Betrayal

by Lara Morgan

  ‘No, I can’t.’

  It was not the answer she had been expecting and she paused, then drew back from him. ‘I would not have painted you a coward, Rorc fen Baal.’

  He flinched at the sound of his Clan name. ‘I am no longer called that,’ he said.

  ‘No, of course not, an Outcast loses that right. Just ask our son.’

  He let out a long, slow breath. ‘I understand your anger, Mailun.’

  ‘No, you don’t.’ A bitter smile curved her lips. ‘But I have had many years to contemplate it and know well the landscape of my own heart. What of you, Rorc? Did you not wonder at what became of those you left behind?’

  Anger had begun to stir now in his breast, despite his intentions. ‘I left you with your people,’ he said, ‘safe in the Ice Lands, the safest place for you. Why did you leave?’

  She looked at him with weary patience. ‘You left me with shame, Rorc. A woman with no mate but with child.’

  ‘How was I to know? Would not your family have cared for you?’

  ‘But the others would not have cared for them.’ She let out a hard laugh. ‘You spent months with my people and yet still learned nothing. The Ichindar will not cast their own out, but my family would have been slowly but surely pushed from their place. I was the daughter of the Chief; I had to leave for their sakes. But you, you left for your own sake. Because you could not abide what your clan had made you. Outcast. The taint you imagined it left on you became so ingrained you could not stand others seeing it. You were always, and still are, hand-fasted to your clan, Rorc. You always loved it more than anything, or anyone else.’

  His heart was thudding with a fast, painful beat as he listened to the tirade of her words and saw that she believed them, that she had convinced herself of what she was saying over time, and it cut him deeper than any blade ever had. He wanted to deny it, to tell her the real reason he had left, but the tone of her voice, the look in her eye stopped him. What good would it do now? She had found love with another man, raised a son in another clan, and had done it thinking she knew what her place had been in his heart and had, at some point, accepted it. She thought he had not loved her enough, so what good would it do now, so many years later, so much pain later, to tell her she had been wrong? He had made his choice nineteen years ago, standing on that icy peak; it would do her no good if he recanted it now.

  ‘Perhaps you are right,’ he said slowly, not allowing the strength of his pain to enter his voice. ‘Clan has always had a place in my heart, and I’m glad you found a clansman to find a place for you in his.’

  ‘And for Tallis,’ she said, then a bright flicker of sadness came into her eye. ‘Shaan I lost when she was only a baby. She was thought too small to survive and sent out to die.’

  ‘But you didn’t let that happen.’

  ‘No.’ The coldness was back again. ‘I would not abandon my child to death.’

  He nodded. Of course she would not. That fierceness was something he had always loved in her.

  She said, ‘What will you do now?’

  He rested a hand on the pommel of his sword. The truth was he didn’t know what either Tallis or Shaan would expect of him.

  ‘I don’t know if that’s up to me,’ he said. ‘Neither of them are children any longer.’

  ‘So you will do nothing?’ Her voice was hard.

  ‘I will welcome them as my own if they wish it,’ he said, ‘but we have a war to fight, Mailun. What would you have me do? I may be dead before they can decide.’

  She narrowed her eyes. ‘You didn’t survive this long on luck, but you are right. There is a war coming and because of it they may need you more than ever.’

  ‘And I will do what I can.’ Apparently the thought of him dying didn’t bother her. ‘But I have an army to form and a god to fight; please don’t ask me for more than I can give.’

  ‘No, I would not want to do that.’ She picked up the lantern. ‘I hope on our way to the Clans you find some time to appreciate the man your son has become and the woman your daughter is, or you will have nothing but another regret to add to your belt count, Rorc.’ Her blue eyes razed his face and she turned away, taking the light with her.

  He watched her go, the slim, straight figure he had never truly forgotten lancing such an ache through him that he wished the fighting could start right then. How different would things have been had he stayed? He wondered for a moment, contemplated the bright dream of raising a family with Mailun as he had once hoped, but his more practical core knew better. Such fantasies were for children; they would have been dead. All of them. The clansmen who had been coming for him would not have stopped at slaying him. They had travelled too far and too long to stop at that. Khafre would have wanted to avenge his sister’s fate on all, innocent or not. Khafre had not believed him when Rorc had tried to tell him that it was not he who defiled his sister, not he who took the blade to her heart, but Khafre had not believed him then, and neither had the Circle. He had left his clan knowing that one day Khafre might catch up to him.

  He stared out into the dark night, smelling the scent of the ocean salt in the air, seeing the lights of the city below, and rubbed his hands slowly down the rough sides of his trousers as he had done those many years before, wiping the ghost of Khafre’s blood from his hands and that of the others he had sent to Kaa. He had not thought of it in some time, but now, seeing Mailun again and knowing the three lives he had saved by his deed, he was satisfied he had done right. But still, he knew how his son felt; the taint of spilled Clan blood can never truly be washed away.

  Chapter 20

  Shaan was dreaming. She walked barefoot across a vast red desert beneath a pale sky. The sand was soft and warm and a gentle breeze blew, so the loose dress she wore brushed like silk against her legs. It was very quiet, and on the horizon the sand rose in high dunes that faded to purple in the distance. She walked with a calm purpose as if she knew just where she was going although there was nothing to see but sand. A sharp sound came, like the ringing of a bell or call of a bird, and she noticed she was not alone. Ahead in the far distance she saw two shimmering figures, barely more than elongated shadows. She couldn’t tell if they were coming toward her or walking away. Her feet scuffed up the sand so that it drifted in plumes about her legs. She kept walking but the figures came no closer. A sudden wind whipped the hair back from her face and she heard faint music, a breath of song, and then a voice spoke in the wind. Death bringer, it whispered. She stopped, suddenly afraid. Daughter of sand and ice. Seek us.

  Clouds raced across the sky and Shaan was standing amid tall, weathered stone columns. It was night, the darkness speckled with stars. The sand-scoured stone towered tall above her, remnants of images long since eroded barely visible on the enormous blocks, and a full moon rode high above, spreading its chill whiteness. It was a strange, cold place, and she wanted to run away but could not move. She felt one of the pillars at her back and turned to look at it. There was a faint outline of an eye carved there, but before she could reach out to it the wind suddenly returned, whipping her face with sand. Outcast! a voice hissed, and the pillar was gone and a different stone had taken its place: a massive black stone, obsidian, smooth as a mirror. Warm, damp air surrounded her, a soft carpet under her feet.

  My love. The voice was husky with desire. A hand caressed the small of her back, fingers trailing up her spine to cup her neck. Shaan despaired as he turned her and she saw his dark eyes glinting in the soft light. His hand cupped her breast as his lips descended on hers and she woke with a violent start.

  She lay for a moment recovering her breath, then sat up. She was alone. Balkis had left before sunrise to go back to the wall. Squads of armed guards were camped at all the yards’ gates now, and it was only a matter of time before they decided to try to get in. The night before, she and Balkis had gone down to the barracks — eventually — for Shaan to meet the two men of the Faithful who would be going with her to smuggle Nilah out of the palace. The Seducer h
ad said they thought the council was waiting for Rorc to make the first move, but they had to be sure, and Balkis had to be there to lead the defence if they did. She touched her fingers to her cheek where it still stung from the stubble on his jaw and wished the hollow fear inside her would go away.

  She pushed the bedclothes off and swung her legs to the floor. The tiles were cool underfoot. Daylight was coming through the cracks in the window shutters and the room felt warm and stuffy. Rising, she walked across to the window and opened it, breathing in the salty morning air and feeling the light breeze on her naked skin. If all went well, before the sun rose again they would have Nilah out of the palace and be on their way to the Clans — and Balkis would be heading toward Azoth. If all went well.

  The pendant around her neck swung on its silver chain as she leaned her elbows on the ledge and looked out through the trees toward the sea. She took hold of it, letting the sunlight catch it; a teardrop of luminescent green stone, almost like a serpent’s eye, it was surrounded by six blood pearls set in gold. Balkis had given it to her after they had come back to his cottage. It had been in his family for three generations. She wasn’t quite sure what it meant; not a proposal but more than a gift. Wearing it made her feel as if she belonged to someone, and she hadn’t decided how she felt about that.

  A sense of intuition sang in her mind.

  Shaan? Tallis’s voice came into her thoughts and she realised he was on his way to her. She dropped the pendant and, throwing on her clothes, went to meet him.

  He was standing outside leaning against a tree as she shut the door to Balkis’s cottage.

  ‘Morning.’ He nodded at her. ‘Did you get any sleep?’

  She knew he had sensed her with Balkis but his tone, which verged on teasing, surprised her. She hadn’t thought he liked Balkis much.

  ‘Some,’ she said.

  ‘So now he knows about Rorc as well.’

  ‘Is that a problem?’

  He shrugged. ‘I’m happy for you.’

  ‘Really? When will you tell Balkis that?’

  The smile faded from his face. ‘If all goes well, then we’ll have time to talk about other things,’ he said, and a small muscle contracted painfully inside her.

  ‘We had a piece of luck last night,’ he said. ‘The Isles serpents are here.’

  ‘Here?’

  ‘Yes. I was with Rorc and our mother when I sensed them.’

  A cold shiver, like fear, touched her spine. So, now Rorc knew.

  ‘What happened?’ she said.

  ‘I don’t know, Mother won’t talk about it, and when I saw Rorc this morning he was with the Faithful so … I don’t know what he thinks of us.’

  ‘I meant about the serpents,’ Shaan said.

  ‘I know, but I thought maybe you cared a little about how our mother feels.’ He gave her a disappointed look and she folded her arms.

  ‘Just tell me about the serpents.’

  ‘I met them over the ocean and brought them back to land. They’re waiting in a valley north of here.’

  ‘How many?’

  ‘Ten. Enough to help fight our way out of the city. Balkis knows, Attar will have told him.’

  ‘And they have agreed to fight?’

  ‘Yes. We’ll take some to help us get to the Clans but the others will go with Balkis. Then, if we convince the Clans to unite with us, I’ll send the rest.’

  ‘You will?’

  ‘I’m their leader now,’ he said, and Shaan saw what she’d not noticed earlier — a faint darkness in his eyes — and realised his power was closer to the surface, a thrumming energy held in check by his will. That hollow fear beat through her again and she stepped forward to put a hand on his arm. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I hope so. I think so.’ He shook his head, a flicker of uncertainty in his eyes. ‘It was almost too easy, Shaan, I —’ He took in a breath and she felt him seeking to compose himself, felt the moment when uncertainty became cynicism. ‘It’s just power, using the words. But it’s what I am now, Azoth’s bane.’

  ‘Tallis, don’t —’

  ‘I saw the ship,’ he cut her off before she could say more. ‘The one your friend Tuon is on. They’ll dock by tomorrow morning.’

  ‘You saw it?’ A spark of happiness pushed through her concern.

  He nodded. ‘I’ve told Rorc. I’ll send a serpent to bring her and the Seer to our meeting point.’

  ‘They went for the scrolls,’ she said. ‘I wonder if they’ve brought back something we can use — if our plans go well tonight, that is.’

  ‘Yes.’ Tallis looked tired and bleak. ‘Shaan, did you have a dream this morning?’

  ‘What?’ She stilled.

  ‘A dream of the desert,’ he said, ‘did you have one?’

  A pained look filled his eyes. ‘I thought so. Tell me yours.’

  A cold feeling rising inside her, she related the sand, seeing the figures and then the stone pillars, but left out when the dream had turned to Azoth. He would only worry more for her than he already did.

  ‘You were the figure I saw,’ he said.

  ‘Were you one of those that I saw?’ she said. ‘Why didn’t I know it was you?’

  He shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘But the stone pillars?’ she said. ‘Did you see them?’

  ‘No, but it sounds like the Temple of Kaa.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘It was built for the Guide of the dead.’

  ‘In the Clan Lands?’ Shaan was beginning to feel the edges of another kind of fear. Azoth couldn’t have had anything to do with that part of her dream if it was in the desert. ‘But I’ve never seen it.’

  Tallis looked worried. ‘This feels like the Guides,’ he said quietly. ‘But why?’

  ‘Who was the other figure?’ Shaan asked. His face went very still and he wouldn’t look at her.

  ‘Jared?’ she guessed.

  He nodded, his mouth tense. ‘But he was different, changed.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘He had serpent skin, he was an Alhanti.’ He stopped, took a breath. ‘He tried to kill me.’

  ‘Was … was the dream real?’ she whispered.

  ‘I don’t know.’ He put his hand on the nearest tree, as if for support. ‘I was sure the Guides had abandoned me, abandoned us. I don’t understand why they would come to us now.’

  ‘Maybe what we both had was just a nightmare,’ she said, but she could not even convince herself of that.

  ‘We saw each other in our dreams and didn’t know each other. Who else but the Guides would be powerful enough to do that?’

  ‘Azoth?’

  ‘He can’t visit the desert, you know that.’

  ‘But I don’t even believe in the Guides,’ Shaan said. ‘Why would they visit my dreams?’

  ‘You were born in the desert, and think of who we are. Do you really believe any of this is ordinary?’

  ‘I wish it was.’

  ‘Too late for wishes,’ he said. ‘But what does it mean?’

  ‘We’re going to the desert, to the Clans; maybe there we’ll find out.’

  She picked up the pendant Balkis had given her, holding it tight.

  ‘Maybe,’ she echoed quietly. Reflected in his eyes she saw the same fear that had been haunting her.

  ‘You don’t believe we’ll find it out together, though, do you?’ she said.

  ‘I think we are what Azoth’s bloodline has made us, and we can no more fight that than we can fight mist or stop the rain. We just have to be ready when we find out what we were made to do.’

  His words made her feel angry and useless at the same time. ‘I won’t believe we have no choices of our own left,’ she said.

  Tallis sighed, looking at the pendant around her neck, but only said, ‘What about your ability to heal? Have you told Balkis about that?’

  ‘No.’

  He nodded. ‘It’s probably better you don’t. Come on back to the Dome. You look tired; you shou
ld get some rest.’

  ‘So should you,’ she said, but allowed him to sling an arm around her shoulder while she put her own around his waist, feeling his comforting presence as they walked back to the Dome.

  He left her at the entrance, going back to seek out Attar. Shaan tried to get some sleep in his crell, but his words and the dream swirled around in her head like the tide over rocks, and after a while she gave up and went up to the rooftop of the Dome to watch out for Tuon’s ship.

  Mailun was sitting at the edge when she got there and, further along, Irissa sat chewing absently on a stick of dried meat. Shaan hesitated then went to sit beside her mother. Mailun glanced at her as she sat.

  ‘Where I was born we never saw days like this.’ Mailun gestured out to the uneasy ocean. ‘The sea of my birth is often covered in ice floes so white you must wear an eye scarf sometimes to look at it. The water is darker than your eyes, so blue it’s almost black. Perhaps one day you shall see it.’

  Shaan wasn’t sure if she wanted to go somewhere so cold the water froze. ‘Do you miss the ice?’ she asked.

  ‘It was my home.’ Mailun’s look was hard to read. ‘But I grew used to the heat of the desert, came to appreciate it for its own beauty. At night when the moon is high and the wind low it almost looks like a sea — cold and empty, stretching away to all horizons. The sands are solid underfoot but they can be as unforgiving as ice floes … as can the gods of that land.’

  There was a note in her voice that Shaan didn’t want to delve into.

  ‘I wonder how long Tallis will be,’ she said, but she felt Mailun’s eyes on her, watching closely.

  ‘I’ve told Rorc; he knows,’ she said.

  ‘Tallis told me.’ Shaan kept her gaze on the ocean.

  ‘You shouldn’t worry,’ Mailun said. ‘Rorc won’t say anything to you. It’s not his way.’

  ‘I would have thought he’d have bigger things to worry about now anyway,’ Shaan said, and felt a hand, dry and rough, touch her knee.