“She is consorted … father wrote you, I know ….”
He shakes his head. “I knew. I … Myryan …” He shrugs. “What you don’t see is sometimes hard to picture.”
“She and Ciesrt have a dwelling. You can see her in the morning. She spends the afternoons at the infirmary.”
Lorn holds back the frown. He understands that message as well.
“Father used the chaos-glass, but he and mother are still waiting upstairs.”
“Decorum,” Lorn says dryly.
“Always,” responds Jerial, her tone as dry as Lorn’s has been.
Lorn picks up the duffels once more, and the two walk up the lower steps and then around the decorative tiled bricks of the privacy screen and into the lower entry. Side by side they ascend the marble steps of the formal staircase. Only the servants’ quarters are on the lower level-where breezes are rare.
Lorn’s mother-her once-mahogany hair now almost entirely white-stands at the back of the second-level entrance hall. Beside her is Lorn’s father, in shimmercloth white, the bolts of chaos glowing on the breast of his tunic.
“It’s so good to see you.” Nyryah’s smile is shy, if warm She does not move toward her son.
“It’s good to be here.” Lorn sets down his kit, steps forward, and hugs her firmly. Her embrace is firm, but without the strength he has recalled.
When Lorn steps back, Kien’elth inclines his head to his son the Mirror Lancer captain. “Welcome home.”
“Thank you.”
“It’s good to see you, Lorn. You have grown … in more ways than one.” Kien’elth’s smile is both welcoming and strained.
“I’ve tried.” Lorn’s smile is practiced and easy. “The Mirror Lancers make you work and think.”
“Work, certainly. You have a few more muscles,” offers Nyryah.
“I’m as scrawny as ever,” Lorn protests.
“No, you’re not,” Jerial counters. “Mother would know.”
Lorn shrugs helplessly.
“I would like a few words with Lorn.” Kien’elth smiles, first at his son, and then at his elder daughter, and then his consort. “But a few words, and you may have him back.”
“I will check the dinner,” Nyryah says. “We may be able to find some tarts, or a pearapple pie.”
“Mother …” Jerial smiles despite the slight exasperation in her voice.
“Lancer captain or not, I doubt that Lorn has lost his taste for sweets … of all kinds,” Nyryah says firmly. “He does take after his father.”
Lorn can’t help but grin at his mother.
Even Kien shakes his head ruefully, if barely.
Lorn carries his bags up the second flight of stairs, leaving them in the third level foyer. He unclips the sabre and lays it across the green bags, then follows Kien’elth up the inner steps and to the study on the uppermost level. With an inner sigh, Lorn notes the slight shuffle in his father’s walk and the thinning of his white hair.
The senior magus closes the study door before making his way to the chair behind the polished white oak table-desk. He sits carefully and not-quite-heavily.
Lorn takes the chair closest to the desk, careful not to let his boots scuff the polished wood of the legs. He waits as his father studies him in the comparative dimness of the paneled study. The sun-gold eyes have lost none of the intensity Lorn recalls.
“I said you had grown in more ways than one. I think you understand to what I refer,” Kien states.
“Yes, ser.”
“It is a dangerous course. Few complete it.”
Lorn shrugs, understanding all too well why his father will not mention Lorn’s growing power and control of chaos. “I’ve followed what Myryan and Jerial have advised as well, for my health, of course.”
“They would know, but best you not mention that again, even to me.”
“Yes, ser.” Lorn forces himself to recall that he is back in the City of Light, where every statement may be truthread, and every movement caught in a screeing glass like the one which rests, covered, on his father’s desk. He frowns, as his eyes study the light amber of the wood which frames the glass.
Kien follows his eyes. “Yes, it’s only a year or so old.The old one vanished when I traveled to Fyrad last year.”
“That’s odd,” Lorn says.
“Most odd,” reflects his father. “I packed it when I left Fyrad, but when I unpacked here, it was gone.”
Lorn nods slowly. He is indeed back in Cyad.
“With no sense of it in a year, I doubt its fate will ever be known.” Kien leans forward in the chair and studies his son. “You may recall Alyiakal?”
“The lancer emperor?”
“The lancer-magus emperor. Any Mirror Lancer who has such talents may well turn Cyador over to the barbarians.”
Lorn waits.
“I’m aging, Lorn, and I am too fond of pontificating. Yet I would ask that you bear with me and not ask any questions.” At those words, Kien’elth turns in his chair so that he does not look at the lancer captain and cannot even see Lorn. “All who are of the Magi’i are bound to serve chaos, and thus limited by chaos. Those who are lancers are restricted because Cyador can but support limited companies of the Mirror Lancers with firelances. A senior lancer officer who could muster chaos would not be so bound or restricted, and both the senior commanders of the Mirror Lancers and the most senior Lectors are bound to find and assure such never become senior officers. None speak of this; none who are not first level adepts or lectors know of such.”
Lorn remains silent in the pause that follows his father’s words. Technically, Kien’elth has not addressed his son, yet he has risked much even to speak as he has.
Kien turns back to face Lorn. “Some from Cyador romanticize the freedom of the barbarians.” His white eyebrows lift. “Would you be one of those?”
“No. Once I asked myself about that freedom.” Lorn laughs harshly. “That was before I got to know them.”
Kien nods. “A man free of all restraints is a slave to chance and order. The barbarians are slaves to chance, even while they proclaim their freedom.”
“They’re dangerous, and there seem to be more of them every year,” Lorn points out.
“I suspect it has seemed that way for many generations,” Kien says. “Cyador endures, and the barbarians dash themselves in vain against the lancers.”
Lorn nods, but he recalls Jostyn and Cyllt-and others who had shattered beneath such vain dashing.
“You’ll be here for a season?”
“Five eightdays.”
“Good. We’ll get to see you.” Kien smiles. “So will a number of young women, I suspect.”
Lorn shrugs, looking appropriately sheepish.
The older man rises. “I will not keep you from your sister and your mother. Otherwise we both will hear of it.”
With a smile, Lorn stands.
“We will see you at dinner?”
“Of course. Where else could I get pearapple cream tarts?” Lorn’s smile expands into a broad grin.
Kien shakes his head as Lorn turns.
Outside the study, Lorn glances through the portico columns that ring the open sides of the upper level, his eyes checking the southwest and the harbor, though he cannot see the building that houses the Clanless Traders … and Ryalor House. After a moment, he walks slowly down to the second level, toward his own quarters, if they can truly be said to be such after his three-year absence.
In the foyer, he looks for his bags, but someone has moved them, and then continues toward the rear, slipping through the open door. His bags have been set beside the wardrobe beyond the archway to the sleeping alcove. The sabre lies across the desk. The chamber has not changed, except in the feel of disuse and the lack of small items. There are no spare coppers in the small tray in the corner of the desk, nor any paper in the open-topped white oak box beside the empty inkwell.
He glances at the bags, then offers a crooked smile to the emptiness of the room before turning and walking back toward Jerial’s door.
“It’s open. You can come in, Lorn.”
Jerial sits behind the desk. She replaces the cupridium-tippedpen in the holder and stoppers the inkwell, her slender fingers quick and deft. The piercing blue eyes turn on her brother, and both narrow and finely defined black eyebrows arch into a question.