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rainbowfic2025-10-18 06:11 pm
thisbluespirit) wrote in rainbowfic2025-10-18 06:11 pm
Vert #27; Warm Heart#8 [Starfall]
Name: Harbour
Story: Starfall
Colors: Vert #27 (We must dream and remember; Warm Heart #8 (Courtesy)
Supplies and Styles: Silhouette + Portrait + Sculpture + Novelty Beads (fromshadowsong26 for December Gift Exchange 2020: Yes, it's true that we are all mortal. But some of us manage to form strong attachments nevertheless. --Miss Manners)
Word Count: 5079
Rating: Teen
Warnings: References to sex.
Notes: Portcallan, 1313. Viyony Eseray/Leion Valerno, Iyana Valerno, Tam Jadinor. Continues directly from Storms & the final section of this sequence, after which we will be back to pieces as normal, and into the final bit of this overall arc. \o/ The part with the cards was originally posted as House of Cards, making this a Sculpture. (I inserted it more or less complete here, give or take some further tweaks).
Summary: Leion takes Viyony home.
"Afternoon," said Iyana Valerno. "I gathered from my son's badly written note that he had left us a stray. Please—come this way and have a drink, if you'd like."
Viyony followed Leion's mother back into the kitchen. "I hope you don't mind. Leion said it would be all right, but if it's a bad time, I shall go to Aunt Diyela's now and leave you in peace."
"You needn't worry about that—you are very welcome," said Iyana. "Did Leion tell you it was Tam's day for leading with the communal meal? He always makes far too much, so we shall be glad of the extra company." She crossed to the table and picked up a jug, half-full of cold ohlflower tea. "Would you like a drink? There's water, if you would prefer."
Viyony opted for the tea and sipped it gratefully, along with dried biscuits and slices of orange Iyana also offered her. She bit into the biscuit cautiously, but it was precisely the sort of thing she needed to settle her stomach.
"I don't know what you'd like to do," said Iyana, "I have some papers to go through, but you can go back upstairs, if you want, or sit out in the yard—borrow a book, perhaps—or if you would prefer practical activity, you could help prepare the vegetables."
Viyony broke into a smile. "Thank you. I'll see to the vegetables—just point me in the right direction. Something to do is exactly what I need."
"You mustn't feel obliged, of course. I understand today has been quite the ordeal."
"Oh, I don't," said Viyony. "I've spent too much of the last couple of days sitting or lying around"
Iyana smiled. "My commiserations, my dear."
Viyony had been nervous of a prolonged conversation with Leion's mother—Imor Iyana Valerno was a High Justice, and had a trick of looking at a person as if she could see right through them. Viyony knew from what Leion had said that she disapproved strongly of marriages of convenience, and she didn't really want to find out what Iyana thought about her, or her relationship with Leion. She was relieved that, so far, she didn't seem as alarming as she had feared.
"We've only met once or twice in passing—barely enough to mention," said Iyana, making Viyony jump inwardly, as if she had read her thoughts. "I'm glad Leion finally brought you here—I seem to hear so much about you."
Viyony's face heated. "Likewise, Imor Valerno."
Iyana gave a nod, and then directed Viyony to the workbench, where she provided her with a chopping board and knife. "The peaches are for my contribution, so wash and chop them in any way you please. Peel the vegetables, but Tam insists on following the recipe to the letter, so only progress to chopping those you feel up to that. I think he sees these occasions as competitive events."
"It looks straightforward enough," Viyony said, picking up the recipe. Someone had carefully copied it out onto a sheet of paper that was now liberally marked with flour and dark sauce stains. "I think I'm equal to it."
She set about washing and cutting up the fruit and then placed it in a large white bowl, before moving onto the vegetables. She lost herself and the upsets of the past couple of days in the familiar, routine process of cutting and peeling onions, green beans, and a dark green cabbage-like vegetable she hadn't met before, at least in its raw state. The recipe also called for a collection of fresh herbs that Iyana told her she should be able to find out in the yard, so she went outside and ambled about beside the raised herb bed next to the wall, humming as she cut the required amount of basil, coriander, and ouell and carried it inside to wash.
The outer door opened and shut when she was in the middle of doing that, startling her out of her reverie. She turned to see if it was Leion, while Iyana remained head down over her papers at the table, a pencil raised in one hand. The newcomer, it turned out, was still not Leion. Tam Jadinor walked in, whistling under his breath. He halted on seeing Viyony at the workbench but then broke into a broad smile and strode towards her.
"Imai Eseray! What an unexpected pleasure!" He greeted her with a formal nod, and then relaxed into informality, clasping one of her hands in both of his briefly. "What brings you here? Don't tell me—word of my culinary exploits have reached you and you couldn't keep away?"
Iyana turned over a sheet of paper and looked up. "She came back from Calla Island with Leion."
"Ah," said Tam, drawing in his breath. "And he brought you here for us to look after you, I suppose? Where is he?"
"A good question," Iyana said. "I thought I'd brought him up to have better manners than to abandon a guest, but it appears not."
Viyony gestured at the neatly chopped vegetables on the workbench. "I've been helping get things ready. I trust it's all right?"
"Looks perfect," said Tam, resting his hand on her shoulder as he examined her handiwork. " I'm not that much of a stickler, by the way, whatever she may have told you—but Ket and Leio are careless types, and these things matter."
"They do." Viyony had helped her father prepare all sorts of items—plants, fungi, animal parts and mineral ore – for his experiments and he demanded absolute precision with it came to such sensitive work. Cutting up a few vegetables reasonably neatly in the style favoured by Tam's recipe was easy in comparison.
Tam nodded. "Good, good. I'll go and clean myself up, but I'll come back shortly and work my usual magic. Feel free to take a well deserved break—or if you want to carry on helping, I'll be delighted, of course." He gave her a wave before he left the room.
By the time Leion finally turned up, Viyony had forgotten to look out for him, busy in the shared courtyard where the gates had been opened up and the food was cooking in a large copper pan on the central hotstone. Tam was in the middle of the tale of his first efforts at leading the communal meal after he and Iyana moved here. "Burnt to a cinder," he said, finishing it off with a shake of his head. "I've had to work hard to restore my shattered reputation."
"We don't really have this kind of thing in the Eister Ranges," Viyony said, gazing round the shared yard at the neighbours clustering about. "Except for festivals, and then the whole of Eseray celebrates together."
Tam nodded. "Ah, yes, you're practically in High Eisterland up there, aren't you?"
"We are on the right side of the border, but yes."
He laughed. "Don't worry. No offence meant—it just struck me. I should show you my set of Eisterlander playing cards. You might be able to explain -"
"Tam!" said Leion suddenly from behind them. "I brought Viyony here so she could rest after everything she's been through! You're not supposed to be putting her to work."
Viyony turned. "I'm enjoying myself, thank you."
"And," said Tam, side by side with Viyony, "where have you been all this time, eh? Not the way to behave to a guest."
Leion stole a sliced strip of carrot and ate it. "Yes, sorry. I had to run around repeating things to a whole queue of people at High Chambers, and when I finally got back to my place, I made the mistake of lying down for a few minutes." He pulled a face. "Fatal. Only woke up half an hour ago."
"It's a reasonable excuse," Viyony advised Tam, when he quirked an eyebrow in her direction. "Leion's had even less sleep than I have over the last two days."
"Then I suppose we will have to forgive him." Tam clapped a hand on Leion's shoulder and drew him forward. "I think we're about done. Leio—go and tell your mother it's time for her to tear herself away from her work."
"Here," said Tam, pulling out a battered card box. He carried it across to the table, and laid it in front of Viyony.
Once everyone had had finished the meal, they all retreated into their own houses, unlike the evening at Arna's. Now, Iyana and Leion were downstairs, making ginger tea and, by the sounds of it, half-heartedly arguing over something, and Tam had brought her up to this small sitting room on the first floor to take a look at the set of Eisterlander cards he had mentioned earlier. The room was flooded with fading orange light that burnished the edges of the mismatched, old furniture that had collected within.
"I've had these forever—belonged to my grandmother." Tam pulled off the lid and spilled the contents out onto the table—a pack of playing cards, yellowed and dog-eared. "It's an Eisterlander set, so I was always at sea with them. Thought you might know the way of it, being from the eastern borders yourself."
Viyony leaned over, spreading them out with her fingers. She smiled to herself, and then sat down at the table, tugging her chair closer. "I can try—although I have to say we mostly used to play very silly made up games with our set."
In the Eseray pack, each card had been personified, and she and her siblings had used them as characters in stories they were acting out. Sometimes Father led them in playing games with increasingly ridiculous invented rules, everyone collapsing into laughter before the end. Grandmother would look in and shake her head, telling Mother yet again—although with a certain pride underlying it - "I told you that man is nothing but a bad influence!"
"They're not so different, really," said Viyony, rearranging the cards face up in front of her. "You have the Great Powers, then the Lesser Powers, and they're all assigned to either Air, Water, Fire, or Earth, same as our sets." She picked up a card and ran the tip of her finger along the edge, letting him see the yellow border, symbolising fire or light. "But we only have the main eight Powers. High Eisterland has so many more so that with these packs all the cards represent a different Power. They don't have our Empty Cards, though."
Tam turned a stray card over and tapped it with his finger. "I used to like looking at the patterns on these when I was a boy. Maybe I liked the mystery too well to want it explained."
"Until now?" Viyony cast a quick look at him. Pentamon Jadinor had previously been Head of the Guardians of the Peace in Portcallan, and while he had retired from that position, he was still Speaker to the Council on the Guardians' behalf, which wasn't much less exalted. He was not a man to underestimate.
Tam grinned. "Until now," he agreed, his gravelled voice even. "Carry on."
"This type of cards were originally made for the temples, for divination," said Viyony. "Emoyran sets never are. I read about it—they still do it, but it's a complicated discipline to learn. I've met a few people who say they can use them, but they're usually cheats and liars."
"Ah, so, it's not real when they see the future. Not like you."
Viyony swept the cards towards her and gathered them into a neat pile, ready for use. The odd waking visions she'd been experiencing since yesterday darted to the forefront of her mind. She frowned, concentrating on shuffling the deck, the familiar action steadying. Anything was better than discussing her dreams again. She glanced up, pulling her mouth down at the corners. "Has everyone in Portcallan heard about me?"
"I'm paid to know things," said Tam. "Besides, Leio knows, so..." He let that trail away into the air and winked.
"I only meant that it takes years to learn how to do it properly. You can't just put a lump of starstone or glass in the middle of the table and spout nonsense, which is all I've ever seen done—but people will fall for it."
"That's people for you. Another sort of game."
Viyony cut the deck and frowned down at the result. The designs on these were too unfamiliar. "Hmm. You know, I think these are divided into Day and Night as well as the elements. There are little suns and stars on each one." She laid out several more of the cards, turning them over one by one. "I can't remember how that affects play." She lifted her gaze and threw him a quick grin. "Or divination."
"You can't tell me my fortune, then?"
Viyony shivered. "Of course not, Imor," she said briskly, laying out more cards and focusing on them, naming them silently. Cyro, Fire—Alyn, Water—Sia, Air, or was it water? Was Sia sometimes in both, or was that one of Father's tricks? "I'd need starstone, in any case."
The memory of the cave on Calla Island with its alcoves full of starstone flashed into her head. She put down the next card. Imora—Earth—Night.
Still sitting there with the card in hand, she suddenly found herself also somewhere else entirely. Tam was with her. They were struggling up a steep, rocky incline she didn't recognise. It might be somewhere in Central District—there was a red and grey tint to the stones that couldn't be anywhere in the Eister Ranges. They stopped in front of a great steel gate decorated with vine-like swirls of painted metal in which chips of starstone had been embedded. Beyond it, the shadow of a great house loomed over them. Viyony caught sight of a stone distance marker, lopsided and half buried in the grass beside the high wall, and crouched down to examine it. NLN 1—LKS 5, it read. That was code for two different towns or cities, but she didn't know which ones.
The image receded. Viyony gave a small cry as her real, present surroundings reclaimed her. She sprang up from the chair, wanting only to get away. Cards flew off the table and onto the carpet, patterned like the gates in swirling, coloured vines. Tam's brow furrowed. He rose slowly as she stepped back. The room around her faded in and out of the failing sunset-hued light and then darkened altogether.
"Hey," said Tam, his arm around her as he helped her up, blinking and confused. "I forgot you'd already had more than enough excitement for one day."
Viyony struggled to find her voice, to explain, but she was too dizzy. She let Tam guide her back to the chair, where he sat her down, laying a reassuring, warm hand on her shoulder.
It had felt exactly like a dream, even if she hadn't been asleep. She could categorise it in the same way. A matter of life and death—her pulse sounded loud in her ears as if to drum its importance into her. But she didn't sense the desperate urgency in the pit of her stomach that meant she was being warned of something imminent.
By the time she had her breath back, Tam was standing in the doorway, whistling loudly for help. "And bring some of that tea up here!"
"Imor Jadinor," said Viyony, when he looked back across at her. "You mentioned my dreams. I don't usually have waking ones, but these last two days have been—a little unusual. I saw something just then. I think it was serious. Can you believe me? Or, at least, write down what I ask you to and keep it somewhere safe?"
Tam pushed the door to softly, and crossed back to the table. He collected a half-used notebook from the shelves beside him on the way. "Go on," he said, stub of pencil in hand.
Viyony swallowed, and then told him, as simply as she could, what she had seen. "Write down the location on the marker stone. We needed to see it—I felt I must look at it."
It was on the tip of her tongue to ask aloud the most puzzling element of it—why would she and Tam ever be going anywhere together in the future? Before she could frame the words, she looked up and caught his eye. The same question was written on his face, and she saw the answer there at the same moment as it dawned on her. There was, after all, only one thing the two of them had in common.
"Please. Don't tell him," Viyony said. "Keep that piece of paper safe, that's all. A lot of these vague things never even happen—they are only possibilities. The future is always changing."
Tam nodded. "Of course."
"Tea," said Leion, elbowing the door aside and entering with a tray and a flourish that made them both jump. He placed the tray on the table between them, heedless of the cards, and then shot Viyony a sharp look. "What have you been up to now?"
Tam waved Leion's question aside. "Tea," he insisted.
"Yes, Imor," said Leion, his concern vanishing in amusement. He inclined his head in mock formality. "At once, Imor." He poured Viyony a cup of ginger tea while Tam shook his head and passed her the plate of lemon finger biscuits.
"Eat that." Tam said. "If you do, I'll keep my end of the bargain."
Viyony gave shaky laugh and bit into the biscuit. The sweetness helped. It was as well not to tell Leion anyway. He'd only start insisting all over again that what had happened yesterday had been an act of malice, and she still couldn't see how that was possible.
"Well, now I am worried. What have you two been plotting? Is Viyony going to take over the High Council and put it in proper working order? About time, I say."
Tam took his cup of ginger tea. "She was teaching me Eisterland card games with these."
"Was she?" Leion raised an eyebrow. "In that case, I hope you've been taking notes. She'll probably set you a test later and make you go back and do it again if you haven't been paying attention."
Tam directed a look at Viyony, with a twinkle in his eye. "Oh, I took notes, don't worry." He sobered as he added, "I'll keep it safe somewhere. Just in case."
"Thank you," said Viyony. "Another time, I hope we'll actually be able to play something."
"I shall look forward to it."
Iyana arrived in the doorway. "Not that I wish to be unwelcoming, but Diyela and her family will have heard the news about the Calla Island incident by now, and I think it would be as well if Viyony isn't too late home. I know you sent them a note, Leio, but they're bound to worry."
"I'll help you with your trunk," said Leion immediately.
"It's so far," put in Tam with a wicked glint in his eye. "Are you sure you can carry it all that way? Maybe we should call a city cart."
Leion directed a dark look at his stepfather. "Ha."
"Enough nonsense," Iyana said. "You do that, Leio, as long as Viyony wants you to."
"I'd be grateful," Viyony murmured as she rose. The Valerno house was barely more than one hundredlengths away from the Gerro house and she could have managed to haul her case that far herself, but she and Leion still desperately needed time alone to talk.
"Will you come back here afterwards or walk on home?"
Leion glanced over at Viyony, and then back to his mother. "I suppose it would make more sense to go straight on from there."
The last rose-smudged edges of dusk were fading into darker shades of evening as Leion and Viyony walked up the road, but the air was still like warm breath—Viyony suffered a pang of regret for Calla Island's sea breezes. They rounded the corner eastwards into Great Western Street, past more high and narrow city houses like the Valernos'. Each one was painted a different light-toned colour and were haphazard in shape and style, but they all were duly clustered around their high-walled communal courts.
Viyony walked alongside Leion, waiting for him to speak, but for the first few minutes, he was silent.
"You will be more careful, won't you?" he said, eventually. "I know you don't want to hear it, but someone found a way to dose you with something before you went into that cave yesterday."
Viyony glanced upwards. She could see only a few pin pricks of stars in the murky sky, the city's lamps obscuring the much more vivid display she was accustomed to at home. She sighed. She had hoped—or maybe feared—that he was going to say something very different.
"By 'someone', you mean Eollan, don't you?"
"I don't know," said Leion soberly. "He's top of my list, yes."
"I've promised you I'll be careful, haven't I?" Viyony looked up at him. "How can you be so sure it wasn't just the starstone?"
He shifted the weight of her travel case in his arms as they turned down Aymer Lane, where Aunt Diyela's house stood only a few lengths away. "It wasn't—it couldn't be. The way you reacted in the cave was too violent—and what clinches it is that it wasn't temporary. You've seen things since, haven't you? Maybe last night; certainly on the boat, and I wouldn't be surprised if something happened when you were upstairs with Tam earlier. You had that look on your face."
"Oh," said Viyony, brought up short by what seemed like unnecessarily acute observation from someone who managed to be completely oblivious to blatant traps and failed to see when people were clearly trying to seduce him. "Well, as I said—I promised to be careful. As did you, Leion."
"I remember."
They walked past the front door and stopped a little further on, outside the gate to the Gerro house's shared yard.
Leion hesitated there. "Can we go into the yard for a moment?"
Viyony tried the latch and the gate opened. She slipped through and held it for him to follow. He put the case down on the paving stones, and then led her over to a bench nestled under the trellis where trailing passionflowers bloomed.
"First," she said as they sat, "I have to thank you—for coming after me to the island and taking care of me on the boat. You've been very kind."
Leion's mouth turned up at one corner. "You must be more shaken up than I realised. You can't go round being nice to me—my vanity will get completely out of hand!"
Viyony was weary enough that she only leaned her head back against the trellis behind her and stuck her tongue out.
"All right," said Leion. He cleared his throat. "Last night—it occurred to me too late that I might have been a complete idiot. You didn't ask me to your room to talk about the incident in the cave, did you? It was an assignation all along. Our long-overdue affair at last, and I missed it."
Viyony had wondered at intervals ever since it had happened what she would say to him when they finally talked about it, and instead of anything she had rehearsed, she burst out laughing.
"In my defence," he said, tilting his head to try and gauge her expression, his tone uneasy, "I was distracted by that note. Even so, I'm sorry—now, let me make it up to you as soon as possible."
She choked back giggles. "You told me off for wearing my nice night clothes!"
"You did mean it, didn't you? Viyony! Stop laughing!"
She sobered. "Yes. I did. But I'm not sure it isn't as well that we didn't get the chance."
"What, that poor Ghalle was murdered instead? Rather harsh, I'd say."
Viyony hugged her arms in against herself. "You know I didn't mean that. The thing is—apart from wondering if you're even serious about wanting to sleep with me, because I don't see how you could have failed to notice-"
"How dare you," said Leion. "Do not—do not ever think that!"
Viyony caught his gaze and lost the thread of what she was saying.
"So, all that and murder aside," he said quietly, "shall we arrange to have another attempt? If you want to get out of the city again, I know a place up in Calla Woods. It belongs to cousins of mother's, and it's very pretty up there. And definitely no one around to ruin things with plots, murder, or gossip."
She shook her head. "Leion, stop! That sounds—very nice -"
"But," he said, drawing back; his expression closing in. "You know, this is part of why I missed the blindingly obvious last night. The better I got to know you, the less I believed you meant that thing about an affair—all that responsibility always comes first, doesn't it? Better to set you down in my mind as firmly out of reach."
Viyony flinched inwardly, and had to look away. "I—I suppose that's fair. But then, that's it, really. It wasn't serious at the start, was it? If we'd got on and slept with each other then, it wouldn't have mattered. But now—now -" Her throat constricted and she stumbled over things she wasn't prepared to say. "We're friends, aren't we?"
Leion's hard look eased. "We are. Yes."
"So, that's what makes it difficult. I—I like you too much." She raised her gaze to meet his. "I marry Imoren in only a few weeks. That hasn't changed; it can't change. But now, some nights, I still have my original dream again—the one I used to have before I made the arrangement with Imoren, of Eseray being destroyed—and I know that's partly because of you—of how I feel."
Leion shifted. "I know the wedding has to happen. You told me at the start—I won't try to interfere."
She held up a hand. "It's not that—I have to see it through, all of it, no matter what, and the thought of it gets harder to bear every day. I'm afraid that if I do anything to make it worse, it won't just be a weight forever pressing on me, it'll crush me. Or I won't be able to go through with it and then it will be the end of Eseray." She pressed her hand in against her chest. "I worry we could be that thing."
"Well, that's unfair," said Leion. "I had a whole list of arguments to make—and now, what can I say to that?" He leant forward and held out his hand. She refrained from taking it for a moment longer, but then closed her finger around his. "But it will be difficult whatever you do, you know—and your mother has an important point. If you're going to marry this awful man -"
"He's not, you know. Not really."
"Well," said Leion, "I reserve the right to dislike him. Besides, anyone who wants his business arrangements made in blood like that is a right piece of sea shit in my book."
"It's not like that."
"Isn't it?" He shrugged. "Well, I won't push you, but going into that without ever actually having had sex—I do agree with your mother. And if you are going to sleep with someone first, why not me? You can't spend your whole life only doing it with people you don't like."
Viyony looked up and then pressed her hand to her mouth. "Leion! That's not—I mean -" She gave up and altered tack. "I haven't said no—only that I need to think, and I can't do that today."
"Just my opinion. I won't say another word on the subject."
She swallowed. "I'm sorry if I've been unfair. But -"
"You like me too much," he said, laughter back in his eyes. "Yes. Thanks. I'll take the compliment, especially if it's all I'm getting."
"Leion."
"Anyway, I shall go—I'm about ready to collapse, too," he said. "It's been the second long day in a row." He squeezed her hand. "I shan't get my hopes up, but let me know."
Viyony screwed up her face into a smile and then kissed him on the cheek. He turned in towards her instinctively and then made to pull back, but she put her free hand up to grasp the edge of his jacket.
"You could—you could kiss me," she said. "I ought to have some evidence to go on when I'm weighing up the issue-"
He caught hold of her before she'd even got her sentence out and tugged her closer, before angling his head better to kiss her on the mouth. She shifted at the same moment, causing it to land a little to one side, but she grasped his shirt and pulled him into a better position and kissed him back. He still tasted of salt from the voyage as well as the ginger tea from dinner, his chin slightly prickly at this late hour, but she closed her eyes and leaned into him, forgetting all her fears, the unyielding wooden bench, and her weariness. She'd wanted this since practically the first time she saw him and she let everything else go, wrapped in his warm hold, sliding her arms around his neck.
It was Leion who pulled away, reluctantly, breathless, but with decision. "We can't go on like this," he said. "Not in your aunt's communal yard. Where will it end?"
Viyony blinked a bit, taking a moment to come back down to the ground, and then she laughed softly. "Not very discreet?"
"No," he said and then smiled at her with such warmth that she was tempted to tell him she didn't care about discretion or dreams or Aunt Diyela—except, of course, she knew underneath that she would again soon, very much. He touched her chin with his thumb. "Just—don't leave it too long before you let me know one way or the other."
She nodded. "I promise."
Story: Starfall
Colors: Vert #27 (We must dream and remember; Warm Heart #8 (Courtesy)
Supplies and Styles: Silhouette + Portrait + Sculpture + Novelty Beads (from
shadowsong26 for December Gift Exchange 2020: Yes, it's true that we are all mortal. But some of us manage to form strong attachments nevertheless. --Miss Manners)Word Count: 5079
Rating: Teen
Warnings: References to sex.
Notes: Portcallan, 1313. Viyony Eseray/Leion Valerno, Iyana Valerno, Tam Jadinor. Continues directly from Storms & the final section of this sequence, after which we will be back to pieces as normal, and into the final bit of this overall arc. \o/ The part with the cards was originally posted as House of Cards, making this a Sculpture. (I inserted it more or less complete here, give or take some further tweaks).
Summary: Leion takes Viyony home.
"Afternoon," said Iyana Valerno. "I gathered from my son's badly written note that he had left us a stray. Please—come this way and have a drink, if you'd like."
Viyony followed Leion's mother back into the kitchen. "I hope you don't mind. Leion said it would be all right, but if it's a bad time, I shall go to Aunt Diyela's now and leave you in peace."
"You needn't worry about that—you are very welcome," said Iyana. "Did Leion tell you it was Tam's day for leading with the communal meal? He always makes far too much, so we shall be glad of the extra company." She crossed to the table and picked up a jug, half-full of cold ohlflower tea. "Would you like a drink? There's water, if you would prefer."
Viyony opted for the tea and sipped it gratefully, along with dried biscuits and slices of orange Iyana also offered her. She bit into the biscuit cautiously, but it was precisely the sort of thing she needed to settle her stomach.
"I don't know what you'd like to do," said Iyana, "I have some papers to go through, but you can go back upstairs, if you want, or sit out in the yard—borrow a book, perhaps—or if you would prefer practical activity, you could help prepare the vegetables."
Viyony broke into a smile. "Thank you. I'll see to the vegetables—just point me in the right direction. Something to do is exactly what I need."
"You mustn't feel obliged, of course. I understand today has been quite the ordeal."
"Oh, I don't," said Viyony. "I've spent too much of the last couple of days sitting or lying around"
Iyana smiled. "My commiserations, my dear."
Viyony had been nervous of a prolonged conversation with Leion's mother—Imor Iyana Valerno was a High Justice, and had a trick of looking at a person as if she could see right through them. Viyony knew from what Leion had said that she disapproved strongly of marriages of convenience, and she didn't really want to find out what Iyana thought about her, or her relationship with Leion. She was relieved that, so far, she didn't seem as alarming as she had feared.
"We've only met once or twice in passing—barely enough to mention," said Iyana, making Viyony jump inwardly, as if she had read her thoughts. "I'm glad Leion finally brought you here—I seem to hear so much about you."
Viyony's face heated. "Likewise, Imor Valerno."
Iyana gave a nod, and then directed Viyony to the workbench, where she provided her with a chopping board and knife. "The peaches are for my contribution, so wash and chop them in any way you please. Peel the vegetables, but Tam insists on following the recipe to the letter, so only progress to chopping those you feel up to that. I think he sees these occasions as competitive events."
"It looks straightforward enough," Viyony said, picking up the recipe. Someone had carefully copied it out onto a sheet of paper that was now liberally marked with flour and dark sauce stains. "I think I'm equal to it."
She set about washing and cutting up the fruit and then placed it in a large white bowl, before moving onto the vegetables. She lost herself and the upsets of the past couple of days in the familiar, routine process of cutting and peeling onions, green beans, and a dark green cabbage-like vegetable she hadn't met before, at least in its raw state. The recipe also called for a collection of fresh herbs that Iyana told her she should be able to find out in the yard, so she went outside and ambled about beside the raised herb bed next to the wall, humming as she cut the required amount of basil, coriander, and ouell and carried it inside to wash.
The outer door opened and shut when she was in the middle of doing that, startling her out of her reverie. She turned to see if it was Leion, while Iyana remained head down over her papers at the table, a pencil raised in one hand. The newcomer, it turned out, was still not Leion. Tam Jadinor walked in, whistling under his breath. He halted on seeing Viyony at the workbench but then broke into a broad smile and strode towards her.
"Imai Eseray! What an unexpected pleasure!" He greeted her with a formal nod, and then relaxed into informality, clasping one of her hands in both of his briefly. "What brings you here? Don't tell me—word of my culinary exploits have reached you and you couldn't keep away?"
Iyana turned over a sheet of paper and looked up. "She came back from Calla Island with Leion."
"Ah," said Tam, drawing in his breath. "And he brought you here for us to look after you, I suppose? Where is he?"
"A good question," Iyana said. "I thought I'd brought him up to have better manners than to abandon a guest, but it appears not."
Viyony gestured at the neatly chopped vegetables on the workbench. "I've been helping get things ready. I trust it's all right?"
"Looks perfect," said Tam, resting his hand on her shoulder as he examined her handiwork. " I'm not that much of a stickler, by the way, whatever she may have told you—but Ket and Leio are careless types, and these things matter."
"They do." Viyony had helped her father prepare all sorts of items—plants, fungi, animal parts and mineral ore – for his experiments and he demanded absolute precision with it came to such sensitive work. Cutting up a few vegetables reasonably neatly in the style favoured by Tam's recipe was easy in comparison.
Tam nodded. "Good, good. I'll go and clean myself up, but I'll come back shortly and work my usual magic. Feel free to take a well deserved break—or if you want to carry on helping, I'll be delighted, of course." He gave her a wave before he left the room.
By the time Leion finally turned up, Viyony had forgotten to look out for him, busy in the shared courtyard where the gates had been opened up and the food was cooking in a large copper pan on the central hotstone. Tam was in the middle of the tale of his first efforts at leading the communal meal after he and Iyana moved here. "Burnt to a cinder," he said, finishing it off with a shake of his head. "I've had to work hard to restore my shattered reputation."
"We don't really have this kind of thing in the Eister Ranges," Viyony said, gazing round the shared yard at the neighbours clustering about. "Except for festivals, and then the whole of Eseray celebrates together."
Tam nodded. "Ah, yes, you're practically in High Eisterland up there, aren't you?"
"We are on the right side of the border, but yes."
He laughed. "Don't worry. No offence meant—it just struck me. I should show you my set of Eisterlander playing cards. You might be able to explain -"
"Tam!" said Leion suddenly from behind them. "I brought Viyony here so she could rest after everything she's been through! You're not supposed to be putting her to work."
Viyony turned. "I'm enjoying myself, thank you."
"And," said Tam, side by side with Viyony, "where have you been all this time, eh? Not the way to behave to a guest."
Leion stole a sliced strip of carrot and ate it. "Yes, sorry. I had to run around repeating things to a whole queue of people at High Chambers, and when I finally got back to my place, I made the mistake of lying down for a few minutes." He pulled a face. "Fatal. Only woke up half an hour ago."
"It's a reasonable excuse," Viyony advised Tam, when he quirked an eyebrow in her direction. "Leion's had even less sleep than I have over the last two days."
"Then I suppose we will have to forgive him." Tam clapped a hand on Leion's shoulder and drew him forward. "I think we're about done. Leio—go and tell your mother it's time for her to tear herself away from her work."
"Here," said Tam, pulling out a battered card box. He carried it across to the table, and laid it in front of Viyony.
Once everyone had had finished the meal, they all retreated into their own houses, unlike the evening at Arna's. Now, Iyana and Leion were downstairs, making ginger tea and, by the sounds of it, half-heartedly arguing over something, and Tam had brought her up to this small sitting room on the first floor to take a look at the set of Eisterlander cards he had mentioned earlier. The room was flooded with fading orange light that burnished the edges of the mismatched, old furniture that had collected within.
"I've had these forever—belonged to my grandmother." Tam pulled off the lid and spilled the contents out onto the table—a pack of playing cards, yellowed and dog-eared. "It's an Eisterlander set, so I was always at sea with them. Thought you might know the way of it, being from the eastern borders yourself."
Viyony leaned over, spreading them out with her fingers. She smiled to herself, and then sat down at the table, tugging her chair closer. "I can try—although I have to say we mostly used to play very silly made up games with our set."
In the Eseray pack, each card had been personified, and she and her siblings had used them as characters in stories they were acting out. Sometimes Father led them in playing games with increasingly ridiculous invented rules, everyone collapsing into laughter before the end. Grandmother would look in and shake her head, telling Mother yet again—although with a certain pride underlying it - "I told you that man is nothing but a bad influence!"
"They're not so different, really," said Viyony, rearranging the cards face up in front of her. "You have the Great Powers, then the Lesser Powers, and they're all assigned to either Air, Water, Fire, or Earth, same as our sets." She picked up a card and ran the tip of her finger along the edge, letting him see the yellow border, symbolising fire or light. "But we only have the main eight Powers. High Eisterland has so many more so that with these packs all the cards represent a different Power. They don't have our Empty Cards, though."
Tam turned a stray card over and tapped it with his finger. "I used to like looking at the patterns on these when I was a boy. Maybe I liked the mystery too well to want it explained."
"Until now?" Viyony cast a quick look at him. Pentamon Jadinor had previously been Head of the Guardians of the Peace in Portcallan, and while he had retired from that position, he was still Speaker to the Council on the Guardians' behalf, which wasn't much less exalted. He was not a man to underestimate.
Tam grinned. "Until now," he agreed, his gravelled voice even. "Carry on."
"This type of cards were originally made for the temples, for divination," said Viyony. "Emoyran sets never are. I read about it—they still do it, but it's a complicated discipline to learn. I've met a few people who say they can use them, but they're usually cheats and liars."
"Ah, so, it's not real when they see the future. Not like you."
Viyony swept the cards towards her and gathered them into a neat pile, ready for use. The odd waking visions she'd been experiencing since yesterday darted to the forefront of her mind. She frowned, concentrating on shuffling the deck, the familiar action steadying. Anything was better than discussing her dreams again. She glanced up, pulling her mouth down at the corners. "Has everyone in Portcallan heard about me?"
"I'm paid to know things," said Tam. "Besides, Leio knows, so..." He let that trail away into the air and winked.
"I only meant that it takes years to learn how to do it properly. You can't just put a lump of starstone or glass in the middle of the table and spout nonsense, which is all I've ever seen done—but people will fall for it."
"That's people for you. Another sort of game."
Viyony cut the deck and frowned down at the result. The designs on these were too unfamiliar. "Hmm. You know, I think these are divided into Day and Night as well as the elements. There are little suns and stars on each one." She laid out several more of the cards, turning them over one by one. "I can't remember how that affects play." She lifted her gaze and threw him a quick grin. "Or divination."
"You can't tell me my fortune, then?"
Viyony shivered. "Of course not, Imor," she said briskly, laying out more cards and focusing on them, naming them silently. Cyro, Fire—Alyn, Water—Sia, Air, or was it water? Was Sia sometimes in both, or was that one of Father's tricks? "I'd need starstone, in any case."
The memory of the cave on Calla Island with its alcoves full of starstone flashed into her head. She put down the next card. Imora—Earth—Night.
Still sitting there with the card in hand, she suddenly found herself also somewhere else entirely. Tam was with her. They were struggling up a steep, rocky incline she didn't recognise. It might be somewhere in Central District—there was a red and grey tint to the stones that couldn't be anywhere in the Eister Ranges. They stopped in front of a great steel gate decorated with vine-like swirls of painted metal in which chips of starstone had been embedded. Beyond it, the shadow of a great house loomed over them. Viyony caught sight of a stone distance marker, lopsided and half buried in the grass beside the high wall, and crouched down to examine it. NLN 1—LKS 5, it read. That was code for two different towns or cities, but she didn't know which ones.
The image receded. Viyony gave a small cry as her real, present surroundings reclaimed her. She sprang up from the chair, wanting only to get away. Cards flew off the table and onto the carpet, patterned like the gates in swirling, coloured vines. Tam's brow furrowed. He rose slowly as she stepped back. The room around her faded in and out of the failing sunset-hued light and then darkened altogether.
"Hey," said Tam, his arm around her as he helped her up, blinking and confused. "I forgot you'd already had more than enough excitement for one day."
Viyony struggled to find her voice, to explain, but she was too dizzy. She let Tam guide her back to the chair, where he sat her down, laying a reassuring, warm hand on her shoulder.
It had felt exactly like a dream, even if she hadn't been asleep. She could categorise it in the same way. A matter of life and death—her pulse sounded loud in her ears as if to drum its importance into her. But she didn't sense the desperate urgency in the pit of her stomach that meant she was being warned of something imminent.
By the time she had her breath back, Tam was standing in the doorway, whistling loudly for help. "And bring some of that tea up here!"
"Imor Jadinor," said Viyony, when he looked back across at her. "You mentioned my dreams. I don't usually have waking ones, but these last two days have been—a little unusual. I saw something just then. I think it was serious. Can you believe me? Or, at least, write down what I ask you to and keep it somewhere safe?"
Tam pushed the door to softly, and crossed back to the table. He collected a half-used notebook from the shelves beside him on the way. "Go on," he said, stub of pencil in hand.
Viyony swallowed, and then told him, as simply as she could, what she had seen. "Write down the location on the marker stone. We needed to see it—I felt I must look at it."
It was on the tip of her tongue to ask aloud the most puzzling element of it—why would she and Tam ever be going anywhere together in the future? Before she could frame the words, she looked up and caught his eye. The same question was written on his face, and she saw the answer there at the same moment as it dawned on her. There was, after all, only one thing the two of them had in common.
"Please. Don't tell him," Viyony said. "Keep that piece of paper safe, that's all. A lot of these vague things never even happen—they are only possibilities. The future is always changing."
Tam nodded. "Of course."
"Tea," said Leion, elbowing the door aside and entering with a tray and a flourish that made them both jump. He placed the tray on the table between them, heedless of the cards, and then shot Viyony a sharp look. "What have you been up to now?"
Tam waved Leion's question aside. "Tea," he insisted.
"Yes, Imor," said Leion, his concern vanishing in amusement. He inclined his head in mock formality. "At once, Imor." He poured Viyony a cup of ginger tea while Tam shook his head and passed her the plate of lemon finger biscuits.
"Eat that." Tam said. "If you do, I'll keep my end of the bargain."
Viyony gave shaky laugh and bit into the biscuit. The sweetness helped. It was as well not to tell Leion anyway. He'd only start insisting all over again that what had happened yesterday had been an act of malice, and she still couldn't see how that was possible.
"Well, now I am worried. What have you two been plotting? Is Viyony going to take over the High Council and put it in proper working order? About time, I say."
Tam took his cup of ginger tea. "She was teaching me Eisterland card games with these."
"Was she?" Leion raised an eyebrow. "In that case, I hope you've been taking notes. She'll probably set you a test later and make you go back and do it again if you haven't been paying attention."
Tam directed a look at Viyony, with a twinkle in his eye. "Oh, I took notes, don't worry." He sobered as he added, "I'll keep it safe somewhere. Just in case."
"Thank you," said Viyony. "Another time, I hope we'll actually be able to play something."
"I shall look forward to it."
Iyana arrived in the doorway. "Not that I wish to be unwelcoming, but Diyela and her family will have heard the news about the Calla Island incident by now, and I think it would be as well if Viyony isn't too late home. I know you sent them a note, Leio, but they're bound to worry."
"I'll help you with your trunk," said Leion immediately.
"It's so far," put in Tam with a wicked glint in his eye. "Are you sure you can carry it all that way? Maybe we should call a city cart."
Leion directed a dark look at his stepfather. "Ha."
"Enough nonsense," Iyana said. "You do that, Leio, as long as Viyony wants you to."
"I'd be grateful," Viyony murmured as she rose. The Valerno house was barely more than one hundredlengths away from the Gerro house and she could have managed to haul her case that far herself, but she and Leion still desperately needed time alone to talk.
"Will you come back here afterwards or walk on home?"
Leion glanced over at Viyony, and then back to his mother. "I suppose it would make more sense to go straight on from there."
The last rose-smudged edges of dusk were fading into darker shades of evening as Leion and Viyony walked up the road, but the air was still like warm breath—Viyony suffered a pang of regret for Calla Island's sea breezes. They rounded the corner eastwards into Great Western Street, past more high and narrow city houses like the Valernos'. Each one was painted a different light-toned colour and were haphazard in shape and style, but they all were duly clustered around their high-walled communal courts.
Viyony walked alongside Leion, waiting for him to speak, but for the first few minutes, he was silent.
"You will be more careful, won't you?" he said, eventually. "I know you don't want to hear it, but someone found a way to dose you with something before you went into that cave yesterday."
Viyony glanced upwards. She could see only a few pin pricks of stars in the murky sky, the city's lamps obscuring the much more vivid display she was accustomed to at home. She sighed. She had hoped—or maybe feared—that he was going to say something very different.
"By 'someone', you mean Eollan, don't you?"
"I don't know," said Leion soberly. "He's top of my list, yes."
"I've promised you I'll be careful, haven't I?" Viyony looked up at him. "How can you be so sure it wasn't just the starstone?"
He shifted the weight of her travel case in his arms as they turned down Aymer Lane, where Aunt Diyela's house stood only a few lengths away. "It wasn't—it couldn't be. The way you reacted in the cave was too violent—and what clinches it is that it wasn't temporary. You've seen things since, haven't you? Maybe last night; certainly on the boat, and I wouldn't be surprised if something happened when you were upstairs with Tam earlier. You had that look on your face."
"Oh," said Viyony, brought up short by what seemed like unnecessarily acute observation from someone who managed to be completely oblivious to blatant traps and failed to see when people were clearly trying to seduce him. "Well, as I said—I promised to be careful. As did you, Leion."
"I remember."
They walked past the front door and stopped a little further on, outside the gate to the Gerro house's shared yard.
Leion hesitated there. "Can we go into the yard for a moment?"
Viyony tried the latch and the gate opened. She slipped through and held it for him to follow. He put the case down on the paving stones, and then led her over to a bench nestled under the trellis where trailing passionflowers bloomed.
"First," she said as they sat, "I have to thank you—for coming after me to the island and taking care of me on the boat. You've been very kind."
Leion's mouth turned up at one corner. "You must be more shaken up than I realised. You can't go round being nice to me—my vanity will get completely out of hand!"
Viyony was weary enough that she only leaned her head back against the trellis behind her and stuck her tongue out.
"All right," said Leion. He cleared his throat. "Last night—it occurred to me too late that I might have been a complete idiot. You didn't ask me to your room to talk about the incident in the cave, did you? It was an assignation all along. Our long-overdue affair at last, and I missed it."
Viyony had wondered at intervals ever since it had happened what she would say to him when they finally talked about it, and instead of anything she had rehearsed, she burst out laughing.
"In my defence," he said, tilting his head to try and gauge her expression, his tone uneasy, "I was distracted by that note. Even so, I'm sorry—now, let me make it up to you as soon as possible."
She choked back giggles. "You told me off for wearing my nice night clothes!"
"You did mean it, didn't you? Viyony! Stop laughing!"
She sobered. "Yes. I did. But I'm not sure it isn't as well that we didn't get the chance."
"What, that poor Ghalle was murdered instead? Rather harsh, I'd say."
Viyony hugged her arms in against herself. "You know I didn't mean that. The thing is—apart from wondering if you're even serious about wanting to sleep with me, because I don't see how you could have failed to notice-"
"How dare you," said Leion. "Do not—do not ever think that!"
Viyony caught his gaze and lost the thread of what she was saying.
"So, all that and murder aside," he said quietly, "shall we arrange to have another attempt? If you want to get out of the city again, I know a place up in Calla Woods. It belongs to cousins of mother's, and it's very pretty up there. And definitely no one around to ruin things with plots, murder, or gossip."
She shook her head. "Leion, stop! That sounds—very nice -"
"But," he said, drawing back; his expression closing in. "You know, this is part of why I missed the blindingly obvious last night. The better I got to know you, the less I believed you meant that thing about an affair—all that responsibility always comes first, doesn't it? Better to set you down in my mind as firmly out of reach."
Viyony flinched inwardly, and had to look away. "I—I suppose that's fair. But then, that's it, really. It wasn't serious at the start, was it? If we'd got on and slept with each other then, it wouldn't have mattered. But now—now -" Her throat constricted and she stumbled over things she wasn't prepared to say. "We're friends, aren't we?"
Leion's hard look eased. "We are. Yes."
"So, that's what makes it difficult. I—I like you too much." She raised her gaze to meet his. "I marry Imoren in only a few weeks. That hasn't changed; it can't change. But now, some nights, I still have my original dream again—the one I used to have before I made the arrangement with Imoren, of Eseray being destroyed—and I know that's partly because of you—of how I feel."
Leion shifted. "I know the wedding has to happen. You told me at the start—I won't try to interfere."
She held up a hand. "It's not that—I have to see it through, all of it, no matter what, and the thought of it gets harder to bear every day. I'm afraid that if I do anything to make it worse, it won't just be a weight forever pressing on me, it'll crush me. Or I won't be able to go through with it and then it will be the end of Eseray." She pressed her hand in against her chest. "I worry we could be that thing."
"Well, that's unfair," said Leion. "I had a whole list of arguments to make—and now, what can I say to that?" He leant forward and held out his hand. She refrained from taking it for a moment longer, but then closed her finger around his. "But it will be difficult whatever you do, you know—and your mother has an important point. If you're going to marry this awful man -"
"He's not, you know. Not really."
"Well," said Leion, "I reserve the right to dislike him. Besides, anyone who wants his business arrangements made in blood like that is a right piece of sea shit in my book."
"It's not like that."
"Isn't it?" He shrugged. "Well, I won't push you, but going into that without ever actually having had sex—I do agree with your mother. And if you are going to sleep with someone first, why not me? You can't spend your whole life only doing it with people you don't like."
Viyony looked up and then pressed her hand to her mouth. "Leion! That's not—I mean -" She gave up and altered tack. "I haven't said no—only that I need to think, and I can't do that today."
"Just my opinion. I won't say another word on the subject."
She swallowed. "I'm sorry if I've been unfair. But -"
"You like me too much," he said, laughter back in his eyes. "Yes. Thanks. I'll take the compliment, especially if it's all I'm getting."
"Leion."
"Anyway, I shall go—I'm about ready to collapse, too," he said. "It's been the second long day in a row." He squeezed her hand. "I shan't get my hopes up, but let me know."
Viyony screwed up her face into a smile and then kissed him on the cheek. He turned in towards her instinctively and then made to pull back, but she put her free hand up to grasp the edge of his jacket.
"You could—you could kiss me," she said. "I ought to have some evidence to go on when I'm weighing up the issue-"
He caught hold of her before she'd even got her sentence out and tugged her closer, before angling his head better to kiss her on the mouth. She shifted at the same moment, causing it to land a little to one side, but she grasped his shirt and pulled him into a better position and kissed him back. He still tasted of salt from the voyage as well as the ginger tea from dinner, his chin slightly prickly at this late hour, but she closed her eyes and leaned into him, forgetting all her fears, the unyielding wooden bench, and her weariness. She'd wanted this since practically the first time she saw him and she let everything else go, wrapped in his warm hold, sliding her arms around his neck.
It was Leion who pulled away, reluctantly, breathless, but with decision. "We can't go on like this," he said. "Not in your aunt's communal yard. Where will it end?"
Viyony blinked a bit, taking a moment to come back down to the ground, and then she laughed softly. "Not very discreet?"
"No," he said and then smiled at her with such warmth that she was tempted to tell him she didn't care about discretion or dreams or Aunt Diyela—except, of course, she knew underneath that she would again soon, very much. He touched her chin with his thumb. "Just—don't leave it too long before you let me know one way or the other."
She nodded. "I promise."
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Well, at least they are on the same page now, haha.
I guess the implication of the vision here is that they are going to need to rescue Leion from somewhere?
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I guess the implication of the vision here is that they are going to need to rescue Leion from somewhere?
That is how it seems, but who can tell for sure what a dream means? XD
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Hey, I still like that part.
"All right," said Leion. He cleared his throat. "Last night—it occurred to me too late that I might have been a complete idiot. You didn't ask me to your room to talk about the incident in the cave, did you? It was an assignation all along. Our long-overdue affair at last, and I missed it."
A+ delivery, pitch-perfect, beautiful.
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Thank you! I am quite impressed that though I posted it ages ago, the only tweaking I did was general editing so I had not wildly changed anything too much since.
A+ delivery, pitch-perfect, beautiful.
Aw, thanks! <3<3<3
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Psst! Beta note: Now, Iyana and Leion were downstairs, making ginger tea and, by the sounds of it, half-heartedly arguing over something, and Tam had brought her up to this small sitting room on the first floor to take a look at the set of Eisterlander cards he he had mentioned earlier.
You seem to have acquired a stutter! (Too many instances of he, there!)
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ok back that was incredible?? I'm losing my mind why are they so PERFECT together and so doomed :(
Also, I think I just clued in that Leion thinks Eollan dosed Viyony with the thing that enhanced his friends' talents, that the awful guy was using. Didn't one of them just die? I am now worried.
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Also, I think I just clued in that Leion thinks Eollan dosed Viyony with the thing that enhanced his friends' talents, that the awful guy was using. Didn't one of them just die? I am now worried.
They did, you're quite right. (Alas, poor Aima). /says nothing about whether or not you should worry...