Paths of Alir (A Pattern of Shadow & Light Book 3)

by Melissa McPhail

  Fazil nodded, unable to look at her.

  She motioned to the mute, and he hauled the Nadoriin from the room.

  Taliah looked back to Trell, who remained on his knees. Then she frowned. “Take the keeper and feed his body to his pigs. You can repair the stall while you’re at it.” She irritably waved for him to rise.

  The muscles of Trell’s jaw worked as he got to his feet. “My clothes?”

  She cast him a cold smile full of wretchedness and fury. “You will be clothed in your honor, Prince of Dannym. Surely that is enough for you.”

  Forty-Three

  “Be wary of enemies reconciled and of meat twice boiled.”

  – The Hearthwitch’s Handbook

  The sailor Hafiz slammed his glass down on the counter and waved to the barkeep. “Another!”

  The man came over and refilled Hafiz’s glass with a dark eye of disapproval. “Don’t you think you’ve had enough, son?”

  Hafiz grabbed the glass before the barkeep had second thoughts about it. “No.” Not nearly enough. He didn’t want to be sober for what they would do to him. Hafiz nursed his seventh serving of absinthe and lamented the wretched turn of his life.

  He’d never imagined that his wife would refuse to leave their village, or that his mother would shame him for not avenging his uncle’s death there and then. She’d castigated him and accused him of thinking that silver could mitigate the pain of her brother’s death, but he noticed that she’d kept the coin after paying him thanks in ugly words. Both mother and wife had shunned him and humbled him and cast him from their home, that they might grieve for his uncle without the greedy hands of a coward staining his memory.

  What else could he do then? They’d called him craven, and perhaps he had been in that moment when the arrow struck his uncle’s heart, but Hafiz wouldn’t become what his mother had accused him of. Some future day, he would meet her beneath Jai’Gar’s heavenly pillars and prove to her that he’d died with honor.

  He knew the Shamshir’im had to be looking for him. He just wished they’d be faster about it.

  He’d made it easy for them, coming back to the Souk Marmadii and making big claims of having seen a prisoner on Darroyhan, telling stories to the drunkards in the bazaar, to anyone who would listen. He’d even once thought he saw the old man, Weyland’s agent, listening for a while. Afterwards he’d ambled off, shaking his half-blind head. But by Huhktu’s Bones! Hafiz had been shouting his story for two days and still no one had come to claim him. It seemed a cruel form of torture to make him sit and stew and contemplate the real torture ahead.

  Hafiz downed the last of his drink and was just raising his glass to call for another when dark shadows befell him.

  At last.

  He spun to find two dark-robed and turbaned Shamshir’im standing over him. Only their eyes were visible between the cloth cloaking their faces, and those dark orbs did not look upon him kindly.

  The barkeep took the glass out of his fingers. “You disgrace your house, Hafiz.”

  He turned the man a mad smile as the Shamshir’im dragged him away amid whispers and stares. No, don’t you see? I go now to bring it honor.

  Forty-Four

  “All men strain beneath the yoke of Balance. It is a harsh and unforgiving master.”

  – The High Lord Marius di L'Arlesé

  Ean and Isabel made love with desperation that night. Ean couldn’t tell if it came of his apprehensions or hers, or a combination of both, but they each felt desperation’s cold presence like a third lover with them…between them…sometimes embracing the both of them. That need to possess Isabel which had so often fueled Ean’s passion of late felt suddenly an unwelcome voyeur, for he wanted less to possess her than to never let her go. He couldn’t clutch her close enough, couldn’t know her body intimately enough, couldn’t taste her or touch her or penetrate her deeply enough. And Isabel…she clung to him as though that night would be their last.

  Ean sensed nothing of this idea in her thoughts—she had her mind tightly shielded—but he did sense a great loneliness where none had existed before. She refused to explain why she felt this way, though she didn’t try to deny it.

  When their lovemaking was done for a time, Ean held her close, her head on his chest and her hair draped across his body, legs entangled. For a while his thoughts wandered, but in the past few days, and especially that night, they seemed always to work their way back to one person.

  “How did you know him, Isabel?”

  Ean couldn’t say what put thoughts of Immanuel in his head. Half the time now he suspected she put them there, knowingly or otherwise, because some thoughts bled across the bond even when she tried to keep them close.

  But she seemed surprised by his question, so perhaps she hadn’t been thinking of the man after all.

  “In the corridor that day.” Ean stroked his fingers through her long hair. “You knew he was one of them. Had you met him before?”

  “As Immanuel di Nostri, I knew him,” she admitted. Her voice came quietly, as if it had traveled a great distance to reach him from where her thoughts dwelled. “But he was careful to conceal his nature then. In Tal’Afaq he was not.”

  “But how did you know he was Malorin’athgul? How could you tell when I couldn’t?”

  She lifted her head and resettled it within the curve of his shoulder, so that he viewed her face in profile. “Few written works tell of the Malorin’athgul. Most who know of them beyond my brother’s circle learned of them through the Qhorith’quitara. These are apocryphal writings that give the Malorin’athgul’s—well, it would be most apt to say the writings relate their mythology and list their divine names.”

  “Is that how you knew Pelas?”

  “I knew him from his description in the Sobra’Iternin.”

  “So the Sobra describes each of them?”

  She turned and draped an arm and a leg across his form. “The Sobra is written in patterns, Ean.” Her finger traced the line of his chest, while her brow formed a similar furrow. “It doesn’t describe them in any human sense. Instead, it catalogues their life patterns. All who have looked upon those patterns have them indelibly imprinted in their memory, for they are not patterns one can ever forget.”

  “That’s how you recognized him then…from his life pattern?” While startling in its way, it yet seemed a rather benign explanation compared to the places his imagination had taken him. But it also threw into stark illumination how little he really knew of Isabel.

  She’d read the Sobra I’ternin? The rumors spoke of Björn having completed its translation, but if Isabel had also read the entire work…

  It only made sense. Björn shared everything with Isabel; he wouldn’t have kept important knowledge from her. Thus she’d become the High Mage of the Citadel, as powerful within her purview as her brother when he’d held the Alorin Seat.

  And for all Ean knew…well, Isabel still held the rank of High Mage, and Björn…Ean didn’t believe for a moment that the First Lord had abandoned his responsibilities as the Alorin Seat. Rather, he appeared to have transcended them into something larger.

  “You’re very quiet, my love.”

  Ean lifted his head and pressed his lips to her hair. As he settled back into his pillow again, he said, “I was just thinking how little I really know of you.”

  Her hand slipped further around his chest, and she drew herself closer, her body and hair like satin and silk against his skin. Her finger continued its slow tracing of his chest. “One day you will remember all.”

  “Will that be the day you remove your blindfold?”

  Isabel stilled. Then she sat up and looked down at him. “Ean…” she frowned in wonder. “I don’t wear the blindfold because of you.” She seemed genuinely startled by his question. “However did—?”

  “I just assumed it was related to my…failures.”

  A gentle smile lifted her features, and she leaned in and kissed him lovingly. “Ever you seek to claim fault for all�
�don’t you see this bravery in yourself?” She touched his rough, unshaven jaw with a gentle hand. “So like my brother—the two of you would battle each other over who should bear the heavier burden of guilt.”

  Her smile and her kiss eased the sting of her words. Ean pushed a hand behind his head. “But if not because of me—Arion, I mean…then why?” He cupped her face and traced his thumb across the silk covering her eyes. “You walk the world forever denied its beauty.”

  Isabel considered him in silence for a moment. Then she exhaled a measured breath. “I made a promise—we made it together, you and I. It makes sense to me that if you couldn’t remember the moment, you would yet perceive the association.”

  “But what was the promise?”

  She gazed down at him with sorrow branded like the Kandori Khoda Panaheh across her brow. Then she lay her naked form over his and let their bodies be draped in the cloak of her hair. As she rested her cheek against his chest, she murmured, “I allowed my eyes to deceive me once to fatal ends. I swore never again to walk the world blinded to the truth, blinded by mortal eyes.”

  At this description, a sudden memory sparked to mind, the image blurred with…he realized the blur was a haze of tears. He saw his hands—Arion’s hands—tying a blindfold across Isabel’s closed eyes. Then he’d kissed her.

  “I put it on you,” he said quietly, and she nodded. “To wear always.”

  She nodded again, and her cheek felt wet now against his chest. Her voice came faintly, “But I would remove it…if you asked.”

  Ean stiffened beneath her. He knew what such an act would mean even without fully understanding it. “Isabel…you’re scaring me.”

  She sat up to face him, legs straddling his hips. “There can be only truth between us.” She reached for the dark fold of silk.

  Ean sat up abruptly and caught her wrist. “Stop.”

  She drew in her breath, and her bottom lip trembled.

  To see her so close to tears nearly undid him. “Isabel—”

  She wrapped her arms around him and drew him close, and for a time, neither of them spoke. Finally, he heard her whisper, “In all my life, there has only been you.”

  Ean didn’t understand what was happening, what had happened. Whatever prophetic dream had visited Isabel in the night, it had taken something vital from her.

  He took her face with his hands and with his thumbs wiped away her tears. “I love you. I have always loved you.” He searched her hidden gaze, knowing she looked into his eyes even if hers were denied him. “I could never love anyone but you.”

  She nodded. Her lips parted with her inhale, so fragile and yet so tormentingly beautiful. And in that moment, Ean’s sudden rising need drew both of them into its embrace again.

  The prince rose before the dawn and went to the Moon Palace’s nodecourt to study and chart a path to Ivarnen.

  The second strand governed a Nodefinder’s ability to travel, but as Isabel had reminded him, Ean indeed felt within its kinetic power a certain kinship to the fifth. With the necessary patterns under his command, the Pattern of the World embraced Ean as it would embrace its own second-strand Adepts.

  As the prince stepped upon the node and opened himself to the rushing kinetic river, calling up the Greater Reticulation to study and plot, the prince marveled at how far he’d come even since arriving in Kandori.

  His work with Dareios had solidified an understanding of patterns which he’d lacked while working with Markal in T’khendar; and the trials he had undergone, culminating in his gaining Sebastian’s freedom…these had reaped an odd and unlikely confidence he hadn’t imagined he would ever feel. As he stood then upon the Pattern of the World with the rushing power of a planet’s kinetic force pummeling through him, and liking it, understanding it, knowing he had the skill to channel and define it…this heralded a magical and wondrous moment of identity regained.

  By the time Sebastian joined him beneath a rose-gold sky, Ean had mapped the way and was standing on the node forging the last leis into place. He felt his brother’s presence as he opened his eyes.

  Sebastian offered him a copper mug steaming with mulled wine. It smelled spicy and divine. “Is this how you sleep now, little brother? Standing in a courtyard all night? A tragic waste to leave a woman like Isabel in your bed all alone.”

  Ean walked over to him and took the mug. “For all you know my one night might’ve lasted as long as twenty.”

  Sebastian grinned. “Yes, but could you have lasted for twenty nights?”

  “An old man’s question.”

  “An adolescent’s boast.” Sebastian laughed at Ean’s withering look and draped an arm around his shoulders. He clinked mugs with him as he drew him off. “Dareios is calling for us. Last minute details before we launch upon your dangerously insane plan to get us all killed.”

  “Dangerously insane is what I do best.” Ean let Sebastian draw him away from the nodecourt. His work there was done in any case. “What of my pattern? Are you comfortable with it?”

  Sebastian gave him a telling look and then downed the last of his drink. “I have the pattern.”

  They’d practiced using the pattern derived from Ean’s variant trait until an evening rain and exhaustion had driven them inside. But it had worked. Sebastian could see every pattern Ean threw at him.

  Ean cast Sebastian a sidelong glance. He still felt wonder being near him again, still had moments of incredulity when he couldn’t believe his beloved older brother was alive and standing at his side.

  Sebastian wore his hair longer now than he had in their youth. Now his long waves teased beneath his cheekbones and curled around his collar. Now he had a thin scar as a reminder of the unimaginable horrors he’d endured. But his blue-grey eyes were just as engaging as Ean remembered from their youth, and his smile just as ready.

  Ean realized he’d been staring when Sebastian quirked an inquiring brow at him. He cleared his throat, earning an amused look from his brother, and said, “The pattern has to become native to you. You need to be able to hold it in place and work a hundred others on top of it.”

  “I know. It will.” Sebastian smiled. “Mayhap you should’ve given us those twenty nights for practice instead of using them to bed a woman.”

  “Hypocrite.”

  “Ah, the difficult choices of youth.”

  Ean cast him a wry smile. “This youth could take your head off with a thought.”

  “I guess I’m lucky he’s my little brother and knows how best to treat his betters.”

  Ean arched brows. “Betters?”

  Sebastian regarded him with a superior air. “Only one of us will be king.”

  Ean eyed him surreptitiously. “I think which one is still open to debate.”

  Sebastian’s blue-grey eyes danced with mirth. He wrapped an arm around Ean’s shoulders again and gripped him close as they walked. “If our father names you heir, little brother, I’ll stand in line to serve in your court.”

  The prince held his brother’s affectionate gaze for a moment and then dropped his eyes to smile softly to himself. How he admired Sebastian! And how resilient he’d proven in the days since his ‘reawakening.’ He’d endured unknowable torment—years of captivity and vilely enforced submission and the torture of not even owning his own mind. Ean had feared his brother’s psyche would’ve been shattered; yet Sebastian had never shown a moment’s darkness since the night they reunited as brothers in true.

  In the privacy of his thoughts, Ean worried that Sebastian was still floating on the fair tides of freedom, but that the winds of his past would catch up with him eventually. He hoped his brother would be able to weather that storm. He planned to be there to see it through with him, if and when it hit.

  Dareios and his two assistants were waiting in the lab when Ean and Sebastian arrived.

  “Ah, my princes, sobh bekheir.” The truthreader pressed palms and bowed his head to them. Then he waved excitedly at his cousin Bahman.

  The latter lifte
d a tunic formed of gold chains and sculpted plates and brought it over.

  Ean gave Dareios a swift look. “You’re giving us your magic tunic?”

  “No; no, this is a new model.” He winked at them. “Bahman and Naveed have been working on it feverishly. I daresay they’ve improved upon my original.”

  Bahman stopped before Sebastian and extended the metal shirt to him. It looked similar to a shirt of mail, though less completely structured, with patterns inscribed on chest and arm plates and intricately woven chains.

  “Wait—this is for me?” Sebastian turned a startled look around at the others. “But Ean—”

  “Ean can shield with the fifth.”

  “Consistently,” Ean amended, for though they’d been working on that pattern together, Sebastian still had a long way to go before he would be able to hold it effortlessly in place.

  Dareios advised, “The mail is designed to protect against projectile objects—arrows, fast strikes and the like—but it won’t keep a man from throttling you in close combat.” He motioned again to the shirt Bahman was holding out for Sebastian. “If you will accept it?”

  Sebastian aimed an accusatory glance at Ean.

  Ean willed his gaze to convey all that he would have his brother understand. “I won’t risk you—”

  “I know.” Sebastian quieted him with an upraised hand…and then a smile to soften his brusqueness. “I get it. And I’d be a fool not to accept.” He turned a grateful look to Dareios, and then to Bahman and Naveed. “Thank you.” He took the mail shirt and looked it over. Then he looked up at Ean under his brows. “This was your idea?”

  Ean smiled. “I wish it had been.”

  “You may thank my sister Ehsan, Sebastian.” Dareios’s colorless eyes glinted with humor. “Or possibly curse her. We have yet to see how well it works.” He eyed Sebastian quizzically. “It does intrigue me that she’s taken an interest in your welfare.” His tone implied everything his benign gaze lacked.