Chapter 16 #2
“Who’s out there?” came a hoarse call from the beach. Over the sloshing water, I didn’t recognize the voice.
“It’s us,” I called back stiffly, trying to shake Emment awake. I heard a bitten-off curse, the swoosh of someone wading into the surf.
Emment finally stirred, blinking into the thick darkness. “Wha—?” His bleary eyes took me in.
A cold hand touched my back, and I wheeled, caught off guard. For a second, the light of the lantern blinded me. Then the figure who was holding it resolved: Llir.
His cloak’s hood was up, shadowing his face. As I took in the smooth lines of his features, he yanked it back. “Emment,” he said, staring wildly past me. He’d waded up to his waist into the water, his doublet darkening, his hair wet with spray. “Is he all right?”
“Functional,” I said, glancing back at the sorry sight, “if incoherent.”
“Help me get this boat in,” Llir said tersely, handing me the lantern. He gripped the boat’s side and began to haul it along with him. Though he wasn’t as broad at the shoulder as his brother, his tall frame still exuded a lean, wiry strength.
When I spoke to the water, it heeded me quickly, seeming almost to sense my weary impatience.
I was too fatigued to be hampered by anxiety, too fed up with Emment to let the nerves creep in—though Llir’s presence had sparked an odd flittering in my navel.
Probably I was conscious of failing in front of him, like last time.
Together our efforts easily grounded the boat, and I helped as best I could to drag it clear of the water. By now, Emment was up, trying to clamber out of the vessel, and Llir darted around to him, slipping a shoulder under his arm.
“You let him get like this?” Llir said, hoisting his brother to standing.
“Me?” I said. Surprise gave way to brittle anger. “He gave me the slip. But even if he hadn’t, it’s not like he’d have listened to me if I’d said anything.”
The revelation about the fights was on the tip of my tongue. I wanted to spill out my bitterness to Llir, but I was willing to bet he already knew all about them.
Llir kept his eyes down, navigating the shingle. He looked strained, the corners of his mouth pulled taut. “What happened? Why is he…?” He gestured to Emment’s breeches.
I eyed our filthy, soaking garments. The two of us must have presented quite a sight.
I let out a shaky breath. “The sinking sands,” I admitted.
“There were howls, and I pushed the horse too hard. Emment fell. He took off over the flats—I had no time to stop him. He wandered right into one of those wide streams.”
Llir’s head whipped round; he gazed at me through the murk. “You got him out,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
Saved his life. Eventually.
I nodded guiltily, meeting his eyes.
Llir blinked, as though seeing me properly for the first time. I wavered under that piercing stare. After a pause, he said, in a hoarse rush, “Thank you.”
I said nothing, merely moved to Emment’s other side, and in silence we helped the heir up the path to the castle. He shuffled along like a walking corpse, only just making it up the West Tower steps without collapsing.
On reaching his rooms, we steered him over to the bed. He made no attempt to undress. Didn’t even take his boots off. He collapsed face down and lay there unmoving, leaving streaks of sand and mud on the coverlet. I was certain his valets had seen much worse.
I folded my arms, darting a glance at Llir. “He does this often,” I said. Again, not a question.
Llir didn’t tear his shadowed eyes from Emment’s form. After a heavy silence, he murmured, “He was eight when our mother died. Remembers it all. It was slow. Drawn out. We think all this started as a way to…block it out.”
He was stock-still, trancelike, lost in memories. He almost seemed to have forgotten it was me he was talking to.
“And now?” I ventured, recalling Rhianne’s and Tigo’s dark looks. What had Emment been trying to escape from this time?
“Zennia. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Zennia.”
The heavy quiet was broken by a sudden, grating snore.
Llir blinked, and a veil drew across his face. Whatever reverie he’d been caught in had dissipated.
“We should get to bed, too,” he said. “I’ll check on him in the morning.”
“Of course.” I hung back to let him go first.
But as I made to leave, hearing Llir’s quick steps fade ahead of me, I suddenly realized where I was.
What I could do.
Heart scudding, I looked back at the regal four-poster. Another snore emanated from that thatch of dark hair.
Silently, carefully, I went to Emment’s wardrobe and rifled through the garments within. My crumpled ball of paper was tucked into my bodice—I’d decided it was safer not to hide it in my room. Unfolding it, I used a quill from Emment’s writing desk to scratch out a list of all the laconite I found.
I moved to a slim closet. An end table. A dresser. And there, in a box in a top drawer, I found it:
More of that same false laconite.
It was set into a few earrings, a brooch, some rings. A long, heavy pendant wrapped in thin tissue. I touched them all hesitantly. Silence. Stillness.
A grunt from the bed; Emment shifted in his sleep. I jumped, slipped the drawer closed, and scrambled to my feet. What if Llir decided to come back after all?
Quickly I made sure everything was as I’d found it. Then, feeling even more puzzled than before, I stole out of the room and down the dark, silent stairway.