The Way of Things: Upper Kingdom Boxed Set: Books 1, 2 and 3 in the Tails of the Upper Kingdom (57 page)

And so he turned on his heel,
preparing to find his brother and usher him to safety when a shadow slipped out
of the darkness of the cliff.

Fingers reached up to remove a
dark hood and the Captain of the Queen’s Guard caught his breath.

For standing here, right here, in
an oasis born of sulphur, hot water and rock, in the easternmost reaches of
Hiran,
stood the Empress.

***

He looked up from the wound of
the Major’s Imperial grey, to the clouds closing in overhead, and sighed. It
seemed that the fates had targeted him somehow, ever since the misfortunate
hour of his birth. He rarely had more that two weeks before some trouble or
another would find him and leave him broken and in desperate need of repair.
But this journey?
It was unnatural the
way the fates were chasing him. He couldn’t even begin to count the lashes.

First is Luck. Second is Destiny.
Or so the saying goes. Kirin was
first-born, the chosen son, but obviously the one destined for great things.
He
was second born but the lucky one.
How could they have ended up so backward, so that an entire school of philosophy
was turned on its ear, just for the house of Wynegarde-Grey.

But, he thought with another
sigh, perhaps it was simply the way of things.

He rubbed the great chest, wiped
the rest of the healing linement off on his trousers and turned to leave, all
but bumping into the Scholar as he did so. Her hair was wet, and she was
barefoot, wearing a simple shift and blanket and he knew at once she’d been
swimming.

“Sidala,”
he said happily, reaching for her elbows to move her out
of his way. “The pools or the springs?”

“Um, springs,” she said, and it
seemed to him that she was a little befuddled. Or perhaps concentrating.

“Ah yes, good for the bones. How
was your first exercise?” She did not seem like she was getting out of his way
anytime soon. He was certain he could distract her and make his escape.

“Oh, terrible. I feel terrible. I
ache all over. She is so cruel, that woman. She’s a horrible, terrible, cruel
woman. I really don’t think I want to be a soldier. Not at all.”

“Yes, yes. I feel the same way.
Listen, I need to find my brother –“

And again, she stepped into his
way, and again, there was something in her eyes, something strange that was not
often there.

“Sidala?”
he asked point-blank. There was simply no getting around
her. “What can I do for you?”

“I…I…”

“Yes?” He glanced up at the sky.
It was getting darker now, becoming difficult to tell cloud from night. The
wind had picked up and it smelled of rain. He needed to find Kirin.

She took a deep breath, clenched
her jaw to stop her chin from trembling, and looked up at him. “I want to court
you.”

She said it, just like that. No
preamble, no smoothness or skill to commend her request, just a simple,
“I want to court you.”
He had never
heard such a thing. In fact, for the first time in a long time, he was speechless.

She threw her hands in the air.
“I know, I know, it’s not the ‘way things are done,’ but I’m so tired of the
‘way things are done’ and I really, really like you, and we get along so well,
and you don’t mind that I think too much and I don’t mind that you drink too
much, and we both fall into trouble far too much for our own goods, I mean,
good, but it just comes down to the fact that I don’t really care about rules
or “the way things are” and I just want to…I just want to, you know…court you…”

He was sincerely speechless. He
honestly had no idea what to say. What might be a good thing, what might be a
convenient thing, it didn’t seem to matter. Words, normally his allies, had
deserted him too. Curse those damned fates.

“Sidala,”
he said finally.

“Fallon Waterford. That’s my
name.”

“Sidala,
please…”

“Fallon. Say it. Say my name.”

“Names…ah, are personal things…”

“I said I want to court you,
Kerris Balthashane Wynegarde-Grey. I think that’s very personal!”

The winds were plucking at her
wet hair, drying it in pieces, leaving it damp in others. It exaggerated the
stripes. He could hear thunder in the distance now, feel the whispering voices
begin, and he blinked to bring him back to this place.

“Can we talk about this later,
sidala?”

“I know you have bedded Sherah. I
want to learn these things too! I am a woman, not a child.”

“I know, I know but…”

“Why can’t you teach me?”

The wind was strong now, causing
her shift to dance about her slim straight body. She was right – she was
a woman, not a child. He could not help but notice.

“I…I can’t…”

It was as if he had hit her, the
swift change in her expression.

“You…
can’t?”

“It would be wrong. You are so
young—“

She stamped her foot. “I am not
‘so’
young!”

“Sidala,
please, and you are pure, whereas I am far from it…”

“You are a lion. That’s plenty
pure.”

“Oh my. Oh my.” He took a step
backward, slapping a hand to his forehead and searching the skies as if for
help. But there was no help from the skies, only darkness and thunder and cruel
whispers. “That’s not what I meant.”

Her chin finally won out, and the
tremor in it was released, causing her lips to tremble with it. She took one,
two, three steps back and a single tear fell down her cheek, creating an
entirely new stripe along her face.

“I’m sorry,” she sobbed out loud.
“I’m so sorry. I’m hopeless, aren’t I?”

“No, please, that’s not what I
meant either—“

“Am I so ugly? I thought that
maybe my markings…”

“You have lovely markings,
sidala.
And you are far from
ugly—“

“So what is it, then? Why is it
so impossible for you to even consider a-courting me? Why?”

Thunder again, much closer now
and a flash of sheet lightning, making black clouds momentarily white.
Call me,
they crooned. He swallowed.“I
need to find my brother…”

And she did a thing that he had not
expected, which should not have surprised him, for this entire meeting had been
most unexpected. She stepped forward and lifted her chin to his face. Her
emerald eyes were flashing. It set his blood racing.

“You want
me
to think for myself but you,
you
have to ask your brother permission?”

He could feel the lightning,
calling him, wooing him, urging him, whispering and promising and he swallowed
hard again to shut it out, but there was a beautiful young tigress in front of
him and the voices were deafening and his head was spinning.

“Oh blast,” he muttered, and
grabbed her face in his hands and kissed her.

***

The Empress was standing in the
shadows of the ravine, her golden eyes fixed on his, a small intimate smile
playing on her lips.

She was glorious.

But she was the Empress. He
dropped to his knees in the most formal of bows, elbows to the hard, hard
ground, when he noticed her feet, tiny and slippered in braided gold. Beautiful
feet.

“Captain,” she said.

“Excellency. Why are you here?
How did you get here? Where are your guards? I…I do not understand.” Too many
questions spinning around in his head. It was impossible, yet she was here.

A hand touched his forehead. It
was cool like the night. Her hands were bare, most unusual, and her pelt
gleamed blue in glimpses of moonlight. “I have missed you,” she said.

She could slay him with a word
and he struggled for control. The Empress. His Empress. Thothloryn Parillaud
Markova Wu. Lyn-ling. Here in
Hiran,
in the Dry Provinces.

“Why are you here?” His voice was
little more than a whisper.

“Does it matter? I am here. It is
enough.”

This was a dream. It had to be.
He rose to his feet, all the while, caught up in those great golden eyes. He
was shaking.

She reached out a dark hand to
stroke his face and his head spun yet again. Light-headed, yes that was it. He
was light-headed. Drunk with her, the sight of her, the sound of her, the feel
of her bare hand on his pelt. He barely heard the thunder, barely saw the flash
of lightning as he did something that he had been waiting his entire lifetime
to do.

He pulled her to himself and
kissed her.

***

Tonight everything changes It is the way of things All is not Alchemy
but Alchemy is everywhere Even killing her will not change what is to come It
was yours to choose and choose you did What will happen now cannot be stopped
Be prepared my friend for trouble It will not rest now until you are dead

Sireth opened his eyes. “Petrus?”
He leapt to his feet. “Petrus!
Petrus!”
he cried out, and his voice echoed throughout the ravine, only the wind and the
cracking of the thunder drowning it out.

***

Something was wrong.

Despite the racing of his heart,
the taste of her lips on his tongue, the smell of her, orange and lotus and
incense, the feel of the silk crushing under his hands, something was
definitely wrong.

She was taller than he
remembered.

He opened his eyes.

***

Path the falcon changed her
course, angled her wing and headed back to the ravine.

***

She was tugging at his clothing,
pulling his tunic from his shoulder, and his own hands were everywhere,
throwing the blanket to the ground, under the shift, across her ribs, and she
was kissing him back with a passion he had not thought possible from one so…so…
scholarly,
but the thunder roared
again, and he needed help but none was coming and he lost himself to the
elements and remembered nothing for some time.

***

The Alchemist was smiling at him.

He stepped back, breaths coming
in short, sharp gasps.

The Alchemist.

Not the Empress.

“Sidi?”
she purred, her long speckled fingers reaching for him in
the darkness.

 
“Forgive me,
sidala,
I… I thought…”

He thought, but he had not known.
He had been lost, somehow, lost in the want of her, the illusion, and it
terrified him to know he could be so easily lost.

“There is no honor,” he uttered
to himself, remembering those words from what seemed a lifetime ago. “There is
only desire, and the sorrow that it brings.”

“Sidi?”
she asked again, stroking his face, his cheekbone, his jaw,
and he looked at her with new eyes, wondrous and dangerous and new. She was so
beautiful. Her golden eyes called him, captured him, bound him and he felt the
urge to utterly and finally surrender to her. Everything he had always wanted
but had denied himself, she offered freely. She could be his own, the place he
belonged, his home.

And this time, without veil or
illusion, he pulled her to himself, Sherah al Shiva, tangling his hands in her
long wild hair, and kissed her.

The lightning laughed at them
all.

***

Wing, Luke and Oded had retired
to their tents. There was no one around the campfire and Major Ursa Laenskaya
was furious. She stood perfectly still, fists clenched, highlights from the
flames lighting up one side of her white doeskin, and she looked around for
someone to blame. She saw shapes in the distance, shadows moving together and
she marched straight up to them and grabbed the lion’s shoulder, throwing him
aside with impossible force.

“You idiot! You spoiled,
insignificant excuse for a lion!” The lightning flashed, revealing not silver
but gold.

“Captain…I,” she gasped, stunned.
“Forgive me…”

The Captain released a sharp
breath, shook his head as if to clear it, while the Alchemist pressed herself
into the shadow, tears streaking down her face. The roar of thunder now,
shaking the air all around them, the wind howling like an angry dog, and
finally the lightning, a night-shattering fork of lightning brought the Captain
immediately and utterly to his senses, and bolting off into the darkness.

***

“Kerris!”

It would be high, he knew it, and
he raced up the rocks for higher ground. Lightning was flashing all around now,
accompanied by her furious lover, thunder, but not a single drop of rain
anywhere. The sand whipped into his eyes as he tried to see in the darkness,
waiting for the next flash to light up the night sky.

It came and he saw them. His
tunic was askew, fabric and hair alike whipping in the rushing windstorm and it
was then that Kirin knew he was too late. Hands stretched out at his sides,
palms down, sparks rising and leaping into them like fish in a fountain, face
raised to the sky. The Scholar was taking step after step toward him, her
unbridled curiosity leading her closer to death.

“Sidala!”
he cried as he flung himself toward her, but the wind
snatched his words from his lips and she continued, spellbound, her own hair
and shift snapping like dogs on the bluff. He saw it even as he ran toward it,
knowing it could also mean his own end, the inexorable raising of the grey
hands, those blasted cursed other-worldly hands, slowly, ritualistically to the
sky, calling the lightning into them. Calling the lightning home.

And the lightning came. Flash and
crack, for they were now one, and the heavens split open with fire, a single
bolt that rent itself in two, a sister for each hand, and the arc hit and time
slowed to a standstill.