by Anne Leonard
“Really?”
“Yes. It was one of the first things I noticed.”
“Why did you fall in love with me?” she asked. It was a dangerous question. She might well not like the answer, but she could not resist.
“Who couldn’t?”
“You are ridiculously besotted,” she said. “Mind you, I’m not complaining. But truly, why me? By all accounts you’ve been avoiding it for years.”
“Because you are the first woman who paid me the honor of actually seeing me,” he said. It was unexpectedly sober. “I’ll concede I didn’t give many women much of a chance to, but none of them were interested in it.”
“I had no intent to lay you bare.”
“That’s why you could.”
She turned Mari’s ring a few times on her finger. If there had been no war, would Corin have continued to abide by the rules? Would Aram have agreed to the marriage? Or had it all come about because there was no real chance of winning the war and the rules no longer mattered?
“Without the war we never would have met,” she said.
“I would have seen you at the ball. And without the war there would have been time aplenty to woo you.”
“But not to marry me.”
“Who knows,” he said.
There was a hint of bitterness to his tone that made her sad. She looked at the fire. He had built it quite skillfully, and the flames were even and steady. His touch felt good on her foot, but it seemed absent of desire. Whatever was on his mind, he did not seem to know how to raise it. It was very unlike him. She had no idea how to break his silence.
It had turned cool with evening, and she was wearing his cloak again. She touched the pin and said, “I should give you this back.”
He leaned forward a little, then relaxed. “Did I leave that in?”
“Yes. I wondered if your father saw it.”
“I’m sure he did. It’s no matter. Keep it, you have the right to wear it now. But it’s a damn good thing no Mycenean saw you with it.”
Tam nodded. She had thought of the possibilities many times, but it had seemed more dangerous to put it someplace where it could be lost. “I was careful. I don’t know what I would have done with it if I’d made it back to Dalrinia.”
“Joce could have kept it.” He grinned suddenly. “What did you intend to tell your father?”
“Nothing, until I had to.” It had seemed impossible. Hello, Father, I married a man I had known only five days. Yes, we love each other. But you see, he’s the prince, and the king was overthrown, and I don’t know where he is and the Myceneans may come looking for me.
“Tam?” He sounded worried. She realized that only now, safe, was she allowing herself to admit what had happened.
“I’m all right,” she said softly. She forced a smile.
He rubbed her foot some more, not speaking. The calluses on his palms from holding a sword were rough. He said quietly, “I can see how it would have been complicated. But if we win the war you will have to tell him.”
“In that case I think you can tell him yourself.” He would be much less awkward.
“If that’s what you wish, love, of course.”
“I wish my parents knew that I am safe,” she said. “They’ll be worried sick.”
“There’s no way to get a message to them. It would have to pass between too many hands. I’m sorry.” He moved his fingers over the bones of her ankle. “Your skin is so smooth.”
“What about your sister? Will we hear about her?” She had watched Corin’s face go completely blank for an instant when Kelvan said that Tai was free. He had not been ready at all for that news.
“I hope we don’t,” he said vehemently. “I hope the rider delivers her safely someplace and she stays hidden.”
There was anger in his voice, and pain, and she realized that was part of what he was struggling with. She reclaimed her foot and moved closer to him. “But that’s not enough. What is it, Corin?” she asked carefully.
Instead of looking at her he stared into the fire. She watched the light shift on his face.
He said, “Tam, we won’t escape Mycene even if the Sarians fall. Even if Hadon himself dies. Caithen will remain vassal as long as the dragons are held. That’s why I must go on.” He seemed to know something now that he had not earlier.
“Do the dragons mean to free Caithen or themselves?”
“Or,” he said, and then went very quiet. She waited. At last he took her hand. “It’s the same thing,” he said. “There’s no ‘or’ about it. I realized that this afternoon.”
It was not fair. It made the stakes much higher, the burden heavier on him. If he failed the dragons he failed his kingdom, his father, his self. She put her other hand over his, so that his hand was clasped between her two. There was nothing she could think of to say. She hoped again that Aram wasn’t dead.
He was very still, his hand motionless in hers. She closed her eyes and listened. His breathing was steady. She could hear the rush of hot air going up the chimney. She swallowed.
“Corin,” she said, “tell me what you need.”
He did not pretend to misunderstand her. “Tam,” he said. He took a deep breath. He pulled his hand free of hers and faced her. “Tam, will you go into trance again?”
She had not anticipated that. He had been so opposed to it before. “What are you trying to do?” she asked.
“You saw the Dragon Valleys before. I want you to See into the past. See what happened when they were taken.”
“That can’t be done,” she said, and heard the foolishness of it as the words came out. If she could See any thing, then why not any time? Especially when dragons were involved. “You can’t do it?”
“God, Tam, if I could, do you think I would ask you?”
He was still avoiding whatever he needed to say. She gathered herself for a quarrel. “You’re holding something back,” she said.
“Yes,” he said, full of fury. He got up and went to the door, jerked it open. The draft made the fire surge. All she could see beyond his body was darkness. It was like watching him that night on the steps. One wrong move and he would crack. She was afraid to either speak or touch him.
He swore a few times and slammed his fist into the palm of his other hand. Then something seemed to go out of him. He slumped a little, turned. He came back to her and lifted her hand. Gently, he brought it to his lips. She bit the inside of her own lip with sadness for him.
“I think it will be very dangerous,” he said. He was sterner than she had ever seen him. “You could be lost, or you might set something free. I don’t want you to do it at all. I think we were lucky last time.”
“But you’re asking me.”
“You might say it’s my duty to ask,” he said, with a small, bitter laugh. He let go of her hand. “I can’t let love protect you. But it is absolutely not a command. You can say no. I hope you do.”
How hard that must have been for him to say, all of it. “You know I won’t,” she said gently.
“I do know that,” he said. “I’m letting you choose your risk, because that is the only thing I have to give you. But please, Tam, don’t do it just because you think it would be cowardly not to. Use your reason. Make a decision that would make your father proud.”
The danger seemed unreal, a storybook danger, nothing to actually fear. She had to do him the justice of weighing everything carefully. “Come closer,” she said.
He shook his head. “I don’t get to be your husband in this.”
There it was, that was the pain. She knew he did not want to be touched, but there had to be a way to ease him. She picked up the poker and used it to carefully reposition a log that did not need to be repositioned.
“What if I don’t do it, or it doesn’t help?”
“Then I’ll have to think of something el
se,” he said.
For a long while they were silent. Tam got hot and removed the cloak. Corin stirred at that, and when she had folded it into a neat square she put a tentative hand on his knee. He did not shake it off, and she moved it a few inches farther along his thigh. When he still did not react she brought her whole body closer.
He shifted. At first she thought he was retreating, but he took hold of her and pulled her in. She slipped her shirt over her head. The air on her back was cold. She watched the firelight on her body, then finally looked at him. “You are my husband,” she said. “Always.”
His lips moved. He put one hand on her side. She pushed him slowly down onto the blanket. It made a muscle in her back ache, and she winced.
“Thrice in one day?” he whispered.
“I could just be teasing.”
“I dare you.”
Tam lay awake long after Corin had fallen asleep. The bed was not really big enough for both of them. She was still wide awake when she heard Kelvan come back. She crept out of bed, dressed, and went into the other room.
He glanced at her from where he sat beside the fire. A single log still burned low. She raised her finger to her lips and dropped down beside him so that they could whisper. “My lady,” he breathed.
“Do you know where the king is?” she asked. He hesitated, and she added quickly, “I’m not asking you where, I just want to know if you know.”
“I do.”
“How long would it take to bring him here?”
“Five hours each way in fair weather.”
Ten hours. That was too long. She sighed.
“What do you want with him, my lady?”
“Nothing particular. It’s just—if Corin dies—” She could not finish. The man she would really need was her own father, but there was no sending a dragonrider to get him. He would not be permitted in this valley. “Do you think there’s a chance to win?”
“With the war, aye. The dragons will do their part, and the soldiers will go home.”
“What will you do?” She was not sure why she asked.
He looked startled. “I can’t go back to Mycene. I will do what the king asks of me, I expect.”
“And if he asks nothing?”
“I don’t know. I’m not fit for much other than what I am.” There was a guardedness to his tone that told her not to pry further. He had spent years keeping himself hidden, as a wizard and as a spy, and he was not about to break that silence for her. She wondered if he approved, of her, of the match.
“Did you know about Corin and the dragons when Aram sent you?”
“Aye. He came in fall, not long after the prince was born. There was snow high up already, I remember that. He and Rois tested me, and then he said that what he wanted from me amounted to exile, and I asked him why. Then he told me.”
“How old were you?”
“Fourteen.”
It seemed absurdly young. It told her something about Aram, that he would entrust such a mission to a boy. He must have been a good judge of character even then. And able to think deeply and deliberately, even when taking risks. He would have been not much older than Corin was now; he had been crowned when he was only twenty-two. It made her feel inadequate.
As though he had heard her thoughts, Kelvan said, “I’ve known the king to be wrong about things, but never about a person.”
Tam supposed it was both a rebuke and encouragement. Trust yourself. She remembered watching Corin in the drugged sleep, the king beside her. The room had been very still and cold but Aram’s presence had managed to fill it. And from that Aram had decided she was worthy to marry his son. Had he known then that she had power? He had said that had nothing to do with it, but she was not naïve. He might have accepted her without it, but he certainly intended to make use of it.
They watched the fire a while longer without speaking. The log crumbled at the center and the two ends tilted down. The light faded. Kelvan stood up. “Good night, my lady,” he said.
“Good night,” she said.
He went to the door of his own room, then turned. “This valley holds stories,” he said. “You have Sight. If you ask, it may give you one.” He entered his room and shut the door behind him without waiting for her answer.
In the morning, over breakfast, Corin said, “Have you decided?” and Tam said, “I want to try,” and that was all there was to it.
The dragon was still dozing midday when Tam walked with Corin up the hill to one of the huts. Her legs ached a bit, but the stiffness was improving.
It was a small, shabby-looking hut, with a pair of goats in a pen behind it and a thin grubby child playing in the dirt in front with a dog. The child, a girl Tam thought, gave them a glance as they entered and apparently decided they were not interesting enough to pay more attention to.
Inside was quite a different matter. She had been in the homes of very poor people many times with her father, and they were usually crowded and dark and in disrepair. The chimney smoked, if there even was a chimney, and the walls closed in. Sometimes two or three families would be living in the same two rooms. If there were windows, they looked onto filthy streets or a thin shaft of light that fell in the few inches between buildings. This place surprised her with its lightness and cleanliness.
Rois was very old, but she seemed spryer than Tam felt at the moment. When their eyes met Tam sensed the power, stronger than she had ever felt it from either Joce or Kelvan. She thought she should curtsy, but did not know how to do it without a skirt.
She gratefully accepted tea made of chamomile and a little valerian. It would help the stiffness. Corin stayed very close to her.
For a few minutes they engaged in polite idle chat. Then Corin said, with no lightness in his voice at all, “Rois, Tam needs to be tranced tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” Tam asked, startled. She was ready to do it now.
“Yes. I think you need to go up on the dragon first, and it can’t fly today.” He turned back to Rois. “Can you do it?”
“Why?”
“To See the Dragon Valleys.”
Rois looked at Tam. “Do you want to do this?”
“Yes,” Tam said. “I’ve thought about it.”
“Are you afraid?”
She shook her head. “No. I did it before.”
“Tell me.”
“It was dark,” she said, remembering. “But I could see.” It had been so easy to slip into trance. When Liko asked her questions, it had been impossible to provide full answers. It had been like trying to recount a dream. What she saw was so clear before her, but she could not describe it. To say the cliffs were high did not do justice to the two thousand feet or more that they towered above her, leaving her feeling the size of an ant. She had no words for the smell of the place, a coldness that might have been ice and a sharp scent of metal and ashes or old fire. It smelled angular and hard. There had been a faint and constant whistling that she thought was the wind shrieking across the top of the canyon.
Then she heard the piano and felt the needle pain of dragonspeech and told Corin to go to the roof. She heard the sound of wing strokes in the air before she jerked back into consciousness. Her eyes met Liko’s, and he looked away. She terrified him.
“It took no effort to go into trance, and it took no effort to come back,” she said. “I can do this.”
Rois was silent. Tam could not read her face. The door was still open, and she looked out. A hen stood there, its golden feathers glistening in the sun, its feet scaled and reptilian. Dragon’s feet.
“Were you alone?”
“Yes.” Then, reluctantly, she said, “Until the end. The dragons spoke to me.”
“What do you hope to gain?” Rois asked.
“To See the ghosts of centuries,” she said.
“Why?”
Tam looked at Cori
n. His face was expressionless, but there was a tension in him that she recognized from the ball, when he had been so sure she was in danger. There was a way out for both of them, she realized. She only had to say that it was his thought, his idea, and Rois would refuse to do it.
Very deliberately, publicly, she put her hand over his on the table and said, “I want to See the taking of the dragons. That is what Corin needs to know, and he can’t See it.”
“And for this you will risk the dark place?”
“Yes.”
“If you go deep enough, it might take you.”
“I know.” She did not want to explain it, to try to speak her loves and fears. They did not belong to anyone but her.
For a long time no one spoke. Tam heard the hen scratching at the dirt. Children’s voices called to one another farther up the hill. The light coming in the eastern window shortened.
“Give me your hand,” Rois said, as commanding as a king.
Tam did. She felt power at once, coursing hot through her, like wine, like passion. Steadily she lifted her head and met Rois’s silver eyes.
Rois looked at Corin. “Outside, now,” she said.
He went. Tam was a little amused.
Rois released Tam’s hand and leaned forward. “You are willing and ready and brave enough to do it, but is it the right thing?”
“Yes.”
“How far can you take yourself?”
Tam clasped her hands together in her lap and let her mind and body slip into the space Joce had shown her. She had to find the place of power within herself. She thought of Cade, the dryness of his skin as the life left him, the scent of stone that clung to him. When had she known she had power? Not when Cade died. But certainly she had known before Aram put it into words.
She remembered incense, candlelight, colored sand. The old woman must have had power of sorts. Perhaps she too had been a wizard. There was not a chance of remembering the words the woman had spoken, but she knew where to go. Back, not just into the stillness that she had felt before but into the stillness at the heart of time.
She began to sense presence, sparks of other moving creatures. Birds, dogs, quivering mice. The cold of a dragon’s mind.