Kindred and Wings (33 page)

Her throat clenched as she thought on it. “My father tried to warn me, turn me aside from that path, but I wouldn’t listen to him. I thought he was the fool, and I sent him away.”

Tears, which she should have shed long ago, began to leak from the corners of her eyes, and she dropped her head, ashamed at them. Rather than wipe them away, Finn gathered her into his arms and let them come.

She had yet to tell him all the other things that she had done, even if he knew many of them. She pulled back, and looked him in the eye as best she could. “I chose to forget you too, Finn. I was afraid what I felt for you made me weak, and would stop me on my path. If I hadn’t, things would be different.”

He pressed his lips together for a moment, and then gave a slight shrug. “To be honest, I have never understood why anyone would think love makes them weak. The old stories tell differently. Perhaps if you’d listened to those instead . . .”

It was a feeble attempt at a joke, but Talyn let out a little laugh. “I remember you used to tell wonderful stories to me after . . .” She stopped on the thought. They both remembered where he had told her most of the stories.

Talyn, the once-Hunter, knew that she was on the edge of another precipice. The Phage would not let her go, and the Conflagration, the arrival of the White Void was upon them. Soon there would be no time for anything else, and she desperately wanted Finn to remind her that she was more than the mistakes she had made.

When he looked at her, she felt like more than the angry fool who had let vengeance and rage guide her.

Talyn leaned over and kissed him, because she knew very well he would not move until she did. The after-thoughts washed back over her, and the remembrance made the kiss all the sweeter. When he ran his hand up her neck and into her hair, she let out a muffled sigh against his lips.

Talyn wanted to touch all of him. She wanted to take back her love and her lover. She wanted to mend herself back into the person she should have been. When they finally pulled apart to breathe, she smiled.

“The end is coming, Finnbarr the Fox.” Her whisper was directly into his ear. “And I would rather not get naked in front of your mother.”

His laughter was almost a startled bark, but Finn got to his feet and pulled her with him. “I have a room, but I warn you, like all the rooms in the village, it can get a little drafty.”

“I am sure we’ll find a way to make it warm,” she replied, and let herself be led off the tiny island and across the swaying rope bridges to a swinging pod that hung far above the sea. It was attached to the rope system and had a sturdy floor as well as a cocoon of blankets and thick rush mattress.

“More of a nest than a bedroom,” Finn said, holding aside the reed door which afforded a modicum of privacy. “It is all the students have, so I am used to it. I’m not really used to sharing it with anyone, though.”

“Well,” Talyn replied tartly, “we shall just have to hope we don’t shake it loose of its moorings.”

His laugh was low and honeyed as he let the door swing shut behind them. Starlight and moonlight filtered through the cracks in the woven nest, and it was just enough for them both to be able to see what they were doing.

The sound of the pounding surf below, and the smell of the sea was different than anything Talyn had experienced for a long time. Those were sensations that she associated with Finn very much. The memories of their nights shut in the tiny cabin were overlaid over this experience.

The swaying, however, was something new. As they stripped off each other’s clothes in somewhat of a frenzy, they found themselves giggling.

“What a shame it would be if two seers died like this,” Finn chuckled, while his hands trailed over her naked skin. “All the plans of my mother and the Vaerli would be upset.”

“They would be quite angry,” Talyn agreed, before running the flat of her tongue over the line of his neck.

They slid down into the tangle of blankets, where the chill wind off the sea could not reach, and began getting reacquainted with the curves and planes of each other’s bodies.

It had been a long time since Talyn had lain with a man, but she found the experience with Finn different. It was not just about getting some relief for her primitive urges, but also about making her lover feel joy and pleasure too. She was glad to be able to see his face in the half-darkness, and gained great pleasure when he groaned her name.

For a while, all time was filled with finding each other once again. Sweat and a few tears came between them, but they held each other and savored even the twinges of loss.

When they were finally done, the tide had turned underneath them, and there was only warmth and smiles. Talyn lay nestled against Finn, and felt the swaying of the nest subside a little.

“I guess they make these things stronger than I thought,” she said with a smile.

“I guess so,” Finn replied with a warm chuckle, “quite surprising really.”

They lay there in silence, neither apparently wanting to sleep or lose the moment. Until Finn let out a soft curse and sat up.

He lit a nearby lantern, and hung it on the hook. As he sat up in bed and pulled her toward him, the light flickered pleasantly on his torso.

“Now you find the light?” she murmured with a slight grin. Then she got a better look at his expression and she did not like it. A jolt of cold intruded on her warmth.

His blue eyes were dark in the shadows cast by the lantern.

“Talyn, why did the Phage send you all this way with a blank piece of paper they said could only be destroyed by dragon flame? What possible reason could there be for that except that they wanted you to find me, and that would mean . . .”

That was when the screams reached them—the screams of the talespinners as their village began to burn.

It was darkness so complete and deep that Byreniko could sense nothing—not even his own body. Pelanor was a distant memory, though what he had seen in the chambers beneath the Salt still burned in his mind. Most of all, his blade sliding into his mother’s flesh. That would never go away.

This darkness, then, was almost a blessing. He wanted to stay in this between state, cut off from everything and everyone.

Yet it was not to be. He was not completely alone.

“I always wanted to know my people, now I wish I did not,” he whispered to himself.

You must live one last thing,
the Kindred whispered into Byre’s hollow head in the total darkness.
Live the past to save the future.

“I don’t want to see any more,” he said, his voice swallowed by the emptiness around him. “Give me the flames Ellyria endured, the pain and loss of her body. I don’t want to know anymore about the Vaerli. They are dead to me.”

They made mistakes, sacrificed their own children, and would not take up their responsibilities. They were afraid.
The Kindred’s voice was soft, and maybe he was trying to imagine it but there seemed to be some sadness in its tone.
You must see that they do not all deserve death for it. They are worth saving, because some of them had faith.

“Do I have a choice?” Byre felt a great weariness flood over him.

There is always a choice. You chose to go on this journey, to search out the truth. Even when your father was dead, you had a choice to not come to us. This is who you are, and it makes you perfect for what is to come.

“And what is that?”

You will find the answer to that in the last place we send you. It will be deeper, and you must go alone.

Byre hung there in the darkness, and it was impossible to tell for how long. He wondered if it were all a trick; if the Kindred was telling him how special he was along this journey, only to drop him from a great height later on.

Even in this odd in-between state, he felt the sting of curiosity, and the knowledge that the Kindred was right. For all the terrible things the Vaerli had done out of fear and ignorance, he would not condemn them all.

“Then I will go,” Byre said finally, and then he fell.

The darkness swirled around him and he wondered where he would land . . . until he realized he already had. He was on his knees on the Salt, sobbing, while screams echoed around him. Salt crystals were cutting his knees, and it was hard to catch his breath when he was sobbing and screaming. A thousand fractured thoughts raced through his brain, and he could not catch hold of any of them. Honor. Fear. His mother’s face begging him not to go. The White Void luring away another of his soldiers to death and madness.

Byre tried to stop, to catch his breath, but then he realized this wasn’t his body to stop. The hands clutching onto the salt were paler than his own, and the Kindred’s explanation of going deeper now made sense.

He was not observing the Caisah. He was the Caisah. This would have been so much more outrageous if he had not just gained a little more insight into the man—but apparently he had not gained enough for the Kindred.

Byre could not move even the man’s smallest finger, but he could feel the rumble of his thoughts, like a swirling caldron just at his back. It was a terrifying sensation, this loss of control. He was choking on it.

“Are you all right?” a voice seemed to reach out and wrap itself around the madness, soothing and calm, like the hand that was placed on his shoulder. The relief of it was dizzying.

The Caisah did not recognize the voice, but Byre did. He had been young when he last heard it, but it was the kind of beautiful voice that left a mark. It promised kindness and understanding.

The Caisah turned and looked up at the face. Putorae, the Last Seer of the Vaerli, was looking down at him. She had not been at the terrible final meeting of the council, but it had all been too much of a blur for Byre to think overly much on it. She was the born seer of her generation, and thus the
pae atuae
would only show on her skin when she used her powers. At the moment her golden-brown skin was unmarked, but her eyes were still full of stars.

The Caisah’s brain was bursting with life, but it felt . . . better somehow. “You are the seer,” the interloper choked out, “so why did you not stop me? You must have seen what would happen . . .”

She placed her hand beneath his elbow and brought him to his feet. The seer was far shorter than he, her tiny frame making him instantly want to protect her. She was the most beautiful thing in all the worlds, because she really did see. The Caisah knew instantly that she saw beyond what the Kindred and the White Void had made of him. She saw the man who had walked into the mist and become lost. That had been a good man.

Putorae was also the saddest creature he had ever laid eyes on. Every line of her body spoke of weariness and mourning. Her hand remained on his shoulder, as if she had forgotten it. “Some things must happen. Even the worst things in the world must be borne to untangle what must be untangled.”

The Caisah looked at her curiously, wondering at the feelings bubbling up inside him; he wanted to protect her and make her smile again.

Putorae closed her eyes, her hand now unconsciously rubbing his back, but this time leaning into him as if to hold her up. Byre, riding way back in the tyrant’s head, felt his own heart go out to her. When she opened her eyes, their darkness was still full of circling stars.

“What is your name?” she asked softly.

It had never occurred to Byre that the man they were all so terrified of had a name aside from the Caisah—yet, that was only a title. Something was bubbling up from before; memories that were not Byre’s.

He caught a glimpse of an army of men, and pride in them nearly choked his throat. Then mist, descending around them as they marched, but they were proud and they went on. The White Void’s light enveloped them, and the dangers of it began to take his soldiers, his men, his duty. The struggle to keep them alive wore on the leader’s strength, tore at him, but made him something else.

He had a name.

“Vitus,” the Caisah whispered. “My name is Vitus.”

“And you are a scion,” Putorae replied. “The Eagle King.” Her hand now touched his face, and suddenly the broken parts of Vitus’ brain and soul seemed to make a whole. The seer held him together, even as she looked so sad. “You are the scion with whom I shall bear the future.”

In those dark eyes, Byre fell once more to darkness, suddenly sorry to be leaving the head of his enemy.

When he woke, he was on the reassuringly painful ground, his own knees cracked and bleeding. It was Pelanor who was touching him, her hand on his back.

He shrugged her off and rose. Once more he was back under the earth in the rocky cavern that they had first entered, and he could feel the Kindred not far off. Now he was angry; he had felt the kind of man this Vitus was. A good one, until the Kindred had placed too much faith in him.

“Why did you choose him?” Byre raged, pacing up and down their tiny prison. He was screaming at the walls, but he knew that they had ears to hear him.

“Who?” Pelanor asked softly. “Who did they choose? What do you mean?”

Byre could feel that he was ready to snap. He wanted to break something, to see something crack open, like he felt he might. “The Caisah! They needed someone to bring the Vaerli back into line, so they picked him as their messenger . . . but he couldn’t hold that much power. He broke. He was not Vaerli, but they used him anyway!”