by JANRAE FRANK
Channadar toyed with a fan thoughtfully, and laid it down again. Something about the mage tugged at him and he could not say what that was. "Could he actually be the Rose Warrior?"
"I don't know," Tiderider responded. "I would have expected Eshraf to find a Badonthian or a Hadjysheen if he sent for a yuwenghau."
"Talons may have met him," Blue Lily said. "The armies that gathered to invade Errilyn would have attracted at least one yuwenghau."
The lord of Hellsguard steepled his fingers and tapped them against his lips for a moment before speaking again. His eyelids lowered until they hooded his eyes. "So we are assuming he's yuwenghau and not a mage?"
"He feels sylvan, even if he doesn't have the ears," Starsilent said. He had the silver hair and eyes, almost frost child look of a trueblood, which he was not.
"And he walks with the easy grace of a sylvan warrior." Juniperarrow sounded admiring and Jangflower pushed her with her fingertips lightly.
"He could be a Valdren half-breed, like he said," Blue Lily interjected. "Not all get the ears, just most. Some of them have become battlemages."
Channadar flicked a fan open in a silencing gesture. "Whatever he is, whoever he really is, Eshraf has found an extremely powerful ally. The question becomes, why did he seek one out?"
"Clearly Eshraf expects a war." Tiderider said.
"We best keep our guard up."
Alysyn,
While I have found others to aid us, I fear that this time it will be much worse than last time. The monster would only have returned if he believed his power sufficient to overcome the best we can field against him. You must bring your riders and the Netherguard as well. If you wait too long to bring them into Central Creeya, you might never reach us in time.
Eshraf
Eshraf!
The Netherguard? What can you be thinking of? So far you have given me no proofs to think that it is that bad. Furthermore, if I bring any forces at all, the dark one will know that members of the branch clan have become hidden under his very nose. It is out of the question.
Please, understand me, Eshraf. It is not simply memories of what happened to Rygen thirty years ago, that make me reluctant to return. I have my own sources in Havensword. I fear that my presence alone there would betray the very ones we're trying to protect.
Alysyn
CHAPTER FOUR
PLOTS
Talons' friends rallied to keep Bryndel out of her apartments that morning so that Dynarien could arrive and leave without being seen by him. Talons listened to hurried conversations in the parlor, lying awake in her bed, too tired to rise. Edouina and Alora linked arms with Bryndel the moment he appeared and rushed him down to the Cloverleaf on a long shopping trip. Bryndel was receiving more female attention than he ever had before in his life thanks to Edouina's machinations, and that took a lot of the burden off Talons. She appreciated that as she heard the door into the corridor close and she knew that she was finally alone.
Talons turned over, dragging the covers around her, to try and get a little more sleep before Dynarien arrived to place the wards. Despite awakening exhausted, Talons could not still her mind enough to do so. Bryndel's sexual demands kept her sore and worn out, but at least they no longer drugged her to get her into his bed. The drugs had frightened her most; that and the way the vampire could get inside her mind and waltz her around saying that she loved him when she did not.
Now she pretended to the parts they had once forced upon her, which seemed the only way to retain her sanity. Yet her hold on that sanity seemed tenuous at best. There were times when the sharp tugging toward the dark depths seemed so seductive, to simply close her eyes and slide into the beckoning dreams seemed so sweet. They were warm and oddly comforting, calling her to let go, to surrender and there would be no more pain, no more suffering, no more worries. Then she would claw her way out of it; telling herself that had to be the vampire trying to get past the godmark on her breast. If just once she surrendered to it, her soul would be lost.
Seeing Dynarien yesterday, being so close to him – he would have come sooner, if he could have, and knowing that restored her faith in him so that she no longer felt abandoned. She must have come so close to losing him. What if he had died and she had never known it? How the hell did I ever manage to fall in love with you, you silly rakehell? She sniffed, pressing a hand to her face, realizing with a start that she had tears in her eyes.
"I'm getting soft. I can't afford this."
Talons had stolen a march on Bryndel by arranging for Jysy and Arruth to catch them in bed together and then spread it to the biggest gossips in the school. Give it another week and she planned to go to her grandsire, if he had not sent for her first, and tell him she was pregnant by Bryndel. The single thing she regretted about using the girls to make the discovery was that it had not gone entirely as she had wanted it to. She dared not ask them to lie for her, since they might be Read, and they were the only ones left she truly trusted and could call on, so it had to be them – she had set it up days before Edouina's return or learning of Dynarien's arrival. Talons had intended for Bryndel and she to be caught in bed together, not in the middle of the act. Bryndel usually fell asleep afterward when he came to her in the mornings. That morning, however, although he dozed briefly, he had roused abruptly and shoved into her without so much as saying her name.
Talons gave up on trying to sleep and walked into the parlor with weariness dragging at her feet as she moved. Her chest hurt as she breathed. She clutched at the edge of the table to steady herself, and sat down. Her nose felt damp. She brushed the back of her hand across her nose, and stared down at streaks of blood on it. A nosebleed? She had never had one before. Then she saw the wine glass. She remembered Galee sitting here alone with her saying something. "Drink your...?" Drink your what? Talons felt first panicked and then angry. She grabbed the glass, threw it hard, and watched it smash against the wall. Everything felt so futile.
"Talons?"
The scent of roses swept across her and she turned, throwing herself into his arms, clinging to him. "Hold me, please hold onto me." Abruptly she thrust him away. "Oh gods, don't touch me. Get the wards up fast. Scry wards first."
He blinked in hurt confusion, yet went to work. This was, after all, what he had been sent to do. Eshraf had not sent him here to touch her, to hold her. Furthermore her shattered vulnerability disturbed him. This was not the same woman who had once said to him with chilling dispassion, "Touch me, and we'll see if gods bleed."
"Permanent wards and shields. And make that window opaque to anyone from the outside. And set tell-tales. I want to know if anyone comes prying."
Talons walked to the door and barred it.
When Dynarien finished, she pointed him at the bedroom. "There are a lot of pillows in there, I can tell you're hurting. I can make you comfortable. How badly are you injured?"
"Crushed ribs, left shoulder, right chest."
"Crushed?"
"Crushed."
She shivered. Stone trolls. Two of them he had said yesterday sitting on the quad. She had fought only one and nearly died. She remembered how badly she had hurt after the stone troll nearly crushed her; she killed it and Dynarien saved her with the elixir of Idyn, which his twin-sister Dynanna had stolen from the gardens of the sun god Kalirion. Did he hurt like that? The possibility made her heart ache for him. Talons softened, reaching out to stroke his face, to run her fingers through his hair, realizing again how close she had come to losing him. "Silly rakehell, tell me what happened?"
"Clemmerick and I took on four stone trolls." Between the shoulder and the ribs, it was hard for him to get comfortable, sitting against the headboard of the bed, wedged into a corner with pillows stuffed around him. Talons laughed at him sitting there, telling his story with humorous embellishments to take the edge off the grim sequences. When he got to the part about the healers' frustrated attempts to pry the dead stone troll's severed head loose from his shoulder she was shaking her head an
d holding her sides at his wry descriptions. They had finally taken a hammer and saws to the thing, and then dug the shards of its teeth out. It should have been horrifying, but not the way that Dynarien told it.
He stroked his sister's mark on her neck, a little question mark scar. "You know, if you'd let me mark you, right there next to hers, you would always get my attention when you called. Just like you can get hers. It's a link."
Talons stiffened. "I've already been marked by two gods. That's enough. I feel like I'm being passed around like a deity's party favor. She made me think she was a vampire and I thought I was going to die. It was not funny. Your sister has a twisted sense of humor."
Dynarien sighed. "Dynanna is the God of Cussedness, what do you expect?"
Talons nodded. "Can't pick your relatives. My grandsire always stood by me and now he treats me like a broodmare, forcing me into a cage. Wrathscar is demanding proof that I'm not barren and my grandsire wishes me to give it to him. It's like I've never really known my grandsire at all. He'll get his alliance, but he'll get no joy of it. I'm going to kill Bryndel and his father. And this vampire too."
Dynarien's eyes turned to steel. "That is why I am here, Talons. I'm going to help you. As I promised."
He was the Rose Warrior, the Twice-Born Son of Willodarus. Talons had seen him in battle, scything through the ranks of the undead with a terrible, raging fury like a sudden, fierce storm. He had many sides, changing like mercury. Talons loved him, even if he needed to be kicked sometimes. She had fallen in love with him on a distant riverbank, listening to him spin tales of forgotten realms and times. The intense sweet fragrance of roses from distant shores and ages past clung to him as a manifestation of his divinity. It was not something he did; it simply was. And sometimes he left blue roses in his wake.
"I know you will." She watched his eyes drift and his attention turn inward as if troubled. "Is this about the kissing again?" Talons asked, sitting on the floor in front of him.
"Talons, I – I have dreamed about touching you for months now. When I – we..." Dynarien sighed heavily. "It was so quick and without feeling. It was like the coupling of beasts. We had sex, but we did not make love. You would not let me touch you – caress you."
Talons' eyes dropped, her expression going still colder, unreadable and as she spoke her tone became emotionless, the chill words hard. "Bryndel doesn't make love either. He just gets it in and gets it off. I don't like it. I don't feel good afterwards. Edouina has been sleeping with me. We make love and I feel wonderful. Bryndel does not object because she's female and 'you know how Sharani are!'" She was heartily sick of hearing people tell her how her about her own kind; as if they knew it better than she did.
"That's not the way it would be with us," Dynarien's softened. "I would be a considerate lover, if you would let me."
Talons shook her head, her eyes sad. She stroked his face, her fingers lingering on his lips. "He's keeping me so sore I would not enjoy you."
"Sore?" Dynarien sounded incredulous and then outraged. In response to his emotion, the scent of roses intensified. Suddenly the bed became covered in blue rose petals.
"Too often, too rough, no foreplay. Most of the time I'm still dry as a bone when he shoves into me. He hurts me." Her tone was emotionless, matter-of-fact. "He takes me four or five times in a day and thinks nothing of it."
"I'm sorry," Dynarien stroked her head sympathetically. He did not understand how she could allow this. For the entire year he had been chasing her, she had always been the kind of mon who set unbreakable boundaries and limits. Yet, here she sat, telling him that Bryndel was using her as callously as if she were a common whore. The situation had to be much worse than she had given him to suspect: he knew her too well to believe that any of it could be her fault.
"Don't be. I'll get past this."
Someone knocked on the outer door. Talons threw on a robe and answered it. Jysy and Arruth boiled into the room.
When they first arrived in Creeya last winter, Jysy and Arruth were irascible. The enemy had been far easier for the assassin to handle than the two youths were.
"Your grandsire and the Patriarch want you in the study right now. Bryndel and Lord Wrathscar are with him," Jysy burst out breathlessly.
"I think the rumor found its way home," Arruth said, her eyes on the floor and her mouth twisted unpleasantly.
Talons returned to her bedchamber, followed by the two youths and dressed quickly. Mikkal's selection of clothing for her was mostly loose robes that could be comfortably belted and only came to mid-calf. The compromise between what her grandsire and the Wrathscars demanded and what she was willing to wear was holding so far.
Dynarien could see from her sprattle legged walk just how sore Bryndel was keeping her. It angered him; yet he said nothing, having no right to interfere with her decisions.
When Jysy and Arruth saw him, they came and sat close to him. "Does it hurt much?" Jysy asked. They had an easy, comfortable relationship with the yuwenghau who was the twin brother to their family's liege-god, Dynanna.
"Not much," Dynarien assured her, tousling her hair. "I'm tough. It was only two stone trolls. I could take on an army," he added, for their benefit, wanting to reassure them.
Talons rolled her eyes. "Be careful what you wish for."
Dynarien glanced up at her sharply. "I'm not wishing." He thought briefly of this drink his sister made called "Be Careful What You Wish For," which had strange, unpredictable, transmogrifying results and shivered – he was definitely not wishing.
"Jysy, come with me. Arruth, stay with Dynarien and keep the doors locked until I come back."
Jysy obeyed and followed her out.
* * * *
Belyla basked in the attention from Yahni and his friends as they gathered in the Music Chamber, pulling two tables together in order to seat them all. They stood for a moment around the tables, talking, deciding who would sit where.
"I want to see his eyes," a softly sensual voice said from behind Belyla. "That's all anyone talks about."
Belyla saw Philomea approaching them. She quailed at the thought of competing with her tall, willowy, blond sister, who looked so much like their mother had. Whatever Philomea wanted she always got. Including men. Belyla left Yahni's side, and retreated behind Terrys with a sigh. She could see the appreciative look in Philomea's eyes as her sister regarded Yahni. Belyla felt certain that Philomea had come for Yahni, having heard so much about him these last weeks at court, the longest span their father had allowed to them to remain here continuously.
All of Yahni's friends were so kind to her, and yet how could she endure watching Philomea take them all away from her like she always did? Why would anyone want her when they could have Philomea?
Yahni frowned at Belyla in question.
Terrys stepped into the void. "Yahni, I'd like you to meet Philomea Wrathscar, my friend Belyla's sister."
Philomea stepped very close to Yahni. "My, my. Your eyes are as beautiful as they say. Everyone wonders why a young mon with your looks has never wed."
"Philomea!" Terrys snapped. "You're not wanted here."
"You are very handsome, Yahni Kjarten," Philomea continued as if she had not heard Terrys. "It is a shame you're Guild. My father doesn't like Guild. I suppose if we were discreet, I could make your life very interesting."
Belyla colored, turned, and disappeared out the doors onto the quad, leaving Yahni staring after her in dismay. She did not see Terrys go for Philomea's face with her nails.
* * * *
The Grand Master's apartments were the finest star rooms in the palace and his study formed the first chamber in a circular nest of rooms laid out like the unfolded petals of a rose with his bedchamber at the center. This room served both as study and casual audience chamber, and had the sole access to the rest of the palace complex from his star room besides the secret one known only to himself within the bedroom. The walls had once been hung with runed banners, but those had been taken down seve
ral years ago and replaced with tapestried scenes of hunting and sport at Galee's insistence. Scattered bookcases in red-glazed oak shared space with the tapestries. The two long couches flanked the chairs set close to the fireplace. This far north – and Creeya was one of the most northerly kingdoms with only the icy realm of the Winter Mages of the Iron Glacier beyond them – it tended to get cool in the evenings, even in the summer. The two largest chairs had high throne-like backs to stress the importance of their occupants and in one of them sat her grandsire. In the other sat the Patriarch. Lord Wrathscar stood beside her grandsire. Galee lounged on the claret silk brocade couch, looking sluttishly smug as usual. Talons detested her. The Patriarch leaned forward in his chair, regarding her thoughtfully. Bryndel stood in the middle of the floor as if he were on trial. Talons glanced at Bryndel, giving him a small smile. He smiled back. Her grandsire gave her a long look and did not ask her to sit.
"It has come to my attention," he said sternly. "That you and Bryndel are sleeping together."
"We're betrothed, grandsire." Talons hated this meeting already. His words were just for show; he and Galee had both pressed her to start sleeping with Bryndel as soon as Galee returned with a drug to block her untrained bi-kyndi, which could kill a male touching her intimately.
"But not yet married. Are the rumors true?"
Talons dropped her eyes to the floor, calculatedly demure. "Yes. I've come to love him. I... I..." She started to say more, but went suddenly pale. Her lungs screamed for air and her muscles turned to water. Her eyes rolled up in her head and she fainted, falling against Bryndel. He caught her, lowering her gently to the floor and cradling her head and shoulders on his lap.
"What's wrong with her?" Bryndel shot Galee a suspicious glare, but she only shrugged.
Everyone came to their feet. The Patriarch reached her first, Reading her. "She's pregnant. She's very weak and ill as well. I want to see some of that medicine you had been giving her to control the bi-kyndi."