‘Who are you?’ Vaguely familiar as she seemed, Lysaer could not push past recent memories of Talith to place where he may have encountered her.
‘We’ve met, but so briefly you might not recall. In the house of Enithen Tuer.’ She had better night-sight than he; at least, she sat without groping on a stone bench set invisibly in a cranny beside the hedge. A passing dray’s lantern shot fuzzed diamonds of light through the latticed gate. Stray beams brushed copper glints in the hair that trailed loose from her hood.
‘The enchantress,’ Lysaer said in recognition. He added, accusing, ‘But Arithon knew you better than I.’
A night-time visit to the hayloft in the Ravens Tavern hung unmentioned between them. Elaira tucked her hands beneath her cloak, that Lysaer might not see how her nerves had been shaken. ‘You don’t approve of your half-brother’s midnight excursions.’
Her guess was accurate; also, on the tail of his self-examination, hurtfully near the meat of his recent uncertainties. Unsure whether she toyed with him, Lysaer pushed away from the pedestal. He crossed the gravel path to gain a better view of her features. The layers of her hoods kept her veiled. He decided to risk honest answer. ‘I’m not sure. Arithon takes unconscionable risks, looking for pearls among beggars. I prefer the simpler reality, that the means to uplift the unfortunate are better controlled from the council chamber. A man can feed the hungry and clothe beggars all his life and not change the conditions that make them wretched.’
The lady considered a moment then offered, ‘Your vision and Arithon’s are very different. As a spirit schooled to power, his perception stems from one absolute. Universal harmony begins with recognition that the life in an ordinary pebble is as sacred as conscious selfhood. Both views are equally valid.’
Lysaer responded in stifled antagonism. ‘And just what’s your stake in all this?’ He felt hagridden enough, without her unasked for exploration of his conscience.
She was stung; her sigh was drawn out and hinted at diffidence. Still, she did not shy back from the truth. ‘I was sent. Direct orders from my superiors: to seek out the princes given sanction to rule and to interact enough to test their mettle.’
He stepped back, felt the dripping lip of a second stone bench and sank down facing her. Fiercely he said, ‘What have you found?’
That Etarra offers entanglement enough to torture any man and suffering very clearly bares the spirit. As a prince must, you place love and care for the masses before individual suffering.’ Her hood moved; perhaps she looked down in embarrassment for her snooping. Arithon trapped under such scrutiny would have cut off further inquiry through sarcasm; Lysaer more civilly chose silence. Drawn to shared sympathy by his tact, Elaira said, ‘I saw your half-brother earlier, when he made ships out of shadows in the knackers’ alley.’
Lysaer could not stem his curiosity, nor did he hide his concern for the strain on Rathain’s prince that even the sorcerers could not ease. ‘Arithon spoke to you then?’
‘No.’ She was sharp. ‘I dressed in disguise as a lad. He was never allowed to see my face. And please, I would mind very much if you told him.’
The vehemence she could not quite curb sparked Lysaer to exclamation. ‘
‘I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.’ She forestalled his impulse to explain, angry, or intensely afraid. ‘Keep still. If it concerns the Koriani Senior Circle, I’m far better off left ignorant.’
‘Arithon cares for you,’ Lysaer said, his first impulse to soften her distress.
‘He weeps for the grass that he treads on.’ Elaira stiffened, indignant at his solicitude. ‘You should know, as a scion of s’Ilessid, that the s’Ffalenn royal gift is forced empathy!’ She stood in a reckless haste that showered dew from the bushes as her cloak caught. ‘I have to go.’
‘But your errand.’ Lysaer stood also. Effortlessly considerate, he bent and unhooked the snagged cloth without touching her. ‘Surely your purpose is incomplete?’
Elaira shook her head as he straightened. The dark had begun to lift with the earliest glimmer of dawn; the eyes that met his from under voluminous layers of clothing sparkled, filled with tears that only magnified their intensity. Yet when she spoke, her voice was hammered and level. ‘I have what I came to this garden for. You do not, if you left your bed to find calm.’
Lysaer gently took her arm. ‘I’ll see you to the gate,’ he said politely.
Relieved to discover he was gentleman enough not to pry, she smiled in piercing gratitude. In a sympathy tuned so closely to his inner dilemma that this time no sensibilities were offended, she said, ‘Speaking strictly for myself, I would spill blood to release those clan children from slavery in the knacker’s yard. But then, female instinct drives me to condemn exploitation of the young. A man might arrange his priorities differently.’
Lysaer steered her past the spears of the spring’s sprouting lilies, his hand warm and sure on her arm. ‘It is not what you would do, or what I would. Pity Arithon, for as he said, tomorrow Etarra becomes his problem. I only pray that the guildsmen don’t murder him before he’s had his chance to act at all.’
They had reached the gate. Lysaer’s touch dropped away as he raised the latch and opened the panel to let her through.
Elaira passed beneath the trellis. ‘What this realm will kill for certain is your half-brother’s musical talent. Mourn that.’
And then she was gone, a shadow vanished into foggy streets that no lantern could fully illuminate.
As dawn silvers the cloud-cover above the forested hills of Deshir, relays of barbarian couriers race at speed through thinning rains bearing the call-to-arms for clan encampments to the north and east…
Guarded from outside interference, sealed in a seamless stone flask, the uncounted entities that comprise the Mistwraith, Desh-thiere, brood upon two half-brothers whose gifts have seen them doomed to oblivion…
Grey seas heave off the north coast of Fallowmere, where a rainstorm spends the torrents that should have fallen upon lands far south; while skies brighten flawless aquamarine and citrine above the square bastions of Etarra, the sorcerer responsible for nature’s violation touches runes of well-binding upon plants, soil, and wild creatures, and begs their forgiveness for his act…
XIV. CORONATION DAY
