THE ROAD SOUTH TO Renere wound through low hills gone soft and green with yesterday’s rain. My thighs ached from two days in the saddle, and I shifted my weight for the hundredth time, trying to find a position that didn’t punish me for years of preferring my own two feet. Denna remained focused on the Lockless box, her lips forming the occasional word as she traced its carved patterns. My own hands sat useless on the reins.
The Amyr. For years I had pinned all my hopes on them. I imagined bright-armored champions who would stand beside me and help me find the ones who murdered my family. Instead, I found old men in a bad tavern, tending a war on memory. The order was content to endure rather than act, to hide rather than strike. If the Chandrian were ever to be confronted, that task would fall to me alone. I had known this. If I was honest, I had known it for a long time.
We had stopped to water the horses at a creek that cut across the road, and my horse drank like she had a personal grudge against the creek. I crouched at the bank to wash my hands, but my thoughts had gone to digging. Turning that earlier disappointment over and over, looking for a seam. Then Denna’s voice pulled me back.
“Kvothe,” she said, and something in her tone made me look over. She had settled beneath a nearby tree and was holding the box at arm’s length, turning it in the light. “I’ve found some things.”
I crossed to her and sat down.
“Look here,” she began, her fingertips brushing over a symbol carved in the top left corner of the lid. “This section suggests something about dual ownership.” She moved to another cluster of markings, tracing a line I could barely see in the grain. “And here it mentions a key.” She studied the next line longer, her lips pressing thin. “But this part is strange. It speaks of a ‘lasting male essence.’”
“Male essence?” I echoed, raising an eyebrow.
“I did say it was strange,” she replied, a breath of laughter passing through the words. Her smile faded and her voice fell quiet. “Some of these words I still can’t make out. I keep debating whether one is ‘cage’ or ‘coop’. But the last part is clear,” she said, meeting my eyes. “By their blood, the ring remains closed.”
“The ring?” I asked.
Denna nodded, her fingers feeling their way along the carvings the way a musician finds unfamiliar strings. “Exactly. I was hoping you might know what it means.”
I shook my head. “What about this part?” I asked, drawing her eye to another series of flowing patterns etched near the base of the box.
She took my hand and guided it over the final line of carvings. Her fingers were warm and sure on my knuckles, pressing my touch into words I couldn’t read. “‘Never free,’” she whispered. “‘For only the something of death lies beyond.’”
The carved words hung between us in the still afternoon. Neither of us spoke. A soft wind stirred the leaves overhead.
“Well,” I said, managing half a smile. “That sounds cheerful.”
Denna gave me a look, though the worry hadn’t left her face. “That’s all I can make of it for now.” She placed the box on the ground. “If only my grandmother were still here to read this.”
“You’ve done more than enough,” I said, resting a hand on her shoulder. “Only a rare few could have managed even this much.”
“You flatter me too much,” Denna said, though the faintest smile pulled at the corner of her mouth. “Where in the Four Corners did you ever get ‘Dance’ from? That wasn’t even close.”
I shrugged. “Like I said, I’m still learning. Or I was.” We rose and made our way to the horses. As I began to untether the reins, I glanced at her. “What do you think it means?”
The lightness went out of her like a candle pinched between two fingers. “Honestly? I’m not sure I want to find out.”
We rode until twilight, then turned off the main road and made our camp beside a still pond where a toppled greystone jutted from the shallows like the finger of some forgotten monument.
We saw to the horses first, the way any person with sense does before tending to themselves. Denna loosened the girth straps while I rubbed the animals down with handfuls of dry grass. She stood still for it, grateful I was finally giving back to her. Denna’s mare nipped at her sleeve until she found the apple she’d been hiding.
“Hungry thing,” Denna said, scratching behind the mare’s ear.
“She knows who’s carrying the food,” I said.
As I pulled the saddlebag off my horse, I heard a familiar clink inside. I reached in and pulled out the bottle of strawberry wine I’d been hauling since Renere, turning it in the last of the light.
“I’ve been saving this for just the right occasion,” I said, holding it up.
Denna shook her head, grinning. “You’ve been hauling that all this time?”
“What’s wrong with strawberry wine?” I asked, drawing myself up with wounded dignity.
“Nothing,” she said. “It’s just funny you should say that.” She went to her own saddlebag and brought out a bottle of amber mead. The glass was thick and old, and in the fading light it looked like trapped honey.
I took it from her and turned it to admire the wax seal. “Metheglin,” I said, quieter than I meant to. “Where did you find this?”
“Anilin,” she said. “I was going to bring it out that night in Renere, but that Lord Vatis.” She flicked her hand. “And then the moment just never felt right.”
“You, Denna,” I said, sweeping into a dramatic bow, “are truly extraordinary.”
“And you,” she replied, “are far too easily impressed.”
We opened the strawberry wine first, passing it between us while I built the fire and Denna spread what we’d saved on the grass. There was thick bread, figs we’d plucked fresh along the way, a hard cheese I’d been saving, and butter so rich and firm it might as well have been more cheese. The pond threw back the last copper light, and somewhere in the reeds a frog sang the same two notes over and over. By any simple measure it was already a feast.
Once the wine was gone, we broke the wax on the metheglin. Stars kindled above. The fire pressed its heat against my knees while the night leaned cold against my back, and we talked in low voices while the coals burned down to a fist of orange.
“The Vesumbri Islands,” I said. The bottle between us was half-empty now, and the drink had put a hint of song in my voice. “They say a volcano god still gathers worship there. I have always wanted to see those islands with my own eyes.”
Denna gave a low laugh, turning the bottle slowly in her hands. “Exotic.” She tilted her head, considering me. “I’ve never ventured that far myself. Unfinished business keeps me close to home these days.”
The lightness left her voice on those last words. I watched her, uncertain whether to speak or let the silence do its work.
Then she coughed. This one came from deep in her chest, rattling loose like something shaken free. She turned away and pressed the back of her wrist to her mouth, shoulders tight. It went on longer than it should have.
“Denna,” I said.
“It’s nothing.” The words came quick and automatic, but her hand was still pressed flat against her sternum as if holding something in place. She looked away. “That remedy you gave me did help for a while. But it hurts more than it used to.”
“How long?” I asked.
“A while.” A shaky breath. “I saw a physician in Atur. University-trained.” She went on, “He called it phthisis. A wasting in the lungs.” She stopped. Started again, as if the next words cost her something. “He said the scarring would only spread.” Neither of us spoke.
“No.” I leaned forward. “Come back to the University with me. Master Arwyl is the finest healer alive. If anyone can help you, he can.”
Denna placed her hand against my cheek. “You’re kind, Kvothe. Truly.”
“No. I don’t care about your patron. Forget him. Come with me. Please.”
She pulled her hand away and looked out over the pond. The water held the stars, and for a long time she watched them as if they might rearrange themselves into an answer.
“It isn’t that simple,” she said. “There are things I’ve promised. People who expect me in certain places.”
“I know.”
“You don’t.” There was no anger in it. Just the sound of a truth she was weary of carrying. “You don’t know the half of it, Kvothe.”
“Then tell me.”
Her jaw tightened. For a moment I thought she would. I could feel it the way you feel a string tighten just before it breaks, that faint trembling in the air. But the moment passed, and when she spoke again her voice was steady.
“For you,” she said, so low I almost lost it to the wind. “I’ll come.” She looked at me, and what I saw in her face was the look of someone stepping off a ledge.
The dark settled closer around us. We lay side by side on the soft grass, and Denna gazed up at the scattered stars. When she spoke her words barely carried the distance between us. “I thought you would kiss me that night in Roent’s caravan,” she said.
I should have said something clever. Something charming. Something worthy of the moment. Instead I said, “I wanted to.” Which was true, and nothing more than true, and not at all what I had planned.
Denna didn’t answer for a while. When she turned her head toward me, the firelight caught the edge of her lips and nothing else. “You could, you know. If you wanted.”
There was no art in what followed. I leaned in and our noses bumped and I felt her smile against my mouth before we found our way to something that worked. It was graceless, and honest, and it was Denna.
I won’t share more than that. The rest is mine alone.
There are moments that refuse to become memories. They stay too close for that, too warm. Years later the words are gone and the light is gone, but you can still feel it there beneath your breastbone, the way a singer feels the ring of a note long after the hall has emptied.
Afterward, we lay tangled together beneath the open sky. She was perfect, at least to me. When she noticed me staring as I struggled to catch my breath, she propped herself on one elbow and gave me a look.
“What?” I asked, tucking a loose strand behind her ear. She caught my hand before I could pull it away and held it there.
“You just reminded me of a story,” she said. “‘The Dulator.’”
“I can’t say I’m familiar with that one,” I admitted.
She poked me in the ribs but didn’t explain. “I’ll tell it to you sometime. When you’ve earned it. My Dulator.”
I chuckled softly. “I’ve been called worse.”
“Have you, though?” she said, and kissed me before I could answer.
After a time, her breathing slowed. She pressed her back against me and I curled around her against the cold.
“Don’t let go,” she said. And there was nothing clever in it, no wit, no dodge. Just Denna, asking.
And I didn’t.
| Chapter 28 | Contents | Chapter 30 |