The Words Between - part 17a
"Kyn?"
He shook himself out of the doze he had lapsed into, squinting in the late morning sun toward Brin.
"The manor will be within sight in a few more marks," the boy said quietly, motioning ahead.
Straightening with a deep breath, Kyn nodded his thanks and Brin smiled tentatively before nudging Raolian ahead...an unexpected courtesy, allowing him space to recover what wits he could. Or maybe he's just trying to save himself from my temper, considering how uncertain it is these days, Kyn thought acerbically, grimacing and rubbing his eyes.
"...bloody noble."
Of course, some people weren't as concerned with courtesy as others - or just didn't hold a high enough opinion of him to care. "I beg your pardon?" Kyn asked wearily, barely injecting enough irritation into his tone to make the words worth uttering.
Brianna shrugged, meeting his eyes momentarily before she nodded toward the tow-headed boy chatting cheerfully with Nadia out of immediate earshot. "Brin. You're turning him into a bloody noble with all those looks and graces only you two would understand or make such significance of."
Kyn felt his brows twitch downwards in perplexity before he rolled his shoulders in a vain attempt to relieve the ache in his back, shifting his seat uncomfortably. His riding skills may have improved over the forced journey insofar as his ability to remain on horseback regardless of whether he was fully conscious or not was concerned, but he had gained little else that he could see beyond new pains in interesting and previously unsuspected places. "You are not making any sense."
"Oh, no need for your airs with me, Your Highness," Brianna snorted, urging her own chestnut mare forward to ride abreast of Sianni. "On Brin the refinement's charming, but on you it'll never be less than pure nose-thumbing arrogance."
Kyn tensed and gritted his teeth. Sianni skipped a step, jarring him, and he relaxed his legs, moving his heels from her ribs with a reflexive, internal apology. "If anyone is sporting 'airs', madam, I believe that would be you. Certainly, I do not employ condescension on whim alone."
Brianna laughed, an unabashed sound that briefly drew Brin and Nadia's attentions before they turned away again with puzzlement and suspicion on their faces respectively. Swallowing chortles, the guardswoman slanted a long look toward him. "Oh, I do not 'employ condescension' on pure whim either, Child. But one does wonder where such a pompous pup such as yourself sprouted from without name or title to boast of."
"And must all landed gentry automatically be pompous and condescending? Or the arrogant hide some secret tie to nobility?"
"They don't all have to. They just tend that way. Anyone that claims something others don't have can fall into the habit." She angled her sheathed sword, a thumb pushing up on the quillions and baring a finger's width of polished steel. "There's many a braggart in the guards as well," she admitted with a toothy smile before letting the sword slide back to rest. "Those who think they can claim some small amount of skill in the wielding of steel over others."
Kyn snorted derisively and turned away. Brianna chafed him raw with her quick and argumentative judgments - had him nearly tying her up and tossing her into a river at one point when they had passed sluggish black waters during their journey and he realized she just plain enjoyed being contrary. But even Nadia would pause in the middle of her infamous rants to reconsider the wisdom of throwing a fit at a self-professed killer, and Brin need not even be considered if any hint of Kyn's displeasure was in the offing. Brianna, with her brassy disregard for anything even remotely resembling self-preservation, boldly and bluntly charged forward in all her ill-bred glory to beat her head soundly against his whenever she felt he needed it...which was distressingly often.
Still, there was something to the exchanges that prevented him from shirking her company altogether. She engaged him in an interaction that he had never experienced before except in the most stunted, artificial manner - banter had not been encouraged between his instructors and himself, and any other conversations he instigated in completing his assignments were restricted to their utility alone. It was with a sort of rebellious glee that he allowed himself to be drawn into such conversations nowadays, knowing he had nothing to gain except what mental tallies they kept between them in their word games. "You may disdain the 'airs' of a nobleman, Brianna, but we will soon be entering a den of them and I would see that Brin is well prepared to meet them."
"It's unfortunate that it wasn't altruism guiding your thoughts in that."
Kyn granted her the bare edges of a vulpine smile, not even bothering to refute the accusation.
Shaking her head with a broad sigh, Brianna tilted her head to look appraisingly down her long, aquiline nose at him. "What have you planned out in that tangled yarn you've got for a mind, Kyn?"
And, as abruptly as that, he was reminded of his lack of any plans at all despite appearances and lost his appetite for the conversation. "Survival," he stated bluntly and sent a gentle, mental nudge toward Sianni. Holding his breath as she had shown several times that she could be stubbornly recalcitrant if she was in the mood, he released it again slowly with relief when she grudgingly picked up her pace to a slow trot, soon catching up with the other two members of their group.
To say that his relationship with Sianni had been strained - and not broken altogether - would be near enough lying to give the gods a second pause to reconsider. In all truthfulness, he had been preparing his excuses to the others as to why he would not be riding her on the journey to Lynxfinn when he had found her already tacked and waiting at the stable doors.
For a moment, as he had paused to stare back into her distant, glacial blue gaze, he knew with as much certainty as he was capable of without experiencing a full-blown vision that his life would be given for hers. Not because he believed there was some nebulous, overarching code called 'the right thing to do', or the Heralds would somehow manage, by some incredible feat of sorcery, to mold him into one of their own...but simply because she had appeared when he had not asked for her, when he had no real need for her, when she didn't know if the gesture would even be noticed, much less appreciated.
Remember who and what you are, in all that you do, Kyn. Never stray from the principles and goals that you keep for yourself, by the smallest step, or nothing will ever be safe from rationalization.
It had become apparent what principles and goals Master held dearest, and Kyn had no place in them. Even foolish, blustering Stefahn was a suitable replacement if Kyn stood in the man's path. Foolish, foolish boy, his mind had whispered to him at the realization, as his heart and lungs had constricted with resentment. Remember that you are only as useful as your worth. If your worth makes it necessary to rescue you, there is no more point to your existence. Forget this foolish disappointment...it is merely just desserts for allowing yourself to believe your own lies. You allowed yourself to be lured by your own fantasies.
When had he begun to consider that he might have principles apart from what Master's were? Was the betrayal Kyn's or Master's, for failing an assignment or for betraying a supposedly implicit trust? Did it even matter? The man had begun to lose substance like the curling tendrils of burning herbs, fading and dispersing with time and distance, little more than a ghostly silhouette in troubled dreams these days. It had almost become an effort to remember the exact rhythm and timber of the drag-thump of the crippled man's steps, while Sianni was a warm, solid presence moving smoothly beneath him.
But whatever doubts he might hold about anything else, Kyn was quite certain he knew what Master's response to the evidence of Sianni's appalling influence would have been, and in that he knew he strayed quite far from the man's wishes. I will not let anyone touch you, Kyn silently promised Sianni. I do not care if you abandon me tomorrow. I do not care if you reveal that you are yet another of Master's minions and trample me into the ground for my presumptions. That day, you came. You said nothing, demanded nothing...you simply came.
Staring down at the fall of near-translucent mane over the proud ridge of Sianni's neck, he couldn't resist stroking his fingers surreptitiously through the nearest locks. It was unfortunate that she was so eager to bind herself too close - he dared not allow her any leeway in the matter as he did the others. It was a risk he was unwilling to take. Furious as he may be at Master's decisions, he believed the man's lessons down in his very core, and he would sooner crawl back to the manse to slit his throat on its threshold before he would allow himself to fail a promise.
The teardrop-shaped ears suddenly flicked toward him, Sianni's head lifting to glance back at him with a low, questioning rumble deep in her chest. Guiltily snatching his fingers back, he checked his shields and carefully schooled his expression into impassivity.
"What an ugly looking place."
Kyn blinked, turning toward Nadia, vaguely registering the small frown of distaste that had overtaken her features before he asked, "I beg your pardon?"
She gestured forward impatiently. "That. It looks like something my nephew built in an afternoon with a handful of pebbles he picked up in the yard." As Brin covered a snigger, Kyn looked ahead and couldn't help but agree with the healer's sentiment, even if he lacked the necessary experience to grasp her analogy completely.
"It was built to impress potential invaders with its fortifications, not its beauty," Kyn remarked, throwing the healer a quick look when she snorted before returning his attention fully to the city and the most noticeable structure squatting in its center.
He had, of course, studied all he could of what had been written on the actual manor itself, pondered the few sketches he had found of its facades beyond the original building plans that Brin had given him. He had even allowed his thoughts to wander briefly through the last conversation he had carried out with the un-Herald, however reluctantly, and tried to test what his reactions might be on finally setting eyes on the place. But any feelings he could draw from his imagination had been murky at best, confused and insincere. Discomfited by his inability to assess how the place and all it represented would affect him, he thought, at least, he could wear out the 'novelty' in a sense by obsessing about the subject for a few days, allowing himself to gain a more objective perspective when encountering the real object.
Not so. Now that he was able to finally set his eyes on Lynxfinn Holdings itself, he found himself unwilling to even turn away, greedily tracing each edge and detail that gradually came into focus. Shouldn't some part of it be familiar? How elaborate a scheme would - could - Master, the duke, and Alberich construct in order to fool me? Could the entire story of the past dukes and their families be a fabrication? Why would they even bother?
"The original stronghold is where the manse now lies," Kyn continued absently, pointing toward the center of the fortifications, the only building visible as a separate structure at the current distance. He began to summarize what he had learned, subconsciously trying to banish emotions and personal ghosts with the calm litany of facts. "An underground aquifer had been sounded, and wells sunk to provide fresh water within the walls that would be erected. It was built atop the highest point of the knoll, to force attackers into an uphill fight. It could host a standing army without straining its resources unduly for almost a month, with proper warning and preparation. The inner wall had been its first and only defense for many long years - the outer curtain was not added until generations later, when the first titled duke claimed Lynxfinn and deemed it wise to protect the town that would inevitably grow about it.
"It has stood for almost as long as Valdemar has," he continued after a deep breath, "and used to designate the end of where territory was held firmly in friendly hands when Valdemar's neighbors were still having trouble recognizing its sovereignty. Its expansion had been relatively slow, subjects drawn by the growing city and the promise of opportunities with the trade road so close, but little else to recommend the former fortress, so far removed from the refinement and society of the capitol both literally and figuratively. Yet Lynxfinn has seen remarkably few upheavals, growing steadily richer under the guidance of its dukes and their canny, if not exactly brilliant, management. A land that had once been known for the battles that swept through it as regularly as the seasons now lies fat and fallow far behind expanded borders, contented and quiet in its anonymity, its more restless children traveling elsewhere to find what excitement they may desire."
When the silence stretched without comment, Kyn glanced aside to find Nadia staring at him outright, not quite gaping, but only just. He arched one eyebrow. "I have seen birds after they have flown into glass panes look like they have more wits about them than you do right now."
"Uhm," Brin said diplomatically, looking a little stunned himself but recovering far faster than the healer - aplomb-wise, anyway. "I think...I think it was just a little more than she is able to swallow all at once..."
Nadia stiffened, revived promptly with the prick at her pride - whether intentional or not - and cast a glare toward an unimpressed Kyn and a contrite-looking Brin, kicking her gelding into a trot. "I swallowed it just fine, thank you very much. I was merely caught unprepared by the veritable lecture we received from someone as tight-lipped as Kyn. Really, I was beginning to wonder if his own wits abandoned him whenever he opened his mouth," she tossed over her shoulder before she moved out of range of easy speech.
Brin shrugged helplessly as Kyn turned toward him in confusion. "It could have been worse. I think she was flustered enough that she didn't have time to come up with anything truly insulting. After all, she could have easily dragged in your habit of - "
Kyn swiftly forestalled any further well-meaning but inevitably disastrous platitudes with an up-held hand and a grimace. "Thank you, Brin, but I think I can fill in the words between well enough on my own," he muttered crossly.
Brianna's chuckles swelled from behind them. "I have yet to meet this infamous duke of yours, Child, but if the 'peace' that you keep amongst your own fellows is any indication, it will be a fine time that we'll have here at Lynxfinn."
Short. Very short. My apologies. Mayhaps the writing bug will bite me harder the next time it visits. =) I decided that this part was being written way too many times and before I began making a one hundred and eighty-ninth draft, I should post it and move on.
Btw, a big thank you to everyone who has been following this fic faithfully and reviewing, *especially* those who have been reviewing every chapter along the way! It's absolutely amazing to me how much effort you make to be so consistent...I'm not even able to put out chapters on a regular basis. looks sheepish
Megan - Heheheh...would you believe that she was literally a thirty-second character? I gave her far less forethought than I did Nadia; I needed someone there and so I threw her in. But, admittedly, she has grown quite a bit since that first appearance, and I am very glad to hear that she's working out so well. I very much enjoy writing her.
Aysen - Actually, it was supposed to be DragonWarden, but I reflexively hit 'enter' too quickly (DragonWard is my IM login so I'm used to typing that) and it's such a hassle to change it that, by the time I noticed it, I just let it pass. =P As for why I chose that moniker in the first place...I'm not sure why, exactly. When I began my web site years and years ago, its main theme was dragons, and I wanted something unique to identify it. "The Dragon Warden" just popped randomly out of the blue, and I've identified with it ever since.
badgerwolf - grins I was thinking the same thing to myself just a week or so before I saw your comment. You're right; but, after all, Kyn's been trying his damnedest *not* to think about or associate with Sianni at various points. But don't worry; there'll be plenty of Sianni in the second part of the story.
drunkenfairy - Eep! Can't have that, now... eyeshifts Weeeeeeell...okay, maybe I would like to make sure your appetite's maintained at a keen edge by at least a *little* suspense. ^_~
ola - lol Sorry. ^_~ Tell her she should take up yoga or something. All that stress can be detrimental to her health.
SCWLC - laughs As long as you're sure you like it, then I'm content. =P eeps and hides Uhm...but breaks are good! You shouldn't study too hard...your brain might explode, and then where would you be? eyeshifts But see, I made the next part extra short so that you would have more time to do...whatever needs doing. Yeah. That's it.
FlameAngel012 - Thank you very much! Heheheh...and as you wished, I've given *ample* time for exams to be over before releasing the next part. =P (Though, the delay wasn't *exactly* due to that, but you don't need to know that... whistles)