Braenlicach

by Michelle L. Levigne

  "Have we been married so long, you know my thoughts before I think them?" She smiled crookedly and let him draw her into his arms.

  "I'm thinking that you weren't as upset as you should have been, when Emrillian chose Pyris and we knew she would have to leave the Stronghold when she married."

  "Emrillian's destiny takes her away from the Stronghold. Belissa carries the future in her heart and blood. I know I have encouraged speculation and some fears because I haven't chosen and begun training my heir. The truth is... I see no heir for me except the daughter Belissa will give birth to. Ygerna has the job of persuading Athrar and Cafral to agree that if Belissa and Cafral marry, their firstborn daughter will belong to the Stronghold. I have designated her my heir before she is even conceived." She sighed and snuggled closer, pressing her face into the folds of his shirt, so her next words came out muffled. "If I hadn't had that bubble in the rock filled in years ago, I would suspect Trevissa of eavesdropping on our private councils, and deciding that she will be the mother of the next Queen of Snows, if she can't arrange it for herself. The problem is, I have my doubts she is clever enough, or vindictive enough, to have come up with such a scheme. At least, until now..."

  "She's always struck me as flighty, with no regard for the future, happy to ride along on Emrillian and Belissa's skirts and share their privileges." He tipped his head to the side so his cheek rested on the top of her head. "You don't really trust the girl, do you, despite all that?"

  "I would if her mother weren't so quiet with her schemes."

  "Schemes." He thought for a moment, then nodded. "You mean the ones to influence people to influence you to choose Trevissa as your heir, even though the girl doesn't have the discipline or the common sense to be one of your counselors, let alone Queen of Snows?"

  Ceera made a face at him, but a little more of the tension stiffening her body in his arms eased away. She rested her head on his shoulder. "I think the only true heir is one who doesn't really want it, who sees all the duties and hard work rather than the power and prestige, and yet accepts her destiny because she loves our land and the Estall enough to sacrifice her own happiness."

  "I'm curious." He waited until she raised her head to look at him. "What happiness would you have had, if you hadn't been our Lady's heir?" He fought his grin as long as he could while she struggled for an answer. Ceera let out a little shriek and thumped his chest, but he caught her hand and kissed it.

  "I don't think Trevissa was a bad influence on Emmi at all, but I was still relieved to have her safely away. Just in case. That girl..." He sighed. "In some ways, she reminds me of Nainan, when all of us were young."

  "And that is why even though I want to believe she is sneaking and self-righteous, I have to give her the benefit of the doubt. Who knows how long Triska was with Endor after the child was born, and how much magic he was able to weave around her, embed into her very blood and bones, so we can't find it?"

  "And how much is her mother's influence and her own deceitful nature?" he murmured.

  * * * *

  Before they returned to their quarters in the Warhawk's fortress, Emrillian announced that she and Pyris were to have a child. The news staggered Mrillis, and it bothered him that some sense of tragedy overwhelmed the joy.

  "It's shock," Ceera declared, when he finally confessed his twisting feelings to her. "And vanity."

  "Vanity?" He searched her face for mockery and saw a little laughter among the sympathy.

  "We're grandparents now. Did you ever imagine this happening? I know you joked about it, when she first declared that she would marry Pyris, but at the time it seemed decades away." Ceera braced her hands on the table in their shared study room and stared down at him. "You want her to be here, safe, where we can watch over her. And you know you can't, because she's made her life with Pyris and his duties keep him away. And you resent him a little, for taking our little girl away and making her grow up."

  "Have we been married so long you know what I'm feeling before I do?" he threw back at her, and rested his hands over hers on the table.

  "We've been married so long, I know we feel the same thing. I've tried retreating back into just being Queen of Snows, not a mother, to recover from the shock! It's like some strange dream that keeps shifting back and forth between happiness and grief, and we can't decide what things to laugh about and what to cry about." She slid her hand free and cupped his cheek. "Love? What are you thinking? There's a look in your eyes ..."

  "Dream," he whispered. Mrillis shuddered, suddenly chilled deep inside. "I had a dream, I don't know how long ago. Emmi held a baby in her arms, and after she gave him to you to hold... There was a man, covered in blood, so fresh and hot his clothes smoked with the heat. You and Emmi were so happy with the baby, you didn't see him. He killed you both."

  He shuddered and closed his eyes and fought against a drowning sensation of despair. "Maybe that's what I'm feeling. The news reminded me, vaguely, of that dream."

  "Not a portent, not a vision," she whispered, and pressed her little hands on either side of his face to hold him steady and look into his eyes.

  "No. You are the one blessed with visions, not me."

  "Hah! If you experienced a Seeing, you would not call it a blessing." Her wry smile died as quickly as it came. "If you washed away the blood, would this man have Endor's face?"

  Mrillis jerked away, sitting back hard against his chair with enough force to nearly make it rock. He stared into Ceera's eyes, sorting through his torn feelings and the fragments of the dream, until finally he had to shake his head and admit in a strained voice, "I don't know."

  She settled on his lap then, and they held each other in silence until the cold and the aching of that fear and their old regrets faded away.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The Encindi settlements in the Taywauk Mountains roused themselves and went on the offensive that spring. Their counterparts in the rough wastelands of Moerta did the same, giving proof to anyone who thought about it that they did indeed live under the leadership of one man--Endor--rather than living isolated, peaceful lives, content to have a place to live safe from star-metal. Nobles who had not supported the total destruction of the Encindi now were the loudest voices of complaint. They claimed that complacency had let the Encindi settle and put down roots in land that was not theirs, and that same complacency would destroy them all.

  The attacks began slowly, farmers cut down in the fields as they went out to plow, pregnant cows and sheep stolen, the last of the winter supplies either carried off or burned, women and children taken as captives. Whether they were doomed to slavery or as sacrifices for blood magic, no one could guess. The nobles and minor kings increased their private armies, but only a few went on the offensive, attempting to hunt down their nearly invisible enemies.

  The attacks grew stronger as summer turned to fall, more numerous, supported by blood magic and imbrose. Witnesses saw Endor riding at the head of the most deadly Encindi warriors, managing to appear on both Moerta and Lygroes within a handful of days of each sighting. Ceera chose the enchanters and Valors strong enough to guard the tunnel between Lygroes and Moerta, and ensured Endor was not able to use it.

  Yet the sightings continued.

  Mrillis accompanied Athrar into the battlefield and Pyris led the Valors who defended their Warhawk and used their imbrose to detect and ward off the magic used against the soldiers. Cafral traveled to Moerta with Efrin, and Lyon to guide them, and turned the individual soldiers of each minor king into one strong, coordinated, united army.

  At the start of the second moon of the campaign, Mrillis heard the first whispers of the talk going through the camps. He was blamed for the bitter war that filled the rich fields with blood instead of plowed furrows and seedlings. He and the Rey'kil leaders who had accepted Endor as a friend and sheltered him instead of killing him as his father's son, so many years ago. Mrillis shrugged off the murmurs, the accusing looks, until the third moon of the campaign, when Pyri
s confronted him with the talk going through the camps and spreading through Moerta as well, and admitted that he agreed with the condemnation.

  "I understand," the leader of the Valors said, standing before the High King and his father-by-law, with the firelight behind him. "There was no way to know back then that evil had been planted in his mind and heart. But looking back now, all the lives lost, the many chances he was handed to poison our efforts, our future, what was the life of a half-blood boy worth, against the lives and safety of thousands?"

  "My elders chose pity and hope, rather than risk spilling innocent blood," Mrillis said quietly. "If I could reach back through time and find the moment when Endor made his choice that turned him from the right path, that made him a liar every time he spoke words of friendship and loyalty, don't you think I would do it? Don't you think I wish a thousand times that I had done something differently?"

  "You were his friend. You forgave him when he hurt you, when he betrayed you. You believed his lies. You nearly put the Zygradon into his hand and bound him to Braenlicach!"

  "And by the Estall's grace, he and his sister have been cut off!" Athrar snapped. "I was there. I know the feelings and rumors and the loudest voices back then. Endor was a hero, and to deny him part in making Braenlicach would have caused more damage than any of us cared to face." He paused, but Pyris' stubborn, accusing expression didn't flicker for a moment. "Do you forget who you talk to? Do you forget your position, the things you have learned, your duties and power that come directly from this man's hand? You at least owe him respect as the father of your wife, if you don't care that he is the most powerful Rey'kil enchanter the World will ever know."

  "And because of his mistakes, his arrogance," Pyris growled, "I am here, at war, when I should be with my wife, who could give birth any day now." He looked ashamed the moment the words left his lips. With a muttered curse, he flung his hands up in the air, turned on his heels and stalked away from the fire.

  "He's right," Mrillis murmured, so only Athrar could hear.

  "We can spend our time looking backwards and counting our mistakes," Athrar said, "or we can work on solving the problem. We can't do both."

  "When did you get so wise?" He wished he could smile. Bitter laughter caught in his throat.

  "You taught me that."

  * * * *

  Mrillis urged Athrar to send Pyris home, to be with Emrillian for the birth. To his bitter amusement, the Valor leader resented him for that, and for Mrillis' absence on a blustery, snowy day when Emrillian gave birth to Pirkin, a healthy, strong, loud little boy.

  Ceera contacted him, opening her mind and heart wide, so he could see the boy, hear his first cries, feel his heat and weight as she cleaned the newborn and wrapped him warm and put him in his mother's arms. The moment of wonder and a sweet, strange pain didn't last long. Duty called in the form of battle against the Encindi.

  For the first time on that battlefield, Mrillis felt a familiar touch on his mind, through the Threads, and knew Endor sensed his presence. Did he try to contact him, or only spy on him? Mrillis wrapped the power of the Zygradon around himself and nearly laughed aloud as the questing touch through the Threads grew stronger, more blatant. Perhaps even desperate?

  His bond with the Zygradon made him invisible to magic, and when he chose, to the senses. Mrillis knew how to move silently as well, and waited, deep inside his soul, for the moment Endor grew careless. He had been practicing for years now for that one, rare chance, to throw Threads around his former friend, to bind him and his power, and end this threat against the World.

  The Encindi line broke before the trained onslaught of Athrar's forces. The sense of Endor's imbrose faded from the Threads running through the battlefield. Mrillis let go of the Zygradon's power and paid no attention to the fleeing enemies around him.

  The depths of his feelings disturbed him. Disappointment that he wouldn't have a chance to end it, here and now, finally. Relief that he wouldn't have to face his former friend just yet. Guilt and resentment, remembering the murmurs and outright accusations of those who knew nothing of the situation, but who thought they saw clearly and sharply in hindsight, and blamed him and his masters for the present troubles and dangers. Mrillis thought of the accusations that came from Pyris, married to his only child, trained as a Valor, taught the limitations of imbrose and the ethical boundaries necessary to protect the fragile treasures of life and freedom. In response, something twisting and painful burned inside him.

  It was none of their business, was it, if he had a chance to destroy their enemy or not, and if he took it or not? He was answerable to no one. Not even the High Scholar on Wynystrys.

  Mrillis nearly laughed aloud as he rejoined Athrar in the command tent and they studied the first reports from the cleanup after the battle. He was indeed answerable to someone, and she was both the most forgiving of all, and the most demanding. Ceera would understand, and her understanding would make her disappointment all the more painful to him.

  It isn't all Pyris, she told him, when they conversed through the Threads late that night. Mrillis sat up by the watch fire in front of the tent, keeping unnecessary guard while Athrar slept. Some of his friends, who have no imbrose, don't quite trust us who do. They expect us to be all-knowing and all-powerful, which frightens them. And it angers them when we can't foresee troubles and destroy the source long before the first seeds are planted.

  The old prejudices are coming back. Mrillis was too tired to laugh at the irony.

  Hadn't Master Breylon and other, older, wiser heads predicted that the distrust and envy between Noveni and Rey'kil would return, once the greater danger of the Encindi had faded? Flintan was gone, the barbarians had nowhere to retreat and hide and lick their wounds. Mrillis himself had predicted that would just make them more determined, more dangerous. Many Noveni, even the trained warriors, didn't see it that way. They believed if the Encindi had no homeland, that made them weak.

  The old prejudices and distrust and sense of disconnection were returning, mixed in with the certainty that the Rey'kil leadership could have prevented the dangers that now plagued the people of both continents. Mrillis wondered if anyone could appreciate the irony. He was certainly too tired to do anything except resent the headache and the exigencies that would keep him in the field for another moon before he could go visit his grandson.

  I feel old, he told Ceera at last. I'm a grandfather. I should be sitting by the fire, telling stories and letting others worry about the fate of the world.

  Worse yet, she retorted, laughter vibrating through the Threads. You're married to a grandmother.

  Mrillis laughed then, with tears in his eyes, and reached with all his soul for her presence, so he could at least pretend to hold her in his arms.

  * * * *

  Emrillian came to visit late in the winter, and for the first time since their marriage, Pyris did not accompany her. Mrillis and Ceera had silently confessed their relief to each other and were relieved when their daughter showed no strain, no change in her usual bright mood.

  "I think Pyris intends to resign as leader of the Valors," she said, when she came back to her parents' sitting room, after putting Pirkin in his cradle in her childhood bedroom.

  "Is the duty growing too heavy for him?" Ceera asked.

  "In some ways." She sighed as she sat down, picked up the corner of the long tapestry Ceera embroidered, and spread it across her lap. "He got into a brawl more than a moon ago. Over me."

  "Someone said something about you that he couldn't take," Mrillis guessed. He put down the scroll he had been reading aloud while Ceera worked.

  "Many things, for quite a while now. The pot finally boiled over. I just hope the Warhawk's condemnation of the whole scene helped to douse the flames for a while." She shrugged and finally raised her gaze to meet his. A few traitor tears gleamed in the corners of her eyes, giving away the strain she had hidden so well.

  "Athrar said nothing to us," Ceera murmured. She nodded whe
n Mrillis put aside the scroll and got up to move over onto the couch where Emrillian sat, and put his arm around her.

  "I think he's embarrassed. Some of his men were the instigators." Emrillian rested her head on Mrillis' shoulder. "Papa... I think sometimes, Pyris is ashamed of me."

  "Then he's a fool, since he has imbrose, too."

  "But he's not Rey'kil, and he's not the child of two powerful enchanters, and everyone thinks the Valors get their power from Braenlicach, that it's not part of their flesh and bone. People think they understand that. Magic from things is easier to understand and accept than magic that comes from the Threads and fills the body because that is the way the Estall made us."

  "Because only those of us who have strong enough imbrose can see the Threads," Ceera said on a sigh. She put down her embroidery and moved onto the couch. A tiny snort of laughter escaped their daughter when she had to scoot over to make room.

  Mrillis swallowed down an ache in his throat and a burning behind his eyes. How long had it been since the three of them shared this couch, huddled together, working through some problem or concern? Long enough that they didn't quite fit, and Emrillian was far too grown up to sit on his lap any longer. He sighed silently, missing the warmth of her little head on his shoulder, her little arms wrapped around his neck. Even the damp of her tears soaking through his shirt. Ceera wrapped her arms around their daughter and drew the bright head, so like her own, down onto her shoulder to stroke and comfort.

  "Every time someone remarks how much Pirkin is like him, he's so... It's more than pleased, it's relieved. As if he thinks simply looking like him negates the imbrose in his blood." She shuddered, and relaxed a little more against her mother. "I know this will pass, but it hurts right now."

  "He still loves you, I know that," Mrillis offered. "He wouldn't have gotten in that fight if he didn't."

  "Oh, I know he loves me, Papa. But you can still love someone and be mortally embarrassed by her."