Everywhere. Everywhere. The blood seemed to go everywhere. On the bed, on the battle-filled headboard, and down to the floor. The bedding soaked it up as fast as it could, and yet it still pooled all around him. He sputtered through a breath or two, the blood dribbling out of his mouth, and then, no movement at all.
She stood there for a moment, her breathing heavy and pressured, her mind riding the thrill despite her repulsion, and uninvited thoughts of Little Alex scampered, delighted, through her brain. Was this what he’d felt when he’d killed that woman? Oh, God, I’m becoming the monster.
She shook her head, Little Alex retreated, and she was Lisen again. Or some version of Lisen, new and undead. She knelt down beside Ariel and took his left hand which had slipped off the side of the bed. She’d thought she would cry, but she didn’t. A glacier had begun forming where once a warm soul had thrived.
She rose again, drew her own knife, and holding one braid out, she hacked it off at the level of her ear. She repeated this with the other braid, then dropped them both on the body before her and watched as they, like the bedding, soaked up the blood. She stood there, studying him, hoping to feel something for him, all the while keeping her necropath instincts separate from him, then pulled off her hermit ring and dropped it on top of the braids.
“This was for you, Mother,” she uttered softly.
And it was over. She was Empir.
Abandoning him to pass through famar alone, she stepped through the door Korin and Holder Zanlot had used. She found herself in another room, an antechamber of sorts, where a large group of people—several guards, including Korin and Captain Palla, as well as Holder Corday, Hermit Eloise and Holder Zanlot—all looked to her for some sign. And against the far wall, hidden but bold in her very presence, a woman stood, the woman in Lisen’s dream. Their eyes met, and Lisen knew. And chose to do nothing. Yet.
“The Empir has passed,” she said, turning away from the watcher’s gaze and back to the others. “Long life to the Empir.”
Korin and one of the guards, a woman, started to rush into the room, but she blocked their passage. “You’ll find a ring. Return it to Solsta.”
Korin stared at her, assessing her, judging her, and then he nodded. “It will be done,” he said very, very softly and then rushed into the room with his companion. Holder Corday—Nalin—studied her.
“Your hair. Your braids,” he said.
“Gone. I’m not a hermit. I never was.”
She spoke in a tone so flat Nalin shivered at the chill.
“What have you done to him?!” Lorain screamed, and he turned just as the holder made a rush towards the new Empir. Nalin blocked her, and she struggled as he held her away from Lisen.
“Lorain, don’t,” he said, feeling oddly empathetic towards this woman whom, under any other circumstances, he abhorred and distrusted. A Lorain in control would never have succumbed to this intense an emotional outburst.
“He took his own life, my lord,” Lisen replied, her voice still bitterly cold. “It is done,” she added in almost a singsong.
“Why would he do that?” Lorain demanded with a hint of the calm to which Nalin was more accustomed from her, and since she no longer fought him, he released her.
Lisen sighed. “Confronted with truth, he just…died.”
Nalin did not like the look in the girl’s eyes, and for the first time he noticed the blood on her robe—lots of blood on her robe.
“You’re lying,” Lorain declared. “I want to see for myself.”
“No. It’s…it’s pretty bloody,” Lisen replied, blocking the door.
“I’m carrying his child.”
“Go then, if you must. But first this.” Lisen reached into the pocket of her robe and pulled out a small stone, smooth and shiny, like dark silver. She cupped it in her hand. “A healing stone. For you. For your baby.” She pressed it into Lorain’s hand. “Pledge,” she ordered in that bitter, cold tone. “Pledge by this stone that you will do nothing further to hurt me or mine.”
“Or?” Lorain asked, her voice clenched like a fist.
“Or…I cannot answer for what befalls you and yours. Understood?”
Lorain pondered a moment, then pulled her hand away and the stone with it. “I so pledge,” she agreed, but unwillingly it seemed to Nalin.
Lisen stepped aside, moved to stand next to Nalin, and Lorain entered the room as the two of them watched her go.
“He killed himself?” Nalin asked.
“Yes.”
“He killed himself?”
This time Lisen did not reply.
“And the blood?” He gestured to the large wet red spots spreading out on her brown novice robe.
“His. Self-destruction is messy.”
Nalin didn’t know what to say, didn’t understand what she’d done. He only knew that she was no longer the untainted girl he remembered.
“My Liege,” he said, moving the conversation, along with his mind, on to a different topic. “You should speak to the Council, if only briefly.”
“No. Not tonight. I have something to do. Eloise?”
“Aye, my Liege,” Eloise said from somewhere behind Nalin.
“You and Captain Palla prepare our problem for solving.”
Nalin wondered what the Destroyer she was talking about, but clearly Eloise knew.
“Yes,” Eloise replied, and as Nalin turned, he saw Eloise nod towards the short-haired, somewhat nondescript woman hanging back at the opposite wall, and the captain grabbed her by the arm. “Follow me,” Eloise said to Palla, and the three left the room.
Nalin sighed and returned to the girl…the Heir…his Empir. “At the very least, prepare a statement for distribution so that the rumors won’t overwhelm the truth,” he urged.
“Yes,” Lisen replied, rubbing her forehead. “Then I have something to do.” She dropped her hand and straightened her back. “And where can I prepare this statement?”
“Come with me,” he said and led her downstairs to the Empir’s office.
There they sat down at the conference table together, and Nalin reached out to touch her bobbed hair.
“What happened in there?” he asked quietly.
Lisen studied him, her being a center of silent awareness, then shook his touch off.
“Purpose. I had to be sure all the dying and suffering served a purpose. What was the point if I’d failed and died, too?”
He shivered again. Had the hermit he’d first met disappeared? Or had she never existed at all?
“Let me summon the clerk. She can help you.”
She nodded, and he left her there to search out Iscador. He’d also send someone to tell Elsba personally what had happened. Damn, this night had turned into something horrible, and Ariel’s death was nowhere near the worst of it. The girl was changed and could not be unchanged, not now, not ever. What had they done?
Lisen sat in a chair at the huge conference table and studied the immodesty of this so-called office, and “immodesty” was putting it lightly. She managed to ignore the shaking of her body in reaction to what she’d just done, focusing instead on the decadence all around her.
The table where she sat bore intricate carvings on its legs, and she had never seen wood so dark or so highly polished. It was perhaps the least offensive piece in the room, but it could easily seat eight-to-ten people without anyone bumping into anyone else. Against the wall to her right, the wall which boasted a door which she guessed led to the Council Chamber, sat a formidable couch covered in rich, deep red cloth. Could anyone sit comfortably on that? She doubted she ever could.
She turned, and on the opposite side of the room, she found a great desk facing the couch, a desk even more ornate than the table, if that were possible. She could dance on that desk. She and a partner could dance on that desk. Not that they couldn’t dance on the table, but the table’s size had a purpose. The desk just plain overwhelmed her. She considered how many Empirs had settled into place behind that wonder of design, but
before she could carry that thought any further, she heard someone step into the room, turned and saw Captain Palla coming directly to her.
“My Liege,” he said with a formal salute.
Another loyal captain, Lisen thought. But not Captain…Cutie. The silly name she’d used all this time no longer felt right. It was a schoolgirl’s name for a crush, and she was no longer a schoolgirl. “Yes?”
“Captain Rosarel asked me to deliver this to you personally.” He offered her a folded piece of paper, and she reached up to take it.
“What does it say?” Something felt wrong.
“I don’t know. He asked that I deliver it to you.” He saluted and started to leave but stopped. “Oh, and the sooth told me to tell you she’s ready. I can take you to her.”
“Wait outside,” she replied. “I’ll be out.”
He saluted again, turned and this time left before she could say another word. She stared at the closed door for a moment and then finally, reluctantly, unfolded the note to read it.
My Liege,
Forgive me. I cannot stay.
Korin Rosarel
His words ripped open her chest and wounded her soul. She should have expected this, perhaps actually had, but that didn’t diminish the hurt. She stared at the note, focusing on each word, trying to bring them together to create a whole, but she could find no unity there. Were her heart still beating inside her, it would have shattered. Why? Why has he left me?
Simple. The push. She’d done it before, in Halorin. He’d known what she’d done there, hadn’t he? Her life had lain on the line. And it had lain on the line here as well. She’d had no choice. Couldn’t he see that? Surely he could see that. After all, he was the one who had defined the imperative, back there in Halorin, that she must survive. And she had. She’d survived. But the cost. Creators, the cost. I’m not a hermit. I never was.
Absently, she stood up and pulled the bloody hermit robe off, revealing the forest green tunic from which Eloise had removed the Ilazer crest three months ago. Three months and a lifetime ago. She dropped the robe to the floor beside her. She stood there for a moment, staring at it. Her head felt light. Was it the lack of the braids or…something else?
“I’m not a hermit. I never was,” she said in a voice so small even she could barely hear it, and she settled back down into the chair and wished she could cry, but she couldn’t. Why couldn’t she cry for the death of her previous selves—Lisen of Solsta, Lisen Holt, Lisen the rookie guard who’d run to the desert with Korin? She was none of these Lisens anymore, and she should grieve their loss, the fact there was no turning back.
The door opened, and Lisen jumped. This time the female guard who had entered Ariel’s bedchamber with Korin stepped in. Lisen looked up at the woman as she approached.
“Forgive me, my Liege.” She halted in front of Lisen and saluted her new Empir. “Commander Tanres. I’m here to serve you.”
“Commander?”
The woman’s expression softened slightly. “Are you all right, my Liege?”
Lisen shook her head. “I’ll be fine, Commander. Thank you.”
“I thought I might find Captain Rosarel here.”
Lisen’s chest tightened. “He’s gone, Commander.” She crumpled the note up in her hand. “He’s gone, and he won’t be back.”
The commander studied her for one brief moment, then nodded. “Aye, my Liege. Is there anything I can do for you while I’m here, my Liege?”
“No. Thank you, Commander.”
With a salute, the commander left.
Lisen uncrumpled the note and read it again. It didn’t hurt any less the second time. Korin was gone, and he’d never come back. Because she’d gone and gone rogue.
“My Liege.”
She looked up and saw that Nalin had snuck in while she’d wandered lost in the novelty of her new role. “Yes?”
He stepped to the conference table and sat down beside her. “I’ve dictated a note to the clerk on your behalf. I hope you approve.” She nodded but said nothing, so he continued. “She’ll make copies for everyone on the Council and sign them for you.”
“So that’s how it will be,” Lisen mused. “Always someone there to do everything for me.”
“Well,” Nalin replied, “you are the Empir.”
“Korin’s gone,” she said abruptly.
“What?” No shock, just vague surprise.
“He left me this note.” She handed him the still-wrinkled-but-flattened piece of paper, then waited as he read it.
“What does he mean, he can’t stay?”
She shrugged. “The night we met—you and I, me and him—that night at Solsta, I made him a promise.” She took a deep breath to prepare for the plunge. “He’s half-Thristan. You should know that. It explains what happened that night.”
“Half-Thristan? Creators, I never should have trusted him.”
“You never did, remember?” She wished that thought could give her a reason to smile. She needed to smile and yet couldn’t. “Doesn’t matter. I’m here, and he’s gone, probably back to the desert.”
“And the night at Solsta?”
“We were alone on the tower. He was nervous. Turns out he doesn’t trust hermits. It’s a Thristan thing, apparently. Didn’t know then. About him being Thristan, I mean. He thought all hermits were like the watcher. I explained that we weren’t, that only a rogue could have done it. And then I promised I’d never do the same thing.”
“I don’t understand,” Nalin said softly. “What are you saying?”
“That I just did the same thing, and Korin knows it. He knew what I was going to do—not the particulars, but in general—and he took me to my brother anyway. Maybe he was hoping he was wrong, or that I’d change my mind. But he wasn’t, and I didn’t, so now he’s gone.”
“I’m sorry.” He reached out to put his hand over hers on the table, but she pulled back.
“I have a rogue to deal with. Excuse me.”
Lisen stood up and left the room via the door through which everyone seemed to have entered in the last several minutes, and outside she found Palla. “Take me to the sooth,” she ordered.
“Aye, my Liege,” the captain said, and she followed him to the doorway to the stairs that led to the dungeon. As they made their way down, she ripped Korin’s note up into shreds. She could do this without him. No one was irreplaceable. But a small voice inside said, He promised he’d never leave me alone again. He promised. She gasped, almost inaudibly. But, so did I….
Thristas beckoned, and the cold breeze of this early May night blew wisps of the hair he’d carefully braided hours ago out of the queue and into his face. He rode his horse hard, the Destroyer’s breath at his back. Bad business. A very bad business. He’d left the bad business behind, but he’d never be free of it. The babe at the teat in his pouch flourished in testimony to that. The Bonding during the Farii would never break, leaving him with a longing he must forever deny. He would have been content to merely stand in her presence, not join in her bed. But even that was impossible after what she had done. Perhaps if he’d even once repeated the words he’d said to her in the desert. No, that would have changed nothing.
Why? Why did she break her promise?
But he’d learned long ago that some questions never have answers. This question must forever be one of those.
And so he rode on, cold, wounded and pouched, to stand alone for the rest of his life.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
By Locality
(F) = Fractured
(T) = Tainted
e. = emerged
d. = died
YF = Year of Flandari
YP = Year of Paxiflan, father of Flandari
SOLSTA HAVEN
Lisen (F), also Ariannas Ilazer, e. 3/14/YF4, age 17, daughter of Empir Flandari Ilazer and Elsin Cabell, abandoned at Solsta Haven shortly after emergence. Unaware of her status until she guides Empir Flandari through famar.
Eloise Tuane (F), hermit, s
ooth, Elsba’s sister, Jozan and Bala’s aunt.
Titus (F), hermit, healer.
Sallur (F), hermit, a master of poisons and herbs.
Estalon (F), hermit, cares for the livestock at Solsta.
AVARET
Flandari Ilazer (F), d. 2/3/YF22, Empir of Garla, mother to Ariel and Ariannas, joined with Elsin.
Ariel Ilazer (F), e. 3/14/YF4, age 17, presumed Heir of Garla, son of Empir Flandari Ilazer and Elsin Cabell, twin brother to Ariannas of whom he is unaware.
Nalin Corday (F), age 20, holder of Felane, Flandari’s student and confidant.
Korin Rosarel (F), age 25, captain in the Emperi Guard, Lisen’s guardian in Thristas and responsible for Lisen’s physical training.
Lorain Zanlot (F), age 18, holder of Bedel, Ariel’s lover and presumed Empir’s Will.
Kerok Tanres (F), Commander of the Emperi Guard, appointed by Flandari.
Lenk Palla (F), captain in the Emperi Guard, Korin’s friend.
Opseth Geranda (F), Ariel’s watcher, responsible for pushing Flandari’s assassin, once trained as a hermit and necropath but left and went rogue.
Rasendir Mirta (F), Flandari’s servant and her assassin.
Stellet Arspas (F), Lorain’s spy, murders Jozan in Halorin, killed by Lisen.
Edres Lazlin (F), Lorain’s spy, killed by Korin in Halorin.
Mazok Trall (T), spy sent by Lorain to Rossla.
Jazel Iscador (F), head clerk to the Empir.
Elsin Cabell, deceased spouse of Empir Flandari, father to Ariel and Ariannas.
Benir (F), Nalin’s servant.
Reger (F), Opseth’s spouse.
Tainted (Lisen of Solsta Book 2) Page 31
