A Turn of Light (100 page)

~ You know the truth. No other. ~

It reminded him of his penance and showed him another’s. Did it think to cow him? Wyll’s lips pulled from his teeth. ~ How much truth? ~ he asked, all menace. ~ You sent me to keep her within the edge, warned if she left it would unravel and everything I care for die. Yet instead of sending me to end that threat, you put me with her, let me learn to love her, help her make me this! ~ He slapped his crippled side with his good hand.

Then he shook his head, like a man. ~ I don’t care about my penance, ~ he told it wearily. ~ I don’t care about my life. Can you not understand? If you want the girl to live, help me bring her what she needs. ~

~ We will not. Ensure our peace, so long as she is as she is. Your penance will be complete when she is as she must become. ~

This was new. Wyll stared at the sei. ~ You want her to cross, as much as the trapped one does. You want her filled with its tears. Why? ~

A flash of green, a whirl of glittering ash, and what had been comprehensible became large and vast and so much more than dragon or man that he staggered but refused to fall.

~ WHY?! ~ Wyll shouted with all his might, cracking rock. ~ ANSWER ME! ~

The sei paused.

Then, to his astonishment, the sei spoke.

~ It is not trapped. It chose to stay and hold the edge, doing penance for our curiosity. At the last Great Turn, others pulled it too far into their world. It is wounded, it weakens, and, soon, it will die. When its hold fails, little cousin, the edge will fail with it. ~

He was beyond caution. ~ Then save it! ~

~ We cannot. It must be healed in both worlds, by someone of both. Long has it called to the turn-born for help, but they refuse to hear or die. ~ The shape and voice grew fainter and more distant. ~ The girl is the promise and last hope. If she becomes as she must, if she does what she can, if she lives, she will save it and so the edge. At the Great Turn, ~ a whisper, like a cold caress, ~ all is possible. ~

The sky became a white moth, soft wings stretched to the horizon, eyes like twin suns.

Then was gone.

Wyll looked out over the Verge. Had he a dragon’s eyes, from here he would see mimrol lakes, sparkling with the ylings’ webbed cities; villages of terst, their crystal homes surrounded by fields of kaliia, their children at play; that way, so near the limit of the Verge the turn-born shunned the place, the white palace of the toad queen; beyond the palace, the endless rolling plain that marked the beginning of their world, as Marrowdell’s crags marked the start of hers.

If the edge failed, both worlds would survive. There’d be dragons and girls and insufferably pompous sei and princes.

But if the edge failed, there’d be no places seething with magic. No breathtaking Verge, no beautiful Marrowdell, and no Jenn Nalynn.

No turn-born, which he could live with, but to lose so very much else . . .

His cursed man’s eyes clouded with tears. He’d wanted her happy and safe. Now he must help her attempt the impossible.

So be it.

Move before his body failed him. Reach the crossing and get back. Knowing what he must do was easier than accomplishing it. Among their many faults, sei never grasped the frailty of others; having seen one being eaten alive, Wyll supposed they couldn’t. Still, he would have preferred help that didn’t leave him dripping blood and, yes, he gasped at the grate of bone, mostly broken. His body claimed what strength he had to heal itself; there was no arguing with that dragon imperative. He staggered on in a daze, weaker by the breath.

The crossing was near, the sei’s one mercy. He fell more than stepped on the place, refusing to faint till he smelled flowers again.

And, when he did, he lifted his head to find himself being regarded not only by the alarmed toad, but by the old soldier, who sat cross-legged by his shoes. A horse stood grazing a short distance away.

Horst raised an eyebrow. “Are you going to die, dragon?”

“Not today,” Wyll promised, then let the dark claim him.

TWENTY-THREE

I
F SHE FELL
asleep, the morning would come faster. If it did, Jenn reasoned, so would the next.

Which could be her last.

This being dire enough to keep anyone awake, she lay beside her sister, whose gentle snores went to prove some people believed events would unfold as they should so long as everyone was fed and well-rested.

She shouldn’t think that. It wasn’t fair or true. Peggs slept because she was truly exhausted, and no one cared more about what might happen to her than her sister.

Lying in the dark made it hard to be hopeful, that was all. It would have helped if she’d found Wyll. He’d been gone the entire day. When asked, no one could remember him sharing a meal or being nearby. Mistress Sand had given her a startled look, and asked the other tinkers, but none had seen a dragon. Jenn couldn’t help but worry. What if, having seen her with Bannan, Wyll didn’t care to be seen by her?

At least their father was, if not happy, happier. He’d shown Melusine’s ring to Peggs, who remembered playing with it, and Aunt Sybb, who cried, just a little, to see it again and remember far more. He’d brought out the summerberry wine and poured them all a glass, and they’d made a Beholding, there and then, for Uncle Horst and asking the Ancestors to keep him safe wherever he was or went.

So it had been a good evening and tiring. Tomorrow would be busier, since as well as finishing the harvest and preparing for the farewell dance, Aunt Sybb must finish her packing, and as if that weren’t sufficient, there was a wedding feast to plan. Smaller, but no less important according to their aunt, was the quandary of heads; more precisely, what went on them. Rhothan tradition held that a bride wore a wedding circlet of lace atop her hair, preferably a family heirloom. As each new bride added her own bit of lace, the oldest of these, so Aunt Sybb said, trailed over shoulders and back like so much frail and yellowing froth. In most families, new ones were made every few generations. Peggs would wear their mother’s, Hettie her stepmother’s—that of their mother, Mimm, being saved for Alyssa, and Palma was to wear Gallie’s, though the latter was a compromise of some difficulty, since little Loee should properly inherit it.

Which left Jenn, who hadn’t yet told Wyll there’d be no wedding, so couldn’t very well tell anyone else. Only that morning Aunt Sybb had proclaimed the business of her circlet taken care of as she’d brought her own—it being wise, as she always said, to be prepared rather than caught without. Unfortunately, she’d concealed her treasure from everyone but the mice.

Her circlet was now in shreds.

Wine, tears, and honest fatigue conspired to send Aunt Sybb to bed when she’d otherwise have stayed up all night to somehow make a new one. It would be, she’d pronounced firmly, tomorrow’s priority.

Finding Wyll was hers, Jenn vowed. She lay awake, staring into the dark for an interminable time. Finally, she mouthed the words. “Where are you?”

“Downstairs,” a warm little breeze whispered in her ear.

Wyll!

Careful not to wake Peggs, Jenn slid from under their quilt and grabbed a shawl. She padded down the ladder quick as could be, then through the unlit kitchen, stubbing a toe on a basket left where one usually wasn’t and biting her lip not to cry out. Finally, she was through the door.

Lamps on porches and barn doors had been extinguished for the night. Stars crusted the sky, but beneath all was dark upon dark. Jenn moved by feel. Here was wood, here was flagstone, here was dew-wet grass.

And there, movement, man-sized and bent.

“Wyll!” She hurried to him and would have embraced him, but something in how he stood made her stop and wrap the shawl about her shoulders. “I tried to find you,” she said. “I need to tell you—” there was nothing for it but to spit it out, though he hadn’t so much as acknowledged her presence, “—I’m in love with Bannan, not that I don’t love you too, but it’s different because you’re like a brother and my dearest friend and he’s—well, with him it’s not like that at all. So I can’t marry you, even if I married anyone, which I won’t, not without knowing what I’ll be as a turn-born though really, when it comes to it, I’m not ready to marry at all.” Having delivered that in one breath, she quickly drew another. “Do you understand, Wyll?”

He came closer with an ominous growl, but it wasn’t like his growl, more the sound of stone against stone, and the shape she’d thought was Wyll grew larger and paler and loomed so near she put out her hands to stop it.

Only to find herself alone in the dark, holding her pebble. A dream? No, it had to be real. She had her pebble at last. About to bring it to her lips, the small stone grew impossibly heavy and with a despairing cry, she had to let go.

“Dearest Heart. Jenn!” A breeze swirled around her, strong and warm like arms, then snapped against her ear.

Startled awake, Jenn stood for a moment. Outside, in her nightdress, again. At least this time she wasn’t buried in the carrots. “Wyll. I was dreaming. I dreamed you were here.”

“I am here.” The same shape approached, this time moving like her dragon. “Are you awake now?”

She pinched herself to be sure. “Yes. Did I—was I talking?” She truly hoped she didn’t have to break his heart all over again. “Did you hear what I said?”

“Yes.” The breeze straightened her shawl and played along her cheeks, then abruptly stopped. “You’re less than you were.”

Which, however true and horrible, wasn’t, she frowned, what she needed to hear. “The turn-born gave me a drink that helps.” She tried to see him, and couldn’t. “Wyll, please. What’s happened—just happened. I was wrong to wish you into a man, and wrong to try and force you to marry me. I hope you can forgive me—”

“Yes,” Wyll said, dismissing love, marriage, and all else. With his next words, she knew why. “I found your pebble.”

“Did you bring it?” she asked, heart in her throat.

“I could not,” with such bitterness she reached for him, but he evaded her touch. “A sei is caught between our worlds and dying. The pebbles are its tears and it calls you to save it.”

Well, she’d expected a quest or task. Helping a dying—whatever a sei was—sounded like something she’d want to do anyway, Jenn reassured herself, fighting to stay calm, and tears were much nicer to contemplate than most of what the turn-born had brought her from the Verge. How fitting the dema used the same word for her pebble, though, her thoughts jumped, why would he?

Covie, however, was the one with any healing skill. How was she to save it?

Wyll waited, invisible in the dark and silent, so like Wisp when he wanted to avoid a topic that she realized with a shiver there must be more and worse. “Tell me the rest.”

“The sei is besieged by nyphrit. Doubtless others lie in wait along the path up the Spine. They are deadly, Dearest Heart. They will kill anything, anyone who dares approach.”

She should have been frightened; instead, Jenn struggled to contain her fury. Block her from what she must have? “I will dare,” she said grimly, when she could speak again.

“Not alone.” The words caught on some tightness in his throat. “We will—” a movement, as though he staggered. “Not alone.”

Hands outstretched, she went to him. What her hands found was soaking wet and ice cold. “What have you—no matter.” Jenn whipped off her shawl and laid it over his shoulders, then put her arm around his waist. “Come with me,” she ordered, urging him to the house.

“I hate the river,” he grumbled, but didn’t protest as she led him into the kitchen. Finding the ladder by feel, she settled him against its support, then hurried to light a lamp and put more wood into the cookstove.

She shot worried glances at him. More had happened to the dragon than a dunking. His shirt bore dried bloodstains and his good arm was held as if it pained him or as if he cradled damaged ribs. “The nyphrit,” she guessed, horrified he’d taken such a risk.

“A fall. I’m almost healed.”

Almost healed at dragonish speed meant he’d been badly hurt since she’d last seen him. Her hands wanted to tremble as she poured hot water for tea, adding a generous dollop of honey to his mug. Gently putting it into his shaking hand, Jenn crouched before him, eyes searching. “You shouldn’t have gone,” she whispered.

“Did the turn-born bring anything useful?” he asked. When she shook her head, his eyes glinted silver. “Then I should have gone.” The silver was replaced with brown. “Is there food, Dearest Heart? I’m hungry.”

“I’ll make something,” Peggs offered, coming down the ladder. She eased past Wyll, and went to work. Within moments, a thick blanket replaced the light shawl around his shoulders. More wood went into the stove until it crackled and snapped and the kitchen grew toasty warm. Another lamp lit, then she pulled out knife and board, preparing thick sandwiches with a calm efficiency for which Jenn was unutterably grateful. She rose to her feet to help.

“The lost is found.” Radd came in through the kitchen door, yawning as he poured himself a cup of tea. The curtain to the parlor remained closed, though it was unlikely Aunt Sybb would sleep through much more.

“I fell in the river,” Wyll volunteered. He’d stopped shaking, his hair beginning to dry in the heat from the stove.

“Again?” Their father chuckled. “I’ll find you something dry to wear.”

“Wyll’s hurt,” Jenn said, but when she went to pull aside the blanket, Wyll gently resisted.

“There’s something I must say.”

The three paused, looking at the dragon.

Wyll rose to his feet, the effort draining the blood from his face, but managed a short bow. “Radd Nalynn, father, brother, and miller,” he announced. “I regret to say I cannot marry your daughter. That one—” He had the gall to point.

“Don’t change the subject,” Jenn fumed. “You’re hurt and need attention.”

“Let the man speak,” Aunt Sybb interceded. She stepped past the curtain, fully dressed and impeccably powdered. “May I inquire, Wyll, what’s brought about your change of heart?”

“My heart hasn’t changed,” the dragon answered, his glance at Jenn alive with mischief. “However I have recently learned—” He was going to say Bannan and the blanket and the dance, she just knew it, and braced herself for their aunt’s reaction, which might be tolerant but at this early hour might be anything but. “—I’ve other obligations.”

Jenn relaxed.

“I see.” Aunt Sybb fixed her with an unreadable stare. “Your feelings on this, Jenn Nalynn?”

“I’m fine,” she said quickly. “In truth, I may have been—hasty.”

An elegant brow lifted. “Well, then,” the Lady Mahavar pronounced. “Dry clothes, Radd. The poor man is dripping on the floor. I believe we should sit to a proper breakfast, if you and Peggs would be so kind.” Then, without any change in her expression, she added, “This is what comes of toads. Mark my words, Jenn Nalynn.”

Jenn dropped a quick curtsy. Peggs turned toward the sink, her shoulders shaking, Radd chuckled, and the house toad, who’d tucked his head under the curtain to see what was about at such an hour, gave a toothy yawn.

While the dragon sipped tea and looked insufferably smug.

Until Jenn met his gaze and saw the dread he couldn’t, or wouldn’t hide.

All day long, clouds lurked beyond the crags in every direction, never quite tumbling into the valley. Bannan wondered if the turn-born tired, having kept the weather fair these past days, but even they looked at the horizon and frowned.

Tir lifted his mask and spat. “Isn’t natural, sir. Just say’n.”

He shrugged. What was, here? “So long as it holds off till we’re done.”

They harvested the field next to his farm; it lay farthest from the village, split into a deep wishbone by the first of the Fingers, and those working its ends found themselves shadowed by the forest. Hedges hid the ruined meadow, a mercy. Bannan gazed wistfully, every so often, at the rooftops of his home and barn.

An empty barn, for now. Davi promised a share of stalks from the village once the tinkers left; Anten a couple of piglets from Satin’s next birthing.

Bannan dug in his ’fork and pitched. How could he plan for the future, when tomorrow loomed as ominously as the clouds?

“Ancestors Broody and Glum. There’s that look again.” Tir tossed stalks into Wainn’s wagon. “Sir.”

“Stop calling me ‘sir.’”

His friend grunted and lifted another ’forkload. “Bannan. You could cheer up. There’s another dance tonight.”

Riverstone and Flint were absent, having crossed to the Verge in search of Jenn Nalynn’s pebble; the other turn-born drove their wagons. Everyone shifted duty to put Kydd, Allin, and Tadd in the mill; it being tradition for a prospective groom to cook for his to-be-bride and her family the night before the wedding, each of the three needed to stay close to a kitchen. Ribald jokes at their expense lightened much of the day.

Wyll was in the village too. There were no jokes about him, the villagers unsure if they were relieved or insulted to learn the strange man had rejected their beloved Jenn Nalynn, the tinkers puzzled. The dragon wouldn’t care what any of them thought, only Jenn, and acted, Bannan judged, to spare her what he could.

Roche, who would have spoken up and not pleasantly, had volunteered to help the dema today. Just as well, the truthseer thought grimly, his temper tried enough by his so-helpful friend.