Lord of the Sky (The Young Ancients: Timon) (20 page)

His brother sighed, but stuck his hand out, a small box being thrust at Timon.

"To get you started. It's just a house. One of the larger ones. I... wish you both happiness." If there was even a single part of him that actually meant it, that part belonged to Cordes, and lived deep inside the grudging husk that was his older brother. Still, he said the words and stalked off without saying that he thought it was all a huge mistake and probably a betrayal or something. Timon could even see how he might think that.

No one ever told him anything really, did they? Tor wasn't that great at seeing what everyone was doing either, so it meant things sometimes came as a surprise to him. Like Trice trying to get out of a bad arranged marriage. Timon would bet gold that his brother hadn't known about all that before Trice had asked him to marry her. If he had, things would have probably gone a lot differently, early on.

King Richard watched Tor move away and shook his head a little, which everyone probably saw, since it was sticking up so high, like a red beacon.

"I understand that you two might be out of touch for a while? I hate to ask, given the day, but if we need to move more troops into place, will your services be available?"

Trice, cutely enough, actually scowled and shook her head in return, but Timon shrugged.

"Yes. Arrange it with Collette Coltress for now. I'll leave a few extra craft, so that large groups can be moved that way. A thousand gold for every two hundred moved. Try not to need us personally if possible, for a few weeks." It was the kind of thing that needed to be said, with all the people listening, so no one even laughed at the words, as funny as they really were.

"Of course. Very good then. The troops in Rochester made all the difference, by the way. The enemy forces have retreated for now and the line is being held while others march into place. It's a bit more heated than I like, but I'd prefer battle not be needed at all." This part was, clearly, for everyone else listening. Not that the man didn't mean it.

"That would be ideal." Timon took Trice's hand again, ready to use having talked to the King as an excuse to get away, but the man didn't let him, clapping him on the shoulder first.

"Good!" The word was loud, and he spun them both around and actually started moving them off toward the door, as people turned in the ballroom, to look at them. "Away with you then. Go and don't come back until you're ready!" He was smiling hugely, as he moved them along with tiny shoving motions.

Everyone clapped and cheered a little, except Tor, who sighed and bowed a bit as they passed, which was polite, given he was sort of against the whole thing.

As soon as they were outside, Timon set up a craft, his old one that was faster, because it was set to be a fairly small mirrored cube at the moment and wouldn't crush anyone when it came into being. Princess Varley and her giant husband walked over, as well as Sara Debri, who had hung back all night, since she was half convinced he hated her now. It wasn't true. It never had been.

She hugged her friend and smiled at him, not moving in. The Princess spoke then, her voice low, but friendly.

"We'll deliver the gifts to your home, Timon. Everything will be taken care of. You two go and have fun." There was a grin that wasn't really very Princess like, but rather spoke of what kind of fun she thought they'd be having. Princess Karina managed a smile for him too and waved from a distance as they loaded up. There were hundreds of people outside, surrounding the craft, and they cheered as they left, which was pretty much the tradition everywhere in the kingdom really, so he didn't take it personally.

He lifted in the air, but moved directly in front of his own little cottage a few moments later.

"We should get our things and move out before anyone realizes it makes more sense to put us to work." He made himself sound decently friendly about it and Trice chuckled as he put the craft away. His trunks were packed and she had a bag, in her room at Tor's Palace, which meant taking about twenty minutes to get everything ready, but that wasn't bad, considering she was a noble woman. Most of them took forever to get ready.

She didn't do more than hold his hand or put an arm around him, until he set up one of his new craft, made it fairly large, sitting in front of his own house again, and caused it to glow red, with a green stripe. There were people watching and enough of them figured out what was going on that they cheered as they lifted off. People in the Capital loved an excuse to hold a celebration after all. People everywhere probably did, if he were going to be honest about it.

Someone had set up several magical events, so people jumped into the air trailing streamers of light behind them with sparks of color, doing dances after a fashion. There was music too, off in the distance in the cool night air, as well as several large bonfires. Those weren't real, he didn't think, since they were all exactly the same size.

In all it seemed like everyone was considering it a happy enough event. For his part... Well, it was done now, wasn't it? A fine thread of dread ran down his spine, and for a moment it felt a little hard to breathe. He took off instead of talking, his wife sitting next to him silently, looking at the scene in front of them. Not knowing what else to do, he set off to the south, the craft moving at full speed into the darkness of the night. After the glowing river was over the horizon, he set the craft to be totally black, matching the cloudy sky above them. No stars showed and the moon was no more than a faint glow behind them.

After about twenty minutes he just stopped, letting the vehicle hang in the air, unmoving.

"So..." It made him feel like a little kid, but he sucked his top lip in a bit and bit it, feeling oddly nervous about the whole situation. "I was thinking we could go to Soam first. It's very pretty there and I saw a nice waterfall... From the air. It's pretty isolated, but it might be worth looking at. We can just stay here for now, I think. Or move over the ocean, so that we can set up some water? That's probably..."

"Thank you." There was a hesitation to the words, but Trice kept going, not making him ask why she said that. Not that he didn't get it. "I know this isn't what you wanted at all. I won't get in your way. I'll help you too, if you want. To take over the Assassins Guild, if that wasn't a joke, I mean. I just hope everyone will forgive me eventually. I... Really, I should have just had him killed years ago, but we grew up together, when we were little. Rico isn't a good person, but..." She shrugged and didn't say anything else.

Timon looked over at her anyway, and managed to make his face look pleasant, which showed in the dim light that came through the window, from the hidden moon above, after it reflected off the clouds. Trice had to be pretty much blind, he realized. He could see her and in that moment she looked younger than she normally did, and worried.

That almost didn't make sense. It wasn't like he was going to force her to do anything. He
couldn't
. Oh, he had a right to insist, but had no illusions that she couldn't kick his behind if he tried too hard. Plus, that wasn't the agreement. Especially since he couldn't even look at her too hard without having the scene from Nora's torture chamber come back to him.

So it wasn't that. It was...

Really, he didn't have enough information to be able to tell what it was.

"Well, we should have him killed anyway, as soon as we can manage it without being suspicious. I figure that will be about two to six months. It would be better to go longer, but if we wait too long, then even the King won't be able to annul this without rousing suspicion." Looking at the side of her face, he noticed her eyes suddenly going wide and a look of terror coming across her features. She schooled the response after a few seconds, but it was definitely there.

 "Um... Tim... we
can't
have this annulled. Divorce is out too. I thought you knew that? Even if Rico was to die, we'd have to stay married, or else everyone would figure that one of us set it all up. Gala isn't the most militarily powerful Baron in the land, true, but until this whole rebellion is over Uncle Richard can't take the chance that he'd throw in with the other side in anger. Even if things were peaceful right now, he probably wouldn't. Not when there's a nice solution already accomplished. I... who said that we could have it undone like that?" The tension in her voice made it almost harsh after a few seconds.

"Oh, no one. It was just an idea I had. I can see it was wrong. Not a problem. We should still kill this fellow. If he's bad enough that you're willing to tie yourself to
me
forever to avoid him, then we shouldn't let him take power. I'll be alive when the current Baron dies and don't want to bother with him later."

That got a low chuckle and Trice reaching out toward him. She wasn't close enough, but he took her hand, even if it did make him uneasy.

"That sounds good. We should wait. That two years you mentioned at least."

"Alright. So, this is the point where normally I'd get you into bed, but that isn't happening. Sorry about that, but... Well, you know. I do seem to be getting better, so by the time you're forty, fifty tops, we should be good that way." There was a playful tone in his voice, but she was bright enough not to flirt with him, even if it would be the common response. It would be too much and it should have been clear to anyone that he was only making light of it as a deflection. He felt bad, for so many reasons it wasn't funny at all. Sad and scared, on a deep level. It was all about him, but there was no reason to take it out on Trice. She'd just done what she had to in order to survive and do her job.

He wouldn't have done anything less himself, would he? True, in his case it would have been running far away, but she had a bigger duty than he did.

"I know, let's set things up in back? This thing has almost everything that one of the good magical houses does. It isn't as big and the furnishings are simpler, but we can make beds, rooms, other living facilities and all that kind of thing. Lights too... Here." letting go of her hand, he touched the arm rest of his seat, just below the control hand piece and caused the entire ceiling to glow in the back. It made it about as bright as a cloudy afternoon in the empty space behind them.

The Ducharina let a single eyebrow go up, and managed to look inappropriately sultry then.

"Hmmm? Not even married a few hours and you already want to set up house? If I didn't know better I'd think you were trying to tell me something." She winked and stood then, stretching, her hands going over her head easily as her back bent, pushing her chest out. "I
do
know better. Now, let's see what this thing will do?"

It killed nearly an hour, touching the walls of the craft and thinking hard about things that they wanted to fill the space. The look wasn't as classy as one of Tor's big houses would have been, true, but it ended up looking nice and having almost everything they could want. They needed water, but the world was covered with oceans, and, he assured her, the pumps would strain the salt out of the sea water automatically.

Then it was time to sleep. He didn't know what he was supposed to do, other than say goodnight and pick a room, so that was what he tried for. Trice gave him a look and kissed him gently, if on the cheek, so that it wouldn't be too intense for him.

"Dream well. If you hear me screaming, don't be scared. I have nightmares..." She said the words seriously enough that he made himself give her a hug. It wasn't a close thing, but he tried to be friendly about it at least.

"I do that too, most nights. See, we already have things in common."

She didn't laugh, but they were able to separate then and despite what they'd both said, there were no loud screams or howls of pain at all. Not that he noticed.

The bed was nice and he had a window in his room, which was actually very good sized. Morning came early, since they'd pushed a long way south, so he flew on for a while, then lowered over the ocean, so that they could both bathe and brush their teeth, when Trice finally got up. She slept for a long time, not stirring until nearly ten, a full two hours after he'd bathed.

"Good morning! Did you sleep alright?" It was what you said, at least most of the time, but he wondered if he was supposed to be more kind about it or use some term of endearment? Shrugging he winked at her. "I mean, did you sleep alright...
dear
? Honey?" Shaking his head he frowned, since those sounded so forced. "I'll work on that. We should see if we can find some food soon. Do you want to get a bath first? I think we can find some in Soam. You're good with fruit, aren't you? That stuff just grows on trees there, if you can believe it."

She smiled and rolled her eyes, looking a bit puffy and sleepy still.

"A bath sounds great. Are you going to join me?"

"Not this time. That isn't about
you
, by the way, I've just already done that this morning. I can run along the coastline for a while and see if I can find anything, while you do that."

She stared at him for a bit, but then just walked out, headed toward the bathing chamber. It was pretty clear that she didn't understand why he'd pass up a chance to see her naked, even knowing what she did about him. Clearly, to her mind what had happened to him shouldn't have anything to do with
her
. That was even correct really. It wasn't her fault at all, so why shouldn't they act like normal people? Even if they didn't have sex, bathing together was a regular noble activity, and didn't mean anything to her. He'd managed it with Judy and Petra even, so he should be able to handle it.