The flesh between Alec's shoulder blades tightened as he fled, expecting any moment to be grabbed from behind. The sound of pursuit grew nearer, closed in behind him.
Wresting his sword clumsily from its sheath, Alec whirled to fight. Instead of his sword, however, he found himself grasping a blunt arrow shaft.
And facing a wall of darkness.
Alec lurched up in bed and hugged his knees to his chest, shivering. His nightshirt was soaked with icy sweat and his cheeks were wet with tears. Outside, a storm had blown up. The wind made a lonely moaning in the chimney and lashed rain against the windows.
His chest hurt as if he really had been running.
Taking a few deep breaths to calm himself, he focused on the red glow of the hearth and tried to exorcise the nightmare's bitter imagery. His heart had almost slowed to normal when he heard a floorboard creak across the room.
"That's the third time this week, isn't it?"
Seregil asked, stepping into the glow of the hearth. His cloak looked sodden, and water dripped from his tangled hair.
"Damn, you startled me!" Alec gasped, hastily wiping his eyes on a corner of the blanket. "I didn't expect to see you back tonight."
It had been nearly a week since Rythel's death and none of them, not even Nysander, had been able to find evidence tying the smith to anything other than the sewer sabotage and a few indiscretions at various gambling houses. Everyone had given up by now except Seregil, who'd grown increasingly short-tempered as he pursued one false scent after another. Lately Alec had found it wiser to keep out of his way when they weren't working. He'd taken it as a hopeful sign this evening when Seregil slouched off to the Street of Lights in search of consolation; his untimely reappearance now didn't bode well.
But Alec saw nothing but genuine concern in his friend's expression as Seregil fetched cups and the decanter of Zengati brandy from the mantel shelf. Sitting down on the foot of Alec's bed, he poured out liberal doses for them both.
"Bad dreams again, eh?" he asked.
"You knew?"
"You've been thrashing in your sleep all week. Drink up. You're as pale as old ashes."
The brandy warmed Alec's belly, but his nightshirt was clammy against his back. Tugging a blanket around his shoulders, he sipped in silence and listened to the wind sobbing under the eaves.
"Want to talk about it?"
Alec stared down into the shadows in his cup. "It's just a dream I keep having."
"The same one?"
He nodded. "Four or five times this week."
"You should have said something."
"You haven't exactly been approachable lately," Alec replied quietly.
"Ah, well—" Seregil pushed his fingers back through his hair. "I never was very gracious in defeat."
"I'm sorry about the map." The thought of it had plagued Alec through the long, unhappy week. "I should have taken it when I had the chance."
"No, you did the right thing at the time," Seregil assured him. "We just seemed to have a lot of bad timing with this business. If I'd gone after Rythel sooner, or if he'd held off getting killed another half an hour, we'd have had him. There's no changing what happened, though. Now tell me about this dream."
Alec took another sip of brandy, then set the half-finished cup aside and recounted all the details he could remember.
"It doesn't sound so bad, just telling it," he said when he'd finished. "Especially that last part. But in the dream, it always feels like the worst part. Even worse than my father—"
He broke off, surprised at the tightness in his throat. He sat staring down at his hands, hoping his hair veiled his face for the moment.
After a while Seregil said gently, "You've had a lot to contend with lately, what with finding out the truth about your birth and then this. Seeing Rythel all mangled in that cell must have dredged up some unpleasant memories. Maybe this is your way of finally allowing yourself to mourn your father's death."
Alec looked up sharply. "I've mourned him."
"Perhaps, tali, but in all the time we've been together you scarcely ever mention him or weep for him."
Alec rolled the edge of blanket between his fingers, surprised at the sudden bitterness he felt. "What's the use? Crying doesn't change anything."
"Maybe not, but—"
"It wouldn't change the fact that I couldn't do anything for my own father but sit there watching him shrink like a burnt moth, listening to him drown in his own blood—"
He swallowed hard. "Besides, that's not even what the dream was about, really."
"No? What, then?"
Alec shook his head miserably. "I don't know, but it wasn't that."
Seregil gave him a rough pat on the shin and stood up. "What do you say we scrounge breakfast with Nysander tomorrow? He's good with dreams, and while we're there, you could talk to him and Thero about this life span business. With all the uproar over Tym and Rythel, you haven't had much time to absorb it all."
"It's been easier, not thinking about it," Alec said with a sigh. "But I guess I would like to talk to them."
In the darkness of his own bed, Seregil lay listening to Alec's breathing soften back into sleep in the next room.
"No more dreams, my friend," he whispered in Aurenfaie, and it was more than a simple well-wishing. He could almost hear the Oracle's mad whispering in the shadows, echoing over the weeks and months with increasing insistence and clarity.
The Eater of Death gives birth to monsters.
Guard you well the Guardian! Guard well the
Vanguard and the Shaft!
The shaft. An arrow shaft, like the one Alec clutched in his dreams night after night—useless, impotent, without its broadhead point could mean a thousand different things, that image, he told himself, struggling angrily against his own instant certainty that another fateful die had been irrevocably cast in a game he could not yet comprehend.
The storm blew itself back out to sea before dawn. The soaring white walls, domes, and towers of the Oreska House sparkled against a flawless morning sky ahead of them as Seregil and Alec rode toward it. Inside the sheltering walls of the grounds, the scent of new herbs and growing things enveloped them in the promise of a spring not far behind in the outside world.
Nysander and Thero had other guests breakfasting with them. The centaurs, Hwerlu and his mate Feeya, had somehow navigated the maze of stairways and corridors, not to mention doorways not designed to admit creatures the size of large draft horses. Magyana was there as well, sitting on the corner of the table with her feet propped on a chair next to Feeya.
"What a pleasant surprise," Nysander exclaimed, pushing another bench up to the impromptu breakfast spread out on a worktable. Most of the regular victuals were laid out—butter and cheese, honey, oat cakes, tea-together with a huge platter of fruit. The usual breakfast meats had evidently been banned for the occasion, in deference to the centaurs. Giving Seregil a meaningful stare from under his beetling brows, he added, "I do hope this is a social call."
"More or less," Seregil said, piling a plate with bannocks and fruit. "Alec's feeling a bit lost about living for a few extra centuries. I thought you wizards could give him some helpful guidance, since it takes your sort by surprise, too."
"So he finally told you," said Magyana, giving Alec a hug. "And high time, too."
Hwerlu let out a snort of surprise. "Not until now does he know?" He said something to Feeya in their whistling language and she shook her head.
Turning to Alec, Hwerlu smiled. "We saw it that first day you came here, but Seregil says not to tell you. Why?"
"I guess he wanted me to get used to him first," Alec said, shooting Seregil a wry look.