Sons of the Falcon (The Falcons Saga) (42 page)

Disobeyed, for her sake? Carah
started to smile, but pinched her lips between her teeth and took a quick stock
of her expression. Were her eyes sparkling too much? How did Rhian keep a
straight face all the damn time? Warning herself to sound unenthusiastic, she
said, “He was very … helpful.”

Thorn rolled his eyes at her
display of razor-sharp wit and slid into his chair with the book he’d fished
from the shelf. “He has not earned my thanks, nor have you earned my permission
to go with us.”

“Tsk, tsk,” Carah said, “can we
resume our silence, please?”

Jaedren giggled at her copycatting
her uncle, and Thorn grumbled under his breath. For once in a long time, Carah
felt as if she had gained the upper hand. She sauntered to the window seat and
stared out at the rain. It pelted the glass and turned the view beyond the fortress
into a misty gray dreamworld, where trees and mountains lost their substance.
In the garden below, leaf and vine drooped, as if they’d had enough of the rain
and longed to duck free of it. The groundsmen had turned off the fountain; no
point in it spitting water into the rain.

Esmi arrived with the tea service
and a box of silverthorn powder. “Jaedren, do you need any?” she asked,
spooning the white powder into a cup of steaming tea.

“No, ma’am. I don’t get the
headaches much anymore.”

Carah took the cup back to the
window seat and sipped slowly while she watched and waited. By the time the
throbbing at her nape began to wane, she saw Rhian appear around the bulk of the
Great Hall, far away on the northern wall. His robe hung heavy and dark, soaked
through and surely doing nothing to keep him warm. The hood drooped around his
face. He paused for some time on the turrets of the north gatehouse, chatted
with the miserable sentries stationed there, then started along the west wall.
Butterflies ran riot in Carah’s belly. “Bloody pearl fisher,” she muttered,
angry at him for making her feel this way. She kicked herself off the window
seat and refilled her teacup.

The commotion prompted Thorn to
glance up. When he saw his apprentice approaching the library windows, he
asked, “What’s his word? Eejit. He’s an eejit for walking out there in weather
like this.”

“Can I go?” Jaedren asked. “I like
the rain, and being a sentry.”

“No, you’ll finish translating that
paragraph, then you have your regular studies with Etivva.”

“Aw…”

As long as Thorn’s attention was turned
out the window, Carah had to occupy herself with something besides the view.
She nibbled one of the tea cakes that propriety insisted Esmi add to the tray,
and pretended to take interest in her favorite book of bardsong, which she positioned
toward the gray light, just so; a quick glimpse past the book showed her that Rhian
had reached the western tower and the top of the wallwalk where she had dropped
the wine bottle. Someone had swept up the glass, and the rain had washed away
the wasted wine. He paused there when he had no reason to, except that he must
be thinking about it, too. A gloved hand rose and scraped back the soaked hood.
Eyes closed, Rhian let the rain fall full on his face.

“Damn fool boy,” Thorn said at
Carah’s elbow. She’d not heard him get up from the table. He must have caught
her watching. “That Islander is enamored of the water, no mistake. Says his mother
calls him Son of the Sea.”

“Does she? How quaint.” Carah
turned a page and made an effort to read on.

Thorn eventually went about his
business, rolled his ladder to another section of shelf, climbed up, and
searched for a different volume. Once his back was really and truly turned,
Carah risked another glance. Rhian hadn’t moved. He leaned against the wall,
arms crossed, hood raised once more, and though shadows swallowed his face, he was
clearly gazing toward the library window. How long had he been staring at her?

Casual, think Casual
, she
told herself and lifted her fingers in an unenthusiastic wave. No harm in it.
She needed to be more friendly, now that he’d helped her. Right?

For a moment, Rhian just stood
there. Maybe he was asleep instead. Captain Maegeth was always complaining of
sentries sleeping on duty, but Carah never expected laziness of Rhian. How
disappointing. About the time she resolved to go sit at the table instead, his
arms unfolded and a black-gloved hand flicked a wave. A small gesture, like a
secret. Why so reluctant? Did he still resent her?

The butterflies in her belly died
quickly at that realization. All for the better.

Rhian took a slow turn of the
western tower, then continued along the wall and out of sight. Recalling his
advice, Carah took a deep breath to relax. She pushed away all thoughts of time
constraints and soft aquamarine eyes and listened to the rain and the buzzing
in the deep wells of her mind. The headache grew again, charged and thudded
against the inside of her skull like a battering ram. She sipped the tea,
massaged the back of her neck, and the rain began to whisper.
Dragons
,
it said.

No … don’t believe …

These pages …
At the table,
Thorn tapped the book he’d dragged down from the shelf.
… Lady told me …
pure magic … shapeshifters … eyes don’t change … slitted like a cat’s … gold or
chartreuse.

What’s chartreuse?

Bright yellowish-green. They’re
rarely seen, but supposedly they do the bidding of the Mother-Father, like the
fairies.
Jaedren was right. Thoughts and half-formed thoughts rolled toward
her like layers of waves in the sea. Sorting through them took all her
concentration. Her tongue poked out the side of her mouth. Sweat beaded at her
hairline.

Do they really hoard gold, like
in the stories?

Carah chuckled and projected the
thought,
When Laniel Falconeye isn’t slaying them.

Further thoughts from the other two
stumbled. Jaedren gasped and clapped his hands. Thorn’s eyes closed, and he
went a bit … gray. “Leaps and bounds, eh?” he said.

Carah rose from the window seat and
put out a hand to steady herself against a screaming, dizzying assault of pain.
Mustn’t let him think she was too vulnerable to ride tomorrow. She sank down
into the chair next to him, twined her fingers through his. “Uncle Thorn?” Her voice
sounded tinny in her own ears.
This is how it’s supposed to be.

I know, love. But I don’t have
to like it.
He was unable to hide the pain in his words. Listening to them
straight from his thoughts, Carah detected unshielded fear and worry.
He
raised her hand and kissed it.
Let’s hope the nightmare was a false alarm,
eh?

But it wasn’t,
Jaedren said,
confused about Thorn’s attempt to wish away the truth.

“Right,” Carah said with a heavy,
trembling sigh. She stood, kissed her uncle’s cheek, and made for the library
door.

Where are you going? I’ve not
dismissed you.

Turning on the threshold, Carah
couldn’t help but grin.
I’m going to put on my new robe.

S
leek and silver, she
whirled before the mirror, pulled up the hood, and squealed despite the pain thundering
in her head. At last! At last. The beaded sash sparkled with her every turn,
and the panels of silk among the velvet flowed like moonlit water. How clumsy
her brown riding boots looked poking from under the hem. She needed her gray
kid gloves and gray kid shoes, not the black ones or the white ones that Esmi
had packed for her.

Her handmaid was too happy over
Carah’s success to mind packing her things again. “What about this silver
circlet for your hair, m’ lady? I’ll just throw that in, too. Oh, you look
stunning.”

Carah dug inside her jewelry box,
all the way to the bottom, and lifted out the fairy pendant. The tiny hands
still clung to the blue pearl, but the silver needed polishing after being
neglected for so many years. No matter. Her uncle once told her the pendant had
been blessed by the Lady of the Elarion, that it was charmed to protect her. If
Jaedren was right, she would need an extra measure of protection after all.

~~~~

T
horn, his brother, and his
two apprentices rehearsed their lies on the morning of their departure. The
four of them clustered on the steps of the keep in the manner of conspirators. A
fine mist fell in the courtyard, beading on their shoulders and in the manes of
their horses. Jaedren fussed over every buckle and stirrup, and footmen argued
over how best to tie Kelyn’s small trunk and Carah’s large one onto the baggage
horse. The poor animal whickered and endured the bickering valiantly. Thorn and
Rhian needed only the clothes on their backs and the swords on their belts. The
crystal-headed staff was affixed to Thorn’s saddle, and Nelda had sent up wine-
and water skins from the kitchens, along with enough food for a week-long
journey. Their saddlebags bulged.

“When you’re asked about your mum?”
Thorn asked his niece.

With confidence Carah replied, “She’s
been under the weather for the past week, and we refused to let her travel in the
rain. We left her no choice but to let Kethlyn represent Evaronna’s affairs.”

“Where
is
your mum, anyway?”
Kelyn asked. He had little tolerance for this underhanded business. The idea of
deceiving King Valryk sat ill with him, that was plain enough. “She said she’d
come down to see us off.”

“Last night she told me she was
getting worried,” Carah said.

“What’s to worry about? We have two
avedrin watching our backs.” He grinned in a bittersweet sort of way. “Well, three.”

Carah giggled at that. Thorn tried
not to resent her for being joyful. She was entitled to bask in her success for
a while. If only he had returned home four years ago to train her as he’d
promised. His niece would be better prepared for whatever awaited them. Better
that he had not trained her at all. She’d be staying behind, blind but safe. How
many more bad judgments had he made? Time would tell.

“She’s not worried about
us
,
Da. Kethlyn. She’s right, too. He should’ve stopped by days ago. Last night at
the latest. He’s either going to be late to the convention or he took a
different road.”

“Unless he went through Leania,
there is no other road.”

“Precisely.”

Thorn reclaimed their attention
with an “Ahem” and pressed on with the other questions. This time he effected a
disgusted sigh as one might hear from any number of ladies Carah knew. “You
look scandalous, Lady Carah. Where
is
your handmaid?”

Carah couldn’t help but laugh at
his imitation. “Haven’t you learned to dress yourself, Lady Maeret? I told her
to stay behind to look after my mother. Besides, Esmi is getting too old to
travel. This weather wreaks havoc on her bones. Do you have any suggestions for
a replacement?”

“And you, War Commander, who is
your dashing new squire?”

Rhian wore the Ilswythe livery, a
bright cerulean tabard blazoned with the sword-wielding falcon. Lies to explain
this stranger’s presence were the most elaborate of all. If Carah enjoyed enacting
her replies, her father played along begrudgingly. “An Islander whose family is
allied with the duchess through trade agreements,” he said flatly. “He was late
to start his training, so Rhoslyn brought him my way this winter. To see if I
can make a knight out of him.”

Thorn thumped Rhian in the chest.
“And you. Who are you?”

“Son of some lord in some city. Why
do
I
have to lie? No one knows me anyway.”

“Daft,” Thorn said. “War Commanders
don’t take peasants for squires, or hadn’t you noticed? Your story has to match
up with his. Go.”

Rhian growled. “I’m the grandson of
Lord Rystia, who is loathsome by the way, and … and … and my father is a pearl
merchant with a fleet of boats and hordes of fishers. Or something.”

“Practice till you can say it
without stuttering, will you? It has to sound natural and believable. Because
someone will ask. Highborns are no less nosey than a fishwife, believe me. And
if they can root out a scandal, all the better.” Bitter with his apprentice, Thorn
added, “Take an acting lesson from my niece sometime. She owes you anyway.”

Color flooded Carah’s face. “Oh,
please. I don’t owe the pearl fisher anything. He was just doing your job for
you.”

“My—?” Thorn grit his teeth. “Child,
if your father weren’t standing here—”

“Break it up.” Kelyn’s arm wrapped
protectively around his daughter’s shoulders. “Leave the grudge behind, both of
you, or I go to Bramoran alone.”

“Very well,” Carah conceded. “I’ll
be the bigger man here. For your sake, Da. Let’s see, who have we forgotten?
Why, you, Uncle Thorn. Have you rehearsed your lies?”

“Lies? I need tell no lies. I’m not
even here.” A thickening curtain shimmered around him, hiding him slowly from sight.

“That is so disconcerting,” Kelyn
muttered.

All they heard in reply was Thorn’s
chuckle.

“Right, I’m going to find Her Grace.
She ought to have come down by now.” Kelyn tromped off up the steps and through
the bronze doors.

Thorn let the Veil unravel. “Ah, I
wish I’d known how to do that when we were kids. What torments I could have
inflicted.”

Carah harrumphed. “If that’s how
boys are, best not teach it to Jaedren yet.”

“My lord?” Lura, Rhoslyn’s
handmaid, came down the steps and dipped in a curtsy before Thorn. “Her Grace wishes
a word with you. She awaits you in the garden.”

His belly somersaulted. Why the
garden? “Me? Er, um, His Lordship was just looking for her.” Sometimes he
amazed himself with his eloquence.

“Was he? I’ll let Her Grace know.”

Thorn hurried along the corridor
under the glowing stained-glass lamps, an unwelcome pinch of nerves in his
stomach. Didn’t Rhoslyn know better than to invite him into the garden? Too
many memories lurked in those fragrant, bowered lanes, and none he cared to
think about. Every time he happened to glance out the library windows that
overlooked the fountain and the great andyr tree, he thought of his mother
dying under his hands. A team of gardeners pulled her weeds now and shaped her
hedges to suit them. Alovi had liked them wild, if restrained. The head
gardener kept them trimmed into tidy squares and cones like some damn geometry
lesson.

His torment didn’t come from the
fact that he had provided his mother an end to the pain but that he couldn’t
save her. It wasn’t enough. Despite everything he could do, it wasn’t enough.
The scars on his hands, left by the burns he’d inflicted on himself, had nearly
faded away, but his fingers were damaged more on the inside. The healing had
been slow and tedious. His knuckles often ached, and he could stand to hold a
quill for only an hour or so at a time.

Beneath this lingered an older,
sweeter pain. How many years had passed since he followed Rhoslyn from the
Great Hall sweltering with dancers, wine, and song and into the cool, moonlit
garden? He’d crept past the lily pond glimmering with pearly scales of circling
fish, under the arbor dripping with lady’s lips vines, and found her sitting
among the blood-red night blossoms. Garnets had glistened at her throat and in
her hair. She’d kissed him with garnet lips. And under the branches of that
same tree, she married his brother. What a fool he had been to ignore Kelyn’s
warnings about her.

Mist instead of jewels gathered in
the duchess’s hair on this gray morning. She paced beside the silent fountain,
fingers steepled before her mouth. Coming to the night blossom bush, she paused.
Her fingers caressed the buds, scrolled tight in the daylight, then plucked
one. The disturbance shook rain from the leaves. She held the petals under her
nose, brushed them against her cheek. Her eyes were distant and sorrowful.

Thorn emerged from under the arbor.
“You have need of me, Your Grace?”

She gasped, pressed a hand to her
chest, and let the flower fall discreetly. “Yes, but I … You startled me. I … I
changed my mind.”

“About what?” he asked, joining her
near the fountain.

With a burdened sigh, she said, “I
meant to order you to leave my daughter here with me. But she’s worked so hard
for this. Such a demand would be unfair.”

How like a girl she looked, cheeks
flushed from the chill air, their color deepened by the dark wine of her cloak.
But the tension around her eyes and upon her mouth was that of a worried
mother. “In times like these, wisdom ought to outweigh fairness,” he told her. “For
your sake, I’m sorry I promised her. I didn’t expect her to…” He ended with a
helpless shrug.

“You’ll protect her, won’t you?”

“As if she were my own.” He was
unable to look at her as he said it. “Always. You know that.”

“Yes, I know.” Her smile was full
of tenderness and pity. “You may go, I suppose. I called you here for nothing.”

It wasn’t for nothing. Her
instincts were sound, but Thorn preferred to keep that to himself, for her sake.
He sank down onto the fountain wall and examined the groomed flowerbeds and
raked gravel paths. The household honored Alovi by maintaining what she had
loved most. “You know, this is the first time I’ve visited the garden since
Mother’s death. Over a decade now, isn’t it? Yes, Carah had turned six. How
silly of me.”

“Her death has haunted you all this
while?”

“I’ve learned to accept it, like
everything else.”

Rhoslyn retreated a step or two
toward the keep. Thorn feared she might escape. He stood abruptly. “Are you
happy, Rhoslyn?” How long had it been since he’d called her by name? “I mean,
have you … been happy here?”

Her expression was a battle of
emotion, half smile, half confusion. She considered a long time, and the smile
faded. At last she said, “I have been undeservedly happy, Kieryn. My husband
has never wronged me. My children are healthy, intelligent, and respectable,
and they still dote on us, which is astonishing. And my people haven’t revolted
against me, despite my absence half the year. I have more than I ever knew to
hope for. Yes, I’m happy.”

“I didn’t make a mistake then … not
being the one to come back to you?” How long had he needed to ask these
questions? But he’d not considered them safe enough. Nor had he been brave
enough.

“Oh, Kieryn, bless you.” Rhoslyn
swept up his hand and kissed it. A tear splashed his knuckles. “No, you must
never think that. You were not mistaken. And I was the one who wronged you,
remember. You had every right to leave.”

“But I chose not to forgive. I
could have chosen to forgive.”

She shook her head, adamant. “Once
I realized the full weight of what I’d done, I knew I had no right to ask that
of you, not when I had such a hard time forgiving myself. Your brother is
right. Do not dwell on ‘could haves’ and ‘should haves’. They don’t do anyone
any good.”

Years ago, she had been the one who
sought council and comfort from him. Odd that today it was the other way
around. This was a different Rhoslyn, that was plain. No longer the uncertain,
terrified girl of eighteen, she had learned the hard way how to carve victory
for herself and her family, and it had forged her into the strongest and most
admirable soul Thorn knew.

He nodded, satisfied, and bowed
over her hand, fulfilling a vow he’d made to her on a windy hillside so long
ago. He had other vows to fulfill now, and a long road ahead. He left her
beside the fountain and the night blossoms where he had fallen in love with
her.

All over again.

~~~~

K
elyn waited until his
brother’s footsteps faded along the corridor before heading into the garden.
Rhoslyn approached up the path, frowning thoughtfully. She glanced up and
smiled at him standing in the doorway. For one instant, Kelyn wished he could
read her mind. The words between her and Thorn had been too soft to make out,
but Kelyn had seen the heart-wrenching distress on Rhoslyn’s face, watched her
clench Thorn’s hand and kiss it. In their garden. How often had they met here
over the years?

“Ready to go, then?” she asked,
stepping out of the damp.

“Yes, I was looking everywhere for
you.” A sinking sick feeling nearly robbed him of his voice.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Her fingers
brushed his cheek and she hurried off along the corridor, handing her cloak to
a footman as she went. “I was about to issue a ducal edict, but it didn’t work
out that way.”

Kelyn followed her to her study,
waiting for her to confess why she and Thorn had sequestered themselves in the
garden, but she didn’t. She didn’t mention him at all but swept a stack of
envelopes off her desk and flipped through them. “If you see Kethlyn, order him
to stop by on his way home, will you?” She flung down the letters in disgust. “He’s
not a duke yet, you can still tell him what to do.”

“I’ll tell him what to do,
regardless. He’s my son.”

“Maybe he sent a bird and it went
astray. You don’t think he got stuck in the mud somewhere?” She wrung her
hands. “He’d better be at Bramoran, that’s all I can say, or the king will be
most displeased.”

“To the Abyss with Valryk.”

Rhoslyn’s eyebrows jumped. “Still
bitter, I see.”

“Do you still love him?”

The question not only caught
Rhoslyn by surprise, but she blinked as if it made no sense. “Valryk or
Kethlyn?”

“Thorn, damn it!”

“What?” Her hazel eyes sharpened
like the tip of a whip, and Kelyn braced himself for the flogging. “How dare
you? The War Commander doesn’t get his way, and suddenly he’s given to fits of
jealousy. It’s no fault of mine that Valryk changed your plans, so don’t
unleash your anger on me. Your brother is here to protect your daughter, not to
pursue your wife.”

“Answer the question, Rhoz.”

Livid color flared up her throat.
“Of course I don’t love him. After twenty years, Kelyn, you doubt me? I can’t
believe this. And what about you? You’re going to Bramoran without me. Captain
Lissah will be there. And I’ll admit I’ve often wondered who warms your bed in
the winter. Do you know that woman can’t look me in the eye to this day? But it
was beneath me to ask. Despite your past reputation, I chose to trust you.”