Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 07 (16 page)

 
          
Again
,
he changes the subject. And perhaps I should let him.
Brennan made
a dismissive gesture. His tone was conciliatory. "Perhaps your
jehana
has the right of it. Perhaps I
do
move too soon, pushing you this way
and that—" He broke off, sighing, to look at his son. "There are
times I think too much about what will become of the Lion, when the throne is
not even mine. I look back at our history and see how tenuous is our claim—how
vulnerable our race. We are still badly outnumbered… if the Homanans ever
turned against us again…" But he let it trail off. Aidan was not
listening. "Aidan…" He waited. "Aidan, I want to do right by
you. If now is not the time—"

 
          
Aidan's
response was detached. "It makes no difference."

 
          
Brennan
held onto his equable tone with effort, knowing instinctively that to press his
son now was to lose him. "Marriage is a large step for any man. For a
prince—"

 
          
"It
makes no difference." Aidan insinuated careful fingers into the folds of
his jerkin, as if testing for soreness. "Perhaps a change such as this is
precisely what I need, after everything else."

 
          
Concerned,
Brennan frowned. "Aidan—"

 
          
His
son smiled lopsidedly and raised a preemptive finger. "First you suggest I
marry, now you attempt to talk me out of it. Which do you want?"

 
          
Brennan
stirred restlessly; Aidan was, as usual, cutting too close to the bone. "I
want you content."

 
          
Aidan's
smile faded. He stared blankly at the door, distance in his gaze. "Perhaps
that is not my
tahlmorra
. Perhaps,
instead—" But he waved it off without finishing. Detachment faded,
replaced by dry irony. "A wedding will change many things."

 
          
If he wants to let it go
… Brennan forced
a smile. "A wedding usually does."

 
          
The
tone altered oddly. "And if it changes
everything
—"
Yet again Aidan did not finish, but his expression was intense.

 
          
Brennan's
smile faded. Something cold touched the base of his spine. "Are you all
right? Is there something troubling you?"

 
          
Aidan
did not answer, staring fixedly into the distance.

 
          
He is not here
, Brennan thought.
In the flesh, perhaps, but not in the mind.
He goes somewhere—else
. "Aidan," he said aloud. Then, more
urgently, "
Ai
dan!"

 
          
His
son stirred, clearly startled. And then he sighed, scrubbing at a wan,
discolored face. "I am—confused. Forgive me… I have not been paying
attention."

 
          
Brennan
leaned forward. "Then tell me. Share it with me. Let me be the
jehan
I should have been years
ago."

 
          
Aidan
weighed his words, then sighed in resignation. His crooked smile was, Brennan thought,
oddly vulnerable. "More than confused—
irritated
.
There are things in my life I cannot understand, and no answers are
forthcoming. No matter
who
I ask—"
He sighed heavily, fingering the bruise. "Have you ever spoken with a
god?"

 
          
It
was an odd tack. "
To
them; many
times."

 
          
"One
particular god?"

 
          
He
strived for lightness; to keep his head above water. "No. I generally
address my comments—or petitions—to as many as possible, just to improve my
chances." Brennan waited for laughter. When he heard no response at all,
he dismissed forced levity. His son was revealing more of himself than ever
before. This time the
jehan
would
listen. "Why? Do you speak only to one?"

 
          
Aidan
sighed. "I had never thought it necessary—like you, I spoke to them all.
But now—" Abruptly he broke it off and rose, heading toward the door.
"If there are five princesses to be considered, perhaps I should go to see
them."

 
          
He is gone
—
I have lost him
—

 
          
Nonplussed
by the abrupt change in subject and his son's implicit dismissal, Brennan rose
hastily. "But none of them are here."

 
          
Aidan
paused in the doorway, arching ruddy brows. "Then perhaps I should go
where they
are
."

 
          
«
^
»

 
          
The
fire had died to coals. The horses, a few long paces away, were hobbled for the
night, tearing contentedly at the now-sparse grass surrounding their plots.
Food was packed away, bedrolls unfurled, skins of wine unplugged. Sprawled
loose-limbed against saddles, two Cheysuli warriors stared up into
star-peppered darkness and shared the companionable silence.

 
          
Eventually,
Aidan broke it. "Tomorrow," he mused idly, scratching an itching
eyelid. "Solinde in place of Homana."

 
          
His
companion grunted absently, fingers stroking the huddle of chestnut fur slumped
across most of one leg.

 
          
"It
will feel good to leave Homana behind awhile. It will give me a chance to start
over again," Aidan mused. Then, thinking he had given too much away, he
sighed and rolled his head to grin at his great-uncle. "Escort enough, I'm
thinking… Teel, you, and Tasha."

 
          
"Certainly
more comfortable; I prefer it this way, myself." Ian's answering smile was
wry. "But Aileen nearly won the battle."

 
          
Aidan
swallowed wine, mopped up a few spilled drops dampening his chin, then shook
his head in detached irritation. "Why do women insist on so much ceremony?
There is no need to send me into Solinde trailing a hundred men in my wake… and
as for that chatter about protection, I say it is nonsense. We are at peace
with Solinde—we
have
been for tens of
years—Teirnan's
a'saii
have
disappeared, and even the Ihlini are silent. What is there to protect me
from
?"

 
          
Ian's
smile faded. The tone was carefully neutral as he stroked the huge cat at his
side, chin resting on his thigh. "From yourself, perhaps?"

 
          
Aidan's
contentment spilled away. The aftertaste in his mouth turned sour. "She
wasted no time, did she? Or was it
jehan
,
instead?" He shifted irritably against the saddle. "I should have
said nothing of it. It is private, personal… it should make no difference—"

 
          
"That
you know what others feel?" Ian tipped his head. "You must admit,
harani
, it is a powerful gift—"

 
          
"Is
it?" Scowling, Aidan cut him off. "I did not choose to have it. I do
not choose to use it. I only know what I know, what I
feel
—"

 
          
"—and
what others feel." Ian's tone remained affable. "I only remark on it
because it may be an explanation—"

 
          
"—for
why I am so different?" Aidan twisted his mouth. "No man is like
another."

 
          
"No."
Ian drank from his wineskin with less spillage than Aidan; he had had much more
practice. "And that very differentness is something all Cheysuli must deal
with, when faced with an unblessed Homanan trying to comprehend how we can
shapechange. We are
alien
to them,
trading flesh and bone for fur… but this Erinnish gift you apparently have
augments even that. And so I begin to see why we confuse the unblessed; you
confuse
me
. You confuse us all."

 
          
Aidan's
hand stole to his belt. Fingers touched the heavy link looped over leather next
to his buckle. He stroked the gold absently.
I confuse myself
.

 
          
"But
it does not matter." Ian settled more deeply into his blanket pallet,
adjusting to Tasha's weight. "You are you, and I am I; we are what the
gods decree."

 
          
Something
thrummed across the
lir
-link: a
feather-touch of amusement. Aidan glared hard through the darkness at Teel,
perched upon a pack slumped on the other side of the fire. The raven said
nothing, but Aidan translated the silence. He had had years of practice.

 
          
Gods, indeed—
Abruptly, he was restless.
He sat upright, slinging aside the stoppered skin, and swung on his knees to
face his kinsman. "I
am
different," he said intently. "But no one knows how much. No one
knows who I am. No one knows
what
I
am…"

 
          
The
light from the coals was dim. But Ian's expression was visible: Aidan's vehement
outburst had clearly startled him. "Aidan—"

 
          
Everyone says I should speak, to divulge
what I think; that it will do me good…

 
          
He
did not necessarily think so, but was willing to try. There was too much
pressure inside, too much apprehension. He needed to share it with someone
other than a
lir
who couched so much
truth in obscurity.

 
          
If
only they could
listen
—

 
          
"I
talk to gods,
su'fali
. To gods—and to
the dead."

 
          
Ian's
hand stilled on Tasha's head.

 
          
Aidan
smiled a little. There was no amusement in it. "Ten nights ago, I met with
Carillon. Before that, it was Shaine."

 
          
"Shaine,"
Ian echoed.

 
          
"The
father of the
qu'mahlin
." Aidan
shifted slightly, relaxing the tautness of bunched thighs. "Then, of
course, there was the Hunter, the god himself…" He let it go unfinished.
"But you could argue that it was the fall I took—that it addled my wits,
and I merely
dreamed
all of it."
Aidan's tone was elaborately dry. "But how would that explain seeing
Carillon? I did not dream that. He was as real as you, standing before the
Lion. He made the Great Hall his own, even with me in it. Even dead so many
years… however many it is."

 
          
"Sixty-six,"
Ian murmured. "Have you learned nothing at all?"

 
          
Aidan
looked at him sharply. Ian still lay stretched out against his saddle, one side
engulfed by Tasha. His expression now was calm, but the mouth smiled a little.
The eyes, so eerie a yellow, gazed serenely into the heavens.

 
          
"You
believe
me?"

 
          
"I
have never known you to lie."

 
          
Now
he distrusted the truth, certain no one could understand so easily, or in such
a calm frame of mind. "But it was
Carillon
I saw! Carillon I
spoke
with!"

 
          
"And
what did he have to say?"

 
          
Aidan
frowned. He had expected startled reassessment, the mention of possible
madness. Even though Ian had always given him the latitude to be himself, Aidan
had not believed it could remain so. Not in light of his revelation.

 
          
But
now something else caught his attention. "You knew him," Aidan said.
"You knew him personally."

 
          
"Carillon?"
Ian grunted amusement. "In a manner of speaking. I was four years old when
he died."