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.One was knowledge of Avall’s curious stone - if any of that was actually to be believed, which she wasn’t sure of herself.And, of course, one had to know about the gem to ask about it…More likely was a suspicion that was slowly gaining primacy.A suspicion about Krax.Namely that the appearance of a handsome young man named Krax, who just happened to be the same age as the king’s son of Ixti, whose name was conveniently enough Kraxxi, might be too much coincidence.Never mind what people kept saying about children being named after royal babies.Except that she had no clue what such a person would be doing here, unless, as Lorvinn had speculated during one of their reviews, he’d managed to get himself exiled.He had lost a brother recently, so the mutilated finger proclaimed.But it hadn’t been cauterized or bandaged properly, which implied an operation performed in haste, without proper supervision.Which made sense if that brother had perhaps died under… awkward circumstances, leaving Krax to make sure his ghost was laid.On the other hand, he acted too much like a child trying to curry favor with attentive adults, and Barrax’s house was famous for its distant, hard-tempered, aloofness.Of course he did look remarkably like the profile on the recent Ixtian coins she’d located.Then again, royal Ixtians tended, by minted evidence, to look alike.In any event, that wasn’t something she should be thinking about when dealing with the Night Guard.Except, perhaps, as an aid to achieving patience.Besides which, she could no longer escape the fact that imphor smoke truly was being introduced into her space, for which there had to be a reason.Worse was the way another scent had begun to weave its way through it.And then a voice, from some hidden grille or opening that made it sound deep and hollow for all its whispered tones:“Remove your shoes.”Merryn did so, setting them close by the wall so she could find them easily.She’d given up trying not to breathe the imphor, since there was surely method to its presence.A moment later, she returned to her spot in the approximate center of the space.“Very good,” that voice repeated.“Now feel how it is to stand.Note the way the pavement feels beneath your feet and how you would describe that to someone who truly wanted to know what you are experiencing.Remember all your senses.Never stop doing that, but become aware of how your body feels from the feet up: how your bones stack together, how the stresses between your muscles shift and alter.Where you feel your pulse most strongly.Ask yourself how it feels to balance.”Over and over, with increasing degrees of detail and difficulty those instructions repeated.They had a hypnotic quality to them, too, one Merryn wasn’t certain if she was supposed to resist or indulge.She chose the latter, and soon felt herself slipping away from herself, caught up as she was in the wonders of her own body, the way muscles tensed and relaxed and made compromises with each other to keep her upright and balanced.At some point she was asked to describe the space around her in terms of how far the walls, floor, ceiling, and corners were from her.The air could tell her some of these things, even in total darkness.Knowing where everyone was in a fight could also save her life, which she imagined was the purpose of this drill.She never knew when the scent of imphor began to fade.But she was somewhat surprised to discover that she’d fallen asleep while standing.Her body felt perfectly relaxed, though, and utterly, completely balanced.And no one had asked her about either Avall or Krax.CHAPTER XXVIII:VOWS AND PROMISES(ERON: WAR-HOLD-WINTER-DEEP WINTER: DAY XIV-LATEAFTERNOON)Are you my man?” Tozri looked up from where he’d been paging absently through an obtuse treatise on the mechanics of gears and pulleys (at which the Eronese seemed to excel, and which no one born in Ixti, no matter how educated, ever seemed to get right).He was sprawled on the bed, clad only in black house-hose, and the afternoon sunlight filtering through the window in the bath gave his skin a ruddy glow that complemented its natural tan nicely.“What?”he asked, blinking as he refocused.He flicked a lock of hair out of his eyes for emphasis.Kraxxi nodded toward the door to Merryn’s room and raised a wary finger to his lips.Tozri nodded in turn and slipped from the bed to the floor beside it.Kraxxi tiptoed to the bath, where he turned on the water in the sunken stone tuba luxury he still couldn’t quite accept, never mind that even common folk in Eron had access to such things.Merryn’s, on the other side of her suite, was nothing short of amazing.That accomplished, he joined his friend, resting his back against the stone platform that supported his bed.“I asked if you were my man,” Kraxxi repeated.“If you are, I need to swear you to silence, then tell you some things.”For a moment Tozri looked as though he might take umbrage at that, but then his expression softened.“You know I’m your man, Kraxxi min Barrax min Fortan,” he murmured, using Kraxxi’s full name as proof.“I’m that because I serve my prince, but more importantly, because I serve my childhood friend above my king.And because we swore to be brothers when we were small - because I had no brother and you pitied me.”Kraxxi’s eyes misted.“Then I accept your oath.And now I must ask you to swear to keep what I’m about to tell you to yourself.Do not discuss it with Olrix and Elvix, even - not until I give you leave.”Tozri scowled.“They’re my sisters; I don’t like to keep things from them.”“They’re like my sisters, too, and they’re also my friends, by choice and oath alike.But they won’t like what I’m about to tell you, and my mind is clear on this.”Tozri’s face couldn’t mask his eagerness to hear more, but he looked wary, too.Silently, abruptly all guard and shadow, he rose, opened the doors to both adjoining rooms and peered through [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]