The Dagger of Adendigaeth (A Pattern of Shadow & Light) (68 page)

Ean took his place between Bjorn and Isabel and looked down upon the city where the streets seemed a rushing river of torches, candlelight and revelry. Men and women in colorful costumes packed every boulevard and avenue, such that the streets appeared a multicolored, multi-faceted serpent undulating throughout Niyadbakir.

“The Solstice is upon us,” Björn said. He turned to Ean with a smile. “Rebirth and renewal. That’s what we celebrate tonight. Both are concepts you’re becoming more familiar with, I believe.”

“Yes, my lord. Intimately so.”

“So much of what we’re doing surrounds these beliefs,” the First Lord observed as he returned his gaze to the revelers below. “The Solstice is the death of the old year and the birth of a new one, even as it represents the death of the winter sun, to be reborn anew with the warmth of spring. It’s a celebration symbolic of passing through the darkness that is death’s veil of amnesia into the rebirth of knowledge on the other side. The Returning itself is the rebirth of an old soul into a new lifetime, just as the Awakening is another rebirth, this one of Adept talent. And when the realm is restored and Adepts are once more Returning
and
Awakening, then will we have a rebirth of Alorin itself.”

“There is Balance in all things,” Isabel murmured reverently.

“Ah, look…” A sudden blossoming of colorful stars exploded over the city—fire candles of gold, violet, crimson and silver-white. The First Lord’s eyes sparkled as he watched. “The Iluminari have outdone themselves this year.”

They watched for a long time together while the skilled Iluminari set off their rockets filled with explosive powders that created such a brilliant display of airborne fire. After they’d all seen their fill, they made their way back to the table, where the dessert course had been set during their absence.

“By the by,” Björn mentioned as he was retaking his seat, “interesting working I noticed on the currents this morning.”

Ean reached urgently for his wine.

Isabel meanwhile replied, “Really, brother?”

Björn eyed her benignly. “A pattern of binding, as you know, is quite telling on the currents. You can read nearly everything that was done to seal it. It was almost as if I had been there to witness it myself.”

Ean choked into his wine.

Isabel arched a brow as she ate her dessert. “A binding, you say?”

Björn cast them both a droll look. “There are three men in the realm who could’ve produced that working, even if Ean’s seed wasn’t all over it to announce his culpability. Being that neither Markal nor I were likely to bind ourselves to you in this fashion, Isabel, it was fairly clear exactly who and what had been done.”

Isabel was licking her dessert spoon in a most alluring way. She turned to her brother and murmured sweetly, “One does try to make things simple.” 

Björn cast her a sardonic look before turning fully to face the prince. “Ean, I must say, I’m pleased to discover that my sister has encouraged you to test your wings. The working was perfectly managed. I noticed that it was layered with Form and released with…well,
precise
timing. I made a point of mentioning your skill to Markal so he is well aware of your readiness to move forward into more esoteric practices.”

Ean inwardly groaned.

“Good progress overall, I would say.” 

Isabel blessed him with a beatific smile.

Björn leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek. “I am happy for you, you know that. This reunion is long deserved.” He looked to the prince as he sat back in his chair. “Ean, now that you will no doubt be regularly bedding my sister, I know how difficult it can be to think of anything else. It is my hope that you’ll find the clarity needed to continue advancing quickly, and that you won’t let Isabel become a distraction. We have a short window in which to achieve so much.” 

Ean managed, “No, my lord. Of course not,” even while wondering how in Tiern’aval he was going to accomplish it. How could being in love with Isabel van Gelderan be anything
but
unbearably distracting?

Isabel set down her spoon and pushed back from the table, and Ean and Björn both stood to attend her. “I wish to spend some time in the city,” she told them. “I’ve asked Dagmar to accompany me.”

As if on cue—or possibly because she already knew he was approaching—Dagmar’s pale head appeared over the rim of the arching bridge. Grinning broadly, the Second Vestal greeted his oath-brother with a fierce hug. “May we meet in the Returning, brother!” Dagmar exclaimed as he withdrew, grabbing Björn by both shoulders.

“And know each other by Epiphany’s grace,” Björn replied. He placed his hands on Dagmar’s shoulders in return, and they shared a knowing look. Dagmar then made his rounds, greeting Isabel and Ean in like manner. Once the Solstice had been properly observed, the Second Vestal extended his arm to Isabel.

She walked to Ean and planted a kiss upon his mouth that was so deep and languorous it would’ve shamed the boldest courtesan. Casting her brother what could only have been an imperious look beneath her blindfold, she accepted Dagmar’s offered escort and departed.

Ean watched her go feeling electrified and even slightly confused.

Björn retook his seat, settled back in his chair and crossed booted ankle over knee. “My sister…” the First Lord noted as Ean was slowly sitting down again. He looked to him. “Once…a
very
long time ago, I had the audacity to doubt her. She likes to remind me of this failing when the opportunity presents itself.”

“Thank you for the warning,” Ean said, feeling slightly dazed.

“Indeed,” Björn sighed. “Isabel has a long memory.” 

He considered Ean for a long time in silence then, his gaze penetrating. Ean’s anxiety grew to alarming levels in anticipation of the host of reprisals he expected now that Isabel was gone. What the first lord said instead came as a surprise. “Ean…” Björn called the prince’s eyes to meet his. “My sister has waited a long time for you to rejoin her. I cannot possibly convey to you my joy in knowing that your love has been restored.”

Ean never knew what possessed him to confess in return, “My lord, I worked a fifth-strand binding of Form upon your sister without a second thought! If anything had gone wrong, she could’ve—”

But Björn waved off his haphazard apology. “I suspect there was little chance of anything going wrong. This isn’t the first time you’ve bound yourselves to each other, nor even the first time she’s required me to witness it.”

Ean looked at his empty plate feeling unnerved. It was one thing to perform the working in private and quite another to discover that your almost brother-in-law knew all of the intimate details. Exhaling a troubled sigh, the prince turned to look out over the city far below. The Iluminari had finished their extravagant performance, but the revelry would continue until dawn.

“It’s difficult for you, I know,” Björn observed quietly. “Your successive lives are layered like
Form in a pattern.”

Ean shot him a stricken look, for his words could not have been truer nor pierced him deeper, though they were kindly spoken. “I feel the
rightness
in everything I’ve learned since coming here,” the prince confessed, relieved on some level to be able to voice these troubling thoughts, “but it’s very hard to assimilate it all.” He pushed a hand through his hair and swallowed, his brow furrowed as he stared hard at the table. “It’s as if I have two very different lives, and they don’t exactly reconcile. I don’t
doubt
the memories from my other life—truly I don’t,” and he cast the First Lord a determined look, “but…I don’t know how to incorporate them into
this
life.”

Björn regarded him gently. “How easy it would be if we lived but once. One life, one set of choices, one path, winding though it may seem at the time. The truest simplicity. Alas, ‘tis not so.” He held Ean’s gaze with his incredibly blue eyes. “We are the accumulation of eons of choices, mistakes, tragedies. Most of us never know that so many of our decisions are made without our true volition, but rather as the slaves of decisions made in some earlier life—decisions which affect us still.”

Ean thought of the door he couldn’t yet open to his previous life with Isabel, the door somehow connected with the blindfold and a forgotten promise.

“Until we accept these things, these choices, these decisions,” Björn advised, “until we are willing to confront these choices and declare them our own—for good or ill—we will remain the unwitting prisoners of them.”

Something in this explanation reminded Ean of Raine and the Fourth Vestal’s frustration at his own inability to understand Björn. “My lord,” Ean said, lifting his gaze to meet the Vestal’s, “why is there such conflict between you and the other Vestals? I’ve seen the obsidian wall. I know what it is we fight—insomuch as I can understand it—but I can’t understand why the other Vestals don’t see the truth of what you’re doing. For me, everything just…resonates.”

Björn considered him for a long moment of silence, his gaze intense. Just when apprehension was beginning to flutter inside Ean, Björn roused from his contemplation. “Time is a factor in many aspects of our existence…” he said, and here he considered Ean again—intently, piercingly—as though the prince held a deep secret behind his eyes which Björn was compelled to draw forth. “Time is the deciding factor ultimately in what is right.”

Ean frowned. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

Björn took up his wine and leaned back in his chair. “When determining the right course of action, do we determine what is right for one life, here, today, now? Do we save one life today? Do we save a hundred lives a year from now? Do we save a million lives three hundred years in the future by what we do here today, even if today’s actions require sacrifice or death?” 

Björn eyed him inquisitively, posing this question for Ean’s consideration. “And if you have the ability to envision such a grand scope of events into the far future—moreover, if you have the fortitude to endure the ages, the tragedies, the terrible sacrifices, and still persist on your given course, if your conviction is strong enough to carry you through all of this, well…” and here he shrugged. “If that is the game you’ve chosen to play, it only follows that the things you may be doing will seem
utterly
inexplicable to those who live only for one game, one life, here, now.”

Ean tried earnestly to grasp the far-reaching implications of this statement. The part of him that had been playing Björn’s game for eons knew that this was not merely one man’s stubborn rationalization of why others didn’t understand him. This was at the core of everything they had been doing—
were
doing. The revelation hit with that soul-vibrating truth that Ean had come to know too well.

Suddenly he had no doubt but that he’d known this truth many times, that he’d accepted it many times, that indeed, at one time—perhaps for a long time—
this
was the truth that had defined him completely.

Ean forced a dry swallow. “But Raine…” he managed then, “why couldn’t
he
understand?” For all that the Fourth Vestal had misused him, Ean knew he was a good man with the best of intentions.

Björn exhaled regretfully. “Raine has ever been limited by a strict adherence to empirical thought. Everything must be explained, and all of the pieces have to form a perfect pattern in his experiential whole. If some of these pieces don’t mesh—if they’re not empirical facts—Raine chooses instead ones that are, even if these latter facts don’t mesh as well, even if the
less
empirical ones provide a better explanation. Yet he cannot accept them because they are outside the limits of his rationale.” 

Björn pushed back from the table and stood, and Ean followed him as he walked to the railing and gazed out over the world he and Malachai had created. “You have to take
some
things on faith, Ean,” he advised, casting him a tragic sort of smile. “Everything cannot always be explained or even fully quantified. For example, how would you explain these feelings you have, the ones where you just
know
something to be true?” He arched brows at Ean in inquiry.

The prince shook his head. “There is no way I could adequately explain them to anyone. I barely understand them myself.”

“Yet you
know
.”

“I know,” Ean whispered, feeling that sudden constricting guilt welling once more.

Björn opened his hands and seemed to address the world at large as he said, “There has to come a point in your logic where you say, ‘all right, I’ve seen A to be true, and I’ve seen B to be true, and while I haven’t seen C to be true, it yet follows in line with A and B and therefore it must also be true.’” He turned to Ean with a grave expression. “Raine can’t make that leap.” He pushed hands into his pockets and exhaled. “It has forever limited him as a wielder, and it has been his greatest disability as a Vestal.” Leaning sideways against the railing, he added with a tragic sigh, “I wonder sometimes if this entire game wasn’t played out in part to give Raine the empirical facts he needed.”

When Ean gave him a startled look, he shook his head and reassured, “Of course it was not, yet it has served the same purpose. Raine at last will have his empirical proof. Would that events had not needed to progress so far for him to gain it.”