Michael Stackpole - When Dragons Rage

His eyes opened as Sayce approached. Up to that point she had hidden any public signs of affection for him, but with less than an hour before he’d ride away, she was throwing caution to the winds. She reached out and slid her hand over his shoulder.

“I’ve changed, too, Will.”

“I know.”

Sayce smiled and gave Will a look that he knew would haunt dreams and warm him on cold nights. “How do you think I have changed?”

He looked her straight in the eye, then gave her a wry grin. “You were raised as royalty, but young enough that you knew you’d never have to accept responsibility. You realized that you were not exempt from the duties of your blood, so you accepted them and have done your utmost to fulfill them.”

Sayce’s face froze for a moment, then she looked down. “You read me very well, Lord Norrington.”

“You’re not easy to read, Princess; I just know the story well and recognize it.” His gloved right hand emerged from beneath the heavy cloak. He took her chin between thumb and forefinger and lifted her head until she looked him in the eye again. “These are extraordinary times and require extraordinary measures from all of us. Doing what we must is something in which we can take pride and even joy.”

“Yes, exactly. I…”

Will pressed his thumb to her lips to silence her. “Sayce, you will be going with Princess Alexia and fighting to delay those on their way here. I will be going north. Neither of us knows what the future will bring. Out there we could be killed, which would be bad. Worse, we could be broken. Maybe they will make us into meckanshü , maybe not. We could be captured and tortured. We might even be made over into sullanciri”

She blinked at him and tears began to gather in her eyes, but did not yet flow. “What are you saying, Will?”

Again he smiled for her. “What I am saying, Princess, is that our futures are uncertain, but our past, the time we have spent here—the time spent here together —it will be eternal. It can’t be taken away from us. We don’t know if we will ever be able to stand together like this—if after what we will go through, we would even recognize ourselves as the people who stood here—but we have. I won’t forget. I can’t. I don’t want to. What I remember will be a great comfort in the coming days.”

Sayce stepped closer and enfolded him in a hug. She pressed her right cheek to his, and he felt the burn of a tear. His arms went around her and he held her tightly. That surprised him, because while he knew he didn’t love her, he didn’t want to let her go. Not just yet.

So he held on to her and she clung to him. And, just for a little while, the horror of the future was held at bay.

Through the stable doorway Alexia could see Will and Sayce on the balcony. She watched them embrace and wished she could have heard what Will said.

If he was able to order his emotions, then something in what he said would help me order mine.

She’d given some thought to what she wanted to say to Crow on their parting, but that was only in the little snatches of time they were apart. They’d conspired to minimize them, to their mutual delight, but there were times when duty called them one from another. Just that morning she had been off listening to the latest reports from the north and had agreed to meet him in the stable, but Crow had been delayed.

“Princess Alexia, begging your pardon, but I would appreciate a favor.”

She turned and the smile growing on her face slowed. She had recognized the voice in pieces. First she linked it to Crow, then realized who had spoken. “Colonel Hawkins, what may I do for you?”

The meckanshü , swathed in thick furs and wearing a mitten on his left hand, lowered his eyes. The silver of the mail used to replace the flesh of his face glittered around the right edge of his black mask. “I would ask you to introduce me to your husband.”

“But…” She hesitated. “You already know him.”

“That is not why I ask, Highness.”

From behind her Crow spoke. “He asks, my love, because I’ve not spoken with him yet. I’ve refused.”

Alexia heard pain in Crow’s voice and watched it tighten Sallitt’s expression. She turned to Crow. “Why would you refuse?”

“Because I have no family outside you and Will and Resolute.” Bitter anger strained Crow’s voice. “All that was taken away from me.”

Sallitt’s head came up. “And it was taken away from me, too.”

“You still have your mask. You still have our family.”

“But not our complete family.” The meckanshifs metal hand snapped into a fist. “Tarrant, you don’t know how it was.”

Crow snorted. “It doesn’t take much to figure it out.”

Alexia gripped Crow’s forearm. “Give him a chance.”

Crow nodded and the tension flowed out of his forearm.

Sallitt’s metal hand opened slowly. “After the Okrannel campaign they brought me back to Valsina. That was before the Draconis Baron had figured out how to make meckanshü . I was useless. You’d had your mask stripped away, but for what I didn’t know; and our father forbid us from mentioning your name ever. I knew you weren’t dead and had I been whole, I’d have found you.

“Then the stories started saying you were dead and that you’d killed yourself. I couldn’t believe them, but I couldn’t prove them otherwise. Several years later, long before I ever heard a song of Crow, the Draconis Baron sent for me and made me as I am now. He gave me a purpose. I accepted my position at Fortress Draconis not, as some have said, to redeem our name, but to continue the fight we’d both been part of.“

Crow said nothing, but a tremor began to run through him.

Sallitt’s hazel eyes flashed from within his mask. “Some meckanshü suffer what we call ‘metal fatigue.’We get tired of trying to be human because we so clearly are not. We try to forget who we were because our injuries carry with them a lot of mental pain. I had that, plus the way our father had changed, and the loss of my little brother. I was lucky, though, and met my wife—gods grant Jancis still lives. She brought my human halfback, and it’s that human half that makes me seek you, brother. To tell you I’ve never believed what has been said of you.”

The man who had been Tarrant Hawkins looked up. “But when you were told who I was at Tolsin, you rode away.”

“I did, yes, because I felt betrayed.” Sallitt’s eyes tightened. “We’d been long on the road together. You’d saved my life and yet you had not trusted me with who you were. Should I have known? You, traveling with Resolute, in the company of a Norrington, it all seems so obvious now, but it wasn’t then. You were Crow, a living legend. Had you been Oriosan, you’d have worn a mask, so I never made the connection. But you knew who I was, and you didn’t trust me. That hurt me and made me doubt.”

Crow’s lips pressed together for a moment, then he slowly nodded. “You’re right. I did you an injustice. I’d spent so many years refusing to be Tarrant Hawkins that even though I knew you were my brother, I couldn’t be your brother. Too much pain there, too.”

“I guess I can understand that.” The elder Hawkins chewed his lower lip. “No one in the family believed the charges against you. Even though Father would not speak of you, the rest of us did, secretly. I know he didn’t believe them, though. I think after he took your mask, he learned the truth.”

Crow shook his head. “Our father had his own reasons for doing what he did. How is… How are they?”

“Father died about six years ago. In his sleep. Mother lives with Ellice now. Everyone else is well.” He smiled weakly. “We will have time to talk about them on the road.”