by Janny Wurts
For one fleeting, wracked second, Arithon's regret showed. Then his piercing stare dropped. He knew, none better, since a red dawn in Riverton: however careful the covering disguise, a clansman caught inside a walled town would not receive trial; only the horror of a public maiming, followed by execution. The document tossed aside on the trestle framed its own desolate statement: Shand's caithdein had been more than generous with the lives placed at his command. Already his people risked life and limb for a cause that was none of their making.
Arithon swallowed, glanced up, then offered his wrist with the unmasked pain of his sincerity. 'I'm grateful you've spared me the indignity of asking.' He did hot wince at the crushing grip that sealed pact of honour with the chieftain who had once tested him to death's edge, at sword-point. The distress that rang through as he closed was profound. 'This time, to my sorrow, I believe that the stakes on the outcome are greater than all of us.'
* * *
Spring 5671
Vixen
Far from the sun-slashed greenwood of Shand, the brisk northern winds howled over the clouded peaks beyond Eastwall. Snow whirled down in glass-tipped flakes. Their icy tap rattled into the panes of the casement window-seat where Elaira curled with a mug of hot tea, a quartz sphere tucked in her lap. Another storm smothered the passes in drifts, again delaying her departure.
Where once she would have chafed with impatience, this afternoon's calm retreat reflected the change undergone through her months of reclusive study.
Five seasons in the company of Ath's adepts had shifted the range of her knowledge. Now awakened to the inherent design of natural flux and wild forces, she could sense the living coil of energies that presaged the shift in the season. In the deep of the earth, through the whine of the gale, between the restless cycle as frozen water melted to the blazing light of the sun, she heard language.
The thaws would come, soon. The snowpack would retreat and reopen the road, and the respite she had snatched in the quiet of Ath's sanctuary would draw to an end. Her decision to leave was not challenged. The adepts' code of silence honoured free will. If she asked their wise counsel, they answered her need with simple, but searching questions.
'How do you feel? What do you believe? Where does your heart's whisper lead you?'
Her careful reflection converged to one thread. She cherished Rathain's prince and trusted his strength without reservation. Kewar's maze had affirmed his true quality. As an oathsworn enchantress, Elaira believed - no, she knew - that the sisterhood named her beloved as their inveterate enemy. The Matriarch's resolve to chase him down would wait only so long, before Elaira's lapsed charge would be handed off to another, or worse: rechannelled into a fresh avenue of pursuit more insidious than her given assignment. Against certain distrust of the Prime Circle's intent, Elaira's self-honest, caring involvement offered Arithon a tenuous stay of protection.
At least if she failed, and he fell prey to the Koriani design for his capture, she could be present to temper the end game. Determined, she could try to ensure that he would not be violated in ways that might destroy his inner integrity.
Her heart's whisper led her, courageous, to take the steadfast course of firm character. To stay by his side, and not to run, though the razor's edge her decision must tread threatened to tear her asunder.
If love were to rule Prince Arithon's fate, and not hatred, Elaira would leave Whitehaven hostel at thaws. She chose that road with concern and raw dread, but not with self-questioning uncertainty. Attuned with the living pulse of Athera, now trained to partner the awareness of crystals, she had learned to access the mysteries without use of blind force or coercion. Opened to new resource, she sought the midafternoon quiet to measure the storm. Amid the untamed voice of the elements, she listened for the subliminal whisper that spoke of rebirth into spring.
For Arithon Teir's'Ffalenn was finally in Shand.
The burst of excitement raised a tingle of nerves. His landfall that dawn at last opened the way to take charge of the burden that bonded her love to his fate. Selidie Prime's orders had been known to him since his passage through Kewar's maze. He had awarded Elaira his firm promise then to share the responsible course of that destiny.
The enchantress raked back her unruly bronze hair. Pulse racing, she lifted the quartz sphere between her cupped hands.
'Arithon, beloved,' she whispered. Her mind framed his memory. The sweet wave of longing that swept her, bone deep, became the piercing focus to anchor her line of intent. Permission to stone was asked, and received. The crystal sphere in her clasp warmed and wakened. Long since tuned in concert with her affection, its conscious presence embraced her patterned awareness and amplified her request. Since her tie to Arithon was a sealed conduit, forged through the gate of the heart, the white-out snowfall over the mountains cast no veil of interference. The thread of his life-stream entwined through her being expanded to intimate focus . . .
He was standing alone, as often occurred when her desire reached out for close contact. By who knew what alchemy, or what gift of mage-sight, his spirit was waiting, aligned to receive her.
Arithon had chosen the site to frame the connection, a tender forethought made in design to expand upon her delight. His surrounds were the afternoon shade of a pine-wood, warmed by sunlit air, and the velvet fragrance of evergreen needles and earth. The natural element founding her craft enhanced the quartz-driven connection. Water flowed near him, a streamlet that fed into the south branch of the River Hanhafffn. The slide of tranquil current through moss-capped rocks played through the hush and made sacred the melding between them.
Elaira felt his smile of welcome, as her inward awareness embraced him. He did not respond with the disturbance of thought. His mind, gently open, welcomed her in. A fish in a deep pool, she immersed in his presence, sharing the moment's intimate force, then the fierce, wild thrill that rippled his skin, as her spirit-touch fingered over and through him.
Mage-schooled, his poise displayed no other sign. The hands loosely clasped at his back stayed relaxed. His breathing remained light and even. His greeting alive in the core of her heart, he framed her name, couched in a golden shower of music. 'Elaira, beloved.'
The timing for an outside interruption could scarcely be less opportune.
Yet the relentless perception of initiate mastery brushed Arithon with warning that someone had broken his chosen moment of solitude. As the intrusion crossed the fringe of his subtle awareness, Elaira felt him assess the electrical eddy that rippled across his stilled thought. The arrival would soon break his guarded privacy. No rustle of footsteps raised a disturbance. Whoever came would be clanborn. Vhandon and Talvish still stood as his sentries; since they were not wont to relax while on guard, Arithon chose not to move, or acknowledge. The approaching party would not bear arms, if his liegemen had not issued challenge.
That measured fact did not mean the coming encounter would not prove to be dangerous.
Far distant, at Whitehaven hostel, Elaira gathered herself to withdraw from Arithon's inner mind.
'Please stay,' he bade her, a purely reflexive cry for the untoward theft of his pleasure. The tenderness that cradled her being, within his, was a clasp that held love beyond measure: a tie that cherished but did not contain.
Since natural preference quashed her better sense, Elaira did not retreat.
Therefore, she was most keenly present when the clanborn woman strode up from behind, and with a brazen, self-possessed passion, closed her hands over Arithon's wrists.
Initiate master, his furious recoil was trained entirely inward. His physical nerves displayed no reaction; loose fingers betrayed no jerk of startlement. Only the naked weave of his shared awareness exposed the hair-trigger leap of his thought. Elaira felt his touch at her heart's centre, first, steady and sure and unbroken.
'I don't recognize her, best-beloved.'
The price of that signal honesty cost him. The woman pressed closer. As though she owned him, flesh and blood,
the silky tumble of her unbound hair trailed down his back. Her breath brushed his ear. Then her lips pressed a kiss on the side of his neck that could have boiled rock into lava.
Arithon wrenched down his savage distaste. Physically contained, ruled still by the ironclad core of his will, his instant thought was Elaira's: 'Whoever she is, there's no profit in stealth. I don't need to look to know I've been insulted by a hussy with ulterior motives. Stay, or leave as you wish. Had I known in advance, I'd have spared you the rank irritation.'
He sucked a breath, scalded to fury, as the violation of those sensuous fingers tried the tight cuffs of his shirt, intent on unbinding the laces. Sensitive, there, because of his scars, Arithon firmed his forearms in warning. His exasperated move detached her hot grasp, and his fast, forward step parted her open-mouthed kiss, that already had purpled a throbbing bruise on the fine grain of his skin.
Spun around, he looked into a ravishing face, lightly freckled, with golden eyes speckled and brilliant as a flawed topaz.
'I heard that I owed you thanks for a bride gift,' she said, her deep voice as warm as spring earth.
Arithon measured her, tousled head to bare feet. She appeared to be just come of age, not ripe, but lean, with pert breasts under a sheer linen shirt that caught on her hardened nipples. The cascading fall of her carrot red hair framed a beauty to wreck a man's peace.
'I should apologize for the flagrant dye in the cloth?' Arithon answered her, cool. The scarlet that her bridegroom had asked for was going to wreak damage, when matched with her colouring.
Small white teeth, parted lips, a seductress's smile; since Elaira could not fail to miss his reflexive male surge in response, she received the pure echo of Prince Arithon's sent assurance. The vixen's wiles had not tempted. Even had the woman not been Kyrialt's handfasted bride, the prince whose affection clasped her distant thought burned as steadfast as a fixed beacon.
Since he seemed a Masterbard at loss for words, the enchantress smothered a laugh and extended her humour to rescue him. 'Dare I ask? What under Ath's sky did you do to her man?'
'Tested him. Sorely.' Arithon lost to his spontaneous joy, for the idiot crux of the challenge.
'Well, she's doing the same.' Amusement spiked through, as his fight to command his animal senses burned a redoubled ripple of sensuous awareness between them. Elaira sent rueful, 'Your nerves can withstand her? She's ill prepared. I see that her style of frontal assault means she's used to creating an impact.'
Arithon forcibly curbed a sharp gasp. 'Mercy, beloved! You're going to destroy me. If I should break down and laugh in her face, pride will drive her to claw for my vitals! Please leave the delicate recoil to me. I've experience enough from the taverns.'
'Well she's not a bar wench!' retorted Elaira. 'For what reason did you try Kyrialt?'
Whatever controlled answer Arithon intended, the raw storm the question awoke was too much. Set on top of a flagrant distraction, his talent for far-sight burst free. Knocked reeling, he back-stepped, thumped into a pine trunk, and salvaged his balance by leaning. As the onslaught of future images welled up and slammed the shut gates of his mind, he lost himself, forced to fight for their recontainment. That moment cost also. Glendien came on, pressed her lush body against him full length, and kissed him hard on the mouth.
Since he could not disengage her assault without violence, he closed his eyes, doused the sensory scald of his flesh, and shielded the core of his mind. There, with Elaira fixed as his sole focus, he told over the truth like a litany. 'Beloved, she glitters, while you are the substance that binds the marrow inside the bone of me. I shall come north to meet you as soon as may be. Are the west passes clear yet?' Her pang of impatience informed him at once; shared the snapped imprint of snowfall, bleak as ice through her desolate eyes. His response was the warm, summer sun on her heart, and his salve, the firm promise to ease the ache of their long separation. 'Seek me in Halwythwood. Guest with Feithan, the widow of Jieret s'Valerient. Let her lodge shelter us when I bestow rightful place at my side in your hand.'
'Well, you've got to survive today's escapade, first.' Her laughter held more than gratitude, more than joy, more than the mind's touch could capture. 'Don't savage her feelings,' Elaira sent back, 'since I've gathered you will need the support of Kyrialt s'Taleyn's fixed loyalty.'
His startled flinch told her she had read far too much through his muddled explosion of prescience. Which forced the need to take charge; Arithon collected himself, as he must. 'You only, beloved.'
And then he was gone, to manage the awkwardness shoved into his arms, in the pine glen far distant in Alland.
Prisoned by weather behind grey panes of glass, Elaira lifted the quartz sphere from her lap. She thanked its bright service, smoothed its raised field of resonance, and laid it aside on the window-seat. Then, eyes brimming, she laced her arms to her ribs and collapsed into helpless laughter. 'Oh beloved!' she gasped, when next she could speak. 'Halwythwood's not going to be soon enough!'
Yet anxiously as she yearned for the moment she would feel the touch of his hands and set free the raw need for completion, the gift must come to her burdened with dread.
On the hour Elaira left Whitehaven hostel, she must shoulder the paradox that might poison the unwritten future. Inevitably, her newly refigured perception must clash with the precepts of her order's oath. Ath's adepts had well warned her: the clear grace of the mysteries must inflict a bind of incompatible conflicts. The Koriani practice of weaving sigils of applied force was now revealed as a needless misuse of the balance of Ath's creation.
In the pine glen, his blood raging, and his heart torn for the rape of his cherished privacy, Arithon snapped his face to one side. 'My dear,' he addressed Glendien, 'you're a gift to leave a man breathless and begging, except . . .' Her fingers, nails extended, locked his temples and cheek. That grip was dead serious. Should he resist, his flesh would be crudely laid open. Twisted to face her, enwrapped in her scent, her mouth on him like scalding vengeance, Arithon stiffened.
She bit his lip.
He tore free, anyway, bleeding, now angry, '. . . except I can't recall . . .' Arithon dodged her riposte, snatched her rippling hair at the nape, and using main strength, pulled her demanding kiss from his mouth, '. . . asking for an assignation.'
'Sithaer! You're a gelding,' she said to his teeth.
Arithon laughed. 'Not yet. Though I'm wary if you keep this up, your husband will finish the question.'
'I'm handfasted, not married.' Glendien eyed his dishevelled hair and flushed skin, moved a sultry hip, and backed off him. 'Until tomorrow. Then I'll be wed. You could be left with a lifetime's regret. Why sweat in your dreams for the missed opportunity?'
'Regret?' Arithon blotted his torn lip, saw with distaste that his cuffs were untied, and leaned back upon his tucked forearms. 'That's an interesting word. Let's see which of the pair of us wears it.'
He looked at her, then. Masterbard, sorcerer, his prolonged survey was no less than a flaying experience. He said presently, 'Why do you want Kyrialt's blade at my throat?'
She raked him with her brilliant, topaz eyes. 'Where did you get your scars? If you want a look at my heart, you must pay. One for one, we'll trade knifing answers.'
If her quick stab had cut him, he would not let that show. As fiercely as she could rope men to heel, Glendien must realize there would be no governing this one. His quiet would not release, would not dismiss, but could only shatter the pain she held at the vibrating core of her.
Then he spoke. 'Very well. I'll disarm yours first. You are jealous; no, afraid.'
Not cruel at all, that insight tore through every tight shield and presumption. 'Terrified, in fact,' said Arithon s'Ffalenn, 'that your bridegroom might choose to support me.'
'Not might.' Glendien flung back her wild banner of hair, too proud to hide her contempt. 'Your sort of service will see him cut dead. Prince of Bones. Master of Carrion. No price I could pay is worth risking the father I've chosen to
sire my children.'
Arithon moved. Wind stirred his dark hair as he pushed straight, his awareness still locked upon her. 'You had a parent who died in Vastmark? A father, perhaps?' The truth of his guess caught her breath. As though he might strike, she flinched from him.
'I'm sorry,' Arithon Teir's'Ffalenn said. The words were sincere. If she wanted to hate, he reft even that poison from her. 'My lady, I once spurned Erlien's goodwill and his ruler's just pride in a badly failed effort to spare Shand its toll of clan losses.'
Glendien spun away, her flame hair a curtain to hide the taut fingers pressed to her face. When her shoulders shook, Rathain's prince made no move to console. He would not step forward, or touch her.
The harsh moment passed. When she moved again, her natural grace was a passionate wine, self-contained now, and no harlot's. 'Spare me my husband,' she begged.
Arithon studied her. Washed in the softened shade of the pines, the blood on his face a violation, he seemed woven into the natural setting, a presence both touched and untouchable.
'Very well.' He presented his back, quick fingers busy restoring his rifled cuff-ties. 'My lady, return to the camp.'
'Go now!' Glendien's fury resurged. 'What is left settled between us? Kyrialt's honour will not let him back down! He will fight and die for this wretched incursion your enemies are raising to exterminate our old blood lines!'
He was patient. 'Then make your cause stronger. Take your chance. Rip your shirt front. Since seduction won't work, you might change your story. Insist that you pushed off my assault, and I can swear not to gainsay that. Play my pride for your ends, I've none left to save. But realize, Glendien. When your man Kyrialt calls me to fight, I will not draw my steel against him.'