8. The Flesh Remembers

For the first time in her marriage, Imryll had no idea what her husband was thinking.

The composed calm Drazhan had shown when Niklaus Petrovash had run through everything that had happened at Hoarfrost might have convinced others, but a wife saw things others overlooked. The additional blinks. The cords in his neck, ready to snap. No one else understood the tempest building inside of him, the danger it posed to anyone foolish enough to step in its path.

Drazhan kept the audience small. It was only the two of them, Rahn, and Drazhan's closest advisers, Fezzan Castel and Brita Voronov.

Imryll passed an uneasy glance at Rahn, who wore the pall of a man who'd made peace with the gallows.

Drazhan tented his hands under his chin. His gaze pointed at the fire.

"Drazhan." Brita cleared her throat. Her hands brushed down the sides of her untouched mug of ale. "We await only your word."

Fezzan nodded, his head swinging animatedly. "My men can be armored and ready within the hour. Two at most."

"Mine as well."

Drazhan dipped his chin onto his fingers, over and over, the final one nearly a slam. "And the stewardess? What does she think?" His eyes flicked Imryll's way, but his face was still.

Imryll glanced around the long table. Drazhan valued her counsel, seeing her as a balancing agent to his natural impetuosity. If anyone in the room was expected to advocate against war, it was her. But her heart was too heavy, too uneven, for rationalizing. Aesylt would recover, but the damage was done. There was no longer any question of how far the Barynovs were willing to go. "Ah..." She spread her hands along the deep grooves of the wood. "I've never known war. You all have. So I'll not advise for or against something I cannot understand." She breathed in, but there was no steadying her nerves. Her pure, raw anger. "But if I had a sword in my hand right now, Drazhan, I would run it through the man myself."

He nodded, glancing briefly her way. He was still nodding when he said, low and strained, "I want Esker Barynov here, tonight. Alone."

"You expect the man to accept an invitation to his own execution?" Brita dipped her chin in disbelief.

"I'm not going to execute him," Drazhan drawled, taking his time with each word. He remained fixed on the fire. "I'm going to give him a choice."

"A choice?" Imryll asked, narrowing her eyes as she tried to read him.

"A simple one. He can renounce his words against my sister, publicly, and submit his son for tribunal, or the Barynov name dies with him."

Fezzan dropped forward over the table. "An apology?"

Imryll moved her hands under the table, clenching through her growing unease. "He'll never agree to it, Draz. His men are gathered at the bottom of our hill. He's already made his choice."

Drazhan lowered his hands to the table. The daze in his eyes cleared as he turned his attention her way. "He has until dawn to respond." He shoved back from the table, casting a long, broad shadow over the council. "Adrahn, at ease. I know my sister. She was always going to find a way. It's my own fault for forgetting that."

Rahn nodded, but there was no relief in the man's expression. "I don't intend to transfer responsibility from my own shoulders to anyone's." His jaw rippled with tension and something else, something Imryll prayed her husband hadn't also noticed. "I do, however, have a suggestion, but I'm not certain you'll approve."

Drazhan held his hands out, waiting.

"If you want to lock her away, she needs something to do. Her mind is restless. She is restless." Rahn's throat jumped. He stared at the table, looking at no one. "She's taken a keen interest in the observatory?—"

"Fuck no," Drazhan barked with a snort.

"Draz," Imryll whispered. She reached for one of his hands. "Hear him out."

"She needssomething to occupy her, or..." Rahn shook his head. "Send us up there with as many guards as you want. But let her work. Allow her some sense of purpose and control in this unfortunate situation. Otherwise, I think we can expect another night like tonight." His mouth pressed tight. "Or worse."

"Mm." Drazhan glanced at Imryll. "You think this is wise?"

Imryll nodded, knowing she could lay her fears bare with him, that he would treat them with care. "We almost lost her tonight. She's been accused of something untenable, and she's desperate to clear her name, no matter what the cost to herself, so do we really have a choice? Whatever danger there may be in them traveling up the mountain, it cannot be half of what she faced tonight... and will continue to face if Val and the accusations are all her mind has to focus on."

Drazhan's tongue darted across his lips. "Fine. I can spare some of our guard to take them up." He rapped his knuckles against his thigh. "But I reserve the right to recall my choice at any time."

Rahn's eyes closed briefly in relief. "Hvala."

Drazhan turned away. "Brit, you'll carry word to the Barynov scout about my offer?"

Brita shoved back from the table. "Right away."

"Fez, have some of your men come to Fanghelm now. Back road, to the north. Quietly."

"You know it."

Imryll could barely meet Drazhan's eyes when he leaned in to kiss her goodbye. He didn't bother with reassurances.

She flagged Rahn to stay and waited for the others to leave.

He returned to his seat, watching her. "I wouldn't have suggested it if I had a better idea."

"You're right. She'll do it again unless we can keep her focused on something else. She's desperate to clear her name and help Val, and who could blame her? I'd do the same thing." Imryll met his eyes. Now that Drazhan had given his blessing, she needed her old friend's full focus on Aesylt. The curricula matter was her problem. Hers alone. "I'll find a charming way to communicate the temporary shift in our cohort's focus to the Reliquary. Aesylt's safety is more important than anything we're doing here, and if it means you two have to work on astronomy for a while longer, then that's what it means. They'll still get their reports on time like always."

Rahn nodded. "Thank you, Imryll." He paused. "I should have been more alert to what she was planning. Looking back on the night... There were signs."

Imryll scoffed. "Locking her away was never the answer. But Draz harbors an immense amount of guilt. In his self-loathing, he fails to see his sister became a woman in those years he was away, shaped by these experiences. In many ways, for the better. In some ways, for the worse. But she doesn't need him in the way he believes she does, and..." She glanced out the long windows with a sigh. Was she really going to say it? Shame Rahn for caring about Aesylt, after all he'd done? She'd issued the warning once already, but that was before he and Aesylt had become research partners—before she'd seen the violent grind in his jaw when Aesylt's injuries were numerated. The slow smoldering rage he could barely restrain. "Just be mindful, Rahn."

"Mindful?"

Imryll shot him a knowing look. "You're an honorable man. That's not in question. But emotions are running hot. Hers. Yours. Mine. Everyone's. There are few people in this world I trust as much as you. Drazhan sees you as an ally. A friend. That is no light matter. The man is more discerning than a king." She straightened, for a moment seeing the very future she hoped to avoid. Whether it was divination or fear, she couldn't know. Not yet. "Let's not add more trouble to the boiling pot."

"You take that end, Nik."Aesylt made a clicking sound with her tongue. "Niklaus."

Niklaus made a tight shake with his head and turned, his stony expression fading as his daze broke. "Sorry. Take what?"

Aesylt shifted the unwieldy roll of vellum in her arms to keep from dropping it. She spotted Rahn near the glass, setting up the lenses for observation. He'd said nothing on the long ride to the observatory, and his only words since arriving had been him running through the setup, clinical questions and answers. She'd made several searching attempts to snag his gaze, but he'd creatively diverted all of them. "The other end," she said, returning her attention to the matter at hand. "So we can open this map and get to work?"

"Ah." Niklaus cleared his throat and hooked his fingers under both sides of the roll. He walked backward until he could go no farther, and together they spread the sketch over the table.

"Grab those rocks. Just there." Aesylt pointed at the basket. She stole another look at Rahn, but he was still occupied.

Niklaus gathered the stones and waited with a dumb look.

"To hold it down?" she asked, swallowing impatience. He knew what to do. They'd done it dozens of times at the keep, long before they'd had a half-built observatory to play with. "Where are you right now?"

Niklaus quickly placed the stones. He rubbed his eyes. "Tired is all."

Aesylt stepped closer. She'd been working up the courage to ask about Val, about the situation with the Barynovs, but he'd made it clear the subject was uncomfortable for him. "I know what tired looks like on you. This is something more."

He snapped his head up. "Not Val. Last I heard, no change."

She nodded, scraping her teeth along her tongue, weighing whether to push harder. "Is this about the armistice? If you're worried about Esker, he was never going to agree to Drazhan's terms. I'll eat my right arm if the man actually shows up to read his apology tomorrow in the village."

"Your brother is too smart not to expect duplicity," Niklaus replied with a slow, careful drawl. "It's all but guaranteed, I'd say."

Aesylt ran her finger along one of the smooth stones holding down the corners of their celestial map. "Then what is it?"

"Is what happened the other night not enough, Aes? How close that monster came to killing you?"

She searched for the right words. "Nien, Nikky. If it were only that, you'd be clinging to me like an overprotective oma. Just tell me so we can move on."

Niklaus rolled his head with a huff. "I guess I, uh, wanted to tell you something."

Aesylt waited.

"I've been thinking more and more about our research here, and my part in it. Particularly since the armistice."

Aesylt had been expecting it after hearing Fez and her brother whispering in the halls. "It's not your fault your family is breaking tradition to ally with the Barynovs. It can't be helped."

Niklaus twisted his mouth. Frowned. "Nien. That's not it. And folks can stop wagging their cursed tongues because we're... We're not aligning with anyone. My father sent word from under the mountain confirming our neutrality. The kyschun can't afford to be seen choosing sides. I don't know... Doesn't matter. It's not that."

Aesylt's hand moved to her neck, a semi-conscious gesture she'd been making in the days since Marek had nearly strangled the life from her. In her quiet moments, she'd stood before her mirror, pondering that night, replaying every grueling moment. The bruises were gone, the dents of Marek's thick thumbs long smoothed, yet the flesh remembered. But fear was an ancestor of death. She had not begged for her life that night, nor the eve of the Nok Mora, and she never would. "What then?"

Niklaus followed her gestures with a dark expression. "I'm staying with the cohort. I've decided... at least until I have to join the rest of the kyschun under the mountain. And... I've thought about what you told me the other night, on the way to... you know, about the curricula. About the participatory nature of it." He cleared his throat, his face blooming with red.

"Tak?" Aesylt's eyes narrowed. "And?"

He brushed his hands down his shirt in nervy passes. "We've known each other our whole lives, Aes. We're practically family. We trust each other. We've seen each other... in vulnerable states."

Aesylt snickered. "You mean naked?"

"Whatever word you want to use." The awkward discourse seemed to cause him physical pain. "I'd like to think we were both, uh, unaffected by this, because of our closeness. And it got me thinking that if there were any two people who could conduct the, uh, experiments in a participatory sense and, uh, not be affected by the complexity of the, uh, intimacy, it would be... us."

Aesylt's breath caught. Her gaze traveled again toward Rahn as she tried to find words. His suggestion made some sense, but there was a baffling tightness in her chest, the kind that accompanied loss. "Well?—"

"You shouldn't have to... do this with the scholar, Aes. Not when you have me."

She swallowed a dry thatch in her throat, but it only made the feeling worse. Across the room, Rahn bent low, angling his face up against the telescope he'd built with his own hands. His head shook in frustration as he adjusted the many knobs, and he dug into his pocket, exasperated, for his spectacles. She should be helping him, but she'd made comfort impossible between them, first with her unfathomable proposition and then with the trouble she'd caused him after. He wasn't just cross with her; he was exhausted of her. Probably wishing he'd never asked her to be his disciple that night he'd come to Fanghelm, full of ideas. She was nothing to him anymore but a symbol of regret.

"Aes?"

She blinked away a soft burn in her eyes and looked at Niklaus. "I'll let the scholar know, when we have a moment to discuss."

The palpable relief on Niklaus's face was almost humorous. "I was a little worried you might think... but good. Good." He rolled his lips in and out. "I have to get back to the village. I'll see you tomorrow."

Aesylt nodded, her mind a cyclone of clouded emotion as she watched him leave.

Rahn hadn't intendedto spend the day with so much unaddressed awkwardness between them, but the longer he and Aesylt went without addressing what had happened, the harder it was to make space for it.

She was a consummate professional, documenting everything he read back to her as he examined the skies. When it was her turn, she recited her observations the way he'd taught her. Her misery lived only in her hooded eyes.

When midnight fell and the guards appeared, Rahn reflected on the day as a successful one.

For the research, anyway.

They traveled in the middle of a procession of Drazhan's men. Rahn drove the cart with Aesylt slumped at his side, pretending to sleep. It would be the perfect time to assure her he wasn't upset with her, only himself—to return the small, sly smile to her face he'd realized was as much of a comfort as his morning needle tea or the smooth evening fog rolling down from the craggy crests of Icebolt.

Aesylt stirred, her furs sliding atop the wood as she rolled her head his way. "I just wanted you to know, Scholar, you don't have worry about the upcoming curricula. Nik is staying on, long enough..." She tilted her head into her hood and yawned. "Long enough for he and I to satisfy the requirements for practical study within the cohort."

Rahn's hands tensed on the reins. Tightness pinched his sides, forcing him to straighten to draw breath. "You and Niklaus want to handle the curricula yourselves? The two of you? As in..."

Aesylt gave a sleepy nod. "We're comfortable with each other, and it will be nothing. A simple matter." She pulled her hood tighter and turned away in her seat, curling her legs up. "So it's no longer your problem, Scholar."

His response died when a guard rode up beside him. "My lord, we're diverting down the east pike path. May be nothing, but Barynov guards were spotted at the end of the road, and the steward has directed we treat every suspicion as a valid one." The man's eyes traveled toward Aesylt, slumped on the bench. "It will be a rough ride. I would fasten the stewardess's restraints."

Rahn nodded absently, reaching sideways to feel for the unbuckled leather. He watched the guard join the other men, and he grew cold, then hot as he secured Aesylt's straps and commanded the mules toward their new course.