The Dagger of Adendigaeth by Melissa McPhail

Author:Melissa McPhail
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780990629146
Publisher: Five Strands Publishing
Published: 2014-11-23T18:30:00+00:00

Thirty-Three

“Truth may walk through the world unarmed.”

- A desert proverb

After his ordeal in the cave, Tanis slept all the next day. When he woke, a brilliant morning bathed the coast in golden light—it was the first time he’d seen the sun since coming to Pelas’s home. Tanis felt hale, and hungry.

And the zanthyr’s dagger was lying in the palm of his hand.

Pelas seemed to have an uncanny sense for knowing when Tanis was awake, for he came into his room just as the lad was getting up to greet the day. His arrival was preceded by a tap upon the bedroom door, and then the man’s head slipped through the parting. “Ah, good,” he said pleasantly, his copper eyes bright. “You’re up.”

He came inside carrying several packages, but Tanis barely noticed them, for his attention was riveted to the man instead.

Pelas looked resplendent in a violet coat cut in his usual flared style, the silk worked all over with spiraling patterns in black and gold thread. His long, thick hair was pulled back and held at the nape of his neck with a black ribbon edged in gold, and several longer strands fell free, framing his face. He looked…softer somehow, less severe. Or maybe it was just that he was himself again, with no hint of the terrible monster that slept within the heart of his desires.

Pelas unwrapped one of the bundles he carried and held up a coat for Tanis. The lad’s eyes went wide.

“Do you like it then?” Pelas murmured, copper eyes sparkling.

Tanis came and took the garment from him. “It’s marvelous!” He ran a hand over the thick silk, but it was the coat’s color that truly amazed him. Neither grey, nor lavender, nor pale blue, nor even the iridescent fire of opal, yet it somehow encompassed all of these. “However did you find such a magical cloth?”

“I had it made.” Pelas was leaning against a chest of drawers. He crossed his arms, looking pleased. “The color was inspired by your eyes, little spy.”

Tanis lifted said eyes to the man. “Really?”

“They look just like that, you know. Sometimes any one of those colors might reflect within your eyes, and sometimes they’re just…open—not empty,” he assured the boy, his tone taking on a whimsical and yet introspective quality, “not truly colorless, just waiting…as if to show a man the color of his own thoughts.”

Tanis gazed wondrously at him. “My eyes do all of that?”

Pelas came over and smiled down at him, and Tanis felt an intimacy with this man that he’d never before experienced with anyone. “All that and more,” Pelas confirmed. Then he ruffled the lad’s hair. “But come—get dressed and let us break our fast, and then we have such a day ahead, little spy!”

“We do?”

Pelas walked to the windows to look out over the cerulean sea. “Do you know what today is?”

Tanis shook his head.

Pelas turned him a look over his shoulder. “The Longest Night. The Solstice. Adendigaeth. Carnivále! Everywhere across the realm people are celebrating.

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