Where Light Meets Shadow (7 page)

“I think about it sometimes,”
Alban said. “Quite a lot, really. I think about everyone killed in that
war—Leas and Scathlan both—and how they wouldn’t have died if my parents hadn’t
fallen in love, or if my father kept his vow to your queen despite that love.
But then I wouldn’t have been born and, selfish as it is, I can’t wish that.”

With sudden, swift, painful
realization, Kieran knew that he couldn’t wish it either. But he also couldn’t
stop wishing the war had never happened, that his father hadn’t died, that his
mother hadn’t miscarried his baby brother in her shock, that she hadn’t died of
grief soon after. Couldn’t stop wishing that his people weren’t broken and that
his queen wasn’t lost in her own mind. So where did that leave him?

“I’m sorry,” Alban said. “I
shouldn’t have pushed you to play that song. But I thank you for sharing it.”

Kieran’s throat ached, and he
didn’t think he could sing or even speak. But he didn’t want to end the night
at the place they found themselves. So he put his hand to the harp strings and
played a sweet, wistful tune that made Alban smile, segueing into a powerful
improvisation on an old melody supposed to express the changing of the seasons.

#

Alban sat, transfixed, sensing a
power like the magic of healing, only different, and wilder. Kieran’s music
could move stone. Such depth to the bard, so easily forgotten when faced with
the brash, careless face he showed to the world.

If Alban had thought he knew the
bard’s skill before tonight, he had been mistaken. Tune merged into tune
without pause, until he wondered if the music would ever end or if they would
both be forever lost in it.

Then Kieran stilled the strings
with his hands and met Alban’s gaze, his eyes fey and bright. He smiled a
rapturous smile, which Alban returned.

“Thank you,” Kieran said.

“For?”

“Indulging me. You always listen
so quietly, and you never try to talk to me when I’m playing.”

“People do that?” Quite apart
from the rudeness of such an action, how could anyone interrupt such magic? It
would be like dropping an exquisite blown-glass goblet onto a stone floor and
watching it shatter.

“Only all the time. Pubs are the
worst. ‘Can you play louder?’ ‘Can you play softer?’ ‘Do you know
The White
Rose and the Briar
?’ I’ve even had the mother of the bride try to talk to
me when I played at a wedding. Of course, I must smile and nod and be gracious,
even while I want to garrote someone with my spare harp strings.”

The absolute exasperation in
Kieran’s voice made Alban chuckle. “That last piece, it was one of your
own?” 

Kieran nodded. “
Farewell to
Brona
.”

“Brona. You mentioned her before.
Your queen’s daughter?”

Kieran smiled wistfully. “And my
best friend. We were parentless children together, for all that she is not
technically an orphan.”

There had been a lot of emotion
in that piece for just a friend. Alban felt a stab of jealousy, irrational and
unworthy of either of them.   

“Did you love her?”

“Brona?” Kieran laughed. “She is
too far above me for that. Scathlan may honor bards but not enough to marry
them off to royalty.”

“I had forgotten how obsessed
your people are with position. But that doesn’t really answer the question.”

If Kieran were pining after a
Scathlan princess, it would do much to explain his bitterness toward love. It
would also give Alban one more reason to quash any feelings he had for the
bard, as though he didn’t have enough reasons already.

Kieran plucked a few strings on
his harp, and his face turned thoughtful. Whatever he said next would be
honest, and not one of his flippant bardic answers.

“I thought I loved her that way
once, when I was just growing into adulthood and starting to get an inkling of
all those things adults don’t discuss around children. I tried to imagine it,
you know how you do. But it just felt wrong, like having improper feelings for
a sister. I love Brona, but not in the sense you mean. I want her to be happy.

“The worse things get for our
people, the more pressure is put on her to do something to fix it. Though there
is little she can do while the queen remains as she is, neither dead nor alive.
Some of the queen’s advisors are pressuring Brona to marry, hoping that will
somehow help. But I wouldn’t wish that on her. When Brona marries, it should be
for love.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in
love,” Alban teased.

“For myself, no. But Brona is
different. You’d have to meet her to understand. I wish you could meet her, the
two of you would get along like a hand and a glove.”

Alban doubted it, even though his
resentment of the girl was irrational. He wondered if Kieran truly felt only a
sibling’s affection for her, or if he hid his true feelings even from himself.

“She deserves to live her life
for herself someday, without carrying the burden of a doomed people.”

“I’m sorry.” Alban felt fully the
weight of what his life had cost Kieran’s people.

Kieran put his harp aside and
turned toward him. “None of it is your fault. You weren’t even born when the
war started.”

“You didn’t feel so when first we
met.”

“Then I was but a fool, O Prince
of Light.” Kieran reached out and put a hand on Alban’s arm. “It seems to be a
night for confessions, for speaking the words we’ve danced around before. So
let me say this. Though our peoples are enemies, I do consider you my friend.
If I didn’t say it before, show it before, then I am sorry.”

“And my people?” Alban knew how
hard it had been for Kieran to say that last bit, and yet he would not take the
easy path, not with this undefined thing building between them.

“Your people are still enemies of
mine. Alban, how could it be otherwise, with what they have done to us?”

“The Scathlan spilled the first
blood.”

“The Leas left us no choice. The
last war is something we will never agree on. Your people and mine are enemies,
but it’s all become more complicated than it was a few weeks ago.”

The next day, they went back to
the library and didn’t talk about anything that had transpired the night before.
Outside the window, snow lay stark white on the dark evergreens in the valley,
reminding Kieran that it was not the season for travel even
were
he fit to ride. But the fire blazed bright in the hearth, filling the room with
the distinctive sweet-sharp of cedar, and Alban brought him hot tea to warm
him. He tried to find the contentment that came with being cozy inside while
the world outside knew nothing but cold and wet.

Yet he found only growing despair
as he paged through the maddening book, wishing that he had his father’s skills
and training. With both his father and uncle killed in the war, no true bard
masters had remained to train Kieran. His tutor had been testy, inadequate, and
all too aware that Kieran would surpass him one day.

He’d had to take the bare bones
of what they had taught him and build on it from his father’s notes and from
what the harp itself whispered in his heart. His elders never failed to remind
him that he was not yet a master like his father, perhaps never would be.

Had his father ever seen this
book? Surely with his greater knowledge, he would have had far less trouble
deciphering it. If only his father had survived, if only Kieran had half his
father’s knowledge and skill, then maybe this would not have been a fool’s quest
from the beginning.

He
rapped
his fingers against the edge of the desk, playing imaginary scales too fast
until a hand closed over his.

“I think you should take a break
from this,” Alban said. “Honestly, if I had known it would vex you so, I would
have never shown that cursed book to you.”

“Thank you for your insight, O
Prince of Light,” Kieran snapped. “Perhaps the problem is not the book, but the
useless fool reading it.”

Alban frowned. “Who has ever
called you useless? I know I have not.”

“Most of the people in my life at
one time or another. And I fear they are right.”

“With the way you play? The way
you sing? Nonsense.”

Alban took the book from him.
Only Kieran’s fear for the fragile parchment and leather prevented him from
tugging it back. He hissed through bared teeth as Alban put the book away and
closed the drawer.

“Come, why don’t we go back to
your room and you can harp for me?”

“Don’t patronize me!”

“Then tell me, what will it take
to put you in a better mood by dinner? Father explicitly wishes you to join us
tonight.”

“I have no desire to do so.”
After a day of utterly failing to aid his queen and his people, the Leas
expected him to make polite conversation with the two who selfishly destroyed
them?

Only Alban had no idea what the
book meant to him. He couldn’t possibly understand the depth of his frustration
which, in any case, Kieran should not take out on him.

“Father has asked it,” Alban
said.

“Asked or commanded?”

Alban shrugged. “It seems a small
enough matter.”

“Then it shouldn’t cause a
problem should I decline.” Kieran gave a tight smile. “If your father prefers
to insist, I am certain he has guards enough to compel my obedience.”

Alban’s eyes went hard, cold.
“Should you prefer to be treated as a prisoner rather than a
guest,
that
can be arranged.”

“So you admit now to my true
status.”

Kieran said it mostly to hurt
Alban, who was not the true source of frustration and did not deserve the
attack. He took a deep breath, trying to find an apology, but Alban spoke first.

“I will leave you to the company
of the books, since you do not seem to want mine. My father thinks I waste too
much time with you as it is. Will you want to return to your rooms to rest
before dinner?” Alban asked without looking at him.

“If it’s all the same to you, I’d
rather not brave those stairs more often in one day than I have to.” Kieran
smiled, trying for ingratiating humor at his own incapacity.

Maybe he just needed some time
alone.

Alban nodded sharply. “We will
dine in my parents’ private rooms, which are on this floor. I will come and
collect you in an hour, which will give us plenty of time to get there, even
with your crutches. Do please leave that damned book in its drawer and find
something cheering.”

Perhaps later might be better for
an apology.

Alban left the library. After the
echoes of his footsteps faded, Kieran slid the book out of the drawer. His
concentration had diminished, however, as his mind turned over the argument,
trying and failing to justify his own behavior. He felt as guilty as he did
when he snapped at Brona because a composition was not going well.

After a while, he put the book
away in favor of a collection of ballads that predated the wars. The ballads
had been written by Leas, but they could have just as easily been Scathlan. Not
only the language used, but the phrasing and the imagery had far more in common
than any elven song would have with a mortal’s work.

Kieran could find differences, of
course. A Leas would be more likely to compare his love to a hawk soaring high
above lofty peaks than to the willow, rooted strong in earth and trailing
withies into a hidden and secret stream. Leas songs were more often about the
joy of love fulfilled despite all costs. Scathlan more often sang about the
noble sadness of forsaking love for duty. The former made pretty love songs to
sing at weddings, but even a reckless fool of a bard knew that it made for very
bad politics.

Still, he would sing the songs,
and he found a few that he might want to add to his repertoire. This one here,
The
Star and the Sea
, about a lady whose love was so strong that she sang her
fallen love back to life as a star, and then became part of the sea every night
in order to embrace his reflection. The book gave musical notation as well as
words, and he hummed the tune there softly under his breath. Would it play well
on the harp, or should it be performed with voice only?

With harp, definitely with the
harp, and he already had some ideas for a little ornamental bridge that would
go so nicely between the third chorus and the last verse...

Wait.
The Star and the Sea.
Why did that title feel so familiar? He snatched up the leather-bound book that
Alban had begged him to set aside and flipped through it. Yes.

Oh, by the Grace, he was an
idiot. How had he not seen this before?

Kieran made a list of the names
that everyone had assumed referred to books. Skimming the text, he realized
that some passages did indeed make more sense if the name were the title of a
tune or song rather than a book.

Excitement coursed through his
veins like liquid fire. The awkwardness of the crutches barely registered as he
pulled from the shelves every musical reference or songbook he could find,
piling them on the desk like a dragon’s horde. He settled back into his chair
and started flipping through the treasure.

No, no, useless, no,
yes!
He found one of the titles mentioned. And another. Wait—he knew that song, by
another name, but
he knew that song.

The library door opened, and his
heart leapt at the prospect of sharing his find with Alban. But when he turned,
it wasn’t Alban on the threshold.

The intruder was tall and
strongly built, nearly as broad and muscled as a mortal warrior. A scar ran
down one side of his face, twisting his lip into a permanent sneer, and his
gray eyes blazed with cold fire.

For a moment, Kieran was back in
the nightmares of his childhood.

“What are you doing here,
Scathlan?”

With the number of people in the
courtyard the night he’d arrived, Kieran assumed word would have spread by now
that the Leas king had a Scathlan guest, or prisoner, or patient, or stray
fool. His exact status might be a mystery, but he hadn’t expected his presence
itself to be questioned.

His skill with words failed, and
he stumbled over a rapid explanation of being lost in the snow and falling from
his horse, having barely enough presence of mind to leave out the attempt to
flee and drawing a sword on the prince.

The stranger cut him off. “Yes, I
know my prince went out hunting deer one day and came back with a viper
instead. What are you doing here in the royal library? Where are your guards?”

“I hadn’t been told I needed
any.”

Had Alban been a guard? He seemed
more like company, or an overly solicitous healer. Admitting that he had
angered the prince to the point that he’d stalked off and left him alone
wouldn’t look good for either of them.

Kieran had been following Alban’s
lead in the rules of his indeterminate status. This hadn’t been the first time Alban
had left him alone in the library. He’d drifted in and out to bring him food
and drink while Kieran had been so absorbed in the book on bardic healing that
he’d scarcely noticed the comings and goings.

He’d done nothing wrong. Even
now, Kieran had remained where he’d been put until Alban came back to collect
him. But would that matter if someone made an issue of it with Toryn? Did the
king even know he was here, or had Alban taken it upon himself to give his
stray the run of the castle without consulting his father?

Kieran sat frozen, staring at the
stranger and wishing hard that he’d made Toryn define the terms of his presence
here.

This Leas attacked as quickly and
as violently as any of his nightmare Leas, knocking him from the chair. His
injured ankle folded beneath him as he fell, and Kieran screamed at the sudden,
blinding pain.

The Leas was yelling something
about spying and about treachery, but Kieran couldn’t make any sense of it. He
couldn’t breathe, shock taking over. He struggled to rise, to take weight off
the injury, but moving made it worse. He imagined the broken ends of bones
grinding together.

Then the Leas caught his wrist,
and suddenly the threat came into focus as the warrior described in detail what
he was about to do to the bones in Kieran’s hands.

No! The end of his music, the end
of everything. But, just like in his nightmares, Kieran couldn’t find a voice,
could only pant and plead with his eyes as the Leas took hold of his first
finger and—

“What is going on here?” Toryn
Oathbreaker’s voice preceded him into the room.

Though he wanted to beg for help,
words still wouldn’t come. But the attacker dropped his hand and turned to his
lord, and Kieran never thought he’d be so glad to see the Oathbreaker.

Ignoring the raised voices of the
two Leas, he closed his eyes and hugged his hands to his chest for protection,
surrendering to the agony of the
rebroken
bones in
his leg. Toryn was a healer, at some point he would notice and do something
about his ankle. At least his hands were safe.

But then Toryn loomed over him,
grabbed his wrist, and pulled his hand toward him.

“No!” He found a word at last and
repeated it. “No, no.” Futile. He couldn’t fight against two seasoned
warriors.         

“Listen, you little idiot,” Toryn
growled. “I don’t know what you did to anger my advisor, and right now I don’t
care. I need to know where you’re hurt.”

Through the pain, he couldn’t
make sense of the words. Only the anger of the tone registered.

“Sorry, sorry.” It seemed like
the thing to say, although he wasn’t certain what he apologized for.

Then, impossibly, Toryn released
his grip and knelt down to Kieran’s level. He spoke more softly.

“You’re not following a thing I
say, are you?” Toryn looked over his shoulder, ordering the other Leas from the
room,
  snapping
at him to find Alban as he left.
He turned back to Kieran, gentling his voice once more. “How badly did Trodaire
hurt you? You were stoic enough the night Alban brought you here.”

And then a new voice. “Father, I
ran into to Trodaire in the hall. He said, well never mind what he said. But he
said you wanted to see me.”

Alban. Thank the Grace, Alban.

“He seemed— Oh, no. What
happened?” Though Alban had dropped to his knees beside Kieran, he addressed
the question to his father.

“Some sort of confrontation with
Trodaire. He was too angry to talk. I’ll get the details from him when he’s had
time to calm down. I think your Scathlan is hurt, but he won’t let me near him.
He may be in shock.”

Alban put an arm around Kieran’s
shoulder. Kieran leaned into the contact and rested his head on against Alban,
not caring how it looked.

“Ankle,” he gasped. “He pushed
me, I fell on it. It’s bad, worse than before.”