Come To Me
1075, Age of Stars, High Summer
“When listening to the voices of stars, there is only one question that one need ask oneself: Are they the voices of the silver stars or the black?"
-From Toa Yulimao Anderian, or The Wisdom of Anderian.
Come to me.
“Are you all right, Dacevem?”
For a moment, the two voices blended and mingled in my head, until I couldn’t tell the silent, pressing words of the one from the audible, gentle concern of the other. Then I straightened them out, and gave reply to the only voice I wanted to answer.
“Completely well, Mother.”
My mother looked at me with her eyebrows slightly raised. She could feel my confusion as clearly as I could, and this time, she didn’t look inclined to turn back to the paperwork that so defined her existence these days. She leaned back in her chair and folded her arms behind the long fall of white hair that had made her so famed in the city, and focused on me the silver eyes that were even more famous, eyes used to compelling an answer.
“You’re not lying, Dace; I know that. Physically, nothing is wrong with you. But something has happened- been happening for dances. What is it?”
“I don’t know.”
My mother blinked for a moment, then nodded. “What does it resemble, then?”
“I don’t know.” Now my mother began to look a little more displeased. “Dace-“
“I really don’t.” I could feel my shoulders tensing, and could almost see the argument that loomed ahead, hours of wasted words and breath. “Excuse me, Mother. I want to go see if that bracelet I ordered is ready.”
My mother opened her mouth, but I gave her no chance to call me back, setting aside the harp I had been studying and bolting from the room as though she would try to seize me.
I shouldn’t be such a fool. She would never do anything so undignified.
I trotted through the kitchen, scooping up a piece of cheese and a slice of bread without slowing. I might not come back for hours, and I didn’t want to faint with hunger in the middle of the street.
I slid down the ladder that led from the belly of our deer-shaped home to the ground and struck out across the gardens. The scent of turned earth filled my nostrils. Here and there, the trees shone with the gold-green River of life rushing through them, radiating contentment and peace. I wondered if it could be the voice of the land that spoke to me, the voice of the earth magic, asking me to come to the land where I would one day be lord.
But I shook the thought away. I had heard the voice of the earth magic. It spoke through the body, through the soles of my feet on the earth and the wind in my hair. It didn’t speak in words that lanced straight into the center of my brain, like sunlight through a slat in a shutter.
Come to me.
I choked back the words I wanted to speak and said aloud, “All right. I will come to you. Where are you?”
There was silence. I snorted. Of course. Whoever played these stupid tricks on me had no interest in revealing his location. This was meant to irritate me, perhaps drive me mad if I proved sensitive enough, not actually pull me into any sort of close contact.
I walked on, eating my bread and deciding that I might as well check on the bracelet I had ordered.
Come to me.
This time, I actually managed to ignore it.
________________________________________________________________________
“It’s beautiful, Harindlar.” I did not have to feign my admiration as I turned the bracelet over in my hands. The beaten metal shone in the sunlight, like copper but with deeper and richer hints of green in it. The body of a dragon formed the band, with the mouth holding the tail as the clasp. “How long did it take you to craft?”
“Do you ask how long it takes a harper to make his songs, or an artist his picture?”
I grinned. “Of course.”
Harindlar snorted, and radiated dignity like fire at me. “It is yours, my lord. Do with it as you will.” He leaned closer, fixing his deep green eyes on mine as he dropped his voice. “Of course, I should not be surprised to see some young Lady wearing it around her wrist in a short time.”
I just grinned again. “I think I might surprise even you, Harindlar.”
The metalcrafter took a step back, looked at me frankly, and then said, “I think you should know, my Lord Deerfriend, that speculation runs wild about the lady you intend to ask to marry you.”
“Does it?” I asked, striving to keep a light tone. This could be bad news. My high blood combined with my heroic mother meant that everyone was far too interested in the marriage that I might make for my liking. “And here I am, having seen just over a century. Most Elwens three thousand years old don’t receive this level of attention. I should be flattered.”
“Playing dumb doesn’t suit you, my lord. You know what you are. You know what your family is. You should have guessed there would be speculation about your marriage.”
I rolled my eyes. “If I give you my word, Harindlar, that I have no one in mind at the moment, will you promise to spread that word and counteract the rumors?”
“But- the bracelet-“
“Is a gift for a friend, no more.”
Harindlar just nodded and looked wisely at me. I didn’t bother to conceal my emotions, letting my exasperation sting him. He thinned his lips. I turned and walked out of the close, dark shop- Harindlar kept his treasures in darkness, as if to conceal them from unworthy eyes- blinking as the sunlight hit me.
The sunlight, and the voice, in the same moment.
Come to me.
I clucked my tongue, making a few people passing stare at me strangely. They would not have, had they felt telepathic connection. I noted that irritably. This was definitely not speaking mind-to-mind, then, but I knew of no other way that someone could reach into my thoughts and place words there.
“I won’t,” I said aloud.
No response.
I snorted again and began walking, avoiding the people who glanced at me with blazing eyes and others who approached me with their hands outstretched, asking money or a favor. Most seemed to assume that the Councilmaster of Rowan’s son bled coins, and could arrange an audience with his mother on a moment’s notice. Neither was true. I had explained this to them.
Stars, they didn’t believe me when I told them the truth about my “impending” marriage. Why should they believe me about this?
I realized that my thoughts were turning my emotions as bitter as lemons, and modulated them as carefully as I could. I had almost reached Bria’s stall, and she had so much emotional magic that she could pick up emotions even from behind tight barriers. Better to keep an open, but pleasant, face around her.
I arrived just as she was convincing a customer that a dagger’s notch actually proved the weapon’s trustworthiness. I took a moment to linger and study her. Of course, she would be aware of me, but she couldn’t turn her head and glare at me- her eyes were fixed on the man before her- so I had the chance to gaze as I rarely did otherwise.
Bria stood almost as tall as I did; though her long dark hair and deep purple eyes marked her as curalli-blooded, she certainly had not inherited a shadowed Elwen’s compact smallness. Her skin, too, bore no trace of her mixed heritage. Or perhaps it was simply so heavily tanned that any of our kin’s silver tinge was lost, I thought as I drew near. Bria had accepted money from the man in front of her, and now turned and glared haughtily at me as he walked away with his dagger.
“What do you mean by looking at me?” she asked.
“I wanted to look at you,” I said.
“I feel self-conscious when you do.”
I leaned on the stall. She had no other customers for the moment. The late morning rush had faded; now, as the burning heart of the day approached, more Elwens would sleep than stroll about among the market stalls. I had time to speak with her as I wished. "Why?”
Bria hitched a shoulder at me, half-turning away so that her stare came steadily out of only one eye. “Wouldn’t you feel self-conscious, with someone staring at you all the time?”
“I admire you,” I said. “Why shouldn’t I stare? And I am used to stares. Stand under them long enough, and you will lose your self-consciousness. I think the only reason you don’t receive as many is because you don’t come to the city as often.”
“You’re the Lady’s son. It’s natural that people should stare at you. I’m just a seller, too poor even to afford a shop.”
I arranged my face and emotions into patience. Bria thought the only reason anyone’s eyes would ever follow her was because of her curalli blood. She thought everyone she passed secretly wished her gone from the city. Since she could feel emotions so well, that puzzled me, but I had long since given up on trying to convince her that other people, as well as I, admired the strength and will they could see shining from her face and eyes.
I hadn’t quite given up on convincing her that I liked her as a friend, though, and so I held out the bracelet.
“What metal is this?” Bria held up the bracelet and tilted it back and forth several times, making the light run and glitter.
“I don’t know. Harindlar likes to keep some secrets.”
Bria’s face drained of color, and she clutched the corner of her stall. I leaned forward in concern. It almost seemed as though she would fall over. “Bria? Are you well?”
“I can’t repay you for this, Dacevem. I know Harindlar’s prices.”
“I don’t expect you to repay me. It was a gift.”
Bria’s eyes fixed on mine.
Come to me.
I blinked and shook my head in annoyance.
“Dace? Are you all right?”
I smiled at Bria. It was the first time she had ever called me by my nickname without prompting. “I’m well. Sometimes lately I hear a voice speaking to me, repeating a simple message over and over. I don’t know what the meaning of it is.”
“What is the message?”
“Come to me.”
Bria frowned. “That does seem strange. Why give you that much, and not a location, Dace?”
“I don’t know.” I reached out and took the bracelet from her, since she had fumbled past the clasp several times. “Here.” I snapped it open and held it back.
Bria again fixed her eyes on mine and held out her wrist. “Will you fasten it upon me, Dace?”
Somewhat puzzled, I reached out and took her wrist with my free hand, snapping the bracelet shut with the other.
By the time I let her go, I knew the truth.
Both of the truths, really.
________________________________________________________________________
“You won’t have some wine, Dace?”
I shook my head. “Water is more than strong enough,” I said, swirling the water in my glass about and staring into it, as if that could keep me from having to look at Bria.
What was I going to do?
Bria nodded to me, but sipped at her own wine with more ferocity than before, staring at me the while. A breeze traveling through the open court swirled through her hair, and brought me the scent of it, as well as the scents of the wines the merchants here sold with some of the same ferocity Bria used in drinking them. Both the scents mingled in my nostrils, and I needed neither of them. The first spoke too eloquently of my problem; the second was too much of a temptation.
“Damn it,” I said.
Bria reached over and laid a hand on my wrist. She opened her mouth to speak comforting words, but I never heard them. The flood of her emotions washed over and drowned me. I had never felt so powerful a heart.
She had mistaken my gift of a bracelet to mean that I loved her as fiercely as she loved me. She did everything passionately, and falling in love with me had been no exception. She had concealed it from me, certain that the Lady’s son could never love a mere dagger-seller, curalli-blooded at that.
Now she thought he could, and she was in ecstasies.
I opened my eyes and drew back from her. Bria still watched me with a faint frown. “Dace?” she asked gently.
It was the name she had always wanted to call me, and had never dared, though I had often encouraged her to use it. “Bria,” I replied softly. “Iendu.”
The smile blooming on her lips withered all at once. She hunched away from me, and her anger and hurt nearly drowned me just as her love had. She turned and stared at the opposite side of the court.
“I should have known,” she said. “You won’t marry me. You can only call me a friend, because of your birth. Your duty to your high blood, and your lady mother, of course forbids you marrying below your station.”
“Bria-“ I began, but she didn’t hear me, caught up in the same torrent of emotions she had been so intent on hiding from me.
“What am I, after all, but mixed-blood?” She bent so that her head fell into her crossed arms, hair draping her arms. Her words mingled with sobs as they rushed up like water forced from a spring. “You can’t marry me. You can’t contaminate the sacred line of Deerfriend with curalli blood. The land would reject any children I bore. You would reject me. You might love me out of nobility, but then one day you would look at me with loathing in your eyes. I would be the enemy to you that curalli have always been to your people. What choice do I have but to remain as I am, an outcast, surviving just a little ahead of starvation, not daring to complain when someone cheats me because the Guards wouldn’t believe someone who was part shadowed Elwen? The land isn’t mine, bound to land Elwens as it is, and yet I wouldn’t be welcome in a curalli city either. They would see my pale skin and think-“
“Bria.”
I did not speak loudly, but forcefully enough to silence her. She lifted her head and gaped at me, tears streaming down her cheeks still.
Her sorrow hit me like a unicorn’s kick, but I held firm and spoke her name again. When I was sure that she wouldn’t simply collapse out of shock, I said, “My lady, you cannot possibly think I hate you because you are part curalli. Why would I have bothered to become your friend if I hated you?”
“Out of pity,” she snapped. “To make yourself feel good. Why did I ever fall in love with you? High blood’s all alike-“
“Are you like the half-curalli who raid the farmlands, then?”
Again she gaped at me. I shook my head. “My lady, I will marry whom I wish, when I wish. My mother will not compel my choice. She married for love, and so has every Deerfriend in remembered history. The only choice I don’t have is not marrying- apparently. If my mother does not bear another child, then I am Heir by default to the Deerfriend lands. But she might yet bear another child, a more worthy Heir, and then I wouldn’t even have to marry.”
“But- why did you refuse me, then? Why call me ienda?”
“Do you want to know the truth?”
“I do.” Bria braced herself. I wondered what she expected to hear. Something that would confirm her bad opinion of the high blood, perhaps.
“I don’t love you.”
She stared at me. I stared back. “I told you the truth,” I said, when she began shoving doubt at me. “You are my friend, but what I feel is arienda, not chatal.”
“You love someone else, then?”
“No.”
“But the rumors of your marriage-“
I held back my own sorrow. “How many times did I tell you that those rumors were false, Bria? Hundreds. Perhaps thousands. We have been friends for nearly fifty years. Why do you think I would lie to you?”
Her eyes fell away from mine. And the voice spoke in my mind, for the first time saying something new.
High blood lords are so skilled at making me feel when they want me to feel, at hiding their emotions. You could have been lying to me all this time. Why would you feel friendship for someone with curalli blood?
I said softly, “You were the one calling me to come to you.”
She looked up at me, tears flickering like an illusion across her eyes. “Not consciously,” she said.
“No.” I sighed, and sipped at my water, once again wishing I held something stronger, once again knowing it wouldn’t be a good idea. “You loved me, and you reached out to me through your emotions. They were too strong to be contained, but you couldn’t risk telling me directly.” I lowered the water glass and leaned forward, fastening my eyes on hers, not letting them go even when she began to radiate discomfort. “Even though I thought you were my friend. Even though I thought you knew that you could tell me anything directly.”
“I was afraid to find out the truth,” Bria whispered, and the voice of her emotions whispered in concert with her, right along in my mind. “I was afraid to find out that you didn’t love me as I hoped you did.”
I frowned, not bothering to conceal my confusion. “Then why were you so disappointed just now? If you had spent that long thinking I did not love you, then why would a gift and one touch be enough to convince you differently?”
“I-“
But she could not speak the words.
In the end, it didn’t matter. The voice of her emotions muttered at me, I hoped so desperately- it had to be real- so long as I didn’t ask you and didn’t have proof one way or the other, I could continue to exist with hope.
“Painful hope,” I said aloud. “And you didn’t ask me out of fear?”
Bria nodded, eyes fastened on her hands.
I sighed. “You are still my friend, Bria, iendu,” I said, rising to my feet and handing some coins to the merchant who came adroitly to fetch back his cup. “But I wish you had more courage.”
Bria looked up at me, hands clenching. “You would call me a coward?”
I leaned forward, hands on the table, and spoke as plainly as I knew how. “Yes, I would. A coward, and someone who doesn’t listen to any words but those which suit her. I do not know how many times I have told you that I admire you: your strong will, your honor, your willingness to survive on your own rather than give up and let someone else simply care for you, your pride. And I have spoken with the voice of my emotions, too, which is as honest as if not as strong as your own. But all you hear are the words you want to hear. You ignore the ones I speak, or you think they spring from pity, even though you can clearly feel that it is not so.” I sighed, my eyes still gripping hers. “Bria, I think that I have been a friend to you. I am not so sure that you have been one to me.”
Bria glanced away from me. But she didn’t radiate regret or shame or surprise. Her suspicion stung me like needles. I was just another high blood lord, pitying her; I wouldn’t marry her because I would marry for duty…
I turned and walked away.
She called something behind me, but I didn’t listen. At the moment, she wasn’t in the mood to make an apology or argue her side, and perhaps she never would be. If she only wanted to tell me what she thought I was again, then I didn’t want to listen.
Strange how someone who could feel emotions so clearly could still be so blind.
________________________________________________________________________
“Dace. Are you well, my son?”
I nodded to my mother and stepped away from the balcony railing, where I had been standing to watch the orchards move in the wind. “Well, Mother. In mind and in body. The wound’s been cauterized.”
My mother’s eyes widened, but she only said, “I will be here for a few hours more, if you wish to tell me what happened. Then I have to leave to meet Pixaor’s ambassador.”
“I understand, Mother.”
My mother pressed my hand gently, then turned and walked back into the house. I turned to the orchards again, wondering what Bria would think of my conversation with the Lady. Probably that we both had ulterior motives, that we wanted to make each other think we were compassionate when it wasn’t true.
Come to me.
I might never be free of her voice in my head, unless her love ended. I might never quite get over suddenly severing a friendship like that.
But at least I had the courage to admit it.
