King of Assassins: The Elven Ways: Book Three (40 page)

“What is it?”

Nutmeg almost did not respond before answering, “She said you had a strong Dweller heart in you.”

“Ahhhh. As compared to you, who have no heart.” Verdayne shot to his feet. “I’m sorry—I didn’t mean that. Not at all.” He swayed.

“Of course you did, in a way. We’re nothing if not direct. Now off your feet.” She sat very still for a heartbeat or two in his silence. She swallowed. “It’s a’right. I might deserve it, a bit. I don’t wear black for him. You cannot hear me cry, so it’s no wonder you doubt my feelings.”

“I could never doubt your love for that child or your family.” He stood rigidly, waiting until she took a deep sigh of a breath before he sat back down abruptly.

“Dweller tact,” he repeated.

“It’s why we have such thick heads. Or maybe because we have such thick heads, it’s necessary that we have no tact. It’s a matter of getting the attention.”

The corner of Verdayne’s mouth quirked. “There must be kinder ways of bludgeoning someone.”

“Ah, but time is always of the essence.” Nutmeg put her hand out and tested the poultice. Drying but not dry. “Perhaps you’ve forgotten that we’re nowhere near as long-lived as the Vaelinar.”

“I could never forget that. I’ve seen my mother and brothers and sisters pass. Nieces and nephew. Great-grand nieces and nephews draw near their prime.” Verdayne’s brows knotted a bit. “My mother not so quickly as the others. It’s an old wives’ tale, I suppose, but the lovers of Vaelinars do seem to inherit a certain longevity.”

“Really.”

He nodded. “My mother lived to be almost a hundred. Long enough to see me from my childhood into my youth. Not that I expect to ever approach my father’s age, his years far longer than even most Vaelinars, but I’m just shy of a hundred and fifty years now and, barring accidents or war, should make two hundred or so.”

Nutmeg breathed out, as if suddenly aware she’d been holding her breath. “So my child will live a span.”

“Did you think he wouldn’t?”

“I didn’t know. I’ve thought upon it, but it’s not the sort of question you can ask just anyone. It borders on rude.”

“I suppose not. Asking, that is. There are more Vaelinars than you think who have a Dweller hidden away in their cupboards, though.”

A thought flickered through Nutmeg. “It must have been hard on you, watching your family pass.”

“Bistel kept me closer to him. I never quite understood why, but I’ve been thinking on it a lot since he died, and I think it was to protect me from my mortality. That and the fact that he had loved my mother, and wanted to give her the respect he felt she deserved. He would not marry her, but he intended to honor her in other ways. He tried to give her land when she married, but she’d have none of it.”

“Oh?”

Verdayne shook his head. “No. She asked for a mill. She said with Bistel bringing winter wheat to the north that there would be a great need for a good mill, and she was right. She and her eventual husband and sons expanded it three times over, and now it’s a grand old mill, still grinding away, and the family is a prosperous one.”

Nutmeg eyed him. Finally, she gave a slight shrug. “I can’t see you as a miller.”

“No?” He gave a soft laugh. “Me neither. Though my father gathered a few of my kind at the manor to help raise me, no one was a tradesman. I grew closest to the gardener . . . though that title was not enough to describe all that he did for Lord Bistel . . . but he taught me much about the groves and fields. And he a Vaelinar.”

“He’s gone?”

“Yes. Murdered a few seasons ago.” Dayne picked at the edge of his poultice.

“Murdered?”

“I saw the body.”

“So it wasn’t all honey growing up as Bistel’s son? Privileges and honor, a secure place in his graces.”

“What? Why would you think that? Or think of it at all?”

“He kept you close. Gave you friends and family that were like you. Made sure your own family didn’t grow bitter against you. He didn’t push you off to find out for yourself what the world thinks of half-blood.”

“I know what Kerith thinks of us.”

“Ah,” said Nutmeg. “You’ve not had the delight of women cross the street to spit on you, then. From all races. Or had assassins set upon you. Or had a House decide that you were nothing more than a smudge of dirt that needed to be wiped off the face of Kerith.”

He frowned sharply. “I would not have let any of them happen to you! Assassins, we had. Bistane and I handled most of them, though my father took out a few. It’s part of being a successor. Perhaps you hadn’t thought of that when you decided to carry Jeredon’s baby.”

“If anything.” Nutmeg reached out and ripped the poultice off Verdayne’s arm. He let out a smothered noise as it tore arm hair and four fat stingers and a bit of blood and skin from him. “Sometimes we fall in love without thinking at all, and that’s the real tragedy. That and losing the—the wonder of it and the desire to ever do it again.” She pushed the ointment at him. “That,” she added, “should take the bitterness away.”

He took it off the table and got to his feet, crossing the room in a few strides before he turned at the doorway. “I’m not bitter because my father took me to his estates and raised me, but for every day you’ve been scorned and spit upon, think of my experience in decades. Things were worse until I finally grew taller than Bistel’s war sword, but it was all to be expected. I tussled with Bistane as your brothers probably tested one another, and suffered the hatred of others because all Vaelinars are hated. I decided a long time ago not to see the world through the veil of those memories. My father gave me love and discipline, and my brother who lives today loves me no less than the brothers that time took away from me ages ago. Your babe will be born with his own sight, but you’re the one who will give him vision.” Verdayne took a long breath as if he might say more. Instead, he pivoted and left.

Nutmeg sat back in her chair, as spent as if she’d run across the wide vineyard.

Ild Fallyn

I
T WAS NOT THAT HER BROTHER was useless. On the contrary, Alton served a number of very important uses. It was that he did not always show the insight, the ingenuity that she expected of him. Tressandre stood reminded that she needed to retain the option of doing things herself when he brought back word that the escaped woman had eluded them all and disappeared into the wilderness. Half his retinue had died or suffered crippling injury. She could not fault the effort he’d put into his attempt to capture and return her. Why had the wretch bolted? Where might she have gone? Those were questions to which she wanted answers. She searched through her fortress looking for them.

That was how she found the miserable youth now huddled in front of her on the flooring. He clutched a pillow to his chest, doubled over as if hatching it, his tears soaking into the silken cover and his begrimed fingers sinking deeply into it in his white-knuckled hold. The pillow wouldn’t save him, of course. It wouldn’t even come close to protecting him. At least, for the moment, it seemed to have stopped his wails.

Tressandre stopped pacing to look at him more closely. He might have been the equivalent of ten Vaelinar years old. Perhaps even closer to thirteen. He’d been at the fortress for a decade and had not, according to the yard supervisor, shown Talent of any sort. He was due to be culled then, sent to the fields or forests for work, or simply dispatched for his knowledge. Males on the edge of puberty either bloomed with their Talent or had none. She didn’t have to be patient with them as she did the females, who matured later and slower. He did not know that he neared the end of his usefulness to the ild Fallyn, or perhaps he sensed it vaguely, but it didn’t account for his extreme distress.

No. He feared her in the immediate moment, and rightly so. Tressandre gave a small, secret smile. Very rightly so. She made certain to have earned the fear and respect they gave her.

She leaned forward slightly to tap her whip on his shoulder. He flinched and inhaled a sharp, gasping breath, but held his tears back as she’d told him.

“Now, then. You know a bit of this Ceyla.”

He nodded and took a gulping, snotty inhalation, pressing the cushion closer. Tressandre stared at the top of his head. That pillow would be thrown out and burned. Possibly the whole divan. And, certainly, the carpet. The tip of the whip bounced in the air impatiently. “Tell me.”

“I have . . . I have . . . Talent,” he gulped. “Not much. Not yet. But I can hear . . .”

“Hear?”

“Things. Things people say to themselves.”

“All the time?”

He shook his head. “Sometimes. It bursts in my head. It hurts. My ears buzz like I was stuck in a hornet hive. There’s words in the buzz. Voices.” He twisted his neck so he could look up at her. “I heard you think you would burn everything just because—because I touched it.”

“And because you’re filthy.” Unapologetically, Tressandre dropped onto a tuffet upholstered in a matching silk coverlet nearby.

He nodded miserably and put his face back in his pillow.

She ground her teeth. “I haven’t all day. Tell me what you promised to tell me and we shall see what your fate might be.”

“Cey—Ceyla talked in her sleep sometimes. Like a fevered dream. No one else could understand her.”

“But you could.”

“Because I heard her in my head, too. She could get loud.” He relinquished the pillow with one hand and thumped the side of his skull. It did not sound like the thumping of a ripe melon she’d anticipated. “She knew something. Saw it. She had to leave and carry the message. It clawed at her mind. She had to go!”

“She saw something?”

“She did. No one else knew, but I guessed at it. Before a thing would happen, she would see it. Not everything of course, but important things.”

Tressandre flexed her whip in her hands. A seer . . . a Vaelinar with Foresight . . . and her brother had missed it? She would doubt the probability of such a Talent because of its rarity, but evidence suggested that Ceyla might indeed have had it, enough of it, and could have used it in her escape. It would have given her a great advantage, even if the Talent was a new, raw, untrained ability. Yes, a great advantage. If true, she wanted the girl. Tressandre would have to exert whatever means she had to get that girl back.

She got to her feet. The boy heard her stand and drew himself inward even more, rolling into a ball about his pillow center. He was all elbows and big feet and scrawny arms as she looked down at him.

“What are you going to do to me?”

“That depends,” Tressandre whispered as she leaned down to his ear. “What did you hear from her thoughts that drove her to run away?”

“A battle. A great battle coming, and she had to gather the Galdarkan Abayan Diort and bring him to it.” He looked up, his nose swollen red and leaking, his eyes smeared pink with tears and fear, and his lower lip tucked between his teeth.

“Where?”

“I don’t know. It’s all I heard that I could make out. I promise, mistress, I promise that is all I know!”

“It can’t be all. What is a battle without a battlefield? It’s not enough to know soon, I need to know
where
.” Her knuckles went white. She could feel her icy skin stretch across the bones of her fingers.

“I can’t—I can’t tell you what I don’t know. I can’t. I can’t.” He curled back into a ball, huddling, awaiting a blow of anger.

Tressandre looked down. Her mouth curled. “No matter.”

“Is that . . . is that enough?”

“To save you? It might be. You will have to pray it will be.” Tressandre stood and crossed the room in three great strides, throwing open the closed doors. Her retainer standing outside startled, jumping to his feet.

“Get me Alton. Immediately! And the birdmaster. I have messages to send. I want the light cavalry ready to mount up.” Tressandre could not contain her smile. Lariel had not been so vulnerable in decades. Nor did she intend to let Diort gather the prize which she had hunted, plotted, and waited so many years to gather for herself and her family. She would find him, and then she would settle with the Anderieon House.

Behind her, the lad sobbed again, this time in relief.

N
UTMEG BROUGHT THE JOURNAL out when the entire house fell into quiet except for the soft creaks and moans of the wood, which always spoke as hot and cold, light and dark, affected it. Nutmeg cradled it between her palms. She should give it to Verdayne. That had been part of Bistel’s command to her, but only part of it, because he’d told her to give it to her sons first, and hold it until they felt ready to give it to his sons.

Her sons.

She would have this child and someday another, if Bistel were as good a prophet as he’d been a warlord. That thought curved her mouth in a pensive smile as she rested her arms upon her swollen belly. That meant she might love again someday. Marry. And go through this all over again, perhaps not so alone next time.

She lifted her chin, looking off into the darkness. Not that she could feel herself entirely alone this time. Her family enveloped her. She was selfish, she realized. She might not have Jeredon, but she had family. It was not the same, but she certainly wasn’t bereft. As for passing it on, she didn’t feel quite ready yet. She wished that Bistel had been a bit clearer in his wishes.

Nutmeg leaned over and lit a candle. Its glow brightened the room perhaps more than it ought and the leather cover of her book gleamed richly in its illumination. Why had Bistel not left the book in the archives? It might, indeed, be the very book meant to be destroyed by whoever had infiltrated the library. On that count, it might endanger her now. Not enough to be hunted for the possible heir she carried, but to add this to the pot, Nutmeg knew she might be hunted relentlessly until she gave up the secret she held. The warlord had laid a terrible burden and charge upon her. Why? She was no great hero or warrior. Had he seen more in her than she saw in herself? Without the child she carried, she couldn’t even read it. Perhaps he had never meant to give it to someone who could. If so, he didn’t know her. No hero, maybe, but as stubborn as any Dweller could be. Nutmeg would have worked at it, like a knot in an old, frayed rope, until she puzzled it loose and open to her. Maybe he had seen that in her and counted on it.

Maybe this, maybe that. She couldn’t ever know—Bistel was far beyond her reach!

Nutmeg opened the book and ran the tip of her finger down its crackling page. Within her, she could feel the baby stir slightly, grown so that now he (he?) could not have much room and as if to prove it, she could feel a pain in her rib cage as a hand or foot stretched out. Whoever it was, they could no more resist the book than she could.

She didn’t know a time when the Ways didn’t exist, just as she had never known a history when the Vaelinars had not been there to manipulate it. She’d crossed at the behest of the Ferryman who had tamed an untamable river, and proved he could cross not only water but time. The shores of the First Home lands had been protected by the Shield of Tomarq. And a half dozen other Ways shuttled the fortunes of the Vaelinars, and eventually the other peoples of Kerith, back and forth.

Yet, like anything built by a mortal people, the Ways did not seem limitless. She’d heard whispers at Larandaril that Ways were failing. Unraveling. The elemental strands of Kerith falling back into their proper place, no matter how the Vaelinars had twisted them to be, her world resisting its invaders down to its very core. Like the terrible aftermath of the Mageborn Wars, magic unleashed by a failing Way could be devastating. A book like this—and Nutmeg stroked her finger upon the page again—could stabilize and restore the Ways to their former glory, or make it possible to create new, wondrous Ways, something not attempted in centuries. The toll for failure had been too high, the methods not understood and thought lost forever. But not to everyone.

Not lost to Bistel Vantane. His mighty aryns were thought to have been the first Way created on Kerith, a tree blossoming out of a staff, a tree which could even stand against the corrupted magics and chaos left behind by the Mageborn Wars, groves growing and even thriving in the blighted lands where pools of miasma twisted Kerith forever. Had he thought to create again? Something? What? Or had he hoped to keep Ways from ever being created again? The power involved, the power bestowed upon the makers . . . Vaelinars who invoked Ways would be nothing less than gods.

Nutmeg closed the book on her finger. Even if no one lived who could truly use the book she held, there would always be those who would think they could. Perhaps she held a key which could unlock any door, even a door that should never be opened. The light in the room shimmered as she looked across it, its glow falling among the shadows to be shivered away by what she could not see, like a golden thread disappearing in a weave of dark threads, there but not always seen, not unless the weaver wished it to be seen.

As if it were a Way that could be designed, patterned, and crafted by her.

Nutmeg stifled the small, startled noise she made at that thought, dropping Bistel’s book into her lap. Had she thought that or had it come from within, from the independent mind forming within her? A thought that never should have been formed to begin with.

We are not ones to play Gods
, she told herself. She laid both hands palm down on her stomach.
Never think otherwise. Sweet apples! We do not change our world to be what we want it to be.

And yet . . . do we not plant groves? Plow fields? Seed for harvests?

We do change worlds. Every day.

That is different.

How is it different?

That thought froze her, motionless, for a very long time without an answer while the candle guttered low beside her, till she eventually stirred abruptly to pinch the wick out and let the room fall into total darkness.

Tree’s blood . . . what did she carry inside her?