Sons of Destiny Prequel Series 003 - The Shifter (11 page)

"No," Kenyen dismissed. Then realized he should've gone for the sympathy angle. He faked a slight grimace and touched his shoulder. "Well, not really. It does hurt a lot in general, but... what?"

Solyn smirked, studying him. "You don't lie very well."

He blushed at that and retorted defensively, "Well, as my betrothed, aren't you supposed to offer to lovingly tend my wounds, however small they might be?"

She snorted and pushed him down the path. "As if! You know very well I only said that to Tunric's boy so he'd stop trying to pressure me into accepting him."

Kenyen stumbled a few steps before recovering. Her confession changed the whole scenario for him. He
wasn't
cheating by holding her, if she and Traver weren't...
And that's where I run into trouble again, because if I
do
take advantage of the situation, how is that any better? I've enjoyed the company of a few outkingdom women in the past, but this isn't the best situation to try for a casual romp!

"Wait, that confuses you?" Solyn asked him, watching her childhood friend frown as he followed the path to the right. "I told you how we ended up betrothed just before you left. Don't you remember?"

"Well, I
don't
remember how we ended up betrothed, so
yes
," Kenyen defended himself. "I don't know a
lot
of things, at the moment. Forgive me for stumbling around."

"Okay, that one wasn't so much a lie," she conceded. He did sound lost and frustrated to her. "And I'm trying to keep that in mind. You just... there's
something
different about you, and I don't know what it is—and this conversation is at an end, because we've just come into hearing range of others," Solyn added in an undertone as they approached the first stone-and-plaster cottage. "But we
will
continue it soon."

"Second house, right?" he asked.

Solyn nodded. "This is your brother Bel—"

"—Belseth's place, yes. I remember that, now," the man at her side said, glancing first at it as they passed, then at the next home. "And my room is... in the loft. With my brother Tellik... yes?"

Solyn chuckled. "See? It'll all come back to you. We don't get many head injuries around here, more like broken bones from taking a tumble down the hillsides, but Mother did mention her uncle taking a dive the wrong way, back when she was my age.
He
remembered his bed was in the loft, except it hadn't been up in the loft since he was a child, and he was a full-grown man with a wife and two children."

Impulsively, Kenyen caught her hand and smiled. "Well, maybe that day isn't far off, when I'll have what he had as a man."

He said it for the benefit of the woman peering out through one of the cottage's windows, since from their too-brief discussion a few moments ago, this betrothal between her and the real Traver sounded like yet another layer of deception. But from the startled look in Solyn's eyes, she hadn't expected him to play along. For a moment, he debated dropping her hand, then kept hold of it, leading her to Traver's house. His house, temporarily.

Uncomfortable with the masquerade, he resolved to fly back that night to Cullerog's cottage. He did need to question Traver about a few things, but he was also worried for her betrothed's sake. Her friend's sake. Actually, her he-didn't-know-what's sake.
Not like I can ask either of them outright, "How do you really feel about each other, and how do you want me to play this role-within-a-role thing I'm stuck doing?"

Given what she had said just now, Solyn was undoubtedly Traver's unnamed accomplice. That meant he
should
be able to tell her who he really was. Kenyen didn't have a chance, however. "His" little sister came running out of the second house on the right, arms lifted, her little legs making short work of the distance between them.

"Traver! Traver! Up up up!" she commanded, in the way of little girls everywhere. Clad in a pale blue skirt and side-buttoned tunic much like Solyn's brighter blue clothes, brown curls bouncing as she moved, she looked adorable.

"I'm afraid I can't, Tinia," he said, remembering her name. Kenyen touched his shoulder. "I hurt my arm and I have to wait until it heals."

"Uuuup!"
the toddler whined, bouncing and tugging on his trouser leg.

A glance at Solyn showed her biting her lip in an unsuccessful attempt to stifle her grin. Apparently this was a common ritual for the real Traver to endure. Sighing, Kenyen stooped and scooped her up with his right arm, balancing her by her linen-skirted bottom. A subtle shift gave him a little extra muscle so that he could hold her easily.

The little girl immediately wrapped her arms around his neck and gave him a messy kiss on his cheek, then demanded, "Down down down!"

Solyn rolled her eyes. Catching sight of it, Kenyen made up his mind in an instant. "No."

Tinia reared back, staring at him. "Down?
Dowwn!
Down down down down!"

"No," he repeated. If she kept acting like this, and if everyone else kept giving in to her as she expected, Kenyen knew the little girl on his arm would grow up to be spoiled, expecting everyone to give in to her demands.
I've seen a few maidens down on the Plains acting this way, and they're never pleasant to be around, unless you do give in. She may not be my sister, but I got the feeling Traver isn't the type who would want her to grow up spoiled.

"Whyyyy?"
Tinia whined when her wiggling didn't get her set down. She fisted her little fingers in his tunic, tugging on the faded brown linen.

"Ask politely, and I will let you down," he explained. "Whine, and you won't get what you want. Now, say, 'Please put me down,' and I'll put you down."

"Dooowwwn!"
she whined.

"Nope." Hefting Tinia a little higher, he winked at Solyn, who was struggling not to laugh out loud. Together, they walked toward Traver's house.

Tinia squirmed as they crossed the threshold. She gave up after a few moments but asked hesitantly, "Down?"

"Say please—hello, Mother," he added, catching sight of Tenaria. Unlike the Healer's home, this one had a front room with tables and chairs, leading into a partially visible kitchen at the back, behind the fireplace in the center of the house. Doors to the left led into what looked like bedrooms, and a steep staircase to the right of the hearth led up into the loft.

"Dooowwwwn!"

"Tinia, we do
not
speak in such tones," Tenaria admonished her child, peering around the stone-and-mortar corner of the fireplace.

"Say please," Kenyen added, grateful "his" mother agreed. Tenaria ducked back into the kitchen area.

Tinia pouted, lower lip sticking out. She finally mumbled, "Please, wan' down."

"Of course." Stooping again, Kenyen let her squirm free once she was low enough and let her totter off. The little girl headed straight for a trio of rag dolls piled near the unlit hearth, where she plopped down and started playing with one of them, bouncing it on the linen of her skirt and mumbling to herself.

"It's good to have you home, my boy, though I'm sorry you came home in such a fashion. Still, if you can lift up your sister..." Tenaria started to say, her voice slightly muffled by the fireplace between them.

"Actually, it was just my right arm. Anything with my left arm is forbidden for the next... four days?" Kenyen quickly stated.

"Three to five days," Solyn filled in for him. "Mother will take a look at him again in a few days. Traver should be fine for helping with some light chores, but nothing more heavy than a loaf of bread in that hand, if it can be avoided."

"And are you going to help him?" Tenaria asked the younger woman, coming fully into view. Her fingers were sticky with dough, which she picked at idly as she spoke. "Since he is your betrothed now? About time, if you ask me. You need to pull your head out of the clouds, young woman, and work on learning the
important
things in life."

He didn't know what the older woman meant by that, but from the set of Solyn's mouth, Kenyen guessed it was an old argument. Disapproval was disapproval, whether or not there were actual grounds for it. Impulsively, he put his right arm around the younger woman's shoulders. "Whatever Solyn chooses to do, so long as she harms no one by it—and I've no doubt she will choose to help people by it—well, I will support her in it. After all,
I
will be the one to live with whatever she chooses to do. Not you, Mother."

Taken aback, Tenaria blinked. She stopped cleaning the dough from her fingers for a moment, then drew in a breath and let it out with a shrug. Shaking her head, the plump, curly-haired woman returned to the kitchen without another word.

"Traver..." Solyn stared at him. Of all the things he could've said to his own mother's argument, well, she
knew
he was supportive of her attempts at learning magic, but not to the point of standing up to his own mother.
Whatever happened to him when he hit his head, he has
definitely
changed... and I think I like it.

The name, barely breathed, made Kenyen realize such instincts were dangerous; he had spoken with the cultural drives of his own people and not the Corredai. Not that he knew much about the Corredai outlook for such things, but what was said could not be erased. Shrugging awkwardly, he whispered back, "What? Look, if we're in this thing together, we're in it together, right?"

"Shh," she admonished. "Not here." Raising her voice, she lifted her chin toward the stairs. "Let's get your things upstairs. You'll have to show your mother what needs stitching later, when she's not busy.
Or
finally learn to wield needle and thread like a
real
man."

"What, and deprive my beloved the chance to show how much you care for me by doing it yourself?" he quipped back, startling Solyn with his quick wit. He grinned, looking rather cute and sure of himself. "I wouldn't dream of denying you the opportunity."

Eyeing him up and down, Solyn snorted. "You really
did
hit your head, didn't you?"

"What, you don't sew?" Kenyen asked, trying to keep his tone light. This wasn't one of those things he and the real Traver had discussed.

"Of course I do," she dismissed. "But I thought you were going to support me in anything I
wanted
to do."

Caught off guard, he laughed. "Oh, fine. If you'll show me what to do, I'll fumble through it on my own."

"And have you looking like a rag doll?" Tenaria quipped from around the corner. "Set it on the hearth table, and I'll look at it later. The two of you can go search for eggs in the hen yard.
That
I know you can do, young man, even with a wounded arm."

"Yes, Mother." Kenyen sighed. Tenaria looked nothing like his own mother, who was taller and had straight, dark brown hair, but the two women certainly sounded alike in some ways. "Hand me the basket, and we'll go look for eggs."

And maybe have a chance to talk quietly with each other,
he hoped, though he wasn't going to hold his breath. Very little in any of this mess had gone quite right since finding that corpse in the cave.
If we can be alone long enough for me to reveal who I am
and
convince her I'm speaking the truth, maybe Solyn can help me when I'm acting too far out of character for her friend. I hate this hit-or-miss nonsense.

Traver was definitely different. He moved with more grace, he spoke with more confidence, he acted with more sureness. Solyn knew she should be doubting his identity, awkwardly placed ring or not, but she couldn't quite bring herself to completely mistrust her friend.
Part of it's because he's just so... so
nice, she acknowledged silently, watching him barter with the spice trader for the things his mother wanted.
I can usually spot a fake Corredai simply by the little things he does. The subtle sneers, the covert condescensions, the dismissive demeanor. But Traver is still as nice as ever.

Just... different. Nice, but different.
He puzzled her. Two days had passed, and Solyn was still being his watchdog, as much to make sure he suffered no lasting harm from his injuries as from the need to try to find a moment alone with him, one long enough to discuss what had happened to their plans to send him north to the Plains.

Not that she had much else to do. Ostensibly, she was her mother's apprentice. In reality, her magics weren't quite the right kind for healing spells, though she could manage a few, and she knew how to craft most of the herbal remedies her mother used. Setting bones, stitching and binding wounds, those things she could do, but her powers flowed just a little too differently to help a body to heal.

What she needed was to be sent to a bigger city, where she could find real training in the arcane arts, not just whatever she could puzzle out from books and extrapolate from her mother's methods. What she had to do was stay to protect her mother, and her mother's greatest secret.