Bones of the Fair

by Host, Andrea K

"Well, brother." Seylon Heresar was at the door, a wolf sniffing out weakness, fixing unerringly on Gentian's still figure. "We've been sent to discover why you must keep such hours," he said, after a slight pause, "but perhaps I'll ask instead if you would like any help."

  The Diamond dismissed the latest shield before turning to answer, his face still revealing little but distraction. "It seems we will need it. Thank you, Seylon."

  At least the man didn't gloat, just nodded and stepped forward. A thrill of relief ran the course of Aspen's spine when Leton followed him in, offering up one of his clipped little bows as he made that brief, comprehensive survey of the room. "This goes beyond spell backlash," he observed neutrally.

  "Yes." The Diamond recounted Gentian's history, adding the latest fillip about the sea-fetch. Again he didn't look at the bed while he spoke.

  "A sea-fetch is a uyruk-kedai, yes?" Leton's mouth was flat with distaste. "Harbinger of an enemy attack, deadly peril. But it does not sound as if this fulfils a uyruk-kedai's conditions. More an unfortunate side-effect than a direct attempt on her life."

  "Perhaps that will come." Seylon Heresar's gaze was thoughtful as it held his brother's. "Well, we will go and settle our lords. Shall I bring Dhara back with me?"

  "Please."

  Something about that distant tone prompted Heresar to lift his eyebrows, but he departed without further words. Leton, ever-correct, bowed his head before following him out. Watching the scene with languid interest, Aloren hummed a snatch of a battle refrain. If Gentian really was being possessed by Selvar, 'settling' their lords would be no small matter.

  Aspen couldn't help but wince at the memory of Jurasel. Wine and kisses seemed centuries ago, and it was a sure thing that the prince, left brooding but replete, almost a friend, would have no trouble remembering old rivalries next time he met a Darien.

  "I'll go get some more chairs," Aspen said philosophically. Two from his room, two from across the hall. He set the one for himself on the side of the window nearer the door so that he could return to the kitchen as needed. And nearly leapt out of his skin when tiny hooks batted his ankle.

  The kitten, of course, lurking forgotten under the furniture. Aspen picked the creature up by the scruff of its neck and glowered into unrepentant periwinkle eyes. What Gentian thought she was doing adopting stray animals he didn't know. It was no doubt riddled with fleas. Then, because it gave him something to do with his hands, he tickled its ears and made it purr.

  It was Aloren's turn to cast the anaur, which she produced with a minimum of effort. She had just drawn a blanket up to Gentian's waist when Heresar, Leton and Lady Dhara arrived.

  "You'll be pleased to know that the question of whether to kill her has been postponed until after we see if she survives," the Cyan woman said, leaping briskly to the point as usual. "I gather that's a bare chance at best, but for what it's worth you have my strength."

  "It may make the difference," the Diamond said, and again Aspen wondered at the withdrawn note in his voice. His every response was off-key, far from his usual precise and absolute self, and Aspen felt like he'd suddenly discovered a glorious castle balanced on a wineglass. The foundations of his world were teetering.

  "My Prince asks that I stay and observe," Leton said then, without apology or challenge.

  Aspen waited for Aristide's habitual faint smile to be resurrected, but "He is naturally interested," was all he said, and turned away.

  It was true the man had never been one to waste energy killing the messenger, but this was still nothing like his normal self. Where was the Diamond's brilliance?

  Leton took a chair, Rua leaned stolidly against the doorway, and Aspen made a third whose role it was to keep quiet through a fruitless cycle of anaur, shield, divination, discussion. Repeat, vary, start over from scratch. Even sitting doing nothing Aspen felt worn. The wait between each and every tenuous breath was enough to drive a man mad, and the scent from the candle Gentian had lit was giving him a headache. He longed to snuff it, but couldn't escape the symbology, only the room. Back downstairs to the sanctuary of the kitchen.

  A scrape of boot on the stair warned him he had company. Aspen wiped his face and glowered at Leton, for that moment not caring about fiery tails at all.

  "Death watch is never easy."

  "It's not a death watch. It's a rescue."

  "Both, perhaps." Leton, unfazed, gestured toward the stove. "Either way, they're out of food."

  "I suppose so," Aspen said, then asked himself what he was doing. Here was this man he'd been wanting all day, this escapee from a bard's epics, obligingly following him about. Moping was completely the wrong response, and it wasn't going to make the least difference to Gentian how he killed the night. Not that Leton looked inclined to play that game. He was altogether a different kettle of fish from the fiery Jurasel, who would accept brief pleasure to keep away ghosts. In fact, Aspen had a nasty suspicion that Leton was a little too like Soren and Gentian.

  Well, for the moment it would be easier to work than do anything else, anyway. "A drawn-out breakfast?" he suggested practically. "I suppose we should cater for the whole valley. They're sure to turn up – either way."

  He headed off before Leton could respond, and lost himself briefly in the task of heating the cook-stone, then cocked an eyebrow for orders. True to his commission, Leton made it another lesson, setting chores with a dry dose of explanation, banishing any suggestion of funeral feasts. And Rua came down to do a little fetch-and-carry and spared them the necessity of returning until the night had almost given up its last gasp. And if he could only stop every second blasted thought from taking him where he didn't want to go–!

  "Eat something yourself," Leton said, when Aspen paused in the middle of filling a tray. "Clear your head."

  It was an unremarkable piece of advice. And Aspen would bet that every man, woman and child who'd ever served under this man had longed for just such a comment, worked to earn his attention, lived for the little flash of glory it brought. For he was a sword-dancer and a leader of men: deadly, detached, every part of him consummately professional, and he noticed.

  "How did you start out cooking?" Aspen asked, desperately needing to think about living things.

  A shrug accompanied the answer. "Military background. Armies march on their stomachs, so on, so forth."

  "But–" Aspen hesitated, since exalted family names like 'Delmar' hadn't actually been bandied about between them, let alone the astronomical price attached to it. "Supply corps?" he extemporised.

  Fooling no-one. Black eyes narrowed, the cynical glint replaced by something best kept to dark alleys. "Magister Calder is entirely too sensitive for comfort," Leton said. Flat, lethal.

  "Now that's an understatement," Aspen retorted, though his heart was racing double-time. This was not where the conversation had been meant to go. "You can at least rest assured that she's got other things on her mind than collecting bounties."

  Pent breath was let out in a little 'tuh'. And then an uncoiling and Leton nodded, and rubbed at his chin. "True enough. We stepped outside the past when we stepped into this one."

  "A thousand years outside." Aspen shut his mouth on this precious chance to chat to a Phoenix, and returned to assembling the tray. He would not dwell on injustice or the question of what came next. He would not lure death to them with words.

  ooOoo

  Between midnight and dawn someone painted shadows beneath the Diamond's eyes. Aurak Bes' proud shoulders bowed, and Lady Dhara and Seylon Heresar seemed to be sharing a migraine. Even Golden Aloren's languid grace was a cut string from collapse. They had been pouring their vitality into a sieve. And none of them, no combination of their brilliance and determination, could produce enough moss to stop it up.

  The Diamond cast the final anaur, timing it to anticipate the precise moment Gentian's sleep would take her, and transferring as much energy as he dared. If he tore wider whatever rent was draining her life, so be it. They would not be able to sustain her m
uch longer anyway, and their aim now was merely to have her survive waking up.

  The sudden influx brought a hectic flush to cheeks that had been grey and waxen, and finally increased the pace of that stop-start breathing. She even moved a little, shifted as she had not been doing for too long.

  But the glow of borrowed strength only outlined hollow-thin cheeks, highlighting the toll the night had taken. Aspen remembered too well the convulsive start she'd given when her hidden stalker had wrenched her out of sleep, how she'd shuddered and gasped afterwards, like she'd been struck by lightning, or been running for her life. Something – any moment now – some dreadful, secret, grotesque wrongness was going to creep up on this husk of a girl, this guttering candle, and scream in her ear.

  Aspen closed his eyes.

  Then opened them, just as quickly. Power. Power was moving, a great wave of it, a cloud-front with no sign, no shred, no drop of intent to explain what it was doing. It swirled around the bed, heat-haze thick, then took on form, some kind of shield, a soap-bubble with a woman inside.

  And Gentian woke. Woke with the smallest jerk of her head, more of a twitch, to lie there blinking at the pearly rainbow surrounding her for all of the moment before it popped out of existence.

  "How...very odd."

  The words were barely audible, and they all leaned forward to hear them, caught in a gust of relief and anti-climax.

  "That was Suldar." It was Lady Dhara who managed to get the words out, looking about as confused as Aspen felt. "Was it not?"

  "There...yes. Between me and It." The breathy whisper was puzzled, wondering. "It laughed at her. It thought it was funny."

  She subsided, overwhelmed either by this latest twist or the effort of speech, and left them to look at each other in complete incomprehension. Aloren, with immense practicality, poured a glass of sweetened juice and, sliding a hand beneath Gentian's head, helped her to drink it.

  "Bring her up to my rooms," she said, directing the order to Aspen. "I will monitor her until she wakes." That slow smile took the rest of them in, a sphinx who was pleased to find a new riddle.

  "And we," Seylon Heresar responded, with a jagged glance directed at his brother, "will exhaust our imaginations trying to find a reason why our Lady Regent might want to rescue her enemy's best catapult."

  The Diamond hadn't spoken, didn't respond, and the chill ghost that had been haunting Aspen half the night raked icy fingers down his spine. All through their time in the valley, all through his entire experience of the man, the Diamond had approached every twist with focused purpose and a level of enjoyment, leaving little doubt that he was equal to each new challenge. Aspen hadn't deep-down believed for a moment that they would end their days in this valley, purely because the Diamond was here, and infallible. He never faltered.

  Aspen did not know what to make of a Diamond who hesitated, so he crossed to the bed and lifted Gentian into his arms. Bones and thistledown. The kitten weighed more. It was entirely against all nature to carry people around in your arms unless you were about to undress them, but the errand was easier than waiting to see if this flaw in the Diamond Couerveur was real, whether he was even going to answer Seylon's question. Aspen escaped, upstairs and away from the impossible.

  "Put her on the bed."

  Aloren had followed him up the stairs, but Aspen found little pleasure following her orders this time.

  "He wasn't even relieved," he said, still at a complete loss. "We just spent half the night trying to keep her alive and he looked – he looked almost like he was sorry she survived."

  "We are beginning to see the role Magister Calder is to play in this drama," Aloren said. She touched a finger to Gentian's cheek. "I wonder if she does?"

  This sent Aspen straight back out the door, but he couldn't avoid the implications, couldn't run from his own thoughts. Just like the rest of them, trapped under this mountain, with no escape at all.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Someone was singing. Drowsy melody, wordless intoxication. It wound into thought, sank under the skin, sewed its way beneath flesh. Suldar's music. For the first time Gentian thought of it as more than a way of reinforcing the shield and illusion surrounding the valley. It was Suldar's purpose, her pulse. An intricate cycle, an endless web that locked her in place. A song of tranquillity and endurance: sanctuary with a price.

  The saecstra. Aristide's hand against her cheek, while the saecstra whispered its vow into her bones. "On my name, then. I will not seek to harm you or your heirs. I will not attempt to gain the throne of Darest at your expense. I will protect and support you." Raised to rule, King in all but name, he had bound himself to serve another. Because it would save Darest.

  Her cheek still burned from that brief touch. She had been somewhere very dark, and he had said her name, and she had gone to him. But when she looked up, she had seen only the Diamond Couerveur. And then Aloren.

  It was Aloren who was singing. Gentian struggled out of leaden drowsiness to a room full of afternoon light, and a golden princess sitting in the window, combing her hair. So beautiful. It was impossible not to look at her without feeling privileged by the experience, without being tangled by want.

  "I was dying."

  "Yes." Aloren looked over at her, still humming in time with Suldar's melody. That languid, impersonal gaze, as if she studied some portrait, interesting but hardly real. "You will be hungry."

  She was, echoing empty. Mages who cast a great deal often had trouble eating enough, but she'd never been this pared back. Strangely insubstantial, as if the previous night had scraped away all but the thinnest layer of flesh. She felt like there wasn't enough left of her to cast a shadow.

  Aloren left the window, and Gentian tried sitting up, finding herself still tired, weary, but no longer weak beyond movement. And discovered a hollow in the bed beside her. She sat with her hand in it.

  "The not-quite-apprentice and the more-than-Captain brought this for you."

  A cake. Though her mouth was parched dry, Gentian automatically accepted the offered slice and broke off a corner to sample. Orange and almond, expertly done. It brought a lump of dizzy gratitude to her throat, this gesture to weigh against the circle of faces that had greeted her last waking, judgment heavy in their eyes.

  "Eat several small meals over the rest of the day," Aloren said, settling on the edge of the bed and handing her a glass of juice. "Nothing too large, but a steady intake. I would expect you to recover strength rapidly with another day's bed rest, but to also suffer a long spell of low stamina." The words were practical, the gaze one of lazy interest. It was like having a honey-coloured panther for a nurse.

  Deliberately, Gentian drank and finished the slice of cake, trying to work out just what had been happening, and pondering her consignment to Aloren's care. Not to mention to her bed, wearing a silky, over-long shirt and nothing else. An awkward setting for self-dissection.

  "You're trying to reach Suldar through her music?" she said instead, and met the full force of Aloren's slow smile.

  "Why search for answers when they are there for the asking?"

  "Because Suldar doesn't answer," Gentian replied, not without frustration.

  "If the situation is as we guess, Suldar has not spoken to anyone for more than a thousand years. And there is this matter of a Ban, and shame on the Fair. Knowing that race, there is every chance Suldar is forbidden from speaking to us about her own existence, let alone this other's. Does the music affect you?"

  Interesting question. "I don't think I feel it differently from anyone else here," Gentian said. "It's not part of the place, but the net around it. The valley's aware of its isolation, but I don't feel anything from the net other than the fact of it. As music – I find it soothing, actually. I keep expecting it to be sad, isolated, but it's...in balance."

  Aloren's molten gaze warmed as she considered this, then she dipped her head and stood. "I will help you down to your room," she said, picking up the cake.

  Braced against
an inquisition into her connection with It, Gentian blinked but accepted the reprieve. She clambered her way out of the over-sized bed, and found standing easier than she'd expected. Gentian Calder, strong enough to wobble her way down a flight of stairs with Ceria's Crown Princess merely in close attendance.

  "You are unlikely to survive a third attempt of this kind," Aloren remarked, putting the cake on the table. "Twice torn and mended, the fabric of your life is worn thin."

  "I'm not planning to try again."

  "No." With another of those slow smiles, Aloren drifted out, leaving Gentian to wonder at the woman's apparent dearth of curiosity. And to chide herself for forgetting to thank the princess. Suldar may have stepped in at the last minute, but Telsandar's kidnapped Magisters had sustained her till dawn.

  Why?

  Aristide could not have escaped making some sort of explanation. They would know that It – Selvar – touched her each morning. They would have taken only moments to connect her return to Darest and their vanishment. To the deaths of their companions back at the Cauldron, and, very likely, the usurpation of their powers.

  Gentian gazed around the room. It felt abandoned. Even the kitten was gone, though someone had been tidying, had made the bed and cleared her collection of glasses away. An excess of chairs kept pushing themselves into view: audience, saviours, jury. What had been said, between explanation and dawn? What had they decided to do with her? Aristide had obviously prevailed against any vote of execution, and Gentian rather thought Aloren had been extending a sheltering wing. Suldar's interference must surely have muddied the waters, but it had to be faced. This angry little group of the overpowerful now had good reason to call her enemy.

  The sea-fetch's drowned eyes looked up at her, and then were replaced by Aristide's. Had he really looked down at her like that? So cold, so distant?

  Gentian shook the memory away, then pushed herself into movement. All her life she'd been losing her war against It, so comprehensively that she'd been routed from Darest altogether. To stay in this room, unhappily alone, would be to give It another small victory. So, a second slice of cake and a comb through her hair before she pulled on one of the cotton shifts she'd bought in anticipation of summer. What was needed was a garden.