Mirabar asked, "Zarien, is it that you're not really sea-born?"
"I am!" Zarien said defensively. "My mother was sea-born. But she went ashore, and so the Lascari shunned her. When they found out I went ashore, too, Linyan said it was in my blood, because my mother had left them to marry a drylander... The rest doesn't matter."
"A drylander? And your mother..." Mirabar suddenly gasped, her brilliant eyes going wide as she gazed at Zarien. "A sea-born woman... fifteen years ago... water magic..." Mirabar forgot about Najdan, who sagged a little as she abandoned him to rise to her feet, her gaze fixed on the boy. "She made choices that brought her ashore..." Mirabar made a funny sound. "It was her, wasn't it, Zarien? Your mother was Alcinar."
Zarien flinched violently. "How do you know that?"
"Who's Alcinar?" Tansen demanded.
"A sea-born woman," Mirabar said slowly, "who went to live in the mountains, where she was loved obsessively... by two waterlords."
"Two waterlords?" Tansen remembered what Mirabar had told him about Baran and Kiloran, about the origin of their mutual enmity. "Are you saying Zarien's mother was Baran's wife?"
"Yes."
"But you said Kiloran killed her."
"After I married Baran, Kiloran sent a letter to Belitar telling Baran that Alcinar had not died, that she had, in fact, escaped Kandahar and eluded pursuit. He promised to tell Baran everything... in exchange for my corpse."
Tansen felt his temples throbbing.
"I thought Kiloran was lying," Mirabar said. "But I was wrong. Alcinar must have run away after she realized she was pregnant." She placed her hand over her stomach again. "She may even have had the help of the child in her womb. That's probably what enabled her to escape Kandahar."
"And then she returned to sea," Tansen murmured in a daze.
Mirabar nodded. "The best place for a tattooed sea-born woman to hide from a waterlord."
"And the Lascari protected her," Najdan guessed. "Which no one would have expected—"
"Because," Tansen said hoarsely, "the Lascari shunned her when she chose Baran."
"But when she returned to them, pregnant," Mirabar said, "believing that Baran was dead..."
"They cared for her and then took the baby as their own when she..." Tansen looked at Zarien and guessed, "Died in childbirth?"
He shook his head. "Drowned herself after I was born," he muttered. "Linyan says she was... not right in the head when she returned to them. Sorin and Palomar had just lost a baby, so they became my parents then."
"I don't understand," Mirabar said. "Why didn't they ever contact Baran to tell him about her? Or you? He had a right to know, as her husband. And even the sea-bound must have heard of him as time passed and he grew so famous. Is it because he's a drylander? Or because he's a water—"
"They just didn't know it was the same man," Zarien said quietly. "I didn't know until you told me just now. They thought her husband was a merchant who died before I was born."
"Of course," Mirabar said. "Alcinar told them that the Baran she had married was dead."
"I'm so sorry, Zarien," Tansen said, placing a hand on the boy's rigid back.
"A child of water, a child of sorrow," Mirabar murmured. "You've been right here all along."
The true implication of this story, in light of Zarien's newly discovered gift, suddenly struck Tansen like the blow of a yahr. "Which one of them is your father?" he demanded.
Zarien flinched again. "It doesn't matter."
A terrible dread settled into Tansen's belly. "Which one?" he insisted.
Zarien started backing away from him.
Tansen's heart pounded so hard he felt dizzy.
No, it can't be. I won't let it be. Not this. I can't bear this.
Mirabar said, "Tansen, maybe we should—"
"You know, don't you?" he said, stalking Zarien as the boy continued backing away from him. "Your mother might have been unbalanced, but if she still knew enough to find the Lascari, then she surely knew which man's child she was carrying."
"Why does it matter which one of them it was?" Zarien said hoarsely.
Tansen's blood was roaring in his ears. "If Searlon didn't come to kill you, then he came to take you back to Kiloran."
Zarien licked his lips. "Searlon's dead. Let's just—"
"Didn't he, Zarien?"
Zarien stumbled in his retreat as his feet encountered Searlon's corpse. "Stop!"
Tansen caught him, then seized his shoulders. "Did Kiloran mean to capture you to torment Baran? Is that why Searlon didn't kill you?"
"Let go!" Zarien shouted.
"Or did Kiloran want you for himself?"
"Tansen!" Mirabar said. "You're frightening him!"
"Sirana, help me up," Najdan said.
"No, you're too weak."
"Help me up!" Najdan insisted.
Tansen shook Zarien. "Answer me!"
"Stop! Let me go! No!"
Something hit Tansen from behind. He reacted instantly, releasing Zarien to defend himself. Zarien fell down, sprawling across Searlon's body, and howled in revulsion. Tansen glared at Najdan, groggy and swaying, who had interfered.
"Stay out of this!" Tansen warned.
"Control yourself," Najdan chided wearily.
Tansen looked at Zarien, who was making horrified noises as he rolled away from Searlon's corpse only to land in a pool of Searlon's blood, which made him howl again.
Tansen was suddenly, bitterly ashamed of himself.
He moved to extend a hand to his son. "Zarien—"
"Kiloran!" Zarien screamed at him, tears streaming down his tattooed face. Blood splattered him as he drummed a fist against the ground. "I'm Kiloran's son!"
Tansen froze. Shame was replaced by blank shock. A long moment of sheer empty idiocy.
Kiloran's son.
All this time he had thought Kiloran wanted to kill Zarien. All this time... Kiloran had just wanted to bring him home.
Tansen thought he was going to vomit. Overwhelming denial flooded him.
No.
He felt revulsion. Fury. Nausea. Fear. He utterly and completely rejected... this.
Water magic. A waterlord. Kiloran's heir.
"No." He only knew he'd spoken aloud because of the reaction on Zarien's face.
Mirabar said, "Tansen." But she seemed so far away, so faint and distant.
"He will be," said the Olvar, looking at Tansen, "more than you imagine. Perhaps more than you can accept."
Zarien rose to a kneeling position, covered in blood now. Red with it. Streaked and painted in it. Drenched in blood.
Kiloran's heir.
Tansen remembered strange dreams, voices warning him, a suspicion in his nightmares that the boy was more than he seemed... Perhaps he had clung to believing Zarien was the sea king because it shielded him from fears he'd been unable to face or acknowledge.
A waterlord.
My own son with their power in his veins.
Yes, the very thought, even the faintest flicker of suspicion had been too awful for him to consider. He knew that now.
But Kiloran's child? No, he had never imagined that, not even in the torment of his dreams.
"Are you going to kill me, too, now?" Zarien asked harshly.
Tansen's mind was working slowly. "What?"
"The way..." A terrible expression crossed Zarien's face. "The way you killed your father?"
The ground seemed to give way beneath him. "What?"
"Searlon told me, before he died." Zarien kept a hard, wary gaze fixed on Tansen. "You murdered your own bloodfather."
He heard harsh breathing. Someone panting in sudden panic. The pounding of an appalled heart.
"You killed him because he was a waterlord's son." There was betrayal in the boy's voice. Awful suspicion in his expression.
Tansen tried to think. "Zarien, no. It wasn't—"
"Who was Armian?" Zarien demanded.
His blood froze.
"Armian?" Najdan repeat
ed in surprise.
"Quiet," Mirabar admonished the assassin.
There was a terrible silence.
"Dar..." Tansen said, hating Her.
He understood now. This was his punishment for what he had done. To love Kiloran's son as his own, and to lose the boy's love because of Armian.
She was truly the destroyer goddess.
"That's the name you cry in your sleep that I don't recognize," Zarien said in a low, hate-filled voice. "It's him, isn't it? He's the one you beat to death with a yahr."
He heard Najdan draw in a shocked breath.
"I can explain," Tansen said, willing his son to believe in him.
"He was your father! And you killed him!" Zarien shouted.
"Yes, I did," he confessed, trying to keep his voice even. "But—"
"No wonder you never told me about him!"
"I didn't know how to tell you. Please listen—"
"You had no right to make me your son without telling me what you had done to the man who made you his!"
It was true. He couldn't deny it. "You're so young, I didn't want to—"
"But you didn't know the truth about me. And now that you do?"
Tansen's vision was blurry. "We'll work it out. I pro—"
"Stay away from me," Zarien ground out.
"Zarien."
"You are not who I thought you were."
Tansen said, "And you're not who I thought you were, but that—"
"You are not who you told me you were."
"I'm sorry. I—"
"Armian didn't know the truth about you," Zarien said. "But I do. It's too late for him." That young, innocent face looked as cold Kiloran's had ever looked when he said, "What about me, Tansen? Am I next?"
He was horrified. "No! Zarien."
"Searlon said that when you knew the truth—"
"I don't give a damn what Searlon—"
They both leaped back as a ball of fire appeared out of nowhere and exploded between them.
"That's enough!" Mirabar announced.
Tansen ordered, "Don't inter—"
"You've both said quite enough for now," she snapped, giving Tansen a hard look. "Zarien, come with me. We'll go find Elelar and tell her the toren is alive. If she has questions, you can explain to her what the sea king is."
"But I—"
"We will all take time to calm down before returning to this discussion," she said firmly. "Tansen, Najdan will take you to the Lascari—carefully, since he's lost a lot of blood—and you will inform them how many of us need to leave for Shaljir tomorrow."
"Shaljir?" Zarien repeated blankly, resisting Mirabar's tugging on his arm.
She said, "I am sure your father... I mean, I am sure Tansen would like you to remain in the east with him—"
"Yes," Tansen said.
"—but that may not be wise, since he has a battle to fight."
"More waterlords to kill?" Zarien muttered.
Tansen clenched his teeth rather than offer yet another unwise comment.
"Baran will certainly want to meet Alcinar's son," Mirabar continued. "So I suggest you come to Shaljir with us, Zarien, and then you will go on to Belitar with me and Najdan. Tansen can come there for you after his work here is finished."
Tansen wanted to protest, but another warning look from Mirabar silenced him. Realizing how badly he was reacting to these successive shocks, he forced himself to say calmly to Zarien, "What would you prefer to do?"
"I'll go with the sirana," Zarien said, his expression dark and hostile.
It felt wrong in his bones to be separated from the boy now, but he didn't know what to do or say. He couldn't take back his initial reaction to discovering Zarien was Kiloran's son, and he certainly couldn't take back what he had done to Armian all those years ago.
"A little time apart to calm down and accept things," Mirabar suggested, "might be best for both of you."
"Yes," Tansen replied vaguely, hoping she was right. He only knew that his own judgment was terrible at the moment.
"Besides," Mirabar added, "you're going into battle, so you'd have to leave Zarien somewhere, anyhow."
Tansen sighed and nodded. "I'll, uh..." He looked at his son, dirty and blood-drenched, who wouldn't meet his eyes. "I'll come to Belitar for you, Zarien. After I'm done here."
Zarien shrugged.
He knows about Armian. He knows.
How could Tansen ever explain it to him?
Kiloran knew what would be even worse than taking him from me. Kiloran knew what would hurt me the most.
Tansen should have told Zarien before now. Searlon should not have been the one to break it to him. Tansen's blood ran cold when he imagined how Searlon must have explained it to him.
"Zarien," he said, "do you remember what I told you about bloodpact relations?"
Zarien shrugged again.
"It's as binding as a birth relationship. You're my son. It doesn't matter who your sire was."
"Even if he's still alive?" the boy asked icily.
Tansen glanced at Najdan, who shrugged. Mirabar looked uncertain, too. It was such an unusual circumstance that none of them knew what it meant, in traditional terms.
Tansen knew what it meant to him, though. "You're my son, and nothing can change that. Nothing."
"Is that why you killed your father?" Zarien asked. "Because nothing could change that, either?"
"No. I did that because..." He closed his eyes and tried to form coherent statements, wondering how he could possibly make his son understand what he had done to his father. "He was—"
"The torena will want to know that her husband is alive," Zarien said gruffly. "Sirana?"
Mirabar gave Tansen a worried look, but agreed, "Yes. Let's go find her, Zarien."
She turned and led the boy away. Najdan swayed on his feet as he and Tansen watched them depart.
"He's a very willful boy," Najdan said. "And keeping him alive was harder than I expected."
"I don't know what to do," Tansen muttered.
"Kiloran's son," Najdan said. "I never knew... It would seem that even Kiloran never knew."
"Or he'd have gone after Zarien years ago."
"He has always wanted an heir."
Fear flooded him. "And if he finds out what we know now..."
"That Zarien has the gift?" Najdan nodded. "That would indeed be very dangerous. However, we have protected the boy this long. And Belitar is very safe." After a pause, he added, "Well, as long as one doesn't annoy Baran, that is."
"Then keep him safe until I come for him."
"Of course." Najdan rubbed his new scar. "And it's not a promise I make lightly. A very willful boy."
Elelar stared at Ronall in stunned, disbelieving silence as he approached her on the beach. She was surrounded by an entourage of praise-singers who now lived to protect the baby in her arms. Ronall—Ronall!—was surrounded by sea-born folk who revered him as the sea king, consort to a goddess and chosen to lead them as a people.
"You look..." Elelar paused, trying to determine what was so different about Ronall, apart from the ragged sea-born clothes and the healthy glow of his sun-darkened skin. "Sober?"
He nodded and smiled. "Sober. You look..." He glanced at Gaborian and laughed, a surprisingly light and happy sound. "Like a mother!"
"Where's my horse?" she asked suddenly.
Ronall shook his head, looking amused. "I always thought that would be your first question if we ever met again."
"Well?"
"I'm sorry, Elelar. It was stolen from me some time ago. In the mountains."
"That was my favorite horse," she said irritably.
"I know. I'm sorry."
"And as for leaving that chattery fool Chasimar at my estate..."
"She had nowhere else to go." After a moment, he added wryly, "All right, I did it to annoy you. I'm sorry about that, too."
Elelar realized that these subjects were far from the most important things they needed to discuss, so she resisted the
undeniable urge to utter recriminations. Instead, she said, "We should talk."
"Of course."
Ronall led her to some wreckage upon which they could both sit, then politely suggested everyone else remain at a respectful distance while he got reacquainted with his wife. Elelar explained what had happened to her, amazed at how calmly he accepted the whole story.
"I am to..." She took a deep breath and concluded, "Acknowledge you as Gaborian's father."
"I won't deny it," he promised her. "Though it does seem as if the gods are enjoying a good joke, doesn't it?"
"Did you and a sea goddess really—"
"Yes." He sounded as if it were a perfectly normal circumstance.
"But how did you and she actually—"
"That's none of your concern, Elelar." When she sat back in surprise, he added, "I haven't asked for details about you and Cheylan, have I?"
She realized that a number of subjects were indeed best left closed. Instead, she asked pointedly, "Will you live at sea from now on?"
His smile was bittersweet. "You mean, you want to make sure that I won't be living with you from now on."
"Yes," she admitted. "That's what I mean. I suppose we'll have to see each other from time to time, if you are to be Gaborian's father, but—"
"I will live at sea," he replied. "I will come ashore often, though. As the sea king and as Gaborian's father, I hope to have enough influence to prevent any more Valdani in Sileria from being murdered. Starting today."
It was such a calmly selfless answer, it surprised her. Nonetheless, she said firmly, "And when you come ashore—"
"Don't worry," he assured her without resentment. "I will never disturb your bed again. I belong to her now, and..." He shrugged. "It wouldn't be right to go to another woman—least of all to one who doesn't love me."
"You're..." She thought she'd misunderstood. "You're going to be faithful to her?"
Ronall smiled. "Yes, Elelar. I am."
"I don't believe you."
"I know." He shrugged. "It doesn't matter."
"No, I suppose not."
"But I would like to be Gaborian's father," he said. "And to see him often, if I may. I imagine he's the only child I'll ever have."
She nodded in acceptance of that. "Now the sea-born will have a stake in what happens on land, since the sea king is father of the Yahrdan."
"I think it's why a drylander was chosen," he said. "Well, one of the reasons, anyhow. To unite the sea-born and the landfolk of Sileria."
The Destroyer Goddess Page 50