Renegade's Magic (The Soldier Son Trilogy #3)

I said no more to her than that. Somewhere, I felt something give way inside my body. It is hard to describe the sensation. If my body had been a house, then it would have been the sensation of a weight-bearing wall starting to crack. For a moment, I was in that body again. I felt what the dance was doing to it. Every shock of my foot against the earth was translated up through my flesh, muscle, and bone. Like rhythmic earthquakes, they shook and tore at my body, fraying tendons, tearing blood vessels that in turn leaked blood into the cavities of my flesh. The pounding of my feet against the earth might as well have been tiny hammer blows against my body. Each step of the dance did damage.

It could not be helped. The damage was part of the dance.

I put my mind back to the magic and found myself in my father’s study. A fire burned in the hearth. My father sat next to it in a cushioned chair, a robe across his knees. Caulder’s uncle was seated on the other side of the hearth. I had never met the man, but I knew him by his resemblance to Colonel Stiet, his brother. He fairly trembled with eagerness as he showed my father the crudely sketched map I had drawn so many months ago. Folding and much handling had not improved my rough sketch. “This,” he said, tracing the ravine I had drawn. “What do you suppose he meant this to be? Do you recognize the terrain?”

My father had grown older; his hair was whitening, and veins and tendons stood out on the back of his hands. As before, I could see the ravages of the magic. But I thought I could also see some healing of the damage, like scar tissue knitting together what remained of sound flesh. My father would never be the man he had been, but he might heal, and at least be himself rather than what the magic had made of him. It need not have him if it had all of me.

Stiet did not allow my father to hold the map he was showing him; he kept possession of it, merely pointing at the part he wished my father to study. My father glanced at it with polite interest, then turned aside with a vague scowl. “I’ve told you three times, I don’t know what that is. If you are so keen to know, ask Nevare. You say that he drew it.”

“He did draw it! But I cannot ask your son. You sent him away. Do not you remember that you did that? You spent most of yesterday weeping over it!” Stiet flung himself back suddenly in his chair. “Oh, you are useless!” he exploded. “The smallest, simplest bit of information stands between me and a fortune. And no one has it.”

Frustration vied with cruelty in the man’s words. My father’s face crumpled, as if he’d been dealt a blow to the stomach. His mouth worked, trembled, and then with an effort he firmed his jaw. Seeing my father weakened and uncertain and treated so abusively by a man who was taking full advantage of my family’s hospitality washed away the final dregs of my anger and resentment toward my father. Stiet’s callous mockery of him made me furious. I danced around my father, sealing him off from Stiet’s cruel words. I danced strength of will and pride for him. “Tell him to leave you alone! Tell him to ask Sergeant Duril. Duril will know what my scribble meant.”

My father drew himself up taller in his chair. “Ask Sergeant Duril. He knows the boy best; he’s been as much a father to him as I have. He’ll recognize what Nevare’s scribble means.”

Stiet clenched his jaw. Nervously, he refolded the map, smoothing the creases ever deeper. “But can we trust him?” he demanded of my father. “I’ve told you, there is a fortune at stake here. And I do not know if we can wait until he returns from Gettys. Spring grows stronger every day. At any time now, someone else may find the place we seek and claim it for his own. And all, all will be for naught. Why did you have to send the sergeant away?”

My father folded his knobby hands on his blanketed knees. His gaze seemed clearer as he stared at Stiet. “Why, to help my niece Epiny. Yaril had word from her; the winter has been quite harsh at Gettys, with skirmishes with the Speck. Duril set out with the high-wheeled cart full of supplies. He’ll look into what has become of Nevare as well. Seems there’s reason to believe the boy made it that far east and enlisted at the fort there. Plucky lad. Can’t keep a Burvelle down for long.”

“Plucky lad? You disowned him! He’d become fat as a pig. He was kicked out of the Academy, came home in disgrace, and you disowned him!” With difficulty, Stiet calmed himself. He took a breath and leaned toward my father, speaking as if with sympathy for a poor old man. “He’s gone, Lord Burvelle. Your last living son is gone. It’s a shame he disappointed you so, but he’s gone. All your sons are gone. Your last best hope is for your daughter to marry well, stay here, and take care of you. My adopted son is a good match for her; he’s from a good family. Unfortunately, I have little fortune to leave to him. But if only we could establish where the mineral sample came from, I feel it would be of interest to certain other geologists. I could provide handsomely for the boy then. And he in turn could provide for your daughter. It could do us all a good turn.”