Sometimes, he thought, things just happen. Like storms. He looked down at his son. There was no lightning, he thought, as they came to the infirmary at the end of the gallery. It’s impossible. And if there had been, Connor would be dead by now, burnt to a crisp.
By the time he laid his son in one of the twenty beds—all empty—in the stark, clean infirmary, he had nearly convinced himself that he had not seen lightning crackle over Connor. Instead, he thought, perhaps the Two-Faced God had Heard Connor after all, and the light that burnt the adherent’s arm was his son’s own creation. When Connor opened his eyes and smiled at him, he was certain of it.
“How do you feel, captain?” Archer asked.
Connor smiled faintly. “I’ve been better.” He looked at Celestine and the handful of adherents who had joined them in the infirmary. He frowned. “Was it a bad one?”
Archer shot a look at the High Reverent and her people who were looking far too serious and pensive. “It was nothing out of the ordinary,” he said pointedly.
Celestine met his eye but he did not blink. She dismissed the others and moved to stand beside Connor on the other side of the bed. She felt his forehead, laid a hand on his chest, and felt the pulse in his wrist.
“How do you feel?” she asked as if his first answer wasn’t sufficient.
“My head aches,” the young man replied, “but that’s usual.”
Archer nodded. “He’s fine.” He beamed. “He wove light.”
Connor’s eyes widened and a smile broke his handsome face. “Did I? Did I really?”
Archer felt Celestine’s glare like knives in his back. “That is not certain,” she said. She started to say more when Lanik appeared again.
“Now what?” Archer demanded.
“My pardons, sir,” Lanik said, “but he refuses to wait outside. Paladin Jarrin tried to stop him but he insisted…”
“Who insisted? Who refuses…?” Celestine asked and Archer saw her hand land on the hilt of her sapphire-pommeled sword. He followed suit, standing in front of his son.
Paladin Jarrin entered the room. The man’s hair was more gray than brown and crow’s feet folded the corners of his eyes. The veteran Paladin garbed blue and silver—the uniform his son desperately yearned to don—appeared almost flummoxed.
“High Reverent,” he said, bowing his head. “We had thought it was Paladin Koren’s companion, the one who is by her side always, and so let him enter. But too late, we realized our mistake.”
“Let who enter?” Celestine demanded.
“A dragonman.” Jarrin turned to Archer. “He insists on seeing you, Admiral Crane. He professes he bears no malice but…”
“And that was enough to convince you to let him into the Moon Temple?” Archer tightened his grip on his sword.
“The Vai’Ensai were valuable allies during the war,” Celestine said. “They are always welcome here.”
Archer knew that was true. He also knew Celestine was appalled by the lack of security in her own domain; her ears were red and her voice tight. Archer silently vowed to send a complement of guards from the Citadel that very day.
His thoughts faded as a shadow filled the door in the infirmary. A Vai’Ensai ducked his horned head under the arch and maneuvered his wings through the door. He wore a studded leather vest, trousers, and the heaviest, broadest sword Crane had ever seen was strapped between his claw-tipped wings. Rainwater dripped off those enormous wings, off the dragonman’s lizard-like snout that was pierced with a heavy iron ring, and glistened on the row of horns that began on his forehead and marched over the crown of his head and to the base of his neck in a straight line. He stood easily seven spans tall and was packed with muscles that rippled and bulged under his green-tinged skin.
“I am here for the man whose name is like the bird,” intoned the Vai’Ensai.
His voice was heavily accented, deep, and grating. He touched the iron pendant that hung from a chain around his neck.
“Crane. I’m here for Crane.”
“That’s me,” the Admiral said, exchanging glances with Celestine. “I’m Archer Crane.”
The dragonman sniffed the air and then took a step closer to the bed. He sniffed again.
“No.” He shook his immense horned head. “Not you. Him.” He pointed at Connor. “I am here for him.”
Visions and Dreams
The pier. Ahead, the orange light, hovering somewhere over the water. Or perhaps at the end of the pier. If she could just reach it…
She walked faster, then ran. The pier stretched out under her feet but the light grew no closer. The mist thickened and it was cold. So cold. She slowed then fell, her body stiffening so she thought her bones might shatter. The orange light hung as it had, no closer but still in reach. If only she could get up and keep going. To remain here was death.
Pain followed the cold, both wrapping her in a biting embrace, as the fog thickened to fill her lungs.
“Help me,” she croaked through blue lips and a stiffened jaw. “Help…”
The cold took her until she felt nothing else but it and the agony of her desperate hope, and a voice whispering in her mind from a place deep and dark and older than time…
Find me…
Selena woke thinking some wrathful person had gripped her by the shoulders and was shaking her. She huddled deeper into the covers, clenching her fists around the soft linen, and squeezing her eyes shut against the tears that stung like needles. She took deep even breaths, willing the phantom cold to subside to her usual pervasive chill.
The pier dream. It was no better or worse than some of the others that plagued her, but for its simple, terrible warning. Find the light or die. Selena huddled deeper in the blankets.
When the vestiges of the dream slipped away, she hauled herself to sitting, and brushed the pale hair out of her eyes. The Wayfarer Inn. Her room’s large window revealed a gray and rainy morning. A late summer storm, unexpected after the perfect blue sky of the day previous, boiled over Isle Uago. Selena watched the rain lance against the glass in silver streaks and sighed.
She nearly sank back to the pillows, to bury herself under the blankets and spend the morning hours—or longer—in a half-sleep in which she could eschew the rain, the leering pirates, and the cold, if her dreams showed mercy.
There lies weakness. And Ilior worries.
Neither thought roused her. Some days, especially the long, black days when her wound was new, she stayed in bed.
The wound. Skye had promised this quest would close it.
She promised.
Selena hauled herself up and dressed; pulled on her leggings, undershirt, and tunic. She left her chainmail shirt in the small trunk at the foot of the bed. It would make her colder in the rain. As soon as she was dressed she descended to the common room and asked the innkeeper to brew some coffee.
“In this heat?”
When Selena slid a kroon over the bar, he nodded, snatched it up, and hollered for his kitchen boy to set a pot.