Heirs of the Blade_ Shadows of the Apt_ Book Seven - Adiran Tchaikovsky [121]
She had expected Lycene to make a demure landing on the open ground before the forest, but just as the dragonfly seemed about to alight, her wings gave a final flurry, casting her directly up towards the cane tops, so that she ended up clinging vertically, the tip of her tail just shy of the ground. Alain’s own wings had caught him instantly, of course, feathering him down to the ground effortlessly, but perhaps he had forgotten how his passenger lacked that Art. Instead, Tynisa suffered a moment of utter fright, saved from a fall only by instinctively clenching her knees, left suspended head-down with her arms waving wildly. Then she recovered her balance, and clambered down the length of the hanging animal, thankful that her Art at least allowed her to climb.
Alain stood grinning at her, and she took the mockery as justified, thinking, I’ll be ready for that next time. ‘Perhaps I should have jumped into your arms?’ she asked him acidly.
‘That would have certainly put my wings to the test,’ he agreed. ‘We’d best make camp now. Lycene is tired and, though she can take to the air at night, she’s not fond of it unless I insist.’
‘I’m amazed your people bother with horses, when they have such creatures at their beck and call,’ Tynisa suggested.
Alain shrugged. ‘Horses are easier to rear, frankly, and cheaper to keep. Lycene will have to hunt half the morning, before we’re ready to fly again. Besides, she is the mount for a prince. We couldn’t have just anyone riding her, could we?’
The cold weather was returning, something else that Lycene was clearly not fond of, so Tynisa set up a fire close by the canes, where it might benefit the big insect as well as the humans. When she looked back, the work done as well as she could, she was startled to find Alain right by her shoulder.
‘I’ve known a couple of Spider-kinden,’ he said softly, ‘but not with decent woodcraft like yours.’ He knelt down beside her and made a few invisible adjustments to her efforts. ‘A Mercer always knows how to make a good fire,’ he explained. ‘It’s the first thing they teach you.’
She read his smile as self-mockery now. Abruptly she was completely taken aback by how there he seemed: how very close, elbow to elbow, hip to hip.
Salma . . . That familiar face, ready to cock a grin at her, but his eyes were measuring, appraising. ‘My mother, now, she did not want me to become a Mercer. “You are a prince, Alain, and that should be enough.”’ His imitation of the Salmae matriarch recalled her tones perfectly. ‘Mercers might one day find themselves in the wilderness without a full retinue of servants, you see. They have to learn skills more fitting to a lowlier class of man.’ A wave of his hand signalled that her pyramid of wood had now reached his exacting standards, and she dispensed a final handful of wood shavings and scraps of paper for tinder, and then took out an ornate little metal firebox Lowre Cean had gifted to her, decanting some embers from it onto the tinder. Alain was leaning into her shoulder, with an expression suggesting that he was merely examining her efforts, but now almost cheek to cheek.
‘My father was a real Mercer, the Monarch’s own kind,’ he murmured in her ear, ‘although he wasn’t much interested in teaching his sons. I think it was an excuse to absent himself whenever he wanted.’
‘I’m surprised you were allowed to . . . Apprentice yourself?’ There was a heat building now, as she fed tinder to the embers.
‘Take the oath,’ he corrected. ‘I was all for running away to Shon Fhor, to swear myself to the Monarch. They had to bar the door and windows to hold me, some nights. So we compromised, as one does. Local Mercers are better than nothing, if you can’t quite make it to the Monarch’s court. And they still teach you how to make a decent fire.