head out the door into the night and heard his harping. He followed it to where Declan sat in his favorite place, leaning against one of the great standing stones on the crown of the hill and playing to the moon. It must have been his harping that Nairn had heard as he climbed up the tower; it stopped as Nairn halted beside him, glancing puzzledly down the hill for the outlines of the unfamiliar tower in the dark.
Then he felt Declanâs eyes on him, and he said brusquely, âYou lied to me again.â
For a moment, the bard was silent, motionless. Then he set his harp beside him in the grass and answered evenly, âThen you spoke of what I asked you to keep secret. How else would you know?â
âItâs such a small thingâWhy would you lie about something that unimportant?â
âWhom did you tell?â
âDower Ren. I went to him to ask him how to spell one wordââ
âWhy didnât you come to me?â
Nairn felt himself redden, said shortly, âIt was private.â
âYou barely know the steward.â
âI knew he would tell me the truth, how to spell the word I wanted, not give me some other word like âbellâ or âbutterâ instead of âOââ â He stopped, clamped his mouth down on the word, but too late.
A sound came out of the bardâs nostrils, a snort, a laugh, or just a passing spore, expelled. âOdelet?â
Nairnâs fists clenched. âI knew youâd laugh. You keep your secrets and laugh at everything. You came as far north as you could go in this land just to spy on fishers and shepherds and lie to themââ
âIâm not laughing,â Declan interrupted sharply. âI would not laugh at the only thing that keeps you here. Do you always tell the truth?â
âYes. No. When itâs important. Thatâs not the pointââ He stopped, thinking back at his piecemeal life, all that it had taken to bring himself here to sit on a hill with the greatest bard in five kingdoms.
âMusic doesnât lie,â the bard said after a moment. âIf you play a false note, it sounds. But words can shift their meanings so easily, weigh so lightly one moment, fly like a star, or drop like a stone in the next. How many times have you spoken the word âloveâ and meant anything but that?â Nairn, staring rigidly down at him, blinked. âAnd now that you finally think you know what the word means, you find it impossible to say. Who would believe you?â
âThatâs notââ he protested. âThatâs not exactlyâSheâAnyway, I didnât come to talk about that. How do you know? Iâve never said anything to anyoneââ
âYour face speaks every time you look at her. Your feet speak when you trip over them in her presence. Your fingers speak when they tremble on a pipe note. You talk about her all the time, in ways that I would wager my harp strings that you, with your gifts and your comely face, have never had to speak before.â
Nairn was silent, gazing back at the eavesdropping moon. He drew breath finally, loosed it. âTrue enough. Am I that pitiful a creature around her?â
âYouâre not the only one.â
âI hadnâtâI hadnât noticed.â
âYou havenât been paying attention to anyone else. According to her brother, she left a very wealthy noble waiting for an answer to come here.â
âOh,â he said, deflated.
âYou might talk to her now and then.â
âMaybe. She makes all the words vanish out of my head. And so do you,â he added restively. âThis is not at all what I came out here to talk about.â
âAt least you are talking to me,â Declan breathed. âWhat did you come to talk about?â
âWhy are you teaching me to write âwaterâ with scratches that are as ancient as the standing stones and
Yenthu Wentz
Aneesa Price
Suzanne Weyn
Mary Marks
Craig Johnson
Patrice Michelle
Kate McMullan
Sherryl Woods
Steven Savile
Hallie Swanson