Cry of the Falcon (Falcons Saga Book 4)

by Court Ellyn

  Drys’s astonished silence drew out. The dwarf became concerned and laid her fingers upon his forearm. “Are you quite well?”

  At last Drys’s mouth moved, but all he could manage was, “Tall. Ebha.”

  Among the crates and bags, Kalla cleared her throat. Laral turned to see her struggling to bite off a grin. He found himself grinning, too.

  At first light the next morning, Laral led his party from the carven halls of Smedrhault. Lesha had bid him a tearful goodbye and made sure her father still carried the kerchief she had given him, the one embroidered with wrens.

  Wren was still dry-eyed. The last thing she told him was, “When you return, bring Jaedren with you. I want to see my son.” He’d merely nodded. He didn’t have the heart to tell her the truth.

  On the road beyond the great bronze gates, Lord Daryon waited. The iron dragon sat on its haunches beside him, and the avedra rested a hand between its horns, scratching idly, as if the machine possessed the skin to relish the caress. “Follow the storm, she said, and so I have. I await new orders, yet I receive none. So onward I must go.”

  “Onward?” Laral asked. “With us? And you’ll bring these?” Drawn up behind him were four companies of Elarion. One company, as pledged, had stayed behind with the ill and injured captives, to escort them home as soon as they could travel. Though ‘home’ was scarcely a haven for them.

  Daryon’s brow creased with uncertainty. “It’s been centuries since I’ve traveled beyond my mountains. I don’t relish the idea. But the War continues, and this time the Mother-Father engineers things to ensure we fight on the same side. Elari and duínovë, and always the avedra caught between. I do adore her sense of humor.” His tone was rife with sarcasm. “She whispers of Arrow’s Fist. You know it, I believe. You call it Tírandon.”

  This was news to Laral. The last he knew, Kelyn and his host were gathering at Ilswythe. A chill shuddered along his shoulders. Sudden lightheadedness swayed him. A face formed in his mind. It was his brother, Leshan, and he was smiling.

  ~~~~

  47

  Carah was under orders. She wasn’t to leave her suite until the duchess sent for her. So she stood at the window overlooking the courtyard and watched Da and his delegation prepare to leave for Bexby Field. The morning sky hung like a wet rag from a clothesline. Rain spat at the windowpane but couldn’t make up its mind to commit to a deluge.

  Mum, King Arryk, and Queen Briéllyn had gathered to send off the delegation. They chatted excitedly, though Carah was unable to make out their words. Stableboys brought horses for Eliad and Lady Drona. Laniel waved away the offer of a mount. Looked like he had chosen Dannevir to scout for the party. His twin sister jostled him, then hugged him, then raced off to duty on the wall.

  Clutching a blanket about his shoulders, Thorn lectured Da, even wagged a finger in his face. Carah worried for her uncle. He appeared diminished somehow, as if his mad experiments had leeched the spirit out of him.

  Separated from the rest, Rhian sat high on Duíndor. He was looking up at her window. She wiggled her fingers in a wave, and he looked away.

  After Mum discovered them the night before, he’d been in a state. “Tell them it’s my fault,” he’d insisted. “Will they understand? They won’t, will they. It’s not as if they can send you away. Sure there’s nowhere safe to send you. They can’t make me leave either. If Dathiel tells me to leave, that’s the only way I’ll go quietly. What will they do?”

  Carah didn’t have an answer.

  At Rhian’s shoulder, in plain view, hovered his guardian. Zephyr’s white light gleamed like a star amid the courtyard. Guard him well, fae, Carah prayed. Guard him well.

  At last, Da hoisted himself into the saddle, and the delegation followed him from the courtyard. Uncle Thorn pursued them as far as the nearest tower. He disappeared inside; no doubt he’d be watching for their return.

  Carah left the window, chafing at the closeness of the walls. Last night, Aisley had wept through an apology, then gathered all her things and moved into Carah’s room above the infirmary.

  Breakfast lay cold on the table. Carah was picking at soggy toast when a knock sounded on her door. Lura poked her head in. “M’ lady? Her Grace will see you now.” How formal that sounded. How chilly. So Mum wore her court mask today, did she? Very well, Carah could play too. She put on her silver avedra robe, straightened her shoulders, and followed Lura down the corridor.

  Mum sat in the parlor of Lander’s suite, pouring tea. “Sit,” she ordered, the word all consonants.

  Carah eased into the chair across the low table, gauging her mother’s mood. The silver and porcelain clicked as sharply as commands, as final as refusal. Carah’s heart sank. She knew precisely what her mother would say.

  Lura didn’t linger like she usually did, fussing with Mum’s things, but scurried out through the servant’s entrance. Mum offered a cup and saucer. Carah waved them away. Her stomach was tied into knots, her throat ached around unshed sobs, unspoken words.

  Mum sipped, but there was no enjoyment in the act. She used the time to whet her words like knives. “One statement I overheard troubled me nearly as much as finding you in a man’s room. That you are avedra first.” She set down the teacup. “We didn’t raise you to be avedra first. We raised you to be your father’s heir. Do you mean to cast everything aside for a pearl fisher?”

  Carah clenched her teeth, then blurted, “You’re a hypocrite, Mother.”

  The duchess spat nails. “I beg your pardon?”

  “You permit Rhian to be avedra first, but not your daughter. You call him ‘pearl fisher’ when it suits you, ‘cousin’ when it suits you, and let him dine at your table. If he were a pearl fisher first, you’d not let him in the door.” She pounded her chest and cried, “Do you think we haven’t agonized over this?”

  “Do you think agony excuses your indiscretions?” Mum shot back. “Do you think agony will keep a lid on rumor? Do you think people won’t delight in your agony? Agony won’t save you from scandal! It didn’t save me. I had to scrape and claw my way out of it. Do you think I worked so hard to escape that reputation for my own benefit? No, it was for your brother, for you.” Mum’s rage drove her from her chair. She paced wildly. “Goddess, when I think of how carefully your father and I maneuvered, how diligently we seduced our peers, how covetously we sheltered you and Kethlyn from those vicious words—all for the respect we were determined our children would have—it makes me want to slap you.” Her chest blotched red; she slammed her fist into her palm.

  Carah had never seen her mother this irate; it frightened her. More stunning still was her confession. “Mum, what are talking about? What scandal?”

  Rhoslyn whirled away, strode to the window. Gray light blanched her face. Or was it fear that drained her so suddenly? For long, taut moments, she remained silent. Carah stood, not sure if it was the wisest thing to do, and joined her mother at the window.

  When Mum spoke again, her voice rose barely above a whisper. “That you must ask demonstrates how well we succeeded. People don’t talk about it anymore. The blood has gone out of it. At least, the rumormongers think it has. They haven’t plucked at the wound in years. But it’s still there. I’m still paying for it.”

  “Paying for what?”

  Mum shrugged, downplaying it. “I didn’t marry your father until Kethlyn was a year old. To my knowledge your brother is still unaware that he was born a bastard.”

  In some circles, among Rhian’s people perhaps, such a confession might cause hardly a ripple, but to a duchess and her heir, it was everything. “Oh, Mum…”

  “I was to wed another. But I betrayed him, and he cast me off. The invitations had been sent, word had spread, and then the young duchess was jilted. Why? Then to learn she was in confinement? Oh, the people had a heyday with it.”

  Carah remembered the tales she had heard from Lady Ulna, tales of her father’s youth. They didn’t seem so amusing now. “Who were you to marry instead?”
r />   “It doesn’t matter now.”

  Carah recalled another astonishing confession that she’d heard at Bramoran, the night before the bloodbath: her father had once loved someone else. He had given up this other woman to marry Mum. For the first time Carah wondered who her parents were in the years before she was born. She realized she didn’t know them at all.

  “What matters,” Mum went on, “is that you respect our labors and abide within them. Your brother is ruined. It would take a miracle to save him now. Do not go down the same path.”

  Carah didn’t understand how betrayal and love could be called ‘the same path,’ but she wouldn’t pretend to be obtuse. “Did you tell Da?”

  “He was there. He knows everything.”

  “No, I mean about Rhian.”

  Mum sighed. “Of course I did.”

  A horrifying thought occurred to Carah. “He hasn’t gone off with Rhian to hang him, has he?”

  “No! At least I hope not.” Mum’s lack of certainty was alarming.

  Carah seized her wrist. “You could claim Rhian as family. He is, by extension. Or did you call him ‘cousin’ merely to mock him?”

  “Mock him? Do you think me so cruel?” She let out a breath ragged with spent rage. “Such a claim may be the only thing that saves him. But that’s something I will have to discuss with your father.” She shrugged off Carah’s hand, paced aimlessly. “And I know who the queen favors for you. If her son is deposed or dead, she will rule us.”

  “Briéllyn cannot dictate who I spend the rest of my life with.”

  “Oh, yes, she can, my dear. And I doubt you’re blind. Even if Arryk were not the White Falcon, he’d be quite the catch.”

  Panic clutched at Carah’s throat. “Mum, do you hear yourself? The White Falcon? You would marry me off to an ancestral enemy?”

  Rhoslyn’s eyebrows climbed high. “You’re going to pull that card, are you? Very well. I’ll do the same. You could be the person who unifies our people. Would you choose your own heart’s desire over generations of peace? Over all the soldiers who might otherwise die defending a riverbank?”

  That was the weight that finally crushed her. Carah sank to the window seat and sobbed. Her shoulders were far too narrow to bear such a burden. You could heal worlds, Rhian had told her once. Why couldn’t she have been born a milkmaid?

  Mum’s hand rested lightly on her shoulder, brushed her hair tenderly away from her wet cheeks. “Need I state that you are never again to be alone with Rhian?”

  And there it was. The edict Carah feared most. The one that nailed the door shut.

  ~~~~

  Rhian followed the rest of the delegation along the thoroughfare that divided South Town from North Town, between the fine sprawling houses of Tírandon’s wealthy and the crowded stacks of matchsticks that housed her poor. Too long he’d been treading this line between worlds. He was sick of it. The Abyss take the lot of you, and yourself too, he thought as he glared at the War Commander’s back. Kelyn hadn’t so much as glanced his direction that morning. Had the duchess told him or not? Rhian couldn’t tell, and he feared to peek into the man’s mind.

  Fine mist gathered in Duíndor’s mane. The air was warm, stifling, promising storms in the afternoon. Aye, there would be storms, Rhian was sure of that. His skin prickled with the roiling energies. It set his teeth on edge.

  “It’s happened, has it?” Zephyr asked. She whisked along beside him, drifting effortlessly backwards, her wings eddies of wind, her white hair a swirling cloud about her wee face.

  “Don’t talk to me. You know well it did.”

  “Ah, my pearl. I wish I could spare you this pain.”

  His fingers squeezed the reins. His fist knotted on his thigh. “I’ll get over it. I knew better. The moment I saw her, I knew better than to talk to her, look at her, anything. Damn my hide for it. Eejit.”

  “Do not scathe yourself so,” Zephyr cooed. “Your fate is not yet disentangled from hers. Do not give up hope.”

  “Do not give me hope!”

  Ahead, Eliad and Drona—no, Lord Drenéleth and Lady Athmar—glanced back at his outburst. Why couldn’t they keep their noses in their own bloody business?

  The highborns paused outside the Bastion to collect the rest of the delegation. After the siege, the Leanian and Fieran cavalry, the highlanders, the dwarves, and the Elaran Regulars had squeezed onto the plain like puss from a pimple, relieving the pressure inside the walls. Dagni and twelve of her finest warriors greeted the War Commander. A captain of the Leanian cavalry saluted. He was a knight from Graynor and had agreed to speak for Leania in as official a capacity as could be managed without Queen Da’era’s knowledge. Rhian didn’t know the captain’s name, but he had turned out in armor polished to a mirror shine. His dark blue surcoat appeared to have been starched, his beard trimmed and waxed.

  Dagni hadn’t bothered shining her boots. The dwarves were to walk alongside the Elarion, so they were bound to get muddier still. Two Miraji on golden warhorses and twelve Regulars joined them. The Elarion, too, glistened head to toe, as if they were competing for the honor of most disciplined regiment.

  As for Rhian, he had laid aside his avedra robe in favor of the sleeveless black jerkin, hoping to pass as Kelyn’s squire again. He didn’t expect Tullyk to remember him, but he suspected it was better not to look overtly avedra.

  The War Commander led the delegation onto the southern arm of the highway. Dannevir ran ahead. The Regs formed a vanguard and fanned out. The dwarves and the two Miraji kept an eye on the rear. Rhian waited for an order but received none. Didn’t Kelyn expect something from him? Why else bring him along? Rhian focused his Veil Sight and kept watch on the surrounding hills anyway. He had come to expect the solitary lifelight, Lothiar’s scout, hovering on the hilltops as faithfully as the Blood Star glowing in the north, but today the azeth was nowhere to be seen. The hills felt naked without it.

  A mile or so from Tírandon, Kelyn turned off the highway and onto a lane that meandered between neglected fields. It was then that the War Commander called for him. Rhian trotted ahead, past Eliad and Drona and the cavalry captain.

  Laniel Falconeye strolled alongside Kelyn, gauging the sky. “What do you say, Rhian? One hour past noon we’ll have a storm.”

  Rhian grinned. Once his uncanny knack for calling the weather had become known among the dranithion, they used to take bets. More often than not, he won. “Two and a half.”

  Kelyn cleared his throat. “Falconeye, run ahead with Dannevir. Rhian, send Zephyr to keep an eye on the village.”

  The fairy’s white light raced down the lane and out of sight. Laniel jogged ahead, past the vanguard, but Dannevir ranged too far ahead to catch, so he leapt a hedgerow and made for a hillock crowned with trees.

  Rhian felt the tension rippling off Kelyn. He suspected he knew what was coming, the warnings, the razor-edged words. But he didn’t guess the half of it. Kelyn’s fist landed in his belly. The air left Rhian’s chest in a sudden whoosh. The muscles under his ribs cramped and he doubled over, laid across Duíndor’s neck, trying to draw breath. Kelyn grabbed a handful of hair and hissed in his ear, “How long have you been fucking my daughter?”

  The world fell silent. The clop of horse hooves, the chatter of voices, even the roiling in the sky. Rhian had no intention of answering such a question, not because he feared the consequences, but because it was nobody’s business but his and Carah’s. “I love her,” he gasped, though he knew it wouldn’t do a lick of good.

  Kelyn gave his scalp a shake. “If I didn’t need you right now, I’d kill you.” Somehow whispering made the threat more menacing. “And if you’ve gotten her with child, even the Goddess won’t be able to save you. As soon as I’m finished with you, you will remove yourself from my presence. I don’t care if you run back to your Elarion or your filthy little island, but you will stay away from my daughter.”

  Rage welled. It was one thing for Rhian to tell himself, but to be ordered away by anothe
r was more than he could swallow. “As you stayed away from Her Grace?” He spoke before he realized what he meant to say. By then it was too late. “Aye, I heard that story. But never fear, Carah was sober when she made her choice.”

  With a roar, Kelyn dragged Rhian from the saddle. The road caught him with bruising arms. Duíndor reared and bolted. Leaves rustled in protest as Kelyn tore a branch from the hedgerow. Air whistled, and a lash of fire spread across Rhian’s shoulders.

  “What are you doing?” someone cried. “Kelyn, stop!”

  “Back off, Eliad! I have every right.” The switch came down again, again. Rhian clambered to his feet, his arms shielding his face. The pain resonating across his body did nothing to alleviate the pain blooming inside. Never belong. Fool. Eejit. Pearl fisher. Nothing.

  Rhian ducked his head and counted the blows. Passively taking the beating only enraged Kelyn the more. “Twice cursed bastard! Fight me!”

  Don’t, Rhian warned himself. One whisper, one gesture, and he could crush Kelyn’s bones to pulp, and then Carah would never forgive him. Calm descended over him like a blanket. When it was clear to Kelyn that he wouldn’t get the satisfaction he desired, he bellowed a curse, threw away the switch, and dealt Rhian a final shove. “As soon as we return to Tírandon, you’re out. I never want to slap eyes on you again. Mount up.” He stomped off to retrieve his own horse and rode off without glancing back.

  Lady Athmar and the cavalry captain trotted past, and the two Miraji whispering between themselves, and Dagni pressing a gloved hand to her mouth, and twelve dwarves gawking and trying not to. In so many ways, the stares and whispers were worse than the sting of the welts rising on his skin.

  Eliad had jumped from the saddle and once Kelyn was gone, he rushed to inspect the damage. “He didn’t mean it. I’m sure he didn’t.”

  “Doesn’t matter if he meant it or not,” Rhian said. “He said it. Might as well be law, coming from him. And who the hell am I?”