Kingfisher(76)

“Can I reach for my cell without starting a war?” Val asked. “I need to tell our driver at the other end of the bridge to move out of your way.”

Nobody bothered to answer him.

They followed the company of knights to the trail’s end, stood watching them ride carelessly, noisily across the trembling bridge. It held, by some miracle, possibly Severen’s, Pierce thought. But he doubted that the god would be at all interested in the mud, the trees, the moon just cresting the distant forest where the channel, pared to its narrowest, caught the first of the pale, ancient glow.

“What are you doing here?” Leith asked Dame Scotia when the knights had gotten safely across the bridge and back onto the road.

“I was looking for a place to camp for the night,” she answered. “I saw the bridge and wondered where it led.”

“It drew you.”

She looked at him thoughtfully. “I suppose you could say.”

“That happened to us,” Val said, “in the mountains. Knights of the Rising God attacked a shrine. The forest god there summoned us by making our limo go dead for no reason at all until we finished his business.”

“And here?”

“The knights passed us on the road, and we recognized them. We followed them to the bridge.”

“They are troublesome,” she murmured, frowning. “Brave and silly fanatics in love with Severen’s power and wealth. I wasn’t crazed enough to ride across the bridge. I walked my bike and found the trail to the ancient site. It seemed the perfect spot to build a fire, watch the night fall. And then they all came roaring out here. I hid myself and my bike until they started unpacking shovels. I’m so glad you showed up. I wasn’t at all certain, once I got their attention, what to do with them.”

“Neither was I,” Leith admitted. He dropped his hand on Val’s shoulder. “You had me worried there for that split second. But I should have trusted you. You rescued us. You have a gift for recognizing what matters. That what he said was true.”

Val slewed a quick, perceptive glance at his father. But he only said wistfully, “I could worship the moon for a bit. Smell the tide, feel the wind, after all those hours in the limo. Do you want some company around your fire, Dame Scotia?”

Her smile appeared again, like something unexpected and lovely breaking the surface of an unruffled pool.

“Yes. Very much.”

They gathered up twigs and fallen branches for a fire and sat around it among the stones and memories of the island. The night enclosed them quickly; the moon, a luminous eye, watched their fire with them, turning the complicated channels, the coils and threads of water, a silver that the god Severen had never thought to claim. Dame Scotia shared her wine with them, passing a camp cup around, as well as nuts and olives, smoked fish and chocolate. Pierce, leaning against one of the little standing stones, watched the stars form and hang among the tree branches like strange, fairy tale fruit. His thoughts reeled backward through the past amazing days, the scant weeks since he had left Cape Mistbegotten. A face appeared among the stars, long rippling hair, eyes the gray-green of her name.

“Tavis Malory,” he heard Scotia say from the shadows. “Yes. The depraved knight who could not stay out of trouble and was in jail when he wrote the history of the first Wyvernhold king. Part of the land my father holds along the northern marches was once his. At least it was until Tavis had to sell it to pay compensation for one of his despicable crimes. His grandsons managed to buy back the land. They tried to restore his reputation, too, saying that his enemies betrayed and maligned him. But it was a tough sell. Everyone liked the other version of his life better. He did write a fine book, though.” She leaned forward to prod the fire, and Pierce saw her profile, strong and graceful, the shining braid down her back now, loosed from its coils.

“We don’t often see you at court,” Leith commented.

“I’m with my father most of the year, helping him care for the land, especially when he’s in Severluna himself, supporting parliamentary issues affecting the north. Water usage, fish habitats, that sort of thing. This time, when the king called the Assembly, my father had to send me alone. He sprained his back swinging a broadsword with too much enthusiasm for his age, and he can’t travel easily yet.”

“So you’re questing,” Val said. “Like the rest of us. Do you know where you’re going?”

“Not entirely.”

Val nodded, reaching out to stir the flames. “Following your heart.”

In the sudden flare of firelight, Pierce saw her eyes widen with surprise, then swiftly fall. She turned, reaching into the shadows for more wood. Pierce’s thoughts drifted again, this time back to the Kingfisher Inn, with its odd ceremony that seemed, at the time, as old as the stone at his back. What strange urge had that been, to steal the ritual knife, take it all the way to Severluna to end up coring a nonexistent apple on a field full of trained knights? Had the fish fry suffered because of him? he wondered. The wolf man, Merle, had known Pierce had it. Take it to Severluna, he had said in that hovel of a bar on the waterfront. See what you can do with it.

He had gone; he had seen. He had found his brother with it, then his father. Now he was ready to give it back. Was that the end of it?

His brother and his father were stirring, rising. He stood up as well, feeling as pleasantly drunk with moonlight as with wine. Dame Scotia rifled through one of her packs and produced a flashlight, which they promised to leave for her at the other end of the bridge.