Ileaha, yes. The Kierash, perhaps the Mersian, I will try." While not a complex spell, a wend-whisper required an exact mental impression to mark the recipient.
They settled the wording of a brief message, and Medair lost herself to the precision of casting. It was worth an attempt, though there was no guarantee the bubbles of words she was creating would reach even Avahn and Ileaha. Wend-whispers were described as 'relentless butterflies': they would keep on until they found their goal, but their course might be far from linear, and any careless foot could crush them. With their missing companions so close by chances should be high, but the cloaking mist would be poorly designed if it did not interfere with exactly this sort of communication.
"Could you cast a trace, if we can't find them?" she asked, when the last of the messages blundered into the night.
"I might, with some difficulty, establish a link to those most familiar to me without having some object of theirs to focus upon. The chances of failure are high."
Medair stiffened. He had lifted his hands, and his fingers brushed her collarbone, her throat, then found the cord of the invested spell she wore.
"You have worn this long enough that I could use it to trace you if we are separated," he said, lifting it over her head. "My chances certainly increase when you are not wearing it."
He slid the ward into his robe. Then, after the most minute of pauses, reached out and took her hands in his.
CHAPTER FIVE
"Don't."
It was a feeble protest, and his long fingers only shifted a fraction in response. He was silent and she couldn't say anything more, knowing how much she needed to pull away, and completely incapable of making that tiny, tremendous effort. They sat there, hand-in-hand at the mouth of the cave, while futility chased its tail around Medair's mind.
She had admitted some of her feelings to herself, but to do anything about them was impossible. He would never stop being Ibisian and she would always be Medair an Rynstar. Loyal Palladian, failed hero. Butcher.
"Do you remember our last meeting before the Conflagration?"
"Y-yes," she said, uncertainly. That had been on the balcony, when he had theorised about her past.
"I have never regretted a moment more than that," he said. His voice was as soft and calm as ever, and so bare in its sincerity that she had to stop herself from flinching.
"I knew that my people had given you reason to hate," he went on, choosing his words with eggshell care. "I know now that to you I am a man who might be Palladian but is foremost a White Snake, one of the people who brought down the Empire you served. I am everything you should hate, and if you do not, you will feel in your heart that you have turned your face from all you failed to save."
He glanced at her, and she couldn't say anything, because he had put her feelings into words exactly.
"That night, I wanted to tell you that nothing would please me more than to name you mine, to have between us a certainty which banished distance. And I did not. I thought it too cruel. It is my eternal fortune to be allowed to make that choice again and, though the moment is perhaps harsher still, this time I do not bow down to the hold of the past."
"I am the past," she said, finally gathering the will to pull her hands from his, but his fingers tightened and held her still.
"You are from the past," he said, firmly. "I doubt I will ever succeed in freeing you completely from that cage, from the weight of circumstance crushing you. But you are not failing the dead by living, Medair. You are here, now, and I would be–" He stopped and she heard him take a breath; the imperturbable Illukar, struggling for words.
The thousand arguments she needed to fling in his face would not come to her, sabotaged by a pathetic need.
He looked down, then traced a question on her palm. "Even without your past, we did not have an
They settled the wording of a brief message, and Medair lost herself to the precision of casting. It was worth an attempt, though there was no guarantee the bubbles of words she was creating would reach even Avahn and Ileaha. Wend-whispers were described as 'relentless butterflies': they would keep on until they found their goal, but their course might be far from linear, and any careless foot could crush them. With their missing companions so close by chances should be high, but the cloaking mist would be poorly designed if it did not interfere with exactly this sort of communication.
"Could you cast a trace, if we can't find them?" she asked, when the last of the messages blundered into the night.
"I might, with some difficulty, establish a link to those most familiar to me without having some object of theirs to focus upon. The chances of failure are high."
Medair stiffened. He had lifted his hands, and his fingers brushed her collarbone, her throat, then found the cord of the invested spell she wore.
"You have worn this long enough that I could use it to trace you if we are separated," he said, lifting it over her head. "My chances certainly increase when you are not wearing it."
He slid the ward into his robe. Then, after the most minute of pauses, reached out and took her hands in his.
CHAPTER FIVE
"Don't."
It was a feeble protest, and his long fingers only shifted a fraction in response. He was silent and she couldn't say anything more, knowing how much she needed to pull away, and completely incapable of making that tiny, tremendous effort. They sat there, hand-in-hand at the mouth of the cave, while futility chased its tail around Medair's mind.
She had admitted some of her feelings to herself, but to do anything about them was impossible. He would never stop being Ibisian and she would always be Medair an Rynstar. Loyal Palladian, failed hero. Butcher.
"Do you remember our last meeting before the Conflagration?"
"Y-yes," she said, uncertainly. That had been on the balcony, when he had theorised about her past.
"I have never regretted a moment more than that," he said. His voice was as soft and calm as ever, and so bare in its sincerity that she had to stop herself from flinching.
"I knew that my people had given you reason to hate," he went on, choosing his words with eggshell care. "I know now that to you I am a man who might be Palladian but is foremost a White Snake, one of the people who brought down the Empire you served. I am everything you should hate, and if you do not, you will feel in your heart that you have turned your face from all you failed to save."
He glanced at her, and she couldn't say anything, because he had put her feelings into words exactly.
"That night, I wanted to tell you that nothing would please me more than to name you mine, to have between us a certainty which banished distance. And I did not. I thought it too cruel. It is my eternal fortune to be allowed to make that choice again and, though the moment is perhaps harsher still, this time I do not bow down to the hold of the past."
"I am the past," she said, finally gathering the will to pull her hands from his, but his fingers tightened and held her still.
"You are from the past," he said, firmly. "I doubt I will ever succeed in freeing you completely from that cage, from the weight of circumstance crushing you. But you are not failing the dead by living, Medair. You are here, now, and I would be–" He stopped and she heard him take a breath; the imperturbable Illukar, struggling for words.
The thousand arguments she needed to fling in his face would not come to her, sabotaged by a pathetic need.
He looked down, then traced a question on her palm. "Even without your past, we did not have an
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