The Speaker shook his head slowly. “The tournament in Baresh has begun already, but that is not of what I speak. There is another danger which the city faces, one that, though not as terrible as the threat the magi represents, is still capable of causing great harm.”
“What threat?” Adina said. “Have the creatures—what you call the Lifeless—attacked the city? Because when we left everything was fine.”
The Speaker nodded. “You left, Princess, and that is much of the problem. Queen Isabelle may mean well enough, but your sister does not have your strength, your courage, and with you, Aaron Envelar, and the others disappearing, she has been begun to rely on other less…trustworthy individuals.”
“But who?”
“You are familiar with the crime boss, Grinner, the man recently stylized as a councilman in the queen’s court?”
“Of course,” Adina said, realizing what the man was alluding to, but she shook her head even as she thought it. “Grinner’s a swine, and I have my suspicions that he had something to do with Aaron and the others being taken, but Isabelle is smart enough not to listen to him. Besides, May is there, and she knows better than anyone what kind of man he is—he wouldn’t dare try any tricks, not with her in the city. She’s smarter than him by half, and he knows it.”
“Perhaps you are right,” the Speaker said, “but the lady May Tanarest has been thrown into the dungeons, as has Councilman Hale.”
Adina stared at him, incredulous. “No. No, you must be wrong. What possible reason would Isabelle have to imprison them? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Yet that is exactly what has happened, Princess, of that I can assure you. I don’t know the details, but it seems it was done at Councilman Grinner’s command.”
For a moment, Adina was so shocked and confused by the man’s words that she could find none of her own. “But…how…” I am enough. She forced down the panic welling up inside her and took a slow, deep breath. “And you’re sure of this?”
“Yes,” the Speaker said. “Of this much, at least, I am sure.”
“But what of General Yalleck? Surely, he wouldn’t have let Grinner—”
“General Yalleck has not been seen,” the Akalian said. “Not since the councilman’s…rise to power. I believe he has sequestered himself with Avarest’s troops.”
Adina shook her head in frustration. She wanted to blame the general, but found she didn’t have it in her. After all, the man must have seen what was happening well enough and supposed—no doubt rightly—that his life would be forfeit if he remained in the castle. He was a stranger in a strange city, and she couldn’t fault him for not laying down his life to protect it. That, however, was no excuse for her sister. “Grinner must have tricked Isabelle somehow, lied to her or threatened her or…I don’t know.”
“The report I received said that the queen has not been coerced in anyway, that she has come to rely on Councilman Grinner for reasons yet unknown.”
“Damnit, Isabelle,” Adina whispered. “What are you doing?” She did her best to order her frantic thoughts, forcing herself to slow down and think the situation through. Whatever was happening in Perennia, it was clear that Grinner was at the heart of it, and she doubted it was merely coincidence that he’d made his move right when she, Aaron, and the others had disappeared from the city. That meant that it had been planned. She supposed Grinner might have found some way to lure Aaron and the others out of the city, some excuse, but how could he know Kevlane’s creatures would be waiting in the woods, unless… “Oh gods,” she said, her heart galloping in her chest. “Grinner is working with Kevlane.”
The Speaker nodded. “Recent events seem to indicate as much, though what this Councilman Grinner might hope to gain by allying himself with the magi, I cannot imagine. Boyce Kevlane is not a man to share victory, nor is he one to make deals and compromises. Whatever agreement he and the councilman have reached, you can be sure that the magi will consider it obsolete as soon as it—and by extension the crime boss himself—has stopped being useful. Councilman Grinner does not know what force he meddles with.”
“True,” Adina said, nodding. “But that will do us little good as, if Grinner gets his way, we’ll all be corpses long before he gets what he deserves.” She knew, then, what she needed to do, what she had to do. She turned and glanced at Aaron where he still knelt. She’d wiped the blood away from his nose minutes ago, but a fresh runnel had appeared, tracing its way over his tightly-pursed lips. She knew well what he would say, even the tone he’d use. One man isn’t worth the world, Adina, no matter who he is and especially not me. Except, she supposed, that he’d find a second to spit or grunt, maybe growl in between words. At another time, the thought might have made her laugh, but she couldn’t have been further from it just then. “I love him,” she said, nearly pleaded, as she turned and looked at the Speaker through eyes misting with tears.
“I know,” the Akalian said, and there was such compassion, such understanding in his voice that she could not stop the tears from coming, and she bowed her head, wiping at them furiously. She was a princess, now a queen, had been chosen as the leader of Telrear’s gathered armies despite her reluctance. She could not afford to falter, to be weak. I am enough, she told herself, but this time the words sounded false in her mind, and the tears that ran down her face were not just tears for Aaron. They were for Isabelle and May, for Hale and for the woman, Beth, now dead and gone, and for all the people of Telrear.
But if she were honest with herself—and the last several weeks and months had forced her to be honest with herself more than she might have liked—the tears were for herself most of all. For the decision she now faced, the choice that had to be made. She could not even deny the choice altogether, for to do so would be making a choice just the same. Even worse, avoiding tough decisions was a coward’s way out. Her father had taught her that truth long ago, and the years had not changed it, for all that she might wish they had.
She wept then, burying her face in her hands and letting the tears fall as they would, hoping against hope that some miracle might occur, might keep her from the decision she would make. But the world, it seemed, had no miracles to spare. She felt alone in her grief and indecision, terribly, completely alone, and so she started with surprise when she felt a gentle hand on her shoulder. She looked up to see the Speaker watching her. The man’s face was unveiled, not just of the black cloth that often covered it, but of the placid calm that was the Speaker’s second mask, hiding all but his strongest emotions from his face.
In that moment, he did not look like the Speaker of the Akalians, the leader of a group of elite warriors which even the hardiest, bravest souls spoke of in quiet whispers, as if somehow naming them would bring their wrath. He did not look like a man who had lived for centuries, or the possessor of the eighth Virtue, a great magic that even the most creative of storytellers had never thought might exist. He looked, instead, like a man. One whose heart was breaking, and the anguish and grief that twisted his face were a match to her own. Seeing his pain there, plainly writ on his features, Adina’s own emotions rose in answer, and she brought the man into a tight embrace.
For a time, the two only stood there, each wetting the shoulder of the other with their tears and neither of them aware of it, each only taking what comfort they could in the knowledge that they were not alone in their pain, their grief. Then, the moment passed, and Adina stepped away.
She turned back to Aaron, studying the set of his jaw, his hand where it gripped the withered woman’s own. He was strong—the strongest man she’d ever known, yet strength would do him little good in the land in which he traveled. He was kind, too, kinder than he’d ever let on and possessed of a compassion that wasn’t due only to the Virtue he possessed, no matter what he’d claim—but what good was kindness in a land of nightmare?
The choice is simple and you know it, a part of her mind said, and it was all Adina could do to keep from crying out, railing at the voice to shut up, s
hut up, just shut up. The voice didn’t stop though, but went on, each word like a dagger in her heart. You cannot help him here—his fate will be his alone, and there is nothing you can do to stop or change it. But in Perennia and its outlying regions are thousands, hundreds of thousands of people that are counting on you. Without you, their fate is certain. With you, they may have a chance—however small—of weathering the coming storm, of coming out the other side of it beaten and battered but alive.
She had to leave him; she knew that. And if he dies while you’re gone? another part of her mind asked. What then? Will you weep for him? And what good are tears to the dead? I think you know well enough what Aaron would say of that too. Yes, she did. The dead were dead already, and no amount of weeping or wailing would make them rise again.
“Do you know what you ask of me?” she said, looking up at the Speaker. “What it is you make me do?”
The Speaker watched her for several seconds then gave a slow shake of his head. “Forgive me, Princess, but I cannot take even that much of the burden from your shoulders. You see the choices as I do, and no doubt their possible repercussions as well, but these choices are not of my creation. If it were within my power to take this burden from you, I would, but I cannot. I can only tell you that I, too, faced such a choice, many years ago. I made it amid the swirling sands of the desert instead of towering trees, but made it I did. All I can do is tell you that, whatever your decision—even should that be no decision at all—I will not fault you for it, nor condemn you.”
“But what should I do?” Adina pleaded.
“I don’t know,” the Akalian said. “For what it’s worth, I will tell you that I believed, at the time, that the decision I made was for the best, that the only way I could protect my wife, my daughter was to abandon them.”
“And now?”
The Speaker shook his head again. “Now, I don’t know. In leaving them, I saved their lives, saved my own, but I left them—and myself—nothing else. I thought, at the time, that there was no other choice to be made, but now I understand that my wife and daughter were left with their lives but without a husband, without a father, and that my choice stripped from me everything but the breath in my lungs. If my long years have taught me anything, Princess, it is that the years come and go, and there is no one living who can say, truthfully, that they have no regrets for the choices they’ve made.”
Adina took a slow, deep breath. Tears threatened again as the choice she would make crystallized inside her mind, but this time she forced them down. There would be time later for tears and hopefully comfort too—gods let there be time—but that time was not now, and she feared that if she started crying once more, she would never stop. “I…I need to talk to the others.”
The Speaker nodded. “They wait for you in the meeting room.”
Adina frowned and started to speak, meaning to ask the man how he could have known that she would want to meet with them and, knowing, how he could have arranged it without leaving the room, but she did not. The man had done so one way or the other, that was all, and it made little difference how. So instead she only gave him a nod, stepping forward to give him a hug. “Thank you.”
“Forgive me, but I have done nothi—”
“You were here,” she said, meeting his eyes, “sometimes that is enough.” She crossed to the door and opened it before pausing in the doorway. She turned back to look at the Akalian. “Please…take care of him, Speaker.”
“I will do what I can. You have my word, Queen Adina.”
***
The Speaker watched her go, watched the door close behind her, but his mind was far away, lost in a distant memory, looking down at a sleeping young baby, her limbs hidden beneath a tight swaddle to protect her against the cold desert air. It was an old memory, and it bore the faded wrinkles that only time and much handling brought, like a letter that has been read over and over until the parchment upon which it’s written begins to flake and tear, and the ink itself begins to fade. An old memory, one full of pain and grief, yet a cherished one for all that.
“Call me Raenclest,” he said to the empty doorway. On a whim, he raised his hands, staring at them. Hands that had wielded weapons of all kinds, hands that had killed when killing needed doing, but hands, also, that had held a small child, had comforted her when the unnameable fears of a child came upon her. “Call me Raenclest.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Balen was not a religious man. He didn’t spend his days bent in prayer or smelling incense and reciting words to invoke the gods’ blessing. But he prayed now as he rushed through the city streets, dodging people when he could and bowling them over when he couldn’t. Religion, he figured, was a lot like swimming. He’d known plenty of men—sailors too, the silly bastards—who cared as little for swimming as he usually did about religion. But have a man take a tumble off the ship in rough seas, have him fighting for breath as the waves crashed around him, and that same man changed his thinking quickly enough. In fact, Balen imagined that if the bastard could go back and spend the entirety of his life waking up every morning and going for an hour long swim he would and do it gladly.
Religion, he thought, was a lot like that to some people, and he supposed that in the end he was no less fool than the drowning man, for now that something terrible had happened—and something even more terrible looking to follow it, if these sons of bitches in the street didn’t get out of his way—he found that he got religion pretty quick. He prayed to every god whose name he could remember and once that was done—it didn’t take long, truth be told—he started making up new names, figuring there were at least some kind of odds he’d land on one, after all there were a lot of gods…at least he thought so. He figured if he just kept at it maybe he’d chance on one willing to listen—one that’d maybe had a reservation set aside that had canceled at the last minute and was bored enough to pay attention to poor old Balen.
He saw the city docks in the far distance, little more than vague outlines on the horizon, and he ran on, regretting the ambitious amount of drinking he’d done the night before. He’d come to the city this morning, hungover and, if he was honest, being a bit of a bastard as he always was the day after a particularly large bout of drinking. Ostensibly, he’d left Festa’s ship to discover what news he could about May and Hale, but that wasn’t the real reason.
The fact was, he’d been out every day since their capture, combing the city in search of anything that might help to secure their release, and his hands had come up out of that well dry enough times for him to know that there wasn’t any water to be had. The truth was far simpler. He’d been finding himself growing annoyed by every word out of another sailor’s mouth, every joke or complaint about the weather—the bastards were always complaining about the weather, figured it was their gods given right as sailors, he supposed—and thought it a good idea to find a reason to get off the ship before he ended up throwing one of them overboard or, more likely, being thrown overboard by Captain Festa who was not known for his patience in the best of times. And these, any fool with eyes could see, were far from the best of times.
He’d been minding his own business, or at least as close to it as he ever got, listening to some fancy-dressed merchant prattle on to a not-quite as fancily dressed woman about all the coin he had and all of his earnings, considering how fun it would be to push the man down in one of the mud puddles that crowded the streets following the night’s rain, when he’d seen it. Or maybe it was more accurate to say he saw them. A dozen flyers tacked on the wall of a nearby building, and a quick glance around had showed him that the other buildings were likewise decorated. Well, Balen wasn’t much on looking for signs from the gods, wasn’t big on omens for coming disasters. The way he figured it, there were so many of those that the gods would be too busy making omens to make any trouble at all, if that’s what they wanted—but he wasn’t blind either, nor could he ignore the feeling of dread that rose in him long before he was close enough to make out what the fl
yers said.
Not the announcement of wedding or a birth, that was sure. Balen knew enough about the world to know that no news traveled like bad news, and whoever had tacked the parchments on the wall—many of them now hanging crooked and askew from the wet following the rain—had wanted this news to move with the speed of a lightning strike. And so he’d given off trying to find a way to trip the fat merchant without appearing to mean to and instead had walked to the nearest paper, each step feeling strange and disorienting as if he was in a dream.
Some part of him had known what he would find there, had seen the two familiar faces in his mind even before he was close enough to see anything, and so when he drew close enough to read the parchment he felt at once a great sense of shock and outrage as well as a grim resignation. He tore the paper he’d looked at off the wall, crumpling it up and throwing it into the street. Blame his dark mood or blame the drink of the night before, but he’d ripped all of the flyers from one building and was halfway through the next, growing angrier with each, before he thought of Thom.
The older man was hanging on to his reason by a thread now, like a particularly skilled—or stupid—sailor walking on the edge of a ship, showing off for his crew mates. The news this parchment contained wouldn’t be enough to tip him over—instead, it would send him hurtling through the air and down into the depths like the finger flick of some malicious god.
And so Balen had done what any sensible man would have done under the circumstances—he ran. And, as the air rasped in and out of his lungs, as a sharp, stabbing pain developed in his side, he decided that running was a lot like religion too. By the time he made it to the docks, he was covered in sweat. The ache in his side had traveled to his chest, but he was alive, at least, so that was something.
Give it time, a dark part of him thought, but he did his best to ignore it as he rushed down the docks toward Festa’s ship, the last place he’d seen Thom, calling on the last bit of his energy, or at least telling himself he was. He was fairly certain he’d used up the last bit ten or fifteen minutes ago, and his body just hadn’t realized it yet, his mind too busy running through likely scenarios—all bad—as they sprang in his thoughts at random, unwelcome visitors but not ones you could easily kick out either.
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