Land of Night (22 page)

Melev was bald, which Scarlet understood was rare for a Rshani. Even their very old men were not so. This one had the same amber-colored skin as Liall, but he was two hand-spans taller and wore only a simple, rough-spun robe knotted around his whipcord-thin frame. Melev wore no furs or even shoes against the cold and no jewelry or bright ornaments, which the Rshani seemed to love adorning themselves with. He looked poor and humble, if strange. Despite that, Nenos bowed low when Melev entered, and even Liall did the same.

Melev stepped nearer to the bed Scarlet was huddled in, and Scarlet shrank back, filled with a nameless fear.

The odd giant smiled gently and knelt by the side of the bed, bringing his eyes on a level with Scarlet's, who was perched high up on pillows and blankets. A giant, indeed. Melev had a strange face: huge, pale eyes like pearls or opals, and a large, hooked nose and square jaw. He strongly resembled the wooden carving of a Shining One that Scarlet had seen in the Fate Dealer's tent in Ankar, which made Scarlet shiver in superstitious fear. Scarlet looked to Liall for guidance, but Liall was cold and unresponsive.

Melev extended one of his monstrous hands to feel the bruise on Scarlet's forehead, and Scarlet saw that his hands were wrong, misshapen in some way. Scarlet jerked back a little before Melev could touch him, and the man smiled again. Melev's expression was most gentle, and turned his hand before Scarlet's eyes.

"It is only a little different from your hand,” Melev said in a muted, soothing voice, so low that its tones almost fell under the normal sounds of the air and the palace. Deep, but comforting. Yes, he was very comforting. A sense of peace seemed to radiate from his very skin.

Scarlet relaxed a bit as Melev flexed his giant's hands. He began to notice that Melev spoke perfect Bizye, even with a touch of northern accent, like his own.

"See?” Melev said, still in that calming voice. “Four joints in each finger, rather than three, and four in the thumb.” He wriggled them, his fingers twisting like snakes, impossible angles. “Physical difference,” he explained softly. “Nothing to be frightened of."

"I'm not frightened,” Scarlet said gamely.

"Of course not. Why would you be? Your magic is as great as mine, if not greater.” Melev reached for him again. “If you will permit this...?"

Scarlet hesitated, looking to Liall, but Liall was neutral, his expression only changing when Melev spoke of magic. So he's still mad about that, Scarlet thought. He longed to be alone with Liall, to explain how forbidden it was to reveal the Gift to an outsider, and how he had often felt guilty about keeping that secret from Liall, but there seemed little chance of being alone now.

Scarlet nodded, and Melev placed his hand—so warm!—on Scarlet's temple, right on the spot that was drilling hot needles through his brain. It hurt. For a moment, a searing pain that cut through all the other pains rocked him, and he squeezed his eyes shut and gasped. Melev quickly laid his other hand on Scarlet's shoulder, preventing him from pulling away as the healer explored the aching area of Scarlet's chest with careful, precise touches. Then Melev laid his palm flat above Scarlet's heart and went very still for a moment. Scarlet tensed, expecting more pain, but it suddenly vanished, as did all his other aches, as if taken away by the wind.

Scarlet opened his eyes to see Melev smiling at him. “What did you do?"

Melev began to examine Scarlet's hands next, pressing his fingernails to see their color. “I helped you."

"You're not a curae,” Scarlet said. No curae that he had ever met could take pain away so easily.

Melev was amused. “Oh, indeed I am not."

"Are you a Shining One?"

Now that caused a stir in the room, and Melev looked at him and shook his head, showing him his enormous white teeth in a grin.
"Nauhin nen chth,"
he said, which left Scarlet no wiser, but he sensed to ask for a translation would be pushing it.

Melev placed Scarlet's hand under the blankets to keep warm and rose, turning to Liall. “The bear must have hit him harder than you realized. His skull was fractured. You were right to call for me."

Was? Could Melev have healed him so quickly? Scarlet looked at Melev with fresh awe, doubting, but he had to admit that he was feeling much better, and no longer sick. He was only vastly tired.

Liall's cold expression wavered for a moment. “And now?"

"I have repaired it. There is no bleeding on the brain, neither have his lungs taken serious damage. He is bruised and battered, but he will live."

Liall seemed to be grinding his jaw as he nodded at Melev, then he switched to Sinha and Scarlet was shut out of their conversation. Melev cast a look at Scarlet and switched back to Bizye, addressing Liall.

"Your t'aishka is strong,” Melev remarked. “But you must take much better care of him. Please order him to rest."

Scarlet frowned. Most Rshani automatically assumed that Liall owned him or had some authority over him, and it bothered him no less now that it had months ago.

"He is not mine to order,” Liall said slowly. “But I will ask him."

"Ah, yes.” Melev nodded, as if he understood perfectly. “It is the old ways, once again."

Liall seemed distressed at that, but Scarlet was too tired to figure it out. Liall's coldness shut him out more effectively than if the prince had tossed him out of the palace and locked the gates. Be damned to him, then, Scarlet thought wearily. His eyelids drooped and he sank exhausted into sleep.

Scarlet slept most of the night and woke to find Liall gone. When he asked Nenos where the prince was, the old man only shrugged apologetically and urged Scarlet, with signs and a few words in Bizye, to get back into bed and rest. Scarlet shook his head and got up to dress, and Nenos reluctantly laid out a very nice but plain red woolen virca and black breeches and boots. Scarlet wandered into the dining room and sat along at the large table, and after a short while Nenos silently brought him che. An hour went by as Scarlet fretted, then two, and by that time Scarlet was convinced that Liall was making plans to ship him back to Byzantur, just as he had threatened to do on the sea voyage.

There was a knock at the outer door and Scarlet stood, his heart speeding up, but it was only Cestimir's page, inquiring if ser Keriss was well enough to receive visitors. Scarlet's hopes fell and he did not feel like visiting, but neither did he feel like being penned up in the apartment all day waiting for Liall to come to him, if he came at all.

"Of course I'm well enough,” he told the page, who spoke very decent Bizye. “Tell him to come up."

When the boy had gone, Scarlet regretted his decision. He was going to be poor company for a prince, but anything was preferable to just sitting here brooding over Liall.

Liall had killed his own brother. How? Was it by mischance, or something darker? Scarlet wanted the truth from Liall. All of it, not just the little bits of it Liall thought he could handle. Scarlet's own father had let him keep his secrets and never pried, believing that Scarlet was mature enough to handle it on his own, and trusting that, if he could not, he would ask for help. Help, which would, naturally, never be withheld. It was the Hilurin way: blunt, proud, and loyal. Scarlet would have forgiven Liall any truth, but lies were harder to dismiss. Liall naturally saw the matter differently, being foreign-born and raised with another kind of logic: one that twisted like snakes and slid away like smoke when you tried to grasp it.

And you, he asked himself. What about you? Didn't you lie to Liall about the magic?

I did, he argued silently. But it wasn't only my lie. It's what I was raised with: never show the Gift to anyone who is not First Tribe. If they're not of the Blood, they won't understand and they'll kill you for it. Well, hadn't that wisdom been proven already? Look how courtiers behaved in the great hall.

The shouts of
kill it!
still rang in Scarlet's ears: those pretty, glittering men and women calling for his death.

Haven't we paid enough for that lie over the years in burned villages and dead kin and our bones buried in the fields?

But not Liall, that inner voice argued. Never Liall. He wouldn't have hated you.

Scarlet was beginning to despair of either of them ever realizing who the other really was, and the prospect of arguing with Liall any further depressed him beyond words. He didn't want to lose Liall, but he wanted to lose himself even less.

Alexyin escorted Cestimir, as usual, and conferred with Nenos at length before leaving the Crown Prince alone with Scarlet. Nenos stood looking at the young men for a few minutes, his hands clasped behind his back and his kind face very concerned.

"How do you feel?” Cestimir asked politely.

"Well enough,” Scarlet answered, and then gave Cestimir a hard look. “Aren't you afraid like everyone else, prince?"

"Should I be? Are you going to strike me down with your little flame?"

Scarlet snorted and rolled his eyes. At least one Rshani had good sense. “You'd think that's what I threatened to do to your kingdom. Be like trying to cut down a forest with a fruit knife, that would. We don't ... we
try
not to use it that way. That isn't what the Gift is for."

"What is it for?” Cestimir asked, honestly curious as he sat down across from Scarlet.

Scarlet dropped his gaze. “For living,” he answered honestly. “Survival; small magics to get us by in a hard world. That's what Deva gave us.” He looked down at his own four-fingered hand that so fascinated the Rshani. “Without it, we may all have been dead already, with the way the world hates us,” he added almost defiantly.

"I don't hate you, ser Keriss."

Scarlet ventured a searching look at the prince. “You don't, do you?” he said after a long moment. “It makes no difference to you?"

Cestimir grinned. “None at all, except that now I have even more questions to pester you with."

Seeing that the young men were speaking easily with one another, Nenos left.

Cestimir pulled his chair closer to Scarlet's. “Did you really mean to burn Vladei?"

Scarlet thought seriously before he answered. “It was very odd,” he admitted. “I'd never tried to use my Gift that way before I left home. Not as a weapon. I didn't think I could. Something has been happening to my Gift since I left Byzantur. It feels ... stronger. I don't know.” He sighed. “Maybe it's this place. Maybe it's being so far away from home and everything is so new and..."

"Frightening?"

"Oh, you can't fright a pedlar,” Scarlet retorted primly with a little smile. “But I've felt close to it a few times. I don't like your step-brother much, if I can say so."

"You can,” Cestimir grinned, folding his arms. “Others say worse about him. He's a dangerous man."

Scarlet snorted. “Who yelps like a girl at the sight of a little withy."

"It didn't look little to me,” Cestimir admitted. His eyes shone. “It looked wondrous."

Scarlet shook his head, smiling.

"You want to get out of here, don't you?"

Scarlet stared. “What do you mean? Leave Rshan?"

"No, not leave my brother, you ninny.” Cestimir reached over and slapped Scarlet's arm for his foolishness. “Would I do that to Nazheradei, knowing how he loves you? No. I meant would you like go sleigh-riding with me?"

Scarlet cast a cautious look to the kitchen, where he knew Nenos was listening, but Nenos did not speak Bizye. “They won't let us."

"They won't know,” Cestimir said with a rakish grin. “Or at least, they won't until it's too late, and by then we'll have had our fun and they can be as angry as they please."

In spite of his dour mood, Scarlet chuckled. “Have you always been like this, or did my coming here spark some kind of Wilding streak in you?"

"Don't worry,” Cestimir laughed, rising from his chair. “They won't blame you. I've done it many times before. If anything, I will be blamed for corrupting you, poor innocent Byzan."

The prince stepped out of the dining room and into the kitchen, and Scarlet could hear him conversing with Nenos in low tones. After a few moments, Cestimir came back in and held his finger to his lips in a signal for Scarlet to be silent. The outer door opened and closed, and Cestimir grabbed his arm, hauling him up out of the chair.

"Get your coat. You'll need a hat and gloves, too. Hurry!"

"What did you do?"

"I sent him on an errand. It won't take him that long, so we must be swift. Shoo!” He pushed Scarlet into the bedroom to dress.

Scarlet snatched up Liall's blue and silver coat and a new fur-lined hat brocaded with red flowers. The coat was far too big for him, but his own red coat had been taken after the snow bear hunt and he hadn't seen it since. He wasn't even sure they would bring it back; something about the blood of the bear being sacred.

He met Cestimir near the outer door and the prince took his hand. After opening the door and peering out, Cestimir dragged Scarlet into the wide corridor and down a flight of stone steps. The boy was so much taller than Scarlet that he pulled Scarlet easily along, which annoyed Scarlet a bit. He was getting used to all these Rshani, even one three years his junior, towering over him. He did not like it, but he was getting used to it.

They made several twists and turns throughout the palace, and Scarlet was afraid they would be stopped at any moment, but Cestimir knew his home, and they met no one in the narrow and deserted passages the Crown Prince chose for their route.

Very shortly, they were outside in the twilight cold, standing before a sleigh with their minders left behind. A fierce-looking man with a full blond beard and heavy white eyebrows stood next to the horse-drawn sleigh, holding a whip and swathed in fur up to his neck.

"Is this wise, Majesty?” Scarlet asked, suddenly positive it was not. Liall was going to be furious.

"Certainly!” Cestimir said cheerfully and climbed into the enclosed carriage of the sleigh. He held out his gloved hand to Scarlet.

Cestimir's merry grin was so infectious that Scarlet laughed and climbed into the carriage, forgetting for the moment that Liall had warned him direly about leaving the palace. Liall fretted like an old woman. What harm could there be if he was with the prince?