Rudol clenched his fists and turned back toward his father.
“I’m sorry,” Gerod said, grabbing Shona’s wrist with his other hand. And then again, almost a sob, “I’m sorry. I… I failed you. I never thought… that she would kill you. I didn’t think Benedern would let her. I… underestimated how far… she would go.”
Benedern. So he was involved in the rebellion. The rumors are true. Rudol had heard it said more than once, but until that moment he’d never known for certain the root of his father’s feud with the high chastor. There were, it occurred to him, a great many things a dying man might tell his lost love that he would never say to his sons.
“You’re talking about Deoma Luthas?” Shona said, halfway between a question and a statement. “The rebellion. I… I forgive you. Don’t think about that now.”
“No!” Gerod sat up convulsively, still holding her hand in both of his. “Do not say that!” He didn’t have the strength to truly shout, but his voice rose into a louder rasp. “I deserve no forgiveness. I should have saved you, and instead I replaced you.”
Shona tried to pull her hand away, but apparently the king’s grip was still strong, even now. She looked at Rudol for help; he didn’t move. He should have stopped it there, but he couldn’t. Even if his father survived, against every prediction his physicians had made—even if he lived for another hundred years—he would never speak like this again. Rudol knew that for a certainty, as much as he knew the winds would blow or the sun would rise. He had to hear more. He had to.
“I wanted to… to fix things,” Gerod said between gasps for breath. “To create a kingdom… where what happened to you… could not happen again. I needed a queen. Heirs. Stability. But she was never your equal, my love. She wasn’t worthy.”
“Enough.” Josen moved to intercede, took a step toward Shona. Rudol grabbed his arm, and held him fast. “What are you—that’s our mother he’s talking about!”
“Shut up,” Rudol hissed, tightening his grip. “For once in your life, shut up and listen.”
Gerod’s eyes were wide now, and his pupils seemed to have doubled in size. Tears flowed openly down his cheeks. “I tried to keep her safe, protect her from what happened to you… gave her everything that was supposed to be yours… and she betrayed me.” He said the word with such fervor that red-flecked spittle flew from his mouth. “God Above, I should have died with you. Better that than to have… lived this lie for so long.”
“What is he—” Josen shut his mouth when Rudol twisted his arm again.
“I told no one,” Gerod said. “No one but you, now. How could I? To do what I had to do… a king can never show weakness. If anyone had known… You understand, don’t you? I… I don’t deserve forgiveness, but tell me… that you understand. That is all I ask. Say you understand!”
“Prince Rudol, this can’t go on,” said Chastor Ren. “He doesn’t have the strength. Master Jovert said that he wasn’t to be agitated.”
Mulley was right—Rudol knew that he was. But something was growing in his chest—fear and anticipation on top of each other, like he felt when a Deepling was near. He didn’t want to know, but he had to. He released Josen’s arm and knelt beside Shona. “Understand what, Father?” With a shaking hand, he touched his father’s arm. “What is she supposed to understand?”
Gerod recoiled from his touch, looked at him with the eyes of madness. A cough wracked the king’s body, and another, and then a fit was upon him. But he never released Shona’s hand. Instead, he pulled her closer. Struggling for breath between wracking coughs, he spat the last words he would ever say:
“He… is not… my son!”
Then, as if the need to confess had been the only thing keeping him alive, Gerod Aryllia’s grip failed, and his head lolled back. He collapsed against his bed, unmoving.
Silence.
Silence for a long time. Mulley moved to the bedside, gently closed the king’s eyes, and raised his face to the sky in prayer. And then Rudol’s body started to shake. He didn’t know if it was laughter or sobs—no sound came out. But he started to shake, and he couldn’t stop.
“Rudol…” Shona laid a hand against his back.
He jerked away, and stood. Looked at his brother, his wife, his oldest friend. Saw the sympathy, the disappointment, and worse, the understanding dawning in their eyes. It makes so much sense, doesn’t it, little brother? You were never wanted here. You never belonged.
“He… he didn’t know what he was saying, Rudol,” Josen said, in a voice too much like the one in Rudol’s head. His eyes were wet. He’d said he wouldn’t cry for their father, but he was crying for someone. “His mind was gone.”
“He knew,” said Rudol. “Of course he knew. He’s always known. Lord of Eagles, it makes sense now. Everything about me suddenly makes sense. Why I was never good enough. I was the lie he wanted to forget.”
“Dear, you can’t think… he made you his heir, didn’t he?” Carissa took a step forward, opening her arms as if she might embrace him.
Rudol retreated until his back was against the wall. Her touch would only have felt like pity. “I was his last option. That’s all I ever was. You heard him! You all heard! Stop pretending you don’t believe it!”
“Even if I… even if it’s true, Rudol, you’re still the same person,” Josen said, careful and soft as if he was trying to calm a wounded beast. “You’re still my brother.”
“Am I? We share the same mother, that’s all. We haven’t been brothers for a long time.”
“Think about this very carefully, Rudol.” Shona was on her feet now; her voice was firm. “We can’t know the truth. All we have is the word of a very sick man. You have to decide what you’re going to do with that. If it leaves this room, it isn’t just your parentage they’ll question. If one of Gerod’s sons is false, people will start to ask themselves if the other might be as well. That will make it very easy for Castar to take the throne.”
Rudol laughed. “I have no more claim to stop him than anyone does. You have as much Aryllian blood as I do.” She tried to hide it, but Shona’s eyes flicked toward Josen, then. Rudol shook his head. “No. Not him. Fath—the king disowned him.”
“So there is no heir,” said Shona. “Is that what you’re saying?”
He heard his brother’s voice again, young and strong, though he knew it wasn’t there: Of course there is. Do what you know you should have done a long time ago, little brother. Give me what’s mine.
“Quiet!” he roared. And everyone was. His outburst silenced every voice, at least for the moment. Even the one only he could hear. Rudol clenched and unclenched his fists, fighting for control. “Just… be quiet. I can’t… I can’t think.”
“Rudol, you mustn’t believe this!” There was something like panic in Carissa’s voice. “The throne is yours! After everything you have done for that man… don’t let them take it from you!”
Rudol looked at her, at the fear in her eyes. Was it ever really me you wanted? Or was it just my name? He lowered his head. I suppose we’ll find out. “I’m sorry. The decision isn’t mine to make.”
“Whose decision is it, then?” Carissa demanded. “Don’t hide from this! The man I fell in love with is not a coward! If not your decision, whose is it?” He flinched at that, but didn’t answer her. Didn’t have an answer.
Renold Mulley looked up from the king’s body then, and in a thin, quavering voice, he said, “The Convocation. It falls to them to interpret the Sky God’s will when no heir is apparent.”
“There,” Rudol said. “Take it to the Convocation, if you have a case to make. Let them decide what to make of this Windwalker boy, and his prophecy, and whatever lies have been told about him. Those are matters for scholars of the Word, aren’t they? If the boy vouches for Josen, maybe they’ll listen. But I can’t… I can’t keep this secret for you. I won’t pretend to be something I’m not.”
“That’s as good as giving the crown to Castar,” Shona protested. “You know the
Convocation won’t listen to us. They’re already his!”
“Then maybe the crown should be too!” Rudol shouted, clenching his fists tighter. “Why shouldn’t he have it, if that is what the Convocation decides? He would be as good a king as any man in the Peaks. What has Josen ever done to deserve it more? Nothing! You want me to lie for you based on nothing! The only man in this room who has any right to this decision is dead!” He jabbed a finger at Gerod’s body. “And the last thing he did while he was still in his right mind was to disown Josen as a traitor.” He couldn’t quite bring himself to look at his brother as he said that. “It… it isn’t my place to question him.”
“Think about what you just said, Rudol!” Carissa advanced on him again; she sounded near to hysteria, if she wasn’t already there. And Rudol had nowhere left to retreat. “It was Gerod’s decision, and he made it! You are the one he meant to—”
In a single step, Shona was at Carissa’s side. With one hand, she grabbed the smaller woman’s arm and yanked her around.
And slapped her. Hard.
Carissa’s head snapped sideways; she touched her cheek, her eyes wide. “You can’t—”
“I just did.” Shona lifted her hand. “Don’t make me do it again. We don’t have time for this.”
Carissa took a step back, gaping in stunned disbelief. Shona shouldered her aside, and kept talking.
“Castar is coming, Rudol. Soon. He could be here any day, and we haven’t even begun to ready a defense. After everything we’ve told you, you know we can’t let him have the Plateaus. If you won’t fight this fight, you have to let Josen do it. Your father was wrong about him. You know he was. And you know why.” She didn’t say what she meant, but she was right—he did know. It was as close as she’d yet come to accusing him of lying to his father about what he’d seen in the Swamp. Of telling the story Duke Castar had asked him to tell.
She was right, but that wasn’t enough. Not now.
Rudol hung his head. “I don’t know anything,” he said quietly. “Everything I’ve ever known has been a lie.”
“Then let me prove it,” said Josen. “Let me prove I’m not a traitor.” There was something in his voice that made Rudol look, a determination he wasn’t accustomed to. Even Shona seemed surprised. They didn’t plan this.
Rudol searched his brother’s face for some sign of a trick. If one was there, he couldn’t see it, but he’d been fooled too many times to let that put him at ease. “How?” he demanded.
And Josen’s answer was at once the last thing Rudol had expected, and exactly what he should have.
“Let me stand the cliff.”
41. Who We Are
Zerill
Gryston was kneeling when Zerill entered the tent, and his face was tilted upward as if he was straining to see sky even this deep beneath the mist. His wrists and ankles were bound, but he had managed to contort his hands so that he could touch two fingers to his forehead. He didn’t turn when she entered.
“You’re wasting your time,” she said. “No god can hear you here.”
Korv ducked inside behind her—he hadn’t left her side since they’d reached the Kinhome. When they’d arrived, he’d taken her directly to Grandfather Tarv and Grandmother Nevris, and she’d only been released after hours of questions. Even then, she wasn’t allowed the freedom of the Kinhome without Korv as an escort. They weren’t about to give her any opportunity to disappear again.
Zerill had only been permitted to see Gryston because the Kinmeet was fast approaching, and she’d suggested that he should be told what was expected of him. No one wanted an ignorant highlander speaking out of turn in Kinmeet, and she knew the loudspeech best, so Tarv and Nevris had agreed to let her explain—under several conditions. She wasn’t to go within an arm’s reach, and the guard around the tent had been doubled for the duration of her visit. If she tried to leave by any means without Korv at her side, a dozen Heartspears would be upon her before she took her first step.
It didn’t matter. This time, she wasn’t going to run.
Gryston lowered his hands. His bound ankles stopped him from standing, but he swiveled on his knees toward the sound of her voice. His eyes moved back and forth across the darkness, searching for her. She’d seen Josen do the same, many times. It was hard to imagine how highlanders saw the world through such weak eyes. She moved closer, keeping an arm’s reach between them, as she’d promised.
She must have looked very different than when he’d last seen her—she’d shed her robe for loose-fitting hides, and her highlander boots for a Maker-crafted pair with the slight, comforting weight of bone spurs at the inside of each foot. But when Gryston’s eyes finally found her in the dark, he seemed to recognize her. Maybe her voice had been enough.
“I don’t know if the Sky God has ever heard my prayers, above the mist or below,” Gryston said, simply and without bitterness. “But I don’t believe that this place is beneath his notice. And I am too old to break the habit now.” There was a serenity about him since he’d surrendered himself, very different from the quiet shame she’d sensed in him before. He could meet her eyes without evasion now. The idea of dying for his sins seemed to hold some appeal for him.
Why do you waste loudspeech on this man? Korv signed, scowling at Gryston with barely restrained anger. He dies today. Nothing he says will change that. Tell him what you need to tell him, and we are done. He’d been on edge since they’d returned, impatient for the Kinmeet. Worried about Azra. He wouldn’t be satisfied until the Heartspears were marching for the Plateaus.
We have time, Zerill signed back. If nothing he says will change anything, what is the harm in asking? She was worried too, but she was still a Lighteye, and curiosity was part of that. She’d always had questions about the highlander’s Sky God.
“After everything you’ve seen, you still have that much faith?” she asked. “How could any god who can see the Swamp let us suffer for so long?”
Gryston bowed his head and shoulders, as if the question was a weight on his back. After a moment, though, he looked up at her, and he said, “He sent Eroh to you. That tells me that the Lord of Eagles sees you even here beneath the mist. If that much is true, then I must believe that you and your people bear the Spirit of All in your breast just as I do. That the Wind of Grace carries his gifts even to places where there is no wind at all. Why he waited so long to send the boy, I cannot say. It could be that he wished us to find our way to mercy on our own, and we failed him. Or perhaps he was never the just god I thought he was. I don’t know. But I still believe he is there, and that he is listening.”
“If he is, pray for the Abandoned,” Zerill said. “I do not know if the Kinmeet will hear me now when they would not before. If they still believe I have betrayed us to the highlanders, I will be banished and nothing will change. My people will fade away until they are gone. Whatever reason your god has for the things he does, he must have wanted more than that when he sent Eroh.”
“Banishment?” Gryston lifted his eyebrows in mild surprise. “If they think you a traitor, I would have thought… in the Peaks, treason is punishable by death.”
“We do not kill our own. Highlanders do enough of that. And banishment is no less severe. You would know that, if you had been abandoned as we were.”
He nodded slowly. “Death can be… easier. I understand that.” And by the look in his eye she almost believed him. “I will pray for your people, then. Lord of Eagles knows I owe them more. And I will pray for you. You saved Josen, and that… that means more to me than you can know. I should have thanked you sooner, and better, but prayer is all I have left.”
Korv gripped her shoulder, and signed, Enough of this, Zerill. The Kinmeet convenes soon, and making them wait will hurt more than prayers to a highlander god will help. Whatever time you had for questions is gone. You need to tell him why you are here and be done with it.
He was right. She’d asked enough, and curiosity was a poor reason to make the Kinmeet wait when s
he needed them to listen. “We will bring you before the Kinmeet soon. There are things you need to know first.”
Gryston dipped his head. “Tell me, then. Better that I know how the end will come, so I might meet it with some dignity.”
I think you would manage that somehow, prepared or not, Zerill thought. It was strange—she wanted to hate this old man for everyting he’d done, for all of the Abandoned he’d killed, and yet… How many highlanders would do what he is doing? How many would willingly face death to pay for what they’d done? When Josen had asked her to save those gas-trappers, she’d done it, to prove to him that peace was truly what she wanted. They had rewarded her by calling her ‘dark-eye’ and threatening her—uselessly—with their swords. Neither of them had cared what happened to the Abandoned in the slightest, but she’d saved them even so; this man was ready to die for her people, and she was going to let him. If that proved something, she didn’t know what it was.
“I… would spare you this, if I could see a way,” she said, and she was surprised to find that she meant it. In the corner of her eye, she was aware that Korv was staring at her; she couldn’t say if he was shocked or appalled or both. She ignored him. “But if I tried, it is all they would hear. I need them to listen.”
“Then do not try. I didn’t come here seeking mercy.”
“I know,” she said. “That is why I would grant it, if I could.”
Gryston smiled up at her, then. “I think I see why Josen admires you so much. But please, do not waste your pity on me. I have done what I have done, and now I must answer for it. That is my burden to bear, and only mine. Now tell me about this Kinmeet, and what you need from me.”
The only thing left, then, was for Zerill to say what she had come to say. “When we are done here, you will come with me and Korv to stand before the Kinmeet. You will stand with us at the center, with the Grandmothers and Grandfathers. They will ask me to explain where I have been and what I have done. This is where Korv will speak for me, and I may ask you to tell them why you surrendered yourself, if I feel it will help. One of the others may question you, even if I do not. It is important that you not speak if you are not shown this sign.” There, she extended her fist, palm up, and then opened it flat. “You are a highlander without a kin. You have no voice in our decisions except to answer what we ask, and even then, be brief.” She paused there, and cocked her head, waiting.
The Swampling King (The Windwalker Legacy Book 1) Page 71
