Where Light Meets Shadow (9 page)

“Alban, you know that it isn’t
the fact that he is male that I object to. Yes, it could cause problems with
the succession, but there has been precedent, and there are contingencies. A
surrogate or, if you can’t face that, adoption.”

As much as Alban wished to crawl
under the couch to avoid this conversation, he felt relief as well. He had
never felt for a maid what he felt for Kieran, and he doubted that he ever
would.

“Because he’s a Scathlan, then,”
Alban spat out bitterly. “For all that you’ve brought me up to believe we were
one kindred, even if divided by war.”

“Not even that, though I admit
I’d be concerned. They don’t think of love and marriage as we do. For them,
it’s all duty and honor. But if I though it possible for him to renounce his
people and stay here with you, I might support it no matter how much trouble it
caused, no matter how much I worried that you both would come to regret the
decision. But Alban, Kieran is committed to his people. You know he thinks of
us as the enemy. Maybe if you were not the prince, not the product of a union
that he considers an act of war, maybe he would forgive you for being who you
are, though I’d hate to see anyone live that kind of life. As it is, it cannot
be.”

“Don’t you think I know that?”
Alban said with the pain he hadn’t let himself feel until that moment. “It
doesn’t matter, anyway. He doesn’t believe in love. I suppose
it’s
better that way.”

His father came to sit beside him
on the couch and pulled him into a hug. Alban closed his eyes and allowed
himself to be held as though he were a small child.

“I’m sorry, son. Truly I am. I
wish it were different for you.”

Kieran slept most of the day.
Toryn had drugged him well in the library and, before he left, had also brushed
his mind with a suggestion of sleep. Kieran hadn’t fought the touch, knowing it
was a kindness.

He woke in the darkness, not sure
what time it was. The fire had burned down to coals, so it must be late. The
profound stillness seemed to ring in his ears. He listened hopefully for some
sound of movement in the next room, but none came. Alban was surely asleep.

The pain had returned, an
insistent throbbing in his leg that made him want to weep. To keep his mind
from it, he played tune after tune in his mind, but that only distracted him
for so long. Carefully—every movement brought new hurt—Kieran reached for his
harp, and played it softly, so as not to wake Alban.

But it wasn’t long before the door
opened, and Alban came in bearing a lamp and a cup, the light from the lamp
warming his pale hair to gold.

Kieran set the harp aside. “I
woke you. I’m sorry. I was trying to be quiet.”

Alban smiled and took the chair
beside the bed. “I could tell. But I slept much of the afternoon.”

“I shouldn’t have let you exhaust
yourself like that.”

“And how were you to stop me? I’m
the prince here.”

“Your father is the lord, and I
think he wasn’t happy.”

Alban sighed. “No, he was not.
But that is my problem, not yours. Are you in pain?”

“Some,” Kieran admitted.

“Some?”

“A good deal, actually.”

“Drink this.” He handed Kieran
the cup. “I would have brought it earlier, but you were sleeping when I looked
in.”

Kieran sipped at the drugged
wine, the bitter taste improving none with familiarity.

“In the library, you did more
than take my pain away,” Kieran said after a lengthy silence.

Alban’s face took on an
expression Kieran couldn’t quite read before he looked away. “I couldn’t take
all the pain, but I knew if I could push you toward something like sleep, you
would feel it less.”

“Thank you,” Kieran said. “It
was.
. .nice.”

Nice.
What an inadequate
word. And he a bard.

What Kieran really wanted was to
ask Alban to do it again, only he didn’t know the etiquette for such a request,
if there was any, nor precisely what he was asking for.

Another long quiet fell, growing
more awkward. When Alban started to speak, Kieran expected it would be to bid
him goodnight.

Instead, Alban asked, “Would you
like me to do it again?”

There was only one possible
answer for Kieran. “Please.”

#

When he woke again, early in the
afternoon, all the books he had left on the desk in the library were stacked on
the table by his bed, the maddening ancient volume on top.

#

Alban opened the door to Kieran’s
room quietly. If the bard was sleeping, he’d leave the cup with the painkilling
drug on the table and go. At first, he thought Kieran must be, since he was
leaning against the headboard with his eyes closed, the detritus of his studies
all around him. But his drawn face and his harsh breathing told another story.

He would have to ask his father
if it would be safe to increase the dosage of the painkiller, or at least the
frequency of administration.

Kieran opened his eyes when he
sensed Alban’s presence and forced a smile. Alban would hate to see
circumstances in which the bard didn’t have even a fake grin to give.

Kieran took the painkiller with
relief. Between sips, he talked about his progress in tracking down songs,
becoming less pained and more animated as the drug took effect and the topic
distracted him. Alban pretended to listen, even though some of it made little
sense and his mind kept drifting to how beautiful Kieran’s face was when it lit
up with excitement, how beautiful his mind had felt meshed with his own. When
his imagination started to offer ideas about what it would be like to conjoin
bodies as well as minds, Alban jerked his thoughts back.

Entertaining such fantasies came perilously
close to violating a healer’s ethics. Although, would Kieran even mind, given
his free and easy attitude toward sexuality? It was a good thing that the
joining of mortal and elf produced no issue, or there would be a string of
dark-haired bastards from the black mountain to the white.

Alban had always imagined that
his first sexual experience would be inspired by mutual love and commitment,
but then he’d never imagined he would form a mind-link so deep and effortless
with someone outside the marriage bond.

How
did
one go about
approaching another for a meaningless tumble in the sheets? Not that Kieran was
in any shape for physical relations. And not that Alban was fool enough to set
himself up for the pain involved when only one of them had an emotional stake
in the proceedings.

“I have to take a look at your
injury,” he explained, “change the dressings, and see how it’s healing.”

Kieran nodded his agreement.

No hint of infection showed where
the flesh had been torn by the ends of the bones. No more swelling than could
be expected. All good signs, yet Alban had a hard time even looking at the
injury.

When a healer becomes
emotional, he loses his effectiveness.
Alban had seen worse than this, but
somehow he could only think about the fact that it was Kieran. That it might
not have happened had Alban not lost his temper and left Kieran alone. That it
could have been much worse if his father hadn’t come in when he did.

Pull yourself together.

“I need to do a healing,” he told
Kieran.

“Can you go into my mind? I mean,
while you do that?”

As if Alban weren’t already too
close, too compromised. “It’s not necessary to the healing.”

“Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean...”

Kieran clearly didn’t even know
what he was apologizing for.

Alban sighed. “I shouldn’t have snapped.”
How could he explain that he felt more for Kieran than he should, to the point
where it impacted his work? “Why did you want me to?”

“I’m curious how it feels.
Healing from your end of things.” He flashed a grin. “It might even help me
figure out that book if I understand the healing process better.”

Kieran’s reasoning made sense,
but Alban would have yielded to that grin regardless.

“Besides,” Kieran added, “I like
the way your mind feels against mine.”

Oh, and that made Alban want the
link all the more, even if it made it less advisable.

He took Kieran’s hand. “Physical
contact makes it easier to establish the bond.”

Kieran brushed a thumb over the
back of his hand.

Closing his eyes, Alban reached
out with his mind, and instantly Kieran greeted him, thoughts warm,
affectionate, and enthusiastic for this new adventure. Alban squeezed his hand
and sent fondness through the link.

Alban slid his hand lightly down
Kieran’s side until he rested a feather-light touch over the injury, then
brought his other hand to the opposite side of the leg. He pushed away all
distracting self-consciousness regarding the eavesdropping Kieran and reached
for the sweet light of healing, smiling when he sensed Kieran’s awe, so like
his own feelings regarding Kieran’s music. Then he let the energy flow into the
injury, strengthening the natural ability of bone to knit and flesh to mend,
quieting the pain.

When Alban had done all that he
could for one session, he moved away and slipped out of the link. For a moment,
he could feel Kieran’s mind trailing after his, as though reluctant to lose
contact.

When he looked up, Kieran stared
at him with shining eyes. “Do you have any idea how amazing you are?”

Alban looked away. “I am an
adequate healer, is
all.
When it’s an unfamiliar art,
it seems more special than it is.”

Kieran shook his head. “You are
amazing
.”

Alban imagined what it would be
like to lean in for a kiss. He savored the thought for a long moment.

Then he stepped away from the
temptation Kieran presented. “I should leave you to your rest.”

Kieran frowned a little. It was
early still, and it was obvious that he expected Alban to stay and keep him
company a while longer.

Turning his back on the bard’s
disappointment, he left.

Loneliness had a sound, the
high-pitched, keening sound of wind moaning through the narrow, barren gorge
above the Scathlan’s underground dwellings.

Kieran knew that he was dreaming,
knew the sorrow and rage he felt was not his own. Still he woke gasping and
sobbing.

“I’m trying,” he whispered. “I’m
doing everything I can.”

Knowing sleep would not come
again, he lay awake in the dim light of morning, waiting for the solace of
Alban’s company.

#

One of the maidservants, not
Alban, brought Kieran his breakfast. As usual, she answered his smile and
friendly greeting with narrowed eyes and stiff shoulders. He contemplated a
more outrageous flirtation just to see what reaction he’d get, but he found
enough trouble without seeking it deliberately.

Had he offended Alban in some
way? The Leas had reacted oddly when Kieran suggested the mental bond, but once
within the link he seemed fine. More than fine.
Sublime.
If Alban had
been upset in those moments, surely Kieran would have sensed it.

Why had Alban left so abruptly,
then? And where was he now? He’d said last night that his father had cleared
him from other duties so he could focus on healing Kieran’s new injuries.

And possibly, though he hadn’t
said as much, on keeping Kieran out of trouble. Which he couldn’t resent,
seeing how trouble seemed to find him whether he looked for it or no.

With a sigh, Kieran reached for
the book, trying to remember what he sensed about the healing process and
forget his frustration with the healer himself.

He made no progress from that
angle, so he went back to analyzing the songs the book referred to, all the
while tapping his fingers through the scales, a nervous habit that tended to
drive anyone in the room crazy.

The lack of protest only reminded
him that he was all alone.

The author kept referring to
duets but, for most of these works, Kieran had only heard solo versions. Not
that he was particularly surprised. He had never heard of bardic magic being
performed in duet.

He set aside the book, refraining
from throwing it across the room only out of respect for the age of tome.

Could
bardic magic be done
as a duet? His father would have known. The inadequacy of Kieran’s training ate
at him.

He picked up his harp and played
something martial and angry, feeling the magic stir around him as it looked for
an army to inspire into battle.

When the maidservant who had
brought breakfast came in with lunch, he only spared her a glance as he
continued to play. Instead of looking at him with cool disdain, she regarded
him with something approaching terror, leaving the tray and backing out with
the remains of his largely untouched breakfast.

Bardic magic. Healing magic.
Duets. None of it made sense, and yet he could almost hear the answer, just out
of reach, like a distant tune caught on the breeze. The music changed, pulling
him with it and turning wilder, deeper, a barely recognized variation of the
original theme.

The sky turned dark, and wind
battered against the panes.

“Kieran! What do you think you’re
doing?”

Alban’s voice, sharp with outrage
and worry, jerked Kieran from his bardic trance. His hands pulled a last
discordant clash of notes as they fell from the strings.

Kieran’s chest rose and fell as
though he had run a great distance. His hands shook. Power—too much, too
wild!—dissipated slowly.

Outside, the wind calmed, though
black storm clouds still covered the sky.

“What were you doing? Cold as it
is, your storm would have come down as snow. A blizzard. We have a hunting
party out there. Were you trying to kill them?”

Oh, mercy of the Grace. He hadn’t
lost control of the magic like that since he had been a gawky adolescent. Only
this would have been much worse had Alban not been there because Kieran had
grown that much stronger.

He put the harp down, far out of
reach, and then wrapped his arms around himself.

“What happened?” Alban asked more
gently.

Music still ran through his mind,
drowning out language. The only words that came were not useful. Bardic magic.
Healing magic. Duets.

“The head housekeeper came to me,
said you scared the girl who brought your lunch, but she wasn’t making much
sense. Then I looked outside and saw storm clouds gathering, and I felt— I
can’t describe what I felt, but I recognized you in it.”

Kieran curled up a little
tighter, humiliated that Alban had seen him lose control.

“There is a residual affinity
between you and me from the mind-link,” Alban continued. “I might not have
sensed it otherwise. I doubt my father knows. I need you to give me a reason
not to tell him.”

Kieran dropped his head. “I
can’t. You should tell him. I would in your place.”

“Kieran, what happened?” Alban
asked again, this time in his healer’s voice, anger completely gone and
replaced with patient concern.

“I got lost,” he whispered. “In
the music. It happens sometimes. It’s not supposed to.”

“You’re not making much sense.”

Kieran felt exhausted now, and
shaky, like he always did when the magic took him so completely and then left
him bereft. He wished Alban would embrace him as he had in the library,
soothing his mind with the touch of his own.

He took a breath and tried again.
“It’s more common when a bard is young and is first learning the craft. The
magic sneaks up and takes over, and things happen. As you get older and learn
to better control the magic, it doesn’t take over. It was, well, my weakness,
my failure that let it get so out of hand.”

Kieran remembered his tutor
screaming in his face in the middle of a rainstorm. And he’d been young then,
and the loss of control seemed normal from everything he had later read on the
subject. But his tutor had terrified him, and the memory still remained.

“I was thinking more about the
book, and about my frustration, than I was about what I was doing. I was
careless, and I’m old enough and have trained enough to know better. You’re
right, people could have been hurt because of it. I can’t ask you to keep this
from your father.”

Toryn would take the harp away,
surely. Probably the book as well. He’d violated their hospitality. The
Oathbreaker would be justified in throwing him in the dungeon, or tossing him
out to flounder in the snow until he froze to death.

Alban shifted onto the bed and
pulled Kieran into his arms, an entirely welcome and unexpected gesture that
Kieran had no defense against. Then Alban’s power brushed against Kieran’s
mind, and Kieran allowed the touch, expecting a gentle interrogation of his
truthfulness. Instead, Alban’s mind cradled his, warm and reassuring. With a
sigh, Kieran leaned into him, body and mind.

What Alban’s intentions were with
this level of contact, surely beyond a healer’s attentions and definitely
beyond the bare civility of enemies in armistice, Kieran could not say. Were
Alban not so innocent, Kieran would have suspected the beginnings of a
seduction.
Might even be tempted to go along with one,
except that the Oathbreaker would likely have his bollocks if he found out.

In Alban’s thoughts, however, he
sensed no arousal and no cunning, just compassion layered with disquiet and
indecision.

“I’m not asking you to keep this
from your father,” Kieran reminded Alban reluctantly from the cocoon of
comfort.

Alban’s unhappiness flared,
rather than subsided, at Kieran’s attempt at reassurance. “Do you think this is
so easy for me? Father is not fond of you. Though it is not all your doing,
your presence here has caused a lot of headaches for him. I do believe that he
will still try to be fair—”

“You’re acting like I—”

Annoyance tinged Alban’s thoughts.
“I know you aren’t asking. But I can feel how worried you are about Father
finding out, though I think it would not be quite
so
bad as you imagine. Certainly he wouldn’t do anything that would endanger your
life or even compromise your healing.”

The closeness of their bond meant
Kieran couldn’t hide his skepticism. Alban’s annoyance rose a notch in
response.

“But there should be consequences
of some sort,” Alban continued. “I don’t want to see you made miserable over
something that I can tell you didn’t intend. On the other hand...”

“On the other hand, what I did
was dangerous and you have a duty to tell your father. Alban, I’ve no desire to
come between you and your duty, or you and your family.”

“Why should you care?”

The underlying bitterness through
the link made Kieran regret the harsh things he’d said to Alban about Leas in
those early days. Still he found the question dangerous.

“Why should you care about me?”
he returned.

Alban’s frustration at having the
question turned on him came clearly through the link. Awareness of the
inadvisability of the conversation belonged to both of them.

“Can you promise me it won’t
happen again?” Alban asked.

Kieran shook his head. “I can’t.”
Over the spike of Alban’s disappointment and anger, he added, “Not that I don’t
want to. Before today, I would have sworn that what just happened couldn’t
happen to me at my age and with my training. I suppose I was too cocky, too
careless.”

Against all instincts, he made no
attempt to hide how much the experience had shaken him. “I will be more
cautious from now on, but I can’t make an absolute guarantee, not unless I stop
harping altogether. That I will not do unless someone takes the harp away.”

Alban rubbed his hands down
Kieran’s arms, a soothing gesture, almost a caress. “I should not want that to
happen.”

The admiration for his music that
Alban sent through the bond made Kieran flush. But then Alban slipped away to
stand by the window. Kieran felt a chill with the absence of his embrace and
the touch of his mind. Outside, the sky had begun to clear.

If Alban had not stopped him,
Kieran’s storm might have killed the Leas hunters, technically his kindred
despite all, without provocation or the excuse of war.

He knew what Alban should do, for
all that he selfishly hoped he would not.

Alban spoke to the sky beyond.
“How am I to know what you are capable of? You are like the trickster in the
tales mortals tell. Serious one moment, playful the next, angry and laughing by
turns. All things and none.”

“I’m a bard. It’s in my nature to
rise to the occasion, whatever the occasion might be, funeral or wedding or
raucous night at the pub. Not all of us can be solid, reliable healers. You
know that what happened was unintentional, which makes it all the more
dangerous, because I cannot promise with absolute certainty that it will not
happen again.”

When Alban turned, it seemed as
though he had aged. Not in lines of the face, the way mortals aged, but in the
eyes. Some essential innocence was gone, and Kieran mourned its passing.

“I will not tell my father about
this. So long as it does not happen again. The Grace help us both if it does.”

“And you are leaving that book
alone for a while,” Alban said. “It is too much on your mind.”

Kieran bit back his instinctive
cry of protest.  He
needed
that book, needed to solve its
mysteries.  And yet Alban would be perfectly in his rights to take it away
forever, just as he could have, should have told his father what had happened
this day.

Though every fiber of his being
rebelled against it, he held his peace and clung to the hope that ‘for a while’
would not prove to be as long as he feared it might.