Master (Book 5) (47 page)

“He knows things
before
I report them,” J’anda said. “His source is quite good; they have firsthand knowledge of your adventures in Luukessia.”

Cyrus felt his mind blaze at that thought. “There were a thousand members of Sanctuary with us in Luukessia. Not counting the Luukessians.”

“Whoever it is,” Terian said, “they’re probably on the Council. The things that Dagonath Shrawn knows about you, about our ways …” Terian shuddered. “If I were still within the walls, I would fear for my life.”

Cyrus felt himself looking at Terian with smoky eyes. “Do you fear for mine?”

Terian took his time answering, and when he did, it caused a subtle chill to run down Cyrus’s spine. “Yes. I fear for your life. Watch your back, Cyrus Davidon. In the name of the man who was father to us both … watch your damned back.”

The knock at the door sounded with all the authority of a thunderclap on the plains. Cyrus looked to the dull, wooden separation at the bottom of the tower stairs. He was still unused to his new quarters, though now his mighty bed rested in the middle of them. It was a curious thing, the open doors at each point of the compass, and in spite of his gloom he could still appreciate the delightful airiness that they brought; sweeping night wind, stars shining down from the sky, a moon somewhere overhead and out of his sight.

Cyrus sat at the table, staring down the steps toward the doors to his quarters, as though the door would simply open itself. “Come in,” he said finally, resigned to the fact that the knock would doubtless come again in mere moments.

She slid in soundlessly, her leather armor failing to produce so much as a squeak; her boots whisper-quiet on the stones that composed the floor. She tilted her head, frost-white hair falling down on either side of the night-blue face like the moonlight shone down above her instead of somewhere outside. Aisling made her way up the stairs, taking it all in. “So … this is the Guildmaster’s tower.”

“Obviously the whole central tower is not mine,” Cyrus said, feeling a swell of relief at the unanticipated diversion, “only the top floor. Though there does seem to be a rather thick layer of stone between me and my officers.”

She looked sly as she came up the stairs to his level. “You did it.”

“I was merely elected,” Cyrus said, gauntlets pressed together in clenched fists. He held his hands together as though the tension between them could be worked out by a firm grip. He found little relief with this, though, and finally pulled them apart, placing his palms flat against the table. He could feel the sweat soaking the soft cloth that lined his armor. In spite of the breeze wafting through his quarters, Cyrus felt quite warm.

“You put yourself forward and allowed the guild to show you how much they love you,” Aisling said, doing her slow, stalking walk toward him. He was keenly aware that it was part of the seduction; he had seen it enough times by now to know what it entailed.

“I don’t think that it extends as far as ‘love,’” Cyrus said. “Belief in my leadership, perhaps. A lack of good alternatives, maybe.” He felt himself smile, but it was not heartfelt and it dried up as quickly as a discarded skin of water in the desert. “We need to talk.”

“Do we?” She slid around him, her hand sliding up his arm. Even through the plate, it had some effect, like the wind had picked up and run goosepimples down his flesh. She paused behind him, and he kept himself facing straight ahead only with great effort. She leaned down and wrapped her arms around his chest. “Can we do it after?” Her warm, cinnamon breath rushed into his ear and he felt himself stiffen involuntarily. In more ways than one.

“We cannot,” Cyrus said, standing abruptly. He realized a moment too late that had she been slightly less graceful, he would surely have caused his skull to collide with her chin. As it was, by the time he came around, she had dodged his sudden movement and rebounded back to him, catlike, sliding up against him with both hands wrapped around his neck. He felt her fingers run through his hair at the back, kneading the back of his neck in such a way that he felt his tension decrease by a significant margin immediately.

She tugged gently upon him, drawing his face down toward hers. “It can wait.”

He felt his eyes begin to involuntarily close and through great effort he snapped them open and stopped his slow bend toward her lips. “No.”

He watched her eyes flutter open, slitted pupils that gazed at him in violet wonder. “What?” she asked.

“I cannot do this any longer,” Cyrus said.

“A tired refrain,” she said and began to pull him to her again, “you’ll feel differently after. You always do.”

“I don’t want to feel differently,” Cyrus said, grasping her hands and pulling them off his back. Her eyes registered muted shock. “I don’t want to keep using you to soothe my aches while imagining you’re someone else.” He turned his back on her, letting go of her arms. “You and I have done this dance for far too long, and I have been a fool and a weakling letting myself think that this could be more than it is.” He looked to her. “I use you selfishly, and it has to stop.”

“It doesn’t have to stop unless I want it to stop,” she said, her face composed in straight lines, devoid of emotion. “And I don’t wish it to.”

“You hold out hope for something that will never happen,” Cyrus said. “My feelings for you are gratitude—for what you’ve done for me, for saving my life, for the guidance you’ve provided, and the thousand times you’ve been a balm. But no more than that.”

“You don’t know that it couldn’t be more,” she said, and now she looked a little like he’d slapped her. “You haven’t given it time—”

“You’ve given it a year,” Cyrus said, trying to keep his feelings at a distance, assessing them analytically, like a battlefield he was about to send his army upon. “Nothing has happened. In spite of the muddling of things, in spite of the desires of the flesh, the call of my heart has not changed since the day I first took my relief in you. I respect you, I find great comfort in your kindness—that much has changed. But I do not love you, Aisling.” He said it with great pain, as though he were pulling a knife from his own heart as he said it. “I wish I could. But I do not.”

She took it stoically. “You do not know what you are saying.”

“I know what I am saying.” Cyrus maintained the distance between them out of careful consideration. However much he wanted to reach out, to offer her support, he knew that this thought was folly that would lead him astray, back to the bed, to her arms, to her bosom, to all else. He imagined his feet rooted to the ground by invisible vines growing out of the stone, as if a druid had cast a spell on him. “It must be over.”

“It can’t be over,” she said, emotionless.

“It is,” Cyrus said, studying her face, looking her in the eyes. Her reserve was glacial, a wall of ice so thick it muted the purple of her eyes. “I am sorry, Aisling. I cannot keep doing this to you.” He let out a reluctant breath, life rushing out of his body. “To us.”

“You can do whatever you want to me,” she said in that throaty whisper, the one she used when she tried to sway him. “For as long as you want. This is an offer that has no limits.” She took a step toward him and he countered it, imagining vines pulling him away to maintain the distance between them.

“I have limits,” Cyrus said, “and we have reached them in regards to my sense of responsibility. I feel as if I have been preying upon you, and it does neither of us justice. It shames us both.”

“There is no shame in what we do,” she said, and he caught the first hint of anger from her.

“There is shame for how I feel as we do what we do,” Cyrus said. “I don’t imagine you as we linger together. I close my eyes and—”

“Stop,” she said, closing her own. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to me.”

Her gaze found him again. “Let her go.”

“I cannot,” Cyrus said. “I … won’t.”

There was a calculation performed behind her eyes in that moment, something he had never seen from her before. She did not move for a long moment. “Are you certain?” she asked finally, a low whisper that carried not even a hint of seduction.

“I am,” Cyrus said. “And I am truly sorry.”

She glanced away, lips pursed, and when she moved, it was toward the stairs. “You need not feel sorry on my account.” Her shoulders were straight, her walk as silent as ever as she stole down the steps.

“But I do anyhow,” Cyrus said.

She paused at the door, turned to look back at him as he stared down at her. A flicker of emotion came over her, then another, and another. They passed in succession, each no more than a fragment, but each something that Cyrus had never seen from her before, and it stirred his curiosity. “Farewell,” she said finally said and disappeared through the door without another word.

Cyrus watched the darkened door for a moment, pondering what he had seen. Unable to make any sense of it, he eventually retired to the balcony that looked to the south and stared out at the moonlit waters of the river Perda, running wide across the empty plains. He almost felt as though he were gliding across the water himself, running as weightless as if he had the Falcon’s Essence upon him, free of some burden he had not even known he had carried.

The light autumn fell upon the Plains of Perdamun with as gentle a touch as it always did, turning only the occasional tree red and yellow with its kiss. The bluster of a north wind settled in, blowing for weeks at a time. Cyrus did not count the days, nor did he try to track them at all, save for by the news that blew in as though carried by the winds. It always seemed to come out of the north as well, and sometimes with as much bitterness as the wintry gusts.

“Reikonos is under heavy siege,” J’anda told Cyrus as they walked through the grounds. Cyrus had eschewed the Council Chamber on this occasion as the enchanter had promised things that were for his ears only, safely away from those who might be whispering them directly back to the Sovereign of Saekaj. It still made Cyrus uneasy, the thought of a traitor in their midst, but he was able to keep this malingering disquiet to himself.
Who else would I tell at this point?
he wondered to himself without amusement. “They have only a few miles before the dark elves will be at their gates,” the enchanter went on.

“That bodes ill,” Cyrus said. “The Big Three are unable to stem the advance?”

“Amarath’s Raiders have pulled out of the city’s defense completely,” J’anda said tonelessly. “Burnt Offerings and Endeavor hold the line with only the aid of the Confederation’s soldiers.”

“Hells,” Cyrus murmured. “It truly is an ill wind out of the north.”

“Not the north,” J’anda said. “Thanks to your defense of Livlosdald, the Northlands remain safe. The Riverlands, on the other hand …”

“That front goes ill as well?” Cyrus asked, his steps growing more uneven with each bit of news. “The Confederation has little in the way of glad tidings, then.”

“It could be worse,” J’anda said with a shrug. “The Confederation still controls several vital defense points on that front. All is not lost yet. And the siege of Reikonos could be a very long and costly one for the Sovereign, should he continue to gamble on that front.”

“It seems like he’s making sound bets,” Cyrus said, “though I would love to know the origin of his seemingly endless font of troops.”

“The truth will come out eventually,” J’anda said, and Cyrus could see the discomfort even in the lines of the dark elf’s face, wrinkles set upon with an unhappy expression. “Soon, I hope.”

“Before this war is prematurely ended, I hope,” Cyrus said.

“Terian also asked me to convey his hopes that we will be able to have a more thorough conversation within the next week,” J’anda said.

“Lovely,” Cyrus said, “I’m certain that will be a productive talk, since neither of you are able to truly discuss the secrets of the Sovereign.”

“We are making preparations,” J’anda said. “Details need to be attended to before we can make our move.”

“A move you can’t tell me anything about,” Cyrus said.

J’anda looked only a little pained. “It is a tricky business, being a spy whose loyalties are supposedly in flux. I have maintained illusions for more minds at a time than almost any other enchanter in Arkaria. But the illusion I maintain now I do without the benefit of my skills, which are useless in building this particular facade.”

“How do you do it, then?” Cyrus asked.

J’anda’s expression slipped for just a moment, and Cyrus caught something from the dark elf he had never seen before; a cold, burning fury that almost made him want to take a step back. “I have motivation. Debts unpaid that need to be settled before my end.”

Cyrus considered pulling on that small thread, seeing what else came out, but something in the very back of him told him not to. “I trust you.”

The fury passed, replaced by the enchanter’s usual, amiable mien. “As well you should.”

They left it at that, the bluster chilling Cyrus enough that as soon as he’d seen J’anda disappear into the light of a return spell, he turned his course back onto the path around Sanctuary, headed to the front doors. He kept his cloak tight around him to ward against the chill but found it did little. It was a low agony, a slow, biting wind that nipped, stealing a little of his warmth at a time.

When he opened the door into the foyer and felt the warmth spread over him, it was like the relief of a bath after the aches of battle. He took in the breath of sweet smoke that wafted from the massive hearth to his right, running along the side of the room. The assembled guard standing encircled around the seal only gave the briefest of looks toward him as he shut the massive door behind him. He gave a nod of greeting and received several hundred in return.

“Ah, so there is a fool willing to brave the day’s chill,” Vara said from his left, emerging from the lounge with a leather-bound volume clenched in her silver gauntlet.

“If a fool’s required, you always know where to find me,” Cyrus said with a tight smile that was returned only a little. “How goes it, Lady Vara?”

She raised an eyebrow to him. “It goes, Lord Davidon. Have you any news to report?”