The Nightborn by Isabel Cooper (howl and other poems TXT) 📗

Lycellias, who’d kept his feet, paced as he thought. His armor flashed in the light. For the first time in a while, Branwyn remembered Olvir. The two men were different in almost every way, but they were both knights, and preparing for battle made everyone kin. “And he, as well as at least one of your sisters, is a wizard,” the stonekin went on.

“I’m fairly sure.” Zelen spoke without inflection. “Could easily be all the rest.”

“That could be so,” said Lycellias. “We aren’t without defenses in such matters, but we might do well to involve the Blades. You mentioned that the others are coming to the city in the next few days?”

“For the burnings, yes. It’d look damned odd if they didn’t. Unless they find out what I’ve done with Yathana…” Zelen frowned. “And you know, I think they’d still come and try to brazen it out. Could always claim I’d taken leave of my senses, after all, or misinterpreted matters. They don’t know I’d met up with Branwyn again, or what I overheard.”

“If they do decide otherwise,” Lycellias said, “they won’t meet with clear passage. There’s only one road from your family’s estates, and I sent messages to the Temple just now. It will be blocked.”

“What should we do then?” Branwyn asked.

“Only what you’ve been doing. You’ve given us your knowledge, and the Sentinel has fought one dire foe already. Until the traitors are in our grasp, or that of the Shadow Queen, the duty is ours. But you”—Lycellias turned to Altien, his blue-and-black eyebrows slanting inward—“asked for me by name. Why?”

“We didn’t quite get to explaining this,” said Altien to Zelen, and produced the folded sheaf of notes that Branwyn had found.

The story was simple there as well, though it baffled Zelen when he heard it. “Judging by the date, R would’ve been Roslina, my aunt. She died when I was three. A number of the family did—there was a fire in one of the old wings. All damned suspicious now, of course, but I’ve no idea exactly what I should be suspecting.”

“I do, somewhat,” said the knight, and moved from the window to perch on one of the chairs. He sat lightly—even in plate mail, the stonekin couldn’t really sit any other way—but he passed a hand over his brow wearily before he began. “The story is old, mark you, and not one that I have ever heard as other than a legend, but in simple terms it is this: when the Traitor killed his sister’s beloved, out of spite and pride and unbrotherly jealousy, a piece of his essence split. There are tales that say it fell to the ground, unnoticed, when he struck the blow, and those that have it cut off by Lethiannar later, in the greatest of battles. One seems as likely as the other.”

“And my family was trying to incarnate it,” said Zelen. “Why? What would that…fragment…be, really?”

“That, too, depends on the story. It could be the power Gazathar needs to reach his full might, in which case he might be able to treat the Veil of Fire as a courtesy and manifest fully in this world. It could be all that was still good in him—the god he once was, and still could have been, up until his final decision. Or it could simply be power, and the one who took that into themselves would make Thyran look like a child kicking over toy blocks.”

They sat silent, contemplating that possibility, as night came on outside.

Chapter 32

Despite everything, they managed a decent dinner. Barthani served up spiced rice cooked with sausage and squash, and dried fruit in syrup to follow—as simple as they’d promised, but a satisfying meal all the same—and Feyher brought around a hearty red wine with it. Zelen enjoyed it but didn’t drink much, mindful of the earlier brandy.

Thus fortified, though, they turned the conversation to relatively lighter matters. Branwyn told funny stories from her travels, including one about overhearing an arguing couple in a shoddy inn.

“…and as I was lying there right on the other side of the wall, she threw the water jug across the room and yelled ‘How many times must you stab me in the heart, Brendan?’ I felt my professional opinion was relevant at that point, so I called back: ‘If it takes more than one, get a priest!’ They were quieter after that.”

Lycellias compared notes with her about their early training and mentioned that the blue streaks in his hair were how he’d known that his destiny lay with the gods. “It’s ever been so among my people,” he’d explained, when the other three looked curious. “Blue for the divine, red for a warrior’s life—though I admit there’s some common ground there—white for magic or scholarship, green for hunting or farming, and so on.”

“It would make missions like mine difficult,” Branwyn said, “but then, so does the Forging for most of us,” and she pulled back one sleeve to display her wrist.

The evening went on in that fashion, and while the darkness gathered beyond the windows and the rain pattered against the glass, the room was warm and bright. For a few minutes at a time, Zelen managed to forget what he’d learned over the last few days and what still lay ahead.

Lycellias was the first to leave, headed back to his temple with a bow and a return to his solemn demeanor of the afternoon. “Be sure that I’ll send word of any developments,” he said.

Not much later, Altien departed. “You both should make an early night of it. And, Zelen, if you’d rather—”

“I’ll be at the clinic tomorrow,” Zelen said, “as usual.”

“It seems rather pointless to argue. Get some sleep, then.”

Sleep did sound like a wise idea, but Altien’s departure left Zelen alone with Branwyn, standing next to her in the hall and noticing how much better she looked in his clothing than he’d ever done. Her hair fell loosely over the shoulders of his shirt, which clung to her