by Jackie Dana
“Indeed, Kate, I intend to do exactly that,” he said.
“Then begin by telling us how you could show up here after your fight with Arric, and act like nothing’s happened.” Her fury was rising as fast as a thermometer in boiling water. “In Sarnoc robes, no less. How dare you!”
“Ah, Kate, do you not understand? I ‘dare’ because I can. It’s who I am. I am Sarnoc.” He rested his hands on the back of the chair, the gesture casual, relaxed. “In fact, I have been Sarnoc for about nine years now.”
“That’s not possible.” Her voice was shaky, and she sucked in a deep breath through her nose. Really, if she thought she could have ripped him apart with her bare hands, she might have tried. “I know the stories. You were the Aldrish, you did whatever Vosira Bedoric wanted. You helped keep the Sarnoc out of the city all those years. There’s no way you’ve been working with them all this time.”
He sat down in the chair he had pulled out for her a short time before, and filled a third cup. “Come. Both of you, sit down with me.”
“I’m fine where I am,” Nyvas spat from his spot at the window.
Kate, however, dropped into a chair across from him, and grabbed two of the cups, reaching behind her to hand one to Nyvas. She could feel her face flushing hot with anger. “If you’re telling the truth, then how can you possibly explain all the things you did?”
“Of course I am speaking the truth.” He gazed around the room, as if he had never been in the tower, or perhaps testing the power within the stones. “Not that I had any intention of lying to you before. As I have insisted multiple times, my dear, I have never lied to you.”
“Bullshit. You’ve lied to me every second since you met me,” she replied, “and don’t try to deny it. You made me think you were the exact opposite of who you claim to be now.”
“Aye, you bastard,” Nyvas agreed, advancing on him. “If you were Sarnoc, how could you have allowed Bedoric to do all those horrible things all these years? You could have saved so many people—but instead, you encouraged his actions, you endorsed them. Some even say you were the one that came up with all those things in the first place.”
“Indeed, that was my mission,” Rynar replied calmly, as if entirely unconcerned by their open animosity towards him. “My dear Kate,” he said, addressing her specifically, “can you not see that? It was my job to make everyone believe I was the most loyal man in Bedoric’s service, and along with that, I had to agree with most of his ideas about the Sarnoc. It was the only way I could gain his trust, or that of anyone else in Loraden.”
“You could have told me.” She propped her elbows on the table, and clenched her hands into fists. It was all she could do to restrain herself. “You lied to me—to my face—about all of this. Even when I asked you to help me save my friends.” Her voice was loud and furious, and the words of Lysander and Fantion rang out in her mind, especially when they accused her of being enchanted by this man. “I begged you to help them. But you told me over and over how you couldn’t do anything. My friends, especially Nyvas, were suffering, and you wouldn’t even let me go see them. If you were really Sarnoc, you would have done something. You would have tried to help. You know as well as I do that you totally had the Vosira within your control. You could have gotten him to release Nyvas, or at least send him a healer. Instead, you did nothing.”
Rynar narrowed his eyes. “Nothing, my dear? Nothing?” Now he stood up, and sucked in a breath. His voice was still smooth, like it always was, but there was an edge to it this time. “Do you think it’s pure luck that your friend here is still alive?” He leaned forward. “Do you not remember the walk we took into the city, in the fog? Do you think all that happened by accident, that your friends just happened to be ready for us at that exact moment?” And then he snapped his hand to point at Nyvas. “And don’t forget—I healed him. I did save him. Or do you not remember that day?”
“Oh what, you’re going to take credit for all of that now?” How could he sit here and pretend he had been looking out for her and her friends all this time? “As I recall, we went out that day because you received a message. It wasn’t like it was your idea. And you weren’t going to do a damned thing for Nyvas until I held a blade to your throat. You were going to let him die, just like that.” She snapped her fingers for emphasis.
“My dear, you have it all wrong. Remember, you were never sent to the dungeon while I was in the keep. I saved you from that. And although you wouldn’t know it, I saved your friend here from an immediate hanging, and against Bedoric’s orders I went to check on him twice, ensuring he didn’t die in that cell, though I don’t expect he’d remember, as he was in bad shape. I would have done more if I could have, but there were limits, lest anyone discover what I was doing. And even so, I never let you see how much those things cost me. As for Arric, aye, you’re correct on his account. I did not speak up for him. I wasn’t sure of his motives at the time, and wasn’t convinced it was worth the risk of getting in between the brothers. Then again, I truly believed Bedoric would not harm a member of his own family. In fact, until today I was as much in the dark about how their father died as anyone else.”
He sipped at his wine, and then lowered his voice when he continued. “Even so, we came up with a plan to help Arric escape. It wasn’t an accident that he became gravely ill from adoli, as I suspect you know. Sofinar had none in the apothecary, so I had to travel all the way to Altopon to get some from the apothecary.” Not pausing for a response, he continued. “I made sure to remind Bedoric that if Arric died, people would believe he had poisoned his own brother while in captivity. So it offered an opportunity to bring Sarnoc into the keep, and then Jiona provided a chance to get him out of the city.”
Kate felt the tears filling her eyes. Tears of anger, tears of confusion. She remembered what Arric told her about his time with the Sarnoc and his subsequent involvement in the Jiona festival, and Rynar’s explanation fit perfectly with that. “We?”
“Aye, Sarnoc Vaj and I came up with the plan. With Sofinar’s help.” He smiled. “Why do you think I wanted to be at Jiona so early? I wanted to make sure I was close enough in case something went wrong. And I was able to hold off most of the soldiers until you had a head start, although some raced off before they could be recalled.” He reached out and with one finger on her chin, turned her face towards his. “There were several places we thought he might go, one of which was a cave along the river, which offered his best chances. I hoped if he went that way he could find it using his land-instinct. It would have brought him all the way to Altopon.”
She couldn’t breathe. Surely he couldn’t have known about that detail if he hadn’t been involved. Gripping the edge of the table, she spat out, “for someone who claims to have set it up, you didn’t seem very happy about how it all turned out.”
That surprised him. “My dear, what do you mean?”
“I’m talking about Jiona. When Arric chose me as riliaga, you looked like you wanted to strangle him. Or was that just good acting on your part?”
The question caused Rynar to avert his eyes, and he remained silent.
“Aldrish, answer her.”
“I am no longer Aldrish,” he snapped in return. Suddenly angry, he kicked his feet forward to push his chair back abruptly, and stepped to the window closest to the door.
“Rynar, answer me. If this is all true, then why were you upset that he chose me?”
He turned around. “I would rather not answer that question.”
“What? Why not? It’s not a difficult question. Just tell me.”
Nyvas stepped over to Kate, and crouched down beside her. “He didn’t want you to go with Arric because he has feelings for you.” He looked up at Rynar. “Right? You knew what Jiona required, and you wanted her to be with you, not him.”
Rynar swallowed. “Nay.” He walked back to the table, where he sat down less gracefully than he typically moved, and drank some of the wine. “I didn’t know she was going to be chosen a
s riliaga. Arric was very clear that he planned to choose Bhara Merel. He was going to take her just into the woods, and then find his way to the cave alone. There was no expectation that he would complete his duty as caliaga. At least that way, it wouldn’t have seemed suspicious, and would buy him enough time to get out of immediate danger.” He drank more wine.
“So I don’t understand. Why did it matter that he chose me instead? If your goal was for him to escape, you knew I’d help him, so what was the big deal?”
For the first time since she had met him, Rynar looked like he was at a loss for words, and uncomfortable at the situation unfolding in front of him. He put his hands on the table, and then pulled them back quickly. Then he looked up at the ceiling.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
He looked at her, and to Nyvas. “This should be a private conversation between us, Kate.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so. You lost that privilege back in your tent, when you screamed at me about the ring, and then when you tried to kill Arric.”
He laughed. “Oh Kate, I had no intention of killing him. He challenged me, and I gave him a good fight. After everything that had happened, we both needed that. That’s all it was, for me. I never would have issued a deathblow. As for the ring—I am truly sorry for my reaction. I lost my temper, something that surprised me as much as you. It’s just that I had no idea where it was, and the sudden sight of it terrified me, and with the way you were acting…” he trailed off, leaving that comment incomplete. “If Bedoric had seen the Charvos ring around your neck, he would have killed you right then and there, to get it back. You know what the ring’s significance is, now. Do you not see that?”
“He’s right about that, Kate,” Nyvas agreed.
“Of course I am.”
“So then, what’s the deal with Jiona?”
He rolled his head back. “Aye, very well.” He leaned forward and pointed a finger at Nyvas. “This is between her and me. You are not to breathe a word of this outside this room, least of all to your friends out there—including the Vosira.”
Nyvas blinked rapidly. “You have my word.”
“And me?”
“That’s up to you, I suppose.” He reached across the table for her hand.
She pulled her hands away.
Although the gesture seemed to sting his pride, he still raised his eyes to meet hers. Very softly, he said, “I’m your father.”
The words hung in the space between them. “What?” She felt paralyzed. “You’re crazy.” She wasn’t shouting now. As she sat there, she closed her eyes, and the room seemed to spin, until she felt Nyvas’s hand on her shoulder.
Meanwhile, Rynar too had closed his eyes, and swallowed a couple of times. “I didn’t want you to go with Arric because—I was worried you’d be killed. I was afraid that I’d lose you.”
“This can’t be happening.”
“My dear, I’ve been wanting to tell you since that first morning when you showed up, but I didn’t know you, and I didn’t know how you’d respond to a stranger telling you something like this.” He took a deep breath. “As the gods are my witness, I loved Melaine, your mother,” he said, his words soft and filled with pain. “I loved her more than anything, ever. I still love her. Even so, they sent her away, and only afterwards did they even tell me it was because she was with child.” He closed his eyes again. “I never even got to say goodbye to her.”
Kate’s head was swimming, and now she was clinging to the table. Only Nyvas’s touch seemed to keep her from falling over. She was convinced he was lying—that somehow, the master manipulator had found a way around the magic of the tower. “You must have me mixed up with someone else. You’re not even old enough to be my father.”
He shrugged. “I can’t explain that, other than to say that tradition holds that time moves at different paces in other worlds.”
“I don’t believe you.” She was crying in earnest now. “This is just another one of your lies.”
His expression was different from anything she had seen before. No longer was he wearing the cocky, self-assured mask she had come to expect from him. “Surely your mother told you something about me?”
“No, of course she didn’t, because it’s not true. My father’s dead.” She continued to lean against the table, finding its smooth surface comforting as she felt her heart being cut adrift from her body. There was no reality, no safe place where she could retreat, nothing she could do to center herself. Finally, she found a tiny amount of courage. “How would you even know it was me, anyway? How can you be so sure?”
He reached for her right hand, the one on which she wore her mother’s ring. “There were two clues. First, you look so much like Melaine that I thought my heart would break the moment I met you. And second, I would have recognized this anywhere. It was my Sarnoc ring. I gave it to Melaine the morning we spoke the Oath of Alisavi to each other, and in turn, she gave me hers.” He held up his glysar ring that was his most prized possession.
“Kate, he is telling the truth,” Nyvas said gently.
In response to that, Rynar held up his hands in front of him. “Aye, and I regret now that I couldn’t do so before. As Kerthal is my witness, the last thing I’d ever want would be to bring pain or harm to my daughter.”
Chapter 64
“Is everything sorted out now?” Sebachin asked, as he joined the pair in his quarters, and he peered into the pitcher. “You finished my wine as well, I see,” he added playfully.
Rynar had left a few minutes before, but neither Kate nor Nyvas had moved to follow. “Oh Seb, sorry about that.”
He laughed. “It’s wine, Kate.” He pulled up a chair. “Did you sort everything out with him?”
She kicked at the leg of the table with her toes, and didn’t look up at him. “Did you know all along that he was Sarnoc?”
Sebachin shook his head. “I did not. He was long gone from Altopon before I became Pasadhi, and to my knowledge he never set foot in the city after he left, until tonight. I only learned of his identity a few days ago myself, when he set up the camp outside the city, and Sarnoc Vaj called us all together so we wouldn’t worry. I assume he told you other things as well?”
She stared at the table. “Like the fact that he’s my father?” she said, still resentful about it. “Yeah, he told us.”
Sebachin nodded. “Sarnoc Vaj told me that part, in confidence, last night. Kate, I’m really sorry no one told you before now. Things would have been much easier—”
“Nay, it’s good she didn’t know,” Nyvas interjected.
“Why would you say that, Nyvas?” she asked, a bit stung by his words. “He’s been hiding it from me all along.”
The boy rubbed his hands together, taking the time to collect his thoughts. “You would have acted differently had you known who he really was,” he explained. “The distrust you had for him was genuine. Imagine the day you rescued me. You might have made different decisions, and at the very least, you would have felt obligated to tell Fantion and the others. This way, his secret remained safe, as did mine.”
“Oh god, I don’t know. I guess you’re probably right.” She swung her head back, and stared at the ceiling for a moment. “I just think back to all the interactions I had with him before, all the things that made me come to hate him, and then I find this out.”
“From what I hear, he took great risks to protect you,” Sebachin suggested. “And to save Nyvas and Vosira Arric as well.”
“When you look back on all of it, you’re right, but…” She sighed. “It’s all just too much to process.”
“Aye, it is indeed.” He looked at her and then at Nyvas. “I suspect you’re both hungry. From what I gather, neither of you have eaten much all day.” He looked to Nyvas in particular. “You look like you need to eat for ten people, truth be told.”
The boy shrugged. “I’ve not been very hungry.”
“He’s been through a lot, Seb.”
The Pas
adhi nodded. “Indeed, it takes its toll on a person, having to go through all of what you’ve both experienced. I don’t think either of you have had a quiet, safe day in weeks, am I right?”
Kate traced a random design on the table with her fingertip. “We didn’t really have much choice.”
“Aye, that may well be, but I don’t want either of you falling ill before the Vosira’s oath ceremony. You both need some time to relax and recover.”
“What do you mean?”
Sebachin held up his hand. “One moment.” He walked to the door of the tower and a laliri handed him a tray loaded with food. “Nyvas, would you give me a hand?” He handed the tray to Nyvas as he was given a second one, this time with a pitcher and three stout bottles. As he slid it to the table beside the first one, he announced to the pair, “it’s just a start, but the rest of the night is ours to feast.”
Kate giggled, just a bit, feeling the mood already lighter. “What’s in all of these?” she asked, pointing to the bottles.
“I haven’t a clue. Let’s find out, shall we?”
The pitcher, it turned out, contained spring water. Each of them opened one of the bottles in turn. “I’ve got quinsa,” Sebachin announced.
“Wine here,” Nyvas proclaimed.
Kate had a bit of trouble cracking the wax on hers, but when she uncorked it she sniffed it and appeared puzzled. “Not sure about this.” She poured a small bit into a cup and sipped it. “It’s havar, but—”
Nyvas tasted it as well. “That doesn’t taste like any havar I’ve had before.”
Sebachin followed suit. “Ah, that’s because you’ve never had the Sarnoc version.” He poured a measure into two more cups, and refilled the first. “Here, they age it in casks in the cellars for a generation.” He looked at markings on a wax seal on the bottle. “This...” he started, and whistled. “They must really think highly of you two. This is older than me!”