Fifth Quarter (41 page)

On the other side of the fire, Karlene watched and listened and half thought that Vree'd meant that last reminder for herself.

Hours later, Gyhard put another stick on the fire, watched a flame dance onto it, and smiled. He used to love to watch a fire, used to think he could see the world in the flames. The smile faded. All he saw in these flames were complications.

The bard was sound asleep, head pillowed on her arm, one bare and muddy foot sticking out from under her blanket. Her life, for all the unanswered questions, was simple; all she wanted was to Sing the prince's kigh to wherever it was kigh went.

He slid his gaze over to Vree who slept curled around her daggers. Vree wanted to save the prince as well—she had, after all spent her whole life sworn to defend the Imperial Family—but she also wanted him dead. Or out of her brother's body which, without another host, amounted to the same thing. At least now that it appeared the army knew Vree and Bannon had deserted, Vree would not have to kill the bard to protect what was no longer a secret.

And what if the prince
were
alive? Did that change anything except the body he'd end up wearing?

And what about me
? He looked down at the mirror balanced on his knee.
Ninety years ago, I foolishly fell in love, trusted the man with whom I was in love, and pushed him off the edge of insanity. Why am I racing after him now
?

Because I am responsible for what he has become.

And why am I accepting that responsibility?

Because she's made it impossible for me to hide from myself.

But once I catch up to him, what am I going to do?

He shook his head at the mirror, and Bannon's reflection shook its head back at him.
And why am I sitting up, asking myself these questions in the middle of the night
? Bannon's reflection offered no answer.

Shifting position slightly, he cupped his hand over the mirror and stared down at Vree.

As though she felt the weight of his regard, she stirred and opened her eyes, abruptly awake. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

Why not? "Because you're beautiful."

Her brows drew in and her features subtly changed. "Leave my sister alone," she growled. "She'll only ever hate you for what you've done to me."

Oh, yes, that was why not. "Are you jealous, Bannon?"

She half rose, moving fluidly to attack. Then under the satin sheath of her skin, her muscles spasmed and she fell to the ground, rigid and trembling.

Panting, she clutched at the blanket and wrapped it tightly around herself. "Are you planning to apologize to Kars, too?" she asked and rolled over, back to him.

Why was it he loved her?

Because she's made it impossible for me to hide from myself.

Vree lay awake for the rest of the night, listening to him breath.

Chapter Fourteen

Although the rain had stopped, the road remained deep in mud. More an irritant than an obstacle for those walking or riding who could take to the verges where plants held the soil together, the heavy clay would stick to the wheels of a cart, build up between the spokes, clump around the axle, and stop it cold.

Vree worked her toes in the cool embrace of wet earth and looked up. Between the pink and gold streaks of dawn, the sky was a pale silver-gray brushed lightly with cloud. The air was warm and damp and felt as if it had gone through other lungs.

"You took away everything I had," she said. "Because of you, I broke oaths. Because of you, I killed a friend. The moment I can, I will kill you. That is all there will ever be between us."

"There is, already, more than that."

"No." Bannon narrowed Vree's eyes and drew her lips up off her teeth. "There is not."

"You've never had serious competition before, have you, Bannon? There's never been anyone in her life with enough allure to distract her attention from you. And now…" Gyhard spread Bannon's hands. "… you're competing, at least partially, with yourself. How ironic."

"Sod off, both of you!" Vree snapped, yanking her body out of Bannon's control. She jabbed a finger at Gyhard. "I don't give a rebel's tit for what you think is going on or what Bannon thinks is going on, either.
You
are in my brother's body, and I want you out of him as much as I want
him
out of me. Everything else is bullshit!" Nostrils flared, she stomped past Gyhard toward the ruined building, water spraying up from the saturated sod with every step. "I'm going to wake Karlene, and we're going to get moving before the mud bakes dry and we lose this chance."

"Slaughter it, Vree…"

"Don't push me, Bannon."

"Me push you?
You're
not the one who's being betrayed! You're supposed to hate him!"

"Hatred dulls your blade." It was one of the earliest lessons an assassin learned. Clutching it tightly, Vree stepped over the threshold and moved toward the fire where a small flame still danced along a partially burned stick. What point in making a stronger denial; as she felt his betrayal, he felt her guilt.

Broader wheels might not have sunk so deep— although broader wheels would have picked up more of the sticky mud with every turning. He thought of abandoning the cart, but his old bones moved so slowly that it would add many, many days to the trip home. Time enough to leave the cart when they had to leave the road.

He patted Kait on her thin shoulder, damp fabric sticking to her graying skin, and answered her slow smile with one of his own. "Keep pushing, child."

"Yesss, Fa… ther." She threw her weight against the bar that joined shafts, mud churning beneath bare feet. Pushing beside her, Wheyra crooned to what decay had left of her baby.

Slowly and carefully, his robe dragging in the wet, his fingers wrapped tightly around his staff, he walked to the back of the cart where the two most recent members of his family watched over his heart.

It had become necessary that Iban and Hestia push from the back—or the cart would not pull free of the mud's embrace. But that would leave his heart alone and unprotected…

He had lost his heart once before. He would not allow it to happen again. When the beautiful eyes that had haunted his dreams for longer than he could remember lifted to meet his, he said as he had said a hundred times since the turning of the Circle had brought them together again,
"Don't leave me."

His horse had not gone far. Much as the storm had driven him to seek shelter, it had driven the horse under the roof of a three-sided goat pen in the fishing village. They spent the night together, the assassin, the horse, and the half-dozen goats. Just after dawn, after swallowing a painfully chewed mouthful of journey bread, Neegan led the horse from the shed. The owner of the goats, arriving to check her stock, saw the Imperial uniform and, although she had no idea of what the black sunburst meant, recognized danger when she saw it. Hands out from her sides, she stayed well back as Neegan emerged from the pen, and asked no questions.

"We've got to be making better time than he is." Karlene swiped at the sweat rolling down her face with the back of her left hand, leaving a smear of mud behind. "Don't we?"

"Unless he's abandoned the cart," Vree muttered, pulling the sweat-damp silk away from her skin in a futile attempt to find cooler air.

"Do you think that's possible?"

"Anything is possible," Gyhard growled. The offer obviously covered more than the cart.

"Anything is
not
possible." Vree's voice held Bannon's intonation pattern.

The bard stifled a sigh. Between the brooding silences and the beating-with-a-blunt-object repartee, the mood surrounding her companions was very nearly as heavy as the weather. While the latter hung weights of heat and humidity off the body, the former dragged at the spirit.
And it's not like we were lighthearted to start with
.

She would have given anything to know what had happened while she lay asleep and oblivious.
Two years in the Capital have really dulled my senses. I've got to get out on the road more
. She'd asked them both, using the morning's travel preparations to get each of them alone, but neither would talk. Vree had closed her lips with an emphasis that suggested she was preventing Bannon from speaking, and Gyhard had coldly informed her that it was none of her business.

Perhaps not, but she was in the middle of it and couldn't let it go.

Gyhard loved Vree. Vree was, at the very least, physically attracted to Gyhard. Although Vree should hate Gyhard because he was in Bannon's body, it would've been difficult to consider him an enemy and her reactions to him would've been skewed from the beginning. How far skewed? And what would Bannon think about that? Actually, that last question wasn't hard to answer.

Karlene shook her head, trying to shake the mess down into some kind of clarity. It didn't help.

"I'm going to Sing," she announced suddenly. It wouldn't help straighten out the tangle, but it would make her feel as though she was actually doing something instead of merely being carried along by the turning of the Circle.

"You Sang a while ago," Gyhard pointed out as he squelched from one hummock of grass to the next, dragging his reluctant horse along behind. "Don't you think you should save your energy?"

"It was hours ago, and no." Karlene drew in a deep breath of the clammy air, and Sang the four notes that would call the kigh. A few moments later, she frowned and Sang them again. Then again.

Vree turned toward the bard and found herself staring across her at Gyhard, who'd mirrored her turn.

Steadying herself on the bay's shoulder, Karlene spun around and pointed back the way they'd come. "There! Look!"

In the distance, they could see the willows by the river bending and straightening, first one way and then the other, as though they were being brushed by a giant, invisible hand.

"That's as far as they'll come. We're only a day's walk away and that cart's hardly moving!" She Sang a brief, explosive gratitude, then let her head fall against the warm, solid, living flesh of the horse. He shoved at her with his nose as a few hot tears—of relief, of exhaustion, of anger, Karlene wasn't sure—squeezed out onto his shoulder.