As he shrugged into his khalat again, he couldn’t keep from smiling, even though his fingers fumbled with the hooks. Earlier that night he’d been presented with the armored robe of the Altenerai, and now he donned it for the second time. He savored the moment and wondered if it would ever feel unremarkable to pull the garment on.
He glanced down at the sacred ring on his struggling fingers and willed the sapphire to light, chuckling a little that he could do so, that he had earned the right to wear it. He, whom so many had been certain would never rise past the second rank.
Still smiling, he thanked the sisters for a glorious evening. One was passed out upon the red coverlet, snoring lightly, her arms and legs akimbo, and he giggled. There was nothing very erotic about a drunken sleeping woman, he decided, even if she was mostly naked.
The other waved at him languidly and then lay back, accidentally bumping her sister in the thigh with her elbow. Neither noticed. He slipped out through the front door.
He hadn’t remembered the route back to the Alantran citadel being quite so confusing, but eventually he found his way to the right hill, up to the entrance, and past the sentry, who saluted him crisply. He raised his bottle in acknowledgment and headed on for the barracks, where he performed a similar ritual with a similar sentry. Once inside, it seemed the hall tilted at an odd angle. What light there was burned too brightly in a lantern near the head of the stair.
There were more steps up toward Rialla’s sickroom than he’d recalled, but he found his way at last, knocking loudly on the door. “It’s me,” he said, “Kyrkenall.” His tongue felt thick.
He was leaning against the door so that when she opened it he almost fell in upon her, but caught himself on the verge, nearly dropping his bottle in the process.
Rialla retreated quietly.
He steadied himself against the frame, offered a grin of apology, and lifted the wine bottle.
Rialla wore a plain-cloth nightdress rather than the colorful silks of the dancers he’d left. Her short dark hair was in disarray, and she pushed it from her red-rimmed eyes, watching him.
A trio of candles burned upon the table beside the bed set in the narrow stone room. He stepped past her to peer through the arrow-slit window down across the length of Alantris. He saw sloping roofs, first, then a drop to the next level, and expanses of dark sward and the sparkle of moonlight upon the beautiful canals, and, distantly, the final, outer wall, rising blackly. The Naor would never break that, and the city supplies would sustain them until the enemies lost enough warriors and wealth to slink back where they came from. What a fine way to spend a war, he thought—running forays from a metropolitan base celebrating his recent heroism. He’d sure risen in the world.
“I brought this,” he announced, “to celebrate. You should have been there.”
“I knew you would come.” Rialla’s voice was solemn.
Kyrkenall couldn’t help giggling at the unintentional double entendre. At her confused look, he attempted to mimic her solemnity. This resulted only in more giggles as he dropped into the single chair, beside the window.
She stood staring at him for a long while before he recovered and sat the bottle down upon the wooden floor with a clunk. He suddenly recalled that she was injured, and grew more serious. She’d been a very long time recovering from the spell to make N’lahr’s sword. “How are you?”
“Better than you, just now. You brought no cups.” Her flat pronouncement was characteristically perceptive with no hint of reprobation.
Kyrkenall fumbled at his khalat, and the pouch that he often hung upon his belt, searching for the goblets he’d meant to bring, but he found only the hilt of his knife. He had a panicked moment fearing that he’d lost both his wonderful sword and his amazing bow until he recalled that he’d left them in his room.
Rialla bent to retrieve the bottle and held it up to the starlight, looking at the label.
“Sorry about that,” he said. “I had some, at some point this evening. Gods, I wanted you to be there.” Then noticing how ably she moved, he said, “You look so much better.”
She sat down on the edge of her bed. “I am still weary.”
“You should have been with us tonight,” he insisted. “Kalandra was the one who bore witness to my wisdom. Can you believe it? And you should have heard the toast Aradel gave us! She talked about how ‘the future of the corps burned bright’ because of us. She mentioned you, too. Everyone was asking about you.”
He peered over at her, hoping he’d communicated the triumph of the moment. She didn’t seem to be paying attention, and he frowned. It was unfair that Kalandra had declared her too weak to participate in the ceremony this evening.
“I have dreamt strange dreams,” Rialla said. Her tone was intent.
But he hadn’t shaken free his regret she wasn’t sworn to the ring yet. “They’ll give yours tomorrow, I expect. The ceremony won’t be as big, but will still be amazing. And it will be all about you!” He willed his own sapphire to shine and chuckled in delight when it did so. “I hope they’ll have the pipers again.”
Rialla followed her own line of thought. “The Naor will fail this time, but they will return to break the wall in later years,” she told him, or rather the bottle, at which she still seemed to be staring. “N’lahr rises. And Alten Aradel reigns as governor. Asrahn points the way. Kalandra loses herself, as does Belahn. You will seek, and fly, and stand with kobalin.”
The information was already muddled for Kyrkenall. He raised one finger, then the other beside it, and tried to decide which of the statements was stranger. “Kobalin?” he decided. But he felt like he was missing something.
Suddenly she had put the bottle aside on the rumpled sheets and she was leaning forward. Her eyes were luminous and wide and strange. “But I am nowhere! Nowhere, Kyrkenall! There’s nothing left of me but a statue in the dark.”
“Hey. It’s all right,” he said, for he hadn’t quite caught what she was saying, but could tell she was upset. “Statue in the dark” sounded lonely and bleak.
She wrapped her arms about her chest. “It’s been a long time since I knew this fear.” She was looking down at the wooden floor planks past her feet. “I thought we were strangers.”
“You have nothing to fear.” He tried a laugh but it sounded wrong. “You’re the most powerful weaver to ever win the ring. Probably the most powerful weaver, anywhere at anytime.”
“The ring? It won’t save me. I don’t even know why I want it anymore. I used to need it to prove I mattered.”
He knew that she needed him to focus, and he was trying his best. “But you do matter. And you deserve the ring. More than I do, anyway.” He’d said it impulsively, but recognized its sobering truth as he caught a piece of her mood.
Her gaze was like a physical force. “Kyrkenall, I think I’m going to die when the Naor come.”
He shook his head. “That won’t happen. You’ll be using your hearthstone, well back from the front line.”
“I’m not in control of it.”
That was an absurd statement. No one could control them better. What was all this pessimistic gloom about? She seemed convinced she was doomed. “You’re not going to die,” he said, moving toward her before he remembered she didn’t like to be touched. He lost his balance as he stood, and careened into the bed, then got tangled up with his foot against the post and tripped and landed half-stunned on the floor.
“I don’t want to.” Her voice from somewhere above him was hollow.
It didn’t occur to him to be surprised, at first, that she helped him up and led him to bed. Head pounding, he was only vaguely aware that she unhooked his crisp khalat and made him lie back so she could remove his boots, and then she had thrown the blanket over him.
She climbed in on top of the covers and lay down near, but not directly beside him.
“Don’t die,” he said, not knowing he sounded as dependent as a tiny child. “We need you.”
She smiled sadly, and it was that image that stayed with him as he drifted off to sleep.