"You shielded yourself this morning?"
"Oh yes." There was grim satisfaction to his words. "Of course, we don't know for certain if that's what's made the difference, but, well, it's been a quiet day. Now if we could only make some progress toward getting out of this place."
Gentian blinked, then pretended not to notice his sudden check and change of expression. That wasn't about Captain Djol. Rydan – the Saxans – faced some urgency that had lent an edge of gnawing anxiety to the exclamation. And, for all the talk of thirds and children, he was not about to confide in her, so Gentian obligingly made a business of sinking into her pillows.
"I should let you rest," Rydan said promptly, standing up and offering her a pretty courtesy. "I hope you're feeling better tomorrow."
"Thank you. So do I."
She smiled wearily as he turned away and, forewarned by the whisper of the saecstra, was unsurprised when he came face to face with Aristide at the door. But the Saxan prince only bowed again, murmured "Lord Magister" in a colourless voice, and escaped. Aristide glanced after him, but he was not revealing any of his thoughts this afternoon.
Aspen, following Aristide into the room, pantomimed salacious delight: "Too, too popular, Gentian. We're going to have to give you a stick to fight them off with."
"Perhaps you can guard my door." She looked at Aristide. "Is there some reason the Saxans would need to get out of here more than urgently?"
"They have misplaced Atlarus' favourite lord. Beyond that? Quite possibly, but they have not told me it."
He was studying her intently, but she couldn't guess whether it was her deterioration or Rydan's visit that occupied him. Aspen made a show of admiring the flowers, shooting her mischievous glances all the while. Gentian checked the candle as it neared its halfway mark, and longed for tomorrow.
Resetting his divination, Aristide sat in one of the chairs by her bed, frowning faintly. "There is no sign you have been drawing power over the course of the day, nor any hint of an external casting. Yet the toll on you is evident, far greater than could be expected from a minor fever. I suspect that divining for arcane interference will continue to take us nowhere, and that we must focus on this ability of yours to sense...spirit. Since no-one has ever come close to detecting your attacker–"
He stopped. Perhaps her expression had changed, she didn't know, but fine brows drew together as he surveyed her closely, and then those exquisite lips lifted to a sweetly edged curve. "It would help immeasurably, Magister, if you gave up this habit of holding back relevant details."
Gentian couldn't help but laugh, making her head jangle in protest. "Do as I say, not as I do?" But she couldn't raise the energy to take him to task, and it was true there was one thing she hadn't cared to mention. "How relevant this is without my father here, I can't say..."
"Magister Varpatten has experienced the same attack?"
"A few years ago he told me that he thought, once, that he'd felt It." She shifted uncomfortably, remembering sigil-calling her father on his fiftieth birthday to find him caught in past regrets. "It had been weighing on him, I think. When I was, oh, two or three, I developed a habit of waking hours before dawn. I knew what was coming, knew I couldn't stay awake, so I'd sit there and cry. Father would come and sit with me, to rock me back to sleep." He'd tell her stories, or sing to her, and try to hide the ache in his eyes.
"Once, just once, he had what he thought was a nightmare. He woke feeling crushed, heart pounding, covered in sweat. I was having my usual fit, and he–" She stopped, unhappy to be describing this, though she couldn't remember it at all. "My parents didn't exactly have an easy time raising me. I think the helplessness must have been the worst, beyond the sheer exhaustion involved in these morning performances. They learned early on that trying to touch me when It woke me would invoke a new level of hysterics. I would scratch and kick, even gave my mother a black eye. That morning, my father looked at this screaming brat he was struggling to raise – and threw me across the room. He remembers being overwhelmed by a wave of revulsion, violent aversion. I don't think he's ever forgiven himself for it, for all that he only managed to wind me."
She sighed, wondering why she felt guilty, and whether she should feel angry. "This was well before I had the words to properly explain what I felt each morning. When I finally was able to describe what was happening to me, he remembered that morning and spent years wondering whether that was a reason or an excuse. But he only felt it the once, and since he's not here it's hardly an experiment we can reproduce."
"You miss the relevant detail, Magister." To Gentian's astonishment there had been something in her tale that had sparked off Aristide's vivid appreciation of the ironic. His eyes were full of it, though he was polite enough to maintain an otherwise solemn expression.
"And what's that?" she asked, struggling with hurt hostility. She did not find her childhood the least bit funny.
"That he was asleep!" Aspen almost shouted it. "You said he woke up, flung you away. You must have both been asleep. And what you felt, he felt. I bet that's an experiment none of your parade of healers thought to try: getting in bed with the patient."
"Contagion," Aristide agreed, less boisterously. "And sympathetic magic. Basic principles which I should not have overlooked. Given our sheer lack of progress so far, we must certainly explore the possibility. Not this coming morning, since we cannot predict the effect of this weakness on the results, but the next will do."
Gentian discovered herself appalled. "You don't have the Varpatten sensitivity," she pointed out, very carefully. "You can't expect to repeat my father's experience."
"We will discover if the key was the person, or the situation." He was the essence of bland logic.
"I don't see what it would achieve, either. We're not trying to establish what I feel, but where it comes from. And how to stop it."
"Contagion is something I do have divinations to detect." His eyes glittered with unholy enjoyment. "No Magister, if we are to escape this place, we all must make our sacrifices. If you would join me an hour or two before dawn? That should allow me a chance to sleep again, should you wake me. I will leave the door ajar."
He stood and offered her a most eloquent courtesy, then strolled out. Gentian stared after him.
"I'm sorry. I have to do this."
Aspen leaned over the bed and, gripping her by the upper arms, pretended to shake her. "By all that's sacred, Gentian, I could strangle you! Two days ago you were gaping at the Diamond like you'd never seen a man before. The most delectable and unapproachable creature in all Darest, and you wanted him. Now, tell me if I've gotten this wrong. Tell me if there was some tiny fragment I failed to notice. Did he or did he not just say he thought it a good idea if you climbed into his bed? Were you or were you not just handed a written invitation to wrap your arms about him? I have been trying to get That Man to look twice at me for years, and you don't see what it would achieve?!"
"Please stop shouting."
He was instantly contrite, holding out his hands as if he could somehow stop her head from reverberating. Gentian ignored whatever he said next, closing her eyes and just breathing for a little while. When she opened them he was sitting in the chair beside her bed, hands folded in his lap like a child waiting for a scolding.
"That was inexcusable," he said, much subdued. "I'm sorry."
Gentian waved a hand to put it behind them, then sat considering this handsome creature who relished every moment of life and who Aristide would not look at twice. "Tell me about his lovers," she said, knowing she shouldn't go into this, especially when she was at such a low ebb, but the day stretched out before her and she was too fretful to leave well enough alone. "I know there's no-one he's shown any inclination to marry, but who does he trifle with? What are his tastes?"
This produced a strange expression. "Well..." Aspen screwed up his nose. "According to the Court, most recently he's been bedding one of the sons of the Baroness of Leverath. He was seen to talk to the young
chub on three separate occasions, at least. Lord Merik's a very pretty creature, and almost certainly the source of the rumours. That's the problem, you see. Lady Arista now, she used to make a great show of choosing her current fancy, and would reward them lavishly afterward, usually with positions in the Court. The Diamond makes deliberate contrast, doesn't openly favour anyone, and thus, if you believe everything which is said, has slept with the whole of Darest at least three times over. His own people spread half the stories, you see, to hide whatever's true. Winnowing the wheat from the chaff's an epic challenge."
This didn't surprise her. She'd already seen how very private Aristide was. "And the wheat is?"
Aspen sighed. "Even I can only give you the most likely. One's the Captain of the Guard. She's a flinty-eyed, no-nonsense type, tall and strapping and a lot of people discount her for it. But he practices sword with her at least once a week, and I gather they play some kind of tactical game occasionally. For the Diamond, that's pretty much bosom-friendship, if not more. Then there's Vaselte, the most trusted of his servants. There's long been rumours that the Diamond keeps it in his household, and if that's true Vaselte would certainly be first candidate. Ah, the secrets Vaselte could tell, if only he would." Aspen smiled beatifically.
"Soren now–" He hesitated, then shrugged. "The Champion, you know, she doesn't think he sleeps with anyone. Before they destroyed the Rathen Rose, Soren could see everything that went on inside the palace. All the Champions were able to apparently. She says the Diamond didn't so much as breathe on another person in those first weeks after King Aluster's return. And thinks that he doesn't at all, ever, that he's just not interested."
This possibility hadn't occurred to Gentian, and she did not like the dismay it produced. "Do you think she's right?"
"No." Aspen snorted. "I doubt he makes bed-games a priority – the Diamond's married to Darest and always will be – but, I'm sorry, I just can't put Aristide Couerveur and virginal denial in the same room together. Now. Please. Are you going to tell me what flea got into your brain and made you try to turn the Diamond down? You get to go to bed with him!"
A wave of discomfort ran through Gentian at the mere thought. "It's not going to be a romantic interlude." She didn't know which would be worse: trying to sleep beside the person she wanted so much, or waking loathing him. And for what? Another possibility eliminated? Another failure.
"So?" Aspen had no qualms. "All right: he was fairly clearly not inviting passionate adventure. And one thing I can tell you about the Diamond is that you don't go leaping on him without encouragement. There's a few at the Court who learned that to their cost. But you get to hold him. Instead of languishing from afar, you can languish right up close. That Is Not A Bad Thing."
She wondered if Aspen ever saw anything but the best possibilities. "What would you do?"
A faint, dreaming smile. "Surprise him with propriety. Focused on the task, doing nothing but what is correct. But, you know, I sleep naked. And I'd be there. Wrapped around him, all warm and inviting. You never know what might happen."
When Gentian only shook her head, he growled, an exasperated little noise. "All right then, look at it this way. If he really wants to try to divine contagious magic – the transference of something happening to you to someone you're in contact with – wouldn't it make infinitely more sense for him to detail me to snuggle duty? Rather than set a divination to run while he's sleeping?"
A good point. She allowed herself for a moment to enjoy the possibility that Aristide desired her. He had, at least, stopped glittering at her, and treated her more like a colleague than an opponent. But– "I think he wants to feel It," she said. "After all, he's been fighting It as long as I have. The poison in Darest's heart. It must have come as almost as great a shock to him as it did to me, to give It a name."
"He's been fighting the malison, not the taint." But she'd given him pause, and he frowned at her. "Why in the world, if you're so keen on the Diamond, don't you make the least shift to fix his interest? Compliment him a little, act glad to have him around, compose a few love songs. Show some faint measure of enthusiasm when he invites you to his bed."
"Because I don't want that, Aspen."
He rolled his eyes. "Stop changing your story. You're the one squirming at the thought of snuggling up against him. Were you quizzing me about his love life out of pure intellectual curiosity then?"
She looked at the candle again, thinking about her father, about her parents and the joy they found in each other. The day felt longer than ever.
Aspen shifted impatiently. "Don't tell me it's just that you don't want to chase him? I'm not saying he's not an incredible challenge and more besides, but are you really not even going to try? What about this Gentian, Gentian meek and mild thing? Ask politely and change his mind."
Memories of Atlarus and Aurak Tel's imperious commands made her grimace. "Those rhymes are amusing, but don't reflect who I truly am. I know my limits. And I will not fight for Aristide. Not because I think that impossible, but because I can't succeed."
"Gah!" Aspen pulled at his hair in dramatic exaggeration. "You're not making sense again."
"I am. What could I do, if I pursued Aristide and won him? He's part of this land, part of Darest. Literally bound to it, if it is true he has some form of Crown bond. He would never leave it, and I couldn't ask him to. And I can't stay."
"Can't or won't? Why are you so keen to give up? I swear, you're the most bloodless of creatures. Why not aim to find this monster of yours? Fight it. Win."
"Is that what you plan to do, Aspen?"
She could see he'd not even considered himself in the context of the battle. "I–uh." He frowned at her, then recovered. "I'll do whatever's asked of me, but I'm only a 'prentice here. You need to have more confidence in the Diamond."
"Do I? We are all of us nothing to the kind of power we face, 'prentice or great-mage. We are senserel before their god-king. Don't you see? If we are right, if It is trying to get in here, get to Suldar – who could destroy us with a thought – then It must be greater than Suldar even. Or Suldar would not need to fear."
She glanced at the window, watching the march of the day. Soon night, then the inevitable waking. "Dawn. Aristide is many things, Aspen, but even he cannot hold that back."
Chapter Fifteen
It had not been a good day under the mountain. Aspen's elbow ached because a certain mage had dropped him without warning to the floor. The appalling spectacle that followed, of Gentian hurting herself and the Diamond letting her, had only been made worse by the later reflection that she preferred that to the way she usually woke up. The question she'd asked him after, about what he planned to do to combat Dawn, had stayed with him all morning. It wasn't as if he even wanted to sleep with the woman. There was no need to go trying to prove himself useful to her as well.
Then, to truly sour the morning, Prince Chenar had decided to chain a Phoenix.
Leton had met up with Aspen and Rua after breakfast, but only to tell them the prince had ordered him to see to the reestablishment of the functional enchantment of the Saxan's base. He'd been perfectly matter-of-fact, without any of the insult, the outrage, which should accompany a sword-dancer seeing to the plumbing.
It hadn't helped that Leton had dismissed Aspen's immediate offer of help, and sent him and Rua off to explore houses on their lonesome. Or that, beneath his usual dry efficiency, he'd looked uncommonly concerned about something other than bathwater.
Then Rua had finally made it clear that they would be the more boring sort of friends in future, and Aspen had been left to look at the shells of people's lives and try not to think about all the nasty possibilities. In fact, the only bright point of the day had been the Diamond inviting Gentian to bed.
Now that was something he'd never thought to find himself thinking, but how could he resist such a truly delicious development? Not that he believed for a moment that the Diamond would turn tomorrow's experiment into something really worth wat
ching, but Gentian's squirming had been marvellous.
A pity she'd spoiled Aspen's enjoyment by refusing to take advantage of the situation. And by looking unnervingly like someone had just stepped on her. Which was why Aspen, instead of cleaning up after dinner, was in the library of all places, hunting about for picture books.
With an audience. Aspen had always been good at knowing he was being watched, so he was able to turn without surprise to discover Jurasel leaning against the library door.
"A little bedtime reading?" The prince's voice was lazy, but his eyes glinted with curiosity and suspicion.
"For Gentian. She's bored out of her mind, so I'm trying to find something with drawings of plants."
"Heard she'd done herself some damage." Jurasel looked thoughtfully around the shelves lit by Aspen's magelight, then reached down a few books from a top shelf and flipped through them. "Here," he said, offering one to Aspen.
Not only pen and ink drawings of leaves and flowers, but occasional pages beautifully painted in colour. Aspen was impressed: the Pirate was quicker with the Fae language than at least half the valley's captives.
"I take it Couerveur's experiments aren't going well?" Jurasel asked next, not keeping back a certain pleasure.
Pretence was pointless. "We've made a negative kind of progress, I suppose. No, that doesn't work. No, that doesn't work. No, that doesn't work. Our list of things that don't work is getting nice and long. A bit repetitive, but, well, we have to get a few points for persistence."
"Keeping score are you?" But the man shook his head, his smouldering intensity replaced by a reluctant appreciation of captivity's twists. "How are we supposed to keep up old rivalries when all we want is for your master to live up to his reputation?"
"You could throw an even more lavish party," Aspen suggested brightly, and won himself laughter.
"You're not what I would have expected from an apprentice of Couerveur. How long have you served him?"
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