Where Light Meets Shadow (6 page)

“It is near to dinner time. My
mother and father will expect me at the table. You are welcome to join us, if
you would rather not dine alone in your room.”

Though he may be sheltered under
his enemy’s roof, Kieran couldn’t bring himself to share his table. “Thank you,
no.”

“Let me see you back to your
room. The book must stay, as it’s far too old to leave the library, but you can
select another to take with you for company.”

Kieran picked the book of mortal
tales, figuring it would be least likely to contain variations on themes he
already knew. Alban neatened the remaining stack but did not put any away,
though he tucked the maddening book in the top drawer of the desk Kieran had
been using.

“There. Everything will be
waiting for you tomorrow.”

Going upstairs was less scary
than going down, but a lot harder. His ankle throbbed, demanding stillness and
elevation. By halfway up, his arms ached with the unfamiliar use of crutches
and, when he raised his eyes, the distance to the top seemed longer than the
entirety of his journey from Shadowed Lands. He fantasized about sitting down
and declaring that he could go no farther.

He supposed that Alban could go
for his father’s servants to carry him, but he’d prefer to avoid that final bit
of humiliation. And so he shifted his weight onto his crutches, brought his
good foot to the step above to pull himself up.  Followed with the
crutches, shifted his weight again—

And slipped.

The world dropped out from under
him as he fell backward, losing one of the crutches as he flailed—

And was caught by strong arms,
supported against a lithe body that staggered just a little as momentum crashed
Kieran against him.

Alban was stronger than he
looked. Quick reflexes too.

Closing his eyes, Kieran leaned
into Alban’s hold, panting for just a few moments and waiting for his heart to
settle back into his chest.

“All right?” Alban asked.

Kieran nodded, still gulping air.

Alban steadied Kieran on his
remaining crutch before reaching for the one he’d dropped.

“Can you make it the rest of the
way?” Alban asked.

“I think so.” His voice shook though,
and even he wouldn’t be fool enough to believe anything it said.

Alban, no fool at all, hovered no
more than a step behind him the rest of the way up the stairs.

The room that had seemed an
unbearable prison earlier in the day now welcomed him as a haven. Exhausted,
Kieran accepted the indignity of Alban tucking him in and fluffing pillows for
his ankle. He was already drifting off as Alban left, and must have slept
through a servant’s arrival with his dinner, because when he woke a covered
tray waited for him on the bedside table.

He ate a little, his mind still
twisting and turning around the book on bardic healing, stopping to rest every
now and again on the memory of Alban warm against him. The Leas prince had been
born after the war, so he had to be younger than Kieran, but not by much. Not
enough to matter. Was he experienced? Kieran would wager not, though he
couldn’t say what gave him that impression. Or, for that matter, why he was
speculating. As a prince and a Leas, Alban was both beyond Kieran’s touch and
beneath his consideration.

Only idleness brought him to
wondering what it would be like to inform that innocence.

The days followed a similar
pattern. With Alban’s assistance, Kieran would make his way down to the library
and work feverishly on deciphering the book. Alban read nearby and made sure
that Kieran ate and drank at some point.

“Are you sure you don’t want to
work on something else for a while?” Alban said on the third day when he put a
slice of bread and cheese in Kieran’s hand. “You’re exhausting yourself. Does
it matter that much?”

Had Alban divined his true
intent? Was he trying to interfere?

A look at Alban’s face, gentle
with concern, told him that no, the Leas truly only worried about his enemy and
patient.

How had he ever thought that face
cold? Alban was warm as the pale spring sunshine and considerably more
reliable. His face gave away his feelings readily, whether he was worried for
Kieran, vexed by him, or amused by him.

Kieran liked the last best. He
sometimes went out of his way to amuse Alban just to watch how his quick smile
brightened his face like light flashing on gold. Alban was too somber and
serious by far, but when he smiled, it transformed him completely.

“It’s only that I have nothing
else to do at the moment,” he reassured Alban. “A situation for which, you need
not remind me again, I am entirely to blame. I should think that you would be
happy that the book at least keeps me quiet. It’s the chief fault of bards,
that if we’re not playing or singing, we’re talking.”

“I like hearing you talk,” Alban
said. “When you’re not being angry or sulky, anyway. And I love to hear you
play. I imagine I would enjoy hearing you sing.”

“Have I not sung for you? Surely
I have.”

Alban shook his head. “A brief
snatch of some light mortal song.  No more.”

“Come to my room tonight then and
I shall.”

Kieran’s words sounded
tremendously flirtatious, and he hadn’t meant them as such. At least not with
any forethought.

Kieran turned his attention from
the Leas who was, he reminded himself, an enemy and beyond his reach besides,
and focused on the book. Whispering of hope for his people and his queen while
still keeping its secrets locked away, the book tantalized him. He asked Alban
about the books referenced, but not only were they not currently in existence,
neither Alban nor his father nor any of their scholars ever heard mention of
the titles.

That didn’t make sense. If they
were so well-known in their time that the author made casual reference to them,
then surely some mention of them would remain. Leas were nearly as well-known
for booklore as for healing.

As the light in the window faded
from reds and golds to dusky purples, Alban again repeated his invitation to
dine with his family. Kieran, as always, declined.

A servant brought Kieran’s dinner
to his room. Roasted venison, fresh, soft bread, a pear compote served with
cream. He could not fault the Leas in their feeding of prisoners. Guests.
Whatever he was.

As Kieran ate, he thought about
what he would sing for Alban. No songs about the war, certainly. Or any war, to
be safe. He wanted to please Alban, not make him uncomfortable.

And why was that so important to
him? A bard’s instincts to satisfy the audience? Although a bard could and did
use words as a weapon more readily—and in his own case, far more
effectively—than a sword.

The Leas prince had been more
than hospitable to him. It would be churlish not to respond with equal
civility. A bard might be difficult, even uncomfortable to be around, but a
bard should never be churlish.

He began to tune his harp. So, no
war songs and no songs in praise of Scathlan royalty—too easily read as
pointed, especially given the hostility he’d displayed toward the Leas when
he’d first arrived. Songs about wind and water, deep forests and bright summer
meadows, those would be safe. Both their peoples shared a love for the natural
world. Given Alban’s own hunting tales, he’d probably enjoy the funny one
Kieran had picked up a few villages back about the boastful hunter who lost his
hounds, his horse, and his way. Love songs? No.
Yes.
He was singing for
the Leas prince, not to him. Some of the best songs in his repertoire were love
songs. He refused to get all shy and nervous like some callow virgin before his
first love.

The fact that he had been a
virgin not too very long ago didn’t enter into it, nor did the fact that he had
never been in love.

A soft knock at the door heralded
Alban’s arrival. Kieran felt the same flutter of excitement that came from
playing before large audiences or important personages.

Ridiculous, it was only Alban,
for whom he had played before. Alban, who often slipped into his room in the
evenings while Kieran harped. That was the difference. Always before, Alban
sitting quietly if appreciatively in the corner had been incidental to his
playing.

Alban smiled shyly as he came
into the room and closed the door softly behind him. A faint blush painted
those pale cheeks, not entirely hidden by the fall of blond hair. So Kieran was
not the only one to feel the difference this night.

Though what it meant Kieran
couldn’t say, didn’t dare think too hard about.

Alban took his customary seat by
the bedside. The glow of candlelight warmed his coloring and turned
his  hair
rose-gold.

 Kieran drew up the knee of
his good leg to support the harp and began to play and sing. It was not the
song he had intended to start with, but it was as though the harp had chosen
for him.
Liam’s Lament for His Love
, a young man praising the grace and
beauty and gentleness of the woman and the country he must leave behind because
their families did not approve of the suit.

When he had sung the last note
and placed his hands on the strings to still them, Kieran opened his eyes.
Alban stared at him with rapt attention.

“Beautiful,” the prince breathed.
“Utterly beautiful.” He shook his head, like someone coming out from under a
spell. “You are so good at projecting this image of a reckless fool, but then
you play like that, sing like that.”

Kieran’s pulse quickened at the
emotion in Alban’s voice, the intensity in his gaze. Something was building
between them. Something too powerful and dangerous to continue.

“I have plenty of foolish songs
as well.” He launched into the song he had intended to start with,
Huntsman’s
Folly.

Alban laughed in all the right
places, but behind his eyes there was a deep consideration that told Kieran he
was not entirely put off by the sudden change.

“That is more what I expect from
my wandering Fool,” Alban said when the song was done and he’d caught his
breath from laughter.

Once again Kieran’s words slipped
out ahead of his thoughts. “Here, then, is one appropriate to my Prince of
Light.”

Had he really just said that? No
help for it now. Kieran’s brain scrambled for a more appropriate choice than
the one he was about to play, but he couldn’t come up with one and Alban stared
at him with growing curiosity. No help for it now. He launched into
My Love
is the Morning Sun
, an ode to springtime or to a first love, one of those
many songs with a deliberately vague meaning. He did not look at Alban as he
played.

“Is that how you see me? I’m
flattered, especially considering how you felt about me when we first met.”

Kieran dared a glance. Alban
blushed, but he did not seem displeased.

“I am, as you say, but a fool,”
Kieran said, letting the comment cover both the circumstances of their meeting
and the choice of song, however Alban chose to interpret it.

He played a tune that had no
words then. It was getting late, and he was about to put away his harp when
Alban made a request.

“Sing me your favorite song.”

Kieran should have dissembled. He
should have outright lied. He was a bard, damn it, and he should have been
capable of some glib turn of phrase. Unfortunately, the Leas prince had
developed a dangerous and utterly unconscious ability to draw the raw truth out
of him.

“I don’t think it would be to
your taste.”

“Sing it anyway. It’s part of who
you are. I want to know.”

Apparently Alban had developed
another strange power; Kieran found it hard to refuse him anything. A dangerous
power in one’s enemy, but it felt less like the regal power of a prince and
more like what Kieran had with Brona. He could never say no to her, either, but
he never feared that she would use it against him.

“You won’t like it,” Kieran said
helplessly.

“Then I will have no one but
myself to blame. Sing.”

Kieran improvised an introduction
on the harp nearly twice as long as what he usually used on this particular
song. Then he took a breath and began to sing of a Scathlan warrior, fine in
his battle regalia, brave and loyal to his king, kissing his family and going
off to battle the treachery of the ones he once named allies and kin, and how
his family would always remember him that way, although the memory was all they
had left of him.

Kieran let the last notes die
away before opening his eyes to look at Alban. The Leas had a look on his face
that Kieran couldn’t quite interpret. It might have been pain.

“Beautiful,” Alban whispered at
last. “Although I think I can understand why you were reluctant to sing it. A
mere week ago, you wouldn’t have been so sparing of my feelings.”

“I am grateful for the kindness
you have shown me, though it is hard for me to reconcile that gratitude with
what your people have done to mine in the past.”

He could have, should have left
off that last part, but the emotions that particular song always stirred still
burned in his chest.

“What my people have done? Have
you ever considered that my father’s only crime was falling in love, and
because of that breaking off a political betrothal that would have brought
nothing but pain to everyone involved? Your queen caused the first blood to be
spilled between our kindred peoples in known history, caused a war that decimated
both our peoples, over a small breach of honor.”

Alban’s voice raised rose in
passion, none of the sensible healer now.

“You hold love in a higher regard
than duty and honor?” Kieran asked.

“You don’t? I have not yet found
love, not like that between my mother and father, but I hope to someday. And if
do, I will be as true to that love as they are to each other.”

“I hope never to find such love,”
Kieran said. “And if I do, I will run away from it as far and as fast as I
can.”

Alban stared at him as though he
had confessed a penchant for slaughtering infants. “You are unnatural.”

That hurt more than it should
have.

Kieran shook his head. “I have
seen too much of what a love like that can do, is all. Your parents brought war
to our peoples for such a love. My mother loved my father with the same depth
and, when he died the shock caused her to lose my little brother growing within
her.  She followed both of them into death within a day. Even my queen
fell victim to such love.”

“Your queen was a victim of nothing
but her own pride.”

“Her daughter was my best friend,
growing up. When she turned eighteen, her mother’s counselor gave her the
queen’s private journals.”

Eighteen was considered
coming-of-age for most purposes, although tradition reserved the throne until a
more sober five-and-twenty, which mercifully postponed the question of Brona’s
status while the queen remained not-quite-dead-not-quite-alive.  Not for
much longer, though, if he were not successful.

“The queen’s first husband,
Brona’s father, had been a love match,” Kieran continued. “When he died in a
hunting accident, the only thing that kept her from following him was her love
for Brona and her responsibility to the people.

“And then your father came along,
proposing an alliance by marriage to renew and restore our waning peoples.
Because the well-being and fruitfulness of both peoples have always been tied
to their monarch’s unions. Your father was then unmarried and the queen long
widowed, and both our kindreds were not what they were in the glory days the
bards sing of. Why not unite and try to restore elvenkind to what it once was?

“For the sake of the people,
Scathlan and yes, Leas as well, she agreed. The queen agreed even though in her
most secret heart she felt like she was betraying her dead husband by replacing
him with one she did not love.

“Then, somehow, through the
dances and feasts of the formal courtship, she fell in love with your father.
Brona thinks she may have convinced herself that she loved him to make the
betrayal of her father’s memory more bearable. Nonetheless, to her it was real
and deep, and in her journal she wrote of her anticipation of the upcoming
marriage and her dreams for the future.

“And then your father broke the
engagement, a week before the wedding, when her dress had been made and the
feast planned. She was humiliated, yes. But she was also heartbroken.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I
don’t think my father knew.”

“Perhaps he didn’t
want
to
know.”

“Perhaps,” Alban said equably.

Patient, quiet Alban was back. Kieran
was glad to see him, but he wasn’t done.

“Out of your parents’ union, your
people enjoyed a rebirth—healing, art, trade with the mortals. Defeated in war,
my people languished with our stricken queen.”

“No Leas laid a hand on your
queen. Her wound is in her own mind. Have you considered that a marriage that
wasn’t meant to be could have doomed both our kingdoms?”

Kieran, having no answer for
that, played a few bars of a tune, a simple tune, one of the first he learned.
An old friend that he could always turn to for comfort.