Law of the Broken Earth(121)

Bertaud only shrugged. “Go,” he said. “Rest, if you can. This is, what, the ninth day since Kairaithin brought his warning? And Kes is still using her strength against the Wall, I’m sure. I imagine the last grains of sand are running through the glass. If Kairaithin cannot come against Tastairiane tonight or tomorrow, I think we will discover what will happen when unquenchable fire runs against unyielding stone.”

Clearly the Feierabianden lord wished to be alone. Jos bowed and withdrew, leaving Lord Bertaud to pore once more over his maps. He could not imagine there was much chance of rest for either of them.

Jos walked slowly toward his room, an antechamber in Lord Bertaud’s own apartment, through the dim light of the hallway. He was thinking of Kes. She had been in the back of his mind without ceasing all through these weary days, and was only more so now.

For all her fierce power, she knew so little. She knew nothing at all of what her adopted people would meet on this side of the pass… He thought of Bertaud saying, He can’t have told her. What a pity! And how ironic for a man who had once been a spy to think a secret too close-kept. But if she knew… if she knew… This one particular secret would do best if one more person knew it, if Kes knew it. Kairaithin could not come close to her, no. Her iskarianere Tastairiane Apailika, Lord of Fire and Air, would see that no enemy could come close to her.

But even the Lord of Fire and Air could not hold a fire mage from going where she would; no, not even if it occurred to the powerful white griffin to constrain her. Likely it would not occur to him, for griffins did not lightly accept or impose any constraint on one another. Kairaithin might not be able to reach Kes. But, though Kes might be wary of Kairaithin, she would not fear Jos. If she wished, she could come to him. And then he could tell her this dangerous secret. He had sworn silence—but Lord Bertaud, from what he’d said a moment earlier, would plainly release him to tell Kes, if he could.

Probably she would not come. But if she did, he could tell her what awaited her adopted people on this side of the pass. Then she would at last understand why the People of Fire and Air must not strike into Feierabiand—no, nor against any part of the country of earth. Then she would refuse Tastairiane’s command to break the Wall, and all the coming storm might yet be averted.

Jos turned on his heel and headed, not toward his room, but toward the stairs. Up and up again, from the busy areas of the house to the upper hallways where no one went but servants, and up again, the remaining flight to the slanted door that led out to the roof. Not a very high roof, for the kings of Feierabiand did not care for tremendous ornate palaces such as those the kings of Casmantium built. But nevertheless above the town and out in the free air, where a creature such as Kes might come.

It was just dusk, a propitious moment because fire mages moved most easily through wind and light at dusk. Even Kairaithin preferred to come and go at dusk, especially if he moved out into the foreign country of earth. Jos was not certain that Kes could shift herself from the country of fire and right across the wild mountains into the country of earth. Especially with the Wall in her way. Nor was he sure that she would come, even if she heard him, and he was not confident even of that.

But he called her. He called her by the name she had owned when she was human, and then by the beautiful, complicated name she owned now: Kereskiita Keskainiane Raikaisipiike. He gazed up at the earliest stars, glittering cold and distant in the luminous sky, and dropped the long graceful words off his tongue as though he were reciting poetry.

And Kes came. Like a white star falling to the earth, like lightning called out of the sky, like a stroke of fire through the dark; the breeze shifted from the north to the east, and strengthened, suddenly carrying a scent of hot sand and molten air, and Kes shaped herself out of the wind and walked forward across the shingled roof. She moved as though she barely touched the roof, as though she might walk straight up into the sky if she ceased to pay attention to where she placed her feet. Her shadow, dim in the dusk, glowed like the last of the sunset. Her eyes, turned toward him, were filled with fire.

Jos stood still, watching her come. His heart had twisted the moment he’d realized she had actually come to his call, and it felt tight and painful still. He could feel the beat of his pulse in his throat. She walked toward him, smiling her fierce, beautiful smile, her eyes blazing with life and fire, and he forgot for that first moment why he had called her and what he had intended to say.

“Jos,” she said. Her voice was light and quick and joyful, but behind the joy was something else, a strange wistfulness that was more nearly something he could recognize. There was no cruelty to her voice now—nor any kindness, but that he could endure, so long as the cruelty had gone out of her. She held her hands out to him.