by Amy Bai
She was fairly sure the wall was doing more to hold her up right now than she wanted anyone to see.
"Thank you for coming," Annan said from behind her, and she had her daggers out and aimed at him before she could stop herself. He rocked back on his heels, seeming only a little alarmed, and kindly didn't acknowledge her confused flush or the curse she hissed as she put the blades back.
"Thank you for inviting me," she said, furious with herself, and went to find the nearest entrance to the passageways without bothering to shake his hand, or bow, or do anything else polite people were supposed to do in these circumstances. It took her a moment to realize he was still next to her, apparently heading the same way and as uninterested in being seen in this state as she was. His steps weren't much steadier than hers.
"Your rooms are in His Highness's apartments," Kyali said, having just figured that out. She wasn't sure why it surprised her.
"As yours are in Her Majesty's," Annan agreed. "It's what bodyguards generally do, isn't it?"
"You're a captain."
"So I am. So are you. And yet."
She didn't at all like this discussion. "Glad we cleared that up, Captain Adaron," she said, stalking over to where the door should be, hiding under a tapestry that looked very out of place in this empty corridor.
"Happy to be of service, Captain Corwynall," Annan shot back pithily, then put his hand out and leaned against the wall for a moment. Kyali paused, watching, not really sure why, except that it was reassuring to know he seemed to be having as hard a time with the drink as she was.
"Another unworthy thought," she muttered to herself: she had too many of those around him. She felt her whole face heat when Annan shot her a puzzled look.
"We all have those," he said, sounding so gravely concerned she actually laughed, dear gods, for the first time since—
She wasn't thinking of that.
The sound stopped as suddenly as if someone had cut her throat, and they both listened to the echoes die. Annan looked…
Actually, she wasn't sure what that look on his face meant.
"Come on," Kyali sighed, then cursed again, far louder this time, when the hidden door opened much more easily than she'd expected and dumped her on the floor of the tunnel.
At least it had been cleaned.
There was a strangled cough from behind her that she was fairly certain was smothered laughter. She pushed herself upright. Annan's grip closed helpfully over her arm. The complete, unreasoning panic that chased that touch didn't have more than a split second to freeze the breath in her chest and the blood in her veins, before he'd hauled her upright with such speed the dimly lit tunnel swung wildly around her. She threw her hands out to keep from tumbling back to the floor like a broken doll and met the smooth, faintly scarred armor of his steel spaulders.
This time he moved too fast, jerking back and hitting the lip of stone at the entrance. Kyali had to pull at his shoulders to keep him from going down, and nearly fell with him when she discovered he was far heavier than she was. Instead, they ended up pressed together against the wall just inside the door, illuminated by the flickering light from the lantern Annan had dropped.
Even the floor was spinning now. And gods damn it, it was more than funny, it was hilarious when they pulled away from one another only to find that the tiny metal plates of their brigandine had caught, and they were stuck.
"I'll bet this never happened on a battlefield," Annan muttered.
Kyali lost the battle before she even realized there was one to fight. She laughed silently, helplessly, her knuckles pressed to her mouth, swaying with the effort to stay upright against the dark and the drink coursing through her, the shocking feeling of feeling something that wasn't pain or fury or exhaustion. Her elbow was digging into Annan's shoulder and through it she could feel him shaking with soundless mirth, too.
"I'm glad we don't have an audience for this," he finally wheezed, and gods help her, that was funny, too.
"It would cer… certainly make tomorrow's drills interesting."
"Oh gods," Annan managed to say while snickering, and he reached out to pull the door shut, throwing them into darkness leavened only by chancy light from the lantern at their feet. "No more of that drink. Ever again. What was that stuff? I can barely stand."
"Fraonir. Something Fraonir. I can't remember the name for it. I don't even know how they make it."
"We ought to send some to our enemies."
She knew she was drunk when that seemed like a brilliant idea.
"Sound strategy," she declared, and then they were laughing again, leaning on one another, winded and very, very stupid.
"I should never have had that last glass," Kyali moaned, then clapped a hand over her mouth when she heard how pathetic she sounded. By now Annan was picking delicately at the point where their armor had gotten tangled. She could feel the faint pressure of his hands even through the steel. A strange, crooked little smile twisted his mouth up on one side.
"I should never have had the first glass," he muttered, his breath ghosting over her neck, and then he uttered a low growl of frustration and tugged too hard. Her forehead knocked into his nose and they both grunted.
"Brilliant," Kyali said, wobbly-kneed and trying without success to find a place to put her hands that wasn't on him—and then without any warning his lips were against hers, warm and surprisingly soft. She froze. Annan leaned back just a fraction, enough that the panic she knew should follow this strange moment, this closeness, didn't happen. He tilted his head a little. She didn't hit him. She wasn't sure why.
He was kissing her again before she had realized that was his intention. She was kissing him back before she had any idea that was hers. The new angle pressed their mouths all the way together this time: it was far better, far more... more… something she had no word for. His hand slid up to trace the line of her jaw. The calluses on his fingers were sending little rills of shivers over her skin.
She thought she'd better give him a minute to remember who he was and who she was, and that they didn't do this. They—they argued and jabbed and sniped and fought—
Annan scraped the edge of her lip gently with his teeth, and Kyali heard the breath whistle out of her throat as if from very far away. Her hands braced on his hips. His were slipping over her neck, calling up more shivers and a wild, weak sensation that made her knees want to buckle and her eyes want to flutter shut.
The lantern clattered over in their stumbling press toward one another and the sound brought them both back to their senses.
Kyali jerked backwards, hit the opposite wall hard enough to knock the wind from her lungs, and heard several small plinks as tiny steel plates went flying every which way. Annan spun away, throwing one hand against the wall to keep himself upright. She was panting like she'd just run up a flight of stairs. It didn’t sound like Annan was doing much better, which she supposed meant she hadn't been too bad at—that possibly she wasn't—
Gods, she couldn't believe what she was thinking.
"This is idiocy," she said, staring at the ceiling and trying to pretend she didn't notice how her voice shook. She was so shocked at herself she was halfway to sober now.
"Yes," Annan replied, low and rueful.
"We ought—we shouldn't—"
"It was the drink. We should never touch that stuff again."
"Yes," Kyali said, hearing the desperate gratitude in her voice and hating it. Her skin was so hot the stuffy air in the tunnel seemed cold by comparison.
"So this never happened."
"Never. It's already forgotten."
After another few moments of mortified looking-elsewhere, Annan turned to face her, which meant she had to be brave enough to do the same, and she only hoped the lanternlight wasn't enough to show him how flushed she still was. He didn't show it as clearly, being darker than she, but it seemed like she wasn't the only one.
She wasn't thinking of that.
"Agreed," Annan said then, and offered h
is hand on it. They shook like merchants over a cow. Kyali let go as fast as she could and began to walk, trying to forget how that hand had felt on the bare skin of her neck, how the muscles under his hips had moved against her palms. She could feel the faint current of air from the door moving over her neck. Her pulse wouldn't take a slower pace.
Dear gods, what was wrong with her?
Annan left her at the last branching before the one that would take her to the hall outside the royal apartments, mumbling a hurried goodnight. For a moment, she let herself lean against the crumbling brick wall in the dark. Her head was swimming. Her hands were clenched. She didn't know if she was angry or something else, hardly knew how to tell.
She wished, so badly her guts ached with it, that she could ask Taireasa.
Taireasa was sleeping. She'd wake when the mattress sank under a friend's weight; she'd mumble sleepily, and then her voice would rise with shock at the whole stupid story. She'd see more, because she always did, and she'd say something to make one achingly confused captain of the guard simultaneously curl up with embarrassment and laugh out loud, and see the whole thing in a new and far more forgiving light. She'd—
—wake hours later to a bedmate swallowing screams of terror and rage, fighting shadows, losing the battle over and over and over again. Learn something new and terrible about the world: how cruel it could be. Live with that forever, because there would be no other choice.
"Oh," Kyali said, and wrapped her arms about herself in the perfect darkness, breathing, only breathing, looking for ice in her heart and finding it scarce at the moment.
CHAPTER 19
The wind snatched notes out of the air and flung them off the edge of the world, carried them far up into the unrelenting blue sky, scattered them through the bared branches of trees. Devin gave the wind all the music in him, his fingers flying over the strings of the harp, a grin of effort baring his teeth to the brutal cold. Next to him, Fortyn of the Eanin Clan played a flute with such speed it was like having a flock of birds sing with him, and his twin sister Aileana pounded a complicated rhythm on a set of skin drums. The sound the three of them made together was wild, haunting.
He'd never played with people who could keep up with him. It was wonderful.
He caught the eye of Measail, Clan leader of the Eanin and father to Fortyn and Aileana, and remembered what they were doing here, and breathed, and wished.
The air around him blurred into a mad shimmer, turning Aileana and Fortyn into vague shapes. Devin sent his voice out to join wind and sky, and watched that shimmer travel away from him in spreading ripples. He was supposed to bend it to his wishing now, but that was far harder, and he could feel sweat break out on his brow and freeze in the winter wind. He began to sing an old lullaby.
Night, he decided, and dreamed stars into his imagining. They shaped themselves out of nothing, blooming over the blue, taking the sunlight away.
The vision found memory, wrenching his raw and sorrowing heart right into the last place he wanted it to go—but that was the price of magic, he was discovering: there was no way to be anything but brutally honest when it was the workings of your heart that made it happen. The sky filled with a thousand pinpricks of faraway light, filled with the constellations of his childhood, the ones he and Kyali had learned together at their father's knee, sitting on the porch steps late one summer night.
He could feel her beside him suddenly, staring up, her eyes full of light and simple contentment—felt her sharp elbow in his ribs when he poked fun at her. A hand landed on his shoulder, heavy, callused, restraining and affectionate all at once.
His father's voice in his ear, pointing out the Carter and the Mare, Old Grandmother, Point of North.
"No," Devin gasped, and stilled the strings with his palm, suddenly choked with grief.
The illusion fell away, blue bleeding through the false night sky he'd built around them. He rested his head in his hands, fighting tears and fury, trying to make the muscles of his face obey him and be still. A hand landed on his shoulder—a real one this time—and he jerked away. "Give me a moment, Measail."
"Devin," the man said. The rough edge of sorrow in his voice brought Devin's head up.
All three of them had tears on their cheeks, too.
Fortyn swiped his face into the crook of his elbow and shoved himself unsteadily to his feet. "That's enough for today," he said, his voice thick. "I can't do any more. Bloody Bards, it's like being mauled by a—"
His voice vanished into the whistle of the wind as he stomped off.
"We'll come back to this tomorrow," Measail said simply, squeezing Devin's shoulder, and went to follow his muttering son back in the direction of the Eanin camp.
Aileana stayed, watching her brother's retreat with a wry expression, her dark braids blown into tangles and her cheeks stung pink by cold. She wiped her face, frowned at the tears on her hand, and rubbed her fingers.
"What in hell was that?" Devin finally managed, and she gave him a smile full of sympathy.
"You miss your father," she said, taking his breath away all over again with the simple, awful truth of it. "We could feel it. It was like—gods, like losing my own—"
"Thank you," Devin said curtly, and stood.
It was mostly worthwhile, this training, but there times when it bared far more of him than he'd ever want anyone to see. It was the nature of his Gift, he'd been told, and he supposed it made sense, but oh gods, it was appalling.
"Come on," Aileana said comfortably, hooking her arm through his, pulling him into the warmth of her. She'd found his tent two nights ago in the dark, surprising him. He was hardly going to turn her down, of course, even knowing what poor company he was these days: she was clever and strong, and unapologetically frank about her wishes—and besides, the bed was so much warmer with her in it. She didn't seem to expect more from him than his nights and his friendship, and he was grateful for that, since he didn't have more to give. Some days, it was all he could do to hold civil conversations.
"Is Fortyn all right?" Devin asked, because her brother was now shoving his way through branches like he was fighting a war all by himself, and his irritable shouts could be heard even over the wind. His father, Clan Leader of the Eanin or not, was giving him a wide berth.
"He gets sullen when he's sad," Aileana said, no sign of either of those things in her own tone. She was as unlike her brother as… as he was from Kyali, not at all what he would have expected of twins.
The comparison was like shining a light on some hidden corner of his mind, and he stopped in his tracks.
"Sad," Devin murmured, trying that concept out, finding it fit much better than he'd ever have guessed. His little sister's actions since the uprising couldn't all be explained by that—he could almost feel the anger she carried around baking off her when he was nearby—but it made more sense of her than any other foolish, frustrated thought he'd had where Kyali was concerned.
Sad.
Maybe there was hope?
That was such a dangerous thought he actually took a step backwards, as though he could get away from the idea that way, and Aileana tugged harder on his arm, pulling him off balance. Devin tripped into her and she chuckled, pressing her face into his.
Her lips were cold, but they warmed fast. His pulse picked up.
"Come on," she said again, a little breathless. "I don't get sullen."
Devin tipped his head back and laughed. "I see that."
* * *
Measail was waiting for them at his tent, looking grim.
Devin let go of Aileana's hand immediately, going cold, pulse fluttering up into his throat. Another man was standing next to the Eanin Clan leader, a thin, young Cassdall with fading bruises on his cheekbone and angry red scars criss-crossing the rest of his face. He held himself like he was in pain, and he saluted in the Cassdall fashion, hand over heart, when he saw Devin.
"Lord Corwynall," he said. Devin halted, blinking. He hated that title.
"Wa
ylen," Measail said by way of introduction. "A Cassdall—"
"—spy," Devin finished, understanding all of it in a single flash of comprehension.
Of course they had sent men down to the lowlands. And of course those men were Cassdalls, who looked like Orin-men or Fraonir but were strangers to everyone, with years of experience saving Kinsey from his uncle's deadly attentions. Kyali was their father all over again in these things: brilliant and quiet and ruthless… but dear gods, it was such a risk for those who chose to go.
"Aye, my lord," the man said. "I can only hope the others made it farther than I did."
"What happened?"
"I was to take a position in the royal armory, to…" Waylen waved a hand, then grimaced; the movement made muscles in his too-worn face jump and shudder. Devin could only guess what sort of wounds the man carried under his clothes. “You understand, my lord."
"I think I do," Devin said bleakly. "What happened?"
"I left," Waylen answered, then bent over and coughed. Blood slid from an open cut on his neck.
"Gods, inside," Devin snapped, and bustled Measail, Aileana, and Waylen into the tent without ceremony, pushing until they all fit; it was close, but at least the warmth the four of them created under the heavy canvas would chase away the chill of the wind. Aileana immediately shrugged her coat off and lit the brazier in the middle of the floor, and things became bearable.
"I didn't make it to the armory," Waylen was saying, his voice faint and growing fainter. "It takes time to work into such a position. I joined the house staff of the castle as a footman, intending to work my way in from there, but I overheard something just a day later that made it necessary to abandon the effort and head back. I must make it to the fortress as quickly as possible and report. Lord, there's a traitor somewhere in Her Majesty's inner circle."