5. N
Triana drifted through a memory dream, weaker than the ones from the previous day, but still more real than the ones she usually had. Her brother, his arm dripping with blood, stood by the decanters and swilled a glass of their father’s very expensive liquor.
He followed her glance to the blood that soaked his sleeve and dripped on the floor.
“An excess of bravery is a poor survival trait, brother,” she said, “especially when matched with impetuousness. And drink.”
He turned to look at her. “A fine morning ruined, sweet sister. The Alicorn had foals, three of them. Scouts missed that. They’ve been punished. I hope their new assignments don’t require seeing.”
He shrugged. “Still, a lesson to the others. Do your job. Keep your eyes.”
He looked at her, a wry smile. “Bit early for you, isn’t it? First light of noon, and all.”
She tossed her head. “I’ll do as I please.”
He laughed. “Never saw why Father indulged you, after Mother died.” He studied her face for a moment, and stepped closer. She backed away, stopping when she felt sunlight, warm on her back. “I see you’ve had more work done. Your idea, or Father’s?”
She crossed her arms over her chest. In the dream his expression appeared crueler than she remembered, though the memory had been bad enough.
“You’re looking more like Mother every day.” He waggled his fingers, a lazy imitation of a spellcaster at work. “Never understood why Father allowed you out of the contract with Lord Kevenashu. It was a good match.”
She shivered, not liking his tone. “Father never remarried either in spite of some very good offers.”
He came a few steps towards her, still dripping blood.
She noticed a slight weave in his step. Strong liquor after a light breakfast and blood-loss.
Echarian was unkind enough when sober. “Never noticed before just how much you look like Mother.”
He raised his hand towards her face. She drew back.
“There, in the line of the jaw. Little work, just so, and now it’s a better match. The spell-sculptor has a good eye.”
He raised his eyebrows suggestively. “Father’s decision then ….”
He laughed, hard and cruel. “Maybe he wants to be like those elven lords down south … the ones that might bleed out from a hangnail.”
In both dream and memory, she had thrown a vase at him then, easily deflected with a hand flick’s worth of magic.
His expression hardened. “Be careful, sweet sister, about standing with the sunlight behind you. Gives a fellow ideas. But, I think you knew that.” No trace of a smile now. “Someday, father will pass, and with him your protection.”
She raised her chin, defiant. “Touch me, and I will kill you.”
He made no effort to mask his contempt. “You’ve nothing to fear from me, sweet sister. I’d sooner cuddle a viper. I daresay that would be sweeter. And safer.”
She swore at him, hurling taunts and insults.
Another laugh. Hard and cold. “You need to learn to control that temper of yours, Triana. It does nothing for Mother’s complexion.”
He turned on his heel, trailed by drops of blood, and spoke over his shoulder.
“Your fate will be to get packed off to the first wheezer who offers more than two copper bits for you. I’ll throw in a pretty gag to sweeten the deal. Or maybe I’ll just have the healer mute you before delivery. Conversation isn’t required of a brood-mare.”
He paused at the door. “Just ask Mother.”
A week later he died when the saddle band on his charger gave way during the hunt, and he fell on his head.
He never, ever bothered to check his own tack before riding, just mounted up and assumed the human slaves would take care of everything.
Not even a noble death, from a unicorn at bay. Just an ignoble fall.
No one ever asked her what had become of her mother’s jeweled knife.
Triana awoke, drenched in sweat and disoriented. The dream had been real, more real than the memory, with small details she had never noticed. The sound of the glasses and the decanter. The smell of horse sweat, leather, and blood. She had never recalled those before, certainly never dreamt of them.
She rubbed her hands across her eyes and waited for her heart to slow, and her breathing to ease.
What is happening to me? First the dream memory of my mother, and now this?
She sat up and took stock. Both had details she had never recalled, and both were hard-edged, as if experiencing them for the first time.
Something about the passage? Something they are doing to me?
She looked around the room. Bright daylight streamed in the high-window and the sounds outside the barred window suggested an estate coming to life, and morning light streamed through the window.
An estate, but not hers. Too much banter and light conversation, and a laugh as two men shared a joke.
Laughter meant men not working. She stopped herself.
No men here, no slaves. Just elven lords.
She corrected herself again. Not elven lords. Elves. From——
Home. Their Home-world. Evelon. That dangerous, deadly place we called Home. The fear came rushing back … and she worked to press it down, as she had when growing up. Fear is for the weak.
She did her best to pass through it, and focus on what little she knew. First and foremost, they hadn’t killed her. That was a good sign. She had some kind of value, and value meant leverage. Good start. Less afraid.
She rose and dressed. Her own clothes smelled of rancid sweat and dirt.
Her skin crawled at the thought of putting soiled clothes back on.
Best to leave that for the maids. She dressed instead in the loose tunic and trousers they gave her, and looked for a second set.
She smiled when she found the spare. This she could work with.
She dragged a small table next to the door over near the bed and piled the extra clothing on it.
Then, she sat on the edge of the bed, keeping her hands and mind busy, to avoid the brooding that came naturally to her.
She used a combination of small magics, and the stitchery her mother had taught her during the brief periods when she was lucid, and before the healers addled her mind with more potions.
She quickly opened the seams and began rehemming and recoloring the tunic, moving the material from the sides to the lower edge and creating a sort of short skirt that would come down over the trousers.
For those, she lightened and recolored them, casting them into the brighter colors she preferred, and snugging them in a bit, so she didn’t feel quite so much like she swam in them.
She noted as she worked that the weave felt odd, strangely regular …
not a fiber of the sort she had grown up with.
Not the light weave of the plant wool, nor the heavier and warmer weaves of the herd-beasts that ranged across the estates.
Something else. She rubbed it between her fingers, then ran a nail across the weft.
She wondered if it had been loomed on some kind of machine.
That would explain the regularity, but not the texture of the fabric, coarse, but still flexible. Spell-made cloth?
She understood the how of it, but not the why. Only the most powerful could Make things, and the ones with that kind of power had armies of the slaves to do their making for them, the mundane way, with looms and needles.
She laughed to herself … then again, perhaps just a plant she’d never encountered.
She tried to remember the tutor who had really tried, and wasn’t merely pretending to teach while she pretended to learn.
“The simplest answer is usually the right one, Triana. Nature likes to be lazy. Why take the hard way, when an easier one offers.”
You applied that reasoning. You could make cloth with magic, but you didn’t need to.
Especially when you had slaves. Or … machines.
She tried to remember what the tutor called that type of reasoning.
Simplest answer is usually the right one.
Something about a blade … somebody’s Razor.
Regardless of its provenance, she found the cloth easy to reshape, drawing it through her fingers and moving it where she wanted it.
Once she was done, she had a dress and trousers that were certainly not the most stylish, but were most definitely hers.
The reworked fabric proved to be softer, much softer, than the original cloth.
Even the small act of making the clothing hers helped her feel better, more a person with choices, rather than a piece of flotsam cast up on a lakeshore.
Now that she had decent clothing, she needed a bit of a wash.
The small room had a bit of an alcove tucked back that included a type of chamberpot she had never seen before.
It was large enough to sit on and set firmly into the floor.
Water sluiced into it constantly, then down some kind of a drain to where it was collected.
What a marvelous invention. A small stand next to the chamberpot held a basin with a spigot that operated with a touch.
A small pile of hand-cloths and a small cake of soap made short work of the remaining dirt and the grime from her expedition, her fight in the cave, and her passage here.
It wasn’t the same as a real bath, but much better than feeling dirty and grimy.
She stripped off the baggy clothing they left for her and washed as best as she could, squeezing the cloth clean of the grime that came away from her. She even managed to wash her hair.
Once done, and still damp, she quickly changed into her new made clothing, piling the shapeless things they’d given her on the floor, next to the rank garments she’d been wearing when they’d captured her. It made more work for the maids, but that was their problem, not hers.
She was surprised at how the simple feeling of being clean added to her spirits. She felt ready to face whatever came through the door.
Fortunately, that proved to be breakfast.
The lock clicked and the door opened, streaming light into the room.
Triana squirted her eyes a bit. Two large guards flanked another one of the thick-waisted women, who pushed a type of wheeled cart loaded with a basket, a small ewer, and a tray with several covered bowls and plates.
Triana held her place, standing regally, a proud elven lord.
The loud grumble from her stomach betrayed her.