Chaol mulled it over. Looked to the trunks against the wall near the bathing chamber.
Kashin had turned to leave when Chaol asked, “When does your father next meet with his foreign trade vizier?”
37
Nesryn had run out of time.
Falkan required ten days to recover, which had left her and Sartaq with too little time to visit the other watchtower ruins to the south. She’d tried to convince the prince to go without the shape-shifter, but he’d refused. Even with Borte now intent on joining them, he was taking no risks.
But Sartaq found other ways to fill their time. He’d taken Nesryn to other aeries to the north and west, where he met with the reigning hearth-mothers and the captains, both male and female, who led their forces.
Some were welcoming, greeting Sartaq with feasts and revels that lasted long into the night.
Some, like the Berlad, were aloof, their hearth-mothers and other various leaders not inviting them to stay for longer than necessary. Certainly not bringing out jugs of the fermented goat’s milk that they drank—and that was strong enough to put hair on Nesryn’s chest, face, and teeth. She’d nearly choked to death the first time she’d tried it, earning hearty claps on the back and a toast in her honor.
It was the warm welcome that still surprised her. The smiles of the rukhin who asked, some shyly, some boldly, for demonstrations with her bow and arrow. But for all she showed them, she, too, learned. Went soaring with Sartaq through the mountain passes, the prince calling out targets and Nesryn striking them, learning how to fire into the wind, as the wind.
He even let her ride Kadara alone—just once, and enough for her to again wonder how they let four-year-olds do it, but … she’d never felt so unleashed.
So unburdened and unbridled and yet settled in herself.
So they went, clan to clan, hearth to hearth. Sartaq checking up on the riders and their training, stopping to visit new babes and ailing old folk. Nesryn remained his shadow—or tried to.
Anytime she lingered a step back, Sartaq nudged her forward. Anytime there was a task to be done with the others, he asked her to do it. The washing-up after a meal, the returning of arrows from target practice, the cleaning-out of the ruk droppings from halls and nests.
The last task, at least, the prince joined her in. No matter his rank, no matter his status as captain, he did every chore without a word of complaint. No one was above work, he told her when she’d asked one night.
And whether she was scraping crusted droppings from the ground or teaching young warriors how to string a bow, something restless in her had settled.
She could no longer picture it—the quiet meetings at the palace in Rifthold where she had given solemn guards their orders and then parted ways amongst marble floors and finery. Could not remember the city barracks, where she’d lurked in the back of a crowded room, gotten her orders, and then stood on a street corner for hours, watching people buy and eat and argue and walk about.
Another lifetime, another world.
Here in the deep mountains, breathing in the crisp air, seated around the fire pit to hear Houlun narrate tales of rukhin and the horse-lords, tales of the first khagan and his beloved wife, whom Borte had been named after … She could not remember that life before.
And did not want to go back to it.
It was at one such fire, Nesryn combing out the tight braid that Borte had taught her to plait, that she surprised even herself.
Houlun had settled in, a whetstone in hand as she honed a dagger, preparing to work while she talked to the small gathering—Sartaq, Borte, a gray-faced and limping Falkan, and six others who Nesryn had learned were Borte’s cousins of sorts. The hearth-mother scanned their faces, golden and flickering with the flame, and asked, “What of a tale from Adarlan instead?”
All eyes had turned to Nesryn and Falkan.
The shape-shifter winced. “I’m afraid mine are rather dull.” He considered. “I did have an interesting visit to the Red Desert once, but …” He gestured as much as he could to Nesryn. “I should like to hear one of your stories first, Captain.”
Nesryn tried not to fidget under the weight of so many stares. “The stories I grew up with,” she admitted, “were mostly of you all, of these lands.” Broad smiles at that. Sartaq only winked. Nesryn ducked her head, face heating.
“Tell a story of the Fae, if you know them,” Borte suggested. “Of the Fae Prince you met.”
Nesryn shook her head. “I don’t have any of those—and I do not know him that well.” As Borte frowned, Nesryn added, “But I can sing for you.”
Silence.
Houlun set down her whetstone. “A song would be appreciated.” A scowl at Borte and Sartaq. “Since neither of my children can carry a tune to save their lives.” Borte rolled her eyes at her hearth-mother, but Sartaq bowed his head in apology, a crooked grin now on his mouth.
Nesryn smiled, even as her heart pounded at her bold offer. She’d never really performed for anyone, but this … It was not performing, as much as it was sharing. She listened to the wind whispering outside the cave mouth for a long moment, the others falling quiet.
“This is a song of Adarlan,” she said at last. “From the foothills north of Rifthold, where my mother was born.” An old, familiar ache filled her chest. “She used to sing this to me—before she died.”
A glimmer of sympathy in Houlun’s steely gaze. But Nesryn glanced to Borte as she spoke, finding the young woman’s face unusually soft—staring at Nesryn as if she had not seen her before. Nesryn gave her a small, subtle nod. It is a weight we both bear.
Borte offered a small, quiet smile in return.
Nesryn listened to the wind again. Let herself drift back to her pretty little bedroom in Rifthold, let herself feel her mother’s silken hands stroking her face, her hair. She had been so taken with her father’s stories of his far-off homeland, of the ruks and horse-lords, that she had rarely asked for anything about Adarlan itself, despite being a child of both lands.
And this song of her mother’s … One of the few stories she had, in the form she loved best. Of her homeland in better days. And she wanted to share it with them—that glimpse into what her land might again become.
Nesryn cleared her throat. Took a bracing breath.
And then she opened her mouth and sang.
The crackle of the fire her only drum, Nesryn’s voice filled the Mountain-Hall of Altun, wending through the ancient pillars, bouncing off the carved rock.
She had the sense of Sartaq going very still, had the sense that there was nothing hard or laughing on his face.
But she focused on the song, on those long-ago words, that story of distant winters and speckles of blood on snow; that story of mothers and their daughters, how they loved and fought and tended to each other.
Her voice soared and fell, bold and graceful as a ruk, and Nesryn could have sworn that even the howling winds paused to listen.
And when she finished, a gilded, high note of the spring sun breaking across cold lands, when silence and the crackling fire filled the world once more …
Borte was crying. Silent tears streaming down her pretty face. Houlun’s hand was tightly wrapped around her granddaughter’s, the whetstone set aside. A wound still healing—for both of them.
And perhaps Sartaq, too—for grief limned his face. Grief, and awe, and perhaps something infinitely more tender as he said, “Another tale to spread of Neith’s Arrow.”
She ducked her head again, accepting the praise of the others with a smile. Falkan clapped as best he could manage and called for another song.
Nesryn, to her surprise, obliged them. A merry, bright mountain song her father had taught her, of rushing streams amid blooming fields of wildflowers.
But even as the night moved on, as Nesryn sang in that beautiful mountain-hall, she felt Sartaq’s stare. Different from any he’d given before.
And though she told herself she should, Nesryn did not look away.
A few days later, when Falkan had at last healed, they dared venture down to the three other watchtowers Houlun had discovered.
They found nothing at the first two, both far enough to require separate trips. Houlun had forbidden them from camping in the wilds—so rather than risk her wrath, they returned each night, then stayed a few days to let Kadara and Arcas, Borte’s sweet ruk, rest from being pushed so hard.