The climb to the hut below the Standing Stones took longer than I expected, and I was winded by the time I reached the lichen-covered pavement. The cold wind sweeping across the mountainside could not suppress the momentary flush that rose to my cheeks as I took in the sight of the hut, remembering our last visit. Unfortunately, even if we had the time, there was no chance of repeating our evening together. Alastair was not there.
Akarra, however, was. She sat on the crag overlooking the hut and the slope below, her tail twining meditatively through the dry stems of ivy clinging to the rocky face. At a gesture of her wing, I sat on the bench next to the hut.
“I don’t like the winds, Aliza,” she said after a moment of silence. “First the Al’eketh, now the Keth. The North Wind and the South Wind,” she said. “It turned south about an hour ago and has been gaining strength since.”
The hairs on the back of my neck pricked up. The South Wind? Was it a warning, an invitation, or pure chance? I knew enough of the fickleness of the gods not to trust it as a sign of favor. I knew enough of the gods not to trust them at all. As quickly as I could, I told Akarra of Gwyn’s letter and the maidservants’ reports. Her wings fluttered at news of the moving Tekari.
“Well, at least we know where Wydrick and Tully went,” she said.
“Aye.”
I wondered how easily the Tekari of the kingdom were recruited. Had they leapt at a second chance for vengeance against us, or did they require persuading? Wydrick had gone to murderous lengths to recruit the Green Lady of the Wastes. I feared what he might have instructed other ghastradi to do in their campaigns, not only against human and Shani, but Idar as well. There would be no Indifferent in the war to come. Images of slain Idar strewn across the roads of southern Arle filled my mind, their chests cut open and their heartstones removed as a grisly warning to everyone who stood against our unknown enemy.
“Will you be able to fly in the morning?” I asked.
A smile touched Akarra’s lips. “Master Groundskeeper was kind enough to set aside a few head of cattle for me this afternoon. I’ll be fine.”
I made a note to seek out the groundskeeper and give him my personal thanks. We sat for a minute in companionable silence, watching the Keth send dead leaves scuttling across the pavement. It felt strange, this little moment of something like calm. The shadow of war hung over Dragonsmoor, just as it did the rest of the kingdom, but here at least it felt distant, even forgettable for minutes at a time. The maid Liana was right; House Pendragon stood like an island in the midst of a tempest. I wondered how long that could last.
“Aliza, I’m worried about Alastair.”
I looked up at her. “Me too.”
“I’ve known him through the death of his father and Mar’esh’s maiming and the first time he thought he lost you—grief and rage and heartbreak of the kind I thought humans could not bear. Yet bear them he did.” Her wings drooped and she let out a fiery sigh. “But this . . .”
“I know.”
“Lord Erran may not have been a good man, but he loved Alastair more than life itself. I will never doubt that.”
“Not enough to tell him the truth,” I said quietly.
She sighed. “Perhaps that is exactly why Lord Erran did not tell him. Perhaps he thought it would spare him pain.”
Yet all it did was worsen the pain when he did find out. “I should go find him.”
“You don’t know where he is?”
“I thought he might’ve come up here.”
“Ah.” She gave a humorless chuckle. “As did I. Have you checked with his smith? Or the armory? He’ll need a new sword.”
“I haven’t, but I will.”
“There is another place,” she said before I could start down the path. “Below the house, where the ashes of the family are kept. He may be there. Barton will know how to find it.”
“Thank you, Akarra.”
She reached down and touched my cheek lightly with the tip of her wing. “Lend him some of your strength, shan’ei. He will need it.”
I didn’t bother checking with the smith or visiting the family armory. As soon as she’d said it, I knew. Barton showed me the entrance to the mausoleum at the back of the house. It was through a low stone doorway, a room of plain marble, bare and white and chill, and I didn’t wonder why Alastair had neglected to show me this room on our earlier tours. Through the door I caught a glimpse of a short stair and a dim, lamplit passage.
“Thank you, Barton,” I said. “If you don’t mind, it might be best for me to see him alone.”
“Very well, my lady.”
The mausoleum of Family Daired was no musty, oppressive tomb, nor was it lavish with expensive monuments to the fallen dragonriders. This was the resting place of those who had no illusions about death. Simple stone plinths lined the long gallery on each side, on which rested the urns of each Daired. The urns varied in style and substance; I saw gold and iron, alabaster, ebony, and oakstone, even one of glass, but what drew my eye first were the tapestries hanging behind each plinth. The Daireds might not have had any illusions about death, but they wanted their lives remembered. The rich colors glowed even in the dim light, the cloth untouched by moths or rot, depicting the battles and great deeds of each Daired, immortalized in woven splendor astride their dragons. In any other moment, the artist in me might have given in to the desire to linger over each one, puzzling out the stories behind the ashes, but there was only one plinth I cared about now, and only one story.
Alastair sat on the ground halfway down the gallery, a new sword resting naked across his knees. The lantern beside him sent long shadows creeping across the floor. I crossed the distance as softly as I could, suddenly conscious of the deep silence that pressed down on this place. This was the hall of the dead; here, it was the living who intruded. Alastair said nothing as I approached and sat down.
Lord Erran’s tapestry showed him astride Kaheset, his sword raised against a writhing knot of lamias. The obsidian urn atop the plinth, however, was empty. Alastair had not been able to retrieve his father’s body from where he’d fallen in Cloven Cairn.
“Kaheset was right,” he said.
“He shouldn’t have told you like that.”
Silence.
“Alastair—”
“I knew,” he said in a quiet voice. “Some part of me always knew. Little things my father would say or do, or the way he’d look at Tristan when he thought no one was watching. I saw as a child but didn’t understand, and when I was old enough to understand, I no longer wanted to see.”
“Dearest, I’m so sorry.”
At last his gaze fell. “Do you know why it took so long for me to ask you to marry me?”
The question surprised me, but I seized the opportunity to draw him out. “You had quite the list, if I recall.”
He remained grave. “From our first battle in the Witherwood I knew I’d love you. By the time we left for Edan Rose in the spring I’d decided: either I’d make you my wife or I’d die alone, nakla and all our family’s traditions be damned.” He sighed. “Still, I almost didn’t ask. Every time I took up my sword, every time I thought I’d made up my mind, I’d see that heartstone and hear again all my father’s lectures about the honor of our house and the strength of our bloodline and our duty to live up to the Daired name. The truth of tey iskaros went deeper than feelings, he’d said, and no matter where our hearts lay, nakla were forbidden to us. We were better than them.” His lips pulled taut as if in a grin, but it was the grin of a death’s-head: lifeless, joyless, empty. “My father was a hypocrite.”