Scion of Cyador

XCI

Lorn has found the cushions to the wooden-framed settee that is on the front veranda of the house, a dwelling that is somehow both new and yet familiar to him, and has set them out. In the late afternoon of early summer, he sits there on the veranda, holding Kerial in his lap. He wears a stained pair of uniform trousers and an old undertunic-both more suited to caring for an infant than to a lancer’s study.

“Your mother will be home before long.”

“Gaa…ooo…” A chubby hand gropes toward Lorn’s mouth, and Lorn lets the boy touch his cheek and jaw.

A dull clunk echoes across the front garden and past the fountain.

Lorn smiles. “I think that’s her.” He lifts the boy to his shoulder and stands as the iron gate opens.

Ryalth steps through it and out from behind the privacy screen.

Lorn moves down the walkway and past the fountain and the mist of cool spray that fans from it in the hot afternoon sun.

Ryalth smiles as she nears father and son. “Were you a good boy?” She bends forward and brushes Kerial’s cheek with her lips. “Were you good for your father?”

“Gaaa…waaa…”

“Yes,” Lorn translates.

“I’m glad.”

The two walk side by side past the fountain and then under the veranda roof. Lorn and Kerial follow Ryalth through the doorway and down the steps into the front foyer.

“I need something to drink. I’m thirsty. But we can go back out on the veranda.” She smiles again. “I’m glad you found the cushions. That’s something I’ve been meaning to do.”

Kysia appears as they step into the kitchen.

“Do we have any juice?” asks Ryalth.

“All we have is wine and ale-or water,” Kysia apologizes. “I’ve been looking for juices, but they’re all vinegar or wine right now. The peaches are late this year, and even the greenberries…”

“Ale.” Ryalth says. “If you don’t mind.”

“Ah…two, please,” Lorn adds.

The gray-eyed Kysia grins, then scurries through the big kitchen, before returning with two beakers nearly filled with amber liquid.

“Thank you.”

“And supper?” asks Kysia.

“Whenever it’s ready. I’m hungry, but not starving,” Ryalth says. “Don’t you and Ayleha hurry it and spoil anything. We’ll be on the front veranda.”

The red-haired trader carries the two glass beakers and their amber contents back through the house and foyer, up the steps, and out to the veranda, where she settles onto one side of the settee. Lorn settles onto the other side, shifting Kerial so that the boy is on his lap, half facing his mother, held by Lorn’s right arm.

With his left, Lorn takes the beaker Ryalth offers. “Thank you.”

“Thank you for taking Kerial. It made the day much easier.”

“Waa…” offers Kerial tentatively.

“In a moment,” Ryalth says. “Let your mother have a sip of her drink. You can wait, you little piglet.” She takes a long swallow of the ale.

“How did it go with the Austrans?”

“Not that well.” Ryalth sighs after another swallow of the amber ale. “They’re talking about larger guarantees on the inbound cargoes, and unless we open a warehouse in Valmurl or send someone there…or unless I buy another long-haul ship or even two, which we don’t have the golds for…”

“You’ll start losing coins one way or the other?” Lorn gives Kerial a gentle squeeze.

“I fear so. Now that there are fewer fireships, we can see the lack of respect growing.”

“I don’t think there ever was any in Hamor,” Lorn says.

“There wasn’t anywhere, but people behaved as though there was.”

“Whaa…?” asks Kerial.

“A few more moments, dear.” Ryalth takes another swallow of the ale.

“Respect is always based on power, I think,” Lorn replies. “From the scrolls I did get, I thought we had lost the towers on four fireships, and other lands know that.”

“Five, at least. They’re hiding them in a cove near Dellash-the end of the island away from Summerdock.”

“We’ll start losing the towers in Cyad before long.”

“Why the fireships first? Because the salt is harder on them?”

“That, and the ships move. Over the years, even with the temporal barriers, that puts more strain on them. There won’t be one left in another five years, I would guess.”

“No one is saying much, but they’ve laid the keels for warships with sail and cannon.”

Lorn shakes his head. “We could build chaos-fired steamships. We should.”

“Is that…?”

“It’s all in my father’s papers, even the plans he took from the forbidden archives. I’ll need to make copies…maybe for Vernt and Tyrsal, when the time comes.”

“He thought you could make it happen.”

“As a junior majer?”

“You’ll be more than that,” she predicts.

“That doesn’t look likely.”

“It will happen. It has to.”

“I won’t argue with you. I usually lose.” He grins, then adds, “If it does, I hope it’s in time to prevent the worst.”

“You think it will be that bad?”

“What do you think? You saw the way Ciesrt and Mycela reacted at dinner the other night. They don’t understand, and too many of the Magi’i and Mirror Lancer families are like that.”

“Can you make the stone real?” she asks.

He smiles at her reference to the first time he had told her his ambitions, but the smile fades. “I don’t know. I’m not sure I know how. I know what to do if I could get there, but getting there…” He shrugs. “The papers will help, if I can figure out how to apply what he’s given me…If I get the opportunity.”

“See what you learn working for the Majer-Commander.” Ryalth shakes her head. “Your furlough has gone by so quickly. You’ll have to go back on duty in three days. Almost two eightdays doesn’t seem very much after all you did and all the time you were away.”

“This time, it’s not so bad,” he points out. “I’m not leaving for someplace like Jakaafra or Biehl.”

“I wish I could have come to Biehl.”

“I do, too, but you would have been upset. The town was old, and slowly falling to ruin.”

“I’ll wager what you did changed matters.”

“I don’t know. I would hope so.”

“We’ve brought back some of the china you recommended. It’s sold well, and I’ve commissioned some silver-and-black sets for the Austrans.”

“Whhhaaa!” Kerial interjects.

“I know. I know.” Ryalth swallows the last of the ale in her beaker and sets it on the stone tiles of the veranda beside the settee, then takes Kerial from Lorn. “You always get fed before we do.”

“Mmmm…”

Lorn shakes his head as he watches Kerial begin to suck.

“When he’s hungry…” Ryalth says with a laugh. “But he won’t be protesting when we eat.”

“Or later,” Lorn says.

“You are very hopeful, dearest.”

Lorn flushes.

After a moment, so does Ryalth.