Stained Glass Monsters (34 page)

Lieutenant Danress looked about as
disbelieving as Kendall felt. Rennyn and Captain Faille? When?
They'd never so much as given each other a warm glance.

Not bothered by the general air of
disbelief, Lieutenant Faral adjusted the blanket covering Rennyn.
"Magister, do you not think it wiser to lift this casting? By
fighting it she is doing worse damage to herself than anything she
could manage moving about."

The old lady must have agreed, because
she finished writing up her slate, put some power into it, and
immediately Rennyn began to shift about.

"I've removed the sleep and some of the
pain suppressants, though I dare not lift them all," said the
healer. "A delicate matter, because she is obviously resisting
anything cast on her. She may dispel the caulding as well, putting
her lung at risk of another collapse. We can hope that even a
partial consciousness will keep her from casting."

Almost as if she'd heard, Rennyn shifted
again. Her glazed and feverish gaze swept the ceiling, and she
began the futile struggle to sit up.

"Ren?" Sebastian caught her shoulder,
then touched the unbruised side of her face, turning her head a
little toward him. "They're alive. They survived it." He stepped
aside so she could see past him to Captain Faille, still but
breathing. "They're just sleeping."

Rennyn didn't respond, and Kendall
couldn't tell if she'd even understood, but she did seem to be
looking at Captain Faille. She closed her eyes, and everyone held
their breath, then let it out when she didn't shift again.

"She wanted to know if they were alive,"
Sebastian said, and shook his head. "That's all."

The old lady healer laughed. "Well,
she's had her way. Now let's leave her to rest, a thing I'm sure
all of us need. It's over. Go to bed, the lot of you."

Dismissed, they shuffled off, the healer
giving Sebastian an extra prodding when he looked like he wanted to
stay.

Over. Done with. Finished. Just pieces
to be picked up and tidied away. Kendall thought about just what
those words meant as she went back to the room where she'd seen
Sukata. Dawn was creeping through the window, giving the figures in
the beds a milky sheen. She listened to them breathe, slow, deep
and reassuring.

"At some point during all that, did you
happen to save my life?"

Kendall glanced over her shoulder at
Sebastian. "You notice a lot more than you make out."

He shrugged. "I saw the movement, but I
wasn't giving it a lot of attention. Thank you. Not only would I
have hated to die right at the end, but if he'd killed both of us,
our Great-Uncle would have control of the Kellian. His own private
army."

"I don't think he was particularly keen
on killing you," Kendall gave Sukata one last glance then started
out for the Arkathan. "Or not Rennyn, anyway. He wasn't trying very
hard."

"I guess not." She'd made Sebastian
worried, and he shifted subjects probably so he didn't have to
think about what the demon had planned to do to his sister. "Are
you going to stay?"

"The Arkathan's not my idea of
worthwhile."

"No. With Rennyn. You're her student
now, remember?"

"That wasn't real."

"Since when?"

"It was just something for her to do so
she didn't have to think about how bad she felt."

"So you're saying you didn't learn
anything?"

Kendall gave him an exasperated look.
"No."

"Don't have anything more to learn from
her?"

"Don't be stupid."

"Then you're staying," he said as if it
was settled, and added helpfully, "You can still pretend you don't
like her," then laughed at the expression on her face.

"You're just as full of yourself as she
is."

"Probably." Sebastian was inexplicably
pleased.

Hunching her shoulders, Kendall looked
up at the jagged wreckage in the middle of the Arkathan and then
headed through the nearest door. "Do you believe Rennyn likes
Captain Faille?"

"Who knows? The most she ever said about
him to me was that he was dangerously intelligent. And I would have
thought any kind of relationship with a Kellian was out of the
question, that our inheritance of control would make us completely
intolerable. But Lieutenant Faral wasn't even surprised when I
asked. None of the Sentene mages knew, but it looks like all the
Kellian did. She said they were glad. Glad. Faral acted like she
still was, didn't she?"

"I guess. What she told them gave them
the horrors, and I don't see any chance that that'll change, but
they didn't blame it on Rennyn. Maybe they won't want to have much
to do with her, but do you think it likely they'd hate her for
saving them?"

"No." Sebastian breathed the word, then
shook his head to banish whatever thought lay behind it. As they
reached the dormitory he looked around as if he hadn't realised
where they were walking.

"Goodnight," Kendall said pointedly

He smiled. "I don't think I have a hope
of sleeping. But I'll leave you to try. Thank you again. And,
Kendall–"

"What?"

"It's not that Ren needs students, or
probably even wants them, but she likes you and so there's a place
for you if you want to be taught. All you have to do is decide
whether you want that."

A place for her. Kendall thought about
it for a long time after, and decided that Sebastian was definitely
as annoying as his sister.

The wrongness of the empty bed filtered
through layers of cloth and wool. Looking at it brought Rennyn a
tidal surge of panic, slow and overwhelming. It should not be
empty.

A touch on her shoulder broke into the
suffocating waves, and she managed to turn her head, then let out
her breath. Illidian.

"Hello," she said, or tried to. The tiny
croaking noise she managed was lost in the dry cough that followed
it, and then the pain which overwhelmed everything. The itching of
her throat was overwhelmed by the need to not breathe, to prevent
the agony of coughing. Her chest stabbed at her, her face ached
alarmingly and the rest of her made muffled suggestions that all
was not well.

A glass was pressed to her lips, and
Illidian's hand curled behind her head, lifting her enough so that
she could swallow. Honey water. The itching faded, but the pain
blocked everything out, and she closed her eyes again.

The light had changed when she next
looked. All shadows and glowlight instead of sunshine. This time
she was facing the right direction, and could see Illidian. Long
form balanced on a small chair, he was reading a book held loosely
in one hand. He was here, with her.

The instinct which served him so
unerringly brought his eyes to hers, and in that intent, searching
look she found an echo of her own questions. But drawing a breath
brought back a memory of dire consequences and she stopped any
words. Illidian immediately turned and picked up a glass. Diluted
apple juice this time, which she could feel all the way down her
throat to a hollow stomach. Swallowing it made her realise her
weakness. Without Illidian's help she wouldn't even be able to lift
her head.

He propped two pillows behind her,
moving her with infinite care while she catalogued the failings of
her body. She was still a roiling mass of hurt, but there was a
casting which turned a thousand alarms into a little list she could
review without flinching. Other spells seemed to be holding bits of
her in place. Bruises everywhere.

"I dreamed that I'd killed you," she
said, her voice small and worn, but working this time.

"No."

Even more uncommunicative than usual.
She gazed up at this man who had so unexpectedly become central to
her world, who she had used as a weapon, who had every reason to
want to be as far from her as possible. It had astonished her
beyond words when he'd been able to step across the chasm of her
control, but that divide would always be at his back, dragging him
away. And that even before the final lies, before she'd nearly
killed him.

He was watching her steadily, but she
could not see the distance she had dreaded.

"Are you angry?"

"For the deception?" His gaze shifted
from her face, and she felt a moment's terror, but then he curled
his hands through hers and leaned over her, pressing his cheek
against the undamaged side of her face. As close to an embrace as
he could manage without hurting her. "I am not such a fool." The
words, breathed into her ear, were accompanied by a tremor which
ran through both their hands.

Rennyn closed her eyes. She hadn't
pushed him beyond endurance. The tangle of lies were so much what
she suspected he would despise, yet he did not hate her for
them.

But his hands. She managed to tilt her
head to look at them as he straightened, the fingers long and
tapering and blunted. He'd trimmed the nails. Both hands.

"For always?"

"I don't know."

She curled her fingers further around
his, unable to completely hide her distress. He might have chosen
to be here with her, but he was fantastically upset. None of the
Kellian trimmed both of their hands: it would be a denial of their
selves.

Exhaustion was blurring thought. She had
let his hands drop without realising it, and when she tried to lift
her head further she couldn't manage it and realised he'd moved,
that she'd been asleep again. Not so long this time, for it was
still dark and he was sitting holding her nearest hand between both
of his, face meditative.

"I don't think I'm going to like being
kitten-weak," she said.

"No."

The certainty of his agreement made her
laugh, and laughing made the world turn black with dancing white
spots. She stopped.

"We are all adjusting," he said. The
words were quiet, but the lines on either side of his mouth had
deepened during her small episode, and his grip on her hand had
briefly tightened to steel. Illidian wasn't going to enjoy her
recovery either.

"Seb?" she asked, when she could. Her
voice worked better this time.

"Uninjured. Sleeping."

A small part of her relaxed, enough that
she could ask: "My Wicked Uncle?"

"No trace."

He was less than pleased about that. She
wondered incuriously how much time had passed, and drank some more
of the juice Illidian had ready, feeling markedly better for
it.

"Are the Kellian confined to barracks
again?"

"No. At the moment there is too much
which needs doing."

The words were full of the knowledge
that while the Kellian were spared imprisonment because of their
usefulness, the Sentene uniform would no longer deflect attention
now that the people of Tyrland had been given a demonstration of
how dangerous they could be. Their future would not be simple.

He rubbed the ball of his thumb around
the palm of her hand, soothing. "The Court officials have
tentatively scheduled your annunciation as Duchess of Surclere. Two
months from now."

"Bah."

"You had not intended to make the
arrangement known?"

The neutrality of the question made her
remember Lady Weston on the subject of Kellian offering their
opinion. Rennyn had no doubt about the depth of what was between
herself and Illidian Faille, for all that there would always be
barriers to overcome. And Illidian changed everything. All those
plans to have no plans, to please only herself, to not be weighed
down by any more grand responsibilities.

"I have always enjoyed visiting
Surclere," she said slowly.

"I saw that."

"We walked through the field where the
Kellian were created."

His eyes narrowed. "It is not a lack of
connection with Surclere which makes you reluctant."

A neat side-step of the importance of
Surclere to his people. It was home to her family, but the
birthplace of the Kellian race. And loving Illidian meant no longer
pretending she was not involved in the issues surrounding the
Kellian.

"A voice on the Council." She considered
the tedium involved, then said in weary half-sentences: "Hardly
likely discovered those records just tonight. Known of Tiandel's
arrangement for weeks, but held off until saw whether Seb or I
survived? Suppose the Queen considers it a means control me. Seen
enough of me to know would take an oath seriously."

"You don't want to give it."

She tried to shrug, which didn't really
work, and she blinked hard at all the different parts of her which
protested. "To someone who treats those who protect her with such
bare tolerance? No, I don't want to swear an oath to her."

"But you are going to."

He read her so well. "I think I'm
talking myself into it. Because I want Surclere. Because I–" She
flushed and that made her dizzy. "Because I want you. Because it
would be useful. Would you rather I didn't?"

"I see the value in it." He didn't sound
entirely convinced, and diverted her attention by touching a hand
to her forehead. "It's not something for now. Go to sleep. I will
be here when you wake."

"I know," she said, and marvelled at the
certainty of her words, along with the thread of fear which
underlay them. "I don't think I can stand you not to be," she
admitted. "Not yet. I never imagined being so consumed by anyone.
Can – can we be this?"

He was slow to answer, finally saying:
"There is no value pretending that I won't struggle with what you
can do. But I have a sense of rightness with you which has nothing
to do with your heritage." His fingers brushed her forehead again.
"We already are this. I will not run from it."

He was going to make her cry. But a
particularly tiresome possibility had occurred to her. "Can we get
married? Soon?" She wished she was strong enough to do anything, to
be able to hold him as she wanted. To lift her head.