Master (Book 5) Page 16

  “I can hold my own,” Cyrus said.

  “Yes, but you’d prefer a dark elf hold it for you,” she said dryly.

  He paused, not sure he’d heard what he thought he had. “Uh—”

  “Ready yourself,” she said, and a moment later the fire vanished, and all that remained was the clacking of the ghouls around them.

  Cyrus stood in the dark and listened as the wind rattled trees like bones. The howling had ceased and he could hear the muted whisper of things moving in the woods around them. The faint light shed by his blade was not enough to do much more than illuminate inches in front of his face and give him a vague idea of shapes in front of him. “This is not funny,” he said, listening for a response.

  None came.

  Chapter 25

  “Vara?” Cyrus heard the nerves in his own voice. His skin crawled with bumps as the cool night air prickled at it. A rattling behind him forced him to turn. Praelior’s soft glow lit the face of a ghoul.

  Cyrus slashed and felt the blade make easy contact with the creature. Bones clacked as it broke apart. He could hear the pieces of the ghoul hit the dirt with a thump as something came at him from behind.

  Cyrus slashed backward but missed as something clattered to his right. He felt a hand thump against his back and spun again, his blade already in motion. A face appeared out of the darkness, inches from his, and he stopped his blade at the flesh of a neck that was, under the soft glow of Praelior, bluer than it should have been were it that of a human.

  “Aisling?” Cyrus whispered.

  “Yes,” she said and then pushed past him. He heard the whirling of blades as she struck at a ghoul, which moaned as she cut it to pieces. “I saw you leave and followed you.”

  “Why?” he asked and then spun about to bring his sword across a ghoul’s chest in time to bisect it.

  “Because I’m jealous and possessive,” she said with a distinct lack of amusement.

  He paused, a moment of dead silence falling around him. “Really?”

  “No, not really,” she said and he could hear her moving again in the dark. “Well, maybe a little. But I followed you because I was curious where you were going with the frost witch. I didn’t exactly expect her to leave you in the dark to die.”

  “I am still here.” Cyrus heard Vara’s voice to his left, and suddenly the woods came alight again as her sword burst into flames again.

  “And oh so very helpful, turning out the lights and leaving him practically blind against an army of ghouls.” Aisling’s blades were in motion as she spoke, disassembling the bony ghouls that were moving in around them. They rustled against the underbrush, the rotted flesh sprinkled around their skeletons catching the flame’s light as they moved toward Cyrus.

  “I was trying to help him,” Vara said as she moved closer to them, casually hacking a ghoul’s head off as she came.

  “Help him what? Die?” Aisling shot back.

  “I was helping him to learn what to do when swallowed by the darkness,” Vara said coolly. “Something I’d wager he needs since I suspect he’s swallowed by you on a regular basis.”

  Cyrus’s head whipped around at the repartee between the two of them and caught Aisling’s malicious grin. “I bet that just eats you up, doesn’t it?”

  “No,” Vara said, “I was implying that you eat him up, or are you so dull of wit that you missed it?”

  “Does it make you jealous, thinking of me warming his nights?” Aisling said, slicing another ghoul. Her daggers cut through a rotted face and sent the skull shattering against a nearby tree. “To think of me in his bed, where perhaps you wish you were?”

  Vara had her back turned, dispensing with two ghouls that staggered at her with a measured scream. “I’m quite all right, thank you,” she said with a surprising evenness considering her exertion. Cyrus paused to diagonally slash a ghoul through the ribcage. “I think I’m worthy of more than the strumpet he’s become.”

  “Hey!” Cyrus said. “I am not a strumpet. I have a …” He glanced at Aisling, who looked back at him. “I have a … relationship with Aisling—”

  “You have a fiery need to grind your groin against something in the night,” Vara said, still not turning to look at either of them, “and apparently little else since I never see the two of you together in the light. I do not think that makes for a ‘relationship,’ exactly.”

  “And you would know how?” Aisling spat at her. “I doubt you even remember what the touch of a man feels like—if you’ve ever felt one at all.”

  Cyrus paused, watching two mindless ghouls shuffling away from them, moaning in the dark, and wished he could retreat with them. There was a soft breeze rushing through the woods, shaking the leaves overhead. “I don’t think this is—” he started to say.

  Vara turned to them, her face a mask. “You are quite right, of course,” she said to Aisling. “It’s been some time since I have done much more than kiss a man. Of course, that might have something do with—”

  “Oh, shit,” Cyrus whispered under his breath.

  Vara’s head snapped toward him. “Do you know what I’m about to say?”

  Cyrus let out his breath slowly. “Yes … Archenous.”

  “Of course you know,” she said, and he saw the reflection of her blade in her eyes. “Perhaps she does not, so I will say this plain: I have known the touch of a man, and I have felt love, long ago. I have heard the promises whispered and broken, have heard all the trite sayings that follow in love’s departure. ‘Love conquers all.’ ‘Love is the great salve.’ ‘Love will find a way.’” Her face quivered and her lips moved slightly downward. “All lies. ‘Love will find a way’?” She laughed, loudly and humorlessly. “More like love will find a slave. Well, I can tell you this much—I intend to be my own master. Always.”

  With a flourish, Vara spun her blade upright and blew it out like a candle, the fire disappearing as if snuffed by a strong wind. “You are more than welcome to him. Worry not that I’ll ever be in any sort of competition for him, for he is yours.” There came the sound of the underbrush stirring as Cyrus suspected she turned, and then her voice came back to them once more, but quieter. “And I wish you all the best of luck with everything that entails.”

  Aisling was silent for a minute. “She’s gone now.” He felt her arms slip around his neck, felt her press herself against his front. “Slave?”

  Cyrus tried to look in the direction he thought Vara had gone, but the disappearance of her blade’s light had left him once again in a darkness more complete than before she’d lit the sword. “Windrider?” He heard a whinny a short distance away and then motion as the horse trotted toward him. “I don’t know. I think maybe the slave thing was just the first thought to float to her mind.”

  Aisling ran a hand along his face, down to his neck, her nails scratching lightly against his skin. “Maybe she needs some chains in her life.”

  Cyrus held his quiet for a moment. “I doubt that.” He felt the thump of Windrider’s nose against his back. “A fine help you were in the fight,” he muttered.

  A whinny came back at him as he used a lone hand to guide his way around to the horse’s side. “Where’s your horse?” he asked Aisling.

  “I turned her loose to run back to Sanctuary,” she said as she put a foot in the stirrup. “I figured you’d need me to guide you home anyway.”

  “Yeah, all right,” Cyrus said as he hoisted himself up and situated himself behind her. He waited quietly and nothing was said for a long moment. “Any time now.”

  “Aren’t you going to thank me?” Aisling asked. He could feel her turning in the dark to face him, twisting around at the waist to look at him. He felt her fingers on his lips, softly. “For helping you?”

  “Thank you,” he said, a little numbly.

  “You’re welcome,” she said and leaned in to kiss him. He could taste the cinnamon on her breath, could smell the nearness of her. But though he kept his eyes open the entire time, he could have sworn the
face in front of him was that of someone else—of the one he wished were with him.

  Chapter 26

  Cyrus stirred, waking from a drowsy sleep. Sunlight was streaming in the window of his quarters, the drapery doing an impossibly bad job of blocking it out. He rolled to see the bed empty next to him. Aisling had accompanied him to sleep last night after she’d exacted a toll from him for the incident in the Waking Woods. She had not spoken the entire time, but her eyes had been dark and narrowed even in the torchlight.

  The smell of their night’s lovemaking still lingered in the warm, stuffy air. Cyrus wondered at the hour, wondered when she had left. His tongue was dry and carried the lingering taste of bile. He felt the hunger rumble inside and suspected that the hour was late indeed. Must have slept half the day away.

  He washed off and dressed, putting his armor on as quickly as he could manage. He reached the foyer minutes later where the smell of baking bread filled his nose and gave his stomach more cause for complaint. There was a small crowd in the foyer mixed with the guard force on duty, but he paid them no mind until someone called his name.

  “Cyrus!” He turned to see Erith Frostmoor standing with another woman in the middle of the room, atop the Sanctuary seal. He tried to dismiss them with an idle wave of greeting, but Erith called out again. “Cyrus, over here!”

  He turned, the sunlight streaming through the window above the doors, lighting the room and casting the woman next to Erith in silhouette. She wore a traveling cloak and had her hair bound up in braids of some kind. He could not tell the color from where he stood. He cast a look at the Great Hall, toward the smell of the bread his stomach cried out for as he altered direction to detour to Erith.

  As he got closer, the woman with Erith became clearer in his eyes. Her hair was brown, her skin bronzed from days spent in the sun. She hadn’t looked like that when he’d first met her; she had been a noblewoman, after all.

  “Cattrine,” he said with a forced smile as he stepped closer to the Grand Duchess Cattrine Tiernan, who stood next to Erith with a muted smile of her own.

  “I had worried that I would be late for our meeting this morning,” Cattrine said with a bow of her head in greeting, “but it would appear that I was forgotten entirely.”

  “I didn’t forget—” Cyrus stopped himself as an impish smile made its way onto Cattrine’s lips and he realized the futility of lying to her. She can read me like a parchment. “I apologize. I’ve been embroiled in a search for a missing guild and a missing goddess as well as a few other … issues … and I’m afraid it’s clouded my thoughts. I did forget our biweekly meeting, but … uhm …” He looked around the foyer quickly. “We need three officers for this—”

  “As set down by your Council when we began this formality, yes,” she said with a nod. “I’m quite content to discuss it with just the two of you, though—”

  “We should follow the rules,” Cyrus said, still scanning the crowd. No other officer was in immediate proximity. “Perhaps we should reschedule—”

  “I see Vara,” Erith said, causing Cyrus to jerk his head around. Erith was smiling, nearly grinning, in fact.

  “I’m sure she’s busy,” Cyrus said abruptly.

  “I’ll go check,” Erith said and slipped away toward the entry doors.

  “Get me a loaf of bread while you’re at it?” Cyrus called out to her retreating back. Erith’s hair did not so much as stir to give any sign that she had heard him. He turned to face Cattrine, his steps somewhat stiff and measured. “So …”

  She smiled politely, but there was some warmth to it. “How have you been?”

  “Busy,” he said, feeling a little tense. “Yourself?”

  “Much the same,” she said. “Building a town for the refugees has been a gargantuan task. I was trained to administrate a kingdom for my brother, but I never learned how to build one, town and all, from the ground up.” She smiled faintly. “I suppose it was assumed that Actaluere would always stand and that starting over again would be unnecessary.”

  “She’s not busy,” Erith said. Cyrus turned back to see her approaching, Vara in tow with a look much the same as Cyrus suspected a lioness being dragged against her will might wear. Vara’s ears were flushed red at the tips and her cheeks were slightly mottled. “So, I guess we can still do this meeting.” Cyrus looked at Erith, and she bore a wide smile—wider than he’d seen on her in some time. “Vara, this is Cattrine Tiernan. Lady Cattrine, this is Vara.” She bowed before each of them with a flourish in an introduction worthy of a court somewhere, Cyrus suspected.

  “So very nice to meet you,” Cattrine said, stepping forward to extend her hand to Vara. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

  “Indeed?” Vara said, gripping Cattrine’s hand somewhat woodenly. “I hope it was all of it unpleasant, else you’ve been told only lies.”

  Cattrine’s smile faded slightly, as though unsure of what to make of the paladin’s statement. “No, much of it was quite the opposite.”

  “You’ve been talking to fools, then,” Vara said abruptly, and that quelled the conversation for a beat.

  “Well, this is a little awkward,” Erith said with that same broad grin.

  Cyrus stared at her and she smiled back at him. “I hate you for this,” he said flatly.

  “That’s all right,” Erith replied, still smiling, “it’s so worth it.”

  “Right this way,” Cyrus said, gesturing toward the door next to the stairwell opening. He let Vara lead the way as she stormed past, her armor clinking as she moved. He thought it odd for a moment, as she rarely made noise in her movements, then decided she was doing it on purpose. She moved at full speed down the hall in front of them. Cyrus knew there was a conference room toward the back of Sanctuary.

  He listened to their footsteps echo down the stone hall, resonating in the confined space. The sound of souls at breakfast could be heard through the wall. The clink of plates and cutlery, the laughter and noise of fellowship caused Cyrus’s stomach to rumble once more. He reached the bend in the hallway as it turned left and paused, extending his arm to indicate Cattrine should go before him. He smiled at her as he did so. Once she passed, he sent a nasty look at Erith, who just kept smiling.

  They settled in the conference room, the three officers of Sanctuary across from Cattrine, whose navy traveling cloak was pulled back off her shoulders to envelop the back of her chair. She wore a white blouse and tan breeches; Cyrus tried to recall seeing her in a dress since they had left the shores of Luukessia and had to concede he did not recall any such extravagance from her in recent memory.

  “I appreciate you taking the time in your busy schedules to make this accommodation,” Cattrine said with a bow of her head. She smiled pleasantly all the while, and Cyrus suspected she meant it. “Especially you, Vara, as I know you would rather be elsewhere.” Vara nodded somewhat stiffly, as though she had been caught off guard by the acknowledgment.

  “We are glad to be able to be of assistance,” Cyrus said, clearing his throat sharply. “I expect there are a few matters you wanted to talk about …?”

  “We did have a few concerns,” Cattrine said, folding her hands across each other. “The detachment of troops you’ve left for us, for instance …”

  Cyrus frowned. “Do you require more?”

  “Ah, less, actually,” Cattrine said with a small smile. “The area we are in appears quite peaceful, and we feel very comfortable with decreasing the numbers should you feel it necessary to deploy them somewhere else, somewhere they might prove more lucrative to Sanctuary’s efforts …” She let her voice trail off, surveying each of them in turn.

  Cyrus felt a sudden rush of discomfort. “We have no particular use for them at the moment, m’lady. However, I will keep that in mind should matters change. Our concern is that word is getting out about your town’s tie to the guild, and the last thing any of us would wish is to see your people massacred or held hostage in some attempt to make us suffer or extort cooperation fr
om Sanctuary—”

  “I understand completely,” Cattrine said with a nod, “but I have been assured by your man Belkan that a thousand warriors and rangers combined with the numbers of wizards, healers, druids and enchanters you have left us would be plenty enough to defend the Emerald Fields from a portal-based invasion. And that’s to say nothing of the rock giant.”

  Cyrus blanched slightly at the thought of Fortin. After the fall of Alaric, the rock giant had packed a fairly minimal bag and retired to his land holding bordering the Emerald Fields. Cyrus could still see his rocky face staring as he made a last proclamation before leaving. “Until you find someone who can defeat me in single combat, I’ll be in Rockridge.” He had leaned toward Cyrus. “I will keep an eye on your villagers—as a neighbor would help his own—but do not call on me for aid to Sanctuary unless you can find someone willing to challenge and defeat me.”

  Cyrus’s hand came up and ran metal-clad fingers over his face, rubbing the bridge of his nose before he removed his helm and set it upon the table with a clink. “I worry about Fortin’s reliability in a fight, honestly. He’s somewhat unencumbered by great concern for lesser beings.”

  “He’s been very decent to all of us,” Cattrine said with a smile. “He comes down from his mountain and plays with the children in the square.”

  Cyrus froze and cast a look toward Erith, who appeared similarly stricken. “And he doesn’t … uh … eat them?”

  Cattrine’s expression went to shocked in a second. “I should say not!”

  Cyrus held up a hand. “Just checking.”

  “He shops in our markets, laughs with our people. He has friends among us, and many of our own would count him as theirs.” Cattrine leaned forward, her cloak billowing over the back of the wooden chair. “He is in every way a citizen of our tiny nation and welcome in our homeland. I trust him to aid our defense if need be.”

  “Ah,” Cyrus said, looking down. “I had only a brief exchange with him before he left; I had not had much of an impression that he would do more than look down the mountain and perhaps throw himself into a battle if it amused him to do so.”