He leaned back. “Galadan. The watch?”
“Remains quiet.”
Pan’assár nodded. “Well, then. There are stories to be shared.” His eyes glistened in the gloom, looking straight at Handir.
No one spoke. The only sounds were the scrape of cloth over stone, the clank of a cup and the distant hiss of saltwater over pebbles.
“The last thing I remember is weightlessness. I remember wondering if I was falling or shooting upwards. And then I remember being thrown sideways. Next, it is all a blur of Fel’annár’s hazy face, the smell of earth and streaks of bright colour. I remember heat and then cold. I woke in a cave, well cared for and guarded. I don’t know how we survived that fall, but I do know that he bears the bruises and I almost drowned.”
A cough interrupted his words, and Sontúr gestured for him to swallow more of the tea that he had brewed. “You must have swallowed more than a mouthful of water,” said Sontúr.
“I breathed it. I will always remember the feeling of weight and cold; the surety of my own demise.” Sontúr’s brow twitched, gaze crossing with that of Llyniel.
“I should not have moved.” Idernon shuffled, uncomfortable.
“It was inevitable. In order to help us, it was inevitable.” Handir looked through the fire, at Idernon’s downcast face. “I could not have survived unless something changed that frozen moment in time, Warrior. I would have drowned right there in Fel’annár’s grip. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t even call out. Only Fel’annár could see that. Nothing you did could have changed that.”
“So, you resuscitated the prince, left a tracking code and then dragged him inland. You found a cave, set up camp and then fought the Hounds,” said Pan’assár, almost no intonation in his voice.
Fel’annár nodded his aching head. “I almost failed.” Fel’annár turned his head a little, chancing a furtive glance at Handir, found him staring back.
Galadan slowly shook his head. “But how did you escape the falls? We thought you both dead—you should be dead.” Gor’sadén nodded at the observation, turning to his Disciple expectantly.
Fel’annár smiled, eyes sad. “We had help.”
“The tree,” said Llyniel, eyes wide.
“No,” said Sontúr, shaking his head.
But Fel’annár just smiled. “It was a hard fall, nonetheless. But we would have died had it not helped us into the water.”
“Helped you?” asked Ramien.
“It broke our fall, at the expense of its grip on the land.”
“Did you … did you conjure it?” asked Ramien.
Fel’annár shook his head. “I didn’t even see it. I prayed in those final moments …”
Handir, sat forward. “All I remember is soaked cloth and sopping locks, your green eyes and arms pressing painfully around me.”
Nobody spoke. Water broke upon the shore beyond the cave mouth, and the fire flickered in the draft.
“That was my sworn duty.” Fel’annár returned Handir’s weighty gaze stubbornly, but Handir would not look away. Llyniel knew Fel’annár’s mind. He would have them all think it was simple duty. But it wasn’t just that. Fel’annár had been protecting his brother. She knew it, and she rather thought Handir did too.
“What happened after the fall?” asked Idernon. “How were you not swept away in the current towards the Glistening Falls?”
“We tumbled for a while, but the current let up and there was calm. I managed to angle us towards the shallows.”
“I remember none of that,” said Handir.
“You wouldn’t. I thought you were dead when I pulled you out. I think you were dead.”
Sontúr shuffled forwards, a deep frown on his brow. “You breathed him back?” asked the prince.
“Yes. Although I thought it was over. I was going to stop … and then I remembered the Dohai, the effects of it on my wounds. Something happened, I …” Fel’annár reached for his boots, pulled them on and struggled to his feet. He swayed for a moment and then turned to Pan’assár. “I’m going to check the camp.”
They watched him leave and then turned back to the fire. Gor’sadén breathed deeply, his questions carefully stowed for later. Idernon made to stand, but a princely hand fell on his forearm.
“Let me go, Warrior.”
Idernon arched an eyebrow at Handir, but bowed and settled back down beside Ramien and Galadan, watching the prince as he walked slowly after Fel’annár. Just behind him, Tensári followed.
Llyniel watched them leave the cave, a slow smile playing at the corners of her mouth.
“Well, then,” began Galadan, “who would have thought?”
Pan’assár agreed. Something had happened between Handir and Fel’annár. Their trials on the river had brought about some fundamental change, something they were yet to see. But there was something that interested Pan’assár more. Something he wanted to know.
Why was Tensári here?
Water brushed repetitively over the pebbles and hissed as it retreated over the sands, the rhythm soothing. Fel’annár sat on a rock, hands on his thighs as he contemplated the wide expanse. He was surprised at who had followed him. He didn’t turn when Handir spoke.
“I still remember the first time I saw the sea. I stood hand in hand with my father, my head somewhere around the pommel of his sword. I could not take my eyes off it, even though I knew my father watched me. I gawked.” He smiled as he remembered. “My mouth hung open as my mind struggled to grasp the enormity of it. He warned me to close my mouth else I trapped a fly, or perhaps I would dribble.” He huffed fondly. “Princes do not dribble, you see. So, I closed my mouth because the thought of swallowing an insect was horrifying, but still, I will never quite lose my sense of awe every time I stand upon the shores of Pelagia.”
“A fond memory.”
“Yes.” Handir was struck by the fact that Fel’annár had no such memories of his father.
“What you did, Fel’annár. How you steered us down the river, kept me with you in spite of my useless flailing. You took the blows, turned me when a boulder blocked our way; you embraced me when we fell, conjured the tree and then you breathed me back to life. You kept me as safe as I could be.”
“Duty, Prince.”
The words were almost sad, thought Handir. They were, perhaps, Fel’annár’s last attempt at fooling himself, an attempt even he knew would fail. “It was beyond duty. You protected your brother, not your prince. I felt that much.”
Fel’annár turned from the sea to Handir’s unwavering gaze. For a moment, Handir thought he would speak, but he did not. He simply sat there with his pale and bruised face gleaming under the half-moon. What would it take? he mused. What would it take to smash down that solid rock wall his brother held around himself?
“You know. Those terrible moments before the battle, when I stood upon the ramparts with Vorn’asté and Damiel, while you stood with The Company, alone before a horde of thousands. I suddenly wished we had known each other. I wanted to tell you how sorry I was. I wanted to tell you that I understood you. I wished I had called you brother, just once. And I wanted to tell you how proud I was.”