Last night, he, Elsba and Bala had sat late into the evening carving out plans for the when, where and how of their Heir’s challenge. In the middle of this, Captain Palla had arrived with word that Rosarel and the girl had taken up residence in a nondescript inn in the middle of Saktoff. Nalin had said nothing to anyone, but the relief he’d felt at the news that Lisen was safe and nearby had nearly incapacitated him. Rosarel had brought her home. Palla then advised Nalin that he and Rosarel had figured out how to get Nalin there without spying eyes preying upon them.
Early this morning, wearing his regular garb, Nalin had taken a walk to a deserted park where he had met up with the captain who had pretended to be a drunk vagrant as a diversion while Nalin had stolen into a secluded clearing. There, he’d dressed in an old tunic and patched leggings and wrapped himself up in a smelly homespun cloak the captain had brought for him. Then he’d left the small meadow by a different route, heading for the outskirts of town where he and the captain had met up again. Handing Nalin the reins to one of the two horses he’d secured, the captain assured him that they had indeed managed to avoid being followed.
It had taken only twenty minutes to reach Saktoff, Avaret’s satellite port and sanctuary for those who preferred to avoid the pressures of the capital but enjoy the benefits of living in its proximity. Certainly a more relaxed and comfortable atmosphere reigned here, and Nalin had always envied those who could flee Avaret in favor of its smaller, quieter counterpart.
Now they made their way down a small street and arrived at an inn only a shade less seedy than the horrid hole of a hostel where Jozan had died, and Nalin shivered. If for no other reason than for Jozan’s sake, and for Flandari’s, this must not fail. Ariannas Ilazer must assume the role her mother had planned for her, no matter the cost.
They dismounted, Nalin grabbing the pack he’d brought, and the captain reached out his hand for the reins to Nalin’s horse. As Nalin handed them over, he heard the inn’s door open and looked up to see the other captain, Rosarel—a bit thinner perhaps after his sojourn in Thristas, but otherwise unchanged—step out and nod to Captain Palla. Immediately Palla departed, taking the horses and leaving Nalin alone with the dark-haired man.
“My lord,” Rosarel said, stepping down to the street where Nalin stood.
“Captain?”
“A moment, please, before we go in.”
“Where’s the Heir?” And why aren’t you taking me to her? Nalin wondered.
“Inside. She’s safe and eager to see you again.”
“But?”
With a sigh, Rosarel looked away, as though gathering his thoughts, and then turned back to Nalin, leaning in and speaking so softly that no one, save Nalin, could hear. “My lord, I need to warn you. She’s changed. You haven’t seen her in two months, and something happened to her out in the desert.”
“What?” Nalin demanded too loudly and immediately lowered his voice. “What happened? What’s wrong with her?”
“Nothing, my lord. Nothing’s wrong with her. But she’s not the innocent that you might remember. It’s the cost of having to make difficult decisions.”
“What decisions? What happened out there?” What aren’t you telling me?
“Remember, she left for the desert immediately after the dispossession. She probably wasn’t entirely ready to make the journey, but she did. That was a difficult decision. Then our deception was nearly exposed when they asked us to participate in one of their rituals. She agreed to it, and it couldn’t have been easy for her. All I’m trying to tell you is that she’s not the child you remember, and I think you should know that before you see her.”
Nalin nodded. “All right. You’ve warned me. Now let me see her.”
“This way.” Rosarel gestured up the steps into the inn, and Nalin followed him inside and to a small back room on the first floor. He entered the room behind the captain, his eyes adjusting slowly to the heavy darkness, and saw a figure stand up from a cot. It was the Heir, leaner, just like the captain, but looking otherwise no different than before. In his mind, after all Rosarel had said, he had expected her to appear scarred and broken, perhaps much older than he remembered. But no, she seemed much the same.
“My lord,” she said, her voice altered slightly to a deeper, richer tone.
“My Liege.”
“Tell me your plan,” she said and gestured to the cot beside hers. They both sat down, and Rosarel opened up the shutters to the window, allowing light in for the first time. He, however, remained standing.
At the retreat of darkness, Nalin studied her more closely. She retained her long red-kissed light locks, pulled back at her neck into a single braid down her back, much like Rosarel’s. Her eyes seemed deeper somehow, but the cool blue-green remained. “Holder Tuane and I have put together a plan we think will work,” he began. “The Council is gathered, and the session will convene tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow it is, then.”
“No, actually we think tonight at the Empir’s welcome dinner would be better.”
“A dinner?” she asked.
“The entire Council will be there, but because it’s all about the food and the drink and only peripherally about business, nobody will be expecting anything out of the ordinary to happen tonight.”
“Good,” she said while Rosarel stood back against the wall, a silent sentry. “So what’s the plan?”
“The hardest part will be getting you in.” He pulled his pack up onto the cot beside him. “I’ve brought you Corday livery. You’ll get in by telling the guards that you have an urgent message for me. Once inside, you can assert your claim. I have the documents in here as well.”
There was a knock at the door, and as the two of them looked on, Rosarel turned, whispered something at the door, waited for an answer, opened it to Captain Palla, and then closed the door behind him.
She turned back to Nalin. “Go on.”
“We expect Ariel to react badly to this.”
“Wouldn’t you?” she commented.
“It’s likely he’ll arrest you.”
“Because?”
“Because in his mind you’ve been a threat to him for months from one angle, and now it turns out you could destroy him from another, too,” Nalin replied. “He’s been searching for the necropath who can connect him to Flandari’s death, and when he learns who you really are, well, he’s a frightened boy with more to fear from you than he imagined.”
“Of course.”
“But we’re prepared,” Nalin continued, shifting on the cot.
“How?”
“Captain Palla is currently assigned to duty in the dungeon,” he explained.
“My commander is sympathetic,” Palla added.
“What does she know?” Korin asked, his manner guarded.
“Nothing,” Nalin replied with a sigh. “Or rather, very little. I took her into my confidence the night I returned from Solsta, but I only told her about the pushing of the assassin and the necropath’s knowledge of it. The other? Well, I left that part out.”
“Good,” Korin responded with a nod.
Damn irritating man, Nalin thought, then returned to Ariannas. “So with the captain in the dungeon, he can alert us if it looks like you’re in trouble,” Nalin continued.
“Then what?” the girl asked.
“Tomorrow morning, Elsba and I will defend your claim to the Council.”
“While I’m stuck in the dungeon.”
He smiled. “No. We’ll insist on your presence during all proceedings. Then we’ll demand that Ariel release you into our custody for the duration of the hearings on the matter.”
She nodded. “I’m not exactly fond of being locked up in a dungeon. What if something happens to me before you get me out?”
“Yell,” Palla said. “I’ll be there.”
“We’ll get to you,” Nalin promised. “Even if we have to use the secret passageway.”
The girl shivered. “A dungeon. How medieval.”
&n
bsp; There was another one of those odd words, Nalin realized. He’d forgotten about that, but he moved on, pretending he hadn’t noticed. “You won’t be alone,” he said and touched her knee. “Besides the captain here, your friend Eloise is down there.”
“What?”
Her shock at this news shouldn’t have surprised Nalin, but it did. He’d known for so long, had tried for so long to get Elsba in to see his sister, that the girl’s ignorance took a moment to absorb. He sighed and looked up at the captains. “Leave us. Both of you.”
“My lord?” Rosarel asked.
“Leave us.”
Rosarel nodded, and the two men left the room.
“What’s going on?” the girl asked, and Nalin realized that something about her pale eyes was different. They’d grown hard, or maybe it was the hardness of the news she’d just received.
“Eloise was arrested the day of your mother’s rites. Ariel’s been trying to get information from her ever since, especially about you. About ‘the necropath,’ that is.”
“Has he been torturing her?”
“We don’t think so. Captain Palla’s been watching out for her, and he’s assured us that she’s being treated well enough. But she’s not safe. It’s possible that once you’ve made your claim and revealed everything your brother feels Eloise withheld from him, he’ll—”
“—execute her?” the girl—Lisen—finished for him. “He’s a monster, isn’t he?”
“Some might say so.”
“Do you?”
“When he murdered his mother, I joined their camp.”
She nodded.
“And another thing you should know.”
“Yes?”
“Holder Zanlot is pouched with your brother’s child.”
“Wow, she wasted no time, did she.”
“They have yet to join, however,” Nalin continued. “Not sure why he’s hesitating.”
“From everything I’ve learned about her, he probably couldn’t find a better ally.”
Nalin shook his head. “Not really,” he said, then paused, considering whether to ask what troubled him most. “And my Liege?” he finally ventured, trying to get her to look at him.
“Please. I’ve got Korin calling me ‘Lisen,’ finally. You’re much higher up in the social order, and ‘my Liege’ makes me uncomfortable.”
“All right, then. ‘Lisen’ it is.”
“Thank you.”
They sat in fleeting stillness, questions clamoring at the tip of Nalin’s tongue. “What happened out there?” he finally asked. “Rosarel says you’ve changed.”
“I don’t know what he’s talking about. I suppose I’ve changed, but it wasn’t just the desert.”
He said nothing, waited in the hope that she’d elaborate, and after another moment of silence in which his own sense of the awkward expanded to encompass them both, she shifted, sighed, and then continued.
“I’m nothing like what you think I am.” She rose and began to pace, slowly, in the tiny room. “It’s too complicated to explain now, but my life at Solsta is a very old memory. I have newer ones, and now they’ve faded, too, into a swirl of self-defense, possession and desert ways. The person I thought I was has faded away, replaced by someone I hardly know.”
He looked up at her, at where she’d paused before him. “It was probably inevitable,” he commented.
“Could I become a monster?”
“What?”
“It’s a simple enough question. I’m his sister. Do you think it’s possible?” She let the question hang.
He reached out, took her hand and urged her to sit back down on the cot across from him. “I can’t imagine how hard this is for you. But you’re not a monster. You could never be a monster.”
“It’s the loneliness,” she concluded sullenly.
“Yours or his?” Nalin asked.
“Does it matter?”
“But you’re not alone. We’re all here to help. Me, Elsba, Bala, your two captains. You don’t have to do this alone.”
“Ah, but I do, don’t I? In the end, I have to do it alone. I have to walk into that hall and challenge Ariel Ilazer and his right to rule. Alone.”
“Do you want us to come up with a different plan? Because if that’s what you want—”
But she wouldn’t let him finish. “No. No. Because no matter how I do it, in the end, I must face my brother alone.” She said this with such resolve, it startled him. Rosarel was right; she had changed.
“Your mother never planned for it to be like this.”
“I know.”
“If there’s anything I can do….” He trailed off, trying to come up with something more reassuring than he’d managed thus far. “Unite with me,” he burst out, then regretted it.
“What?” Her eyes grew wide, the ocean deep within them.
“Don’t act surprised. Your mother wanted us to be together. She never said so, but why else choose me to guide you when she suspected she might not be there herself to do so?”
“When? Now?”
“Not now. But promise me you’ll think about it. And in the darkness, remember I’m there with you.”
“I don’t know,” she said softly. “I’m sorry, but I just don’t know.”
He couldn’t deny his disappointment at her hesitation, but he patted her on the knee as though his proposal had meant nothing. “Don’t worry. I can wait. Let’s concentrate on getting you through tonight.”
“I’m scared,” she said, and he could almost feel the twisting of her stomach.
“So am I,” he admitted.
“I guess that’s comforting.”
He laughed. “It wasn’t meant to comfort. Just the truth. I’d wager Elsba and Bala are frightened, too.”
“And the captains?”
He shrugged. “I have no idea. What frightens those who’ve faced death many times?”
“I’ve faced death. It’s not death I fear.”
“No, I suppose not.” He smiled, and she returned his smile, and he saw in her something he had never noticed in Flandari. She projected warmth, strength, and a palpable solid presence in this moment. Flandari hadn’t lacked these qualities, but her daughter wore them for all to see.
“You’d better go.” She smiled. “I’m going to need you there tonight.”
“Yes, I should go.” Yet he hesitated. Here resided safety, security, and there…there and then lay the peril. But an even greater peril awaited if they avoided this one. So he rose, and she rose beside him. He stepped to the door, turned back to memorize her lightly freckled face, her arms-crossed stance, her committed, anything-but-fragile essence; then with a small nod, he said, “Until tonight.”
“Until tonight,” she responded, and there he left her.
Outside in the street, he found Rosarel and Palla and the two horses he and Captain Palla had ridden in on.
“Is she ready?” he asked of Rosarel.
“Aye, my lord,” the one-eyed captain replied with a nod.
“Are you sure?”
“As ready as she can be, my lord,” Rosarel assured him.
“Then tonight it is.” He mounted, Palla following him up onto his own horse, and they rode off at a trot, Nalin considering the good news he finally had for the Tuanes. The Heir was ready, and there was hope.
Lorain surveyed the formal hall—the servants busy making the last minor adjustments she had requested, the colorful family banners cleaned and now hung up on the walls, the long tables and chairs all in position, each place carefully labeled with an embroidered representation of the appropriate family crest. In the main, seniority determined the seating arrangement, but in some cases, a few Council members had moved farther forward based on their promised support for their new Empir and for his soon-to-be spouse as well.
She stood at the head table, looked out on the room and smiled. She had set out to prove something to the opposition, to Nalin and his ilk, and this dinner would do it. With so many preparations all converg
ing at this session, she had planned a dinner, a throning, a joining and a pouching announcement. The baby shifted in her pouch, as though it responded to her pride in her success, and she touched her belly absently.
After nearly two days of list-making and contemplation, she had finally allowed herself to believe that with nothing to connect her to the heinous push Ariel’s watcher had performed at his behest, her child would inherit if Ariel were found out. He would pay whatever price the Council determined appropriate, but she would be regent. This baby, who took and took from her now, who would continue to take more and more for many months to come, would be her alternate route to the throne. Thus, if Nalin were about to produce this necropath and even if he could make his accusations hold with the Council, her position would remain inviolate. Nalin couldn’t take over, not when an Heir of Ariel’s body, not when the only Ilazer left, thrived within her. She had every reason to smile.
One of the servants—she knew none of their names and didn’t care to learn them—stepped over to her.
“My lord,” the man said. “Does it meet with your approval?”
She took one last look around, then turned and said, “Yes. Yes, it does. Now, just so we’re clear. Serving will begin at half past, food first, wine last.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“And clearing will begin when I order it.”
“Not before, my lord.”
She nodded. “Good.” She nodded again. “Yes, very good.” And after one last survey of the room, she left the grand hall and ascended the stairs to her own bedchamber, a room which she had only officially taken as her own yesterday, after Ariel’s proposal of union. After his blackmailed proposal of union, she thought wryly. She slammed the door behind her and stopped in the middle of the room, which was only slightly smaller than Ariel’s, her fists on hips with arms akimbo, and stared at herself in the mirror.
Even if the Council determines that he set a manipulated lackey on his mother, she thought, even if they find him guilty of playing a part in Flandari’s assassination, they’ll never execute an Ilazer. She smiled at her reflection. They would exile him to Kakalos—the Anvil some called it—an island to the northwest of Bedel’s capital, her beloved Tonkin, where he would live out his life alone. With her broad distance from the act, not having actually been informed of his involvement in his mother’s death until two nights ago, she knew they’d never force her to join him, and the Keep of Avaret would be her home as regent.
Tainted (Lisen of Solsta Book 2) Page 26