Page 20 of The Duke and the Disciple

Aesylt spun around, taking it all in. She stopped when she spotted him. “I’ve never seen anything like this. Ever.”

“It will be an exceptional place of learning and discovery when it’s finished.” Rahn set the baskets on a worker’s table and emptied the contents.

“The hearth works?” she asked, sneaking by him to snag an armful of kindling and logs. She smirked at his indignation and pranced away without waiting for his answer.

“You want to attempt to light it with magic, or shall I save you the trouble?”

Aesylt arranged the logs and tossed the kindling in. She snapped her pale fingers without turning. “Give it to me.”

“Where I come from, ‘please’ is not undervalued,” he teased but brought her the flint. Their hands connected with a soft brush, passing like strangers in a market, and he experienced his first pang of self-doubt for bringing her there alone.

“I was only thinking of you, Scholar, and your delicate royal disposition.” The fire took and then roared to life. She stood, sanded her hands, and turned. “I’ll take some of that ale.”

Rahn poured two mugs and handed her one. As she downed hers, he removed two of his furs and carried them to the far edge of the dome, where the best views of the mountains and sky were, and laid them down. He arranged them so they weren’t too close together. “Grab the bread and come join me.”

Aesylt made her way over but didn’t immediately sit. He glanced up and caught her staring through the thick glass.

“We see the auroras all the time. But never like this,” she whispered. She passed him the bread without looking at him. “And the stars... It’s like you could reach up and hold them in your hand if you were clever enough.”

“If anyone is clever enough, it would be you, Squish.”

Aesylt whipped her gaze at him in mild affront. “That’s the second time you’ve called me a squirrel.”

Rahn raised both hands in surrender. “I didn’t call you a squirrel. I merely implied you have the same practical traits as your beloved childhood pet. Resourcefulness, clev?—”

“You’re not making this any better,” she said but plopped onto the other fur. “I no longer wonder why you’ve never married, Scholar. You are clearly incapable of speaking to women as anything but specimens to be studied.”

Rahn burst out laughing. “I could have told you that. Why do you think I’m at my best with my nose in a book or a quill in hand?”

“And how many books have you offended without realizing it? The trail of carnage must be unceasing,” she said as she settled in. “You made a mistake bringing me here. Waiting will be torture.”

“You can always come up here to visit.”

She took a swallow of ale and pointed at the glass with her mug. “Thank you for the distraction tonight.”

He nodded, sensing her darkness return. “The stars are brighter up here, don’t you think?”

“They sure seem so. I know you don’t believe they’re Guardians or Ancestors, so what doyouthink they are?”

Rahn leaned back on his hands and gazed at the colorful sky. “Whatever they are, they’re so much bigger and more complex than anything we’ve come up with as a theory so far. I fear we’ll never know until we have the technology to reach them ourselves.”

“So, never?”

He chuckled. “There’s another, unintended casualty of us having no accounting of your histories, no glimpse into the past. We cannot know how far we’ve come because we don’t know where we started.”

“The rest of us, sure. You started in Ilynglass.”

Rahn’s blood cooled. Speaking, or even thinking, of his homeland threw him into a swirl of melancholy. Although he’d been nearly eight when the Rhiagains and the Noble Houses had fled a realm on fire, he remembered next to nothing about it. Just the fires and the screams. The shipwrecks. The chaos. “Duncarrow forbade unsanctioned writing and had no interest in documenting facts. As for Ilynglass...”

Aesylt seemed to read something in him, because her tone turned soft. “I shouldn’t have brought it up. I’m sorry.”

“You needn’t apologize. Everyone wants to know about it, but few believe all my memories of the place are gone.”

“I believe you,” she said. “If it matters.”

Rahn tried to smile. He fixed his gaze on the dance of light in the sky. His mind was already feeling the effects of the ale, which was far stronger than he’d realized when he’d packed it. “It matters.”

She refilled both of their drinks and leaned back onto one elbow. “Is that why it’s hard for you? Because no one takes you at your word?”

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