A Play of Shadow (29 page)

The road was a blanket of snow, but the path beaten the night before—by horse, then kruar and dragon—made an easy passage. Without the wind, the air was crisp rather than bone-numbing and Bannan took an appreciative sniff, smiling at the tang of woodsmoke. A magnificent day for the boys to explore their new surroundings and make friends. To start forgetting.

Which reminded him of a promise. Bannan brought Perrkin beside Tadd’s mount. The miller’s apprentice shook his head. “It’s too soon,” he said without prompting. “We’re still in Marrowdell.”

Bannan lowered his voice. “Kydd’s growing anxious.” More than anxious, truth be told. The beekeeper had begun to lag, looking over his shoulder as if memorizing what they left behind, or now loath to leave it.

“You shouldn’t have told him.” A shrug. “Ancestors Witness, Bannan. It’s not as if there’s something to be done about it. Either Kydd will remember, or Marrowdell’s magic will slip in and out of mind without him knowing the difference.”

What would happen to him? Bannan wanted to touch the marks on his neck; he kept his hands quiet and on Perrkin’s neck instead, refusing to doubt. Either the moth’s protection would last or, as Tadd so bluntly put it, he’d never know.

Nodding, he eased his weight back in the saddle. Perrkin flicked a curious ear, but slowed his pace. Kydd noticed and closed the gap. His lean, handsome face was beaded with sweat despite the chill. “Ancestors Beset and Besieged,” he muttered once they were riding beside each other. “Part of me wants to turn back, Bannan. I’ll not deny it.”

“And not know?”

The beekeeper grimaced. “Being the point.” He shook himself, patting his horse, and fixed his gaze ahead. “You’re right, of course. I must, even if the result be my own ignorance.” He laughed, albeit grimly. “Ah, Marrowdell. You continue to test me.”

There was much to admire about this man. Bannan’s lips quirked. “Can we be sure Marrowdell isn’t playing games?”

“Test or game. Either one can be lost.” Kydd urged his horse to longer strides. “Let’s find out.”

They fell silent as Davi’s team turned with the road. The winter muted the waterfall as well, though Radd had assured Bannan that those rapids, as well as the northern cataracts, wouldn’t freeze. Horses stepped, leaving craters in the snow, blowing clouds into the air. Leather and wood made their creaks and complaints, while bells rang with each bob of the team’s great heads.

First Davi and Anten, then Tadd left Marrowdell. Kydd followed.

As Perrkin stepped off the edge and into the outside world, a thought came to Bannan. This was a crossing, like those into the Verge.

A crossing anyone could take except . . .

“Jenn Nalynn,” he whispered, over and over, simply for the joy of her dear name in his mouth. “I remember you.” Each time, he felt that reassuring warmth on his neck. “Jenn Nalynn.”

Kydd turned in his saddle, lifting a brow. “And who might that be?”

For a sickening heartbeat, Bannan believed him, then looked closer. “Liar,” he accused happily. “That wasn’t funny.”

Tadd stopped his horse to let them join him. He gave the beekeeper a quick searching look, then nodded, his relief plain to see. “Marrowdell eyes,” he proclaimed quietly. “We’d hoped, Allin and me. I’m glad.”

“Ancestors Blessed.” Bannan clapped Kydd on his shoulder. “We’ll celebrate tonight, I promise.”

They started moving again. When the beekeeper began to stare at Davi and Anten, Bannan had no trouble guessing what tempted him. “I wouldn’t.”

Kydd looked sheepish. “Was I that obvious? But it’s fascinating—now that I’m not terrified—” he qualified. “To think these men, friends I’ve known most of my life, suddenly possess different memories . . .”

Bannan didn’t smile. “What’s not terrifying about that?”

Kydd’s mouth opened then closed. He gave a suddenly grim nod.

Moments later, Davi raised his hand, then pointed right. They’d reached the turn onto the Northward Road.

Bannan freed Sennic’s sword from his coat, borrowed again that morning, and sent Perrkin to the fore. The others gave him sober looks. “Be wary, my friends,” he told them. “Tir might not have accounted for all on his trail.”

If not, well enough.

Captain Ash would have some questions.

Children didn’t always tell the truth. Children could be cruel and thoughtless and, as everyone knew who wasn’t a child, children didn’t understand all that adults understood.

None of it mattered. Jenn shed her clothes as she ran, for they hadn’t hidden what she was. She didn’t need them. They were a lie she wore, a pretense.

Children pretended.

She wasn’t a child. Or a woman.

As turn-born, she crossed the river, heedless of ice or slush, and ran until she could no longer be seen from the village. Until she could no longer be seen by a child.

But it didn’t help. Werfol’s scream rang through her, in her. How? She didn’t have ears or eyes, she had holes full of light, so maybe it rang in her heart, but she had none, not really, but oh— Ancestors Scattered and Stone, she felt it, she truly did, with all that she was.

She stopped, forced to her knees by its weight.

A breeze found her. “What’s this?” Dismay. Fear. The breeze whirled, picking up snow as if it were flower petals. “Dearest Heart. What’s wrong?”

With an effort, Jenn lifted her head. “I’ve seen myself,” she told her dragon, the words like splinters. “At last, I have. Don’t worry,” for he did, she knew, and for very good reason, but for once Marrowdell ignored her.

For which she should have been glad and quite possibly curious. Jenn found herself too full of pain to care.

Wisp let his shape find the light and settled into the snow before her, tail curled in a question. Laying his head at her feet, he gazed up with eyes both purple and wild.

Waiting.

Something stirred inside her. Thought, slow and sluggish. Dragons didn’t care for the cold. He’d almost frozen, to save—

She shuddered.

Those poor boys. What they’d been through, she couldn’t imagine.

“Dearest Heart?”

Jenn looked down.

The dragon rolled his head until only one eye showed and gaped his slender, deadly jaws no more than the width of her hand. Fangs like shards of bone glinted with fresh moisture. “If it would please you,” a coy whisper, “I could eat the youngest.”

“WISP!” She pulled her feet from under his head, which rose on that long neck to meet her gaze as she stood. “You mustn’t! You can’t! Don’t even—”

Jaws snapped with satisfaction. He had her.

Oh, her wise and wicked dragon. Jenn touched the tip of his scaled snout. “You wouldn’t,” she said, relieved beyond measure.

“Not today,” Wisp replied archly, as if to remind her what he was. “Probably not at all. You know what he is.”

“A truthseer.” Jenn sighed. “I wish Bannan had warned me.”

Her dragon rose on his two whole legs, using the opposing wing for support. “What does it matter, Dearest Heart? The child saw you for all that you are.” With a hint of pride. “It is why the sei sent me to find him.” Both wings spread wide as he slowly reared in place, every muscle taut, magnificent and sure, then winked out of sight.

But wasn’t gone. She heard—felt—his other, soundless voice. ~Like you, I found myself in his eyes.~

“He wasn’t afraid of you.” Afraid of her, yes. Terrified out of his wits was more like it. Jenn shook her head. “It couldn’t have been worse, Wisp. I can’t go back.”

A breeze, teasing and soft. “Because a child saw the truth and couldn’t understand it. What would your lady aunt say, Dearest Heart?”

Which was unfair and . . . when had Wisp learned to invoke Aunt Sybb? She supposed it had to happen eventually, the dragon spending more time in the village.

So long as he didn’t start writing to her aunt. Jenn couldn’t imagine what the Lady Mahavar would think of such correspondence. Most likely it would restore her suspicion regarding toads.

What would she say? Oh, Jenn knew. Hadn’t she heard it recited every time her younger self asked “why” once too often for her father’s patience, or Peggs’ or Gallie’s, or anyone’s. Aunt Sybb had said a child grows by questions. Fail to answer just one, and stunt that growth.

Believing that, Aunt Sybb was the only adult who’d never failed to listen and answer. She’d admit—readily—what she didn’t know, oh but that wouldn’t be the end of it. Regardless of time of day or weather, she’d hustle them over to Master Dusom to consult that worthy. If he failed, well, there were his books.

On occasion those books failed too. Aunt Sybb would make a note, then appear to forget, but her winter letter would contain a separate page just for Jenn, her question at the top, and the answer, found from someone in Avyo, beautifully written below.

Though she’d needed Master Dusom’s help to understand the answer, as often as not; Aunt Sybb considered exotic new vocabulary to be a bonus.

Sparkles midair distracted her; tiny diamonds sewn on a bodice of sky blue.

Snow, disturbed from the branches of the old trees—by yling or squirrel or wind—that took its time landing.

Or something—someone—played with sunbeams, simply for beauty’s sake.

In Marrowdell, any or all could be true.

Wise Wisp.

“Aunt Sybb would say,” Jenn answered at last, “that Werfol’s asked a question, and deserves an answer.” She nodded to herself. “I must explain to him how he can see a normal woman, with this,” a tap on glass, “beneath. I cannot fail.” Being turn-born had its drawbacks; had she a face at the moment, she would have scrunched it to demonstrate the seriousness of the problem.

“He’s going to scream again. I just know it. Wisp, I could use some advice.”

None came. She looked along the Tinkers Road, this way and that, and even checked the old trees for shed snow or sagging branch, not that Wisp, when he chose to hide, would leave such telltale signs, but sometimes he did, for her.

He’d left. On business of his own or, more likely, because he’d helped all he would, being a dragon.

The rest was up to her.

Jenn wandered the field, among sculptures she hardly saw, delaying the inevitable. For each new plan she came up with, she found one flaw, then another, until her mind whirled with possibilities that chased themselves into dread.

Until she couldn’t think at all. Was this how a soldier felt, before a battle?

Not that she knew, exactly, how that was. There’d been a book. Plagued by Roche and Allin, Master Dusom had produced a war account written by one of his ancestors. His students had hoped it would be exciting, with gory descriptions and a grand victory, but it proved packed with charts and formulas—from provisioning to how to predict travel time over varied terrains. There’d been a section on tactics, but dry and dealing with what hadn’t worked—in the opinion of the author—because those in charge hadn’t done the appropriate calculations beforehand. Master Dusom had been delighted to set them problems afterward.

Uncle Horst wouldn’t speak of his life before Marrowdell, not even to Riss, according to Peggs, who’d become closer to the older woman since both had newly revealed loves to compare.

She could ask Tir, Jenn thought, then shook her head. He’d tell her all manner of stories, without doubt, but since he loved most to tease her, how many could she believe?

Leaving Bannan Larmensu, but not really. He wasn’t so far from that life that she’d willingly remind him of it, having seen the pain on his face when others did.

She wasn’t a soldier anyway, when it came to it, nor was gaining Werfol’s trust in any sense a battle.

At least . . . she truly hoped not.

Jenn had started for home, to consult with Peggs, only to realize a significant problem. What had she been thinking? Her clothing lay strewn along the road. Yes, her simples were in the commons where she could dress unseen, but the rest were within the village. Leaving two equally unsavory choices: walk through the village almost naked . . .

Or as turn-born.

A sensation either way, with neither having a good outcome. Few of the villagers had seen her other self. Or her naked self.

It was all most embarrassing.

Fine time for her dragon to leave on his own business. Though Jenn had little doubt Wisp would find her predicament highly entertaining and not be helpful at all.