Mercedes Lackey - To Light A Candle

Vestakia moved forward and knelt in front of him. “Cilarnen, please look up. I need to see your eyes.”

Cilarnen looked up.

Recoiled.

Tensed.

Oh, NO.

Kellen had long since stopped noticing what Vestakia looked like. She was just… Vestakia. His comrade in arms, sometimes his weapon in battle. And by now everyone in the Elven army thought of her the same way.

But when Cilarnen had looked up, he hadn’t seen Vestakia . He’d seen a Demon.

He scrabbled for the knife on his belt, his face white with terror.

If he kills her — or so much as hurts her — the Elves will kill HIM .

If I don’t kill him first!

Kellen dove between them, knocking Cilarnen and the bench over back-ward before anyone else had a chance to move. He measured himself full-length atop Cilarnen, one hand clasped over the wrist of the hand that held the knife— a Centaur-made blade, heavy and sharp—the other firmly clasped over Cilarnen’s mouth, lest he say words that could not be unsaid.

“I’m sorry,” he said into Cilarnen’s ear. “I’m sorry. I should have warned you. I didn’t think she’d be here. I didn’t think. Her name’s Vestakia. She’s a friend. Her father was one of Them , but her mother was a great Wildmage, and she worked a powerful spell, so that Vestakia would be human, and good—inside, where it counts.”

Cilarnen struggled violently, but he was no match for Kellen’s strength. Kellen supposed he was hurting him—one way or another—but right now he had no choice.

“I promise you that she’s never hurt anyone in her life”—it was stretching the truth a bit, but certainly Vestakia had never hurt anyone Good—“and she isn’t one of Them. Think . Would Kardus be standing here quietly if she were?”

Finally Cilarnen lay still, and Kellen dared to take his hand from over his mouth.

“I— But— She— But— Women can’t do magick,” Cilarnen sputtered irrelevantly.

Behind them both, Idalia made a noise like an exasperated cat.

Kellen plucked the knife from Cilarnen’s hand and tossed it into the middle of the room, then hauled him unceremoniously to his feet, stepping back warily.

“You’ll find that women can do a great number of things. Probably even High Magick, if the High Mages weren’t so unreasonable about it,” Kellen told him, though not as sternly as he might have. “You have a good mind, Cilarnen Volpiril. See with your own eyes, hear with your own ears, and use what you find to draw logical conclusions.”

He glanced around cautiously.

Vestakia was cowering back against Idalia, looking stricken. Kellen looked away quickly.

Kardus picked up the discarded knife and moved to stand beside Vestakia and Idalia.

“It is true,” he said. “She is a daughter of the Light. I will prove it to you now.”

From one of the pouches at his belt he removed a short coil of shining white rope. Kellen recognized what it was instantly. Unicorn hair, braided into a thin rope.

“Child, I beg you, of your courtesy. He has seen friends die at Their hands,” Kardus said to Vestakia.

Tears welled up in Vestakia’s eyes. She held out her arm, pushing the cuff of her tunic back to expose the skin.

Slowly and deliberately, Kardus wound the length of rope around her arm.

Kellen turned away. He could not watch. How many times did Vestakia have to prove herself? Instead, he watched Cilarnen.

Cilarnen was staring at Kardus and Vestakia intently. At last he moved forward slowly, stepping over the fallen bench.

Kellen forced himself to turn to keep Cilarnen in sight, but he still would not look at Vestakia.

“Citizen Vestakia,” Cilarnen said, bowing before her. He stopped, obviously searching for words. “I beg that you will accept my… very humble… apologies. I have been… unjust. It must be a terrible thing to be seen as… as what you seem… instead of as what you are.”

“Citizen.” Not sure of her rank, Cilarnen had chosen to address her by the honorific that properly belonged to any inhabitant of the City, from High Mage to dock-laborer. From someone who still thought of himself as an Armethaliehan, it was an incredible honor. Kellen hoped Idalia would explain it to Vestakia later.

Vestakia held out her hand. Cilarnen took it without hesitation.

“We shall both blame Kellen for this, and not each other,” she said decisively. “For he should certainly have warned you.”

She shook her head, as over a careless child, and Kellen felt himself flushing. “Sometimes,” she said, with a sidelong glance at Kellen, “he is not very practical. Now come and sit. We must still discover the cause of your headache.”

“Oh, it doesn’t hurt now,” Cilarnen said hastily.

“Then it will not hurt you to be examined,” Vestakia said implacably, leading him over to another bench. “I am a Healer, and you must allow me to do my duty.” Kardus followed.

Kellen picked up the fallen bench. When he straightened, he found Idalia looking at him.

“Still want to kill him?” she asked.

Kellen shook his head in exasperation. “If you happen to see a Selken Trader though, I wouldn’t mind stuffing him in a sack and selling him to them. Still, I suppose, if I’d gotten dropped in things as thoroughly as he has, I wouldn’t have handled things much better.” He took her arm and led her to the far side of the tent, and continued in a lower voice. “He told me his news. It’s bad. Very bad.” He shook his head at her unspoken query. “Not here.”

“Where?” she said.

“Whenever Redhelwar can see us. But he wouldn’t eat this morning, so I brought him here. That was after he sneaked into my tent last night and I nearly killed him.”

“Poor Kellen,” Idalia said with fulsome sympathy. “Bearded by the terrible High Mage in his bedroll.”

“Entered Apprentice,” Kellen corrected absently. “And ready to test for Journeyman, which means he knows the spells—if he could figure out a way to use them.”

Vestakia came over to them then.

“He has no head injury, and it is not any kind of cold sickness I know, nor poison—and Kardus says that if a spell had been cast upon him, he would probably have been a great deal sicker than he was. Kellen, did you see what happened to him?”

Kellen thought about it. “Nothing happened. We were in my pavilion, drinking tea—Armethaliehan Black. I drank it, and so did Kardus. He was fine then. We went to eat. He was sick by the time we got there, I think.”

Idalia shrugged. Vestakia looked baffled. “Well, he swears his head does not hurt now,” she said.

“We can’t just knock him over and have a passing Knight-Mage sit on him every time he develops a headache,” Idalia retorted. “It wouldn’t be convenient—and you might start to like it, Kellen.” She tapped her lips with one finger, thinking. “I’ll make up a cordial for him to take if his head starts hurting again. If it doesn’t work, bring him back. Oh—and you might want to see about getting him something warmer to wear. What he’s got is good enough for Stonehearth, or for camp, but if we have to go any further north, he’s going to freeze, and he must be cold already.”

Kellen sighed—he seemed to be doing a lot of that lately. But when had he been appointed Cilarnen’s nurse? Still, proper Mageborn like Cilarnen were small and slender. They might even be able to fit him from the clothing the dead had left behind.

It was a gruesome thought, one he wouldn’t have had a moonturn ago, but it came to him now with simple matter-of-fact practicality.

“I’ll see to it,” he said. In fact, he’d tell Isinwen to see to it. That way, Cilarnen’s clothes would not only be warm, but suitable.