Where Light Meets Shadow

by Shawna Reppert

  “Father has asked it,” Alban said.

  “Asked or commanded?”

  Alban shrugged. “It seems a small enough matter.”

  “Then it shouldn’t cause a problem should I decline.” Kieran gave a tight smile. “If your father prefers to insist, I am certain he has guards enough to compel my obedience.”

  Alban’s eyes went hard, cold. “Should you prefer to be treated as a prisoner rather than a guest, that can be arranged.”

  “So you admit now to my true status.”

  Kieran said it mostly to hurt Alban, who was not the true source of frustration and did not deserve the attack. He took a deep breath, trying to find an apology, but Alban spoke first.

  “I will leave you to the company of the books, since you do not seem to want mine. My father thinks I waste too much time with you as it is. Will you want to return to your rooms to rest before dinner?” Alban asked without looking at him.

  “If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not brave those stairs more often in one day than I have to.” Kieran smiled, trying for ingratiating humor at his own incapacity.

  Maybe he just needed some time alone.

  Alban nodded sharply. “We will dine in my parents’ private rooms, which are on this floor. I will come and collect you in an hour, which will give us plenty of time to get there, even with your crutches. Do please leave that damned book in its drawer and find something cheering.”

  Perhaps later might be better for an apology.

  Alban left the library. After the echoes of his footsteps faded, Kieran slid the book out of the drawer. His concentration had diminished, however, as his mind turned over the argument, trying and failing to justify his own behavior. He felt as guilty as he did when he snapped at Brona because a composition was not going well.

  After a while, he put the book away in favor of a collection of ballads that predated the wars. The ballads had been written by Leas, but they could have just as easily been Scathlan. Not only the language used, but the phrasing and the imagery had far more in common than any elven song would have with a mortal’s work.

  Kieran could find differences, of course. A Leas would be more likely to compare his love to a hawk soaring high above lofty peaks than to the willow, rooted strong in earth and trailing withies into a hidden and secret stream. Leas songs were more often about the joy of love fulfilled despite all costs. Scathlan more often sang about the noble sadness of forsaking love for duty. The former made pretty love songs to sing at weddings, but even a reckless fool of a bard knew that it made for very bad politics.

  Still, he would sing the songs, and he found a few that he might want to add to his repertoire. This one here, The Star and the Sea, about a lady whose love was so strong that she sang her fallen love back to life as a star, and then became part of the sea every night in order to embrace his reflection. The book gave musical notation as well as words, and he hummed the tune there softly under his breath. Would it play well on the harp, or should it be performed with voice only?

  With harp, definitely with the harp, and he already had some ideas for a little ornamental bridge that would go so nicely between the third chorus and the last verse...

  Wait. The Star and the Sea. Why did that title feel so familiar? He snatched up the leather-bound book that Alban had begged him to set aside and flipped through it. Yes.

  Oh, by the Grace, he was an idiot. How had he not seen this before?

  Kieran made a list of the names that everyone had assumed referred to books. Skimming the text, he realized that some passages did indeed make more sense if the name were the title of a tune or song rather than a book.

  Excitement coursed through his veins like liquid fire. The awkwardness of the crutches barely registered as he pulled from the shelves every musical reference or songbook he could find, piling them on the desk like a dragon’s horde. He settled back into his chair and started flipping through the treasure.

  No, no, useless, no, yes! He found one of the titles mentioned. And another. Wait—he knew that song, by another name, but he knew that song.

  The library door opened, and his heart leapt at the prospect of sharing his find with Alban. But when he turned, it wasn’t Alban on the threshold.

  The intruder was tall and strongly built, nearly as broad and muscled as a mortal warrior. A scar ran down one side of his face, twisting his lip into a permanent sneer, and his gray eyes blazed with cold fire.

  For a moment, Kieran was back in the nightmares of his childhood.

  “What are you doing here, Scathlan?”

  With the number of people in the courtyard the night he’d arrived, Kieran assumed word would have spread by now that the Leas king had a Scathlan guest, or prisoner, or patient, or stray fool. His exact status might be a mystery, but he hadn’t expected his presence itself to be questioned.

  His skill with words failed, and he stumbled over a rapid explanation of being lost in the snow and falling from his horse, having barely enough presence of mind to leave out the attempt to flee and drawing a sword on the prince.

  The stranger cut him off. “Yes, I know my prince went out hunting deer one day and came back with a viper instead. What are you doing here in the royal library? Where are your guards?”

  “I hadn’t been told I needed any.”

  Had Alban been a guard? He seemed more like company, or an overly solicitous healer. Admitting that he had angered the prince to the point that he’d stalked off and left him alone wouldn’t look good for either of them.

  Kieran had been following Alban’s lead in the rules of his indeterminate status. This hadn’t been the first time Alban had left him alone in the library. He’d drifted in and out to bring him food and drink while Kieran had been so absorbed in the book on bardic healing that he’d scarcely noticed the comings and goings.

  He’d done nothing wrong. Even now, Kieran had remained where he’d been put until Alban came back to collect him. But would that matter if someone made an issue of it with Toryn? Did the king even know he was here, or had Alban taken it upon himself to give his stray the run of the castle without consulting his father?

  Kieran sat frozen, staring at the stranger and wishing hard that he’d made Toryn define the terms of his presence here.

  This Leas attacked as quickly and as violently as any of his nightmare Leas, knocking him from the chair. His injured ankle folded beneath him as he fell, and Kieran screamed at the sudden, blinding pain.

  The Leas was yelling something about spying and about treachery, but Kieran couldn’t make any sense of it. He couldn’t breathe, shock taking over. He struggled to rise, to take weight off the injury, but moving made it worse. He imagined the broken ends of bones grinding together.

  Then the Leas caught his wrist, and suddenly the threat came into focus as the warrior described in detail what he was about to do to the bones in Kieran’s hands.

  No! The end of his music, the end of everything. But, just like in his nightmares, Kieran couldn’t find a voice, could only pant and plead with his eyes as the Leas took hold of his first finger and—

  “What is going on here?” Toryn Oathbreaker’s voice preceded him into the room.

  Though he wanted to beg for help, words still wouldn’t come. But the attacker dropped his hand and turned to his lord, and Kieran never thought he’d be so glad to see the Oathbreaker.

  Ignoring the raised voices of the two Leas, he closed his eyes and hugged his hands to his chest for protection, surrendering to the agony of the rebroken bones in his leg. Toryn was a healer, at some point he would notice and do something about his ankle. At least his hands were safe.

  But then Toryn loomed over him, grabbed his wrist, and pulled his hand toward him.

  “No!” He found a word at last and repeated it. “No, no.” Futile. He couldn’t fight against two seasoned warriors.

  “Listen, you little idiot,” Toryn growled. “I don’t know what you did to anger my advisor, and right now I don’t care. I need t
o know where you’re hurt.”

  Through the pain, he couldn’t make sense of the words. Only the anger of the tone registered.

  “Sorry, sorry.” It seemed like the thing to say, although he wasn’t certain what he apologized for.

  Then, impossibly, Toryn released his grip and knelt down to Kieran’s level. He spoke more softly.

  “You’re not following a thing I say, are you?” Toryn looked over his shoulder, ordering the other Leas from the room, snapping at him to find Alban as he left. He turned back to Kieran, gentling his voice once more. “How badly did Trodaire hurt you? You were stoic enough the night Alban brought you here.”

  And then a new voice. “Father, I ran into to Trodaire in the hall. He said, well never mind what he said. But he said you wanted to see me.”

  Alban. Thank the Grace, Alban.

  “He seemed— Oh, no. What happened?” Though Alban had dropped to his knees beside Kieran, he addressed the question to his father.

  “Some sort of confrontation with Trodaire. He was too angry to talk. I’ll get the details from him when he’s had time to calm down. I think your Scathlan is hurt, but he won’t let me near him. He may be in shock.”

  Alban put an arm around Kieran’s shoulder. Kieran leaned into the contact and rested his head on against Alban, not caring how it looked.

  “Ankle,” he gasped. “He pushed me, I fell on it. It’s bad, worse than before.”

  Eight

  Alban’s chest went tight. Kieran wasn’t easily shaken. And the first break had been bad. If this were worse, the damage might be more than they could fix.

  “Ask him about his hands,” Father prompted. “When I came in, I thought I saw—Ask him.”

  “Kieran,” Alban began.

  “He didn’t have time,” Kieran said.

  Kieran was becoming more lucid. Good, that had to be good.

  “He threatened to break all the bones in my hands,” Kieran continued. “He would have, if your father hadn’t come in.”

  The horror in Kieran’s voice chilled Alban to the core, as did the thought of all that beautiful music stilled forever.

  “My ankle,” Kieran repeated. “Please, it hurts.”

  The leg was bent beneath Kieran in a way that couldn’t be comfortable, which could only mean that it hurt even worse to move it. Not good.

  “Here, can you let us have a look at it?” Alban asked gently.” Just straighten your leg out from under you. Can you do that? Lean against me, use me for leverage, there you go.”

  Kieran took short, quick breaths through clenched teeth, holding back a cry of pain as he followed Alban’s instructions. Alban offered his hand, and Kieran took it in a white-knuckled grip.

  Blood had soaked through the trouser leg. The healing fracture must have broken, and the bone ends poked through the skin. Kieran took one look and turned his face against Alban’s chest. Alban came close then to losing his healer’s composure. He wrapped his arms around Kieran and held him tight. If Father didn’t like it, he’d face his ire later.

  “I’m going to turn your trouser leg up now so I can see,” Father told Kieran in a perfect healer’s tone, compassionate but rational. “I’ll be as careful as I can, but it may still hurt. Are you ready?”

  “It hurts already,” Kieran said. “Go ahead.”

  Silently Kieran trembled against him as his father gently turned up the fabric to reveal the injury. Alban couldn’t get a good view over Kieran’s shoulder, but he could tell by his father’s grim expression that the damage was serious.

  “Trodaire had better have a very good explanation,” Father muttered under his breath.

  But could anything excuse what he’d done? No matter what the provocation, and Kieran could be quite provoking, he was unarmed and injured, certainly no threat to Trodaire. How could he have done this?

  Gentle Trodaire, who had dandled him on his knee when he was a child.

  Trodaire who bore a scar as a constant reminder of the same Scathlan sword that had killed his husband and brother-in-arms.

  Trodaire had killed that Scathlan, gutting him alive on the field of battle after he’d already been disarmed. Alban wasn’t supposed to know that last part, as it was a crime against honor and the rules of war for which Trodaire should have been punished and was not, but he’d overheard other veterans talking.

  But that crime had been committed in the freshness of grief and the heat of battle. Alban hadn’t realized that Trodaire’s anger still ran so deep.

  “Can you fix it?” Kieran asked in a small, scared voice.

  “We’ll do everything we can,” Father said.

  Give hope where you can, but never lie to the patient. The break had to be bad, if his father were avoiding making promises.

  “We can’t move you until we get that ankle stabilized,” Father continued. “I’m not going to touch you until I get as much painkiller in you as is safe.” He met Alban’s eyes. “Stay with him.”

  Toryn rose to leave, but paused at the doorway and addressed Kieran once more. “This should have never happened under my roof. For that, I apologize.”

  Apologizing, especially to a Scathlan, could not have come easy to his proud father, and yet he understood why Kieran let the words fall onto diplomatic silence.

  With Father gone, the library seemed to fill with Kieran’s hard, harsh breathing.

  “So, it looks like you were busy this morning,” Alban said to distract them both. “You have half the library there on the desk.”

  Kieran huffed a humorless laugh. “I figured out something about the book.”

  No need to ask which one. “What did you figure out?”

  “The reason no one’s ever heard about the books referenced in that old tome is that they’re not books, they’re tunes and songs. It only took me so long because your people have different names for some of them and, of course, some tunes I don’t know at all.” Kieran breathed deeply before continuing. “I thought it was you when the door opened, and I was all ready to tell you about the progress I’d made.”

  Alban heard what Kieran didn’t say, about how quickly the world had changed, about how excitement and pride in his discovery changed to pain and fear. He pulled the Scathlan a little closer.

  What had happened here today? Now was not the time to ask Kieran, not when he risked starting a debate over fault. He didn’t want to argue with the Scathlan while he was in so much pain.

  “I’m sorry about earlier,” Kieran said. “I was just frustrated with the book. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”

  “Do you think I care about that now?”

  To draw Kieran’s focus from his injury, Alban told him how he’d met up with his cousin Sheary after leaving the library. He put as much energy as he could into livening Sheary’s tale of the morning’s hunt until his father returned with what they needed.

  #

  Kieran could taste the herbs in the wine, bitter and slightly gritty. He drank it down without hesitation. When Alban shifted his hands to his shoulders, preparing to take his pain, though, he shrugged away from the touch.

  “What are you doing?” Hurt tinged Alban’s voice, clear to Kieran even in his drugged state.

  He hadn’t meant to offend him, but of course the Leas had taken it that way. He fought the drug’s haze to find needed words.

  “I don’t want you to take the pain. It’s too much.”

  He expected Alban’s protest, but Toryn spoke first. “My son is a prince and a healer. He is strong enough to do this.”

  Alban returned his hands to Kieran’s shoulders and leaned in to whisper in his ear. “It won’t hurt me, though it may tire me. I don’t actually feel the pain I draw away from you.”

  Too frightened of what was coming to remain resolute, Kieran nodded. He felt Alban’s energy connect to his, and then Alban’s mind nudged his own, pushing Kieran gently toward a drifting half-sleep. He hadn’t done so that last time, but back then Kieran would have fought him if he’d tried. />
  The sensation was strange, and should have been frightening. Instead, the touch of Alban’s mind felt soothing and sweet, like the refrain of a favorite song. Experimentally, Kieran thought gratitude back to him and felt the contact warm in answer.

  Toryn warned Kieran that he was about to begin. He felt Alban tense, like a horse leaning into the traces. There was pain still, but it seemed remote and easy to ignore. Kieran drifted.

  And then Toryn said that it was done. Alban dropped his hands, tried to stand, and staggered back. The touch of his mind retreated, and Kieran tried to follow, first with his thoughts and, when that failed, with his eyes and voice.

  “Alban! You said you wouldn’t be hurt.”

  His friend slumped against the nearest wall, pale and breathing hard. “It’s not pain. As such.”

  “As such.”

  Without Alban holding him into a half-trance, Kieran’s injury clamored for attention once more, but with the drug still in his system and the bones reset and rebound it was almost bearable. How much had Alban done for him, and at what cost?

  “My son needs to learn his limits,” Toryn said darkly. “He and I will be having that conversation at a later time. After I get you back to your room and you explain what happened here today.”

  Ice balled in Kieran’s stomach. He had done nothing wrong, but would the Oathbreaker believe that?

  “Alban, go lie down. The couch in my rooms is closest,” Toryn said.

  “But Father, Kieran—”

  “I’ll get your Scathlan back to his room. Right now, you’re in no condition to help.”

  The Oathbreaker had just put a good deal of effort into putting Kieran back together. He had no rational reason to fear injury from the lord. Still he wanted Alban. But Alban had done enough.

  Toryn handed him his fallen crutches. “I don’t think you’re going to be steady enough on your feet right now to do this without help. Take the crutches on your injured side—you’ll want both of them later—and I’ll steady you from the other side. Do you think you can manage that way?”