She shrugged. “And here’s another idea. How would you like the sitting room here on the first floor as a bedchamber? It would be far more convenient for you.”
“My Liege? The one attached to this room?”
“I’m not using it. Now that Council’s adjourned, there won’t be much noise. I’d love to move you back to your own chambers in the old palace, but you and I both know that would be worse than upstairs. At least at the moment.”
“I suppose.”
“And when I get back from my ‘tour’ with Malaki, we can see if there’s any way to improve your mobility. I can’t imagine what it’s like not being able to just get up and go wherever you want whenever you want to. Maybe there’s something we can do about that. Oh, and when you do move back to the old palace, I’ll give you the Zanlot quarters on the first floor.”
“Thank you, my Liege.” A man with no leg had no business allowing pride to rule him. He needed help, and she was offering it.
“Good.” She leaned in close. “And thank you. I don’t know how you did it, but watching you rise as I entered the room told me everything I’d ever want to know about your loyalty. I saw how you struggled, and it was a noble act. But don’t do it again until you’re stronger, all right?”
“No, my Liege.” His lips broadened into a smile he couldn’t control. His Empir had come home, she was well, and her sense of humor had returned—at least when her demons left her alone.
“Now, I’ll go meet Malaki for lunch. And afterwards, you can advise me on how to deal with all of Lorain’s people in Tonkin and what might smooth the way with Holder Dors.”
After she’d gone, Nalin stared at the conference table, covered in everyone’s notes and other paperwork, and thought back on the meeting. One recurring thought ran through his mind, and it was the truth as he knew it. Flandari could not have done any better.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
greatdark
Nalin sat back at the table in the family dining hall in the Keep and smiled at the joy of watching his three favorite people—Bala, his mother and the Empir—celebrating Greatdark and the return of the light. A year ago he’d shared this holiday with Empir Flandari, Creators bless her, with no hint of the wins and losses the year to come would rain down upon them. He’d been a child then; he was no longer a child.
The nearly month-and-a-half since the close of Council had aged him. Lisen had headed off to confer with the Zanlot faction in Tonkin with Malaki Mira, a discussion which had evolved into a healthy give-and-take regarding what they felt would best serve the Zanlot heir—and, potentially, Garla’s. They’d all agreed that Elor should stay in Avaret for a full education from the finest tutors in the realm, and, at Nalin’s suggestion, Lisen had promised she would never speak to the child unflatteringly of his mother. Then, Lisen ordered them to send one hundred potential soldiers to Avaret for training no later than the middle of January.
That done, she and Malaki had ridden on to Pagma, the capital of Carlasa. What had transpired there had not turned out to be nearly as favorable. Tazori Dors had spent the entirety of their stay insisting that Lisen dismiss her current Will, but Lisen had countered politely that she was the Empir and only she would decide who would and would not serve as her Will. Nalin had thanked her for that show of support upon her return to Avaret, and shortly after, the first recruits for their army had begun to arrive.
“Nalin!” Bala’s voice intruded on his reverie.
“What?”
“Your Empir just toasted your accomplishments this past year, and you’re sitting there staring at the wall.”
Nalin sat up straight. “Forgive me, my Liege. I was actually considering all you’d accomplished since Council.”
“Getting myself in trouble mostly.” Lisen smiled and raised her cup to him. “To Nalin Corday, without whom we’d all be somewhere else today.”
“To Nalin,” Bala and his mother echoed.
“Ah,” Nalin answered, “but where is the question.”
“Ssh.” Lisen put a forefinger to her lips.
Now it was Nalin’s turn. He pulled himself up with the help of the table, a maneuver he’d grown quite adept at, and standing on his one full leg, he picked his goblet up. “To Bala Tuane,” he said. “And to my mother who I hope will welcome Bala into our family.”
Kirana gasped, looked from Nalin to Bala and finally to Lisen. “You knew?” she asked Lisen.
“I’m the Empir,” Lisen replied with a wicked smile. “I know everything.”
Kirana jumped up and hugged Bala in a gesture that surprised Nalin. It wasn’t like his mother to be so demonstrative.
“And to the days and months ahead,” Bala offered somberly, once she was free of Kirana.
Kirana sat down. “Any word from the desert yet?”
Lisen shook her head. “No. But new recruits trickle in every day.”
“Many of Felane’s are waiting until after Greatdark,” Kirana said.
“That’s why we invited those already here into the great hall,” Lisen commented. “I think it’s important for those preparing to fight to celebrate the return of the sun.”
“You don’t think they’ll get too raucous?”
“Ah, Kirana,” Lisen answered. “Why do you think we watered down the wine?”
Nalin’s mother responded with a smile.
“Oh, Nalin,” Lisen said, “I just remembered. I got word from Dekar today. She should have your saddle ready in the next few days.”
“She didn’t contact me.”
“Because you never respond to her requests.”
“Can we…” he cleared his throat… “discuss this later?”
“Why would you need a saddle, Nalin?” Kirana asked. “Unless you’re—”
“Yes, Kirana,” Bala said, “he is going with her. It upset me at first, too, but he is the Empir’s Will. It’s his duty to be with her, and he’ll actually be safer on horseback than in a wagon or a carriage.”
“If I’m able to learn how to ride again.” Nalin did not appreciate this topic being brought up in front of his mother. It had been hard enough to convince Bala that this would be good for him when he wasn’t even sure of that himself.
“And when is this all going to happen? I mean, the war. Do we have any idea yet?”
Nalin watched as Lisen reassured his mother. “Don’t worry, Kirana, we’ll have plenty of warning. Our best sighters are watching the desert constantly although we’re fairly sure they won’t come until they’re ready, and they’re not likely to be ready much before spring.”
“Spring. Ah. Yes. Spring, a lovely time.”
Lisen reached a hand out to place it over one of Kirana’s. “He’s not going into battle, I promise. I just want him there beside me for advice.”
“Oh, well, that’s better, I suppose.” Kirana took a breath and turned abruptly to a different subject. “Are we going to light the lights?”
“No,” Bala answered. “We let the recruits do that earlier.”
“We thought it would help raise morale,” Lisen added. “They’re so far away from home.” She spoke wistfully, as though she, too, missed home. She probably does, Nalin thought. Perhaps a retreat to Solsta after the new year would bolster her spirits. He made a note to suggest it.
“Well,” Kirana said, rising. “I think I shall leave you young people here to celebrate. I need my sleep.”
Bala jumped up. “I’ll walk with you.”
Nalin’s stomach twisted. His betrothed finally able to speak freely with his mother? What stories would his mother come up with to embarrass him? Bala pecked him on the cheek, and then she and Kirana left for the old palace.
“Well, I enjoyed that,” Lisen said, then downed the last of her wine.
“What now?” Nalin asked.
“What?”
“What do we do now? Just wait?”
Lisen shrugged. “I don’t know. More research, more notes. Amended training plans, that sort of thing. Lots of meeting
s between you, me and the commander. And, I suppose I’ll go out now and then to rally the troops.”
“To boost morale,” Nalin commented, and he sounded surly even to himself.
“You’re in a mood.”
“It’s been a long year.”
Lisen’s face went somber. “It has, hasn’t it.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to distress you.”
She sighed. “So many people, so many lives. And all for Lisen Holt, a kid from the Valley.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
She paused, studied his face and then declared, “I wish I could make you whole. I wish I could make everyone whole. I wish…oh, how I wish I could resurrect the dead.”
“But you can’t, right?” Nalin didn’t know if he could handle her confessing she’d learned how to bring the dead back to life.
“No.” She shook her head. “But there is something you should know.”
And he listened as she proceeded to tell him a story filled with so much magic it couldn’t help but be true. Another world called “Earth,” another life as this Lisen Holt person, amazing machines that could take people places quickly and devices which could have made communication with the Rim instantaneous. For seven years she’d believed herself a part of this strange place, and then, without warning, Hermit Eloise had come to fetch her back. It certainly explained the degree of her anger at Eloise, something he’d never quite understood before. Not only had the sooth taken Lisen from her life here in Avaret, but she’d stolen her memories and allowed her to think she was someone she wasn’t. And then the hermit had rather unceremoniously yanked Lisen back and thrust her fate upon her in the time spanning one sunset and another. Just at the moment when she and Nalin had met.
They drank more wine as she talked, and when she finally finished her tale filled with some of those words Nalin had always found disconcerting when she spoke them, they both sighed. “Well, that answers some of my questions,” he said.
“And brings up more. Ask.”
Nalin shook his head. “No. Not now. Maybe later when I’ve thought about it.”
“Fair enough.”
They sat quiet for a few moments, Nalin reflecting on all that Eloise had put into motion by telling a mother not to trust one of her children. He could have no idea what Lisen contemplated, but he knew, despite her good spirits tonight, her guilt still held her captive.
She rose from her chair. “Well, I should get up to bed. I’ll send in the guards.” He nodded, and she started out but paused and turned at the door. “You know, there may be some ideas we can steal from Earth to help you get around. Let me think about it.” She pivoted with a bounce and was gone.
Soon two guards would come to help him to his room behind the Empir’s office. Lisen and Bala had set it up, and he had to admit that having only a door between his chamber and Lisen’s office was easier for him. He appreciated their gentle gesture, but the wine had worked its way into his soul, and an aching sadness enveloped him. Flandari, Jozan and Elsba—gone. Ariel and Lorain—eliminated and gone. The innocent world he’d never appreciated—gone as well. And all in one short year. They were about to embark on a path from which many would never return. But wasn’t that what he and Flandari had done that day they’d set off on the barge for Solsta?
“My lord?”
He looked up to see his “escorts” for the night in the door. “Yes. Come, come.” He gestured them in with the fingers of one hand. As they lifted him up, he thought of Lisen’s story of a world with solutions to a one-legged man’s immobility and prayed to the Creators it was true.
Hozia came to Korin’s chamber only a few minutes before Korin was about to leave for the Kolii. He hated leaving Rinli with the other children, but Hozia had informed him yesterday that his presence at the ceremony was expected. Damn Farii, he thought, making me show up for every damn seasonal ritual.
“Ready?” Hozia asked.
“Yes.” He leaned down to pick up Rinli, but paused as he felt Hozia’s hand upon his shoulder. “What?” he asked as he turned and straightened up.
“They want you to remember Ondra and Rika.”
Korin glanced away, taking that quick moment to compose his thoughts, and then glanced back. “Who are ‘they’?”
“The Elders.”
“‘They’ do know what I did?”
“Of course they do, but they insisted I invite you for this duty. Besides you didn’t kill them.”
Korin took a breath hoping it would calm him. It didn’t. “You know I would have if I’d had to.”
“They were your friends. Everyone knows that. You can’t ignore that fact. You also can’t ignore that we are about to follow prophecy into war.”
“And no one but you and I knows that.”
“But they will, eventually.”
“Ah, damn it, Hozia. How do I tell them what I saw without actually telling them what I saw?”
“You’ll find a way. Now, bring your child, or we’ll be late.”
“I’ll meet you up there.”
Hozia gave him a disapproving look.
“I’ll be there,” Korin insisted. “I need a minute alone is all.”
And at that, Hozia turned and left.
He worried. He worried that he’d leave Rinli in the care of those who’d volunteered in the caring chamber tonight and something would happen to her. They didn’t know she was Mantar’s Child. On the other hand, they also didn’t know she was the Heir of Garla. Or did they? It would only take one angry knowledgeable Thristan to kill her. His heart cracked at the thought. But it does no one any good to harm a child of the Farii.
He picked Rinli up, and, with the three-month-out in his arms smiling at him, he made his way up the tunnel. When he arrived at the caring chamber, Madlen ran to him and grabbed his leg.
“Are you here to play?” she asked, her dark eyes taunting him.
“No. I’m here to leave Rinli with you.”
“Ah, Korin.”
He looked up, and, to his relief, Madlen’s father approached him. “Arma, did you volunteer tonight?”
“Hozia asked me to watch after Rinli,” Arma replied. “Besides, it’s been a good year for us. No one for us to grieve. Oh, and you do know Regat just pouched.”
“No, I hadn’t heard.”
“Yes, two days ago. Two months of fighting nausea, and now she can’t get enough to eat.” Arma laughed, and Korin joined him.
“So, Madlen, you’re going to have a little brother or sister soon.”
“Not as good as Rinli,” Madlen replied with a scowl.
“Not happy with the idea, is she,” Korin commented.
Arma shrugged. “She’s decided Rinli is hers, and that’s enough.”
Korin handed his daughter off to Arma and then leaned down to speak directly with the little girl who had urged him to “make it come” during the Hanii. “You take care of Rinli while I’m gone, all right?”
“Oh, yes, Korin.”
And knowing that his child was protected nearly as well as he himself could protect her, Korin left the caring chamber and headed up to the trapdoor which would lead him out onto the top of the mesa where the Tribe gathered for the Kolii.
He joined the line of The People waiting to climb out and nodded to a few he recognized. Not everyone here had lost someone this year, but many had. It would be a long night standing in the moonlight.
He ascended the stairs and found Hozia waiting for him.
“Come. Over here.” She grabbed his arm and dragged him to the large semicircle of people who wore their heaviest robes against the deep chill of a desert winter night. They’d gathered around a pile of personal belongings and would use them to remember friends and family members.
His stomach turned, his breakfast refusing to settle. This was not how he’d pictured this night. He knew that as the parent of a Farii child, his presence here was expected, but the last thing he’d anticipated was recalling with fondness two people who had ridi
culed himself and Lisen while she was here and then had kidnapped the Empir, unaware of her identity until she’d arrived at the Khared in the custody of their comrades. Lisen’s description of how they’d treated her had sickened him, poisoning her with the gryl to the point that she’d gone blind. And now, to commemorate them?
He pulled his hood up over his head to stand as all the others stood. Hozia remained with him, and he wondered why until he realized that someone would have to remember Elder Barok and that someone was Hozia.
“Be gentle,” Hozia whispered. “Some of these people believe Ondra and Rika were heroes.”
“I know,” Korin replied softly.
In the end, they remembered nearly twenty members of the Tribe in this most somber of the yearly rituals. When it came Korin’s turn, he stepped forward, and in the light of the full moon, he stood without lifting anything from the collection of the remembered ones’ belongings. Nothing of Ondra’s or Rika’s had been retrieved when he and his people had left the Khared, and many had remarked upon Korin’s return how their chamber here had held nothing of a personal nature at all.
“I remember Ondra Nurog. We were childhood friends who reunited when I returned from Garla this year. She knew how to laugh, and she was more Thristan than any of us.” He paused with a sigh, then continued. “I remember Rika Tirad. We, too, were childhood friends. Others here may remember the three of us tearing around the mesa, knocking our elders down as we ran past.” Again he paused, this time the memories rushing back like the floods of a summer storm, rising and receding, its passage barely noted. “They died,” he continued, “an honorable death by their definition of honor, and for all of us, I believe, that is the finest meaning of a life. Remember Ondra. Remember Rika.”
He backed up into the semicircle again to voices echoing his last four words.
Hozia stepped forward as the very last to share memories of the dead.
“I remember Elder Barok. He, like Ondra and Rika, suffered from a kind of honor most of us can’t understand, and for that suffering he sacrificed his life. Remember Barok.”
Blooded (Lisen of Solsta Book 3) Page 29