Although Misha was disappointed, he was not surprised. Like most able-bodied men, Antonov equated physical disability with stupidity. He had actually seemed mildly astonished that Misha had coped as well as he did, but he made no suggestion that Misha might like to sit in on his daily meetings with Palinov, or that his eldest son might want to be kept up to date on the Talenburg situation, even though he was the one who had engineered such an acceptable solution.
Misha was, effectively, sent back to his rooms to quietly rot, out of sight and out of mind.
“Is everything all right, Misha?” Ella asked with some concern as she let herself into his room. He was sitting by the fireplace staring at his chessboard, trying to remember a game he’d had with Dirk once, when the young man had beaten him in about eight moves. Misha could not, for the life of him, remember how he had done it.
“I’m as well as can be expected under the circumstances,” he replied, a little bitterly. They said that about the Crippled Prince a lot: “as well as can be expected under the circumstances.” “Why do you ask?”
“I’ve been gone for hours. You’ve not moved a muscle. I swear you’re still staring at the same chess piece you were studying before I left.”
“There’s little else to do,” he reminded her sourly. “Where have you been?”
“The Hall of Shadows. Madalan arrived back from Bollow today.”
“What was she doing in Bollow?” he asked, out of a desperate need for conversation, more than any real interest in the movements of the Shadowdancers.
“She didn’t say,” Ella shrugged. “Can I get you a rug? Something to drink, perhaps? You look a little pale.”
“I feel no worse than usual,” he assured her. “Nor any better, for that matter.”
“Still, I might have Yuri drop by later and check on you. We don’t want you coming down with anything. You’ve not the strength to fight off a serious illness.”
“Or the wit to do anything useful, it seems.”
She looked at him curiously. “You’re not still brooding over the fact that now your father’s back, your assistance is no longer required, are you? It’s been nearly a month since he returned, Misha.”
“Has it only been a month? It feels like a year.”
“It’s not like you to brood.”
“Maybe I’ll take up brooding as my new hobby,” he suggested. “Then they could call me the Brooding Prince, rather than the Crippled Prince.”
Ella smiled. “It’s not like you to wallow in self-pity, either.”
“I have to do something to pass the time.”
She walked across the room and placed her hand on his forehead with a slight frown. “Are you sure you’re feeling well? You seem to have a slight temperature.”
“I’m not sickening for something, Ella,” he insisted, jerking his head away from her touch. “I’m just bored, that’s all.”
“Perhaps,” she agreed doubtfully. “I think I’ll have Yuri check you over all the same.”
“Whatever,” he sighed, thinking she would not let go of this until he agreed. Ella could be as tenacious as a terrier with a bone when she set her mind on something.
By the following morning, Misha was feeling much worse. Even his tonic did little to revive him. He felt weak and shaky, and after he threw up his breakfast, even the thought of food began to repulse him.
Yuri Daranski, the Shadowdancers’ physician, called in to check on him after he refused lunch, tut-tutted meaningfully over the prince, and then took Ella into the other room to discuss his condition. Misha was rarely consulted about either his illness or the treatment required, so he thought nothing odd about it. He was feeling too ill to care much, anyway.
By the evening of the next day, Misha’s fits began again, but this time it was not an isolated occurrence. He had three of them during the night. By the following morning, what little strength he had to start with had been sapped by the constant convulsions. His skin felt as if it had been dragged through the palace laundries, beaten for a time over a washboard, wrung out and then tossed over his skeleton to dry.
Ella was by his side constantly, her expression concerned, as she urged him to be strong, feeding him the tonic that had always helped him so much in the past, and that now appeared to be useless. He saw Yuri two or three times a day, but the physician was helpless. The fits grew more frequent and more savage, until Misha was certain each time he saw the warning, dancing white lights before his eyes that the next fit would be the one that killed him.
Misha’s condition deteriorated so rapidly that finally even his father became concerned. Antonov visited him just as the second sun was setting five days after he had fallen ill. Misha had just had another fit, and Ella and Olena Borne were cleaning him up. As the fits became more intense, he quite often lost control of his bladder. This last fit had been the worst one yet. He had lost control of his bowels, too, while he was unconscious.
Antonov gagged as he stepped into the room, took one look at his son, and then turned to Ella. Misha feigned unconsciousness. He still had enough wit left to be humiliated that his father should see him in such a desperate state. It was easier for both of them if Antonov did not have to meet his eye.
“How long has he been like this?”
“Nearly a week now, your highness. He seems to be going from bad to worse.”
“Can’t you do anything for him?”
“Nothing we have tried is working. I fear this may be the beginning of the end.”
“You mean he’s dying?” Antonov asked bluntly.
“If we can’t get him to keep any food down, then if the fits don’t kill him, starvation and dehydration certainly will,” she confirmed in a voice filled with regret.
So they think I’m dying.
“Surely there must be something you can do?”
“We’ve tried every remedy known to us, your highness, and even a few dubious herbal cures, but nothing seems to make a difference.” Ella hesitated for a moment, and then, with a touching tone, she added, “You may have to prepare yourself for the worst.”
His father was silent for a long time.
“There is something we might try, to ease his suffering, if nothing else,” Ella suggested tentatively.
“What?”
“We could move him to the Hospice at Tolace. They are far better equipped to deal with the terminally ill, your highness, and maybe one of the physicians there has some knowledge that might help the prince recover.”
“Will he survive the journey?”
Ever the pragmatist, aren’t you, Father?
“It can be done in stages, sire, so as not to distress him further. I really feel it is the only thing left to us.”
“You’re assuming he’ll not recover,” Antonov remarked with all the emotion of a man discussing putting down a wounded horse.
“He’s never been strong, your highness,” Ella reminded him gently. “You’ve always known that it was a possibility that Misha’s weakness would eventually be his undoing.”
“The bad blood comes from his mother’s side of the family,” Antonov told her. “The Damitian Royal House is notoriously inbred.”
It’s so much easier to blame Analee, isn’t it, Father? You can’t bear the thought that my weakness is in any way attributable to you.
“You’re sure there’s nothing you can do for him here?” The Lion of Senet sounded a little uncertain.
“We’d have done it already if there was, your highness.”
There was another long pause as Antonov thought about it.
“Send him to Tolace, then,” he agreed finally. “Make whatever arrangements you must to see that he survives the trip, and once he gets there I want regular reports regarding his improvement. Or lack of it.”
“His fate will be as the Goddess wills it, your highness,” Ella told him.
“I’ve given her one son already, my lady,” the Lion of Senet replied bitterly. “She’s getting a little greedy, don’t you think?�
��
The comment almost shocked Misha into betraying the fact that he was conscious and had heard every word of the exchange.
It was the closest his father had ever come to admitting that he loved him.
Chapter 62
Tia snuggled closer to Dirk when she felt him stirring, not wanting to leave the comfort of his arms. Her head was resting on his chest as she listened to his heart beating, thinking it strange that she should find such comfort in it. Not so long ago, nothing would have made her happier than the thought that Dirk’s heart had stopped beating ...
After several awkward nights making do with the narrow camp bed, they had tossed it out of the tent and made up a bed on the ground, which proved much more comfortable and practical. Tia had given up trying to work out the whys and wherefores; given up trying to rationalize away her confusion. It seemed enough, at the moment, to just let it happen.
“You awake?” Dirk asked softly.
“Not really,” she murmured.
“We should be getting up. It’s well past second sunrise.”
“Why don’t you take the day off?” she suggested sleepily.
“And do what all day?”
She looked up at him with a sleepy grin.
He laughed. “I can’t believe you mean that, Tia.”
“It’s your fault. I was a nice girl until I met you.” She sighed and snuggled into his arms again. “I wonder what Lexie would have to say about this?”
“She’d probably tell you I’m a nice boy.”
“She did, actually.” Tia looked up at him curiously, comfortable enough with Dirk now to ask something that had puzzled her for months. “Why did you tell her?”
“Why did I tell who, what?”
“Lexie. About Johan.”
“I’m not sure,” he said after a moment’s thoughtful silence. “I just knew I couldn’t go on living under her roof pretending everything was fine. It seemed like the right thing to do.”
“She’s forgiven you.”
“Have you?” he asked.
Tia didn’t answer immediately, not even certain in her own mind how she felt about it any longer. Nothing was the same now; everything she had previously thought was true had been thrown into doubt. “I think I forgave you the night Morna died.”
“I’m sorry I asked you to do that.”
“I’m sorry you had to ask.”
He held her close for a moment and then he smiled. “We’re a mawkish pair this morning, aren’t we?”
She sighed heavily. “What are we going to do when we get back to Mil?”
He hesitated before answering. “Do we have to worry about that now? We’re a long way away from discovering anything of value in the cavern.”
He was right about that much. “But we’ve been here so long already. We can’t stay up here forever.”
“That’s true,” he agreed. “That’s why we really should get back into the cavern today. I’ve barely even begun to make sense of it.”
“I forgot how single-minded you can be,” she groaned. “You’re as bad as Neris sometimes.”
“You’re the only person I’ve ever met who can make intelligence sound like a curse.”
“Where I come from it is a curse,” she reminded him. “It gets you into all sorts of trouble.”
When he didn’t answer, she looked up at him and frowned. He had an odd expression on his face, as if she had caught him in an unguarded moment.
Dirk was like that. No matter how open he seemed, she could not avoid feeling there was a part of him that he always kept locked away from her. It worried her a little, but she tried not to dwell on it. There was so much to be forgiven, or at least put behind them, before they could even think of the future. For now, Tia had to content herself with the knowledge that whatever had happened between them these past sixteen days had radically altered everything she believed about Dirk Provin, and that so far, the change had been for the better.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, sensing something was wrong.
“Nothing, really. I was just thinking about us. About how strange it all is.”
“Strange? There you go, getting all romantic on me again.”
She smiled. “You know what I mean. Is this real, Dirk? Or is this just the inevitable result of two people spending way too much time alone out here in the wilderness? Would this have happened if we’d stayed in Mil?”
“Does it matter?”
She sat up and looked at him thoughtfully. “I think it does. Do you love me, Dirk?”
He pushed himself up on one elbow. His expression was serious, his eyes as unreadable as ever. “Do you trust me, Tia?” he asked in reply.
“I hate the way you always answer a question with a question. What’s trusting you got to do with it?”
“Trust is everything.”
“Then I trust you ...”
“You shouldn’t,” he warned suddenly, throwing back the covers. He climbed over the bedding, stood up and began to get dressed.
Tia stared up at him with concern. “What do you mean by that?”
He continued dressing and didn’t answer her.
“Tell me, Dirk,” she insisted.
He turned to face her as he tucked in his shirt and forced a smile. “Nothing, really. Forget it.”
She searched his face for some indication that he was hiding something from her. But Dirk could tell her the second sun had disappeared and she wouldn’t know he was lying until she looked over her shoulder and saw it shining in the sky behind him.
“Then don’t say things like that. It scares me.”
“I think I’ll go and work in the cavern for a while.”
“What about breakfast?”
“I’m not hungry.”
He smiled at her, but it seemed artificial, and when he left the tent, she lay down again and stared at the canvas roof for long time, unable to avoid the feeling that Dirk had quite deliberately avoided the question about whether or not he loved her.
Tia went hunting after breakfast, feeling the need for both the exercise and the solitude. Dirk’s odd comment about not trusting him still bothered her. She could not imagine why he would say such a thing, particularly as he’d spent much of the past two years trying to convince everyone in the Baenlands that he could be trusted.
She had become familiar with the lie of the land around Omaxin, and had found quite a few game trails in the foothills, and she now followed one that she had discovered on her last foray, but had not had time to investigate. The trail took her quite high above the ruins, and she stopped when she reached a small ledge to look down over the city. It was hard to appreciate the size of the place walking among the fallen buildings, but up here, she got a sense of how vast the city had been. It must have housed tens of thousands of people before it was destroyed. She glanced up at the smoking peak of Mount Probeus. Had they all died in the eruption, or had the lava been slow enough to let them flee the death trap their city had become?
Before she could wonder about the answer, she caught a glint of something to the south. Curious, she shaded her eyes with her arm and studied the landscape. Then she saw it again, the distinct flash of sunlight on metal. When she realized what it meant, Tia swore under her breath and abandoned her quest for game. She slung her bow over her shoulder, turned and sprinted back toward the ruins.
Even at a run, it took a long time to get back the camp. She had not realized how far she had wandered from the ruins. By the time she reached the entrance to the Labyrinth, she could clearly hear the jingle of tack and the sound of the advancing horsemen.
“Dirk!” she cried, running through the tunnel toward the cavern. She barely even noticed the darkness. “Dirk!”
“What’s wrong?” he asked, emerging through the gate at the sound of her panicked cry.
“Riders!”
He did not react immediately.
“Did you hear me?” she asked. “There’s a troop of riders heading this way! We have to get out
of here!”
He nodded slowly and reached for her hand. “Tia—”
“They’re almost on us!”
He pulled her close and kissed her, hard and hungrily. Then he held her face between his hands and closed his eyes, touching his forehead to hers for a moment.
“I’m so sorry, Tia,” he whispered in a voice choked with regret.
He let her go and turned toward the entrance of the Labyrinth without looking back. Tia watched him leave with a feeling of dread. There was something poignant and terribly final in the way he had spoken; the way he had kissed her.
She followed him slowly, stopping in the shadows as he emerged into the light.
The horsemen had reached the Labyrinth and were milling about outside. The rider in the lead, on a huge, impatient gray stallion, was Kirshov Latanya. Just behind him, on a much more sedate mount, rode the High Priestess Belagren. The other riders consisted of their escort and a score of Shadowdancers.
The Regent of Dhevyn dismounted when he spied Dirk and drew his sword. The two men faced each other for a tense moment before either of them spoke.
“Kirsh.”
“Dirk.”
Dirk glanced at the sword and shook his head. “Put it away, Kirsh. Even if I was planning to fight you, I wouldn’t be stupid enough to face someone as well trained as you with a naked blade.”
Kirshov Latanya sheathed his blade with some reluctance, as the High Priestess dismounted and walked up beside the prince, pulling off her riding gloves.
“My lady.”
She glanced over Dirk’s shoulder at the Labyrinth for a moment, then met his eye.
“Did you open it?”
Dirk nodded. “As I said I would.”
Tia bit back a cry of despair as she realized what she was witnessing.
Belagren’s eyes lit up with excitement and she turned to Kirshov. “Tell your people to make camp. I want my Shadowdancers to get to work immediately.”
Kirsh nodded, turned back to the rest of the troop and began issuing orders. Dirk remained standing in front of the Labyrinth facing the High Priestess.
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