Dawnsinger

by Janalyn Voigt

  He looked away. “In that case, may your stay be lengthy.”

  She watched a flurry of white elder petals from a limb arching overhead cascade into the pool. “I join my wish with yours.”

  “’If wishes be true, what claim have we to glory?’ After quoting the ancient saying Elcon gave a wry smile. “This day, the Lof Raelein passed to me the Sword of Rivenn and the Scepter of Faeraven. Rulership now rests on me.”

  “Then I spoke amiss. I should have called you Lof Shraen Elcon.”

  “You name my position, but not my title until my coronation.” His silence sketched what he failed to say—that his coronation would take place after his mother’s funeral.

  A finger of wind ran along Shae’s collarbone and made her shiver. “Lof Raelein Maeven seems much improved.”

  He inclined his head. “She does, but I should return to her. I slipped away for a time only.”

  “I’ll accompany you, if I may.”

  “Yes, come with me. You should not seek the garden alone. It may seem safe within the walls of Torindan, but welkes can venture this far west and may even slip past the archers who keep watch. There’s no danger now, since they seek their roosts by twilight, but welke attacks are not our only reason for caution.” The obscure remark and his shadowed expression reminded her just how far from home she’d come.

  “You warn me, yet risk yourself freely.” The words came without thought, and she wished she could take them back.

  Elcon’s expression warned her she went too far, but then he laughed. “Well spoken, Shae of Whellein. I should heed my own words and use more caution. In truth, I sought nature’s solace to escape duties I should embrace.” He turned. “Look at the sky.”

  She watched with him the fiery death of day.

  Night blackened the sky, lighting moon and stars and turning shadows purple. They walked beneath blackened strongwoods where starflowers glowed with pale light and released a heady fragrance. From somewhere near a night bird gave its lament, long and low.

  10

  Storm and Fury

  A burst of sound and a flurry of movement mingled with the tang of smoke and spices to invade Shae’s senses as she entered the great hall. Flames leapt in the hall’s three fireplaces. Torches flared and flickered against the stone walls. Velvet hangings covered tall, arched windows against the night. Servants scurried to serve those who made merry at over-laden strongwood tables. The dissonance of instruments being tuned in the minstrel’s gallery rose above the din.

  Kai cut a swath through the crowd to a table where several guardians lounged. Shae, trailing behind, jumped at a touch on her arm. She glanced down. Freaer’s eyes, shaded into darkened pools, snared hers. She shifted to step away, but he caught her arm. Her heart kicked up a beat, and a tingle of discomfort ran down her spine. She tried to pull free, but his fingers tightened.

  He spoke, but the noise swallowed his words. She bent forward, and his breath caressed her ear. “Your foot—does it pain you?”

  She summoned a smile. “It feels better, thank you.” She tried again to pull away, but his fingers on her arm tightened again, biting into her muscle. Unwilling to create a scene, she went still. “I really should join my brother.”

  “You look beautiful by torchlight.”

  She said nothing, but at the beauty of his slow smile could not slow the rapid rise and fall of her chest. His gaze traveled over her and then onward to Kai, who laughed with Craelin, oblivious of her plight.

  The pressure on her arm eased. “Go to your brother if you must, but mark you, our conversation has just begun.”

  She fled from him, her face warm. Kai hailed her, drew her to his side, and presented her to the five guardians at the table. Breathless and grateful that speech was not necessary, she smiled and inclined her head to each in turn.

  Kai seated Shae beside him, but ignored her as he entered into a discussion of marksmanship. Servants brought platters of venison with roasted onion, winterberry sauce, creamed yellowroot, an unfamiliar green vegetable and dainty blue crobok eggs. Kai tackled his food with appetite, but Shae picked at hers. After the encounter with Freaer, her stomach churned.

  The cup of cider warmed her hand as she sipped from it, and she let the babble lull her, content to watch Kai consume the last of the honey cakes.

  The torches flared with sudden zeal to brighten all but the upper reaches of the cavernous hall. They wavered and dimmed to bring an uncertain half-light. A storm built outside, it seemed. Kai’s discussion progressed from hunting to the taming and handling of wingabeasts.

  Shae hid a smile and gazed at the animated faces about her, careful to keep her gaze averted from Freaer. She couldn’t shut out the sound of his voice, though, and it threaded through many voices to find her. His laugh rang out, and without thought, she turned her head toward him. She recognized her mistake too late, for his gaze waited to capture hers.

  She pressed a hand to her brow, surprised she had no fever. What madness assailed her? The harder she tried to ignore Freaer, the more she noticed him. When he reached for his cup, she caught the movement. When he laughed, she heard it. The gleam of torchlight gilding his hair did not escape her. Worse, he seemed to sense—even revel in—her attention.

  “What’s wrong?” Kai asked at her sigh. “You seem flushed.”

  She avoided his light, probing gaze. How could she explain what she did not understand? “It’s nothing.”

  He touched her forehead. “Are you fevered?”

  She shook her head.

  He looked her full in the face. “What then?”

  “Please, it’s nothing.” But she couldn’t keep from glancing past him to Freaer

  “I see.” With a nod to Freaer, who raised his cup in mock salute, Kai turned back to her. “Does he trouble you?”

  She looked at her hands, which clasped one another in her lap. “What do you mean?”

  “Only that you’re—unsettled. Is your discomfort about Lof Raelein Maeven’s death song or something more?”

  “The death song?” In truth, she’d all but forgotten it. “Freaer wants me to sing it.”

  His brows lifted. “You’ve spoken to him? What did he say?”

  “Little.” She remembered the way Freaer had studied the flames in the fireplace while she questioned him. He looked anything but pensive now. Laughing as he jumped to his feet and took up his lute, he bounded to the minstrel’s gallery and joined in a rousing chorus of “Lof Shraen Timraen’s Glory.”

  “Risen son of Rivenn’s sons,

  Lof Shraen while still a youth,

  Timraen spent his time in prayer—

  Seeking wisdom, guidance, and truth.

  “He shared his bread, gave his gold,

  Listened to the downtrodden,

  Comforted the overcome,

  Called every Elder friend.

  “None could find a mark so true,

  Nor wield a sword as well,

  Yet the strength he found in mercy,

  No other shraen can tell.”

  “When garns besieged Pilaer,

  The fortress could not stand,

  And Lof Shraen Shaelcon fell

  At the garn chief’s hand.

  “His father lost, Timraen fled

  To cheat the garn’s demand.

  He came at last to Braeth

  And sheltered in that land.

  “Timraen, son of Shaelcon,

  Led Faeraven’s shraens to fight

  The Battle of Krei Doreinn,

  There to break the garn’s might.

  “Braeth now lay in ruin.

  For as battle raged without

  The fortress fell within,

  Bringing forth a rout.

  “His Krei Doreinn victory

  Now tasted like defeat.

  Yet Timraen persevered

  To regain the ancient seat.

  “Timraen, son of Shaelcon,

  Led Faeraven’s shraens to fight

  The Last Battle
of Pilaer

  There to break the garn’s might.

  “Tales of shraens and glory

  Begotten in Pilaer

  Ever tell the story

  Of victory most fair.

  “Timraen won fair Maeven

  From the garn chief of Triboan.

  He stood in war but fell to love.

  Maeven’s heart became his own.”

  “Timraen, son of Shaelcon,

  Found his father, not yet dead,

  In the dungeons of Pilaer

  And brought him life instead.

  “Risen son of Rivenn’s sons,

  Brought low while still a youth—

  A false arrow cut him down,

  But could not steal his truth.”

  The music ebbed. The crowd, caught by its mood, did not stir as the last strains faded to silence.

  “Did he seem angry?” Kai asked.

  Shae stared at Kai and forced her mind back to the conversation about the death song. “I’m not sure.”

  Freaer leaped from the minstrel’s gallery to land beside Shae. With his head tilted at a rakish angle and enticement in every line of his bearing, he smiled and offered her his hand. Guffaws and good-natured suggestions rang out.

  She stared back at him while her cheeks flamed. She could neither take the hand nor refuse it.

  A murmur of discontent arose from the crowd at her hesitation, but with it a counterpoint of approval.

  Shae swallowed against a dry throat. “I cannot.”

  With a veiled expression, Freaer stepped back. His arm dropped to his side. He turned away, bearing her rejection with apparent ease, and drew another maiden, golden-haired and plump, from the crowd. Laughter followed. A burst of music from the gallery filled the hush that fell. Other dancers jumped up to join in.

  The touch of a hand recalled her. She knew without looking that it belonged to Kai. “Come. It grows late.” He pressed her against his side, and she leaned into his warmth, a haven from her turmoil. He escorted her from the hall and accompanied her down corridors and up staircases. His silence weighed upon her but, absorbed in her own thoughts, she could think of nothing to say.

  What wordless thing had happened between herself and Freaer? She’d felt the first, wonderful-awful stirrings of infatuation before, when Pawel, a son of Daeramor raven, visited Whellein. Nothing had come of it, of course, but vague dreams. Those feelings had been like a sweet-sad nocturne. She put a hand to her throat as if the action could quiet her racing heartbeat. The feelings that gripped her now weren’t sad, nor were they sweet. A wild strain infused this music with dark fascination.

  ****

  ”What do you want?” Shae did not mean to sound curt, but Kai’s request for a word with her came as unwelcome. She sought the hearth, as if the fire might lend her its strength, and then remembered her servant. “Chaeldra, you may go—for now.”

  Chaeldra hesitated, but strode into her own chamber—leaving the door ajar.

  Kai leaned against the mantel with nonchalance, a tilt to his head she knew well. “What do I want?” His tone denied his casual posture. “We can only wonder what our mother would say about your behavior tonight.”

  “My behavior?” she cried. “So you fault me?”

  “How can you stand there looking the picture of innocence and outrage—as if you didn’t invite Freaer’s attention?”

  “I didn’t—” She paused, mid-protest. Had she invited Freaer’s attention?

  He pushed away from the door and paced toward her. “You didn’t what? I saw you watching him. Do you not know what a maid’s eyes can do?” He caught her shoulders and turned her toward the gilt-edged mirrorglass above the mantel. “Look at yourself! You’ve grown to a woman.”

  Somehow Shae found no joy in his acknowledgment, although she’d sought it in recent days. They stood together, framed in the mirror, something they’d done before, but never like this. How often she’d measured herself against him, a slender reed next to an ironwood, stretching to make herself taller. She came to his shoulder now, still slender, but with a rounded figure beneath the tunic she wore. Her face had lost its baby fat. Her expression held innocence, but also the beginning of knowledge.

  She searched Kai’s face in the mirrorglass. Where was her familiar, unruffled protector? Here was a stranger with more than a hint of danger about him. She caught her breath, shaken by the change in him.

  He released her and stepped backward. She continued to watch him in the mirror, caught by the play of emotions that chased across his features. “Let this attachment die,” he urged. “Nothing good can come of it.”

  “Why not?” She felt the need to challenge him, although in truth she agreed with his assessment.

  He shook his head. “Just let it die.” Unspoken words churned near the surface. She could hear their whisper.

  “Tell me!”

  “Must you plague me?” He ran a hand through his hair, abandoning all pretense of calmness. “You make me regret bringing you to Torindan!”

  She flinched, both at what he said and at the raggedness in his voice. She couldn’t bring herself to ask for answers again, but went to the window, keeping her back to him. She fingered the hangings, not really seeing them. Wind buffeted the pane and drafts leaked in, making her shiver.

  A scrape and thud carried to her, and she rushed across the chamber to bolt the door behind Kai.

  Drawn to the window again, she opened the shutters and measured the storm’s progress. Blackened clouds boiled over peaks above moonlit snowfields as they flowed toward Torindan. Strongwoods in the garden tossed their heads like skittish ponies. Their branches glistened in the first pattering onslaught of rain.

  This wild prelude must mark the inception of a fierce storm. She placed her hands on the pane as rain struck. Such a thin barrier to separate her from the storm’s fury. She bowed her head and touched her forehead to the cold glass. Perhaps she should remove all barriers and join herself to the storm. Its strength might serve to overcome her own inner turbulence. It was an odd thought, not quite sane, but not quite crazed. So many mysteries lurked in Torindan—unspoken words, distant echoes, restless dreams, souls touching in the night—and now she did not even understand the fabric of her relationship with Kai. She preferred the honest energy of nature to these nameless, shifting realities.

  She donned her cloak and pulled its hood over her hair, then slipped out of the room. The clunk of her outer door shutting behind her echoed through the deserted corridor. She found her way with ease, as if guided by some other hand. The strongwood door leading outside resisted, groaning in protest. ‘There are other reasons, too, for caution.’ Elcon’s voice spoke in memory, but his warning went unheeded. Nothing mattered now but her need to escape.

  The door gave at last, a gust tearing it from her hand, and it banged open. She hurried to secure it.

  The wind snatched her hood away and combed through her hair. Rain washed her face. She lowered her head and fought the wind, grateful to find the path, although it was slick and flanked by drowned starflowers. Her feet slipped on an incline, and she put out a hand to save herself. Thorns pierced her palm and pain twisted through her injured foot.

  “Steady, there!” A masculine voice came out of the darkness. Arms slid around her and rough fabric ground against her face. “I knew you would come!”

  Shae jerked her head back, but blinded by rain, still couldn’t see who spoke. The wind tore her breath away, and then cold lips slid over hers.

  She sank her fingernails into the soft skin at the back of her attacker’s neck.

  He flinched and jerked her hand down.

  She fought to free her other hand, crushed between them. Her pulse drummed. Pressure built in her chest. Air—she needed air. She plucked at her assailant’s cloak as blackness swirled about her and the storm’s thrashing faded to silence…

  “Shae!”

  A voice roused her and she saw, in a flare of lightning, Freaer bending over her. His grip s
hifted, and her feet left the ground. With an effort, she dragged her arms upward and put them around his neck. A world of noise and fury, illumined by flashes of light, swung around her. The storm lashed at her back and every step Freaer took jarred. She hid her face against his neck with a sob, glad to be rescued.

  The wind, rain, and noise abated, and Shae raised her head in sudden and profound silence. The glow of an oil lamp wedged in a niche revealed a ceiling that hung low. Its raw stone surface glistened with moisture that dripped into circular pools. A smooth floor stretched to lamplight’s edge, where stone steps led down into darkness. Opposite the stair, and beyond a gaping black maw, the storm still raged, sending wild currents to lift her hair.

  Freaer set her on her feet, and she rested in his arms. He hooked a finger beneath her chin and turned her face to the light with a smile. “Will you faint if I kiss you again?”

  Freaer? He had been her assailant? She had never been kissed in such a way before. It seemed a strange business, and she couldn’t say she liked it. She watched him, captured by the emotions that played across his face as his thumbs traced a path from the hollow at the base of her throat to her lips. His next kiss, when it came, did not match his hands in gentleness.

  He lifted his head, his breathing unsteady. “Don’t hold back, Shae. You can’t stop this.”

  Tendrils of sensation curled about her soul, a soft seduction. How easy to surrender…

  “No!” She voiced her alarm. “I should not be here with you.”

  He rested his forehead against hers and his hands stroked her temples. “Shae, I called you to me tonight and you came, even in the storm.” A whiplash of reigned-in power brushed the edge of her mind as he let her feel the strength of his will.

  She tried to pull away, but he held her fast. “Who are you?”