Mercedes Lackey - To Light A Candle

He was sure he recognized some of the furnishings. Surely that table under the rose-colored canopy was from the House of Leaf and Star? Yes, he was sure of it. He’d eaten dinner at it his first night in Sentarshadeen, alone with Ashaniel, Lairamo, and Sandalon.

Suddenly Kellen realized why the tables and chairs—and the tableware as well—were a harmonious assortment instead of an harmonious whole. It might be held in the gardens of the House of Leaf and Star, but the tables and chairs were from nearly every home in Sentarshadeen.

Andoreniel and Ashaniel weren’t giving this banquet. The entire city was.

Kellen felt himself relax at last. He realized he’d been thinking of tonight in Armethaliehan terms—of this banquet as an event meant to crush spectators and participants with its magnificence and to inspire them with thoughts of their own unworthiness to attend it. But if Elves thought that way, the House of Leaf and Star would be a cold and forbidding palace, terrible in its majesty.

No.

When the Elves said that this was a welcoming banquet, that was exactly what it was. Their ways might be strange, and their code of etiquette difficult for a human to understand or to follow, but that was what they meant. For all the garden’s daunting and ethereal beauty, tonight had far more in common with the party the Centaurs and farmers had held back in the Wildwood to bid him and Idalia farewell than it did with anything that might ever occur in the Golden City!

“The Elves are like no other people in the world,” Idalia said quietly, watch-ing his face. “You read the Histories, back in the City? Where they talk about the Other Races? Do you remember what they say about the Elves?”

“That they make living into Art?” Kellen asked.

“Oh, there’s that,” Idalia said, shrugging. “But it also says they lie.”

Kellen turned to face her, outraged.

“I was surprised,” Idalia said, “so I went to an older, unexpurgated version— the one in the locked case in Father’s library. There, it says that Elves never lie— and never tell the truth.”

“Not much better,” Kellen muttered, but then he thought about it. “Never lied”—he couldn’t remember Jermayan, or any of the other Elves he’d met ever lying to him. But told him the truth? The whole truth, the way he thought he wanted it, as fast as he wanted it?

He had to admit he hadn’t gotten that, either. And maybe still didn’t have it, even from Jermayan, who was his friend and teacher.

“Maybe fairer,” Kellen said grudgingly. Not much though .

“Elves are different from humans,” Idalia said. “Very different. They live much longer, they have a different way of looking at the world than humans do. I am not saying you shouldn’t trust them—you’d say I’d gone crazy, and you’d be right. But don’t expect them to think like humans, because they just won’t.” She stared off into nothing for a moment. “When you live as long as they do, you take your time about everything, and you wait for everything to come in its proper time. So, for instance, an Elf will never tell you the whole truth all at once; he’ll wait for the right time to tell you bits of it, until, in the end, you’ve come to see the shape of it for yourself. Which is the point, for them—that you should come to see and understand a truth for yourself, and not have to be told what it is. Now, give that a lot of thought, and you’ll begin to see how they live their entire lives.”

“Why didn’t you tell me all this when we first came here?” Kellen asked curiously. Surely all this good advice would have been a lot more useful then?

Idalia smiled crookedly. “You wouldn’t have listened. We weren’t going to a formal banquet then. And you weren’t meeting the entire city population on more-or-less equal terms. Oh, there’s Jermayan and Vestakia.”

She pointed.

Kellen turned, spotting Jermayan and Vestakia coming up behind them.

Jermayan was dressed pretty much as Kellen was—the long belted robe seemed to be a standard sort of evening fashion—though Jermayan’s robe was practically transparent, and so were both undertunics. Kellen felt his face get a little flushed. Not that Jermayan didn’t have the body for such an audacious outfit, but still!

But Vestakia… !

There was no possible way to conceal the fact that she looked like a Demon, so Tengitir had obviously decided to make a virtue of what could not be ignored.

Her gown left her neck and shoulders bare, and her deep rose skin sparkled as if it had been dusted with gold. It probably had been, in fact, because there had been subtle patterns painted on her forehead in gold, in imitation of some of the filigree diadems worn by some of the Elven ladies. Her eyes had been accentuated with lines of black and gold on the lids, making them look bigger and somehow more innocent.

A wide band of gold and red embroidery held her cherry-black hair away from her pointed ears, exposing both them and her tiny golden horns, and a band of the same material decorated the neckline—if you could call it a neckline—of her long-sleeved dress, holding in the folds of shimmering gold brocade that were gathered into a tightly-pleated waist before sweeping out into a full skirt that was gathered up at the sides to reveal an underskirt the exact shade of her skin.

“You look amazing,” Kellen said.

Vestakia smiled shyly, ducking her head.

“Come on,” Idalia said, looking at him oddly. “I’ll escort Vestakia around. You and Jermayan… mingle.”

—«♦«♦»♦»—

“IS she—I mean, it would please me to know that Vestakia is going to be all right,” Kellen said, catching himself just in time. He barely avoided hitting Jermayan with his rainshade, but Jermayan handled his own with as much grace as if it were a sword.

“Idalia will see to her comfort,” Jermayan said. “And certainly no harm nor insult has come to her yet.”

“Good,” Kellen said. About then, his brain caught up with the rest of him and he realized why Idalia and Jermayan had gotten him away from Vestakia so quickly.

He’d been so stunned at the sight of her in that dress that he’d just stared, but now, thinking back…

No. No thinking. Not about that, or anything like that. Not for a year.

He’d sworn a vow of chastity and celibacy to Shalkan in exchange for the unicorn’s help in getting away from Armethalieh and the Outlaw Hunt. And it didn’t matter whether or not Shalkan was his friend. If Kellen broke that vow, Shalkan would have no choice but to exact the penalty for breaking it.

And Kellen didn’t want to break his vow.

But Vestakia—

No.

Kellen tipped back his rainshade—Jermayan ducked gracefully out of the way—and took a deep breath of the cool moist air. It had been easier when he’d been sick and drugged. A lot easier.

“I need a great favor from you. You have to explain for me, Jermayan,” Kellen said, though it was the last thing in the world he wanted to say. “You have to let her know why I can’t—spend as much time with her as I want to. I don’t want her to think I’m avoiding her.”

Although that was exactly what he was going to be doing, at least for a while, at least until he could get all this straightened out in his own mind. Maybe Shalkan would have some good advice for him—not that he’d be seeing Shalkan here tonight, of course. Unicorns were notoriously uninterested in the company of the non-chaste, and even Shalkan’s tolerance had limits.

“I will,” Jermayan promised. “And remember—she is not unfamiliar with the obligations a Wildmage must undertake. As for you, you will be far too busy to worry about the matter. After the Council meeting tomorrow morning, come to the House of Sword and Shield, where we will continue your training—”