Fifth Quarter (51 page)

Chapter Seventeen

"Captain, my squad has searched the entire area, there's no sign of this
old man
."

"You're certain about this, Orlan?"

"Yes, sir."

It took more effort than she thought she was capable of, but Karlene managed to keep her voice level. "Captain, Kars has a dead girl with him. Your squads won't be able to find him because their kigh won't acknowledge the existence of the girl."

"Kigh?" The captain spat the unfamiliar word out of her mouth like a bug she'd accidentally sucked in. "But you can find him, Lady Bard?"

Karlene was too angry to take further offense at the tone of the honorific. "Yes, Captain."

"And His Imperial Highness can find him?"

"We think so. We think Prince Otavas spent so much time with the walking dead that his kigh stopped lying to him about them."

The captain stared down into the sweaty depths of her helm, cradled in the crook of one arm, and pursed her lips. "So you're suggesting. Lady Bard, that I allow you and His Highness to go out and search for this Kars?" She looked up; her eyes amid the dirt and exhaustion marking her face were hard and uncompromising. "I think not. We will all be returning to the Capital and you can thank His Highness that you won't be gagged and under guard."

"Captain." Otavas sighed. He'd said it before, but he'd say it one more time. "Karlene and her friends rescued me. They had nothing to do with my abduction."

"As you say, Highness." The captain bowed. Had the old man been around, she would have cheerfully slaughtered him for the pain that continued to cling to the young prince. But the old man wasn't around, nor was there any sign of him, so… "But I have seen what this bard is capable of and, begging your pardon. Highness, but she could have made you see things that weren't there."

Karlene threw up her hands, frustration fighting with rage. "Highness?"

"Let him go, Karlene." The prince wrapped his arms around his body, unable to stop the shaking that memories brought. The beautiful dark eyes shone with sudden tears. "I want to go home."

She wanted to hug him, couldn't with the army so close, and settled for a light touch on one cheek. "Then that's what we'll do," she said softly. "Will you be all right if I go and talk to Vree and Bannon?"

He nodded, fighting panic. "But don't stay away too long."

The captain watched the bard walk over to her friends and shook her head. She supposed that any woman who could sing herself invisible could do just about anything she wanted to—but the comfort in her voice when she spoke to the prince had sounded too real to be faked.

"He wanted to kill me, Vree!"

"No, not you, he intended to kill the assassin who came to kill him." Her back up against the rock out-cropping, Vree looked everywhere but at her brother. "They
all
would've preferred to kill us over us killing them. You can't blame him for that."

Bannon's eyes narrowed. "I can slaughtering well blame him for anything I slaughtering choose! He broke my arm!"

"Half a hill fell on him!" Vree fought to keep her temper from getting the better of her and lost. "You're the one who broke your slaughtering vows and tried to kill a member of the Imperial Family!"

All the anger seemed to leach away as the color drained from Bannon's cheeks. "I wasn't in my right mind. Vree, you know that; you were there, too. I never meant to. I wanted my body back and I wanted you to have yours back and…"

"It's all right." She felt as if she'd aged about ten years over the last few weeks. "I won't tell anyone. I promise." That Bannon could, in any state of mind, consider his life of more importance than the oaths he'd taken and the prince he'd sworn to serve didn't actually surprise her much. She supposed she'd come to know him too well. "Do you really think I could have you executed for treason?"

"No." Bannon brightened visibly, most of his cocky grin returning. "Especially since I was in your body when I did it."

Vree sighed; she couldn't remember ever having been so tired.

"You still haven't told me why you did it." He'd been alternately hurt and furious. He'd demanded an answer, begged for an answer, and snarled that he had a right to an answer.

"I know."

"Vree, if you don't kill him, we've missed a target."

"I am not my… our…" She took a deep breath and tried again. "I am not Commander Neegan. I chose to miss this target."

"Then tell him I will never forgive him for this. For the rest, maybe in time I might have, but
never
for this. Do you understand?"

Vree nodded. It didn't really matter if that last question had been directed at her or at Gyhard. She understood. Probably better than Bannon did. Nothing would ever be the same between them again.

Karlene had intended to ask them if they were all right but decided upon getting close enough to see their faces that there was little point. Bannon, who should have been overjoyed at being back in his own body, looked almost petulant. Vree, who had stuffed herself into a situation far more complicated than the one she'd just gotten out of, looked almost at peace.

The captain had wanted to wait until the rider she sent returned with the comforts necessary to an Imperial Prince but Otavas overruled her. He wanted only to get home.

"Can you Sing away the darkness?" he asked as the sun began to set, tears trembling on his lashes.

Karlene held him the way she'd hold a child that needed comfort. "I can do better than that," she promised. If nothing else, Gyhard had given her the knowledge of the fifth kigh and Singing the fifth kigh would, in time, heal Otavas. She could Sing him, not back, but through the memories and safety out the other side. In spite of what Gyhard had done, what he'd been in the past, she owed him for that.

Just after they crossed the ford and retrieved their horses, the kigh returned. Karlene raised her chin. Sang one pure, joyous note, and was nearly lifted from the saddle.

"Then at least we'll know where he is." It was almost an offer. Not quite, for the future was still far too tenuous for that kind of a commitment; but almost.

Although Gyhard was a constant presence in her mind, Vree found him easier to coexist with than Bannon had ever been. Unlike Bannon, his life had not been a part of hers from the beginning and there was no question of where she ended and he began.

He was quieter, too, off guard and confused by what she'd done. Most of the time, he seemed content just to be. Three days passed before he found the courage to ask her why.

Vree thought about lying to him, but under the circumstances there didn't seem to be much point, so she gave him as much of the truth as she'd been able to face herself. "Because I didn't believe—don't believe—you were going to jump to the prince."

The silence lasted so long, she began to grow afraid he'd left her. When he finally spoke, she could barely hear him. "I wish I could be as certain, but I guess now we'll never know."

Early in the march, Bannon stayed close beside her, sullen and uncommunicative. Once, she'd reached out to touch him, but he'd snatched his arm away.

"You risked your life for that little shit," Gyhard snarled, jerked from his reflective mood not so much by Bannon's reaction as by the way that reaction clawed bleeding chunks from Vree's heart. "You'd think he'd remember what he owes you."

Vree clenched her teeth and let her hand drop back to her side. "He doesn't owe me anything."

As they reached Shaebridge, Bannon began to spend time with the prince. The two young men were very close in age and Otavas, frantically clutching at the lives around him, could cling to a friend the way he couldn't cling to Karlene. Flattered by Imperial attention, Bannon soon became charming and indispensable.

Vree stared at the pale scar on the back of her hand. Gyhard had defeated, humiliated, and brought out the worst in Bannon. For those reasons alone, Bannon would be unlikely to share the experience with anyone but, more importantly, withholding the knowledge of Vree's betrayal meant he held new power over her to replace the old power that had been burned away.

Unable to put it off any longer, Bannon having removed the need for her constant attendance on the prince, Karlene brought her horse up beside Vree's and tried to think of the best way to begin. Bards were supposed to be good with words, but she couldn't think of any that would lessen the impact of what she had to say. Finally, she said, "We have a problem."

Vree looked surprised. "Just one?"

"This is serious, Vree." She pitched her voice to carry to the younger woman's ears but no farther. "What are we going to do about Gyhard?"

This time the surprise was unfeigned. "We? I thought that was
my
problem?"

"Our problem."

Karlene shook her head. "Over the last hundred years, Gyhard has killed a number of innocent people. We can't let him get away with that. He must be brought to justice."

"Gyhard has killed to survive. So have I." Vree's eyes narrowed.

"It's not the same. He's removed himself from the Circle…"

Vree chopped her hand down and cut the bard off. "I don't know about your
Circle
," she snapped. "But I know about justice."

"Vree…"

"SHUT UP!" Her horse danced sideways. She reined him in and fought for calm. "How are you going to put him on trial? You have no proof. You have no bodies. You have only his word for it that he's killed anyone. In fact…"

Her expression lifted the hair on the back of Karlene's neck.

"… you don't even have
him
. I do."

They rode in silence for a moment, every fall of hoof against stone, every creak of harness adding to the tension between them.

"So what do you plan to do?" Karlene asked at last. "Go back to the army? Go back to being a blade of Jiir? I don't think you could do that even without Gyhard. I'm sure you can't do it with him."

"Bannon…"

"Leave Bannon out of this for now." She reached between the horses and touched Vree's cheek with the back of two fingers. "What are
you
going to do?"

Vree jerked away from the contact and at the same time turned almost desperately toward the older woman's touch. "I don't know."

Karlene found herself suddenly willing to do just about anything to banish the stricken look from Vree's eyes. She tried to fight it, sighed, and surrendered instead. "What do you
want
to do?"

"Start again."

Only bardic training could have picked those two quiet words out of the surrounding noise. With Vree on one side of the scale and justice on the other, Karlene silently cursed Gyhard, Bannon, Neegan, the Imperial Army, and the Emperor himself.

"Gabris, you've got to listen to me!" The prince had claimed Bannon and with all the excitement of the return to the palace, Karlene had somehow managed to keep Vree with her.

"But she's got two kigh!" Gabris repeated.

"I
know
that." Karlene grabbed the older bard's arm and yanked him away from Vree before he did something foolish enough to push her over the edge and get himself kissed by an assassin's blade. They had a lot to discuss before their audience with the Emperor and very little time to do it in. Eyes locked on Gabris' face, Karlene began talking.