She’d wait and make sure. If the noble had left with Tarak, he wouldn’t get far and Ilythra could find them. Her priorities had changed. Crioch and its keeper were near.
* * *
A nearby torched flickered and spat. Bredych stood motionless, shadows moving over his body, unseen in a doorway of the great hall. She was here. He closed his eyes and felt her presence and the resonance of her stone. Ilydearta. Welcome, old friend. I’ve been waiting for you.
She looked up, scanned the room and turned back to the king. Her eyes were intelligent, perceptive. She must be suffering Farial’s inane babblings as much as he had. Oh, it was tempting to step into the light, to watch her eyes dilate with fear when she realized who he was. Fear? Yes, perhaps, but after seeing her in person, he knew it would be more than fear that quickened her heart. You’re searching, restless, and I know what would ease the pressure from your shoulders. Ilythra, you’re a bit more complex than even you know. The urge to step forward, to take the first bite, doubled. But no, everything was in place, had been meticulously planned, and it wasn’t in his nature to deviate from a course of action.
Ilythra, Wanderer. Is the mantle too much for you, child? She wore what looked like a blacksmith’s coat and a rough cloth cloak. Her dark hair fell in a braid down her back. Shadows rimmed her gray eyes. She resembled a trader more than a keeper of one of the ancient stones. You don’t even know who you could be. He recognized her companion, a Benai. He could have laughed. Interesting and so much better. Even fate worked toward his ends. Oh, you’ll find your brother. I’m done with him. In fact, I’ll give him to you as gift.
He hated to leave but even untrained as she obviously was—Zeynel, you lost your touch—she would detect his presence if he lingered. Besides, the second act was about to begin.
Chapter Nine
“Do you know someone at court?” Farial bent his head closer than necessary to be heard over the rumble of conversation around the table. His mouth and beard shone with grease.
She fought not to wrinkle her nose at his sour breath. Platters lay scattered across the table, empty of all but a few bones, and servants scurried to clear them while others circulated pastries or set delicate sugared creations in the center of the table.
“No, Majesty.”
“You keep looking around as though for someone.”
“I’ve never seen such beautiful tapestries,” she lied.
“Our women make them.” The king kept his gaze on Ilythra. “Nice, aren’t they?”
“Yes, very.” Teann had changed; the dissonance was fading. Crioch was leaving. She pushed her chair back, an excuse for leaving the table on her lips.
Suddenly, a hush fell.
A slight man stepped near the dais. Even from the distance, Ilythra could feel Mohan tense and knew it was Tarak.
“Ah, the Poet,” the king boomed. “Now you are in for a treat.”
In the silence, Ilythra heard a dog sniffing under the rushes, a sharp yelp then silence. She met Mohan’s gaze and shook her head once.
The man stood still. His clothes were fine, not those of the Benai, but tailor-made with refined material. Even so, they hung on his thin frame as though designed for someone twice his size. His dark hair hung limp around his face. She searched for but failed to find any resemblance to Mohan.
Without looking up, Tarak began:
“Tired flowers
Bent with age
Once proud heads
Brought low.
Rain-slicked leaves
Noble offerings lay
Trampled by feet
Who do not know.
Death and life,
The two embrace
And hope lies
In between.
For who can say
Beneath the sun
That death
Is not complete?”
Silence lingered as the images crafted from his words faded back into the realities of the castle, as though he were a magician casting a spell.
Even Farial was silent for several heartbeats. “Another!” the king boomed.
Tarak’s expression didn’t change as he recited another poem. The light of a nearby torch flickered, and she saw the light reflected in his eyes, eyes the same blue as Mohan’s but dead of any emotion.
Applause filled the room when Tarak bowed to Farial then the lower table. If he saw Mohan, there was no evidence on his face.
“Why is the Wind forlorn?
Though she keeps company
With the trees?
Why does she moan...”
Tarak hesitated, his face losing color. He moved toward the king, his mouth opening but no sound issuing from his pale lips before he collapsed in a heap at Farial’s feet.
Gasps and whispers of alarm filled the room. The king stood. Ilythra rushed toward the fallen man, only beating Mohan by a moment. She turned Tarak over, feeling for a pulse. It was there but weak and erratic. She lifted his eyelids, and the pupils contracted sluggishly. His hands felt cold and clammy.
“Damn it,” the king swore.
Ilythra didn’t know if he was concerned about the Poet or his ruined entertainment.
“Can you help him?” Farial asked.
“I can try.” She darted a look around. “I need my bag.” Why did she let them take it?
Farial clapped, and servants rushed forward. “Take them to the Poet’s room.”
Mohan bent down, lifted Tarak and followed the porter up curved stone steps to the next level of the castle. As they left, the king muttered something about Bredych bringing sickness to his realm.
“What’s wrong with him?” Mohan asked as they followed the porter through chilly hallways hung with tapestries. His voice was thick with emotion.
Tarak bore little resemblance to Mohan, save for the dark hair and high cheekbones, but on Tarak, they looked sickly and weak. “It looks like malnourishment but...” She was finding it hard to breathe. The air had grown too thick for her lungs.
“Are you okay?” Mohan asked. He glanced around, his eyes narrowed as though expecting the man who did this to his brother to appear at any moment.
Ilythra nodded. “He could have been drugged.”
They passed through a wide, curving hallway lit by rectangles of light from high narrow openings in the outer wall. Halfway down another corridor, the porter stopped in front of a door, opened it and stepped aside. Mohan rushed in and laid Tarak on a large, carved bed. Ilythra paused. A faint scent lingered in the air, something she’d smelled on Tarak but disregarded. It was stronger here in his rooms. It wasn’t unpleasant. Some kind of herb. One she wasn’t familiar with. “Does your brother wear a fragrance?’
“What?” Mohan shook his head. “No, not that I know of. Why?”
“Can you smell something?”
Mohan sniffed then shook his head. “No, nothing. Is he going to be all right?”
She brushed aside the drapes enclosing the bed. “Open the window.”
Mohan removed the wooden shutters. Tarak lay on the linens, his face waxen and pale.
“I’ll need water. Make sure it’s clean,” Ilythra said.
Mohan nodded and tested the water in a pitcher on a low table by the bed. “Tastes okay.”
A knock sounded on the door. A young boy poked his head in. “I’ve brought your pouch, milady. And your other gear.”
Mohan took their swords and Ilythra’s pouch from the overburdened boy.
“His Majesty says to tell you that his larder is at your disposal. Anything you need to heal the Poet, you may have,” the boy continued. “I’m also to tell you the room two down from this is being made ready for you.” The boy glanced to Mohan. “If other arrangements are needed—”
“No. Tell His Majesty thank you,” Ilythra interrupted.
The boy bowed and left.
“That was generous, considering he harbored a kidnapper.” Mohan’s words dripped sarcasm as he handed her the medicine pouch.
“He didn’t know. The king’s afraid of some kind of plague,” Ilythra said.
Mohan paled.
“No, no, I don’t think that’s what this is,” she assured him. “He has no fever, no rash of any kind...”
“Then what is it?”
“I think the answer lies with a Lord Bredych. Can you find out about him—” Ilythra shook a few drops of liquid into a cloth, “—after I see if we can bring your brother around?” She held the cloth to Tarak’s face.
Tarak jerked, moaning low in his throat.
Mohan neared. “Tarak, it’s me, Mohan. You’re okay now.”
Another moan. Tarak’s eyes fluttered. He stared at his brother as if trying to focus, and then shut his eyes.
“I’m not going to risk waking him again. Tell whoever is waiting outside that I need hot water for tea and some broth.” She paused. “And Mohan—”
“Yes, I know. Try to find out about one Lord Bredych.”
* * *
Mohan returned with earthenware containers wrapped in cloth and carried in the crook of each arm. He placed them on the table by the door. “Did he wake up?”
“A few times, but not for long.”
“Do you know what’s wrong with him?”
She stared at the prone man, wishing, not for the first time, she was a true healer and could impart some of her essence—take his sickness into her body. Ilythra shook her head and prepared tea. Soon, pungent spices graced the air.
Mohan sat at the end of the bed. “According to the kitchen staff, Lord Bredych was called away on urgent matters, leaving his young second cousin to King Farial’s generous nature and your capable care.”
Ilythra checked the tea’s temperature. “Interesting.” Who was this Lord Bredych, and what had he done to Tarak?
Mohan yawned then shook his head as though to stay awake. He hadn’t slept any better than she had.
“Get some rest, Mohan. I sent the boy away without checking with you. Do you want your own room?”
“Are you kidding? If I didn’t bunk with you, he’d put me in the servant quarters.” He pulled his hair back from his face with his fingers and released it from its short queue. “I’d rather go sleep with Tashi. But not yet. I couldn’t sleep now any more than you could.”
Ilythra regarded the Benai. Dark smudges made his eyes all the more startling blue. Free from the constraint, his hair teased his shoulders. Mohan had beautiful hair. Dark with golden highlights. “Fine. You’ll sleep with me. The king doesn’t know that Tarak is not contagious. For that matter, neither do I. Either way, you’ve been exposed and I could use your help.”
Half of Mohan’s mouth raised in a parody of a smile.
“You let that one go. Now I’m worried.”
Mohan’s smile blossomed, revealing white teeth. “Maybe I am off my game a bit. Can you blame me?”
“No, I can’t. Will you lift Tarak so I can get this tea down him?”
Together, Mohan and Ilythra fed him the tea then half the broth at intervals when Tarak was awake enough to swallow. Mohan lit candles to fight the darkening gloom. Color seemed to return to Tarak’s face, but he still lay prone and unresponsive on the bed.
Ilythra stroked the hair away from Tarak’s face. So different from Mohan’s but with its own charm. Mohan yawned again. His eyes were drawn and tired. “Why don’t you get some sleep?”
“I don’t think I could until I know he’s out of danger.”
“I’ll be here. Healer’s orders. I can’t take care of both of you.”
Mohan grinned. “Letting that one go too.” He glanced from where Tarak lay on the bed to Ilythra. “You need sleep as well as I do.”
Ilythra nodded toward a chair. “I’ll doze in the chair. Wouldn’t be the first time, doubt it will be the last.”
Mohan grumbled something under his breath then said, “Please go get some sleep. I can stay on the chair and will let you know if he needs you.”
“How will you know?”
“I’m not an imbecile.”
“You’re not a healer either.”
“If he wakes up, I want to be here.”
Stubborn Benai. “So do I.”
Mohan held up his hands. “Truce.”
A knock sounded at the door. A maid curtsied then set a tray with bread and stew on the table.
Mohan shrugged. “I don’t know about you, but I’m not hungry.”
“I’m always hungry, but your brother could use all the nutrition we can give him.” She broke off a piece of bread and dipped it in the stew. “I’ll wake him. You feed him?”
Mohan nodded.
Ilythra picked up the cloth she’d used before, sprinkled a few fresh drops and held it to Tarak’s nose. This time, the Benai’s eyes fluttered then opened. He stared at her in confusion.
“I’m Ilythra, Tarak. You’re going to be okay.”
Mohan approached. “Loafing in bed, little brother? I don’t know about you, but I’d call that lazy.”
One edge of Tarak’s mouth lifted.
Ilythra stood from the bed and indicated for Mohan to take her place.
“Here, buddy, eat this.” Mohan fed the bits of bread soaked in stew to his brother.
Tarak didn’t say a word but watched them with furtive eyes as he accepted each bite Mohan offered.
The Benai was as gentle with his brother as he had been with his troupe’s children. He would make a good father someday. “Get some sleep,” Mohan said to her. “I’ll stay with him. If I need you, I know where to find you.”
A wave of dizziness disoriented her for a moment. Maybe she was more tired than she thought. Tarak closed his eyes, once again, sleeping. There was nothing more she could do for him. Ilythra turned back to Mohan. “Fine. But come get me if he wakes up.”
“I will.”
Ilythra nodded and moved down the hall to her room. As she passed a doorway, she stopped, sniffing the air. Ilydearta beat in slow, steady strokes. The air thickened. She knocked once on the door, not expecting an answer, and then pushed it open. There was nothing unusual about the room. An ornate bed on one wall and a bedpan under a table with a water pitcher on top, both clean. Ilythra walked slowly around the bed then closed her eyes to taste Teann. The dissonance was immediate and jarring. She jerked, opening her eyes. She focused somewhere in the space between herself and the bed. Teann pulsed with Crioch’s presence. Here in the room next to Tarak? Anger burned away the exhaustion. Blinking, she ran her hand over the bed’s headboard. “You were here.” She walked to the other side of the bed. “But you ran. Why?” Was he afraid of her? The trader now had a name, and not just a trader, a noble. Lord Bredych.
The scent in the room was familiar, not stronger in one area than another. As though someone wearing very strong perfume had touched every surface.
“Everything that has happened is imprinted on Teann.” Zeynel’s words when he taught her that with the right discipline, you could sail the winds of Teann and look into the past, especially the past of a stone keeper. Could she do it? Zeynel had never had the opportunity to show her how. Should she try? She settled in the middle of the bed and closed her eyes. This time, she was prepared for Crioch’s dissonance. She moved through it, like swimming through rapids.
What had Lord Bredych done to Tarak? If she was right, and every instinct screamed she was, Bredych was the stone keeper. That meant he was capable of almost anything. He’d starved a young boy. Sent mercenaries to kill an entire village, to kill Zeynel. She set aside her anger to steady her breathing and sank into Teann, felt it
encompass her until she was a part of it. It moved through her veins, beat in her heart.
An image formed. A dark man sat with Tarak—they were speaking, but she couldn’t hear what they said. The dark man reached out to touch Tarak’s cheek. There was gentleness in the caress. The image faded.
A wave of nausea hit so hard Ilythra lay on the bed, waiting for it to pass, but it grew stronger. She rolled to the floor, retching into the chamber pot, then wiped her mouth and stood. Out of the room. With shaky steps she made her way into the hallway and leaned against a tapestry until she felt her equilibrium return. She hesitated before walking back the way she came. She needed to go back to Mohan. The scent she’d smelled on the bed coverings was the same scent that had lingered in Tarak’s room.
* * *
The door opened. Mohan reached for his sword as Ilythra slipped in. He’d seen that expression before. She was not just thinking, her mind was churning.
He leaned back and affected a casual demeanor. “If you missed me that much, why’d you leave?”
Ilythra scanned the room, searching for something. Her gaze drifted over the prone form of Tarak, lying in the bed.
Mohan straightened, pretense gone. “What it is?”
“I don’t know, but something’s not quite right.”
“My brother is lying there in a stupor. Of course something’s not right.”
She shook her head. “Mohan, the man who took your brother is the man behind Danladi’s kidnapping.”
“The Rabishi?”
“No. The trader who convinced two of the tribes it was the right thing to do.”
Mohan’s heart jumped. Ilythra had told him what the trader did to the little boy. His gaze flew to his brother. Ilythra had saved the boy. She’d save Tarak too. She had to. “So this trader specializes in kidnappings?”
Shawna Thomas Page 10