The Dark Ferryman

by Jenna Rhodes

  He gestured. “Lara’s kingdom is fair. What do you see, even on this gray day as the sky teases us with a hope of rain?”

  She knew from the days Lariel and Jeredon had spent with her what she should see, the elements that ran like fine threads throughout all the firmaments that existed, that her Vaelinar eyes were remarkable orbs that could recognize the very being of what they looked upon, and there were days when she did see just that . . . for a fleeting moment or two. It was not something the Vaelinars saw constantly, but they did recognize it when they focused upon it, and depending upon the talents and skills of their bloodline, they could manipulate the threads of those elements. Sevryn was the only one of Vaelinar blood who did not have the multihued eyes and yet held the magic within him. For that reason, he was invaluable to Lariel who was one of a handful or less who knew he had skills. Others, such as Bistane, dismissed the possibility of certain potentials within him, and in his position, it helped to be overlooked and underestimated. Yet, after the night, she feared to touch those threads of the elements.

  “I don’t see as you do, Lord Bistane,” she admitted reluctantly.

  “But you can?”

  “Upon occasion.”

  A fleeting expression passed through the deeps of his brilliant blue eyes. He made an almost imperceptible move toward her saying, “It would be a pity to have inherited our eyes and not our powers, although there’s that in you, as many have said, which is not altogether Vaelinar. . . .”

  Sevryn turned slightly, blocking Bistane’s path, saying, “Have a care, lord.”

  He drew himself up. “No offense meant, milady Rivergrace.” He turned away from both of them, hiding his face as he repeated his question mildly, “Then what might you see on a day like today?”

  She looked beyond the yards, beyond the paths and graveled roads fencing off the manor from the lands, and across the fields and groves as far as she could see, cloud-laden mountains on the far horizon. What she observed cut her to the bone, and she would not have spoken it aloud, but something compelled her. “I see,” she said slowly, “a dark and tangled net lowering over us.”

  A stunned silence followed her words and then Bistane forced a laugh. “That will remind me not to seek answers which I should not have!” He turned back, with an easy grin on his keen features. “You have your jest, milady, and well done. Someone has already told you that it is Tressandre ild Fallyn who rides in, no doubt. I’ll leave you two to chuckle at me while I go see if there’s anything left in the kitchens for a second breakfasting.” Smiling yet, he moved past them and away.

  Sevryn’s hand unclenched from her shoulder and slid down her back where he rested it. “He is a Vantane for a reason,” he remarked quietly.

  “I wasn’t making fun of him.”

  He turned her about so he could look down into her face. “It lightens my heart to see you. Forgive me for not being with you these past few days.”

  “And I should not be here now.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “It’s not often that I see fear in your face.” She put her hand up and cupped the side of his bruised jaw.

  “Perhaps it is reflected from yours.” He covered her hand with his, cold from the shower water and rough from his training.

  “We’re both bothered. You begged me to come to you, and now you’re staying away. Were there consequences? Did Lara find out? Does she send you out every day to get beaten like this?”

  “If she has, and I imagine she did, this is her house, after all, she’s said nothing. It’s not her will that keeps me in the arena.” His jaw tightened under her touch. “This is something I must do.”

  “I’ll admit I know little of training for war. It’s not the apple picking I was raised to do . . . but I do know that, if you’re picking apples, you don’t do it by climbing the ladder and throwing yourself to the ground as hard as you can, over and over.”

  Sevryn chuckled in spite of himself. “I’ll try to keep that in mind.” He released her hand.

  “Keep this in mind as well. I have three brothers. I remember well that when one was bothered, he’d nudge the others until a brawl erupted. Hosmer always says there’s nothing like a fight in the dirt to clear the mind.”

  “I should remember that you are a font of Farbranch wisdom. I’ll ask you to remember that there are things I must deal with, in my own way.”

  His solemn gray eyes watched her face closely. “We’re together then, and yet alone.” She withdrew her hand from his face slowly.

  “It’s best that way.” He took a step back from her, and she thought she could not bear that, the distance he wanted to put between them. They had come from places so far apart to find one another, and now he seemed to hesitate. “Can I give you a warning without hitting your Dweller stubborn streak?”

  “It’s a streak that’s served me well, but Tolby raised no fools.”

  He nodded. “Stay clear of Tressandre. She’s not coming here on Lara’s bidding, and that alone will have the two of them at odds. I can’t say why she is here, only that it is likely not to serve anyone’s interests but her own.”

  “Why open the border to her, then?”

  “Lariel can’t afford to shut out an ally, even one as unpredictable as the Stronghold ild Fallyn. You were fortunate that she didn’t notice you at the Concords last summer, but now she knows of you and little good can come of that. You are a puzzle to the Vaelinars, and they have little patience with enigmas. You don’t want to be caught in a power struggle between the two of them.”

  “Surely she isn’t coming for me.”

  “I doubt it’s for that reason alone, but . . .” he paused and shifted his weight.

  Rivergrace caught a hint of intuition. “She knows you.”

  He did not answer for a very long moment, and then said quietly, “Yes.”

  It struck her. She didn’t mean it to, but it did, and she caught her breath for a moment after finding it rough in her throat. She could not be like a child in this; she had known Sevryn had a life far beyond hers, and some of it had been very rough indeed. He would not speak of those years locked away in his memories when he had been imprisoned by Quendius, but she knew those years would haunt him forever. He did not stand now with Tressandre, but with her, and that should be enough. She made a slight gesture as if wiping away a sign written in the air between them. “That is past. I understand that.”

  “She may not.”

  “I trust you.”

  His gaze slid away from her briefly. She found that more chilling, more deadly, than the embrace of the River Goddess. She touched his face. Bruises lined his eyes, physical proof of the burdens he already carried. She didn’t want to tell him, but she had to. “I have to tell you this, then,” she said, unsure if he would heed her. “A warning, if you will take it, because I don’t know what else to call it. The River Goddess haunts me, from the rivers I once found safe to my very dreams. She implores me to return something I’ve stolen from her. I have nothing, nothing, I swear to you, but she threatens you and all the others I hold dear. Believe me, if you can, and stay clear of fresh water. Stay out of her reach. She touches me when nothing else can, and I don’t know what I can do yet. Please believe me and keep yourself safe.” She tucked one arm about herself, like a shield, preparing for his rebuttal.

  “Is this a threat from her . . . or from you?”

  “Sevryn, how can you say that to me? Why would I threaten you?”

  “Because I haven’t pressed Lara to do what’s right.”

  “Wasn’t it you who told me we have what we have with or without her?”

  His gray eyes looked hard as granite and as unmovable. “I might have said something to that effect.”

  “And you meant it.”

  “As much as you mean it when you say you love me.”

  She pulled her other arm over her first, doubling her shield. “You sound as if love is a weapon.”

  “It can be.” He touched the back of her wri
st. “Or it can be a better shield than flesh and bone, steel and stone.”

  “Against what? Disbelief? It seems not.”

  He took a short breath. “Forgive me, aderro. I am not . . . myself.”

  “Listen to me, then. A Goddess hunts us both. I can’t do what she asks of me because I don’t know how.”

  He looked her in the eyes again and gave a bitter laugh. “Then you know why I can’t be around you. The Gods conspire, it seems. Cerat whispers in my soul, and he wants blood, a lot of blood, and most of all he wants yours.” Sevryn turned half away. “I hoped it was only a nightmare. It seems we are God-and-Demon-touched, Grace, our souls pitted against their power, and I can’t tell you if we have a hope of standing against them.”

  “Not alone,” she whispered.

  “No. Not alone, we don’t.” He reached out again to grasp her hand tightly for a moment before letting go harshly. “I’ll send word to you later.” He broke away from her, shoulders bent, moving away briskly, and he did not look back.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  THE WIND BROUGHT in the late morning storm, along with a thunder of hoofbeats and shrill whistles punctuated by sharp cracks of a whip. Riderless horses ran with the grace of those who know they are fleet of foot and admirable of beauty, their ears pricked high and their nostrils flared to drink deeply of the wind. They galloped down the lane, scattering waterfowl and farmer boys ahead of them who had come to gawk or been caught asleep at the edge of the pastures, and they snorted with amusement, their forelocks, manes, and tails flying as they ran. Behind them, standing in her stirrups, long hair bannered behind her as wild as any mane, rode Tressandre ild Fallyn, her arm brandishing the whip which she cracked now and then to keep the herd on the main lane, her colors of black and silver flowing about her as she drove the band ahead of her. Behind her cantered lancers and cavalry and bowmen, all in the colors of Stronghold ild Fallyn, all of them looking as if they drew the storm with them like a cloak swirling down upon the estate.

  Jeredon rocked back a little in his cart with a muttered word that neither Rivergrace nor Nutmeg caught. Nutmeg stared as though entranced, and Grace thought of their Dweller brothers and how they had fallen under Tressandre’s spell on one Spring fair day. That was the day raiders hit the small village of Stonesend and Nutmeg nearly died.

  “Does she know how beautiful she is?” Nutmeg murmured.

  “Oh, she knows. She’s had her hooks in all of us at one time or another, I’ll wager.” Jeredon watched the ensemble clatter into the yard, the free horses pounding and stamping to a halt, milling about with their heads thrown up and the whites of their eyes showing a touch, their hooves gleaming, as if they, and not the front, were the storm before the rain.

  Rivergrace glanced to him. “Sevryn . . .”

  Jeredon’s attention came about. He frowned at her a moment before leaning out of his cart and sweeping a rock off the garden wall at his elbow. He tossed it to her. “That is a rock,” he said. “Hundreds of years older than you . . . perhaps thousands, if rocks are what we think they are. Yours is not the first hand to hold it. Can you blame it for the hands of others who might first have picked it up, shaped it, built with it, or cast it aside when it had no way of knowing about you or that your hand might cup it more fairly, more lovingly, than any other?”

  “Are you saying a man is as blameless as a rock?”

  “Somewhat. And most of us are as clueless.” His gaze swept over Nutmeg casually before Jeredon swiveled his cart about to face Tressandre as she curbed her horse to a prancing walk, the mount blowing a little with exertion as it sidestepped toward them, one wary eye on the man in his contraption. Nutmeg’s hand dropped to the back of the cart behind Jeredon where she gripped it, knuckles whitening.

  Rivergrace replaced the rock into its niche in the garden wall and dusted off her hands on her skirts as the beautiful Vaelinar rode near, and reined to a halt. Her vibrant green eyes seemed to take no notice of anyone but Jeredon. She tucked a long strand of wild honey hair behind a curved ear.

  “Good day, Jeredon Eladar. You look well. Your hair is wet. Has the rain hit here before us for a while?”

  “Good day as well, Lady Tressandre, and no, although I think the storm rides your heels. A little rain would be refreshing. I’ve been swimming for exercising.”

  Tressandre laughed at him, her voice full of promise more than that of merriment, and her green upon green eyes held a knowing glitter. “A better man than I! Any creek hereabouts will be too cold for my blood.” She assessed Grace then quickly, but her gaze lingered on Nutmeg for quite a long while as Jeredon explained about a mineral pool with heated waters. Tress removed her attention and coiled her whip with neat, graceful movements. “As you describe it, then, a swim would be quite refreshing. Perhaps I might be invited next time?”

  “Most assuredly. What have you brought us? Green-broken horses?”

  “Only the best from our lands but far from wild. These riderless are archer-trained, for the queen’s bowmen. I heard your force was cut down and that you were training new men. We thought this humble gift from our Stronghold would help in your endeavors while my brother Alton answers the muster as we ild Fallyn were directed.” She gave Jeredon a look through slightly lowered, thick eyelashes.

  “If only armies marched as fast as rumors fly,” said Jeredon dryly, “then we would have Diort surrounded within the day.”

  “Rumor only, then? My apologies if my spies were so poorly informed.”

  “Not misinformed at all, to my misfortune. I sent off a troop of lads I thought well-trained, and they might have been on an open field with battle lines, and not shot at from behind the nearest tree. They were too bold and forgot that they exposed themselves every time they set themselves for a good shot. I’ve been trying to make amends.”

  Tressandre tied her whip to her saddle as she gave her reins over to one of her lancers. “Amends are not necessary,” she began, “We only thought to lend our aid.” Her voice faded as one of Lariel’s stable lads dropped a corral pole, and with a sharp whistle, headed her horses into pasture. They responded with snorts and kicks and tails flying, dashed into the grass enclosure where winter’s bitter touch had barely grazed the greenery. Expressionless, she watched her charges sprinting away, letting her finely chiseled features show only her beauty and not her thoughts. When the eager whickers and whinnying died away, a new voice cut through the air.

  “Tressandre ild Fallyn. I thought I heard the sound of spurs and whips.”

  She looked back over her shoulder idly; one hand twitched as she dropped it to her thigh where her fingers stroked the haft of a sheathed dagger. “Bistane Vantane. I thought I smelled the stable yards. Or is it the middens?”

  “If anyone would know the smell of human velk, it would be you.”

  “I missed your escort at the border.” Tressandre did not turn further, continuing to watch Vantane over her shoulder, her gaze veiled by the fall of her dark honey-colored hair over her brow and down her shoulder and back. Disdain outlined her brow.

  “I turned back in disappointment when I saw that the only ild Fallyn who could fight was not among your group.”

  “True if you look for the only one who fights on your level. Alton has gone east, as ordered.” Tressandre turned on her heel, then, her gaze sharp upon Bistane. “He would have preferred the chance to even old scores, as no one wishes to ride into battle with more enemies at your back than before you.”

  “He would know the proper placement of traitorous enemies, that is certain.”

  “Tell me, Bistane, does such bitterness damage your singing voice? It surely must.”

  Bistane made a dismissive gesture. “I sing well enough when there is no blade in my flank.”

  “That must be difficult since your back is usually turned as you run away.”

  “A Vantane is generally too busy on the field to run or to notice whose back is turned which way, something a coward must do at a distance.” Bistane’s
words dropped coldly. They stared at one another.

  Jeredon coughed. “Truce, the two of you.” He put his hands up, leaning forward in his carriage chair.

  Bistane’s lip curled into a half smile as he took a step back from Tressandre, and when he spoke, his tone had become light again. “Why, it has been truce for a century or so, has it not, fair Tressandre? How the seasons scatter before a beauty such as yours.” Bistane leaned upon Jeredon’s cart. “Have a care with this instructress, Jeredon. Her prowess with a bow is indeed without match. She cheats, of course, but that does not make her or any of the Stronghold less effective an archer.”

  “Cheats? How?”

  Bistane smiled thinly at Nutmeg’s outburst, as though all of them had overlooked her for the moment. “By virtue of her Vaelinar Talents. Perhaps she will demonstate for you, Mistress Farbranch.”

  Tressandre’s nostrils flared ever so slightly as she looked down on Nutmeg. Her lips parted a little as if she considered an answer and dismissed it, saying instead, “Jeredon and his nursemaid will get ample evidence as we move to join the muster.”

  “My orders,” Jeredon said tightly, “are to remain at Larandaril.”

  Her eyebrows flew up in surprise in what, Rivergrace thought, might be the first natural expression she’d seen on the woman in the past moments.

  “The queen doubtless has her reasons.” Bistane thumped a hand on Jeredon’s shoulder in sympathy.

  “The queen wishes to keep a guard here.”

  Tressandre’s face settled into a mask of hard beauty. “Perhaps she needs a demonstration, as well, of my particular Talents.” She reached to her back and withdrew an arrow. She dropped it, but it did not fall. It hovered in the air in front of her. “The Stronghold of ild Fallyn can will an arrow stronger, harder, and truer than any other. So, too, I can drive the queen’s infirm brother.” And she looked to Jeredon who began to rise without his stirring a muscle. “I can bring a king to his feet.”