"If I'd been living on wild onions, raw potatoes, and under-ripe figs since leaving home, I'd eat anything that a hospitable person put in front of me."
Zarien realized he'd been rude and felt chastened. "I'm sorry, sira... Tansen." While he might not be a Lascari by birth anymore, he still bore the tattoos of one and would not shame them before the landfolk by behaving badly. "Everything has been so strange ever since I fell overboard and died and then came ashore that I—"
"Yes, I can only imagine. I'm..." Tansen made a funny, stifled sound and said, "I'm sorry, too. I was impatient. I, uh, I haven't been at my best since we met."
"Perhaps..." Zarien stared at the legendary warrior and now saw the immense sorrow and fatigue in that lean face. The dancing light of the woodless fire lent a haunted look to Tansen's dark eyes. His filthy long hair made him look savage, and his many minor injuries shown starkly against his blood-drained skin. Even the sea king could not spring back quickly from near-death, Zarien acknowledged, and Mirabar's angry words had wounded him, too. "Perhaps you are right," he said at last. "Perhaps tomorrow will be better for talking."
After all, Zarien was not at his best right now, either. He was even, he privately admitted, a bit cranky tonight. It had been a long, hard day preceded by too many days of fear and confusion.
"You're a good lad." The compliment was casual, but Zarien heard its sincerity and felt his stature grow. Tansen returned his attention to the food. "I'll take the, uh, cooked flesh out of the basket." He took one of the leaves lining the basket and starting putting the chunks of meat on it.
A woman approached them with a bowl of some steaming liquid and said to Tansen, "You shouldn't eat that. Not tonight. I've made this for you." She wore a long, plain gown of the Sisterhood rather than the draped tunic and pantaloons typical of a shallah woman. This was, Zarien realized, the Sister whom Tansen had mentioned.
"What is this, Rahilar?" Tansen asked as she handed him the bowl.
"Blood broth."
Zarien rose quickly. "I'll think I'll sit upwind, if you don't mind."
Sister Rahilar frowned. "It doesn't smell bad."
"Humor him," Tansen advised. He regarded the bowl's contents with something less than favor. "Must I?"
"You must," she replied. "And often for the next few days."
"I won't be here for a few days."
"But you—"
"I'll drink it tonight and tomorrow." Tansen gazed down into the bowl again and amended, "Well, tonight, anyhow."
"You've lost too much bl—"
"Time is what I've lost," he said.
"You can't—"
"Rahilar."
Zarien noted that Tansen's warning tone worked on the Sister, too.
She pursed her lips for a moment, then said, "When you're both done eating, I will tend to your wounds. Then you may both feel free to go get yourselves killed." She turned and stalked away, her posture rigid with indignation.
Zarien watched Tansen pick up a piece bread to dunk in the blood broth, then asked, "Do any women like you?"
Tansen threw the chunk of bread at him. It was the first time Zarien laughed since meeting him.
"I can't eat," Mirabar said and pushed herself away from the crude wooden table inside Sister Velikar's humble Sanctuary.
The Sister, who was as old as the mountains and notoriously ill-tempered, ignored her and kept on devouring the lamb-and-fig stew she was sharing, as befitted the hospitality of the Sisterhood, with her unexpected guests: Cheylan, Najdan, Mirabar, and the three shallaheen who had come here with Cheylan earlier today in search of Tansen. That was a lot of people to feed unexpectedly, but the rebels at Dalishar often hunted fresh meat for the Sister and gave her supplies seized from the Valdani, so her larder was usually well-stocked.
Cheylan and the shallaheen had met up with Mirabar and Najdan, who advised them the shatai had been found, and they had decided not to return to the sacred caves until morning. No one liked Velikar, but they all knew she was a good cook in addition to being a gifted healer.
Mirabar felt Najdan's brooding eyes upon her and was aware of his disapproval. It made this raging fury inside her even harder to bear, but at least snapping at him gave her some relief: "What are you staring at?"
He ignored her and said courteously to the Sister, "I, however, have an excellent appetite. May I trouble you for some more?"
"Trouble yourself," Velikar said, jerking her head in the direction of the fat, black pot hanging above the glowing embers on the stone hearth in the corner.
Cheylan remained silent, but his glowing golden gaze rested often on Mirabar as he toyed with his food. Since the stone abode was so small, the three shallah rebels had chosen to eat outside.
Had their hostess been anyone other than Sister Velikar, Mirabar would have apologized for her rudeness. Even she, less schooled than most in matters of etiquette, knew what an insult it was to push away a full plate after taking scarcely a bite. However, though Velikar was less than charming, one of the distinct advantages of her company was that she didn't care how anyone behaved as long as they didn't pester her.
If anyone was so foolish as to pester her, then she—in defiance of all teachings of the Sisterhood—usually drove them away with a yahr, which she could swing as well as half the men in Sileria.
Predictably, Josarian was the only person she had ever seemed to be fond of; it was a rare person who hadn't liked Josarian. Mirabar had not been pleased to announce his death to Velikar upon arriving here. The old Sister had asked no questions. She merely burned an offering to Dar, in mourning, and grumbled nastily at anyone who tried to speak to her thereafter. Filling her belly at dinner didn't noticeably improve her mood, either.
Cheylan, however, undoubtedly had plenty of questions, and Mirabar could sense his tension as he waited for this awkward meal to end so he could speak privately with her.
Angered by Najdan's coldly composed expression and exasperated with Velikar's presence, Mirabar blurted, "I need air." She whirled around and left the Sister's hut without a backward glance, escaping outside, past the three shallaheen finishing their meal, and into the head-clearing mountain air of the twin-moon night. Mindful of the dangers beyond Sanctuary, though, she was careful to stay on Velikar's grounds.
He didn't kill her. He couldn't kill her. He let her get away with it.
Her head pounded in time with her heart, in time with the bitter refrain that filled her thoughts: He let her live, he let her live, he let her live.
Tansen had killed everyone who had ever threatened Josarian, who had stood in his way or gone against him. He had been Josarian's sword, as Mirabar had been his shield. Tansen could be ruthless when he needed to be. No one knew that better than Mirabar. She had communed with Armian, who now sojourned in the Otherworld.
But Tansen had spared Elelar, the lying, traitorous whore who had helped destroy the Firebringer.
And I will hate him forever for this.
It was impossible to understand, to accept, to tolerate his obsession with Elelar. The torena had betrayed him to Kiloran for killing Armian. She had taken many other men to her bed, ignoring his passion for her. After her arrest and near-death in Shaljir, she had chosen Zimran, not Tansen, as her lover. She had even flaunted this liaison before Tansen's brooding eyes. She had negotiated a secret treaty with the Valdani and used Tansen's weakness—as he lay helpless for many days after Commander Koroll stabbed him with a shir—to have Josarian ambushed while he was unprotected by his bloodbrother.
Tansen's honor demanded vengeance for what Elelar had done to him, to Josarian, and to Sileria.
Yet he spared her.
Mirabar knew why. She had seen the veiled desire in his dark eyes whenever the torena was in their presence. She had seen how he secretly watched Elelar even when his attention seemed to be on something else. Mirabar had noticed the tension in his body when Elelar came close and the carefully neutral way he spoke of her. She had seen the hot urgency that escaped his control when he learned
Elelar been arrested in Shaljir, and the reckless obsession which drove him to risk everything to rescue her from prison.
Mirabar had seen all of this in the shatai and knew there was no other woman in the three corners of the world whom he would forgive the things he forgave Elelar, no other woman who could paralyze and befuddle him as this one did.
There was also no other woman who could make him forget Elelar.
It doesn't matter now.
And there was certainly no woman as skilled as Elelar at taking advantage of Tansen's weakness, his private hunger, his ungovernable thirst for what she would not give.
How had Elelar talked Tansen out of killing her? Had she even needed to? Or had he simply seen her and lost all sense of purpose, all desire to spill her blood?
Pain pierced Mirabar's heart. She sank to her knees.
Why? Why? Why her?
She knew what she really meant, and she was ashamed of herself: Why not me?
She remembered how Tansen had recoiled upon first seeing her, when she tumbled in a ball of fire through the icy waters of Kandahar into Kiloran's strange water-walled palace of air. Driven by visions and prophecy, she had gone there in search of the shatai, to save him from the waterlord, to help him find his destiny, and to bring enemies together in the visionary flame of the Beckoner.
Tansen had seen her lava-bright hair and her flame-rich eyes, and he had recoiled like a shallah boy hunted by demons in his darkest nightmares. She had come to save him, and he had shielded Elelar from her—Elelar, who had betrayed him before and who would do so again.
Why her?
Mirabar still protected his secret, the murder of Armian, whereas Elelar had cost him his youth by going straight to Kiloran with the story.
When he lay near death after being wounded by a shir, Mirabar had protected and tended him. Elelar had seen his weakness and used it to prey on Josarian.
Why? Why her?
Mirabar thought of the vow she had made in the dark last night. Could she really kill Elelar? She had committed acts of violence since becoming the Beckoner's conduit and Josarian's shield, but she had never killed anyone. Of course, she didn't necessarily need to. When Najdan got over his glowering disapproval, he would kill Elelar for her if she asked him; but she didn't think she would.
Must it be done, Najdan had said to her, or must he do it?
The assassin, once an enemy who had tried to kill her, now knew her so very well. Elelar had to die, but Mirabar wanted Tansen to be her executioner. It was Tansen's place, his duty, to avenge Josarian and to protect Sileria. It was also the only thing that would heal this raging wound inside Mirabar.
The night stirred with a sense of hot and cold, something which touched Mirabar's instincts more than her senses. She knew it meant Cheylan was coming, for she could always feel his presence even before she heard his footsteps. He was the only Guardian whose approach affected her this way.
"Do you feel it, too?" she whispered, knowing without looking that he was now close enough to hear her.
"Yes." He came closer.
"That... power."
"Mmmm." The heat of his body reached out to her as he hovered just behind her and lowered his head to scent her hair. "Yes."
"Have you ever felt it with any other Guardian?" She had never seen another person like him, but she knew he had seen one like her, a child in eastern Sileria, so she wondered.
"No," he whispered, taking her hand and raising it to his lips. "Have you?"
"I've felt this way near very powerful waterlords," she admitted. "Kiloran, Baran... But never with another Guardian. Only you."
"Then perhaps it's really this," he murmured as he turned her in his arms to kiss her.
She welcomed the hot promise of that embrace, longing for Cheylan to banish her sorrow and anger, her hurt and bitter yearning. But the more she sought oblivion in his kiss, the more she found it eluded her.
"Mirabar?" He sounded puzzled.
She pushed him gently away. "I'm sorry."
Cheylan's eyes glowed in the moonlit night as he studied her. "There's more to Josarian's death than you've told me, isn't there? More than just a sudden attack by Kiloran's White Dragon?"
"Much more," she admitted.
"Tell me."
She saw him open his palm and start to blow glowing flame into it. "No, don't start a fire," she cautioned. "Not out here." Even being outside under the twin moons wasn't smart, she knew, but she couldn't face returning to the stone hut. "There may be assassins just beyond Sanctuary grounds who'll see us if we—"
"Yes, of course. After that ambush on Tansen, I should know better." Cheylan paused and added, "Why is Najdan with you? Didn't he return to Kiloran after Josarian killed Kiloran's son?"
"Yes, but..." Mirabar realized there was a great deal to tell him. So she began relating the bare facts of recent events, speaking until she concluded wearily, "So Tansen and I argued, and I came here." She wondered what Cheylan's steady silence signified.
The answer came when he said succinctly, "He has betrayed you."
Perversely, though she herself thought so, it sounded unreasonable when she heard it from someone else. "Elelar is his weakness." The knowledge was bitter.
"We cannot afford a leader with weakness."
Mirabar shrugged stiffly. "Surely every leader has some weakness." Agreeing with Cheylan right now seemed like it might lead her down a path she wasn't prepared to tread yet.
After an uncomfortable pause, Cheylan said, "Tell me more about this child you're supposed to shield."
"A child of fire, a child of water," she murmured. "A child of sorrow."
"What does that mean?"
"I don't know."
"A child of fire, a child of water, a child of sorrow," he repeated. "Interesting."
"Vague," she said peevishly.
"But a child?"
"I think so, but..." Mirabar shrugged. The unfolding of her visions had repeatedly confounded all her expectations, so she didn't know what to think.
"How could a child lead us?" Cheylan persisted. "Become the new Yahrdan amidst rebellion and bloodfeuds and—"
"Dar only knows," she said on a sigh.
"How will you know him?" Cheylan asked.
"Good question."
"Perhaps...."
"What?"
"Nothing," he answered at last.
When the silence lengthened, she ventured, "Tansen wanted to know why you've returned from the east."
"Verlon sent me with a message for Josarian."
His hot eyes shone coldly now. Verlon, the most powerful waterlord in the east, had once sworn a bloodvow against Cheylan. He had rescinded it for the sake of the rebellion, so that they—like so many other enemies in Sileria—could work together to help Josarian fight the Valdani. At the start of the rebellion, Kiloran had rescinded his own bloodvow against Tansen for the same reason. But now hatred and the lust for power had fanned the embers of old feuds into raging flames again.
However, Cheylan's situation was unique with regard to the Society, and this was the dark secret with which he had chosen to trust Mirabar: Verlon was his grandfather.
When he confessed this to her, Cheylan didn't tell her why his own grandfather had sworn a bloodvow against him and tried hard to see it fulfilled. And she had been too stunned to ask. Mirabar hadn't known that a Guardian, least of all one with Cheylan's Dar-blessed eyes, could be so closely linked by blood to a waterlord.
"What is Verlon's message?" she asked.
"He knows Kiloran has control of Cavasar and the mines of Alizar. He knows that either Kiloran or Baran will ultimately gain full control of the Idalar River and, through it, will control Shaljir once the Valdani surrender."
"So he wants Liron," Mirabar guessed. The great city of the east, so close to the sacred rainbow chalk cliffs where Dar's fiery consort had dwelled eons ago before falling into the sea, had been the first of Sileria's cities to fall to the rebels.
"Verlon claims it is
his due, after all he contributed to the rebellion in the east."
"Why does he need Josarian's permission? Kiloran didn't—"
"The Lironi," Cheylan said, naming one of the largest and most powerful clans in all of Sileria, "have decided, in the wake of the Valdani evacuation of eastern Sileria, that they like not having any masters."
"They're fighting Verlon for control of the city?" Mirabar breathed, scarcely daring to believe it could be so.
"Yes. For control of the whole district, in fact."
"What are the eastern toreni doing?"
"Mostly trying to protect theirs lands," Cheylan said dryly.
"Have any of them sided with the Lironi?"
"Some." He added, "Not my family, but a few."
She stepped forward and gripped Cheylan's arm, which was firm beneath the fine fabric of his tunic. "The Lironi are really fighting the Society in the east?"
"Yes." She could tell Cheylan was puzzled by her growing excitement as he said, "Verlon supposes that Josarian doesn't want... didn't want civil war. He sent me to ask Josarian to, er, make the Lironi see reason."
"In other words," she said, "on the eve of the siege of Shaljir, when Josarian would need the entire nation behind him, Verlon meant to make the city of Liron the price he would demand in exchange for supporting Josarian."
"Yes," said Cheylan. "But the question now, I gather, is whether or not there will even be a siege of Shaljir. And if there is, who will lead it?"
"Tansen, of course," Mirabar said.
The silence was long and awkward.
"So... this thing you've told me about Torena Elelar," he said at last. "None of it is common knowledge?"
"Even Josarian's death isn't common knowledge yet."
"Word will spread quickly."
"Yes. But the part about Elelar..." Mirabar paused, lost in thought. "The Lironi are fighting Verlon."
"What does that have to do with the torena's betray—"
"It has to do with Kiloran," she said.
"I don't understand."
"Damn Elelar," Mirabar said with bitter vehemence. "Damn her. She wins again."
"She does?"
"Don't you see? We can't expose her. We can kill her, but we can't expose her." Mirabar looked up at the glowing moons. "If we're to convince people to fight Kiloran—to fight the Society—then we've got to make sure they know he killed the Firebringer. We can't... complicate things by telling people about the Alliance's secrets and the torena's betrayal. Revealing the whole truth would just incite bloodfeuds, chaos, and a perfect opportunity for the Society to seize power the moment the Valdani leave."
The White Dragon Page 17
