Ebon glanced back along the thoroughfare down which he had come. He saw nothing untoward among the crowds. No one spared him a second glance.
He swallowed hard and stepped into the street. Now his footfalls, though muffled, could be heard bouncing from the buildings again. He listened hard, but he heard no steps other than his own. And he could not be sure if he was imagining the feeling of eyes upon his back, or if they were there in truth.
At last he reached the corner of the inn behind which the street turned. Without slowing, he stopped on the spot and whirled to look behind him.
The street was empty. Or … or had he in fact seen the corner of a grey cloak whipping behind the edge of a nearby building?
He passed the inn, and now he made no pretense of calm. He ran. The snow clutched at his boots, dragging at him. He imagined fingers beneath its surface, like the water-wurts that dragged sailors down to their deaths. Soon he was panting like a horse on the edge of collapse. His breath clouded around his head as if he were casting mists.
Mists. Ebon, you fool. He had utterly forgotten his magic. Now he darted for the closed mouth of an alley, dark and forbidding—but small, mayhap only a pace wider than his shoulders. Ebon flung himself into its mouth and reached for his power. The alley, which at first had been pitch-black to his sight, lightened considerably as his eyes began to glow. He focused on the air touching his skin. He saw it. And he spun mist within it.
It sprang from him, flooding out to fill the tiny width of the alley. He was nowhere near as proficient as Kalem, but he still managed to extend it a few paces in every direction. It was thick as a stew, so that no one could see through it—but it blocked Ebon’s sight not at all, for it was born of his magic. He could see the alley’s walls clearly, and when it branched off in two directions he made the turn without pausing. But he left the mist where it was, moving through it while it remained at the fork. He could only hold it a moment, but by the time it dissipated, he had already turned the next corner, and the fork was out of sight.
He would have laughed if he were not afraid of being heard. Anyone behind him would be lost now. And just ahead he could see the next main street, where many carts and travelers on horseback crossed the alley’s—
A blast of air struck him in the chest, flinging him backwards and robbing his lungs of breath. He tried to cry out, but only a thin wheeze emerged. Strong, wiry hands clutched his collar and dragged him upright, around the corner and out of sight of the street. The hands slammed him up against the alley’s wall.
Ebon stared into the eyes of Xain, dean of the Academy.
“Good eve, Drayden. Where are you off to in such a hurry?”
Xain’s voice was carefully controlled, but Ebon could hear the fury within it. He tried to answer, but Xain’s hand pressed against his throat. Hot breath washed over Ebon’s face, and he smelled wine.
“Ah-ah-ah. Speak not. You are a student. Listening should be your primary concern. I wanted to tell you …” His lip curled. “I wanted to tell you that I received your family’s note.”
Ebon blinked. “What?” He barely managed to croak the word.
“I will not tell them where she is,” Xain growled. “I would die first. I would not let Erin die for her, but then, I do not believe you mean to release him no matter what I do. I know the note’s true purpose. It is supposed to make me lash out at your family—mayhap even at you yourself—so that the Draydens will have leverage. Then they can persuade the High King to remove me. Did you think this was a clever plan? Did you think I would not see through it? You were wrong.”
“I know not—”
“Do not speak,” hissed Xain. He did not squeeze, but the venom in his words silenced Ebon anyway. “You are fools if you think to dupe me with the same ruse as before. Drystan played this game, and it worked for him then. It will not work again. I am wiser now—wise enough to see what you are doing. You may tell your family they have made a mistake. I will find my son. I will prove you took him. And then your names will be purged across the nine kingdoms. And if Erin has been harmed, I will not be gentle in the purging.”
He snatched his hand back. Ebon fell to the ground, clutching his throat and coughing. Xain looked down on him with malice, his fingers twitching as though he longed to fill them with fire.
“Tell your kin, Drayden. Tell them they have but one hope. They may return Erin to me. Bring him to the Academy, and leave him at the front door. If it is done, I will cease my efforts to destroy them. If it is not, I will not rest until you all burn. Tell them.”
Ebon raised his head to look Xain in the eyes, and despite his fear he did not waver. “I know not what you speak of,” said Ebon. “I have nothing to do with your son. Isra took him. She tried to kill me only two nights ago. If you think we are in league with her, you are mad yourself.”
Xain snarled, and blue fire sprang into his palm. He snatched Ebon’s collar and pressed him to the wall again, and the blue flames swung back. Ebon flinched and cried out, pressing back against the wall as though he could sink through it and escape.
But then Xain stopped. His gaze locked with Ebon’s. Slowly the magelight died in his eyes—and when they were clear, Ebon saw no fury at all. Instead he saw only a trace of doubt.
“Either you are lying, in which case, darkness take you—or you are telling the truth, and you are ignorant of your family’s deeds. If that is true, then you are their sacrificial lamb. Either way, you are a walking corpse. Tell them what I have said. Tell them quick, lest they use you like bait on the end of a hook.”
His eyes filled with light, and wind sprang from nowhere. It flung snow up to fill the air, thicker than mist, and Ebon had to shield his eyes against the stinging gale. When the wind died down and the snow settled back to the street, Xain had gone.
FOR A LITTLE WHILE HE stood there, every limb shaking, afraid to move, for he thought his legs might give out if he tried. But then he realized he was still in the alley and still out of sight of the street. So he forced his frozen legs to walk, and soon he was in a crowd again. He had drawn closer to the blue door, and when he saw it at last he began to shake again—though this time from relief.
The door opened easily under his hand, and the matron in the front room looked up expectantly. When she saw Ebon, her eyes filled with surprise.
“Good eve, young sir,” she said. “Adara is in her room, and unoccupied.”
Ebon fumbled for his coin purse, but the matron held up a hand with her palm out.
“That is not necessary. She has informed us of your new arrangement, and you no longer need bring any gold to visit her here.”
Ebon pulled out a gold weight and placed it in her hand, where her fingers closed around it after only a moment’s hesitation. “Take it regardless,” he said. “Tonight I do not visit only for love.”
He let himself through the door and made his way down the hall. His careful knock produced only silence for a moment. Then he heard her hesitant voice, almost a question. “Come in.”
When he opened the door, she looked even more surprised than the matron had. “Ebon,” she said. “I thought not to see you so soon.”
“I thought not to visit tonight,” said Ebon. “But things … plans have been altered, and I must speak with you.”
“Has it something to do with Isra?”
Ebon looked behind him, but the hallway remained empty. Still, he closed the door and turned the lock. “It does,” he said quietly.
“Come.”
She patted the space on the bed beside her. He sat, and at once her hand covered his own, stilling his fidgeting fingers. He smiled up at her.
“You are shaking,” she said. “What has happened?”
He remembered the fury in Xain’s eyes, the wine that filled the dean’s breath. But he had not come here to speak of Xain.
“I need … I had thought to ask you for a favor.”
“If I may grant it without dishonor, then consider it done,” she said. “Only, Ebon, you must tell me wha
t is wrong.”
“I …” But something overcame him, and he swiped at his eyes with the back of his hand. Now that he was in her presence, the whole encounter with Xain seemed at once distant and forgotten, and yet somehow more real and terrifying. But the last thing he wanted was to weep in Adara’s presence, for their time together should be joyous.
Adara leaned back with an appraising look, and he flinched, thinking she scorned him. But she stood quickly and took his hands, drawing him up after her.
“Come,” she said softly. “Let us retire to my home.”
He had no chance to answer, let alone argue, for she led him out and down the hall at once. The matron asked no questions, but bid them farewell with a nod. It was not long before they were situated in Adara’s little room again. As before, she seated Ebon at her table by the window, but she did not sit with him. Instead she went to her cupboard and drew forth two glass goblets—no, not glass, Ebon quickly saw. Crystal. Each was wrapped with a narrow gold band, and the crystal was carved in intricate, rippled diamond shapes. He marveled at them while she drew wine and mead from a cupboard.
“These must have cost a fortune,” he said, distracted from his fears for the moment.
She shrugged. “I did not buy them. Another gift from a happy guest—and a wealthy one, I wager.”
Ebon grew solemn. “I did not mean to take much of your time tonight, nor reduce the coin you might have earned. I can be brief, and mayhap another time we—”
Adara stopped short, and one of her fingers rose from the neck of the bottle it held. “No. It is my evening, and I will choose how to spend it. Your concern for my work is touching, but I do not lack for coin.”
He smirked at his goblet. That was something he did not doubt. She came to the table with the bottles and filled both their cups.
“What do we drink to?” he said, raising his cup.
She did not raise her own, but only met his gaze for a moment. In her eyes he saw a fresh anxiety. It was the same look she had worn when first she invited him here—another wall coming down. He leaned forwards.
“To knowing more of each other,” she said.
Ebon smirked. “I hardly think we could know more of each other than we do.”
That earned him a wicked smile, but it quickly subsided, and her voice grew even more solemn. “I should like to get drunk with you, Ebon of the family Drayden.”
He blinked, looking at the cup of wine in his hand. “I … I do not understand.”
“Drunk. Inebriated. Overfilled with wine until our brains are addled. You cannot be a stranger to the concept.”
Ebon tried to frown, but the sardonic twist of her lips softened him. “You know that is not what I meant. Why do you want to get drunk?”
“I have meant to ask you this for some time,” she said. With a fingernail she picked at the table, scraping up a bit of its lacquer. “Even before you and I … before we told each other how we felt. In fact, that was how I first thought I would hear true words of love pass your lips. I thought for certain that they would never pass mine any other way.”
His hand covered hers, stopping her from scratching the table further. “Adara, you need not get me drunk to hear that I love you. Have I not said it enough? A thousand times will I repeat it, and learn to say it in all the tongues of Underrealm if you wish. I will find the imps and the wurts and the satyrs in their homes, and even the centaurs where they have vanished in Spineridge, and learn to speak their words as well, if that is what you want.”
“It is not,” she said, rolling her eyes. “And you are a fool. Charming, but a fool. It is not the words I hoped to draw from you, for I told you that lovers’ words do not only come from lovers’ lips. I thought, once, that you said pleasant things we both wanted to hear, and that I might hear the truth if you were … disarmed, shall we say. And I feared to tell you how I myself had begun to feel, and thought mead might make the confession come more easily.”
Ebon leaned back. “I see. But you know now that I speak true.”
“You know the same of me,” she said. “And yet.”
He looked down at his hands, for he had guessed at her mind. Not long ago, he had been shocked to learn she once lived in Dulmun. Yet how could that have surprised him? He had learned nothing else of her life, and she knew little enough of his, beyond his deeds since he had come to the High King’s Seat.
“To your life and mine,” said Ebon. He raised his glass and looked into her eyes, suddenly aware that those sounded far too similar to wedding words. But he did not flinch.
She met his look and raised her goblet in turn. “To your life and mine,” she said. “Let them be laid bare, and we the better for it.”
They both drained their cups. Adara reached at once for the mead to fill hers again—but Ebon stopped her and took the bottle to pour it for her. She smiled and poured his cup in turn.
“Can you tell me now what brought you to my door?” she said. “Or must I force another goblet down your throat?”
Ebon tried to smile, but his thoughts turned dark again. “It was a little matter.”
Her eyes said she did not believe him. She put her hand over his. “Tell me something else, then. A thing of yourself you have withheld until now.”
“Withheld from you?”
“Yes. Whatever you wish. Something new.”
He looked down at her hand, for he had thought of something at once. But even now he hated the thought of telling her, for it stung his eyes and put a lump in his throat. She lowered her head a bit, trying to catch his eye.
“That, Ebon. Remember. Your life and mine.”
“I thought of my brother, Momen,” Ebon murmured. He was afraid if he raised his voice at all, it would break. “I thought of when he died.”
She waited a moment. When he did not go on, she spoke softly. “What about when he died?”
“When I heard the news, I locked myself in my room and did not come out for days. I let no one in. I know they all thought I wept. The truth is, I could not. Tears would not come, no matter how badly I wanted them to, and I was ashamed. I thought I was a monster for not weeping at my brother’s death, for I loved him dearly. And I never told anyone about those days locked in my room. I know they all think I shed tears in private, but I never did.”
By the time he finished speaking, his head had already begun to fog. The wine must have been strong, or else it was the effect of drinking it so quickly. Adara took her hand from his and leaned back, nodding slowly. When she answered him, her words ran together.
“I left Idris when I was only a little girl,” she said. “My parents brought me to Feldemar with them, for my father had a cousin who promised him a position upon a merchant’s caravan. He joined it, and was often gone on long journeys. Years he worked for the same merchant and spent more time away than at home. One day I found out my mother had taken a lover in secret, betraying him. The next time he came home, she told him what she had done and that she no longer loved him. He told her that he, too, had found another. He had met her while journeying in Selvan years before. They screamed at each other for hours, until finally I rose from my bed, slipped out my window, and ran from the house. I have not seen them since.”
Ebon was frozen in his seat. He could scarcely imagine anything worse. Certainly if that had happened to his parents, he would have cared little—his father had never had love for him, and he had always thought his mother would be happier with another. But in Adara’s voice he heard an aching, bone-deep sadness, and he knew at once that she had loved her father and mother both.
“Is that when you left for Dulmun?” he said quietly.
Adara shook her head. “That is another tale. And another cup. We have both told one, now. Drink.”
She followed her own advice, raising her goblet and beginning to drink. Ebon drank from his as well, though not half so eagerly as last time. He could feel the drink seeping in at the back of his mind now, like a soundless ringing in his ears, an ecstasy longing
to be acted upon. He refilled Adara’s cup, and she filled his.
“Xain attacked me tonight,” said Ebon. “Well, I say attacked … he did not harm me. Though I suppose he did, after all, did he not? But not greatly. Not if there is no small red mark here.”
He pointed to his neck, where he vividly remembered Xain’s thumb pressing into his jugular. Adara leaned forwards, blinking twice.
“There is not.”
“Then he did not harm me greatly,” said Ebon. “But he … he threatened me. He told me my family sent him a note.”
“What kind of note?”
“Am I telling the story?” he said, but he grinned to soften the words. “He said … a note about his son. Erin, his name is. His son, not Xain—Xain’s name is Xain. He said he would not tell us where she was.”
Adara frowned, looking out the window. “Where who was?”
Ebon spread his hands helplessly, almost spilling his goblet. He put it back on the table, reflecting that he probably should not have held it when he gestured so. “I do not know. But he would not tell me the information he seemed to think I desired, that much was certain. And he said that if we harmed Erin, he would destroy us. All of us.”
“But you do not have Erin.”
Ebon shrugged. “I have told him that—or rather, I told him that tonight. I have just realized that I never told him that before. I likely should have. Not that it would have been a comfort, for he would not have believed me. And it might have sounded suspicious, defending against an accusation that had not yet been leveled.”
“But if you do not have Erin, why would your family have sent him a note?”
“That troubles me. Of course, anyone could have put our name on a scrap of paper. Or left it blank, and Xain would have guessed it came from us, for his hatred knows no limits.”
She looked at him in silence for a moment, and through the fog of wine he saw her eyes glint with appraisal. “You do not think Mako would have done it? Even without Erin in hand, if he thought he could gain something from provoking Xain …”
“The thought had not crossed my mind … yet you are not wrong.” He scowled into his goblet. “I mean to speak to him tomorrow, for in any case I should tell him what happened with Xain. I will ask him then.”
The Academy Journals Volume One: A Book of Underrealm (The Underrealm Volumes 3) Page 60