her instruments 03 - laisrathera (3 page)

Now Belinor blanched. “My Lady, you should not say such things!”

“Even if she means it?” the voice asked again. A man dropped to the ground in front of them, raising a puff of ice from the ground, and turned to them. He looked older than Belinor, but nowhere near Hirianthial’s age, and unlike every Eldritch Reese had ever seen, he moved like a cat prowling, like something only half-tamed. The sharp, pointed face, the hair short enough to brush his shoulders, and the knee-length coat in pale gray over gray clothes, all made him look like some sort of snow fox. And he had eyes that Reese immediately liked. Suspicious, yes, but alive. Curious and quick and very alive.

“God and Lady,” Belinor whispered. “A renegade priest!”

“A what?” Irine asked.

“Your boy is quick,” the man said to Reese. “You should keep him. In a few centuries, he’ll be a real wonder.”

Before Belinor could speak, Reese said, “You really are abrasive.”

“I don’t get much company,” he answered, studying her with interest. “I’m afraid I don’t have much chance to polish my manners.”

“You’re not howling in terror at the sight of the unclean alien.”

“You’re not howling in terror at the sight of the evil mind-mage.” He glanced at her hand. “And additionally, you are breaking my compulsion.”

Reese looked at her own hand, found it half-raised. “I do kind of want to wring your neck for this. I hate being espered at.”

“This is something you have experience with?”

Reese narrowed her eyes. “I don’t think you’ve earned that story yet.”

He grinned. “Fair enough. And if I release you, you’ll promise not to let your tame priest try to kill me?”

Belinor said, “My Lady! Renegades are dangerous!”

“You have that all wrong, boy,” the man said. “It’s the priests who are dangerous. I should know, yes? And you should too, except you’re in the God’s garb, so what would you know?” He shook his head. “You have a lot to learn.”

Reese snapped her fingers with the hand she was struggling to lift. “Hey. Showy Stranger. Over here. I’m the one in charge. Pay attention to me.” Had she judged him right? Yes, he was grinning. He even essayed a small bow. “Out of the chains, please?”

“Fine. But mind your priest’s manners.”

“He won’t do a thing against you,” Reese said. “Will you, Belinor?”

“No, my Lady,” the youth muttered, but in poor humor.

“Very well.” The stranger waved a hand, releasing them… and crumpled, caught in the crossfire of two separate palmers. Irine and Taylor glanced at one another.

“Did we both hit him?” Irine asked.

Taylor shrugged. “Shouldn’t matter. Two beams or one, he’ll be out a few hours either way.”

“Well, let’s truss him up,” Reese said with a sigh. “No use having him wake up free.”

“Ah, but what will being tied up matter if he can freeze us all up like that with his thoughts?” Irine asked as Belinor gaped at them. “I mean, I assume this is sort of what Hirianthial did to those bandits on the colony, but I don’t know how to prevent him from trying it again.”

“I think drugs make it harder,” Reese said. “But I’d rather not drug him. We’ll just have to keep one of you out of sight behind him or something and hope we don’t need to think our way out of this a second time.”

“My Lady!” Belinor said. “You had weapons!”

“We have some weapons,” Reese corrected. “Not too many. But yes. We have a few.”

“Then slay this creature, while you still can!”

Thinking of Hirianthial, Reese said, “Not until we know who he is and what he’s doing here.”

“But he’s dangerous!”

Reese said, “I noticed. But so are we. At least a little bit.” She smiled wryly at Taylor and Irine. To the Eldritch, she finished, “We’ll keep an eye on him. In fact, you can keep an eye on him, if you’re comfortable guarding him.”

“I will do my best, my Lady. But I am no mind-mage.”

“None of us are.”

Belinor subsided, but Taylor glanced at her. “He may be right, you know.”

“Maybe,” Reese said. “But he could have killed us all before he even knew we were here. And he didn’t.” She glanced at the riot of roses and inhaled deeply. “Let’s get inside and see what we’ve got to work with.”

CHAPTER 2

“They told me you’ve been released,” Sascha said from the door to the room the Eldritch was only too glad to be vacating.

Hirianthial glanced toward him, then looked away, suffering the unaccustomed swing of his shorn hair against his jaw and the unfulfilled promises it represented. The dangle the crew had woven him barely moved, a long rope down his back: that too, was a promise, but theirs to him, that they’d meant it when they’d said they would stand by him. He composed himself, then said, “Sascha, I am sorry.”

“For snapping at me?” Sascha padded closer, pulling a stool with him and straddling it. He flicked his ears forward, aura a settled warm gold, comforting. “I could use an apology for that, yeah.”

Hirianthial exhaled and met the Harat-Shar’s eyes. “You have it, then. I am sorry. I was… not myself.”

“I think you were actually very much yourself,” the tigraine said. His ears flicked forward. “Worried, are you.”

“We’ve left our own amid dragons and slavers and traitors,” Hirianthial replied. “Perhaps you have some knowledge that prevents you from worrying? If so, I would very much like to hear it.”

Sascha shook his head. “If that’s a ‘tell me something’s changed since I was awake last,’ that’s a no. But you’re up, and that’s good. That’s one of the things we were waiting for. And frankly, you need to be on your feet because your cousin needs you.”

“Ah?”

“She’s going to explode,” Sascha said. “I’m no judge of royalty or anything, but I do know something about tempers, having lived with Reese for years now. And if something doesn’t distract that woman, she’s going to start punching walls. Or whatever passes for that among you people. Something that sounds more dramatic and genteel.”

“We say cutting ourselves to feed the blade,” Hirianthial said.

Sascha’s ears flattened and he grimaced. “You would, wouldn’t you.” Hirianthial felt the tigraine’s regard as he pushed himself off the bed, trying his feet. Far too weak, he thought. How long did he have before he’d need his full faculties? Not long, and he was no longer a youth to snap back from bodily distress so easily. So it surprised him when Sascha said, “You look good.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You looked like death when we rescued you, so… yes. You look much better.” The tigraine’s tail lashed once against the stool. “Fortunately we got you patched up by the best on the starbase.”

“I had wondered. Where are we, then?”

“We’re in the Fleet hospital,” Sascha said. “When we came barreling in, your cousin took over the comm and, not surprisingly, I guess, royalty gets perks. Especially royalty from an allied nation. Not only that, but the
Earthrise
is owned by one of the few holders of Fleet’s only civilian citation—for that business with Surapinet and Captain NotAgain—so we got privileged treatment. They’re shining the hull as we speak. I don’t think Reese will recognize her when we pull back into orbit.”

His heart contracted at the thought. Theresa alone, and amid his enemies… had they never met, she would never have become their targets.

“You really do love her, don’t you,” Sascha said, and Hirianthial broke from his reverie to find the tigraine studying his face.

“Sascha…”

“You’re about to tell me all the reasons why it can’t work,” Sascha said. “As if I don’t already know them.”

“You don’t,” Hirianthial said, firm.

“She loves you, too, you know.”

“And now,” Hirianthial said, “You are meddling, Sascha—”

“By telling you things you already know?” Sascha snorted. “You called me ‘arii’. That means we’re friends. And as prickly as she is, the Boss trusts me with her life. That gives me enough right to meddle when the both of you already know something and don’t want to look at it.” He looked up. “And you know. You
know
, don’t you.”

The touch of her fingers in his shorn hair… the temple she’d pressed lightly against his in her wild despair. The feeling that had been wellspring to that despair, the only one capable of creating such panic and horror in her at his state, at the thought that he might die. He closed his eyes.

“Thought so,” Sascha murmured. “Look, we’re going to live through this… so I’m not going to push you about it.”

“No?” he said, surprised.

“If I’m right,” Sascha said. “All that we’ve lived through, and all that we’re about to go through, will teach you far better than I could. I’m just pointing all this out so… you know. When you do live through it, it’ll be on your mind. About how precious some things are, and how rare, and how easily you can lose them.” He smiled faintly. “You Eldritch. You think you’re magic just because you have the potential to outlive us ten times over. But that doesn’t change that it’s just potential. You know how often people realize their potential, arii? And that’s over things in themselves they can control.”

Hirianthial stared at him, stunned. Not just at the words, but at the solidity of his aura. Before leaving the homeworld, Urise had been teaching him to reach the silence of the Universe, where the answers were implied because there had been a Listening in that silence. To see it reflected in the aura of someone his own kind would have called a mortal….

“And how did you get so wise?” he asked.

Sascha grinned. “Thanks for not finishing that ‘so young.’ By now you should know the answer, right?”

“I fear not.”

The Harat-Shar snorted. “By loving. Of course. What else?”

“What else,” Hirianthial murmured, feeling it sweep through him like a vivifying wind, like the first breeze of spring.

Kis’eh’t peeked in. “Is he awake? Is—oh! You are!”

“I am,” he said, and had enough time to realize the Glaseah was running to brace himself. She halted just short of him as if remembering such as he was not to be touched for casual cause, but… surely this was no casual cause. So he leaned down and completed the embrace she’d wanted to give him, and she sighed against his ribcage, bringing him the effervescence of her pleasure at the sight of him on his feet, the quiet orderliness of her thoughts, the contentment she felt that things were finally falling into place… and the knowledge that she was holding… his clothes?

“You have something for me?” he said, puzzled.

“Yes,” she said. “If you’re up, the Queen asked that you come see her. Apparently you have family coming? And they’re arriving now.”

“Family,” he murmured. “Of course. If you will excuse me? I will dress.” He paused and looked at Sascha.

The Harat-Shar laughed. “What, are you waiting for the inevitable joke? ‘Do I have to go?’”

“I thought I would grant you the opportunity.”

“To tease you!” Sascha grinned. “Maybe things will be all right after all.” He paused a heartbeat, then added, “So do I have to go, or can I watch?”

Kis’eh’t rolled her eyes and pulled his elbow. “Come on, lecher. The faster we figure things out here, the faster we can deliver you back to your sister’s loving arms.”

“Sounds good to me.”

Hirianthial watched them as the Glaseah led the Harat-Shar away, felt at his fingertips the softness of their auras where they melded with the ease of long friendship. He did not think they would call one another friends, if asked. Family, though.

He looked at the clothes. Pulled from his own room on the
Earthrise
, no doubt… but by Liolesa. He knew the moment he touched the long bronze scarf, and not just because he could feel through it the memory of her fingertips. She would have noted the hair Baniel had shorn in the cell, and how naked it would make him feel, to be reduced to the coif of a boy not yet at his majority. And yet, there was something freeing about the lack… as if, without it, he might contemplate a life outside his world’s expectations. He passed his hand over his nape, hearing the bell at the end of the dangle shiver as he disturbed it.

Hirianthial was escorted directly from the hospital, over a Pad and into what looked like a hotel lobby, save that this lobby was maintained solely by uniformed personnel from the Alliance Fleet. One and all their auras were contracted close to their bodies—discipline learned, he wondered? Or concern over their military’s posture? But they were courteous to him when they guided him smoothly from the lobby to the suite where they’d installed Liolesa… who was, after all, a visiting head of state. She was sitting in what looked like the Alliance version of a receiving room, complete with a small collection of chairs around a table and a window. If here the window spanned from floor to ceiling and showed the uncanny clarity of space rather than a winter landscape, well. He had been traveling in the Alliance for over sixty years now, and it looked natural to him. Even his cousin looked normal in this setting… but then, Liolesa had that talent of making anywhere she bided her own.

No, it was the stranger facing her, who was rising at his entrance, who arrested his attention.

Lesandurel Meriaen Jisiensire was not much more their senior: two centuries or less, Hirianthial thought. But unlike either of them, Lesandurel had left their world when he was barely over two hundred… and had not returned. He had stayed among the Pelted and made a home with them, and kept family—mortal family, nine generations’ worth—and though Hirianthial knew Liolesa had maintained contact with him since Maraesa had passed the crown to her, he knew very little of a man who was technically a distant kinsman. He hadn’t known what to expect of an Eldritch who’d been so long away, but given his own experiences with loss and death, he thought to face at least some evidence of melancholy and the grief of time made manifest in the lives of those who had died before him, over and over again.

But Lesandurel Meriaen was not a melancholic. And while his aura was scored with the memories of sorrow, he was a brilliance to Hirianthial’s sight: a calm and an energy and a richness that made Hirianthial suddenly want to touch and see if that energy would feel like velvet and smell like aged wine and taste like flakes of gold on festival bread.