Martyn watched me win through the hundred rounds in the archery tournament but she did not travel with me to the Castle, where he made us victors immortal. I whispered to her afterward how nobody in the Circle felt immortal and we hardly believed the Emperor. I established myself, organized my lodging in the Castle, and next thing I knew, San sent us to the Front. The Wall ran on the north bank of Rachis River and we struggled very hard-they stretched the Empire to breaking point. I had no sleep for a week, I fought to the last of my strength. It took years to push the vermin back into Lowespass. It was a harder struggle than that of twenty-fifteen.
“Then San gave me leave. I visited my family, and everything looked different. They were all older.”
Lightning pulled his knees up under the blanket and wrapped his arms around them. The informal gesture made him seem shockingly smaller; I suddenly saw the boy in a man I had thought too old and awesome to contain one.
“The gentry and my brothers gave sidelong glances from the periphery of the courtroom as I knelt before Teale. She raised me to my feet, pinched my cheeks and turned my head. ‘By god, it’s true,’ she said, with both pride and envy. Their bodies changed with time, mine didn’t. The world had seen nothing like Eszai before. I seemed to be a threat although I had no power to intimidate them; I couldn’t even age. The stilted politeness of the quality crowd barely covered their distrust. I was keeping their wealthy world safe from Insects but because the Circle was successful the courtiers lost the concept of danger. They took my sacrifice for granted. They drifted, I fought.
“I proposed to Martyn but she could not deny the will of our Queen. She would not leave the court and the country. Although it would have been easy, at the time we couldn’t see how. What happened to the carefree rowdy girl in those years I was away? Martyn didn’t…Now she was older I don’t think she trusted what I’d become. I think I frightened her. I wasn’t strong enough to take her from the court, and she wasn’t as strong as I thought she was…or maybe I appeared stranger to the world than I realized. In the blink of an eye she was married, raised a family of beautiful children, was an old woman; she died. She was always very changeable. I admired her ability and loved her all the more. I adored and guarded her until the end, but I never spoke to her.
“Life seems to be more about the choices you don’t make. San decreed that I could be Eszai or King of Awia, not both. The throne passed to Avernwater. I threw myself into my work again. Eventually I saw Martyn’s own line die out. The bustle and crowds had gone from the palace and I lived there on my own. Hardly anything happened for two hundred years. I had a lot of Challenges because, after all, archery is the national sport. Next time I looked up, I barely recognized the kingdom.”
Lightning realized he was staring at nothing and seemed surprised. He gave me a sharp look and said harshly, “Never mind. I had expected to outlive you, Comet, but these are not Insects we’re fighting now. Will you carry the message to Martyn?”
His confidence overwhelmed me. “I’ll do better than that. I’ll bring her balsam blooms and chat to her on your behalf this day every year for the rest of my life, and then, if I can, I’ll pass the duty on to another willing Eszai when I die.”
“God, Jant; so generous. I am indebted. Thank you very much…” He sighed; he was too exhausted to continue. The silence that followed purged the air. We both knew that we would never mention Martyn again.
I looked at us there: a young and old immortal. The lanky Rhydanne one curled up, safe in his own self- interest, had a bright pride in his eyes because he had the chance to watch over and listen to a prince aged fourteen hundred and thirty-something, talking in a tired attempt to unpick his past. You could peel away shell after shell and still never understand Lightning, because you only get a little of him with each shell. In response I told him everything about Tern’s affair, and I asked for advice. “When Tern’s in Tornado’s rooms I’m too scared to confront them, because it’s his territory, you know.”
Lightning scowled, then surprised me by saying, “But from the start she was so keen to marry you! I can have a word with her if you like. I can explain how you feel, to show my gratitude for the favor you have promised. I once told Rayne about my cousin, but no one else. You will keep the secret?”
“Yes, of course.”
“You are a good friend.” He lay down, propped on one elbow, and said, “Leave me for the night. I have to sleep.”
Next morning I waited till the rain dwindled, then ran out of my cabin along the slick bowed deck past the wheelhouse that Mist had constructed around the helm. She had also lashed a copper rod to the mainmast like a lance. Two sailors clinging to the wheel muttered, envying my sense of balance and the way I can relax into the cold.
Every time the
Worse, the five-meter waves pushed by the hurricane started overtaking us, and pushed
In Mist’s cabin my entrance was met with a nod. She was busy with her charts, while her navigational instruments hurtled from one edge of the table to the other with every whoosh-splash.
“It’s been one hundred days,” I said. I wedged myself in the corner. “When will this stop? You said we should be able to see Tris by now.”
“If there was no sea-fret we could,” Mist muttered. “How’s the Archer?”
“Variable. He can walk but his wound keeps catching.”
Wrenn’s voice interrupted me: “Fret, she says! It’s not a fret, it’s a hurricane.” He lay abjectly on the bench by the stern windows. His angular Adam’s apple pointed at the ceiling. His short chestnut-colored wings folded neatly to fit under the curve of his spine, so he could lie flat on his back. His face had a greenish pallor; sweat bristled his hair and stubbly razor-cut sideburns. I noticed a tiny lip of fat over the waistband where he used to be trim. The sea crossing was taking its toll. Happily, I thought, I’m better company for Lightning now he’s injured. Lightning wouldn’t have told Wrenn his secret.
The whole room seesawed up and free-fell down. I winced at the crash. The Swordsman moaned, “After I puke I feel better until fifteen minutes later I have to puke again. My nose is full of it. The teeth ache in my gums. When we lift my stomach is left up there. I plunge with a hole in my middle-on the next rise I meet it and god knows what other internal organs.”
“Try flying,” I said merrily.
“Oh, god…”
The salt-smeared panes behind him gave onto the pockmarked water.
The violet rings under Mist’s eyes were the same color as her irises; with her pale hair and fading bronze skin she looked unearthly. She pushed a wooden rule back and forth along the raised rim of the tabletop. “Patience,” she snapped. “I can’t help that we’re hindered by dirty weather, or that
Wrenn and I remained quiet. The thought that Mist was failing filled the cabin with despondency. She stretched her arm across the table and neatly caught a brass protractor as it slid past. “Can Lightning draw a bow?”
“He says so.”
“Can you fly in this weather?”