Sword (29 page)

"
Taireasa
," Taireasa said with odd emphasis. "And I would very much like to read that book."

This time it was Kinsey who looked embarrassed. Devin looked from one to the other, and felt his spirits rise just a little bit.

Interesting
.

Hush
, he heard distinctly, right inside his head. He almost dropped his glass.

Taireasa flashed an amused glance at him and tipped her head.
I'm learning,
she added with an echo of laughter and a warm flush of embarrassment—and with such startling force it was like being gently shoved off a cliff.

Devin blinked, tried to remember what he'd been about to say, and had to settle for sipping cautiously at his wine. Then the door opened, admitting his little sister. He tipped the glass all the way back and held it out again, insistently. This time even Annan gave him an uneasy glance. 

Kyali shook her head at a servant as she entered, refusing wine of her own. She probably didn't want to risk even the possibility of enjoying herself. The unrelenting black of her trousers and tunic weren't exactly lightening the air of grim single-mindedness that followed her everywhere like a thundercloud.

She looked tired. And irritated, likely at the necessity of interrupting whatever else she did with herself to come here and be with people who cared about her.

He began to think it might be a very good idea to get drunk tonight.

"Lady Captain," Taireasa said, nothing but unruffled pleasure in her tone—Taireasa was disturbingly good at keeping that mask in place. Her heart was churning with grief and a truly appalling weight of guilt, and yet none of it made it to her face. She seemed to realize at that moment that Devin was aware of more than just her words: suddenly he was alone, left with the lingering impression of pain equal to his own and, oddly, alarm.

Hell with it. He
was
getting drunk tonight. Maybe that would help him sleep.

"I see you recovered from your encounter with the West in time to join us, Lady Captain," Devin said with only a little irony, as Kyali walked warily into the circle they had made standing by the hearth.

Taireasa went pale as parchment. Kyali's eyes flashed once, a rare thing these days, and one callused hand curled and flexed. He could see the muscles in her jaw tighten. "What?" Devin demanded, taken aback. It hadn't been particularly witty, but he didn't think it was worth
this
kind of reaction.

"Yes, Captain, were there any more casualties?" Annan asked, eyeing Kyali with a pointed interest that seemed to gather more from her non-expression than Devin was managing to. "And do you encounter enemy bands so close to the fortress often?"

"Annan," Kinsey said—mildly, but Devin could see that he'd pressed a foot on his lieutenant's booted toe. The Cassdall lieutenant was sharp as a blade, and about as diplomatically gifted as Kyali herself was. Watching them match stares was like watching two cats stalk the same mouse. At any other time, he'd have enjoyed the sight.

"What is this about?" Taireasa asked, gaze bouncing between them.

Kyali slid a glance at her and twitched a shoulder upward in a detached shrug. "A band from Sevassis was sniffing about today, Your Majesty," she said, her voice as low and calm as if they were discussing the weather instead of a skirmish that had taken the life of one of her men.

—and as though that
Your Majesty
wasn’t the slap in the face that it really was. He could feel Taireasa gathering herself, holding that perfect mask of composure in place with effort. Devin couldn't help a huff of frustrated despair.

"But why were
you
out riding… yes. Of course." Taireasa cleared her throat delicately. "Did you learn anything of them?"

"It didn't appear that any survived, Majesty," Annan offered, still eyeing Kyali with that gimlet gaze, as though she were a particularly interesting book.

"None did," she shot back, not bothering to grace Annan with a glower this time. "But there was an officer among them, and he was carrying orders. I've a report for you later, my lady."

"Oh, give it now, we're all friends here," Taireasa said, her shoulders stiffening just a little as she turned to beckon a servant over for more wine.

Kyali hesitated a moment, then nodded, locking her hands behind her back, a soldier at attention. "Tuan has apparently succeeded his father," she said; Taireasa's head came up and her emerald eyes narrowed. "Unless he's commanding the Western battalions in Faestan without having taken the throne, but that seems unlikely. The officer had orders to seek out a means of entering this castle unnoticed, to cut off our route to Maurynim, and to halt the flow of supplies and refugees."

"Rather a lot to ask of one officer," Beagan murmured.

"Chances are he was in command of a far larger force that separated to circle the castle," Kyali replied. "I've sent out men to find them. What scant word I've had of doings in the lowlands suggests Master Tuan would very much like Her Majesty captured and brought to Faestan before the snow flies on this mountain."

"Small chance of that," Devin said angrily. Kyali's eyes flickered over and past him, and she pursed her lips in tacit agreement.

Taireasa, watching Kyali closely, took a sip of wine and then folded her arms. "There's something more that you're not saying, though, isn’t there? What?"

"Mmm," Kyali muttered, then shrugged a second time before meeting Taireasa's eyes. "Nothing significant, Majesty."

"Ky."

"The orders also offered lands and title to any man who could bring back my head."

Devin inhaled a bit of wine and coughed into an appalled silence.

Curran gave a low, slow whistle. "Well," he said. "That's… extravagant."

Taireasa and Kyali were now locked in some sort of staring contest. Or perhaps they were both pretending to be rocks. Mortally tired of the way the air fogged with secrets when these two met gazes lately, Devin set his glass down and pushed himself into the cold space between them.

"Have you done something in particular to provoke the man, Lady Captain, or is this merely the usual response to your famous charm?" he asked, and felt every eye in the room turn to him.

Every eye but the two in Kyali's hard, stubborn head, that is.

"I killed his father," she said with soft venom. Devin felt his pulse leap in pure stunned horror. It became fury when Kyali finally turned and pinned that icy gaze on him deliberately. "Apparently he didn't take it well."

"Some people don't, sister, when their fathers are killed. Imagine that."

"
Enough,
you two!" Taireasa snapped, temper finally breaking through her self-possession. Before she got between them, he had the satisfaction of seeing his little sister suck in a quick breath, as though taking a blow to the stomach. "We've enough to fight without bickering among ourselves."

When she set hands on each of them to push them apart, there was a sudden shudder that seemed to come from both the floor and the air—that seemed, nonsensically, to be as much inside his bones as it was under his feet. Devin staggered, putting a hand out for balance, and caught Kyali's wrist as
her
arm flailed outward. Something bleak and hurt flashed through him, something lightless and searing and intolerable. Taireasa made a strange whimpering noise, and then something else echoed it, and another thing—and all around them grew a high, dissonant hum.

Kyali tore herself out of the circle they had inadvertently made with a faint grunt that sounded like pain.

Devin shook his head, trying to clear it of the odd humming. Taireasa pressed a hand to her breast, her face gone blank and startled. The shimmer was back, thick and blurry, pulling on his guts like a fishhook.

"Dear gods," Devin wheezed. "What was
that
?"

Curran, Beagan, Loessa, and Annan had all backed away, but Kinsey was leaning in, his sharp eyes taking in every twitch and gasp. He met Taireasa's eyes, flushed, and spun immediately to pluck up Devin's abandoned wineglass and examine it. The humming echoed from the bowl of it.

"Hm," the prince said, tapping the rim with a fingertip. "Something in the air that makes it—no. Oh! Perhaps." He glared at the glass, oblivious to the roomful of people watching (Annan had taken on a faint air of long-suffering amusement), and pressed his palm to it until it was silent.

Then he dipped a finger into the wine and ran it nimbly around the rim. Even as the sound began to fade from elsewhere in the room, it swelled from the glass in his hand.

"What does that mean?" Loessa came near, peering curiously at the glass.

"I haven't the slightest idea," Kinsey said happily.

"Oh," Loessa murmured.

"It must have something to do with the way the air warps when the three of them do magi—ah, sorry, Majesty, there I go again. I'm afraid I get a bit carried away sometimes—"

"
All
the time," Annan murmured.

"—when I have a puzzle in front of me," Kinsey finished, casting a sharp and rueful look at his lieutenant. "But this… I think I'd better make haste to get the library in order. There might be books that deal with this. I know nothing of magic."

"Evidently, neither do we," Taireasa said wryly, giving herself a small shake. "I'll have servants sent in there tomorrow morning. Anything you need, just ask."

"
You
do," Devin said, looking at his sister, who was several cautious feet away, as though she was afraid one of them would reach out and grab her again. She'd gone a bit pale.

Kyali gave him a cool stare. "I what?"

"You know about magic. At least I hope you do, after two years of studying it. Be a bit sad if you managed to learn nothing in all that time, Lady Captain."

Kyali's chin came up, which told him he was about to get a real reaction from her, possibly for the first time since the uprising. "Sort of like being shipped off to Orin to be tutored by court wizards and coming back empty-headed, would you say? That sort of sad?"

She might have changed, but the edge on her tongue hadn't dulled any. Beagan snickered, trying vainly to turn the noise into a cough. Curran didn't bother to try to hide his grin.

"Gods," Taireasa sighed. "Keeping you two from fighting is like trying to empty a lake with a bucket. Ky, I trust the Fraonir
did
teach you something more than the structure of the world?"

"They did," Kyali replied, folding her arms and looking uncomfortable. "Nothing that's going to help, I fear. Certainly nothing about—what just happened."

Taireasa's shoulders sagged. "They never
once
mentioned it?"

"Never," Kyali said flatly. "I'd say they went out of their way to avoid mentioning it, in fact."

"Yes," Devin murmured, thinking of a terrible night, an old woman's words, the tears on her lined face. "I got the impression they were holding back rather a lot, actually."

"Interesting," Kinsey said, toying absently with the wineglass. "They teach the Lady Captain, yet tell her nothing; they draw Devin into the mountains to find me, which indicates they have some idea of what path this prophecy will take—"

"Or just an excellent system of spies in Cassdall," Annan threw in.

"No, I don't think so. We were climbing
their
mountain, Annan; I'm sure we were fairly visible. I'm also beginning to suspect they were expecting us."

"They know more than they say," Curran mused. "But why?
Why
won't they say, then?"

"Perhaps they can't," Kinsey murmured, more to himself than to Curran or anyone else, and got a surprised, considering look on his face.

"That sounds right," Kyali said quietly. She was rubbing her fingers over her thumb in slow, ceaseless circles, a habit she'd always had when worried or upset and trying to hide it. Devin bit the inside of his cheek, seeing that—it was a sharp reminder of the girl he'd grown up with.

"So what
did
they teach you, then, little sister? You knocked a chair over the day you came home, but I've seen no evidence other than that."

"You did?" Taireasa said, startled. "I didn't know. What else can you do?"

Kyali hunched a shoulder in a sullen shrug, looking down at her hands. She scowled, eyed the fire in the hearth balefully, and shut her eyes. Her breathing went odd, measured. Then Beagan yelped, stumbling back, as two thin skeins of flame wandered past the grate, into the air.

Loessa put both hands to her mouth.

"Dear gods," Curran said, and laughed, a little hysterically.

The fire wove past them, past Kinsey, who watched it like a man entranced; past Taireasa, who reached out to take Devin's hand in a tight, clammy grip. Devin could only stare. Flashes of cold darkness and fire far less tame than the flame sliding past him now were intruding on his thoughts. He had no idea where the impressions were coming from, but whatever they were, they nearly undid him: they
hurt
. They made him want to kill something. They made him feel every inch of the distance Kyali had put between herself and him, and every inch of the distance between where he stood and the home he'd watched burn to the ground.

He must have made a sound, because Taireasa reached for him and he could suddenly feel her shock and worry as strongly as though it were his—and then something shut off the darkness. He all but fell over at the relief of it.

The fire curled into Kyali's hands like a sleepy cat, then vanished as she clenched her fists.

"Well," Kinsey murmured. "Well."

Kyali heaved a short, tense sigh and went to stand by the one of the high windows, looking out at the night with her shoulders knotted and her hands still clenched.

"Can you do anything else?" Annan asked her, and she shot an irritated look over her shoulder at him.

"I seem to be able to heal," she said. Her voice had gone rough and next to him, Devin felt Taireasa stiffen. "From wounds that… might otherwise be mortal. It wasn't something the Fraonir had any experience dealing with."