Sword (37 page)

He leaned over her, eyes serious and unreadable, pressing in the last place she wanted him to be. But she had invited this, had wished it, it meant she wouldn't have to think for a little while, she was so tired of being afraid, and besides she was hardly going to back down now—

Oh.

Kyali went still, her eyes going wide.

Memory rose, knotted every muscle, and was chased away by the—by what Annan was—dear
gods
.

He began to move, and every thought in her head vanished, along with her breath and what little control she still had over her expression. Kyali arched up with him, needing to move, needing to choose, and together they found a rhythm like a horse's sway, or a tide scraping the shore. Annan made a soft sound and buried his face in her neck. It went on, and on, stripping away the last of her self-restraint, smoothing out the edges of her anger and her fear, washing it all away in a flood of mindless sensation. She dug her fingers into his shoulders, forgetting everything, all of it, hating herself, hating how grateful she was for the sudden, perfect silence in her own head.

It got very much better then, or perhaps it was very much worse. She didn’t know anymore. She couldn't swallow the sound that tore out of her as the world flashed white. Annan's breath hitched once, then again, and he shuddered, holding her without holding her, his eyes shut tight.

They lay still then, tangled together on a couch far too small to hold them both. The fire popped and crackled. Kyali tilted her face away, still trying to get her expression back under control, still not having any luck with that.

It had been such a stupid thing to do. She'd never thought—

Gods help her, it hadn't occurred to her she might like it. It had never occurred to her she
could
.

A callused finger traced her collarbone. She scowled. Another joined it, moving lower, drawing slow, simmering circles, making nerves still recovering shudder and sing. She glared over at Annan, found him watching her with that narrow-eyed look of challenge that had started this whole stupid mess in the first place.

A third finger, moving yet lower. It was wildly distracting. She bit the inside of her cheek, started using her own hands, taking a certain satisfaction in the way his own breath halted and his eyes lidded.

"I was thinking we could sail men down the river on rafts," Kyali said, and almost grinned at the offended look that crossed Annan's face. "To Maurynim," she clarified. Then she shut up, because the noise she’d make if she kept talking wasn't going to have any dignity in it at all.

"Mmph," her opposite number said, breathless but not beaten. She knew this game, though the pieces were unfamiliar. She wasn't playing fair, but neither was he. And she was certain he had more experience to draw on than—no. No. She wasn't thinking of that.

She didn't need to think of anything at all right now.

Annan was going to win, she knew that much when he moved his hands lower still, did something that pulled a startled moan out of her, and kept right on doing it while her heels thudded against the couch arm and her fingers got too clumsy to be useful.

Oh.

They could talk about Maurynim later.

C
HAPTER
21

T
he air was so cold it hurt his throat; he wrapped a fold of his heavy wool cloak over his face, leaning on ice-slicked stone, and looked out over a landscape glittering with snow under the cold, bright sun.

Cassdall's winters had been
nothing
like this.

He guessed, from the groaning complaints of soldiers coming back from patrols, that Lardana winters were also mild. The heart of the lowlands wasn't visible from here, but the land stretching past the distant roll of the foothills was brown rather than white.

Kinsey frowned into the wind, trying to hold several pieces of a story in his head, trying to make them fit with the story he found himself in now. It was like building puzzles, a pastime one of his nurses had taught him when he was very young. It was a game most of his cousins had laughed at him for, but the exercise had become a way of thinking that let him set aside all other attachments and work at a problem until he had a full picture before him, complete, yielding up its secrets.

Who would have guessed that silly hobby would serve him so well so far from home?

The Book—gods, it had already acquired capitals in his mind—was the most confusing thing he'd ever read, which was something of a sweeping statement coming from a scholar-prince. He'd been through it twice. It wasn't long, just bewildering, full of natural philosophy melded with magical theory, predictions of disaster and salvation—some of which had, alarmingly, already come to pass—and all of it woven through a tale of invasion, war, a land occupied, a people exiled to this very mountain and doomed to watch their kingdom overrun by their conquerors.

The parallels gave him chills that had nothing to do with the frigid wind.

Behind him, his bodyguards, newly assigned since Devin had passed on his grim news, shifted and coughed. They didn't want to be out here and Kinsey felt bad for that, but he couldn't
think
inside walls today. The fortress was filling with refugees; all the empty rooms were being swept out in a commotion of talking and weeping and orders. He needed quiet and today, that could only be found outside.

Devin ought to be on his way back, speaking of Devin: Taireasa had said he was riding up the ridge with Waylen, who was in poor health after his ordeal and needed rest.

"But if they knew what was coming, why didn't they act to
prevent
it?" Kinsey muttered, running a hand through his hair, which was tangled from sleep. He'd been coming back to this question over and over.

"Certain events have a weight in the world, Cassdall prince. They cannot be moved without terrible consequences. Surely you know that; you've witnessed a few of these already."

The old lady: Taireasa's teacher, the Lady Captain's former teacher. She'd slipped past his bodyguards like a ghost. Now poor Ludor and Jerin were hovering, daggers in hand, wide-eyed as though she really
was
one.

Gods, she
looked
like a ghost, with her silver hair and pale eyes and creased, graying skin.

"I've been trying to meet with you for some time," Kinsey said coolly.

"I know. Here I am." She came forward, a heavy fur cloak wrapped about her shoulders, and rested her elbows casually against the battlements. The wind didn't seem to bother her. Kinsey waved his bodyguards back, trying not to scowl. A fortnight past, he'd have given a great deal to speak with this woman, but right now, with all the pieces tumbling around in his thoughts, he wasn't sure what to say, what to ask.

To be honest, he wasn't sure he wanted to know.

"Which is precisely the state I've been waiting for, young prince," Saraid said, making him go even colder, if that were possible. Dear gods, he'd forgotten she could—

Read every thought in his head.

That was
horrifying.

"It's less interesting than you think," she said placidly. "Also less invasive, at least on my end. I'm afraid that much of the time, I have little choice."

Kinsey stared at her. "You… can't help but hear me?"

"Can you shut out every voice in a crowded room? Can you shut out even one?"

He glared down at his hands, wrapped in wool and pressed onto dark stone. "No, lady," he replied, thinking of Taireasa and her headaches. Gods, if he found magic frightening from where he stood, how much worse must it be for those who had such a Gift?

"It gets easier," Saraid said, smiling. "The more organized the mind, the more force behind the sending. You've a very organized mind, young Kinsey of Cassdall. They need you here."

"Do they?"

It wasn't an idle question.

Had he chosen the mountain path because it was the quickest and safest route, or because he was drawn here? Had his uncle objected so strongly to his presence because his advisors thought a shy scholar was a threat to a new ruler's reign, or because this particular scholar had to leave Cassdall? Could any amateur historian have filled this requirement—or, like Devin, Taireasa, and Kyali, did
he
have to be here?

And if so, how much of his life had bent itself around that necessity?

He was shaking. He didn't think it was from the cold. He felt like he stood on the battlements instead of leaning on them—like there was only the wind between him and a very long drop.

"
Geas
," Saraid said, a word he'd seen more than once in the Book.

"Fate."

"
Necessity
, young prince: fate is far too mild a word for it. Fate gets confused with romance and power and other things men concern themselves with.
Necessity
. A thing that must be in order for the world to continue. A linchpin for all time. Your three friends, they must be here. They must be together. Many hundreds of years ago, events were set in motion that made that necessary, and all the world is remaking itself around us now to achieve it. I believe you've read enough to understand me."

Oh gods, he'd been right, he
didn't
want to hear this.

Kinsey huddled in his cloak, teeth chattering, more afraid than he'd been in... in more years than he could remember right now. He'd faced assassins with less distress. And here, there wasn't even anything to point to, except one iron-willed but otherwise benevolent old woman watching him with a disturbing blend of amusement and sympathy in her eyes.

"I'm a long way from understanding," Kinsey admitted.

"You're closer than you were, Cassdall prince. Closer by far."

"So
now
you come to speak to me. You could have saved me several months of dithering, lady Saraid, if you'd just
handed
me the Book when we got here."

"I think you know why I couldn't, Kinsey prince."

He turned to face her. From fear he'd moved to anger, still shaking, not wanting her to see that—though it was probably a singularly moot point when you were dealing with a woman who read thoughts. He had little he could complain of in his exile, but he had seen how Devin and Taireasa suffered, and he ached for them.

"Yes," he said, hearing the edge in his own voice. "No interfering with—with geas, if that's what you want to call it. We had to find our way to one another, and to here. We had to win the battle with the Sevassis army, we had to make peace between ourselves. And I had to find the Book on my own. That's a fairly broad definition of
alone
, though, Lady Saraid: Corin hid it in plain sight. And your people have provided shelter, food, protection, teaching in the use of magic, Devin's harp, the Lady Captain's armor, and then these…" He waved a hand. "These odd little nudges in the right direction. Excuse me if I'm a bit slow in understanding, but how are these things
not
interference? And how, if they are, do you justify not offering all the help you can give?"

Her eyes had gotten darker: he could see the iron under the gentleness now, and he was glad of it. Kinsey sucked in a frozen chestful of air, trying to slow his pulse, to unclench his fists.

"My, you do have a sharp tongue on you," Saraid finally said, which was so infuriatingly patronizing Kinsey made a noise of pure scorn and spun, unable to look her in the face. He leaned on the dark stone, trying to remember the last time he'd been this angry about something.

Her hand pressed on his shoulder, not at all welcome. "You'll need that edge, prince of Cassdall," she said easily.

"I'm hardly a prince of anything. Why do you keep calling me that?"

"It's what you are. Or did you really think the only role you had to play here was as librarian to a crowd of exiles?"

Gods.

"It is, granted, the role that's important right now," she allowed in her dry, meditative way and Kinsey glared at her, feeling a flush crawl up out of his collar in spite of the freezing wind.

"How do you
know
that?!" he cried. Ludor and Jerin looked over from the door, alarmed. Kinsey flung a hand out before they could come over and settle what must look like a fight from there, never mind that one of the participants had to be at least seventy years old. "
That
, Lady Saraid, is nowhere in the Book I just read.
Nowhere
."

Then he shut up, feeling the blood leave his hands, his face, because dear gods, it
was
.

"
A hart as swift in thought as fleet of foot
," Saraid quoted softly; Kinsey could see the rest of the passage in his mind. A stag courant with two crossed rolls of parchment was the arms of his father's house. But he'd read it as
heart
, the spelling being less clear that far back, and Taireasa's description of her connection with Devin being very much a thing of hearts.

"But—but that makes no
sense
," Kinsey murmured, leaning most of his weight against the wall. "How would I—I'm not—"

"Evidently you are."

"But it didn't say what I have to do!"

"That's the trouble with prophecies: they're so dreadfully vague. It didn't mention what
I
have to do either, young prince. Only what Her Majesty and the Corwynall siblings
must
do. Our duty is to see to it they have the chance to figure out for themselves how to achieve it." Saraid twisted, coming to lean next to him, staring up at the great blocks of weathered stone that made up the western wall. "I've had many more years than you to study this, Kinsey prince, and I'm afraid that's the most solid of my conclusions. Eairon saw much, being halfling and far more Gifted than those of us with blood diluted by the centuries. But the Sight isn't such a clear tool: one gets things in snatches, scattered images, and has to piece them together as well as one can."

Kinsey dared a sidelong glance at her, found her smiling wryly, like she knew what he was about to ask, and he supposed she probably did. "You... have the Sight, Lady Saraid?"