Slowed to quiet his step, pelted by icy raindrops, Arithon peered through the thrashed branches. Lightning flickered. Flash-lit to grey upon mercury, the hollow beyond held the grappling form of a man. Crushed underneath, struggling with pinned wrists, the woman he forced fought him, weeping.
Arithon drew the sword, tensed by expectation: but the star-song within the black steel stayed quiescent. The gleam of the Paravian runes failed to ignite the sound-and-light chord of enchantment imbued at its forging. Without time to question, Arithon moved. He grabbed the man’s shoulder and hauled his bulk off the violated woman. While he angled the weapon as a deterrent threat, the compromised female jerked her pinioned wrists free.
She thrust her attacker away and rolled clear, a blur of pale limbs in the gathering dark. Terrified as a wild thing sprung from a trap, she scrambled and fled, clutching her rifled clothing.
Arithon let her go. Wary, he faced her assailant, who did not bellow, or rally in response to her surprise ally. Instead, the lusty fellow writhed on the ground. Lightning flared again and illuminated the blued flash of metal sunk to the hilt into flesh.
The game little vixen had stuck him with a skinning knife.
Arithon rebounded from startled shock. He sheathed the sword, bent, and bore down to constrain the man’s agonized thrashing. His explorative touch marked a forester’s dress: a sturdy leather jack, belted overtop of a town-woven jerkin sodden and warm with let blood. Guided by mage-sight, he assayed the dagger protruding between neck and shoulder. The artery had been severed deep down, where no skilled pressure might stem the gushing spurt. Life fled, catastrophically. Under flux patterns storm-charged to uproar, scant seconds remained to interpret the man’s fast-expiring matrix.
Arithon cradled the dying man’s frame. While the sky opened up into torrents, and thunder slammed earth and sky, the tempest scattered his refined senses. He could not plumb the imprint of the ruffian’s Name. Helpless, except to lend human comfort, he offered what gentle condolence he could to ease and hasten release.
The stricken man battled the throes of extremis. The erratic flicker of storm-light recorded the wracked struggle of his last, urgent effort to speak. Wide eyes stared, imploring. The corded throat worked. But the dagger had gashed the dying man’s windpipe. Convulsed, rendered helpless, he passed without requite. His desperate message perished along with him though the stranger who kept vigil through his gurgled, last breath stayed until his contorted hands loosened.
The tormented spirit crossed over at length.
Arithon laid the lolled head to rest. Rocked back on his heels in the thrash of the downpour, skin-soaked and shivering, he closed the slack eyelids against the rain. As he straightened the contorted limbs, he noted the snares looped at the man’s hip. The pulled knife, wiped clean, had the curved edge to dress pelts, suggesting a trapper’s livelihood. With nothing else to be done to lend succour, Arithon abandoned the corpse and shoved off to find the distraught victim still living.
Flight had turned her eastward, spurred by a panic that left a swathe of snapped twigs and thrashed greenery. Arithon traced her through the crack and slam of the storm, while rainfall sheeted the pocks of her footsteps and puddled them silver. His arcane talent stayed unreliable, though fitful bursts of her graphic distress pierced through the chaotic flux. He followed with deliberate care, first not to lose her tenuous trail and also to let her traumatized nerves settle at least enough to withstand the approach of a kindly stranger.
Something had changed since the storm struck at nightfall. Elaira scrubbed at the gooseflesh that puckered her nape, anxious to unriddle the source. With the trade-road through Orvandir’s flats windswept and open, and the cross-roads at Durn teeming with the encampments of the silk trade’s northbound summer caravans, even the late hour thwarted her need to find solitude. The bad call had to be faced without flinching: that distance from the dense, brawling noise increased the grave risk of interference by the Koriathain.
Since the sisterhood’s seat at Whitehold wielded a very long arm, the peril of isolation outstripped the town-based threat to trained talent posed by the Sunwheel fanatics. Scarcely a wise refuge to practise her arts, Elaira currently knelt on the scuffed flagstone floor in a wayside inn’s fusty wine-cellar. Silence and dust weighted the stifled air, encased by walls of dense brick. Sunk deep into earth, the site naturally muffled the rambunctious emotion that stewed in the jammed upstairs tap-room. But not the flaring unease arisen from Arithon’s sharp change of course.
Enroute to the cabin that once housed her herbalist’s work in the Storlain ranges, he veered west: not chased in pursuit but lured. Elaira shivered again, her hands shaking. The pitch-darkness lent her no ease and no clarity. Determined, afraid, she laid out the bowl, then the corked flask and the candle stub filched from an unoccupied room. She worked quickly while her beloved’s changed straits threw her fitful impressions: of wet skin and harsh gusts, icy rain and rife urgency, fragmented by static disturbance where the flux stream crackled over the fault line.
The region posed her a scryer’s worst nightmare. Even without the tempestuous squall, natural interference disrupted the electromagnetic currents. The same jagged bursts once utilized to advantage to balk her order’s invidious prying also upset the innate gestalt of her emotional link with Prince Arithon.
Perturbed enough to chase her apprehension, no matter the risk, Elaira unstoppered the flask and filled the brass bowl, listening against the boisterous noise from the tap-room: for the tread of the serving maids, coming and going to fetch and carry for customers, and for the noisier boots of the cheerful lad who tapped beer kegs. She dreaded disclosure, despite the cobwebs that curtained the arched brick vault, where grain spirits and wine aged in casks.
However removed, the niche was not safe. Caught at arcane practice, Elaira might suffer a branding, or worse, be dragged off in irons for the priests and the scaffold at Durn.
The upstairs door opened. Warm light sliced the gloom, followed by the boom of clogs on the stair. Starred beams from a candle lamp jittered and swayed, while grumbling over a cranky patron, the bar’s ham-fisted wench collected a wheel of cheese and retreated.
Elaira expelled her stopped breath. Masked in the dark, she laid a half-consumed crust of bread to one side of the bowl, a thin effort to disguise the arcane array illumined as she sparked the candle. Misconstrued as a vagrant, she might be tossed out, or perhaps be made to wash pots with the scullions in recompense for illicit shelter.
But no such innocuous pretence might excuse the black-and-gold hawk’s quill she smoothed in the tremulous glow of the flame. Stone floor, for earth, the vessel of water, the taper for fire, and feather for air: she dedicated the ritual with a whispered cantrip. Then she palmed the emerald signet of Rathain, wrought of white gold and imbued with the live charge of Arithon’s past amid its layered tapestry of ancient history. Elaira passed the band over the flame, whisked it under the feather, then touched it to the surface of the brim-full bowl and asked earth to complete the connection.
Last, she cupped the set gemstone between her palms, invoked Arithon’s Name, and awaited the vision engaged by the energized construct. When the connection flowered, her sight of the candle melted away. The surface of the water darkened to night and unveiled the storm broken over the Storlains with unsated ferocity …
Wild gusts thrashed the tree limbs, while the deluge pelted the ground to frothed run-off. The huddled woman did not hear Arithon’s step through the crash of tossed branches. Forlorn stranger, to him, she could not know the silence of his movement, guided by his attuned sensitivity. Her first warning of his approach became the drummed punch of the rainfall, interrupted by the flick of spread cloth as he cast his hide jacket over her shivering frame.
She recoiled in terror. Sobbing from the after-shock of another man’s violence, she surged to her feet, a wary creature lent panicked strength to take flight.
Whatever Arithon said to disarm her drowned under the drum
of the rainfall. But lightning revealed the trapper’s knife, reversed handle first, and extended toward her.
The traumatized woman snatched up the peace offering. She brandished the blade and lunged to fend him off, while he melted back, his palms raised. Although he remained armed, the black blade, Alithiel, stayed sheathed and secured at his shoulder. Small, chilled as she, and quite as miserable as his shirt soaked through, Arithon posed her no threat.
This, the woman before him would see: as initiate master, he knew how to infuse his presence with genuine calm …
Which emotional balm poured through the scryer’s construct intact. While Elaira suffered the wrench of separation, a close lightning stroke in the Storlain wilds hammered the crest of the ridge and excited the flux currents. Electromagnetic chaos unravelled her established connection to Arithon.
Shaken, the enchantress closed her fist over the emerald ring and fought welling tears. Closed in the dim cellar, plagued by formless anxiety, she waited for her wheeling senses to settle, while the rushed blood pulsed through her veins, and her quickened breaths stirred dust from the casks.
Fleeting as the contact had been, the flash-point awareness cut with aching clarity: Arithon was hungry and cold to the bone. Hunted by enemies for far too long, he was tired and altogether distraught, unexpectedly saddled with helpless company against his marked preference for solitude.
Blood bound to compassion, he could not turn away. Even for self-preservation he would not ignore an abused woman’s need for comfort and shelter.
Elaira had no cruelty in her nature. Her healer’s instinct understood trauma. The battered person just rescued from rape was too wretchedly hurt to be left to fend for herself. Whatever motive had prompted a town-bred female to brave the Storlain wilds alone, the victimized wound to her spirit was real.
Elaira swore softly. Too well, her dread measured the vulnerable entanglement. Arithon’s forthright ethic left no one in need, even when hounded by covert enemies. Though caution ought to question why such a forlorn innocent crossed his path, Rathain’s prince answered to empathy first. He would smother the cry of his heart and take the destitute creature in tow.
An hour passed, two, while the squall raged apace in the Storlains. Elaira sought to restore her smashed contact as serving-maids came and went on the stair, and the electromagnetic chaos of weather smote the reactive lane currents.
Through the hours, she netted glimpses of vision: of Arithon, working beyond his safe limits, picking a tenuous path through the turbulent elements. She felt his slipped steps on slicked rocks and roots, while the sodden trees thrashed in the wind, and the woman shivered in her ripped skirt and borrowed jacket, blinded by rain in the relentless dark and reliant upon his talent-based lead.
She followed, dependent, while his guidance led down a rock-cliff and through the ravine, infallibly drawn by the whisper of a love that tormented him for its absence. Guiding flame to his yearning, Elaira shared the piercing desire by which Arithon extended his overstrung faculties. He followed the remnant trace of herself, as lightning gashed the sky overhead, and the downpour sapped his vitality. The toll of exposure forgave no mistakes. Survival relied on the abandoned cabin tucked in the lee of the ridge.
Midnight came and went within the dry cellar. Elaira stayed wakeful in the musty gloom, while the drudges swept the tap-room overhead and the boy rousted out the stupefied drunks. The stout landlord made his final rounds and closed up. He extinguished the lamp at the stair-head, then shut and locked the strapped door to the wine-vault.
Secure from interruption at last, Elaira bundled up in her mantle and catnapped. Fitful Sight wracked her sleep: of Arithon’s spare words of encouragement, pitched to lift beaten morale when the woman’s strength faltered. Inched across a slippery deadfall, he saw her safely over the swollen spate, raced to froth in the sunken ravine.
The little cabin perched on the far side, up a steep path shored with cut logs, puddled under the forest canopy. Above dripping firs, the angry clouds shredded to patched indigo scattered with stars.
Wakeful in the calm aftermath, Elaira shared the intimate flare of anticipation as Arithon mounted the cabin’s plank stair. His thrill when he lifted the latch banished weariness, then dissolved into pain as he flung wide the door and discovered the place had been ransacked.
Nothing of value remained. The floor wore a mat of soaked leaves. Oiled-hide windows chewed through by mice had tattered from prolonged neglect.
Elaira suppressed the hot prickle of tears. Her beloved would find no meaningful trace of her. The possessions that mattered had long since gone with her, light enough to be carried. On departure, she had picked everything clean: scoured the cracks and swept all the crannies, then burned every last stick of furnishing. By such rigorous measures she had foiled the Koriathain, who would have seized the ruthless use of her leavings to anchor their divination.
“Come in,” Arithon urged the fraught woman, who shrank into the shadows behind. “If there are no comforts, the roof appears sound. I can kindle a fire, close up the shutters, and get ourselves warm and dry.”
Banal talk to steady the female stranger: but Elaira’s tender perception sensed his suppressed note of desolation. Unable to bear his forlorn disappointment, the enchantress flung off her mantle and paced the wine-vault like a caged beast. Her steps riffled the cobwebs in the cramped space, while the slow hours unreeled towards dawn, and the stutter of the Storlain flux patterns smoothed enough to refigure her scryer’s array …
… the bowl’s image cleared to show Arithon, seated on the floor, with his arms tucked over his drawn-up knees. His drenched hair, rinsed clean, was neatly tied back, and his damp shirt half-unlaced in the carmine fire-light. Belt and baldric had been stripped off to dry where the heat would not crack the leather. The black sword, unsheathed, leaned against the board wall beyond reach, a firm statement of neutral disarmament.
The woman huddled nearest the hearth, her dishevelled bodice still swathed in his jacket. The dead man’s blood stained the blouse underneath, and her muddied skirt clung to scraped ankles. Trapped in cramped quarters, shame and misery exposed, she feared to turn her back, even to mend her frayed laces. Her fixed regard blazed with distrust, while his gaze in turn read every nuance of her hostile rage and discomfort.
Arithon asked gently, patient enough to overlook her antagonism, “What is your name?”
Hoarsely, she answered. “Vivet.” A shudder raked through her. Eyes blue as a glaze on fine porcelain glinted back through tear-swollen lids. Then she ducked her head, her heart-shaped face veiled behind tangles of red-gold hair. Bruises on her wrists marred creamy skin, delicate in the grain as veined marble. Her alto tone coloured by a mountain dialect, she added, defensive, “I was on my way home.”
“Alone?” Arithon asked, his Masterbard’s timbre velvet with calm.
Her shoulders moved, a shrug of stiff impatience. “I was born in the region. These peaks have been native soil to my family for generations.”
She pinched her lips, terrified. The strangled pause stretched.
Endowed with a healer’s tactful restraint, Arithon displayed no inclination to pry …
But the surge of his unspoken compassion raised a piercing ripple of pure emotion. The water in the scryer’s bowl shivered, while Elaira reeled in wrenching empathy.
Ath on earth, how she missed his testy company!
The fact Arithon was free in the world, and untouchable, threatened to break her in pieces. Relief came, ridden by desolation as the unstable flux sawed through the clear linkage and cut off rapport like a mercy stroke. The scried image winked out. The puff as Elaira released her seized breath extinguished the fluttering candle.
Plunged back into fusty dark, she blotted the emerald ring dry, then restored the band to the chain hung from her neck. Trembling, distraught, she sheathed the hawk’s quill in her sleeve. Then, wrung ragged, she leaned against the stacked casks. Face shuttered, she released the pent storm of she
er longing and helpless resentment. The Biedar crone’s warning given at Sanpashir haunted her: “Can you let Arithon go beyond your control? Do you love enough to keep faith in him, even afflicted by your own loss? For he will seek his fate. If he can invent a fresh course by his wits, he will try to resolve his own happiness. Stand or fall, his life’s path will be forged in this world. The gifts of his birthright will claim their full due. He will find himself, with or without you.”
Elaira firmed her shaken discipline. She packed up the tools of her practice. Sorely as she wished otherwise, she dared not forsake love’s inviolate trust. Arithon must be left to rely on his instincts. If she wavered and intervened without cause, her selfish weakness would come to destroy him.
His state of ignorance shielded them both.
For as long as Arithon did not know her whereabouts, and while the sequestered recall of her identity stayed lost to him, Koriathain could not use her as the weapon to smash his defiant free will.
Whether Vivet’s straits engaged his heart-felt sympathy, the Prince of Rathain would be safest from the reach of his enemies left upon his own merits.
Cold daybreak brought in the next squall line. A rampaging tower of anvil-heads with gale-force winds broke over the Storlain Mountains. Vivet slept in a corner, outworn by exhaustion, curled beneath her torn cloak. The soaked fabric had dried. Her snarled chestnut hair curtained her cheek. The arms folded over her breasts lay relaxed, fingertips with broken nails flushed pink as a child’s. She did not stir, even when thunder and driven rain rattled the cabin’s rickety shutters.
The coals in the fire-place warmed off the dank chill. Since nothing else could be done for her comfort without the intrusion of touching her, Arithon left her undisturbed.
More, he welcomed the peace. Taxed to the edge of endurance himself, and still wracked by the bound and start of stressed faculties, rest escaped him. Given calm reprieve from the young woman’s strident terror of his male presence, he snatched the chance to act for himself.