“According to what I’ve read, Béarn’s kings have followed their hearts through eternity and are acclaimed for their natural wisdom.”
Only then, Griff realized how Tem’aree’ay had manipulated him, dragging his considerations in a direction he dreaded only to return him to what he already knew. He had always loved her beauty and her gentleness. Now, he discovered an intelligence nearly as candid, though without the guilelessness. And it made him love her all the more.
CHAPTER 23
Desperation
When you corner a lion, expect a war to the death.
—Queen Matrinka of Béarn
FLYING Béarn’s colors, a small ship wound through the currents of the Southern Sea. Wind tugged Captain’s hair, floating strands that escaped the knot at the nape of his neck. The blue sail stretched taut, occasional gusts fluttering its tan bear, making it appear to dance. Droplets pattered from the hull, their circular splashes accentuating the cutting line of the rudder. Captain sucked salt air deep into his lungs. It tasted different than it did when he perched upon the beach staring out over the pounding waves, a thousand times better. The sun beat down on his scalp, but he did not seek cover below deck or beneath the shade of drawn tarps as his elfin crew of six had done. Even this blinding warmth seemed a welcome and long-awaited friend. It would bleach his mahogany hair to a pale brown, flecked with gold and white, and bake his skin to its familiar brown.
Khohlar reached Captain in bursts, none of it intended directly for him. Coached by human sailors, and by himself, the crew struggled with lines and bearings. They need not have bothered. After millennia alone upon the sea, Captain could have steered the simple craft with his eyes closed, one leg lamed, and manacles locked to his wrists. Nevertheless, he allowed them to struggle without direction. He could fix anything short of a massive hole in the hull, and he knew this portion of the sea contained no shoals. Few seafarers would have agreed with his methods. Most human captains maintained their commands and their ships by demanding perfection, but Captain preferred that his shipmates learn the joy of sailing by experimentation and error. His memory carried him back to his own early years: the ships that seemed to buck against his every desire, the unexpected jerks that burned ropes across his palms, and the gales that had swallowed him, threatening to lay him forever in a watery grave. Captain smiled, cracking a glaze of crusted salt. He had not known to fear those things then, death a far distant construct without meaning.
The ship yawed, thrown broadside into the wind. The sail flapped wildly, spilling its cargo. Captain skipped over the gunwale, catching a loose line whose clamp rattled desperately. He called a few commands, glad for khohlar. A human captain would have had to shout over the crackling dance of the sail, alarming the crew with volume. His elves would never know how close they had come to scuttling the ship and losing their lives, and those of their successors, to the sea.
For several moments, elves hauled and cleated lines, wrestled the pitching tiller, and transported ballast, engaged in one of the great battles that Captain relished. Finally, damp and exhausted, they fought the ship back into full submission. Light wind puffed into the mainsail. The ship scudded eastward, bobbing gently in the swells. Panic disappeared from the edges of shared khohlar, and an all-too-human triumph gradually replaced it. Captain sat back in the hot sun, basking in the excitement of the crew. He had risked the ship but accomplished so much. And many more battles lay ahead. Each success would fuel confidence for the task of bargaining with svartalf, and it might even make sailors of his crew.
* * *
Atonement for a grounded sword required weeks of prayer, verbal and in the form of rabid practices beyond the point of pain. Kevral found the latter easy to inspire. Bruises ached through days and nights, the broken rib stabbed her lungs with every deep breath, and movement tore at healing burns. Every touch become an agony. The human healers smeared on salves that kept infection at bay, and a parade of elves attended her. The skill they had acquired from mending the aftereffects of the Ragnarok on their own people helped immensely. They had learned that preventing the scars worked better and, ultimately, more quickly than fixing them. Though this meant suffering with open wounds far longer, Kevral appreciated their method. Recalling a conversation with Matrinka shortly after Béarn had assigned her to the princess, she quoted Colbey to Ra-khir during a joint healing session: “Scars are a warrior’s badge of honor . . .” Kevral finished by paraphrasing Matrinka’s response, “. . . but there’s no reason to work toward the worst possible outcome.”
Though Ra-khir had sustained the more dangerous wound, he recovered more swiftly, regaining his strength as his body replaced the lost blood. The punctures of the demon’s teeth required less attention and allowed faster healing than Kevral’s extensive burns. The worst injury, the gash in his spleen had been appropriately handled by Chan’rék’ril at the time. Had the elf not diagnosed and magically staunched it immediately, Ra-khir would have escaped fatal impact only to bleed to death an instant later.
Now the two sat holding hands in their quarters while the healers packed up their salves and creams. Saviar slumbered quietly in his crib, eyes closed, tiny lips pursed, arms thrown wide. The agony of the healers’ ministrations still ached through Kevral, but she preferred the discomfort to dulling her senses with painkillers. The collarbone break no longer bothered her at all, but the figure-of-eight bandage that allowed for its proper healing grated against the burns. Even the light touch of cool linens irritated those, and she had just considered shedding her clothing when a knock sounded.
Ra-khir tensed to rise, but a young male healer waved him down. “We’re leaving now anyway, sir.” He opened the door to reveal Andvari waiting on the other side. The Northman back-stepped, allowing the healers to escape out into the hallway. Only when the last had filed from the room did he glance toward Kevral and Ra-khir. He wore casual clothes, and their Béarnian cut seemed ill-suited to his pale coloring, braids, and warrior build.
Kevral looked away.
Ra-khir gave Andvari a friendly, beckoning wave. “Come in. Come in.”
Andvari did as Ra-khir bade, closing the door behind him. Pain and aversion made Kevral irascible. She glowered at Ra-khir, disdaining his invitation, though they both knew politeness dictated no other action. He squeezed her hand, a plea for tolerance.
Andvari turned back to his hosts, having missed the exchange. “How are you?”
Kevral deliberately said nothing, leaving Ra-khir to respond for both of them.
“I’m fine,” the knight reassured. “Kevral’s coming along more slowly, but the healers are pleased. We’re past the worst. They’re not likely to fester now.”
“Good.” Andvari’s gaze dropped. Avoiding his eyes, Kevral took inordinately long to realize he looked at the sword near her left hip: Rache’s sword. The one he had tended after Ra-khir’s fall. Finding it in place, he smiled slightly. “Well.” He cleared his throat. “That’s all. I just wanted to make sure you’re all right.”
Ra-khir nudged Kevral, the touch of his elbow raw pain against freshly reopened wounds. It raised another wave of anger, inappropriately directed toward the Northman. She knew what Ra-khir wanted and dutifully gave it. “Thanks for tending the sword.” She spoke in a flat tone, with none of the gratitude the words implied, though she meant them.
“You’re welcome.” Andvari’s grin widened, now obvious. “Perhaps now you realize I’m not along to vilify . . . your people.”
“My people,” Kevral repeated, fists clenching.
“Yes.”
“You mean Renshai.”
“Y-yes.” The grin wilted, along with the aura of confident camaraderie.
“You can’t say it, can you?”
“Kevral,” Ra-khir warned, placing a hand over one fist.
“Of course, I can,” Andvari insisted. He forced out the word, his pronunciation careful and his manner nervous, “Renshai.”
Kevral had already leaped to another cause
for dispute, “Do you think oiling one sword will erase centuries of persecution?”
“Kevral!” Ra-khir’s cautioning turned sharp. His hand enclosed hers.
Andvari cringed. Red slashed briefly across his cheeks, then disappeared as he controlled his rage and returned to his usual conciliatory tactics. “That’s not why I did it.” He glanced at Ra-khir, who made an encouraging gesture. “As you know, I’m Nordmirian. One of our great historical heroes is the Slayer, Valr Kirin. He formed a blood brotherhood with a . . .” The pause was shorter-lived this time, “. . . Renshai. And legends claim he sealed the pact by giving Rache a sword.” His eyes glided to the weapon again.
Kevral opened her free hand to touch the hilt with a finger. “You believe this is that sword?”
“It could be. Tisis, Rache called it. Vengeance.” Andvari shrugged. “At the time of the blood brotherhood, Rache was surrounded by enemies, hiding his tribe. It’s said he entered the relationship unwillingly, worried for what others would assume if he refused.” He shrugged again. “If Rache intended to eventually kill Nordmirians with the blade, I could think of no better name to give it.”
Kevral could not wholly dispute the history. Rache and Kirin had personally confirmed much of it. She knew nothing about the Nordmirian giving Rache a sword, yet such a gesture would suggest that Valr Kirin considered himself the greater-honored party, so it made no sense for her to argue in that vein. However, to satisfy her irritation, she found another. “I should have known you didn’t honor the sword because it belonged to a respected companion but only because it might have belonged to a Nordmirian.” Kevral withdrew from the weapon as if it had suddenly become soiled. “Now I’ve got another month of atonement before I’d dare to wield it.”
Ra-khir’s grip tightened painfully around her knuckles, and he turned her a withering look. He had spent enough time among Renshai to understand the depth of such an insult.
“But I . . .” Andvari stammered. “I mean, I would have . . .” He tried again. “If it had come down to—” He broke off, shaking his head. “Forget it, Kevral. Just forget it.” With that, he stormed from the room, flipping the door shut behind him. The panel struck the jamb, then bounced back open. Andvari’s bootfalls thundered down the hall.
Ra-khir released Kevral’s fist, rose, and shut the door. Only then, he rounded on her. “Kevral, give him a chance.”
Kevral studied her fingernails, chipped by sword work, grooves from base to tip testimony to intermittent, minor damages to the nail bed. “I’ve given him lots of chances. More than I should have.”
Ra-khir glared. “There’s only one person I’ve ever seen you treat this badly. Do you know who that was?”
Kevral did not have to think long. Tae’s chastisement came easily to memory: You’re being too damned hard on Ra-khir. “You?”
“Right.” Ra-khir’s look turned piercing. “Are you in love with him, too?”
Kevral’s mood turned the words from humor to sniping. “I hate him. And it’s time you knew. When I treated you like that, I hated you, too.”
“Matrinka says love and hate are closely related.” Ra-khir refused to let go of a point that had started as a joke. “That’s why my mother treated my father so badly after their marriage failed. Her feelings for him turned from intense love to equally intense hatred.”
Though Kevral knew the words difficult for Ra-khir to speak, she refused to let go of anger fueled as much by constant physical discomfort as by Andvari. “Sometimes, Ra-khir, hatred is just hatred.”
“And sometimes, Kevral . . .” Ra-khir returned to the bedside, but he did not sit. “. . . hatred is just prejudice.”
“Exactly,” Kevral fairly crowed. Ra-khir had struck to the heart of the matter. “He’s prejudiced. He can’t even say ‘Renshai,’ let alone learn to work with one.”
Ra-khir placed both hands on the coverlet and leaned toward his wife. “I meant you, Kevral.”
“Me?” Kevral did not understand. “Me, what?”
“You’re the one showing prejudice.”
“Huh?” Now, Kevral understood, but the words made no sense. “That’s impossible. Renshai aren’t the ones who tried to annihilate Northmen. Renshai aren’t the ones who forbade a tribe of their own from returning to their homeland in the North.”
“So you think prejudice is limited to the winners of a conflict?”
It seemed so clear to Kevral, she wondered how Ra-khir could miss it. “To the ones who inflicted the evil.”
Ra-khir stared, brows high. “If caravans could travel only west, we’d have no trade.”
“Your point?”
“Roads carry people in both directions. Prejudice is the same.”
Kevral did not agree. “Victims have legitimate right and reason to hate. It’s not prejudice.”
Ra-khir looked away. “Prejudice, Kevral, is when you punish every member of a group for the actions of a few. Even those members who condemn the few.” He paced a couple steps, then whirled back in Kevral’s direction. “If a Béarnian highwayman waylaid my father, no one would denounce me for hunting the thief down. But if I used the incident to torment a Béarnian woman in the marketplace, it would be prejudice.”
The example insulted Kevral’s intelligence. “Clearly.”
“But I’d be a victim.”
“It’s not the same.” Kevral waved her hands, desperate to make her point. “If the Béarnian army destroyed Erythane and killed everyone you knew . . .” She nodded, having restored the seriousness of the Northmen’s crime.
“. . . then I would have the right to torment a woman in the marketplace?”
Kevral’s triumph withered. “It would be more understandable.”
“But still prejudice. And beneath my honor.” Ra-khir’s green eyes bored into Kevral, past simple discussion. “Kevral, neither you nor Andvari was born when the Northmen clashed with the Renshai. You blaming the annihilation of Renshai on him would be like Béarn executing the highwayman’s infant son for the father’s crime. The baby would be innocent. Andvari is also.” He added with emphasis. “And you are not a victim.”
Kevral had to concede his point about prejudice, but she would still argue the latter. “If not for the slaughter, Renshai would still live in the North, and in far greater numbers.”
“Maybe.” Ra-khir refused to surrender that argument either. “Or perhaps the Renshai would have died out for their own aggression. According to my books, the tribe was dwindling. Because of constant war, only the rare member lived to thirty. Their rugged life made childbearing difficult. Women came into their cycles later, if at all; and most died in battle before they could give birth even once.”
Kevral folded her arms gently across her chest, the huffy gesture foiled by the need to keep every touch careful. “When did you become the expert on Renshai?”
“Since I married one. And fathered another.” Ra-khir perched on the edge of the bed, his demeanor relaxing. “Kevral, bad things happen. As long as there have been humans, there’s been war: honorable and dishonorable. The conquerors do as they will with the spoils of their victory, including the people. Assimilation, slavery, torture, extermination.” He shook his head sadly. “There’s no way to know where history would have eventually taken anyone’s people had any specific event not occurred, and hating the descendants of the strong accomplishes nothing good. You need only look to the examples of the svartalf and lysalf for proof. By your definition, the svartalf’s hatred for humans is justified by the Ragnarok. And not prejudice.”
Kevral considered. “When did you get so smart?”
Ra-khir smiled. There seemed no modest way to answer that question without belittling himself, but he found it. “It doesn’t take intelligence to figure that out, only perspective. Biases are always justifiable when they’re yours. The only logical way to break through the delusion is to find common ground, someone prejudiced against us both. My mistake was turning to analogy before real life events. Comparisons are never perf
ect. They always leave an out for people who want to cling to their bigotry.” Apparently realizing he had turned clinical, Ra-khir switched to lighter matters. “If the Renshai still lived in the North, I would never have met you. If you had even been born, your life would have been different. Not necessarily better.” Ra-khir teased, “In your case, definitely worse. You wouldn’t have had my handsome face and enormous intellect.”
“And ego,” Kevral could not help adding. She hugged her husband, not caring about the physical pain it caused. For now, the warm glow of their love meant more. “I still don’t understand why I found peace with a Northern soldier in Pudar who attacked me, but I can’t find it with a companion.”
Ra-khir kept a careful touch around Kevral. “Think about it. The answer will come.”
Kevral did not feel as certain. “I’ll try.” So many other problems had confronted her recently, and she found few solutions. For now, thoughts about the baby had to take precedence.
* * *
King Cymion paced Pudar’s Great Hall like a caged lion, his tread as heavy as his thoughts. The four-tiered candelabra overhead struck brass highlights through a room that contained only a lengthy table with a spotless white tablecloth. Gauzy curtains embroidered with flowers haloed thick glass that overlooked blurry gardens and masons toiling to reconstruct the courtyard wall. Cymion clutched a rolled parchment in his right hand, Béarn’s blue ribbon crushed beneath his fingers.
A knock echoed through the massive chamber. Cymion turned on his boot heel, only then realizing he had paced himself to the far end. No servant or guard remained to open the door; he had sent them away while he considered King Griff’s answer. It would take him inordinately long to cross back to the door, and he doubted even his commanding voice would carry to the person on the opposite side.
Fortunately, the other did not wait. Summoned to the king’s presence, Javonzir paused only a moment before tapping open the door and peering inside. His hazel eyes flickered around the room, clearly seeking his king. He wore a tunic of Pudarian brown tied with a silver sash that perfectly matched the wolf embroidered across the chest. Dark brown hair fell straight to his shoulders, properly oiled. Distance made his medium build appear slight, especially compared with Cymion’s robust, warrior frame. Though first cousins on his mother’s side, they little resembled one another.
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