Dragons' Fealty (Fallowtide Sequence 6)

A SPRING HOMECOMING

When he attended their wedding in summer, Lisinthir Lauvet Imthereli, Third of the Chatcaavan Empire, promised his cousins they would see him in spring for the birth of his heirs on Eldritch soil, and to attend the birth of theirs. He returns to a world and a people reviving from their long winter: a new navy; the rescue of their suffering acreage; and the burgeoning of a tenant culture revolving around the new communications and travel networks.

But a prince and a culture aren't the only things making their return. When a mistake made in the summer season comes back to haunt them, Lisinthir will discover himself torn between warring allegiances... and someone else will have to pay the price. Will their enemies succeed in blighting the promise of the season?

Excerpt from Chapter 2

“Tell me what you feel.”

The doll he’d received was made of cloth: no porcelain heads here, but simple, stitched cotton, stuffed with something that had once been fragrant and now smelled of old fabric. Jahir turned it carefully, barely seeing the thread holding together the dress, or sensing the brush of yarn hair over the back of his ungloved hand.

There were futures and pasts tied more powerfully to the doll than its embroidered apron, and every palpation of his fingertips made those hints of time pulse, dissolving down tangled webs until the sparks were lost to his sight. But he was not looking for those; the point of this exercise was to ignore them as distractions in favor of what psychometric data, if any, he could infer from the emotions and thoughts clinging to the toy.

Val was patient, which was just as well, because those impressions were faint compared to the color and noise of the Galare Sight. Jahir waited for the ripples to settle before exploring, as carefully as a surgeon. “A young girl’s hands—no a toddler’s—no, both. A hand-me-down. Most recently in the hands of the toddler.”

“Go on.” Jahir began to close his eyes, but Val snapped, “Keep them open.”

“That makes the task harder.”

“Of course it does. But when your talents decide to run away with you, you’re not going to have the luxury of blocking out your other senses. Look at it, and let the physicality of it ground you.”

Jahir obeyed, tasted sweetness. “Jam, and weak tea. A frequent participant in tea parties.” He looked for and found the faded stains on the yarn braids where the doll had slumped into her cup, smiled. “But washed.”

“What kind of jam?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Can you taste the flavor?”

Jahir suppressed the need to lick his lips, chasing the phantom memory. “Peach.”

“Excellent. Do you get anything else from it?”

Jahir studied the doll, wondering if his children would play with a similar one, or if they would prefer other toys. “Only that it is old and well-loved.” He gave it back when Val stretched out a hand. “Where did you find it?”

“In the lost items box, and now I know who to return it to. There’s only one middle-class family with two daughters that attends the weekly rite in the Cathedral.” Val’s eyes were dancing. “Thanks.”

Jahir laughed. “I see. You have put me to work.”

“On something useful?” The priest rose from his perch on the back of the pew. “You like nothing better. You’re welcome. And that’s enough for today. You’re doing well.”

“Am I?” Jahir asked. At the priest’s askance look, he confessed, “For sooth, Val, I cannot tell. Some days it seems as natural as breathing to walk through every eventuality generated by existence. Other days, I barely avoid tripping, it clouds my mind so. You tell me that this is ‘well’? By whose standards?”

“Everyone’s,” Val said. “As I told you when you decided to get this trained, the priesthood never sought to cultivate the Sight because it tends to drive people mad. That you’re this together not even a year after the divine gift?” He snorted. “Trust me. You’re doing amazingly.”

“Did the Empress spend several months incapacitated after her vigil?”

“You think she did it alone either?” Val smiled crookedly. “Ask her one day about the people who helped her. You’ll find that only part of her success in not dropping comatose was her personality. The other parts were Their will… and her support network. And yours is much better than hers so… yes. You’re doing great.”

“I suppose that is some comfort to me,” Jahir murmured.

“It should be, and if it isn’t, you can get your cousin to convince you otherwise. When’s he arriving? It must be soon, the court’s a disturbed pigeon roost. So much fluttering.”

“A week, perhaps,” Jahir said. “Is it really so distressed?”

“I’d say it’s going to be explosive, but you would know better than I…?” Val arched a pointed brow.

“I don’t know,” Jahir said. “Perhaps it is too far out yet for me to see it clearly. Or perhaps I need a local anchor. The wherefores of my talent remain… mysterious.”

“As they should. The talents we’re born with are one thing. The ones we’re loaned by the Powers, another thing entirely.” Val made a shooing motion. “Get on, now, before your wife or your partner comes after me. If the entourage is due to descend on us in a week, we’ll get one more lesson in before. Otherwise, I’ll see you at court.”

“God and Lady, that sounds ominous.”

“Let me know if I should be worried.” With a grin, Val abandoned him to find his own way out.

It was the sort of spring evening that made one glad to be alive. Jahir paused on the steps of the Cathedral to stare into the caul of stars, gleaming against a pale lavender sky. An unusually cold winter had delivered them to a mild and beautiful spring, and even on the coast the weather was clear rather than moist, cool like fresh water. The air was perfumed with lilacs and the hints of incense drifting from the closing Cathedral doors. He continued down the stairs and accepted the reins of the mare Thorlon had been holding for him, thanking his armsman and nodding to the other five.

“Back home,” he said to them. “For the weekly dinner.”

“Of course, sire.”