by S. K. Alden
Kirin opened one eye, feeling bleary and confused. Goliahs...! He always remembered the frightening hulk of Goliah beetles when he felt like this. Slime! He struggled to free his arms, then realized he was just twisted in bedcovers...in his own bed in his brother's suite inside Snowmount.
Not beetle slime. Just sheets. Too hot for sheets... Since he'd apparently shed the robe they'd given him, he would kick the sheets off as well.
In a moment. Curiously, he couldn't quite find the will to kick. If I just lay here, he tried to tell himself, but he quickly lost the thread of his thoughts and the awareness of where he was.
Beetle slime... He and his brother, caught in thick slime. Need a knife...cut through it...
The echo of someone else's voice, speaking in Teni, the Druid speech.
A chair scooted, a sound clear as day. Kirin blinked his vision into focus and once again recognized his own room inside Snowmount. Someone tended the fire.
She turned to look at him, perfect eyes clear and round and so full of concern.
Cneasaí lass. Like no lass he'd ever met before. Honor...willing heart. Duty to their people.
And beautiful. The way she moved...and so serious. But he'd made her smile...he remembered that. And that plump lower lip...so distracting.
And what had he done? His brain blanked. Then came the unspoken knowledge of exactly what he'd done.
It was a good thing he was too fevered to groan aloud.
This lass in his arms. So perfect...and so impossible.
He'd been so hopeful that the dragon fever would be gone, that a real friendship with a real lass was completely reasonable. He'd even let himself think she could Choose him. Ass, he berated himself. The fever was quite obviously not gone... Dragon wounded. Cursed. No one could love that.
Didn't it make him a completely unacceptable lad for a promising young cneasaí like this one?
Might as well take a knife to the heart.
He closed his eyes. It just can't be. She must forget me, he told himself. The thought hurt more than the scar from that tail barb. He'd never again meet a lass quite like her.
But she wouldn't deserve this, some inner voices whispered to his muddled brain. Tainted. Infected. Foul... He wasn't worth her time.
And if she remained, she would understand this all too soon. The fever would rise, he would be unable to keep from screaming...and he would hear the horrid voices and agonizing cries, ...darkness is coming...the value of your life, scum, is worth nothing...
The lass must go, he decided, his thoughts swirling in a haze of fever. Forget we ever met. Be reassigned to duty in one of the outposts...sent back to Grauvale or River Bend...
He would have to forget her, too...somehow.
Kirin desperately tried to steel his will. I must be no more to her than another lad lost in battle.
—-
Nÿr welcomed the chance for a bath. The Lady Maeg (the Queen!) had returned to tend the King’s brother and send her off with a green-shirted matron who clucked at the mud on her uniform.
"A hot bath and set of clean things," the matron said, leading her down the hall. "In here, lass."
If Nÿr doubted she was inside the quarters of Snowmount's royal family, she didn't doubt it now. A chamber of clean, polished stone with plush carpets and a sunken, steaming bath large enough for...two.
Kirin... Nÿr stared at the steaming bath, remembering the touch of his strong hands sliding from her shoulders down her back. She imagined the gentle sound of water splashing against bare skin and the contours of his muscles under her hands—and in the air, a haze of sage mingled with the memory of Kirin's musky scent...
''Come now—out of those work clothes." The matron ushered her in.
Nÿr was startled back to the here and now.
"Our Lady sent word to the Master Physician that you're temporarily reassigned," the matron said, pointing to a neat bundle on a wooden bench. "And they've sent fresh things for you."
My house boots...and a clean uniform. Nÿr blinked at the royal efficiency. "Thank you..." she managed to say.
The matron smiled. "Give yourself a good soak, lassie," she said with sympathy. "Leave your grubbies there," she pointed to a basket. "We'll have them laundered and returned." With a nod and a pat on Nÿr's arm, she backed out of the opulent room and closed the door, leaving Nÿr to stare at the cushioned bench, the crystalline flecks in the rich, green stone, and the carved tiles bearing Eathom’s sigil. Eathom, second of the Oldfather’s companions...warrior, swordmaker, miner.
For a moment she stood in shock. She just could not imagine soiling the spotless floor with her filthy gear.
Well, quickly now, she chided herself. And having just completed a ten week trip across half the Green Isle, she understood the blessing of a good hot bath and indeed, suddenly wanted nothing more than to sink herself into that absolutely lovely steaming water...
She unlaced her travel boots, shucked her dirt-stained gear and dropped the work clothes into the laundry basket. Grabbing two towels (there had to be twenty stacked neatly on the shelf,) she took herself directly to the bath and dipped a toe.
Nÿr had no words for the instant bliss and was in up to her neck in no time.
She felt the tension release in her whole body, let her head fall back, and breathed out with a gentle, "Ooooo..."
She brought two handfuls of warm water up to her face, let it flow away, and then quickly undid the long braid and shook it out. She plunged underwater, let her hair float free, and then surfaced next to the little ledge with the soaps.
With cneasaí efficiency about such things, she washed her hair, rinsed, and then finally leaned against the side to let herself rest a moment. A bath in the royal quarters...! She'd never imagined such a thing.
She took a deep breath of the steamy air, full of the scent of sage oil...but no waft of Kirin. Yet the memory of his warmth and touch was fresh in her mind...falling asleep, nestled against his strong shoulder... She closed her eyes as if back in that snow cave with him...he was singularly handsome and powerfully built...with humor in his eyes and a way of smiling with such charming, self-deprecating good nature...
And then she opened her eyes to the reality of being alone in a bathing room larger than the trainee dorm. After a moment, she found a cloth and soap and went to work on the rest of herself.
But as she did it, she sobered. Kirin had kissed her ear, just in this spot...and not only her ear! Once more she could almost feel his strong hand curving around her hip...and the way she'd felt right with him, without thought, and so intense...
She stopped. It was one night...caught in a snowstorm. On the Eve of Eve...a night where such things were a fleeting moment, and no more.
Blissful, yes. Realistic, no.
She looked at the thick cloth in her hand. This kind of thing...it's not for the likes of me, she realized. She was not a highborn lass, not the kind who primped herself for hours—she actually. preferred her simple work uniform and her cneasaí braid and, in fact, couldn't imagine twisting her hair into anything different or wearing some cascade of ruffles...
I don't belong here...not me, not with my past. She looked around the sumptuous room. This was Kirin's world, not hers. She’d been raised in the most disreputable kind of pub in the roughest part of River Bend.
She stopped herself there. She'd left that life and risen above the mistakes of a rebellious fosterling to find self-worth in her work and her service.
But Kirin was a Prince of Snowmount. The King's brother... Her stomach went hollow. What was I thinking?
Well, she hadn't been thinking. She covered her face with her hands, her jumbled thoughts persuading her to imagine more and more doubts. Snowmount cneasaí prided themselves in their ethics, and letting herself become involved in matters of the heart while on duty was not accepted. She was making the mistake with the River Bend man all over again...the rumor mill would be unforgiving. She closed her eyes tight then, as if she could hold back the tears...b
ut she couldn't. They came.
Where did this lead? Where could this possibly lead? She had no doubt that a lowly lass like herself was out of the question even for friendship with a prince. And with her history? Lasses matched with Princes were supposed to be pure of heart and body...
That left what? Bed sport on the side? Quick liaisons like a chambermaid used for convenience? In an angry gesture she dashed a tear from her cheek.
No.
And then fear in the pit of her stomach. If the Master Physician found out... he’d send her packing. She plunged herself under water one more time and came up, jaw set. Cneasaí trained to be objective and not let themselves be self-absorbed with feelings like this. It is your duty, she reminded herself.
She would have to correct her ways...all her training and her future as a full physician was at stake here, after all. She had to view Kirin as a patient, nothing more. She would tend him according to his brother's wishes and then return to her proper place in the trainee halls.
Their night by the fire had been more of a fever dream, she decided. Convenient for one night only. How else could she look at it? And with this thought came a flare of anger at herself for so easily falling for him.
Because she had. She stopped, wishing in her heart that she was the kind of lass who could step up and make such a bold, outrageous Choice.
It can't be me, she told herself in a tiny voice. Whoever Chose the King's brother would have to be more beautiful, more pure, more properly mannered, more...everything.
Because I am none of those things. It hurt, admitting that to herself. But she steeled her will.
With that, she stood, wrung the water from her hair and denied herself any more self-indulgent soaking or tears.
Wounded soldiers, she acknowledged. Have brief infatuations with their cneasaí all the time. There were tricks a lass used to sidestep it—to avoid the lad by trading shifts or switching ward assignments.
But with a prince?
Yes. Even so. As soon as she was given leave to report back to the infirmary, she'd request a reassignment to the mothers' ward...she had learned much of Grauvale's techniques for delivery complications, after all.
She toweled her hair, looked one more time at the amazing crystal-flecked stonework in the bath...and realized yet again how very out of place she was.
Oh, Kirin...she thought for one last moment, regret in her heart for feelings that simply could never be acknowledged.
Then she shook her head at herself and re-dressed in clean healer-blue trousers and blouse with her Cneasaí vest over the top. I am a Cneasaí trainee...plain and simple, she told herself.
And once he was better, she feared the Prince was going to see her as nothing more.
—-
Heart thumping from another nightmare of goliahs and úkenn, Kirin woke a second time to the sound of quietly trickling water...then the gentle touch of a warm, damp cloth on his forehead and the heady scent of steaming seos. Hunting with his brother in the summer rain...the memory of better times past. It nearly lured him back to sleep. Yet these were her hands cupping his jaw, soothing his brow. Oh, Lass... He knew it was her—the sweet cneasaí Nÿr.
Mine...but not mine. Never mine. He clenched his jaw against the urge to lean into her hand, to press his lips to the inside of her wrist. What would I not give for this lass in my life...
But when he moved, he turned his head away and his thoughts were dark. She deserves better than a cursed warrior who can never leave his brother's land.
"Are you awake?" she murmured.
His eyes opened a little and he saw her—the tall form of the lass he would have to forget.
She looked back at him, all cneasaí efficiency. She was checking his eyes, the temperature of his skin, tucking the blanket around him.
Sky above, he realized, seeing that something had changed. She knows it too, then. Knows she has to move on... Unexplainably, this hurt far more deeply than he'd thought.
He petulantly shrugged one arm out from under the blanket and scrubbed at his ear. Why was everything so damned disjointed when the fever came?
Her sober expression assessed him. Then that cute swing of her hip...and she moved a pot of seos closer, fanning the steam over him.
He let his hand fall back to the covers as the sudden tension dissipated in a confusing swirl of frustration and relief. After a few calming breaths he looked up at her again. The tail-end of her long braid, now slightly damp, hung near his hand and on impulse, he touched it again.
She went still.
"Tell me what you're thinking," he said softly.
She said nothing for a long moment. He caught her eye and they looked at each other.
"I am here to do my best as cneasaí," she said, her words sounding rehearsed. But when she looked away, her voice dropped. "I'm not a worthy partner for you, Kirin. You know that. All of River Bend knows it." She shook her head. Why didn't he understand? "The rumors about me have not been forgotten, I assure you."
He felt his eyebrows twitch and forced his blurry brain to work. "I thought I was the one..." he managed. "Unfit for a lass like you."
She looked at him in alarm.
It soothed the part of him that had felt hurt by her coolness. "I'd hoped this was all over..." he tried to say it lightly and shrug off the despair of his curse, but his words came out sounding pained. He let his breath out in a small huff. "It's not..."
Her perfect clear eyes were full of welling tears and she shook her head. "No," she confirmed. "It's not." Yet she did not cry for him, did not give in to tears.
Oh, my brave lass. "But..." he mumbled. "I don't want to lose you," he said, feeling it deep in his heart but only half aware that something had prompted him to say it aloud.
"My lord," she said carefully. "I would not presume that what happened..."
"No," he said, feeling oddly alarmed and trying to rise. "Those were not throw away moments. You," he said, looking her in the eyes. "Are not a throw-away person. Not to me." He swallowed, expecting now to hear the words he'd always feared. It's too much. I don't understand it. "And stop calling me Lord." His words were barely above a whisper.
"Lay back and rest," she murmured. "You are unwell..." Her arm was around him to adjust the pillow and help him lean back, and he let her do it—anything as long as it meant she stayed close to him. He could even smell the clean scent of sage oil soap, feel the gentle strength of her...
She shushed him then, one thumb gently stroking his forehead. His eyelids became suddenly heavy and he half raised one eyebrow in surprise at the trick.
And then he was asleep again.
—-
When Kirin woke the third time, he was alarmed by the sound of a scuffle outside his chamber. He sat up, his instinct to rise warring with a debilitating chill and complete lack of strength and balance. And instead of throwing off his covers and grabbing his sword he found himself simply trying to brace himself well enough to sit upright.
And there was Nÿr, opening the door to find a large, open-beaked raven who hopped inside and then flew for the back of a chair.
"Oh!" Kirin heard her gasp, and part of his brain wondered if this was some kind of odd fever dream.
"Hen-hen...Hen-hen..." The raven seemed to bow to the lass like a fledgling would defer to an elder. Then it eyed him. "King commands: Raven Prince in great hall," the raven quorked, pinning Kirin with a steady look.
"Now?" she asked the bird. "He's not quite well. It would be better if..."
"Now," the bird said. "King says now."
"Yes, sir bird," Nÿr acquiesced, making a small curtsy. "Please tell his lordship that his brother will be there." With that the bird eyed Kirin again, then launched itself into the air and out of the chamber.
Kirin stared, trying to sort fever brain from reality.
"Here. I can help you get ready," Nÿr said, finding his cast-off robe.
Kirin just blinked at her. "The raven," he said, trying to get his thoughts in order.
"Yes. He brought a message from your brother."
"But you understood him."
Nÿr seemed unconcerned as she shook out the robe. "Ravens are not that hard to..."
"Yes, they are," Kirin told her, eyes wide. "That's an uncommon skill. Really uncommon. It means...only those with some connection to my mother..." He couldn’t puzzle out the reason for this lass to be named by the ravens—because that’s what it was—her raven name. Hen-hen.
She held out the robe.
Kirin grabbed it, suddenly embarrassed by her simple gesture. "And since when did you become my personal maid?''
He saw Nÿr's posture freeze. Stars above, he was an ass when he didn't feel well.
"I'm sorry," he murmured, reaching to touch her hand. "I didn't mean to snap at you. It's just...I want a friend, not a servant." He leaned his forehead against her arm. "If you would have me," he said. "Now that you know."
He wondered if she thought him tainted and unacceptable, infected as he was with a disease that could never be cured.
Nÿr's face was still, but her eyes blinked, as if she were thinking. "I'm just an orphan girl who found refuge with the healers," she said, slowly. "No one would ever take my Choice for you seriously even if I spoke of it."
"I would," he said firmly. "And if you can talk to ravens, you're not 'just an orphan girl'.” Kirin slid from beneath the covers, intending to stand but wobbling and grabbing the bedframe for support instead.
Nÿr frowned, reaching out to help support him. "I don't understand."
He looked at her, their eyes nearly level. "Then it's a good thing that I do."
Chapter Fourteen
Kirin swayed, unsteady from the fever.
"Easy does it," he heard Nÿr's voice, then felt her arm around his waist, supporting him as his thoughts cleared. Despite a dull headache, he found himself thinking about her ear again.
"Hold still," he said.
She stared. "What...?"
"Just..." he leaned closer. "Still." He could smell her hair, freshly washed, as fragrant as balsa. He felt her tremble just slightly and closed the last inch between them. He kissed her lightly on the forehead, closing his eyes and savoring her scent. It helped clear his aching head.