The Sartious Mage (The Rhythm of Rivalry) (33 page)

Lisanda met my eyes with a restrained smile when we came to the end of the song. Earnestly, I told her, “You have the most beautiful voice I’ve ever heard.”

Her mouth tightened. Some of her smile remained in her eyes, but it was quickly fading, like the sun before a storm. “I told you I’m not as good as you.”

Then I could hear what she must’ve taken for sarcasm in my voice. The words “most” “beautiful” and “ever” in the same sentence are hard to say without sounding facetious.

“I’m being serious. Your voice is amazing.”

That didn’t feel like the right word, and it didn’t seem to work, either. She still had a tight glare as if waiting for me to tell her I was joking.

I realized the problem was that I was having trouble describing how unique she sounded.

“Your voice is like…” I tried to come up with something but could only think of stupid things that already had been said a thousand times and weren’t unique at all anymore—a rainbow after a storm, the sun bursting through the clouds, a beautiful flower, a rose, a sunset, a sunrise…none did it justice.

Then I thought of something. “Your voice makes me feel like I’m finally in the right place at the right time. It’s the first time I’ve felt this way in a year, and I’ve missed the feeling more than I even knew. It’s a robust beauty that can’t be matched by anything made by the hands of men.”

That seemed to do it. Lisanda smiled so wide she seemed to know there was no hope of hiding it, so she didn’t try.

“I’m surprised you really think that. My father says my voice isn’t as elegant as it should be. It’s too low and raspy.”

“It’s perfect.” I playfully nudged her as we continued to walk. “And you should tell him that the next time he says it isn’t.”

She let out a rhythmic giggle. “You don’t know my father if you think that’s a good idea.” She nudged me back. “I’ve never heard the song sung with two people using different pitches. It sounded good with your harmony, though there were a few places of dissonance where we didn’t connect.”

I’d noticed the same thing. It reminded me of something Sannil had said, which I then repeated:

“Harmony is one of the most wonderful things in the world. But without dissonance, it’s meaningless.”

Quickly it hit me how inappropriate my comment had been. Blurting it out without any preamble made it seem like I was referring to us, not music in general. We’d been in harmony recently—and after so much discord between us as well. It was inadvertently romantic, and I cursed myself for not thinking it through before I let it out.

Lisanda’s smile flattened. “You’re not going to try to kiss me again, are you?” the Princess asked with a familiar haughty tone, like I was her enemy again.

All the harmony between us was gone in an instant.

“Try? You make it sound like it didn’t happen, and that it was my fault.”

“It
was
your fault! And you
should
pretend it didn’t happen!” With wavering inflection, her tone was hard and bumpy, like the small rocks digging into our feet as we walked. “If someone found out, I would make sure they knew you were trying to seduce me.” She folded her arms defiantly.

“So you’d lie?”

Lisanda gasped at that. “It’s no lie.” Her voice became low and rough in a poor attempt to imitate mine: “Lisanda, sit on my lap and wrap your body around mine. Let me whisper in your ear and breathe all over your neck. Now, I’m going to kiss your cheek.”

Her voice rose back to normal. “Admit it! Seduction!”

“I might’ve given the first kiss on your cheek, but I made no motion to lock my lips with yours.”

Her mouth dropped open in disgusted disbelief.

“It’s true!” I claimed before she could give her rebuttal.

“Is that so?” Her hands flew to her hips. “Then how did it happen, because I sure didn’t move my lips toward yours.”

“I didn’t, either!” Not that I was aware of, at least. Truthfully, it was so dark and our faces were so close, I couldn’t recall how it had happened, but there was no way I would admit that. She simply would claim she did remember, and then I couldn’t argue back.

I didn’t think she really knew what happened, either. Our lips had locked too suddenly.

“You know…” The exasperation faded from her voice. “Trying to seduce a princess is a serious offense, especially if you lie about it.”

I grinned contemptuously, knowing I was about to make her threat useless. “More serious than kidnapping?”

She stopped for a breath, and then a defeated smile came about her lips. “I suppose not.”

Chapter 27: Wager

By the time the river came into view, a fresh breeze was rustling through our hair, and our argument had cooled with it. We were back to pretending the kiss had never happened, speaking instead of frivolous matters.

It was the kind of conversation that was likely to skitter between two people who’d recently been acquainted, in which every question and every answer held subtle exposures.

Though the words themselves told little, the tone behind them could fill pages.

I was careful to keep my inflection calm, restrained. But when she would make me laugh, all my restraint would shatter apart momentarily, making me blurt out things I didn’t give myself a chance to consider.

I seemed in even less control of my body, which couldn’t stop bumping up against her arm as we walked close. Every so often, she’d return the playful bump with a tight smile and a sarcastic comment, and it felt like sparks were shooting up the arm she’d collided into.

Soon, the sounds of the river could be heard between fleeting moments of silence.

Lisanda turned her attention toward it, curving her hand over her eyes for a better view.

“It’s wider than I imagined.”

She was right. It had been years since I’d visited the river, and now that I thought about it, trying to fill our water pouches in the wrong spot could be dangerous. Though the river was still too far ahead to see how quickly the water was flowing, I knew this general area from memory.

“It’s even wider in other places,” I said. “We should find a place less treacherous. The water runs too fast here.” I pointed east. “Let’s go this way.”

“Nonsense.” She gently placed her hand on mine to lower my pointing finger. “It’s not like we’re jumping in. All we’re doing is filling these water pouches.”

I couldn’t help but show her a knowing smile. “You’re going to change your mind once we get closer.”

She taunted me with her own proud grin. “A princess doesn’t change her mind easily.”

“She will this time.”

Lisanda’s eyes opened wider as they studied my face. “Would you like to make a wager?”

Immediately interested, I felt a tickle of excitement. But it was gone the moment I realized I had little to gain and a lot to lose, especially when Lisanda was in the opposite position.

“What did you have in mind?” I asked hesitantly.

She curled her lips under her teeth. My stomach was starting to feel sour as I noticed the seriousness in her eyes. I had an unnerving feeling this wasn’t going to be a friendly wager.

Did she still want to leave as badly as she used to? It would hurt to hear, but now I felt that I wanted to know. No, I
had
to know. Did she want to go back to the palace and Varth Farro as soon as possible?

It’s eerie how a question can be produced and then suddenly become more important than anything else. I let her think as long as she wanted, waiting, hoping she wouldn’t ask to be let go.

“You tell me what you want first,” she answered finally. “Depending on what it is, I’ll make you offer something just as important.”

The answer came quickly, but it seemed like too much of a request. I wracked my mind for something more appropriate, but I kept returning to the original idea, liking it more and more each time. It was the best way to find out if she wanted me to let her go.

“When we get to the river, you have to fill the first water pouch. If you get scared and decide to travel farther down to a safer place, then I win, agreed?”

“Agreed, and what do you win?”

I kept my tone serious. It was easy as there wasn’t a hint of excitement or fun in my body at that moment. This was a business arrangement. This was a way to get an answer I now needed to know. It was even more than that—to get something I’d wanted for the last few days.

“If I win, you agree to stay with me until I have the cure.” The words seemed to echo in my mind. I could hear them again and again in the thick silence that followed.

When she folded her arms and leaned back, I knew she felt the same tension that I did. I felt breathless as I waited.

“I can see you’re not joking,” Lisanda said with a bitter tone. “And that’s quite a difficult thing for me to promise.”

“You don’t have to make the wager.”

She pushed her palms out at me. “Wait a moment. I didn’t mean I was scared. I just want to make sure you’re taking this seriously.” She gestured around us. “We have no witnesses here to verify the agreement. Following the consequences of the wager is purely based on trust between Jek Trayden and Lisanda Takary.”

By using our full names, I could tell she was going to invoke some strange royal oath or something I’d never heard before. I didn’t mind. I was serious, and whatever it took for her to be the same way would be fine with me.

“I’ll follow the agreement,” I said. “Tell me what it is you need me to offer.”

“Jek Trayden…” In a showy manner, she presented her palm to me. “Has requested that Lisanda Takary.” Her other palm came to her side. “Stay with him until he has a cure to his darkness.” She took a moment to brush the hair from her face and then glanced into my eyes in such a serious manner it seemed to take hold of my heart.

“Lisanda Takary is requesting that Jek Trayden never marry her sister, Jessend Takary, no matter what is offered to, or threatened of, Jek Trayden. Does Jek Trayden agree?”

Was this some kind of joke? Why would that matter to Lisanda? Better yet, how could I possibly come to another situation where Jessend’s hand in marriage would be offered to me? But I knew there was too much formality for it to be a simple quip. Lisanda was serious. I would’ve been relieved that she hadn’t asked for me to let her go, but I was too overwhelmed with curiosity about this request.

“I don’t understand,” I said, feeling some of the tension lifted now that I knew she wanted something more than to be let go. “How would I ever marry your sister? Your father will never want to see me again after this incident. He won’t even want me in the same city as his family, and that’s if I’m lucky.”

“You don’t know my father.” Her tone was peremptory but sad as well. I could tell she was about to convince me it would be possible for me to marry Jessend, I just didn’t know how. I waited patiently, watching Lisanda use her toe to fiddle with a rock. “In this meeting with him, did he tell you he was going to make you the King’s Mage?”

“Exo’s position? Why?”

“A few reasons,” Lisanda said. “You were to marry Jessend, which meant you needed some status so it wouldn’t be an embarrassment to our family. Making you the King’s Mage was the best way to go about that. It was also a good reason to get rid of Exo that wasn’t likely to erupt in the same violence as would a straightforward disbandment of his service.

“Now that I’ve seen your ability, I’m sure that had much to do with the decision as well. And there’s even more to it. Jessend has been desperate to marry before she turns seventeen.”

Although I was curious about Jessend’s need to marry, Lisanda’s remark got me wondering about something else.

“After everything I did to disobey your father, including taking you on your wedding day that he paid for—he even made a point to mention that it had cost him dearly—he couldn’t possibly still have plans to allow Jessend and me to marry?”

“Like I said, you don’t know my father. When he finds out I wasn’t harmed, there’s just as good a chance he’ll still offer my sister to you as he would to throw you in prison.”

“I find that hard to believe,” I said flippantly.

Bastial hell, how I regretted that immediately after I’d said it—even before she turned and stared at me as if wishing a dagger would cut my throat. I should’ve held my tongue. On reflex, I stepped back and lowered my head.

“I apologize. I don’t know him.”

“No, you don’t.” Lisanda kicked the rock away.

“You said Jessend is desperate to be married?” I asked.

“Before our birthday, yes.”

“Then why doesn’t she marry Varth Farro?”

Lisanda twisted around to find another rock, elegantly sliding it between us with her toe. “Because then I’ll have to marry the man set up for her.”

“He’s worse than Varth Farro?”

“Bastial stars, yes. A thousand times yes.” She started to play with the rock in the same fashion as before. I waited for an explanation, but she seemed content to be silent.

Finally I asked, “Are you going to tell me more?”

“It’s a long story and doesn’t matter if you know it or not. It has nothing to do with you or this wager.”