Chapter Text
The university healers want to wait until Daine wakes to work any magic on her burnt arm, but after the young woman’s second day asleep, Alanna decides to tend to the matter herself. She doesn’t like the size of the wound or the way it’s blistering, and Goddess knows Daine is going to have enough on her mind when she finally wakes without being in pain.
Besides, it’s either that or sit around watching Duke Gareth and the newly liberated Duke Etiakret squabble over commas in the treaty. She’s not so bad as an ambassador these days, but more in the big picture sense; she’s clearly superfluous to the goings-on now that all the major points of contention have been resolved. She bid Gary to send for her should any scores need to be settled by combat.
The burn looks worse than it is - red and oozing, but superficial. Alanna is about halfway through her work, chatting to the fretful Kitten, when someone knocks on the door.
“Lady Alanna?” comes Master Draper’s soft voice. “I was told you stopped by…”
To the man’s credit, he doesn’t open the door straight away, but waits while Alanna checks to make sure Daine is decent, then calls for him to enter. The dread sorcerer bows to her at the exact depth and angle that a high-ranking knight and member of the king’s council should be afforded in formal court; Alanna’s old etiquette master would have wept happy tears. She spares the man a nod.
“Nothing new, I’m afraid,” she says shortly, turning back to Daine’s arm. “Still dead to the world. I’m having a go at the burn, though - don’t tell your Master Ramasu. I’ve healed many a similar injury on the battlefield, and Daine’s an easy patient; not like the old soldiers I usually work on.”
“The, ah, Badger god did say she would sleep for some time,” Draper says, hovering over her shoulder like a late-afternoon shadow. “And I’m sure you’re more than capable of assessing the appropriate treatment.”
“Gosh, thanks,” Alanna mutters. Despite this vote of confidence, he remains, watching her work with uncomfortable scrutiny. After a time he clears his throat softly. Kitten chirps at him.
“Something to add?” Alanna asks.
“Hmmm? Oh, no, I only… that is, no, it’s excellent work.”
“But?”
“But nothing, it’s - it’s very good. I was… er, no, it’s nothing.”
“By the Goddess, man, if you have something to say, say it, or get out of my hair.”
“I was only, ah, noticing that you’re putting quite a bit of power into the working.”
Alanna glances over her shoulder at him. “And?”
Perhaps sensing that looming like a freakishly tall specter isn’t the best idea, Draper moves to sit in the chair opposite from her, on the other side of the bed. “Er, well, as I say, it’s good work, but in a battlefield setting, I assume your own stamina is a consideration. May I ask who taught you to heal?”
Alanna raises an eyebrow. “A few different people. Various hedgewitches and midwives, my now mother-in-law… Duke Baird, the head of the Royal Infirmary, he and I have worked together off and on. What of it?”
“Ah, well, from the sounds of it, many of these teachers, while I’m sure skilled, weren’t used to working with the raw power you possess. Smaller Gifts require less precise control… With some practice and training, you could do more with less.”
Alanna might have been offended, but she’s frankly impressed by the sheer arrogance of the man. “Is that so?” she says, with feigned cheerfulness. She finishes with the worst of the damaged flesh, and takes a rag from the basin of warm water next to the bedside. She cleans and carefully bandages the healing in fresh linen.
“Mmm,” Draper agrees idly. Kitten squawks at him, and he extends a long-fingered hand to scratch the dragon’s chin. “It would be helpful in other areas as well, particularly, ah, fire magic, offensive spells, which you do employ from time to time, yes?”
“I was just considering that very sort of working,” Alanna says, smiling dangerously. The mage completely fails to note her tone, seeming, as he often does, only partially present.
“Yes, well, that’s where an increased efficiency in how you direct your power may be especially prudent,” he says, tugging thoughtfully on his nose. “You can exhaust yourself rapidly with offensive magic… And I noticed too, that day in the desert with the, ah, hyenas - you weren’t especially precise with where you were drawing your power. Obviously you wouldn’t want to call energy directly from your life force, rather than the reservoir of your gift…”
Alanna crosses her arms, bemused and moderately irritated at somehow being mistaken for one of his pupils. She’s sure she has at least five or six years on the man. “I was using offensive magic on battlefields when you were still a schoolboy,” she informs him. “Rest assured, I know what I draw on, and my own limitations.”
Draper blinks, and focuses at least twenty percent more of his attention on her. “Sorry - you’re aware that you’re drawing on your lifeforce? You’re - on purpose?” He looks at her like she’s just espoused the health benefits of poison toadstools. “I - I can’t think how to properly express how dangerous that is. It - you could kill yourself with a single spell, you could -”
Alanna rolls her eyes. “Oh please. Didn’t you just spend a day and a half unconscious after nearly draining yourself dead?”
“I - well, first of all, those were exceptional circumstances. You don’t usually run across a coup and divine retribution all in one day.” His dark brows draw together. “And, I might add, I would have been drained considerably sooner if I hadn’t been extremely circumspect in how I used my Gift. I spent the better part of two days scrying and concealing myself, and then faced off against two accomplished war mages in the space of a couple hours. Three, if you count Daine’s attempt on my life, not to mention I was already at a lower ebb after the desert and the barge and the -”
“Sorry? Why was Daine trying to kill you?” Alanna asks suspiciously.
“Oh, there was a… slight misunderstanding. And I think she was, ah, pulling her punches, although she was still quite…” The mage smiles fondly. “She managed to find some Ekallatium cobras, that was quite inspired, I thought. Rather terrifying, really.”
As he says this, his gaze falls on the sleeping woman’s face, and an expression of such naked tenderness crosses his features that Alanna feels a little embarrassed to have witnessed it. She frowns, and regards him thoughtfully. He’s probably right about her own magical abilities - for all Draper is clearly a bit mad, Lindhall held him in high esteem, and that old curmudgeon is critical of even Harailt’s spellwork.
(Was critical. Was.)
And then there’s the way, even pale and depleted as Draper is, power fairly surges around him in her magical vision, blinding if she looks for too long. She thinks, as she has a few times since meeting him, of her brother.
“What did you make of it, this business of resurrection magic?” Alanna asks. “Not the sort of thing one runs into everyday - not even in your line of work.”
“Hm? Oh, er... more reanimation, I think, than true reasurrection. And it doesn't really resemble the practices of human necromancers, which trend more toward ritual sacrifice, the enslavement of the souls of the dead… All things considered, I'm quite relieved that she’s rid of it.”
Alanna nods slowly. “Is that something you have much familiarity with? Death magic, necromancy?”
Draper reluctantly tears his gaze from Daine’s face. “I suppose I have a working knowledge of what literature exists on the subject. In a purely theoretical sense, of course; I’ve certainly never dabbled in any practical applications, if that’s what you’re really asking."
“You agree, then, with the Mithran’s taboos around the subject? You don’t find such restrictions to be constraining, even… arbitrary?”
His expression becomes wary. “Hardly arbitrary. Those taboos come from a desire to maintain the balance of life and death, and I take the consequences of meddling with the fundamentals of nature very seriously. Not to mention the requisite violation that any death magic entails, since the dead cannot meaningfully consent to use of their body or spirit in such a fashion.”
“Hmm.” Alanna continues to scrutinise the man; he returns the favour.
“And of course, the fact of the matter is that true resurrection - the return to life of a person in such a manner as would keep body and spirit intact, unaltered - is widely believed to be impossible. The most credible account we have of such a feat would be - well, what your brother did to Roger of Conté.”
Alanna grimaces. She did broach the topic; she can hardly be surprised he would take it in this direction. “You heard about that down south, did you?”
Draper regards her cautiously. “Of course. A magical event of such significance could scarcely be overlooked by our Magecraft scholars - even had it not involved an alumnus of the university.”
“Did you ever cross paths?” she wonders. Roger had been threatened, she always believed, when he realised the power she and Jon commanded. Had he seen the same in the young Draper?
“Ah, not to my knowledge. You’d recall better than I when he left Thak City for Corus, but it must have been when I was very young, if I was even at the university.”
“Probably for the best,” Alanna says.
“And you killed him, and your brother raised him. Allegedly, anyway.”
Alanna never talks about Thom. Not now, not even really when he died a quasi-traitor. The words come reluctantly to her lips, as though drawn from a deep well. She takes a breath.
“Whatever… magics he called upon, it wasn’t like this god power Daine was saddled with. Roger wasn't a walking corpse - he looked like a man, real and whole. Later, it was speculated that he didn't truly die when I first… That he had workings in place, safeguards so that on the verge of death he would instead fall into a sorcerer’s slumber, and Thom only summoned him from that trance.”
Draper nods. “That is the widely-held theory. Having not witnessed the working or its effects, I can’t speculate as to the veracity of the hypothesis." He hesitates, running a hand through his hair, until curiosity seems to win out over politeness or caution. “It might be, ah, impudent to ask, ladyship, but do you know why he did it? Raising your enemy? Where you… Was there conflict between you?”
Alanna laughs humourlessly. “Impudent indeed.” She purses her lips, considering. “Tell you what - I’ll have a few impudent questions of my own after this. The truth is that I don’t know why. He never told me, at least not the whole story. Some at court spread rumours that they were lovers. I don’t know if that's true either."
Arram cocks his head. “If I were to speculate, I’d wonder if there might have been a magical reason for raising the duke in particular. As twins, your gifts would likely have had a certain resonance with each other; the fact that it was you who killed Duke Roger in the first place may have made him an ideal subject for your brother’s resurrection attempt.”
Alanna stares out the window. It’s raining still, the soothing patter echoing on the roof. “He borrowed power from me, I think, for the spell. Without… he never asked, he just took it.” She sighs. “Anyway, the most likely explanation to my mind is just ego - hubris. He was desperate to prove himself smarter and more powerful than the Mithrans who taught him - than everyone, really. He was the youngest ever master, you know, shocked all the Mithrans when he passed the exams at eighteen… Or, well, until you came along, I suppose?”
Where a moment ago she thought Draper arrogant, he suddenly becomes bashful. “Er, I suppose. I was seventeen when I graduated, but - well, frankly, I had few practical skills when I first achieved the black robe. Lots of turning rocks into bread, and other nonsense… Much of what I know now came later.”
Does he remind her of Thom? Alanna can’t decide. The fervent hunger for knowledge is the same, the quickness of his mind - the flashes of casual arrogance, certainly.
But Arram Draper has a subtle charisma, a way with folk (a strange way, but still) that can only be born of genuine interest in people who aren’t himself. Alanna often thought that she was the only true friend Thom ever had, and even she… Especially when they were older…
They were both creatures of secrets, once they left Trebond. She out of necessity, he out of… pride? Paranoia? Thom ought to have been at home in the City of the Gods, but instead he resented his teachers, disdained his peers. Would he have outgrown it, if he’d been allowed to grow older? Alanna had always shared her secrets with him - sometimes only him - but he’d started to keep his even from her.
(Sometimes - only sometimes - she wonders if he raised Roger just to take something away from her.)
“Did you come by to check on Daine?” Alanna says, abruptly changing the topic. “Or did you want to talk to little old me?”
Master Draper has spent much of the time since he woke yesterday charming Harailt of Aili, and Alanna has a suspicion as to why.
“Er, yes,” he says, looking down, running his fingers through his hair again. “Your ladyship, I wanted to speak to you regarding… Well, as you know, I have technically been in the employ of the Tortallan Crown, or at least a branch of it, for some time now. I am hoping that I might have the opportunity to serve King Jonathan and his queen in a more, ah, official capacity. I’ve discussed the possibility with Lord Harailt… I understand that the Royal University is fast growing, and I believe my experience and reputation could be could be invaluable to that project. As well, though war has been averted here, your realm - all the realms - will have to contend with whatever the fallen barrier means for immortal activity; an area of expertise for me, where I feel my services would also be highly valued.”
Alanna cocks an eyebrow. “You don’t want to stick around and enjoy the new regime you helped to bring about?”
He smiles crookedly. “I find after the events of the past week that I am more eager than ever to be away.”
“And you fancy Corus over, say, Tyra, where I believe you still have family?”
He wrinkles his nose. “Oh yes, passels of family. Siblings and nieces and nephews I’ve never even met. I’m sure I’ll visit, but Tortall has both of the largest institutions of magic in the Eastern Lands - and of course, I have many more connections in your king’s court than the Tyran merchant council.”
“I see,” says Alanna. “It’s largely practical, your choice?”
“Er, yes, I suppose.”
“So you’re not, for example, chasing after the skirts of a young woman you scarcely know?”
Draper gawps at her, mouth opening and closing like a fish. “I - beg your pardon?”
“Though I should say, she doesn’t wear skirts so much when she’s at home,” Alanna continues. “She works hard for the realm - doesn’t have much time for swanning about at fancy parties in fine gowns. I wouldn't want you to have the wrong impression.”
“I - she - I certainly don’t - I don’t know how anyone could spend the past fortnight with Daine and think her just another courtier,” Draper stammers. “And I’m not sure I appreciate your implication, ladyship.”
“Not really an implication,” Alanna says mildly, “I thought I was being quite forthright. And I did say I had some impudent questions of my own. Look, you wouldn’t be the first to follow her home, thinking there was more between you than there was. She’s sweet and kind to every fallen robin and misguided swain who crosses her path, and when a pretty girl is… friendly, men have a tendency to misinterpret; they might think she favours them especially, when really, she’s just a kind person.”
Draper looks down, rubbing his head. Alanna recalls the healers fussing over several deep scratches in his scalp, which, in retrospect, did rather resemble the work of raptor talons. “I can assure you,” he says softly, “I have no expectations of Daine, if I should come to Corus. I’m not presuming any - anything. You’re kind to look out for your friend, but -”
“But you do care for her, don’t you?” Alanna cuts in, aiming, as always, for the heart. “Do you intend to court her, if you come back with us?”
“I - I don’t…I mean, we’ve just -” He actually rings his hands. “I… as you say, she’s an easy woman to - to care for, but I would never think to impose where I’m not wanted.”
Alanna crosses her arms. “Hmmm. Well, I’ll need to run it past Duke Gareth. He and his son are the… Crown’s closest advisors.” Based on Harailt’s enthusiasm alone (never mind what they all witnessed that night on the river), she has little doubt as to Draper’s being warmly received, but she’ll be damned if she’ll let him step foot on Tortallan soil without Daine’s say-so. One of the most powerful sorcerers in all the realms is a far cry from the bard who followed her back from Port Legann when she was sixteen.
“Of course,” Draper says, looking up again. “Do you have some idea of how long I might wait to hear their decision?”
“Not long, I shouldn’t think,” Alanna shrugs. “But I imagine you wouldn’t sail until the spring anyway - our coastline gets treacherous as winter creeps up. I suppose you could dock in Pearlmouth and make the rest of the journey on land, but -”
“Actually, er, if his Grace thinks it acceptable, I’d rather hoped to leave with your party on Tuesday."
Alanna blinks, then chuckles, in spite of herself. “You’re going to pack up your entire life here in a matter of days? But - not for true love? What’s your rush?”
His ears go a bit red, but he meets her gaze with more of an edge than was there before. “My dear friend is dead, your ladyship, and I would like to see him home.”
Alanna looks down. Draper sighs.
“And - and now that I find myself free for the first time in years, I’m inclined to leave as soon as I can.”
Alanna nods. “Fair enough. I should have an answer for you tomorrow or the next day.”
“Thank you, ladyship.”
“Just Alanna will do fine, Master Draper,” she says.
He smiles then, suddenly all charm and twinkling dark eyes, and oh, he is trouble, isn’t he? “Arram, then, please.”
“Alright - Arram,” Alanna slaps her thighs and gets to her feet, wincing slightly, “I know you’ve been told to rest, and I’m sure Daine’s likely to sleep another day at least, especially after the healing I just put on her. So off with you, and I promise I’ll let you know as soon as she’s awake. You too, Kit, let’s go find something to eat.”
Arram and Kitten follow Alanna reluctantly, and she shoos them both out the door. The mage lingers for a moment, casting a last worried look at Daine before leaving the room. Alanna takes a very small amount of pity on him.
“None of that is to say that she doesn’t like you, by the way,” Alanna adds conversationally. “Based on my limited observations, I don’t think she’s wholly opposed to your company.”
The man’s head whips around sharply. “Oh? Did she, ah, did she say something?”
Alanna rolls her eyes. “No, and I wouldn’t tell you if she had. If you want to know what she’s feeling, you’ll have to gather your courage and ask her yourself.”
“Er, right.”
“A piece of advice - you’d best learn to ride a horse properly. That girl was born with a lead in her rear, and her oldest friend is a mountain pony. She’ll never respect you if you can’t even canter without sliding off sideways."
“I know how to ride!” he protests, looking far more offended than he has any right to. “Perhaps I don’t have the same expertise as - as a cavalry soldier such as yourself but -”
“You know how to sit on a horse,” Alanna says severely. “It’s not the same.” She bends to pick up the chirping Kitten, wincing again - she definitely strained an old wound fighting immortals last week.The vagaries of age, and as George keeps helpfully reminding her, she’ll be forty in just a few years.
In just a few years she’ll have lived half her life without her brother. And every year after that, he’ll occupy a narrower portion of her memory, until he’s only a pinpoint in the distant past. What would Thom have been at thirty, at forty? Many foolish boys grow into wise men. But then, just as many don’t; cleverness is no guarantee of wisdom, and wisdom no guarantee of goodness.
Kitten scrambles up her shoulder, and uses it as a launching point to jump onto Arram’s instead. The dragon grabs for the glinting garnet drop hanging from his ear; smiling, the mage patiently extricates her clever little claws, and shifts Kitten to his hip. As they start off down the corridor, he launches into an impromptu lecture on the use of garnets in spellcasting, the dragonet hanging on his every word.
No, she decides. Arram Draper doesn’t really remind her of Thom at all.