Wings in the dark.
A myriad assortment of greyscale wings - shrike and owl, peregrine and albatross, swan and heron and kestrel and a thousand other birds I cannot name. Their storm is silent, edgeless, soft, and the wind they make whispers as a lover around my ears. Absent are the grey knife-blade wings of the gyre; unthinking, I seek them in the shining throng, and finding nothing, instead I see a pair of wings that do not belong. White dragon's wings, like the Balaur possess, but stately, feminine, almost dainty if not for their arch and span. Mishuvel the Pale was an albino, and one of the last dragon-winged Daevas among the Asmodians; they died out as much from superstition as from lack of heirs.
Styles of wings run in families, I am reminded by the voice of a teacher long dead, a woman whose face I cannot recall and whose name is no longer spoken among her people.
The dragon dives from the center of the flock, and she sends the others scattering with the immense backwash from her shape, her serpentine form angling with effortless grace through the shadows. Her scales are immaculate white, her eyes enormous rubies, her talons the breadth of worlds, her heartbeat the symphony of creation. She soars past me, over me, so close that I, immobile, feel the tip of her spaded tail pass through my hair and brush my shoulder. The flock behind her wheels, curling in upon itself like a school of fish, and they follow her path through the dark air. I am suddenly surrounded by them, birds of all kinds on Atreia, and some of them are not birds at all but women and men, armed to the teeth, grim and pale and unseeing as they float within inches of my frozen form.
The flock passes, and the knife-blade wings of a gyre are not among them, but I cannot turn to see where they have gone, chasing Mishuvel's dragon on some mysterious migration. The darkness is absolute without their whiteness to fill it, and the shadows press close and invade my ears and eyes and mouth, until I feel I will choke upon them.
"Hold her head still. She'll choke if you aren't mindful."
Dim red light behind my eyelids, and I was both overheated and freezingly cold. Someone's warm hands moved to brace my temples and cheeks, and something cool and porcelain pressed insistently at my lips, coaxing at the corner of my mouth. It proved to be a bowl of soup, and I did almost choke on it, unready for the liquid in my mouth.
"Careful! Swallow it for me, Jaya. Just a little bit." It was Kit, and though I was far from inclined to accede to her request, I complied anyway, lacking the strength for rebellion. The soup felt alien, too cold as it slid down my throat, as though I had been fed icewater. My eyes would not open, no matter how I tried to lift them; I attempted speech, attempted to ask what the hell was going on and who was touching me and why couldn't I move at all, and received more soup for my troubles.
It tasted first like rice-water, and then it tasted like ashes -
Ashes rain from the blackened sky, and the Crown of Nails at Rivenstone has become a crown of flame.
I am alone atop the baileys, surrounded by bodies turning to coal in the fire, and it is no natural flame, no orange and white beast with its deep-throated roar and predictable ways. No, this crimson monstrosity is aether-driven fire, and it runs in lines like snakes along the parapets, dividing and multiplying with horrific speed. I see it all round me, see a gap in the blaze, the last place left for me to go, and I turn and run. The flames give chase like a hound scenting a rabbit, devouring the very stone beneath my heels, and I feel it tremble and warp under my feet as I reach the entrance to the corner-tower. The baileys behind me fall away into flame with a eerie wail, but I am standing upon solid rock, the hungry flames thwarted and howling in anger to be denied their prey. The tower I stand in is the last structure remaining of the keep, and with hell at my back and a winding stair ahead, I climb the steps, my sword in hand.
The stairs open unto a flat circular roof, like a duelling ring, and there engaged in lightning combat are two sparring figures, weapons flashing slivers of light in the scarlet dark. They are beautiful, swift, perfectly matched in the rarity of their grace, and the account of this conflict will descend through the following ages with the cloak of legend about it. They are Arkain Carcarron and Osric Rivenstone, half-brothers, joint rulers of the Twinned Duchy, and this is a battle Arkain is destined to lose.
Where is Mishuvel? I think, with the narrow clarity of dreams, and then the faces of the fighters change. Where once stood Arkain is now Raum, clad head to foot in black, hair dark and eyes bright and hard, like aquamarines; where Osric was is now a figure in white with his face shrouded by the wrappings of a white scarf, and the battle takes a turn for the worse. Arkain-Raum is forced back, to the edge of the tower, his assailant pressing him mercilessly. My feet are moving though my heart is frozen in fear; my waking self knows that this is not how Raum dies, knows that this death belongs to his ancestor and the role of Mishuvel is the part I play, but by accepting the dream I am bound to its course, and the terms that it must dictate. Raum defends himself valiantly unto the last, his face grim, but his heel edges too far over the depression in the stone between the crenellations, and the man playing Osric pauses, reaches out, and pushes with the heel of one hand.
Raum falls backwards over the edge, and I, keening his name, go after him.
He reaches for me, pain writ on his every feature, and we find each other in the air, pull each other close, huddled and helpless as the children we once were. We fall, weightless and loose, tumbling down and down like the kestrels etched on the seal of Carcarron, locked together and spinning out of control. The ground below (ahead?) looms dark and terrible, and I shut my eyes against it, waiting for that dreaded impact -
And here is where the dream differs from the Lay I know and love: we land, and my back hits the rocky tor first (it does not hurt as much as I thought it would) and Raum collapses atop me, but he is fixed in place, speared by the sword that has, through the strangeness of dreams, never left my hand. His blood scalds my face, it is so hot, and his face is accusing and twisted out of recognition, his eyes turning vacant as he chokes and life bleeds from him. I cannot move. I am made to watch all that he is flee his mortal shell, tears filling my eyes, and then he lurches forward and I am trapped beneath his weight, suffocating.
A hand in the dark; the body is moved, and I can breathe again. It is the man in white that stands over me, backlit by the keep as it burns to the ground, and he looks over me in slow, solemn judgment before he plunges his blade into my left shoulder. (Through and through, echoes Kit, her voice ghostly in my ears.) The shock of it reverberates down my arm and through my torso, cold as winter, and I find I am once more struggling to fill my lungs amid the waves of pain that wrack my body. Blood flutters through my temples like pigeons' wings about my shoulders.
The man in white leaves the sword in my shoulder, the blade nicked and heavy, and he reaches up with a lean arm to unwind the scarf from about his head. It is Oros, and I am calm, to my own shock, unsurprised to see him here, his black eyes empty as he holds the length of cloth in his clawed hands. His wings appear with no fanfare and no flaring of the aether, first gossamer and then opaque, each feather made of steel, daggers for underdown and claymores for flight feathers, a thousand blades woven to grey uniformity. He kneels at my side, never blinking, and his shape and his shadow obscure the melting keep behind him, save for a bloodlike reflection in the blades of his feathers, fire playing along a thousand edges of water-surfaced steel. The white cloth in his hands has become sheer now, and he lays it gently, almost tenderly across my eyes, a veil for those in mourning, or for the honored dead -
It is both, he answers me before I ask, his voice unfamiliar and laced with strange harmonics. Then he plunges a hand into my chest, sudden, sharp, colder than the sword that pins me to the ground, and I watch through the veil as he rips out my heart, a chunk of flesh redder than an Asmodae sunset, redder than fire, redder than pain itself.
He considers it as one would an apple, turns it this way and that, jaw stern, gaze cool - and then, he smiles with the fangs of an Asmodian in the corners of his mouth, lifts it to his lips, and opens wide.
I woke up, blessedly, though I did not thank myself for it. Every muscle in my body ached, as though I had run a courier's marathon, and perhaps I had; my heart pounded impossibly fast (still in my chest, as my left hand discovered, palm pressed over my breastbone) and my bad leg felt wrapped in fire all the way to my hip. My left shoulder, and the scar there, pulsed and throbbed like a thing with a life of its own, wrapping my entire arm and much of my chest in pain, like reaching, squeezing hands that tightened whenever I tried to move or breathe. I pressed my right hand to my shoulder, fingers cold and half-numb, and just held myself to a compact ball, shuddering until the crimson tide receded.
Sweat soaked me through, and a splitting migraine made circumstances no better. The ceiling was a familiar one, but the light was too bright and too close, causing all things in my gaze to haze over with white.
Shadows moved at the edge of my vision. I turned my head among the pillows - too quickly, oh, that was a mistake - and when the room had ceased carouselling about me as though I were become some twisted maypole, I saw that a man was seated to my left, his face yet indistinct, lost amidst a blur of sapphire robes. Then the light at last receded, a curtain drawn; that was Oros at my window, his leathers done in black and laced with silver embroidery, and with the mantle of the dream still laid thick about me, I flicked my eyes away, anywhere but his angled face and dark eyes, seeing all too easily the images I had of recent vacated. I found that I was back in my quarters, swaddled in blankets and furs in my too-comfortable and too-large bed, and Kit was seated on my divan, dressed in finery I had never before seen her display, a rich purple gown that came off her shoulder to skirt her arrow-straight collarbones. She looked at once both powerful and delicate, and her silver hair was up in elaborate twisted braids, the bells in her ears highlighted by little silver chains that arched from chime to chime. The only ruination to the picture she presented was how she twisted the rings on her hands, watching not me but the figure in blue near me; Oros seemed similarly tense, pacing from my window to the desk and back again, over and over, his footfalls soft and muffled further by the coverings on the floor.
Seated on one of my work-stools to my left, legs crossed at the knee and Kit's copy of the Lay in his lap, was a young man who was not as lithe as Kit, or as wiry as Oros, but the confidence of his presence did not require it - and he did seem thin beside them, but no waif, and the shoulders beneath his sapphire tunic were broad. Pale as marble and with handsome, boyish features, he seemed a typical Elyos noble, the kind of Daeva that were a kinah a dozen to the Asmodian eye. His hair was a perfectly ordinary shade of sandy brown, kept in close-cropped spikes, unusual only in that nobles typically wore it long; but his eyes were arresting, and they struck and pinned me where I was, liquid gold and large in his face, his pupils pinpricks and nearly lost amidst a glowing saffron sea. There was a hungry intelligence in those eyes, a gnawing need to search for knowledge, and knowledge he sought in my face as I threw off the shackles of sleep and sat up, dizzy, in my bed.
The owl. There was no mistaking those eyes, that silhouette, the way that the Assassin and High Chantress seemed to fidget in anxiety at my close approximation to their lord. Oros had bargained me my meeting, and more.
"What does it mean, to chase Mishuvel's dragon?" asked the owl in Elyan, his voice a trifle deeper than Oros's, resonant and clear, and every word precise and well-enunciated, as if he had received a rather expensive education. I remembered that voice giving commands on the road outside of Carcarron; if I had been uncertain before, all such tentative conclusions became ironclad. He lifted the little red volume, touched the cover in further indication. "I have searched the Lay for it, in vain, and Lady Ketterine herself is unfamiliar with the term."
Another Asmodian might have balked, or fallen upon him like a vulture. But I - I had asked for this meeting. That it came not on my own terms was something I should have expected, and these long weeks I had become used to compensating for my failings. "Have I been talking in my sleep?" I asked, cool and level as I could make myself, and the owl cracked a smile that could have illuminated the world.
"Raving, by way of fever-dreams," he said, arching his brows to soften the smile. "You've been quite ill for several days, but I am glad to see your fever has broken and your mind clear. Gallivating out in the rain, Lady Jaya, is hardly conducive to your health."
I hesitated. My anger lurked beneath the surface, the temptation to prickly, stubborn affrontedness attractive especially given the familiar form of address, but I could not take such a tack with this Elyos if I wished to achieve what I had asked the chance to accomplish. For one, Oros would surely strangle me, insolent mortal or no. His hands played faster and faster along his dagger-hilts, and I could not help but notice them, even as I contemplated the implications of being asleep for several days. "I made such a request, my lord. I wished to see the sky."
"And though commendable were Lady Ketterine's efforts to appease my my honored guest -" the smile turned briefly into a rueful grin, as he said it with a fair share of irony that I could hardly fail to see, "- the lapse of meals, and pulling you from your bed in the night to interrogate one of your own people? Allowing one guest to be forgotten in the tide to tend another? For that, I lay the blame at my own feet." I blinked, startled to hear an Elyos take responsibility for something, for anything that was not advantageous to them, and the owl saw my face, but continued anyway. "I have been a poor host, and Lady Ketterine has informed me that you feel as such. I hope to make up for all such qualms now." He rose from the stool, placing the Lay on the bed by my hip, and swept into a courtly bow, a swirl of sapphire fabric and the back of his neck briefly exposed through pure courtesy. "I am known, in the short form, as High General of the Furiae, Prince Taion Helios of House Helios, aetheling. I offer my sincerest apologies for the coarseness of your treatment."
I paused again, considering it; I did not wish to grant forgiveness so lightly, not to my captor and especially not to an Elyos Prince, if that was what he truly was. But in the end, my decision was a foregone conclusion. What other choice did I have? Demand the meeting only to send him packing when, surprise of surprises, it was granted? "Apology accepted," I said eventually, as if it had been dragged out of me, and he resumed his place upon the stool. Oros's pacing quickened the slightest bit, and the owl looked over his shoulder at the hovering gyre, arching his brows again. "At your ease, Oros. I am hardly in danger here."
"You sit at arm's length from an Asmodian, and think to lecture me on danger," grumbled Oros, but his movement stopped; Taion tilted his head and replied, "Then be seated yourself, unless you fear an ill and unarmed mortal woman can so handily dispatch the pair of us." Oros bridled visibly, color surging into his cheeks, and stiffly, almost against his will he sat at the foot of the bed, where there was more than enough room for him to do so without condescending to touch me. I was unsure if such positioning was meant to appease my distaste for contact, or if he did so out of some technical advantage it would give him if I revealed myself all at once to be a master of deception the likes of which no Elyos had ever seen. In either case, it made the mattress bob, ever so slightly, and my head spun with it. It consternated me, to even briefly be reduced to such frailty.
When my inner horizon had levelled once more, I considered the three of them, then dropped my eyes to pick up the Lay and place it in my lap, stroking the cover with my fingers to allow myself a moment to think. The air between Oros and Taion was not that formality of lord and servant, or even the martial respect of commander and soldier; it was that of two brothers who communicated through mild bickering and banter, and Taion certainly seemed to know what words to speak to press Oros and his pride. It was an interesting thing to note, and made me wonder how long Ourobouros Stalks-By-Night had served this Helios prince, whose name did not hold any infamy among my people.
But what I had seen on Kit's face, as she sat on the divan and watched Taion Helios smirk at Oros, was no sisterly affection, but something different entirely. I could not ponder at it now, much as I would like to; it would have to be left until later.
"You asked me a question," I said, lifting my silver eyes from the Lay's leather cover to glance at the owl. He nodded, and gestured with a hand to the slim volume I held - a hand, I noted, that was soft-lined, with inkstains tucked beneath the nails, at odds with his otherwise immaculate appearance. "You spoke of it in your fever - chasing Mishuvel's dragon? A rather odd expression, I think, and one that does not translate easily into this tongue, though you seem to have an easy enough time of it."
That came as a bit of a shock, that I had been speaking in Elyan while trapped in my dreams, but I schooled my features to smooth sternness and only nodded. "You did not find it in the Lay because it came into use in the centuries after the Lay had already been written, and is considered archaic by the standards of today. Are you familiar with the tale?"
"Enlighten me," smiled Taion, which was not a yes or no but a clever evasion of both, likely learned from Oros and then refined, and his great golden eyes seemed twice as large as fascination animated his face. A scholar, I was absolutely certain now, a man of letters and intelligence.
"Toward the end of the tale, Mishuvel the Pale searches on the wing for Arkain Carcarron, who has been betrayed by one of his own. This betrayal causes Arkain to march to Rivenstone, where his brother is waiting for him, instead of to the fort held by Mishuvel's loyal soldiers, where Arkain would be safe." I paused. "That is a very abridged version of events. There is quite a lot of subtext involved, and it is implied that Mishuvel's own search was impugned by misinformation."
"That is a fair conclusion to make, given the circumstances," Taion nodded, still smiling. Oros's eyes wandered to his liege's face, his expression stony; behind them on the divan, I saw Kit bite the corner of her lower lip.
"It is the root of the expression. To chase Mishuvel's dragon means many things - to hunt for ghosts you have no chance of catching, or to be sent searching by someone who means you never to find what you seek." I stopped, and thinking of Raum, forced myself to continue, forced my voice to remain level. "It also means to strive, and yet fail utterly, especially at the thing you have dedicated your life to."
"Mishuvel failed to rescue Arkain Carcarron," intoned Oros softly, perhaps some hidden signal for the owl to hear, and Taion looked to him, nodded, expression now sober. Then he returned his golden gaze to my silver one, sharp intellect tempering his boyish face, a glimpse of what a Prince was, what a leader among the Elyos could be. Little wonder Oros and Kit worried almost obsessively after his safety - I had been the same, once upon a time, before the flames and my failure. Taion Helios reminded me so very strongly of Raum, and what Raum might have become.
"Did you chase Mishuvel's dragon, then, Lady Jaya? Are you chasing it yet, even now?"
A daring question, but I was braced for it. I had asked for this meeting, after all. "I chase it, and it chases me."
Taion quirked one eyebrow and the corners of his mouth, all but saying aloud, How interesting! "You did not request this meeting of the minds, I think, to discuss Carcarrese turns of phrase. Oros tells me you are straightforward, and not a woman wont to politicking - and not one in which patience is a virtue, which I must confess is an ailment I suffer from myself." Taion flashed a self-deprecating smile, and I could not help but slide a seething glare sidelong at the gyre, who was steadfast in the examination of his fingernails, while at the divan Kit covered her smiling mouth with the tips of her fingers. I let it be, however; I would have words with him, but in my own time, no matter what my temper said as it beat futilely at the bars of my self-discipline. Taion, wisely, did not touch upon it either, seeming quite amused. "What would you have of me, Lady Jaya? Is there some other facet of my hospitality yet lacking?"
"Nothing that cannot be rectified." I paused again, looking at that earnest golden gaze, that deceptively young-looking face. He was an Elyos Daeva, and could not be trusted - or at least, that is what every bone in my body whispered to me, independant of the machinations of my mind.
I had had several hours to think, while I parroted over and over the same questions to Pentarus Lockstep, and awaited his scribbling the same answers. I had thought of Avarran Carcarron, now heirless and alone, lashing out at the very bloodline that he banished me to preserve; should he eventually desire its continuation, he had my brother well in hand, after all, practically captive at Synedell, and Jareth would not be allowed to leave the Academe for anything less than his graduation or my funeral. Which there would be none, for a traitor. Jareth was kind, and keen-minded, and handsome, and had inherited all of our mother's best qualities. He would do well; perhaps meet some lovely she-mage, or a healer to soothe his heart, and forget all about me. At least, I hoped that he would.
But sitting there on that cold slate floor in the dead of night, shivering with cold and the first stirrings of what had apparently been sickness, I had come to one inescapable conclusion: I would never see Asmodae again. I would never see Carcarron again. I would never see Pandaemonium, except perhaps as a star in the Elyos sky, if the purple smoke of the Abyss eddying through the blackness would briefly part. Carcarron's counsellors knew I was alive and knew I was held in Sanctum, but there would never be a rescue mounted, no ransom offered, no finger lifted to restore me to my homeland. Even if I managed to escape this place, to be free of Taion Helios and his people, who had cared for me in sickness and offered me work to earn my place, I would never be branded as anything less than a traitor.
And if I were going to be a traitor in the eyes of my people, then Aion damn me, I would be one in truth, and not one of convenience to Avarran Carcarron. I would not rot in that pretty cage, and execute Avarran's goal with my own hand.
There I was, an Elyos Prince hanging on my every word, awaiting the dire pronouncement that I had asked him here to listen to, a decision I had already made, and thought I had made my peace with. Why, then, did I hesitate? Why did it have to hurt so much? Did the tears that pricked my eyes do so out of some misguided patriotism, some remaining sting of loyalty to my homeland? Was it because I missed Raum, and Jareth, and my mother who died that the three of us would live? Did I feel some strange remorse as I prepared to cast my lot in with the enemy we had fought our whole lives, the very foe that had stolen two of my loved ones from me and never so much as blinked? No. It hurt because I knew as soon as the words were spoken, they could not be taken back. I had been wounded by a thing that did not leave a mark upon the flesh; I had been betrayed, and abandoned, and left to wither and die. I had tried to make of my heart impervious to such simple, stupid things, and yet it hurt beyond measure, beyond reason to know that, Jareth aside, the only beings alive who cared enough about me to bother with saving me were my sworn enemies.
And if I spoke it, that would make it true, and I did not know if I was strong enough to hold up underneath its weight.
I did not know.
But I spoke anyway. It was never my way, to remain silent and still, and not to dare, or dream.
"I wish to defect," I said, after far too long of a pause, and I knew fluid shone in my silver eyes, but I made my jaw hard and my brow stubborn, and did not look at shocked Kit, or staring Oros. I narrowed my world to Taion Helios and his liquid-gold eyes, to the language in every plane of his face and every muscle of his lean frame. To his credit, he merely blinked, and though I knew he had been completely taken aback I sensed it more than saw it, sensed the change in the set of his shoulders and in the way he held himself; and then he asked, with sobriety appropriate to such, "Are you certain? You were quite ill -"
"I am very certain." I lifted my chin a few degrees, as much to underscore the point as to delay the escape of the tears from my eyes. "I will do what I must - whatever it takes. Jaya Azhdeen is dead, and Asmodae is closed to her." And I wished to say more, but I could not; my throat closed, words trapped behind the lump of constricted sorrow, and I repeated to myself the oath that I would weep before no man, much less an Elyos, hoping that I would come to believe the words.
Taion was not without mercy. He broke away first, to glance to Oros and Kit, and I turned away from them all to huddle against the tapestried wall, the woven cloth cool against my burning cheeks. I heard the men rise, heard them pace to where Kit had stood at the divan in a rustle of skirts, heard them talking quietly amongst themselves in quick, hushed Elyan. I let them be and did not even attempt to eavesdrop. I pulled my knees up to my chest and surreptitiously wiped my eyes, telling myself that I was not weeping, I was not, and that saltwater issuing forth from my eyes was a thing equal unto sweat, a reaction to stress. So I told myself, and a larger or more pointless self-deception I have never perpetrated, but I let myself, and prayed that the Elyos would not tear down that fragile illusion.
It was Kit who returned first, and she moved the stool aside to sit on the bed proper, the last spectre I had approaching a thing I could call a friend. Taion and Oros stood behind her, shoulder to shoulder, and I saw that Oros was a smidgen taller, his stance more tight and tense - it is strange the things one notices, when all other things blur together - and then Kit was biting her lower lip again and asking in careful, dulcet tones, "Jaya, this is a dire thing you have said. If you would unsay it, only speak it to me." Her electric eyes were wide, her face blanched, her hand tremulous upon the coverlet. She feared for me, I realized then, feared for my sanity and my safety. "There are no other witnesses but the three of us, and if you wish it unsaid, we will take it with us to our graves. You need not do this thing."
I let loose a bitter, half-choked laugh, like broken glass even to my own ears. "Thank you, Kit," I said, and I turned towards them at last, my back to the tapestry and my knees canted to one side. "But I am sure. There is no other road left me - no other choice."
"This is unprecedented," said Taion, who suddenly seemed far older than he had before, some vast weight mantled about him now that he was presented with this turn of events. "It will not be easy. Far from it, in fact." But Oros put his hand upon the owl's shoulder, and at Taion's probing look the gyre merely shook his head, and I realized then that he understood far better than the others what a corner I had been backed into, how few options I had remaining me. They could hardly ransom me to a country that did not want me - could hardly release me to my own recognizance, now that I had seen even a tiny bit of Sanctum's inner workings - and I could not, would not stay a prisoner in that tower room forever, eternally picking away at translations to songs and ballads that I would never again hear played.
He might aid me, as he did at the beginning, when he gave me someone to hate and a reason to continue breathing, but he did not trust me. I saw as much in his black eyes, and I did not blame him for it in the least. After all, I was proving to be the very thing he claimed I was: treacherous.
"There must be wards put in place," sighed Taion, returning his gaze to me. "You will not like it, and it will likely be unpleasant. But you will be granted a limited amount of freedom afterwards, dependant, of course, upon continued good behavior."
I studied him a moment, thinking, finding refuge in aloofness as I had so often done before, when I was hurt and wished to mask it. "Wards? What wards, precisely?"
Oros crossed his arms over his chest, narrowed his dark eyes, and I think he had scented my game, knew what I was doing; and, in his own way, he did not disagree with it, for I also believe that Oros knew even then that when a mortal reaches their limit, sometimes they must pretend that nothing is wrong at all in order to function. So he fed my fire, gave me something else to think on other than the fact that I had just willingly sheared myself free of all attachments to my home and my people, an outcast in self-exile. "From what I understand, it is a geas, to prevent someone from acting in a certain way. In this case, harming any of Ariel's subjects." Beat. "An Asmodian defector could hardly be allowed to wander about Sanctum without some sort of precaution in place, against precisely such an event."
"You would tamper with free will?" I shot back, weakly, and though I was quietly grateful for Oros picking such a fight with me, I had no way to express it, except to see it to its proper end.
"It is not a binding to obey - only to prevent harm. We would be mad to turn you loose without. For all we know, this was your plan all along," snorted Oros.
"This is quite the elaborate ruse I have perpetrated, to reach such an end! And that was an amazing trick, convincing your lord to take me home with him, like a lost kitten," I said, but my anger was already faded and unconvincing, the weight of the events attempting to eclipse it. "I'm rather impressed with myself. I wonder how this farce concludes?"
Oros shifted his weight and fixed me with a Look that I knew well, disdain mixed with a hint of mischief. My anger could not be summoned, it seemed, not even at his prodding; he took a different tack, then, in sheer ridiculousness, the mildness of his insult practically begging for me to respond in kind. "The well of your arrogance runs deep, Azhdeen." I did not have the heart to take genuine offense - he taunted me, amusingly enough, for my own good. I could not help but play the game, a minor distraction, but a valuable one nonetheless.
"I find that interesting, coming from such a prideful man as you, gyre."
"Insolent whelp."
"Cowardly charlatan."
"Deceiving wretch," and his mouth quavered and threatened to betray his stoic manner, a problem I found plagued me as well, upon seeing him having such difficulty.
"Petty thief."
"Common vandal."
"Braying jackass."
"Cheeky bitch," he sputtered, and won from me a watery smirk at last, what I could only think of as his goal all along. Kit and Taion, looking on in bemusement, seemed not to know whether to burst into laughter themselves or if they should attempt to preserve what little dignity remained; but I had decided that it was better to laugh briefly than to break down in tears, better to give in briefly to Oros and his teasing, and truly, it seemed easier to cope, like something in me had unwound. "If you are quite done," Taion drawled, deciding to err on the side of levity for the nonce, "I will withdraw, to make the necessary preparations. Unless you have, after all, decided against your current course?" One last chance to escape, but I shook my head, and the owl sighed once more, having given me many opportunities to have the thing undone. "I am uncertain how much time is needed, but I will at the least send up a proper meal from the kitchens. I am sure you are quite sick of soup."
"You haven't the slightest idea," I muttered, which made Kit smile. Taion bowed, the picture of a pastoral country lord, then left, crossing to the door and chatting briefly at the entrance with Sathas and Kryson before the bolt was thrown and I could no longer discern their voices on the other side. Oros followed in his shadow, and once again, as always seemed to be the case, Kit and I were left to our own devices. She reached out to pat my hand, and I favored her with a smile, the best that I could muster. "I will be fine, Kit. Really. Thank you."
"Only speak it to me," she said once more, echoing herself from earlier, before she leaned back and let out a slow breath, setting the matter aside. "Now. Do you feel well enough to attempt that ninth stanza meter change? It has chafed at me for days, and I think I have stumbled across a solution."
Bless her, dearest Kit, for her attempts to draw me into a work which had consumed my days and nights; but I could not give the Lay the attention it deserved, not in that state, and so instead I looked at her and said in my most innoucuous tone, "How long have you been in his service?" She stopped, and her eyes slid to my face, cautious, nervy as an untried mount on the battlefield.
"Six years, perhaps seven. Not long; the Furiae do not have an illustrious history." And I saw through her attempt to misdirect me, her desire to pique my interest in a thing that had been forbidden to discuss, and I wondered - no, that is incorrect. To say that I wondered is to imply that I had no inkling, no clue of what turmoil lay beneath the calm, still pools of Kit's eyes.
But Kit was my friend, or the closest thing I had to one. I could learn to let go.
"Who are the Furiae?" I asked, acquiescing to her bait, and the tension in her shoulders lessened immediately now that I had allowed the conversation to drift in a different direction. She smoothed the creases from her skirts and folded her hands in her lap, and allowed herself a smile. "A small task force detailed by House Helios for the accomplishment of unique missions and goals. You will, most likely, be attached to us at the end of it; we are not a legion of particular note," she said, with a sense of irony, "and I can hardly see how anyone at court will object, especially if you are painted a hostage instead of an ally."
I found myself frowning my eyebrows together. "That is an awfully low posting for a High Chantress, much less a prince." But Kit shook her head, smiling. "House Helios has their reasons. Perhaps Lord Taion will tell you, one day. I am content for the nonce to be High Chantress of nothing - I am like you, like Oros, in that I am not one for politics. I attend court only because my station, such as it is, requires it."
I paused, noting her lovely purple dress. "Did I pull you from some court function?"
She laughed and favored me with her crooked smile. "I should be thanking you for it! I left strict orders that we should be notified as soon as you showed so much as the first sign of waking. Would that court could have been avoided entire, but our shifts here aside, the courtiers as a whole believe you to be merely some reclusive poet I am sheltering, and I would not yet dispel that notion."
"Shifts?" I asked, and Kit nodded. "Oros and I have taken it in turns to watch over you as you slept. As we are quick to forget," and she hung her head somewhat, repentant, "you are mortal, and prone to sickness, dehydration, and suffering from lack of nutrition. I should not have taken you out into the rain, Jaya -"
I reached out and found her arm, and I managed a watery smile for her. That Oros had partaken of the lonely vigil did not surprise me as it aught; I only wondered futher at his motives, and if Taion had ordered him to attend to such duty, that Kit might get some rest. I felt certain that the High Chantress would have attended me in my illness, without regard for her own health, had she been allowed to forget to sleep. "I asked you to. If there is any fault in that I became ill, it is mine, no matter what His Owliness says."
"His Owliness?" Kit smirked. "Ah, would that you could accompany me to court. You would scandalize them all within minutes, and those jewelled harpies are in need of a swift kick in the bustle."
"As wonderful a vengeance as that would be," I said, finding my smile a bit more firm than I could have ever hoped, "I think the only way I will enter the Elyos High Court will be in chains, or with my head on a pike." Kit made a noncommital noise, as she could not argue with that; but I was feeling somewhat more like myself, and rather than allow our conversation to die of neglect, I said, "You mentioned that you had puzzled out the meter change? I have not had a moment to think on it, truly." And without argument she rose from the stool to pace to my desk and retrieve the appropriate papers and pens, that we might resume our scratching and friendly debate.
Thus I let her draw me into conversation, into the great work that I had left unfinished. Thus is how an Asmodian, denying herself of her heritage, allowed the pain to fade. Thus is how I avoided examining several interesting points, such as Oros's unexpected and perplexing aid, or Kit's hungry look as she stared at Taion from the divan, or the idea that I yet did not know precisely what it was that I had gotten into.
But I had hurt enough, and some things, I was beginning to discover, could wait for me to heal.