by S. L. Viehl
The Raktar nodded.
“The battle is over here. Teulon, you can ignore those who have fallen. You can give them a merciful death. Or you can save them. It is in your hands now.” She looked at the mask in her hands, and let it fall to the floor.
“What would you have me do, Jarn?” Teulon asked.
She inclined her head. “No one can take that choice from you, Raktar. No one can make it for you.”
It seemed an eternity before Teulon moved. He lifted his sword above Shropana’s head, and then slowly replaced it in his shoulder sheath.
“I shield General Patril Shropana,” he said, his voice clear and strong. “As I shield all those who were responsible for the Jado Massacre. The sacrifice of my HouseClan was for peace. I will honor this by completing the mission I began two years ago. I will negotiate peace between the League and the Hsktskt.”
The war was over.
The Hsktskt and the League agreed to a temporary cease-fire to allow each other’s forces to withdraw from the region. Before they left the Sunlace, Shropana and TssVar agreed to relay Teulon’s offer to reestablish peace negotiations to their superiors.
“I think there is hope for this peace,” Xonea said after the two commanders had gone. “Considering you possess the means to destroy either side at your whim.”
“For a time.” Teulon pulled on his cloak. “If they wish to continue the war, all they need do is contact the worlds of ten thousand systems and inform them that the Toskald no longer possess the crystals, but that I do. A way will eventually be found to remove the databases, which will render the crystals useless.”
“Which systems use the crystals?” Xonea asked.
Teulon glanced out at the stars. “That is why it will take them time. They don’t know which systems to contact. You must have the crystals to know.”
“I hope you have them where they cannot be found,” Xonea said. “There is something else I must tell you, Teulon.”
Now that the dignitaries had departed, other member of HouseClan Torin entered the launch bay. One small, blond girl ran across the deck to Duncan Reever, who picked her up in his arms.
“She is a beautiful child.” Teulon frowned as he saw a taller, sturdy boy of the same age walk over to greet Reever. His skin was a beautiful blue, the same as Akara’s had been. The same as— “Who is that boy?”
“Do you not recognize your own ClanSon?” Xonea asked.
Xan Jado looked over and smiled Akara’s smile. He asked Reever something and, when Reever nodded, hurried over to Teulon and Xonea.
“Your pardon, Captain, but I would like to meet my ClanFather,” Xan said. To Teulon, he said, “I regret I did not know you. I was only a baby when we were parted.”
Teulon crouched down before his child. He seemed almost afraid to touch him, and then he held out his arms and took the boy in a close embrace. Over Xan’s head, he asked Xonea, “How is this possible?” He set Xan at arm’s length. “I saw the ship explode. You were on it.”
Xan’s expression turned sad. “Captain Torin has told me of how our HouseClan was lost. I was saved by Linguist Reever’s daughter, Marel. She brought me and her ClanFather to the Sunlace.”
“How?”
“We are not sure,” Xonea admitted. “Just before the CloudWalk exploded, Marel, Xan, and Reever materialized on the helm of the Sunlace. I witnessed it myself. Marel told us that she brought Xan and Reever with her, and then fell unconscious. She had no memory of it, or how she had done it, when she woke. Reever believes she has the ability to teleport from place to place. It would explain how she was able to move all over the ship when she was younger without any of us seeing her.”
As Teulon reacquainted himself with his son, Marel interrogated her father.
“Daddy.” She squeezed his neck tightly. “Is she here?” He nodded and Marel looked around until she spotted Cherijo. She frowned. “Why doesn’t she come to see me?”
“She does not remember you, Marel.” Reever set the child down on her feet. “Why don’t you go and say hello to her?”
Teulon watched the little Terran child walk toward him. She was small and fair compared to the Jorenian children, but she looked very determined. “Here is a rebel I would not wish to engage in battle,” he said to Resa, who was meeting Xan.
Marel wandered past Teulon and Resa and stopped in front of Jarn. She held up her arms, and Jarn automatically picked her up. Then she pressed her hands to Jarn’s cheeks. “Mama, what happened to the white in your hair? It’s not all dark in Daddy’s photoscans.”
“I am not your mother, child,” Jarn said gently. “Perhaps I look like her a little, for I am Terran, too.”
“You are my mama,” Marel insisted. “I remember you, before you went away. You crashed on that white planet.” When Jarn nodded, she sniffed at her neck. “Your hair is different, but you smell the same.” She laid her small blond head against Jarn’s shoulder.
“Jarn?” Resa looked confused. “What is the child talking about? You did not crash on Akkabarr.”
“I did.” Jarn stroked the little girl’s fine golden hair. “The skela found me, and cared for me. In time I became their healer.” She started to say something else, but glanced at Daneeb’s face and fell silent.
“I remember.” Resa’s gaze became faraway. “When we found you.”
“No.” Daneeb tore off her vral mask and stepped between the two women. “It is as Jarn says. There is no reason to speak of it. Put the child down now. We must return to Skjonn.”
“I remember,” Resa repeated. “She was in the launch that crashed, the day I killed Enafa.” She blinked. “Daneeb, I am Iisleg. I was skela. I am Jarn.” Her face paled. “I killed that child.”
“No, you did not. You have things mixed up, that is all,” the headwoman said quickly. “There is no need to talk about this. It was a long time ago.”
“Tell her, Daneeb,” Reever said quietly.
“Tell her what? Tell her that she shot herself in the head instead of this ensleg, as she was supposed to?” The headwoman flung a hand at Jarn. “The ensleg saved your body, but not your mind. You went mad. You said you were the ensleg, and she you. We had to keep you in chains in the end, and still you escaped. You put on her ensleg’s clothes, and walked out to give yourself to the ice as payment for Enafa.” Daneeb shoved Reever before she turned on Resa. “So know the truth. I killed Enafa. Not you.”
Resa’s face had drained of all color. “But I held the blade over her heart. I remember.”
“Yes. And I broke your wrist when I thrust it into her heart. We were all going to die, and still, you would not do it. And then you …” Daneeb shook her head.
“I do not remember that part,” Resa said slowly.
“I do,” Jarn said. “I watched it happen. I saw how you tried to stop Daneeb. Then you came to me, and shot yourself in the head.”
“And I picked up the pistol, and shot you twice,” Daneeb told her, her voice thick with unshed tears. “But you did not stop breathing. You would not die.”
Daneeb told the rest of the story. How the gjenvin had taken Jarn to Iiskar Navn, and how the jlorra had dragged her back, still alive, to the skela caves. How quickly Jarn had healed, and how she had nursed the real Jarn back to health. “There were stories of vral, spirit made flesh. That was all that made sense to us. I did not know you blamed yourself for Enafa,” she told Resa. “Not until that night when you escaped us and gave yourself to the ice.”
Jarn looked down at Marel, who had fallen asleep against her breast. “I was this woman, Cherijo? This is her child? The child of my body?”
“She is our daughter, Marel,” Reever said. “I am your husband, Duncan. Your name is Cherijo Torin.”
Jarn shook her head abruptly. “I am not your wife, Linguist. I was born that day on the ice. Whoever this Cherijo was, she died on Akkabarr.” She held Marel close. “I will take good care of her daughter, that much I promise you. It is our way.”
“I know you wi
ll,” Reever said. “We both will.”
She gave him an uneasy look. “I am not staying here. The little one will go with me, to Skjonn.” When Xonea started to protest, she looked at Teulon. “You said no more children would be taken, and she is all I will ever have.” To Reever, she said, “It is the way of my people now. Children are not to be taken from their mothers.”
“The Iisleg are not your people, Cherijo,” Xonea said. “We are.”
“I only look like this child, and him,” Jarn said. “You cannot be my people.”
“The Jorenians adopted you. You are many things to many people,” Reever told her, “but you cannot stay with the Iisleg. You belong here, with us. We will help you remember who you were.” He went to her and put his hands on her shoulder. “You belong with me.”
“Teulon.” When the Raktar came to Jarn’s side, she handed him the little girl. “We are taking her with us. The Iisleg are my people; I don’t know any of you. I am Jarn, not Cherijo, and you cannot stop me.”
Squilyp surged forward, but Xonea caught his shoulder.
“I challenge your right to take her from me,” Reever said. “I am her father. We are the only family she knows.”
“You have each other. I have nothing.” Jarn pulled the blade from her waist. “No, Reever. You will not take her from me.”
“Squilyp.” When the Omorr joined them, Reever asked, “Is what she says true?”
“I will have to run some tests, but she has suffered at least two point-blank pulse fire shots to the head,” Squilyp said slowly. “If there was enough brain damage, the cells would have regenerated, but the memories belonging to Cherijo would not. Cherijo would, in essence, no longer exist.”
“We will leave now,” Jarn said.
“You would kill anyone who tried to take your daughter away from you, would you not? Is this the way of the Iisleg women now?” Reever asked her. When Jarn nodded, he said, “So would I. Anyone but you.”
“Jarn.” Teulon handed Marel to Resa. “He is right. You cannot take the child away from him. You do not know her.”
Jarn shook her head. “I will come to know her again. He cannot take her away from me.”
“You will have to kill me to take her,” Reever said calmly, taking his own blade from a forearm sheath and offering it to her.
“Duncan.” Squilyp was horrified.
“You would die for her.” Jarn circled around him, both blades ready.
“I would die for both of you,” Reever said.
“I know this feeling.” Jarn stopped and glanced over at Teulon and Resa. Slowly she replaced her blade, and offered Reever’s to him. “Do you have any other wives? Other women?”
“No.”
She studied him from head to toe. “Will you take me as your only wife?”
“Yes. There will be no others for me.”
Jarn nodded. She walked over to Teulon and Resa, and took Marel from her friend. “I must go with him and the child,” she told Resa. “You understand.”
Resa nodded, and embraced her. “I will miss you.”
“And I you.” Jarn ran her hand over Resa’s short hair once, and then stepped back. “Teulon, take care of her.”
The Raktar nodded.
Jarn carried Marel over to Reever. “Well, ensleg, it seems that we are yours. We are tired, too. Where on this ship do we sleep?”
Resa found Teulon in the former Kangal’s sleeping chamber. He was standing at the wall that looked out over the city.
“It seems so strange, not to have ice beneath my feet,” she told him. “Nothing feels right here, especially now that Jarn is gone. I mean, Cherijo.”
“We will be leaving soon, too,” Teulon reminded her. “The peace talks are to be held on Joren, my homeworld.”
“Are you sorry that Jarn chose to go with Reever?”
“No. I think they belong together.” He turned to gaze down at her. “What of you? Hasal always said you and Jarn were like twins. And the memories returning … it cannot be a happy thing.”
Resa could remember most of what had happened to her after finding Jarn in the crashed launch. “No, it was not. Enafa was so young; she did not deserve to die as she did. But I know now that I tried to save her. As you tried to save Akara and your HouseClan.”
“When peace has been made between the League and the Hsktskt, I would like to stay on Joren. Edin and the other commanders here have things well in hand. The crystals are where no one will ever find them.” His battalion commanders had been dropping them, one by one, into deep crevasses for several months now. “Xan and I are the last of the Jado, and it is left to us to rebuild our HouseClan.”
She drew back. “I understand. You want me to stay here, so I will not interfere.”
“I want you to come with me.” He took her hands in his. “Be with me, Resa. Not as a kedera or a bondmate, but as whatever we will be to each other.”
Resa thought of Jarn’s prediction and smiled. “Yes. I will be with you.”
Reever went immediately to his quarters as soon as he was off duty. Xonea had offered to give him several days to spend with Cherijo and Marel, but he had refused.
“She needs time, Xonea,” he told the captain. “Time to heal.”
“She has become a stranger, Duncan. She refuses to answer to anything but this ‘Jarn.’ She walks the ship armed with more blades than I own. She asked one of the women where she could kill something and cook it for a meal.” The Jorenian sighed. “I fear you have a long road ahead of you.”
“We will travel it together. She is with us. That is all that matters.”
Reever entered his access code and walked into his quarters. Most of the furnishings were gone, as they made Cherijo uneasy. Pillows and bed coverings littered the floor. The cats had taken refuge with Salo and Darea Torin, for neither of them had recognized Cherijo, and Reever had been worried she might try to kill and eat them while he was on duty.
He looked in their bedroom, but the sleeping platform was empty. An arrow of fear shot through him as he strode across his quarters and opened the door to his daughter’s room. Her bed was also empty.
Reever was about to summon security when he heard a soft sigh come from under the bed. He got down on his hands and knees, and saw Cherijo and Marel nestled together on a blanket under the sleeping platform. In Cherijo’s right hand was a wicked-looking blade. Her left arm was curled around their daughter. Both were fast asleep.
Reever stripped out of his tunic and crawled under the bed. He would have to do something about the bed. Perhaps raise it. He stretched out behind Cherijo, and put his arm around her before closing his eyes.
She is with us. That is all that matters now.
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