Last Song Before Night

by Ilana C. Myer

  “He was not always Court Poet,” said the Seer. “And now … now there is no why. I believe it is not him anymore doing this. After many years, that is what happens.”

  “Can’t we just kill him?” she said. She was thinking, One arrow through the heart … or the throat. Like a rabid wolf.

  He laughed, but it was without mirth. “So in some way, at least, you are your mother’s daughter. No, Lin Amaristoth. If I thought Nick could be killed, with the laylan riding him, I would give my life to do it. It’s … it is my responsibility.”

  When Lin looked questioningly at him, Valanir went on. “When we were Academy students together, Nick and I were intrigued by the idea of blood divination. We would cut ourselves, and each other.” He extended his left arm to her, the sleeve rolled up. “Here you can see one of the times I let him cut me. It never faded.” Even in the dim light, Lin saw the purple line of a scar up the length of his arm.

  “That could have killed you.”

  “We were fifteen,” he said. “Idiots. We knew we were best of our year. Impatient to become great, we sought to touch real power. We never got there … but when Nick decided to pursue his own path, we could no longer be friends. I suppose … I suppose the fault lies with me, that I didn’t kill him then, or tell someone at the Academy. At the time I didn’t know what I do now. And I never truly thought … that he would kill.”

  “You trusted him.”

  “I discovered who he was too late. I thought, at heart, he was still the person I knew. I imagine you know what that is like, don’t you, Kimbralin.”

  She shook her head. “It’s just Lin,” she said, allowing herself a tone of reproof. Even with him. She could sense that every word he chose was deliberate. He had used her real name deliberately.

  She had seen the Court Poet for herself: a man of dignity, intelligence in his dark eyes. She could not see such a man possessed by any spirit. “How do you know, though?” she asked. “Maybe he gave it up before he ever hurt anyone, as you did. Maybe it is someone else doing these killings.”

  Valanir rose from the floor to stand before her where she sat. “Take my hand and close your eyes,” he said. Then he smiled as she stared at him, unmoving. “You’re suspicious. As if you could not make short work of me with that dagger, if you chose.”

  Still reluctant, Lin took one of Valanir’s hands in hers. “Stabbing the world’s most celebrated Seer is not one of my ambitions,” she said. She tried to keep her tone nonchalant. “At least, not without cause.”

  “A relief,” he said. “Close your eyes.”

  Lin did, though her heart beat fast. He could not know how difficult it was, what he asked of her. Even Valanir Ocune, it seemed, could not read her heart.

  In the silence that followed, she heard his breath, regular and relaxed. And then began to sing, so softly that it was barely above the sound of breathing.

  Lin felt a plunging in her stomach, as if she were about to be sick or fall from a great height.

  Candles were everywhere. The first detail Lin saw. They flickered in brass sconces, illuminating bare walls of stone. No windows, no draperies. Stone and flame, no more. Candles also danced a quiet circle at the center of the room, where a man stood alone. His back was to her, but she saw that he was tall, with silver in his dark hair.

  And then somehow she was facing him … though Lin had a sense that she wasn’t actually in this room. Nickon Gerrard wore his six-colored cloak. He was singing.

  Before him, at the center of the circle of candles, stood a strange table of stone, encased in delicate carved shapes the color of bone. A concave bowl was cut deep into the stone surface.

  That was when Lin realized two things. The table was an altar. And it was fashioned of bones, with stone at its heart. She saw that cavernous eyes peered from its base, from skulls. Human skulls.

  As she watched, Lord Gerrard dipped his fingers into the bowl at the center of the altar. His fingers came up red. With care, the Court Poet applied his fingertips around his eyes, creating a half mask of blood.

  Bile rose in her throat. She shut her eyes. But when she did, the song of Nickon Gerrard abruptly stopped. All was silence, but for the hiss of a guttering candle. Suddenly terrified, Lin opened her eyes again. She saw that the man at the center of the room had changed, even as the mask remained. Now he was younger, his body compact instead of tall. And he was looking directly at Lin with pleased recognition.

  Rayen Amaristoth smiled; the red mask dripped down his cheeks. In a caressing voice familiar to Lin as her own he said, “Soon, my love.”

  The moment Lin found herself back in the room at the inn, sitting across from Valanir Ocune, she threw a punch at the Seer. He blocked it with his good arm, but she immediately swung again, hitting him this time in the chest. He stumbled back, caught himself on the bed for balance. “How could you do that?” she barked. “How did you do it—and why?”

  “Kimbralin—”

  Her fists clenched hard. “You will call me Lin.”

  He nodded, sank onto the bed. She continued to stand over him. Her fury and shock had turned to a coldness. She had not trusted him, exactly, but neither had she been prepared for a betrayal this deep. But then, when were you ever prepared? That mocking voice again.

  “What did you see?” Valanir asked at last.

  “You mean to tell me you don’t know?”

  “The power I used is not directly in my control,” said Valanir. “One of its flaws, to be sure. My dear, I don’t know what you saw, but I didn’t intend to hurt you. I would never want to do that.”

  Lin clutched her head with both hands. “All right,” she said. “I … I’m sorry. Are you all right?”

  “I’ll be fine,” he said wryly. “Perhaps I should have warned you. The enchantment, I suppose we’ll call it, can be unpredictable.”

  “But we don’t have the enchantments…”

  “Not in Eivar, no,” said Valanir. “But every land possesses its own magics. In Kahishi, the magicians of the sultan’s court have their own power. As a young graduate, I journeyed to Majdara to study with the court magicians—hoping to find a key to our enchantments there. I thought if we could not access the enchantments of Eivar directly, I might be able to come at them sideways.”

  “That’s why you took up residence in the sultan’s court,” said Lin. “Everyone assumes it’s because of your enmity with Lord Gerrard.”

  Valanir smiled. “It was convenient that they think so. And so I was able to show you a vision, though I myself could neither see nor shape it. Your mind shaped what you saw.”

  “A hazardous approach,” Lin said. “Yet that seldom stops you. You got yourself imprisoned, Valanir, for a song?”

  The mark around the Seer’s eye burned strong, even broken as it was. “For a beginning,” he said.

  * * *

  WORD was all over the city: Valanir Ocune was alive and performing throughout the masque. Or no, it was not Valanir; for if it were him, wouldn’t he play his own harp? But it was someone who sounded like him, singing his infamous song.

  The Ladybirds were searching for the renegade poet, but naturally he was masked like everyone else that night.

  Ned Alterra and Rianna Gelvan stumbled through the dark together, leaving the clangor of the celebrations behind. All she wanted to do was go home. And find Darien, which in her mind was equivalent to finding shelter. He would know what to do.

  Valanir Ocune and Lin had made themselves scarce, vanishing just before the guards arrived. Aside from Valanir’s harp, there was little to distinguish them; the masks they wore were those of the gods. Valanir’s upturned face had shone gold by firelight, his mouth twisted in pathos that he had not displayed at the ball.

  It was that image that stayed with Rianna as they left the crowds, heading for Ned’s family carriage, which awaited them. The driver had had to miss the masque, Rianna realized. That seemed unfair.

  The interior of the carriage was painted with murals dedicated to
the gods and ornamented with gilding. Seated beside Ned, Rianna stared down at the magnificent mask now resting in her lap.

  Ned did not signal to the driver to go. When she looked up at him, she saw that he was no longer clenched in on himself. He looked almost relaxed.

  “We should talk,” he said finally. Outside, they could hear the calls and laughter of the crowds they had left behind. And the music.

  Rianna is Darien’s wench.

  “Should we?” said Rianna.

  She hadn’t wanted it to end like this, with him so hurt. And how did you expect it to end?

  “I’m not worthy of you,” said Ned. “I’ve always known that. I had hoped to become so, over time.”

  “What that horrid man said—”

  “—Was right,” said Ned. “I don’t know who he was, or how he knew you. Perhaps he did mistake you for someone else. But of that one thing, at least, I know he was speaking the truth.”

  Tears were on Rianna’s face. What she had wanted was happening. Here in this carriage, one inconvenient problem resolved. She thought she might cry forever.

  “Would you deny it?” Ned said. “Will you say that you love me, that you see yourself happy with me for years to come?”

  Rianna buried her face in her hands. She did not know how long she pressed her eyes into that blackness. But he was waiting, so at last she said, “I can’t.” And realized she owed him a direct glance now, and looked up.

  Ned took her hand. There was an elegant formality in the gesture, coming from a man whose movements were rarely elegant. He seemed strangely at peace. “Rianna Gelvan,” he said, “I hereby free you of our betrothal, until the end of days.” He fell back in his seat. “I love you. Now let’s go home.”

  * * *

  THEY left masks littered behind them as they went: that was part of the plan. Each time they changed their masks, it was one less clue for the Ladybirds to follow. Valanir wore his cloak draped over one arm to conceal the bandaging that might have made him conspicuous. Lin’s fingers ached from playing so much. They were being hunted, there was no doubt of that. But on a night like this, amid the chaos, there was a chance they could escape.

  And it was worthwhile in the end, either way. After tonight, she would be alone again, unmoored. She concentrated on this moment, here, with the firelight and revelry and Valanir’s voice carrying above the crowds, enspelling them to silence. Her music buoyed his singing, twining with his voice. A dance they did together, over and over again.

  Valanir’s eyes, rimmed by a mask, watching her as she played.

  I don’t want this night to end, Lin thought during one of those times, and closed her eyes, the better to become more absorbed in her playing. The Academy taught that the most sublime music came from an abnegation of self.

  Once as they took shelter, she thought of a song she loved, by a more obscure poet of centuries past.

  I will ride horses like wind

  I will warm my hands at fires

  I will savor darkened wines

  I will not think of the road’s end.

  It hardly seemed as if any time had passed when Valanir drew her nearer the water and behind the pier and said, “We should rest now. And then there is only one more thing to do.”

  “We are done playing?” she asked. Feeling relief for her aching hands, but also sadness. As she had anticipated.

  He was gazing out at the water. The waves crashed a gentle counterpoint to the fading festivities. It was so late, even the most energetic revelers were starting for home—or taverns, or the beds of strangers.

  That was a part Lin knew too well about these festivals. Rayen Amaristoth would come home from Tamryllin every year with new tales about his pleasures at the Midsummer Fair, his prowess with women and girls who—Lin thought—ought to have known better. His tastes were specific: Rayen favored women whose hair matched the icewine that was a specialty of the vineyards of the north. He was first and foremost a hunter. Such women were his prey in the summer months, much as the white wolf was in winter.

  Their mother had liked to draw the details of such encounters from him, plying him with drink. And then, after it had all been drawn out in inexhaustible detail, down to the last sigh of surrender—she would suddenly slap the cup from his lips, splattering the yellow-gold wine across the floor, and they both would laugh.

  It was a ritual that Lin only half understood, and she was bound to sit and bear witness, though it made her feel as if maggots writhed on her skin. After Kalinda Amaristoth was killed in a hunting accident, Rayen continued the tradition, telling his tales to Lin over a bottle of wine, or several. But with a difference: the gleam of contempt in his eyes, the rage behind his smile.

  What made him so angry? Lin never knew, but when she thought of his anger, it ran alongside the memory of her mother’s laugh, of sensual lips stained with the blood of fresh meat after a kill.

  Valanir’s voice—her guide all this evening—roused Lin from her thoughts. His eyes distant as he said, “Out in the villages, they are doing much more wild things tonight. I remember.” He was silent a moment, and then, “We can’t let a night like this pass without paying tribute. I’ll buy you a drink.”

  And so again, she followed him, noting as they went that they were passing many taverns. She was careful to step over suspicious-looking puddles.

  Soon she realized where they were going. “You…” she murmured, with a half shake of her head.

  “Yes?” He did not stop walking.

  “I doubt we’re heading to the most popular of the poets’ taverns just for a drink.”

  “Well, maybe I also want to hear what they’re saying,” he conceded. “Tonight I can disguise myself without exciting suspicion. It’s convenient.”

  The Ring and Flagon was as busy as if it were dinnertime on any other evening. More, perhaps. The only difference was the masks, which most of the poets still wore, to honor the libations of the night. Most of the poets sat near the center, around Darien Aldemoor, who was unmistakable even in his multicolored mask.

  “What does this mean?” one of the poets sitting at Darien’s feet asked anxiously.

  “Friends, it seems Valanir Ocune or a clever impostor is loose among us,” said Darien. “And you’d never guess his age; his voice is fit as ever. To him!” He raised his mug. The surrounding poets echoed him, raising their mugs in unison.

  In their corner, Valanir grinned to himself. “Rapscallion,” he said. “Rarely have I been subject to such an irreverent toast.”

  “The cost of eavesdropping,” Lin said dryly.

  A much taller man rose to his feet. Hassen Styr, Lin recalled. “That is all very well, Darien,” said Hassen. “But why would the greatest poet of our age risk his life in this way?”

  Darien shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “We don’t even know it was him.”

  “But if it was?” Hassen persisted. He was the only man not wearing a mask. “It is the same message as before—this time to all of Tamryllin. That our prize is worthless. That perhaps even the Academy—”

  “Don’t say it,” said Darien. “You are a good man, Hassen Styr. Don’t endanger yourself with heresies.”

  “Hasn’t there been enough damage done?” This from a man on the outskirts: a familiar voice. Lin’s heart caught.

  Leander Keyen had risen, holding his mug. He seemed unsteady on his feet. “What good are these conversations,” he said loudly. “Are you really saying you don’t want to win? Or are you trying to put the rest of us off, leaving you with less competition?”

  Lin felt Valanir’s hand on her wrist before she knew what she was doing. She realized that she had stood up, that some eyes had even shifted toward her as she did so. She collapsed back onto her bench. “He is such a fool,” she murmured.

  “He is,” said Valanir, but from his mouth it sounded less forgiving.

  She shrugged helplessly. “I just … can’t bear it.”

  “Lady, he cut you from his life,” Valanir s
aid. “Learn to let those who wish to go—go. And be glad of it.”

  Darien had begun to speak again, turning to Hassen, as if Leander were not there at all. “Do you think it’s the Path that Valanir Ocune means for us to seek? Like Edrien Letrell?”

  Hassen spread his hands. “I don’t know. Maybe he’s crazy. None of us knows.”

  The door crashed open, and a tall man in a serpent mask staggered in. He collapsed into a chair, mouth stretched in a sickly grin.

  Valanir Ocune and Lin looked at one another. Marlen. They rose quietly and began to make their way to the back of the room. If Marlen saw them, he would recognize them. He had seen too much to do otherwise.

  “What did I miss?” he slurred.

  They never heard the answer to that. Completing a circuitous route about the room, the fugitive and his accomplice dodged through the door, leaving the poets of Tamryllin behind.

  * * *

  NEARLY everyone was asleep by the time Darien had a chance to corner Marlen alone. He practically had to drag him to their room and fling him onto the bed. “Where were you?” Darien demanded. His anxiety was compounded by Marlen’s face, which was vulnerable in a way he’d never seen.

  “Making a devil’s bargain,” said Marlen. “And with a devil, for that matter.”

  Darien’s stomach churned. “What is wrong with you, Marlen? Whatever it is, we can fix it together.”

  “Too late for that,” said Marlen, rubbing his face as if to massage pain from it. “No one can fix it. I sold you out. You’re out of the contest, Darien.”

  Candlelight was the only illumination in that room; the moon had retreated behind clouds. Darien wondered if this were but a dimly lit dream. “Explain,” he said. He marveled at his own voice, its calm.

  “I can’t tell you how I did it—sorry about that,” said Marlen. “If I did, you might get it reversed somehow, and I can’t allow that, obviously. Anyway, I thought I’d give you this opportunity to—to kill me. Before tomorrow.” He drew his sword, so prized, and flung it to the floor. He stood now with his arms extended at his sides. “Go ahead.”