“But surely the queen is organizing to defend all of Grenda Lear, including Chandra,” Ager argued.
“Maybe, maybe not. An‘ then there’s that bastard from Aman makin’ everyone in Chandra unsettled.”
“The bastard from Aman?” Lynan asked. “You mean King Marin?”
“Lord, no, he’s too far away to trouble anyone. It’s his brother, the chancellor.”
“The man’s enough to make the dead unsettled,” Kumul agreed. “But he’s been chancellor for years now.”
“An‘ never had so much influence, folks say. Look at that mountain prince he’s fittin’ up with the queen.”
The four companions looked blankly at one another.
“You have been out of touch!” Yran declared. “King Matin’s son—Sendarus!”
“What’s this about Sendarus and Areava?” Lynan had met the man briefly before Usharna died, and he had seemed halfway decent back then.
“They’re playin‘ all sweet together, and Orkid’s budgin’ them on for all he’s worth. Accordin‘ to talk, the way they’re goin’ at it, Areava will have an heir by the end of next year.”
By now the inn was filling up with customers. Yran stood to leave. Lynan wanted to hear more about the goings-on in Kendra, but Yran waved him down. “I have work to do, lad. Maybe we can talk again later.”
Soon afterward bowls of thin beef soup arrived, and before they had finished those, plates with steak rounds and baked parsnips. The four wolfed down the food, more hungry than they could have believed possible.
When he was finished, Lynan rubbed his stomach. “It is a long time since we have had such a meal,” he said.
“Even longer since I enjoyed one so much,” Jenrosa added, looking reasonably content for the first time since their escape from Kendra.
Lynan took the time to look around at the crowd. Some were travelers, garbed in riding leathers and dirt-stained coats and cloaks, but most of Yran’s guests were locals in for a drink rather than a meal, farmers dressed in the same garb he himself had once worn to fool Ager on the night when they first met. That was less than four months ago, he reminded himself, but it feels as if years have passed since then.
Exhaustion crept over him, and he tried to shake it off. He wanted to speak to Yran again. His needed to know what was going on back in Kendra. He glanced up at his companions and saw they were equally tired. A full night’s sleep would do them all good, and who could say how long it would be before they would get another one.
“Why don’t you all go to bed,” he suggested. “I’ll stay up a while.” Jenrosa nodded, but Kumul and Ager looked unsure.
“One of us should stay up with you,” Kumul said. “Someone might recognize you and try something.”
“I’ve drowned, remember? No one is looking for me anymore. And if anybody had recognized me, don’t you think they would have given the alarm by now?”
Kumul could find no counter to the argument, and his body cried out for rest. “Well, don’t stray outside of the inn.” he warned, and then he and Ager left with Jenrosa to go to their rooms.
Lynan finished the dregs in his tankard and refilled it with the last of the peach wine. He noticed a collection of more comfortable chairs arranged in a semicircle around the main fire, all unoccupied, and left the table to claim one. Lynan found himself watching the dancing flames like a mouse hypnotized by the movements of a snake. His exhaustion returned and he tried to shrug it off, but the warmth and smell of the fire, and the peach wine, were making it impossible to keep his eyes open. He caught himself nodding off and tried sitting up, but after a moment his eyelids drooped again and his shoulders slumped forward. In the background he could hear the voices of Yran’s guests merge into a single low drone, and sleep stole over him like night over day.
Lynan woke with a jerk, shaking his head to clear it. Pins and needles sparkled under his thighs and he changed position. The fire was burning low and he felt colder. His empty tankard hung from his right hand. He looked over his shoulder and saw that the inn was almost empty now. A couple of travelers were sitting together, hunched over their drinks in serious conversation, and a group of farmers were telling each other stories at another table. With relief, he noted that Yran was still working, clearing tables and sweeping the floor. He caught the innkeeper’s eye, and Yran nodded back. Lynan took that as an encouraging sign and decided to wait a while longer. There was a sound on the stairs and he looked up to see Jenrosa. She came and took the chair next to his by the fire.
“Couldn’t sleep?”
She shook her head. Lynan liked the way the fire reflected in her sandy hair. “It’s like that sometimes, when you’re so tired you can’t even close your eyes.”
“Especially if something is on your mind, and you’ve had your fair share of troubles since we met.”
Jenrosa shrugged. “The truth is, things weren’t going that well for me back in Kendra. I was proving to be a disappointment to my instructors.”
“You couldn’t do the magic?” Lynan had heard that it could take years for magickers to develop their skills and, conversely, years to discover that their latent potential was not magical at all but some other gift or ability.
Instead of answering, Jenrosa put her hands out in front of her, palm outwards, and muttered three words. The flames in the fireplace brightened noticeably, and golden sparks shot up the flue.
“I’m impressed,” Lynan admitted. “I didn’t know a student could do that, especially a student in the Theurgia of Stars.”
The look she gave him was almost pugnacious. “You don’t really think Silona was scared off by nothing more than a burning branch, do you?”
Lynan could not help shuddering at the memory of that night, but he remembered how brightly Jenrosa’s brand had burned.
Jenrosa shrugged. “Party tricks, of course. I can’t start a fire, for example, only increase the brightness and heat of one that already exists, and then only for a short while.” Even as she said the words, the fire in front of them descended into old age again. “But my ability, for what it’s worth, does stretch across several disciplines. I think that’s why my maleficum and the theurgia’s instructors let me stay on for as long as I did.”
“You were in trouble with them?”
“I was bored with them,” she said. “The pointlessness of so much of the instruction, repeated from generation to generation for no other purpose than maintaining a tradition. They are never sure which bits of their rituals and incantations actually perform the magic, so they keep it all. Can you imagine how horrifying it will be for students a thousand years from now? They’ll be ninety before they graduate.”
“Still, at least you had a home with them.”
“Not for much longer.” She turned her head to meet his gaze. “But I would rather be here right now than back in Kendra. I know it’s easier to say this sitting in a dry and comfortable inn than it is in a forest inhabited by a vampire, but there you are.”
Lynan nodded, not sure what to say in response, so he offered a thank you. It seemed to have the right effect. Jenrosa smiled and got up. “I think I’ll be able to sleep now,” she said, and left.
Lynan watched her climb up the stairs, a part of him wishing he was climbing up with her, and all the way back to her bed. However, another part told him it would be exactly the wrong thing to do just then, and he took the advice.
He was not aware at first of the figures moving behind him, but when he looked over his shoulder to see where Yran was he found himself gazing into the steady brown eyes of one of the farmers. He was a light-skinned man, past middle age, with thick gray hair twisted into tight braids. He carried a paunch still kept in some control by broad muscles. His face was a macabre collection of scars and a crooked nose. Behind him were two taller men, their faces as disfigured, their hair almost as gray; they were so similar they could have been twins.