CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Vigil

Aloran woke, half-falling out of his chair. There had been a sound . . . He caught a breath and straightened, trying to orient himself. The young Master’s room, dimmed for nighttime—the Lady sleeping in a chair beside the bed—his medical kit on the bedside table, open—and young Master Tagaret tossing in his sheets, panting and muttering while his body tried to go up in flames.

The horrified ache in Aloran’s throat started again, and tears rose in his eyes. He longed to fight, to sacrifice himself so that Tagaret might live—as if now that he had stood by Lady Tamelera’s side, he received the right to love him as she did. He blinked back his tears, and made another check: pulse steady, fast but not dangerously so. No sign of the hives he’d suffered earlier in the evening, which was a mercy. His temperature, though, was a frightening six degrees above normal.

Aloran checked his watch. Enough time had passed that a fourth dose of medication wouldn’t tax the young Master’s organs. He shifted him onto his back, and the boy roused, opening bleary eyes.

“Nekantor, don’t break my lock this time,” he said indistinctly. “Why would you walk on only the black tiles?”

“It’s Aloran, young Master.”

“Imbati Aloran,” murmured Tagaret. “My mother thinks he’s a man.”

“Hold still, young Master. This will make you feel better.”

He steadied Tagaret’s arm and delivered the shot, wishing he could give him not just medicine, but some of his own strength to get him through this unharmed.

A soft knock.

Was that what he’d heard? Why wouldn’t Serjer just have come in?

Aloran disposed of the needle, removed his treatment gloves, then walked silently to open the Maze door.

Kiit was standing behind it.

Aloran blinked, trying to make sense of her. Her anxious face was newly marked, and she wore treatment gloves just like his own. She carried a paper. Belatedly, he gaze-gestured questioning.

Kiit took two steps back into the Maze.

Aloran glanced over his shoulder, and reluctantly stepped across the threshold.

When she spoke, her whisper was scarcely above a breath. “Update on the epidemic.” She placed the paper in his hand.

“Thank you.” But she could have delivered this paper to Serjer. Too tired for manners with her, he simply asked. “Kiit, did you need to see me?”

Kiit’s eyes flickered over his shoulder. What did she see there? Nothing either of them could have imagined, despite every lesson, every warning. She gestured to her own forehead.

“Just—I’m sorry, Aloran.”

How could he even respond? What came out was, “Congratulations. . . ?”

She winced and nodded. “I just needed to tell you. I understand now.” She turned and loped away down the Maze hall.

Aloran exhaled. He returned to the room, peering at the note in the dim light, then discovered Lady Tamelera was awake in her chair, gazing at him. She wore a white nightgown, and her face still bore traces of her earlier tears.

Aloran bowed to her. “I’m sorry, Lady,” he said. “These are the victims of the epidemic.” He placed the list of handwritten names in her hand.

She stared at it for a moment, then spoke in a broken whisper, dropping the paper on the floor. “Forty people, Aloran. Forty of us down.”

“Grobal Reyn of the Ninth Family?” he asked, remembering the young Master and his friends at the Ball. “Grobal Fernar of the Eleventh? Grobal Pyaras?”

She swallowed hard. “All of them.”

Aloran’s stomach clenched. “Lady Della of the Sixth Family?”

She frowned. “I don’t think so. I didn’t see that name.”

“Blessing of Heile,” he breathed.

“But ten people have died since this afternoon.”

Aloran closed his eyes in grief. When he opened them again, Lady Tamelera was still looking at him. She was pale and graceful in the dim light, and her face showed fear as clearly as if she were an unmarked child.

“Five years,” she said, fresh tears running down her face. “Five years. I just got him back . . . if I lose him, I’ll die.”

The desire to sacrifice himself near-strangled him. “Not Tagaret,” he vowed, his voice quavering like a stranger’s. “Not if I can stop it. I’ve failed you enough.”

“Oh, Aloran, no . . .” She fell silent, staring at him, long enough that he flushed and turned away. He should check the young Master again. He put on a new pair of treatment gloves. When he touched the boy’s neck, Tagaret turned his head, muttering incomprehensibly—the sound of it squeezed his heart. Checked his temperature, though, and it was slightly less; his heart relaxed somewhat to think the medicine was working.

“I remember—” Lady Tamelera said. She paused for a long moment. “I remember, when he was born.”

Aloran looked at her. She was gazing at her hands, her fingers wound tightly in her lap. Would she truly confide in him?

“He came three weeks early, but my Eyli knew. I wanted her to deliver him, but she insisted I go to the medical center. She was right. The labor was long, and he was born weak—they took him from me for treatment before I’d had more than a single glimpse of his face. I lay there for an hour, prostrate with exhaustion while the doctors treated me, wondering if that was all I would ever see. If all my efforts had been in vain and we would both die.”

Aloran gave respect to her silence, but after a time she flashed him a glance—a clear request for response. “They were not in vain,” he said.

“No. They brought him to me at last, and I could see he had grown stronger. I gave him the Tagaret name-line, for strength in adversity, and I promised him we would both survive.” She looked up into his face. “I was seventeen years old.”

“Ohh—” The sound escaped him on a swell of pity too strong to contain. Imagine her, a mother before she was even as old as Kiit . . . He raised one forearm to cover his face and began a breath pattern before he put it down again.

“Yes? Please, Aloran, tell me.”

He couldn’t refuse to speak, but he didn’t dare look directly at her. He confessed softly to his knees, “I want to make the same promise, Lady. To him, and to you—with all my heart.”

“I know you can’t.”

“Not yet. It’s still too early to know—” If he’ll be damaged. If he’ll die. He couldn’t say it.

Lady Tamelera hid her face in her hands and sobbed.

Hearing her pain was bad enough; knowing he’d made it worse was torture. He took off his treatment gloves and slipped from his chair onto the floor, pressing his forehead into the carpet at her feet. “Forgive me,” he said. “I should not have spoken.”

She dragged in a breath. “Aloran, rise,” she said. “If you never speak, how can I hope to understand you?”

She wants to understand me? His heart split, one half fearfully insisting he was unworthy of such a gift, the other dizzy with gratitude and devotion. She had commanded him to rise, so rise he must—but Sirin only knew how he could look at her now. He picked himself up slowly.

“Would you excuse me for a moment, Lady?”

“Of course.”

He walked away from her, into the young Master’s bathroom with its floor of black and white tiles. At the marble basin he ran hot water over his hands and scrubbed them, longer than he needed to. The fire embroidered on his jacket kept her with him anyway.

Somehow, this wasn’t at all what he had dreamed of when imagining a Lady who understood the love of mistress and servant. Kindness, yes. Consideration. Not this sudden overwhelming generosity.

But he must not leave the young Master unattended. He wet a cloth with cool water, returned to the room and put on new treatment gloves before laying it on Tagaret’s head. The young Master gave a deep sigh, but for the moment he appeared to be sleeping. It was easier to look at him than to risk looking at the Lady.

Lady Tamelera spoke quietly. “When I was alone in the medical center, I was afraid for Tagaret, but also for myself. Afraid of what would happen if he died, and I lived. Garr was dark-haired and handsome at forty, but—busy. When I became pregnant, he changed. He treated me gently, brought me gifts, and told me I was beautiful . . .” She sighed. “He cared. I knew in my spine that his care would vanish if I went home alone.”

Aloran bent his head. No doubt she was right.

“Garr has always been powerful, untouchable,” she said. “His anger is terrifying. He could demand anything from me, and I have no power to refuse.”

Aloran glanced at her cautiously. “There are laws . . .”

“Laws are small comfort. He makes me feel so helpless, and I can’t escape him. I’m ashamed to say that I have always responded to my situation with fury. This has had some unfortunate, unintended consequences. Aloran, look at me.”

He did, and found her leaning toward him. He tried to keep his eyes lowered, but her gaze caught him and wouldn’t let go.

“My thoughtlessness has placed you in the same circumstances. Faced with my cruelty, you have responded far more gracefully than I ever did to my partner’s. You wouldn’t dare say to me what I really deserve to hear, so I will: when it comes to someone so gentle, so considerate, who holds my life and that of my son in his hands—Mai strike me if I can’t do any better than Garr.”

Aloran couldn’t move. Blood rushed into his face and burned in his cheeks.

Lady Tamelera stood up abruptly and faced the public door as if she might leave, then appeared to change her mind and walked past him into the young Master’s bathroom.

With her gone, he could find a breath to begin a pattern. Surely this was a deliberate kindness, taking her blazing presence away so he could breathe again—she understood him better than he’d thought. He checked his watch: still too soon for any further medications. Checked the young Master’s temperature: it was a full degree down now.

Tagaret roused at his touch and cried out. “Mother—Mother, where are you? I’m so thirsty—Mother!”

Lady Tamelera flew out of the bathroom as if to rush to his side, but jerked to a stop two steps away. “I’m here, Tagaret,” she cried, shaking her hands helplessly. “I won’t leave you—I promise, we’re going to be all right!” She turned to Aloran, her eyes desperate.

Aloran slipped his arm under Tagaret’s back, lifting him gently. There was a glass of water on the bedside table; he brought it to the boy’s lips. Tagaret drank—actually drank, the most positive sign he’d seen in all this night of fear. When he laid him down again, he touched his hand to the boy’s cheek before he realized what he was doing. For a split second he froze, astonished at his own presumption, but then he completed the caress.

What was he for, if he could not be his Lady’s hands?