Broken Mirrors

by A. F. Dery

  She reminded herself sternly that she had consented to this, and in any event, he had every right to leave even if she had not. She supposed some dim corner of her mind had distantly hoped he would be back before she slept off her trauma and herb-induced exhaustion, and she chastised it silently.

  Still, she felt an increasing sense of alarm when she thought about him. She had admitted her growing attachment to him, but he seemed to be taking it in remarkable stride. Somehow she had thought he would rail against the idea of allowing her death through inaction, given the effort he had gone to in retrieving her: she had anticipated denial, or in the very least, resistance. Instead he seemed perfectly calm.

  Kesara herself had not mentioned it, but she was sure Graunt must know, and had told him about her. She realized uneasily that she might need to broach the subject with that frightful...being. Life never failed to increase in complication, she thought wearily, trying to push herself up onto her elbows.

  Faded purplish light streamed in through a wide crack in heavy dark curtains on the windows: dusk, perhaps, or dawn. She could not say. It felt like she’d been sleeping forever, and yet still she was tired. Between this and the nascent bond forming between her and Lord Eladria- her and Thane- and she knew her time must be drawing near. For the first time, this thought was beginning to fill her with a genuine sense of trepidation, and she tried to push it away as she finally sat up completely and swung her legs cautiously over the side of the unfamiliar bed. Pain threatened as her bandaged feet touched the floor, then shot up her legs as she experimentally placed a bit of her weight on them. She sighed a little, still rather giddy with relief that her pain was her own again and not blunted by outside forces.

  Crazy, that’s what that was, she mused, shaking her head as she thought of Thane and his “herbs.” She carefully stood, mindfully keeping her muscles relaxed when they would have preferred to tense at the excruciating complaint of her injured feet. She took, and released, a deep breath and forced herself to walk normally to the closed door.

  Kesara pushed it open with a confidence she did not feel, to view a soldier standing outside in the hall who regarded her in turn with bemusement. “You are supposed to be resting,” he said in so accusing a tone, she half-expected him to raise a gloved hand and point at her. “His Lordship would not be pleased to see you out of bed. You must return to it.”

  “Did he say that?” she asked cautiously, lowering her gaze deferentially but keeping her voice firm. Steady on, old girl.

  “Yes,” the soldier replied flatly. Her gaze flew back up to his in surprise. So much for that idea.

  “Well, do you know if his Lordship plans to return any time soon?” She tried not to sound overly interested but was skeptical of her own success.

  “Do you need something?” the soldier answered instead. His eyes were narrowed in suspicion and he watched her as though prepared to lunge at the next sign of forward motion on her part. Which she supposed he probably was.

  “Tea?” she suggested.

  “I will call for someone. Return to bed.” He did not so much as blink.

  “Can I not sit at that table and drink it?” she asked, indicating the desk behind her with a nod.

  “No. Lord Eladria said ‘bed.’ Not table, not chair. Bed.” The soldier took a step towards her and she took a corresponding step backward, into the room. “If you will not go willingly, I will place you there myself and take whatever measures are necessary to ensure your cooperation.”

  “Did Lord Eladria say to do that?” she sputtered, frowning.

  “It is my feeling that, if not stated outright, it was heavily implied, to be sure,” the soldier answered primly.

  Kesara eyed him warily, weighing her options. He looked as if he meant business, there was no denying that. And really, she was beginning to wonder at her own obstinacy: she could already feel the fatigue creeping back over her and she considered that she may have lost a fair amount of blood.

  But then an all too familiar voice cut into her interior debate. “Kesara, isn’t it?” Darius the steward walked up to her doorway, beaming and seeming entirely oblivious to the guard, whose look of suspicion had degraded into dark scowling. “I wanted to see how you were doing...so good to see you awake! I know we hardly had time to get properly acquainted before..well...everything...”

  The man’s rambling annoyed her more than it should have. She suppressed the urge to roll her eyes that the mere sound of his voice seemed to mysteriously conjure in her. The guard bothered doing no such thing, which made her want to return his scowl.

  “Sir,” she said with what she hoped was a deferential-looking nod. “Is there something you needed? I’m not sure I’m allowed back to work yet...” She let her voice trail off doubtfully and made a point of looking down at her thickly bandaged feet. She held one out carefully and said, “ouch!” in a manner she thought convincing.

  “You poor woman!” Darius, eyes wide with horror. “I can hardly understand how such a thing could happen under our Lordship’s roof!”

  “Technically, it didn’t happen under his roof...I was abducted,” she murmured. She put her foot back down and repeated “ouch” while gazing earnestly down the hallway behind him.

  He didn’t get the hint, glancing instead over his shoulder to see what she was looking at, then looking back at her with furrowed brows, obviously perplexed. “Perhaps you should sit down, miss?”

  “You mean lay down,” the guard said sharply. “As Lord Eladria himself indicated she must do.”

  “Oh, yes, then, you must lay down at once,” the steward agreed hastily, nodding at this sage reminder.

  “I’d rather not, if it’s all the same to you, sir,” she said, but she knew now that she was just being stubborn. Really, needing to lay down would be the perfect excuse to rid herself of the golden-haired child-fancier. That’s not fair, she reminded herself with no conviction whatsoever.

  “But if his Lordship insists...” Darius looked to the guard and the guard gave a single curt nod of affirmation. “Then you really must lie down, miss.”

  “I’m not sure he did insist. Maybe Fred here misunderstood,” Kesara suggested helpfully. The guard’s scowl deepened.

  “I did no such thing,” he said coldly. Then, as an after thought, “My name isn’t Fred!”

  “Um, what exactly did his Lordship say?” Darius asked.

  “Exactly what I said he said! The Ytaren female must stay abed and rest in his absence!” the guard took a decidedly menacing step towards the steward now and he held up his hands in a placating sort of way. Kesara leaned against the doorway, intrigued.

  “He called me ‘the Ytaren female?’ Really?” she asked. She worked very hard at keeping the corners of her mouth, those traitorous things, very still, but her lips trembled with the effort.

  “Does it matter? I know what he meant, and he meant you, now if you don’t want me to re-locate you myself-”

  “You’ll do no such thing!” Darius cried, aghast. “How could you even suggest to so poorly treat an innocent woman who was kidnapped from our very door and treated so...” he gave an illustrative nod of his head towards her feet.

  “Ouch,” said Kesara, lifting her chin.

  “You will back down and let me do my job, steward,” the guard growled, stepping still closer to the other man until their faces were perhaps a hands’ breadth apart. “If you have question of our Lord’s orders, you will ask him yourself, but you will not impede me in obeying them, or so disrespect me as you do now before a foreigner, whatever else she may be.”

  “I will not see you mistreat a woman who has his Lordship’s favor, particularly when she is one of my staff!” the steward said, narrowing his eyes. Without so much as an eye-blink to precede it, the guard’s hand whipped out and jabbed the other man in the middle of his chest, causing him to stagger back a step.

  Kesara, watching wide-eyed, fully expected the pretty steward to back down at this, but to her immense shock, he instead cocked
back a fist and lunged at the guard, causing her to jump backward into the room a little, startled, then hiss a low curse when she saw the red starting to leak through the bandages on her feet.

  She heard a sudden tumult from the hallway join the noise of the scuffle outside, at the same moment as she felt the familiar press of a certain warlord’s aches and pains re-enter her awareness. She saw the guard fairly fly past the doorway as if tossed like a rag doll, and the blur of a golden head joining him. Thane’s massive frame ducked into the room, his eyebrows wrinkled in chagrin.

  “What the hell is going on in here?” he asked, then his eyes dropped to her feet, no doubt attracted by the crimson splotches on her bandages. “What have you been doing, Kes? You’re supposed to be in bed! I thought I made that abundantly clear to my man out here!”

  “I told you so!” came a weak rasp from down the hall.

  “Ugh,” Darius replied faintly. “Mfnbd.”

  “Silence!” Thane roared, pushing closed the door with his foot. Kesara cringed back at the sound in spite of herself. She would have been surprised if anybody in the courtyard hadn’t done the same: Lord Eladria clearly had lungs to suit his size.

  He saw her motion and reddened slightly, but continued in a quieter tone, “The pair of you have clearly disturbed our patient.”

  “Don’t you mean ‘the Ytaren female,’ my lord?” Kesara asked. She tried to sound haughty like the few ladies she had had the dubious pleasure of meeting would sound, but it was hard when a smile was tugging insistently at the corners of her mouth. It felt entirely wrong to tease the Dread Lord of Eladria about...well...anything, and yet, after he’d brought her back, it was as though some invisible wall between them had crumbled...at least from where she was standing.

  Or maybe it’s just the bond, whispered something in her mind. She tried to ignore it.

  Thane took a step back and craned his large head at her in an expression so obviously baffled, it was nearly a caricature. She realized at that moment that he’d had to step away from her deliberately just for that effect and was barely able to hold down a completely inappropriate giggle. “What are you on about, woman?” he asked her, very slowly.

  “’Your man out there’ said-”

  “Oh, pbbbffft,” Thane declared. “You’re obviously not concerned with anything he said if you’re still out of bed.” He frowned. “Why are you still out of bed?’

  “I was trying to get back to it when they distracted me with their fighting,” she admitted in an injured tone. She thought she could hear the quiet choke of someone’s stifled outrage from not very far away and she lost the battle against her smile at last.

  “I see,” said Thane flatly, raising one eyebrow in a manner that clearly indicated he saw not a thing at all. “Well, don’t let me be a distraction to you now. I can always leave and come back later, so you can focus totally on the arduous task at hand.”

  “Oh, not necessary, my lord,” she said quickly, her smile fading. She backed into the bed and sat carefully on the edge. He continued staring at her in silence until she sighed and pulled her legs up as well, scooting up to rest against the pillows.

  “Better,” he said. His frown returned as his eyes came to rest again on her feet. “You should not have been out of the bed in the first place, you know. This isn’t just me being an irrational tyrant, Graunt said you need to heal more to keep the wounds from re-opening.” He hesitated, then straightened his shoulders as though steeling himself for a blow. “You know you...errr...lost a toe or two...well, two, exactly.”

  “Oh,” Kesara said. She wiggled her toes experimentally within their bandaging and, after a moment’s consideration, thought she could guess which they were. She bit her lip, feeling unaccountably nauseous.

  “Are you all right?” Thane had moved to her bedside and was towering over her in a way she presumed was supposed to be concerned, but instead came off more like a very hassled looking mountain. “You’ve gone all pale.”

  “I rather liked my toes,” she admitted, staring at her bandages. “You might even say I was very much attached to them.”

  Thane gave a snort, but backed away from the bed, reclaiming the chair by the writing table. “They weren’t terribly important ones.”

  “Well, that’s good to know. I’d hate to think I lost an important part of my anatomy,” Kesara said dryly.

  “You know what I mean,” Thane said gruffly, looking suddenly very interested in his fingernails.

  “You may not be aware, but mind reading? Not a Mirror thing.” She was smiling again. I have to stop this. Being flip with a Lord! Have I lost my mind?

  Thane looked up at her, the corners of his own mouth twitching suspiciously when he caught her smile. “Thank you for the information, I will endeavor to put words to my thoughts in the future, then. I have to say, though, that mind reading would have been a hell of a lot more convenient.”

  “Sorry, my lord,” she shrugged a little. “Maybe you could demand a refund.”

  Thane looked at her levelly. “That isn’t funny,” he said. “There is no amount of currency that could accurately gauge the worth of a good woman. And I certainly wouldn’t want it back if there were.”

  “You think I’m a good woman? Have I brought anything but trouble since I came here?” Kesara tried to keep her tone light, but her heart was beating quickly.

  “You’re a good woman,” he said. “But that doesn’t really change the fact that you’re a foreigner.”

  Kesara wished she could muster surprise or indignation, but knew better than to try.

  “You keep smiling,” he said, narrowing his eyes a little in scrutiny. “Perhaps you do thrive with pain.”

  “Did Graunt tell you so?”

  “Something along those lines,” he admitted. “I am still not sure I understand.”

  “I don’t think I ‘thrive’ with pain,” she said carefully. “But it is good that you are here.”

  Thane frowned a little and looked as if he would say something, but stopped just short of it. She couldn’t help but be glad, even as she wondered what he was thinking.

  Finally he said, “Things are changing. And they will change still more. I am...leery...of leaving you for very long. But I have sent messages to a couple of individuals about what happened to you and I expect that sooner or later- and more than likely, it will be sooner- there will be a meeting. I do not like the idea of bringing you with me.”

  Kesara stiffened a little at that, looking away. “Ah. It is hardly my place to object, my lord. Go where you will and do what you would. You don’t need my permission, certainly. It is I who works for you, not the other way around.”

  “You’re upset,” he said. She couldn’t tell from his tone of voice if he was surprised, curious, annoyed...she wanted to look at him to better assess his mood, but somehow, the grain of the wood that formed a chest of drawers against the wall on the other side of the room was infinitely fascinating to her leisurely inspection. Finally he said again, “You’re upset. And you were more than upset when I tried to leave before, when you were unconscious..or barely conscious...or whatever it was. When I brought you back to the Keep. “

  “I was not myself,” she said flatly. “I’m in control now. Don’t trouble yourself, my lord.” Kesara’s throat ached and she blinked rapidly to clear the traitorous blurring from her vision.

  There was quite a length of silence, until she wanted to scream to break it, and for a panicked moment, she started to wonder if he’d somehow managed to leave the room so silently that she had somehow failed to take notice of his departure and had to force herself to keep staring at those damned wooden drawers. Of course, she told herself sternly, that was absurd; she could feel the omnipresent complaint of his knee that had been abused too much and recently seen even more such ill treatment, without even having to try.

  “I am not good at this,” Thane said finally. When she said nothing, she heard him shift from his seat, and a moment later, the mattress she was la
ying on sank quite a bit with such suddenness that she rolled right into him with an “oomph.”

  “Sorry, Kes,” he said with such sweetness that she knew the apology was insincere. She frowned at him, or at the side of him anyway, as she scrambled to recover her dignified recline.

  Once she was re-settled, as far on the other side of the bed as she could get from him without risking toppling off if he chose to stand as abruptly as he’d sat down, he continued in a more sincere tone, “I am not good with words. I’ve upset you, I don’t know why. I didn’t know that you would be upset when I left before, either. I can tell from what you’ve said that my leaving again would upset you again, you just wouldn’t show it, or show it as much, and that isn’t acceptable either. I don’t want you to suffer needlessly. But it won’t be safe with me. So perhaps it is needful. I haven’t decided. And though it goes against every fiber in my being to consult a foreign woman about anything whatsoever, I fear I must be brought that low and do just that, since this is a matter regarding such a woman, about whom I know so little, and about whom you know so much.”

  “There is nothing to know about me,” Kesara said doubtfully.

  “I somehow doubt that very much,” Thane sighed. “I feel like you are keeping something back from me. I had thought perhaps that Graunt’s knowledge supplied it, but now, I am not as certain. Forgive me for mentioning it, as I’m sure we’d both rather forget, but the way you screamed when I left...it raised the hairs on the back of my neck, and that’s no easy task, Kes.”

  Kesara finally allowed herself to look at him. He was looking at her feet as intently as she had been looking at the chest of drawers. She couldn’t miss the worry on his face, the corners of his disfigured mouth dropping, his brows drawn. His hands clenched and unclenched unconsciously on either side of him.

  Unbidden, the memory of Graunt’s words came back to her, about his headaches worsening with stress, about how she didn’t know whether they’d kill him or not eventually...