Dangerous Talents (53 page)

“No.”

“If we were all condemned for what we might have done, we’d all be exiled,” Fender contributed. Celia cast a knife sharp glance at him. He raised his hands as if in surrender. “Remember, I’m a wounded man.”

“If not for you, the Light Elves wouldn’t have been here to counter what the Dark set in motion,” Dahleven continued. “It was your ‘beacon’ that drew them here. I think they sensed you using your Talent.”

Cele slumped, as if in surrender. “Then the agony was worth it. When I first tried to Find the Talent he wanted, the damn things nearly ripped me apart.”

Celia’s words sobered him. He remembered her screams. “And now? How do you feel?” So much had happened, he’d forgotten that Celia was still in Emergence. She’d been weak as a babe before the Elf’s touch had strengthened her. He cursed himself for not bringing any
sterkkidrikk
.

“I’m fine.”

Fender chuckled. “I think Lady Celia’s in better shape than we are.”

Dahleven looked at Fendrikanin’s bloody face and felt the ache in his own muscles growing. Fender was probably right.

*

Cele cleaned and bandaged the cut in Fender’s scalp, then helped Dahleven arrange the bodies of their fallen companions, laying them side-by-side with hands crossed on their swords’ hilts. Then Dahleven and Fender sang the funerary song. Some magic of the caverns amplified their two voices until they sounded like a choir, sending shivers of longing and loss and hopeful joy racing through Cele’s heart.

Afterward, Cele and Fender went on ahead while Dahleven remained behind, executing the law on Jorund’s dying men. As Outcasts, the law turned every man’s hand against them, and it was more merciful than leaving them to die slowly. Cele thought she should be appalled at the summary justice, but all she could think of was how difficult and unpleasant it must be for Dahleven.

“Are you sure you feel well enough to manage Angrim and Eirik alone?” Cele asked Fender. She and Dahleven were going on to bring news of Jorund’s defeat to the parley. Fender would take the same news, and Angrim and Eirik, back to Quartzholm. “You took quite a blow to the head.” They walked side-by-side down the spur of tunnel to where Dahleven and his men had entered the caverns only hours before.

“Never fear, my lady. It’s the sturdiest part of me—but one.” He winked.

Cele made a face and rolled her eyes, but she was glad Fender still felt like joking.

“Besides, Torvald and Sieg are waiting just beyond. I won’t be alone long. And I doubt Lord Dahleven will allow you out of his sight for some time yet.” Fender’s eyes twinkled, and Cele felt herself blushing.

Suddenly Fender flung his arm in front of Cele. “Look out!”

“What is it?”

Fender looked at her strangely. “You almost ran into the wall…Don’t you see it?”

Cele looked. There was no wall in front of them, just those to either side. She shook her head and lifted her lantern to peer closely into Fender’s face. Was the blow he took making him hallucinate? “Are you sure you’re all right?”

Dahleven came around a bend in the passage leading Angrim and Eirik, his face grim. He stopped abruptly. “Where’s the wall?”

“
What
wall?” Cele demanded.

“You don’t see it either?” Fender asked. He stepped forward and patted his splayed fingers in the air like a mime. “You saw it before. I see and feel it quite clearly.”

Dahleven walked forward, hands in front of him, until he was slightly beyond Fender, then stepped back, shaking his head. His gaze locked with Fender’s and they shared a grim expression.

“What is it? What are you not saying?” Cele demanded.

“No one has congress with Elvenkind and remains unaffected,” Fender said in a voice like bad news.

“Ragni said something like that once,” Cele said. “What does it mean?”

“It means,” Dahleven said slowly, “that we’re Fey-marked. I don’t know why he saved us from blindness, but the Elf’s touch had greater consequence than our protection. There’s a wall of Glamour here, Celia. The illusion doesn’t trick our eyes. We can’t see it, while Fender can.”

Cele stared, blinking at where Fender said the wall stood, then turned back to Dahleven. “Because the Elves touched us, and not him? Then why isn’t he blind like Eirik and Angrim?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps because they were closer to the magic, or because he was unconscious at the time. He’s lucky to have escaped our fate.”

“But it sounds like a gift.”

Dahleven shook his head. “Few will see it that way. You must tell
no one
about this. People aren’t—comfortable—with the Fey-marked.”

“
Comfortable
. You mean we’ll be ostracized, don’t you?” Cele stared, worried for him. “Could you be disinherited?”

“You can rest easily, Lord Dahleven,” Eirik said. “I’ll say nothing of your affliction—unless it comes up at my trial.” He cocked his head at an odd angle staring with wide eyes. “And you, Lady Angrim, can you keep the secret as well?”

The threat was obvious. All of Cele’s anger, frustration, and anguish coalesced into a sharp glittering point. She stepped forward and grabbed the front of Eirik’s tunic. He flinched when she spoke an inch from his nose, her voice cutting like a razor. “And just how do you intend to get back to Quartzholm, you lying little weasel? Will you lead, or will you leave that to Angrim?”

She let Eirik go with a little shove and he stumbled, awkwardly keeping his balance.

“You wouldn’t leave us.”

All the anger it was too late to express to Jorund found its mark in Eirik. “Don’t try me,” Cele grated. “Then again, maybe we
will
take you back. What do you think Neven will do when he finds out you’ve been in Jorund’s pocket all this time? What will your Guild do when it learns you’ve lied about what the runes revealed?”

Dahleven raised his eyebrows at Cele but didn’t interfere.

Eirik blinked rapidly. “I won’t say anything. I have nothing to say. I didn’t
see
anything.”

“Do you have enough honor left to swear to that?” Fender asked. “As Lord Dahleven’s sworn man, it would be up to him, not Neven or even your Guild, to choose appropriate punishment, or care for you in your blindness. And what of you, Lady Angrim? Will you swear fealty?”

“Don’t be angry with me! Jorund misled me. I’ll do
whatever
you want.” Angrim cocked her head coquettishly. The gesture seemed like a parody of her former self, now that she no longer sparkled with allure. Something more than her sight was missing. Had her beauty and sex appeal been an illusion, too?

“I’ll take your oaths, then.” Dahleven stood impassively as Eirik and Angrim got down on their knees and swore fealty to him. Cele wondered if they could really be trusted, but this was obviously more solemn and significant than a casual promise. Cele remembered Sorn’s reaction to what Jeff had done, how he’d called Jeff an Oathbreaker. Obviously, a promise wasn’t given, or broken, lightly here.

Dahleven accepted their oaths of loyalty; in return, he promised to provide for their needs as long as they stood true. All three of them seemed more relaxed when it was over, as though something essential had changed between them. Dahleven swore them to secrecy, then led them and Fender safely through the wall she couldn’t see.

She knew they were through the wall of glamour when Dahleven’s waiting men shouted their joy at seeing him and Fender. Their expressions of back-thumping relief swung quickly to grim sorrow at the loss of their comrades.

Fender took charge of the small party, giving Eirik and Angrim into the care of Torvald and Seig. Cele and Dahleven watched until the little group disappeared around a curve and the light from their lanterns faded.

“We must go, as well,” Dahleven said. “Neven must be told about Jorund as soon as possible.”

“Oh, no!” Anguish washed over Cele, and she grabbed Dahleven’s arm. “Jorund said the parley was going to be attacked.”

*

Dahleven stiffened.
Father and Ragni are walking into an ambush
.

Even in death, the Firestarter might still begin a conflagration. “That could end all hope of peace. If only one side or the other is attacked, they’ll believe the truce has been violated.”

Celia released his arm. “Can’t we warn them?”

“When did he say the attack would occur?”

“He didn’t. He just said soon.”

Dahleven cursed. With Jorund, “soon” probably meant the attack had already begun, and they were at least two days away from the parley site. Whatever Jorund had set in motion would be over by the time they got there.

Celia reached out, but didn’t quite touch him. “Can we get there in time?”

The words almost choked him. “No. We’re too far away.” He’d sent men ahead to secure the site. If they did their job—and were lucky—they’d discover the ambush. That might at least save Neven and the Nuvinlanders. But the Tewakwe would still be vulnerable, and if Jorund’s Outcasts attacked them, they’d believe the Nuvinlanders false. He didn’t see how a tangle of misunderstanding and bloodshed could be avoided.

He still had to try. He had to tell Neven and the Tewakwe about Jorund’s treachery and death as soon as possible. That knowledge just might prevent the situation from escalating to war.

Dahleven looked at Celia. She was overtired from two days of captivity, and Finding the Talents, and had seen too much death. She watched him with anxious, red-rimmed eyes. It was madness to take her into the aftermath of battle. Depending on the outcome, continuing skirmishes could harry the Nuvinlanders all the way back to the border, putting all in the area at risk. He should call Fender and his men back, send Celia on to Quartzholm with them.

She must have read his mind. “Don’t even think about it.” Her face was stern, her voice flat. It was the same tone his mother had used when he was a child, contemplating mischief. “I’m going with you. I won’t be kept safe in a box.”

Dahleven looked at Celia standing with hands on hips and knew that Fender would have to tie her up to get her back to Quartzholm. Something like relief, or maybe joy, washed through him as he realized he’d have to keep her with him.

*

A little of the tension drained from Cele’s body when she realized Dahleven wasn’t going to send her back to Quartzholm. She’d made such a mess of things. She needed to redeem herself, in some small way, and she couldn’t do that stuck at the castle. And she didn’t want to leave Dahleven.

Dahleven returned to the chamber briefly to gather extra oil and food and waterskins. He bundled blankets and one of Jorund’s sleeping pads as well. “It will be warmer than sleeping directly on the cold stone, as we did before,” he explained.

Cele agreed as she shouldered the pack and skins he handed her. Heat swept over her as she noted that he brought only one of the narrow pads. The memory of Dahleven’s kisses, the feel of his body against hers, made her even warmer.

She dismissed the thought. He’d said she wasn’t to blame for what had happened, but she couldn’t so easily forgive herself. And no matter what he said, she didn’t believe Dahleven could, either.

Cele followed him through the smooth-floored tunnel. Ordinary crystals sparkled to life in the walls as the lantern light struck them, twinkling in the normal way, not glowing as they had before Jorund died.

They had no energy to spare for conversation, leaving Cele too much time to think. The searing light and Jorund’s screams, the torn bodies of the dead and dying, the smell of blood and death, all weighed on her mind. Despite Dahleven’s words to the contrary, Cele knew she’d put his men in harm’s way. Shards of anger and grief cut her heart. She was glad Jorund and his deceptions were dead. She’d kill him again if she could for threatening Dahleven, for luring her to betray the friendship he had offered.

Cele swallowed on a sour stomach. How could she have let herself be taken in by his smooth talk? Hadn’t she learned anything from Jeff? Only this time she wasn’t the only one hurt. Men had died because of her naiveté. She tore at herself over and over with that thought.

Dahleven led them onward. Shadows and soft lantern light rippled over his body, his form lumpy with various burdens. His movement was sure and strong, but he adjusted his stride to fit hers. Though he had little to say, he glanced at her often. Cele gritted her teeth, expecting to see disgust and condemnation in his face. She wouldn’t blame him. She deserved that, and more. But his expression only held concern. Eventually, he called a halt, much earlier than she anticipated.

“Don’t stop on my account,” she said, despite her fatigue.

Dahleven shook his head, slipping his burdens to the floor. “We traveled hard and fast to reach you, without much rest.”

And finished with a battle that killed most of his men
.

Cele took the thin featherbed as Dahleven shrugged out of its strap, and unrolled it. “I’m sorry—”

“No more of that.” Dahleven cut her off.

Cele swallowed her unspoken sorrow and grief. He was right. What could she say that would make up for what she’d done?

Dahleven shed the rest of his burdens, laying them out with the same orderliness she’d observed that first night by the spring. It seemed so long ago. Then he sat down on the thin mattress with a soft groan.

“Would you like something to eat?” Cele started to rummage in the pack she’d carried, trying to be useful. She handed him a small loaf of bread and a wedge of cheese. Jorund had been well provisioned.

He actually smiled as she sliced and shared out the food between them. “At least Jorund had better taste than to pack journeybread.” One of the skins he’d scavenged held a light wine, which they passed wordlessly between them.

When they’d eaten their fill, Dahleven removed his heavy leather byrnie and turned the wick of the lantern low. “Come here.” His voice was warm, and he spread his hand to indicate the space next to him on the pad.

As Cele settled next to Dahleven, her heart beat faster, as nervous as she’d been the first night she’d slept between him and Sorn. More so, because now she wanted to be in Dahleven’s arms more than any place on earth, and there was no future in it.