by Evie Manieri
“I’ll go back to my tent now.” Callia tilted her head and stuck out her chin, like always, but her dull eyes had none of the playful mischief Lahlil had grown accustomed to seeing there. “Or did you want something? You’re looking at me funny.”
Lahlil stood still for a moment, just breathing. “When a Nomas takes something from someone else, they’re supposed to pay it back, aren’t they?”
“I don’t owe you anything,” said Callia with a dismissive wave. “The only thing I ever got from you is your bad temper, and you can have it back any time you want.”
“I meant it the other way.”
Callia pursed her lips. “You don’t owe me anything. What happened wasn’t your fault. Everybody says so, even Mairi.”
“I know they do. I’m just not as sure.”
“Of course you would think it had something to do with you.” Callia snorted a little, a bit more like her old self, and rocked back in the chair. Lahlil found the sound of the runners hissing against the carpet oddly soothing. “Everything always has to be about you. You’re like a little sprat who thinks everyone else disappears when she shuts her eyes. We don’t, you know. I’m sure you’ll be surprised to know that our lives go right on happening, even when you’re not around.”
“I’m going away.”
This took Callia back a little. “So you finally made up your mind. Where to?”
“Norland. I’m taking Jachad to a physic there.”
“Norland? What about Oshi? Don’t tell me you’re taking him with you?” asked Callia.
“I’m not.”
“Then what—?” she started, then tears started pooling along the lower lashes when she finally realized what Lahlil was trying to tell her. “Oh.” A long silence stretched out before Lahlil took Oshi from her shoulder and knelt down beside the rocking chair.
“I’ll look after him properly,” Callia said as she took the baby from her arms. “You don’t need to worry. He’ll be fine until you get back.”
“I know.”
Callia suddenly reached out and put her delicate hand on Lahlil’s leg. “You are coming back, aren’t you?”
The easy lie was right there in her mouth, like ashes on her tongue, but she couldn’t get it out.
“Well, you’d better,” said Callia, turning away. “I have a lot of limericks to teach you before the sea calls me back again.”
* * *
By the time the moon rose over the swamp, Aeda’s saddlebags had been loaded and they were ready to go. Lahlil waited outside Jachad’s tent while Mairi fussed over him. When he and Mairi came out, the healer had hardened her face into a glare that reminded Lahlil of the little stone fetishes the Thrakyan soldiers carried around in their pockets to ward off evil spirits.
He’s dying. No matter how many times she said it to herself, the words still didn’t make any sense. Dying happened suddenly, with screaming and crying and pointless appeals. Jachad smiled at her, and his blue eyes held all of the things he wasn’t saying. Whatever was left of her own stoicism crumbled away, leaving her fear exposed in all its stark shapes: shadows etched by lightning.
“You’re sure about this?” Lahlil asked him.
“No,” said Jachad, giving her a crooked grin. “Not even a little.”
Mairi handed over the bag of medicines and repeated the same instructions she had given to Lahlil three times already.
A corridor of men led from Jachad’s tent to the waiting triffon, and most of them tried to smile and offer words of encouragement as they passed. Hands clapped Jachad’s shoulders as children crowded around their fathers’ legs, sat on their shoulders or rocked in their arms. They had no idea what any of this meant, but their faces betrayed the anxiety their fathers were trying so badly to conceal for the sake of their king.
Jachad teased and joked with them, blithely agreeing with all of the happy plans and celebrations proposed for when he returned and promising to bring back snowballs and icicles. His courage made Lahlil so angry that she could have spat vitriol up to the heavens, at Shof himself.
“Please bring him back to us,” Behr whispered to her. “I don’t know what will happen if we lose him. We’ve never been without a king before—never. How could Shof let this happen?”
Callia had come out too, and was waiting near the triffon with Oshi in her arms. Jachad kissed her round cheek, then kissed the baby’s head.
“Take care of each other,” he told them.
“‘Said the deluge to the dewdrop,’” Callia said with a wink.
Isa waited in the saddle, already strapped in and impatient to go. As they walked toward the triffon, Jachad leaned closer to her and said, “So that was the elixir’s prediction—that’s why you took Oshi, so you could give him to Callia. That’s it, isn’t it? It’s all over.”
“Yes,” said Lahlil, as something inside her quietly shattered, “that’s all over.”
Chapter 17
Rho sat in a chair in his room in Arregador House. It wasn’t a comfortable chair, but he had fallen asleep in it anyway. He dragged his eyes open to see a glowing fire and a small boy curled up under a blanket in front of the hearth. The boy appeared to be sound asleep. Something inside Rho that had been pulled as tight as a fishing line went slack, and he closed his eyes again, allowing his body to sink back into the chair’s fragrant pine-needle cushions.
Dramash was safe.
Just a little more sleep, and then in the morning they would go back to the Argent and sail away—but not back to the Shadar. They would go somewhere peaceful; somewhere where Dramash’s murdered mother wouldn’t bleed into Rho’s dreams.
When he woke up properly a short time later and looked at the hearth, he found his dirty woolen cloak piled up in front of the firescreen. If he squinted and turned his head to one side, it almost looked like a sleeping child.
Rho bolted up out of the chair, cursing his stiff muscles as he limped to the window—typical Arregador ostentation, putting a window in a poky little closet like this—to see how long he’d slept. They’d given him a room at the back of the house with a commanding view of the slopyards, topped by the snow-dusted wall of Garrador House just to the north. He could see a flicker of light: the smiths were building up their fires, so dawn couldn’t be far off, then. He had wasted the whole night waiting for Eofar, and he still didn’t know if Dramash was all right—he was probably hungry and cold and frightened and confused.
The change of clothes the Arregador house-warden had given him lay on the untouched bed. He stripped off his ship-worn rags and after breaking the thin crust of ice in the ewer he scrubbed himself down, hoping to shock his mind awake with the cold water. He dried off in front of the fire and dressed as quickly as he could.
When he dragged the chair closer to the fire to pull on the borrowed boots, Kira’s broken necklace slid across the seat cushion. He caught it just before it hit the floor.
No one had called him “my Lord” in three years. He had not had a real bath, or eaten meat fresh from the hunt, or drunk decent wine, or walked across a room without breaking into a sweat in all that time. He had almost forgotten that particular Ravindal scent: the deep notes of woodsmoke and furs, cut through with the sharp tang of the hot springs and the pungent sap of the thaw-vine. For three years he had not slept on a pine-needle mattress, or worn fur, or spoken to a servant without opening his mouth like a gasping fish—and now all he wanted was to take Dramash and get as far away from Norland as possible. He tossed Kira’s necklace down onto the table, only to find that he’d been squeezing it so hard it had left its impression in his palm.
He jumped as a knock sounded at his door, and it swung open and banged against the wall before he had a chance to ask who was there.
Rho grabbed his arm and yanked him into the room with so much force that Eofar spun like a top across to the other side and crashed into the wall.
slamming the door shut again.
Eofar held his hands out to the flames.
Eofar slouched in the corner and closed his eyes.
His false levity was underscored with a bitterness that turned Rho’s stomach.
Eofar went to the table and picked up his hood and gloves. The steadiness of his walk made Rho wonder if he was drunk at all, and that worried him even more.
Rho watched Eofar leave, rudely leaving the door open behind him, before he could finish sorting through all the objections that were piling up in his mind. He shivered as he stood regarding the blank stone wall across the way until Eofar’s meaning finally cracked its way through his thick skull: if the ambitions of Eofar’s father had worried Emperor Eoban enough to prompt that underhanded banishment, then he must have been much closer to the throne than anyone in the Shadar ever realized …
Rho stumbled in mid-stride and then adjusted his shirt over his shoulders to reclaim a little of his dignity. He found a small woman—a girl, really—standing in the hall. He had the impression she’d been waiting there for some time.
Aline said,
Rho looked over his shoulder. Eofar was probably halfway back to Eotan Castle by now. He’d never catch up with him.
* * *
Rho had to walk fast to keep up with Aline’s quick steps. He paused for a moment when they reached the gallery that overlooked the hall below, where he and Trey had always come when the feasts below grew dull, or the fire too hot. No fire burned now, and the tables and benches had all been pushed to one side. Torches burned on four of the pillars, throwing off just enough ruddy light for him to see Eofar striding down the length of the hall to the door that the door-warden sprang up to open for him. He had told Rho to stay clear, and he was in charge.
She led him onward, though he was surprised when she pushed on past the posh apartments in the main part of the house and into the same sort of utilitarian wing where Rho had
lived alone after Trey and Kira had married. They had just turned into a cold, plain corridor when Aline suddenly stopped and motioned him back.
She waited a moment to collect herself, then went out into the main room, leaving the door partially open behind her. Rho could feel Kira’s presence as she took note of Aline’s entrance, and then she found him there, brushing by his mind with a wordless warning to stay back. He remembered Orina; he had always found the exemplar to be a haughty, self-righteous bore.