Keepers of the Flame (56 page)

The
moon had risen and was large and full and bright, low to the water. An
exquisite sight, but it reminded him that he and Elizabeth had made love under
the last full moon. Anger spurted through him. Why did his first thoughts
always have to be of Elizabeth? Time to place her Song firmly into the past.
Stop brooding. Stop mourning. Live life and believe in the future.

Then
they were over the sea and Faucon Sang prayers for long minutes.

Finally
Starflower lowered to the ground, landing gently. Faucon saw a figure walking
toward them. Her Song hit him hard.

Exotique.
How could this be? He gasped. He knew all the Exotiques well. This wasn’t any
of them. He stared at the scrawny woman slowly shambling toward them, head
down, as if she didn’t realize they were there. As if lifting her foot for each
step was an effort.

Everything
inside him squeezed at the knowledge that she would be nothing but trouble.
Complicate his life. By the Song, he was sick of Exotiques!

She
stopped, raised her head and he saw that her skin showed patches of dark and
light, as if she’d tried to disguise herself. With dirt, he supposed. Her hair
was to her shoulders and looked like a solid mat, dark—he couldn’t tell if it
would be any strange color like the other Exotiques.

He
sat tall on the volaran. “Salutations,” he called.

She
stood still.

Let
me go to her,
Starflower said.
She knows me. I found her earlier tonight. She has been in
Lladrana for months.

There
was only one explanation. “The Seamasters didn’t fail in their Summoning like
they thought they had,” he whispered. Sighing, he slid off the volaran.

Truth.

Faucon
watched as Starflower trotted forward until she was within arm reach of the
woman. Then the volaran stretched out her neck, lifted her wings as if to show
them for admiration. It was a strong person who could ignore a volaran’s
advances. The woman raised her hand tentatively, but had to take a couple of
steps toward her, toward Faucon, to touch Starflower.

Come
get her. She is weak and does not walk well. She needs to be taken to the
Marshalls’ Castle.

“Perhaps
I should call them to come and pick her up.” The wind was flowing toward
Starflower, and volarans had good ears. He had no doubt the steed would hear
him.

Starflower
snorted. Stamped. The woman stumbled back. The volaran crooned.

Come,
it will rain later and there is no town nearby
.

“Gentian
is only a few miles,” he said. She’d probably come from there.

She
cannot walk so far
.

Since
the woman was swaying on her feet, Faucon reluctantly agreed.

Aren’t
you curious about her?

“Not
enough to touch another Exotique.”

Starflower
tensed.
Alarms ring at the Castle.

His
gut clenched. What was he doing here, indulging his emotions? Lladranans still
had battles to fight and win, the Dark to defeat. Best focus on that. But he
could do nothing right now without Starflower.

The
Marshalls and the Chevaliers are occupied. You are here for her
.

His
turn to snort. Grumbling, he walked toward the woman and volaran. Gave this
strange Exotique his briefest bow. He felt the instinctive slide of attraction
and ignored it, for once not thinking at all how he would charm and impress
her. Over that affliction, thank the Song.

“Salutations,”
he repeated brusquely. She didn’t turn her head but eyed him. “We should go.
Rain’s coming. Do you fly?”

She
only continued to stroke Starflower’s silky hide.

A
rocky point of land rose ahead of them. They were coming up on the last easy
path up the incline

“Ttho,”
she said, her voice husky. A little curl of sexual interest teased his groin.
Merde!

“I
don’t ride,” she said. Her accent was strange—all the Exotiques had varying
accents, but a commonality, too. Her underlying tongue was different, reminded
him more of how the Singer spoke the Exotique language.

By.
The. Song.

The
more he looked at this woman, the more it became obvious that she had not been
treated well. Not like the other Exotiques. There was a bruise on her swollen
cheek, something dark and crusty under her fingernails. Blood?

He
didn’t want to think about it. He drew out a practiced smile, bowed again, a
little deeper.

Her
eyes glittered some color he didn’t think was brown or black, but were set
deeply and surrounded by dark smudges.

Then
he took her arm and walked inland.

“Ttho!”
She jerked her arm away. “Not again. I still feel sick.” Not only was her
underlying accent different, her words were overlaid with the thickness of
rough southern fisher-tongue.

Impatience
gnawed at him. “We have to go. My duty lies elsewhere, and rain is coming.”
Again he gripped her arm and nearly dragged her up the path.

She
doubled over and clutched her belly, screaming, flailed an arm to fight. But
she was half-starved and sick and weak.

It
hurts her if she goes too far from the sea
. Starflower tramped nervously in
the sand.
And she has had a hard day.

Faucon
gave the volaran a disbelieving stare.

The
woman turned her head aside and retched. Not much came out of her.

The
volaran lifted her head, met his gaze and repeated herself.
It hurts her if
she goes too far from the sea.

Snorting,
ready to prove Starflower wrong, Faucon walked toward the lap of waves that was
the tide going out. The woman relaxed beside him.
“Merci.”
It was spoken
so quietly that he didn’t know if she whispered it or the word insinuated
itself into his mind.

She
was pitiful, with none of the strength and sparkling Power and confidence of
the other Exotiques. He clenched his jaw. Why was
he
the person who had
to deal with this?

Because
you live by the sea
.

Wonderful.
He ground his teeth. She smelled, too, not awful, just…odd. Brine, woman,
Exotique. His grip loosened. Whatever she was, she was ill. Could it be the
frinkweed sickness? The thought stopped his breath.

The
Dark has not touched her,
Starflower said.

Faucon
gazed at the flying horse.

Starflower
sidled.
I would know. We all knew when Bri was touched.

“Hmm,”
he said.

The
woman moaned, began to shiver. She was too thin, and so was what she wore. He
could see her ribs, more dark marks against her fair skin.
“Merde!”

She
flinched, drew in a shuddering breath and struck out. He thought she meant it
for his eye. He ducked. She clipped him on the ear and it stung. She struggled
again.

“Quiet!”

She
didn’t listen, raked his cheek with short, broken nails encrusted with who knew
what. He spun her around, trapped her arms to her body. “Easy,” he soothed,
trying to keep exasperation out of his voice, his Song. He had not handled this
right. She was sick. She was frightened. And what in the pit of the Dark was
she doing in such a state?

The
Seamasters had botched their Summoning at midwinter. They hadn’t even known
they’d succeeded in bringing an Exotique over.

When
he’d heard they’d tried a Summoning, he should have sent searchers around
Seamasters’ Market, but hadn’t. No one had. Everyone had believed the
Seamasters when they said they’d failed.

Error
upon error upon error.

She
stood still for a moment, then twisted. Her heels struck back, but his boots
were thick.

He
freed her. She stumbled away, not looking at him, avoiding Starflower, too.

He
followed. “I’m Faucon Creusse, a noble and Chevalier.”

She
said nothing, shambled faster. She didn’t move with the grace of the other
Exotiques. Could he be wrong? Perhaps she was a woman from a different land,
unusual, but not unknown. His estate was in the south, after all, near Krache,
and Song knew all sorts landed and stayed in Krache.

“I
want to help you.”

She
snuffled, kept staggering away.
You lie
.

Faucon
winced.

“You
all lie.” She had a certain tone in her voice that made him think of Alexa.
Stopping, he concentrated on her Song.
That
was strong, held notes of
Power, rhythms associated with the sea. But her melody was missing several
beats, or he couldn’t hear them. His heart squeezed. They always got to his
heart first—why was that? Why couldn’t this attraction go straight to his groin
so he could shove it aside, or satisfy it as easily as Elizabeth had done.

He
strolled behind the woman. He didn’t want to be here, do this, know her. “I
feel obligated to help you. That’s the truth. I will not go away,
Exotique
.”

She
made a keening noise and wrapped her arms around herself and picked up her
pitiful pace. “You will kill me. You are like the others who hate me and will
kill me.”

He
stopped. Exotique, yes. Which meant that some were innately repulsed as well as
attracted. He hadn’t thought about that much. Luthan was the only one Faucon
knew who had the affliction, and Luthan was the most honorable man on Amee.

Bruises
on her skin, anger sparked inside him. No matter who she was, she did not
deserve that. He caught up with her. Stuck his hands in his pockets, kept pace
on her right, with the sea to their left. It was easy to match steps with her.
Like all Exotiques, she was smaller than he, shorter. Marian was the tallest,
the most voluptuous, and this woman didn’t have her height, was perhaps as tall
as Elizabeth had been. In far worse shape. Faucon didn’t know how much weight
she usually carried, but she was skin and bones now.

“I
am Faucon Creusse, a Chevalier,” he said again mildly. He gestured to
Starflower, who was munching seagrass. The volaran ignored him. “Don’t you know
of Chevaliers?”

“Not
much.”

“You
came in midwinter, Summoned by the Seamasters. They didn’t want to pay zhiv to
the Marshalls to bring you through the Dimensional Corridor properly. The
Seamasters thought they failed and said nothing.”

She
just kept walking, though he sensed she listened.

“Am
I right? How long have you been here?” he demanded. “How did you come?”

She
flinched.

This
time his sigh came out like a sigh. “We are walking north. Tell me where you
want to go and I will take you.”

Her
hands curved into claws. Faucon took a pace away, gave her more room, let her
feel less threatened. They walked for a couple of moments in silence. She snuck
quick glances from under matted and ragged hair. He kept his hands in his
pockets.

“I
fell through a mirror,” she mumbled.

That
gave him pause. The Singer, again. Maybe. Koz had told him the Singer practiced
mirror magic. The thought of Koz made Faucon smile. Just the man to win this
one. “Come with me,” he soothed. “I promise you food and a warm bed and
safety.”

Tears
dribbled down her face. “I can’t,” she sobbed. “I can’t leave the sea.”

“I
have a dock house.” A fancy to protect his yacht. “Or you can sleep on the
yacht.”

“Yacht?”

“It’s
a large boat of—”

“I
know what a yacht is. I design ships.”

It
all fell together in his mind like rippling chimes. The assault against the
Dark would need a special ship to carry Marshalls and Chevaliers and volarans.
Amee had seen to that, had prodded the Seamasters’ pride to Summon this woman.

He
shook his head. The how didn’t matter as much as the fact that she was needed
here. In Lladrana. A true Exotique. And his charge. Again he felt the tug of
his blood toward her.

He
set his jaw. Not this time.

It
took him a long while, until the moon began setting, disappearing behind the
ocean waves, before he could convince Raine—her name was Raine Lindley—to fly
with him.

And
though he’d tried to project an ease at that flight, he thought he’d dream of
flying double with a novice without tack over the open sea forever.

43

T
hrills ran up
and down Raine’s spine as she watched the waves under them during the lovely
flight across the sea. The volaran felt solid and comforting. Sang somehow in
Raine’s mind. Or maybe Raine heard a Song from her. That happened to her now
and then—she heard Songs.

She
thought it happened to Lladranans more often, another reason she’d been
considered lacking.

The
sexy noble Chevalier didn’t like her. Fine by Raine, especially since she’d
spent a little time in his gruff and irritated company and he hadn’t hurt her.
He wasn’t like Travys.