The Lord Son's Travels (41 page)

She
squirmed slightly when she realized he was shirtless.
 
He kept his eyes downcast, clearly uncomfortable.
 
“I must ask you to take off your
cloak.”
 
She pushed the cloak off
her shoulders, still hoping to wake up soon.
 
They faced each other, each kneeling with a sword pointed to
the floor in their right hands.
 
Adrien took a deep breath and began, remembering the ritual from his
youth and the making of several Bearers.

“The
unsheathed sword never returns to its scabbard unbloodied,” he intoned.
 
Elenna recalled their first fighting
lesson.
 
She reached to cut at her
wrist near the rest of her collection of scars.

“No,”
Adrien stopped her with a light touch of his left hand on her arm.
 
He tapped his own chest.
 
“Make a cut over my heart.
 
My blood as a token of our brotherhood
in Neda Alia.”
 
She froze.
 
He nodded firmly for her to
continue.
 
She reached out the
sword, using both hands to steady her shaking grasp.
 
The cut went deeper then she had intended; blood began to
flow from the wound.
 
He grimaced,
but allowed her to draw the blade down the center of his chest.
 
She lowered the blade, breathing heavily.
 
The tip was razor sharp; with a little
more pressure she could have killed him easily.
 

Adrien
raised Arèal in return.
 
She braced
herself, and pulled down at the top of her slip to reveal the center of her own
chest.
 
Adrien let out a deep
breath and gently slid the tip of his sword down between her breasts.
 
She closed her eyes and waited for the
pain to stop.
 
He dropped his blade
to the stone floor and relaxed.
 
She opened her eyes and studied their new wounds.
 
Both of them were bleeding, though her
cut was shallower and only had released a few drops.
 
A steady red line traversed Adrien’s stomach to trickle to
the floor.
 

“I’m
sorry,” she breathed.

“Tis
the way of Neda Alia.” He lowered his eyes modestly from her cut.
 
“I beg pardon for this.
 
This ritual had only been done on men
before you.”
 
She pulled at her
slip to cover herself a little more.
 
He used the cloth he had brought to wipe at his own cut.

“Are
we finished?”

He
nodded.
 
“The required rituals are
met.”
 
He stood up and crossed the
chamber to a side table.
 
To her
surprise, he poured two drinks from a bottle and offered one to her.
 
“You are now a Bearer.
 
I suppose a glass of wine would be
acceptable in this situation.”
 
He
seated himself in one of the chairs, after pulling it further away from the
flames.
 
She wrapped her cloak
around herself tightly, and took the other seat before taking a big sip of the
wine.
 
His eyes crinkled a bit at
her appreciation of the drink.
 
She
smiled in return.

“Tomorrow
I will teach you the way to call and send Midiral,” he offered.

She
agreed.
 
She studied her
glass.
 
“Adrien, you said this was
the required part of the ritual.”
 
He nodded.
 
“What else
happens when someone becomes a Bearer?”

“Traditionally
the symbol of Allé-dôn is traced on the bearer’s body.”
 
She looked confused.
 
Adrien motioned for her to approach him
next to the lantern.
 
He turned
away so she could examine the skin on his back.
 
In the light of the lamp she could trace with her fingers
the design between his shoulder blades he had had placed there many years
before.
 
She gazed at the lines
formed by scars, lost in thought.

“Has
every Bearer done this?” she asked.
 
He nodded slowly.
  
“Would you do this for me?”

He
whirled around.
 
“Why?” he asked
fervently.
 
“Tis not needed.”

She
paused.
 
“I want to do this right,”
she answered him finally.
 
He
studied her for a moment, then agreed when he realized the seriousness of her
offer.
 
He gestured for her to
return back to her seat by the fire.
 
He picked up the sharp dagger that had been wrapped in the cloth, and
dropped to a seat behind her.
 
She
took a deep breath, and pushed off the sleeves of her slip to uncover her back
completely.
 
He gently pushed her
hair over her shoulder, leaving the center of her shoulder blades as a clear
canvas.
 
He studied her pale skin
for a moment, as she finished the rest of her glass.

“Go
ahead,” she encouraged, and he pulled up the dagger to make the first cut.
 
The design was simple, but required
strict attention to make the straight lines from which it was comprised.
 
For several minutes the only sound in
the room was their deep breaths as they concentrated.
 
Finally Adrien finished, and admired his handiwork.
 
His lines had turned out perfectly
straight, he was relieved to see.
 
He had placed her mark lower than his own; so that it would be invisible
under the seam of a typical dress.
 
As they continued their travels, he had reasoned, there would be no
reason to advertise the presence of a Bearer, especially such an unexpected
one.
 
The cuts had to be quite deep
to form the permanent scars to make the design; in any another situation he
would use stitches to help them heal.
 
But stitches here would ruin the lines and defeat the purpose of the
cuts, so instead he warned her to keep the wounds clean, and most important not
to let the edges pull apart.
 
For
the next few days at least she would have to move her shoulders as little as
possible.
 
He used a bit of
blue-tree juice to clean the wound; Elenna seemed intrigued with that product
and studied the bottle for a minute.
 
Then he poured himself another glass of wine, and decided to offer her
another.
 
She took it happily, and
drained it quickly.

   
“Why was I chosen as Bearer?”
Elenna asked him when he had retaken his seat.

   
“I don’t know,” he answered
her honestly.
 
He took a gulp of
his drink. And relaxed under the influence of the alcohol and the finality of
the rituals.
 
“My thought is that
more Neda Alia are needed here for this battle.
 
Or for Evenral,” he added cryptically to himself.

   
Elenna stayed on the floor,
but scooted back from the fire.
 
She pulled her legs to her chest, and kept her new mark facing away from
the heat of the fire.
 
Adrien
thought to tell her to dress herself again, but remembered how his flesh had
throbbed when touched back when he completed his ritual.
 
It would be better now to let it feel
the cool air of the chamber.
 
She
had not yet asked to see it; he would wait until she did before hunting down a
mirror.
 
Whether it was his nerves
from the surprise arrival, the alcohol, or the lateness of the hour he felt a
bit shaken and out of sorts.
 
He
needed a few minutes to bring his mind back under control.

   
“Why didn’t the sword pick
Bren?” she asked suddenly.
 

Adrien
shrugged, though she couldn’t see his response.
 
When he had thought about that question earlier, he had
immediately known the reason.
 
It
frustrated him.
 
That business, he
thought angrily, should be left well in the past and should have no place in
their dealings now.
 
“The Bearer
must always be loyal to Allè-dôn and to the royal line.
 
You have been true to us since your
arrival.”

 
Elenna turned around, wincing as the
movement stretched the injured skin.
 
The artist muttered his disapproval.

“That’s
bullshit,” she announced a little unsteadily.
 
The wine or something else was affecting her too, he
thought.
 
Now he could see that her
hand was shaking slightly.
  
“Bren is completely loyal to Allè-dôn.”

Adrien
paused.
 
“He betrayed a member of
the royal family in the past,” he admitted reluctantly.
 
“He is well forgiven now, but Neda Alia
does not offer second chances.”

“Stupid,”
the new bearer announced.

“Neda
Alia has its own ways,” he replied firmly, quoting his tutor and all the other
elders he knew.
 
Unseen, Elenna
rolled her eyes.

“So
you’re telling me it is a magic sword?
 
I thought magic was bad.”

He
was thrown for a second, by the timing of her comment, and its surprising
truthfulness. “First,” he answered, “Midiral must always be referred to by
name.
 
Next, magic is not
wrong.
 
Magic in the hand of a
person is wrong.
 
No man can
control Neda Alia.
 
Neda Alia does
as it will, always for the sake of Allè-dôn, and we do not question its ways.”

   
Elenna made a
realization.
 
“That is why this
Lady of Evendor is not welcome in Allé-dôn.
 
She controls magic.”

   
“Well stated,” he answered in
surprise.
 
They dropped back into
silence, contemplating their strange evening in the light of the
fireplace.
 
Then Elenna asked for a
mirror.
 
He helped her rise to her
feet, and pointed her to the other room.
 
He tidied up his work area while waiting to hear her opinion.
  
Elenna returned with
 
his shaving mirror in hand, but
couldn’t get the correct angle to view the new symbol.
 
He found a second mirror, and help her
arrange them for a good reflection.
      

“You
did great!” she exclaimed giddily as she first glimpsed the design. She studied
his work for a few minutes as he observed with pride.
 
“Some part of me always wanted to get a tattoo,” she
admitted sheepishly.
 
“I just
didn’t know what design I wanted.”
 
She put the mirrors down on the table.
 
“Are we done, then?” she asked.
 
He nodded.
 
She
pursed her lips slightly.
 
“I guess
its time to go back to bed.
 
Thank
you for this,” she said to Adrien.
 

“Thank
you,” he replied awkwardly.
 
In the
midst of turning away she realized with a shock that fresh bleeding had started
from the cut she had given him during the ceremony.
 
She scolded him lightly for neglecting his own injury, and
wetted down a clean cloth at the washing stand.
 
Over his protests she dabbed at the droplets sliding down
his chest.
 
He winced as she then
used her fingers to rub on some of the salve; she paused and lifted her chin to
observe his expression.
 
He held
his breath as he gazed back down, his eyes wild with confusion.
 
Her touch, he noted incredulously,
ached worse than his cut.
 
He had
no idea what was happening or what to do.

“I
should go,” she whispered.
  
Adrien nodded slowly.
 
Then
his hands reached up to gently enclose both sides of her face.
 
Her eyes dropped down to his mouth and
than back again as she tried to read his intentions.
 
When he made no further moves, she did instead, rising up on
the balls of her feet to kissed him gently once on the lips.
 
He responded instinctually, pulling her
tighter against him with unexpected passion.
 
They broke apart for short rapid breaths then clashed back
together for even deeper exploratory kisses.
 
Elenna gently pushed him backwards, sending Adrien
off-balance and unwieldy until his calves bumped into the bed behind him.
 
The sudden contact brought him suddenly
back to his senses.
 
He broke away
from their embrace, earnestly muttering his apologies and tripping over his own
feet.

“Rian?”
she called out in alarm.

“I
beg pardon,” he sputtered in his distress.
  
He turned away, covering his face with his hands.
 
“I am so sorry.
 
It was a moment of weakness.
 
Please forgive me ...”
 
She tried to comfort him and assure him
that she was not offended and would be at least equally to blame if any blame
had been appropriate.
  
He
couldn’t hear her in the depths of his shame and refused her pleas to talk with
him about the matter.
 
At last, with
a final apology for her own behavior she left him alone in his room to curse at
himself and his loss to temptation.
 
He grabbed the towel and scrubbed the remaining splotches of blood from
the skin on his abdomen.
 
“I
can’t!” he kept muttering to himself, not even sure what he couldn’t do or why
not.
 
“Lady forgive me!” he
exclaimed, and didn’t know which Lady he addressed.
 
He paced back and forth furiously, until he was so exhausted
he could only slump over in his chair across from the now-extinguished fire.