The reeve and the enforcer exchanged glances. The reeve shrugged. "We've finished anyway," he said.
Terelle and Shale waited in silence while the men filed out. When they heard them descend the stairs, Terelle let out the breath she had been holding.
"Oh, you-you-dryhead! I thought I was going to die of fright! What if he'd pulled his sword?"
Shale grinned at her. "At least it never occurred to him that I was the Gibber youth they were looking for."
"And what does rakui mean?"
"Not sure. It's an insult of some sort."
She rolled her eyes at him. "You're impossible. I'd better check on Lilva and anyone else who's around. If I don't, they'll only come here to find out how I am. Behave yourself."
She left, closing the door behind her. He sat down at the table and stared at his hands, which seemed to have suddenly developed a tremor, wondering if he'd been out of his mind. Russet was out again on the day the Breccian rainlords arrived in Scarcleft.
Terelle was painting, while Shale watched. She was seated on the old man's mat near the open door where the light was best, while he sat at the table and wished he still had his books.
As she gently tapped powdered colour from an application spoon onto the surface of the water, he asked, "Have you ever met an Alabaster?"
She finished what she was doing before she replied. "An Alabaster? I once saw one up close. The day I first met Russet." She frowned. "Russet said something odd about that. He said that he, the Alabaster, was drawn to me because of my tears. I weep tears when I feel sad, you see. Russet said the Alabaster felt them. And the Alabaster, he raised his hand in blessing towards me. I don't know why."
Shale thought about that. "You shed tears when you don't have something in your eye? I've never met anyone else who did that."
"I think it is how Russet found me. From a distance, no one would know I was not Gibber. You have to be close up to realise my eyes are green. It was my tears that betrayed me." She sounded matter-of-fact. "Maybe it is something that these people from Khromatis do. Waste water on grief."
He was silent for a moment, pondering. It was the first time she had actually acknowledged that she was indeed one of Russet's people. "If the Alabaster realised that-" He paused, thinking things through. "Maybe if you were to ask one, they might be able to tell you more about who you are. Or at least about who the mountain people are."
"You could be right. Only there aren't any Alabasters around any more. I guess they got to hear what happened to that man you told us about. What was his name?"
"Feroze Khorash."
"You believe he's dead, don't you?"
He nodded abruptly, not wanting to think about it. "Terelle, if Highlord Nealrith comes, please say you'll come with me to Breccia."
She was silent so long, he knew something was wrong. "What is it?" he asked.
"Russet won't let me go. Whatever it is he plans, he needs me for it."
"He can't stop you."
"Shale, he can shuffle up a future in which I don't go with you to Breccia. He can paint you out of my life. He might have already done so. He has certainly already influenced my future."
He stared at her, trying to think through the implications, not certain if he believed what she was trying to tell him.
She started fiddling with her paint jars, turning from him so he could not see her face. "You don't understand, do you? He controls me through his waterpainting. He has concocted his version of the future and placed me there, doing the things he has planned for me. I don't think I even had a chance to refuse his offer of apprenticeship. I didn't realise it then, of course. And now I want to choose another way, I can't. He's taken away my choices, Shale. I don't have any. I think I never did."
Something inside him lurched painfully. "You're trapped inside his paintings?" he asked, incredulous.
She continued. "In a way. They pull me. I know that I want to go with you. That I ought to go. That I will be safer with you, better off in Breccia. I know all those things in my head, but I don't feel that I want to go. Just the opposite. I am being drawn to a different future. The one he has painted." She looked away from him and back at her painting. "I can't go with you, and I'm sorrier than I can say."
He was shocked by her certainty. By the fact that she accepted it. "That's coercion. It's not right. It's worse than slavery."
She was silent.
"What future has been painted for you?"
"I've seen pictures of me in what is probably the White Quarter, and also in a green place, where water flows on the land. Maybe it won't be so bad. If I am his kin, if he takes me back to where I belong, at least I'll find out about my real mother and father. Perhaps I have other family-"
"It's not right to be forced."
"No. But I can't help myself."
The words were whispered, despairing, so unlike her that he was shocked. "Yes, you can! Remember what Russet said? He said that he thought he couldn't find your mother because she resisted the pull of his waterpainting! It must be possible to resist, to pull away, to stand against it. Otherwise he would not have believed she could do it."
"He was talking about my mother, not me. She was powerful in these water arts, or so he has implied. I'm just an apprentice."
"I can't believe that you are just going to give up! You?" He stood up and came over to where she was still seated on the mat. "You struggled so long to find a way to escape the snuggery and now you are just going to allow yourself to be enslaved again? By someone you don't even like? Terelle, you've got to fight it!"
His passion broke through into his voice and she looked up at him, startled. He dropped to his knees beside her. "Terelle, I'll speak to Highlord Nealrith. Maybe he can help. What if you do your own painting? There's got to be a way!"
"I can't paint myself, remember? And Russet's so much more powerful than I am."
"Is he? If that was so, then he wouldn't need you so much! Terelle, don't give up. Please-" He stopped, astonished by his own reaction to being parted from her. It mattered. He couldn't bear to lose another person. Especially not Terelle. He opened his mouth to protest further but didn't have the words to express what he wanted, what he thought. All that would come out was a pathetic, "Please don't give up. Not like this."
His passion had shaken her, he could see that. She looked at him uncertainly, then her eyes filled with tears. And suddenly she was in his arms, crying, and he was patting her awkwardly on the back.
He took a deep breath and forced himself to say the things he had been holding inside. "Terelle, other than Mica, you're the only friend I've ever had. I thought after Taquar that I'd never trust anyone again." He was grateful she had her face buried in his shoulder and was not watching him as he stumbled on, wading through a welter of raw emotion. "For nearly four years I never spoke to anyone but Taquar, and that not often. So if I'm not making sense, I'm sorry. I'm not good at saying things. But I want to tell you I don't want to lose you. And that I'll look after you, if I can. You'll never want for water, I swear. And I'll keep you safe."
She pulled back then, to look at him, wiping her face with the back of her hand. She managed to appear amazed and bemused and delighted, all at the one time.
"But you've got to fight Russet's power first. I can't do that for you," he added.
And something died in her expression, even as she said, "I'll try. I promise I'll try."
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Scarpen Quarter Scarcleft City Scarcleft Hall, Level 2 The seneschal of Scarcleft Hall, Harkel Tallyman, was a thin, small-framed man, nondescript in appearance and deceptively harmless in his manner. As a consequence, he was often overlooked. Yet after the highlord himself, Harkel was the most powerful man in Scarcleft, maintaining his position through a network of spies, assassins, thieves, blackmailers, water sensitives and informants. Trusted with the running of the city when Taquar was absent-which was frequently-his loyalty to the highlord was unswerving and unquestioning.