Chapter 22: you meet the most interesting people… breaking and entering.
Conrart sighed and glared at the small strip of braided rawhide he was now fairly certain had originally been part of some horse's bridle. He'd been trying to fetch the thing for the past twenty minutes with no luck! It was a simple enough task, yet he could not seem to do it! All he had to do was move the three inch long strip from its spot on the stool to his hand, yet he couldn't manage it. Oh, the thing moved alright . . . only to become a miniature arrow, which he'd so far managed to drive an inch into the tree that stood a good four feet behind him. He just couldn't seem to get the damn thing to come to his hand and actually stop there!
He groaned and tugged at the little thing again. It flew at him with enough force that he didn't even bother trying to catch it! Instead, he threw himself to the side and out of the path of his miniature projectile. This was beyond aggravating. He could move the stool and not have it turn into a projectile, so why in the Great One's name couldn't he move anything lighter without unintentionally turning it into a weapon?!
: Take a deep breath Chosen. Try it again, and this time, don't put as much force behind it. : Vanyel said calmly. : You're trying to make it come to your hand; try to envision it already in your hand. :
Conrart sighed and tried again, this time with a bit more success. He didn't have to throw himself out of its path this time; he simply reached out and caught the thing as it flew by. The problem was anyone could catch the thing as it floated through the air towards him. He didn't understand it, and it was frustrating! I'Ryn could do it, and so could the other students in his class, but he just couldn't seem to grasp the concept. He closed his eyes briefly and sent I'Ryn his patented small smile in response to her smirk as the message tube she was working with seemed to simply materialize in her hand.
He was beginning to hate that smug smirk!
Truth be told, he'd been in a bad mood when he first came to this class 45 minutes ago. His conversation with Yozak still fresh in his mind—so Yozak didn't want a partner who was loose. It shouldn't have surprised him. Not really, especially since nobles wanted to marry virgins. That didn't necessarily mean noble men were chaste. A nobleman could sleep with any woman he chose to, as long as there was no chance of her father forcing you into a marriage that you didn't want.
As for the nobles who preferred their own gender . . . well, the rules were little different there. They could sleep with any man they chose, so long as they topped, and the other man's rank was low enough that his family couldn't force them into a marriage. Any noblemen who chose to bottom were treated the same as noblewomen; they were expected to remain virgins until marriage.
To do otherwise was considered a disgrace.
When noblemen married, the one who played the wife was expected to forfeit his lands and titles to his husband as a dowry. He essentially became the lady of his own lands!
Honestly, Yozak's words shouldn't have surprised him, but he hadn't expected such sentiments to come from Yozak who was peasant-stock, and thus a bit freer. But then, Yozak had come to live at the palace with him shortly after he became Lord Weller, so it was no wonder the man had inherited some of their prejudices.
Still, it pained him to think about it!
To make matters worse, he hadn't made any progress in months, even though he hadn't lashed out at anything with his gift since the incident on the obstacle course. It probably helped that Lord Gwilherm and his three friends weren't around to make his life miserable. The four had become permanent residents of Covenant Castle just three and a half weeks before Vanyel had Chosen him. He was glad Vanyel had saved him from being forced to live with the men, but he worried about Yuri's safety with the four of them in the castle. He took comfort in the fact that Yuri was engaged to Wolfram, and had the added safety of being the Maoh. He didn't think even Lord Gwilherm would be stupid enough to attack the king. But then again, 50 years ago, he hadn't thought the man foolish enough to assault any member of the royal family, and Gwilherm and his friends had proven him wrong!
He was here with Yuri's blessing, and he knew his king was safe—Gwendal, Günter and the royal guard would see to that. But his inability to get control of his gifts annoyed the hell out of him. To make matters worse, he felt like he was failing not only himself, but the Heralds, Vanyel – his beloved Companion – and Yuri every time he saw the frustrated look in Herald Dirk's eyes.
Dirk sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose as he headed over to him. Conrart closed his eyes briefly and resisted the urge to lower his eyes in shame. Instead, he brought his chin up slightly and waited for the man to give him his orders.
"Alright youngling; it's sadly obvious that this just simply isn't working, so lets try something with a little more weight," Dirk said, mildly gesturing over at a pile of firewood. Then he added, "I want you to fetch one of those logs. Take it from the middle of the pile. If you do it right, the logs shouldn't even shift."
Conrart inclined his head, and glanced over at the pile of firewood stacked up against the stone wall of Companion's Stable.* Closing his eyes briefly, he settled back on his haunches and tried to focus on his gift. He tried desperately to unravel a single thread of power, like Vanyel had taught him, and force the rest of the tsunami that was his fetching gift back far enough for him to safely utilize it. Having finally achieved that, he opened his eyes and gave the log a soft tug.
- The damned thing didn't budge!
His eyes narrowed, and he tugged again, this time with more force. The log moved, but only about an inch forward. I'Ryn snickered, and he heard her mutter to another trainee, "It's not that hard, I don't see what his problem is." The other trainee immediately shushed her.
Annoyed and unwilling to be the butt of anyone's joke, he let princely pride get the better of him. Taking a deep breath, he silently ordered the log to come to him, putting enough force behind it that the action went from mere exercise to princely command. It worked… just a little too well!
The log came flying free of the pile, and Conrart, swearing, threw himself at a very startled I'Ryn, taking them both down in one swift and well practiced maneuver, rolling to kill their momentum as the log went flying over their heads. He was thankful years of military training and martial arts had granted him the ability to keep perfect control of his body even when it was in motion. He landed lightly on hands and knees, with I'Ryn on her back beneath him, as the familiar scent of smoke and the crackle of fire filled the air. For one brief disoriented second, he wondered what Wolfram had set alight this time.
I'Ryn stared up at him for a second as he tried to put what his senses were telling him together with what he intellectually knew. Her eyes narrowed abruptly, and her hands connected sharply with his pectoral muscles as she shoved him away.
"Get off of me, you creep!" she snapped. "I'm not interested in you."
Conrart raised an eyebrow at that comment. "Thank Shinou for small miracles." He retorted mildly, rising gracefully to his feet, and turning to see the pile of firewood he'd inadvertently set ablaze.
~~~***~~~
Yozak sighed as he left his last class of the day. He needed a bath, as he currently smelt distinctly of horse. As of today Alberich had decided there was little he could teach him now that he'd gotten him minding his lower outside line even when he was dead tired. Honestly Yozak didn't know why the man bothered, not many could keep up with him long enough to take advantage of that. Now he got the fun of having weapons class with Kerowyn, but he didn't see how she could be much worse than Alberich or the Captain.
He sighed as he walked back into the Collegium via one of the outside doors, and turned to make his way up the staircase to the second floor where the dorms and the baths were located. He'd gotten about halfway up the stairway when he ran into I'Ryn.
~~~***~~~
I'Ryn stared after Yozak's retreating back in shock. Was she really acting so horribly? She just couldn't understand how this was happening. She was every man's type – tall but not too tall, long in the leg and curved in all the right places. In addition to that, she had rather nice breasts. Most men jumped at the chance to be with her, and not once in her life had anyone turned her down. She'd spent almost every day since she hit puberty beating men off with a stick, and yet here was Yozak. A hot, red haired, well built man who didn't seem even remotely interested in her!
Yet he seemed very close to Conrart who was in many ways her male double. Yozak had said they'd been friends since they were very young, and informed her that her current antics were hampering any chance of them even becoming friends.
She was confused. Her every instinct was telling her he wasn't shaych, yet he didn't seem to show any romantic interest in her or any other woman for that matter. As to his comment about how she was acting, was she really being that much of a bitch? She honestly didn't mean to; she just wasn't used to men turning her down!
She was actually beginning to wonder if Yozak and Conrart were even human. Not because of their apparent lack of interest in her, but because of something she'd seen in both of their eyes this afternoon. Just a few minutes ago when Yozak had been furious with her, she'd noticed his very blue eyes for the first time. It wasn't the color of his eyes; she'd always found that to be one of his more attractive points. No, what she'd noticed had been the very prominent slit of his pupils. In that moment he looked like an infuriated tom cat! There was no denying the fact that his pupils were slit, and it made her wonder if what she'd seen earlier in Conrart's eyes and dismissed as a mere trick of the light was the same thing.
They looked completely human, yet their eyes were slit like a change child's. Was that what they were, or were they something else entirely?
She sighed, dismissing the thought as something to be pondered later, when she looked up into the faces of two of her brothers, cringing slightly at the look of surprised disgust on her twin's face - I'Ryk was definitely not pleased.
The young healer stood there with his arms crossed in front of him, one black brow raised, his brown eyes harder than she'd seen them in a very long time. Beside him, Tykir simply looked exasperated.
"What did you do?!" he finally hissed.
Now it was time to face the music.
~~~***~~~
Yozak sighed as he climbed out of his bedroom window. The sun was only just beginning to set and here he was scrambling out his window and across ledges to get into Conrart's room, because the younger man had locked the door and was refusing to answer. He wanted to skin I'Ryn right now—it was obvious that whatever had happened between him and Conrart earlier had shaken his friend more than he'd originally thought. Then I'Ryn had to go and rub Conrart's nose in his shortcomings, gloating about how frustrated Dirk was getting with Conrart's lack of progress and the fact that they'd had to call Herald Griffon over to put out the fire he'd accidentally started.
How dare she?!
How dare she make his best friend into the comic relief? Conrart didn't need that; he was having a hard enough time adjusting to life in Valdemar as it was. He didn't need some stuck up bitch of a Ningen making things worse. How she thought her little game of putting down Conrart was going to help her get him in bed, he didn't know. Nor did he particularly care!
Finally, he arrived at Conrart's shuttered window. He tugged lightly and found it locked! Not that that would ever keep him out. Muttering under his breath he slid his hand under the hem of his gray tunic, and liberated the small knife he had strapped to his hip. He slid the thin blade between the cracks in the shutters and deftly unlocked the window. Once he pulled them open, he dropped down inside. He was so preoccupied by his thoughts and concerns for his friend's emotional state, that he never noticed the figure that was carefully following him one floor up.
~~~***~~~
Herald Skif sat quietly on one of the window seats in the heraldic library, reading by the light streaming in through the window. It was nice to get away for a while; he'd only just come back from courier duty three days ago. It was good to be home; he loved his wife Nyara and their three adopted children, but every once in a while he needed a little time to himself – particularly with two children under the age of ten. His eldest daughter Elizabeth was 19, his son Jonathon had only just turned eight, and Elisa was not quite five. He smiled just thinking of his two rambunctious children, and their proud elder sibling. He'd found them four years ago at the end of one of his circuits.
Elizabeth had been changed during the mage-storms, which had killed her father. Afterwards, her mother had remarried to a man who regularly beat and semi-starved the poor little change child, especially after he'd fathered his own two children and her mother became ill. Once the poor woman had passed away, Elizabeth had taken her younger siblings and run, fearing the unrestrained temper of their father.
Skif had been beyond surprised when the small vixen change-child had shoved a baby into his arms and turned to face the mob following them, with a strung bow in one hand, shoving her little brother behind her with the other. The situation had taken three days and several rounds of the Truthspell to sort out. In the end, he'd brought the three of them home to Haven and legally became their father.
He and Nyara always wanted kids.
He yawned and looked up from his book, glancing out the window, only to see a head of orangey-red hair poke out of a window one story down and start moving. What in the nine hells is Elizabeth up to? He didn't know she had any friends in the Heraldic Collegium. Wait—he was currently seated above the boy's dormitory! What was she doing down there? He was going to kill the man whose room she had just come out of! And why is she on the outside of the second story of the palace? She could be killed! And when did she learn roof walking? Oh Lord and lady, if Nyara saw this –
-he'd be sleeping on the sofa for the next month! There'd be no convincing his wife he hadn't been the one who taught the girl!
With that in mind, and desperate to get to the girl before she missed a step and fell to her death, he pried the screen out of the window and went after her. It took him almost a full minute to realize a couple of very important facts. First, the figure was in grays, not greens. Second, the figure was lacking his daughter's fox ears and rather bushy tail. Third and most importantly, the Trainee in question was male.
Well, well, well … somebody was in trouble! And for once it wasn't him.
He shadowed the boy, noting that he stopped just shy of the end of the boys' dormitories. The young man tugged at a set of window shutters, and finding them locked, proceeded to produce a knife from somewhere under his clothing, and let himself in.
Breaking and entering too… how unheraldic.
He dropped down a floor with the practiced ease of a very experienced ex-thief, and listened to the conversation taking place within. Not that he understood a word of it, seeing as they were talking in a language he'd never heard before. He did notice that one voice – incidentally the higher of the two – was slightly muffled, as if the speaker was attempting to smother himself with a pillow. He edged along the thin ledge until he could perch himself comfortably against the trainee's bedroom window, and saw for himself why the red head had used the window rather than the door.
His friend obviously didn't feel like being disturbed if the bookcase that had been shoved in front of the door was any indication. The boy lay face down on the bed with his face buried in his pillow; the shaggy brown hair that formed a halo around his head reminded Skif of the deep brown mane of a male lion. If he had to guess, the boy was about Elizabeth's age. His friend was perched lightly on the bed beside him, his fox-red hair gleaming in the evening light. The redhead noticed the slight shift in the lighting, and looked up at him. Skif saw the boy's pupils, so like his beloved wife and daughter's, change to accommodate the difference in light. The slit of his pupils became more apparent as the boy's eyes caught the light.
He must've been a Change child then if the slits were anything to go by. Add to that the unheard of hair color and the oddly blue eyes… there was no mistaking the boy's origins. It would be nice to have another Change child on palace grounds, even if this one didn't bear as obvious changes as his eldest daughter.
"You know, I should scold you for this, but seeing as people don't normally roof walk unless they know what they're doing I'll let it slide this time, trainee. Besides, I visited several of my friends this way myself when I was your age."
To his surprise, the red-head laughed!
: Yozak, Chosen; the boy's name is Yozak. : Cymry informed him quietly.
"Somehow I doubt it." Yozak replied flippantly, before adding "So what can we do for you, Herald Skif?"
~~~***~~~
Yay another chapter. (spins in circle chasing own tail, yapping franticly). Read and review please.