Three Coins for Confession

by Scott Fitzgerald Gray

  Chriani stood by as the Aerachi broke camp, the sun bright above the fields to the east but the world around them still in shadow. Darkness hung to the south where the distant Greatwood lay. He noted again the difference to the light in Aerach, remembered sensing it first when he led the Brandishear squad out from the Clearwater Way. He recalled the dawn in Rheran, blazing above the sea like an eruption of bright fire. He remembered sunrise on the frontier, bursting above the dark stain of the forest like molten gold. The dawn of Aerach was muted, though. The land here seemed to embrace the light, releasing it only grudgingly. As if that land longed to cling to the shadow of night for as long as it could.

  He heard the order to saddle up, saw his horse being led toward him. He tried to find Kathlan within the chaos of movement as the rangers prepared to ride, but she was nowhere in sight. Madoc was there, though. Chriani noted the ranger’s queasy expression, the dark lines beneath his eyes. He couldn’t find it in himself to care.

  He was on his horse, stepping into place between the four riders assigned to flank him, when he saw movement in the distance.

  To the far northwest, a ripple disturbed the shadow that clung to gently rolling fields. Riders on horseback, moving quickly. They were faint still even to his eyes, Chriani knowing that no one else in the troop would see them.

  They heard the horn, though. Two short blasts that sounded out faint on a rising wind. Rangers returning.

  The sound of hoofbeats quieted as Captain Shara held a hand up at the front of the troop, all eyes turning. The horn sounded out again. Chriani caught Shara’s glance back toward him as the captain circled his hand overhead for a change of course. The sergeant at Shara’s left sounded a horn twice in response as the troop turned as one to the northwest, cantering off as the sun finally broke away from the ground below.

  It was five riders, all in the livery of Brandishear. They were tired, the well-run look of their horses suggesting that they must have set out well before dawn. The Aerachi rangers slowed to a halt, spreading out as the Brandishear squad came within their midst. Chriani didn’t know any of them, though he recognized the livery of the Bastion guard.

  “Iarva,” the sergeant called as she saluted. “Are you Captain Shara out of Teillai?”

  “Indeed,” Shara said. “What business is this?”

  “A message from the Prince High Chanist, for your eyes.” From the pouch at her belt, the sergeant retrieved a sealed envelope, passed it to the captain. “We were told you’d be riding from the Ghostwood and were meant to be waiting for you last night, but we were delayed. Ilvani are all across the Clearwater Way. I’m glad we didn’t have to ride to Teillai to catch you.”

  Shara broke the seal on the envelope and unfolded the message within. He read it silently.

  “Kathlan. Bragan. To me, please.”

  A ripple of uncertainty spread through the Aerachi rangers, Chriani feeling it.

  He recognized the war-mage he’d seen in the Ghostwood as the other sergeant Shara had called. He hadn’t bothered to learn his name before. Kathlan slipped up from the back of the troop, riding wide around Chriani to reach Shara’s side. He showed her the letter first, Chriani seeing her read it quickly. She nodded, her face a mask.

  To the war-mage, Shara nodded. The mage spoke unheard words, a pulse of pale light surrounding the letter in Shara’s hand. Most of the Aerachi rangers made the moonsign. The captain didn’t.

  “Chriani, approach.”

  The silence as he spurred forward past his guards hung like a shroud. He stepped his horse up slowly, stopped two paces away. Shara nodded to him before he read the message aloud.

  “This letter confirms, by the words of the prince high of Brandishear, that Chriani of the prince’s guard, regiment of Rheran and the Bastion, is engaged on a mission to infiltrate the Ilvani war-clans.” He spoke to let his voice carry, every eye in the troop on him. “For purposes of diplomacy and the safety of the realm has this mission been undertaken, with knowledge limited to Chriani, the prince high of Brandishear, the Captain Ashlund of the Bastion in Rheran, and those three sworn to absolute secrecy in this matter.”

  As Shara shifted in the saddle, Chriani could see the message. He recognized the writing as Chanist’s own hand. He had seen it enough times, on documents and notes and commendations, all piling up on the rough shelves in the quarters Barien and Chriani had shared for ten years.

  “As a Half-Ilvani with ties to the Greatwood, but whose loyalty to Brandishear and its crown is above reproach, Chriani has been ordered to take the guise of an Ilvani agent of the Valnirata, and to seek access among them. On orders of his prince high and for the manner in which the truth of this mission might imperil diplomatic efforts between the Ilmar Principalities and elements of the Valnirata, Chriani was not to speak the truth of his mission under any circumstances, even to the point of saving his own life at trial. So do I, the Prince High Chanist, speak it for him.”

  Something twisted in Chriani’s gut. Kathlan still wasn’t looking at him, but he saw the trembling in her hands, at her jaw. He understood the weight of the burden suddenly leaving her. The weight she had carried as she came after him, all of it slipping away now.

  “Chriani is absolved of all guilt for actions committed in the name of his duty to Brandishear, by request of the Prince High Chanist, and with dispensation from the Prince High Vishod, who speaks for the Duke Andreg under whose service Chriani’s duties in Aerach have been done. Chriani is to return to Brandishear at once.”

  Shara folded the letter thoughtfully. He looked to Chriani like he wasn’t sure what to say. In the crowd of rangers around them, Madoc beat him to it.

  “This is lies and Brandishear bastardry!” the warrior snarled. “What proof do we have of where these so-called orders come from?”

  Shara turned to his ranger with a dark look, but it was the war-mage Bragan who spoke. “I have the proof, master Madoc, and you’ll watch your tongue. The message holds the arcane seal of Vishod’s court at Aleran, magically marked alongside the arcane seal of Rheran.” The mage’s expression suggested how rare such a thing must have been. He spoke an incantation again, Shara holding the letter up this time so that all could see the two arcane sigils that flared across its writing.

  Chriani was watching. He thought he saw the quickest flash of a third mark. A flower of five petals, etched in lines of white light. The same sign of protection Irdaign had placed on him.

  “Chriani.”

  He looked over to where Shara had a knife out, nodded to his bonds. He stepped his horse closer to let the captain cut the ropes, shaking his hands out as they were freed.

  “Pick your horses and arrange for a change of gear,” the captain said as he appraised Chriani’s Ilvani leathers. “We’ve all got riding to do.” He nodded then to him and Kathlan in turn, but his gaze lingered longer on her. Chriani saw a sense of respect there that reminded him again of Barien. He tried to think on what Kathlan had done, the lengths she’d gone to, to bring the captain and his troop to Chriani’s rescue.

  The rest of that troop shifted away now, the rangers waiting in silence as Chriani and Kathlan prepared to take their leave, just like that. She was at Shara’s side, talking quietly as Chriani changed into the Aerachi uniform and leather provided for him. He felt eyes on him as he stripped off the Ilvani armor, packed it carefully into the saddlebags he’d been given for his horse. He didn’t care.

  He pulled off the tunic that Farenna had cut away to reveal the war-mark at his shoulder. He felt that war-mark catch the warmth of the sun for a fleeting moment as he pulled a clean tunic over it. He found the cut ropes that had bound him, carefully unfurled a single cord from one section. He used it to tie his hair back and low, covering his ears. A sense of things going back to the way they were, even as Chriani understood that everything had changed. Futures seen and unseen, Veassen had said.

  His secret was known now, and a strength and a sense of freedom like he’d never felt before was surging in him
as a result. But he didn’t know how long any of it might last. Understanding that he was stepping back into a life whose parameters would change because of what others knew about him. Understanding that he owed a debt to the Prince High Chanist whose terms remained to be resolved. Remembering Kathlan’s anger and the shadow drifting deep inside him. All the things he’d been afraid to tell her.

  For weapons, Chriani secured a dirk and smallsword donated by Madoc on Shara’s orders, along with a spare shortbow from the captain’s own saddle. Shara also returned Dargana’s bloodblade to him, wrapped tight in oilcloth.

  “Thank you for your hospitality,” Chriani said to the captain when he was ready to ride. He thought of asking to give his thanks as well to the Duke Andreg, but the words stuck in his throat.

  The captain simply nodded as he turned away and spurred off east and north, the troop falling in behind him.

  The Brandishear couriers had further business in Aleran, and so rode with Chriani and Kathlan only a short distance before breaking off to the north, leaving them to make their own way back home. The two of them continued along a succession of farm tracks bearing steadily northwest, shadowing the distant border with the exile lands.

  Chriani remembered the courier’s words about Ilvani on the Clearwater Way, wondering what it might mean. The remnants of the lóechari dispersing, perhaps. Or the scattered Crithnala hearing of the cult’s fall and slipping back to the south, pursuing the Calala as they fled. Ashlund would need a full report, he thought, feeling himself falling back into a sense of his own service and duty with a strange familiarity.

  He remembered having been banned from the frontier by Captain Rhuddry, wasn’t sure how best to deal with that. He started by telling Kathlan, though, confessing the results of his hubris that day.

  “It’ll work out,” was all she said.

  They were going back to Brandishear. Chriani told himself he wouldn’t think on any of the reasons he had to return to Aerach. Not a secret anymore, or not from Kathlan at least. But just something for another day.

  It was a two-day ride to Werrancross, and Chriani filled much of it with talking. He told Kathlan what had happened to him and Dargana, sharing every smallest detail of their flight through the forest with the Ilvani, and of the hidden city and the councils that followed. He told her of Taelendar, and was surprised at the emotion that twisted through him in response to his own words of the warrior’s end. He told her of Farenna and of Dargana falling, and of how the Ilvani captain had fought against the curse that consumed him. How he’d saved Chriani’s life.

  That first day turned to cloud threatening rain, so they sought shelter at a farmhouse in a small steading just past a railed wooden bridge that crossed the Hunthad. With them both in Aerachi uniforms, they were welcomed with open arms by the matron whose farm it was. With her four grown children, she treated them to a meal that might have been the best thing Chriani had ever eaten, even if it hadn’t come at the end of a long road.

  The farm had two guest rooms used for summer laborers, both of them set up with fresh linen and basins of hot water by the time dinner was done. Chriani would have preferred to share a room with Kathlan, just to hold her after the ordeal that had separated them. But he felt the exhaustion in her that matched his own, and an emotional distance between them that he knew would do better with rest.

  He also knew he had one more thing to say to her. Knew that it would be better said by morning than by night.

  On the next day’s ride, Chriani told Kathlan of the cult. He told her of being captured, feeling himself drawn back to the well of shadow as he spoke, the memory sharp and cold in his mind. He told her of how the cult’s magic built on memory, repeating what he’d learned at the council, what Dargana had told them in the Bastion throne room when it all began. He felt the fear in her that was the only natural reaction to such things.

  He talked of Dargana’s memories laid down alongside his, and the strength in her that had saved him. Then he told Kathlan of what had come before that, not spoken yet. Dargana’s last words to him, and how Chriani thought now that she must have been already dead when he heard them. He told her of not knowing what it meant that it had happened that way, and of being afraid. Kathlan made the moonsign as he spoke.

  Chriani told her finally of the assassin and how she had saved him. How he was sure she had dragged him back from the black well’s edge. The offer she’d made, and the choice he’d made in return.

  “I know my path,” he said. “I came back for you. I did it for you.” Echoing the words he’d whispered in the aftermath of the battle, while Kathlan held him and he clawed his way back from dead.

  She squeezed his hand hard as they rode on in silence. Said nothing in return.

  That night brought them to the outskirts of Werrancross, and to the same inn the Brandishear squad had occupied on a night of rain nearly two weeks before. To Chriani’s mind, it seemed so much longer. They shared a room and a bed, and he felt a hunger in Kathlan throughout the darkness of the night that set a brightness burning in his heart and mind. Watching her as she sat astride him, as she cried out beneath him, her shadowed features shining in his eyes.

  They woke early and in silence, setting out as the grey dawn rose. A haze of mist and low cloud hung to blanket the city where it spread to north and east. Chriani and Kathlan made their way toward one of the patrol way stations set up where the north–south trade road forked out to mark the beginning of the Clearwater Way. These were riding posts where merchants and other travelers could wait for the patrols of Aerach and Brandishear, traveling alongside them for safety. Though both he and Kathlan had riding bows, even with a packhorse carrying arrows by the barrel, Chriani wouldn’t have dreamed of taking the Clearwater Way alone.

  They didn’t know how long they’d have to wait, so they sat close along a stretch of meadow grass while the horses cropped. Kathlan’s hand was in Chriani’s still, the rawness at his wrists where the ropes had bound him already responding to some Aerachi salve she’d given him from her saddlebags. She was still silent, watching the grey sky.

  Chriani told her the last thing he had to tell her then. The thing he’d told Dargana. How the blade of Caradar that had seemingly started all this — had brought him to the Ilvani’s attention and into their sights — was with Lauresa. How he had given it to her to give to the daughter he would never know. He felt the pain of each word as he spoke it like broken glass on his tongue. Afraid to say it. Knowing how he had to.

  “Thank you for telling me,” Kathlan said when he was done. Chriani heard the pain twist in her voice as he kissed her, hoping in some way that he might draw that pain away from her. The last thing he had needed to say, done now.

  He would have no secrets. Not anymore.

  The thud of hoofbeats marked the arrival of an Aerachi patrol at the way station. In addition to Chriani and Kathlan, two merchants with a pair of horses each were waiting for escort, along with what looked like a trio of noble’s couriers.

  The six rangers nodded to each of them in turn as the others mounted up, Chriani and Kathlan standing, walking to their horses hand in hand. Their fingers parted only as they each climbed up to the saddle.

  “I’m sorry, Chriani.”

  He had paced away toward where one of the merchants was sharing a wineskin with the rangers, all of them laughing. Kathlan on her horse stood behind him, hadn’t moved. He reined to a stop, turned back toward her.

  “You need to go back,” she said. “Ride safe.”

  The chill of distance was in her voice, and a strength that said these were words she’d been thinking on for a while.

  “Kath, what are you doing?”

  “Staying, Chriani. You’ve got your life back. You’ve got your road to follow. Ride it well.”

  “No.” He kicked his horse forward to step beside her, reached for her hand but she backed away.

  “Don’t do this,” she said. “Don’t make it harder.”

  “It’s not…”
Chriani felt his mind fumbling for words. “I don’t understand.” But even as he said it, he realized he did understand. The words came back to him from the tent three nights before, locked in his memory but distant. Not focused on in the moment, for the sake of all the other things he had needed to focus on.

  You need to run, Kathlan had said. You need to get away. Not we. Just him.

  “If I had fled that night, you were planning on staying,” he said numbly. “Right from the start.”

  “No, Chriani, I was planning on running, same as you should have. I didn’t plan on sticking around for them to understand I helped you, then invite me to share your traitor’s fate. But I wasn’t going with you. I can’t go with you. Not anymore.”

  Behind him, one of the Aerachi rangers whistled. Chriani turned back, waved to let them know he’d heard. With the courier and the merchants in tow, the squad set off at a trot toward the west.

  “I’m no traitor, Kath. You have to believe that. I didn’t plan the attack, I didn’t call for…”

  “Fate and faith, Chriani, you’re a fool twice over. I know who you are. I’d trust you with my life, rank and uniform or not.”

  Chriani felt the words carry through him with a strange echo. He remembered that last night along the Hunthad, and understanding that he trusted Kathlan with his own life. He had vowed to say it to her that night, but the words and everything else had been taken from him.

  “Then what…?” It was the only thing he could say now. Too late for all the rest.

  He saw it in her eyes before she spoke. Saw the pain there that he knew was greater than any hurt he’d ever known. The truth he’d told her, and all the truths that split off from that.

  “At Osthegn, when Irdaign found me. After talking to Lauresa, waiting for the troop to assemble. I saw the girl. Your daughter. Only from a distance, mind. She’s beautiful.”

  In the space deep inside him where the shadow dwelled, Chriani felt something break. He reached for Kathlan again but she stepped her horse back with no more than a flick of her toes.