by Lisa Cassidy
“We’re supposed to be having fun tonight,” Tarrick added, taking a long swig of ale.
“Don’t tell me your noble blood is still all in a twitter because you’re suddenly not as important as you used to be?” Finn teased.
“I thought you’d been coping remarkably well in that respect,” Dawn added.
“It’s not that.” Alyx took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I do want to have fun.”
“In that case, you’ll be willing to dance with me?” Finn stood and offered his hand.
She agreed with alacrity, glad to escape the tension of the table, and for a while she really did enjoy herself. The music was fantastic, with an energetic beat, and Finn made her laugh with his outrageous dancing. He’d obviously taken her words from days earlier to heart, because he didn’t bring up Dashan or Cayr once.
By the time they returned to the table she was thirsty, and gulped down her glass of ale. That left her with a pleasant buzz, and she and Dawn proceeded to laugh themselves silly over Finn tripping over his own feet and falling on the floor.
A little later, Cayr grabbed her hand for a dance. They swung and twirled with all the others on the crowded floor for a while, then he took her hand and led her to a small alcove off the main bar.
“I wanted a little quiet time with you,” he explained.
“It is rather loud in here isn’t it?”
“And crowded.” He grinned. “You look like you’re finally starting to relax.”
“I am,” she agreed. The presence of her friends, not to mention the alcohol, had finally served to relax her. “Thanks to you and the others.”
“I didn’t realise how much I truly missed you until you came back,” he said. “It was like a part of me was missing.”
“I missed having my best friend around, too,” she admitted.
Cayr shifted closer, one arm reaching over her shoulder to lean against the wall. “You are so much more beautiful than Jenna could ever be. You’ve changed, Alyx, and in the best way possible. You’re stunning.”
“Cayr…”
“Shh,” he whispered, leaning down to kiss her.
His kiss was as she remembered it, warm and sweet. It took her back to the days before she’d left for DarkSkull, where her happiness had been pure and unaffected. Her eyes slid closed as she clung to that memory and tried to ignore the sadness rising in her.
He pulled back after a long moment, smiling softly down at her. “I’ve been wanting to do that ever since I saw you again.”
Alyx opened her mouth to reply, but as she did, her glance shifted and fell on Dashan. He clutched a glass of ale in his hand, newly purchased from the bar, and the raw hurt that spilled from his dark eyes made it obvious he’d seen everything. A dancer bumped into him, partially spilling the ale. He didn’t notice, his entire attention on her.
Her breath caught. Tears threatened, and she couldn’t understand how Dashan’s pain affected her so powerfully. Before she could move, he was gone, melting back into the crowd.
“Alyx?” Cayr’s voice turned her attention back to him, and only sheer willpower kept her tears from falling and becoming obvious to him.
“Cayr.” She paused, realising with sudden clarity that she shouldn’t have allowed him to kiss her. “I told you we needed time.”
He shook his head. “You know how I feel about you. We talked about this.”
“And I should have said more.” She looked at him steadily. “We’ve both grown up, changed. We need to take things slowly, get to know each other again.”
“I know, and I agreed, but… I’m going to marry you,” he said suddenly, fiercely. “I haven’t changed that much.”
Had she? Alyx found she didn’t have the answer to that question, and that scared her. She forced a smile, and reached down to take his hand. “Come on, let’s go and dance.”
“Are you all right?” Cayr asked a short time later, after he noticed she wasn’t paying complete attention.
She nodded. “I’m getting a little thirsty.”
“Back to the table we go, then.” He led her over.
Alyx stopped dead in her tracks as they approached the table, and someone behind bumped into her when she obstructed their path. She completely ignored the man’s protests—her eyes were fixed on Dashan and the pretty young woman in his lap. She was giggling as he nuzzled at her neck. Dawn and Tarrick sat huddled in conversation on the other side of the table, likely trying to give Dashan some privacy.
“What do you think you’re doing?” The words were out before Alyx thought about them, born of the sudden, overwhelming jealousy clawing at her chest. The woman broke off her nuzzling at Alyx’s sharp words, her gaze bleary with drink as she tried to focus in Alyx’s direction.
Dashan seemed equally inebriated, words almost slurring when he spoke. “Isn’t it obvious?”
“If you’re going to put on a display like that, please do it somewhere else.” Her voice was icy.
“Hey, I got another jug!” Finn’s voice broke the bubble of tension that had fallen around them following Alyx’s words. He took in the situation immediately, concern replacing the merriment that had been on his face. “Maybe we should just call it a night?” he said, glancing between Alyx and Dashan. “It’s getting late, and we have to meet with the lord-mage early tomorrow.”
“You can do as you like, I’m sticking around for a while.” Dashan tightened his arm around the woman’s waist, making her giggle into his ear.
“Mate, don’t do this,” Cayr said with a sympathetic smile. “Let us walk you back to barracks.” Like Alyx, he recognised exactly what sort of mood Dashan was in. If he stayed, he would keep drinking and his behaviour would only get worse.
“Get your filthy Shiven hands off my girl!”
The words were bellowed loudly enough to cut across the noise, and Alyx turned as a man near double Dashan’s size pushed his way through the crowd towards them. He had others behind him, all strapping farmers by the look of them.
“This is not good,” Finn muttered under his breath.
“She’s your girl?” Dashan mocked. “Doesn’t look like it to me. Maybe you should find yourself a woman you can keep.”
Alyx winced, disgust at his behaviour quickly rising to match the searing jealousy twisting her stomach. As the girl scrambled away with a drunken shriek, the man roared and swung his fist at Dashan, who dodged, but not quite quickly enough. He took the fist on the edge of his jaw and fell backwards with the chair. The jilted man kept coming, aiming kicks at Dashan’s prone form.
The man’s friends joined in then. Part of Alyx—the furious part—was tempted to leave Dashan to his well-deserved beating, but Cayr leapt into the fray before she could stop him, jumping onto the big man’s back and trying to pull him off Dashan.
With a sigh, she threw herself sideways into a man that was trying to drag Cayr off his friend, sending them both staggering. A beefy arm wound around her neck, and she gasped for air. Reluctant to use magic in such a crowded, public place she struggled to release herself from the fierce hold.
A moment later the man’s arm suddenly loosened, and she dropped to the floor. Gaining her feet, she saw Tarrick wrestling on the floor with her attacker. She looked for Dashan and Cayr, caught a glimpse of them between Finn and a strange man’s wrestling figures, and tried to force her way through.
The brawl quickly escalated out of control, involving more and more patrons of the inn. Somebody slammed into Alyx from the side, and she lashed out with a foot, kicking his shin hard, then swearing at the pain that shot through her toes. Dashan and the farmer wrestled on the table top, rolling straight toward her. She dodged aside as they crashed into the floor, just in time for Cayr to come stumbling backwards from a punch and land on top of the pile.
She went to help, but found herself being dragged backwards as two hands grabbed her shoulders. Looking around, she recognised the uniform of the City Guard, and immediately stopped struggling. More City Guard officers moved in
to break up the fight, grabbing and holding those fighting.
“Damn,” she muttered as she and the others were dragged from the inn. “Casovar is going to love this.”
Chapter 8
Somewhere down at the end of the hall a cell door clanged. A man’s voice swearing came next, followed by the fading echo of booted footsteps and another door closing. The man swore a few more times before subsiding. Silence fell.
“What did you do in your first week home after a long absence, Alyx?” She spoke loudly into the silence. “Oh, I spent the night in the city jail after getting arrested for being in a bar brawl. It was great fun.”
“Could you pipe down?” Dashan groaned. “My head is killing me.”
She gave him an icy look. The six of them were arrayed on hard wooden benches that ran the length and width of the barred cell. The place stunk of vomit and unwashed prisoners. Alyx had been breathing through her mouth as much as possible, but that technique had so far proved fruitless. At this moment she would give anything for clean clothes and a hot bath.
“Your head wouldn’t be killing you if you hadn’t drunk so damned much.” Cayr had worked himself into an uncharacteristically foul mood—perfectly understandable since at some point soon, he was going to have to inform his father, the king of Rionn, that he’d been arrested for drunken behaviour. He also had a lovely, vivid bruise colouring his jaw.
“Spare me another righteous moral lecture,” Dashan muttered.
“I’ve always wanted to see the inside of an Alistriem jail,” Finn spoke, presumably attempting to defuse the tension. “It’s a childhood dream.”
Nobody responded. Dawn sat quietly in the corner opposite Dashan, eyes on the floor. Alyx wouldn’t be surprised if her magic was picking up the turmoil in several minds around her. Being battered by emotional thoughts often caused her to withdraw into herself. Tarrick seemed wearily resigned to their predicament and was staring at the bars across from him, no doubt thinking along the same lines as Cayr. She wondered if a Tylender had ever seen the inside of a Zandian jail.
“What is your problem, Dash?” Cayr could be stubborn at the best of times, and it seemed he wasn’t going to let this go. “You’ve been in a sour mood all night, ogling women and starting brawls. Is it really so hard to get over yourself and apologise to Dunnat?”
“I don’t want to hear it.” Dashan waved a dismissive hand. “You think you know me, up there in your pretty palace with your pretty clothes, but you know nothing.”
“Cayr supported you back there. He jumped into the fight that you started,” Alyx said angrily. “So maybe you could try being a little nicer.”
“Well, excuse the drunken lout in the corner. I don’t know what I’m talking about, right?”
Cayr straightened. “Quit the tone, Dash. I won’t tolerate you speaking to Alyx like that.”
“Hey!” she snapped. “I’m right here.”
“That’s enough!” Tarrick rose to his feet. “If I hear one more piece of bickering, I will loose an energy ball into this roof and hope a falling piece of rock knocks you all out!”
Finn rose to his feet, stumbled to the bucket by the wall, and illustrated Tarrick’s words nicely by vomiting copiously into it. Dashan, the closest to him, patted the mage sympathetically on the back until he finished and slumped down to the floor with a groan.
Alyx tried not to look at Dashan in the tense silence that enveloped the cell, but found it impossible. As furious as she was about his behaviour, she knew the cause of it and it was time to stop pretending she didn’t.
Cayr’s kiss. It had taken her back to a time when she’d been happy. But that happiness had been a façade, borne of her innocence and naïveté. Cayr was her friend, and he was handsome, but everything had changed so much since she’d come home. She’d been feeling uneasy and off-centre, and she finally acknowledged the reason. Beyond Casovar, beyond the new Mage Guard.
It was Cayr.
“Cayr?”
Alyx started from her thoughts as Dashan spoke, rising to his feet. He looked steadier, his eyes alert.
“What is it?”
“I’m sorry. I acted badly tonight. The things I said were insulting and wrong. You’ve always been a good friend to me, despite everything. You didn’t deserve my behaviour.”
“Why, Dash?”
“I have no excuse.” Dashan held out his hand. “Someone told me recently that I might be a good man, beneath all the swagger and the drinking. I messed up tonight, but I’d like to try and prove that person right.”
Alyx tried not to let the tears welling in her eyes fall as Cayr smiled and took Dashan’s hand. “You’ve always been a good friend to me too. You kept me grounded, kept me true to who I was. I accept your apology.”
“Then we’re good?”
“We’re good.”
“I’m glad.” Dashan gave Cayr a sad half-smile before returning to sit in the corner of the cell.
Alyx couldn’t take her eyes off him. She was angry and disappointed over how he’d behaved, but he knew he’d been wrong, and pride echoed through her at how he’d acknowledged it with Cayr.
“Praise the gods,” Tarrick muttered, eyes turning heavenward.
They laughed, loudly and uncontrollably, as the tension that had been lying between them cracked into a million pieces.
They were finally let out just after midnight. The jail watch changed, and one of the young men on the new shift was an old unit-mate of Dashan’s. He instantly recognised the people Dashan was with, and informed his superiors that Cayr’s story of being the prince was indeed true, and not a drunken fabrication. The poor watch commander almost tripped over himself in his rush to set them free.
By then, Alyx was tired, hungry, and uncomfortable. She and Cayr found themselves under Bluecoat escort straight back to the palace. Tarrick elected to remain in the city and stay with the twins for the night rather than walk all the way back up the hill, and so it was only Cayr, Alyx and Dashan left to make the long trek. The streets outside were emptier than they had been earlier in the night, though the air was still warm.
Cayr was silent on the walk. Alyx felt for him—he was no doubt dreading the coming confrontation with his father. Hopefully word wouldn’t spread about what had happened, though it seemed doubtful one of the guards wouldn’t tell the story.
“Are you okay?” Dashan ventured after a long silence.
Alyx snorted, determinedly not looking at him. “I don’t want to talk to you right now.”
“I owe you an apology.”
“Your behaviour was appalling.”
“It was,” he said. “It won’t happen again, I promise you that.”
“I believe you.” She sighed.
Dashan glanced ahead to where Cayr walked. “Do you think he’s forgiven me?”
“I can hear you.” Cayr’s voice floated back. “And yes, I’ve forgiven you, although I’m going to think twice next time you try and convince me to spend a night out with you.”
“Noted,” Dashan called back.
Another short silence fell, and this time Alyx broke it. “You went sailing this past week, didn’t you?”
“Yep, up the coast and back.”
“I went looking for you at the barracks. Tijer told me you hadn’t reported in like you were supposed to—that you were still suspended because you refused to apologise to Dunnat.”
He shrugged, features set in his most stubborn expression. “I have nothing to apologise for. None of us do. And I needed some time to myself. The ocean soothes me.”
“I think you need to learn to swallow your pride.”
“This coming from you?” Dashan raised his eyebrows.
“It’s what I’ve been doing this past week,” she said. “And it galls me, but it’s the right thing to do. As much as I might dislike Casovar, he’s working to protect us.”
Dashan looked away, jaw clenching.
“What good are you to anyone if you get kicked out of the Guard?” she wen
t on.
“What good am I to anyone in the Guard?”
“Stop it,” Alyx said angrily, forcing him to halt beside her. “I know that nobody has ever thought much of you, but you need to rise above that. You are a good man and a skilled warrior, so behave like it.”
The hardness melted out of Dashan’s face and he smiled down at her. “You think I should apologise to Dunnat?”
“I do.”
“I’ll think about it,” he promised.
“Alyx is right.” Cayr had slowed up without them realizing. “You’re a worthwhile man, Dashan. I hope one day you start believing that.”
“Thanks, my friend.” Dashan clapped him warmly on the back.
Comfortable silence fell, and lasted until they arrived at the gates to the Egalion estate. Dashan lingered with the Bluecoats, leaving Cayr and Alyx a moment alone.
“Good luck with your father,” she told him.
“He’ll be angry, and so he should be.” Cayr shrugged. “It means he’ll keep me busy for a while so it could be a few days before I see you again.”
“Do what you need to do. I’m not going anywhere yet.”
He kissed her on the cheek. She leaned into him, despair uncurling in her stomach and spreading through her veins like heavy lead. His touch was warm but it didn’t make her feel. She didn’t initiate anything further, and he accepted that with a resigned smile before walking away. The relief she felt at that only sent the dread flying into guilt. She gathered up the emotion and fashioned it into resolve.
It was time to stop hiding from the truth.
Alyx’s father was in the foyer when she came in, the wide space lit only by two lamps. In the shadows cast by the nearest lamp he looked drawn, with faint shadows under his eyes. She wondered if he’d been waiting for her.
“Safia told me you came home early for dinner tonight so we could eat together, so I thought I’d wait up for you,” he answered her unspoken question. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here.”
“It’s all right. I know you have a lot on your mind.” She paused. “I don’t like fighting with you, Papa.”