"Emelen." It was Tansen's voice, raw with grief.
"They killed him. Searlon caught Jalilar while she was trying to escape." More harsh, panting breaths. Then he concluded, "And he killed her."
No one said anything. Ronall had never heard such a silence. Then again, probably no one in all of Sileria had ever heard anything as shocking as this tale.
The Sister finally said what everyone else was thinking. "I've never heard of anyone violating Sanctuary. Not any Silerian. Not ever. Not even..." She shook her head. "Not ever."
"Kiloran did." Tansen's voice was low and deadly. "Once before. He used Outlookers to ambush Josarian in Sanctuary after inviting him to a truce meeting there." His chest was heaving. "I should have... I should have remembered and known... Known that if Kiloran found out about Jalilar..."
"Those were Outlookers, Tansen," another shallah said, his voice soft with lingering shock. "Kiloran was slippery, but he didn't actually violate... Not like this. And Searlon was too fastidious to be there himself the day they attacked Josarian in Sanctuary."
"How could they do this?" the Sister wondered, anger starting to give strength to her voice. "How could anyone do this? The murder of a woman is disgusting enough—but to violate Sanctuary? How could a Silerian do that, even a waterlord?" She started crying.
"And Jalilar's baby was... Is this the end, then?" someone asked Tansen. "Is it over?"
"Over?" Tansen repeated, his face darkening. "It won't be over until I gut Kiloran like a fish and roast him in the Fires for all eternity. And Searlon..." He made a terrible sound. "I should have killed him before this, should have cut off Kiloran's right arm a long time ago."
Another shallah unsheathed his sword—the sword he had undoubtedly taken from an Outlooker's body. "What do we do now? Give us our orders, siran!"
"No." Tansen shook his head. "I need to think. We can't afford to act rashly now. And..." He glanced at some of the Guardians. "You should go to the Sanctuary and burn their bodies."
"Dar have mercy on Jalilar's soul!" someone shouted. "Dar have mercy on her child!"
"Jalilar." It suddenly hit Ronall. His legs buckled and he found himself sitting awkwardly in the dust.
The Firebringer's sister. Jalilar. The woman Ronall had made love to with such abandoned frenzy, the two of them bound together by their terrible loneliness. Jalilar, who was the mother of...
"My child," Ronall murmured. "My child is dead."
Tansen flinched. "Someone get my son," he ordered. "Now."
"I was... going to be a father," Ronall said, his voice sounding far away. "I was... There was a... would have been a child." It was as if he only really understood that now, when it was too late.
Amidst the shouting for Zarien, the sudden rage-inspired bustle of the camp, and the vows of vengeance all around him, Ronall couldn't seem to rise to his feet or to think about anything but the part of him which Kiloran's assassins had murdered. Inside of the woman who had given him such pleasure. Along with the husband who had loved her enough to forgive her for that in the end.
He didn't know when he had started crying, he only knew that he was doing so now. And, for the first time in his life, his tears were entirely for someone else. Jalilar and their baby. Even Emelen.
Why ask Dar for mercy? She would never give it. Not here. Not in Sileria. Not the destroyer goddess.
An expensive pair of dusty, worn boots ran straight past Ronall. Then he heard Zarien's voice, high with shock and panic.
"Father! Is it true?"
Ronall looked up and saw Tansen embrace the boy fiercely, a terrible fear written all over that brave man's face.
"I won't let him have you, too," Tansen muttered. "I won't."
"Jalilar..." The boy's voice was now dark and breathy with sorrow.
Still holding his son, Tansen closed his eyes. "He won't get you. I promise you he won't."
And Ronall knew that Tansen was making the promise to himself rather than to the boy.
"What'll we do?" Zarien asked. "What does this mean?"
Tansen released the boy and, still keeping him close, answered, "It means that even I didn't realize how dangerous Kiloran is. How desperate. Even I didn't understand how far he would go. It means..." He sighed and straightened Zarien's tunic. "It means we have to be stronger than he is, no matter what it costs us."
Zarien looked away, his young face as troubled as everyone else's. When he saw Ronall, he said, "I'm very sorry about your child, toren."
Still sitting in the dust, Ronall looked up at the two of them and wondered, "Do you think... her child... our child... was really the one? Or do you think Kiloran just... murdered some poor peasant girl bearing a drunken toren's bastard?" He felt tears slide down his cheeks.
"How did Kiloran know?" Zarien asked.
Tansen gave him a sharp look. Then he drew in a swift, sharp breath. "How did he know?"
Even Ronall immediately understood the implications of the boy's question. Very few people had known about Jalilar's condition, and even fewer knew where she was hiding. "Someone betrayed her."
Zarien gasped. "Baran?"
Tansen frowned, but he shook his head after a moment. "He would die before he would give Kiloran that kind of advantage." His shoulders sagged. "I've got to get word to Mirabar about this. Right away."
Ronall watched Tansen turn away to find someone to take this terrible news to Belitar. Zarien followed him.
And Ronall sat in the dust, desperately trying to remember what Jalilar's face had looked like.
Chapter Fourteen
The more intimate the friendship,
the deadlier the enemy.
—Silerian Proverb
Najdan had proposed a place for the truce meeting which was in the chaotic, war-torn district where Meriten and the loyalists still fought hard for ultimate victory. It was a reasonable place for him to suggest, since neither side of the conflict was in control of the area, and since neither Kiloran nor Baran currently had any real advantage over an enemy like Najdan there.
There was also only one convenient way to get there from Kandahar, where Najdan's message had reached Dyshon. So Najdan set his trap on the ancient road well east of his proposed meeting place, and waited. As he expected, Dyshon came early to the meeting, and came in force, planning to trap and kill the assassin who had betrayed Kiloran for Mirabar.
Dyshon had no advantage here, either, so the ambush which Najdan led against him was successful. It was a messy battle, due to the heavily-armed skill of both sides, but the element of surprise was as effective as Najdan had hoped.
"You proposed a truce!" Dyshon screamed when Najdan overcame and disarmed him.
"And you agreed to one," Najdan pointed out, then gutted him with his shir.
"No!" Dyshon gasped, falling to his knees.
"It had to be this way," Najdan said, watching him die. "Kiloran knew it when he sent you to murder me at a truce meeting."
Dyshon gazed at him with astonished, pain-glazed, green eyes.
Najdan added, "He just didn't realize that I knew it, too."
Najdan looked around after Dyshon's body hit the ground and shuddered in its death throes. All nine of Kiloran's men lay dead now. The sirana wasn't here to order it, so no one even considered burning the bodies. The men who had come here with Najdan were all assassins, and their ways were different from hers.
Now Vinn wiped his shir on the tunic of one of Kiloran's dead assassins, then joined Najdan as he gazed down at Dyshon's corpse.
"Did you know him well?" Vinn asked.
"Not really," Najdan said, slipping his own shir into his boot.
"Disgraceful," Vinn said. "Planning to violate a truce meeting with an assassination."
Najdan gave him a skeptical look.
Vinn returned his gaze innocently, then gestured to the slain. "You think this work was disgraceful, too?" He smiled and pointed out, "You are no longer of the Honored Society, and I didn't invite him to a truce meeting." He though
t it over for a moment and added, "Actually, since Baran betrayed the waterlords, I suppose I'm no longer of the Society, either."
Najdan said nothing, since there was no going back on the choices he had made once and would willingly make again. Besides, dishonorable or not, this work now done, and nothing could be gained by dwelling on it.
Vinn, however, cheerfully continued, "Besides, I am a longtime enemy who just happened to be here when Dyshon carelessly entered a district which everyone knows is wild with violence and treachery." When Najdan still didn't respond, Vinn concluded, "Your plan worked. Baran will be pleased."
Najdan nodded. "He will also be pleased that it didn't get you killed. He warned me he would be very cross with me if that happened."
"I'm glad he let me help you. It's been a while since I've had a good battle," Vinn said. "I enjoyed it."
"I'm sure Tansen could use fresh fighters," Najdan suggested dryly.
As he expected, Vinn shook his head. "Tempting, I admit. But then who would protect the siran?"
"From Kiloran?"
"Ah, Najdan. Have you learned nothing in all your time at Belitar?" Vinn tilted his head to one side. "More than anything, Baran has always needed protection from himself."
Since it struck Najdan as true, he asked, "Why do you do it?"
Vinn smiled. "Because he grows on you." After a moment, the assassin slanted a shrewd glance at Najdan and added, "Haven't you noticed?"
Najdan only replied, "Let's go home."
Kiloran knew the moment Dyshon died. He felt the sudden shift of power in the Idalar River as it sank more deeply into Baran's embrace.
Rage flooded him as powerfully and coldly as he himself had once flooded the mines of Alizar—the mines which also now resisted his control, trying to elude his mastery, trying to ebb and flow away from his will.
Trap, he realized.
Najdan had lured him with the sweetest bait of all: the promise of vengeance. The assassin had known it would cloud his judgment and make him vulnerable. Najdan was not the most imaginative of men, but he hadn't served Kiloran well for twenty years without coming to understand his master thoroughly. Yes, the best assassins always grew to know their masters almost as well as a wife would, with a mutual trust that ran that deep in a partnership which was that secure. When Najdan violated all of that with betrayal, he didn't forget anything he had learned about Kiloran over the years. And so he knew exactly how to convince his former master to send Dyshon, someone whom Kiloran needed and valued, right into his trap.
Waves of cold self-recrimination washed over Kiloran. He had treated Najdan's offer of a truce meeting as if it had come from just anyone, rather than from someone who knew him so well for so long. With Kiloran's judgment swayed by the temptation Najdan had provided, perhaps Searlon might have seen the danger and suggested caution. But Dyshon? No. He'd never been that shrewd.
Losing the assassin at this particular time was a terrible blow. There was no denying that.
But at least Searlon's letter this morning confirmed that the Firebringer's sister and the child she bore were dead. At least there was that.
And Mirabar's fiery prophesies were now all ashes.
Now that they were so close to Mount Darshon that it entirely blocked the sky in front of her, Elelar finally began to suspect she had made a grave mistake.
She rode quietly beside Cheylan, physically and emotionally drained from the journey. They had come through days and nights of heat and dust, the perils of their trip augmented by occasional earthquakes. The treacherous paths they followed were sometimes blocked by avalanches. Elelar was wary of prowling assassins, and Cheylan had been obliged to protect her from a particularly bold group of bandits. Elelar had brought nothing with her—not even a change of undergarments—and she wasn't used to traveling like this: no servants, no money of her own, no authority, and no comforts. She hadn't bathed since leaving home, and she was definitely not used to smelling like this. By now, she was rather relieved that Cheylan avoided people as much as possible, since she felt embarrassed by the image she presented.
So much for dying with dignity.
If she didn't wash and change her clothing soon, she'd be mistaken for a goat when she met her destiny.
She was also beginning to understand why hardly anyone liked Cheylan. She'd had very little contact with him before now and was previously inclined to attribute people's dislike of him (including Tansen's) to superstitious fear, even to jealousy of his power. Now, however, she realized that any distaste for Cheylan was almost certainly inspired by his personality, rather than by his fiery eyes.
Mirabar had certain things in common with Cheylan which had forged a bond between them, evidently making it easier for her to overlook his cool, sour, smug nature than it was for others, including Elelar.
It might be petty and querulous of Elelar, but if she had to give her life as payment for what she had done to the Firebringer, then she didn't want Cheylan to be the one to kill her. She wanted, she thought with weary futility, Mirabar to do it. Elelar didn't like Mirabar, but she trusted and respected her—and she knew by now that she'd never be able to say that about Cheylan. Being with him felt increasingly wrong; and the more she tried to understand him and put these feelings to rest, the worse she felt.
Elelar believed in her destiny, in the Olvar's vision, in her duty to surrender to "the one with eyes of fire..." She had been so sick of passively waiting for her fate, so relieved to see Cheylan and commit to decisive action, that she had recklessly assumed he was the one to whom the Olvar had advised her to surrender.
She now wished, with mingled irritation and fear, that the Olvar had been more specific. What if she was supposed to wait for Mirabar? What if she was supposed to wait for someone whose identity she didn't even know? What if following Cheylan to wherever he was leading her was actually interfering with her destiny, rather than fulfilling it?
What if Cheylan, with his vague answers and unexplained actions, was not telling her the truth?
After Elelar's initial holy fervor had worn off, in the dreary reality of uncomfortable travel with a strange companion, she had started questioning Cheylan. Where was Mirabar? Back at Belitar. Why hadn't she come? She couldn't. Why not? She was not meant to. Where was Cheylan taking her? East. Where in the east? She would see. Why were they going east? Because Mirabar had insisted. Why? She would see.
And so on.
He was polite, and even soothing—but Elelar was increasingly dissatisfied with his answers, and increasingly worried that whatever he intended was not what she intended... which was a difficult distinction to make, since she didn't really know what she intended, and Cheylan wouldn't clarify what he intended.
Elelar sighed, feeling glum, scared, and frustrated.
"Torena?" Cheylan said in polite inquiry, having heard the sigh.
"Where are we going?" she asked.
"We'll be there soon."
"Where?"
"It's difficult to explain," he replied kindly.
Elelar sighed again.
The farther they traveled from Mirabar and Belitar, the more Elelar began to suspect that Mirabar might not, in fact, have ordered this journey. Might not even know that Elelar was following Cheylan toward some mysterious destination.
Elelar's stomach churned as she tormented herself with these fears. Now, conversely, she wondered if she was just trying, as she approached her death, to find an escape, a rationalization, a justification for fleeing the unknown punishment she had thought herself so willing to endure.
Why would Cheylan have come to her estate and taken her away, full of his vague and portentous comments, unless he was indeed the one she had awaited? He certainly alluded, however vaguely, to a more thorough knowledge of Elelar's future than she herself possessed; and he was, after all, a Guardian of phenomenal power.
Of course he's the one I've awaited. I'm just frightened. I'm just trying to talk myself out of this.
Which was wrong of her. It
was too late, anyhow. She had come this far. There was no turning back.
But where was Mirabar? Why didn't Cheylan tell Elelar more, prepare her for what was to come? Why wouldn't he specify where they were going and what would happen when they got there? Why didn't he want her even speaking to the Sisters or zanareen they came across during their journey?
And were the two of them actively avoiding Guardians, or was Elelar imagining that?
She clenched her jaw, aware that her lips were trembling. She was making herself crazy with these wild speculations.
She could, of course, simply balk and refuse to let her horse take another step until Cheylan told her everything she wanted to know and eliminated every one of her worries. But she suspected that would be foolhardy, even dangerous. The time for such behavior had been back at her estate, where she was surrounded by her own servants and able to challenge Cheylan from a position of strength. Unfortunately, she had not done so. She had been a fool. And now she regretted it.
Now she was all alone, far from home, in a strange and dangerous place with a man she hardly knew; a man whom, she now realized, she didn't trust. He was a very powerful man, too. She had seen him incinerate two bandits and send their companions fleeing in terror only last night. He needn't humor her demands here, where she was so far from help or protection. He needn't even keep up a pretense of courtesy or respect, if she pushed him.
Elelar shivered, chilled by her own dark imaginings.
We're approaching Darshon, she reminded herself, as her horse plodded towards the slopes of Dar's imposing domain. Cheylan was taking her to the goddess. Whatever his intentions, they must surely be directed by Dar Herself.
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