Risen (27 page)

“Your son?” Velecent had laughed.
“Risen? You think your brother is…” but then he caught himself
short. “Of course,” Velecent murmured, dropping his eyes beneath
his brown locks, never to approach the subject again.

All, including Velecent, had heard
tale of an earlier time, of years before when a mercenary and a
giant had come to the castle—bodyguards for the despot ruler,
Adorno. And all had surely wondered about the giant, what had
become of him, his friend. But such things were nearly impossible
to speak of with Ravan. He preferred his past to remain private on
many fronts and guarded it like so many lost shrines.

And, of course, over time most had
heard of the twin, the priest who sacrificed himself for his
brother. Perhaps Velecent wondered curiously of this brother of
Ravan’s, the one who’d died and, Ravan believed, been born again in
his son. It was no secret that Risen was the veritable image of his
father, and Ravan was a twin. But his son was his own! Surely he
recognized this?

Velecent peered off into the
darkening forest. “So we ride?” he offered
apologetically.

“Yes, we ride.” Ravan swung back
onto his steed, and off he and his band of men set into the
creeping dusk. After a good, long while, the mercenary pulled up
and sighed. His heart was heavy. He was having difficulty keeping
fruitless worry at bay. Also, he’d sent word to Nicolette that he
was leaving but hadn’t been able to tell her goodbye. Who knew for
how long he would be gone?

It didn’t matter, really, for he had
no choice. It was simply what he must do, and logically he knew
that Nicolette would understand. The terrible battle was already
won, and his legion would make certain that his bride and domain
were kept safe until his return. Of that he had no worry. Even so,
it’d been a long while since he’d not slept next to her.

It bothered him a greatly that their
progress following Risen was so slow. He tried to push the
torment—the unreasonable bite of impending panic—from his mind and
focus on tracking his son. This he was superbly designed for,
calculating losses and wins, deciding strategic advantage and what
should be done next, casting emotion aside, and getting to the task
at hand. He was suited poorly for it now, however, for he’d lost
his son. There was little reason in the wolf that threatened to
crawl up his back and into his mind, devouring his thoughts
completely.

Deeper into the woods the group
rode, weaving and backtracking. Ravan would track, misplace the
trail, and re-find it, sometimes at a crawling walk. All the while,
the rain came down, erasing in increments the very thread that
connected him to Risen and Sylvie. To make things worse, when he
could see the tracks clearly, the band of men who’d taken them was
not walking tediously along as he was; they were moving along at a
faster clip, farther and farther from their terrible defeat. The
distance between them was widening. Ravan and his men were losing
ground in hours, and he knew it.

When nightfall forbade them to
track, they stopped and camped. Before long a modest fire crackled
beneath the broad expanse of a sheltering tree as the small troop
of men tacked down the horses and set up the night’s patrol. Ravan
would be up before dawn, his men up with him, prepared and ready to
pick up the trail. Tonight, they would sleep, but he would
not.

It’d been a long time since he’d
been on a campaign such as this, but the movement of the forest and
the tide of the life within it were as familiar to him as it’d ever
been. Reclined by the fire, his mind, ears, and soul took in the
midnight expanse around him. He was wordless for a span, and his
men left him to his silence, accustomed to their leader and his
taciturn ways.

“The horses are fed; the men have
sorted out the night watch.” Velecent took a heavy seat onto the
ground next to the mercenary. He glanced back and forth between his
friend and the fire. When Ravan remained silent, he added, “We’ll
find him, Ravan. I promise.”

The firelight danced off the dark
profile of the mercenary, his face grim. “We don’t know that. That
is not a promise you can make.”

Velecent brushed the comment aside.
“No one tracks better than you. We’ll find him. We’ve done
everything as we should. It is simply a matter of time.”

“If we lose the trail,” Ravan
tossed the branch he’d been poking the fire with into the flames,
“our chase will run cold. That is the truth of it.” Then as an
afterthought, “And we do not have Nicolette’s intuition to guide
us.” He looked up at his friend, sorrowful terror in his
eyes.

“Hmm…I must agree on that one. Your
bride is a weapon I’d prefer not to go up against. It would be good
to have her on our side.”

Ravan was then silent in his
thoughts. It might appear that he was reclined, perfectly relaxed
by the fire, but nothing was farther from the truth. His mind was
afflicted with a chaos none could see.

It disturbed him more than he would
admit that Nicolette was not there. He was increasingly aware how
much she could offer to the search, and he regretted that he’d not
gone to get her first. Most critically, she would be able to, with
her keen awareness, sense Risen’s presence altogether. He had no
doubt that, given the precise moment, Nicolette would also know if
his son was…gone. Ravan frowned. It disturbed him that he doubted
he would feel it, would feel a moment as significant as the death
of his son.

Recalling that distant morning,
twelve years before, he tried to remember what he’d felt when his
brother died, when he lent a dreadful hand in the final destiny of
his twin. Had he sensed it—the slipping of D’ata’s soul from this
world to another? He certainly experienced grief, had barely held
it together enough to convince the gravedigger that he was a
surgeon in priest’s clothes, come for the corpse. His voice had
scarcely held as he paid the man, and when he lifted the body of
his brother and placed him carefully across the horse, he hid tears
from anyone who might notice. But had he known, sensed the absence
of him? Felt him slip from this world to the next?

These thoughts pressed him further.
He wondered if he’d felt his twin brother all along, his whole
life? There was always that something missing that he never
identified, that vacancy with a pressing urgency to fill. It’d all
been so oddly vague until the night his brother had come for him,
then…it disappeared.

Could that have been what his soul
missed? Ravan ruminated on this thought for some time. It gave him
a small amount of comfort tonight, for he decided that it was.
D’ata’s presence in the dungeon had fulfilled something, something
he’d not been able to mark until that moment—a loss—the absence of
his twin.

He sighed softly. Yes, then. He’d
sensed his brother’s presence, and surely a child would be just
like that. Surely he would feel the absence of the soul of his son,
should he be gone. And, at least for now…he did not.

Velecent remained quiet, evidently
content to simply remain by his master’s side, a physical pillar of
emotional strength should his friend need it. That was a good
thing, Ravan decided, and the brief memory of one named LanCoste
flitted across his mind.

CHAPTER
NINETEEN

†

Moira tapped on her mistress’s
door.

“Come.”

Pushing the massive door barely
open, the maiden peeked inside. Nicolette was seated near the
window, her hand resting on the sill ledge. She did not turn around
to see who was there.

“My Lady, I have what you
requested.”

“All of it?” Nicolette’s gaze
remained fixed upon the fading evening light outside.

“Yes, all of it. As you
wished.”

This seemed to surprise Nicolette,
and she turned slightly so that she could see Moira.

Motioning for the woman to enter and
close the door behind her, she asked softly, “You engaged Moulin
with the task?”

“I did, my Lady. He was pleased to
help.”

“And…” Nicolette let the question
dangle.

“He will keep everything secret—is
sworn by me to do so.”

The dark woman seated at the window
only nodded. “Good. Then we must begin straightaway.”

“What is it you require?” Moira
asked with acute sincerity, her hand clasped desperately to the
stump in front of her. “Anything…anything at all.”

Nicolette’s eyebrow rose as though
in mild surprise. “Let us hope that is not necessary.” Before Moira
could ponder the unusual response at length, Nicolette added,
“Please take everything to my study, the one on the North Castle
grounds. That is where I prefer to work.”

Nicolette’s study was really a small
cottage, one that Nicolette had reserved for herself for “reading
and such.” She’d forbidden any to disturb her there, and all—even
Ravan—respected her wishes.

Risen and Tobias had, on at least
one occasion, tried to spy through one of the tiny windows but had
been met by Nicolette when she exited the other side, walked around
the small building, and taken them quite by surprise. She rebuked
and shooed them away, and they never again intruded on her privacy.
Once, however, Moira had seen Nicolette walk to the study with
Niveus, holding her hand. Only once.

“And I wish there to be a fire
built on the hearth. Have Moulin accompany you, and let me know
when all is ready.” She indicated the door as though she wished for
Moira to leave.

“Yes, my Lady.”

Moira had an uneasiness in her
stomach. She bowed out of her mistress’s chamber and went to find
Moulin, nodding politely to the chamber guard as she left.
Ordinarily, Moulin would be standing there, but with the pressing
urgency of matters at hand, his presence was required
elsewhere.

Moira’s mood darkened as she
trotted, skirts in hand, down the hall. It seemed, with Risen
missing, that Nicolette was unusually calm and too willing to take
time for preparedness. Shouldn’t they be hurrying as fast as they
could to accomplish…what?

She passed Niveus’ guarded door and
paused. Within, the child was standing in place and spinning, arms
up in the air, humming sweetly to herself. Moira would have
stopped, would have distracted Niveus from this distant place that
seemed to beckon to this extraordinary child, to take her away,
except that she had no time.

“See that she is covered when she
falls asleep,” she instructed the guard, and he nodded that he
would.

Biting her lip, she took the stairs
almost too recklessly, bursting onto the landing where she ran
nearly smack into Moulin. He had the sacks of items. Moira
whispered something into his ear, and he shot her an urgent glance.
Off to the cottage the two hurried.

* * *

Having not been in the cottage since
Nicolette first claimed it as her own, Moulin paused at the door.
It wasn’t locked. There was no need for that. He’d once asked her
if she required attendance within, and she’d declined, explaining
that she would tend to anything there herself. Consequently, no one
ever dared invade the privacy of their lady. Now, it just seemed
wrong that they were entering without her, and he was uncomfortable
with his task.

Pushing the door open, the two of
them filed in. The small room was just that, a single room with a
modest table and chair and a large, cushioned chaise in the corner
by the window. She had the window put in where it had been a simple
shutter before. Evidently it was here that she liked to sit, and
she could look out if she wished.

Next to the chaise was a small night
table, and upon it were the remains of scores of burnt candles,
each one having dripped and run to the floor in independent fashion
as they spent their patient lives in the presence of Nicolette.
Over time, there had developed a small mountain of wax drippings
beneath the table, some of them having run across the imperfect
slope of the floor like tiny molten rivers. In the growing darkness
of the cottage, it appeared as so many white veins on the dark
floor. It was an unusual phenomenon and, in a starkly dead way,
quite beautiful.

Both Moira and Moulin gazed about
the small cottage. It was as though they were looking at her
nakedness—that is what Moulin thought. This was Nicolette’s room,
and it was veritably alive with the electricity of her.

On the arm of the chaise was a book,
open and laying across the soft velvet brocade to mark its place.
They could not know that this particular book was very rare, one of
a kind, really. Truthfully, all books were rare, but this was one
of the most rare of all, black all over and without a single mark
on it. Everything within was written…in Nicolette’s
hand.

Moulin wondered silently what words
his mistress read, not realizing that she did not read the book at
all. Nicolette had over time scratched within its pages the secrets
that only her heart and mind had discovered. He and Moira would
have been startled had they known that, sometimes, she scribbled
even as she slept, reclined in the chaise, her hand reaching for
the quill pen and ink perched within the rivulets of table
wax.

Most astonishing of all was that it
was the only book here. This surprised Moulin greatly as he assumed
her study would be filled with stacks of volumes. True, the
library—the same one that Risen had so brilliantly extricated
himself from—held the substance of the Dynasty’s books. Even so, he
thought there would be personal favorites of hers to be found here.
And there was…only the one.