Dearest (18 page)

“Mordant escaped.” It was obvious that Velius blamed himself for not having enough power to make the man pay for his crimes.

“For now,” said Rumbold. “Only for now. He has made enemies this day.”

The crowd on the shore rushed forward to help the men walking out of the waves. Friday saw François, Christian, Philippe, and the twins. The five of them wore only the nettle shirts that now covered them to their knees, but they seemed whole and hale.

There was not yet any sign of Tristan or Sebastien.

Rumbold’s guards swam to Elisa’s skiff and sawed her bonds free. She was carried to shore and met with blankets and kindness and the embrace of the doting crowd and her tall, strong brothers.

All but two of them.

Rumbold and Sunday moved to greet the siblings with the rest of the crowd. Friday stayed, frozen in place, staring at the flaming boat on the horizon and the empty waves surrounding it. Monday stayed with her. The sun had risen enough now that the clouds were no longer pink with dawn.

“He didn’t make it,” Friday whispered into the wind. “I couldn’t save him.” She could still feel the joy of the crowd, the relief of the swan-brothers, and the concern from her family, but in the middle of all that was a numbness, a hole that would never again be filled. The stories said that those who lost their soul mates were destined to wander the earth as soul wraiths, forever lost and alone. If that were true, Sister Carol would have no reason to deny her the life of a dedicate. Not that it would be much of a life at all, without Tristan.

“You saved
them.
” Monday indicated the five brothers and their sister.

Philippe joined them. The magic nettle shirt had grown along with him, covering him to his knees like an oversized shirt of chain mail. “It’s what he would have wanted.”

“Yes.” Her tears fell freely now. Friday said the word because she knew it was true. Saving his brothers and sister
was
what Tristan would have wanted. Sebastien as well. But at what cost? They should at least have been resigned to life as a swan instead of no life at all. She turned to the brother who looked so much like Tristan that it was almost painful. She could sense something still eating away inside of him. Something dark. “What would
you
have wanted?”

Philippe’s unyielding stare never left Mordant’s ship. “To kill Mordant, no matter the price.”

Friday’s hurt drowned in the intensity of Philippe’s hatred. It was as if the curse keeping him a swan had also kept this unabashed loathing bottled, and now both it and its master were free.

“I will not rest until I feel his blood on my hands. I will sever his head from his body and hang it from the ramparts of Kassora by his entrails. His bitch will die far more slowly and painfully. Her body will be cut into a thousand tiny pieces and scattered on the wind.”

Friday wasn’t sure which made her more ill: the gruesome mental images, Philippe’s unrestrained desire for them to come to fruition, or that she felt herself swept up in the anger with him, mourning the loss of her beloved and desperate to strike back at
something
in return. She swallowed the bile that rose in her throat and attempted to calm both herself and Philippe. “Mordant will be defeated. Your brothers will see to that. And Arilland would love nothing more than to come to your aid.” Technically that last part wasn’t in her power to promise, but she did it anyway. “Right now, you should be concentrating on your family.” As she should concentrate on hers, but just now her heart wasn’t in it.

He turned to her, his eyes burning with a blue fire hotter than what Gana had been able to summon. “I assure you, princess, for the past few years I have concentrated on nothing but my family.”

There was nothing to say but “I’m sorry.”

He smiled then, and that smile scared her more than falling from the sky tower. “There is nothing to forgive, Friday. Through your efforts, our curse has been broken. But this is far from over.” He turned back to the sea. “Worry not; I will end it.”

Don’t worry? There were few things in Friday’s life that had ever worried her more.

Ben barked again at a lone gull spinning over the burning skiff and heading to shore. Friday wiped away the tears blurring her vision. It was not a gull. It was a swan. Only one.

Friday and Elisa both ran sluggishly through the water to where the swan landed on the shore.

“Is it . . . ?” Elisa began, with a voice still strange to both of them.

“One of ours?” finished Friday. “It must be.”

“But which one?”

Friday was afraid to guess and ashamed to admit she couldn’t tell. And then Ben began to bark again. The swan joined in the cacophony with excited honks. Beside them, a body covered in feathers washed up on the shore. Friday and Elisa fell to their knees to pull him out.

It was Tristan.

Heart racing, Friday tried to move the overly large feathers obscuring his face so that he could breathe . . . but for every feather she tried to shift, three more swept back in.

“Why won’t these blasted feathers move?” she yelled in frustration.

“Oh, Friday,” gasped Elisa.

Friday pulled Tristan’s body into a sitting position and the feathers fell away . . . but they didn’t go far. She slid her hands up Tristan’s bare arms and around his back to where the giant white wings attached in a downy patch between his shoulders.

“What have I done?” whispered Friday.

“You saved us,” Elisa whispered back, as Tristan coughed up mouthful after mouthful of water. When he’d caught his breath, Friday peppered his face with kisses and hugged him as if she’d never let him go. Friday felt Elisa’s joy at the sight. The girl had five other brothers to fuss over—she could do without this one for a moment more.

Someone else, however, could not.

A shadow fell over Tristan and Friday. Above them, a large man cleared his throat. Friday looked up to see Papa and Peter blocking out the bright sky with their huge bodies.

“I’m happy to see you’re well and all, son,” said Papa, “but I am forced to ask: What are your intentions toward my daughter?”

Tristan smiled. Peter swallowed a laugh. Friday blushed, suddenly realizing how this must look to her father.

Apart from the giant feathered wings, Tristan was naked as the day they’d met.

12

T
RISTAN BENT HIS KNEES
and hunched forward, curling into a ball in an attempt to cover himself. He had not been embarrassed in Friday’s presence before, but he was starting to be. This was not the way he wanted to greet the world as a man after so many years.

A third shadow joined Friday’s father and brother above him. “Greetings, Tristan. I am Rumbold, Friday’s less-hulking brother.”

Rumbold . . . the king?
Fantastic.
“Forgive me for not rising to greet you, Your Majesty.”

“Don’t mention it. In fact, that’s why I’m here. I believe I have just the thing for that.”

Tristan hoped the man didn’t offer his shirt; he was fairly sure there was no way to get any sort of tunic around the monstrous wings now sprouting from his back. It was one thing to have an impressive wingspan when one was a sizeable swan, but this? Would he have to go bare chested the rest of his life?

Thankfully, King Rumbold did not remove his shirt, only the knee-length velvet cape around his shoulders. One of the king’s men—not a guard, Tristan could tell from his clothing, possibly some higher-ranking official—wrapped the cape around Tristan’s hips and affixed it on the side with a pin.

“Thank you.” Tristan was incredibly grateful to the slender, black-haired man. Friday was the sort who would have seen to the task herself and, in doing so, completely mortified him. The man extended his arm and helped Tristan to his feet with surprising strength.

“I’m Velius,” he said. Tristan nodded and began to release Velius’s arm, but the man held tight. “Give it a moment. I expect your balance isn’t quite what it used to be.”

He was right, of course. The moment Tristan stood up fully, he almost toppled backwards from the weight of the wings. Good Lords of the Wind, were they waterlogged? They weren’t going to be this heavy all the time, were they? He tried to shift them forward and alter his center of gravity; he succeeded only in swatting both the king and Friday’s father in the face.

Fantastic
.

There was an ever-growing crowd gathered around him on the shore. Behind the contingent of Woodcutters and their royal majesties now stood his brothers, and behind them, half of Arilland. No one spoke above the cry of the gulls and the bark of that dog. That pesky, wonderful dog.

Tristan looked at Friday, Friday’s father, Rumbold. He wasn’t sure what to say. He was beginning to feel like an attraction at the local market fair.

Velius placed an incredibly warm hand on Tristan’s shoulder, and the pain between his shoulder blades eased a bit. Rumbold was a smart ruler indeed to have a healer in his retinue. “We should get you inside,” he said. “I’d like to see for myself that you and your brothers are all right. We’ll see if we can’t scrounge up some suitable clothes for you. And then—”

“We should have a ball!” This suggestion came from the delicate young woman who had slipped in between Friday’s two brothers. Judging by her optimism, her pixielike face, and the curve of her lips, this could only be Friday’s little sister the queen.

Queen Sunday nodded slowly, as if taking her own idea into consideration. “Yes. We should definitely have a ball. Tonight is too soon . . . we’ll say tomorrow. Arilland needs something to celebrate, and there’s nothing this country loves more than a ball. Also, you need a distraction, or you’ll never get off this beach.” Sunday winked at Tristan before turning to announce her intentions to the expectant crowd.

“My wife comes from clever stock.” Rumbold’s expression quickly shifted from joviality to sincerity, the mark of a true leader. A move that would have made Tristan’s father proud. “You must take it slowly,” said the king. “I am all too familiar with what you’re going through right now. Not that long ago, I was in your place.”

“You had wings the size of a small ship?”

Rumbold didn’t miss a beat. “No. But every now and again I have an incredible craving for flies.”

Tristan laughed at the comment, and was pleased to see smiles wash over the people around him. His new wings may have been unbearable and socially unacceptable, but his heart held hope.

“Come,” said Rumbold. “Velius and I will escort you and your family to the guards’ training ground. The palace is chock-full of faces—you’ll not find any solace there. The practice yard has facilities large enough to see to your needs, and we can more easily assure your privacy.”

“I’ll come with you.” Friday’s words almost startled Tristan. Until then, it had not occurred to him that they might be separated at all—but Monday stepped forward to intervene.

“Sunday will need your help with the ball preparations,” said Friday’s beautiful sister. “As will I.”

“And you need to sleep,” Christian chimed in. “We all do.”

Elisa yawned at his comment; Tristan’s poor sister looked as if she might fall over at any moment. Friday noticed this too and nodded reluctantly.

“I’ll go with him,” said Friday’s squire. Conrad’s company was a poor substitute for his mistress, but his offer seemed to appease her.

So, mere moments after the curse had broken, they were being separated for the first of what would undoubtedly be many times. He was unhappy about the prospect—possibly even a little frightened—and empathic Friday knew it. Tristan dared not embrace her again in front of her family, but he held his balance well enough to let go of Velius’s arm and take Friday’s hands. He kissed the back of one, and then the other.

“Soon” was all he said. She would know what he meant.

The smile she gave him was so dazzling, he vowed to keep it with him for all of his days.

At the mention of festivities, the enthusiastic crowd began to dissipate, and the king’s guards led Tristan and his weary family up the long hill to the training grounds and the Guards’ Hall. Peter accompanied them, as did Friday’s father. Conrad walked beside them, proudly holding Sebastien’s large swansbody in his spindly arms. The king excused himself to rejoin his wife in the palace, but he left Velius and a stout man in a tall hat behind in his stead.

Tristan could have done without the extra company, but if it meant that he would not be separated from his brothers and sister, then he would tolerate them. Later, when he was more himself and fully clothed, he would have to thank Rumbold. In the meantime, he concentrated on remaining upright. If he crouched forward and used his arms to bear the burden of the wings, it seemed he could balance tolerably well. The extra weight was not insignificant—it seemed as if every stone in the path to the training grounds sought out the tender pads of his seldom-used feet.

The guards led everyone straight into the bathhouse. Vapors rose from several tubs that were already being filled. One was surrounded by screens and two maids to ensure that Elisa had her privacy—but not so much privacy that she could fall asleep and drown. After all they’d been through these past few days, this was a danger for every one of them.

Tristan the swan had spent almost every day in and around water, but Tristan the man couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a bath. Even now, he wasn’t quite sure how he was going to manage this with the wings. The other brothers didn’t hesitate—they tossed off their nettle shirts and jumped in the hot water. Contented sighs filled the air.

Velius gently nudged Tristan’s elbow, careful not to brush his wings. “Down the steps there is a small pool where you might be more comfortable.” Tristan followed the man down to a common resting area where, indeed, a pool was being filled with fresh water. This water didn’t emit steam like the tubs in which his grimy brothers now soaked. He dipped a toe in, resigning himself to yet another cold bath.

“Wait,” said Velius. The lithe man knelt beside the pool and placed one hand flat against the surface of the water.
“Pyrrho.”