Heart of the Exiled (2 page)

“What happened?”

The captain’s tone was not quite accusing. Eliani bit back a sharp reply.

“I was distracted.”

“My lady, you must be more cautious—”

“It was not lack of caution.”

“The Council has charged me with your safety, Lady Eliani. I dare not risk losing you to some accident—”

“Yes, yes. I will make certain they know that you are all solicitude.”

“—or to a raider’s dart. We do not know if there might be kobalen nearby.”

She raised an eyebrow. Vanorin served in Southfæld’s Guard. He should know better than she how likely they were to encounter kobalen in this realm, but she was skeptical.

In her own realm of Alpinon, attacks of kobalen against remote villages or travelers dropped sharply in winter. The creatures disliked the cold, so she ordinarily would assume that they were seen even less often in the south. Of course, these were not ordinary times.

She drew a careful breath. “I will be more cautious.”

When he did not answer at once, she turned and led her horse toward the river, as much to get away from the captain as to calm the animal. Vanorin did not deserve her temper—he was only performing his duty—but she chafed at the unfamiliar constraint of being escorted by twenty of Southfæld’s Guard. She was a guardian herself and accustomed to freedom of action.

She found an eddy where the horse could drink safely and sat on the riverbank watching it, willing her pulse to slow. Greenleaf trees surrounded her, their gray branches all but bare in early winter. A few traces of green remained in the grass at the water’s edge, but the land was falling quiet.

After a moment she ran a hand through her hair, then closed her eyes. She drew deep breaths, quelling the fear of her still-new gift that lingered in her heart. This was why she was here; it was who she now was. A mindspeaker.

Turisan
.

Immediately his khi filled her mind, his presence, his love nearly overwhelming her.

Eliani—I was worried. Why would you not speak to me?

I was riding. You startled me, and my horse bolted
.

My love, forgive me!

She felt his alarm and chagrin and wished she had been less abrupt.
No harm done. What did you wish to tell me?

She sensed hesitation on his part, a slight withdrawal. When he spoke, he seemed guarded.

That I am going to the garrison before the Council convenes. Does Vanorin have any message for Berephan?

I am not near him at the moment. I will ask him shortly
.

She waited, but Turisan said no more. She could still feel him at the edges of her mind, the tingle of his khi blending with her own. Amazing that she sensed him as though they were together, when he had remained in Glenhallow. So far their gift had not diminished with distance. It seemed their mindspeech would prove as powerful as the Ælven Council had hoped.

Silence stretched between them, more awkward by the moment. Eliani could think of nothing to say. They were still strangers in some ways. Lovers, yes, but only newly so. Handfasted a night ago and now parted because of the gift that had brought them together.

She rode north, carrying urgent messages to the governor of Fireshore. Their mindspeech would allow the answer to be returned in an instant instead of in another thirty-odd days of riding.

This was but the first day of her journey. The first day, also, of her formal partnership with Turisan. Not the most comfortable beginning.

She opened her eyes and saw her horse standing by the riverbank, nibbling at the long grasses that overhung it. Rising, she caught its reins and coaxed it out of the water, leading it to where Vanorin and the others waited.

Luruthin was beside the captain, his nut-brown hair
standing out against the sea of pale-haired Greenglens. He crooked an eyebrow at her but said nothing. Eliani gave him a brief smile, then went to Vanorin.

“Turisan is on his way to the garrison in Glenhallow. He asks if you have any message for Lord Berephan.”

Vanorin blinked, then shook his head. “No, my lady. Please give him my thanks, though.”

She nodded, then turned away to gaze toward the river.
Turisan—Vanorin thanks you, but he has no message for Berephan
.

Very well. Will you be riding on?

Until nightfall, I expect. We are anxious to make good progress
.

I will not disturb you again, then. Speak to me when you have halted for the night, if you would
.

I will
.

She caught herself nodding and glanced over her shoulder, self-conscious. No one seemed to be watching, though. Luruthin was searching for something in his saddle packs.

Turisan …

Yes?

Nothing
.

She flinched, angry with herself. She was behaving like a moonstruck child.

A gentle warmth filled her: Turisan’s love, easing her heart and making it ache at the same time.
Spirits watch over you, my love
.

Thank you
.

He was gone. The warmth, the delicious disturbance of his khi, withdrawn. Suddenly she felt colder.

She turned and mounted her horse. The guardians made haste to do likewise. Eliani guided her mount toward Vanorin’s.

“Do we ride on?”

He swung easily into his own saddle and bowed slightly. “If my lady is not tired.”

She stifled a laugh and gravely returned his bow. “Lead on, then.”

Shalár paced in the small bedroom of a stone farmhouse, awaiting Yaras, her subcaptain, whom she had sent to fetch a kobalen. The farmhouse was poor accommodation by comparison to her home in the Cliff Hollows at Nightsand but better than the trees and makeshift shelters where her hunters, now training as warriors, rested by day.

Neither farmhouse nor Cliff Hollows could compare with Darkwood Hall. The governor’s manse in Fireshore was a sprawling palace, built all of darkwood, the most coveted wood in all the ælven realms. Shalár’s youth had been spent playing in the hall’s extensive gardens. Soon she would reclaim it as her home.

She looked southward, as if she could see through the stone wall and across the leagues to Midrange. For several days now she had expected word from Ciris, another of her captains, who was there at her behest. Until she knew that her plans had gone forward at Midrange, she could not strike for Fireshore. She chafed at the delay, though the additional practice was honing her small army’s skill.

She had brought her hunters here so that they might be a little closer to Fireshore when they were ready to
march, and also so that the comforts of Nightsand would not distract them. Some of them had never lived without shelter, and she was teaching them how to survive in the woods and avoid being sun-poisoned, as well as training them to fight.

While Shalár trained her small army, Ciris was training the kobalen she had summoned to Midrange, over a thousand of the creatures at last word. They had agreed to fight for Shalár in exchange for her promise of immunity from being hunted, a promise she could make only because kobalen bred so swiftly and easily, unlike her own people.

The kobalen force was not nearly as skilled as the elite army she was training here, but then, it need not be. The kobalen need only pour themselves across the Ebons in sufficient numbers to hold the ælven’s attention at Midrange while Shalár moved upon Fireshore.

She stepped to the drapery covering the doorway that separated the bedroom from the main room of the farmhouse. Mehir and Vashakh, the farmers, glanced up from a pallet near the hearth. Mehir smiled slightly; Vashakh looked away.

Seeing them together made her heart ache of a sudden. Her own consort and steward, Dareth, had yielded up his flesh and gone back to the spirit realm but a few nights since. She shut away the pain of it; she had too much else to do, too many others to oversee.

Shalár tapped her fingers along her thigh, frowning as she watched Mehir murmur something to his partner and Vashakh shake her head in response. The female looked up, casting a sullen glance at Shalár.

Vashakh had come to Nightsand not long since to beg for a kobalen with which to feed her family, theirs having died. Shalár had given another to her in exchange for twenty years of service from the young
daughter she had brought with her. Vashakh still resented that demand, though she had agreed to it, knowing it to be the best choice both for Mehir and for their daughter, who would have many more advantages in Nightsand than on Small Sleeper Farm.

Shalár did not fault Vashakh’s feelings. Indeed, she felt only respect for the farmer. To have borne a child and survived was a high achievement, one Shalár envied and wanted for herself.

Footfalls outside drew her notice, a light tread accompanied by a heavier shuffling. Shalár raised her head and scented the pungent odor of kobalen. It was not the one belonging to the farmers; they kept that in a small stone shed a little distance from the house, and Vashakh harvested blood from it there. This was one of the catch that Shalár and her hunters had recently made, one of the hundred kobalen she had brought with her to the farm.

The door of the house opened. Vashakh and Mehir flinched away from the sunlight, though it was gone again in a moment as Yaras hastened in, prodding a female kobalen before him. The kobalen’s face was slack, its eyes unseeing. Yaras had it firmly controlled. He shut the door, pushed back his leather hood, and unwrapped the protective cloth from his face.

“Bright Lady. I came as quickly as I could.”

Shalár nodded. Yaras’s brows drew together in concentration as he turned his attention to the kobalen. It shuffled toward where Shalár stood, and Yaras followed.

Mehir’s eyes sharpened as they passed, but he said nothing. Shalár stood aside for Yaras to bring the creature into her room, then lowered the curtain over the doorway.

Kobalen were smaller than her people, and stockier.
Blessed with the ability to breed as soon as look at one another, they also aged and died rapidly, a fact to which their slightness of intelligence was generally attributed. They had enough wit, though, to have devised a simple language and to use primitive tools, primarily weapons. It was the kobalen who had taught the ælven the meaning of war.

More important than any of that was their khi. Save that of the ælven, kobalen had the strongest khi of any living creature. It was this that made them of value, made them worth hunting and keeping despite their repulsiveness.

Nostrils pinching at the creature’s strong odor of earth, sweat, and sharp fear, Shalár walked slowly around it. It looked mature yet strong. Covered all over with fine, dark hair, it was graceless, with clumsy hands and heavy feet.

Shalár glanced at Yaras, who stood impassive, waiting for her command. She had shared a kobalen with him once before, at the conclusion of the last Grand Hunt. They had coupled as she made Yaras yield to her his memories of his own child’s conception. She thought her flesh had come close to opening to Yaras then, close to conceiving the child she wanted. It had brought her a better understanding of the mystery. She hoped to use the knowledge to her advantage, though so far she had not succeeded.

Time, then, to remind herself. Yaras would yield to her again, in flesh and in mind.

As if he sensed her thought, he looked up at her suddenly. She saw the muscles of his throat move in a swallow.

“Bright Lady, I have a boon to ask.”

“Oh?”

“I saw Islir in Nightsand while we were gathering the army.”

“Oh?”

Shalár felt a twinge of anger but hid it. Islir was the mother of Yaras’s daughter. She had declined to hunt again, preferring to stay at home on her own farm, where she grew flax and cordweed and watched over their daughter.

“We have decided to handfast.”

Shalár frowned. “That is an ælven custom. We have left all such behind us.”

Yaras’s lips tightened briefly. Though his expression remained neutral, she could see a hint of dismay in his eyes.

“Some customs have merit.”

“That one puts us at a disadvantage, however. A variety of partners improves the chance of conception.”

“But partners who have conceived once may likely do so again.” She sensed the anxiety in his khi flare more strongly.

“Perhaps.”

Yaras looked at her, his eyes pleading as he whispered. “Bright Lady, I would ask your blessing.”

“My blessing for a practice I do not condone?”

He was silent, his brow creased. Shalár resumed her slow pacing, circling Yaras now instead of the kobalen. He stood still, not meeting her gaze as she looked over the clean, strong lines of his flesh, remembering their feel, their taste. His hair was as white as her own, as white as any of her people’s. His eyes stared at nothing, and the color in his cheeks grew brighter.

A small shifting sound diverted Shalár’s attention to the kobalen. Only a tiny movement of its feet, but it
should not have been capable of that. Yaras had let his guard drop.

Shalár sent a stab of khi toward the creature, seizing control of it herself. It let out a sharp whimper and its eyes grew wide, but it did not move again. She turned to Yaras, holding back her annoyance.