Subikahn finally swallowed. “That’s what you were doing when we met you?”
“Yes.” Chymmerlee hovered over Saviar. “Try this. Oh, and this.”
Saviar intended to eat pretty much everything, with or without her directions.
“Have as much as you want. I’ve already eaten, your brother’s almost done, and I can always fetch more.”
Saviar finished chewing and swallowed before speaking. “Relax. I’m fine.” He wished she would just let him eat. The more she flitted around him, the slower he filled his empty gut.
Subikahn came to Saviar’s rescue by engaging Chymmerlee in conversation. “What if there’s a blizzard?”
Chymmerlee shook her head, moonlight finding glimmers of copper in her dark hair. “Magic helps, but we don’t like to use it outside near our home; it looks suspicious if snow heaps everywhere except in one cave-shaped area. We grow some crops inside, too, and keep a few small animals. That sustains us even through long patches of bad weather. It’s become rare for anyone but me to leave the caves anymore, except Mennalo, who goes on occasional expeditions to try to find more auras. The more traffic in and out, the more likely someone might discover us; and Pawpaw is worried someone might use magic at the wrong place and time. He trusts my judgment; and he knows that if I don’t get some freedom, I’ll run away.”
Saviar shoved a handful of food into his mouth while Chymmerlee’s attention was fully on Subikahn. That might account for the extremeness of Jeremilan’s reaction to helping Béarn. It would take extraordinary events to goad such hermits out of hiding. It also explained the apparent lack of pursuit and the mages’ ignorance of the world in general.
Subikahn nodded thoughtfully. “In the morning, you need to go back to your people.”
“No.” The single word, unaccompanied by emotion, hung in the night air.
“No?” Subikahn repeated. “Why not?”
“Because we’re not far enough yet. You’re not safe from their magic.”
The explanation made sense to Saviar, though it also made him uneasy. If the mages could still present clear danger a day’s quick walk distant, what kinds of spells might Béarn’s enemies harbor?
Subikahn frowned. “You’re lying.”
Saviar jerked his head to his brother. “That’s not nice.”
“No,” Subikahn admitted, not backing down. “But it’s true. If the mages could work dangerous magic from this far away, they wouldn’t worry about losing men to the war.”
Chymmerlee sighed, rose, and walked a few paces away. “You’re right. I’m lying.”
“Why?” Subikahn demanded.
“Because I didn’t want to fight with you about . . . staying with you.”
“No!” Saviar said, no longer caring that he had food in his mouth, a bit of which flew out with the shout. He paused to swallow. “I promised I would send you back.”
Chymmerlee shook her head. “No, you didn’t, Savi. You promised you would release me unharmed. And you’ve done that.” She sat, cross-legged, on a bed she had created from fallen leaves in their absence. “You can’t control what I choose to do afterward.”
Saviar felt confident he could throw Chymmerlee over one shoulder and carry her back to Myrcidë. “Can’t I?”
Chymmerlee studied him defiantly. “Nope. Because, if you haul me back, kicking and screaming the entire way, you’ll lose a lot of time and put yourself exactly back in the position you were in before you kidnapped me.”
“But I didn’t kidnap—”
Chymmerlee did not allow Saviar to protest. “And, if you head for Bëarn without me, I’ll follow.” She turned her gaze to Subikahn. “And if you try to lose me, you probably will. Then, I’ll get completely lost, alone in the woods. Animals will eat me, and you will have broken your vow.”
“Animals aren’t going to—” Saviar saw no reason to finish the sentence. They all knew he would never leave her wandering aimlessly. “Your people will think we dishonored our word. They’ll come after us.”
“Good.” Chymmerlee cocked her head. “That’s what you want, right? Them to follow us to Béarn?”
Subikahn crouched beside her, biting his lip against a smile.
His twin’s loyalty change caught Saviar off guard. “Have you both gone mad? The Myrcidians won’t come to help; they’ll come to pulverize me.” He jabbed a hand toward Subikahn. “And you, too.”
“If they come, I’ll explain the situation to them,” Chymmerlee promised. “That it was all my fault.”
Saviar snorted and rolled his eyes. “Before or after they pulverize me?”
“They would find me, first. My aura’s much easier to trace. I’ll explain it all, and you’ll have them where you want them.”
Subikahn nodded. He had, apparently, figured out Chymmerlee’s plan in advance.
Saviar still saw several flaws, but he doubted explaining them would make a difference. He could not help noticing Chymmerlee’s cautious phrasing, “if they come,” and “they would find me first”. Obviously, she did not expect the mages to pursue them. Her previous explanation about her people’s secretiveness and reclusiveness made clear the reason why, though Saviar had his doubts. If a man had stolen his daughter, he would hunt them to the ends of the world; yet he was also a skilled warrior raised by an extraordinarily honorable father. He had no real means to understand the mages’ point of view. Only twenty-six of them remained. Perhaps they reasoned it wiser to abandon one than risk ten more or even the entire group. Maybe they trusted Chymmerlee to find her own escape, whenever it might come. She had surely told someone her feelings for Saviar. Given the mages’ desperation for new blood, they might even hope she returned impregnated by himself or his brother.
That last thought brought a flush to Saviar’s cheeks, and he turned away to hide it. No matter how her people reacted, Chymmerlee had her mind made up. And, if she was anything like their mother, no man could change it.
CHAPTER 40
Timing is everything. In battle, in life, in diplomacy. Everything is timing.
—General Santagithi
THE OLDEST CHILD OF King Griff and third-Queen Xoraida, Prince Barrindar stood on the sixth-floor balcony of Béarn Castle and surveyed the city below him in the twilight. His entire world for his sixteen years of life, Béarn had changed so completely in the past few months that he scarcely recognized it. The castle remained the central feature, carved from the very stone of the mountains; but tents and temporary buildings had sprung up all around it, as if overnight. He could still recognize the occasional business and cottage, but the people milling through the streets came in a larger variety of dresses, colors, shapes, and sizes than he ever knew existed.
Barrindar’s gaze swept the ocean, where the pirates massed in a swarm of nearly identical ships. From a distance, they looked like enormous birds, their brown triangular sails spilling wind as they remained anchored in tight formation. No worldly ship had gotten through the harbor in more than a fortnight; the pirates owned the open water. Three hundred ships, someone had estimated, with crews of a hundred, more or less. Thirty thousand ferocious pirates massed for nothing but slaughter.
In contrast, the many and varied peoples that had come to Béarn seemed pitifully ragtag. Commanded by at least thirty different generals, it seemed impossible to keep them all simultaneously focused. Many had little or no training; decades had passed with nothing more serious than border skirmishes, feuds, and general rattling of sabers for those outside of Béarn. Many of the alliances, strained in the best of times, might fray or shatter in the fury and chaos of war.
Béarn had grown massively and far too quickly. In addition to the cramped military camps, tent cities had sprung up around the borders in vast semicircles that continued out to Erythane, Frist, and beyond. These housed Béarn’s women and children, her elders, the tradesmen with no weapon training or skills who could better serve in professional capacities. Supply lines curved outward in every direction, far beyond the extent
of Prince Barrindar’s vision.
It occurred to him to wonder how the pirates kept themselves provisioned. Surely, their capture of merchant vessels, their killing of the crews and seizing of property were grossly inadequate to keep their bellies full, especially in the last month when no ships had dared to sail the waters and all trade came overland.
The lethal ocean. The thought raised memories of Prince Arturo’s death and a flood of devastating sorrow. Only two months apart in age, the princes had played together since infancy, like twins. No two brothers had ever been closer, and the loss left a hole in Barrindar’s heart he doubted anyone could ever fill. He felt alone, lost and betrayed by gods who had stolen his courageous half brother for no logical reason. A man like Prince Arturo, a good-hearted, able person who had seemed to Barrindar the most suitable to take over Béarn’s throne, should never die without high purpose.
Barrindar wished he could fight the coming war in Arturo’s place, hacking down enemies with the swift, strong strokes his half brother displayed in practice and Barrindar could only emulate. But he understood the practicalities that came with his position. He was sixteen, still a few years short of his full growth. His war skills were adequate at best, and the world could not spare the life of another Béarnian heir. With Arturo dead, Marisole slated for the bard’s position, and Ivana barred from the lineage by her elfin blood, even if she possessed a full range of faculties, it left only Barrindar, his two little sisters, and Matrinka’s youngest child in line for the throne. In the past, the staff-test, now the Pica Test, had failed dozens in the search for a proper king or queen. No one cared for the current remaining odds.
The prince’s thoughts shifted from his own agonizing loss to those of the people around him. He wondered how many women sobbed quietly in their beds, how many children curled in helpless balls at the realization that their fathers, their mothers, and they themselves might die in hopeless, screaming terror.The coming war would claim many lives, and the unfairness of who it took had already reached Barrindar personally, with the loss of Arturo. If they won, they kept their land, filled with wailing widows and orphans. If they lost, every one of them died. Barrindar was not sure which was worse.
Light footsteps behind him could not rouse Barrindar from the torture his own thoughts inflicted. The bare thought of such misery cut him to the depths of his heart and soul. When he opened himself to the suffering of his people, it proved a burden he could scarcely bear. Tears filled his eyes, his chest squeezed shut, and the simple act of breathing became a laborious chore.
If the newcomer spoke to him, Barrindar did not know, too desperately lost in his misery. But, where no words or touch could penetrate, something else did. The light notes of a mandolin, soft but powerful, seemed to envelop him. And the sweet voice that followed drew him inexorably into another world.
She sang of war and pestilence, of grief and regret. The bitter-sweetness of Marisole’s song came to him as emotion rather than words. Barrindar could not have recalled a single poetic lyric; he absorbed it as a thing inseparably whole, a heart-searing expression of reality. He surrendered to the sound, unable to escape it, drawn wherever it might take him.
Barrindar’s ears rang with the clash of steel, and he became snared in a battle for his life. Though not a warrior himself, though he had never tasted real battle, the slash and parry still seemed strangely real. His powerful arms rose and fell with need. He knew only a courageous swell of patriotism, a need to protect his precious family and friends from the hordes of pirates that assailed them. Dragged to a mind-set Barrindar could never have found on his own, he discovered each victory brought a fresh wave of joy, an unshakeable certainty that he would survive. If his companions died, he would see to it they never, ever did so in vain.
Transformed into a valiant soldier, Barrindar found a song-world that turned battle into delight, that transformed desperation into driving courage. He would succeed because failure was unthinkable, impossible. These pirates were humans, albeit vicious ones, and they would fall to his blade like wheat to a scythe.The thrill of victory went from desire to reality. With the help of so many allies, Béarn won the war. Women embraced their triumphant warriors or consoled their hapless neighbors, regaling them with stories of fallen bravery.
Swept along by the song, Barrindar hurled himself into Marisole’s arms. Impact knocked the mandolin to the ground, where it loosed a sour note. The song died instantly and, with it, the intensity of misplaced emotion it inspired. But Barrindar found himself lost in another. Marisole felt so fragile in his arms, a perfect porcelain doll that needed his protection. He held her close, suddenly excited in a new and more powerful way. Though blood sister to Arturo, Marisole had never seemed like a sibling to Barrindar as her brother always had. He had considered her more like a beloved cousin, perhaps because she resembled her Erythanian blood father while Arturo favored their Béarnian mother, Matrinka.
Marisole broke free and rescued her mandolin. Examining it carefully, she smiled and leaned it solidly against the low granite railing. “I’m glad you liked my song.”
Freed from its spell, Barrindar stared at Marisole. Though tall for a woman, she barely reached Barrindar’s chin. Her dark-brown hair, a bit too light for a full-blooded Béarnide, fell in a thick cascade, clipped together at the back. Her nose and lips were generous, her eyes a deep hazel, and her face soft and youthful. She had, only recently, turned nineteen; and the grim anticipation of the coming war had utterly eclipsed the celebration. “Your song was marvelous, as always, Marisole. But, right now, I’m driven by something else.” Difficult words came with surprising ease, “I just never before realized how stunningly beautiful you are.” It was a lie. He had noticed her beauty every moment of every day since even before Arturo’s death, but he had only just found the courage to say so.
Marisole flushed from the roots of her hair to the tip of her chin and allowed him to draw her into another tight embrace. She wrapped her arms around him as well, and her touch felt as light and gentle as butterflies. If Barrindar squeezed just a bit harder, he could break her in half.
Barrindar buried his face in her hair. It held a hint of musk, the sweet, natural odor of Marisole. He had always found it pleasant; now, it drove him wild. “And you smell wonderful.”
“But I haven’t bathed in two days,” Marisole protested. “And I’m not wearing any perfume.”
“I know.” Barrindar could not keep a hint of lust from his voice. “I like it.”
Marisole pushed him away. “Barri, cut it out. We’re . . . we’re . . . halfway . . . siblings.” Her words faltered. “Aren’t we?”
Rebuffed and ashamed, Barrindar released her. He turned away to look out over the city again, and the grief her song had stripped away began creeping over him again. “Bloodwise, we’re farther apart than our father and your mother. And the populace demanded they marry.”
The observation got no immediate reply. Just as Barrindar thought Marisole had sneaked away to save them further embarrassment, she spoke, “You’re right.”
Barrindar thought he heard a hint of joy and relief in her tone, but worried he had only imagined it. He started to turn, then froze, afraid of the expression he might find on her face.Thoughts of courting women had come to him only in the last year, and Marisole had risen to his mind near the first. He did not understand why her response had become so urgently important to him, especially given the looming war. Or, perhaps, it was because of it. Insignificant as it seemed in the grand scheme of the world, he did not want to die a virgin.
“My father and mother are cousins.” Oblivious to the turn of Barrindar’s current thoughts, Marisole worried the original problem. “But my blood father isn’t related to them at all. In fact, he’s not even a Béarnide, which bloodwise, makes us . . .”
Since Marisole seemed incapable of finishing, Barrindar filled in the blank. “. . . distant cousins.”
“Kissing cousins,” Marisole added with a smile.
Now,
Barrindar turned fully, unable to hide his own grin. Despite all the madness going on below him, perhaps because of it, he had discovered something important missing from his life. He reached for her again, cautiously this time. “Marisole, if Béarn survives this, if we survive it, maybe . . . ?”
“Maybe,” she repeated, rushing to his arms, “we shouldn’t wait to find out.”
Barrindar could not have agreed more.
Béarn’s Strategy Room buzzed with conversations in several different tongues. Darris remained quietly at his king’s right hand, trying to absorb every feature, every nuance of this historical moment. Nowhere in his research could Darris find a time when all the countries of the continent had united in a common cause. The nearest they had come was the so-called Great War, three centuries past, where the armies of the West and North had come together to battle the Eastlands. Now, even the Eastern king held a place of honor at the table.
Darris had convinced Rantire to remain outside the Strategy Room with the argument that a Renshai presence might antagonize the Northern forces. Alone, she would not have accepted his argument; Darris often suspected that Rantire was the Renshai word for “provocation.” But King Griff had agreed with his bard/bodyguard and relegated Rantire to distant rooms and hallways.
Currently, the Strategy Room held fifteen men, whittled down from more than double that number. The room simply could not hold any more, so King Griff had forced the armies to come together under common generals and high commanders. Driven to information, Darris had managed to memorize them all under the guise of Griff ’s need. Some, he knew well: King Humfreet of Erythane; Knight-Captain Kedrin; the Aeri General Valr Magnus, who had slain Kevral in battle; and King Tae from the Eastlands, still gaunt and bruised from his imprisonment. Others, Darris knew by reputation: General Markanyin of Pudar and General Sutton of the town of Santagithi who commanded the forces from Santagithi, Greentree, and Porvada.
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