Wolf's Blood (80 page)

“You,” Derian said, giving Grateful Peace the New Kelvinese version of a formal greeting, perfect down to hand gestures. “have not.”

He turned and smiled at Citrine. “You, however, have. You’re taller, and quite a bit prettier. I’m glad you haven’t gone all in for tattoos.”

“I’m too young,” Citrine said. “or so Grateful Peace says. He says that tattoos are for when you know your own mind well enough to mark it on your skin. I have one, but it’s little.”

She pulled back her red-gold hair to show a small ornamental mark in the vicinity of her right temple.

“That says I’m Grateful Peace’s daughter. He agreed with me that it wasn’t too early to say so on my skin.”

“What did Sapphire say when she saw that?” Derian asked, keeping up the small talk, knowing it was giving his friends a chance to adjust to his transformation.

“Crown Princess Sapphire said I should get one for Hawk Haven, then, too,” Citrine said, with a giggle that sounded only a little forced, “since my birth land hasn’t thrown me out. I said I would do it—but for Bright Haven, when that day came and I danced at her and Shad’s joint coronation.”

“Very politic,” Derian said. “You are a credit to your father’s famed diplomacy.”

Citrine’s smile this time was completely natural. She stepped forward and gave Derian a deliberate hug, flinching back not from his person but when she felt the armor he wore beneath his loose outer tunic.

“Armor? Certainly not because you were coming to see us!”

“Armor,” Derian repeated, “because as we dreaded, the Nexus Islands are under attack.”

“Tell us if we may help,” Grateful Peace said.

Feeling a bit of a louse, Derian launched into an abbreviated account of what had happened, including the Meddler’s enlarged role, and ending with Ynamynet’s request.

“I had wondered if Firekeeper had managed to return without passing through this gate.” Grateful Peace said when Derian concluded, “or if she had found another route. Well, it seems she has found an answer, if not the one for which you might have hoped.”

Derian nodded, but said nothing. He would not push Peace to decide to join the Nexans in their defense. Peace might not be able to do anything in any case. The Dragon of Despair might have nothing to do with sea monsters.

He waited, and Peace’s next words did not give him a great deal of reason for hope.

“Citrine, we brought some refreshments in case our wait was long. Why not pour us all drinks? I don’t recall if Derian liked fruit tarts, but bring those as well.”

Derian accepted the proffered drink and sincerely enjoyed the pastry. Peace had fallen into deep thought, so Citrine chatted politely with Derian, bringing him up to date on mutual friends. Several times she mentioned Edlin Norwood, and finally the import of these comments penetrated Derian’s tension.

“Edlin? You say you saw Edlin yesterday? Is he in New Kelvin?”

Citrine laughed at his astonishment. “That’s right. I guess we didn’t tell anyone, did we? Firekeeper had so much to tell when she came through, and then we’ve only seen Ynamynet and the puma, and neither of them would really care. Yes. Edlin is here. He’s the assistant to the ambassador from Hawk Haven to New Kelvin.”

“Edlin? We’re talking about Lord Edlin, son of Norvin Norwood?”

“People do change over time,” Citrine said reprovingly. “Edlin went through a lot, and he came out of it … not really changed. He’s still as goofy as ever, but his interests broadened. He and Peace stayed close, and so his New Kelvinese got better and better. He’s been with the embassy for at least a year now. The ambassador doesn’t mind. Edlin goes to all the formal affairs she doesn’t want to bother with.”

“Edlin,” Derian repeated in wonder. “What does his father think?”

“Earl Kestrel is quite pleased,” Citrine said. “Remember, the Norwood grant is just across the White Water River. Having his son and heir apparent intimate with the nation across the border is a good thing for all concerned.”

“I can see that,” Derian said.

“Borders,” said Grateful Peace, speaking for the first time since he directed Citrine to get the refreshments. “That term certainly has changed with the discovery of the Nexus Islands. We never knew that we had a border in our basement. What other borders might there be?”

“I cannot say,” Derian said honestly. “We think that each area in the New World probably had just one gate but we cannot know. We had no idea, for example, that the gate Firekeeper found to the northwest was there.”

Grateful Peace nodded. “I see. It seems to me that my best choice would be to join the Nexans. At least there is a border we can see and defend.”

Derian bowed his head and looked toward the gate. With a cat-like sense of timing, Enigma rose and stretched.

“I will go and speak with the Meddler,” Derian said, “and we’ll get the appropriate precautions in place before bringing you to the Nexus Islands.”

“I need to make a few arrangements myself,” Peace said. “I cannot simply disappear from Thendulla Lypella without raising comment. Shall we meet again in a few hours?”

Derian nodded. “I can’t promise I’ll be here myself, but if the fighting has not begun again, someone will be here for you. My guess is Firekeeper. She’s the one to whom the Meddler made his promise.”

“Then, if the fighting does not begin again,” Grateful Peace agreed soberly, “I shall be waiting here for whoever comes. Good luck, my friend.”

Derian smiled. “Thank you, but I cannot help but feel that luck is something you need to make, and I think by coming and speaking to you, I’ve added to our luck.”

XXXIX

  “EDLIN?” FIREKEEPER SAID, her voice alive with the purest astonishment. “Edlin? You here?”

Edlin Norwood, the young man eventually slated to be Duke Kestrel—but only after the deaths of his grandmother and father—stood in the lantern-lit darkness of the under tunnels of Thendulla Lypella.

The young man wore his hair pulled back in a queue, after the style of Hawk Haven, but his clothing showed the influence of New Kelvin’s elaborate and expensive fabrics. Superficially, he looked much the same as he had when Firekeeper had last seen him three years before, at the festivities celebrating the naming of Prince Sun of Bright Haven, but she couldn’t help but feel there was something different about him.

Edlin hadn’t put on weight, and his shoulders might be marginally broader, but nonetheless there was a sense of steadiness, even a bit of gravity, that had not been there before. His smile, however, was as broad and open, and his manner of speech as uninhibited as ever she had heard.

All but bounding over to Firekeeper, Edlin gave her an enthusiastic embrace that reminded her of how young wolves fling themselves into their elders in the pack. Bending, he thumped Blind Seer resoundingly on the shoulder, to which the blue-eyed wolf responded with a long sloppy lick.

Even though Edlin once said he loved me and wanted to marry me,
Firekeeper thought
, Blind Seer has never acted toward him as he does to the Meddler. ls it because he knew Edlin was never a threat to the primacy he holds in my heart? Does that mean I have given him reason to think the Meddler might be such a threat?

The thought was uncomfortable, and Firekeeper shoved it from her mind by concentrating on Edlin. He had just completed giving Enigma a respectful bow after the fashion of Hawk Haven. The puma, torn between amusement and pleasure, was stretching his body in a long bow clearly modeled after the one Blind Seer had created to bridge the gap between human manners and those of wolves.

“You? Here? Why?” Firekeeper said.

“Not enough that I would want to see my sister, what?” Edlin said happily. “I’m working in the embassy here, don’t you know. Still visit with Grateful Peace and Cousin Citrine whenever I can—almost every day. Happened to have come up to return some books when Grateful Peace returned. Didn’t take too much to weasel out of him what was going on.”

Grateful Peace, who had been silently studying the Meddler, looked at Edlin with a mixture of exasperation and genuine affection. Firekeeper knew that without Edlin, Grateful Peace would likely have been killed when the two men had been imprisoned together during the worst days of the reign of Melina as Consolor of the Healed One. Even so, Firekeeper suspected there were times that Peace wanted to thump the young man soundly between the ears.

“There was little ‘weaseling’ needed,” Grateful Peace said with dignity. “It had already been agreed that the situation with the Nexus Islands was crucial enough that a few other people needed to know at least something. I had written a missive to be given to the Healed One if I did not return. I thought to give Edlin similar information, knowing that not even torture could make him relay the information prematurely.”

Edlin beamed at the compliment.

“But what I did not expect,” Grateful Peace said, “was that Edlin would insist on being permitted to come with me.”

Edlin’s cheerfulness faded. “Grateful Peace isn’t a young man, and I’m not about to have him go into a war zone with no other bodyguard than Citrine. She can only look one way at a time, after all, and it sounded to me that if Peace does manage to pull off what Derian asked, then he’s going to become a prime candidate for retaliation. I said I was coming, what?

“When Peace gave me the what-ho, come along, my boy, I dashed on down to the good old embassy, grabbed some of my gear, told Ambassador Redbriar that I was off to go hunting with some of the young bucks, and she sent me off with her blessings. Before l went, I scribbled her a version of the same patter the Healed One will get. My valet will give it to her if I don’t come back, and he won’t read it first, you can count on that. He’s a younger brother of my father’s man, and you know how reliable Valet is.”

Firekeeper did indeed, and despite the seriousness of the situation, she smiled at the thought of Valet. Doubtless that esteemable man was still polishing the earl’s boots and pressing his trousers, utterly content with his place in the pack. Then she gave Edlin an approving pat on the arm.

“I try and keep Peace safe. I would be in fighting, but I would have some of the yarimaimalom …”

She paused, but apparently in his new diplomatic capacity, Edlin had heard the Liglimosh term, for he signaled for her to continue.

“I think to have some of the yarimaimalom to watch him, but he cannot speak with them. A human would be better, and I know you is good with a bow.”

“I’ve gotten better, too,” Citrine said proudly. She was clad in simple but functional armor, probably meant more for practice than for actual warfare, but she bore its weight easily and moved in it without discomfort. “The New Kelvinese raise their armies from the citizens, so everyone is expected to know something about weapons. I’ve been training with the bow, and the New Kelvinese sword.”

“I don’t suppose I need to explain,” Grateful Peace said, “that Citrine also refused to remain behind.”

“Is good,” Firekeeper said, “when the pack stand together.”

She turned to the Meddler. “What you need to do?”

“I have been inspecting their auras,” the old man with the Meddler’s mannerisms said, “while you were exchanging your greetings, but I could assess their needs far better if each of them would permit me both to touch them, and to …”

He looked as apologetic as the Meddler ever could. “Give me just the smallest drop of their blood, far less than they will need to give to the gate.”

“Only a little,” Firekeeper said, “and you keep none back.”

“Not a fraction of a drop,” the Meddler promised. “I assume you would prefer to do the deed?”

For answer, Firekeeper extracted a small leather folder from one of the pouches hanging from her belt. It contained a few small razors, a selection of needles, and several other items related to the extraction and storage of blood. Ynamynet had told her that such wallets had once been common, and that when those with a talent for spellcasting had begun to survive querinalo, they had been rediscovered and put to use again.

Firekeeper’s Fang was perfectly suited for the task at hand, but she had learned that specialized tools were good as well. Besides, there was something about the deadly blade in her hand, no matter how steadily she held it, that made people tend to flinch away when she came toward them with it.

“I make just a little hole,” she promised. “Who is first?”

Grateful Peace stepped forward. “I will go first. After all, if for some reason this Meddler says I should not go, then Citrine, at least, is going no farther than this point.”

The girl—young woman now, Firekeeper reminded herself—looked for a moment very much like her older sister, Sapphire, for all that the two were so different in coloring and general personality. But Citrine knew her duty to her One as well, and raised no protest.

“Give me a hand,” Firekeeper said to Grateful Peace.

He extended his left hand, and with complete disregard for the needle Firekeeper was about to put into his finger, turned to face the Meddler.

“Firekeeper does not think introductions are necessary,” he said, flinching the slightest bit when the needle pricked his finger, “when everyone should be able to figure out who everyone else is, but I come from a more formal culture. My name is Grateful Peace. I have been Illuminator and Dragon’s Eye, and now have the continued honor to serve Toriovico, the reigning Healed One of New Kelvin.”