Jieret, spun in one surge to his feet, faced the doorway.
Lightning flared like a rip in black silk, to limn the arrival standing there. The man was slight boned, soaked as a seal in plain cotton. Temper smoked through each stabbing vowel as he added, “I’m back from the mainland, blown in with a spate of foul weather. Don’t cheer,” said Arithon s’Ffalenn. He stepped forward, reduced once again to a voice clothed over in darkness. “Cattrick didn’t sell my killed carcass to the mayors, though assuredly, he had to be wooed.”
Dakar’s stupor unlocked all at once. He splashed sliding through a puddle, and rummaged after oiled rags and a wet length of kindling. Nerves interfered. When his hands dropped the flints, he resorted to a cantrip, spell driven. A spark erupted in a ripe flare of sulfur. New flame snagged the torch, fought into tormented brilliance by the gusts. Its flittering glow bronzed the first thing to hand, the bent crown of Jieret’s head.
He had knelt. Taller than his sovereign, a muscled tiger before a wraith, he stumbled through the ritual greeting, caithdein to his sworn prince.
Black haired, green eyed, pale as if chipped from veined quartz, the Master of Shadow poised on braced feet with his crossed arms wrapped to his chest. He was shivering. Shed droplets rocked off the plastered folds of his shirt and scribed rubied flecks through the torchlight. “There’s a parchment,” he prompted, succinct. “Let me see it.”
At Jieret’s upflung glance of distress, the prince’s brows angled higher. “You can hear? Good. Than arise and stop looking amazed. Your mission’s no secret. Every forest scout I met crossing Falwood said a writ had been passed to my caithdein’s charge. If I’m not over-joyed to find Rathain’s left stewardless, at least I’ll see why no clansman in Havish seemed eager to look me in the face.”
Jieret stood erect, his every movement cautious. That his prince was unarmed made no difference. The royal presence framed warning like the gleam on a lake of black ice. The pair of them were bloodbond, and yet, here stood a stranger masked in the features of a friend. This diamond-edged malice held a febrile, strung focus more volatile than Jieret remembered. While thunder boomed andshook the ancient foundations, and the rain thrashed in demented torrents, he became aware of Dakar’s tense stillness, as if even the whisper of a wrongly drawn breath might trigger the spring of a predator.
Jieret’s hand did not shake in its office as he said, “I would soften this, liege, if I could.” In the uncanny, grave style inherited from his father, he drew the bundled document from the breast of his leathers and passed it across to his prince.
Arithon stiffened at first sight of the seals: the crown and star blazon of the purloined s’Ilessid device, and another, stamped in a lozenge of champagne wax, the rayed sunwheel adopted since Vastmark. The Shadow Master flipped open the folded leaves, then tipped them to capture the torchlight.
He read. His skin went from pale to transparent, and his very heart seemed to stop. Then he stirred. A word passed his lips, the staccato lilt of consonants framed in the grace of old Paravian. He hurled down the indictment as though its mere touch burned his flesh. Then he whirled, bent, and in a move of pure fury, plucked Jieret’s quilloned knife from the stool seat.
“Caithdein of Rathain,” he intoned in chiseled, formal language. “The truth, on my word as your crown prince. If that’s not sufficient, you’ll have your sure proof through a death seal set into the lifeblood spilled from my body.”
From the corner, Dakar gasped. Before Jieret could decry the necessity, Arithon closed an unsteady hand on the blade, over steel just meticulously sharpened. Scarlet welled from his palm, spilled through lean fingers, and ribboned slick tracks down his wrist. He inclined his head to the spellbinder.
“You have my consent. Lay
Lightning flared like a rip in black silk, to limn the arrival standing there. The man was slight boned, soaked as a seal in plain cotton. Temper smoked through each stabbing vowel as he added, “I’m back from the mainland, blown in with a spate of foul weather. Don’t cheer,” said Arithon s’Ffalenn. He stepped forward, reduced once again to a voice clothed over in darkness. “Cattrick didn’t sell my killed carcass to the mayors, though assuredly, he had to be wooed.”
Dakar’s stupor unlocked all at once. He splashed sliding through a puddle, and rummaged after oiled rags and a wet length of kindling. Nerves interfered. When his hands dropped the flints, he resorted to a cantrip, spell driven. A spark erupted in a ripe flare of sulfur. New flame snagged the torch, fought into tormented brilliance by the gusts. Its flittering glow bronzed the first thing to hand, the bent crown of Jieret’s head.
He had knelt. Taller than his sovereign, a muscled tiger before a wraith, he stumbled through the ritual greeting, caithdein to his sworn prince.
Black haired, green eyed, pale as if chipped from veined quartz, the Master of Shadow poised on braced feet with his crossed arms wrapped to his chest. He was shivering. Shed droplets rocked off the plastered folds of his shirt and scribed rubied flecks through the torchlight. “There’s a parchment,” he prompted, succinct. “Let me see it.”
At Jieret’s upflung glance of distress, the prince’s brows angled higher. “You can hear? Good. Than arise and stop looking amazed. Your mission’s no secret. Every forest scout I met crossing Falwood said a writ had been passed to my caithdein’s charge. If I’m not over-joyed to find Rathain’s left stewardless, at least I’ll see why no clansman in Havish seemed eager to look me in the face.”
Jieret stood erect, his every movement cautious. That his prince was unarmed made no difference. The royal presence framed warning like the gleam on a lake of black ice. The pair of them were bloodbond, and yet, here stood a stranger masked in the features of a friend. This diamond-edged malice held a febrile, strung focus more volatile than Jieret remembered. While thunder boomed andshook the ancient foundations, and the rain thrashed in demented torrents, he became aware of Dakar’s tense stillness, as if even the whisper of a wrongly drawn breath might trigger the spring of a predator.
Jieret’s hand did not shake in its office as he said, “I would soften this, liege, if I could.” In the uncanny, grave style inherited from his father, he drew the bundled document from the breast of his leathers and passed it across to his prince.
Arithon stiffened at first sight of the seals: the crown and star blazon of the purloined s’Ilessid device, and another, stamped in a lozenge of champagne wax, the rayed sunwheel adopted since Vastmark. The Shadow Master flipped open the folded leaves, then tipped them to capture the torchlight.
He read. His skin went from pale to transparent, and his very heart seemed to stop. Then he stirred. A word passed his lips, the staccato lilt of consonants framed in the grace of old Paravian. He hurled down the indictment as though its mere touch burned his flesh. Then he whirled, bent, and in a move of pure fury, plucked Jieret’s quilloned knife from the stool seat.
“Caithdein of Rathain,” he intoned in chiseled, formal language. “The truth, on my word as your crown prince. If that’s not sufficient, you’ll have your sure proof through a death seal set into the lifeblood spilled from my body.”
From the corner, Dakar gasped. Before Jieret could decry the necessity, Arithon closed an unsteady hand on the blade, over steel just meticulously sharpened. Scarlet welled from his palm, spilled through lean fingers, and ribboned slick tracks down his wrist. He inclined his head to the spellbinder.
“You have my consent. Lay
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