Even before Rey'kil healers tested the sick and dying, word spread that the plagues were rooted in malevolent magic. The Warhawk sent forty soldiers with Master Breylon, who went with Kathal and Tathal and the premier healers among the Rey'kil, to investigate the closest village touched by the plagues. Before the High Scholar could report anything, even suspicions, Ceera gathered all the healers and stores of medicine in the Stronghold, and forged the last pieces of tamed star-metal into bracelets and necklaces for the healers to wear, to augment their imbrose. Mrillis admitted to Ceera, he almost hoped blood magic lay at the root of the fevers, pustules and bloody sweats that carried off victims of every age and strength and race.
"Blood magic is hard to track to its source and defeat," she retorted, barely glancing up from her journal, where she diligently recorded everything being done, everything already learned about the plague.
"Yes, but anyone who has lost their imbrose is most likely our enemy."
"Who would be so hateful they would make that sacrifice, just to spread illness?"
He settled down in the chair directly in front of her worktable and rested his elbows on the edge. "I would rather it be an enemy we can fight, than a true illness we do not understand," Mrillis offered softly.
That caught Ceera's attention. She raised her silvery head and met his gaze for many long moments. Then she sighed and nodded, and the dark circles of weariness under her pale eyes seemed to grow darker.
"Our Lady said I was born to be your guardian and guide." He caught hold of her hands and gently removed the quill, slid aside the inkpot and journal. "I think it is within my duties and authority to command you to get some sleep."
"Mrillis ..." She sighed, and a tiny smile curved her mouth, softening the worried hardness.
"What will we do if you are so weary and weakened, you fall victim to this illness? I know better than to hope you will stay safe here in the Stronghold while the rest of us search for our enemy's weaknesses." Mrillis smiled when that earned a snort from her, and put a sparkle back into her eyes for a moment. "For the good of Lygroes. For the good of the World."
"For them, I must go." She shrugged and bowed her head over her journal again, even though she didn't free her hands to take up the quill to write.
"Ceera ..." He took a deep breath. "If not for them, for me? For the sake of my love for you?"
Ceera sat up straight and nearly yanked her hands free of his grasp. They trembled, just enough to be noticeable, and oddly, that gave him courage.
"Athrar said once that you loved me better than anyone. I don't know if... I hope it's more than the love of sister for brother."
"Oh, Mrillis, why now?" She closed her eyes and sighed again, louder, strong enough to disturb the pages of her journal. "Now is not a good time."
"I know, but if something should happen--"
"That is exactly why." She opened her eyes, and laughter and exasperation glimmered there with a hint of tears he couldn't understand. "Why does it take worry and danger to make you confess how you feel?"
"Our Lady said I was being ridiculous," he offered.
"I hope she slapped you and laughed at you." One corner of her mouth quirked up. "I haven't thought of you as my brother since I realized the difference between boys and girls."
His voice caught and nearly broke. "Is that a good thing?"
"That depends on what exactly it is you want for us." She slid her hands free of his lax grip.
"Ceera!" Mrillis suspected that if he had wracked his brains for an entire moon to find something to distract her from her worries over the plague, he couldn't have found anything more effective. At least she smiled now.
"I was afraid I would have to encourage Endor, just to get you to act." She sat back and rested her hands on the edge of the table, poised as if she would get up and begin a calm, reasonable speech before the Warhawk's Council of Lords.
"Endor?" The breath caught in his throat, choking him, along with that hungry anger that always came when he remembered Endor stealing that one kiss, so long ago. And the shame at his readiness to use magic to harm, maybe even kill Endor, to keep him from winning Ceera's love. "He loves you," Mrillis managed to say.
"Does that put a claim on me? What about my heart? What about how you feel?" Her voice rose, echoing a little against the walls, reminding him of that memorable afternoon when he had eavesdropped on Le'esha and Master Breylon and was nearly deafened by the reverberations in the hidden chamber in the rock.
"You know I love you," Mrillis said, wishing he could put all the hunger and need and worship he felt into those simple words.
"Yes, I do." Her smile lit her eyes, wiping away the frustration that had made her voice ring just moments ago. "But a girl likes to hear it said once in a while, too."
"I was afraid."
"Ninny." She wrinkled up her nose at him, startling a bark of laughter from him. "Mrillis, my Mrillis... You are mine, you know. You've always been mine, and no other woman or girl has ever had a claim on you, from the moment I first realized you existed."
"Really?" He leaned on the table, wanting to leap over it and sweep her up in his arms and taste her lips in a kiss of victory. But his legs felt ready to collapse and it was all he could do to get enough air and follow the conversation. "When was that?"
"I was crying. I was so little." Ceera stood and leaned toward him, mimicking his pose braced against the table. "My mother was still alive, so I was very small. You were only three, nearly four, I think. I was crying because Mother had returned to her courier duties after spending the entire winter with me. I sat in the highest window I could find, to watch her ride away for as long as I could. You climbed up to the tower--"
"To watch the mated falcons we healed and tamed that winter. I remember." Warmth flooded through him, greedy delight that she remembered him, so far back in her life.
"You were eating an apple, and you settled down next to me and you didn't tell me I was being silly for crying, and you offered me a bite of your apple."
"Just shows how little I knew about babies, what was good for them." He laughed when she glared at him. "I wasn't being nice, I only wanted to stop you crying. You might have scared away the falcons...but then I realized you weren't making a sound."
"You are such a bad liar. You were trying to be nice." She wrinkled up her nose at him again. "I saw the softness in your heart and that you were good and kind, and smart." She reached for his hands, and Mrillis gladly reclaimed his hold on hers. The link between their minds trembled, as if it would fully bare their souls to each other without conscious choice from either of them. "Then my nursemaid asked you to watch out for me, when she realized we got along well enough."
"I promised I would," he murmured, raising both her hands to his lips to brush a kiss across her knuckles. "That promise was forever, even if I didn't realize it at the time."
"That's exactly the sort of thing a girl wants to hear. And you've been storing it up in your head and making calves' eyes at me whenever you thought I wasn't watching and--" A muffled squeak of frustration escaped her. "When are you going to kiss me? I wanted you to be my first--" Ceera shook her head when a flicker of angry memory cut off her words.
"Endor kissed you first." That heavy feeling filled his stomach again.
"My first kiss is the one I willingly give, not the one taken from me." She sighed, her smile soft and sad. "I wonder sometimes why I want a man who has to be backed into a corner before he'll reveal his heart to me," she murmured, and turned her hands in his grasp so she could stroke his palms with the tips of her fingers. The touch tickled and warmed him at the same time.
"Because you're..." He swallowed hard. "Perfect?"
She laughed and covered her mouth with both hands to muffle the sound.
"I know. That's an idiotic thing to say." Mrillis didn't like the abandoned feeling, now that his hands were free. "I lose everything, when I think about us--together--soul-bonded... Lovers." His voice cracked a little on the la
st word, but she lowered her hands and her smile faded in reaction to it, and that encouraged him. "I'm not wise or talented. I have no imbrose. I lose half my wits when I think of how much I want... You're the only one I will ever want."
"No, there will be another," she whispered, her eyes going misty with a Seeing, just for a few heartbeats. "But so far in the future that the world we know now will be fables and mist, and even you will sometimes doubt they ever happened." Ceera shivered and rubbed at her eyes, took a deep breath, and looked around the room. "What did--"
"I want us to be only for each other," Mrillis blurted, and snatched at her hands. "The only ones you and I will ever kiss or dance with or make love with. I want to be the father of your children. I want to wake up next to you in a hundred years and think it hasn't nearly been enough time."
Ceera stared into his eyes, wide-eyed and trembling, with a tiny, rosy flush in her cheeks and a quivering smile on her lips.
"I don't want us to be anyone but us. No prophecies or visions or duties to wrap around us," he continued, listening to some inner prompting. He drew Ceera closer as he leaned over her table. She went up on her toes and tipped her head back. Her mouth was soft and warm and sweet under his kiss, and felt as natural as if they had shared kisses for years now.
Mrillis heard a chiming in the Threads, reacting to the slight jarring and then merging of their imbrose. Ceera laughed softly against his lips, a giddy sound that echoed exactly what he felt in that moment.
Triska hurtled into the room. "Ceera, what--"
"Please inform the Elders among the Queen's Ladies that Mrillis and I have agreed to be married," Ceera said, moving her head back just enough to look over his shoulder at her designated heir.
"Oh! Oh, yes. Immediately!" The girl's voice bubbled with delight. Mrillis could have sworn he heard her skipping as she pulled the door closed and hurried down the passageway.
"You do intend to marry me, don't you?" Ceera whispered. She stepped around the table, standing so close to him, he almost had to go cross-eyed to look at her.
"I'll get on my knees and beg, if necessary."
She laughed, with unaccountable tears in her eyes, as she stepped into his arms. They were still kissing, Ceera perched on his lap, when her ladies spilled into the room to offer their congratulations.
* * * *
Master Breylon called them through the Threads that evening, asking them to come to Wynystrys immediately. His mental voice and touch were weary, despite the energizing influence of the Threads when they were used for communication, and that worried Mrillis.
Despite that, he couldn't help his high spirits as he and Ceera set off down the tunnel to go to the other side of Lygroes. They were finally alone together, after hours of being surrounded by delighted people full of questions and ideas for the marriage festivities.
"What are you grinning about?" Ceera laughed, twined her arm more firmly with his, and leaned against him as they hurried down the tunnel that compressed time and distances.
"I had the most disturbing thought." He tugged his arm loose, earning a teasing pout until he wrapped that arm around her shoulders and drew her close against his side. The delicate blush and the trembling smile she wore nearly took his breath away.
"About what?"
"Hmm?" Mrillis had to think a moment, to return to what he had been thinking. "Oh. The Encindi."
"They make you smile?" She nearly stopped short.
"I was thinking they have the right idea, when it comes to solidifying their marriages."
"How can you say that? They kidnap their brides and vanish for an entire moon."
"Exactly." He laughed when Ceera tried to pinch him in the ribs. "You know I'll do whatever it takes, whatever you want, just as long as you marry me, don't you?"
"I should be furious with you," she muttered, and picked up her pace a little, so he had to lengthen his stride or have her walk out from the curve of his arm. Now that he had the right to hold Ceera, he didn't want to waste a moment of closeness.
"I know better than to deprive the women of the Stronghold of a festival. You're going to end up with more dresses and scarves and robes and shoes than you'll ever be able to wear in ten lifetimes, you realize?"
"Not that." She sighed, and the corners of her mouth twitched as she fought not to smile. "I'm furious at how well you hid your feelings from me all these years. Here I've been ready to claw the eyes out of every girl who smiled at you or danced with you."
"When have either of us had time to dance in the last few years?"
"True." She glanced sideways at him, from under her long lashes, and in moments both of them were laughing softly. "I was ready to give up. I was afraid to say anything and drive you away."
"I was sure every woman in the Stronghold would geld me for daring to want you as a woman."
"She was right. Our Lady. You were utterly ridiculous."
"And furious with Endor when he stole kisses," Mrillis admitted.
"Just once! And I made sure he never had another chance." She tipped her head sideways to rest against his chest. "Well, I suppose that makes us evenly matched, then. We're both silly nits, afraid to reach for our hearts' desire."
"Not anymore," he whispered.
They had always been comfortable with long silences between them, and Mrillis was pleased to see that hadn't changed now that they had confessed their love. It was enough to walk with Ceera pressed close against his side, feel her warmth and catch her clean, sweet scent, and know they would walk together like this uncountable times, for decades, maybe centuries to come. With the taming of star-metal and the replenishing of the vales, who knew how long Rey'kil could live? The ancient tales, stored in the Book of Stars and Beginnings, claimed that some Rey'kil lived for nearly a thousand years. Mrillis couldn't comprehend it, after all the amazing things he had done in his short life, but the thought of spending a thousand years with Ceera comforted him.
Tathal and Kathal waited for them at the Wynystrys entrance of the tunnel, and hurried them through sleet and slush to the ferry that would take them to the island. Neither of the twins said anything about Breylon's summons or his discoveries, and Mrillis spent the tossing, mercifully short ride contemplating the reasons for that. Breylon could have told them through the Threads what he and the healers had discovered about the plague. It was disheartening, but perhaps revealing, that the High Scholar didn't trust the security of the Threads. Was it possible the originator of the plague was so strong in imbrose, he could intrude on private conversations through the Threads?
"What have the two of you done now?" Breylon greeted them, when they stepped into his private quarters on the island.
"Done?" Ceera turned to Mrillis, pausing in shedding her heavy, ice-crusted cloak.
"The music of the Threads changes slightly when it touches you. If I weren't so focused on all imbrose right now... The two of you, together, have done something again. Can we hope it will be the Estall's timing and to our benefit?" The old enchanter sighed wearily and settled down at the long table, gesturing for them to take seats on either side of him.
Ceera sat at his right hand, her usual position now that she was Queen of Snows. Instead of taking the left-hand seat, facing her, Mrillis settled into the chair next to her, putting her between him and Breylon. He bit his lip against laughter when he caught a sharp intake of breath from one of the twins, and then a murmur of some indistinguishable comment.
Meeting Breylon's gaze, feeling somewhat defiant and bursting with a sense of mischief that he hadn't felt in years, he slid his arm around Ceera's shoulders. She laughed and leaned against him.
"So the two of you finally came to your senses?" Breylon said. He gave them an exasperated look and shook his white head.
"Master?" Mrillis couldn't seem to get his mind to work for a moment. Then the old man burst out laughing.
"Le'esha and I knew years ago you were destined for each other, and no one else." He reached out and caught up their hands, cla
sping them together between his. "The Estall's blessing on you, children. You have brought happy news to a weary old man. I'm sure your mother knows, in the Estall's Bliss, and she is happy with you. And relieved you finally opened your eyes."
"Did everyone know how Mrillis feels about me, except me?" Ceera said, trying to whine and pout. She failed miserably. The laughter that rang through Breylon's quarters was more welcome and healing than anything Mrillis could have hoped for.
Kathal insisted on fetching wine, to mark the good news of their betrothal. Breylon only took a sip, and Mrillis' high spirits began to settle back to the ground when he saw the somber light return to his old teacher's eyes.
"Have you found our enemy?" Ceera asked.
"We have learned enough about him to know he is a 'they.' At least two enchanters. Strong in imbrose. Combining their imbrose, creating discord in the Threads. Their resonances are close enough to battle for dominance, instead of blending into harmony and partnership, such as the two of you have done. You have always blended well together, but it was always like two instruments playing different songs that somehow complemented each other. Now... Your resonances in the Threads have merged into one song, changing back and forth between harmony and melody. It makes you stronger."
"Imbrose, not blood magic, bound together but not harmonizing." Mrillis groaned as the picture grew clear in his mind. "And I suppose the disharmony, the discord, is enough to hide the original resonances, so you can't identify them, even if those two stood in this room with us?"
"We have not given up on that possibility. I will not ask you two to take on the hunt. I have a request to make of the forgers of the Zygradon. I fear we will need to learn what the Zygradon can do to enhance our powers. Graddon once saw the bowl of stars as a vessel of healing. I wish heartily that it had been purely metaphor and not harsh reality.
"Bring the Zygradon, my children. Gather your friends who have bound their imbrose to it, and go across the land to bring healing."
Braenlicach Page 3