“So, will you go?” Alec asked again.
“Yes.” He’d known the answer since Beka had first told him of the journey. Framing the question he hadn’t yet dared to ask, Seregil forced himself across the bit of floor that separated them and extended a hand to Alec. “Are you coming with me? It may not be very pleasant, being the talímenios of an exile. I don’t even have a proper name there.”
Alec took his outstretched hand, squeezing it almost to the point of pain. “Remember what happened the last time you tried to go off without me?”
Seregil’s relieved laugh startled them both. “Remember? I think I’ve still got some of the bruises!” Tightening his own grip, he pulled Alec out of his chair and onto the bed. “Here, I’ll show you.”
Seregil’s sudden demand for lovemaking surprised Alec less than the wildness of what followed. Anger lurked just beneath his lover’s frenzied passion, anger not meant for him, but that still left a scattering of small bruises across his skin to be discovered by tomorrow’s sun.
Alec didn’t need the heightened senses of the talímenios bond to tell him that Seregil was trying to somehow burn all memory of that hated first lover from his own skin, or that it hadn’t worked.
Locked sweaty and breathless in Seregil’s arms afterward, Alec listened as the other man’s ragged breathing slowed to normal and for the first time felt empty and uneasy instead of sated and safe. A black gulf of silence separated them even as they lay heart against heart. It frightened him, but he didn’t pull away.
“What became of Ilar? Was he ever found?” he whispered at last.
“I don’t know.”
Alec touched Seregil’s cheek, expecting to find tears. It was dry. “Once, just after we met, Micum told me that you never forgive betrayal,” he said softly. “Later, Nysander told me the same. They both believed it was because of what happened to you in Aurënen. It was him, wasn’t it? Ilar?”
Seregil took Alec’s hand and pressed the palm to his lips, then moved it to his bare chest, letting him feel the quick, heavy beat of his heart. When he spoke at last, his voice was thin with grief.
“To give someone your love and trust—I hate him for that! For robbing me of innocence too early. Spoiled and silly and willful as I was, I’d never had to hate anyone before. But it taught me things, too: what love and trust and honor really are, and that you can never take them for granted.”
“I suppose if we ever met I’d have to thank him for that, at least—” Alec murmured, then froze as Seregil’s hand suddenly tightened around his.
“You wouldn’t have time, talí, before I cut his throat.”
4
NEW JOURNEYS
Seregil found Beka alone by the corral the next morning. “When does this expedition of yours leave for Aurënen?”
“Soon.” She turned and gave him an appraising look. Damn, she looked like her father. “Does that mean you’re coming?”
“Yes.”
“Thank the Flame! We’re to meet Commander Klia in a little fishing town below the Cirna Canal, by the fifteenth of the month.”
“What route is she taking to Aurënen?”
“I don’t know. The less information she gives out ahead of time, the less there’ll be for Plenimaran spies to pick up.”
“Very wise.”
“If we push, we can be in Ardinlee in three days. How soon can you be ready?”
“Mmmm, I don’t know.” He looked around the place as if taking stock of some vast holding. “Is a couple of hours soon enough?”
“If that’s the best you can do.”
Watching her stride briskly off toward the tents, he decided she had a good deal of her mother in her, too.
Alec slipped his black-handled dagger into his boot and settled his sword belt more comfortably against his left hip.
“Don’t forget this.” Seregil took their tool rolls from a high shelf and tossed Alec’s over to him. “With any luck, we’ll be needing them.”
Alec unrolled the black leather case and checked the slender implements stored in its stitched pockets: lock picks, wires, limewood shims, and a small lightstone mounted on a knurled wooden handle. Seregil had made everything; these weren’t the sort of tools you found in the marketplace.
Satisfied, Alec slipped it inside his coat, where it lay against his ribs with a comfortably familiar weight. That left only his bow, some clothes, a bedroll, and a few personal effects to pack. He’d never had much in the way of belongings; as Seregil was fond of saying, the only things of real value were those you could take away with you in a hurry. That suited Alec and made packing a simple matter.
Seregil had finished with his own gear and was looking rather wistfully around the room. “This was a good place.”
Coming up behind him, Alec wrapped an arm around his waist and rested his chin on Seregil’s shoulder. “A very good place,” he agreed. “But if it hadn’t been this moving us on, there would have been something else.”
“I suppose so. Still, we’re spoiled with privacy,” Seregil said, pressing back against him with a lewd grin. “Just wait until we’re trapped aboard some ship, cheek by jowl with Beka’s soldiers. You’ll wish we were back here and so will I.”
“Hey in there, are you ready yet?” Beka demanded, appearing suddenly in the doorway. Seeing them together, however, she halted uncertainly.
Alec jumped back, too, blushing.
“Yes, we’re ready, Captain,” Seregil told her, adding under his breath, “What did I tell you?”
“Good.” Beka covered her own embarrassment brusquely. “What about all this?” She gestured around the little room. Except for their clothes and gear, the cabin looked much as it had last night. The fire was banked, and clean dishes lay drying on a shelf by the window.
Seregil shrugged and headed for the door. “It’ll be of use to someone.”
“He’s still not wearing a sword?” Beka asked Alec when Seregil was gone.
“Not since Nysander’s death.”
She nodded sadly. “It’s a shame, a great swordsman like that.”
“There’s no point in arguing with him,” Alec said, and Beka guessed from his tone that this was a battle he’d lost with Seregil more than once.
They set off at midmorning, following the road south.
Despite Seregil’s misgivings, it felt good to be riding with Micum again. Every so often the two of them would find themselves out ahead of the others, and for a while it was like old times: the two of them off on a mission for Nysander, or pursuing some harebrained quest of their own for the sheer hell of it.
But then the sun would strike siivery glints in his old friend’s hair, or he’d catch sight of Micum’s crippled leg, stiff in the stirrup, and Seregil’s exhilaration evaporated again into a twinge of guilty sadness.
Micum’s was not the first generation he’d outlive, but it didn’t get any easier with experience. In Skala, among these Tír he loved, only the wizards endured, and even they could be killed.
Now and then he caught Micum watching him with a bemused expression that suggested he was having similar thoughts, but he seemed to accept the situation. It was Seregil who’d quietly drop back to find Alec, like a cold man seeking a fire.
The roads grew drier as they turned west the next day, and the rolling plains were already thick with crocus and yellowstar. Trusting the clear nights, they rode long and slept rough, letting the horses forage as they went.
Except for the number of troops they met, Seregil found it hard to imagine the terrible war that was being waged on land and sea. Talking with Beka’s riders soon brought the reality of the situation home to him, however. He recognized only four of Rhylin’s ten riders: Syra, Tealah, Tare, and Corporal Nikides, who’d aged into a man since they’d met, as well as acquiring a jagged white scar down his right cheek. The other six were new to the turma, replacements for those who’d fallen in battle.
“Well, Beka, I always knew you’d amount to something,” Seregil said as
the group sat around the fire their second night on the road. “Right hand to Commander Klia? That’s a mark of real favor.”
“It gets them out of harm’s way for a bit, too,” Micum added.
Beka shrugged noncommittally. “We’ve earned it.”
“We’ve lost a lot of people since you last saw us, my lord,” Sergeant Rhylin remarked, stretching the day’s stiffness from his legs. “You recall the two men who were planked? Gilly lost a hand and went home, but Mirn healed up fine; he and Steb are in Braknil’s decuria now.”
“We lost Jareel at Steerwide Ford a day after we got back,” Nikides put in. “And remember Kaylah? She died scouting an enemy camp.”
“She had a lover in the turma, didn’t she?” asked Alec, and Seregil smiled to himself.
Alec had been more taken with the idea of soldiering than he’d ever let on and had formed quite a bond with Beka’s riders in the short time they’d known one another in Rhíminee, and later during the dark days in Plenimar.
Nikides nodded. “Zir. He took it hard, but you have to go on, don’t you? He’s Mercalle’s corporal now.”
“Sergeant Mercalle?” Seregil looked up in surprise. Mercalle was an experienced old soldier, one of the sergeants who’d helped train Beka and then requested the honor of serving with her when she was given a command. “I thought you lost her in the first battle of the war?”
“So did we,” replied Beka. “She went down under her horse and broke both arms and a leg, along with a few ribs. But she tracked us down again before the snow flew that fall, ready to fight.”
“We were lucky to get her back,” said Corporal Nikides, “She fought with Phoria herself in their younger days.”
“She and Braknil have seen us through some dark days,” Beka added. “By the Flame, their lessons have saved us a time or two!”
Never one to waste valuable time, Seregil spent much of the journey drilling Alec and anyone else who cared to listen on the clans of Aurënen: their emblems, customs, and most importantly, their affiliations. Alec took in the information with all his usual quickness.
“Only eleven principal clans?” he’d scoffed when someone else complained at the complexities of Aurënfaie politics. “Compared to dealing with Skalan nobility, that’s no worse than your mother’s market list.”
“Don’t be too certain,” warned Seregil. “Sometimes those eleven feel more like eleven hundred.”
Beka and the others also saw to it that Alec brushed up his swordplay. He was soon bruised but happy to be reclaiming his hard-won skills.
Seregil pointedly ignored the hopeful glances they cast in his direction during these sessions.
They met with columns of soldiers more frequently as they neared the coast and from them learned that Plenimaran ships now controled much of the Inner Sea’s northeastern waters, and that raids on eastern Skalan were increasing. Skala still held crucial control of the isthmus and canal, but the pressure was mounting.
News of the land battles was more encouraging. According to an infantry captain they met just north of Cirna, Skalan troops held the Mycenian coastline as far west as Keston, and had pushed east to the Folcwine River. As Seregil had long ago predicted, however, the Plenimaran Overlord had extended his influence into the northlands and was gradually seizing control of the trade routes there.
“Have they taken Kerry?” Alec asked, thinking of his home village in the Ironheart Mountains.
“Don’t know Kerry,” the captain replied, “but I’ve heard rumors that Wolde’s gone over to them.”
“That’s bad,” Seregil muttered.
Wolde was an important link in the Gold Road, the caravan route between Skala and the north. If the Plenimarans captured the north’s iron, wool, gold, and timber at their source, it wouldn’t matter if Skala held the Folcwine; there’d be no more goods coming downriver.
They reached the isthmus on the third day and crossed the echoing chasm of the great Cirna Canal. Following the Queen’s Highroad west, they came in sight of the little village of Ardinlee just before sunset.
Micum reined in to take his leave where the road branched and Seregil felt again that gulf of change and distance.
Beka leaned over to hug her father. “Give my love to Mother and the others.”
“I will.” Turning to Alec and Seregil, he grinned ruefully. “Since I can’t come with you, I’ll just have to trust you three to keep each other out of trouble down there. I hear the ’faie are persnickety about foreigners.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Seregil replied dryly.
With a final wave, Micum turned his horse south and galloped away.
Seregil remained for a moment, watching his old companion disappear into the evening’s dusty haze.
Klia was camped at a prosperous estate just south of the village. Riding through a vineyard, they found Sergeant Mercalle on guard at the front door of the house. She saluted Beka smartly as they rode up, then gave Alec a welcoming wink. Despite her injuries she stood as straight at fifty as the young soldiers on duty beside her.
“Well met, my lords,” she greeted them as they dismounted. “I haven’t seen you since that fancy send-off you gave us back in Rhíminee.”
Seregil grinned. “I remember the early part of the evening, but not much later on.”
“Ah, yes.” She feigned disapproval. “Thanks to you, most of my riders were carrying sore heads the next morning. Tell me, Sir Alec, do you recall the blessing you gave us when we were all pissed as newts?”
“Now that you mention it, I do seem to remember standing on a table, saying something pretentious as I poured wine on people.”
“I wish you’d gotten a few more drops of it on me. It might have saved me a few broken bones,” Mercalle said, rubbing her left arm. “Of those you splashed, only one’s been killed. The rest are all still with us. You’re a luckbringer, and no mistake.”
Seregil nodded. “I’ve always thought so.”
They found Klia in a library on the first floor, poring over reports and charts with several uniformed aides.
“Tell him we can’t wait for his shipment,” she was saying when Seregil entered with Alec and Beka. “There’ll be dispatch ships every few days. He can send it along with one of them.”
Seregil studied her profile as he waited for her to finish. Klia had always looked more the commander than the princess, but war had left its mark on her all the same. Her uniform hung loosely on her slender frame, and faint worry lines bracketed her mouth when she frowned. A new sword scar cut across the tiny faded burn marks that peppered one cheek.
When she looked up at last and smiled, however, he saw that a little of the girl he’d known lived on in her bright blue eyes.
“So you talked them into it, Captain?” she said to Beka. “Well done. We sail the day after tomorrow. Any trouble on the road?”
Beka gave her a crisp salute. “Just a sore ear from traveling with Seregil, Commander.”
Klia chuckled. “I don’t doubt it. I expect you want to see your sergeants, eh? You’re dismissed.”
Saluting again, Beka and the aides withdrew.
Klia watched Beka go, then turned to Seregil. “I’m in your debt for wrangling that commission for her: She’s saved my life more than once.”
“I hear her turma spends more time behind the enemy than they do in front of them.”
“That’s what comes of growing up under your influence, and her father’s.” Klia came around the table to clasp hands with them. “I was afraid you wouldn’t come.”
“Beka made it clear that the queen had gone to some trouble to smooth my way with the Iia’sidra,” Seregil replied. “Under the circumstances, it would’ve been most ungrateful of me to ignore your request.”
“And for that I thank you,” she replied with a knowing look. Loyal kinsman he might be, but as an Aurënfaie, exile or not, he was not hers to command. “By the Flame, it’s good to see you both! I take it you mean to come with us, Alec?”
&n
bsp; “If you’ll have me.”
“I will, and gladly.” She waved them to seats near the window and poured wine. “Aside from my respect for your talents, it may prove favorable to have a second ’faie in my entourage.”
Seregil noted Alec’s quiet flicker of amusement; Klia had never mentioned his ’faie heritage before.
“Who else is going? Is Captain Myrhini with you?” he asked.
“She’s Commander Myrhini now, promoted to take my place in the field,” Klia replied with poorly concealed regret. “As for an entourage, it will be a small one. We’ve done our best to keep word of our journey from getting out, since we’re still not sure what Plenimar’s intentions are regarding Zengat. The last thing we need is them stirring up trouble for Aurënen just when we want the Iia’sidra’s full attention.
“Lord Torsin is already there. Urgazhi Turma will be my honor guard and household; Beka will serve as aide-de-camp. I suppose she’s told you that Thero’s coming as my field wizard?”
Like Beka, she stole a quick glance at him as she said this; she’d spent enough of her girlhood underfoot at the Orëska House to know of the famous rivalry.
Seregil sighed inwardly. “A good choice. May I ask how you settled on him?”
“Ostensibly, because the more experienced wizards are needed in the field.”
“And the real reason?”
Klia picked up an ornate map weight and tapped it absently against her palm. “You don’t walk among swordsmen without a sword, but if your blade is too big, they’re insulted and mistrust you. If it’s too small, they scorn you. The trick is to find the right balance.”
“And if you can make a large sword look smaller and less threatening, then so much the better? Nysander always claimed he was remarkable. A year with Magyana will only have enhanced his talents—perhaps even his personality.”
Alec shot him a warning look, but Klia smiled.
“He’s an odd duck, I admit, but I’ll feel safer having him along. We’re facing a great deal of opposition, not the least of which is the fact that there are plenty of Aurënfaie who don’t want us going anywhere except Virésse.”