"Adzriel," Alec amended, savoring the sound of it, and the feel of her cool hands in his.
Rubies and moonstones glowed in the rings she wore on nearly every finger.
"Nysander tells me you are my brother's valued companion, a person of great honor," she said, gazing earnestly into his face.
Alec felt his cheeks go warm. "I hope so. He's been a good friend to me."
"I am glad to hear such things said of him." Bowing gracefully to him and the wizard, she stepped back toward the door. "I hope one day soon I may greet you all in my own land. Until then, Aura Elustri malron."
"So soon?" Seregil asked, his voice hoarse with emotion.
Alec looked away in embarrassment as the two embraced, speaking softly to each other in their own language.
"Aura Elustri malron, Adzriel tali, " Seregil said, releasing her reluctantly.
"Phroni soutua neh noliea. " Adzriel nodded, wiping her eyes. Nysander went to her side and offered his arm.
"Aura Elustri malron, dear lady. I shall accompany you back to the others."
"Thank you again, Nysander i Azusthra, for all your assistance in this matter." As she turned to go, however, she spoke once more to her brother in their own language, glancing at Alec as she did so.
"Quite right," Nysander said. "It is the boy's right to know; he should hear it from you."
With that, he escorted Adzriel back the way she'd come.
Turning to Seregil, Alec found his friend looking pale and uncomfortable again. "What did they mean?"
Seregil pushed a hand back through his hair and sighed. "I'll explain everything, but not here."
23
The unexpected reunion with his sister had shaken Seregil to the core of his soul. A fierce sorrow seemed to emanate from him as they left the Palace, and the weight of it left Alec feeling mute and helpless. What could he say, what could he offer in the face of this? And what was it Nysander had meant, that Seregil had something to tell him?
He trailed anxiously in his friend's wake, the sound of their horses' hooves echoing from the ornate walls of villa gardens as the misshapen moon sank slowly toward the western rooftops. Alec couldn't forget the sight of that single tear rolling slowly down Seregil's face. He'd never imagined him capable of weeping.
Seregil paused long enough to steal two flasks of sweet red wine from a vintner's shop, then rode on until they reached the wooded park behind the Street of Lights. Dismounting, they led their horses along a path to an open glade beyond.
A small fountain stood at the center of the little clearing, its stone basin filled now with rain and dead leaves. Sitting down on the rim of it, Seregil handed Alec a flask, then uncorked his own and took a drink.
"Go on," he told Alec with a sigh. "You'll need it."
Alec found his hands were shaking. He took a long swig of the sweet, heavy wine, felt the heat curl down into his belly. "Just tell me, will you? Whatever it is."
Seregil was quiet for a moment, his face lost in shadow, then he gestured up at the moon. "When I was a child, I used to sneak out at night just to walk in the moonlight. My favorite times were in the summer, when people would come from all over Aurenen to the foot of Mount Barok. For days they'd gather, waiting for the full moon. When it rose over the peak, we'd sing, thousands of voices raised together, singing to the dragons. And they'd fly for us across the face of the moon, around the peak, singing their answering songs and breathing their red fire.
"I've tried to sing that song once or twice since I've been here, but do you know, it just won't come? Without all those other voices, I can't sing the Song of Dragons at all. As things stand now, I may never sing it again."
Alec could almost see the scene Seregil had described, a thousand handsome, grey-eyed folk in white tunics and shining jewels, massed beneath the round moon, voices raised as one. Standing here in this winter-ruined garden, he felt the crushing weight of distance that separated Seregil from that communion.
"You hoped your sister was going to say you could go home, didn't you?"
Seregil shook his head. "Not really. And she didn't."
Alec sat down beside him on the rim of the fountain.
"Why were you sent away?"
"Sent away? I was outlawed, Alec. Outlawed for treason and a murder I helped commit when I was younger than you."
"You?" Alec gasped. "I–I can't believe it. What happened?"
Seregil shrugged. "I was stupid. Blinded by my first passion, I allowed what I thought was love to cut me off from Adzriel and all the others who tried to save me. I didn't know how my lover was using me, or what his intent really was, but a man died all the same, and the fault was rightly mine. The details don't really matter—I've never told anyone else this much, Alec, and I'm not going to say more now. Maybe someday—At any rate, two of us were exiled. Everyone else was executed, except my lover. He escaped."
"Another Aurenfaie came to Skala with you?"
"Zhahir i Aringil didn't make it. He threw himself overboard with a ballast stone tied around his neck as soon as we lost sight of the coastline. I very nearly did the same, then and many times later on. Most exiles end up suicides sooner or later. But not me. Not yet, anyway."
The few inches between them felt like cold miles.
Clasping his flask, Alec asked, "Why are you telling me this now? Does it have something to do with what Nysander meant?"
"In a way. It's something I don't want secret between us anymore, not after tonight." He took another drink and rubbed his eyelids. "Nysander's been after me since he met you to tell you that—"
Seregil turned to him and put a hand on his shoulder. "Alec, you're faie."
There was a gravid pause.
Alec heard the words, but for an instant he couldn't seem to take them in and make sense of them. He'd rehearsed a dozen dark possibilities during their walk from the Palace, but this had not been one of them.
He felt the flask slip from his fingers, felt it bounce on the damp, dead grass between his feet.
"That can't be!" he gasped, his voice unsteady. "My father, he wasn't—"
But suddenly it all fell into place—Seregil's questions about his parents, veiled remarks Nysander had made, all the rumors that he and Seregil were somehow related. The impact of this sudden revelation made him sway where he sat.
Seregil's grip on his shoulder tightened, but he could scarcely feel it. "My mother."
"The Hazadrielfaie," Seregil said gently, "from beyond Ravensfell Pass near where you were born."
"But how can you know that?" Alec whispered. It felt like the entire earth was spinning out from beneath his feet, leaving him stranded in a place he couldn't comprehend.
At the same time, it all made terrible sense: his father's silence regarding his mother, his distrust of strangers, his coldness. "Could she still be there?"
"Do you recall how I told you the Hazadrielfaie left Aurenen a long, long time ago? That their ways are different than ours? They don't tolerate any outsiders, especially humans, and they kill any half-breeds that are born, along with the parents. Somehow your mother must have broken away long enough to meet your father and have you, but her own people must have hunted her down in the end. Even if she'd gone back of her own accord, the penalty would still have been death. It's a miracle your father and you escaped. He must have been a remarkable man."
"I never thought so." Alec's pulse was pounding in his ears. This was too much, too much. "I don't understand. How can you know any of this?"
"I don't, for certain, but it fits the facts we do know. Alec, there's no getting around the fact that you are faie. I saw the signs that first morning in the mountains, but I didn't want to believe it then."