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

the wind blew it past hoods and it kept the ground too wet to really push the horses. Zelen bent low over Jester’s back, wiped his brow with his sleeve until the skin chafed, and did his best to remind himself that they’d be later yet if an all-out gallop turned into a broken leg.

Even the comfort of having Branwyn beside him, an anonymous shape in the darkness but one he could have picked instantly out of a crowd, was mixed. He was taking her into danger, not two days since she’d been unable to stand on both feet for more than a few minutes. Zelen’s mind could repeat endlessly that she was fully healed now, that a Sentinel was worth any four or five normal warriors, and that Branwyn had thrown in with the plan before he’d so much as hinted at her coming along.

His gut, and his heart, were having none of it.

The darkness was full of demons and magic, evil sorcerers wearing familiar faces, and foul pictures from his imagination and memory both. He remembered Branwyn lying huddled in the alley and knew too well that her powers didn’t protect her against all threats. He considered how fragile the human body was, especially a child’s, and thought of all the methods of human sacrifice he’d heard of in lurid tales.

Zelen also thought of Hanyi, who’d occasionally looked the other way when she’d caught him sneaking back into the house, or brought him hot drinks when he was sick in bed, and who summoned demons now. No such memories of Gedomir came to mind. Perversely, that was itself painful—the man was his brother, and if there was nothing to mourn for on finding out where his allegiances lay, Zelen couldn’t believe the fault was all on one side.

He wasn’t divinely inspired. He hadn’t preternaturally sensed that Gedomir worshipped the Traitor. They’d just never liked each other, and Zelen had never had quite enough family feeling to overcome that.

The ride would’ve taken forever, even if they hadn’t been in a hurry.

No lights shone from the house’s windows. It was a great black hulk in the darkness. Fans of white magelight shone from either side of the doors, though, giving the guards a good view of the road.

Shortly before they’d come into view, they reined in the horses. Branwyn came close enough to lay a hand on Zelen’s arm and bent toward him, talking as softly as she could manage while making sure he could still hear her over the rain. “I’ll be as quiet as I can, but I’m not a Blade, and I’ll be noticed eventually. Be prepared.”

“I will,” he said. “Come back to me.”

“I’ll try.”

He kissed her with the rain falling around them, her lips the only warm part of the world. He couldn’t take her in his arms because of the horses, and they couldn’t linger.

Letar, he prayed as she turned Brandy away from the road, you lost your lover to your brother’s evil. Have mercy on me.

Then he rode hell-for-leather, or as close to it as the mud and any consideration for Jester would let him, toward the house. The hood of his cloak fell back, and the rain lashed his face, but Zelen didn’t bother to pull it up.

He knew full well how he appeared as he crossed the edge of the magelight. The cloak was black, his hair black and straggling now that it was soaked, his eyes dark in a face that was pale by comparison. With Jester equally dark and wet, the pair of them could have come from a scene from a ballad about highwaymen.

The men who stood guard in the nighttime, wielding axes and spears, were not romantic figures. They stepped forward in challenge before recognition dawned.

“My lord Zelen?” asked Kostan.

“I need to speak with my brother at once,” he said, trying to sound as arrogant as Gedomir ever had. “Is my family still here?”

“Some, sir,” Otto replied. He was older and hadn’t come to “help” Zelen in his search for Dimitri’s brother. “Your lord father and lady mother have left for the city, as has your elder sister. The others depart tomorrow.”

“Good,” Zelen lied, and swung down to the wet ground. “Give my horse to one of the grooms and see that he’s well tended. I’ve ridden hard tonight, and I may have to do as much tomorrow.”

All but the most dedicated men, when told to leave what shelter they had and take care of a wet and likely out-of-temper horse, would hesitate. Verengir’s guards were mercenaries, not knights or Blades, and not the best of them at that. The long glance between them spoke of a complicated negotiation of seniority, favors, and potential blackmail, one that Zelen would’ve found deeply funny under other circumstances.

“It’ll be done, sir,” said Otto, and took the reins.

That would occupy his attention and then at least one groom’s. If Zelen and Branwyn were lucky, that groom might not be in a good mood on being woken. An argument would be a fine thing. Kostan, the lone guard left at the front, would be less likely to go investigate mysterious noises, or even respond to yelling.

So far, so good. Zelen strode up to the doors and hammered on them. After six hard blows, he heard quick footsteps and muffled swearing from the hall beyond.

Now he just had to make a scene.

* * *

There was a great deal to be said against the Verengirs. They were certainly traitors and, given the missing children, likely murderers as well. What little Branwyn had heard about the way they treated Zelen made her furious, even with her own limited experience of normal families, and at least one of them wrote excessively pretentious ritual notes.

They did let trees grow fairly near the wings of their house. Branwyn considered it a significant point in their favor.

She admitted that few people without a Sentinel’s gifts or other inhuman enhancements would have been able to perch in the highest branches of