Rarely have I felt anything so sensually magnificent as that bath. I lowered myself gingerly into the steaming water, ignoring the protest of my aching ribs and the damaged muscles in my back as I curled up in the small tub and let the water cover my head. If I could have stayed under for an hour I would have done it. But I soon breached the surface, and over me came a joyous madness to get the remnants of Mazadine off me. With the scrap of cloth I’d found in Callia’s bits and pieces and the sliver of soap Dilsey had supplied, I scrubbed away layer after layer of filth until my skin was gloriously raw and the water was black. With a knife borrowed from the Elhim, I set out to trim my mat of hair to a civilized length and scrape off the seventeen years’ growth of unhealthy beard. The task took far longer than it should, for I’d not counted on the difficulties of trying to manage a knife with fingers that could scarcely bend. The tenth time the knife dropped into the water, my delight had given way to howling frustration. But I forced myself to pick it up again, using one hand to wrap the fingers of the other around the hilt and willing them to hold on. If I was to live, I had to begin somewhere.
Dilsey had left one last pitcher of clean water standing by the tub, and when I finished with the knife without cutting my throat, I stood up and poured the now cold water over myself, glorying in the feeling of being clean. I stepped out, using my shirt to dry off, and was standing in the middle of the room completely unclothed when I heard light running footsteps on the stair. I bent over to tug on my breeches, but in far too much of a hurry, so that I was left dizzy and had to lean my head against the wall to keep from falling over.
“Callia, I’ve come to get the bath. We’ve a guest who—Oh!”
I looked around to see a short, dumpy Udema girl, staring with crossed eyes and open mouth at my bare back. I didn’t like to think what it might look like. As I straightened, the girl’s eyes traveled upward, registering my height and, no doubt, the dark hair, straight nose, and lean features that confirmed my heritage. She backed toward the doorway, a trace of fear in her eyes, the wariness of the Udema servant who interrupts a Senai at his business. “Pardon, my lord.”
I tried to calm her, holding out a hand to stay her nervous flight, but she had already run down the stairs, no doubt spreading the gossip that Callia’s latest customer was a Senai whose back was ridged with layer upon layer of red and purple scars. On my first night at the lodging house the Elhim had reported rumors of a prisoner escaped from Mazadine. I’d given it no thought—mostly because I was incapable of thought, but also because I had not escaped. I had been released. The terms of judgment had been fulfilled. But now, faced with exposure, I wondered. What if Goryx had miscounted the days? What if he had released me one hour early ... or one day ... or one year ... and they said the time had not been completed and I would have to start again? What if they came to take me back?
I heaved up all the contents of my stomach into Dilsey’s earthenware pitcher, then leaned heavily on the windowsill and tried to get my damp shirt on, cursing my infernal weakness and my clumsy hands, praying for the wave of terror to pass. I had to leave.
When I heard running feet on the stairs, I grabbed the Elhim’s knife in both my hands and backed into a corner. But it was only Narim himself who charged into the room like an owl diving for its prey. “At least three souls are on their way to the Royal Horse Guards, each in hopes of collecting a silver penny for information regarding a Senai prisoner escaped from Mazadine. If you’ve no wish to be mistaken for such a one, I’d say the time has come for you to quit this house for a span. Callia remains below and will attempt to distract any who come looking, but she bids you hurry.”
I nodded and stuck one leg through the window, but the tin tub sitting in the middle of the room glared at me accusingly. I stopped, calling myself every name ever invented for a fool. Anyone coming to Callia’s room would know immediately what she’d done. Only Senai saw any virtue in bathing, so a Senai had clearly been here. No way to hide the evidence. If Callia could not produce a likely candidate, she would be arrested. And if my cousin had decided he was not done with me ... if it was indeed me that these guards were hunting ... Stupid, stupid. What had I done ... letting these good people step into the dragon’s mouth for me?
“Come on, man! It won’t take them long to get here. Off with you.”
I closed my eyes and shook my head. Gathering every scrap of will I possessed, I bade my tongue obey me. “Danger”—I could scarcely hear so low and hoarse a whisper as I could produce—“you ... the girl ... must get away.”
“Nonsense. Climb across the roofs. They’ll search here and find nothing. We’ll light a lamp in the window when it’s safe to come back.”
In my bones I knew it was not so. They had been hunting someone for two weeks or more, yet not announced who it was. For anyone else, for any ordinary prisoner who had escaped, they could have made up a story, but I ... I was to be forgotten. No one was ever to know who I was or what I had been. Something had gone wrong. Either the time was mistaken or ... who knew what else it could be? But if they took me, then they would kill anyone who had seen me or talked to me. And if they connected me to the dead Rider, it would be a long and wicked death.
“Please,” I croaked desperately, shaking my head. “Believe. You’ll die for helping.” I was trembling with the effort of the words, feeling the darkness close in on me again ... and the unending guilt.
“Even if they just suspect it?” His eyes were narrow and his voice angry.
I nodded, wishing I could tell him how deeply I regretted the blind cowardice that had made me stay with Callia.
“And you never told us the risk? What kind of person are you?”
It would have taken far too many words to explain it. “Go quickly” was all I could manage.
“I’ll get Callia and meet you on the roof.”
“No.”
He looked at me sharply. “You mean to stay—to wait for them?”
“Please go.”
“And so you will let some illiterate Horse Guard take your life, which Callia and I so carefully preserved, while we are forced to abandon our home for that very act of preservation? You might have saved us all the trouble and died in that stable.”
“They will not kill me.”
He released a monumental sigh. Then, wrapping his soft, pale eyes around my face and his hands about my own that still clutched his knife, he quieted my shaking with his slender fingers. Very softly he said, “Tell me why not.”
Though everything within me demanded silence, I could not refuse him. “They are forbidden it.”
A smile touched his lips. “So it is you, then, Aidan MacAllister, beloved of gods and men, the most famous musician in fifty generations, he who could transform the souls of men with his voice and his harp. The cousin of King Devlin himself, vanished like the wind when you were but one and twenty.”
I shook my head feebly.
He drew me toward the window, and I forced more words to stay him. “Save the girl. Leave.”
“Foolish boy. I’ll not leave you. I’m here to take you where you need to go. You are the Dragon Speaker.”
I didn’t know what he meant by such a title. No one knew about the dragons.
Chapter 4
My mother always told me I was born singing. She said I never cried like other infants, but wailed in a beautiful, rambling melody that varied as to my particular need. But it was in my days of glory that she said it, and always within the hearing of those who would repeat it and amplify the tale into legend. Her dark eyes would sparkle with the loving laughter that kept my head human-sized.