Lady of Mercy (The Sundered, Book 3) (38 page)

Renar nodded as he stepped out of the cab. “I will, Borins. But I think, for now, we’re safe.”

Borins nodded and began to tug at the reins. “I hope we’ll be seeing more of you. Morgan’s in a better mood than he’s been in these past five years. I could near hear him yellin’ from the gates.”

The prince of Dagothrin winced.

“Pay some mind to him—he knows his business.”

“It would be impossible,” Renar said pertly,
“not
to pay mind to him, as you say. Now off. I’ll take over from here.” He hefted the pack at his shoulder. He took a step forward, experimenting with the weight. He stumbled slightly, but when Erin reached out to steady him she found him stable. His face, pale, was cast groundward.

“We need help,” he whispered quietly, almost to himself. “And we—I—have no right to expect it.”

“Renar?” Erin looked at the house with some misgiving. It
was squat, small, and far too gray—but for all that, it seemed in good repair. There was a small amount of traffic in the street; the snow was muddy and well traveled over.

“That’s our destination.” Renar murmured, leveling his shoulders.

“Are we still in the lower quarter?”

“Merchant quarter,” he replied, as he approached the door. “It’s a guesthouse. Belongs to one of the three lines that Lord Tiber Beaton sponsors.”

“Noble?”

“Yes. But of Marantine still, if he can harbor Kaarel.”

“If he knows of it.”

“He’s sharp enough; he must know. And it gives me hope. Nine of the fifteen families perished in the first riot. Six of the fifteen capitulated—Tiras tells me five now have ‘priests’ on the council. But Tiber Beaton has none. As of yet.” He knocked sharply on the door. “He owns the mines; he knows their workings. He was a friend of my uncle’s, once.”

“And now?”

The door swung open before Renar could answer. An elderly woman peered out from beneath a dustcap. She smiled almost timidly as she took in Renar’s garb. Her plain brown dress folded into a clumsy bow.

“Yes, Lord, may I help you?”

“If it please you, I’ve come to speak with Master Jorgen. Tell him I’ve come to iron out the last clauses in our contract of the sixteenth.”

“At once, Lord. Would you care to wait inside?”

“It is a bit chilly without.”

The woman took a step back from the door, and Renar stepped in. Erin followed quickly and caught a sharp, worried glance from the old woman before it melted into a tame smile.

She wandered away down the hall and around a comer as Renar deposited the pack. It hit the floor with an authoritative thud. “This is heavy!” he whispered.

“I offered to carry it.”

“If we have to do this again, I’ll most certainly take you up on the offer. Manners should not extend further than the limits of my back, after all.”

Erin smiled.

“You know, Erin dear, you look like a cat when you do that.”

She opened her mouth to reply, and the serving woman reappeared.

“Master Jorgen will see you now, sir.”

“Ah. Very good, then.”

“I’ll lead the way.”

Renar nodded again and began to follow the woman down the hall and around the comer. Erin noted that the walls were not so plain as the outside of the house; little flashes of color caught her eyes as she walked by paintings, a portrait or two, and a large oval mirror.

For an elderly woman, the servant walked briskly; almost too much so. There was a nervous gait to her steps and a tension in the slope of her shoulders. Still, away from the streets and the press of buildings, Erin felt comfortable here; there was a sense of home about it.

“Just beyond the doors, Lord.”

“Thank you, uh—”

“Clora.” The woman curtsied.

Renar opened the door.

Erin saw a face framed by the comer his neck and shoulder made. The man was about Renar’s age, his eyes the type of blue that often turns by a trick of the light, and his hair was light-colored and closely cropped. He stood taller than the prince. Most men did.

The smile that touched the stranger’s face said many things at once: relief, recognition, surprise—friendship. Erin stepped a little to one side to get a better view of him. She wasn’t sure where he and Renar had come to know each other, for this man didn’t have the look of the nobility. All that he wore was eminently practical, and his hands had a callused look of labor about them, just as hers once had.

She smiled as her movement caught his eye, and he returned the smile. She liked him.

“Renar,” he said, and held out a hand.

Renar took it and shook it warmly. “Kaarel. I always told you,” he said, “that your years of antimonarchist press would bring you to a sorry end.”

Kaarel’s smile didn’t falter. “It isn’t over yet.”

“The
Leaflet
was destroyed in the riot.”

“The press was.”

“Is Ruth—”

“Clora’s been sent to fetch her. I thought—Clora’s description was very good.” It took Erin a moment to realize that the peculiar expression Kaarel suddenly adopted was in imitation of Renar.

Renar’s laughter told her that it hadn’t taken him that long. He smiled. “You don’t look much different.”

“Five years, Renar, more or less. Did you think I’d be bald?”

“And fat.” He shook his head. “And bitter. You’re right, old friend. The
Leaflet’
s still alive.” He took a step forward, held out his arms, and stopped when the door burst open.

A small woman walked into the room. She bounced in, really, for her feet, which were as diminutive as the rest of her, hardly seemed to touch the ground at all. There were lines around her eyes and lines that ringed her mouth, but even these seemed youthful, caught as they were by a brilliant smile.

He had barely enough time to turn, but his arms, already outstretched, caught her full weight and lifted her off the ground as her own arms wrapped themselves around his neck.

“Ruth.” The word was quiet. Erin lost sight of Renar’s eyes for a moment as he bowed his head. When he raised it again, his eyes were filmed slightly, and the smile on his face was one she had never seen there.

“Careful, Renar. It took a lot of work to find that wife. You can find your own if you want one.”

Ruth laughed. It was a high sound, a young one. And it was out of place in Dagothrin. “A lot of work on whose part?”

Out of place?
Erin thought, as Renar’s smile grew mischievous. He looked younger, less grim. Her own lips turned slightly in a half smile, like an echo from some other time.

She shook her head, hearing the sounds of a sudden shriek of laughter.

She remembered Telvar’s reply.
Erin, you, myself, your mother, the Grandfather—we aren’t human. Not in the way you mean. We can’t afford to be frivolous; can’t afford to let our guard down when the price is more than just our own lives. When the war is over, maybe then.

Telvar was lost to the war, lost centuries ago. Erin hoped that across the Bridge, he had found the time that they had fought for.

But she looked at Renar as he flirted—flirted!—with Kaarel’s wife. She watched the way Ruth’s eyes rolled as she played at straightening out his collar. And she caught the look of mock anger that lined Kaarel’s brow.

She wanted to join them. The sword at her side, hard and cold, felt suddenly out of place. They continued to talk, forgetting her for the moment, and forgetting the war that had brought them here.

This was what Renar needed. He was her ally, he was no less determined to have an end here than she, and no less committed—but he needed a reminder that all had not been destroyed. Or did he? Maybe it was only a ghost of her own sudden longing, a desire to be part of their warmth.

But blood separated them. The blood of the Lady. The blood of the Light.

But how different? Erin moved away to rest against a wall and watch, to absorb the warmth here, even if it wasn’t directly offered to her.

Renar shook his head.

“... still the most beautiful woman in the world.”

Ruth was blushing.

“Except, maybe, for little Kayly. But I suppose she isn’t all that little anymore. Where is she, Ruth?”

Everything froze as the words left Renar’s lips.

Kaarel’s head went down quietly, the light of his blue eyes shut out by trembling lids.

Ruth looked down at her hands as they rested, suddenly, against the fabric of her stilling skirt.

Last, Renar’s eyes closed. Tight, this time. The smile was gone from his face, its lines melting into a more familiar sorrow and weight.

Ruth tried to smile. But her eyes were more red now than brown.

“It wasn’t the war, Renar,” she said in a rush, said to take some of the guilt from his face, even if it couldn’t extract the pain. Even now, caught in pain of her own, she offered this. Erin didn’t know how she spoke, but the rest of her words wouldn’t come. Her bond-mate spoke quietly, to fill the heavy silence with explanation.

“We all survived the first and second ‘riots.’ When the troops came in and gutted Serry block, a few of us had had prior warning.”

Renar looked at Kaarel.

“Kayly was with us. She was fine, then. But wintering was hard. At the beginning, no family, even the sympathetic, could aid us. There was too much caution on the part of the new government and the Church.

“We survived, but Kayly—” Kaarel looked away for a moment, his voice catching. “The winter was very hard.”

They stood in silence.

Erin moved, then. Even if pain hadn’t called her, she would have done so. The few minutes of laughter, the moments of joy and friendship, had left their lingering warmth. And it was suddenly important to her that they not die completely. Bringing back that warmth seemed more important than the fear of being an unwanted interference, more important than the feeling that she didn’t belong here.

She walked past Renar to Ruth and caught shoulders that trembled. Her lips started to move, but the words, too awkward, wouldn’t come.

Instead, she let her power flow outward in a warm, wide band. Light touched them both.

Ruth surrendered her tears.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I—It’s been years, and we don’t blame you, Renar. It wasn’t your fault. I just—”

Erin continued to hold her. Seeing, through the light, the release of pain.

“She—” Her chin tilted upward, her eyes finding the ceiling. “She asked about you. She wanted to know when you were coming back.” Her teeth found her lip.

The light kept glowing.

“We tried to explain, but she never really understood it. She was certain you were—you were coming.” She tried to laugh, even though it caught in her throat. “And she was right. She
would have been impossible when she found out how right she was.” Then she looked at Erin.

Erin let her go, giving her shoulders a little squeeze that she hoped conveyed what she was afraid to say.

Ruth stood alone as the light faded.

No,
Erin thought.
We aren’t so different.
The blood that was barrier could also be bridge.

She looked up at Renar and found he was staring at her.

There was no light here but that of lamps and eyes; no sounds
but breath drawn into lungs not yet tested. Renar wore his silence like a bruise as he looked at the diminutive woman who circled the ground, confined by some invisible pattern that only she could see on the drill room’s plain floor.

Ruth lingered in his vision, a ghost beside Erin, and, like her, deceptively small. He compared the two: necessary warmth against tempering flame. He had seen Erin, had known what she was capable of—had he not felt it himself?—yet he had never thought she could be of aid to Ruth, or to any mother, wife, or woman who was not a warrior in the traditional sense.

“Thank you.”

Erin looked down at the wooden sword in her hands. “You won’t after we’ve finished here.”

“Won’t? Ah. Thank you, you mean.” He picked up his own practice blade in the silence. “Getting a little arrogant, aren’t you? It’s considered a serious character flaw in these parts, Lady—but I shall do my utmost to correct it.”

Erin laughed, the sound coming from the back of her throat. “Shall we stop the chatter?”

Renar lunged.

 

“Darin, you aren’t paying enough attention.”

Darin sighed, and turned to face Trethar.

“How often must I tell you that this is important? You
must
be able to concentrate. And you must be able to control.” Trethar, looking at least as tired as his student, ran his forearm
across his cheek. “Your life, and the lives of those around you, will depend on it. Trust me.”

Darin nodded automatically. He didn’t bother to tell Trethar that he felt too numb to open even the tiniest of gates. He’d already tried it five times, and if it hadn’t worked for any one of them, it wouldn’t work now.

“Fire is the easiest of the gates to open—but it is not the only one. We learn a new one, while we have time.”

A nod again.

“Try once more. Look at the quill.”

Every line of that damned quill was completely familiar.

“Now. Close your eyes, but remember the feel of it. You’ve almost got the gate; I want to feel you open it and lift the quill.”

Obediently, Darin closed his eyes, leaning slightly against the warmth of Trethar’s palms as they rested their tendrils of magic against his shoulders.