"Why not?"
Seregil hesitated, then shook his head. "I was afraid I was wrong, just seeing what I wanted to see—But I wasn't wrong—your features, your build, the way you move. Micum saw it right away, and the centaurs and Nysander and the others at the Oreska. Then, that first night we came back to the Cockerel, I went out again, remember? I went to the Oracle of Illior about another matter,and during the divinations, he spoke of you, called you a "child of earth and light" — Dalna and Illior, human and faie—there was no question what he meant. Nysander wanted me to tell you from the start but—"
At that, a wave of anger burst up through Alec's shocked numbness. Lurching to his feet, he rounded on Seregil, crying out, "Why didn't you? All these months and you never said anything! It's like that Wheel Street trick all over again!"
Seregil's face was half black, half bone pale in the moonlight, but both eyes glittered. "It's nothing like Wheel Street!"
"Oh, no?" Alec shouted. "Then what, damn it! Why? Why didn't you tell me?"
Seregil seemed to sag. Lowering his face, he rested both hands on his knees. After a moment he let out a ragged breath. "There's no single answer. At first, because I wasn't certain." He shook his head. "No, that's not true. In my heart I was certain, but I didn't dare believe it."
"Why not?"
"Because if I was wrong—" Seregil spread his hands helplessly. "It doesn't matter. I'd been alone for a long time and I thought I liked it that way. I knew if I was right, and if I told you then, if you'd even believed me, then it might create a bond, a tie. I wasn't willing to risk that either, not until I figured out who you were. Illior's Hands, Alec, you don't know, you can't know, what it was like—"
"Enlighten me!" Alec growled.
"All right." Seregil let out another unsteady sigh. "I'd been exiled from my own kind for more years than you've been alive. Any Aurenfaie who came to Skala knew who and what I was, and was under prohibition to shun me. Meanwhile, all my human companions age and die before my eyes."
"Except Nysander, and Magyana."
"Oh, yes." Now it was Seregil who sounded bitter. "You know all about my apprenticeship with him, don't you? Another failure, another place I didn't belong. Then, from out of nowhere, comes you, and you were—are—"
Alec looked down at the bowed figure before him and felt his anger slipping away as quickly as it had come. "I still don't understand why you didn't want to say anything."
Seregil looked up at him again. "Cowardice, I guess. I didn't want to see the look that's on your face right now."
Alec sat down next to him again and sank his face in his hands. "I don't know what I am," he groaned. "It's like everything I ever knew about myself has been taken away." He felt Seregil's arm go around his shoulders, but made no move to push him away.
"Ah, tali, you're what you've always been," Seregil sighed, patting his arm. "You just know it now, that's all."
"So I'll see Beka get old, and Luthas, and Illia and—"
"That's right." Seregil's arm tightened around him. "And that wouldn't be any less true if you were Tirfaie. It's not a curse."
"You always talk like it is."
"Loneliness is a curse, Alec, and being an outsider. I don't have a clue why the two of us ended up in the same dungeon cell that night, but I've thanked Illior every day since that we did. The greatest fear I've had is losing you. The second greatest is that when I finally did tell you the truth, you'd think it was the only reason I'd taken you on in the first place. That isn't so, you know. It never was, not even in the beginning."
The last of the shock and anger drained away, leaving Alec exhausted beyond measure. Reaching down, he retrieved the wine flash and drained what was left in it. "It's a lot to take in, you know? It changes so much."
For the first time in hours Seregil chuckled, a warm, healing sound in the darkness. "You should talk to Nysander, or Thero. Wizards must go through these same feelings when they learn they have magic in them."
"What does it mean, though, with me being only half?" asked
Alec as a hundred questions and comparisons flooded in. "How long will I live? How old am I, really?"
One arm still around Alec, Seregil found his own flask again and took a sip. "Well, when the faie blood comes from the mother it's generally stronger. I don't know why that is, but it's always the case and all those I know of lived as long as the rest of us, four centuries or so. They mature a bit faster, so you're about as old as you thought. There's also a good chance you'd inherit any magic she had, although it seems like that would have shown itself—"
He trailed off suddenly and Alec felt him shiver. "Damn it, I'm sorry I didn't say anything sooner. The longer I waited, the harder it got."
Without giving himself time to evaluate the impulse, Alec turned and put both arms around Seregil, hugging him tightly. "It's all right, tali" he whispered hoarsely. "It's all right now."
Taken by surprise, Seregil hesitated a moment, then returned the embrace, heart beating strong and fast against Alec's. A weary peacefulness came over Alec at the feel of it, and with it a whisper of pleasure at their closeness. From where they sat, Alec could see the glimmer of a few lanterns shining through the bare trees from the Street of Lights beyond. Seregil's fingers were twined in his hair at the nape of his neck, he realized with a guilty start, the same way he'd touched the young man at Azarin's a few short weeks ago.
First that strange, perception-altering night, he thought wearily, and now this. Illior's Hands, if things kept up in this manner, he'd end up not knowing who he was at all!
Releasing him at last, Seregil looked up at the moon, half-hidden in the tangled treetops.
"I don't know about you, but I've had about all the excitement I can deal with for one night," he said with a hint of his crooked smile.
"What about Rythel?"
"I guess Tym can keep an eye on things one more night. We'll track him down in the morning."
As they mounted for the ride home, it was Alec's turn to chuckle.
"What's so funny?"
"It could have been worse, I guess," Alec told him. "In the old ballads, orphans turn out to be the long-lost heir to some kingdom, which means they end up either cooped up in the family castle learning royal manners, or get sent off to slay some monster for a bunch of total strangers. At least I get to keep my old job."
"I don't think anyone will get much of a ballad out of that."
Alec swung up into the saddle and grinned over at him. "That's fine by me!"
24
"Where are we?" Zir shouted over the jingle of harness.
"We're in Mycena!" someone else called back. Beka grinned in spite of herself.
They'd worn the joke threadbare weeks ago, but every once in a while someone trotted it out again just to break the monotony.
Sergeant Mercalle's riders were in high spirits this morning. Beka had received orders to take a decuria and ride to a nearby market town to buy supplies for the troop. Mercalle had won the toss.
For weeks they'd ridden through rolling, snow-covered hills, oak forest, and empty fields; past thatch-roof steadings and small country towns where soldiers of any sort were regarded with guarded resentment. Mycena was a country of fanners and tradesmen. Wars interrupted commerce.
It had taken the regiment nearly a month to reach the port city of Keston—a month of cold camps and thrown-together billets in garrisons and courtyards, and slow-march riding over frozen roads. At night, the green new officers sat around the fire and listened to the veterans' war tales, hoping to pick up some of the things they hadn't had time to learn during their brief six weeks of training.
The more Beka listened, the more she realized that despite all their drilling and individual prowess with horse, sword, and bow, it would take a battle or two to sort out how well the turma worked together and trusted one another.