Silver Eve (14 page)

She was so like Cath. I had to laugh. “There's someone you're fond of?”

“I want to catch his eye.” She flitted ahead and then ran back, all hushed with rumor. “I hear Guardians don't need to be sweet on anyone, that they have someone already….” Lill looked at me sideways, then lowered her voice, though there was no one else in sight, and said, “I hear it's a powerful bond created—that a Keeper or ally makes the bond with a single touch! Mark to mark and then they are connected: Guardian and Complement, the Complement protecting the Guardian to the death with heart and sword! Unless of course a Breeder catches the Guardian first….What sort of bond would that make?” She leaned a little toward me, very serious. “Do you think so? That a simple touch could make so passionate a bond?”

Everything inside of me seemed to lurch. My grin faded.
Complement
—Laurent had not told me that part of the bond seeking. He'd only called it necessary. I looked over the edge of the path as if I'd find my thoughts somewhere below. “I think…I think a bond made is not always for love.”

“No fights, no news, no imagination…” I was useless as far as Lill was concerned. She snipped, “So then why have you come to Gren Fort?”

“A journey,” I answered vaguely.

Another disappointment. She shrugged. “Well, you will find no battles here. Nothing to heal…”

Lill ran a little way up the path and I hurried after, to where she stopped under hanging boughs of a birch that had somehow rooted in a crack of limestone and drooped like a screen for what lay behind: a wide ledge with two pools of water and a fall. The bigger pool was glass smooth—it collected the trickles from the waterfall. The closer was more a puddle where the water splashed into a shallow well in the rock and spilled over. It was not the one I'd seen in the Insight spell.

“You bathe here,” Lill was instructing. “Leave the quilt outside the branches; I'll bring you something to wear.” She turned to go.

“Wait, Lill!” I called her back. Her thin bright face appeared between the leaves. “There is something I'm looking for: a shell. Something”—I didn't lie—“that would be of great use to Healers. 'Tis said it's been hidden where there are waterfalls. Have you heard anything of it?”

“What sort of shell? Like from a tortoise?”

“A seashell.”

Lill shook her head. “I have never heard of a sea-shell. But you can ask Eudin at supper. He is our captain. He knows much.”

I nodded, and then she made a fierce little giggle. “I hope he does not tell you to travel to Hooded Falls. That would be very bad.”

“Why?”

“Because if you go in, you cannot come out.”

“Well then it seems unlikely that someone would be able to hide something in Hooded Falls, for they would still be there, wouldn't they?”

She shrugged and disappeared, then popped her head back through the curtain of leaves, thinking of something else. “About the plants. How can I make him sweet on me? Will you help?”

“Sneak a daisy into his pocket,” I said. “They are past flowering, if they flowered at all this year, but you might find one or two if you look hard—are there fields nearby?”

At last I'd served a purpose; Lill was delighted. “I'll climb. I can find one!” She dashed away only to return a moment later. “I won't forget your things, though. I'll be back.” And she was gone.

Within the quarry, in the little bower that the birch screen provided, it was hard to remember the dying landscape above and that it had not rained for months. There was water everywhere, pristine and sun-warm. I stepped right under the shower and let it pour over me while I watched the sun shift farther down and draw the shadows up from below. I searched around for a loose chunk of limestone and scrubbed the old blood from my skin and hair.

It mocked me, that stone. Limestone was the choice of blacksmiths to clean impurities from metal before forging, which seemed a fallacy. Armor and weapons—however shiny—had black hearts. 'Twas how I felt: scraped clean on the outside, but all this spilled blood was staining my soul. No limestone could erase that.

I lifted my hands and watched the water beat into my cupped palms, wondering if it might wash away violence like it did magic. Or perhaps water was stained as well—quicksilver when running, but when stilled the things it washed from us collected beneath. Maybe as a Healer I was like running water: I cleaned away a person's ills. But then as Guardian of Death I was also the still water—where the ills settled.

The water beat steadily, turning my palms red.

After, I sat in a shaft of sunlight to dry, to think more practically. Lill had come back with my cleaned undershift, which she politely left outside the leaf curtain. I stayed where I was, chin propped on my knees, trying to sort out all that happened and consider what had been requested of me. Would I find the shell amulet? Where was Tarnec? Would it be as the little verse said—that the shell could bring the rain? And if I were the only one able to do these things, what else did such a calling offer?

Shivers rippled along my back. I stayed hunched, imagining special abilities, none of them pretty.
Awakened,
Laurent had said. It might be for powers not yet realized, but for me it meant something more: that I was to be vigilant against the darkness consuming the world, one of those to bear the burden. It felt like the weight of the water.

Everything was changing, my little world expanding—I'd cut my ties to home; I'd expected to disappear, to release the pain. Instead, I had a new title and new purpose. New pain.

And, as Lill had unwittingly confirmed, I had a
Complement.

The mark still burned warm. A full day or more, and still it burned—not firebrand painful, but enough to keep me aware. And whether I'd wanted it or not, I could not help the strangeness I felt now that Laurent had touched me. That he'd chosen to make that bond, even if only out of necessity, that he'd been at my side, that I'd rested my head against his strong back, that I'd nearly kissed him….

That I wished I
had
kissed him, and been kissed back.

I bit my lip; half wanting to grin at the discovery, half wanting to reject what felt a betrayal to Raif. I decided upon rejection. Desire was hardly useful in such grim circumstances. Especially when I'd prided myself on being so impartial a Healer.

I should be neutral, should focus on the rescue of the amulet. I should concentrate on intent rather than need….Hadn't the seer told me to beware my needs?

Besides, there were only so many challenges I could face at one time.

The walk back to my quarters took twice as long on my own, in part because I had to inch my way past a small herd of mountain goats blocking the route. Unlike me, they were indifferent to the steepness, jostling for the best lichen on the rock face. “ 'Tis lucky your milk is useful,” I scolded when they nosed me to the outer edge of the path.

It was dusk when I finally returned. Torches were being fitted inside and out, so the carved doorways and windows glowed like honeycombs. My spare little room glowed prettily too. Lill had taken the old quilt when she left my undershift at the waterfall; a fresh one graced the narrow bed. All my things were piled on it, washed, mended, and smelling faintly of myrrh. A comb had been slipped in as well, and so I dressed, then sat in the little frame of window to work it through my hair, the way we did it back in Merith—Lark and I—before each bedtime.

I missed Lark. I missed her sweet and serious face, remembered that moment of seeing her running madly to the cliff's edge. I wondered about the leggings she wore, so similar to the Gren guards', wondered if she was preparing for battle—

“Good evening.”

I nearly fell off the sill. The Rider stood in my doorway.

He smiled and I stared—a Cath's-infatuation stare—I couldn't help it. Perhaps I'd not seen him clean, or so refreshed. Perhaps the torchlight burnished his skin, made his hair gleam to some dark perfection. But those were not the reasons; he was handsome under any circumstance. Stunningly so. I'd just forgotten, or didn't want to remember, or…

Neutrality flew out the window.

“I've interrupted,” Laurent murmured after a moment, deferring to my silence. He turned to leave.

“Yes—
no.
I'm—I'm just…” It was ridiculous, this being tongue-tied and embarrassed for it. I steadied my voice, forced my eyes away. “ 'Tis all right, Rider. Come in.”

And he did, easily enough, ducking to enter. “You rested well, I trust?”

I nodded jerkily. “You?”

He nodded. We seemed at a loss after that, more used to arguing than pleasantries. I thought of Lill acknowledging his “height” and wondered if I was turning pink like she had. I never blushed, truly….But then I couldn't stop from looking at him again from the corner of my eye. Laurent leaned against the doorway, gaze on me. My breath caught in a guilty lurch.

A corner of his mouth lifted. “What tumble of questions do you sort through this time, my lady?”

Anything—
anything
to distract. I thrust my hand out in some flurried gesture to indicate the space. “Tell me about Gren Fort.”

“Ancient.” The Rider shifted and looked around. “ 'Twas settled the last time the Breeders had the amulets.”

“
Last
time? How often have the amulets been stolen?”

“Twice before.” His eyes fell back on me and he grinned. “That's not a poor record, my lady, as you undoubtedly think. We cannot hold the Breeders off indefinitely.”

I remembered the comb in my hand. “You got the amulets back, though,” I said, and began tugging through the last strands.

“We have to,” Laurent answered. “The first attempt was quickly over. But the last battle endured four ages. Enough time to build this fort, certainly.”

“Four ages!” The comb was snared in a tangle and I struggled with it, with the calculation of lives. “But the people—Was there a drought? Where were the amulets taken? Did the Breeders not want the Guardians to find them? And how
did
the Guardians survive all that time?”

He chuckled at the onslaught. “Guardians don't…” But then he stopped and said, “Forgive my staring. You are very beautiful.”

My hand stopped. If I'd never intended that this Rider should affect me, I was so utterly wrong. I'd been called beautiful before, but this time the word sent flutters through my stomach to shiver straight up my spine. A vibration, a sensation—cracking open something like a door in my mind, something that had been locked tight, key tossed. It took too long to swallow, force the comb through, and ask, “Guardians don't what? Survive?”

“You are part of a line,” he answered, calm as anything. “If a Guardian is lost, there will be another to wake.”

That was enough to erase self-consciousness. “Good to know we are expendable.” My tone was more than wry, but the Rider shrugged, unapologetic. So I added pointedly: “And what of Complements? Are they expendable?”

“Never,” Laurent replied lightly. “You only get one.”

He jested. But then again he seemed comfortable that I'd learned our connection, and unconcerned how. I had no witty response. I put down the comb and wove a braid, feeling heat rising again from chest to throat. “What has brought you to my room, Rider?” I asked. “Surely it is dull to watch me do up my hair.”

“Your hair is caught by both the torchlight and the rising moon. 'Tis not dull.”

“Still…” I was certain now my cheeks were pink. “It cannot be why you are here.”

He raised a brow, then pushed from the wall, straightening. “Unfortunately, no. I am to escort you to supper.”

All of this for an escort. I said a little tartly, “Only? I would have thought you'd be arming for the trek to find the amulet.”

“Why? Do you know the way?” He was amused, not eager. I shook my head.

“Then perhaps
after
supper,” he said with a grin. “You of all people should know the merits of a good meal.” He gestured toward the doorway. “My lady?”

The center hall was above us. We zigzagged our way up the quarry; Laurent following me, most likely making sure I didn't fall. But I felt his gaze as something more—or maybe that was my own treacherous thinking. The walk was lovely, the moon sailing above in the deep blue and the punctuations of torches guiding us along the steps. The face of the quarry was riddled with lit doorways and balconies, like a sprinkling of fireflies. “How is this a fort?” I asked suddenly, laughing. “There are a
hundred
entrances.”

“It cannot be reached from below and you were not awake to see how well hidden it is from above,” Laurent said. “The quarry is quite open but can only be reached from the top by footbridges, and they are easily downed.”

I craned my neck to look up but could not see the edge. “Where is Arro?”

“The bridges are slingbridges. He cannot pass over. There is a small outpost above where watch is kept. He stays with them.”

And then we reached a flat ledge where a set of wooden doors—the only doors in the fort—was flung wide to the night air. The Great Room, Laurent announced, the largest of the tunneled spaces. Cave or no, 'twas the most formal space I'd ever seen. Torches made the rock glint gold. The walls were hung with weavings. An enormously long wooden table ran down the center of the room, laden with dripping beeswax candles and food in dishes carved from wood and stone. It made me smile. “It's beautiful!”

“It's copied from Castle Tarnec,” Laurent said. “
That
is beautiful.”

Despite the elegant setting, 'twas more brawl than banquet. If Lill said a hundred people remained at the fort, then the table was crafted for everyone to fit, and everyone did. They were already at supper—an event as wild as Dann's ale festivals. Some were deep in private conversation, but most shouted along the length of the table, boisterous and rude as they exchanged trays and bowls of food and dug into their meals. I spied Lill somewhere in the middle, sitting next to a boy her age with blond hair and a handsome face. He would be the one she was sweet on; she was yanking at his sleeve for attention. I wondered if she'd found a daisy.