Sword (33 page)

"To the Lady Captain," Annan's second, Jodin, said then, startling her, and there was a murmur of agreement all around the little table as they raised their mugs and knocked them together.

Kyali stared. She couldn't think of a single thing to say. She was fairly sure that fact was perfectly clear on her face right now. In her bewildered silence, one man—Martin? Yes, Martin—stood and slid a bottle off the mantel, clear glass filled with a cloudy white liquid she recognized from her days among the Clans.

"This calls for sommat stronger than ale, by yer leave, Cap'n," he said and, at Annan's curious look and waved permission, produced several smallish glasses and poured for them all. Kyali held a hand up, knowing full well this was a bad idea but wanting to do
something
—these men had welcomed her into their company, were trying to put her at ease, and she owed them more than an uncomfortable hour of toasts for that.

"This is a Fraonir drink," she said. "There is only one way to take this, sirs. Do we have a candle and a straw?"

Looking mystified, Jodin passed her what she needed. She lit the straw and touched it to the surface of the liquor. A cloud of bright blue flame appeared at the top of the glass like magic and Ellis laughed, incredulous and admiring.

"Now what?" Annan asked, eyeing her with a skeptical look. The flame cast sable shadows on his face, making him look older. "You're wasting good liquor there, Captain."

Kyali gave the look right back to him, and someone let loose a low, mocking whistle.

"Gods help us all, there's two o’ them now," Martin groaned. Jodin snickered.

It
was
actually sort of funny, if she thought about it, or if she looked at Annan's slightly offended, slightly surprised expression. Damn it. She probably should not have had the whole mug of ale. She couldn't remember the last meal she'd eaten.

"To new homelands," Kyali said, raising the glass, and was horrified to hear her voice break on the last word. She tipped the glass all the way back as fast as she could, fighting a sudden pressure in her chest that felt like Devin's prying, but had no magical source that she could sense.

Flame curled warm hands around her face and went out; the liquor, on the other hand, burned like fire the whole way down.
Damn it
, she thought again, sighing inwardly, because she was definitely going to feel this in the morning.

Then the burning bloomed into a pleasant warmth in her belly, and the whole affair began to seem like a not-terrible way to spend an evening after all.

The Cassdalls followed her lead, lighting their glasses and downing the contents in one swift swallow. Jodin coughed after his, and blinked with such a look of alarm that she felt her face stretch oddly and realized after a moment that she was grinning. She made herself frown instead, but that wasn't quite right either. Across from her, Annan was looking at his empty glass with a faint air of distrust.

Glass clinked again, and she looked down in time to see Jodin empty the last of the bottle into her cup and Annan's.

"Captains g'down wi’ the ship," he said, in a startlingly accurate Eanin brogue, earning snorts of laughter and scattered applause from Martin and Ludor and Ellis. Kyali met Annan's look from across the table. It held both dismay and challenge. He lifted his glass and an eyebrow, waiting, a small smile hovering at the corners of his mouth.

"Bloody hell, that's a stupid rule," she said, unintentionally out loud, and tossed the last glass back with a wince as laughter and cheers rose around her.

Getting to bed would be a good idea now.

Kyali leaned against the wall as the Cassdall officers took their leave in an excess of friendliness, walking unsteadily, singing some song together softly. She was suddenly very glad they had chosen the far end of the keep for their guardroom: no servants walked these halls yet, and none of the ever-growing list of escaped noble-born Lardana did either.

She was fairly sure the wall was doing more to hold her up right now than she wanted anyone to see.

"Thank you for coming," Annan said from behind her, and she had her daggers out and aimed at him before she could stop herself. He rocked back on his heels, seeming only a little alarmed, and kindly didn't acknowledge her confused flush or the curse she hissed as she put the blades back.

"Thank you for inviting me," she said, furious with herself, and went to find the nearest entrance to the passageways without bothering to shake his hand, or bow, or do anything else polite people were supposed to do in these circumstances. It took her a moment to realize he was still next to her, apparently heading the same way and as uninterested in being seen in this state as she was. His steps weren't much steadier than hers.

"Your rooms are in His Highness's apartments," Kyali said, having just figured that out. She wasn't sure why it surprised her.

"As yours are in Her Majesty's," Annan agreed. "It's what bodyguards generally do, isn't it?"

"You're a captain."

"So I am. So are you. And yet."

She didn't at all like this discussion. "Glad we cleared that up, Captain Adaron," she said, stalking over to where the door should be, hiding under a tapestry that looked very out of place in this empty corridor.

"Happy to be of service, Captain Corwynall," Annan shot back pithily, then put his hand out and leaned against the wall for a moment. Kyali paused, watching, not really sure why, except that it was reassuring to know he seemed to be having as hard a time with the drink as she was.

"Another unworthy thought," she muttered to herself: she had too many of those around him. She felt her whole face heat when Annan shot her a puzzled look.

"We all have those," he said, sounding so gravely concerned she actually
laughed
, dear gods, for the first time since—

She wasn't thinking of that.

The sound stopped as suddenly as if someone had cut her throat, and they both listened to the echoes die. Annan looked… 

Actually, she wasn't sure what that look on his face meant.

"Come on," Kyali sighed, then cursed again, far louder this time, when the hidden door opened much more easily than she'd expected and dumped her on the floor of the tunnel.

At least it had been cleaned.

There was a strangled cough from behind her that she was fairly certain was smothered laughter. She pushed herself upright. Annan's grip closed helpfully over her arm. The complete, unreasoning panic that chased that touch didn't have more than a split second to freeze the breath in her chest and the blood in her veins, before he'd hauled her upright with such speed the dimly lit tunnel swung wildly around her. She threw her hands out to keep from tumbling back to the floor like a broken doll and met the smooth, faintly scarred armor of his steel spaulders.

This time
he
moved too fast, jerking back and hitting the lip of stone at the entrance. Kyali had to pull at his shoulders to keep him from going down, and nearly fell with him when she discovered he was far heavier than she was. Instead, they ended up pressed together against the wall just inside the door, illuminated by the flickering light from the lantern Annan had dropped.

Even the floor was spinning now. And gods damn it, it was more than funny, it was
hilarious
when they pulled away from one another only to find that the tiny metal plates of their brigandine had caught, and they were stuck.

"I'll bet
this
never happened on a battlefield," Annan muttered.

Kyali lost the battle before she even realized there was one to fight. She laughed silently, helplessly, her knuckles pressed to her mouth, swaying with the effort to stay upright against the dark and the drink coursing through her, the shocking feeling of
feeling
something that wasn't pain or fury or exhaustion. Her elbow was digging into Annan's shoulder and through it she could feel him shaking with soundless mirth, too.

"I'm glad we don't have an audience for this," he finally wheezed, and gods help her,
that
was funny, too.

"It would cer… certainly make tomorrow's drills interesting."

"Oh gods," Annan managed to say while snickering, and he reached out to pull the door shut, throwing them into darkness leavened only by chancy light from the lantern at their feet. "No more of that drink. Ever again. What
was
that stuff? I can barely stand."

"Fraonir. Something Fraonir. I can't remember the name for it. I don't even know how they make it."

"We ought to send some to our enemies."

She knew she was drunk when that seemed like a brilliant idea.

"Sound strategy," she declared, and then they were laughing again, leaning on one another, winded and very, very stupid.

"I should never have had that last glass," Kyali moaned, then clapped a hand over her mouth when she heard how pathetic she sounded. By now Annan was picking delicately at the point where their armor had gotten tangled. She could feel the faint pressure of his hands even through the steel. A strange, crooked little smile twisted his mouth up on one side.

"I should never have had the
first
glass," he muttered, his breath ghosting over her neck, and then he uttered a low growl of frustration and tugged too hard. Her forehead knocked into his nose and they both grunted.

"Brilliant," Kyali said, wobbly-kneed and trying without success to find a place to put her hands that wasn't on him—and then without any warning his lips were against hers, warm and surprisingly soft. She froze. Annan leaned back just a fraction, enough that the panic she knew should follow this strange moment, this closeness, didn't happen. He tilted his head a little. She didn't hit him. She wasn't sure why.

He was kissing her again before she had realized that was his intention. She was kissing him back before she had any idea that was hers. The new angle pressed their mouths all the way together this time: it was far better, far more... more… something she had no word for. His hand slid up to trace the line of her jaw. The calluses on his fingers were sending little rills of shivers over her skin.

She thought she'd better give him a minute to remember who he was and who she was, and that they didn't do this. They—they argued and jabbed and sniped and fought—

Annan scraped the edge of her lip gently with his teeth, and Kyali heard the breath whistle out of her throat as if from very far away. Her hands braced on his hips. His were slipping over her neck, calling up more shivers and a wild, weak sensation that made her knees want to buckle and her eyes want to flutter shut.

The lantern clattered over in their stumbling press toward one another and the sound brought them both back to their senses.

Kyali jerked backwards, hit the opposite wall hard enough to knock the wind from her lungs, and heard several small
plink
s as tiny steel plates went flying every which way. Annan spun away, throwing one hand against the wall to keep himself upright. She was panting like she'd just run up a flight of stairs. It didn’t sound like Annan was doing much better, which she supposed meant she hadn't been too bad at—that possibly she wasn't—

Gods, she couldn't believe what she was
thinking
.

"This is idiocy," she said, staring at the ceiling and trying to pretend she didn't notice how her voice shook. She was so shocked at herself she was halfway to sober now.

"Yes," Annan replied, low and rueful.

"We ought—we shouldn't—"

"It was the drink. We should never touch that stuff again."

"Yes," Kyali said, hearing the desperate gratitude in her voice and hating it. Her skin was so hot the stuffy air in the tunnel seemed cold by comparison.

"So this never happened."

"Never. It's already forgotten."

After another few moments of mortified looking-elsewhere, Annan turned to face her, which meant she had to be brave enough to do the same, and she only hoped the lanternlight wasn't enough to show him how flushed she still was. He didn't show it as clearly, being darker than she, but it seemed like she wasn't the only one.

She wasn't thinking of that.

"Agreed," Annan said then, and offered his hand on it. They shook like merchants over a cow. Kyali let go as fast as she could and began to walk, trying to forget how that hand had felt on the bare skin of her neck, how the muscles under his hips had moved against her palms. She could feel the faint current of air from the door moving over her neck. Her pulse wouldn't take a slower pace.

Dear gods, what was
wrong
with her?

Annan left her at the last branching before the one that would take her to the hall outside the royal apartments, mumbling a hurried goodnight. For a moment, she let herself lean against the crumbling brick wall in the dark. Her head was swimming. Her hands were clenched. She didn't know if she was angry or something else, hardly knew how to tell.

She
wished
, so badly her guts ached with it, that she could ask Taireasa.

Taireasa was sleeping. She'd wake when the mattress sank under a friend's weight; she'd mumble sleepily, and then her voice would rise with shock at the whole stupid story. She'd see more, because she always did, and she'd say something to make one achingly confused captain of the guard simultaneously curl up with embarrassment and laugh out loud, and see the whole thing in a new and far more forgiving light. She'd—

—wake hours later to a bedmate swallowing screams of terror and rage, fighting shadows, losing the battle over and over and over again. Learn something new and terrible about the world: how cruel it could be. Live with that forever, because there would be no other choice.

"
Oh
," Kyali said, and wrapped her arms about herself in the perfect darkness, breathing, only breathing, looking for
ice
in her heart and finding it scarce at the moment.

C
HAPTER
19

T
he wind snatched notes out of the air and flung them off the edge of the world, carried them far up into the unrelenting blue sky, scattered them through the bared branches of trees. Devin gave the wind all the music in him, his fingers flying over the strings of the harp, a grin of effort baring his teeth to the brutal cold. Next to him, Fortyn of the Eanin Clan played a flute with such speed it was like having a flock of birds sing with him, and his twin sister Aileana pounded a complicated rhythm on a set of skin drums. The sound the three of them made together was wild, haunting.