Sword (31 page)

She wasn't thinking of that.

"I have," Kyali said, without any mockery this time.

"Well, now you don't need to ask, Captain. We are offering. It was actually Prince Kinsey who suggested it."

"Generous of him," she murmured, and didn't miss the defensive flash of the man's eyes in the candlelight when he thought she wasn't sincere. It surprised her. But, she supposed, it would take a certain kind of loyalty to follow an exiled scholar-prince out of your kingdom and into someone else's war. "I did mean that, Lieutenant. And," she added, trying not to sigh—she'd probably choke on dust if she did—"I do accept your offer. We could use the help."

"Yes, you could," Annan said coolly, tension in every line of him.

Kyali huffed, acknowledging the point, and waved him forward. She was tired of standing in this ancient, fusty tunnel.

"Separate command," she said after a few moments, watching the silhouette of his shoulders, and snorted when they dropped noticeably with relief. So
that
was what he'd been worried about. "I assure you, Lieutenant, I have no desire to add any more men to my command than I already have, and while I spent the first five years of my studies acting as a courier, most of what I know about spying is how to apply the information it gains me."

"
You
were a courier?"

The unguarded astonishment in his voice was a little insulting. She made an effort not to bristle. It didn't work very well. "Nobody suspects a girl," she said.

Annan
hmm’
d, pausing at yet another branching of paths to run his hand along the wall. "I suppose not. Not a bad idea."

"Not unless you brought girls from Cassdall trained in combat. I'm not sending anyone down there who doesn't know how to kill as well as hide."

"Fair enough. We can meet tomorrow to work on locations, persons of interest, specific information you need. I'll want a handful of soldiers from various provinces who can mind their tongues, so my men can learn their speech and dress. Barring complications, they ought to be ready in a week."

Either they were indeed very good or he was just that arrogant. "As you say, Captain."

He nearly walked into the next wall, too busy looking back at her in shock. It almost made her want to smile and she bit her cheek, thinking of ice. "Her Majesty will agree," Kyali added. "You ought to be of equal rank. It will make things simpler."

And it would. And she had almost two thousand men where he had a hundred, so she didn't think she was giving away anything she might miss later. That was quite likely another unworthy thought, but she had her own men to think of, and Taireasa, and she didn't care.

Much.

"Never thought I'd get a promotion on
this
tour," Annan muttered. He stopped, looking down at her footprints ending at a blank wall. "'Here we are. Where did you start from?"

"Just past the library."

"Ah." He brushed at himself, frowning. "Maybe I ought to go back the other way."

"Your choice," Kyali said, amused, and for once without that tang of bitter fury under it. That felt—odd.

Unexpectedly, Annan held out a hand. She shook it after only a moment's hesitation, feeling gritty dust, the rasp of calluses, warm strong fingers closing over her own—thinking of ice, of snow, of anything at all but the fact that he was too near, the space was too small, the memory of agony and failure too close to the surface of her mind. Her stomach did a lazy flip. She breathed carefully. "If your men could find some way to move some of this dust while they're exploring, I'd be grateful."

That word felt odd, too.

"I'll see to it," Annan said. "Captain."

* * *

"Now breathe," the old lady commanded.

Taireasa pulled in a large breath and held it until sparkles appeared at the corners of her eyes. She looked at Saraid.

"Dear gods, breathe
out,
too," Saraid said, laughing—it was always startling when she laughed, like hearing a tree speak—and Taireasa let the air in her lungs out with a faint whimper.

"I'm never going to get this right," she moaned. She was, after three days, already comfortable enough with this extraordinary woman to gripe in her presence. The fact of that kept surprising her: she couldn't remember the last time she'd trusted somebody this quickly. Certainly none of the court wizards who'd filled her head with dry theories of the workings of magic had inspired this kind of confidence.

"It's because we share a similar Gift, young queen, and because your court wizards were, at best, philosophers with vague dreams of magic—and yes, you will. In fact, you
are
."

That was so
very
unnerving.

"You'll be doing it yourself soon enough," Saraid said serenely, patting her hand.

"I think I'd rather not."

"Best get used to the notion, Taireasa Marsadron. Your Gift won't go away just because you fear it. Learn to wield it or it will wield you."

That was a familiar command—her father had told her the same thing about rulers and flaws. The memory was so clear that grief got her by the throat, clutching with swollen fingers, and she gulped air, pushing it out carefully. For whatever reason, that did it: the flame she'd been trying to picture turned, suddenly, to a pool of still water that held steady in her mind, and all around her the world went blessedly quiet as the never-ending hum of minds thinking, wishing,
wanting
that filled her head these days slid away.

A thing fell into place inside her, a thing that had been missing without her even knowing. She was suddenly aware of urgency and curiosity equal to her own, hovering just outside the precious bubble of silence she'd somehow created within herself.

"Oh," Taireasa said, astonished and grateful beyond words. "
Oh
."

I should have guessed it would be water,
came a voice, right inside her head. She swallowed back a yelp of pure surprise
. Fire was never yours
—

The rest was drowned in a welter of regret and memory, and Taireasa raised her head so fast the movement echoed down her spine, because it was Kyali she was seeing, Kyali younger and scowling with effort, fire weaving around her fingers. Kyali before the world had made her grim and cold and distant. Kyali her other half, Kyali truest friend.

She didn't know she was crying until Saraid brushed a hand gently over her face.

Taireasa flung herself to her feet and went to look out the window, trying to get her breath back, to quiet the ache in her chest. The mountains looked back at her.

"The world is not kind, young queen," the old woman said softly. Taireasa could feel the heat coming from her thin frame when she came to stand by the window beside her. "We have to be that to one another."

She had no idea what that was supposed to mean.

"It means try again, Taireasa. This time, reach for me, and think of what you want."

What she
wanted
was to curl up on her bed and weep until sleep took her dreamless into the dark, but there was no such thing as dreamless sleep anymore, and never time for that these days in any case, and this was as good a distraction from her sorrow as any. Taireasa shut her eyes, fumbling around in herself for that sense of
otherness
, and found Saraid waiting for her. She was met with grief and iron resolve and patience like the sea, boundless and ever-changing, made strong by many long years of life. Those years echoed around her, rising up, framing the world in image and sentiment.

It was a mind to get lost in, more than the match of her own.

Taireasa thought of that sense of urgency she'd felt, that was surely Saraid's, and
wanted
with everything in her.

Saraid crumpled instantly, a puppet with cut strings, her hands flying up to her temples.

"Oh dear gods," Taireasa cried, and knelt to take Saraid's arms.

"No," the old woman gasped. "I'm… all right, Taireasa. I am. I'm sorry I frightened you." She pushed herself upright, shook her head. The lines on her face had turned to furrows. She kept her eyes shut. "Truly, you can let go now, you're still pushing at me—"

"I'm sorry. Saraid, I'm sorry! I don't know what I did. Please let me help you up."

Saraid laughed weakly and allowed herself to be pulled over to the chair by the hearth. "You did exactly what I asked of you, poor child. I just never imagined you'd be so
strong
, good gods! That, for my arrogance. You could blow my mind away like a leaf on a whirlwind."

That sounded like something she had already done once before. Taireasa caught her breath at the memory of Kyali's pale, stunned face on a hilltop over a valley filled with Western soldiers, the way expression had seemed to flow back into her features. She had done something like this to Kyali that day: her anger and love had opened a door between them.

Dear gods.

"Oh, Taireasa," Saraid said, sounding both tired and sad. "You may be able to make what you want from what you have, dear girl, but first you must
accept
what you have."

That made as much sense as the last piece of advice. Taireasa wondered wearily and a little irritably if she was going to spend her lessons with Saraid trying to decipher an endless series of cryptic utterances.

"There are worse ways to spend an afternoon," she said, because those were precisely the words Saraid was opening her mouth to say, and the old woman tipped her head back and laughed and laughed.

"Oh my, well done," Saraid said. "I haven't been surprised like that since I was—well, nearly your age. How refreshing. And yes, there are indeed worse ways. I believe you know a few, Taireasa Marsadron."

That called to mind things she never wanted to think of again. Taireasa drew a breath, and another, and pulled that clear pool back to the center of her thoughts until silence surrounded her once more.

The slow clap of hands roused her from the stillness.

"Well done again, child," Saraid said as she got to her feet, grunting with effort. "Gods, but you learn fast. No, don't look so worried. You’re not the first to test my boundaries, just—I admit—the only one to actually get
past
them. It’s a hazard, teaching magic to the young. You
want
everything with so much urgency. Ah, but I ought to be going. You've appointments. And you ought to bid young Devin goodbye: I'll be taking him along when I go, so that Measail can teach him out where windows and walls aren't likely to suffer for it."

Devin had told her that. And packed a day ago, and begged her not to hold the farewell dinner she'd planned. It wounded her, but it wasn't unfair. Devin had suffered a great deal lately, first losing his father and then, in all the ways that mattered, his sister. She wished there were something she could say to help him understand, but there was still so much guilt in her, so much pain. And it would only hurt him worse to know.

Oh, she wished so badly that she had someone to talk to about these things.

Taireasa stared at the chair, trying to remember what the subject had been. She could feel Saraid's curious mind hovering at the edges of her thoughts. "Wanting is so important a part of it, then?" she asked, a little desperately.

"Magic is perception and intent, Taireasa," the old woman replied, winding a shawl about her shoulders. Her silver hair gleamed. "Wanting is a sort of intent, though one must be careful about it. You, especially, will have to learn to govern your heart as well as you do your head. Yours is a Gift very much of the heart, and the better you govern your own, the better you will govern others’."

"Why would I do
that
?" Taireasa asked, and shrank under Saraid’s sardonic look.

"You are a queen, are you not?"

She didn’t like the direction this discussion was taking at all.

Saraid shrugged and spread her hands:
There you are
. "You already do. Every ruler has some hold on her people’s hearts. You can’t argue it would have been useful a few months ago."

A point.

Crown shall harbor all their hope
. Maybe her Gift would teach her how to do that. Gods knew she found little to hope for in this new, lonely life.

"Must you go?" Taireasa sighed, and the old woman grinned at her.

"I'll be back. I can't stay inside walls for more than a handful of days before I get restless. I need the mountain air. Meanwhile, remember the pool, and to breathe. Think of the structure of the world. Your court wizards weren't good for much, but they weren't wrong about that. Fire, earth, air, and…" she came forward, tapping a gnarled finger on Taireasa's breastbone, "—water. Less use than breathing, but not use
less
. I'll see you in a few days, Your Majesty."

"Please don't call me that, Saraid."

"It's what you are," she replied, not without pity.

"It's not
all
I am."

"No, Taireasa. You are much more than that." Saraid's face was as calm as ever, but compassion and sorrow flickered in her eyes and also in the mind behind them… which shuttered itself tightly. Taireasa carefully didn't let her face give away that she'd noticed that.

Yes, the Fraonir definitely knew more than they shared.

How
much
more was the question, but she'd gotten the impression, during the course of these lessons, that Saraid held herself apart from their efforts due to some great discipline, something that did, in fact, cause her pain.

Nothing was simple anymore. The days of hiding in Faestan's walls and sneaking sheep into the sewing solarium seemed so very far away.

"Safe travels," Taireasa said, and went to do the next thing, and the next, until there was a moment to rest.

* * *

Kinsey set the quill aside and blew gently on the page before leaning back in a newly repaired chair. Corin leaned over him, gawky as a colt in her Fraonir trousers (he was never going to get used to seeing a woman in those), and blew hard enough to send a stray drop of ink sailing across the paper, just to be contrary.