“What would he do? Kill Coren? He killed for Aer. Would you stop him from it?” he asked suddenly, and she did not answer. “Sybel—”
“Yes!”
“Well, I would want you to,” he said soothingly. “But I wish he had not come. He is—I wish he had not come!”
He ran from her suddenly, swift and quiet as a cat among the high peaks of Eld Mountain. She watched him disappear among the trees, and the autumn winds roared suddenly at his heels. She sat down on a fallen trunk and dropped her head on her knees. A great, soft warmth shielded her from the wind, and she looked up into Gules Lyon’s quiet, golden eyes.
What is it, White One?
She knelt suddenly and flung her arms around his great mane, and buried her face against him. I wish I had wings to fly and fly and never come back!
What has troubled you, Ogam’s powerful child? What can trouble you? What can such a small one as Coren of Sirle say to touch you?
For a long moment she did not answer. And then she said, her fingers tight around the gold, tangled fur, He has taken my heart and offered it back to me. And I thought he was harmless.
Sybel sat long among the trees after Gules Lyon had gone. The sky darkened; leaves whirled withered in endless circles about her. The wind was cold as the cold metal of locked books. It came across the snow-capped peak of Eld, down through the wet chill mists to moan in the great trees in her garden. She thought of Tam running bare-armed, barefoot through the sweet summer grass and the tiny wild flowers, shouting at great hawks with the voices of rough mountain children echoing his. Then her thoughts slipped away from her to the silent rooms and towers of wizards she had stolen books from. She had listened to them arguing with one another, watched them working, and then she had smiled and gone quietly away, carrying ancient, priceless books before they had even realized anyone had come.
“What is it you want?” she whispered to herself, helplessly, and then as she spoke, she knew that a Thing without a name watched her from the shadowed trees.
She stood slowly. The wind moved swift, empty past her. She waited in silence, her mind like a still pool waiting for the ripple of another mind. And presently, without a whisper of its leaving, the Thing had gone. She turned slowly, went back into the house. She went to Coren’s room. He turned his head as she came in, and she saw the dark lines of pain beneath his eyes, and his dry mouth. She sat down beside him and felt his face.
“You must not die in my house,” she whispered. “I do not want your voice haunting me in the night.”
“Sybel—”
“You have said everything. Now, listen. I may grow old and withered like a moon in this house, but I will not buy my freedom with Tam’s happiness. I have seen him run across the high meadows shouting, with Ter Falcon on his fist; I have seen him lie late at night, dreaming of nothing with his arms around Moriah and Gules Lyon. I will not go with you to Sirle to see him bewildered, hurt, used by men, given a promise of power that will be empty, exposed to hatred, lies, wars he does not understand. You would make a king of him, but would you love him? You looked into my heart with your strange, seeing eyes and you found some truths there. I am proud and ambitious to use my power to its limits, but I have another to think of besides myself, and that is your doing. And your undoing. So you will leave here, and you will not return.”
She could not read Coren’s eyes as he looked at her. “Drede will come for his son. There was an old woman of his court, a highborn lady who swore that Rianna and Norrel never had a moment of privacy—never more than a moment. She tried to help them—they plotted again and again for a single day of privacy—half a night—but always something, someone forestalled them. We took the child at its birth, afraid for its life, and the old woman thought we might kill it if she told the truth, that it was Drede’s son. Drede’s second wife died childless; he is aging, desperate for an heir, and the woman learned somehow that the child was alive and we did not have it at Sirle. So she told Drede the truth, and now he has a fragile hope. He knows that long ago one of Rianna’s family wed a wizard living high in Eld Mountain where few men ever go. What will you do when he comes for his son?”
She shifted uneasily. “That is not your concern.”
“Drede is a hard, bitter man. He has long forgotten how to love. There are cold rooms at Mondor he has ready for Tam, a house filled with suspicious, fearful men.”
“There are ways to keep Drede out of my house.”
“How will you keep the thought of Drede out of Tam’s heart? One way or another, Sybel, the world will reach out to that boy.”
She drew a breath, let it wither away from her. “Why did you come, bringing me such news? You told me to love Tam. I did. And now you tell me to stop. Well, I will not stop for Rok, or Drede, or for the sake of your hatred. You will have to breed your hate in some other place, not in my house, lying in Ogam’s bed.”
Coren made a little futile gesture with his hand. “Then guard him carefully, for I am not the only one seeking him. I told Rok you would not come, but he sent me anyway. I did my best.” His eyes slid to her face. “I am sorry you will not come.”
“No doubt.”
“I am sorry, too, that what I said hurt you. Will you forgive me?”
“No.”
“Oh.” He stirred, his hands moving aimlessly, and she said more gently,
“Try to sleep. I want to send you back to your brothers as soon as possible.” She bent over him to check the cloths on his back. He turned, his eyes bright, wavering with pain, and reached up to touch her face, his fingers wandering across it.
“Flame-white… Never did one of the seven of Sirle see such as you. Not even Norrel seeing the Queen of Eldwold for the first time as she walked toward him among her blossoming trees… White as the blaze of the eyes of the moon-winged Liralen…”
Her hands checked. “Coren of Sirle,” she said wonderingly, “have you looked into the Liralen’s eyes to know their color?”
“I told you: I am wise.” And then his smile drained downward, pulling his mouth until she could see the white of his teeth clenched. His hand dropped from her face, clenched. She gave him wine to drink, and wet his face with wine, and changed the cloth on his back, wetting it, and at last he slept, the lines easing on his face.
He left them just as the first snow fell from the white, smooth winter sky. Sybel called his horse, which had been running wild among the rocks, and Maelga gave him a warm cloak of sheepskin. The animals gathered to watch him leave; he bowed to them a little stiffly, mounted.
“Farewell, Ter Falcon, Lord of Air; Moriah, Lady of the Night; Cyrin, Keeper of Wisdom, who confounded the three wisemen of the court of the Lord of Dorn.” His eyes moved wistfully across the yard. “Where is Tamlorn? He spoke to me so little, and yet I thought—I thought we were friends.”
“You must have been mistaken,” Sybel said, and he turned to her swiftly.
“Or is he, like you, afraid of his own wantings?”
“That is something you will never know.” She took the hand he offered her as he bent in the saddle. He held it tightly a moment.
“Can you call a man?”
“If I choose to,” she said, surprised. “I have never done it.”
“Then if you ever have anything to fear from any man who comes here, will you call me? I will come. Whatever I am doing will remain undone, and I will come to you. Will you?”
“But why? You know I will do nothing for you. Why would you ride all the way from Sirle to help me?”
He looked at her silently. Then he shrugged, the snow melting in his fiery hair. “I do not know. Because. Will you?”
“If I need you, I will call.”
He loosed her hand, smiling. “And I will come.”