Strake flung out of the far side of the bed and stood there, naked and seething and apparently too furious for words. He should look ridiculous, but all Soren could think of was that she really was in love with him and that she was driving back the wedge it had taken so much to remove. The price of this stupid need of hers to be something other than a woman who looked good in a uniform.
"So you want me to sit here – locked up and ignorant – while you lay your life on the line?" His voice was shaking, and those dark blue eyes were entirely black.
"I–" Soren stopped, pierced by a sudden, thankful realisation. Strake was as angry as she'd ever seen him, but the hate which had so battered her before wasn't there. Her choice would cost her, but not nearly so much as she'd feared. "I was thinking that they're the same," she said obliquely, finding this an odd moment to be so happy.
"What?" His voice had risen in pitch.
"The Rose and the boy – the..." She stumbled and looked up at him, and something in her face at least made him hold his tongue. "They were both constructed to perform certain tasks – they were truly made to be something. The Rose to protect Rathens, the boy to kill them. They're horrible things and we hate – want to kill them both. And can't, either of them. And – they're just doing what they've been made for. Puppets. The boy at least fights against it."
"Do you expect me to be sorry for Vahse's killer?"
"Aren't you?"
He tossed his head, turned to one side. It wasn't something he was going to admit, any more than the obvious parallel between his own temper and the murder laid on the boy.
"You called me a composite, once," Soren faltered. "Something made to get a child off you. Let me be more than that."
"Is that what you think? Damn it, Soren–" He came toward her, anger washed out by dismay. Snaring her fingers he found his black frown once again. "Your hands are like ice."
"That's the weather." She tried not to think about the boy, injured and somewhere out in the night. "You could watch from the residences."
This did not impress. "I'm not going to simply stand by while you–" He shook his head, squeezed her hands. "I'll talk to the Fae. This can't be the best solution. Even if it was, there's no way I'd let you go out there unless I was with you–"
"So that we can spend all our time trying to make sure you didn't get killed?"
"Soren–"
"I'm Champion, Strake. I'm – I need to do this."
"No."
There was just enough uncertainty in the word to bring a frantic look to his eyes, and he covered it with sudden, urgent passion. It did nothing to solve the impasse, but served to set it briefly at a distance and return them to tangled warmth in the bed.
Dawn was creeping up on them by the time he had exhausted everything but slow caresses. The Tzel Aviar was asleep and Aristide had woken early, was blinking in the dark. The doubled patrols of the palace looked bored and restless, and the kitchens were starting to stir.
"I...vowed never to marry you," Strake said abruptly. "Stupid, hot-headed thing to do, guaranteed to turn around just as it has. But the kind of vow I made – it's not easily broken."
Soren didn't answer for the moment, sorting out the idea of having Strake and marrying him. "Does it make a difference?"
"Of course it does." He sounded annoyed, then sighed. "Quite aside from having to deal with the Court's expectations for my bedding arrangements, I want – I want that. I want our child to have that."
A declaration of intent, not love. Like Aristide, Strake had faced his impossibilities, that mass of anger and desire, and found a compromise. Despite all that the Rose had done to them, he was going to try to make the best of it.
She should feel happy, should catch hold of this fragile thread of hope, and look for a future with a partner not an adversary. But there was another issue, something the risk to her made suddenly important to establish.
"What about Aristide?"
"What? What about him?"
"If you're talking Court's expectations, that's one which hasn't wavered. They're all expecting you to marry him."
Strake snorted. "He's not."
"No. But he–" Soren broke off, thinking of future possibilities, watching Aristide staring at his ceiling. "It feels unbalanced. When he swore that oath to you, I think he was gambling on your death. Now – he serves you more than well and will continue to do so. Forced to, no matter how he feels about it. I don't know why it bothers me so much."
Her Rathen, unusually, did not fire up or grow irritable, but looked at her with long dark eyes which saw far more than she'd expected. "Perhaps because you're forced to serve me, no matter how you feel about it," he said.
"Strake–"
"Without the Rose you would be in Carn Keep, and I would not be King." Strake's tone was meditative. "I would have returned to a land where Queen Arista had withdrawn from rule, where Prince Aristide was the focus of a fascinated Court. Feared quite possibly, and thoroughly disliked by those whose ambitions run counter to his. But – ah, I was not an hour back before I realised the rest of them hang on his every word. They were eager to have him rule, but instead they have me. And Darest has one King too many."
"Because of the Rose."
"Oh yes. Far too much in this land is 'because of the Rose', good and bad all tangled together and no way to undo it. The Couerveurs were kept as regents rather than kings, which is certainly good for me, for the Rathen line. It was terrible for Darest. You and I – how different would it have been, if the Rose had not made you Champion, but had left you in Carn Keep for me to one day see and want without feeling you were being forced down my throat? Let alone–" His voice quivered, and she felt his entire body tense. "Let alone the rest of it."
"The boy did not kill me because–" She couldn't quite say it, hurrying on. "We're safe in the palace because of the Rose, but it – I hate being in the palace for the same reason. And it keeps the malison from completely destroying us."
"From warping us. The malison's effects you can see most in Lady Arista. Not dead or broken, but turned in on herself. In Darest the one who sits the throne, the ruling line, is never something as simple as the one at the top of the pile."
She went still. "But that would mean–"
"That I'd be impacted by the malison without the Rose." His voice was bitter. "Or even with the Rose, given the lack of Rathens to power it. But it will give some measure of protection. Another Sun-blasted chain about my throat."
Soren touched his cheek, his temple, feeling heat, the throb of pulse beneath skin. "And you'd throw it off in a moment, if it wasn't for the risk to me." She knew perfectly well it was true, didn't need to see him nod his head, eyes squeezing shut in his pain. "Do you think it could be the malison which has formed this instinct in the Rose?"
"Who knows? It doesn't matter – take away the malison and the Rose would still be what it is now, just as Arista Couerveur would continue to war against her son. There's no escaping the thing."
He was working himself up to anger again, but stopped and touched her face, shivering. "Good with bad. Bad with good. And you're right to be worried about Aristide. His greatest strength is this singular devotion to Darest. It kept him from killing me, because he saw more harm than good would come out of it. Now, the saecstra will hold him, whether he wants it or not, but – as I said, he's near as much King of Darest as I am. The malison has to be effecting him, or will eventually, and I can't guess where that will take us. I do know marrying him won't fix things."
"Because he still wouldn't be King?"
"Exactly. I've no doubt he'd hate the prospect, no matter how much or little he felt for me. It would lessen him, in a way."
Never simple. Soren shifted, tracing the curve of his ribs. "Do you want him?"
Strake didn't answer immediately, the tension creeping back into his body. The question bothered him. "I can barely reconcile lying here with you, without Vahse," he said, eventually. "Aristide would be too much."
; That was not quite an answer. Soren touched his cheek and after a moment he reluctantly went on: "There's a lot about him I admire. I suppose in other circumstances I'd be tempted. But I don't want or need another lover. And he doesn't want anything of the sort. I'd like – I'll admit at least to wanting to make him stop 'your majesty-ing' me."
Would that be enough? If something happened to her, Strake would need someone, and Aristide was by far the most logical person. They were suited in so many ways, and surely Aristide couldn't be completely indifferent? Soren didn't like the prospect of leaving her Rathen alone.
"A tribond would probably circumvent my vow," Strake said then, completely shattering her equilibrium.
"What?"
"You'd have to want it," Strake said, eyes glittering. "Want him. Could you?"
Impossible question.
"I don't think Aristide...is himself with me," she said, without a great deal of enthusiasm. "I'm not sure he's himself with anyone, really. You, perhaps, on occasion. I won't deny he's attractive, but he–" She shook her head, trying to push away the images that were filling it, unable not to look at the man as he stood before a mirror, dressing with slow precision. Unreadable as ever. "He's not what I thought he was. How can I tell whether I want him if he doesn't let anyone know him? Court him? I'm not even sure I've met him."
Strake's smile was one of a man who has demonstrated a point. Lining up Aristide as her replacement would founder on the rock of Aristide's self-imposed isolation. And could never balance the risk she wanted to take. But the air of triumph was short-lived, and he slid his hand across her hip to rest it flat on the bed on her far side.
"I don't know what I'm doing," he whispered. "Here with you, without Vahse. He was the one who wanted children, was far more determined to find a third than I. And I already knew that anyone he liked enough to want to have children with, he'd want as part of a tribond. Pragmatic contracts weren't the sort of thing he could do." His hand and his eyes both closed, and his voice dropped even further, tense with misery. "He talked a lot about how we would make sure we didn't know who fathered which child, but he wanted one so much that I was going to make certain at least the first was his. The perfect man to be a father – he always gave his love so unconditionally. He would have adored you, made me jealous. Made a game out of what could have been the most horrible rivalry. Exhausted himself making sure you loved me as much as him, and then been quietly hurt, despite all good intentions, if we spent too much time together. Then laughed at himself. Keeping the world in proportion was so easy for him."
For a moment there were three in the bed, a mage-conjured image of a Rathen man with a wry smile and dancing eyes lying beside them. Then it was just Soren and Strake, and her Rathen's face was all planes. "I can't let you go out there."
It took a long time to find the answer. "One of the worst things I can think of–" she began, and found that her throat had stuck and she had to swallow to make it work again. "One of the worst things would be if the boy managed to run from Tor Darest. If the capture went wrong or if he overcomes this Moon-shaping and flees from what's been set on him. How long before he came back? I don't want to be terrified of letting our child outside the palace walls, Strake. I don't want to have this sick dread every time you so much as set foot outside the door. I'll be damned if I have that."
His hand had found her stomach, undistorted by a child still months in the future. "No," he repeated, and this time the word was full of fear.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Every question Strake asked the Tzel Aviar only made it clearer that the risk to Soren was considerably less than that posed by any other approach. It was the Rose's senses Strake couldn't argue away: the fact that it would let her know where the boy was, and be actively doing everything it dared to keep her alive. Finally, whether because of Soren's determination or the undeniable risk posed to Darest, he gave in.
Tzel Damaris' solution to getting the boy within arm's reach was to construct a massive knot of illusory writing on Vostal Hill – a sentence in Fae script which Aristide translated as: "Come an hour after sunset". And an hour after sunset she and the Tzel Aviar once again walked out on Vostal Hill.
Feeling that it was better than nothing, Strake was watching from a balcony. Soren regretted suggesting it, picturing the boy maddened by his distant presence, trying to leap up the side of the palace. From the hillside she could only see the shape of two men, side by side on the unlit balcony, but the boy would still know exactly where his target was. That was why Aristide was at Strake's side, and four guards lurked beyond the doors into the palace proper.
Soren tucked chilled fingers into her armpits as they neared the top of the hill. She'd managed to leave her gloves behind, despite a stone-faced Halcean trying to kit her out in everything including a mail shirt. Her aide had worn an air of impending doom, eyes dark and troubled but her mouth closed firmly on her fears. Just like her Rathen.
Having promised to remain in sight, Soren slowed as they approached the pavilion, listening to the leaves rattle, and scenting salt and lavender on the evening breeze. The sky was clean and clear above, with the sliver of the Moon just beginning to rise. On her back the sword felt reassuringly solid, but the Rose was completely silent and there was no hint of a killer's breath.
She hoped that the boy could read.
"Tzel Damaris–" she began, then decided the Fae simply would not have overlooked that point. When he turned enquiring eyes on her she hesitated, then said: "Seldareth – Asterall – is the 'end' she's supposed to seek death?"
"It may be." He stopped just before the shadow of the pavilion and gazed across at the mouth of the river at the lights of Tor Darest. "That one will walk alone to Celoras, and into the Lake of Essence. Many who do this do not emerge. Should she survive, the name of Asterall will still be recorded among the dead, and she will seek a new one by...complicated means. She cannot return to the person she once was."
This seemed to Soren an unimaginable thing. To have everything you were taken away, and to have to search out a new purpose, a new self. "It seems harsh," she said, inadequately. "She did so little."
"Asterall faces death for ordering the murder of Seldareth's heir."
Seldareth's heir. Of course. The boy was the elder.
"The land will remain under regency until he is able to assume the title," Damaris continued. Without palace-sight she couldn't see the subtleties of his expression, but that perfectly even voice held some fragment of acknowledgment for the difficulties of installing someone with so much blood on his hands as North's lord. Strake would hate it.
Unable to muster any meaningful comment, Soren fell silent. Why did every problem partway dealt with birth a litter of consequences? Being Champion of Darest was like fighting a hydra with a thousand heads, and none of them nice, solid, visible ones you could just lop off and forget. Even if you were competent enough to swing a sword. Everything she did still felt wrong.
-oOo-
He came from the south, walking with steady ease, pausing occasionally as if to survey what lay ahead. When his breath first sighed into audibility the Rose fluttered in response, a memory of unease at the back of Soren's chest. But there was none of the panic of previous encounters. Soren made herself take heart from this, for it suggested the Rose agreed with Tzel Damaris' plan. It at least had made no attempt to stop her leaving the palace – there'd been none of the weak-legged confusion which had delayed her effort to reach Strake in the Tongue.
If only she could be so sanguine. One thing to decide she had to live up to the title of Champion, to argue for the right to risk herself. Quite another matter to actually play hero. She still couldn't believe she was out here. But there was no backing out of this now, and she sounded almost calm as she warned Tzel Damaris.
"I will explain to him what I intend to do," Damaris replied. "It is unlikely he will run, but if he does I will attempt to block him. Take hold of his arms, for his hands are his weapons, and keep him as stil
l as you are able. I have laid protections upon myself to shield against a strike, but I am not certain they will be effective."
The Fae's instructions produced a marvellously tangible sense of discomfort. What harm in a little reassurance? Or at least a show of fellow feeling, some awareness that it was not easy to stand out here beneath a swimming sliver of moon, listening to a child made monster approach? Tzel Damaris simply gazed in the direction she'd indicated, his stance suggesting concentration, certainly not fear.
Soren had enough of that for both of them. Fear of death and her own inadequacy, concern for her barely-real child and for her Rathen watching so impotently. She'd always thought herself better able to face danger than cope with Court subtlety, but perhaps she simply hadn't hunted enough killers. Sick helplessness had taken her by the throat and she thought it entirely possible she might just stand there and watch while Tzel Damaris was torn apart.
On the far side of the pavilion, the boy stopped again. It was a poised, anticipatory kind of hesitation, speaking palpably of suspicion and the memory of an arrow striking home. Then he crossed from one throne to the other and out into the open. Only ten feet away when he stopped, while Soren's spine tied knots and the Rose became tangibly intent. But she stood her ground.
The Tzel Aviar began to speak, evidently tracking the boy's progress by the crackle of trodden grass. This time there was no convenient enchantment of translation, just the quiet flow of incomprehensible words. Nor did the Fae's tone suggest threat or plea; his face was as imperturbable as ever.
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