Hiya!
Thank you to the amazing people who commented on the last part :-) May it rain wishes and rainbows on you! Thank you to: Aquilla, Daine, Dara, Elizabeth, Firelily (I did thank you! Twice!), Jessica, Mage Melery, Sparrow, Tam Cranver, Team Socket, theladysong and Wazzup Gurl. You are *fabulous* and you made my day! I'm sorry this is so short – I only have about five minutes! Argh! But you are all truly wonderful and my socks are well and truly knocked off!
I would love and worship you if you could give feedback – it's adored, pored over, screamed with delight on a sight at, venerated, laminated, adulated, assimilated and fervently and slavishly worshipped! Please send it – I love hearing what you think and the encouragement makes me write faster (this actually surprised me…) Especially on this part!
Hugs n' honey, Ki
Hanging On Part Five
"This is important," King Jonathan said quietly. His sapphire blue eyes were cool as the glaze on a winter's sky and every bit as bedazzling. "Two Gifted children running around with no control over their power? It's no joke." He stared hard at Bruna and the girl squirmed. "I believe Keladry of Mindelan owes you an apology and is owed a punishment?"
Bruna fumed as she recalled exactly what that cheeky squire had said. "She does," she ground out.
"Good." The King glanced at the tall basilisk who was standing quietly. "Tkaa, would you wake her?" It nodded and Bruna couldn't help staring at the creature. She had never seen anything so fantastic, so beautiful, except in dreams and wishes. It shone softly, silver and iridescent. The eyes held a depth of wisdom and intelligence that fair took her breath away, while its whispery voice was like the southern breeze trapped. As it left the room, she shook her head, feeling as if she had been bewitched.
Gods above, how could magic be so terrible when creatures like this were born of it? Her father had been so angry when he knew she was Gifted, always so angry when he saw her. She had been glad to get away from his cold words and indifferent gestures. Being locked in her room, day after day, surviving silently while the fief of Farbrook laughed and lived around her, it had been hell.
And even in the Convent, all around she saw unGifted people, normal, happy. People like Keladry of Mindelan who did what Bruna's father had never let her; defied convention. Bruna had a feeling somewhere she should have respected her, but that was swallowed by her hate and envy. It ate her alive.
"Numair, can you scry to find out where that girl was?" the King was asking as Bruna shook herself out of her reverie.
The mage smiled and Bruna felt her heart give a little flutter. Those dark eyes would melt any woman. "Easily. That kind of magic leaves signatures."
"Do so. When you find out, you will escort Lady Bruna there." The deep voice was smooth and steady. "Half the land will be searching for those children. And very few of them will want to do anything but use them. The last thing we need is another Ozorne. So you, Lady Bruna will pay...a visit...to your cousin who just happens to live wherever Master Salmalin finds those children to be. And Keladry of Mindelan will go as your guardian, Master Salmalin as your teacher. You will say nothing to anyone about why you are really going."
"But...I was to be introduced to the Court," Bruna said faintly.
"I rather think you already introduced yourself to half of them," the King said with some amusement. "When you find the children – and you must, Numair—"
"I know, Jon," the mage cut in, his pleasantly musical voice concerned. "When I think of what Daine went through..."
Daine? Daine Sarrasri, the Wildmage? What could *she* have gone through? Everyone knew she was just some commoner who struck lucky.
"Exactly," the King said firmly. He raked a hand through black hair. "You must make it seem as if you are nothing but travellers." His eyes fixed on Bruna and she swallowed. There was *power* in that stare. "That means, Lady Bruna, no flirting. No trouble. Those children have the kind of Gift that could break the Barrier. Do you want that?"
She shook her head mutely, the screams and howls of war resounding in her head. She had not had to fight, but the convent had been brought many of the wounded soldiers for the Mithran priests to heal.
"Good—" The King stopped abruptly. "Ah, Squire Keladry."
Bruna looked around to see Kel standing in the doorway, her hazel eyes dreamy and confused. Why ddin't the girl try and *do* something with herself? Instead of that unflatteringly short haircut and the bruises that were fading to a summery green across her face. Goddess, how did she ever expect to find a man like *that*? Who would ever want *her*?
Kel glared back with equal dislike before bowing to the King. "Sire?"
The King flashed her one of her heart-melting smiles, but Kel's expression didn't alter at all, remained squarely on her ruler's face. Maybe she doesn't *want* a man, Bruna thought with contempt. Too stupid to know that they're all there is if you want a comfortable life. After all, what kind of the person wouldn't smile back at the King?
"You may as well sit, squire," he said gently and gestured to a chair. "This may take a while."
* * * *
Ryan woke up – really woke up this time – to the warmth and darkness of Hana Dharaz's house. The cracks in the shutters let in thin slices of opalescent moonlight, dust glittering in the beams. He breathed a sigh of relief, stretching lazily and preparing to go back to sleep. Then he heard it.
It was a pathetic sound, a kind of whimpering sound like a wounded animal.
He sat up and froze in sheer shock. Ryan had never heard Hana Dharaz cry.
"Hana?" he said in alarm, stumbling to the corner she was crouched in with her knees drawn to her chest and her hands over her face. "Hana, what's wrong?"
She carried on crying, didn't answer and alarmed, Ryan pulled her hands away from her face and gasped.
Her eyes...Mithros' shield! Where they should have been a bright, lively green, they were a milky white. And then the words of the Goddess flew back to him, her howling voice striking chords of terror along his soul.
~ I will not take what you hold most dear...but it is time you learned a lesson, Ryan Talver. Argue not with gods; what we do not like, we tend to destroy. ~
Hana was blind.
"No!" he said, horrified. "Hana, we got to get you to a healer! What happened?" He had to know if it *was* his fault, his fault the one person who cared anything about him had been hurt.
"You was glowin'," Hana said in a cracked whisper. She was still crying, her breath coming in huge ragged gasps. Not knowing what else to do, Ryan held her hands and stared in that disarrayed, sightless face. "You was glowin' blue like you does sometimes. An' then you started shoutin', like, an' you was shakin' an' the light around you turned green and I didn't know what to do. I tried to wake you up, an' when I touched the light...it hurt, it hurt so much, Ryan, an' then I couldn't see..."
"We're goin' to a healer," he said determinedly, running through a list in his mind of all the healers he knew. But he didn't know any powerful to heal this.
"There ain't no healer can do anything about this," Hana said wearily. It was unneriving to see the tears trailing down her cheeks though her eyes saw nothing. "'Cept maybe Duke Baird, but he don't treat common folk, he's in the palace."
"Then that's where we're goin'," Ryan said, grey eyes glittering. "C'mon, we got to get movin'. If anyone finds out we're gone, they'll rob us blind."
She laughed weakly. "Oh, you're still the same, Ryan Talver. They don't let folk like us into the palace! We's commoners, lad, not nobles."
"An' I'm Gifted," Ryan drawled. "If they don't let me, I'll blow the walls down around them. Stand up, Hana, or am I going to have to break my back carryin' you?"
"I'll walk," she whispered. He let go of her so she could stand. "No! Don't let go, Ryan, I...I'm scared. I don't want to be alone. Not in this darkness."
"I'm here," he said gently, though his heart raged at a Goddess who was so beautiful yet so cruel. He helped her up and kept his hand at her elbow as he guided her to the door. "An' we'll see you healed. You don't need to be afraid."
Though when I catch up with that Goddess, he added silently, I'll give her reason to fear.
* * * *
"You want *me* to accompany *her*?" Kel said in disbelief. "Excuse me, sire, but have you seen those pigs orbiting your head?"
Master Salmalin had a sudden coughing fit, and Kel could see his mobile mouth twitching. His soft dark eyes caught hers briefly and he smiled. It lifted her spirits; she had seen the mage only briefly, in lessons, but his husky voice never failed to hold her attention and he always had a kind word or solid advice for her.
The King's glare was glacial. "This is not a request, squire Keladry."
She flushed, but refused to back down. He might be a king, but wasn't he the same king who had put her on probation for a year? "Sire, I can't."
"You...can't." A thoughtful drawl, soft and deadly. "Which part of this 'can't' you do, squire? Is it the riding that defeats you? The idea of having to fight? Sleeping rough? Correct me if I'm wrong, but you spent four years learning these arts."
"Yes, sire," Kel said desperately. "But you neglected something."
"Really?" A little edge of frost across the ice already barbing his voice. Kel swallowed. Oh, why her? Had she angered the gods? Was it some kind of divine joke?
She looked at Bruna of Farbrook. The girl, curse her, looked stunning in a silk peignoir, her brown eyes cool and her smile glinting dangerously. "Boys aren't bitches."
"I accept that you and Lady Bruna do not get on, squire," the King said smoothly. His face was stern and every inch the commanding royal. "But you will accompany her. *I* shall explain to your knight master why you are absent." He glanced out of the window where dawn was inching over the horizon in a wash of soft grey and blue. "You leave at sunrise."
Keeping her face blank, Kel rose and bowed. "Sire," she said stiffly, and left.
* * * *
Legend...speaks of wild and beautiful creatures that roam in the dark hours.
Legend...whispers of the graceful winged beasts that fly through the sun.
But...legend often forgets that creatures that roam between the shadows and the sun. The twilight creatures, the halfling things. One foot in light and one in shadow. Creatures of strange, uncertain temperament who act on whimsy and the spur of the moment.
Andrea slept, her tearstained face tilted into the dawn's light. Cuts laddered her face, her too-slender arms, her emaciated body. Only that riotous tumble of golden hair seemed to have any life in it, a splash of sunlight in a barren woodland.
They crept up slowly, one by one. Light, delicate steps and oval eyes that glittered with aquamarine and blue lights, the colour of the ocean in sunlight. And music ran with them, wind rustling through trees.
"Want it..." A widening of hungry eyes, a parting of that small mouth with its bladed, triangular teeth.
"Mine." A swipe of silver claws.
A pale, skeletal hand lifting her gilt hair and letting it slip through its fingers like sand, "Pretty...want to play..."
Feather-soft touches ran over the girl's cuts and they healed in an instant. "Not of us. Not a wildone. Gifted one."
"One of them..." Those bony fingers touching the flawlessly smooth skin, running over the black lace of her eyelashes. "Have not seen them for long time..."
"Mortals do not walk here now...they know what we are..." A baring of long fangs. No claws on this one, but instead, a soft down, like that of cygnets, in place of skin. "They see our shadows passing by."
"Want this one...make it like us." One of the strange, misfit creatures lifted the girl. It seemed to be a blend of man and creature, its hair long and trailing down to it hunched back and oddly webbed feet. It was gruesome to look at, its mouth a gaping maw, its eyes small and silver as the moon through a cloud. "Ours."
And all around, that soft, breathy and inhuman sigh. "Yesssss..."
Legend forgot about wild magic. It forgot what it could do.
But the wildmages remembered.
* * * *
"Kel?" She turned from slamming her drawers to find a swaying, sleepy Neal standing there. Of course; Neal was a notoriously light sleeper. "What are you *doing*? It's the middle of the night and all I can hear is you throwing furniture around. Please, spare my sensitive hearing."
"Sorry," she said, experiencing her usual state of mind-numbing delerium at the sight of Neal of Queenscove. Even when fogged with sleep, his green eyes were startlingly vivid and his sharp, clever face was beautiful to her. "I'm...not in the best of moods."
He grinned and shuffled into her room to perch on her bed. "I would never have guessed. So, what has you in such a state at this time? Don't tell me you felt an urge to spring-clean at midnight in mid-winter?"
"Not quite." She hurled clothes into a bag. "I'm going on a trip."
"You sound thrilled," he remarked, amused. She heard him yawn. "When?"
"Next year. What do you think, Neal? Now!" She spun, infuriated at him, mad that he couldn't see how much he affected her, mad that Bruna of Farbrook had landed her in this pretty mess, furious that it was midnight on a winter's morn and she had to ride out on the whim King Jonathan's dreams, of all things. Why couldn't he have dreamt of her marrying Neal? Of her being knighted? Even of lettuce, anything would be better than this madness.
"What?" He shook his head, a mannerism she found curiously endearing and gaped at her. "But...for how long?"
"I don't know," Kel said gloomily, picking up her glaive and swinging it several times in angry motion. It made her feel better. "Until his highness finds something to cure his delusions."
He laughed. "You can't say that!" Those mischievous emerald eyes met hers and lanced her heart. "That's what I love about you, Keladry of Mindelan," he said gleefully. "Your brutal honesty!"
She caught her breath at the words then shook herself firmly. Idle comment, she told herself. Idle comment. "You'd best go back to bed," she said with a sigh. She looked at him and grinned. "Nice robe, Neal. Pink frills are really you."
The nineteen year-old stuck his tongue out in an oddly childish gesture. "Mine was stolen by that idiot Garvey, as well you know, Kel!"
She giggled. Somehow, Neal could always make her feel better. "Well, go on, go! Just because I have to lose my sleep, you shouldn't lose yours."
He arched an eyebrow. "Without even saying goodbye? Do you really think I'm as uncivilised as that...don't answer that one." Neal got up and came over to hug her briefly, then leaned back to stare down at her. "Now, don't go getting yourself killed. I need someone to prove me wrong."
She smiled nervously. Neal was uncomfortably close. "I won't," was all she could get out. Then she was simply staring up into those eyes that seemed to go on forever, like an endless summer, mysterious and intelligent and utterly enticing.
"Kel?" he said softly. Then he tilted his head sideways and looked at her as if trying to work something out. "You've grown up, haven't you?" he murmured in amazement. "And I think I missed it."
His face only inches away and the distance seemed to be shrinking rapidly. Those long eyelashes falling shut and before she was even aware of anything, his mouth was on hers, sweet and tender and sensual. Kel felt his hands slide to her back and rest there and her own seemed to be moving of their own accord to curl around his neck. Moments passed, intense and shivery.
Then he lifted his head and stared at her with bemused eyes. "Um..."
"I'll see you that and raise you a 'huh'?" Kel said weakly.
Neal stared at her, and then he shook his head, face flushed. "Sorry," he said. "I don't...think I should have done that. Or I don't think I should have wanted to. Or..."
She didn't know *what* to think. Her heart was pounding, her mouth was tingling and she would swear she could feel the ghosts of his hands still on her back and in her hair. She pulled herself together with an effort.
I have to go on a trip, she reminded herself. Away from here...and Neal.
"Um..." She had never seen her eloquent fried so speechless. Then he seemed to decide something and said, "*Really* don't get yourself killed. I think I'd better go back to sleep...and find out if this is all a dream."
"It isn't," Kel whispered.
That warm gaze met hers. "I know. But I think I need to believe it is for now. Maybe I'll know what to do tomorrow."
"Maybe," she said and lowered her eyes. He was upset. It had been the wrong thing to do. A stupid thing to do.
A silence, and then she heard him say, "Oh gods!" in a soft, exasperated tone and he kissed her again, very little soft or tender about it this time, more furious and passionate. "Goodbye," he pronounced and gave her a brief, charming grin. "Don't die on me. It just got interesting."
He slithered away, and Kel stared after him, mouth agape.
I just had my first kiss, she thought and began to smile.
And my second. She picked up her bags with a light heart.
Third time takes all?
* * * *
Thoughts? Comments? Opinions? I would love to hear from you!