Gallel's Heir

Chapter 14.1: Matriarch of Whellung

The next morning as white and gold rays rose from a fire in the east, Canúden breakfasted at Chido's, an inn on the rougher side of Fal Dara, as far as was practical from Whellung Hall. Dylin, in a simple linen dress and coverlet, sat with him. He didn't like to be out of bed, his body longed for sleep as his anger had kept him awake most of the night, but as silver touched the eastern sky, Dylin showed him the way to this market street where she'd escaped for whole afternoons as a child.

She declined ordering anything, but took sips from his mug of honeyed barley tea that Canúden encouraged her to drink. Her breath steamed over it. Canúden stared at the yellow of the eggs on his plate. He felt hungry, but the effort of eating seemed too much.

"Even if we can't get away completely," said Dylin, "I can't be at Whellung."

He touched her hand. "We'll get away."

Something specific and terrible was on her mind, the bond vibrated with it. Her eyes looked away from his. Dylin sipped and spoke in a whisper. "We can't stay here. Once the engagement is official, it's set. Tamil would declare war again for breach of treaty. Galia couldn't take it. If Lianna never comes to Akroob, Tamil will have to accept someone else. She even threatened it." Her eyes glazed over his mug. "She wouldn't really kill everyone. That's not practical, even for someone like the mind mage. " Her mouth tightened, and she pushed his mug back at him.

"We wouldn't really want someone chosen by Tamil to be in Gallel's robes, especially if your enemy is influencing her."

A tear dropped onto the table under her face. "I know, Canúden. I'm so trapped. How can I get Lianna away from that mage? And Tutang's not going to give up. We'd be fools. You know what Tutang did to me last time I tried to get away. He doesn't always need dogs to hunt. Tutang can track an ant a day after it's crossed a field." She collapsed with her face against his chest. "Oh, I can't go through that again. I can't have Lianna go through that."

"I know."

She squeezed her eyes shut, and her eyelids trembled as tears oozed out. He touched her hand. Speaking the obvious only made it more painful. Dylin groaned.

"If Tutang was pushed, he'd choose Hameline in Lianna's place." Dylin's words came quicker, and she looked at the fidgeting of her hands in his. She wiped her eyes, then placed both her hands on Canúden's. "We must get away."

"Galia couldn't take it, if Tamil sent soldiers again. And what would that powerful mage do?"

Dylin buried her face in her hands, sobbing. Her words came out broken. "I don't... know."

"We'll get away," he insisted.

"Please, Canúden. If anything should prevent us, please protect her any way you can. I won't have her suffer as I have."

He studied her face, so beautiful even in tears. He took a long, low breath. "I vow my life to protect her," he said.

Dylin looked through the room's panes of glass, over the rooftops of stone and wood houses, over green and amber tree dotted fields, out into the distance of the ocean's golden horizon. "He nearly killed me when I tried to get away. I don't want to almost die a third time."

"We're on an island," he said. "Tutang's not familiar with it. All we have to do is get off." They had flown over the eastern ocean together, the night they met. Land massed beyond any map of the world he'd ever seen, out past the blue. "You're older now, more capable than that child you were. You have me now. We'll stow away on a ship. Anything. Anything. He doesn't have his dogs."

She looked at him steadily, but her limbs trembled. "My father has dogs," she said.

"Even so, there are places where even dogs can't follow, surely."