Moth and Spark (12 page)

“Yes,” he said, thinking even as he spoke that it made no sense for Kelvan to tell the story twice. Aram should have waited until Corin could be present.

Which delay the king himself had created, setting the time for Corin to appear. That had to mean he wanted to talk to the rider about something he did not want his son to hear. What was going on?

He let none of this show and listened quietly to the news from Mycene. By the time Kelvan was finished, Corin had a sharpened sense of the plotting and counterplotting, of where the Emperor might fail,
above all of how fast things were moving to a point where Hadon would have to deal with his sons directly.

Yet none of it explained why Hadon had felt it necessary to take Tai, to watch the north.

Or why Aram had sent Corin a hundred miles away to hear it.

He listened. And when he had slotted everything away into the appropriate mental spaces, he looked directly at the rider and said, “Why did my father want me to come with you?”

Kelvan looked at him with a steady judging gaze. It was not the paralyzing stare of a Basilisk, only a man’s assessment, but it was enough to keep Corin still. He had not been so appraised for years. He was certain that if he either flinched or defied it, the gate would slam down and he would never learn what the king intended.

Whatever Kelvan was looking for, apparently he found it. He said, “He wanted you to ride the dragon. That could not be done in Caithenor, since Hadon might learn of it.”

He frowned. Kelvan wasn’t making sense. “I mounted right there in front of the sentries.”

“To ride it, not to be carried by it.”

Coldness again, a touch of ice. Why? But that was to ask Aram. Then excitement pulsed through him as he understood what it meant. He was being offered something so impossible he had never even considered it. “What must I do?”

“Now? Come greet the dragon.”

He caught his breath. Now suddenly seemed far too soon. But he went forward, stopping about ten feet from the dragon’s head. It was so huge. Its eyes were closed. Kelvan squatted beside the dragon and stroked the scaly head.

The dragon opened its eyes. Kelvan beckoned. Corin forced himself forward. He went to one knee slightly less than an arm’s length from the dragon’s wide nostrils and held out his hand. He was afraid, he would not deny it, but he would ignore it. He would not let it close around him. His hand was steady even though his heart was rapid. The dragon’s eyes were like a cat’s, yellow with a narrow pupil and flecked with green. He would not look into them. Its scales were bronze, with a red band around its neck, and its wings were red at the base, shading to bronze at the tips, glowing and iridescent. The sharpness of its claws was visible. It opened its mouth.

He knew without being told that this was the defining moment. He stayed kneeling, looking directly into that great red mouth with rows of white razor-edged teeth the length of his forefinger. The dragon’s breath was hot and smelled of sulfur and molten iron and smoke and coal. Its tongue was forked like a snake’s. His eyes watered from the heat and smell of the breath. But he kept himself still.

Slowly, lazily, the dragon closed its mouth again. It stared at him with one eye. Steam puffed briefly out of its nostrils, which almost made Corin lose his nerve. He kept his body taut, balancing with all the skill he had. The dragon closed its eye.

“Well done, my lord,” said Kelvan, sounding pleased. “It takes most new riders weeks to do that.”

“I don’t have weeks,” Corin said, standing. He backed away a few paces and felt the fear go out of him in a release that left him shaking a little. He took several deep breaths. “What next?”

“Next,” Kelvan said thoughtfully. He took a step toward Corin. Corin blinked. The rider held Corin’s knife in his hand, hilt extended to the prince.

He started, surprised, even alarmed. “How the hell did you do that?” It was not a power Corin had ever learned the wizards had. He took the knife back, a bit gingerly, and sheathed it.

“It’s a dragon skill. Dragons do not live in time as we do, or in space. They extend through it. And when we ride them, they give us just a trace of that power.”

He pondered it. Understanding lay on the very edges of his mind. The dragon seemed solid, animal, complete. It did not flicker or blur. Then, for just an instant, he had a sense of a vast and icy darkness lying beyond the dragon. He shivered.

Enough. He had to be practical. “And all riders can do that?”

“I’m better than most,” Kelvan said. “For other reasons. But we can all do it some. That’s why we make good swordsmen. You aren’t supposed to know that, by the way. I’m breaking faith.”

“Does my father know?”

“Of course.”

Corin was not sure how to take that. “Who says I’m not to know?” he asked, and heard a bit of truculence to his tone.

“The riders. No one is to know who is not a rider. If I were training
you as an ordinary rider, I would leave it for you to discover on your own.”

He was glad it had not been his father who made it a secret. “What about Hadon?”

“I would be very surprised if no one had told him. But we don’t discuss it even among ourselves.”

“He’d better hope his sons don’t know.”

“They may. But none of the three of them will ever ride a dragon, so it doesn’t matter much. When you treat a dragon as a beast of burden, it gives you nothing.”

Corin looked at the dragon. He wanted to touch it again, that incredible silkiness of scale and smooth muscle moving underneath. “How do you control it, then?”

“You have to learn to talk to it.”

“Talk to it?” he echoed, feeling young and inexperienced.

Kelvan grinned. “You don’t think you direct a dragon with knees and heels like a horse, do you? You make an agreement with a dragon.”

“But how can a dragon hear commands with all the wind of flying?”

“The dragons speak with you mind to mind. That’s how they speak with each other. And rider can speak to rider through them.”

Corin briefly stared down at his feet. He did not know why that thought had never occurred to him. Well, perhaps he did know. He was not in the habit of thinking about dragons and their riders because they were the Emperor’s servants, not his. It made him aware of how much he was transgressing.

“Come speak to it. Put your hand here; you have to be in contact.”

The scales on the dragon’s head were smaller and rounder than the scales on its body. When he put his hand on one it was as smooth as glass, with edges like a freshly sharpened sword, and warm to the touch.

Corin closed his eyes. For a while there was just the usual clamor of his mind. He stilled it, focused his thoughts on the dragon. It was images that came slowly to him then, not words: a darkness with a distant fire raging in it, a teapot lying in smoke-stained rubble, a black moth circling a candle. Colors, pulsing slowly. Brown, which was warmth, and green, which was pleasure. Grey for calm, blue for exultation, red for stubbornness. A bloodstained sword lying beside a crack in granite. A mountain, snow on its peak and sides, wind roaring around it, sending
the snow into white sprays that glittered in the close-by sun. A man with eyes glittering like black stone who turned to ash. Braided garlic hanging from a rafter. A woman’s hand with an apple in the palm, green and small and round. A small bronze pendulum swinging back and forth.

It stopped. He did not know what any of it meant, though it felt familiar. His breath was coming in short pants. He felt faint, dizzy, and bent over to keep the blood in his head. Kelvan had a hand on his arm, supporting him. Most men would have been afraid to touch him at all because he was the prince, let alone keep him from falling lest it injure his pride. Slowly the blackness cleared and he straightened.

“It’s normal,” Kelvan said, “but it means you’ve had enough. Don’t push it.”

“I didn’t understand it.”

“It takes time. Come, my lord, you’ll be worn through, we should go back.”

“When again?”

“I don’t know,” Kelvan answered, with that distant and inhuman look on his face. “Let me help you back on.”

Even with the stretches he was stiffening already, so he did not refuse the aid, though, remembering Joce, he made sure not to touch Kelvan’s bare skin. He would likely ache for days.

And then the crouching dragon sprang, dipped as it got its motion, and ascended, and Corin thought he would not exchange this for anything.

Flying back into the bright sun was difficult. They came to Caithenor when the sun above the clouds was getting low. The clouds were a pattern of shadows and color, reflected red and purple light. Then the descent, through thick fog, and there was the green patch that was the palace garden; he had not understood before how huge it truly was.

The dragon landed smoothly on the roof and folded its vast wings. Corin took his helmet and gloves off and tossed them to the ground, then began to fumble with the straps of the harness. The sentries had withdrawn to the farthest corners; few people wanted to get this close to a descending dragon.

He worked his way out and slid off. Pain surged briefly through his legs when his feet thudded against the roof. He leaned into the dragon for a bit, looked at how finely the scales lay over one another. Unexpected and pure, longing surged through him. To fly, to keep his body touching the beast’s. He felt as though in the last few hours he had been more himself than he ever had.

Kelvan walked with him to the stairs down. At the top Corin said, “Thank you. For all of it.”

“You are most welcome.”

“Are you going on far tonight?” He could not keep a bit of envy from his voice.

“For hours yet. Dragons love to fly in the dark.”

“Doesn’t it need, well, fuel?”

Kelvan laughed. “Dragons eat once a week and are useless flyers for the first day afterward.”

Corin wondered what dragons ate, then decided perhaps he did not really want to know. How did one say farewell to a dragonrider? “Fly well.”

“Fly fast, fly well, and fly far,” Kelvan said. “That is the proper way.” He bowed. “Good evening, Prince.”

Corin lingered until he could no longer see the dragon in the sky, then made his way down the stairs and to his rooms, where he had the recommended bath and wine before a late dinner. There was an ache in him, a terrible yearning to have the dragon in his mind once again, and he wished bitterly for a moment that he had never done it.

T
he library windows, three stories high and covering an entire wall, let in plenty of light even on a cloudy day. There were a few lamps on, but more for comfort than for need. The room was mostly deserted, and Corin found his favorite chair, in a corner near the windows with rows of shelves concealing him, and sat down with a stack of reports that had come in while he was north. Most of them would be routine, but he needed to catch up.

He liked the library and went there frequently when he wished to be undisturbed. The morning had been nothing but interruptions. It was not quite hiding—Teron knew where he was—but the extra effort of coming there deterred a large number of people. Those who did come in search of him came with softened footsteps and lowered voices. Even the angriest of men found it unseemly to argue in a library. The carpet was thick and sound-deadening, and the two floors of bookshelves that overlooked the reading area were usually quiet. Sometimes there would be noises, pages rustling, people speaking, a wheel on the lift or the cart creaking, but they were easily ignored. Rank, or at least ceremony, fell away here too; anyone could come in. Few besides courtiers did—many of the servants could not read, and only the nobles were permitted to take books out—but it happened.

He read the first few reports diligently and saw nothing unexpected. He began skimming. Half an hour later he had still not learned anything that made it worth his time. Corruption in the ports, a brewing land dispute in Pell, a turnpike robbery west of Caithenor. A fire in a country manor started by a lord’s son too careless with his experiments. These things happened. Restless, he put the reports down and stared out the window. He was not sorry to have missed the reconvened council the night before. He wondered if there had been argument. Aram’s power was by no means absolute, but he had a stronger will than nearly everyone on the council. There were so few options, though, that there could not have been much of a dissent in any case.

The plans had been put into effect; troops were moving south to
Dele and east to Harin. The machinery of war had started, but it felt incomplete to him. Obscured. Things were awry, that was the word for it. Knocked off the axis of reason. Maybe Tyrekh really was a sorcerer.

He returned to reading. It was hard to keep his mind on it. He thought of his older sister. Mari was coming here. Would Hadon send a dragon to abduct her as well? The thought was worse because it called up the memory of dragon scale, of cold air, of the heat beneath him. When the dragon tipped in the air, the sun caught blindingly on the wings. Anger against his father spurted briefly through him. To ride an enemy’s dragon was to be taunted. He pushed it away.

Again he had that urgent sense that there was something he was supposed to do. He felt tense, on guard. Some mistake he had made would land disastrously back in his lap. It was waiting. He scowled. Then he gave up. Too many other things needed attention for him to waste his time in fighting phantoms.

He made it through two more hours of tedium before yielding to the desire to stop. Even the spy reports from Mycene only repeated things he already knew. The stack of reports he had read—or looked at—was larger than the ones he had not. It would do. There were probably a dozen new matters waiting on his desk. He had to give some attention to the courtiers, too. Seana had come to see him that morning and he had told Teron to turn her away. He was going to have to talk to her but he had no time. He had no idea if Simoun had told her war was coming. She was no fool; if he hadn’t told her, she would puzzle it out.

Dispirited, he gathered his papers and headed toward the door, walking rapidly past the high bookshelves. When he turned the corner at the end he collided hard with a woman coming the opposite direction. The book she was holding went flying, and she was about to go with it. He dropped the reports and caught her by the nearer arm before she fell.

“Are you all right?” he asked, silently cursing himself for his clumsiness.

“Yes. Thank you,” she said, straightening. “I’m quite sorry.” She raised her eyes to look at him, then froze. He knew he had been recognized, but he felt frozen himself. She was the shy woman he had glimpsed in the entrance hall, astoundingly beautiful. Without breaking eye contact, barely knowing he was doing it, he released her arm. She made a short curtsy and said, “Your Highness.” She sounded embarrassed, and her face was flushed. He could not stop looking at her.

The reports he had dropped were scattered everywhere, and she went to her knees to pick them up. Quickly he came to his senses and squatted down beside her to gather them himself. Not only was it rude to let her do it, no one besides him should be reading them. That was not a mistake he wanted to have to admit to his father.

He made an untidy pile and reached for the last one, which was covering her book. Then his own gaze was stilled. The book had fallen open to an illustration of a Sarian warrior standing with a fire weapon at his shoulder. It was a careful engraving, beautifully inked, that showed the details of the weapon clearly.

He flipped the pages back to the title page, noticing as he did so that the other illustrations were equally well drawn. Some of them were of Sarian people and buildings, others careful sketches of elaborate machines with inset details of parts and precise measurements.
Beyond the Black Peaks. By A Traveler
. It was a history of Sarium, from nearly fifty years ago. On the facing page was a map. He stared at it. Of all the books in the library, why did she have that one? He looked at her, not knowing if he was more startled or suspicious, and their eyes locked again. Hers were deep lapis blue, sparkling and lively. Her black hair was glossy and full. He wanted to touch it.

Absently, he extended the book to her. “Here,” he said. Their fingers brushed, stung. It was all he could do to keep from taking her entire hand.

“I’m sorry,” she said once more. It sounded as though she were thinking something else entirely.

“It was my own fault,” he said rotely. My God, those eyes.

She held out the papers she had gathered, and he added them to the pile he had made, still looking at her. They both stood up. He looked away from her at last and paged through the reports. “They’re all here,” he said, relieved.

“I didn’t read any of them,” she said.

She must have seen enough to know she shouldn’t. “Of course not,” he said. He would have said that even if he had watched her poring over them for an hour. He risked a look at the rest of her: slender and tall. Her hair reached nearly to her waist. Her figure was good—more than good—and her clothing conventionally modest. The adherence to fashion disappointed him. It looked very well on her, there was no denying that, but someone so striking should dress to match.

Then her face went full of mischief and she said, “Wouldn’t it really be a much better idea to read that sort of thing somewhere private, Your Highness?”

He stared at her. He could not tell which of them was more surprised for her to have rebuked him like that. She hadn’t meant to say it; that much was clear from the hand going up to cover her mouth in a vain attempt to withdraw the words. It made her even more beautiful.

Now she was about to apologize again. It was the last thing he wanted. “Who are you?” he asked to cut it off. “What’s your name?”

She cast her eyes down. “Tam Warin, my lord.”

Her first name was not Caithenian, but her last name was, a solid and unremarkable name, a commoner’s. Her voice was cultured, clear, assured. She was no one’s maid or paid companion, which meant she had to have a connection with someone of rank to be here.

“Why are you reading about Sarium?” he asked.

“The book was on the shelf, my lord,” she answered demurely. It was another rebuke of sorts, and an undeniable one. He thought perhaps she was laughing at him behind that deferential manner. He would be a fool to countenance it.

“Fair enough,” he said, then threw both pride and prudence to the winds. “Well, Tam Warin, will you have dinner with me? Don’t answer now, think about it.” He hurried away, before she could say no or he could change his mind.

He practically fled to his study, said tersely to Teron, “No visitors,” and shut the door. He felt about fourteen again. One look at those lapis eyes, so like the stone they even had the green-gold flecks, and he had utterly lost his mind. What in the world was he thinking, inviting a complete stranger to eat with him? There were women he had known for years who would start ordering their wedding clothes if he asked them that. But it was not just her eyes.

Somehow he made it through the rest of the afternoon. He had been coerced—ordered—into attending a dinner with two dozen or so other people, all of them young, none of them married, and he went with a mixture of relief at the distraction and irritation at the event. It reeked of matchmaking. It had the grace of excluding Seana, but he could not see the point of being there himself. All the women had been eliminated
already as potential brides for one reason or another, and it was not the way to find a lover.

He was late, of course. When he arrived people were already clustered in small groups of threes and fours, filling the room with the hum of conversation. A few of them had mourning ribbons pinned to their shoulders. For Cade, he presumed. A hundred years ago a lord’s death would have canceled the event. He kept looking, moving his eyes over the guests. Abruptly he realized what he was doing, trying to find that beautiful long black hair. She was a commoner, so she would not have been invited. Unreasonable disappointment cut him. He was in danger of acting like a moonstruck boy.

He sensed himself being watched and turned. She was young, pretty with a softness of the kind that had never appealed to him but did to many men, and had a look in her eye that could only be called an invitation. Her dress, an expensive embroidered pale rose silk, made no effort to conceal the bounty contained within. It was not hard to imagine removing it. There was no shyness in her face. He remembered her from the entrance hall the other day. Next to Tam, she had been. That was an unlikely combination. Tam would never wear such a gown, but if she did—he forced himself to stop.

He was joined shortly by Mattan, the Duke of Harin, who was only a few years older than himself. Mattan said, “You’re looking well, Corin.”

“That’s unfortunate,” he said sourly, and Mattan laughed.

Other people began to gather around them. Corin went through the motions automatically. A charming smile, a gallant kiss of a lady’s hand, an artfully modulated laugh at a tired jest. Sometimes he wondered what would happen if he said something harsh or coarse or patently stupid. Would anyone dare to call him on it? Unlikely. Favor was the currency of a royal court. He understood that, but it went against him as well; he had to handle the courtiers as carefully as porcelain, lest he say or do something that upset the fine balance of the various factions. Soldiers were much easier to work with.

He missed Tai. She was always elegant and graceful, the perfect princess, during such affairs, and afterward she would share a bottle of wine with him and entertain him with wickedly acidic and accurate imitations of the guests. Neither of them had ever said a word of it to anyone else. Then he realized that she had probably confessed it to her
husband. Sometimes he still forgot she was married. She would not have been here in any case.

He had not forgotten she was a captive. He kept the thought off his face and said politely to the woman he was talking to, “May I get you something more to drink?”

She dimpled and nodded, making her light brown curls bounce up and down. She had a slender neck and too much jewelry. “Thank you, my lord,” she murmured.

When the bell rang for the meal, he found himself at the same table as the bold girl. She held her wineglass low, drawing eyes to her breasts when she was not speaking. He was not the only man who looked. Several other women were seated at the table, and he managed to flirt evenly with all of them, neither neglecting nor favoring a one. It was all restrained and as expected, and would give rise to no rumors. Well, no rumors beyond the usual ones.