12-19-2021, 10:13 PM
Water freshly heated through with saidar finally loosened the knots in her muscles. Steam roiled the bath’s surface, the fragrances soothing, yet Nythadri still felt anything but soothed. After several days of rough travel the lull was disarming, and though she knew better, her thoughts were drifting in warm ocean waters. She remembered that beach in every moon-soaked detail, certainly well enough to attempt a gate. The cove had been private, and would likely be empty. Not that she exactly knew the path up to the palace. But, light, she could be there and back before even Elly realised she had gone. Just to check that he was safe. Just to check that duty and distraction hadn’t carved a shell of his skin.
He must know by now, about Andreu.
She twisted the serpent ring beneath the water, watched the ripples spread from the movement. The Aes Sedai test still clenched her chest when she thought about it, the memory still far too raw (and she was afraid, she admitted, though only to herself). But what if this was the last chance she had to see him? Until she pressed Talin for answers, she did not know what shadow they were under, or what consequences waited to ambush the path. There might not be a tomorrow in which it was even safe to see Jai.
Saidar hovered, tantalisingly close, yet never quite in reach. One thought kept her back like a held breath. Because depending on what Talin had done, it might already be too late.
She pressed her palms over her face, wiping clean a betraying heat. Without knowing first, it was a risk she could not take; she knew it as heavily as the weight of the heart beating in her chest. Because if she saw him now, there would be no gate back to this isolated fort in Illian, duty to her sister and the Tower be damned. And because if protecting him meant she must stay away, she would do it. Even if the pain of that future numbed her cold. He couldn’t become tangled in this.
The door clicked quietly shut a moment later. Pale eyes glanced up, though she did not need to see in order to know who it was. A breath tidied her emotion away, and she rested her head back against the side of the bath. Heat crackled from the hearth alongside. Elly frowned when she entered, perhaps for finding Nythadri where expected.
“I’d forgotten what it felt like,” she grumbled, “to be so bloody new to the saddle. Are all southerners so soft? I feel like I’ve been flaming well thrashed.”
A mask was easier to hold in place when there was someone to wear it for. Nythadri smirked, flicked water from the tips of her fingers. “Then imagine how it feels to me. Was I right? We’re in Illian?”
“Aye.” The woman claimed one of the stuffed chairs, legs spread long, boots crossed at ankle. Nythadri listened while she regaled of their location in the hills, of the family name and sigil that claimed the fort (neither of them recognised it; Elly scoffed at politics, and Nythadri was simply unfamiliar with this part of the world), and some idle ruminations on the talent to be found in the soldier’s barracks. The words were a melody Nythadri allowed herself to be distracted by, glad for the moment of ordinary, and for a conversation that carried no heavy burden. When words eventually simmered to a natural lull, Elly lit herself a pipe. Smoke wreathed in fragrant coils, bringing with it a nostalgic reminisce of Caemlyn’s taverns. It seemed melancholy had not quite relaxed its grip.
“I see I’ve been absolved of a duty,” she said into the silence, refusing to dwell on the past and the impossible. “You’ve replaced your pipe.”
The warder grinned an entirely wolfish grin in answer, and tipped her shoulder. A few loosened buttons showed a not incidental glimpse of cleavage. “I’m very persuasive.”
Nythadri laughed, a brow raised in tease, though she was hardly scandalised at the implication. “Well it’s good to know the skills of my gaidar.”
She’d meant it lightly, a jest for the mood, but the title brought some attention; she felt it before she saw it in Elly’s expression; a fierceness, a pride, and a contentment. Her weight shifted, and she leaned her forearms on her knees. As quickly as her ribald humour flared, it was replaced with a surprisingly soft concern.
“I can feel your worry, you know, however much you keep from showing it.”
Hardly a surprise, given their bond, but it drew Nythadri quiet anyway. She was not used to people seeing beneath the veneer, at least not unless it was by her choice or design. Her fingers drifted across the water’s surface, her gaze diverting away and to the flames. She could not deny it, and nor would she do either of them the disservice, but there was little to say.
Elly sighed. “Must you make this such a flaming mountain to climb? The Wheel Weaves and all that trolloc piss. I’ve sworn my oaths, and meant every word, Nythadri. We’ll get to know each other along the way, but only if you actually talk to me.”
“I know,” she agreed, and easily. It wasn’t that anyway. If she might never be comfortable with the choice Elly had been forced to make, she accepted that it had woven their threads together now, and she would honour it. Old habits took time to dismantle, though. That, and the mountain to climb was one of doubt of worry, not loyalty. She needed to speak to Talin; to find out exactly what they were dealing with. Tonight.