Sons of the Falcon (The Falcons Saga) (24 page)

She perked up, but only barely. This was
the first question he’d asked her all evening. She shrugged. “I don’t remember.
It was a long time ago.”

“It couldn’t have been that long. You’re
not too terribly old. Let me guess. Twenty-three.”

“Oh, Highness.” She shook her head like
she was disappointed in him.

“I know I’m not supposed to ask a lady
her age, but we’re friends—”

“Have you not observed? Have you not
seen what I am? Or do you not let yourself see?” She tucked her heavy hair
behind an ear, and for the first time Valryk saw the pointed shape of it. He
added it to the glow of her skin, her unnatural height and grace.

He scooted away from her, climbed to his
knees. “You mean … you really are an elf? But they—”

“We prefer the term ‘Elari.’ It means
‘wanderer.’ Are you really going to be afraid of me after all these weeks?”

Yes, Valryk had been deathly afraid. He
remembered his heart hammering so hard in his throat that he could barely
swallow. “Is it true, what they say about you?”

Lasharia’s eyes narrowed. “What do
they
say?”

He edged farther away, gained his feet,
measured the distance to the door. “That elves worked spells to make our
soldiers cut their own throats. That elves burned hundreds of human villages
and took no prisoners. Old men, women, and children, elves killed them all.”

Lasharia glanced down at her hands
folded in her lap. “There were atrocities on both sides, Highness. I was there,
a new recruit. There is no time for the luxury of music when one’s people are
dying. One fights. It wasn’t long before the humans stopped taking prisoners,
too. I saw Elaran babies with their brains bashed out, their mothers cut down
beside them. I saw hundreds of my kin staked high on poles lining the roads. A
warning and a boast miles long. Some of my brethren were still alive when we
found them. We put arrows in them to end their misery.” Her eyes met his. “Yes,
I’m sure that much of what you’ve read is true. But apply the same to your own
kind as well, and you’ll have a truer tale still.” With a sorrowful sigh, she
picked herself off the rug and turned to gaze into the fire. “Your side won the
victory in any case, and my people have been in hiding for nearly a thousand
years.”

Shaking, near tears, Valryk asked, “How
can you call me your friend? Why are you so nice to me?”

Her smile was a sad one. “Because that
was an age ago. And things change.
You
might help them change one day
for the better. Then my people need not hide like worms under rocks.”

What would such a world be like, elves
and humans living in harmony together? Valryk hadn’t an imagination big enough
to envision it. “How many of you are there?”

Lasharia started to answer, but a
shuffle and a voice outside his chamber door alerted them. Valryk ran to
intercept the intruder, and Lasharia fled toward the dressing room. “Not
there!” he hissed. She dropped and rolled under his bed just as the door
opened.

“Good, you’re still up,” Mother said. “A
belated birthday present, from Eliad. Isn’t that nice?”

Valryk took the small box, but his eyes
clung to the glowing white hem of Lasharia’s gown trailing out from under the
bedclothes.

“Open it.”

Lifting the lid, he found a note and a
fine silver ring inlaid with a what looked like a polished yellow stone. Mother
read the note aloud for him: “For my prince and my brother, in celebration of
his thirteenth birthday and his first hunt. May the tooth of your quarry bring
you good luck. We’ll get ‘em next year.”

“An elk’s tooth,” Mother said, peering
close. “It makes a fine gem, doesn’t it?”

Eliad, it turned out, was
forward-thinking, unlike Father who sent saddles already too small. The ring
was made large and fit different fingers as Valryk grew. He wore it still.

After that close call, Lasharia urged
him to find a place where they wouldn’t be bothered by unexpected visitors. He
had searched and searched, found plenty of unused pantries and basement
crawlspaces, but none that befitted Lasharia’s loftiness and beauty. Weeks of
loneliness passed before he heard a rumor that the North Tower, where political
prisoners were kept, was to be closed. The number of prisoners occupying the tower
at one time rarely exceeded a dozen, when whole families were incarcerated
there. Two hundred years ago, some lesser lord led a rebellion against an evil
king and the Tower supposedly overflowed. But that was before Tallon the
Unifier came along and made everybody happy. A smaller, more cheaply managed
house was to be converted into the new prison.

“What’s Father going to do with the prison
tower?” Valryk asked his mother.

Briéllyn shrugged, preoccupied with one
task or another. “Turn it into storage or barracks, likely, if it’s not torn
down. I’m sure he would like another garden to stroll in.”

“Isn’t that where the ghost lives?” He
regretted asking as soon as Mother looked at him. Grief and anger stormed in
her green eyes. “There’s no such thing. Many disturbed, angry people lived out
their last days there, so of course it must be filled with tortured souls.
Don’t believe the superstitions of the common people, son. It’s foolishness.”

But hadn’t Mother herself believed that
the madwoman’s spirit haunted the tower? The gray cat or his progeny still
troubled the kitchen staff, stealing morsels and yowling at dark hours.

All the better for Valryk if the tower
wasn’t haunted. Until it was converted for further use, it would make the
perfect refuge for a prince and his Elaran friend.

Four years later, the North Tower
remained empty. The stink of mildew had seeped into the cells, the doors had
begun to rust on their hinges, and pigeons roosted in the rafters, but no one
dared venture into the place. As far as everyone else in Bramoran was
concerned, the tower remained haunted. Valryk had chosen one of the highest and
largest rooms, one with escape routes down two different stairwells. Little by
little, he’d purloined rugs and chairs and lamps for his retreat. He stocked it
with firewood and lamp oil, even books and clothes and bedding, because he often
slept there while waiting for Lasharia to answer his call. After a couple of
years it stopped feeling like a prison cell and took on the ambiance of a
proper parlor. Lasharia contributed to their nest’s comfort by lugging in a
copper bathtub. Valryk had tactfully made her understand that the dead-mouse
smell offended him, so he gifted her with bath oil and perfumes swiped from the
queen’s dressing rooms, much to the detriment of one maid or another who were
blamed for the thefts.

Water was a problem until they learned
where the pump was and how to use the service shaft. The prison guards hadn’t
been stupid; they weren’t about to haul food and water up seven flights of
stairs twice a day for criminals.

Valryk waited nearly an hour before
hauling himself from his pillows. He dug in his jewel box for the key to the
lock he’d had made and slipped away down the service stairs. Taking one tunnel
after another, he was hidden from sun, moon, and eye until he pushed open the
door to what used to be the main office used by the warden. By now he could
walk the route blind. Sometimes he didn’t bother bringing a lamp to light his
way.

Eager for company, he ran up the seven
flights of stairs and plied the key to the padlock, but found the room empty.
Disappointed, he poured himself a brandy at the wine service. He’d stocked it
with only the best, of course.

Despite the luxury of the furnishings,
the room felt hard and cold in the winter. The hour was still early enough for
a fire. He tossed a little kindling into the fireplace and struck a spark. He
had to be careful. Too much smoke rising from the chimney might catch the wrong
sentry’s attention.

If he and Lasharia met at night, they
risked no more than candlelight, even though the windows were high and narrow.
Thankfully the walls were thick and the room high enough that none heard her
music. He hoped she would bring her harp today. He needed the soothing notes of
her song.

He drained two tumblers and fell into a
sorry mood. She wasn’t coming. He needed her, and she wasn’t coming. What the
hell was keeping her?

About the time he’d given up hope and
was about to douse the fire, a clammy breeze stinking of blood and loud with
screams swept through the cell. Lasharia dived through the portal and turned
back still slashing with a blooded sword. Red-eyed, gray-green monsters closed
the gap behind her, turned to engage a bellowing enemy Valryk couldn’t see, and
the portal rumbled shut.

Lasharia stood in the middle of the room
wearing black armor dripping with blood. Blood stained her hair and smeared her
face. “Bad timing, Your Highness.”

“What’s happened? Who are you fighting?”

“Enemies, who else?” He’d never seen her
in anything but soft, flowing gowns. The edge in her eye and the steel in her
voice were alien to him.

“Let me help you! I can fight.”

“No, it’s our war.” She tugged a cloth
from inside her chest plate and slid the blade through it. The sword glistened
more like silver than steel. It sang a crystalline note as she slid it into the
scabbard.

“What were those creatures?”

“Our infantry. I’m not at liberty to say
more than that.”

“That’s unfair. I tell you everything.”

“I would tell you if I weren’t ordered
to silence. Would you have me disobey my captain’s orders?”

Valryk hated it when she reasoned with
him like a second mother. “But what war?”

Lasharia unbuckled the chest plate,
ducked out of it, and stretched her shoulders. “Oh, it’s been going on since
you were a baby, Highness, in deep holes where humans do not tread, so don’t
trouble yourself with it.”

“But—”

“Valryk, you
are
helping me.
Every time you summon me, every time we speak, you are helping me. Only if
we’re unlucky will you have to fight beside me. You don’t want that, not
really.” The stench of dead animals swirled around her like a noxious cloud;
her boots left smears of blood-tinged mud on the wooden floor. “Mind if I get
cleaned up?” She headed for the pump room in the center of the tower and heated
her own water in the cauldron over the fire. She was adept at living with only
the necessities. Came from being a soldier, Valryk supposed.

She disappeared behind the wooden screen
and swished around in the tub. Valryk poured himself another drink and examined
her armor. He’d never seen anything like it. So lightweight, and though it had
been bloodied in action, the metal was virtually unscarred. Harps and leafy
swirls were molded into the plate, and the black enamelwork was the best he’d
encountered.

She rejoined him wearing a fur-lined
dressing robe. It was too short for her in the sleeves and hem, but she made it
look beautiful. The scents of soap and sandalwood accompanied her. Sliding into
her armchair, she sighed. “A relief to be out of there. I told the captain the
passages were too narrow, but one does what one must.”

Valryk offered her a glass of brandy.
“Will your captain be angry that you abandoned him in the middle of a fight?”

She sipped, eyes closed. “He gave me
leave.”

In the middle of a shrieking, bloody
battle? “Things must’ve been going your way then.”

Her smile was almost sleepy. “Yes. It’s
been several days since we spoke, hasn’t it? Tell me your troubles, Highness.”

“My troubles seem small compared to
yours.”

“Nonsense. That was just a bit of
cleaning up, really. Talk to me.”

Groaning, he collapsed into the chair
opposite her. “I made an arse of myself today.”

Lasharia’s eyebrows darted up, and she
chuckled. “Oh? How so?”

He told her about the order he’d given
the garrison soldiers and what Kelyn did in response. “He said both honor and
dignity are more important than a man’s life. Do you think so?”

“Hnh, I didn’t think humans knew what
honor and dignity were. Interesting.”

“Of course, we do. That’s why his words
stung. Those men are a disgrace on their own. I was just showing them.”

“You did the right thing.”

“You think so?”

“Certainly. And it isn’t right for a
mere lord to upbraid you for it.”

Yes, she always made him feel better. “I
could blame the whole incident on my father in the first place. He overlooked
me again, and I got angry.”

Lasharia leaned forward, laid her
fingers lightly on the back of his hand. “The king needs you. For an heir. But
perhaps he
doesn’t
love you. So what? It’s no fault of yours, my
prince.”

For years Lasharia had encouraged him to
keep trying, earn his father’s love, but Valryk had come to her conclusion long
ago. He was wasting his time. “I told myself I wouldn’t let it bother me
anymore, but today, ugh, jealousy hit me upside the head. I took it out on
those slobs and I shouldn’t have, but Goddess! It’s Kelyn he loves, always
Kelyn. He knows he can get away with anything because my father will back him.
I can’t even complain to a higher authority about it. My mother will just say,
‘Get along with the War Commander. He’s a good teacher.’ Of course he is, but I
can’t stand it!
He
should’ve been my father’s son. I know that’s
Father’s wish, too.”