“Lisen.”
She stopped but did not turn.
“Yes, including Ariel,” he said. What that had cost him she didn’t know. She couldn’t know. What she’d done to her brother had never settled for him. She wasn’t even sure it had settled for her. Hence, the rock left ignored, sitting in place.
She nodded silently, opened the door and left.
Caught in a vise of someone else’s making, Rinli stood beside Lipta in the stable, stroking the mare’s burnished coat, waiting for her mother, thinking. For nearly a week, she’d tried to make sense of the tumble of feelings and thoughts warring inside of her. Her mother seemed a much better person than she’d once thought, but then she’d remember the magic, and her heart would harden again. And yet, was it possible that magic could be forgiven? Damn, she didn’t know. She didn’t know much, apparently, as her father had grown fond of reminding her.
Rinli’s stomach tightened, and she remembered. She could have died. The woman she called “Mother” could have died the night the assassin made her move. If Fa…
They still weren’t sure who’d hired the woman. They’d narrowed it down, with the desert and its inhabitants excluded from the diminishing list of suspects, but Rinli wasn’t sure. She knew of many in Thristas who opposed Garla and her mother, even herself. In the mind of the Empir, the Thristans were supposed to be her people—Rinli’s people—but they were The People, noble and proud. Too many of them would prefer to face the continued rule of the Garlan Empir than what they perceived as the claim of a pretender to the status of Mantar’s Child. Rinli didn’t feel like the answer to prophecy, and if it sat unwell with her, how could she expect The People to accept it?
“Good, you’re here,” her mother pronounced as she marched into the stable, slapping her gloves with one hand onto the opposite palm. With barely a glance at Rinli, Empir Ariannas strode directly to her great black, patting him on his hind quarters. If Rinli were to do that, the damn horse would probably kick her, but he knew his master and only tossed his head, then whinnied a greeting. Jal, Pharaoh’s devoted hand, held the reins as Rinli’s mother pulled on her leather gloves, then passed the reins on to the Empir and offered her entwined hands for a leg up. One of the other stable hands came forward and assisted Rinli, and once mounted, the two women pulled out of the stable and into the park.
“I love this time of year. Don’t you?”
Rinli grunted, hoping she’d managed to make it sound like a positive grunt.
Pharaoh broke into a trot, and Rinli kicked her horse into one as well. The little mare had shared the garden paths with the stallion so many times now that she kept up smartly with a horse whose powerful muscles exceeded her own by at least half again as much. Not unlike Mother and me.
Once out of the sight of all save the guards perpetually watching for threats, the Empir slowed her steed to a walk and encouraged Rinli to catch up with her.
“Children have a tendency,” her mother began quietly as their horses ambled side by side, “to expect far more from their parents than their parents can deliver.”
“I suppose,” Rinli muttered, unwilling to commit one way or the other until she heard more.
“It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
“What?”
“Handing you over to a destiny I couldn’t control. I’d just found you, and I had to let you go. We negotiated for days, my eyes slowly clearing and my inner sight retreating. I had to hold on to what I’d known for only a few moments and then begun to lose.”
“The treaty,” Rinli realized.
“Yes, the treaty.” Her mother pulled Pharaoh to a halt, and Rinli stopped Lipta beside her. “It saved lives, but would more be lost later when…well…now? Or in a few months from now? I’ve been balancing this thing for years, knowing how precariously it sits at the edge of a fire mountain that could erupt at any moment.”
Rinli saw, perhaps for the first time, the value of the peace, the place of the peace in her mother’s planning and manipulation. Certainly, it was to be her mother’s legacy, but beyond that, it seemed this woman, whose actions constantly baffled Rinli, sought an end to the subjugation of a substantial number of the people for whom she was responsible.
“And I’ve been no help at all.”
Her mother laughed. “No.” She paused, then continued. “Your father says I should be honest with you.” She took a deep breath. “Let me start with the unbelievable. It’s actually the easiest.”
“The other world.”
“How do you know about that?”
“It’s not magic. I didn’t see it or anything. Fa mentioned it a little while ago, when he was trying to convince me you were manipulated, too.”
Her mother shrugged. “Well, that’s true, but it’s not why I want to tell you. I’m not looking for pity with any of this. I just want you to understand.” At Rinli’s nod, her mother continued. “It was Eloise. She told everyone, everyone who knew who I was before I did, that it was to protect me, that my father had revealed my existence to the necropath when he was dying. She admitted early on to me that that had been a lie, but she never told me the truth.”
Her mother paused, then continued. “It wasn’t until the battle that I began to understand. I needed to find my toughness, something that Solsta Haven couldn’t help me with. I had to be able to question those around me. I learned all of that in that other world, and sometime I’d love to sit down and tell you all about it.”
“I’d like that.” Rinli snapped her mouth shut. Had she really said that?
“I was seventeen when I returned after seven years on Earth. Your father was twenty-five and a captain of the Guard. He knew more than I did about everything. I’d just returned from Earth, and I knew nothing except the little I could remember from before I’d left Solsta when I was ten. He put a sword in my hand and demanded I learn how to use it. I didn’t want to learn how to use it, but I knew I had no choice. I was trouble. I talked back to him about every little thing. He was supposed to be in charge, but I questioned him anyway. It may have made me strong, but I suspect it didn’t make him happy.”
“You seem fine now.”
“Only because he is a very patient person.”
“You don’t think it’s because he loves you?” Rinli couldn’t hide her disappointment. She’d given herself over to the belief that her parents loved each other, but if all her father possessed where her mother was concerned was patience, well…
“Creators, Rin, of course he does. At least as much as I love him. Though we have had our difficulties.” Her mother sighed. “He left me once, you know. Because I pushed my brother to his death.”
“Yes, I know.” She wanted to tell her mother she was uncomfortable with this subject but said nothing.
“I had no choice. I couldn’t meet Ariel in a duel. Despite his lack of discipline in training, he’d been at it longer than I’d been on Earth. I’d never overcome him. And I knew there was no way to avoid it. You see, the Council would have heard my claim against him, but no matter which way they decided, neither of us could have allowed the other to take the throne—Ariel because he’d never accept my claim and I because…well…destiny. Inevitably it would have ended up with the two of us facing off in the Arena where I stood no chance at all. So, I used my gifts. And for a few moments, I reveled in defeating him slowly, hurting him without outright killing him. I did end it, but I never should have begun it like that. His eyes during that torture haunt me to this day. It’s a guilt I will live with for the rest of my life. You can’t find redemption after that.”
Rinli shrugged. What could she say?
“So your father left. He’d promised to stand with me, but pushing my brother to suicide was too much for him. I don’t blame him. I did then, but not anymore. And of course, it’s not the only time I used the push to kill.”
“The Khared,” Rinli interjected.
“Yes, the Khared. You know the story, of course.”
“Fa found y
ou, blind, covered in blood, your seven captors all dead at your hand.” Rinli shivered.
“I’d been held captive for over a month, dosed with gryl, powerless. I had to get free, and I had to rely on myself alone. I had no idea your father was coming. Given our parting all those months before, I had no reason to count on him.”
“But why kill them all?” This was the question that had dug at her heart ever since her father took her to the Khared and told her the story when she was eleven.
“Because I was blind. And alone. And my only hope was to get away without anyone on my tail. I knew Pharaoh could get me home, but without sight, I needed to be free of pursuers to allow me time to grope my way down the river to Avaret.”
Rinli considered this and had to admit that she might never comprehend her mother’s pain and fear at the time.
“All right,” her mother said, her tone shifting from deadly serious to something lighter. “That’s enough for now. I’ve obviously overwhelmed you.”
“No,” Rinli said, rising from her ruminations and sitting up straighter on Lipta. “Just a lot to think about. I mean, I know the stories, but to hear them from you, to hear your…”
Her mother smiled. “Like I said. Overwhelming.”
Rinli shrugged. Again, she had nothing to say.
“Time to go back.” And abruptly dismissed, Rinli watched her mother turn Pharaoh to the trail and urge him into a canter heading back to the stable.
What? she wondered. No urging to train? No push to learn the push? The cost of forgiveness was acceptance, she realized, returning to her troubling thoughts of the last week. And I’m not ready to accept.
She kicked Lipta into a canter but never quite caught up with her mother. She didn’t intend to. She needed time, time alone, time unfettered by obligations she didn’t want to face.
After a quick shower using the Guard’s facilities, Korin took the stairs two at a time, pleased he could still manage them, from the dungeon to the main level and from there to the family quarters on the second floor. He’d spent a part of his afternoon sparring with new recruits, and that always left him feeling strong.
When he stepped into the bedchamber he shared with his spouse, he found her on the bed, still in her riding attire, sitting. Simply. Sitting.
“Are you all right?” he asked. Something about her countenance reflected pain or even illness.
She looked up, appearing startled as though she hadn’t heard him come in and had barely heard him speak. “What? Oh, right. Yes, yes, I’m fine.” She sighed and lifted a booted foot up in his direction. “Could you?”
He stepped over, and as she held onto the bed, he pulled one boot and then the other from her feet which she then dropped to the floor, remaining otherwise motionless. He sat down beside her.
“You did it,” he stated.
“Did what?” she asked.
“You talked to her.”
“Creators, Korin, I laid my soul out to her.”
“And?”
“She shrugged. A lot.”
“It’s her way of telling you she’s thinking about it.”
“It’s what she’s thinking that worries me. She questioned our feelings for each other. How could she have spent over fifteen years around us and not seen it?”
“What she sees, I think,” he said, “is you and I spending a lot of time divided by a mountain range and, when we’re together, keeping our distance.”
Lisen nodded, and a loose lock of hair captured his attention. With one finger, he slipped it behind her ear. She turned, and he felt his smile broaden to as far as it ever got. Damn, he loved her.
“I went on to tell her about Ariel, but all I got for that was one of her shrugs. So I moved on to the Khared, and she asked me why I killed everyone there.”
“I think that one’s been itching at her since I took her to the Khared when she was eleven.”
“I answered her with…well, you know the story. She went silent, and I ended it there. I rode back to the stable alone, leaving her to contemplate all I’d said.”
He put his arm around her and pulled her to lean in closer to him.
“She’s a child and an adult,” she continued, “and I can feel her trying to make sense of her life. But there is no sense, and only maturity can teach her about that.”
He kissed the top of her head as it rested on his shoulder. “A long road awaits her, if she’s allowed to step onto it.”
“Do you think the Thristans will stop her?”
He shook his head. “I know there are some who fought the Treaty from the beginning.”
Lisen sat up, looked at him and touched his cheek with the palm of her hand. “But we’ve always known that. There are even some Garlans still fighting it.”
“But not the way the Thristans will if their numbers grow.”
She pulled away, stood up and stomped over to her wardrobe. “Damn it, Korin. Can’t they see it? Everything I’ve done these last fifteen years has been for them.” She loosened the drawthong that cinched the waist of her leather leggings, pulled them down and stepped out of them. Then she untied the lacings on her vest and let that fall to the floor beside the leggings. She stood there in her gauzy undergarment, appearing momentarily disoriented, then turned back to him. “I can’t win.”
He rose and went to her. He paused there momentarily, then put his right hand on her chest over her heart and said, “I love you.” The joy this simple gesture gave him, the fact that every time he wanted to he could reach out to her and tell her this, never failed to remind him of his luck. In the first year of their acquaintance, he never would have dared do anything like this despite his expanding desire to do so. And then, to have her reach out, touch his chest and say “I love you” back. Bliss.
This exchange calmed her as he knew it would. Lisen breathed in deeply, dropped her hand to her side, and as he dropped his, she turned to her wardrobe to choose a tunic to finish out her day. He’d told her once she’d make a brilliant Empir, and he had never backed away from his proclamation. She would find a way to reach the soul of their daughter, and she would accomplish it without the push or any other manipulative process. She would teach Rinli about the gift they shared and mentor her on methods to protect herself. And if Korin found himself in the position of having to provide one or the other with reasons to continue, he would. Because that was his place in the equation—maintaining the connection between the two most powerful individuals he had ever known.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
IT MIGHT AS WELL BE FOREVER
After enjoying two months of the simplicity that was Seffa, Nalin had arrived in Avaret last evening and had sent a message to Lisen letting her know he was here. Then he’d settled in and slept through the night. This morning, after a light breakfast, he headed over to the Keep for what he expected would be the final discussion of the Garlan demands for Rinli’s investiture a couple of months away.
“How was your trip?” Lisen asked when he entered her office.
“Safe. Quiet. The usual, I suppose,” he replied as he made his way to his seat at the conference table.
“And Bala?” Korin asked from where he sat at Lisen’s left. “The transfer went well?”
“She is ecstatic. We both are.” He acknowledged Korin with a smile, then nodded to Rinli who sat directly opposite her mother.
“All right,” Lisen said, “let’s get started. Korin, remind us again what you brought back as the latest proposal from Thristas.” She sat back in her chair, hand to her chin, and allowed Korin to take charge.
“In the simplest terms,” Korin said as he handed a sheet of paper to each of them so they could follow along as he spoke, “we grappled back and forth over metaphor versus a straightforward approach on this last visit to Thristas, and we came up with something more symbolic than direct. Lisen and I believe this will achieve a connection with the Thristans, and that is, after all, what we’re hoping to accomplish.”
Nalin listened as Korin detailed
a ritual based on the ceremonies the Thristans celebrated at the time a child emerged from the pouch. A few months away from the outcoming of his child with Bala, Nalin found Korin’s description moving.
“Then the Empir will read from the Garlan response as defined in the treaty, proclaiming Rinli the Protector of Thristas,” Korin continued. “The Tribe will welcome her on behalf of The People of Thristas, and that will end it.”
Nalin nodded.
As her spouse concluded his presentation, Lisen sat forward, picked up her stylus and inked it, presumably preparing to take notes. “All right then. Rin, I assume you’re still comfortable with this?”
The young woman shrugged, and Nalin read in her a reluctance to commit, one way or the other.
“If I weren’t, would it change anything?” the girl asked.
“Of course it would,” Korin replied.
“Mother?”
“I signed the Treaty,” Lisen said.
“And I didn’t. Seems a shame that the person most affected by this has no say whatsoever in how it plays out.”
Lisen tossed her stylus onto the table and threw herself into the back of the chair in disgust. “The person most affected by this is the woman or man who stood on that battlefield fifteen years ago and was allowed to return home to their family rather than die.”
Nalin’s stomach clenched and his breath caught. He had landed in the middle of a family squabble. He only found his breath again when Korin reached out and put his hand on Lisen’s.
“Sacrifice is nothing new in this family, Rin,” he said. “This is not a persecution; it’s an opportunity.”
“I know,” the girl responded, only slightly softened. “I know.”
“Sometimes,” Lisen said, “our fate is not of our making, but we must follow it anyway. I’m sorry your fate is proving so hard to bear.”
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