Cospatric would laugh, as he did only when they were alone. “Not at my inn.”
The tide was turning.
Darin summoned fire. He let it burn, red and ugly, before his eyes. The practice room, when not in use by Erin and Renar, contained the flame and hid it from prying eyes.
Only Trethar watched, commenting, encouraging, or disparaging. His words, his gentle, almost-imperceptible hands upon Darin’s shoulders, became a counterpoint to the rhythm of struggle and power.
Ten days. Ten days, and they would have to make their stand. Darin let fire expand; letting the tingle flow down his arms and into the open space before him. Would ten days be enough?
Would the tenth day finally pay for all?
For if Renar was to regain a throne, Darin was to remake a line. Culverne must rise as well.
He worked as the days melted by in the heat of his unnatural blaze. He worked as the quill drifted horizontally across still air. And he worked to bring a flash of lightning into the air without the clouds and thunder that presaged it in nature.
“Don’t worry, Darin. You’ll be ready.”
Darin nodded grimly. What other choice had he?
Only for Erin did the ten days drag by.
She practiced in the drill room in isolation, choosing to spend her time there instead of at Renar’s side. Hours passed, warping and twisting themselves in her perception into minutes or days. She worked tirelessly, but the work called the ghosts of the past.
Telvar stood at her shoulder, the brisk shout of his annoyance ringing in her ears. Deirdre stood in the circle in front of her, her face a grim set of determined lines that Erin had forgotten she knew so well. The Grandfather came to visit, to watch as she progressed.
She fought for them, for all of her dead. But the living haunted her as well.
Stefanos.
Memory was her enemy now. Without Renar or Darin to anchor her to the present, the past lived in all its dark splendor, growing steadily stronger as each dawn moved inevitably into darkness. She did not dream; she wallced-and every step, fought against, struggled with, and ultimately denied, sought to bring her to the side of the Lord of the Empire. She did not think she had the ability to face him again.
But the road had strengthened her; Ruth had shown her the beginning of what might be a new life, a new position. Renar, quirky, loud, and unpredictable, had shown her a face that she had not thought to see: pain, fear, and vulnerability. Somehow, knowing that these things lived within him, her own ghosts became less daunting. But only a little.
And memory would not, in her chosen isolation, be denied. What she was came out of all that she had once been: and all that she had been cried out for reckoning.
She was in the drill room, in darkness. No windows let prying eyes watch; no windows let light in. Here, shadows reigned; here, memories refused to be dislodged.
Stefanos.
Sara.
She walked over to the wall and picked up her practice sword, hefting it easily in her right hand. Spinning lightly on her feet, she lunged forward, piercing empty air. She could almost feel Renar sidestepping and slid abruptly to the left so he could not take advantage of her overextension.
Lady of Mercy.
She struck again, her body tighter and more controlled. Dancing across the floor, the sword cut the air in a complex series of moves, outlined by the flow of light that was her power, called unknowing in the shadows of her internal battle.
He had seen her thus, recognizing, as she did not, the supple beauty of his Enemy’s hand.
Sarillorn.
Why?
Sword skittered off the wall, nearly overbalancing her; Renar’s block was absent.
Why had he kept her alive over the centuries? Why had he decided to wake her at all?
Sweat ran down her forehead in place of the tears she would not shed. No weakness was allowed in combat; if it had to be shown at all, it would wait until battle’s end. If there was an end. Telvar’s training held her without demanding acknowledgment, but what must not be shown could still be felt.
Why why why
why did you break your word, Stefanos?
With a strangled cry she threw the sword across the room, stepping out of the circle, paying her weaponsmaster his due. Her arms swung outward and up in a wide arc. There was precision to their wildness as they bent in unison to write a pattern across her chest.
Light flared, circling her feet and climbing upward—light, white and green, the power and peace of her heritage.
Why did I trust you?
White obscured her vision, and she held herself completely still in its circle. Because she had her answer. Even now she knew the answer.
I loved you.
I loved as much as I could.
He stood then, before her, his shadow long and cold, the gaunt lines of his jaw and cheekbones free from the grace of illusion. His eyes, crimson a moment, and then pure black, opened upon her. Limned in darkness of memory and anger, his arms spread wide and ringed with the ugliest of red, he waited.
His face, now expressionless, was turned toward her.
He wards, she thought, and waited.
But his arms made no further movement; they hung wide on either side as if suspended.
She waited still, as if this sharp and clear a memory could finally answer her. But when words came, they were not his.
Love is our greatest strength. And often our most terrible weakness. But without it, what choice but darkness?
It was an old line, a Lernari teaching homily, uttered so often, and by so many, that it was thankfully faceless.
The memory image of Stefanos was not.
She thought that this was how she had first truly seen him, a finger of the enemy, lit with the Enemy’s fire and the Enemy’s destruction and pain. But no; his face held no expression that spoke of Malthan—just perhaps the hint of his pride.
She took a step forward, and the light parted to make way for her feet. It was just a step, but now he was closer, larger.
She did not forget Belfas, or his pain, or her own at his loss. But even so she stepped forward again, raising one arm.
The image held true.
“Stefanos.” Another step. “Hate is your greatest strength; the hatred of the Dark Heart for the Light. And often it is your kin’s most terrible weakness—do you remember the loss on the field of Kallen because the Karnari there could not contain his God’s great hatred?”
This ghost of his memory made no answer, and she edged forward again, beyond feeling foolish. She knew, on some level, that she was alone—but she did not feel it. There was something that had to be said.
“But without it, without this hatred-” He was so very close now. The tears began; without the accoutrements of battle, she had no control over them. “What choice but Light?”
She brought her hands up to touch his face, now no longer chill and distant. His arms swept downward, so familiar even here and now-And she stood alone in a gray empty stone room. Memory played its tricks even now. Memory and time. But even alone, she heard the echo of his voice; it cut her deeply before it ebbed into stillness.
Sarillorn. I loved you as much as I was able.
Belfas’ face flashed before her, bloodstained and almost lifeless. The bodies of her line-mates, heaped like refuse, acted as kindling on the muted heart of her anger; the tears that traced her cheeks burned.
For a moment she froze and her anger raged outward, the color of it red. Red.
No.
No.
It was my choice. My choice, too.
She saw it clearly. Her anger, her hatred-guilt turned outward. Our greatest weakness.
But now she saw the pavilion again; saw those walk free by her judgment and his command, who otherwise would have perished.
Our greatest strength.
The red burned into ashes. She felt the loss no less clearly, but now it was a clean thing, sharp as new blade.
Sara.
I loved you.
I never wanted to lose you to anything-not even time.
As she thought it, she could hear the low, smooth utterance of his voice, a harmony or melody to hers. She held herself, cradling her upper body with her arms. If loss had a rhythm, she swayed to it. She understood now why he had committed his crime, and the full understanding brought her, at last, a measure of peace.
Through both the weakness and the strength, she had somehow become real to him; too real to lose to the course of time. He had given her everything that he could, for all that the giving struggled so harshly against his nature. Perhaps this, this is for what the Lady had hoped, and for what Lernan had hoped.
The thought of the Lady was still painful to her. If Stefanos had deceived her through misguided love, deception was still a large part of his nature—yet only once had he lied to her. The Lady had no such excuse.
Some part of her mind tried to argue with this: Deception was no part of the Lady of Elliath, and for no reason would she have forced herself to it against her very nature. Perhaps the deception had extracted as dear a price as the love that Stefanos had offered. Perhaps, but the argument held little sway; it was too new.
For if this was indeed the Lady’s hope, then that hope had failed.
Erin faced the fact squarely. She felt pain, but not the half-crazed frenzy that had driven her this far. Stefanos loved her, but he was what he was-Ruler of the Empire. During the centuries that she had slept, the changes she had wrought had not stopped him from destroying her kin and the rest of the seven lines; it had not stopped him from enslaving the last of the free kingdoms.
Perhaps the Lady had hoped that Erin might return to him; live out the slow centuries in the hope of seeing the First of Malthan truly leave his God. But the Lady, immortal, could not know the pain of whole generations born into slavery and dying without ever knowing what freedom truly meant. Erin was not the Lady, to feel so little.
Very gently she unsheathed her sword and watched its mesmerizing glow.
If I’d known what you intended, Lord, would I have let you be destroyed?
She lifted the sword slowly, as she asked the question honestly for the first time. Without the fury, without the pain of betrayal, no answer came.
And even that felt whole.
“I am the Sarillorn of Elliath.” She had not been sure until this moment. She loved him; he loved her—but they still remained true to what they were. She was Lernari. He was older and more fell. Between them, in private, all laws changed, but the world and the war remained too insistent for either to ignore or walk away from. The Dark Heart and the Light Heart still beat out their asynchronous rhythm.
“I swore the warrior’s oath—to fight against the Enemy until either of our deaths. In a moment of anger, I swore blood-pledge, and now in a moment of peace, I renew it. What I can do to free these lands, I must do.” She lowered her sword.
But she prayed, for the first time in months. She prayed that she would never have to face Stefanos on any ground that she chose for battle.
The nights were hardest. Awake, she thought of him. Asleep ...
The mists rolled in, black and thick, uneven, unknowing and cold. She walked within them, surrounded on all sides. Darkness was a constant, but little else was. Not here.
The pain—his pain—had dimmed, although the call of it was strong. She wanted to be free of it, but it mirrored her own.
Yes. She could see that now.
“Little one.”
“Kandor.” She slowed, waiting.
He came. A glow, almost human in form if not substance.
“Is—is Belfas here?”
“He is.”
“Belf?”
Her former line-mate came at her call. He had always come, when he could hear her. “Erin?”
It hurt, suddenly. She had not thought to feel this here, where her own pain should have had no voice compared to the grief and anger of her line-mates. “Belf ...”
She reached out to touch him. She felt the power flow outward and pushed it almost fiercely. Let it go. Let it leave her. When it was all gone, she would be human.
Between her arms, he took form and shape. If she could have seen his face, she would have wept. But his arms, as they grew solid, closed around her; they stood, two ghosts, in the comfort of a long lost past.
“We’re going to fight the war, Belf,” she whispered.
“Which war?” His shadow voice was low. His chin rested against the top of her head. When had he gotten so tall? Had she missed it?
“Against the Empire. Against him.”
“Erin ...”
“We’re going to overthrow the governor; we’re going to win back Culverne. We’re going to ...”
She could not look up. She imagined that she could smell him, and thought that he hadn’t washed in days. She opened her mouth to say it, and then stopped.
“I’m afraid.” It was a whisper; it was the truest thing that had left her lips so far. She tried to pull back; she had never said that to him before. Not when he was alive. She had always been the strong one.
He knew it, too. “You were never afraid before.”
“No. Not ... not never.” Her head wavered from side to side—weak denial.
“It’s all right, Erin. To be afraid.”
“If I don’t have courage, what else do I have?” She wanted to shout it. She couldn’t—not here.
It was Kandor, not Belfas, who answered. “Love, Sarillorn.
“Everyone I’ve ever loved has died.”
“Everyone?” Kandor’s question was soft—and still unanswerable. “Sarillorn, everything changes, everything grows. Even you cannot be proof against it.”
She didn’t understand what he was saying. But his voice was soothing, almost comforting.
“Don’t hate me anymore,” she said quietly. “Even if I deserve it, even if you have every right.”
Belfas said nothing at all, but his grip seemed to tighten; in the darkness it was hard to feel warmth. She stood there until the last of her light ebbed away. And when the dawn came, the feel of his arms lingered about her, the smallest trace of the Elliath that had been her home.
“Where is Erin?”
Tiras frowned. “The training rooms. The one the two of you practice in. She comes up for meals; other than that, she puts a full day’s hours in.”
“Why?” Renar’s frown was an echo of his teacher’s. “How much can she practice on her own?”
“I don’t know. But whatever it is, she can do it for nine solid days.”
Renar nodded and began to walk away. Tiras tapped his shoulder lightly.
“Renar? ”
“I should have taken her with me,” the prince answered curtly. He knew his worry showed, and it irritated him. “I shouldn’t have left her alone.”
“I think you may be right.”
No lights burned in the training room.
Renar held the lamp aloft as the soft glow of the lit hall passed between his feet and over his shoulders.
“Erin?”
Ah. There. But no wooden sword trembled in her hands; the one she held aloft was bright, sharp steel. It glowed. Her power? Sweat glinted where it lay in fine beads against her skin. If not for that, he might have mistaken her for a spirit trapped on this side of the Bridge.
Erin dodged, the first step of an inimical dance. She parried some invisible ghost. She lunged, skirting stone by a fraction of an inch.
He wondered what personal demons she fought in this darkness. He wondered if she was winning.
“Erin,” he said, his voice louder.
She turned, her eyes wide. And green. And glowing faintly, no trick of the light.
For a moment, her eyes widened and her mouth grew round. He almost whirled to look over his shoulder, so clear was her stare. But then she shook herself and seemed to dwindle.
“Renar.”
He walked into the room and set the lamp down on the bench. Everything grew soft
by its light, even the lines of her face. Shadows leaped about them both as the wick flickered. These were familiar somehow.
“What time is it?” she asked, her voice peculiarly flat.
“Past dinner, Erin. Have you eaten?”
She thought about it. Nodded unsurely.
“Are you all right?”
She nodded again. Swallowed. “It isn’t—it isn’t time yet, is it?”
He shook his head and watched as she slid her sword into its scabbard. He was suddenly certain that scabbard hadn’t left her side in the past nine days.
“What are you practicing?”
She smiled sadly. “What I know.” Light flared, white-fire gone wild. “All of it. ”
Something in the way her voice sank brought back an image, but it was not of Erin.
Kayly glanced at him; it was dark outside, and her parents had stayed late at the Leaflet. She was young, perhaps five, although memory played tricks with her age. Her hair was long and fine, something for her face to hide behind when she was embarrassed or upset.
But now, she was neither. She gazed out into the streets; they were poorly lit.
“What are they made of?”
“Glass.”
“Is the fire glass, too?”
“No.”
“Why doesn’t it go out? There’s no wood.”
“These lamps are oil. It’s a liquid, and it burns slowly. Like the one on the desk.”
“I want to see out.”
He lifted her, not noticing her weight at all. You’ll understand it all, Kayly. Just give it a little time, and you’ll be out there, too. The thought saddened him.
But he remembered the way she levered herself up on his shoulders to get a better view of the empty streets; the memory was precious. He had wondered what she could see in them that would hold her attention so long, when little else did.
Moths. Moths against the glass of the street lamp. He had told her they were cold. He hadn’t wanted to tell her the truth. But he hadn’t expected that she would run, suddenly, to the door to let them in. The world she saw was always new to her, a place to be at home in, and lost in.
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