“Lightkeep,” he returned, his voice dropping low although still it managed to carry farther than he surely would have preferred. “What is the meaning of this?”
Now was not the time for such enquiries. She should be ushered back for their conversation, for their discourse to be private. The terms could not be renewed as written, she had known that the moment the rider had been revealed as one of the land-dwellers, but the revision would be done in secret.
It was their way. Always had been since the first treaty had been enacted.
Yet Henrik looked at her as if he had never considered this possibility, as if the sages before him had ill prepared him for this eventuality.
She eyed him steadily. “The terms have been breached. Not by my people,” she continued, feeling no need to hide the truth of their faults from them. “But by yours.”
Murmurs throughout the room, glances between neighbours as if by glance alone they could ascertain who had managed to pass the guardsmen and cross the boundary erected so long before.
Their confusion was genuine. Or was it? For all the training she had endured, she had also been sequestered from people. Did they have a different way? Their ability for deceit ingrained in the lot of them? It sent an unpleasant pull through her, the not knowing. She felt a tinge of worry that she had misstepped, although this was the code she had been given.
An introduction to the people here. A smile, before retiring to the room with the sages, to sign the ancient scroll that affirmed the continuation of a peace generations old.
It was simple, but it was necessary.
For the protection of the winged-folk was in their seclusion, and it was her responsibility to ensure it was maintained.
Henrik took a step nearer to her, his voice lowering significantly until at last his words were private. “I can assure you, there has been no such breach.”
Penryn eyed him steadily, an eyebrow lifting of its own accord in question. “My injuries were not inflicted by accident, I assure you.”
He paled, his eyes drifting over her person, settling on the wrist that even now showed some hint of the bandaging, tighter than the slim forearm of her other hand.
“We must talk,” he managed to get out, although there was a hardness settling over him that was disturbing to behold. Where friendliness had poured freely, he held himself more erect, a stiffening to his posture that suggested the ease between them was at an end.
That was for the best. She would have truth between them. Pleasantries between enemies was hardly useful.
“That is our purpose, yes,” Penryn agreed. “For you have much to answer for.”
Henrik’s jaw tightened, and he gave a stiff nod, sharing a silent glance with two other sages surrounding her. She was acutely aware of the discomfort of those in attendance, the barely contained enthusiasm having spoiled into worry.
She should be sorry for that, yet dread was what tugged at her most fiercely. There were no friends here. Not really. There was ritual and tradition, but those could be set aside easily enough.
A sharp point of a blade by any one of these men and that would be the end of her.
She had never been taught to fight. She was gifted a Guardian instead, to see her to this point and no further.
The rest entrusted to an agreement hard-won through blood and the promise of more.
She had never felt so alone.
She raised her head a little, determined to keep her composure before Henrik gestured curtly back toward the door they had entered in such a short time before. This should have been a joyous happening, another cheer heralding their retreat for a brief signing before the merry-making could begin.
A feast held only once a generation.
She wondered if any of them truly remembered what it was for.
They sprinkled their history throughout their daily lives until it was commonplace, immortalising a people in works of stone until it was as ordinary as the very building they currently inhabited. Did any remember the war between them? The slaughter? Or was the only thing spoken of the revelry and dance, the entire joining of a people as they came together for a feast that would not come again for another century?
She gave one final glance to those in the front-most row. They were in fine dress, the stitching and embroidering glittering in the light from the lanterns. They must have paid dearly to be so close, yet all they would remember now was the glare she had given their beloved sages, the tight line between her brows.
The anger that even now set her hands to trembling.
The ladies paired with their menfolk, the colours of their gowns and waistcoats coordinating, their expressions matching just as well. Confusion mingled with an awkward sort of embarrassment to have witnessed such an uncouth ceremony.
They had expected joy.
They had found none.
She kept her back stiff, ushered toward the door by a swarm of sages, surrounding and almost suffocating in the tense rage that radiated between all of them.
What else was she to have done?
They were the ones that insisted on straying from the codes. Of abandoning decorum and the script that was meant to have been drilled into them since childhood.
It had certainly been taught to her.
She was nearly to the door when a subtle movement caught her eye, a hunch of back, of cloth less fine amongst the fine brocades and intricate pattern-work. Simple and black, a body coiled amongst itself.
Hair dark as pitch.
Her heart stuttered, shame flooding her that even now she could feel the catch in her throat, the surge of hope that maybe, just maybe, it was...
But that was not possible. He should be nearing his home by now, surely. Perhaps if his wing had healed, was even
