Thy Father's Shadow (Book 4.5) (26 page)

“I suspect the question of where we’ll be living after the wedding will also be similarly settled by our fathers,” Terian said. “I don’t think … they’ll leave much in the way of choices up to us.”

“Perhaps not,” she said. “But there is the matter of our courtship, however short it may be. There are rules to be observed, formalities that need to be taken into account.”

“Of course.” Terian nodded. “Whatever you need of me, let me know.”

“I think this will do it for now.” She nodded to him in return and stepped close to him, kissing him on the cheek. Her breath smelled faintly sweet, as though she’d taken a chew of mint before coming to see him. “We will likely see each other every day for the near future. In a week or two we will be expected to begin … other activities related to the courtship.” Her face was blank, and Terian could see the hints of displeasure. “It would be considered a very positive sign if we were able to meet certain … expectations … before the day of our wedding. A very good sign indeed, and the mortar which would ensure that the alliance between our houses remained strong.” She spun very quickly away, moving toward the door, which opened for her. She glanced back only briefly. “I will see you tomorrow, betrothed.” With that, she vanished through the door.

Terian did not answer her back. Still floating within his head were the last thoughts she had left him with.
Duty. Our primary duty … the only one that matters to our fathers right now.

To produce an heir.

Chapter 37

Two Months Later

The smooth burn of Reikonosian whiskey left a trailing fire in Terian’s mouth and down his throat as he swished it for a moment before swallowing. It was a powerful flavor, but the alcohol overrode anything else he might have sensed from it. The heat after it went down surged into his nasal cavity and felt as though it were lighting his nose hairs on fire.

He leaned back against his chair, eyes focused on the bottle that had been left on the stone table in front of him. “I’m going to need another one of these, Xem.”

Xemlinan was only a half dozen paces away at the bar. The two of them were the only ones in the Unnamed. Terian could hear the crowds of midday Sovar moving outside, thronging down the street.
Probably going to make their gruel in the communal ovens.
That could have been my life if my father hadn’t gone and ascended to the so-called good life.
He sniffed, the fiery aftertaste of the whiskey still burning.
I might have been able to choose my own destiny then.

Xem approached, his cloth shoes whisper-quiet on the bare floors of the Unnamed. “You look like a man who’s had his first marital quarrel.” He pulled the stopper out of the bottle with a soft pop and poured into Terian’s glass with only a gentle sloshing.

“What? No,” Terian said, looking at the amber liquid in the crystal glass in front of him. “No quarrels. We get along as well can be expected, I suppose. She’s yet to dig in her heels on anything.” He blinked.
And I’ve been the very model of politeness. Which is surprising.
“She’s been fine,” he said. “No complaints from me.”

“Ah, Terian,” Xem said, still standing over him. “Then why are you sitting in my bar in the middle of the day drinking? Hmm?” He leaned over, and Terian could see the concern spread over Xem’s features. “This is the act of the old Terian, the one who left Saekaj. The thoroughly unserious dark knight who had all the hope burned out of him. This is not the new Terian, the married man and adjutant to his father. That fellow doesn’t drink, remember?”

“He drinks a little,” Terian said, meeting Xem’s eyes. “Very little,” he conceded. “Perhaps one glass of something on social occasions and never at home.” He held up a hand in front of his eyes and watched it blur.
It didn’t take much to make me woozy now, did it?
“What happened to him, Xem?”

“Everyone has to grow up sometime, Terian,” Xem said, and started a slow retreat back to the bar. “The path you’re on doesn’t allow for much frivolity or stepping outside the lines. You have responsibilities now. Your days of disillusionment with the way our land works are over.” He smiled. “You’re part of the system you hated before. Welcome to the other side.”

Terian blinked. “It happened so quickly and yet so slowly. It doesn’t feel like it was that long ago that I was in here after my soul sacrifice, drinking everything you had to give me.”

Xemlinan’s face grew drawn. “That was a hard day. The first many, I know. But for duty’s sake—”

“Don’t talk to me about duty,” Terian said, and he cradled the glass in his hand, and smelled a faint, oaky aroma. “Not today.” He took the whiskey back with a single slug.

“Fair enough,” Xem said and eased around the bar.

Terian watched him from across the room, mulling his thoughts as he moved the glass in a slow circle. He watched the liquid slosh in time with his motions, casting about in a slow circle.
Do I say something to him? What would I even say? Yesterday I was fine, in fine form and humor, and today I’m bleak as a Saekaj day. Nothing happened.
The liquid cast along in that same slow circle.
No missions, no deaths—not since Verret—nothing of note since the wedding. Just a slow grind of work, work and more work. Reports enough to bury me.

“Don’t you have work you should be tending to?” Xem asked, as if he were harmonizing with Terian’s own thoughts.

“Done for the day,” Terian said, looking at the dark liquid in his glass for a beat before he drained it. “My father gave me leave to go home to my wife.” He chortled. “To work on my primary duty.”

“You don’t sound happy to be doing that,” Xem said. “Not as happy as I’d expect you to be. Do you miss the ladies of the brothels now that you’re acting respectable?”

“Not really,” Terian said, a little surprised to realize it was true. “Things are fine in that arena.”

Xemlinan let out a sigh. “Leave it to you to be in the midst of what most around here would call a most bountiful life … and still be wracked with dissatisfaction.”

“Does this look like the face of a man dissatisfied, Xem?” Terian looked up at him and pasted a fake smile upon his lips.

“It looks like the face of a man trying his hardest to appear a fool.”

“I don’t have to try very hard.”

“You have a beautiful young bride,” Xem said, “the favor of your father, more gold than you can spend—”

“And less to spend it on, now that I have responsibilities,” Terian said.

“—you don’t want for the finest food, you have a plum job if ever there was one,” Xem said, as though he were ticking off the points on his finger. “Oh, and last I heard, you’re favored by the Sovereign as well. Or was that another god hiding in that cloud of infinite darkness in the back of your wedding?” Xem let air out through his lips. “Never heard of him going to anyone else’s wedding, that’s for sure.”

“Indeed, Xemlinan,” Terian said, “You have spoken truly and I cannot refute a single point you have made. Why, I seem to have the world by the ass.” He lifted his glass.
So why can’t I sleep at night?
But he did not dare to say it.

Xem watched him carefully, as if trying to see if he was being disingenuous. After a moment he gave up and shrugged his shoulders before turning back to organizing bottles behind the bar. “I can’t even tell when you’re being serious anymore. It used to be easy because it happened so rarely.”

“Nothing is so rare as a man who gets everything he wants in life,” Terian said and flinched a little as he said it. He kept his eyes on Xem to make sure he did not see.
Of course, I haven’t gotten a damned thing I wanted out of my life …

“It almost sounds like you appreciate it,” Xem said. “When you say it like that, anyhow.” He put a bottle up on a high shelf as there came the sound of the door opening.

“I’ll work on that,” Terian said as his eyes went to the door. A stranger came in wearing a long cloak with his cowl pulled up over his head. He was tall for a dark elf, though not as large as Grinnd. Terian watched him with practiced disinterest, waiting to see if his cowl would slip to reveal his face.

“Hello, stranger,” Xemlinan said, putting on his best faux smile. “What can I get for you?”

“A bottle of Reikonosian whiskey to match my friend’s in the corner,” came a hushed voice from beneath the cowl. Terian squinted at the dark cloak. The voice sounded … familiar, and his mind raced to place it. Raced, and failed, the swimming sensation behind his eyes hampering his ability to think.

“Are we friends?” Terian replied, the answer coming as naturally to his lips as drawing a sword came to his hand.

“I would regard you as a friend, Terian,” the man replied. He faced Xemlinan, waiting as the bartender reached behind him and pulled down a bottle of whiskey as the stranger placed a gold coin on the bar. “Whether you would still do the same is really more up to you.”

“Perhaps if I knew who you are,” Terian said. “I’m not in the habit of befriending empty cloaks, and the problem with the damned things is that they’re a nice disguise to hide behind.”

“Indeed,” the stranger said, and Terian caught a hint of a nod to Xem, whose face showed slight surprise at the identity of the stranger before he nodded in return. With a slow, careful walk, the stranger turned toward Terian and made his way across the Unnamed, metal boots clicking quietly against the stone floor. “Which is probably why I find them so helpful.”

“If you want to hide your face, sure,” Terian said, peering toward the shadowed cowl the stranger was wearing. “Which is kind of a cowardly thing to do.”

“Discretion is the better part of valor, I’m told,” the stranger said, pulling the chair across the table from Terian out with a screech against the floor. “And I did not come here for a fight, so I wore a hood.” The voice …

Terian blinked, and he knew.

The stranger sat down across from him and slipped the cowl back. His helm covered most of his face, but not nearly enough.
Not nearly enough, not in Sovar.
Pale flesh peered back at him, and a single, solitary grey eye was visible through the slitted helm.

“Hello, Alaric,” Terian said and raised his glass. “So nice to see you.”

Chapter 38

“You know,” Terian said, staring at the little of Alaric’s face revealed through the helm, “humans are who come into Saekaj and Sovar are put to death immediately.”

“Yet here I am,” Alaric said, lips moving under the helm. “Would you like to run and fetch the militia to have me arrested?”

Terian sighed deeply and stared at his glass. “I really don’t have the energy for all that activity. I’m amazed you made it through the gates, honestly. I figure they’ll get you on the way out.”

“What makes you think I came through the gates?” Alaric asked with the thinnest veil of amusement over what Terian could see of his expression.

Terian watched him. “What are you doing here? I doubt it’s for the Reikonosian whiskey, since that’s considerably easier and cheaper to get in Reikonos.”

“Perhaps I’m here for the ambience,” Alaric said. He glanced at Xem. “Or to speak with Xemlinan here. He’s quite the conversationalist, you know.”

Terian glanced at Xem, who shrugged. “It’s a burden of its own kind to be known far and wide for your conversational skills.”

“Meaning you’re a chatty spider in the gossip web,” Terian said darkly, feeling his lips curl at Xem. “I trust my father doesn’t know you’re an information broker?”

“Of course he knows,” Xem said, expression nearly blank. “It’s one of the reasons he saved my life.”

“I doubt he’d be enthused to know you’re treating with outsiders,” Terian said, shaking his head.

“Why, Terian,” Xem said with a curious smile, “what use do you think an information broker would be to your father if he only treated with the people of Saekaj and Sovar?” He shook his head. “None. Your father’s eyes are focused outside these caverns, and he needs eyes outside of them as well.”

“Alaric doesn’t have an eye to spare for my father, I know that much. Are you an ear, Alaric?” Terian said, glancing back to the paladin. “Because personally, I think you’re an ass.”

“I am many things to many people,” Alaric said, and Terian’s skin prickled at the amusement he could hear in the Sanctuary Guildmaster’s voice.

“Yeah, well, if you’re here to talk to Xem, let me get out of your way,” Terian said and made a motion to stand.

“But I haven’t had my drink with you just yet,” Alaric said. There was the firmness of a command in how he said it that made Terian bristle again.

“Just pretend we toasted to old times or something,” Terian said, pulling his cloak off the back of his chair and draping it over his shoulders. “It’ll probably be better than any actual conversation we could have.”

“Why is that?” Alaric said and took a sip of the whiskey in his hand straight from the bottle. “Do you not have exciting news to tell me about the wonderful events in your life of late?”

Terian sent a searing glare at Xem, who busied himself behind the bar. “But of course,” Terian said, fighting back the grimace. “I suppose you’ve heard that things are going marvelously. That I’m my father’s adjutant, helping him handle his affairs. Oh, and I’m married now, to the most eligible woman in Saekaj, so there’s that bit of excellent news.”

“I congratulate you on your nuptials,” Alaric said, and raised the bottle toward him. “May your marriage be filled with much happiness.”

This is Saekaj Sovar; that sort of shit doesn’t happen here
, he thought but did not say. “Thank you. Did you just come here to catch up? Or did you have an ulterior motive?”

“I came to see you,” Alaric said, studying him.

“Not to talk to Xem?” Terian gave a slight nod. “Now we get to the truth of it.”

“When have we ever not gotten to the truth of it?” Alaric asked.

Terian gave a faint laugh that was all the funnier from the sensation of the alcohol working on his mind. “When do we ever get to the actual truth of things, Alaric? You kept us Sanctuary officers on a thread all the time. You work in darker mystery than even the Sovereign does, and to much less defined purpose.”

“I have clear purpose,” Alaric said. “And you know very well what it is.”