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

by McPhail, Melissa

  “Just because I haven’t figured out how to be rid of you yet doesn’t mean I won’t eventually,” Fynn grumbled. He looked to Trell and brightened. “Now we’re all buddies again, cousin, let’s eat.” He sat down without waiting for anyone else and started attacking the roasted turkey.

  “Have you somewhere to be this evening, Fynnlar?” Alyneri asked as Trell helped her into her chair and then took his own.

  “As a matter of fact I do, your Grace,” Fynn replied around a mouthful of poultry. “It’s anywhere other than where I am expected.”

  “I see,” she said, though she clearly didn’t.

  “It’s because of the pirate,” Brody supplied. He took a seat at the head of the table, the better to keep an eye on Fynn.

  “That bloody pirate is the bane of my existence,” the royal cousin complained. He drowned his mouthful of turkey with a long drink of wine, belched and explained to Trell between bites, “Carian’s got a cousin named Haddrick, who I’ve never gotten on with particularly well, being that he and I like the same sort of plunder.”

  “The easy kind,” Brody noted.

  Fynn shot him a sooty look. “Anyway…Haddrick is in town while his ship, the Ransom, takes some minor repairs. It seems in all the melee, our esteemed friend Carian missed a meeting with his cousin at the Nugget down on Faring West, and the man has been hounding me relentlessly for news of him ever since—as if I’m somehow to blame for his bloody cousin being a Nodefinder and going wherever in Belloth’s nine hells he wants.”

  “Can’t you just tell him you don’t know where Carian went?” Alyneri asked.

  “That’s sort of the crux of the problem,” Fynn complained sourly.

  “Haddrick is a truthreader,” Brody supplied.

  Alyneri looked shocked. “A pirate truthreader?”

  “Jamaii has a right to its Adepts the same as any other kingdom,” Fynn retorted indignantly. Then he frowned again. “But because I do have an idea of Carian’s whereabouts…”

  Trell was beginning to see the problem. “Have you taken some sort of oath that prevents you from speaking of what happened at the temple, cousin?”

  Fynn gave him a grateful look. “See, I knew you were more than just a pretty face.”

  “Yes, I get that a lot.”

  “But forget Haddrick. I’m more interested in what we’re to do with you.” Fynn eyed Trell inquisitively.

  Trell glanced to Alyneri, and they exchanged a look. They hadn’t made it that far in their own discussions. “I would like to meet my father,” Trell admitted, looking back to Fynn.

  “His Majesty would want that too,” Rhys said.

  “That’s just as well,” Fynn mumbled into his wine. “The king’s gone to the parley in Tal’Shira, which would appear to be quite a bit safer for you than good ole Dannym these days.”

  “Why?”

  Fynn gave him a long-suffering look.

  “Don’t tell me,” Trell remarked, eyeing him dubiously. “Another oath requiring silence?”

  Fynn drank his wine, apparently unable even to comment.

  Alyneri gazed at him in astonishment. “Fynnlar, did the Fourth Vestal truthbind you?”

  He shot her a frustrated glare. “As if I could answer that!”

  “He did,” Brody confirmed. “Otherwise Lord Fynnlar would’ve blabbed to everyone.”

  “I know how to keep a secret!” Fynn protested indignantly.

  “So long as it’s bound with the fourth,” Brody agreed.

  Trell felt the strangest flutter in his chest at this phrase. He took a drink of wine to settle it—though it didn’t seem to help much—and asked, “What does it mean to be truthbound?”

  “The fourth strand of elae compels the energies associated with thought,” Alyneri advised. “Tanis spoke to me in depth as he was learning of these patterns. Truthreaders have the knowledge to bind men’s thoughts behind veils of compulsion that prevent their speaking of certain events or even of memories that may encompass many years.”

  “Years?” Trell repeated uneasily.

  “Fourth-strand bindings are tricky, vicious things,” Fynn said grimly. It seemed he was able to talk about the subject in general, so long as it didn’t concern him specifically. “Not as vicious as fifth-strand bindings, I’m told,” he added then, “but bad enough that I don’t care to experiment with the fifth to believe it could be worse.”

  “How are they vicious?” Trell asked, though he had the uncomfortable feeling that he already knew the answer quite intimately.

  “They lay these things on you,” Fynn grumbled, clearly speaking from experience now, “in such a way that they can make you forget entirely the thing they’re binding you against in order to protect it during interrogation. If someone were to question you the wrong way, you could forget years of your life—”

  The idea claimed all of them at once. Everyone turned and stared at Trell.

  He barely noticed their appalled looks, however, for he was hovering at the edge of a dangerous truth. He could almost see it…but it blurred behind a billowing cloud of volatile energy. Just looking at the cloud made him ill.

  “Oh gods,” Alyneri whispered. She took his hand and stared at him, understanding too well what this meant. Yet the truth revealed as many new doors as it had opened old ones.

  “Mayhap my uncle, your father, can shed some light on this,” Fynn advised, sounding uncharacteristically sober.

  Trell wasn’t sure what he thought about any of this—about seeking answers from the king, about going to Tal’Shira—right into the heart of the enemy’s stronghold. But if he meant to reestablish any sort of relationship with his father, did he have a choice?

  “We’ll need the services of a Nodefinder to get to Tal’Shira by the Sea,” Fynn noted. “Being that tomorrow is the start of three weeks of Carnivále—during which the whole damned city shuts down to better drink themselves into a stupor—it may take me a few days to find one willing to take us there.”

  “I think we could do with a few days,” Alyneri murmured, to which sentiment Trell heartily concurred.

  ***

  After dinner, Trell walked Alyneri back to her rooms. She felt strange returning there, where the memories of the night of Ean’s accident lingered so vividly. Because the evening was fair, Alyneri led them outside, but walking out onto her balcony immediately brought images of the zanthyr scooping her off her feet to fly through the air…of Ean lying broken in the earth—a vision that still brought a latent shudder—and later…of the zanthyr healing her, of the tingling feeling of his lips on hers…

  Trell placed his hands on the railing and gazed out over the gardens. “It’s lovely here,” he said in the desert tongue.

  Alyneri came to stand beside him. She knew the gardens were the last thing truly on his mind. “I would help ease your mind if I could,” she offered, using the same tongue. It was starting to feel like their own private language.

  He gave her a grateful smile. “Thank you. I believe that.” He leaned elbows on the railing, his grey eyes intense as he gazed into the night. “My mind is overfull these days,” he remarked, shooting her a rueful look. “If a djinn offered to magically alleviate my most troubling thought, it would be a challenge to select just one.”

  Alyneri caught herself staring at him—at the angular line of his jaw, the way his lips always seemed just on the edge of a smile. He was too handsome for his own good…or at least for her own good. How incredible that Trell val Lorian actually stood beside her. She had to pinch herself for the heady excitement that accompanied the recurring realization.

  “Trell,” she said, forcing her gaze away out of common decency, “why do you think the Emir kept your identity from you?”

  He turned her a quiet look. “A good question. I’ve been thinking on it also. I have a feeling he must’ve known my life was in danger.”

  “From the accident?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. The Emir’s Spymaster is a formidable man with a vas
t network at his disposal. There is very little occurs in the realm that he’s not aware of. If anyone were to know the details behind the sinking of the Dawn Chaser, t’would be him.”

  Alyneri gazed at him in wonder. “You think the Emir felt you would be safer at war than returned to your own family?”

  Trell gave her a grim look. “That is my suspicion, yes.”

  “It’s so strange to try to think of him as an ally,” she confessed, but upon noting Trell’s concerned frown, she added, “though I believe he was certainly an ally to you.”

  Trell shook his head, his gaze deeply troubled. “My father allies with Radov abin Hadorin. I cannot begin to tell you of that man’s crimes.”

  “I don’t think the king willingly maintains the alliance,” Alyneri admitted. “The kingdom is quite divided over it.”

  “Truly?”

  She shrugged. “No one likes the idea of sending brothers, fathers or sons to a war in a kingdom of heathens,” and she grimaced at the statement.

  He considered her gravely. “Heathens…like you? Like your father?”

  She nodded, feeling the sting of barbs sunk too deeply to extract, even after so long.

  “Well, that’s something at least,” Trell murmured, reflecting on her earlier comment. “Radov…” he said tightly then, his expression dark. “The man sent monsters after his own daughter because she dared to love a boy without his consent. He allies with the Prophet and lets Saldarian mercenaries commit horrific crimes against his own people. I cannot imagine ever supporting such a man under any circumstances.”

  Alyneri drew back. “Trell, are you saying…” She stared at him. “Radov is allied with the Prophet Bethamin? Surely not!”

  He gave her a long look.

  “But…are you certain?”

  “Unequivocally.”

  Alyneri felt a welling sense of protest and fear, close associations with her own experience as much as knowing the evil Bethamin represented. “Trell…” she said significantly, holding his gaze, “his Majesty would never support Radov if he knew he allied with the Prophet. Your father has forbidden Bethamin’s supporters from even entering the kingdom,” wherein she added darkly, “though they certainly seem to snake their way in somehow.”

  “If he heads to a parley in Tal’Shira, he will no doubt discover the truth soon enough.”

  Alyneri let out a tremulous sigh. “Such troubling times,” she whispered. He wrapped an arm absently around her shoulders and pulled her close, making her feel simultaneously protected and cherished.

  “While traveling with Ean,” she offered quietly as she looked out over the darkly gleaming bay, “it felt like it was just us against this evil force out to get him, but I see in truth that entire kingdoms are reverberating with discord. It’s like a great gong has been rung, trembling the world, sending angry ripples everywhere.”

  He exhaled a contemplative sigh. “The realm is out of Balance, and magic is dying.”

  She turned to him, startled. “What do you know of Balance?”

  “Little enough in truth, but those who are in a position to know of it have spoken to me. Balaji said Balance often requires great subterfuge, and Vaile and the others were very concerned about the Adept race dying. They said this is what the Mage worked to correct.”

  Alyneri’s heart fluttered at this news. “Really? Do you think it’s true? It would mean…Trell, it would mean the Fifth Vestal works in our best interests still.” She bit her lip and gazed at her hands. “I don’t know why the idea gives me so much hope…I really want to believe he’s a good man, even though everything I’ve heard says otherwise.”

  Trell turned her to face him and when their eyes met, she saw a confusing mix of desires in his stormy eyes—so like and yet so different from Ean’s. He drew her body close against his own, and she rested her head against his muscled chest while her breath came sharp with the nearness of him.

  “Alyneri, azizam,” he said after a moment of holding her, “I’m grateful it was you I found that day.”

  Her heart beat faster simply upon hearing him say her name. A tingling current skimmed from breast to her low belly, bringing desire’s heat. “So am I,” she managed, breathlessly. How could he have become so dear to her when she’d known him for so short a time?

  But you’ve known him all your life.

  Yet this truth didn’t fully explain her feelings, which were deeply stirring to her soul. She sensed his own desire radiating through their contact, through the way he held her, so strong and yet so carefully…through the sound of his breath coming faster and deeper. She felt him lift his head from hers, and when she dared look up at him, he was gazing intently at her.

  Her heart fluttered, and she caught her lip between her teeth. He closed his eyes and exhaled, letting his breath alleviate the tension that bound him too. She almost wished he wouldn’t control himself so completely…but at the same time, she was grateful that he could. They were so new to her, these heady feelings that thrilled and terrified equally.

  Trell laid his forehead against hers and let their noses touch, the slightest caress. “I find you very beautiful, Alyneri,” he confessed, “and I’m drawn to you in a way that speaks deeply to me.”

  “I…” she braved, catching her lower lip again. “I feel the same.”

  He drew back to look at her again, and that feeling of connection grew exponentially. He ran the back of one finger down her cheek and gazed into her eyes, a gaze that conveyed the depth of his desire. Heat flooded Alyneri—she thought she would burst for the energy veritably throbbing in her veins.

  He must’ve seen her blushing even in the darkness, for he dropped his hand and took a step back from her. A gentle formality filled the space between them, but it was a welcome respite from the tumultuous longing spawned by his closeness. “I will see you in the morning then, Duchess,” he said, switching back to the common tongue. He gave her a dazzling smile. “Good night, my lady.”

  “Your Highness,” she managed, breathless and dizzy and alive in ways she’d never imagined.

  ***

  Trell was wound too tightly to rest as he left Alyneri’s rooms, so he found his way into the gardens to work off the restless energy that had him in thrall. After roaming aimlessly for an hour or so, he emerged from a sculpture garden onto a wide span of lawn that fell away toward a cliff and the dark swath of moonlit sea beyond. Tiny bulbs glowed among the endless waves, the running lights of ships leaving with the evening tide.

  Trell headed toward the water, beckoned by the open space of the ocean and the vast starlit sky. His head felt tangled. A jumble of confusions and questions had been energized by his sudden desire for Alyneri, which in turn had to go unsatisfied. She was a Lady after all, and still a girl for all she was ten and eight—and though girls her age or younger were often married off, that didn’t make them any less frightened by the prospect of a coupling with a man. He’d sensed Alyneri’s equal desire, but he could also tell it startled and confused her, and that she wasn’t ready to give in to those desires.

  Never mind that their social statuses made any coupling impossible without also involving the politics of kings. That was a problem for another day.

  When he reached the edge of the cliff, Trell took a staircase leading down to a swath of beach far below. The sound of the crashing sea came louder there, and the salt air smelled strangely familiar…

  The sudden image of that same beach where he remembered seeing Alyneri flashed to mind, only this time he and his brothers raced on pale horses at the edge of the crashing surf. His older brother had the lead, black hair flying on the wind, while his younger brother’s horse inched nose to nose with Trell’s mount. The boys’ hair was damp from spray, and wet sand clung to their boots and the snapping hems of their cloaks. All were laughing.

  Trell felt a terrible longing and loneliness as this memory flashed and faded. New feelings came to him then, resurfacing from of another day—another time, when he’d sat at the ocean’s
edge and stared in anger at the sea with his chest clenched in a vise of grief.

  “You are very like him,” came a deeply resonant voice from out of the darkness.

  Trell spun with a sharp intake of breath, and his hand went automatically to his sword. But it was only the zanthyr who stood further down the beach. He’d been standing so still, Trell had barely noticed him. Exhaling the tension that had risen with his alarm, Trell rested one hand on his sword hilt and walked toward the zanthyr. “Like who? My father, or Ean?”

  “Like the First Lord.” The zanthyr turned, and Trell was startled to see his green eyes so clearly in the deep night. He was reminded uncomfortably of a similar moment with Vaile, and the understanding that he faced a creature that was wild, unpredictable and decidedly predatory.

  The zanthyr’s powerful gaze caught Trell so off guard that it took him a heartbeat to process his words. But then he shoved all other thoughts aside. “I am like the First Lord?” he repeated, both deeply complimented and intrigued. “How?”

  “You are both thoughtful men,” the zanthyr replied, “careful and considerate. You spend too much time in your heads.”

  Trell smiled at this, knowing the latter statement was true for him at least. He moved closer to Phaedor, close enough that he could make out the sculpted bones of his face in the moonlight. “How well do you know the First Lord?”

  The zanthyr arched a brow. “Your single question of the djinn and this is the one you choose to ask?”

  Trell did a double-take. He’d mentioned the desert genies to Alyneri only an hour before, but how did this man know of their conversation? Moreover, they’d been speaking in the desert tongue! Yet Trell didn’t for a moment believe the zanthyr had produced the same analogy out of coincidence.

  “Very well,” he said, attempting to cover his surprise. “Since you’re offering, I am curious about something.” He exhaled and frowned off toward the glittering lights of the distant city. “Why does the Mage allow so many lies to be spread about him? Why does he let them continue when surely he could set the record straight?”