Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 07 by Flight of the Raven (v1.0) Read Free Book Online Page B

himself.
                 Bane
did not mark the underlying anguish in Brennan's tone, the soft subtleties of
despair. He was horse, not human; he did not answer to anything unless it
concerned his few wants and needs. But even if he were human, even a Homanan, the emotions would escape him.
Cheysuli-born were different. The unblessed, regardless of bloodlines, of
humanness, were deaf to things unsaid. Blind to things suppressed.
                 But
Ian was not unblessed. Ian was Cheysuli. His own share of anguish and despair,
though mostly vanquished by time, made him party to them in his nephew.
                 He
moved close to the stall, pausing at the door. Briefly he watched Brennan with
his stallion, noting tension in the movements, marking worry in the expression.
Seeing such indications was what he had learned to do as liege man to the
Mujhar, and as kin to volatile fledglings not always cognizant of caution.
                 "I
have," Ian began quietly, "spent much of my life offering succor—or
merely an attentive ear—to those of my kin in need. You have always held
yourself apart, depending in great measure on a natural reserve and full
understanding of your place. But I have never known a Lion's cub to be beyond
the need of comfort."
                 Brennan,
startled, stiffened into unaccustomed awkwardness, then turned. One arm rested
on Bane's spine, as if maintaining contact might lend him strength. The other
fell to his side. The gold on his arms gleamed in a latticework of sunlight,
vented through laddered slats in the outside stable walls. "Did jehan send you?"
                 Ian,
hooking elbows on the top of the stall door, smiled with serene good humor. His
arms, like Brennan's, were bare of sleeves, displaying Cheysuli gold. "I
am not always in his keeping, any more than you. Give me credit for seeing your
pain independent of the Mujhar."
                 Brennan
grimaced, looking away from his uncle's discerning eyes to the black silk of
Bane's heavy rump. Idly he smoothed it, slicking fingers against the thin cloak
of summer coat. Thinking private things. "It was always jehan you went to, or Hart—then Keely,
when Hart was gone. There were times I wanted to come, but with so many others
to tend, I thought your compassion might be all used up."
                 Ian's
eyes were on Bane. He was, like the stallion, past his prime, with hair more
gray than black, and white creeping in. By casual reckoning, he was perhaps
fifty; in truth, nearly seventy. It was the good fortune of the Cheysuli that
age came on them slowly, except for prematurely graying hair. The bones and
muscles stiffened, the skin loosened, the hair bleached to white. But nothing
about Ian's manner divulged a weakening of spirit any more than in the
stallion.
                 He
shifted slightly, rustling boots in straw and hay and bits of grain dropped by
Bane over the door. "Niall's children cannot escape the often too-heavy
weight of tahlmorra , except perhaps for
Maeve." Still-black brows rose in brief consideration. "But even
then, I wonder—who are we to say there is no magic in her? Niall's blood runs
true… even in Aidan."
                 Brennan
winced. And Ian, who had baited the hook with quiet deliberation, saw it swallowed
whole.
                 "Oh,
aye," Brennan sighed wearily. "The blood runs true in Aidan…
including Gisella's, I wonder? It is what everyone else wonders, regardless of the truth." Brennan turned again
to the stallion. A lock of raven hair, showing the first threading of early
silver, fell across a dark brow deeply furrowed with concern. "You know
and I know my jehana's madness is not
hereditary, but the Homanans overlook it. All they see is his difference , then they mutter about
Gisella."
                 "You
cannot ask a man to hide his true self," Ian said gently, "and yet
Aidan does so."