Leaves of Flame (11 page)

“That should make Petraen’s job easier.” Colin scanned the rest of the hut. The roof was steep, to keep the snow from piling up too heavily. Smoke would be funneled from the fire pit up to a hole shielded against the weather at the top. The rest of the rounded interior was mostly bare, a few stone benches that could be used as sleeping pallets against the walls. There were no windows, only the main entrance and a covered hole in the floor against the back wall for the disposal of garbage and waste.The stale smell of smoke and musty dampness cloaked the small room.

“It’s not much of a wayside,” Vaeren said.

Colin caught and held his gaze. The undertone in the caitan’s voice suggested that they could find better accommodations in the village.“It will suffice for tonight,” he said. Then he knelt down and began dragging the black, sooty remains of the previous fire from the pit.

After a moment, Vaeren helped him.

They worked in utter silence,Vaeren studiously ignoring him as they scraped the last of the dead coals from the hollow that reminded Colin of the rounded depressions in the middle of the dwarren keevas, where they held their most serious consultations. The silence became strained, itching at Colin’s back, until he fi nally sighed and asked, “What House are you from?”

Without looking up, Vaeren said, “I am a member of the Order of the Flame. I am associated with no House except the Order.”

The caitan said it as if by rote, and Colin grimaced. He knew that acolytes of the Order renounced their ties to their previous Houses.Their allegiance was given to Aielan and the Order, their previous House abandoned, although erasing those ties completely was impossible.

“I meant, what House were you originally from?”

Vaeren glanced up at that, his brow creased, as if he were trying to determine why Colin would ask, what his ulterior motive might be. But finally he answered, “Uslaen.”

“Lord Saetor’s House, Khalaek’s caitan before Khalaek was banished and his own House declared fallen.”

“Yes,” Vaeren said shortly. His shoulders stiffened, his soot-greased hands clenched hard on the branch he now held defensively before him. “What of it?”

Colin sat back, surprised by his reaction, by the sudden tension in the room. “Nothing. A simple question, nothing more.”

Vaeren watched him intently, then visibly forced himself to relax,letting his held breath out in a long sigh.“I . . .apologize,” he said, his voice rough. “I should not have reacted so . . . forcefully.”

Colin brushed the apology aside with one hand. “No offense was taken. But I’m surprised. Khalaek and his House were destroyed over a hundred years ago. I thought the ascension of the new House had gone smoothly, that the emotions of that time would have been laid to rest by now.”

Vaeren sneered, the expression twisting his face for a moment, then gone, replaced by a troubled brow. He busied himself with the fire pit, drawing the last of the coals close enough to be retrieved.

“Alvritshai have long memories,” he said finally. “I was part of Khalaek’s House before his betrayal, proud to be Duvoraen. I wore the black and gold of the Phalanx on the battlefield at the Escarpment, fought for Khalaek there and before.”

Colin silently adjusted his estimate ofVaeren’s age.“You must have been newly risen into the Phalanx to have been at the Escarpment.”

“Yes. I was only thirty-three, had been part of the Duvoraen Phalanx for barely a year. When the Evant announced Khalaek’s betrayal, when they declared him khai and banished him. . . .” Vaeren paused to stare off into the distance, his face open and easy to read. Colin could see the young Alvritshai soldier he had been, could see an echo of the shock and disbelief that young warrior had felt.

Then Vaeren’s face hardened with pain and the anger of the betrayal, and Colin again saw the warrior of the Flame he had first seen in the Sanctuary.

He turned to face Colin. “It felt as if Khalaek had betrayed me personally. I was young; I was newly risen to the Phalanx.It crushed me.And I was not the only one that felt lost and adrift after that.”

“But the Evant declared the rising of House Uslaen almost immediately, appointed Saetor as the new lord and gave all of Duvoraen’s lands and people over to him.”

An echo of the sneer returned.“You can’t declare a new lord and House and expect the people to follow so easily. I’d been part of Duvoraen for decades, had been raised to serve Lord Khalaek, been trained to protect him, to revere the black-and-gold uniform, to live under the Eagle’s Talon.” Vaeren stood abruptly, brandishing the branch, the fire pit between them. “I couldn’t do it,” he muttered, the sneer seeping into his voice.“I couldn’t shrug the Duvoraen House mantle aside so easily. I couldn’t simply vow to serve Uslaen after all that I’d done, after spilling my blood for Duvoraen on the battlefield.The Lords of the Evant should not have expected that of us.”

“Even though Khalaek had betrayed you, betrayed all of the Alvritshai?”

“That was only what the Lords of the Evant claimed,” he said sharply, but his conviction faltered even as he said it, the branch he wielded lowering. “I didn’t know what to believe. Neither did anyone else within the Phalanx. None of us understood, but we all know of the games the Lords of the Evant play.”

Colin held Vaeren’s gaze.“They needed stability.For the treaty with the humans and the dwarren.”

Vaeren’s glare hardened. “And I needed time to adjust, to come to terms with Khalaek’s betrayal.”

Colin shifted where he sat. “But you said you were part of House Uslaen when I asked.”

Vaeren snorted with derision. “I was. Duvoraen had fallen;Uslaen had risen in its stead.The Evant declared me Uslaen. No one can claim to be of House Duvoraen anymore without the risk of becoming khai themselves, of being shunned by everyone, being cursed or spat upon. Duvoraen is dead. But I couldn’t stay with Uslaen, couldn’t pretend to a vow to Saetor that I’d never made, not in my heart.”

“So you joined the Order.”

“Yes. I joined the Flame. What better way to deal with the betrayal of Khalaek and the Evant than to remove myself from them altogether? Nearly a hundred of the Duvoraen Phalanx fl ed to the Order after the Escarpment. Hundreds of others abandoned Uslaen completely.”

Colin frowned. “They shifted to another House?”

Vaeren shook his head with a grim smile. “They left. They vanished, departing in the night, abandoning their watches,their posts.They became khai-roen,a self-imposed exile. They could not serve under Saetor, could not serve under any lord at all.”

Colin felt a shudder pass through him.The fact that hundreds of Alvritshai had simply left their House and lands behind, had vanished, disturbed him deeply. He understood being disillusioned, understood feeling betrayed by your own people—the refugee families who’d fled Andover nearly two hundred years ago before the onset of the Feud, families like his own, had been betrayed by the Proprietors in New Andover. That betrayal had driven Colin and his family onto the plains, had ultimately killed them all.

All except for Colin and Walter, and neither of them were exactly human anymore.

He reached across with his right hand and massaged his left arm, where beneath the sleeve of his shirt his skin was mottled black with the poison of the Wells and their Lifeblood. It was an old habit, one that he’d thought he’d broken. With a disgusted wince, he snatched his hand away, glanced up to find Vaeren watching him intently.

“Where did they go?” he asked, his voice harsher than he’d intended. “Where are the Alvritshai who abandoned Uslaen now?”

Vaeren shrugged. “No one knows.”

The unease Colin felt sank deeper into his chest. He held Vaeren’s gaze a moment longer, then motioned with his soot-stained hands toward the fire pit and the wood. “We should get the fire started.”

Ten minutes later, he stepped from the hut as a thin, white smoke began to drift from beneath the small aperture in the roof. Aeren, Eraeth, and Siobhaen were still grooming the horses, Aeren talking quietly with Siobhaen, although it didn’t appear Siobhaen was participating much. Eraeth shot Colin an irritated look and shook his head slightly. At the same time, a burst of laughter echoed from the woods south of the road. Petraen and two members of Aeren’s Phalanx approached, ducking under the low-hanging branches of the trees, arms laden with firewood.All three were chatting amiably, Petraen grinning as he related some story about his brother and himself stealing apples from a neighbor’s orchard.

“—and then Boreaus took off as if Aielan Herself had lit a fire under his ass, leaving me behind with the sack of apples,” Petraen said as Colin stepped to one side, allowing the three into the hut. “I scrambled as fast as I could, but the sack got caught on the rail fence and I couldn’t get it free.The next thing I knew the overseer’s hand dug into my shoulder and jerked me back—”

The door to the hut closed, cutting off the words.

Colin looked down at his blackened hands, then moved toward the stream to one side, stepping over the smoothed rocks to the water’s edge. He shoved back the sleeves of his shirt, ignored the swirling darkness that seethed beneath the exposed skin on both arms, and plunged his hands into the water with a sudden sharp breath. The frigid water numbed his fi ngers immediately, but he scrubbed at the greasy soot nonetheless.

“That won’t come off with water.”

Colin drew his hands out of the water and shook them vigorously, snapping his fi ngers in an attempt to get the blood flowing again.“I’m used to having darkened skin,”he said, drying his hands on the cloth of his shirt, leaving black smudges behind. Eraeth’s eyebrow rose at the comment, but he said nothing. Colin motioned toward Siobhaen and Aeren, the two tying the horses up near the hut. “No luck with Siobhaen?”

Eraeth grimaced. “She responds to your questions, but she reveals nothing. She’s too guarded.”

Another bout of laughter, muted by the hut’s walls, broke through the gurgle of the stream.

“At least one of the Flame has opened up,” Colin said.

“Vaeren revealed nothing?”

“More than I expected, actually. He’s originally from House Duvoraen. He joined the Order rather than become a permanent part of Uslaen.”

“Many chose that path after the Escarpment and the banishment.”

“He also claims that many Alvritshai abandoned their House and lands altogether.”

The Protector shifted awkwardly, then said grudgingly, “It’s not something that is spoken of. No lord wants to admit that the members of his House would rather choose exile than to serve beneath him.And mostAlvritshai refuse to speak of the khai-roen at all. I’m surprised Vaeren mentioned it.”

Colin began climbing the rocks back to the roadway, Eraeth reaching forward to pull him up the last stretch. “I think Vaeren nearly chose that path for himself.”

Petraen emerged from the hut and gave a shout, catching their attention as both Boreaus and the last Phalanx appeared, the Flame with a few squirrels held by the tail, Aeren’s guardsman with a rabbit and some type of fowl.

“Looks like we’ll have fresh meat tonight,” Eraeth said.

They headed toward the hut as Aeren and Siobhaen joined the returning hunters. Petraen clapped his brother on the back and took the squirrels from him, the two settling in near the stream with the rest of Aeren’s Phalanx to gut them for roasting. Siobhaen sent the two brothers a sharp look of disapproval as they bantered with the Rhyssal House men, but they pointedly ignored her. After a moment, she shook her head and entered the hut.

“They don’t act like Alvritshai,” Colin said, keeping his voice low, his eyes on the two brothers.

Eraeth grimaced. “They are more Alvritshai than you realize.You’ve dealt mostly with the Lords of the Evant and their Phalanx.The lords are more rigid and formal than the commoners, and more guarded with their emotions. And the Phalanx are trained to formality, since they will be serving their lord and representing the House. The commoners are much more . . . relaxed.”

Colin smiled. “I see.”

Eraeth scowled.“They’re still more respectable than you humans!”

“Who’s more respectable than humans?” Aeren asked sharply. He’d waited for them at the door of the hut as they approached and now shot Eraeth a look similar to the one Soibhaen had given the brothers earlier.

Eraeth drew himself up stiffly. “No one is more respectable than humans, Lord Aeren.”

Aeren glared at him with suspicious reproach, then nodded.“Very well.”He gave Eraeth one last look,then pushed through the hut’s door and inside.

Vaeren and Siobhaen had already split the room into two sections, the saddlebags of the Flame on one side, room for the Rhyssal House on the other. Vaeren had prepared the flames for spits, the fire crackling, embers fluttering upward as he tossed on another few branches. The smell of smoke had permeated the entire hut, the heat driving out the musty dampness of the stone.

Aeren, Eraeth, and Colin began settling in on the Rhyssal House side, laying out pallets on the stone benches, Eraeth sitting, legs crossed beneath him, and removing his cattan. He began cleaning the blade with a soft cloth, Vaeren watching from the far side of the fire. Siobhaen removed a small dagger and whetstone, the scrape of metal against stone echoing harshly in the small hut. The rest of the group returned, Petraen and Boreaus bearing dinner already on spits.They set them over the fire, Petraen retrieving the bread they’d been given and handing it out, Boreaus turning the spitted animals.

The enticing scent of roasted meat filled the room, thick and heavy, making Colin’s stomach growl. He took the bread from Petraen as he passed and bit into it. He leaned back against the stone of the wall and closed his eyes as he chewed, listening to the schick of Siobhaen’s dagger, the banter between Petraen and the rest of the Rhyssal Phalanx, the softer conversation between Aeren and Eraeth.

Then, when the sounds and smells and warmth had almost lulled Colin into a light sleep, the fl utter of a pipe broke through the general noise.

Colin opened his eyes to find Petraen sitting across the fire from him, the pipe drawn to his mouth, his fingers playing lightly over the holes down its length. He ran through a series of runs, the pipe’s sound hollow and playful, lower in tone than Colin would have expected. At the spit, Boreaus shook his head and sprinkled some kind of herb onto the charring meat. The fire sizzled as grease dripped from the carcasses.