“It’s only we two,” Ailith said, with a smile and sigh. “Elon and Jareth got called out this morning on the High King’s business.”
“Well,” Jalila said, “we’ve always done well enough together. Do you have those arrows done?”
With a grin, Ailith said, “Yes, teacher.”
Jalila gave a small smile back as Ailith went to fetch them.
She eyed down the shaft to check the fletching.
“Well,” she said, “they will hit something.”
Her dark eyes looked to Ailith, who didn’t mistake the hint of humor there.
“Which is the point,” Ailith said. “That’s almost high praise from you.”
“You’ve done well. There are mistakes but they are small.” Jalila proceeded to point them out. “There’s a little too much glue here, and these feathers should be straighter. All in all, though, it’s well done.”
There was a knock at the door.
A messenger waited outside impatiently.
“I was to ask for Ailith,” he said. “Itan asks for her.”
“Do you mind, Jalila?” Ailith asked.
Jalila shook her head.
It had been a time since she could call any time all her own. She missed Colath already, would miss Elon and Jareth and now Ailith but it would be good to have a few hours to herself.
“Some time alone won’t be poorly spent.”
“All right. I shouldn’t be long.”
Ailith missed Smoke. She’d become accustomed to sitting on his broad back. Olend, though, had been kind enough to lend her one of his fine Marakisian horses. While not as swift or sure as an Elven-bred and no Smoke, it was a smooth riding animal. It still felt odd riding it, too narrow where she was used to Smoke’s bulk.
She was just shy of the Marakisian section, in the section of town where many of the common soldiers stayed until they were re-posted, when armed men appeared from the alleys around her. They encircled her. All wore the livery of the High King’s Guard.
An icy chill swept through her. For a moment she was frozen, uncomprehending, or trying not to, trying to deny what her instincts told her, what her fear was, now made real. Fear turned her bones to water.
They’d waited until she was away from the house, where she couldn’t call Jalila for help, send her after Elon. That boded even less well. She felt as if a trap had closed around her.
No, not now.
“Ailith, late of Riverford, you are hereby under arrest by the order of the High King and with his warrant.”
The cold took her.
Now. It was now. Someone knew, someone had guessed. There was her father’s known blood, someone had put two and two together.
She closed her eyes and released a shuddering breath.
Fear was a hot and cold thing that ran through her but what could she do against six? And the King’s Guard at that. The urge to fight and run was there. If she fought, though, it would be as if she fought the High King himself. That was treason. The punishment would be the same.
Death.
Elon, I am sorry, I am so sorry.
An aching anguish filled her but she leashed it back.
Don’t let it through the bond, don’t let him know this, him or Colath, she thought, and willed herself to calm, fighting the despair.
They had been going to do the forms together, she and Elon.
Now she was grateful rather than disappointed. If they had…
She closed her eyes.
She’d hoped so much.
Now it was all ashes.
Chapter Twenty Two
Jored watched from the shadows of the alehouse. It was where he spent most of his time these days, drinking away the memory of that last battle and watching for her. For the sweet Lady. This wasn’t the first time he’d seen her. He’d watched her come this way before but not usually alone like this. Usually with those Elves and a wizard.
Though she’d denied the title he gave her, the lift of her chin and the straightness of her back belied it. Whatever she was to others, she was and always would be the Lady to Jored. Ever since that day on the battlefield. Some whispered what it was her what done it, that made that dragon. Maybe it were and maybe it weren’t. One thing Jored knew for sure, he was alive because of it. She’d tried to warn him about those things that had come up out of the ground. Look away, she had said. But he hadn’t.
He’d been caught looking up into those serpent’s eyes and felt that magic take him. Suddenly, he couldn’t move, he could do nothing but stare up, looking into those gaping jaws and the teeth and wait to feel them close around him.
But they hadn’t.
Instead there had been the dragon.
It had been beautiful.
Now there were all this whispering. This Otherling business. He’d heard all those stories, the ones you told little ones to get them to mind or to frighten them on a winter’s night. That’s all they were, stories, nonsense, so far as he were concerned.
Everyone heard the clatter and commotion outside and they all went to watch.
This, though, this weren’t no story. The High King himself had ordered her arrest.
As if she hadn’t saved them all that day.
Truth be told, when the whispering had begun, Jored had started to follow her, just to be sure. Always from a distance on those rare times when she rode alone. Followed her all the way back home again, to be sure she were safe. She’d been watching out for him that day, seemed only fair to watch out for her now. A sweet Lady she was.
Now he fetched his horse and he was off, taking it careful, he didn’t want them to notice him. That wouldn’t do at all. Wouldn’t help her none if they did.
First to that house, to find that Elven Lord, the one what give her a hand up on the battlefield that day. Or that wizard, or that other Elf, the tall and pretty one.
One of them. Someone to help her.
He knocked at the door and tugged on his forelock at the stern Lady Elf who answered the door.
“I needs to speak to the Lord Elf what lives here, or that wizard, it’s terrible important.”
Startled, Jalila looked at him.
A common man, a rough soldier by the look of him.
“They left this morning, early. Why, what’s happened?”
Although she had little magic, Jalila suddenly had a terrible feeling, as a sudden chill went through her.
Jored’s heart sank. Left this morning. He had to do something, and fast. If they had left this morning, kept a slow pace, he might catch them up.
He was back up on his horse in seconds.
“They’ve arrested the Lady,” he shouted back at Elf as he rode away.
Arrested what Lady? Jalila wondered, taken aback. Arrested?
Lady?
Ailith.
Jalila put it together as her heart went still. She had to find Colath. She had to find him now.
She ran for her horse.
Jored cantered down to the North gate, it was as fast as he dared ride. Looking at the Guards, he knew them for folk like himself.
“Hai,” he said, giving proper greeting. “Did you see an Elf and a man, might as be a wizard, go through early this morning? I’ve gotta catch ‘em up and right soon. Gotta message to deliver.”
He did that, right enough.
Elf and wizard, Elf and man didn’t travel much together usual. Except for these two. They’d be noticed.
“Sure man, headed for the Glen, Forest Glen, that road there. You’ve a long hard ride ahead of you.”
They had no notion, no notion at all. He had to ride against Elven-bred.
“Thanks to you. I know it, don’t I but know it,” he said, with feeling.
“Heya, you’ll miss the trial tomorrow. They’re gonna do for that Otherling.”
Trial? This was the first he’d heard of that.
Word was traveling fast.
Trial?
Not if he could help it.
Well, this horse of his was f
resh from sitting around for days waiting for orders. It was a good thing, because he was gonna ride him hard. Real hard, to catch up with two on Elven-bred. It was hard to do to a good horse but he would do it, he would. For the Lady.
He owed his life to her.
Among Eliade’s Hunters, that’s where Colath was. Jalila knocked on the side door to the quarters in the Council building, that great stone edifice. It seemed cold and bleak, the only warmth the golden lamplight that spilled through the door.
The guard on the door sent for Colath.
One look at Jalila’s eyes, at the very stillness of her face and Colath knew.
There had been something here since he’d come, eyes that watched him covertly in a way not common among their folk. A watchfulness. As if they knew something he didn’t.
His heart went still.
“What happened? Where’s Elon?”
“They took her, arrested her. Ailith told me they were called away this morning. Elon and Jareth both. The High King.”
Colath’s heart sank.
The High King.
Daran, with his scheming and his plots.
“I’ll get my horse,” he said, “stay here. We’ll ride to the gate…”
A voice said, “You will not, Colath of Aerilann. You’re in my train now. This that we do is by will of the Council.”
Eliade. The Second of the Three but First among equals at Alatheriann.
He turned.
“Do nothing,” she said.
“She’s true-friend of mine, like Elon, you ask me to betray that?” Colath was incredulous.
Eliade looked stricken. “True-friend.”
He and Elon.
She hadn’t known, although she should have seen it as they were so much together as true-friends were.
It couldn’t matter now, as she’d already violated that bond and must pay the price.
But, a true-friend bond with the Otherling? It was unthinkable. It was a thing of Elves, it violated the sanctity of the bond.
And Elon, what of him? What bond tied him to her, to the Otherling?
That didn’t bear thinking.
She stiffened her resolve. This whole affair disturbed her.
“You may choose, Colath of Aerilann, how many true-friends will be left at the end of this day? You may lose one or both, if you go this course. You may not. I forbid it. As First among equals here and as Second of the Three.”
She couldn’t forbid him, not as his First, which was Elon…and why he, Colath, had been pulled into her train. Now he understood. Until she released him, she was his First, and not Elon. Thus the reason for the unusual request. This wasn’t their way, not the way of their people but it would put him at odds with them to openly defy her.
They had planned this from the beginning, cut him away as one does a cull from the herd, leaving both Elon and Ailith’s backs bare and paring one more friend away from them both.
Then they’d drawn off Elon and Jareth, leaving Ailith alone and undefended.
Ailith! True-friend. It ached in him.
“As for you,” Eliade said, turning to Jalila, “I don’t know your name but leave be. There’s nothing you can do here. It won’t go well for you if you interfere. There will be some who know an Elf stood for a man where they should not.”
Pausing at the door, she added, “It will be over by morning, you cannot reach Elon in time, we made sure of it. There will be a trial. It may come as some little comfort but the judgment will likely not be death. We aren’t such barbarians as men are known to be. That much I could do.”
It had been done at her insistence although Daran hadn’t been averse.
For the first time in his life, Colath felt truly helpless. Trapped. As much as he wanted to help Ailith, there was nothing he could do that wouldn’t violate the Agreement.
Seeing the anguish in Colath, caught by his honor, his bonds to their people and his true-friends, Jalila slipped her hand in his to share the pain.
His and hers.
There wasn’t the true-friend bond between her and Ailith but Ailith was a friend. A steadfast friend. That night with the trackers, looking in Ailith’s eyes and knowing Ailith wouldn’t turn away while the iron was put on her. Or when Ailith had taken them off, shattered them, pulled the arrow and used her Healing to save Jalila’s life.
It was knowing that when Ailith looked at those stars in her mind she looked not for just two but for all of them. Always. When Ailith turned her head to seek, it was first to Elon, next to Colath but also Jareth and herself. Always. It had shown in the warmth of her greeting that day on the parapets of Marakis.
A friend. It wasn’t the true-friend bond, as between Colath and Ailith, or him and Elon but…something else.
Jalila knew it. It was a bond and a true one. A friend-of-the-heart. Not so deep as a true-friend, it was a more open thing but special all the same.
She grieved for Ailith and shared Colath’s pain.
And, in that sharing, she felt something else. A feather’s touch of something else. Something…more. Something that moved between her and Colath. The beginning of something. Something that was warm and deep and true between them.
A soul-bond.
Not now. Sometime, but not in grief and sorrow and helpless fear for those they cared for. It was meant to be a joyous thing.
In the midst of his fear for Ailith, Colath felt it, too. That small something. A promise of something, a richness and a depth.
Someday they would look at that, he and Jalila. When all of this was over. If it was ever over. He felt it and knew it for what it would grow to be.
He looked at Jalila, knowing what would one day lay between them and what lay between two others he loved as deeply and as well.
There was no one else here in this empty place of stone and iron to hear and know.
“They’re soul-bonded, Jalila,” he said, quietly. “Elon and Ailith. He doesn’t know.”
The shock of it quivered through her. “He doesn’t know?”
Colath took a slow breath. “Does and doesn’t. I know it for true through our bond. He’s waited for it so long he doubts it as a true bond. He learned not to want it, not to need it. Now, it’s offered to him in her and with it all that she is.”
Jalila closed her eyes.
“Otherling.”
“Yes. He fears for her and fears losing her. He’s caught in it.”
“And Ailith?” Jalila asked.
“She knows and gives him what he needs, time, and her love to trust it’s true.”
“How?” It was incredulous, heartbreaking.
To know herself soul-bonded for true and to wait? To deny it to herself?
“She endures, for fear of this. For fear of what we face even now.”
“And now?”
He shook his head, felt a quiver in the bond.
Ailith.
“I don’t know.”
Chapter Twenty Three
Outside the weather had turned as bleak as Ailith’s mood, the sky gray. The chill in the air seemed to settle into her bones. This city rarely experienced such weather but it seemed right for the circumstances. Dusk had fallen and darkness gathered beneath the fragile trees that struggled to grow within the castle and city walls. Save in a garden she knew where grass grew and a little tree’s roots had pillowed Elon’s head. Still, Ailith didn’t move from the window to sit by the fire where it would be warmer. The fire offered little comfort, less welcome and even less distraction. At least from here she could see the activity in the city and courtyard below, which was some solace for her confinement.
On the other side of the door Ailith could hear voices as folk passed, but she often had that day as other folk wandered the halls of the castle freely only going briefly silent as they passed her locked and guarded door.
The door rattled.
A key in the lock.
Her dinner had already been delivered and sat cold by the fireside. She’d had little appetite for it.
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Beyond surprise by now, she felt little beyond a faint curiosity. She turned and folded her hands in front of her.
The lamps hadn’t been lit, only the flickering light from the fire cast light, so the room was shadowed and dim. The light from the torches without framed her visitor for a moment before he waved to the guards outside to draw the door shut. Seeing who it was, she was surprised, confused and wary as she sank down to one knee. Her heart pounded.
High King Daran.
“Get up,” he said, impatiently and set a twig to the fire to light the lamps.
She stood, clasping her hands behind her back. It seemed poor manners to thrust them in her pockets or to hook her thumbs in her belt as she might have with another. Besides, hooking her thumbs in her belt only reminded her of the absence of her swords.
They’d taken them, of course. She felt naked without them, she’d worn them for so long.
As many times as she’d seen the man she hadn’t truly looked at him. She hadn’t needed to. His presence had been enough, cold and predatory like some bird of prey. Face him she had and challenged him but that had been a different time, a different place, and under different circumstances.
He had needed her then.
He didn’t now.
Now, she was more cautious. Now, she saw him clearly.
He wasn’t a handsome man, his face marked with by pox and sword, his hawk-like nose scarred and slightly bent.
The scar on his nose was new.
Daran didn’t need beauty, he had presence instead, a forcefulness of personality not born of his position but of his fierce nature. He dominated the room, filled it with that predatory energy as Elon did with his quiet confidence.
Dark hair was swept back from widow’s peaks above that arching nose. His eyes were black and never still, as hard and bright as the eyes of a crow. Perhaps they only seemed like that now, under these circumstances. Still, of all she’d heard of him, he wasn’t known for his warmth. Nor had she ever known him for it. The blunt way he’d announced she was disowned had shown that. There was little kindness in him. Some claimed that Elves were cold but she knew they weren’t, not in the way this man was.
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