The Kafsnjór ancestors who built Val Moraine were belligerent and frequently cruel, but they did like to throw parties. The dining hall was cavernous, with a hundred garish octagonal tables inset with gold and gems. It had a platform at one end where musicians performed and an open space at the other to accommodate the drunken brawls that inevitably ensued. Fortunately, the fuzzying effects of alcohol made it difficult to touch the Nexus, else the gatherings would have caused far greater destruction.
The hall had played host to weddings and wakes, victory celebrations and siege councils. During the Iron Wars, some of the Kafsnjórs had even flown their abbadax in circles through its lofty heights to keep the animals exercised—and themselves from succumbing to “ice fever,” the skin-crawling sensation one developed after a year of being stuck inside the keep with three hostile armies camped on the adjacent peaks.
But never in its long and checkered history had the hall sat almost empty, as it did now.
Three of Victor’s young Dessarians occupied a table near the stage. One of them made a jest and the others laughed loudly, turning to stare at the young man who sat on the opposite side of the hall, as far as he could get from his kinsmen.
Galen ignored them, biting savagely into a raw carrot. What he wouldn’t give for a nice fat rabbit! But the thought of rabbits made him think of Ellard and Galen found he’d lost his appetite. He pushed the plate away and stared up at the gloom-shrouded ceiling. The dining hall sat in the heart of Val Moraine. This didn’t make it any warmer, he reflected, but at least he didn’t have to look at the outer wall. He spent all day, every day hacking away with a pick and would die a happy man if he never saw a single shard of ice again.
“You should eat something,” Ellard said. “You’ve got to keep your strength up.”
Galen turned so he could just see his friend from the corner of his eye. It was better not to look at him straight on. His face was intact, but his throat….
“I know,” he whispered.
Ellard still came to him, but he wasn’t so angry anymore. They talked of old times. Once, he’d let Galen hold his hand. It was warm. But that had made him weep and Ellard didn’t do it again.
Now Galen listened to them talking at the other table. He couldn’t help himself, although he knew what they were saying. Traitor. Liar.
Murderer.
The others had always considered him odd, but no one actively hated him before the whole disaster with Nazafareen. Mostly he was just ignored. Though they all belonged to House Dessarian, the daēvas naturally gravitated toward their own kind. The woodworkers were methodical and industrious. The arborists tended to be quiet and contemplative, like the the trees they tended. Some years back, Galen had joined the scouts, thinking it would get him away from the compound, but they were a cocky bunch, strong in earth power and eager to prove it. When Galen showed no interest in joining their contests, they thought him stuck-up and aloof. Worse, that he believed himself superior because his father was the notorious Victor Dessarian. He soon quit and joined the cadre who gathered food.
Galen knew the forest well from his own ramblings and had no trouble finding acorns, birds’ eggs, mushrooms and the like. He even hunted a little, though the other daēvas found raw meat disgusting. Yet he’d never truly settled into this new life. Part of him was always waiting for something else. He couldn’t shake the nagging feeling he was supposed to be another person entirely.
Galen blamed this alienation on the loss of his parents. Neither was dead, yet he was an orphan by any measure. The lonely child in him seized on the idea that if he had his mother back, she could fix everything. Tell him what to do.
Now he could hardly meet her eyes.
“I danced on this table once,” Ellard said wistfully. “Drunk as a lord. Neblis played the zither. She was quite good before—”
His voice faded away as Galen sensed someone approaching from behind. He chomped on the carrot and refused to turn. He wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of appearing afraid.
“Do you mind?”
Galen glanced up in surprise. Rafel stood there, a plate in his hands.
“Sure,” Galen replied, trying to keep the pathetic eagerness from his voice.
Rafel took the chair across from him and set the plate down, though he made no move to eat. Galen’s eyes slid over the iron collar. The silence lengthened.
“You were an arborist, right?” Galen asked, a little desperately.
“Yeah.” Rafel stabbed a slice of pear with his fork.
“Which groves did you tend?”
“South from Alden’s Glen to the border with Fiala.”
“I know that area well. I used to swim in Long Lake.”
Rafel smiled for the first time. “Me too. The place you can jump off the rocks?”
“That one.” Galen grinned back. “I swam into the beaver dam once. But they had young and the female got mad. Almost slapped me with her tail.” He laughed. “I brought them fish, though, and we made friends.”
“There’s an oak in that grove more than six thousand years old,” Rafel said reverently. “It survived the great burning. One of the few that did.”
“The great burning?”
“I guess only the arborists talk about it anymore. There was a wildfire hundreds of years ago. It destroyed most of the forest.”
“Like the song, you mean.” Galen hummed a snatch. Then Rafel took it up and they sang softly together.
For the love of fair Caecilia
For the heart of a fickle maiden
The beeches mourn, bole and bough
The larches blaze, ash and cinder
Through the long night, through the red dawn
Hot blows the Viper’s breath
For the hate of fair Caecilia
For the hate of a Danai maiden
Driven to the shores
Of that windswept sea
Into the dark waters, into the cold depths
‘Twined forever drift the lovers lost
Their voices died away. It was a slow melody, with sweet high notes—like on the word forever—that sank to a dirge in the melancholy places. They were both tenors and Galen thought they’d made a fair job of it. He snuck a look at the other table. The three Dessarians were gone. Only a few lumen crystals remained lit and shadows cloaked the enormous hall.
“I always wondered who the Viper was,” Galen mused. “Some jealous suitor, I imagine.”
“It’s a very old song, I think. My grandfather used to sing it. He’d get teary at the end sometimes but when I asked what it meant, he wouldn’t tell me.”
“It has to be made-up, don’t you think? Even a daēva gone mad with jealousy couldn’t start a fire. If there truly was such a catastrophe, it must have been a lightning strike.”
Rafel shrugged. “Perhaps. Ysabel used to say—” He cut off and stared down at his plate.
“Your sister?” Galen asked gently. “She was always kind to me.”
Rafel nodded, his eyes guarded.
“Is she…?” Galen fumbled for words. Alive? Dead? Still in Delphi?
“I have to go.” Rafel abruptly pushed his chair back. “See you in the stables.”
Galen watched him leave, wishing he’d never mentioned it.
“I like him,” Ellard said thoughtfully. He’d returned the instant Rafel passed through the massive double doors. “I think he needs a friend almost as badly as you do.”
“What do you think happened to him?”
“What do you think?”
“Something awful.”
Ellard leaned back in the chair, crossing his legs at the ankles like he used to do. “Well, you’re right not to ask him. He’ll tell you if he wants to.”
“Do you think he knows about me?”
“Of course.”
“Then why doesn’t he hate me?”
“Hard to say.” Ellard mulled this over. “Maybe he hates someone else so much, he has no energy left to bother about you.”
That made a kind of sense. Galen pushed his plate away. He hummed softly as he departed the gloomy hall, and the shades of past revelries gathered in the darkest corners to listen.
For the love of fair Caecilia
For the heart of a fickle maiden…