounded by men and women he’d never met before tonight, as well as witches and sorcerers he’d known all his life but had never dared to See before. And yes, his mam knew what Milo was doing, she was going to kill him, but this… this made it worth it. Nimbi flared with colors and feelings and intentions Milo had no need to interpret; the benevolence and generosity were ingenuous and plain.
It was too big and beautiful to just put away again, bury so deep no one could ever suspect, so Milo decided not to. At least for now. He pulled his gaze from its contemplation of the prismed smudges of color and blinked at the circle of people now grinning at him with genuine delight and perhaps even some pride.
The chanting had stopped while Milo had been too deep in his own head to notice, prayers complete and rite finished. He was arbenigwr now, a full member of the Kymbrygh Coven.
It wasn’t long before the circle began to break up, hands separating to slap Milo on the back, congratulations gusting over him like warm summer wind. Milo was still somewhat drunk on it all, so he only stood there and nodded when it felt like he should, smiling and trying not to stare at everyone, make it obvious he was Seeing them with eyes he shouldn’t have, power he could never admit.
His mam’s glare was burning holes between Milo’s shoulder blades, he could feel it, but he refused to feel guilty. This night was special, a rite of passage he’d only ever experience once—he deserved this, damn it—so he let himself have it while it lasted.
Which wasn’t for very long, because when Milo finally chanced a look over at his mam… all right, wow, did she look tamping. Sharp violet fractals twisted in silent detonations all around her, burnt garnet erupting jagged through orange stained with a murk as dingy blue-gray as rot on an apricot. All of it was barbed rough with tawny metallic fragments that somehow seemed violent, like bursts of shrapnel, and actually made Milo’s teeth hurt.
Before Milo could break free of all the well-wishers, his mam was stalking toward him, her nimbus whipping in a smear behind her as she took hold of Milo’s arm in a grip that hurt, and leaned up and in.
“Put it away,” Ceri said, low and fierce. “You hear me? Now.” She pulled back, gave Milo… it wasn’t a glare, not as such, but it was definitely angry, teeth clenched and face set, and everything about her was now drenched in indigo and crimson.
“Mam, it’s not like anyone can even tell what it—”
“I can tell.”
“You don’t count.”
She knew, she knew him, she could See, and she knew what to look for. It wasn’t like anyone else did.
“Just do as I say, Milo Priddy, then put on your party face. You’ve a long night to get through.”
She didn’t give Milo a chance to ask what that meant. She let go of his arm, backed one pace, two, still glowering at him, then turned and pushed her way out of the circle, and disappeared around the back of the inn.
Milo would have followed her, maybe even apologized, but when he stepped to the side, Lilibet was there, shining a grin at him like she was proud. “All are welcome at Rhediad Afon to celebrate our newest arbenigwr!” she called to the crowd, her hand snug on Milo’s arm. “Come along, everyone! The cider is warm and the tables overflowing!”
A cheer went up. Lilibet beamed and started leading Milo away.
Still a bit dazed, still a bit confounded by his mam’s overreaction, Milo let Lilibet pull him out of the Bluebell’s yard. He knew he shouldn’t, his mam was already furious with him, but he was too happy, too curious—one last time, Milo let himself See.
He hadn’t been aware there were so many shades of green. Lilibet was soaked in every one of them. The sunny clarity of new apples washed seamless into the cool tranquility of timeworn sea-glass. Calm, staid evergreen slipped gentle and slow into burgeoning moss then swirled with the jade iridescence of a peacock feather.
He couldn’t help wondering if Ellis would look the same, how much of his mam Ellis had grown into, how much of his cocky golds and obstinate violets had matured and mellowed into more settled shades of prudence. And Milo would really like to find out. But when he scanned the faces around him, searching, Ellis was nowhere to be found.
The disappointment was weirdly embarrassing. Milo kept his smile, thanked the stragglers still wishing him well as they all followed the path to Rhediad Afon, but when the colors began to leak away, Milo let them.
Chapter 3—Instrumentation
: the combination of instruments that a composition is written for
“No, it doesn’t mean I’m actually related to dragons. I mean....” Milo flailed a little. “How would that even work?”
The man—Milo couldn’t remember his name, only that he claimed close relation to someone in the Peerage, and had clearly taken on the more obnoxious behaviors he apparently thought befitting someone of his dubious “station”—the man blinked at Milo as though Milo were the one who’d just implied someone in his more-respectable-than-yours family tree had somehow had intimate relations with a creature as big as a house.
“But.” The man gave Milo a suspicious frown. “Dragonkin. Kin. Kindred.”
Milo looked helplessly at the man’s daughter, standing off to the side looking bored and annoyed. Milo couldn’t tell if it was at him or her tad.
“Kindred doesn’t necessarily mean related,” Milo said slowly. “And in the ‘dragonkin’ sense it only means they tolerate me better than most. I can get close to them without them trying to eat me or roast me.” When the man only continued to stare blankly, Milo gave him a bemused squint. “You did say you hail from Werrdig, didn’t you?”
He was wearing a formal kilt, so clearly he was from Werrdig. There was, therefore and at least as far as Milo was concerned, no excuse. Werrdig, though not on any of the migration paths, was still one of the Preidynīg Isles, and the dragon was the national bloody symbol of the Preidynīg Isles. Surely they taught children about dragons in the schools in Werrdig like they did in Kymbrygh?
For pity’s sake, there were dragons on the money!
“Yes, well.” The man harrumphed and took his daughter by the elbow. “All very interesting, I’m sure.” His expression said he found it all more distasteful than interesting, and that he still wasn’t convinced Milo wasn’t hiding scales and a tail beneath his clothes. “Come along,” the man said to his daughter. “I’d like to see if I can find Folant before the dancing starts.”
Good luck with that, Milo didn’t say. There was no way Lilibet would allow Folant anywhere near Rhediad Afon even if it were underwater and Folant owned the only boat in the world, let alone at a party she’d clearly worked very hard to make pleasant and enjoyable. Folant had a way of souring any atmosphere he happened to enter.
The girl shot Milo an apologetic look as her tad led her away. Milo gave her a shrug and a wave, then resolutely turned and made his way to the edges of the party. The huge windows of Rhediad Afon’s main dining hall, turned ballroom for the occasion, had nice thick curtains; though they were pulled back and wouldn’t hide him entirely, angling behind them as much as
he could would at least make him harder to find.
It was payback, Milo knew it was. Why else would his mam not tell him Lilibet had planned a party in his honor, and then disappear and leave Milo to… this? Come to think of it, Lilibet was also suspiciously absent. And where the deuce had Ellis got off to anyway?
“Milo, dear!”
He pretended not to hear it, ostensibly absorbed in the view out the windows. Too many conversations this evening had started exactly like that—Milo, dear! and Priddy, dear boy! Not friends or distant family or acquaintances congratulating him on sitting the rites, but apparent potential contract partners or their representatives. And all of them looking him over as though they were one personal question away from asking to see his teeth or possibly something more intimate.
Milo’d had enough. More than enough.
The fog was still too dense to see much beyond the edge of the manor’s yard, but Milo put on his thoughtful face and stared hard enough to melt the thick glass. Even his mam left him alone when he had his thoughtful face on.
“Milo?”
Milo changed it to a scowl. It was nothing personal. He was just off balance and already exhausted by the talk of possible offers and negotiations, and being sized up by everyone of contract age, or even near it, like a prized sheep at the fair.
He was tired of the crowd. He was tired of the noise. He was tired of being asked for demonstrations of his magical skill. Of assessing looks. Of people trying to touch his earring. And he was bloody tired of the insulted looks he got when he referred all negotiations to his mam, who very obviously was doing a better job of hiding than he was.
He hadn’t been expecting this. Any of it. He’d just sat the rites!
If only he could see the river from this window. The landscape here was so very different from the rocks and cliffs and salt-seasoned air of Whitpool. On a clear day, Milo could watch the sea from almost any window of his mam’s rambling old tower house, could walk and walk and walk to almost any point of the preserve and never lose sight of restless gray waves capped with foamy silver. And when he couldn’t see it, it was still a live thing all around him, a constant thick hum that was so present, so gently relentless and there, he sometimes forgot to hear it.
Here, with the trees grown full and dense and only just starting to drop their bright autumn foliage, the broad expanse of the Aled narrowed to wine-dark flickers glimpsed through trunk and leaf. That was, if one could see past the fog.
“Milo!”
Damn it. Whoever was calling him wasn’t giving up.
Milo sighed, turned from the window and blinked wearily at—
“Oh! Haia, Nia.” Relieved beyond sense, Milo smiled, genuine and pleased, as he stepped in for a quick hug. He hadn’t seen Nia for… well, since Nain’s funeral at least.
She’d barely changed at all since Milo was a boy, her bronze skin still youthfully plump, and her smile brilliant and lovely beneath eyes that sparked like emeralds. Her blue shawl set them off even more in the bright electric light. Layered silk kirtles had been gathered up at the hip to expose colorful wool leggings and tucked amongst the handkerchiefs at her belt. Clearly ready for dancing. And that wasn’t even counting the ornately tooled clogs on her small feet.
“Look at you, all grown.” Nia gave Milo’s arm a squeeze then stepped back, and set her hand to the shoulder of a young woman waiting impatiently at her elbow. “You remember—”
That was as far as Nia got before the young woman shoved her tankard at Nia then unceremoniously launched herself at Milo, landed smack against his chest, and wrapped around him like a starfish.
Milo buried the Oof! of surprise in a breathless laugh and wheezed out, “Dillie!” while he adjusted his grip and refound his balance so they didn’t both go through the huge window behind him. Ellis had been right—Dilys was still a tiny thing, a proper dwt, in fact, but she was solid. And strong. Her arms around Milo’s neck were like steel bands.
“We’ve been looking for you for an hour.” The rolling consonants and hard dip of the vowels of Nia’s Tirrydderch accent made the mild rebuke songlike and pleasant. “We’re so sorry to have missed your rites. Dilys and her Warden business, you know.” She rolled her eyes at her daughter, though fondly, and took a sip from the tankard. “Of course Ellis is no better, putting her on duty tonight of all nights, and don’t think I won’t have words with that boy once he—here now, Dilys, let the lad breathe!”
Laughing, Milo helped Nia pry Dilys off him, settling her as gently as he could on her feet before pushing her back to have a good look. He didn’t think he would’ve recognized her had she not been with her mam and so very Dillie about her greeting.
Taller now, certainly, but still not tall. Compact and thick-boned, with curves melded to muscle beneath a richly embroidered waistcoat and trousers cut to accentuate a shape fit and healthy. Gone was the wild mop of frizzed black hair that looked like it spent most of its time in a tail that had been let down only minutes before. Now she was primped and slicked and kohled, green eyes like her mam’s sharp and still full of mischief.
“You got so tall!” Dilys grinned with slightly crooked white teeth, squeezing Milo’s arms as she pulled back. “And handsome!” She reached up to slide a finger over Milo’s earring; it wasn’t nearly as annoying as it was when strangers did it. “By the Nine, you’re going to be swimming in contracts by the end of the night.”
Milo couldn’t help the wince. “Yes, well.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I hadn’t really realized that’s what all this was about.”
“Oh?” Dilys blinked, all innocence. “Like a proper calf, you are.”
“Dilys, for pity’s sake!” Nia huffed then gave Milo a sympathetic smile. “To be fair—”
“I know, I know.” Milo waved it away. “It’s my own fault. I should’ve at least suspected. Only, I’ve been… I dunno, I guess I was only—”
“Up your own arse, as usual, we know.” Dilys nodded sagely and patted at Milo’s arm. “’Tis good to know you’ve not changed that much.”
Nia sighed. “Dilys, honestly.”
Milo’s grin was rueful, though his pinch to Dilys’s ear was sincere and sharp enough to make her yip and swat where she’d just patted.
He had been kind of up his own arse lately, still trying to reacquaint himself with life in Whitpool, so glad to be home but also finding he didn’t quite fit anymore, and unsettled about it. He’d just been sort of drifting along for weeks, allowing his mam to direct him because he hadn’t had a direction of his own. And with his dubious heritage… well. It wasn’t as though most people knew he’d been born without the benefit of a contract, but enough did, and without his nain there to glare them into silence anymore…
Anyway.
He hadn’t really thought he’d be what might be considered a good option. This was Wellech, after all. He’d been conveniently ignoring the fact that, to the sort of people Lilibet would invite as guests at least, a young mage, dragonkin and heir to an established estate, son of a respected veteran, and now of age and a full member of a coven, would get offers.
Although, it never even occurred to him that his mam and Lilibet would actually throw a party to accommodate the blatant “Assessment of the Prospect” so everyone could look him over like a horse at auction. And he certainly hadn’t suspected his mam would abandon him to navigate the quasi humiliation on his own.
Punishment. He knew it.
Milo scanned the crowd. “I don’t see Terrwyn or Steffan.”
The other two-thirds of Nia’s cariad trio. Milo remembered Terrwyn as a gruff but fond and permissive sort, more apt to play with any urchins who came within his orbit than scold them, but Steffan was the one Milo remembered more warmly. Steffan and Nia had grown up together; their cariad contract once they came of age had not been unexpected, though the addition of Terrwyn had been. While not quite as bright and spirited as his partners, Steffan was somehow the axis upon which they all turned, and a wonderfully doting “
uncle” when Milo was wee and probably a bit more obnoxious than he had a right to be.
“They’re home with the boys.” Nia smirked, clearly pleased with herself for having managed an extended outing alone.
From what Milo knew of Dilys’s rambunctious little half brothers, Nia had every right.
A few honeyed notes from a triple harp wove through the ambient noise of partygoers’ chatter. Diffident hollow beats followed, and sweet-toned ripples, as someone warmed up on a pipe and tabor.
A small orchestra was setting up across the hall. The dancing would start soon.
“Well.” Nia, still smirking, pushed her cup at Milo then took hold of Dilys’s hand and set it to Milo’s elbow. “Since neither of you seem eager to pursue a contract”—she gave Dilys a stern and quite blatant and you’d better not be glower—“you can look out for each other, yes? I’ve been sinking for a dance, and possibly a chance to pry some of Lilibet’s plum wine from her stingy clutching fingers. I can’t do either standing about.” She dropped a quick kiss to Dilys’s forehead. “Behave yourself. Your tad’s poor heart can’t take another offer just now.
“And you.” She dragged Milo down by his lapel and set a smacking kiss to his cheek. “Congratulations, dear heart. We’re so proud of you. Only, remember—this is your celebration. Don’t let anyone turn it into something more”—she wrinkled her nose—“permanent.”
With a last pat to Milo’s chest, Nia swirled away with a bright grin, the bells in the lace of her kirtles’ hems chiming cheerfully with every clop of her clogs.
Milo watched her go, then turned to Dilys. “Offer?”
Dilys rolled her eyes. “Oh, the Glasscocks from down Fernswallow are still trying to buy their way into a magical lineage, and they apparently thought I might’ve gone blind as well as hopelessly dense because they offered Bryn.” She made a face. “Nothing the Sisters would approve anyway, but it did send Tad to growling like a bear and shutting himself in his study for over a week.”
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