“I don’t like leaving you.” Lorn slips to his feet and walks up behind her, easing his arms around her waist.
“I know.”
He can feel her sigh.
After a moment, she adds, “I know you’re opposing your family, and I know you asked me to … come to Geliendra ….”
“But you want everything to be in the open.”
“Yes.”
He laughs, softly, almost bitterly. “All the senior Magi’i know about you and me. Were that were open enough.” The bed chamber is silent, and he adds, more softly, “I will putour consortship in the open. Haven’t I kept my word?”
“You have. You have more than kept it.” Ryalth turns out of his arms to face him, but still holds his left hand. “We would not be here, had you not.”
Lorn traces her jaw line with his fingers.
“I am not angry with you.” Her eyes harden. “I cannot say the same for your parents. Or the Magi’i.” Her fingers rise to touch his cheek, and she bends forward and whispers, “But I will come to Geliendra at the end of your first year.”
“I will be there, with everything arranged.”
“Good.” A smile, bright and simultaneously wistful, appears. “You’d better get ready to go.” She half-turns and reclaims the vial. “And you will wear some scent. Not so much as last time. I want them to understand I also have some small amount of taste.” She dabs a fingertip of the fragrance on each of Lorn’s cheeks, then holds his face in her hands, and kisses him gently.
He returns the kiss, equally gently.
Slowly, they separate.
Lorn reclaims his tunic from one of the wall pegs, then dons and fastens it.
“You are a handsome man.”
He shakes his head.
“You are.”
“I’m glad you think so. Very glad.”
They walk to the door of her quarters, where he turns and kisses her cheek again.
“Be good to dear Ciesrt,” she says as she opens the door.
“Only for Myryan’s sake.” Lorn offers a rueful smile and steps back.
Ryalth closes the door, and he turns and walks slowly down the steps and out to the Road of Benevolent Commerce.
He eases into a brisk walk up the Thirteenth Harbor Way East, and then turns eastward on the Road of Perpetual Light. At the click of hoofs behind him, he glances over his left shoulder to see a gig approaching. In it are a woman in healer green and a magus in white, looking perhaps ten.years olderthan Lorn. Neither looks at him as the gig passes.
He walks almost another block before an open carriage passes in the other direction. This time, the two passengers nod. The man wears a lancer uniform with the simple starburst of a commander; the woman wears a formal green tunic of shimmercloth, and a necklace of emeralds set in silver that sparkles well beyond the carriage. Lorn nods back with a smile.
The sun is beginning to drop behind the trees on behind the dwellings set uphill of the Road by the time Lorn turns up the walk to Myryan’s dwelling. A light and cool breeze sweeps up from the harbor, promising a cold evening. He smiles at the faded golden lily on the exterior privacy screen before he rings the bell.
The viewing slit opens, and then the door. “Come in, Lorn,” Myryan says warmly, but she does not step from behind the exterior privacy screen.
He steps around the screen and into the house, where Ciesrt stands beside Myryan, a long-fingered hand on her left shoulder. His long fingers seem strangely delicate compared to Ciesrt’s tall form and broad shoulders.
Myryan’s nose wrinkles, just slightly, as Lorn nears them, and, suddenly, she winks.
Laughing inside, Lorn keeps a polite smile on his lips and inclines his head. “It’s good to see you, Ciesrt.” His voice is warm and friendly.
“You, too, Lorn.” Ciesrt’s nose twitches, and he rubs it inadvertently with his right hand. “It’s been a while.” He gestures to the left archway from the foyer.
“Thank you.” Lorn follows the motion into the front sitting room.
There, Myryan and Ciesrt take the settee, leaving the sole armchair for Lorn. He settles himself and turns toward the couple. “I like the dwelling. You’ve done much with it, Myryan.”
“She has, indeed,” Ciesrt responds, proudly, putting his arm around her slender shoulders and squeezing slightly. “She is a wonderful consort.”
“She’s always been a wonderful sister,” Lorn replies, “and an excellent healer, from what I have heard.”
“She cooks well also, but before long, we will have a cook so that she can spend more time with her garden, and, some time soon, we hope, with the children.”
“From what I heard,” Lorn answers, looking at Myryan, “you’ve already done much with the garden.”
“The soil by the wall is just right for brinn, and I started some astra plants in the fall. they feel strong ….” The healer’s eyes brighten as she begins to detail her plans. “ … it’s cool enough for winterseed, but I’ll need more lime for that …. Ciesrt said he’d crush it for me ….”
Lorn listens, enjoying the enthusiasm and the warmth in his younger sister’s voice, and the sparkle in her eyes as she speaks of gardens to come.
Abruptly, Myryan stops and bolts upright. “Oh … I have to finish dinner … a few things, and I’ve been meandering on about gardening.”
“I liked hearing about it,” Lorn says.
“She loves that we have our own garden,” adds Ciesrt.
“Just keep talking.” Myryan stands, patting Ciesrt on the shoulder. “I can hear from the next room,” she adds as she pauses by the archway, before disappearing.
Both men smile.
“She has so many talents to be a good consort,” Ciesrt muses. “My parents were so pleased. Father, especially, likes that she understands so much, and that he can talk to her like he would me or any other of the Magi’i.”
“Myryan’s always been quick,” Lorn admits. “She’s very sensitive. She understands things without people having to yell at her or tell her twice.” He hopes Ciesrt will understand exactly what he says.
“That’s what I like about her,” answers the young mage. “She knows what I need, without my having to explain everything.”
Lorn nods. “She likes things calm and peaceful.”
“It’s so restful when I come home from the Quarter atnight.” Ciesrt smiles. “So much better than I’d ever thought being consorted could be.”
“Lancers aren’t expected to become consorted until they’ve been captains for at least several years,” Lorn says conversationally. “What are you doing now … I mean the kind of work?”
“Third level adepts do mostly support work … transfer chaos, clean up after projects, that sort of thing. I do some of the chaos cell transfer, and whatever else I’m called to do.”
“It’s an exciting time for a magus, Vernt tells me, with everything going on.” Lorn leans forward, conveying an interest in what Ciesrt may offer.
“It is. All the projects …” Ciesrt shrugs.
“I understand. I’m going to be headed to the Accursed Forest. They say that what you’re doing may be of some benefit to us poor lancer types there.”
“Father is enthusiastic about it,” Ciesrt responds. “I can’t say anything, you understand, but they’re working on a new kind of barrier.” He shrugs. “I don’t know much about how it works, but … it should help the Mirror Lancers greatly.”
“If it does, we could move more lancers to the north,” Lorn points out.
“If it does, you may not need lancers at the ward-walls, I hear.”
Lorn nods. “There’s much else that could occupy the lancers.”
“How have you found being a lancer?” asks Ciesrt, after a moment of silence.
“I seem to have a talent for it,” replies Lorn. “Or a talent for surviving while being one, anyway.”
Lorn looks up to see Myryan standing in the archway, waiting, listening.
Ciesrt leans forward on the settee, his eyes on Lorn, apparently unaware of Myryan’s return.
“You still do not talk of duty and commitment,” points out Ciesrt.
Lorn fingers his cleanshaven chin before replying, understandingCiesrt’s allusion, and understanding, too, that he has been discussed by Ciesrt and his father, the Second Magus. “We all have a duty to uphold Cyador and the Path of Light,” he begins slowly. “That is my commitment as well. You have found that way that best suits you, Ciesrt. I have found a way at which I am good. I am still working to see how to make it best suit me.” Lorn offers an open smile. “It is harder when you are not born into the way for which your talents fit you.”