Land of Night (25 page)

Then there was the tangle of Liall. Scarlet needed Liall, but not in the way Liall seemed to want him to be needed. He did not want to need anyone like that. His Hilurin pride kept reminding him that a man does for himself, and does not rely on others to make the way easy for him. That Liall always seemed so determined to protect him and take care of things made him feel weak and laughable, and Liall never understood that. Liall was always so sure he was in the right.

Look where you are now, Scarlet-lad,
Scaja's voice murmured in his ear, and he smiled. True enough. Maybe he should have been arguing less and listening more.

They kept walking. By the end of the second hour, the palace looked no nearer in the valley below, and the dim light and the trees kept them from seeing anything of the grounds surrounding the Nauhinir. Scarlet's vision may have been keener than Cestimir's, but it, too, had its limits.

It began to snow again, and they stopped in the lee of the hill to rest. Cestimir pulled the flask from his coat and insisted that Scarlet drink. Scarlet thought that Cestimir looked much more tired than he himself felt, but some of that may have been grief for Yesuk.

"Here,” Cestimir said, holding the flask out to him. “Drink. It's not good for your head, but neither is freezing to death."

Scarlet nodded and reached for the flask with his numbed hand. Cestimir hissed and took Scarlet's hand instead. The prince flexed Scarlet's fingers and examined the white edges of his palm.

"It's already begun,” Cestimir fretted. “It's hard to see because your skin is so pale, but you have some frostbite.” Cestimir drew his own glove off and jammed it over Scarlet's hand despite Scarlet's objections.

"I'll live,” Scarlet mumbled. His mouth felt stiff and his head throbbed, and there was a brassy taste on his tongue.

Cestimir gave him a long look, then uncapped the flask and held it to Scarlet's lips. Scarlet drank and barely tasted it, but a moment later the warmth spread in his stomach. He sighed and nodded. “Better."

Cestimir took a drink, still watching Scarlet as the wind howled around the edges of the hill and sent small curtains of snow chasing into the darkling landscape.

Scarlet pointed to the forest and the long hill sloping below them. “We should cut across country,” he said. “This road is easier going, but it's three times as long."

Cestimir glanced at the forest and then at the winding road before nodding. “I agree,” he said. “But if they send a search party out for us, we will miss them."

"How long do you think it will take them to send one out?"

Cestimir glanced at the sky. “Too long. The snow is getting thicker. Scarlet.... can your magic help us here?"

Scarlet's teeth chattered a little. “I know where we are relative to the palace,” he answered. “I could find our way back even if we couldn't see a thing. And I can heal a small injury if I need to, or start a fire to keep us warm or send up a smoke trail."

Cestimir shook his head negatively. “It is very hard to see smoke in this kind of sky,” he pointed out. “And the smell might bring snow bears to us before a search party. They are very curious and aggressive animals, and now is their foraging time. Can you do anything against bears with your magic?"

"If I could, I'd have used it on the Hunt."

"No fire, then,” Cestimir sighed. He held the flask out to Scarlet again.

Scarlet shook his head. After all, Cestimir was the younger. “You drink."

"No.” Cestimir took hold of his shoulder, not too gently, either. “I am used to the weather. Don't make me pour this down your throat."

Scarlet stared him down. “Liall...” he began, intending to say something about how Liall would want Scarlet to look out for his brother.

"Will blame me for this, not you,” Cestimir finished. For one so young, his tone was implacably commanding. “I am prince here. I took the sleigh out. I took you with me. If anything happens to you, Nazheradei will not forgive me."

Scarlet sighed, realizing the futility of arguing. “Fine, give me the damned stuff.” There was not much left. He downed the last of it and Cestimir tucked the flask back in his coat.

"We must keep moving,” Cestimir said, rising.

The liquor gave him a little more energy and they started off quickly again, this time turning east into the forest and beginning the difficult descent. The wind had picked up, and for long hours it howled and fought them. Also, the drifts were deeper in the woods, and the ground uneven beneath the snow and rocky. There were moments that Scarlet could swear he felt hands in the frigid air, pulling him back, trying to force him to lie down. He pulled the fur closer over his ears and buried his face in the ruff of his coat, and he trudged more slowly, every step seeming to require a massive effort on his part. Finally, he stumbled into a drift that swallowed him to his hips, and Cestimir was there, prodding him back to level ground and cursing.

Cestimir pulled him along, his arm linked with Scarlet's, half-dragging him. “Don't stop,” he begged. “Please don't. I don't think I can carry you."

Scarlet felt like he was covered in snow, and he looked down once and saw that he very nearly was. “Just down a little further, then turn south again,” he mumbled to Cestimir, giving directions through numbed lips. “We'll cross the road again there. We can rest."

They reached the road below and both boys collapsed to their knees onto the flat roadway, gasping for breath. They knelt there for several minutes before Scarlet raised his head and stood, peering through the thick forest to the south. The Nauhinir was still a disheartening distance away.

Suddenly, through the whistling of the wind through the trees, they heard the jingle of harness.

Cestimir pulled his arm, flattening them both against the hillside. A sleigh pulled by a double team of blacks barreled up from the valley road. Painted on the carriage was a strange symbol. It was not the blue and silver starburst that adorned Cestimir's sleigh, but a blazon of crossed gold hatchets on a field of red.

Cestimir swore softly. “Vladei."

Scarlet was too glad to see the sleigh to care who rode in it. He could no longer feel his legs at all. “Are we in trouble?"

"I do not know, Keriss.” Cestimir shook his head, his lips compressed and white. “Please keep silent and do not speak."

The sleigh stopped and the door opened. Vladei leapt out and stood in front of the pair of cold, frightened young men. “Cestimir!” he barked and then a spate of rapid Sinha.

"Vladei,” Cestimir said in Bizye, visibly fighting to keep his voice even. “How fortunate your arrival. There was a mishap near the temple road, I'm afraid. A runner on the sleigh broke and we narrowly escaped with our lives.” Cestimir turned to Scarlet, and Scarlet saw the frightened look he had hidden from Vladei.

Vladei's eyes were like two river stones, flat and lifeless, and Scarlet had the feeling that if he had been alone, his neck would have been snapped before he could count the fingers on one hand. Or perhaps, if Cestimir had been alone, the same would have been true. He wondered if someone had meant for Cestimir to be alone when the wreck occurred. Scarlet bowed as best he could, covered in furs and snow. Vladei spoke to Cestimir again in Sinha.

"Thank you, my brother. We are very grateful for the rescue.” Cestimir took Scarlet's arm, his voice raw. “Come, ser Keriss, my brother has kindly offered to return us to the Nauhinir, so we may warm ourselves and find dry clothing."

As they climbed into the carriage, Scarlet was nudged and shoved and ended up between Cestimir and Vladei. At least I will be warmer, he reasoned dryly, not liking the thought of Vladei so close to him.

Cestimir looked at Scarlet's stillness and dulled eyes worriedly, and he drew his own hapcoat off to cover Scarlet. Scarlet's eyes drooped and Cestimir shook him roughly. “Sleep later!” the prince commanded. “You must stay awake until we get back to the palace."

Vladei said something more. Scarlet caught a few of the words, but they were the gutter Sinha that Liall had taught him for fun on the ship. The man looked at him so coldly that he shivered, though he was no longer truly cold or felt much of anything at all.

"Lenilyn,” Vladei said, glaring holes through Scarlet. “How old are you?"

"What does it matter?” Scarlet said through chattering teeth, too tired to demand why Vladei wanted to know. “I was a man in my country years ago."

"So young,” Vladei said in heavily accented Bizye, giving a look aside to Cestimir, who was calm and untouched by Vladei's dark mood. “Among us, it would be a scandal: a boy of your age with Nazheradei. But of course, you are not one of us."

"Vladei, this is my brother's t'aishka,” Cestimir said pleadingly.

Scarlet wondered what difference it made, or why Cestimir's hand sought his and tightened. “It's all right,” he told Cestimir. “I don't mind his questions. I've got a few of my own.” If there was trouble later, he had sooner be damned for truth as for lies, and he was tired of this man sneering at him. Vladei knew nothing about him. “How old are you? And while we're at it, how old is Prince Nazheradei?"

"Do you not know?” Vladei replied, quick as a hound scenting blood.

"Vladei,” Cestimir begged, his composure cracking, and then added something in Sinha.

Vladei ignored the younger prince. “What else is unknown to you, I wonder? What secrets has he kept from you? You did not know that Nazheradei was a prince, or that Shikhoza was once promised to him, or about Nadei's murder. What else has been kept from you?"

Those cold eyes, like Liall's and unlike, made Scarlet want to bend his neck in submission and look away, let the man win, but his stubborn pride kept his chin up.

"Have you met Jarek?” Vladei smiled coldly. “The woman soldier who rode at the head of the army? She is Khatai Jarek, once Nazheradei's lover. They are very close. Very close indeed, to plot such things together. Have you heard of a place called Magur, little lenilyn?"

Scarlet's stomach plummeted, and he realized that he might never come to the end of Liall's secrets. He only stared at the mocking man in dismay, and Vladei laughed and made the gesture of dismissal one makes to servants, shutting Scarlet up for good. Vladei's show of contempt had almost prompted Scarlet to lie, to say that he knew all about this Jarek, and he was ashamed of how he had nearly betrayed his own honor just to satisfy this sneering brute. Why isn't the truth good enough? he asked himself.

Scarlet closed his eyes and pretended sleep, damning Vladei silently to ten different hells.

Vladei began to speak lowly to Cestimir in Sinha, and suddenly the carriage turned north again, away from the palace. Despite his best efforts, exhaustion claimed Scarlet and he drifted into darkness.

By the hour that marks the beginning of the later afternoon, scouts had found the dead horses and the wreck of the carriage lying far below the mountain road. There were tracks leading off from the path into the forest, but Rshani take no chances. They wasted valuable time scaling the cliff with ropes to check the carriage, and finding no one inside nor any blood trail that would have told tales on any scavenger stealing a body, the scouts sent runners to follow the tracks. They ended in a spot near a hill where fresh sleigh tracks crossed them, and there also ended the search, for the tracks led back up into the mountain, where it was snowing heavily.

A rider in blue brought the ill news back and asked new instructions of Liall, and Liall had to physically stop himself from hitting the man.

Vladei was not inside the palace and nowhere to be found. Liall knew what had happened.

So, apparently, did his mother. As the night-hour approached, he went to give her the news and found Alexyin at the entrance to the second tier, barring the door.

"She is ill,” Alexyin said, holding up his hand. “No visitors."

"I am no visitor,” Liall said, deeply shocked and insulted.

Alexyin looked pained. “Forgive me, I did not mean it like that. Just ... my prince, she is very old and this news has brought her low. The healers can do nothing."

Liall wondered if Alexyin were telling him what he thought he was. “She will recover,” he said.

Alexyin shook his head slowly. “She will not, Nazheradei."

Liall swallowed in a throat suddenly dry. “But..."

Alexyin put his hand on Liall's shoulder, and his face was kinder than Liall could ever remember seeing. “Go back to your apartments and wait. I will come when there is need."

Liall's walk through the palace was long and lonely, and Scarlet's absence seemed like an open wound. For the first time he truly felt the cold here, and marveled that Scarlet had borne it all this time without complaint.

Scarlet. Oh, gods. Scarlet and Cestimir. Where were they? Were they dead already, or in pain, or afraid? What was happening to them? Liall had to fight the urge to go out after them on his own, armed with only a sword in his hand and a horse under him. He knew it was what Vladei wanted, and he knew it would be the death of them all if he went. The only chance he had to keep Scarlet and Cestimir alive was to stay in the Nauhinir, where he was still a threat to Vladei, and so prevent his step-brother from playing his final hand. If Vladei took Liall prisoner, Vladei would kill him as well as Cestimir and Scarlet, and then claim the throne.

Liall passed the library and found it deserted. Stepping in, he breathed in the smell of polished woods and leather bindings and paper. Scarlet had thought this place a miracle: an entire hall just for books. Scarlet had never seen a library, nor more than one or two books in his life. The jeweled globe that Scarlet had admired spun under Liall's fingers as he sat by the window, his mind mired deep in tangled thoughts.

A fragrant lamp burned in the corner, and Liall remembered how the lamps on the ship had painted blue-tinged hollows in Scarlet's cheeks and left thin streaks of indigo in his black hair. He had often looked at Scarlet as he slept, stealing minutes like coins, locking them away in his heart. Even as he swore never to let Scarlet go, he had been envisioning the day when time would part them. Hilurin lives were so brief. He was already older than Scarlet's long-dead grandfather would have been. Inevitably, Scarlet would age past Liall.