Scion of Cyador

XI

Lorn places the bronze key in the lock of the upper-floor quarters that had been Ryalth’s and are now theirs, but the door has already been unlocked. He steps inside. Ryalth stands just behind the privacy screen.

“You surprised me. You made your way here from Ryalor House earlier than I had thought,” he admits.

“This is our last night together. I thought you would be awaiting me.” Her smile is nervous, tentative. “I hastened from the Plaza.”

“I am sorry. I was saying good-bye to my parents and Jerial, and before that, Myryan. She wasn’t at their dwelling, and I had to find her at the infirmary. I returned as quickly as I could.” He steps forward and hugs her, brushing her cheek with his lips and murmuring in her ear, “I’m glad you’re here.”

After a moment, she returns the embrace, and they remain pressed to each other for yet a time. Then she eases back, her hands holding his, his fingers cool around hers, her fine eyebrows lifting. “You took a while.”

“My father had more than a few words of advice.” He forces a wry smile. “And some questions. He gave me a sheet of them.” Lorn raises the parchment. “He told me to consider them, to ponder them on the firewagon trip to Biehl.”

“He accepts you for what you are, yet can offer but little assistance-unlike your brother, for whom he can do much,” suggests the redhead.

“That may be.” Lorn frowns. “He also offered an observation, almost as if I were a child, that while Cyad is a marvelous city, the people are as others. Why would they be otherwise?”

“Because, dearest, you still believe that a great city must come from great people.” She offers a sad smile. “A great city can come from but a handful of great people, and the acceptance of the rest, who are grateful and pleased to benefit from the labors of the few. You have said as much yourself, yet I am not sure you believe it.” Ryalth slips her hands from his and crosses the main chamber to the cooler, where she bends and searches, before lifting out an amber bottle of Alafraan. “I did save a few bottles for us here.”

“ ‘Save’?”

“You will need some in Biehl.” She grins. “Someone has to take care of those details.” The grin fades. “You are worried.”

“My father. He does not look strong…and he insisted on having a private talk with me.” Lorn shakes his head. “Some of it, I don’t understand. He practically threatened me years ago to stay away from you. He told me I must break off the relation with you, that it was not appropriate, and now he says I could not have picked a better consort anywhere, and my truth-reading shows that he means such.”

“For that, for us, I am most glad.” Ryalth uncorks the Alafraan and half fills two goblets, then recorks the bottle. “Perhaps the warning was to assure that you followed your heart and beliefs, and not custom.”

“It has to be…but…that would mean…” Lorn shakes his head once more. “It would mean that he doubted from the first that I would be a magus. Yet he pressed me to excel in those studies and kept telling me how a magus must love the study and use of chaos above all.”

“Is all that not true? Would you be what you are had you not done so well in those studies?”

“No,” Lorn admits. “But that would mean he expected…all that from the beginning.”

“He is your father. How could he not know?” Ryalth laughs gently. “We never expect the perception from our parents that we do from others who are wise.”

“He has given me hints, but I seldom felt his use of the chaos-glass in following me.”

“He knows you well enough that he needs no glass.”

Lorn’s smile is rueful. “And all these years, I thought I directed my own course.”

“We never direct our courses solely, dearest of lancers.” Ryalth extends a goblet to her consort. “Not even the highest do.”

“We like to think so.” He takes the goblet. “We like to think that the man-or the woman-makes the times, not that the times make them.”

Ryalth’s smile is gentle. “Thank you for including women. The original saying does not.” She raises her goblet, then sips. “Much of what we think is illusion, dear consort, grasped for comfort.”

Lorn lifts his goblet as she does, then sips the Alafraan. “I’m glad I didn’t have to wait another year to see you. Or have you travel all the way to the Accursed Forest.”

“As am I, but…An eightday is scarce enough to greet, let alone part.”

“Better an eightday than no time together at all.”

She nods slowly, then looks at Lorn for a long time. “I can travel to Biehl more easily…than to Jakaafra…or someplace like Syadtar or Assyadt.”

“Because it’s a port city?”

“I can make a trading run. I know Fyrad, for I grew up there, but Biehl I do not know, and it would be best for Ryalor House that I do.”

“Why Biehl?” he asks in spite of himself.

“Jera is the closest barbarian port, and many of the coasters run between the two. I would see what they trade that we know little of.” She takes another swallow of the Alafraan, far larger than is her custom. Her deep blue eyes are large and near-luminous as she looks once more at Lorn. “I will write you of trade, for I can ensure my scrolls go but to you while you are in Biehl. I would not talk more of trade this evening. Nor of duty.”

She sets the goblet on the table and moves around it toward him.

He sets down his goblet. As their arms go around each other, Lorn wonders at the sense of vulnerability he senses beneath her competent exterior…What is he missing?

But that wonder lasts but for a moment as their lips meet, and another type of marvel replaces the wonder.