Where Light Meets Shadow (15 page)

They had little enough time
before he would have to leave. Kieran dared not allow himself to fall asleep
for fear of not waking until well after breakfast-time, and so he sat in the
heated water, Alban in his arms, trying to achieve some perspective about their
encounter and failing.

No other lover had ever shaken
his world to its foundations, never before had he been laid open to his core.
Never would it happen again.

When he was certain that Alban
lay deep enough asleep not to hear him, he whispered into his hair. “I love
you.”

A few stolen moments more, and
then he kissed Alban awake. “It’s time.”

Alban stirred and opened his
eyes. “Can you not stay a few more days?”

Tempting, so tempting. “That
would only make this harder.”

Alban rose from the water, wet
skin gleaming gold in the torchlight. “Is it hard for you? I thought you’d had
many one-night affairs.”

“But no one like you.”

Alban dried without looking at
him. “And have you told the same thing to the others?”

Kieran ignored the accusation in
order to address the hurt beneath. He had not, after all, been completely
honest with Alban about his feelings.

He came out of the water,
dripping, to take Alban’s hands. “I have shared pleasure with others, yes. But
I have never linked with them as I have with you, mind and body and soul. I
don’t think I would let another in like that, even if they had the ability. And
what happened between us tonight...” He huffed a small breath of
almost-laughter. “If you think sharing pleasure is always like that, I feel for
your next partner. He will surely be a disappointment.”

A soft flush crept up Alban’s
cheeks, but he would not look at him. “You think a lot of yourself, don’t you?”

“Not me. Us. What we shared
together. It’s never been like that before.”

Alban looked up at him then. “Is
this bardic flattery?”

Kieran squeezed his hands.
“Simple truth. I wish it were not, for now I have yet another reason to miss
you.”

The attempt Kieran made at a
lighter tone worked. Alban’s lips twitched up in the beginning of a smile.

Then Alban went serious. “You
could stay if you wish.”

“I cannot. My queen calls, and I
serve my queen as my father did before.”

They dressed then in silence, and
in silence crept to the stables. It was a clear night, the moon still in the
sky, the sun not quite showing his face on the horizon. They rode out, and when
the sentry realized that it was the prince who passed through the gate, he made
only cursory questioning. They continued in the colorless predawn, the sky
paling slowly, the horses’ hooves the only sound in the stillness.

Alban halted his horse on a
small, flat overlook. Kieran brought his gray mare alongside. Just ahead of the
horses’ hooves, the ground dropped away, going from white granite to dark
forest to the patchwork greens of farmers’ fields, subtle in the dim grey
light. In the distance, jagged peaks stood black against a sky tinged an
unlikely shade of petal-soft mauve by the first hints of the new day. Beneath
the mountains lay the Shadowed Lands.
Home.

Longing pulled at Kieran, as
strong as duty, stronger than the call of his queen.

“So this is where we bid
farewell,” Alban said quietly.

Kieran turned to regard Alban,
pale and beautiful against the purple sky, and another kind of pain lanced
through his heart, bright and sharp.

“There is no other way.”

“Would you stay if I asked you
to?”

Kieran closed his eyes against
the hurt. “You know I can’t.”

“I know that you will not.” Just
a hint of bitterness tinged Alban’s words.

Kieran had been right to resist
love of this kind. It hurt more than he imagined.

He nudged his mare closer to
Alban’s horse and held out his hand. “Please, this will be the last time we see
each other. Let us not part in anger.”

Alban hesitated, then took his
hand and formed the link between them. Kieran opened up to him fully, let him
see all his tumultuous emotions, let him see how much the previous night had
affected him, let him see how much their parting tore at him. Felt in reply the
depth of Alban’s love, felt the pain Kieran caused by his refusal to stay.

I’m sorry. I never meant to
hurt you.

I know. Sometimes pain
happens, and no one is at fault for it. Every healer knows this.

Kieran tightened his clasp on
Alban’s hand.
I’m sorry.

Alban squeezed his hand.
Go.
If you will not stay, then go now.
He slipped from the link and released
Kieran’s hand.

“Farewell, my Prince of Light.”
Though his throat ached, he turned his mount away from Alban and started her
toward home.

He barely heard Alban’s whispered
reply, “Go with the Grace, beloved Fool.”

#

“You join us for breakfast twice
in two days,” Father greeted him. “To what do we owe this honor?”

Alban took a deep breath and
squared his shoulders. “Kieran left for home this morning.”

His father went still. “Ah,” he
said after a moment. “Well, I did state that he was a guest, not a prisoner.
And I did tell you I wished him gone. Still, I wonder that my sentry did not
see fit to inform me of the movement of a Scathlan through my gate.”

Alban swallowed. “That was
probably because I rode out with him and indicated that we were intending to
view the sunrise at Teague’s Rest. Uh, we did see the beginning of the sunrise
there.”

“And when you returned, the guard
had changed, and so did not question his prince returning alone from an early
morning ride.”

He lowered his head. “Yes.”

“I’d ask what you were thinking,
only clearly you weren’t. If nothing else, as his healer you should know he
isn’t ready to travel. The bones may have knit, but that leg is still regaining
its strength and flexibility. I’ve seen how he limps when he’s tired. He’s
plagued us with his presence this long. Why did he not wait until he had his
full strength back?”

Alban weighed his duties before
answering. “His queen called him, and he would not wait.”

His father sighed. “There are
many reasons that a queen would call a bard, but few of them are urgent. I fear
we may all regret that I ever indulged your stray. Though I suppose, after all
the times I’ve said I bear his queen no ill will, I had little choice in honor.
I dislike that you aided the Scathlan in leaving without my knowledge or
consent, but perhaps it is for the best. Otherwise I would be forced to decide
between courtesy to a man I’ve named guest and the risk to my people of
returning to the enemy a valuable tool. I only hope that you do not come to
face your friend on the field of battle.”

The thought stole Alban’s breath
like a plunge into a deep pool of icemelt. “Kieran would not!”

His father gave him an
uncharacteristically dark smile. “Do you think you mean so much to him? He
would not stay with you.”

But when Alban had gone into the
room that had been Kieran’s, foolishly searching for some sense of him, he had
found what Kieran had left for him. The carved rose, all that remained of his
father’s harp, with a note that said simply,
Remember me.
It was not the
sort of gift given lightly. It was also not the sort of thing he wanted to
explain to his father.

“Not only for me,”
Alban
said instead. “He has made friends here. Enough to
know that we are not the monsters he once thought we were.”

His father sighed, shaking his
head. “Ah, to be so innocent again. Do you think there were not friendships
between Leas and Scathlan before the war? Not as many as in the old days, it is
true, but still there were friendships. The Scathlan that killed Trodaire’s
husband had been at their wedding feast.”

“But surely it won’t come to war.
There is no fresh cause for it. It fact, Kieran and I both have hope that our
working together to wake his queen might heal old wounds.”

“For all our sakes, and yours
most of all, I hope you are right.”

#

Kieran stopped at the first inn
he came to, which happened to be the last inn he had been at before he
encountered the Leas. He felt only relief when he discovered the barmaid he had
spent such a pleasant evening with was now apparently in a relationship with
the stable boy; he had not looked forward to explaining why he spurned her
advances. What he had shared with Alban felt too deeply personal, and the wound
of their parting too raw and new. The thought of bedding another so soon felt
tawdry somehow.

If he didn’t overcome his
feelings for the Leas prince, he’d live a life more solitary than he ever
envisioned for himself.

He rose the next morning in an
agony of aching muscles and dressed with slow, careful movements. The innkeep
offered to let him stay another night or three—he more than paid for room and
board by the increase in business that his music brought, and the longer he
stayed, the wider word would spread and the more customers that would come.

Tempting. He did not look forward
to the day’s ride, and a few more nights would mean a few more coins dropped in
his hat from the appreciative and affluent among the audience. Though he could
usually count on his harping skills to win him a roof for the night and an
evening meal, he could not count on it always for a noon-day meal or for the
incidentals of travel, such as a broken strap on the bridle or a thrown shoe.

He had found a small purse that
Alban had tucked into his saddle bags when he wasn’t looking, a purse
containing a generous handful of coin and a sprig of heart’s solace that made
him smile even as it made his heart ache. Clearly Alban meant the gift to prevent
privation on the journey, and yet Kieran felt reluctant to part with any of the
Leas-stamped gold that, with the new harp, was the only tangible reminder he
had of his time with Alban.

Yet the pull of the queen’s call
was insistent. Maybe when he returned to familiar surroundings, he would no
longer miss so much the twining of Alban’s mind and soul with his. Maybe
Alban’s absence would feel less like a lost limb.

He declined the innkeeper’s offer
and accepted with gratitude a small bundle of cheese and some of the morning’s
baking. Then he dragged himself back on his mare, who had been kept fit by the
Leas grooms during his convalescence and so did not suffer as he did. In fact,
she was depressingly fresh and danced beneath him on the soft spring turf in a
way that made his poor aching muscles protest.

The second day was worse than the
first. The third day, Kieran felt a little better. The following days passed
more easily, and by the time he approached the brass-ornamented iron gates to
his people’s underground city, he was exhausted but no longer hurting with
every stride. The sun shone high in the bright blue sky and the brass gleamed
bright. The bits of quartz in the black granite sparkled here and there, and
the budding mountain ash on either side of the entrance swayed gently in the
spring breeze.

Yes, the Leas’s white towers were
fair, but there was strength here, and beauty too. This was where he was
raised, where he belonged.

He swung down from his mare and
hailed the sentries, who he could barely make out in the shadows of the gate.

“Well, look who it is,” called
one sentry to the other on the opposite side of the gate. “Bard Kieran, whom we
never thought to see again in this world.”

Though the words were faintly
mocking, they carried underneath a tone of respect that would not have been
there before he left.

He’d know that voice
anywhere—Dermot, who used to tease him when they were boys. Kieran had bloodied
his nose once and been exiled to his room for his troubles, but they had come
to a truce in later years and he had played at Dermot’s wedding. Sweet Grace,
he hadn’t realized until now how he had missed the man.

“Is it true that you are the one
who woke the queen?”

And that was
Cuin
,
who had pulled him out of the stream when he had fallen through the ice when
they were boys. In his joy at the familiar voices, it took a moment for the
question to register.

In his urgency to answer his
queen’s call, he hadn’t questioned what she might have told people about her
waking. Dimly, yes, he had hoped for some sort of eventual recognition, but
somehow he’d expected first to be able to slip back into his old life. Kieran
the bard, the dreamer, not nearly so wise nor
so
impressive as his father had been. Kieran, easy enough to forget about until
one wanted a little music to brighten an evening.

Now he was Kieran, bard who had
awakened the queen, and he might never be that other Kieran again. Grace help
him.

“Yes, I—” He stumbled over words,
most embarrassing for a bard. “I suppose I did.”

With the help of the Leas
prince.
But that was not something to be announced casually to old friends
at the gate. The story would have to be built slowly, carefully over a banquet
table, with full embellishment, to be understood for what it was. Still, he
remembered Alban’s soul melded with his, the power rising between them, one
talent and will and
self undistinguishable
from the
other, and regretted the slight to his friend. His lover, for that’s what he
had truly been, though they had shared only one night’s pleasure.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you
so quiet,” Dermot laughed. “You must be exhausted, indeed. Come, I will call
for someone to take your horse, and send a servant to lay a fire and bring hot
water and food to your rooms. The steward hadn’t gotten around to giving them
away yet, you know.”

Once, Kieran would have been
expected to fend for himself, but he was too tired and too overwhelmed to
ponder much the change.