Sons of the Falcon (The Falcons Saga) (41 page)

“I need to blink,” Carah said, her
eyes stinging, “but I’m afraid I’ll lose it.”

Rhian chuckled. “Blink, but keep
focusing with your mind.”

She tried it, blinking in the
exaggerated manner of the newly skilled. When the lights still burned steadily
against the night sky, she whirled and laughed, pointed out the sentries
glowing in far towers and leaned through the crenels to count the lights of the
tradesmen drifting about their campfires. How dull they were, compared to
Rhian’s and her own, like fading embers.

A headache throbbed at the base of
her skull and reached aching fingers toward her temples. She had never been
more delighted with pain. As much as she wanted to hold onto the lights
forever, she decided she better let them go before the headache got any worse.
At supper she would try again. What better way to inform Uncle Thorn about her
success than telling him over roast capon that his azeth was beautiful?

Like releasing delicate petals into
the wind, Carah released the buzzing. Big mistake. The headache slammed through
her skull as if someone beat her head with a stone. She doubled over, wrapped
her head in her hands, and staggered. Rhian caught her before she struck the
crenels. “Here, sit here.” He lowered her down against the wall.

“Explode. Going to explode,” she cried
through her teeth.

“I shoulda warned you that’d happen.
First time is always the worst.”

Carah had heard the same thing
applied to other “firsts.” The thought, thinking at all, pushed her over the
edge. She whirled aside and vomited all over the stone floor. Rhian’s fingers
scraped her hair from the cold sweat on her neck and held it out of the way.
Carah hurt too badly to be embarrassed. When the nausea passed, she pressed
herself against the wall and laid her forehead on her knees.

 “Stay here,” Rhian said. “Don’t
move. I’ll be back.”

Don’t tell Uncle Thorn. I want
to tell him
, she wanted to say but hadn’t the strength.

Rhian’s footsteps hurried away. She
didn’t know how long he was gone. She might’ve even slept, relishing the feel
of the cold stone against her body. It eased the pain in her head and the
turning in her belly. Rhian was suddenly there again, crouching beside her.
“Drink.” He put a cup to her lips. Carah smelled minty silverthorn, tasted its
bitterness on the back of her tongue. A strong solution, it seeped fast through
her veins. “Wine.” He pressed a full bottle into her hands. She sloshed a
mouthful, spit out the taste of vomit and medicine, then took a long, desperate
swallow.

“Now for Silent Speech,” she
croaked.

“Don’t press yourself.”

“I’m out of time. Maybe my uncle
will take me halfway to Bramoran.”

He chuckled at the quip. “If he doesn’t,
I will. Whatever good it will do you. But Veil Sight is the important thing
anyway. You’ll be able to see anything coming at you now.”

“All I need is bolts of fire from
my hands.”

 “In time. Come, m’ lady, let’s get
you inside.” He hoisted her to her feet, guided her to the wallwalk. The view
down into the garden made her reel. She dropped the wine bottle. It bounced a
couple of steps, then shattered. She’d always been enamored of heights, but not
tonight.

“No, I have to stay here. Sleep
here.”
Please don’t get sick again. Please don’t get sick again
.

Rhian wrapped her arm around his
neck and his arm under her knees and carried her down. The stair was so narrow
that they had to go sideways. “Now, what would I tell Dathiel if you caught
your death out here? It’s me he’d blame, and sure I don’t like being on the
receiving end of his temper.”

“I’m not a swooner. It’s silly.”

“I fainted that first time, and I’m
not ashamed to admit it.”

Carah thought he’d set her down at
the bottom of the wallwalk, but he didn’t. He whisked her along the gravel
path, under the vine-strewn arbor, and into the keep. She remembered the
conversation she’d had with her father and smiled. She finally made it into the
saddle of that great intimidating beast, and who should provide the stepping
stool but a pearl fisher?

~~~~

H
e hadn’t wanted to set her
down, but the nearest parlor provided no more excuses. The grip of her arm lingered
on the back of his neck and the stirring of her breath on his cheek. Forath’s
gloomy red light spilled through his window, onto his face. He’d not bothered
lighting his lamps. When the supper bell rang, he remained on the window seat,
hugging a knee to his chest. Carah probably hurt too badly to join her family
at table, and the idea of facing them all, Dathiel especially, didn’t sit well
with him. He needed time to compose himself.

The moment he first saw her run
into the courtyard, before she flew into a rage over his being Dathiel’s
apprentice, Rhian knew the course of his life was changed forever. He couldn’t
have said how, and later when she behaved so hatefully toward him, he tried his
damnedest to deny the feeling.

A large part of being a talented
bar brawler is being a good bluffer, looking bigger and meaner and happier
about beating someone’s head in than the other bloke. Usually, the others
backed down before it came to a fight. Carah didn’t understand those rules; she
fought tooth and nail and believed him when he said he resented watching her
back. In truth, he would walk a thousand walls for a thousand years if it meant
Carah knew neither threat nor danger.

He was a talented bluffer, all
right. Accept to himself. Night and day she was ever on his mind. How carefully
he had to guard his thoughts whenever Dathiel came around. Rhian had shaped a
tidy little box where he put his thoughts of her, and at times he was able to
lock it up tight. He knew some peace of mind then, and was able to convince
himself that his secret obsession was nothing so shallow as infatuation and
nothing as detrimental as love. Good Goddess, spare him.

But tonight, it was all he could do
to keep that box locked up, to keep his thoughts from flooding freely out of
his head and into hers. He shouldn’t have offered to help. He should’ve kept
his hands shoved inside his sleeves and walked on down the wall.

How determined she was. If Carah
learned to focus that willpower in the right direction, she’d be a force to
reckon with.

“And what are you smiling about, my
pearl?” Zephyr’s soft white light pushed back the darkness.

Rhian drew himself up, turned from
the window and planted both feet on the floor. “I wasn’t smiling.”

“Ach, it’s blind now you think I
am.”

The fairy didn’t often mimic his
accent and speech patterns. “Don’t mock me, Zephyr, not you. I’m nothing, and
I’ve never felt it more keenly than right now.”

The white glistening wings drooped,
and his guardian settled on the cushion next to him. “You mustn’t think of
yourself so. You are my pearl.”

Rhian pushed himself to his feet
and lit a lamp. “Aye, to you I’m something worthy of regard. But to them?” He
flung boots and cloaks and pillows into an armoire, repositioned the armchairs
before the hearth, desperate for anything to keep his hands busy. No, that
didn’t look right either. He dealt the leg of the chair a kick. There, that was
better.

“So this is a tantrum against
place, is it?”

Tantrum? He couldn’t remember the
last time he’d thrown a tantrum. What had happened to his careful equilibrium? When
his rage in the Castaway’s Inn had nearly gotten him hanged, he learned to rein
in his passions, first out of fear that he might hurt someone again, later out
of habit. In the early days under Thorn’s tutelage, Rhian meditated for hours,
holding a flame over each palm, finding balance through the path of extreme
focus. The discipline lent him the confidence of absolute control. Over his
thoughts, his emotions, his surroundings. Even while fighting ogres, dodging
their rusted blades and gore-fouled claws, he exercised unnatural calm. He was
as measured and deliberate as the tide, while Thorn seemed to become a raging
wildfire, emotion fueling his attacks.

If Rhian’s composure had shattered,
it was Carah’s doing.

“I don’t
have
a place,
Zephyr. Neither pearl beds nor castles.”

“Ah, but you do, and if you are
willing, the Mother-Father herself will put you in it.”

“What if I don’t like the place she
puts me in? What if she sends me right back to the sands of Rávalin?”

“What if she does? You will have
served some purpose here, at this particular time. And selfish ambitions are not
yours, my pearl.”

“Ogre shit! Else I’d still be
swimming for Sea Bones and caring less that I was underpaid.” He fell into the
armchair, smashed his forehead into his palms. “My greatest fear is going back
to Sandy Cape where I’ll rot, useless, unappreciated. Nameless bones under windblown
sand. No man wants that. I send silver back to my mother, isn’t that enough?”

Zephyr nudged his cheek, like a cat
demanding attention. A cat made of soft summer breezes. Her insubstantial body
flowed under his chin, forcing him to look up at her. “There, there, my pearl,
enough self-pity. If you return to Rávalin, it will be by your own choice.”

How desperately he needed to
believe that. He often felt as if he remained only one step ahead of his true
destiny, a destiny that damned him to a slow death in the sands. But if he had
the choice to return, he need never return at all.

“What of Elliona?”

Zephyr might as well have pricked
him with a needle. Rhian cringed. She had crossed his mind tonight as he gazed
west. The sunset always made him think of her, golden and violet, but memory of
her paled with Carah standing so near. One of the newer members of the
Dranithion Rhithiel, the Guardians of the Western Wood, Elliona was the captain’s
niece and the Elari who had volunteered to teach him the Elaran language while
Thorn was busy protecting his untrained backside. When the sun fell on her
golden hair, the light set loose flashes of copper, hinting at a human in her ancestry,
but her eyes were lavender-gray, and she hadn’t been his tutor for long before she
began looking on him with favor.

“What about her?” he asked flatly.

“Ach, now it’s daft you think I am.
My pearl does not have tantrums unless his place forbids him something fine. I
was there tonight, remember. I saw how you held her hand to your chest and how
you looked on her while her eyes were closed.”

“Enough. Elliona is a hundred and
thirty years wise. I think she’s above petty jealousies, and jealousy is
pointless anyway. An Elari can have whoever she likes, even a pearl fisher who
can barely read and write, but a lady is reserved for the bed of princes. Keep
your judgments to yourself, fay. I know my place.”

~~~~

T
he headache lingered, a
dull throb, well into the next morning. Esmi finally woke her by clinking cutlery
on the silver breakfast tray and setting aside the silver lids. The aroma
billowed from the dishes, dragging Carah’s eyes open. With a groan, she checked
to make sure the basin was within arm’s reach and risked sitting up.

Her handmaid took one look at her
bedraggled and pale mistress and tsked. “Feeling stronger, m’ lady?”

“Doesn’t matter. Too much to do.
What time is it?” Gray, gloomy twilight cloaked the windows and darkened the
room. Rain had swept in again during the night. For all she could tell, it
might be dawn or midday.

“The ninth hour. You must be
famished—”

“Ninth! I’m late. They’ll be in the
library already.” She flung back the covers and stumbled to her dressing room. The
snug brown riding leathers would do for today. They reminded her of Uncle
Thorn’s. Besides, if she vomited again, she was like to burst her dress stays.

“You really must eat, m’ lady.”
Esmi shoved a saucer into her hands and stood guard while Carah forced down
buttered toast and a cup of tea. Her stomach felt better afterward.

“Silverthorn, Esmi, that’s all I’ll
need. Bring it to the library with the tea, will you?” She rushed out the door,
tugging on her riding boots in the corridor. As she expected, Jaedren occupied
the writing table. Uncle Thorn stood high on a ladder, searching for one book
or another. “Good morning, beautiful azethion,” she said, interrupting their silent
conversation. “How bright and starlike you both are. Why, Uncle Thorn, your
azeth is all gold and fiery, and Jaedren, yours is a white so pure it’s almost
blue.” Carah laughed, delighted at the sight of them.

With a crooked grin, Jaedren
watched her flit across the library to the window. Thorn climbed down the
ladder, eyes wide in genuine astonishment. “You’re not faking it?”

Carah propped her fists on her
hips. “How could I fake knowing the colors?”

“Jaedren might have told you.”

“I never—!” the boy cried.

“How many fairies are in the room?”

Carah glanced about the library,
expecting to see Saffron and Aster and maybe many more. She frowned. “None.
Where are they?”

Her uncle sagged, almost managing
to look ashamed for doubting her word. “I sent them to scout the Highway—for
your
father’s
departure tomorrow. When you hadn’t joined us at the usual hour, I
figured you’d given up, but Rhian told me you were … ill? A fine euphemism for
learning Veil Sight.”

Rhian hadn’t spoiled her surprise,
after all. “I threw up. It was humiliating. Rhian said he fainted. Did you?”

“Like a goat. Passed out at
Zellel’s feet. Thought the pain was going to kill me.”

“Why didn’t I faint?” Jaedren
sounded disappointed, as if he’d been cheated.

Thorn shrugged. “Maybe we should
start training avedrin at a younger age, eh?” If Carah thought her uncle would
gush with adulation, she was painfully mistaken. “So Rhian disobeyed my orders
and helped you, did he?”