The Dagger of Adendigaeth (A Pattern of Shadow & Light)

by McPhail, Melissa

  Trell had been of a mind to ask in town about the girl, thinking someone in her party might’ve been looking for her there, but Yara had been suspiciously adamant that they should say nothing of her until she woke and could speak for herself.

  As he went about his business then—or rather, Yara’s business—Trell caught sight of Lord Brantley several times throughout the afternoon, but he didn’t cross paths with him again until they bumped into each other as the earl was exiting the cobbler’s shop.

  “You there,” he remarked to Trell in his accented Veneisean, “I’ve seen you about town today, haven’t I?” Trell found something in the earl’s manner to be decidedly insulting, as if the man thought himself considerably higher in both station and quality of character than anyone he was likely to meet. “I’m looking for a woman. She might’ve passed through here a few nights ago. Someone might’ve seen her. You might’ve seen her?”

  Trell hugged his sack of milled amaranth to his chest and considered Lord Brantley. Despite Yara’s insistence, he wasn’t sure whether or not to tell the earl about the girl he’d rescued. He did not like what he’d seen of the man thus far—the earl wore arrogance as a pale substitute for the livery of the mysterious lord he served—but Trell knew that a servant did not always accurately represent his lord. He was cautious not to judge in haste and deny the girl better help than he and Yara might provide. So, to buy time, he asked, “What did she look like, your mademoiselle?”

  The earl was apparently too preoccupied with his own avarice to notice Trell’s cultured, elegant Veneisean, such a contrast to the earl’s own speech—and indeed, everyone else in L’Aubernay. “Long blonde hair, skin the color of caramel. She stands no taller than your shoulder. Some might consider her lovely in a…a strange sort of way, I suppose.”

  “I think I’d remember such a woman.”

  “Oh, she’s memorable,” the earl replied with some heat, and Trell could tell there was a story there. The earl’s gaze clouded for a moment, but he quickly shook it off, saying then, “My lord is desperate to find her. Her coach never arrived to its intended rendezvous, and my men and I are backtracking.”

  “She could’ve passed right through L’Aubernay,” Trell pointed out. “If she stayed in town, Jean-Claude the tavern-keeper would know.”

  “That man wouldn’t know his own dog if bit him on his arse,” the earl grumbled.

  At this remark, Trell determined he was not fond of Lord Brantley.

  “She’s young and fair,” the earl went on, heedless of Trell’s low impression of him, “unworldly. She’d be lost here in this foreign land, not speaking the language as you and I.”

  Trell regarded him steadily. “She’s kin to your lord?”

  “No, a…a friend of the family.”

  “He must be benevolent indeed to send his men so far in search of a family friend.”

  “Lord Stefan val Tryst is a great man, a powerful man,” the earl boasted, but Trell thought there was more air than substance to his praise. “He’s next in line for the Eagle Throne and will soon be upon it.”

  Trell was surprised by both the seditious pronouncement and the earl’s lack of prudence in declaring it. He arched a brow. “It was my understanding the Eagle Throne already has a king upon it.”

  “That’s open to interpretation,” Lord Brantley sneered, and he might’ve donned a mask of hatred, so changed did his countenance become at the mere reference to Gydryn val Lorian.

  Or rather, perhaps, the mask has finally come off and the true face surfaces?

  Trell decided he’d seen enough of Lord Brantley. “I must be on my way. Good day to you, monsieur.”

  But the earl was not to be put off so quickly. Perhaps Trell had not hidden the truth from his gaze well enough, or perhaps the man was just that tenacious, but he grabbed Trell’s arm and demanded hotly, “Might you have seen her then?” and the hungry look that was suddenly in the earl’s gaze gave Trell the certainty he’d heretofore been lacking.

  Trell cast an unfriendly eye upon the earl’s hand on his arm, and the man released his hold. Trell slowly repeated then, “Have I seen a blonde woman standing about as tall as my shoulder?”

  Lord Brantley nodded, his gaze full of predatory excitement.

  “No,” Trell said, and it was true—the girl had never stood up at all.

  He could tell from the earl’s expression that he didn’t entirely believe him—that, or he wasn’t willing to give up the one thread of hope he’d latched onto. “You seem an educated sort,” Lord Brantley said with an undercurrent of urgency now fueling his speech, “and you seem to know these people, this area. I can pay you well to help me, and this woman…well, she’s the type...” He leaned in to add in a low voice, “Between you and me, there might be more in it for you should you be the one to find her. My lord doesn’t care if she’s returned to him in exactly the same condition, if you catch my drift.”

  Trell gazed at him coldly. All he could think of was that while he’d imagined he’d been saving the girl from a raging river, in fact he’d been saving her from the brazen Lord Brantley.

  “Good day, monsieur,” Trell said. He patently did not wish him luck as they parted. In fact, as he was walking away, Trell asked Thalma, the Goddess of Luck, to turn her eye far afield of the Earl of Pent.

  The earl called after him, “That’s quite an interesting sword you’ve got there.” Then he added menacingly, “It speaks rather loudly, to those who know its like.”

  Trell stiffened, but he didn’t stop walking and he didn’t turn around.

  That had been yesterday, and all of today he’d been wrestling with Lord Brantley’s comment and the mystery of the sleeping girl. Now he walked the river’s edge with trepidation, and his grey eyes saw only trouble as he gazed into the greenish waters.

  Why must serving you be so difficult, my goddess?

  Fhionna’s voice seemed to answer, a bit of wisdom conferred a lifetime ago. Naiadithine’s ways are as twisted as a river’s path, but her heart is also as true to her chosen ones as the river is to its course. If you walk in Naiadithine’s eye, you must trust that the river is taking you where you need to go. Even if all else seems false, you must trust the river, Trell of the Tides.

  Trell turned from his thoughts at the sound of pounding feet just moments before a boy emerged from the forest. It was Deon, the youngest son of Yara’s closest neighbor, who often came by to help around the farmstead. “Trell!” he called as he emerged onto the path, his brown eyes bright and cheeks flushed from his sprint. “She’s awake!”

  ***

  Alyneri dreamed of dark water. She floated upon a starless sea whose massive waves carried her, cradled her, swept her onward through the night. In her dream, the darkness was complete, yet she felt no fear of it, only a lingering regret now mostly dissolved. Her heart felt at peace for the first time since her early childhood, before the politics of kings had shattered it.

  For a long time, she knew the loss of self was imminent, that the moment would come when she would cease to exist, and she welcomed such release. This life had been a winding stream of painful experiences, too painful for a sensitive young soul. She had dared to love and was mercilessly punished for it. Obeyed her king, and was exploited as due reward. Everyone she loved had been taken from her. In the numb of unconsciousness, the final sacrifice of her life seemed the logical denouement.

  The first time Alyneri realized she was still alive came as a shock. Out of the peaceful ebb of her life, lightning struck the dark water. Blinding light flared, the starless sea webbed with crackling heat, and pain bolted her back to consciousness.

  She saw a hand and arm moving in front of her, blurry and sanguine tinged. Voices spoke in hushed tones, one male, one female. Her head felt like a cauldron burning in the furnace of its forging. One arm was a lesser fire, and the rest of her body was cold and terrifyingly unresponsive, a doll body encased in ice.

  Someone moaned, and she was horrified to realize it had be
en her.

  “Be still child,” she heard a woman say. Then to another, “Hold her now while I stitch the wound.”

  Warm hands pressed against her, and she felt heat melting through her icy flesh. Then a needle speared her temple, a blinding sheet of lightning flared across her vision, and everything went black.

  The second time Alyneri found consciousness was much like the first. Only this time as pain and ice drew her from numb sleep, she couldn’t open her eyes at all. The voices were far off and strange, and her body was a lead brick occasionally trembling as with the aftershock of some terrible cataclysm but otherwise too heavy to move. As she lay aware, she heard someone approach and felt a cool hand touch her cheek. It was a blessed relief from the war between fire and ice that seemed to have claimed her body as a battleground.

  “The fever is still upon her,” the same woman said, her voice pitched in such a way as to be speaking to someone in another room. There was something else odd about her voice, but Alyneri couldn’t pin thought to what it was. As the woman left her side, she tried to move her head. Pain and lightning flared with vicious delight, and down she tumbled once more into the midnight water.

  On her third resurfacing, Alyneri awoke in darkness. Her body felt comfortably cool. Remembering the last time she’d tried to move her head, she decided to start this time with a more benign appendage. She wiggled her toes, and was happy to find no pain in the doing. Legs and fingers followed to equally safe result. Finally, after lying still for several long breaths trying to work up the courage, she braved moving her head ever-so-slightly from side to side and was rewarded with only a dull ache. Relief flooded her. It was a good sign she was healing.

  She felt one arm strapped to her chest, and she recognized a splint held it safe. She lifted her other hand to gingerly explore the bandage wrapped around her head and across her eyes. What had happened?

  The last thing she remembered with any clarity was going into the Apothecary. She followed herself in memory as she walked through the store and found—

  The image of Sandrine came as a sharp sting, and other memories followed in a flood. The drugged tea, the strange man in the coach—kidnapping her in the name of the Duke of Morwyk, though the details remained fuzzy—and then the violent storm. She felt sick at recalling the lurch that had pitched her from the coach. After that, she remembered only brief glimpses of waking.

  So who had saved her?

  She was debating whether she might try to sit up when a door opened and a woman came inside singing a tune Alyneri immediately recognized.

  Come rain, come rain,

  Come wash my hands of these dusty years.

  My love has gone, my life is long,

  Come wash away these burning tears

  My love has gone, but I live on.

  Come rain, come rain.

  Come christen me for I am bare

  A life anew is one denied

  She lives and dies while I have cried

  My love is gone, but I live on.

  Come rain, come rain.

  “My father used to sing that song to me,” Alyneri said when the woman paused at the end of the verse. Her own voice sounded so weak and hoarse it seemed barely a whisper, but the woman moved straight to her side.

  “Ah soraya, you’re awake at last.” Her voice, throaty and deep, reminded her with a pang of loss of Farshideh. The woman took Alyneri’s free hand in hers. It was a rough and calloused hand, and Alyneri could tell from her touch that it was also an old hand, one that had perhaps seen many babes born and lost.

  “I love that song,” Alyneri whispered, blind to the world beyond her bandage but envisioning the kindly face of the woman at her side. “Naeb’s Lament, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it is an old, old Kandori song,” the woman answered, and Alyneri heard the surprise as well as the pleasure in her tone. “You were brought up right if your father sang it to you.”

  “I fell asleep to the sound of his voice singing every night,” she recalled wistfully, wishing as ever that her father, Prince Jair, was still alive. She’d had him for so few years. That her charming, beautiful father had been stolen from her while she was still so young was one of the cruelest hands Fate had ever dealt her.

  The woman patted her hand. “How do you feel, soraya?”

  “Strange,” she answered honestly. “Better than before. Thank you…for helping me.”

  “All praise is due to Ama-Kai’alil. He’s the one dragged you from the river.”

  Alyneri drew in a long breath and exhaled slowly, settling herself to receive the news of her condition. “I don’t remember the river,” she admitted. “Am…am I—”

  “No lasting harm, I think,” the old woman assured her. “A broken rib, a fractured arm which we reset well for you. You took a bad hit to your head. As Azerjaiman blows west, that one worried us, but I see you’ve kept your wits about you. Daughters of the sand are strong.”

  Alyneri realized she’d been holding her breath and let it out in relief. “Thank you. I am…” she grunted, catching her lower lip between her teeth. “Well, I’m alive. That’s a start, isn’t it?”

  “A good start, to be sure.”

  “But…where am I?”

  “Safe, child. In my home. I am Yara.”

  “You’re Kandori,” Alyneri said with a smile—not a difficult assertion considering they were speaking the desert tongue. She was surprised though that the speaking of it brought her such joy.

  “As are you, it would seem,” Yara answered, and Alyneri could hear the smile in her voice. “The gods work in mysterious ways.”

  “But we’re not in Kandori—we couldn’t be?”

  “Nay, child, a good deal west. Near the border of Veneisea and the town of L’Aubernay. Two days north of the Free City of Rethynnea.”

  So close…Alyneri bit her lip again. So close to Ean still. It was such a relief. She reached her free hand to touch the bandages across her eyes. “Can these come off?”

  “A while yet,” Yara advised, tapping her hand gently to leave the bandage alone. “I stitched the one wound, but your eye was also in a bad way. There is bruising and swelling yet. It’s been but days since you came to us. A few more for the healing, I would think.”

  Alyneri nodded her understanding. She could tell Yara wasn’t saying everything there was to know about her condition, and in a way she was grateful. There wasn’t anything she could do about her injuries as it were, and knowing the true extent of them might only have scared her.

  Only time could help her now, she understood this, though the helplessness rankled. While she was used to the frustration of not being able to heal everyone who came to her for aid—used to it if not inured to it—it was frightening to feel so helpless against her own need. But the one pattern a Healer couldn’t see was her own. It was akin to not seeing the forest for the trees—how could one see the pattern of the entire forest when standing deep within it?

  “A moment, soraya,” Yara said, releasing her hand. Alyneri heard her cross the room, and then a far door opened and closed. A moment later, the door sounded again and the woman returned. “There,” she said as she retook her chair, “I’ve called for Ama-Kai’alil. He’ll be here soon to see you—been quite concerned, we have. I feared Inithiya would come for you when your fever ran so high, but She moved on. Angharad looked favorably upon you, child.”

  At least this once, Alyneri thought with a heavy heart. “Is Ama-Kai’alil your husband, Yara?”

  “Lands, no!” Yara laughed. “Ah, but you’ll love to look upon him, you will, once those bandages come off. My but he’s handsome, soraya, and whip-smart to boot, tall as his shoulders are broad. He has even an old woman like me thinking things I haven’t dreamed of in decades. If only I had a few less years on these old bones…”

  Alyneri chuckled. “You make him sound Epiphany’s own brother.”

  Yara laughed at herself and added with pat of Alyneri’s hand, “He’s the son I might’ve had if Jai’G
ar had seen fit to give me sons instead of daughters.”

  Alyneri smiled too, imagining what Yara’s ideal man would look like. She envisioned someone like her father—tall and raven-haired, with almond skin and deep, dark eyes. “It’s a strange naming though.”

  “That it is,” Yara agreed. “There’s a story there, to be sure. He’ll tell you if you ask him right.” She paused for a moment and then added quietly, “I imagine you both have some stories to share.”

  “Yara?”

  Alyneri heard the man’s voice just before she heard the outer door close, and her breath caught in her throat. She’d recognized something in it, and yet…

  Footsteps crossed the distance, and then, as if he stood in the doorway: “Were you talking to me just then, Yara?”

  “Ama-Kai’alil, friend of my heart,” Yara said, still using the desert tongue, “she’s awake.” Alyneri heard a great sense of relief in this pronouncement and realized how scared for her the old woman had really been.

  “Yes, I’m—” he hesitated. “Well…uh, welcome back, I guess,” he said in the common tongue, and she heard the smile in his voice.

  “Thank you,” she managed in the like, giving him a smile that she hoped he would see in return. It was disconcerting being blind to the world, trusting only lesser-used perceptions to provide the images her eyes were denied. “And thank you for saving me. Yara told me you risked your life to save mine.”

  He grunted derisively but with humor. “It was the least I could do.”

  Yara stood and walked across the room, announcing in the desert tongue, “I’m off to see to dinner. Soraya, you make him stay here now and tell you his tale.”

  “Wait, you—” he said, surprised, “you speak the desert tongue?”

  “My father was Kandori,” Alyneri explained. “I hope—I mean…that doesn’t bother you, does it?”

  “Far from it!” She could hear the happiness in his voice this time, and it thrilled her to know she had pleased him. His voice was at once resonant and soft, and the more Alyneri heard it the more she was reminded of the deep Gandrel and its glorious groves of emerald sunlight. It was familiar and yet not so much that she could put any face to it. Yet his voice warmed her, such that she wanted only to hear him speaking more. “You speak the Kandori dialect well,” he said then. “Which language do you prefer?”