Guardian of Honor (31 page)

"Very well. We will start on a meditation exercise, then
segue into the spelltune you wish to learn."

A tune—that meant it would be of medium difficulty. Not a few
notes of a simple spell, and not a long, laborious major Song.

"Very well," Alexa echoed, and an hour later she could
look back on that last scene with Bastien and feel nothing at all.

B
astien lay in the hospital bed in the northernmost Chevalier
Clinique of Lladrana. The building was a simple rectangle, the only floor a
hospital ward with beds on each side of the wall and a tiny office in the back.
The walls were a little too pink for his taste, so he usually looked at the
white ceiling.

He'd tried to put the country between him and the woman he'd made
love with and who had mended his flaw. Looking back, sampling the Song between
them, he knew she'd spoken the truth when she'd said she hadn't planned to
seduce him. He also believed it hadn't been set up by the Marshalls. They'd
have followed up by now. Sheer coincidence. Or his wild magic at work. But he'd
felt trapped and wanted to run, so he had.

He'd tested his Powers in battle, taking risks he shouldn't have,
trying to learn his new limitations.

Now he was in trouble. His brother had found him.

He could tell Luthan was in a bad mood just by the quick ringing
of his spurs on the stone floor. Bastien turned a groan into a sigh and refused
to open his eyes, flinging an arm across his face in an effort to avoid his
brother's gaze.

He yelped at the pulling pain on his triceps.

"I've heard you've been courting death. Are you crazy?"
asked Luthan.

"I'm a black-and-white," Bastien said.

"You use that as an excuse. Just what are you doing? Are you
trying to kill yourself? If so, I would like an updated copy of your will to
file with the Chevalier Loremaster. You look worse than our father, and
he
has
forty more years of fighting than you."

Bastien would have sighed but knew his ribs couldn't take it. His
brother was so stern and upright. The silence stretched, and though it was
comfortable between them, the quiet was unusual. Carefully, Bastien removed his
arm from his eyes.

Luthan studied him with narrowed gaze. Then he smiled. "But
you aren't a black-and-white anymore. The brilliance you were gifted with by
being so shines true and strong, unimpeded by any block to your energy
flow." He spotted a chair near the next bed, drew it over and sat.
"This is very interesting."

Luthan took on a patient stillness, trance-deep in his own Power,
and closed his eyes.

Bastien stared. It wasn't like Luthan to leave himself so
vulnerable, even with Bastien and in a place guarded by Chevaliers and dogs.

If Luthan was seeking his
sight
the matter of Bastien being
cured was more important to others than just the two of them.

Bastien shifted uncomfortably. He had known he'd changed, but
hadn't wanted to acknowledge it. Most of all, he didn't want to admit that it
was the woman who had changed him.

But his mind worked faster, clearer than before. It scared him
that he was no longer the man he'd been. He'd taken chances that should have
killed him...but hadn't.

His brother started to hum, slow and lilting, making the space
between Bastien's shoulder blades tingle as if an arrow were pointed at his
back. When Luthan used that Song it was bad news for Bastien.

It was
their
Song, the Song of the sons of Reynardus
Vauxveau, the Song they'd made between them and shared. When big brother Luthan
hummed that song and used his Power he was always right. He always won the
argument and Bastien lost.

He wanted to pull the covers over his head. He had a bad feeling
about this. He was sure Luthan would want him to do something he didn't want to
do. Like see the woman again.

As he'd flown away from the Exotique who'd sizzled his blood,
melted his bones, and straightened out his energy flows, he'd assured himself
he wasn't a coward, and knew he lied. It didn't matter that she was an
Exotique, or that she was powerful. It mattered very much that she was a
Marshall.

He'd tried very hard not to think about how they'd come together,
to forget the best sex of his life.

Luthan's eyes opened and he grinned. "Will you look at
that."

Merde.
Bastien could plainly see the sparkling magical line—shining
white, coming from his balls and his heart and his head, merging and shooting
out of sight. In the direction of the Castle. Luthan had shown him what he
hadn't wanted to see.

"You have a connection. I can guess to whom."

Bastien kept his face stony.

Luthan leaned forward. "I know, Bastien."

It was a losing battle, but he fought anyway. "You can't
know."

“I
saw.”

One of Luthan's visions. Worse and worse. Bastien said, "I
don't want to hear about that."

"You don't want anything. Especially nothing that's good for
you. So you try to forget in battle. That won't work, brother."

Luthan had tried the same thing after he'd left their father's
house. That time, Bastien had deliberately gotten into enough trouble to need
Luthan's rescue. After that, Luthan had accepted his responsibilities and
turned into the most honorable Chevalier.

"It's odd that our father hasn't noticed the connection, but
he hasn't been looking for it." Luthan studied the thread. "It's very
thin, but strong. Must have been at least two meetings and an exchange of blood
or other bodily fluids."

Though Bastien hadn't admitted it to Alexa, he vaguely remembered
that she had rescued him from the jerir. He wondered if he'd bled on her
somehow, or if the jerir connected them somehow too. As for the other time—His
cock twitched just thinking about it, which was why he tried to forget.

"I wonder when that happened and how." Luthan tilted his
head. "No one knows. You were always a wonder, Bastien."

Quiet for ten heartbeats.

Luthan stood up, pulled his riding gloves from his belt and drew
them on. "Go to the Castle and formally Pair with her. Make that
connection stronger."

"There is no connection."

With one whistling note Luthan plucked at a cord deep within his
body and had Bastien arching out of bed. "You can't deny that. Not to me.
Not to yourself. Not anymore. I won't let you."

Bastien had been afraid of that.

Luthan got in his face. "We need Marshall Alyeka Paired
sexually and with a fighter. Go to the Castle, accept your destiny. You will be
an excellent Swordmarshall." He straightened.

Bastien could feel the look of stubbornness mold his features, his
bottom lip stick out. Childish, but satisfying. What was it about relatives
that always brought out the child?

"The North needs good fighters, needs me."

"I will not allow you to continue to try to throw your life
away," Luthan said.

"Oh?"

"If you leave this place for anywhere except your own estate
or the Castle, I will have the Singer's Chevaliers hunt you down and take you
to her for a forced Song Quest."

"You can't do that."

"Yes, I can." Luthan's smile was smug. "I have the
trust of the Singer. By the way, she is interested in you, as is a certain
feycoocu. If I were you I would not irritate either one of them."

"A feycoocu? Marshall Alexa's feycoocu?" He hadn't seen
her in the stable, had a wavery memory of a blue light near the jerir pool, of
eyes looking down from the rafters of the Assayer's Office.

"And shapeshifters are as unpredictable as Exotiques and
black-and-whites." Luthan flicked his fingers in goodbye and exited on a
laugh.

Bastien fell back against a hard pillow. Luthan was obviously
enjoying the hell out of this.
Merde.

16

"T
oday we will study the movement of air," Madame Fourmi said
as Alexa entered the chamber where she took her magic lessons.

The air in the room was stuffy and held a heaviness that
oppressed. The air outside had been spring fresh with a light breeze carrying
the scent of newly turned soil and blossoms.

Everything in Alexa rebelled. "I don't think so," she
said, then smiled widely. "Not today. I think I'll explore the Castle
instead."

Madame raised little pointed eyebrows. "That is perhaps not
wise. You need to learn all you can as quickly as possible."

"A person can't be wise all the time," Alexa replied.
She took a stride back into the hall and ran lightly along the passageway and
down some stairs, and rocketed out of the building into the Temple Ward.

She had no doubt that
someone
would keep a mental eye on
her—maybe Madame, maybe Thealia—but Alexa didn't think
they'd interfere. She'd always been a perfect little
student. They'd cut her some slack.

It was a great day to ditch class. She abandoned the cloister
walk. She hadn't explored the Castle yet, and wanted to know her surroundings.
She'd think of it as a walk around campus. She chuckled and lifted her face to
the sun, closing her eyes.

For a moment she relaxed, breathing deeply, letting her senses
rest, though she felt magic—Power, they called it—all around her. When she
opened her eyelids she noted the gazes of the soldiers and Chevaliers. She
didn't care. Being an Exotique had some privileges and one was acting as
strange as she wanted to. She'd lost a lot of her self-consciousness. Maybe
because she'd begun to fit in. There were no Marshalls around.

She sauntered to the north end of Temple Ward. By now she knew the
Castle was made up of three courtyards—wards. There were also a couple of
cul-de-sacs, like Horseshoe Close in Lower Ward where the Chevaliers stayed.

Temple Ward was the middle courtyard, and the places she usually
went were in the yard—the Marshalls' living space, including her tower, the
eating hall, the kitchen and the Council Room. The magical map room Thealia haunted
was across the ward from the Keep. Of course there was the Temple itself, huge
and round and dominating everything else. There was also the Assayer's Office,
which she avoided.

She'd been in the Lower Ward several times, mostly passing
through, and had seen Horseshoe Close and Hall, gone out to the Chevaliers
training ground and the Landing Field.

But she didn't recall ever being in Upper Ward, so it drew her
feet today. She passed the curve of the Temple and approached a gatehouse
between two small towers. Smiling at the soldiers on duty, she greeted them and
passed through the small building, then stopped to survey the courtyard.

It was a skewed rectangular shape, with the left set of buildings
against the wall that probably defined the edge of the hill on which the Castle
was built. She thought most of the servants lived here.

The right wall bulged with the huge curve of the back of the
Temple. Little storage areas seemed to crowd in the straight sides of the
available space.

She walked until she reached the very end of the ward and found a
wall with a wooden door bound with iron. With a tug and an application of
magic, the door opened outward. She peeked through to see a charming tangle of
vines showing large buds of green draping courtyard walls that angled to a
point.

When she sniffed, the scent of spring wafted to her. Smiling, she
entered the garden. She was halfway across it before she realized it wasn't
empty.

On a stone bench a man slumped against the wall, staring at her
with a serious, lonely gaze. A Marshall—Shieldmarshall Ivrog Vauxveau, brother
to Reynardus and uncle to Bastien and Luthan. This was the man who kept
Reynardus from death, who defended him on the battlefield.

"I didn't mean to intrude," she said, pronouncing her
words carefully. "Should I go?"

With a graceful gesture, Shieldmarshall Ivrog invited her to sit
beside him on the bench in the garden. Feeling a little uncomfortable, but
curious, Alexa did. For a while they sat in silence.

Since she'd joined the Marshalls, she'd come to value all of them
except Reynardus, and since this man was bonded to Reynardus, she'd never
learned to know him.

He gave her a slow, sweet smile that amazed her. Rumor painted him
as an angry, bitter drunk. Unobtrusively she sniffed for the smell of liquor.

Not unobtrusively enough. He laughed, then sank back against
the sun-warmed wall again and closed his eyes. "I'm
not drunk and won't be in the future. You've changed my life, Lady." He
found her hand and held it.

A huge orchestral melody swamped Alexa. She'd never mentally
"heard" anything like it. Even when the Marshalls wove a Song between
them, deep and rich, it was never more than six "instruments," one
for each Pair. She swallowed, but the music was so fascinating that she didn't
pull away.

She could almost, almost grasp the Song of the Vauxveau
family—that's what the melody had to be, the whole, rich tunes of each family
member that this man knew and carried. She sensed he was tied to them all at
this very moment—a live performance. Reynardus, of course, was the strongest, a
trumpet, but she was surprised to understand that neither Luthan nor Bastien
were overwhelmed by Reynardus in any way. The smallest, threadiest noise was
that of Reynardus's wife, a whining, plaintive note.