“She fancy him back?” Scaa put her arm through Óraithe’s and pulled her close as they walked.
“Sisters, no. Don’t think the girl knows what fancying means. Near as it seems, she sees him like another of the little ones she teaches. Even talks to him the same.”
They laughed at Callaire’s misfortune and Borr told them more of the smith’s dream of a wholesome love. Scaa called it sweet but naive and they all agreed.
Dinner was simple but better than Óraithe had ever known. Lamb in butter and soup and potatoes and sugared beets for dessert. They sat and laughed and talked well into the night. When the food was eaten and the drink was done, they all left Óraithe and Scaa. All but Naí who stayed, sitting quietly at the table, looking at the pair of them.
“I should see to her arm.”
Óraithe nodded and Scaa hopped onto the table, spinning and pulling off her shift, letting her breasts out into the open air. Óraithe leaned her chin on a hand and poked idly at Scaa’s firm stomach with the other.
“So little here, and so much up there.”
Scaa laughed. “Jealousy suits you, love.”
Naí came to Scaa’s front and took her arm. “The two of you are simply precious when nobody’s watching.”
“We’re precious she says.” Scaa nudged Óraithe with her knee.
Scaa’s armed was lifted above the shoulder and she yelped, hoarse and rough as any other sound she made. “Fires take you, what’re you doing?”
“You’re favoring it,” Naí said flatly. “Now keep quiet and let me work.” The skin on the healer’s fingers shimmered like distant sands in the bright sun. “Óraithe, you’ve worked hard today.”
Óraithe crossed her arms on the table and laid her chin on them, sighing. “There is so much more.”
“Good that you know. I worried that you did not consider it. You have plans then?”
“I do,” Óraithe said lazily, wondering at Naí’s intentions. The healer’s voice had hardened just the slightest bit. It was moving toward a lecture, she felt. “I mean to kill the Treorai and dance with the corpse.”
Scaa laughed and Naí slapped her arm to keep her quiet and still. “And that is all? What of the thousands of High District elves? The lack of food? How will you solve those things, since you seem so eager to take a place before the masses?”
Óraithe rolled her head to the side. “You have answers for those questions?”
Naí dropped her hands and sighed, trying to collect herself but failing. “I do not, but I have not been chosen by those people as you have. Nor would I wish to be.”
“And you believe I relish the place?”
Her voice rose, anger came plain now. “I do not know what you feel. But I saw that child that you were a season ago. Scared and stupid and unsure. You have changed, I see that, but not enough. What if you should succeed? You could go and sit on Briste’s chair and play Treorai while the lowborn slaughter the highborn. A passionate speech and some magic dust are not enough to erase the divide in our people. They will tear each other apart and you will play ruler over a city of dead.” Naí picked Scaa’s shift up and tossed it at her, walking around the table and making for the door. “You must understand, Óraithe. I believe in you as they do. Even having seen that girl a season ago. I believe because I have seen the change in you. But you must become more if you will heal us.”
Scaa quietly put a hand on Óraithe’s shoulder. A warm hand, welcome and comfortable.
“Come,” she said after a moment. “We should sleep.”
R
Rianaire
As if her time of late had not been full enough with exhausting necessities, word had come to the Bastion that the representatives from Cnoclean had arrived the day before. They were demanding an audience with her and with so little time in her day, it was decided that it would have to be a dinner. A fine way to ruin a meal. There had been an increase of people supposing to lecture her or issue demands in recent days, as though their fervor or outrage or panic somehow entitled them to be catered to. The college heads, their replacements, and even Síocháin. The gulf between them was regrettable, but one that had opened a dozen times or so across their lives together. Rianaire always seemed to be the one to try to close it, as much as she may have been the one to open it.
In its way, Síocháin’s stubborn nature was a warm reassurance of a sort. Rianaire felt, at times, that she could forget what Síocháin had been in their youth. A vibrant, nervous girl who never failed to make the most precious faces when provoked or dragged into some scheme. She was bashful, entirely proper as an elf in service to the Treorai lineage. And more, she believed in the whole of it. “A lady must be proper,” she had said. Rianaire laughed to think of it now. That still rested in Síocháin somewhere, the beautiful young girl so fun to tease. She had been in love with a boy then. The son of some Binseman or some Regent, perhaps, sent to the Bastion to win favor. Rianaire could not remember it well. But she remembered the unceasing fun of forcing the vivid stories from Síocháin. Living through them as she remained locked in a room when she had no new learnings being forced upon her. Neither loved the other then as they do now. Friends, Rianaire thought. The best of friends. Were they still? No doubt Síocháin would say she had been taken for granted, but was there any other way about it when two were together for so long? Síocháin was no less a part of the air around her than the parts she breathed. And did Síocháin truly never take Rianaire for granted in her own way? That she would
