Solace Shattered (6 page)

“I’m sorry for your losses.”

He shrugged. “It’s part of the profession. You can’t take it personally.”

“So it is at Solace. Friendships are discouraged as attachments to the world. We aren’t to mourn when a hera passes.”

Perhaps she was right; they weren’t so different. Into his mind came a picture of her sitting on the rock but not on his cape. She was wearing it and for some reason, it pleased him. It had to be all the talk about professions.

Her voice drifted into his imagination. “The script on your sword was unusual and spectacular. I have never seen a like example. Might I see it again?”

“See my sword?” A touch to the cold hilt of his new sword dispelled the vision and moment of happiness. “You’ll have to ask King Lerouge for it.”

“The king?”

“As a goodwill gesture to start our negotiations, he required it—to give to his son.”

“The prince?”

From behind Degarius came a girl’s chipper voice. “We have been looking for you this past age. Why did you stop here?” When the princess came before them, she flew to the Solacian, who looked as ashen gray as her dress. “Oh, Hera! You didn’t need to worry about us. The prince was a Frontiersman, and we were only in Ramblewood forest, not the dangerous Borderlands. I promise we’ll not get so far ahead again.”

Flakes of damp leaf meal stuck to the knees of Fassal’s breeches, and he wore a brainless, giddy smile. What in all hell had they been up to? It was damnably obvious something had happened. At least the girl’s dress wasn’t soiled, or at least not the front of it. He wanted to wrap his fist in Fassal’s shirt and shake the stupidity out of him. He’d sacrificed his sword so that Fassal had a chance at marrying the girl. If she gossiped and her father got wind of this tryst, it was all for naught. He couldn’t imagine the disgrace that would befall the Solacian. Degarius picked up his cloak and draped it over his arm. “We should return.”

They resumed their walk. Fassal and the princess were notably more leisurely in their pace and cheerfully oblivious to what their transgression might cost others and themselves. The Solacian, dwelling on her failure as a chaperone, was quiet. He should have stayed on the porch. They wouldn’t have left her alone in the woods. Any discussion seemed preferable to her silence. Weather was an exhausted topic. He came back to her profession. “How can every Solacian be known as Hera Solace? It’d be confusing.”

“Acadians address the ranking Solacian here as Hera Solace. I am Arvana.”

“That’s your family name?”

“Ah...no,” she stammered at the awkwardness of misunderstanding that his question was not personal. “Nazar is my ancestral name. In Solace, we use our child names, as family would.”

“What does your child name mean? It’s unusual.”

“My father’s family immigrated from across the sea. My name is from an old foreign tongue.
Aris
means
‘blue’ and
vanadre
‘a gift.’ When I was born, the cord was about my neck so I was blue. My father said he remembered the color blue by the sky and
that
...he lost his sight when I was a small child. Anyway, my family calls me Ari.”

The princess spun around. “You never told me your name or that story.”

“Now I have, Princess,” the Solacian replied with a shrug.

The princess pouted at him. “Pity Miss Gallivere isn’t here. Her name is Esmay. It’s a lovely name, isn’t it? What shall we tell her your name is? Or are you only Captain Degarius?”

“Beg pardon?” Degarius couldn’t help but look over his glasses. Divulging one’s child name was a mark of familiarity. It had been years since he offered it to a woman.

The princess’s eyes widened and her mouth hung open like a fish’s on a hook.

“He never hears half of what I say to him,” Fassal said and laughed uneasily.

Degarius counted himself no great hand at understanding women, but he could tell it surprised Princess Lerouge that not everyone cared to indulge her every whim. He was in no mood to soothe her feelings after the little escapade she and Fassal pulled.

The princess turned around and said in a voice purposely loud enough so that Degarius would hear, “Well, Hera Solace gave her name.”

Hera Solace gave it to
him
. If he owed his name to anyone, it was to her. Since she imagined him a perfect monk and that the Maker had a special grace for him, she might enjoy his name. “Myronan,” he said to her. “My name is Myronan.”

Her frown crept into a smile. “It means holy place.”

“Gherians don’t have surnames as southerners do, so on immigrating to Sarapost, my grandfather Stellan took the name Degarius. My father should have known Gheria and holy place are two names that don’t go together.”

“I’ve met your father. He’s a wise man.”

“Even wise men have their foibles.”

Miss Gallivere came away refreshed from her headache. She confessed it was strange, but that it was often the case with her ailment. As they gathered around the coach to depart, she said to Arvana, “Hera Solace, sit on our side of the coach this time. I haven’t talked to you in ages.”

The age would continue. Though she sat next to Arvana, she said nothing to her. Miss Gallivere had merely shrewdly observed Jesquin’s trick from this morning—a third person on the seat made for closer quarters.

Arvana welcomed the respite from speaking. She’d said enough today. No one needed to know her child name. But it was the least of her worries. She kept her face resolutely to the window. As the horizon turned to a dark silhouette, she tried to untangle the business of the captain’s sword, but the knot became more convoluted as she pried at it. If she had told the truth in the first instance, the king would have certainly gotten his sword by wile or malice. But he’d gotten it anyway and Chane, when he saw it, would know what it was. Chane. Would he be good to his word and turn the sword back over to the captain if he could use the Blue Eye? And if she had told the captain this afternoon what his sword was, and he was foolish enough to try to reclaim it, not only was his head in jeopardy, but hers as well if he disclosed her duplicity. Chane might forgive her lie—the king would not. But wasn’t it the captain’s right to know the full glory of what he’d done? That he’d killed the draeden.

Thanks to Lady Martise, she would have one more chance to tell him face-to-face. As the lady left to attend her ill friend, she announced her intention to open her home for the first time since her husband died. She would host a ball in honor of her nephew Gregory. But beneath everything was a wretched truth: the potential champion to take the Blue Eye no longer had the necessary sword. How could he not be the champion? He’d killed a draeden, and even his name was a sign.

Miss Gallivere’s jostling drew Arvana from her thoughts.

“A chill is settling in.” Miss Gallivere was reaching under the seats. “Ah, here are the throws.” One she gave to the princess; the other she draped over herself and half of Captain Degarius. She wished to hold hands with him in private, Arvana guessed, as it wasn’t remotely cold. Jesquin and the prince would be holding hands beneath their blanket, too. Would Lady Martise reprimand them? No. A marriage between her nephew and niece was the lady’s fondest desire. Arvana settled into her corner and noted the evening star was out when Miss Gallivere again stirred.

“What are you doing?” Miss Gallivere cried at the captain who was leaning forward, half standing, in the cramped coach.

He was removing his cloak. He extended it past Miss Gallivere. “Hera, the sky is clear. It’ll be cool soon.”

His fine cloak? She knew she should refuse it, but it seemed impossible. He held it with a military manner—he hadn't offered it; he’d ordered. She gathered its collar in her hands and tucked it under her chin. How different it smelled. Not like the heady perfumes everyone in Acadia wore. She wanted to bury her face in it, breathe so deeply that the scent itself would whisper the words that described it so that when the exact memory of the smell had faded, she’d have words to summon it partially back. Eyes closed, she raised the collar to her face and inhaled. Still, no words came. It was simply his scent.

She exhaled, dropped the collar to her throat and opened her eyes to a hatred she’d twice before seen directed at her. Miss Gallivere’s glare burned with the same fierce passion as Chane, as her brother Allasan’s.

Lady Martise’s house

“G
o to the music room,” Lady Martise told Fassal. “We’ll have a charming little entertainment before the dancing begins.” To Degarius she said, “I hope you are prepared to enjoy yourself this evening, Captain.”

“I am, lady,” Degarius said honestly and wondered at how little aversion he’d felt toward this ball.

Following Fassal, Degarius threaded through the guests in the music room.

“By the Maker, old man,” Fassal stopped and elbowed Degarius’s ribs, “over at the punch bowl. There’s Miss Gallivere. She’s stunning tonight. It would do a man good to run his fingers through that hair.”

“It would, but I haven’t decided if the pleasure is worth the price.”

“You think too much on sums, brother.”

“That wasn’t your opinion this afternoon over the contract for supply carts.”

At the punch bowl, Miss Gallivere, handing Degarius a cup, smirked at the full completment of medals on his dress uniform. “Why Captain, you fairly jingle when you walk.”

Something in her voice made the remark sound closer to ridicule than good-natured teasing. Before he could decide her intention, the door on the far side of the music room opened and the princess and the Solacian, carrying a kithara, entered. Degarius knew Hera Solace lived with Lady Martise, but he’d debated if she’d attend a ball. She sat and cradled the kithara in her lap. Damn, the room was close. Restlessness twinged in his forearms and hands. Just as he raised the punch to his lips, her gaze lifted from the kithara and met his with a gentle glint of acknowledgment; her eyes were dark and glossy in the candlelit room. His exhale swirled from the cup back out at him, warming his face.

“My mother is here,” Miss Gallivere whispered. “You must meet her.”

The punch Degarius was swallowing went down the wrong way. He coughed violently into his sleeve.

Miss Gallivere gasped.

The punch had sloshed from his cup onto her bare arm. She was holding it away from her so the punch didn’t trickle onto her dress. He pulled out his handkerchief and wiped her arm. Though it was but a small wet patch of skin, she met his hand and guided it. The music began. He made one last brush to her arm, returned the handkerchief to his breast pocket, and then turned to watch the performance.

Though he claimed no training in or superior appreciation of music, he knew the princess was a fine singer and the fluent movements of the Solacian’s hands and fingers were a testament to a gift brought to fruit by practice. It was something he appreciated. His mastery of the swordsman’s forms was neither accidental nor solely aptitude. He understood the contradiction of her expression, how serenity could coexist with the utmost concentration. It was a place of peace, of living only in the moment. What a fine painting it would make with her expression, the warm-colored wood of the kithara against her gray dress, all framed by the glow of the room. However, painting wasn’t a skill he’d mastered. Perhaps he had the aptitude, but never the time to practice.

Into his ear Miss Gallivere whispered, “I would have learned the kithara, had my lands been larger. They are too fine.”

He obligingly looked at her outstretched hand. It was slender and covered with the soft, unlined skin of youth.

“I have had to content myself with singing. I’m ever so passionate about music. Though the
Cantiloria
is a lovely song—the princess’s favorite—I would have chosen something more intimate for this occasion. But I suppose performing with a Solacian is a terrible constraint.”

The song ended. When the applause faded, the princess made straight for them.

“I’m only from the country,” Fassal said to her, “but was pompous enough to think fine singing could be heard there. You, however, force me to revise my opinion. Degarius, wasn’t that the finest thing you’ve ever heard?”

“Quite fine.” The Solacian was rising, going to put away her instrument. “Is she leaving?” Degarius asked the princess, but Miss Gallivere quickly answered.

“I should think so. What can there be for her here? You know what a ball is.”

“Who? Oh, my tutor? I’ve spent all week telling Hera Solace about the ball. Of course, she can’t dance, but she promised to watch me. Gregory, which dances shall we do?”

Miss Gallivere chimed, “Which dances, Captain?”