by Jenna Rhodes
“What a . . . a legacy,” she managed.
The lively color of her cheeks had evened out. He hadn’t meant to rile her any more than she had meant to shock him. Who knows what she thought he’d intended. He had an inkling when a brace of guards straightened up, anticipating her approach to the steading. Beyond them, a graying but still in his prime Dweller was looking over Verdayne’s fled cart ponies.
She eyed the waiting Vaelinar guards. “Sweet apples,” she muttered. “They look vexed.”
“Could you blame them? They answer to Queen Lariel for you. Not to mention they are humiliated they lost . . .” he beckoned his hand over her ample body, “you.”
She giggled at that. “It wasn’t easy, mind you.”
“Of course not. But still. Don’t think they won’t hear the end of it for weeks.”
Nutmeg put her hand over her mouth. She ducked her chin in an attempt to look humble as she neared her father.
“Dad, this is Verdayne of House Vantane, come to seek your help,” she blurted as they drew close and Tolby looked him over, the corner of his mouth twitching.
“Went down to escort him, did you?”
“A-course not, how could I know he’d be coming? I thought to take a walk.”
“Through the vineyards, you told us,” muttered the right-hand guard, his pointed ears pinned back to his head.
“But the vineyards are that way.” Nutmeg gazed off in their general direction. “And I just came from down the street. You must have misheard me.”
The left-hand guard pulled her booted feet together, the heels making a sharp click. “Mistress Farbranch, you risk more than you know.”
Tolby’s hand cut through the air. “She’s my daughter. I will deal with her.” His gaze fixed on Verdayne. “I think we might have more important problems than a walk gone awry.”
“We do, sir. Best discussed inside, and if you have a pair of clean gloves, that will help.” Dayne hefted his bundle in his hand.
Tolby’s eyebrow arched sharply, and Verdayne realized exactly who Nutmeg had inherited that expression from.
“THERE ARE SECRETS IN BOOKS of the Vaelinar that, apparently, someone wished never to be set free.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Verdayne responded to Tolby.
“I do, and the evidence is before us, for those who have eyes t’ see. This book,” and he stabbed a strong finger downward at a shriveling, blackened text, “was contaminated directly. This book,” and he waved his hand over a second across the table from him, “bears a portion of the contagion because it contacted the first directly on the shelves, while this one—” and Tolby strode to the end of his table to lean over a third book, “shows nothing of the contamination at all. No contact, either directly or indirectly.”
“So how does that prove your point?”
“They were infected deliberately.”
“I can see that.” Verdayne pushed a hank of hair off his forehead. “But not the other.”
Tolby gave him a wink from an eye creased by sun and weather. “Read the titles, son.”
He frowned and leaned on elbows to join Tolby. “THE FIRST HOUSES. MARKING THE ELVEN WAYS.”
“Aye. Some of your earliest histories, I imagine.”
Verdayne pushed his hair back again with an impatient shove as he felt his face warm, and he took great care not to glance at the lass sitting quietly at the table’s far end. “I don’t know how I missed it.”
“Because you were looking at the mold, not the subject. All the books are valuable to you and Ferstanthe, it never occurred to you to wonder why, eh?”
He deflected with a question of his own. “So that means we pull all the books off the shelves and keep them from contact with the infected tomes?”
“Not quite. The very air carries mold and spores, some good, some ill. All the books in a closed area like your great library at Ferstanthe stand to be infected if given enough time. Particularly books kept in a back, enclosed area, as these appear to have been. This last book here seems to be clean, but it can hold a dust within it that will eventually turn black and then spread. These are your great books of mystery, are they not? By that, I mean, it’s said that certain of your volumes are more important than others. Books in the sacred section hold writings that cannot lie and must be saved to the end of days, when they will have great import.”
Verdayne shifted from one foot to another. “So I have understood,” he responded slowly. Tolby Farbranch asked questions of him he wasn’t sure he should answer. He did not want Azel or his brother after his hide for mishandling this.
“They pose the greatest danger to themselves and to the rest of the library. Removing them and subjecting them to the curative of the sun won’t be enough, as I’m sure Azel has already discovered, which is why he put them into Bistane’s hands and then yours. No ordinary measure will scour this mold from your library.” Tolby ran his hand over his chin. They were weathered hands, tanned and callused, scarred here and there from hard work and misadventure. “You’re thinking of the spray I use in the orchards against the black thread. It’s been working for your groves, aye?”
“For the newly infected, yes. Where black thread has eaten in past the bark, ofttimes all we can do is bring the tree down and burn it. It hits the aryns hard.”
The two traded stares. The aryns, while not native to Kerith and its lands, were a hardy tree that once established could withstand pestilence, drought, flood, and even fire. That a mold might bring them down seemed unthinkable, yet it happened.
Tolby made a sucking noise through his teeth. “Well, then. We’ve our work cut out for us. I cannot add moisture willy-nilly to these pages, so I’ll have to reformulate my tincture.” He moved back to the first book. “We’ll have to use this for test and trial, yet it may damage what is left. Do I have your permission?”
Did he have the right to order the book destroyed? And yet, it was already crumbling into a black sponge, and it had been sent for a purpose. “Of course, Master Farbranch.”
Tolby cleared his throat. “If we’re to be friends and partners in this enterprise, you’d best get around to calling me Tolby.”
“Tolby, then. I hate to see it lost, but this is a war, isn’t it?”
“Agreed. The first thing you must do is send word to Ferstanthe that they have a traitor or an infiltrator among them.”
He fought to keep his face neutral. “You are certain.”
“Without having been there to witness, as certain as I can be. This didn’t happen by accident. We know that, as I said earlier, by the fact these are some of your more sacred writings, and that they are kept isolated to protect them, yet they’re contaminated.”
“Is there enough evidence here to tell who might have done it?”
Tolby shook his head. “Only that it was done.”
“It couldn’t be a mistake.”
Tolby gave Verdayne a hard stare. “Could you have gotten to these books by mishap? Or anyone?”
“No, but—” He paused. “Azel holds these in trust. His students are hand-picked and taught well.”
“He recently begin to allow students from all of Kerith. Not Vaelinar alone?”
“Yes.” Verdayne thought a moment, and then shook his head. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I know exactly what I am saying.”
“To be a student in Ferstanthe is to be given a great opportunity. Especially for those not Vaelinar. To risk that opportunity, the learning, the trust . . .” He shook his head again.
“I’m not saying it’s one of the new students. There are those Vaelinar who believe that they should be held apart from the rest of us on Kerith, that they and they alone are unique and gifted. This could be an act of jealousy or anger. It could have been done to throw suspicion on the library’s new open policy. It could have been done to de
stroy the Way of Ferstanthe.” He paused before adding softly, “Don’t think Azel won’t be considering this himself. He is a most wise man, from what I’ve heard of him. This is nothing you need put in a letter. He will understand without your putting it into a lot of words, and there is no one you can accuse anyway.”
Those words settled him and his jaw relaxed. “I’ll send birds out as soon as we take a break.”
“Good. I’ll have Keldan show you the way. He’s seeing to getting your harness mended and your ponies settled down.”
“I drove them hard. I hate to leave my charges to someone else.” A good horseman took care of his mounts himself or delegated the task to those he trusted.
“This,” Tolby pointed out, “cannot afford to wait while you rub down and feed a tired pony. Besides, Keldan is having a look at the bloodlines and conformation.”
Nutmeg spoke for the first time since she’d come in and sat down. “Sometimes I think he is half a horse himself.”
Verdayne chuckled at that before bending over the books again, this time turning pages with hands now carefully covered with linen handkerchiefs that were far less cumbersome than leather working gloves. Working together with Tolby, they slipped protective pieces of bark between each page to separate them.
Nutmeg sat at the other end of the table, uncharacteristically silent, watching her father and this new man studying the task together. An odd sense of seeing into her future as a mother crept over her as she watched Verdayne who undoubtedly held Dweller blood in him but also a strong indication of the high elven. His dark curled hair could not hide ears that were tipped in a graceful curve mounting to a point. He towered above Tolby and would be taller even than Garner who was the tallest of all her brothers, and yet, compared to her Vaelinar guards from Larandaril, he stood nearly a head shorter.
She watched him run his fingers through his hair again as he bent over the books. That bit of hair could use a good trimming. She might suggest a barber who could tame it, if he wished. She watched him shift his weight and draw his brows together in thought, his shoulders straightening. Dweller blood lent him a strength to his frame, offsetting Vaelinar slenderness. And he had mannerisms . . . so like the Vaelinar and at the same time so like her own Dweller folk. He moved and worked like her own, but he chose his words as carefully as any Vaelinar used to meanings within meanings and schemes within schemes. Was she looking at a person and seeing what her child would be like when grown? She had not paid much attention to the mixed bloods that populated Calcort, not wondering before. Did she watch the future in front of her?
He shot her a glance as if feeling her watch him. Heat stained her cheeks for a moment as she looked away quickly to her father as he tested the moisture content of the pages in front of him but not before she noticed what handsome eyes he had. Thick, full lashes framed dark blue on top of lighter blue, giving him a gaze of deep indigo, and not likely one would notice the color stacked upon color, but she had noticed almost right away. As a weaver and tailor’s daughter, Nutmeg appreciated the interplay and beauty of color. She wondered what Talents Verdayne carried as his legacy. Her hand moved unconsciously to lay over the curve of her stomach. What eyes, indeed, would her child have?
If he was going to be the Warrior Queen’s heir, it would be best if he looked as Vaelinar as possible, to put aside some of the challenges he would inevitably have to face. But still . . . to hold a Talent in secret without the telltale giveaway eye colors as Sevryn did . . . that might be an advantage.
Sweet apples, Nutmeg thought, and resolved to stop staring at Verdayne. She was beginning to think like a Vaelinar schemer, a regular Tressandre ild Fallyn! Although she would like another look into those lovely eyes . . . she smacked her knee lightly. Enough, and done!
They had work to do.
CEYLA SAT ON HER HEELS, hands dangling at her knees, as the great Galdarkan considered her. Abayan Diort, skin of golden hue with eyes as sharp as a bird of prey upon her face, took her measure. She could hardly bear to look upon him, as a hundred futures wheeled through her thoughts, each of them bearing him within it like a golden torch blazing furiously. It dizzied her so that she could hardly think and even as she tried, nausea rose from her gut as it clenched. She knew which future she ought to concentrate on, but she could not decide for him. Would not. She had reached him last night and blurted out the divination that had driven her to escape from the fortress and reach him at all odds before collapsing. When they woke her this morning, his handmaidens told her she’d slept two days, yet she still did not feel rested.
Or perhaps fear gripped her.
“You look better this day,” Abayan said. His voice held a deep tone to it, and she could tell if it deepened even more, in command or anger, it would rumble like that of a great beast. She shivered. She had awakened that beast. “Do you remember what you said to me?”
How could she forget? “I said that you must move your army and take Larandaril.”
“Yet we are still encamped.”
She did not answer, uncertain if it was a question he leveled at her.
“Your name?”
“Ceyla.”
“Of what House or Hold or Fortress?”
“I came from the ild Fallyns, but they didn’t send me. They hunted me when I fled the Fortress.” She could tell him she’d been a slave, but she did not think that would win her any sympathy or trust.
“And you managed to elude them. Weaponless. On foot.” He looked down at her feet, which were now bare. “Barefooted most of the way until you stole another’s shoes.”
She lifted and dropped a shoulder diffidently. The condition of her feet was no secret nor was the ill-fitting pair of shoes taken from her. “He was dead. He no longer needed them.”
“How did he die?”
Ceyla looked away from the Galdarkan’s face. “I don’t remember. I might have killed him. He might have been felled by accident as I took as rough a trail as I could to try to keep the trackers off me.” She could feel his steady gaze remain upon her.
“How did you come by the idea that I must move upon Larandaril?”
“It came to me. I can’t explain it.” She studied her knees, hidden by the lightweight soft cloth of the women’s trousers she’d been given. Her blouse had embroidery on it of winged birds, decorating the v-neckline and hem that fell over her slim hips. Everyday clothes and yet the finest she’d ever worn. Her own clothes, stained, torn, muddied, slimed, had been burned. Now she looked like any of the Galdarkans until one considered her pale complexion and eyes and hair color and stature. Alien in almost every way she could consider. Her mouth twisted wryly at the thought. She realized that Abayan Diort waited for more of an answer. Her gaze flickered up. “I see things. Feel them. They come true. I cannot depend on its happening, but it kept me free of the trackers. I had no choice, you see. I had to find you. I had to tell you what I’d seen. If I hadn’t come to you, sooner or later, it would have burst out of me and then they would have known, and we would both have been betrayed. I had no choice!”
“You fear those who raised you?”
Ceyla bit the corner of her lip. The pain, quick and sharp and then gone, left her with a coppery taste on her tongue. Now that he’d asked for it, she had to give away her truth. “I was brought to the fortress when I was very young. Enslaved. Those of us without obvious Talent despite our blood are taught a little and worked hard. We are bred if we have some possibilities. Those who do not . . . disappear.”
Abayan frowned. Strong features stamped his face, square jaw, square face, deep-set eyes that missed little detail. A well-muscled neck sloping into powerful shoulders and chest. He looked like a conqueror. “Is this a habit among your people?”
“I don’t know. All I know are the ild Fallyn, and I fear them. If you make me leave, they will find me. Take me back. And eventually kill me.”
“Your words tell
me it will not be a quick death.”
“I don’t think it will be. They will want to know whatever I can tell them, even if I will not.”
He inclined his head gravely. “I grant you sanctuary here, as long as you wish it, Ceyla. You’re a guest of myself and my host until you wish to leave of your own free will.” He leaned forward then, his eyes narrowing. “But I, too, need to know whatever you can tell me.”
She raised one hand, palm up. “I see you in the fields adorned with maiden’s nod in full flower, followed by your army. A great battle awaits you, an important one. Your true destiny awaits you there, if you have the courage to claim it.”
“Against Queen Lariel?”
She could not speak for a moment. It felt as through her tongue had cleaved to the roof of her mouth. In desperation, she looked around her and found a gourd of water. Ceyla grabbed it and took a long swallow. Warm but sweet water: the Galdarkans had found a good source nearby. She lowered the gourd but kept her hand wrapped tightly about it. “I can’t tell you. I don’t see everything.”
“Just enough to cause me a considerable amount of trouble,” Abayan said dryly. “Tell me this, if you can. Do you see the Warrior Queen at all?”
Her head whirled violently, and she closed her eyes or she would be sick and spew. From between her clenched teeth, she answered. “Yes. She is geared for battle. But I do not see her facing you. Yet.”
“Yet.”
She wrenched her eyes open. “I see possibilities. As you make each decision and move into the future I have beheld, it changes. Clarifies. That I can tell you.”
He leaned back in his chair at that. The leather frame creaked slightly under his weight, though he was not a heavy man, his form leanly muscled. He looked up, away from her, considering the sky or perhaps its drifting clouds. The sunlight gilded his skin even more golden. “If I do not march?”
Ceyla swallowed tightly. “Death. All along these lands. Darkness. A great plague falls on us all. We fight ourselves. We fight strangers. You have to march. You must!”