Elenai hoped she wasn’t blushing. “I was wondering what you were thinking about.”
“Too many things to count,” he said wearily. He slowly turned his head, the fire catching in his ebon eyes and delineating those faint differences she had only ever noticed in the brightest light. He spoke with gravity, as though he’d made a decision. “But if you must know, at that moment, I was thinking about Rialla.”
“Wondering what she meant about jumping left?”
“No,” he said softly. “I was thinking about how you were right. I never talk about her. And next to N’lahr, she’s probably the best friend I ever had. So maybe telling you about her is overdue.”
That was an unexpected surprise, one that she realized she looked forward to. Yet he sat silent for a long while, his lips pursed. Finally she decided to prompt him. “What was she like?”
That did the trick. He answered immediately. “She was quiet and driven. A little like Varama—but you don’t know her, do you?”
“Not really.”
“She wasn’t … ordinary. Maybe none of us are, especially in the corps, but she was different even from us.” He paused and took a swig from his own wine bottle before resuming. “For instance, she never understood rivalries. You know how naturally they crop up among squires, even when they’re friendly ones. At some level we’re always competing so that we’ll rise to the next level. With her it wasn’t even about perfecting her own abilities, although she wanted that, too. She wanted everyone and everything to be better, and never understood when other people took offense to her suggestions. Especially because she was almost always right. That constantly frustrated her. And so did most people. They were mean to her. Even people who were normally very kind. In their defense, her perfectionism could be pretty infuriating, because she never recognized it as a problem. All she knew for sure was that people didn’t like her, and so she was always wary of them. And she hated to be touched.” His elongated eyeteeth showed in a brief snarl. “Which is why Denaven should have known I was never sleeping with her. Once she was famous and powerful, that hastig suddenly decided he wanted her, and got jealous of me. I was just her friend. And maybe not a very good one.”
“What makes you say that?”
He raised an empty hand, as if he planned to offer an example, then lowered it, saying nothing.
“She obviously cared about you a great deal,” Elenai said. “She’s somehow speaking from beyond to warn you of something that could kill you.”
He nodded in agreement but didn’t look at her.
“I thought you wanted to tell me about her.”
He sighed. “I do.” But for once, the archer seemed at a loss for words.
“How did you meet? I guess that’s a bad question. You probably met as squires. How did you become friends?”
That seemed to be an acceptable topic for him. His mobile mouth worked silently for a moment before he answered. “You know how rough things can be in the first couple of years when you’re squiring. She and I got singled out, a lot. I was sort of probationary for a while because—you’ll find this funny—I had some temper issues.”
“Did you?”
“I’m sure that’s hard to believe. I wasn’t winning any popularity contests as a squire, and I never had as a boy, either. I’m not exactly normal looking.” He took another drink. “So I understood a little of what Rialla was going through better than the others. She excelled in a lot of fields but was always on the bottom rung because she wasn’t very good at interacting with people. You can’t be in the Altenerai if you don’t know how to be part of a team, or how to read other people to lead them. Anyway, we were both regularly judged as coming up short, and promoted only grudgingly. For a while there, Kalandra was trying to drum me out of the corps.”
“Kalandra was?” And yet this was the woman he was mad for?
He smiled at some memory. “I deserved it. I got N’lahr in trouble a few times, too. But you wanted to know about Rialla.” He turned up his hands again, as if deciding something was irrelevant. Perhaps small details, for he summarized. “Gradually she came to realize I had her back, and that I wasn’t trying to get anything out of it. I don’t think the poor thing had ever had a real friend before, and she grew fiercely loyal to me. She even helped me govern my temper with some mental exercises she’d come up with. I lay some of that success at the feet of Asrahn, too, of course. Once I had the ring I learned that he had intervened several times to keep me in the corps. He’d believed that I was improving, you see. And that had a lot to do with Rialla. I figure my friendship with her must be what it’s like to have a sister.”
Elenai smiled at his ignorance. “My sister and I used to fight constantly.”
“Did you? Well, she watched out for me. The first big thing she tried doing with hearthstones was making Lothrun. Did you know that? She took an already-fine blade and worked her magic on it. It’s not as fine as Irion, of course, but that’s hardly a fair comparison. And the next thing she made? Arzhun.” His eyes shifted to his recurved black bow lying near his bedroll. The firelight deepened the lines with which the army of tiny figures were incised into his bow. “She made that for me in a single night, Elenai.”
She sucked in a surprised breath. “I never knew that.” All squires had heard how the fourth-rank Kyrkenall had bested a powerful kobalin lord in one-on-one combat, then taken his horns, the better to make his great bow. She’d assumed a master bowyer had crafted it over the course of many months.
“All discussions of hearthstone magics were declared highly secret. Which is why all you ever heard about Rialla was her one long, lonely day as an alten. Gods, the works she did just as a squire should stand higher than the deeds of many Altenerai.”
“She must have liked you very much.”
He nodded. “I kept pushing her. I wanted other people to understand how talented she really was. And maybe … maybe I wanted them to see I’d been right to have faith in her. That’s what I keep coming back to. I was sure I just had her best interests in mind, but maybe I made her interests about me. Maybe I wasn’t much better than Denaven. She was pretty badly messed up after she made Irion. You know about that, right?”
“N’lahr told me she’d been involved in forging it.”
“Involved—aye, she was involved all right. Believe it or not, I was friendly with Denaven back then. Things had grown strained with him because Rialla and N’lahr and I had gotten promoted to his rank after disobeying an order he gave us, and then we distinguished ourselves even further. We were going to be made Altenerai and he was still stuck at sixth. I figured maybe it would be a nice gesture if Rialla could make him the next powerful weapon.”
“I didn’t know she made him one!”
“That’s because she ended up giving it to N’lahr instead. Denaven never forgave any of us.”
Elenai stared at him in stunned silence as realization dawned. “Wait—Irion was going to be Denaven’s?”
“Yes. Except right at the end of forging it Rialla went into some kind of trance and foretold it would always be linked with N’lahr, who would slay Mazakan. She was getting more and more glimpses of the future. Anyway, right after she announced the prophecy she collapsed. She was breathing, but she was very weak and went in and out of consciousness. This all happened in Alantris, as the Naor were marching on the city. You can imagine that Kalandra, who was in command, wasn’t real happy with any of us for jeopardizing one of our sorcerers right before the battle. Rialla started to come around, but she wasn’t in good enough shape to be sworn to the ring the same day N’lahr and I were.”
Elenai had the sense Kyrkenall was leading somewhere with the story, for he was growing more and more tense, but he stilled, breathing deeply. Almost like he readied for a deep dive.
“What happened with Irion wasn’t your fault,” she said. “Rialla must have been tapped deeply into the hearthstones—”
He cut her off. “So I got royally drunk when I got my ring, but afterward I went to see Ria
lla. She was still recovering in the Alantran barracks. She was frightened, probably because she was seeing stuff about the future, but I wasn’t taking that seriously enough back then. I mean, she had always been so damned perceptive it was eerie, but it was weirder toward the end, and I hadn’t quite gotten around to thinking of my friend as a prophetess for the ages. I just remember she was afraid she was going to die. And what use was I? She was baring her soul to me and I was so drunk I couldn’t stand upright.”
“What did she say?”
He struggled to answer, then spoke with quiet loathing. “She talked about what would happen to several of us but could see herself only as a ‘statue in the dark.’ She said other stuff, too, but I’ll be damned if I can remember any of it. And believe me, I’ve tried. Two days later she was dead.”
Elenai was suddenly aware of the silence about them. The calls of the ko’aye had died, and now there was only the crackling of the fire and wind whistling through the caves.
He seemed finally to have come to a stop, but Elenai had many questions yet. She waited a moment before asking, with respectful softness: “How did she die?”
He answered almost as quietly. “By then we knew that hearthstones were dangerous to use in battle, so we had her using one pretty far back behind our lines. She was altering terrain through the course of the battle. Kalandra had even had the foresight to have a half-dozen weavers protecting Rialla because she’d have to project her energy far from her body. It wasn’t enough. Dozens of Naor mages and their students sacrificed themselves to kill her and her protectors. Denaven was one of them. He said no matter what he tried, he couldn’t get Rialla back. I think I believe him. Maybe it was the last time I saw honest emotion on his smug face. He thought he was in love with her.”
His fists clenched and unclenched once more as he continued. “She was still alive after the battle. She was breathing, but her spirit was gone. I kept hoping maybe she’d make it back, somehow, but … a few hours after nightfall she stopped breathing.” He grew very quiet, and he had to fight to get the words out as he choked up. “I was holding her hand when I felt her go.”
She scooted closer and took his hand in hers. He gripped it tight. He closed his eyes as he fought to control his emotions.
As he turned to meet her gaze she felt her pulse rise. He drew no closer, and his expression seemed neutral. But there was a tension between them, one begging for resolution. Suddenly she wanted, more than anything else, to feel his lips against hers, to press the warmth of his body against her own. He said nothing, but their eyes locked, and she sensed that he wanted the same.
But he released her hand and turned to the fire. “I might have managed better. And now I’m wondering if there’s something better I could be doing for Kalandra.”
Kalandra, the other missing woman. The one who always seemed to lie between them. She knew Kyrkenall had taken other lovers in the years since Kalandra’s disappearance and found herself wondering in irritation why she wasn’t good enough.
“There’s something between us,” the archer admitted, briefly looking up to meet her eyes. “But haven’t I screwed up enough relationships already?”
“Shouldn’t I help you decide that?”
“Maybe so. But I’m in love with Kalandra. You know that. And just as soon as we get this all settled, I’m going to go find her. You and I can pretend that there’s not going to be anything complicated if we bed down, but hopes and realities are two different things.”
“You’re probably right,” she heard herself say. The thought he desired her as well was a pleasant salve to her disappointment. Besides, being involved with Kyrkenall would probably be a terrible idea, and it was the wrong time in her cycle, even if she did have the right herbs.
“Let’s turn in, Alten,” he said.
As she lay there, her own rationale was fully restored, and she grew wryly amused that Kyrkenall, of all people, had the right of it. As the fire died, she found herself wondering more about how exactly N’lahr and Kyrkenall had become friends, and how Kalandra had gone from wanting to kick Kyrkenall from the corps to falling in love with him. But those were questions for another time, and there were more important things to worry about.
And then, late in the night, Rialla visited her once more.
15
Counsel from the Dead
Elenai sat at a dream fire contemplating an arcing strand of stars scattered across the firmament. Suddenly Rialla was there, stunningly real in her khalat and worn black boots, her high forehead damp with perspiration. Elenai understood, as she had the last time, that all else but the visiting woman was dream.
Rialla’s stare pierced her like a sword thrust. And here she’d thought Kyrkenall’s eyes disquieting. No one she’d ever met had a gaze as disconcerting as this. “Have we spoken yet?” Rialla asked.
Elenai had worried that she’d be asked that again, and had prepared an answer. “We’ve spoken before. In the theater.”
Rialla’s nod was so small she almost missed seeing it.
Elenai spoke quickly. “I told him he had to go left. But we didn’t understand. What did you mean? And are you dead?”
“Probably I am.” She didn’t sound concerned about it. “Kyrkenall will have to drop, one day soon, upon the flight of the queen. It has to be to the left. It won’t look right. But tell him to trust me.”
“He trusted you when you were alive. He can scarce talk about you because he misses you so much.”
“He is my friend,” Rialla said simply. The word “friend” carried more weight and meaning than it did if used in the waking world, conveying the great significance of Rialla’s interpretation of the word. It was as if all others were shadows and he alone was real to her. “He will die if he goes right. I don’t want him to die,” she added. “Right looks better, but it must be left.”
“I’ve told him. I’ll warn him again. What did you mean about the world ending?”
“The queen thinks she can control what she’s doing. But she won’t be able to do so. And if all isn’t in exactly the right place, Kyrkenall, N’lahr, you, Naor, kobalin, everything, the world will cease. I’ve seen it again and again.” She sounded now as though she were talking to herself. “All the pieces have to be in the proper places or it doesn’t come out right. After the queen opens the last hearthstone, everything is—”
The dream world rocked and faded and she heard her name called from somewhere far off. She tightened her eyes and fought to hold to the fading dream. “Wait!” Elenai cried. “Is there any more you can tell us?”
Rialla shook her head dismissively. “I’ve little time left.”
That in itself was a strange statement—presumably if she was dead, she wouldn’t have to worry about time, would she? But if there was little time for either of them, then she should make it count. “Do you know where Kalandra is?”
“If you’re where I think you are, right now she’s in the stone on the shelf.”
And with that answer in her mind, Elenai blinked and woke to the morning. Kyrkenall was shaking her shoulder. “You’re a deep sleeper,” he said with a grumble.
“Rialla was there.” She couldn’t keep the snap from her voice as she rose.
He froze. “You’re joking. No, you’re not.” He cursed. “What did she say?”
Outside all was gloom, for true day had not yet arrived in the cave. She heard, faintly, the cries of the ko’aye on the wind.
“She says there will be a time, soon, when it will look like you need to jump to the right, and that’s when you should jump left, that otherwise you won’t live. Something about being ‘upon the flight of the queen.’” She raked hands through her hair and pushed it back, feeling on the floor for her hair tie. “She was telling me more about Kalandra when you woke me.”
“Gods. I’m sorry.”
She didn’t point out that he was mentioning the gods he didn’t believe in.
“So does that mean Kalandra’s alive?” he asked.
> “She’s in a stone on a shelf, whatever that means. I assume a hearthstone. She also told me that the queen’s going to try to open the hearthstones and it will destroy us all. Oh, and she thinks she’s dead, but she said she couldn’t talk further because she’s running low on time. Which I don’t understand at all. And that’s all I know. Because you woke me.”
Again he cursed, sitting back in quiet contemplation as she finished with her hair. She wanted to ask where he’d relieved himself, because she smelled nothing within the cave confines and wasn’t sure where she should freshen up herself, but seeing the confused look on his face, she decided she could hold off finding out for the nonce.
“Do you think that means Kalandra is in a hearthstone, like N’lahr was? That she got trapped by Denaven, too?”
“That might explain why she hasn’t contacted anyone.”
“So maybe Denaven had her hidden somewhere.”
The more she considered that, the less sure she became. “But from what N’lahr said, him getting trapped was an accident.”
“Maybe that accident taught them how to do it deliberately.”
“Then why didn’t they try to catch you that way, or us?”
“Maybe we weren’t important enough. I don’t suppose Rialla said anything about where this shelf was?”
“She might have if she’d had more time. Look, it’s not that I’m not interested in Kalandra, but shouldn’t we be more worried about the world getting wiped away?”
“Sure. Let’s worry about that,” Kyrkenall said coolly. “Any idea how to stop it?”
“It starts when the queen opens the last hearthstone.”
“And when will that happen?”
“Sometime soon, I guess.” Elenai sighed. “I just don’t know enough. If you hadn’t woken me—”
“I said I was sorry. Hey— Do you think the reason she’s contacting you is because you have her hearthstone?”
“I’ve wondered about that. Maybe it’s because I’m with you, though.”
“But maybe a little bit of her is in the hearthstone, somehow. You could try contacting her.”
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