The Chaos Balance

IX

Nylan lay on his couch in the darkness, listening to the wind as it rattled the shutters.

He’d scarcely seen Ayrlyn in the past two days, not since she’d sung the night before last. Was she avoiding him? Why?

The shutters rattled again.

What did he want? To live alone, to stay alone at the top of the tower he had built? To forge enough peerless blades to last generations-until Ryba needed his talents for some other form of mass destruction?

What did he want from his life, this life that had changed so much in the blink of a ship’s powernet that had fluxed and crashed? Then, had he known what he had wanted before, or just let the service dictate things? Building the tower had been the first big thing he had wanted…and it was done, and building another wouldn’t be the same, even if it were needed.

He shook his head.

The shutters rattled yet once more, and the smith turned on his couch until his eyes rested on the closed window and shutters. He and Ayrlyn had started to get close before winter closed in around them, but the confinement of the tower hadn’t helped. Or had that been an excuse?

He and Ayrlyn had agreed not to sleep together regularly because…because why? Because he was treading on thin ice with Ryba? Because he didn’t want to just drift into another relationship? Because he recognized that Ayrlyn needed a total commitment, and he didn’t want to be forced?

With a deep breath, he turned back over, away from the rattling of the window and the low whistle of the wind.

Plick! A drop of water splattered on the planked floor, probably from the slowly melting ice making its way through the slates of the tower roof, in places where two winters had frozen and crumbled the mortar they had used instead of the roofing tar they did not have.

Plick!

The smith took another long breath, then paused at what sounded like a whisper outside his door-or bare feet on the cold stones of the tower steps. But Ryba’s door had not opened. He would have heard if it had, and he had had nothing to do with Ryba since before the great battle of the previous autumn.

Plick!

His own door opened, and Nylan glanced through the darkness, not that it hampered his view. The strange underjump that had translated the Winterlance to whatever world they had found-like all worlds, the natives merely called it “the world” or “the earth”-the underjump that had turned his hair living silver had also given him night vision that was nearly as good as his day vision.

Plick!

The figure that slipped into his room did not have Ayrlyn’s flame-red hair, but silver hair.

“Istril?” he whispered, half sitting up.

Her finger touched his lips and her lips whispered in his ear. “Just tonight. I talked with the healer, and we agreed.” There was a pause. “Unlike some, Nylan, I wouldn’t deceive you.”

“But-”

“I want a daughter, and I want you to be her father. This is one of my visions.”

Before he could protest again, the slight and wiry figure eased out of the robe she had worn and under the thin blanket, her skin smooth and warm against his-except for very cold feet.

“Your feet-”

“They’re cold, but don’t make fun of me. This is hard…” Istril shivered, and buried her head in his shoulder for a moment.

Nylan could feel the dampness of her cheeks on his bare skin. He eased his arms around her, even as he wondered. Ayrlyn? Istril would not have lied, not for anything.

Ayrlyn? Why would she have agreed?

He stroked Istril’s silver hair for a long time before he kissed her, gently, before her lips trembled under his, before he chose not to resist what had been offered.