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

by McPhail, Melissa

  “Oh…well then.” Haddrick looked relieved, which only made Trell wonder what else the man might’ve worried Carian went to T’khendar to do.

  Haddrick’s mates were already readying the Ransom for departure when Trell and the pirate captain reached his ship. She was a sleek vessel for all she’d seen her share of battle, square rigged and armed for heavy seas. Haddrick was barking orders long before he set foot on deck, and in short order the massive ship was inching away from the dock.

  Trell stood in the forecastle with the wind whipping his raven hair and watched the Ransom eating up the waves. For the smallest span as he gripped the railing, he allowed himself a moment of worry, a moment of regret, a moment of fear. Then he put these things behind him and concentrated on what he would do to the Earl of Pent when they met again.

  ***

  Alyneri stood at the cabin window hugging her arms and staring into the dark night. The earl had been called away to attend the ship’s captain, leaving her a moment’s peace, but she didn’t know how she was going to survive two weeks aboard ship with him. The man constantly vacillated between giving due regard to her station and threatening her with whoredom and a life of bondage. She couldn’t tell if his threats held water, and her own indecision about how to respond to him had resulted in his making greater and more forceful attempts to violate her.

  So far she’d kept her composure. She hadn’t cried, even when he spoke in detail of the horrors he would bring to bear upon her if she denied him…even when he bragged about how his men had killed Trell.

  She’d feared in those moments, but her heart told her Trell lived, that he would come for her somehow. In the early hours of the night, she’d believed this wholly, but now that they’d set sail beneath a lonely moon, it was more difficult to find that conviction.

  Am I just fooling myself with hope? Embracing denial when I should be facing the truth? Yet if so, she worried that denial might be the only way to keep her sanity, for surely a life such as what awaited her under the Duke of Morwyk’s hand would not be worth living.

  And the facts were against her. She sailed on a nameless vessel toward a terribly uncertain fate, and once again, no one knew where she’d gone. It was laughable in a way. Alyneri did laugh out loud a little, but it was a humorless, bitter laugh tinged with fear.

  Part of her courage came from the hatred she felt for Brantley and his lord, Stefan val Tryst. What gave them the right to physically lay hands upon her person and cart her away like chattel? It infuriated her beyond measure, yet she faced an ever-rising sense of panic in the knowledge there was nothing she could do to stop it. She had no weapon, and even if she did somehow overwhelm or incapacitate the earl, where then was she to go? She’d nowhere to run but overboard, and if the sharks didn’t claim her, she’d still never make it to land.

  It’s not true that you have no weapon, she told herself, hugging her chest tightly, but the very idea chilled her. She closed her eyes, letting the cold night air calm her thoughts and settle her tremulous stomach. It wouldn’t do to head so rapidly toward desperation. Was there no hope that she must imagine such a dreadful compromise of everything that she was?

  But she couldn’t push the idea from her mind.

  There were first-strand patterns that could be used to maim and injure, but they were so antipathetic to the basic nature of a Healer that only the most debased of Adepts used them. Healers formed a deep rapport while Healing, but the wielding of destructive patterns could not be done while in rapport or one ran the risk of damaging oneself in the process. She wasn’t sure she could even wield such a pattern—or that she would do it, even if she could.

  But if it meant escape?

  It was a long while later that Lord Brantley returned, long enough that the room had grown cold and Alyneri had moved away from the open windows to sit on a chair in a warmer corner.

  “So, your Grace,” Brantley said as he locked the door behind himself again. “I’ve been thinking it’s time you and I got better acquainted.”

  Alyneri stared miserably ahead—for truly, it mattered not what she chose to do or say. The foul man would speak his mind regardless. She tried not to think on his words, tried not to envision the scenes he was likely imagining for his own cruel pleasure.

  Brantley came to stand in front of her, his eyes lustful and his cheeks flushed with wine. He ran his hand across her head, down her hair. “You know…I could be persuaded to look after you.”

  Raine’s truth but the man was naught but a fount of blackmail and extortion. Alyneri suppressed a shudder and refused to look him in the eye.

  “You seem a bright enough girl,” Brantley went on. “You could probably be taught how to please me.” He caught her chin with his hand and jerked her head painfully up to meet his gaze. “Please me enough, and I can put in a good word with his Grace that he might deal kindly with you.”

  “You are an astonishing man, Lord Brantley,” Alyneri replied tonelessly. She felt cold inside—cold with fear of him, with anger toward him, with wondering if she would indeed find the courage to debase herself in defense against him.

  Brantley’s moustached lip lifted in a sneer, but he released her chin. “You still hold to hope—I can see it in your eyes. You think somehow you’ll emerge unscathed, but you won’t. You won’t.”

  Alyneri clenched her teeth and forced a swallow. “The Duke will know,” she whispered.

  Brantley laughed at her. “The Duke thinks all you desert bitches are naught but whores and sluts after good men’s hearts! He’ll not bother to ask how many men have used you, or when or where.” Abruptly he grabbed Alyneri’s shoulders and dragged her up into his arms. “I’ll have my way with you and likewise my men—those deserving of reward—and no one will be the wiser for it!”

  She could feel him hard inside his britches, his sour breath hot on her neck. His hand found her breast and squeezed painfully, and she struggled, managing to free one hand. She struck him without thinking, but succeeded only in turning his face from her throat.

  He looked slowly back to her as her hand print flamed on his cheek. “So you like it rough, do you?” His eyes veritably glowed with lust.

  When he struck her in return, she saw stars. Had he not been holding her so tightly against his own body, she would’ve fallen. As it was, blackness dimmed the edges of her vision, and she stared at the floor dizzily while he buried his whiskered face in her neck and fondled her breasts again.

  Being in such close proximity, Alyneri found his pattern within moments. She knew he would deserve any pain she caused him. She just didn’t know if she’d be willing to do it, even to save herself.

  Brantley took hold of her arm and swung her around, shoving her toward the bed. She stumbled and fell to her knees with a gasp, but he just grabbed her around the waist and hauled her up again. Alyneri kicked and struggled, crying out against him, but he was far stronger for all he was modest of stature.

  He threw her on the bed and pinned her down before she could turn. One hand thrust both of hers over her head while his other hand other fumbled with his britches, releasing himself. Then to her horror, he threw up her skirts.

  No! Not like this!

  He mounted her, and Alyneri, desperate now and feeling her fear too close, took hold of his pattern in the same way Sandrine had taught her—

  “Earl!” an urgent call accompanied a pounding on the door.

  Alyneri nearly wept with relief.

  The earl hissed an oath and rolled off of her, holding up his pants with one hand as he stalked to the door. Unlocking it hastily, and with the man beating upon it all the while, he threw it open and demanded, “What?”

  But in the next moment he’d thrown shut the door again and turned with a wild look, and then Alyneri heard the crash, and an explosion, and the thunder of running feet and men shouting. She hastened to cover herself again, barely daring to hope.

  Brantley rushed across the room and threw open a chest. He rummaged roughly through it and
came out with a vial of black liquid. He poured it hastily on his dagger and sheathed it behind his back just as the door crashed open. Pirates poured into the room, fierce and formidable, and in their wake…

  Trell.

  “Get her to safety,” the prince ordered, and two long-haired pirates came toward Alyneri while others searched the cabin.

  As they were veritably hauling her up off the bed, Alyneri finally found her voice. “Trell! He’s—” but then they were sweeping her out of the room into fire and flames, and acrid black smoke choked off any hope of her warning reaching him.

  ***

  “Lord Brantley, Earl of Pent,” Trell said, leveling his sword at the man.

  The earl sniffed, making his longish moustache wiggle and twitch. “You know my name, sir, but I confess I don’t know yours.”

  “Do you not?” Trell came slowly towards him. “I thought surely you’d recognized me in L’Aubernay.”

  “A kingdom blade, yes. There are many carried where I come from, sported by men despoiled by service to a withered king.”

  “And Morwyk will change all of that,” Trell remarked dubiously.

  “The Duke of Morwyk is a man of vision.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t share that vision.” Trell motioned with his sword for the earl to make his way out of the cabin.

  “You don’t intend to kill me then?” asked Brantley as he began walking, keeping his front to Trell.

  “No, I thought I’d let the sharks do it.”

  Brantley sneered. “Afraid of drawing noble blood?”

  “Your blood would sully my blade, Earl of Pent.”

  Brantley looked to the burning decks beyond the cabin, to the billowing smoke and glowing fires. “All this for the little desert whore?” he remarked in honest astonishment. “Or are you after her fortune, too?”

  His remark caught Trell off guard.

  Brantley noted his expression. “Didn’t you know then? The little bitch is an heir to the Kandori fortune. Why do you think my lord wants her so badly? Certainly not for his own pleasure! He’d never pollute his seed in a heathen’s cunt.”

  Trell decided he’d heard quite enough from the mouthy earl. He knew the man was just stalling, and he expected the attack when it came. Except—just as the earl rushed at him with his dagger, the Ransom broadsided the Olivia D’ne, and both Trell and Brantley staggered in the concussion. The earl’s dagger caught him through the fleshy part of his side, cutting cleanly, but Trell quickly recovered. He easily disarmed the earl and cast him to the floor, once again pinned at the point of his blade.

  “You’ll have to kill me,” the earl gasped. He looked wild about the eyes now, a feral creature cornered and caught. “Or pay me. That’s the only way your secret will ever be safe.”

  “What secret would that be, Lord Brantley?”

  “The stone of your sword,” the earl said hastily, a last attempt to extort his safety. “It gives you away. See, I do recognize you after all…Prince of Dannym.”

  “My name is no secret. Soon the world will know it.”

  Brantley fixed him with a hot gaze and murmured with an ominous smile, “You’ll be sorry if they do.”

  Haddrick stuck his head through the door. “You going to kill this wastrel, Trell of the Tides, or should I?”

  Trell considered Brantley for the space of an indrawn breath. “Be my guest,” he said, and turned his back on the man.

  Haddrick grinned and slipped inside the door, and as Trell was leaving, he admitted a certain satisfaction in hearing Lord Brantley’s gurgling cry.

  The pirates soon had the Olivia D’ne in hand, and Trell crossed the gangplank back to the Ransom while the pirates rushed about preparing to get both vessels back under way.

  But as he jumped down onto the Ransom’s deck, he swooned. He’d felt the dagger pass cleanly through and knew the wound shouldn’t have been enough to cause such a reaction. Trell summed it up to the earlier injury to his head followed by a very long night.

  Regaining his footing on the deck, he headed to Haddrick’s cabin and threw open the door, his mind consumed with thoughts of one person only.

  Alyneri spun as he entered.

  Three steps and he had her in his arms.

  “I knew you’d come,” she cried, desperately clinging to him. “I thought I was deluding myself…” Tears fell from her brown eyes, but they were relieved tears, bright against her skin.

  Trell allowed himself to relax for the first time since they’d been separated. During those intervening hours, he’d been as focused on regaining her as in any battle, with no patience for any thought that didn’t contribute to his goal. Now that she was in his arms again, he could…

  He stumbled again, suddenly dizzy. His hand went to his side, which had started to burn.

  “Trell!” Alyneri gasped. She took his face between her hands and looked into his eyes. “Did he cut you? Did Brantley mark you with his dagger?”

  Her words sounded strange to him, hollow and with an echo that made them so slow he struggled to understand. “My…side,” he managed.

  Alyneri’s expression became as stone, and she pushed him forcefully to the bed. He fell back with a muted exhale, and the world spun violently. He thought he might be sick and tried to find something to focus on instead.

  Alyneri had her hands on the wound at his side and was doing something. He could tell this from her intense look of concentration—that is, when he could see her face at all. Mostly it was a blur passing back and forth before his eyes.

  It wasn’t long before he felt something happening. The burning in his side began to abate, and ever so slowly, the nausea and vertigo faded until seemingly all at once he gazed clearly upon the nubby ceiling. “I think…I think you fixed it,” he whispered, managing a grin that she didn’t note, being so focused on her Healing. He lifted his head to better gaze upon her.

  Her brown eyes were glazed, and she had that little furrow between her brows that was so endearing to him. In such moments, Alyneri reminded him of a wild creature—a gentle creature, to be certain—but wild and free. She had spirit and fire but also compassion, and her sensitivity made her fragile in the most endearing of ways. Every part of her nature called to an equal—and sometimes opposite—part of his own. Where she needed protection, he desired to offer it. Where she wanted to explore, he sought to lead her. He had only to determine if this compatibility extended to more…carnal pleasures.

  And he didn’t mean to wait much longer to find out. He wasn’t sure he could endure it. He’d almost lost this woman who had so quickly become immensely dear to him, and it wasn’t a situation he intended to allow to happen twice.

  ***

  Alyneri struggled to hold Sandrine’s pattern in place while simultaneously working her Healing on Trell’s side. It was challenging, but between what she’d learned from Sandrine and what she’d learned from the zanthyr, she managed the healing while holding the pattern, and the poison seeped from the wound back out into Trell’s clothes.

  This immediate situation handled, Alyneri moved her attentions to Trell’s head. Upon first inspection, this wound was much more frightening. The gash in his skull had been bleeding all night, and he’d never thought even to bind it. You fool man! What were you thinking?

  Yet despite the brutal nature of the wound, Trell’s pattern remained strong. The Mage had accomplished a near miracle, and Trell survived because of it. Alyneri tended the minor, outlying threads that healed the skin of Trell’s head, but the most she needed to do within his core pattern was mend a tiny splinter.

  It was truly astonishing.

  If she’d ever doubted the innate goodness of Björn van Gelderan, Alyneri doubted no longer. There was no need for him to do what he’d done for Trell—she’d no idea how he’d done it at all. Changing a person’s innate pattern would be an immensely complex and complicated working requiring incredible skill and understanding of Patterning, yet the Fifth Vestal had done it apparently out of simple kin
dness.

  At last feeling satisfied that Trell was well and whole, Alyneri withdrew from rapport and sat down on the bed beside him, exhaling a sigh.

  Trell turned his head to better look up at her. “Azizam,” he murmured in the desert tongue, giving her a soft smile. “Did you miss me?”

  “Brantley almost didn’t,” she told him flatly in the same tongue. She was more than a little miffed at his disregard for his own well-being and it frightened her after the fact.

  “But I knew I had you to heal me,” he said gently, running a hand along her arm.

  His touch awakened such sensations in her…she couldn’t possibly be vexed with him. Still, she gave him a troubled look. “It wasn’t just your side or Brantley’s poisoned blade. Your head, Trell—”

  “It’s all fine now, isn’t it?”

  She gave him a long look.

  “Did you not ask for adventure, Duchess?”

  The words stung her and she dropped her eyes. “Not like this,” she whispered.

  Trell sat up and caught her chin with forefinger and thumb, turning her gaze back to him. His face was close, his eyes hot upon hers. “All adventures have some cost, Alyneri. It’s the reward at the end that makes them worth it.”

  She held his gaze, feeling entirely too desperate for words. “And what is your reward?” she whispered.

  “You.” Then he kissed her.

  The entire night’s pent-up emotion flowed into that kiss—all of Alyneri’s fears of Brantley, of Morwyk…all of her fears for Trell, every emotion that had plagued her since they were separated suddenly found its release. She clutched him, wanting only in her desperation that he might claim her so that no other man could.

  When he pulled away slightly to gaze into her eyes, letting his thumb caress her lips, she thought she must tell him—that she really should tell him—but then his mouth was on hers again, and he had her bound tightly in his arms, and she forgot about everything else for a very, very long time.