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SHIANAN WAS ROUNDING a crowded corner when suddenly the men before him drew themselves to the side and straightened or bowed. Shianan just had time to step aside as Prince Soren came into view. Shianan bowed.
But the prince slowed as he passed. “How did your apology fare, commander?” came a low question.
“I have not yet ventured,” admitted Shianan.
“Delay will win you nothing,” Soren warned, and then he was gone.
Some hours later, a knock sounded at Shianan’s office door. Outside was a slave shielding a wrapped bouquet of flowers in full bloom. “From the hothouse,” reported the slave through chattering teeth, taking his cloak from about them and pulling it over his shoulders. “I was told to deliver them to your lordship.”
Shianan looked them over. Sunshine on flowers. Perhaps she would hear his apologetic explanation.
He set aside the sheaf of papers which awaited his approval and eyed the flowers. He wrapped them in a spare tunic and started for the Wheel.
ARIANA SLIPPED INSIDE her father’s office and nudged the door closed behind her. “How is he?”
“There has been no real change, though I think he’s breathing more easily.” He sighed. “I wouldn’t have imagined a Ryuven would take so long to heal, but he seems to be steadily improving. I suppose he’ll wake when he can.”
Ariana set down the luncheon tray and passed to the rearmost room where Tamaryl, lying still on the table, was padded with blankets smuggled from home. He would move occasionally now, a muscle twitching as fibers rejoined or his torso shifting as he cleared healing lungs, but he had not regained consciousness. It was frightening. “He will wake, won’t he?”
“That he is alive at all is a miracle. If he has not died yet, I think we should believe that he will eventually wake.” Her father put an arm around her shoulders and smiled. “Be patient, my girl. Now, come away from the table.” He gestured to the open space.
Ariana did, not understanding.
“Show me a little colored light.”
Ariana opened her fingers, hesitated, quested for magic and immediately flinched. She could sense the magic just out of reach, almost see it hanging in the air. But it was beyond her.
Her father put his hand atop hers, stilling her attempt. “What did you do for him?”
She thought it was a rebuke for risking her magic. She looked back at the table. “I had to,” she defended, justifying the loss to him and herself. “Even though I knew it was dangerous. He was dying.”
“And did you hesitate?”
Ariana chewed her lip, and he let her work through her thoughts. “It was different,” she said at last. “When I was practicing with you or Mage Parma, I was afraid of failure.”
He nodded.
“But just then, I was afraid of the consequences of failure. If I didn’t give him magic, Tamaryl would die. So I couldn’t hesitate, I had to put my hand in the flame.” She looked at her father. “You’re going to tell me that I thought about what I wanted to do instead of what I was afraid of not doing.”
He raised one shoulder in smug acknowledgment. “Why should I repeat what you’ve just said?”
Ariana made a face. “You sound like her.”
He nodded toward her hand. “The light.”
Ariana looked down at her hand and recalled that she had channeled an unreal torrent of pure energy through her body. It had been foolish, it had been dangerous, it had been thrilling, and her father was beside her to catch her if she fell into the torrent again. She brought up her hand and watched a spiral of light form, shining pink and white, and spin over her palm.
She stared, her mouth slightly open, delighting in the simple trick of light.
Her father clapped his hands once and laughed. “I knew it!”
Ariana let the light dissolve and then she sank onto a stool and took a long, relieved breath. “But what if I had tried to help him and failed? If Tamaryl had died? How could I bear that?”
Her father smiled that smug, knowing White Mage’s expression. “If you had tried and failed, then it would have been exactly as if you had not tried. Tamaryl would have died.” He bent close to her and whispered, “Exactly as if you had not been here at all.”
Ariana struggled to grasp his words. “You’re saying—are you saying I couldn’t have made it any worse? Or that not trying would be like not even being here?”
He kissed her forehead and straightened. “I’m going to go make—”
A ragged breath from the table interrupted him and their eyes focused on the Ryuven. Tamaryl’s throat worked, as if something had caught in it, and he dragged air into his lungs. “Rrrru...”
“He’s talking!” Ariana gasped.
“It’s not necessarily speech,” her father cautioned. “It may be only another spasm.”
Tamaryl’s eyes blinked suddenly open, his face tensing in stark contrast to the loose expression of his long sleep. His lips jerked.
They leaned over him, uncertain of how to help him. He stared unseeingly upward, his face twisting as if in fear or pain. “Mm...”
“We’re here, Tam,” Ariana told him desperately. “It’s all right, we’re here.”
His fingers worked and then, as if he’d exhausted his meager strength, he fell still again.
Hazelrig placed a hand on his chest, listened for a moment, and then gently smoothed the bent fingers. “He’s fine; he’s just away again. He’ll return to us.” He hesitated. “Still... Still, I think he could use another dose of jackwort.”
Ariana nodded. Tamaryl’s expression, brief as it was, had been distressed.
Neither of them were trained healers, but a mage educated for battle had to know at least a smattering of medicine. Hazelrig turned to the shelf and took the jar, frowning as he lifted it. He shook it and then removed the lid to glance inside. “There’s not much here, perhaps half a ration. Did you give him some last night?”
“I did, but I thought you had another supply.”
“No, that was all.” He shook out the dried leaves into a shallow wooden dish beside Tamaryl. “I’ll borrow some from Elysia.”
“Won’t she ask why you need it?”
“No one questions a man of middle years wanting an anti-inflammatory herb in winter,” he replied with a smile. “Why do you think I had only a small stock left?” He swung his white outer robe over his shoulders and started for the door. “Give him what we have. I won’t be long.”
“Take your soup,” she called. “It’s still warm.”
“Not anymore,” he answered from the front room. “Put them on the athanor and I’ll have it when I return.”
Ariana was already pulverizing the jackwort. The soup could wait a moment. When the leaves were evenly smashed, she poured oil over them. Fresh jackwort was more effective and quicker to act, but it was difficult to find in winter. Only a few herbalists kept it growing in their protected shelters, and most had to make due with cheaper dried leaves.
She froze at the knock. Who—but anyone might knock at the White Mage’s door. If she waited a moment, he would go away.
But then she heard the latch shift. “Mage Hazelrig?” called a familiar voice. “Are you here?”
The office door wasn’t locked! Ariana rushed to the front room, nearly slamming the workroom door behind her before he could see the bundled Ryuven. “Shianan!”
He looked surprised, and he took a few steps into the office. “I went to yours—then I came here, because you weren’t—well, obviously, you weren’t there, and—I thought your father might know where I could find you.”
“And do you always make a habit of entering where you haven’t been admitted?” she demanded, tense with worry at Tam’s near exposure.
His face fell. “I thought perhaps—if he was in the rearmost room... I would not have come inside without...”
She crossed her arms, recalling their last meeting. Things were unsaid and she did not want to talk with him, not with Tamaryl lying unconscious just behind her, when she had not explained her weakness, when he could not be here.
Shianan seemed to wilt. “I only meant to ask where I could find you.”
“And what was so urgent?” She watched him glance at the bundle in his arm, his expression uncertain. He picked at the cloth wrapping—was that a tunic? Ariana let an antagonistic note creep into her voice. “You brought your laundry?”
His jaw tightened. “No, my lady mage, I did not.” He hesitated, his eyes averted. “I’m sorry,” he muttered finally. “I have made a mistake.”
Even angry and preoccupied as she was, it upset her that they faced each other so contrarily. Things might have been different without the pressing presence of Tamaryl, half-dead in the room behind her, if she were certain he had not nearly killed himself only to reach her... Shianan could not stay.
Shianan walked to the nearest table, never meeting her gaze. “These are for you,” he said gruffly. “Accept them or not as you will, but I have no use for them elsewhere.” He pulled the tunic away from an armload of flowers and dropped them on the table before turning back toward the door.
Ariana stared at the flowers, colorful and bright in full bloom. He had come to apologize. For her irrational tears and anger. She could hardly think of how to respond. “Shianan...”
He did not answer her as he continued toward the door.
“Shianan, wait...”
He was at the door now, never looking at her, reaching for the latch.
She flung a small burst of power to slam the door from his grasp. “Shianan, wait!”
He recoiled, startled at the door’s movement, and glanced uncertainly at her.
She looked from him to the door and back. “I did it.”
Shianan reached for the door again.
“Shianan!” She hurried forward and caught his sleeve as he tried the door. “Look—I’m sorry. I’m—stay a moment.”
She had pushed the door closed, against his grasp, from across the room. Achievement thrilled in her even as shame twisted around it.
He did not look at her. “Let me go, my lady mage.”
“No. Please wait.” Her face was hot with humiliation. “You were bringing those to me?”
He nodded.
“I’m sorry. I was—I can’t explain it right now. But I’m sorry.”
Shianan stared at the door. “No, I was bringing them to apologize. For what I said the other day. I didn’t mean... I never meant to offend you.”
Trusting that he would not bolt, she released his sleeve and edged toward the flowers. “Wherever did you find fresh flowers? They’re beautiful.”
His shoulders dropped marginally. “Sunlight on flowers, you said once. I couldn’t do much for the weather...”
She burned with shame. “I’m sorry, about the laundry. You were only keeping them from freezing, right?”
He shifted. “I was anxious to find you before they spoiled. I did not know how long they would last.”
“They’re not so fragile as that! With some water and care, they’ll last for days.” She turned and scanned the room. “Where is that pitcher...?” She eyed the shelves and then remembered leaving it beside Tamaryl’s makeshift bed when they had last bathed him. She started for the door and then swiftly corrected herself, turning back toward Shianan. “Well, I can find it. They’ll last a few hours as they are.” She smiled brightly.
Shianan pulled back a chair at the table. “May I?”
“Oh, yes, please.”
He sank shakily into it, looking anxious. He laced his fingers and leaned his forehead against them. “I was only worried for you, that day. I never meant that you would—that you—I only worried that someone might have hurt you.” He flushed.
She took the chair opposite him. “I should have known your intent.”
“We are friends, then?”
“Of course.”
He exhaled slowly, deeply, as if releasing a great pressure. He lowered one hand, leaving the other to prop his tired face. “You’re having company?”
“What? Oh.” Ariana’s eye fell on the three mugs of soup. “I forgot that I needed to warm these. Father is coming soon, and he—he might be bringing someone.” She scooped up the mugs and arranged them over the little burning furnace, where they could gently heat sensitive potions.
“Oh?” Shianan’s eyes followed her. “I thought your guest might already be here.”
“Father left only a moment before you came. You might have passed him in the corridor.”
“Then who is in the back room?”
She froze. “What?”
His voice was quiet, weary. “You closed that door rather sharply when I came. You thought about opening it for the pitcher and then chose to leave it closed. You have soup for three here. And I thought I saw, just for an instant, something long like a body wrapped on a table before you closed the door.” He gave her a long, sad look. “Please, not now. I have hoped and hurt too much these past days, I cannot face a puzzle. Please, if there’s something—you know I will help you if I can. We are friends, are we not? Shouldn’t friends be honest with one another?” He offered a weak smile. “Haven’t I proved I will keep your secrets?”
Ariana’s breath caught. “Some secrets are harder to keep.” She looked down. “Or to tell.”
“Ariana. Trust me.”
She stared at him, and all the words clustered together, making a knot which bound in her throat. “My magic,” she said, a brutal truth easier to tell than the Ryuven behind her. “My magic had—”
A dull crash sounded from the rear room. Ariana spun as her heart leapt into her throat and she ran for the rear room. Tamaryl—!
Tamaryl was stirring on the table, shifting in his blankets. He had knocked the bowl of crushed jackwort to the floor. Ariana rushed to the table. “Tamaryl?”
His fingers seized her sleeve and twisted into it, clutching her close. “Shh!” he tried, his eyes blinking and wide. His wings worked weakly over the edge of the table.
She stared at him, seeing him awake for the first time since his return.
His hand shook in her sleeve. “Shhinn...!” he hissed urgently.
“Shianan?” she ventured. “Do you mean Shianan?”
“Mmmmaru!”
“Maru?”
“Maru!” he confirmed, and he seemed to weaken, his message conveyed. As he stilled, Shianan’s hand closed over his, peeling the fingers from Ariana and laying the hand on the table once more. Then Shianan stepped backward, unspeaking.
Ariana hesitated, seeing Tamaryl was slipping into sleep, and then turned slowly to face him. Shianan’s face was shuttered, and he said nothing.
“He came back,” Ariana offered. “Through the shield—it almost killed him. He hasn’t spoken before. I don’t know what—it must have been something important to make him risk it...”
Maru, he’d said. If he had come for her, would that be his first word? But why had he come only to say that? What did he mean?
Shianan finally spoke, with seeming effort. “What did they do to coerce you?”
“What?”
“How many are there?”
“What are you talking about?”
Shianan’s jaw set, but his voice was strained. “I do not want to bring you trouble. But my first duty is still to protect Chrenada from the Ryuven.”
“Protect from what? It’s just Tamaryl, come just—I don’t know why. Not yet. But it had to be urgent.”
“Urgent,” he repeated. “Did you know I’ve been out of the city, visiting raid sites? I am writing a report for the Wheel, to ask how there could be Ryuven raiding through the shield.”
Ariana stared at him. “That’s impossible. It must have been bandits.”
“I know the marks of a Ryuven attack well enough. And there were survivors to describe them.”
“But the shield is up.”
Shianan’s eyes moved from her to Tamaryl and back to her.
“No! They might not be the same Ryuven at all—I know there are different clans. Or maybe some Ryuven were here when we erected the shield and now they cannot go home. I don’t know! But Tamaryl’s only just arrived through the shield, and it nearly killed him. If I hadn’t been here, hadn’t helped him, he would have died. He only made it at all because he’s so powerful—” She stopped.
“He’s the Pairvyn ni’Ai,” Shianan finished. He stared at her. “You knew that.”
She nodded.
“You know what he is, and you still shelter him?”
“I know him,” she said unhappily. “He is not what the stories say. He took care of me in the Ryuven world. He saved me in the mountains, remember? That’s what exposed him. He left the Ryuven in the beginning because he couldn’t agree with the war. You knew him, for a time. Didn’t you see that he’s not a heartless murderer?”
“Tell that to the widows of Caftford,” snarled Shianan. He glared at the still form as if he could kill with a glance. “Tell that to the families I’ve just left.”
“Shianan, you can’t tell anyone. Please, you can’t. They would kill him.”
“As he killed—how many? Hundreds? Thousands?”
“You said you would help me!”
He took a breath. “You commit treason for him? You risk your life for him?”
“He protected me,” she protested. “He risked his life for me.”
“And so did—!” Shianan stopped, looking quickly away. “And so you will protect him while he is here.” He crossed his arms, facing the shelf on the wall. “What did he mean? What did he say?”
“Maru is the name of his friend. Maru cared for me while I was ill there.”
“And why would he come here to discuss Maru?”
“I don’t know.”
The outer door opened and Mage Hazelrig entered. “I have the—ah, flowers. How nice.” He came to the workroom door and stood, looking seriously at each of them. “Your lordship. Good day.”
Shianan’s voice came strained. “My lord mage, I did not know you had a guest.”
“Bailaha...”
Shianan made a short, terse bow. “My lord mage, forgive my intrusion. By your leave, I will go and leave you to your work.” He made an identically quick bow toward Ariana and then pushed past Hazelrig, hurrying to the door. Ariana took a quick breath, and then the outer door slammed.
She stared at her father, her heart pounding. “He came—he saw the soup, he guessed—I didn’t mean...”
“It’s all right,” he replied heavily. “He will say nothing.”
“I’m not sure. He knows Tamaryl is the Pairvyn ni’Ai.”
“And that tears at him, I’m sure, but he will say nothing.”
“How can you know?” she asked, ashamed that her father had more trust in her friend than she did.
“He dares not,” came the quiet answer. “He knows my treason, and I know his.” He shook his head and extended a paper packet to her. “More jackwort.”