her instruments 02 - rose point (37 page)

“Yes, but all of you seem related,” Reese said, irritated. “I knew they were close, but... ‘lonely’? Really? The Queen doesn’t strike me as the type.”

“Of course not,” Araelis said, dismissive. “But they suit one another well. It would neatly solve a very many problems if they were to wed, not the least of which is the lack of an heir.”

“I thought there was an heir?” Reese said. “At least, Felith mentioned serving one?”

“And you observe that Felith is now serving you,” Araelis replied. “That would be because the current heir has been ruined by the Chatcaava. Her spirit is broken. She is too nervous now to sit a throne.”

Reese stared at her, aghast. “You’re telling me that she ended up in the empire?”

“As a slave, and nearly died of it,” Araelis said, sober now. “She is at a convent, being guarded by the Chancellor—you have not met him yet, but you will—and there she will likely remain for the balance of her life.” The woman looked toward the two. “They’re of an age and have a long history together. He’s guarded her life for several centuries as her White Sword captain. They’re even fond of one another, and that is not something anyone can guarantee in a marriage. Traditionally we do not permit the wedding of cousins, but the Alliance can solve any genetic errors that might afflict the child they conceive.” She sighed. “I have put the matter to them both, and of course it hasn’t mattered until now because Hirianthial had no plans to come home. But now that he has...”

They did look good together. She forced herself to look away. “So. You said you might have advice for a new land-holder? Why don’t you lay it on me?”

“Ah, I’d be delighted. Come, let’s find something to drink. You’ll have wine?”

“I will now,” Reese said.

“You gave her Corel’s demesne,” Hirianthial murmured.

“I thought it an appropriate deed for the woman who brought me the first mind-mage since Corel,” Liolesa replied, her voice so low he almost missed it.

He eyed her. The flow of the crowd had carried them to a far corner where they were not likely to be overheard—though watched, always that. By habit he kept his expression schooled and she was a master of it when it suited her, and it did now.

“Do you disagree?” she said.

Did he? Reese’s shock had been as intense as a lightning strike, so much so that he could still feel the waves of it off her though the hall divided them. And beneath the shock, something so painful he’d almost failed to recognize it for the joy she had not allowed herself to experience yet. Later, he knew, when it was real to her, when she beheld the ruins of Rose Point and grasped that it was hers to keep, the joy would surface, and with it excitement. For so long, she’d done everything possible with what little she had. To finally be freed of the constraints that had bound her so long? To have all that she’d never dared allowed herself to believe she might? The hard work of restoring it wouldn’t frighten her; it would simply make it more hers when it was clean and bright again.

“No,” he said. “I know she will do everything you expect of her. But cousin... the hatred and the outrage here, now, in this hall is overwhelming. And yet they have said nothing.”

“I know,” Liolesa said, quiet. “I was expecting someone to object long before I gave her the grant. Once I had...”

“They are waiting for something,” Hirianthial said.

“Yes.” Her eyes lost their focus briefly. “And it’s so close. But it hasn’t come together yet.” She looked up at him, sharply. “What?”

“Asaniefa no doubt knew about Captain Eddings, thanks to Thaniet,” Hirianthial said. “My brother, I learned this morning... knows about me.”

“That you’re here?” She frowned. “No. He has found out why? How?”

“From Urise,” Hirianthial said. “But neither of us knows what he will do with the knowledge.”

Liolesa snorted. “Then you’re a fool, cousin. He seeks your downfall. What else?”

“That is the question, isn’t it? What else?” Hirianthial frowned, watching the crowd mingle, so different from an Alliance gathering with everyone standing so far apart. “I can’t believe he would be motivated solely by revenge. It was not revenge alone that drove him to engineer our parents’ death.”

“He enjoyed seeing them die, is what you suggest.”

“I think he enjoyed watching himself arrange for their deaths, and seeing it come to fruition just as he planned,” Hirianthial said, feeling the words as he spoke them, tasting them for truth. They were bitter, but right.

“No doubt he is fast at work on it now, then,” Liolesa said. “Have you told your Captain Eddings?”

“I fear Araelis has told her everything.” He grimaced at the flash of a grin she allowed herself before the mask slipped back in place. “Yes, I know. But I suppose in this case it has been useful, Araelis and her feeling that she should be in everyone’s business. She saved me the trouble of explaining a great deal.”

“You should tell her—Theresa, that is—that Baniel knows your purpose, though,” Liolesa said. “Your brother is many things, but stupid is not one of them. He’ll assume you arrived with her, and that will make him... curious.”

The thought made his skin run cold beneath the layers of silk and velvet. “I will find her directly.”

“Good,” Liolesa said. “And keep your step light. I feel the skein tightening.”

“Always,” he said. “God and Lady willing, though, we will be quit of this mess soon enough.”

“And you can go show the Lady her new home, ah?”

Her tone had been casual, but that in itself spoke eloquently of her feelings on the matter. “If you are intimating something, cousin—”

“All I am intimating,” she said, “is that you might enjoy being the one to witness her happiness when she sees it for the first time. After all the adventures the two of you have survived together, I thought you were owed that moment.”

He could let it pass, so he did. “It would be a fine thing to see.”

“You’ll have to tell me all about it,” she said. “I would love to be there myself, but I am hoping you’ll be leaving for it long before I am free of this winter court.”

“We shall see,” he said, and went in search of Captain Eddings—now Lady Eddings in truth.

Araelis was exhausting. It wasn’t that Reese didn’t appreciate the mountain of advice, but she could barely hear it over the sound of her own head exploding. She was painfully aware of the looks she was receiving from far too many of the people around her, and while Eldritch stood a lot farther away from one another than normal people, there was no mistaking she was being avoided. Araelis introduced her to the few people who didn’t seem to hate her, but their solicitous welcomes only made the seething outrage around her more obvious.

She didn’t care that they hated her. Ma Eddings could have given every person in this room lessons in cutting looks. What bothered her was that she couldn’t imagine their hatred not having repercussions, and she very much didn’t want anything to disturb the fragile sense of hope she was struggling to protect. To lose what she’d been given before she could even believe she’d been given it...!

What she wanted most was her crew and Hirianthial and a private room where she could hyperventilate in peace, and maybe cry on a furry shoulder the way the tremor in her shoulders suggested she really wanted to. Barring that, she’d take Hirianthial right now, to keep her company among all these strangers. Knowing him he could feel her distress—couldn’t he? He always had before—and was probably coming for her soon. She disengaged from Araelis and all her supporters and tried to find a quiet corner where she could sit on a cushioned bench and wait. There had to be one in a hall this size. She started walking, trying to stay out of the way of people who wanted an excuse to glare at her.

The wall she’d been heading for was not a wall at all, she discovered, but a curtain. She paused at it, wondering just how big the bleeding place was, when she heard him.

“Here, Lady.”

Her relief was so vast she almost didn’t feel the eagerness beneath it, running fast as a current. To keep from looking at that too closely, she stepped through the curtain. “Finally! I didn’t know how long it would take to find you in this place. I had no idea how big it was.” She paused at the view, wide-eyed. “Oh.”

He didn’t say anything; that was like him, to efface himself when there was something worth seeing. And the curtains had parted on an extension of the hall, a gallery partially built out over the still gray lake, and on its banks a powdering of snow that led to a wood out of a fairy tale, dark and knotted with shadows. Reese stepped to the balcony. “Oh... it’s so beautiful. Is it okay to say that?”

When he didn’t answer, she turned and froze at the sight. “You’re not Hirianthial.”

“No,” the man said, and now that she was paying attention his voice was not an exact match, his baritone a little thinner in timbre. As he stepped into the light, she found that described the rest of him as well: very like Hirianthial, but just a little thinner, sharper, unfinished. He was also standing a lot closer to her than an Eldritch should. “No, that I most certainly am not. And it appears he hasn’t told you about me.”

“No,” Reese said. “So maybe you could start with your name.”

“I am Baniel, once Sarel Jisiensire,” the man said with a smile, leaning down close enough so she could see the one thing about him that was very different: his eyes. His eyes were green as poison, and cold. “And that is all you need know of me, save this.” His hands seized her waist and heaved her over the balcony, and the only thing that stopped her from screaming was that he came with her. The ground hit her far too hard and she scrabbled to rise first and failed; he had one hand on her mouth and the other holding her hands behind her. She tried to stamp on his foot and didn’t connect; tried squirming and that didn’t trouble him. The twins would have bitten him, so she tried that, but he just shook her by the head until the world spun.

She struggled when he started dragging her around the lake, but he seemed unfazed by her efforts. Was this how Hirianthial had felt all the times he had needed rescue? Reese decided she hated being on the other end. A brother! All the information Araelis had dumped on her with such glee, and yet she hadn’t thought it important to mention that Hirianthial had a brother? An evil brother, apparently! And Hirianthial probably thought Araelis had said something—blood and freedom! She’d as much told him so in the library!

But apparently this brother thought gagging her would be enough to keep her quiet. Little did he know. She cleared her thoughts of everything, of the smell of wet soil and snow, of the taste of Baniel’s leather glove, of the bruises developing along her side where she’d struck the ground and the gouges the boning of the corset had opened in her skin along its edge. And then she screamed in her mind, where no one could hear her... except her Eldritch doctor.

The sound cut through the noise in his head, scattering his sense of every aura in the room but hers. Hirianthial excused himself from the conversation he’d been enduring with one of the neutral Houses and began walking. Not running—he didn’t want to call attention to himself—but his pace quickened despite his best intentions. The only thing that kept him calm was that her scream had been less panic and more outrage. What had upset her? For Reese to call for him... it had to be something significant.

Again the yell, and the anger was more clearly developed, so much so that he heard a thought riding it:
I can’t believe he thinks this will work

The ‘he’ was a powerful flavor, the source of the outrage, and it felt like betrayal and indignation...

...and then he saw green eyes through hers, disorienting, powerfully so, like the afterimage of the sun in blinking eyes.

His hand flew to his sword and he dove through the curtain leading to the gallery, scanned the room—no one—lunged for the balcony and looked over it.

God and Lady...!

Baniel had left a trail plain as daylight through the snow, where Reese had been struggling. Squinting, he peered toward the forest’s edge and spotted them approaching it. Where were the guards? And what did his brother think to accomplish, one man alone kidnapping a woman? Did he think to drag her into the woods to murder her there, then let the falling snow cover the evidence of their passage?

He had spared Baniel’s life once, and he’d been wrong to do it. It was time to correct his error.

Hirianthial went over the edge of the balcony and landed on his feet, ignoring the pain that lanced from his knees, unwelcome reminders that he was no longer the White Sword who’d been able to follow the indefatigable heir everywhere. He unknotted the cords on the sword as he ran the trail, his own rage mounting, redoubling, until it was hard to see. There was a word for men like his brother.
Gaienele
. Ruiner.

He was close enough to hear Reese’s mind, a rushing river of anger that flowed into his until it overwhelmed him. The wrench of her arms where they were pinned behind her, he could feel in his own shoulders and elbows. The taste of leather in her mouth fouled his. He drew the sword and charged the last few yards in silence. When Baniel turned to him, it was too late to stay him—

—which is when the arrow struck him in the chest, just below the collarbone, with enough force to stagger him. Another followed, laming him. He fell to a knee, stunned.

Baniel bent toward him but didn’t step closer, nor loose Reese whose angry chant had narrowed to a single screech:
he used me it was a trap

Of course it was. Hirianthial lifted his head, struggling for breath. He felt for the wound at his chest, explored the edges. His sword arm was going numb, which suggested the arrow head had pierced the brachial plexus. The cervico-axillary canal was just under the clavicle...

His sword arm. Had it been an accident?

“I wasn’t sure it would work,” Baniel said, as if resuming a conversation. “Surela told me about her, of course, but you can’t trust a woman to think clearly about another woman and the man she wants. I assumed you would at least feel something for her, but not enough to be quite so stupid.” He paused. “Or was it me you had such strong feelings about?”