Ria and Lavinia were side by side, feet buried in the sand as they had as girls in Mirocyne. Neither of them even glanced down the wharf he stood on. Lavinia rocked sideways, nudging Ria with her shoulder. Ria smiled bashfully. Quickly sober, Ria picked up a pebble and threw it at the water.
“They pulled the boat yesterday morning. You should have seen it. Niri floated it on a tide she created while the Kith rolled the logs forward. It was really impressive.”
Ria’s voice floated across the water. Lavinia’s soft laugh was barely louder than the breeze.
“I’m starting to think you wouldn’t mind being an Elemental.”
Ria tossed a pebble with a bit more force. “Huh, it would have been easier.”
Lavinia was silent for a second, eyes downcast. “You should have seen Niri’s face when you saved my parent’s boat.”
Ria glanced round at Lavinia. “Really? She was impressed?”
“Very.”
Ria glanced up across the harbor with a smile pulling her lips wide. Ty couldn’t remember the last time he had seen that look on Ria’s face. He blinked rapidly, the rope tying the skiff to the dock forgotten in his hand.
Ria’s smile changed to a smirk. She nudged Lavinia with her shoulder.
“He’s looking at you again.”
Lavinia blushed a rosy pink. She glanced up through her lashes towards the boat where the Kith worked. Darag’s eyes caught Lavinia’s, a smile flashing across both their faces.
Ty cinched the knot with force. His momentary thought of joining Ria and Lavinia evaporated. He leapt onto the wharf without another glance toward the Kith or Ria and his sister. As his feet left the wooden dock, he turned his steps away from the inn and wharfs to head along the ramshackle wandering paths of Drufforth towards where its edges were lost to rocks and forest.
Ria’s voice followed him.
“You like him?”
“Yes, a lot.”
“I think he likes you too.”
Ty wished for all his heart for the noise and bustle of an Archipelagic city.
CHAPTER 19
LESSONS
Darag repositioned Lavinia’s hand.
“For this defense you need to have your hand lower, here. That way you can take the force better and not lose your grip.”
Lavinia nodded, her eyes narrowed with concentration. Sweat stuck a strand of her dark hair to her brow. Darag resisted the urge to brush it away.
“Like this?”
Lavinia moved forward, dancing through the series of moves with a fluidity that only came to most after years of practice. Darag grinned.
“Yes, only now try it against me.”
“I never win against you.” Lavinia’s voice was a bit petulant, reminding him of Beite. But Lavinia moved back to the first position. She held the sword in perfect form.
“That’s because I already know what you are going to do.”
Lavinia went rigid, her eyes widening. Then a slow smile spread across her face. A wicked twinkle lit her sky blue eyes.
“Really?” She drew out word.
Darag’s chest constricted with warmth, a laugh escaping with his exhale. He smiled down at Lavinia with a reckless grin while his heart beat as if they’d been practicing for hours.
This time he had to be quick to counter her blade as defense slid to offense. She knew it too, surprising him with a quick thrust. His block overextended her reach and he gently knocked the blade from her hand. Despite the loss, she was grinning. Darag shook his head, a smile remaining on his lips as well. She was always surprising him.
Turning to walk back to the center of the small clearing, Darag realized that they were not alone. Cuileann had approached without his notice. A cold wave swept through Darag with sudden self consciousness, displacing the heat from the moment before. Darag stood stiffly as Cuileann walked forward with a slight swagger.
Lavinia had picked up her sword. She glanced towards Darag, a line forming between her brows when she saw his expression. Her gaze followed his, widening when she focused on the Kith.
Cuileann’s golden brown eyes swept over Lavinia. He tossed Darag a slight nod. Darag inclined his head a fraction but he held ground in the small clearing. Cuileann’s eyes flashed back to him, the corners crinkling with a crafty smile.
Beite rarely went a day without mentioning Cuileann. He wasn’t old enough to choose, nor was Beite anywhere close to being old enough herself, but it didn’t keep Beite from dreaming or Cuileann from flirting. Tall with light brown patterns across his skin, red brown hair, and golden eyes, Cuileann received a lot of attention. In Darag’s opinion, it showed.
But he was a skilled fighter. As he walked across the clearing to join them, he casually shaped a practice sword from a stick. Lavinia raised an eyebrow, her expression far from impressed. Darag had to suppress his smile. Lavinia was not Beite.
“Lavinia, I don’t know if you’ve met Cuileann?”
Lavinia stood an arm span away from Darag’s shoulder. Her head tilted up as she paused for the space of a breath, taking Cuileann’s measure. The difference in her attitude from the moment before pleased Darag. He kept his face lowered to hide his smile, watching Cuileann and Lavinia’s interaction with upwards gaze.
Lavinia’s brows flicked together. “I’m not sure?”
“Well, I’ve seen you.” Cuileann brushed off the lack of recognition.
“You fight as well?” Lavinia asked, taking more interest as she nodded towards his sword.
Cuileann gave her a winning smile. “Of course.”
“So, how am I doing then?” There was doubt hidden under the touch exterior Lavinia gave Cuileann as she crossed her arms and met his gaze with raised brows.
“Not bad, but it should be more like this.”
Cuileann spun through the moves Lavinia had just executed. She watched carefully most of her initial reserve falling away.
“See, your hands move here. Grip the sword so.” Cuileann walked forward, placing his hand on Lavinia’s. He pushed her arm forward and slid the other hand down.
“You see?” Cuileann’s face was very close to hers. Darag swallowed and looked away.
“Yes, I think so. Let me try it against you.”
Cuileann grinned. He poised forward on the balls of his feet, his wooden sword held at ready. Lavinia did not hesitate. She strung together the skills Darag had shown her over the last few days and mixed them with some ideas of her own. Lavinia moved smooth and fast.
Cuileann blocked one thrust, startled. He countered the next two, but as Lavinia changed her tactics he stepped back. Lavinia hooked her sword around his, sliding the wooden blade along the top of his while twisting the point underneath. With one movement, Cuileann’s sword went flying from his hand. He stared at her in shock. Lavinia smiled brightly. There was an edge to her look.
“I think I got it.” Lavinia’s voice was wry.
For a moment, Cuileann looked miffed. Then he slowly started to smile. He glanced at Darag out of the corner of his eyes.
“Yes, I think things have worked themselves out pretty well here.”
Cuileann nodded again to Darag, this time his golden eyes twinkled. Without another word, Cuileann turned and took his leave. Darag stared at the leaves on the forest floor. His heart hammered in his chest while something tight strangled his throat. There was a thought that he did not want to acknowledge on the periphery of his mind.
“Are you okay?”
Darag shook himself. He smiled down at Lavinia, the automatic response warming to something more personal without his intention. She stood only a foot away. The top of her head reached just to his shoulder, he noticed.
“Yes, a break?”
Lavinia nodded, joining him when he sat on a rock next to the stream.
“Did I do something wrong?” Lavinia asked timidly after a moment of silence.
Darag barked a laugh. “No, not at all. I’ve rarely seen Cuileann so surprised.” Darag chuckled, pushing aside the implic
ation Cuileann had left behind.
Lavinia smiled and relaxed with a sigh. “That’s good. Sometimes I don’t know what I’m supposed to do here.” She paused and looked over at him. “Why do you know how to fight. It seems so peaceful.”
“We only fight to protect our trees and our homes. If we need to, we can fight very well.”
“Beite said your father died years ago. I’m sorry,” Lavinia said softly.
Darag glanced down to the stream. The ache was old but still present. “Yes, his tree caught a illness. One that Laith Lus had not seen before. We could not cure it and when the tree died, my father died.”
Lavinia blinked rapidly, the only movement she made for a moment. “Niri said that you were bound to a tree at birth. You fight to protect your trees . . . your life is bound to them.” Lavinia’s voice was soft with new understanding.
Darag looked at her steadily. It took a second to overcome the resistance in him. But Lavinia had to hear even if it changed what she thought or felt. What she shouldn’t feel, he reminded himself. If she did.
“Yes, Kith are bound to a tree that sprouts at his or her birth. The parents plant it and only they and the child know which tree the child belongs to. We age as the tree ages. We die when our tree dies.”
Lavinia looked around her at the massive forest. “You live as long as your trees . . . .” Her wide blue eyes returned to Darag. “How old are you?” The question was barely a whisper.
Darag looked swiftly away, his skin flushing. He did not look at her as he mumbled, “sixty-two.”
“You’re sixty-two?” Lavinia’s voice was incredulous, rising over the tumbling stream.
Darag blushed again. “Comparatively, it is not so very old. The trees can live to be over six hundred years. Laith Lus is nine hundred and eighty-six.”
There was no sound from Lavinia for a moment. Darag felt frozen, waiting for her to move away, to go back to her friends in Drufforth.
“So, comparatively, I’m actually older than you.”
Darag looked back at her abruptly to find laughter in her eyes and a smile on her lips. “You are enjoying that, aren’t you?”
Caught so completely off guard, Darag started to chuckle as well. Something loosened inside of him, a part that he had always thought solid and impenetrable.
Laughter bubbled out of Lavinia, a growing cascade rising in a release. In tears, she leaned against Darag, gasping for breath. He found himself holding her loosely, laughing as tension left him. Her shoulders shook against his chest with her silent mirth.
“I thought that would bother you more. That our ways would bother you more.”
Lavinia shook her head, occasional giggles still escaping. “I’ve been chased by a magical dragon Curse that wants to eat my friend, who it turns out has powers the Church wants to destroy and found out that my brother hasn’t been where he said he was or doing what he was supposed to be doing while actually doing a few things that were far from honest. Really,” Lavinia said looking merrily over at Darag. “This is the most peace and fun I’ve had in weeks, years maybe.”
Seriousness pulled at Darag’s lightheartedness, calming the giddy fluttering in his heart. He reached out and brushed a lock of hair behind her ear, his hand lingering on her cheek.
“I want to know everything. What you’ve been doing. Where you grew up. How you ended up here.”
“Over lunch?” Lavinia’s bright smile was hopeful.
Darag pulled Lavinia to her feet. He led her high along the paths of Lus na Sithchaine, slowing as they approached a house nestled in the upper branches of a great tree.
“This is yours,” Lavinia said as she stepped around where he hesitated.
He saw his house with the mix of an outsider’s and familiar eyes. Every line was purposeful yet graceful. It blended into the branches of the tree not as a batch of mistletoe like so many of the aerial houses, but more like it was part of the tree’s choosing to have changed its shape. Darag had always been proud of that.
But it was not a house from the Sea of Sarketh where Lavinia was from. It was not white marble with tiered windows or stucco warm from the sun. Lus na Sithchaine with its far flung and varied living houses was far from the cities of her people with large dwellings built next to each other above sparkling seas. The thought struck him with a moment of vertigo.
Lavinia entered before Darag, pausing a pace into the first room. She pivoted like in a sword lesson on the ball of her foot as she looked around. With easy grace, Lavinia walked to a branch thrusting out below a window. She sat, pulling her knees to her chest as she leaned back against the wall, at home instantly in the tree top abode.
“I see why your sister is jealous.”
Lavinia continued to look around the room. Light dancing in the leaves overhead glinted on the inlaid glass that composed the ceiling and sent patterns across Lavinia’s skin. Darag left her there with the image of her curled on the bench captured in his mind. Her neck curved as she gazed upwards in a line matched by the branches behind her while she sat in a room that was full of moving light but somehow eternally still. He found food through familiarity rather than sight.
When he came back, Lavinia had not moved. She took the sandwich of vegetables and spread, eating without comment. He sat on the other end of the bench where he usually perched when he needed to think. This time not a thought could form fully in his head.
“I cannot believe you do not find us odd.”
“Am I odd for not finding you odd?”
Darag laughed softly. “Perhaps. You promised to tell me where you came from.”
Lavinia nodded. “Do you know anything of the cities along the Sea of Sarketh?”
“Yes, I’ve been there.”
Lavinia’s eyes focused on him. “Really? You can leave? I mean, you’ve left?” Her cheeks stained a faint rose.
Darag chuckled, glancing away. “Yes, we can leave. It is unusual to desire such. It is uncomfortable to be way from our trees, like we are missing part of our souls.” Darag paused, “And only I and Suileag know which tree is mine, so who is to watch it for me? But yes, I’ve left twice. The first to the cities along the Archipelago and the second to those along the Sea of Sarketh. I will understand what you tell me.”
Lavinia’s eyes brushed his face, taking in his eyes and running across his cheeks. It was a close look, intimate enough that Darag could almost feel the light touch of it on his skin. Lavinia leaned back against the frame of the window and started to tell him of Mirocyne.
The sun had shifted by the time she was done. He had watched the expressions that crossed her face, reading the story as much as hearing it. For a moment the room was silent save for the rustle of the wind in the leaves.
Darag sat with his back to the window, both elbows propped onto the pane. “This magic your friend has . . . I wonder if Laith Lus has known of it? If that is what Whef’aylpah, Niri,” he corrected with a smile and glance toward Lavinia. “I wonder if that is what she has been speaking to Laith Lus about?”
Lavinia’s eyebrows raised. She got to her feet the same instant as Darag, the air buzzing with energy between them. They took the paths down to the clearing at a good clip, but it was later then they had realized. By the time they made the clearing, shadows had overspread it. The bench where Laith Lus and Niri had so often been talking the last few days was empty. In the dimness of the clearing, lights were waking up while a few Kith began to gather for the evening meal.
Lavinia was bent over, struggling to catch her breath. She had one hand on Darag’s arm. He cupped her elbow in the palm of his hand. Nuin and Cran Laoibhreil glanced over, matching smiles marking his friend’s faces. Cuileann’s look when he ceded the clearing flooded Darag’s mind. Darag swallowed hard.
“We can find Niri tomorrow. You should get ready for dinner. It will be cool tonight.”
Darag stepped back, dropping her arm. She stood up, a line between her brows as she looked at him.
“Will you be there tonig
ht?”
Darag didn’t look at her. “No, I will find you tomorrow.”
He blended into the darkness between the trees without a backward glance. There was no order to his thoughts or the tangle of emotions in him. He knew of only place to find the peace and time to sort them out. The path up to the aerie was deep in the forest or required him to cross the clearing into the gathering crowd. He would have to walk past Lavinia. He headed into the woods.
“Why?”
The voice halted him. He sighed.
“It isn’t your concern, Beite.” Only his sister would know where he was going and be able to find him so easily.
“You like her. It is obvious. She likes you. I don’t see why you are running away.”
He turned to see Beite’s pale form on the path behind him, arms crossed as she leaned on her left leg. Though slightly built, her expression was powerful and stormy.
“What do you expect? Me to choose her?”
Beite’s arms uncrossed and she stepped closer to her brother. Darag gritted his teeth against the suddenly yearning that welled up in him tangled with the memory of Lavinia laughing in his arms. His eyes stung.
“It isn’t that easy. Don’t you understand? She does not know our ways or what it means. It doesn’t always work out. You wouldn’t want that for me?”
Beite cast her eyes downward and kicked at the moss with her toe. Darag saw her bite her lower lip and felt guilty for the reminder of their mother’s loneliness.
“This isn’t some game, Beite,” he said more gently.
“She won’t know if no one tells her.” Beite sounded sullen. Darag sighed.
“You could at least stay and have dinner with her. She likes it when you are around, I can tell. And the other boys don’t bother her half as much then. You don’t want her to choose one of them, do you?”
“She won’t.” Darag said it with sureness, but a hollow opened in his chest.
Beite was watching him. “You won’t even stay and go to the dance with her in two nights, will you? It only comes when the greater moon is full. The next time it happens she won’t be here! She’ll only be in Lus na Sithchaine another ten days.”
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