A Turn of Light (96 page)

Trap or opportunity. He nodded warily, prepared for either.

“What you saw happen to Jenn Nalynn at this turn was far worse than has happened to any of us.” A finger went up; her first truth. “Isn’t terst, might be why. Born between worlds, might be why. We don’t know.” Another finger rose; the second truth. “We can help her through tomorrow’s turn. The Great Turn na?” Her other hand lifted, turned palm down. “We cannot. It will last beyond her enduring and past any help of ours. All we can do is provide comfort. Do you understand na? Unless Jenn is complete and whole, she will empty and be gone before your sun shines again. Is this the truth na?”

Unable to speak, he gave a terse nod.

Riverstone leaned forward. “On the Day of Balance, truthseer, we leave the village at midday. We need time in your barn to pack what remains there—with your permission na?”

The trunks? He waved them past the inconsequential. “You have it.”

“The Great Turn will take place two hours past dawn,” Tooth volunteered. “We will remain in our tents.”

“If tomorrow we fail her,” Sand told him, “bring her to us for the Great Turn. We will ease her end as best we can.”

“Let her die. That’s your advice?” Bannan’s hands wanted to grab the turn-born and shake her. He flattened them on his thighs. “You can help Jenn—you must!”

“My my my.” She had him and knew it. “What you know, tell us now. Keeping a secret’s worth nothing if she dies. I love her well,” she added, looking him in the eye. “What more can we do na?”

The turn-born offered him the truth, dared him to accept it. With an inner apology to Jenn Nalynn, he did.

“Jenn has heard a voice. It’s told her she must help herself. That to find what she needs, she must cross at the Spine during the Great Turn.”

A daunting silence filled the tent.

“She doesn’t know how,” Bannan pressed. “If you want to help, teach her!”

Sand rocked back and forth, her gloved arms across her middle. “Even were we willing . . .” she said at last, then looked to Riverstone. “Tell him.”

“During a Great Turn, the edge becomes brittle, like thin ice.” The tinker shook his head ominously. “We don’t dare to cross then. Jenn cannot.”

“Disturbing the edge could wake the trapped ones!” this from Flint, in a tone of near panic. “We could all die!”

The dragon’s fear. What sort of place was Marrowdell, that the very hills could come to life? The truthseer pretended a calm he didn’t feel. “‘The trapped ones,’” he echoed. “The Fingers and Spine. The Bone Hills and Marrowdell. Your names?”

Sand stopped rocking. “The first settlers’,” she surprised him by saying. “The landscape troubled them and they left, but the names na? Stayed behind.” She nodded at Flint. “He’s right. What’s exposed in this world has its roots in ours. Disturb it na? We don’t dare and won’t. She mustn’t cross then.”

Something else said she must. A game, Bannan decided with rising anger, tossing Jenn Nalynn like a nillystone across a table—but for what? “If it’s so dangerous, why does Marrowdell want her to do it?”

“‘Marrowdell.’” Sand drew a finger across closed lips as she studied him, eyes a blaze of light. The finger dropped. “You know of the Wound.” Not a question. “Yet you, like the dragon, believe our Sweetling hears another voice. A voice to obey.”

“Sand—” Riverstone shut his mouth to keep in the rest of his protest. The other turn-born sat, grim and still.

“They let me speak,” Sand observed. “They know I must. What we are, na? Cautious, careful, safe. Know our power and our place.” She raised a finger, wagged it. “Know not to disturb those greater. Wise na? We think so. In the Verge, the sei are greatest of all, man of truth. If—and I still do not believe—if the sei are here and call our Sweetling na? We will not interfere.” She tipped over a palm. “If the Wound calls our Sweetling, we won’t aid her to that death.”

He’d gambled and lost. There’d been but a faint chance; nonetheless, her refusal felt like a blow. Bannan swallowed what he might have said and bowed his head graciously.

“To act, we must agree,” Sand said more gently. “Understand na?”

Meaning she couldn’t help, but the rest couldn’t harm. The turn-born stood aside, for better or worse. He nodded.

Riverstone rose to his feet, the rest doing the same. “We’ll hunt the pebble at first light,” he promised. A gesture sent Tooth to retrieve a tall bottle. “For our Sweetling. It may soothe.”

“I’ll make sure she gets it,” Bannan said with a short bow.

He thought they were done, but when he went to the door, Sand slipped past to lift the flap for him. “Jenn must not make that journey alone,” she whispered. “How brave are you na?”

He met the turn-born’s blazing eyes. Whatever she read in his produced the smallest of smiles.

“Well, then,” the erstwhile tinker said loudly. “To supper, before the food’s gone!”

“We shouldn’t have left him,” Jenn argued, though it was futile trying to sway Peggs when she felt firmly in the right.

Sure enough. “We’re the ones late for supper. Will you hurry?”

Already half-trotting to keep up, she dug in her heels and pulled. Hard.

Her sister twisted around, dark hair swirling like a cloud. “Heart’s Blood!” Suddenly, her face crumbled. “Oh, Jenn—”

They hugged one another right there, in the middle of the commons, Peggs weeping on her shoulder.

“It’s all right. He saw me,” Jenn whispered. “Bannan saw me and I was—” Saying “real again” wouldn’t comfort her sister, though it was true. Something in his eyes had kept her safe, kept her here. “I was better this time,” she finished lamely. “Please, Peggs. I’m fine.” Then a horrible thought struck her. “You aren’t upset because—because of how I looked, are you?”

Peggs pushed back. “Of course not!” She sniffed. “I was shocked to see Mistress Sand and the others for what—as they are—but who wouldn’t be?” Pulling a newly embroidered handkerchief from her bodice, she blew her nose with a vengeance. Over it, her eyes were red and troubled. “I couldn’t feel your hand,” she mumbled. “I thought I’d lost you, Dearest Heart.” She lowered the ’kerchief. “I didn’t let go. I wouldn’t.”

“I know.” Jenn kissed her sister’s damp cheek then tipped her head to the village with a small smile. “Hettie and the pies?”

The elder Nalynn drew herself up. “What are we doing still here?”

Waiting for Bannan, Jenn thought wistfully, with a look over her shoulder. But there was no sign of him outside the tinkers’ tent and Peggs, reminded of responsibility, wasn’t to be denied again.

When Devins wasn’t looking, Jenn slipped the pie from her plate onto his and stepped back into the shadows. His was a healthy appetite. She’d none, but it had been easier to let her plate be filled than to argue, especially with Peggs.

A hand took her empty plate. “Try this.”

“Bannan.”

He didn’t smile as he held out a cup. “A gift from our friends.”

The gift was having him back and safe. Jenn took a quick swallow. More of the purple-tasting milk, it settled in her stomach, easing the ache there. As for Bannan? “You saw me, Dear Heart,” she said softly, cradling the cup, knowing what drew those fine lines at the corners of his mouth and tensed the muscle along his jaw. “You made me real again.”

At this, the brown of his eyes took on that apple butter glow, but there was nothing happy in the look he gave her. “You were almost gone.”

“Well, I’m here now.” Somehow, she’d become the one to offer reassurance and comfort; perhaps, as Aunt Sybb promised, facing her trials had given her strength. Jenn put her arm through his. “Come with me.”

She was tempted to lead him deep into the welcoming night, to kiss away his unhappiness and forget her own. Resisting that urge was difficult indeed; it didn’t help to be quite sure that if she asked, or merely hinted, this remarkable man she loved with all her being would sweep her up in his strong arms and carry her—well, somewhere close, because if they reached that state she wouldn’t want him tired nor could she possibly wait.

Jenn found herself breathing a little faster than she should.

Being sensible, she led Bannan through the apple trees to where Riverstone and Frann sat playing a quiet song. After dipping a polite finger in the water, they took a seat on the fountain wall, where everyone could see them, but not overhear a quiet conversation.

They didn’t touch, they couldn’t, for so many reasons but above all because neither would risk hurt to Wyll. She laid her hand on the stone; casually, he put his nearby.

Which shouldn’t have been intimate, but, oh it was, since there was a warmth along the side of her little finger which could only be from Bannan’s hand, and surely he felt the warmth from hers which led to another distracting series of thoughts about warmth and feeling she let flow and tingle, it being a silly, happy thing to sit so properly and think otherwise.

Wen would approve.

Reluctantly, Jenn withdrew her hand and put it on her lap. They had matters to discuss. She could think of only one reason the tinkers had kept Bannan back, and it was important he not listen. “Mistress Sand tried to convince you I shouldn’t try to cross, didn’t she?”

“She pointed out the difficulties, yes,” Bannan replied easily, his eyes on the musicians. “What she really wanted was to know what you’ve kept from them.”

“Oh.” Jenn studied his profile but he’d assumed his dauntingly polite public face. “You told her,” she guessed. “I don’t mind,” she added quickly. “Mistress Sand is a friend, I’m sure of it.”

“She is. I tried a trade,” he admitted, which was, as she thought of it, a very apt approach with a tinker. “In return, I asked them to teach you to cross. They refused. They don’t know what speaks to you or what it might want. That you hear this voice? That it wants you to cross? They’re terrified, Dearest Heart. I heard the truth of it.”

Hadn’t the dragons howled that the turn-born forbade her to cross, back when she’d understood none of it, or herself? Jenn blew out the breath she’d unconsciously held and collected herself. “Thank you for trying. We’ll find another way.”

His mouth curved in a smile. “That’s the spirit.”

“I may have already,” she said. “Dema Qimirpik has an Ansnan wishing—a rite—to bring my pebble here, from the Verge.”

Now he did look at her. “Your pebble?”

“He calls it a Tear from the Celestial, but when they described it—Bannan, it’s the same, the very same. Urcet wants it to prove there’s magic, but it’s—” Jenn stopped before “mine.”

“Yours,” he agreed, finishing for her. “Well well. I’d planned to talk to our fine guests tonight. This will help.”

“They don’t know,” she cautioned. “What magic really is. What it can do. They’re—” one of Aunt Sybb’s sayings came to mind, “—playing with fire inside a full tinderbox, that’s what they’re doing. We can’t allow it.”

“Then, Dearest Heart, we’d best take away their matches, hadn’t we?”

Her smile started deep inside, where the turn-born remedy had eased her emptiness, rising through the heart he’d filled with his, until it was all she could do to only smile at Bannan Larmensu and not throw herself in his arms.

“Jenn Nalynn,” he whispered huskily, smiling himself. “‘What magic really is.’”

If she kept gazing at him, and he at her, they’d cause, if not scandal, then certainly interested comment. She broke away first, deliberately looking for her dragon in the gathering. “I haven’t seen Wyll today. Have you?” He might be avoiding her for a reason, now that she thought of it. “I hope he didn’t sleep in a hammock.”

“Sand made us welcome in her tent,” Bannan explained, easing her concern only to add a new one. “Wyll sent the toad, by the way.”

Jenn covered her mouth with her hand and stared wide-eyed at the truthseer.

Who grinned, unrepentant. “He wanted to warn us someone was coming.”

Wyll approved, that meant. Of—of—but how could he? Her thoughts flew. Because he didn’t want to marry her, that was why, which would be sad in a way but really for the best. Or was it because he was a dragon inside and thought differently about . . . about what shouldn’t, she began to frown, have been discussed by the two men—maybe three if Tir’d been there—in a tent! “What exactly did you—”