Guardians of the Desert (Children of the Desert) (43 page)

The rain made the walk back to Peysimun Mansion quietly pleasant; it matched Deiq’s sober mood. He’d spent the day among some of the ghosts from his past, doing what he could to make amends, and thinking about all the mistakes he’d made along the way; remembering, too, more of the seer’s words:

Your past holds many deaths that call for an accounting . . . I don’t see whether you’ll reach the road to the right or the left side of your soul, but you have a long way to walk yet, whatever efforts you make to shorten the path.

At which point a vision of Alyea’s battered body came to mind, and he threw himself into his work with renewed attention to push it away.

I almost got her killed. She almost got herself killed.

He couldn’t decide which view was more right. In the end, though, his feelings didn’t really matter. Alyea would have to pick a side to land on, and he’d have to accept rejection if she placed the blame only on his failure to protect her.

He paused at the gates of Peysimun Mansion, studying the ornate coach in the carriage-way to the right side of the house. Four guards in royal livery stood around the coach, alert even in this drizzly grey weather. No doubt more were stationed indoors.

So Oruen had chosen to make this a formal visit, rather than a quiet slip in through the servants’ entrance. More than likely Lady Peysimun’s influence was at work there. Or perhaps Oruen had recognized, finally, that this was more than some former lover he was dealing with; in which case, Deiq suspected the man came armed with a proposal of marriage.

He smiled without any humor and eased over to lean against the inside wall near the gates. The guards stared straight at him and looked away without a twitch.

A suddenly intense squall funneled rain down his collar and slicked his hair. He stood motionless, breathing long and even, his gaze on nothing in particular. After a time, his restless thoughts soothed under the grey patter of rain on damp cobbles. He barely noticed when the carriage rattled past him on its way out of the gates.

Sunlight on his face pulled him from the meditative daze. The rain clouds scudded away to the east under a quickening breeze that kept the air cool. He blinked, realizing the king had left; found himself strangely reluctant to go indoors and find out what Alyea’s answer had been. He decided to sit in the gardens, instead. Watching bees and butterflies darting round with vigorous intensity to collect freshly washed pollen always amused him. It was even more entertaining than watching paint dry.

The door banged open, startling Alyea from a pleasant grey drowsiness. She pushed herself upright to find her mother bearing down on her, face flushed with emotion.

“Oh, gods,” Alyea subvocalized, putting both hands up in a warding gesture. “Mother,
stop!
”

Lady Peysimun rocked to a halt, her expression astonished. The color washed out of her broad face, then returned sharply; her hands clenched in the folds of her elaborate, floor-length dress. She’d definitely dressed to impress the king: beadwork swirled in intricate patterns across the sleeves and waist, and the material itself was largely Stone Island white silk, which had to have drained Peysimun coffers significantly. The finery made Alyea feel awkward and slightly grubby, dressed as she was in loose shirt and looser trousers; she’d lost even more weight during recent days.

Her mother took another step forward, astonishment fading towards a scowl.

“I’m still sore all over,” Alyea said hastily; not exactly a lie, and she felt a strange aversion to having her mother touch her at the moment. “And I’m afraid of ruining your dress. Please, sit down.” She pushed pillows out of the way and sat up, drawing her legs closer in, then pointed to the other half of the couch. “Please? I’ll take the hug as a good thought instead.”

Her mother stared, her eyes going wide for just a moment, then said, “You thought I was going to
hug
you?”

Alyea’s breath stopped in her chest. She forced it to restart, swallowed hard, and said dryly, “A natural reaction to seeing me awake for the first time since my kidnapping, I’d have thought.” Not that her mother had ever been particularly affectionate; she sighed, recognizing the same smothered hope in herself that had once been provoked by any smile from Oruen.

“You’re
fine
,” Lady Peysimun said, and took the chair Oruen had occupied. Her lips spread into a taut grimace as she folded her hands together in her lap. “Despite initial appearances, you seem to have recovered from your little adventure just fine.”

Alyea stared, her mouth slightly open. “Adv—? I almost
died
.”

“If you’d been anywhere near death,” her mother said primly, “you wouldn’t be sitting up and talking a matter of days later. I imagine we all misunderstood.”

“Good gods,” Alyea said. “Did Lady Arnil turn into a
reeven
and possess you when she died?”

“Don’t be absurd. Now, there are matters we need to discuss.”

“Did you ever meet a woman called Sela?”

Lady Peysimun flicked her fingers impatiently. “Stop that.”

Alyea hoisted herself more upright, studying the fine lines around her mother’s eyes and mouth. “Do you
really
think it was all . . . fake blood, or someone else’s blood, or minor wounds?” she asked. “Do you really think the broken bones were imaginary, or a misunderstanding?”

“I think it’s
impossible
that you were as hurt as you appeared to be,” Lady Peysimun snapped, her fisted knuckles white, “and are now perfectly fine. So the injuries
must
have been false.”

“I think,” Alyea said steadily, “I need to tell you the whole story. From the time I left Bright Bay. And I think we’ll need another pot of strong tea. Or maybe two.”

Over the course of three pots of tea, Alyea told a more complete story of her travels than she’d offered before; and her mother, expression unwaveringly grim, listened without comment and few questions.

Alyea ended with a heavily edited version of her recent encounter with Kippin and her discovery of Kam’s involvement in a very ugly group, then sat silent, studying her teacup and waiting for her mother to speak.

It took a long time.

“This is intolerable,” her mother said at last, her voice thin. “You’ve completely upset every single aspect of our lives.”

Alyea looked up, frowning at that reaction, and caught sight of a damp shimmer in her mother’s eyes. “It hasn’t been fun for me either,” she said dryly.

“No. I suppose it hasn’t.” Her mother dropped her own gaze to her teacup, turning it in slow circles. “So I have to tolerate this . . . this Deiq? In my own house? Or is it your house now? Eredion has been trying to explain what your becoming a desert lord means for us, but I don’t understand any of it. Everything he said sounded quite mad.”

“It’s still your house,” Alyea said. “Think of me as . . . as an advocate for the entire family now. And Deiq . . . yes. He’ll be staying for a while. I . . . I need him.”

“Considering the fuss he put up about staying with you, he’s not shown his face in this room since you woke up,” her mother said tartly.

“He knows I’m safe with Lord Eredion around. He’ll be back soon enough.”

“I don’t know.” Her mother shifted restlessly, tilting her empty teacup back and forth in her hands without looking up. “I don’t know that I like any of this.”

Alyea sat quietly, not sure how to respond. Weariness began to drag at her eyelids.

“This is
impossible
!” her mother exclaimed, setting the cup down and standing abruptly. She paced away, turned, and came back, face flushed with nervous tension. “Consorting with barbarians and monsters—it’s not
right
. Can’t you just . . . just
resign
?”

Alyea couldn’t help it; she leaned back and let out a long hoot of laughter.

“No,” she said once she caught control of herself. “I wish I could. But the changes are permanent. And they’re not barbar—”

“Yes, I can see you actually believe all these, these,
hallucinations
. . . that some strange creature got you
pregnant
and then took the child before the soul had even entered its body, that another one spoke to you and asked you to travel to Arason, of all places; and this Deiq, what you tell me about him—it’s ridiculous. It’s nonsense. He’s a merchant, Alyea. Merchants don’t turn out to be . . . no. If this fantastical flimflam is your new life, I want no part of it. It’s all lies. All nonsense. None of it can possibly be real. They drugged you, Alyea, you’ve been hallucinating all this time. You need to go on a fast and pray to cleanse yourself—”

Alyea stood, slowly, and said, “Mother? Look at me. I’m standing. I’m alive. You thought I’d die when they brought me in, didn’t you? But I’m fine, in less time than it would take to mend a sprained wrist. How do you explain that?”

“We must have been mistaken,” her mother said, but she looked away and her face drained of color at the question.

“No. You weren’t. Let me tell you what I
remember
of what Tevin did to me.” Alyea drew a deep breath and began talking. Before she’d finished detailing the first hour of her final captivity, her mother let out a rough sob, whirled, and ran from the room.

Alyea sank back onto the couch and muttered, “I
definitely
should have tried a gentler approach that time.”

Deiq sat on a bench in the Peysimun gardens, watching blue-speckled king butterflies loft from flower to flower, his thoughts darting like the insects taking advantage of the drying air.

Once again, he faced choices drawn from stupid mistakes: trapped against the hard reality that he didn’t belong in the human world, couldn’t play by their rules and abide by their ways. He’d been forced to walk away from Onsia and her irrational demands; Alyea, just as rigidly biased in some ways, would never be able to accept Deiq’s essential difference.

Especially not now. Not after what her own kind had done to her. He’d seen human victims recovering from brutal torture in the past; it took them years to regain even basic stability. Alyea hadn’t trusted him even before the ordeal, and he didn’t have years to wait for her mind to heal. He’d missed his chance with her. He should have pushed harder, set aside emotional weakness, told her to ignore the false message. He’d had the
right
, damn it, as her teacher. He should have ordered everyone to clear out and leave them alone, instead of letting an inexperienced child dictate events based on shallow, stupid human politics.

But he hadn’t, because he’d been lazy. And now the only paths out led through variations on pain he didn’t want to contemplate.

He could feel the hunger gnawing at him again. If Alyea did slide into the full change next time he saw her, it would drag him past restraint; he’d hurt her badly, without time to explain.

Someone moved nearby: Eredion approaching. Deiq hesitated, then stayed still, allowing the Sessin lord to find him.

“Deiq,” Eredion said with audible relief a moment later, and sat on the bench without waiting for invitation, tugging the laces on his formal shirt open. The emerald green and sand-tan of Sessin Family colors brought out the sallow exhaustion in the man’s face. “Gods, I’m glad you’re here. That woman is fucking insane.” He rubbed a hand over his eyes and hacked a bootheel restlessly against the pebbly ground. “I’m glad I found you first, actually. It’s not a good idea for either of us to go in there right now. Alyea really set her off.”

“How?”

“I’m not sure. All I can make out from her screeching is something about you being a monster and me being a traitor, and both of us being responsible for Alyea turning against her.”

“All of which,” Deiq observed, “is, actually, true.”

Eredion shot him a hard sideways glare. “Thanks.” He kicked at the gravel again, then, with a hard sigh, bent to pull off his boots.

“You expected sympathy?”

“No. I suppose not. Ahh. . . .” He set the boots aside, stripped off his knee-stockings, and buried his large feet under the pebbles. “Damn, I hate wearing those things these days. Especially in hot weather.”

They sat quietly, watching the butterflies, for a time.

“Did you . . . talk to her yet?” Deiq asked at last, not looking at the Sessin lord; trying not to think about the fact that Eredion hadn’t protested Deiq’s own implicit self-designation of
monster
. It added another layer of silent misery and frustration; he found himself wanting to say
Even now, you see me that way? Even you?

If even Eredion couldn’t let go of seeing Deiq as a monster at core, there really wasn’t anything better to hope for from Alyea—after all, he’d almost gotten her killed.

Eredion shook his head. “Started to. Didn’t get far. She had to rest, and then the king showed up—and then her mother insisted on going to talk to her. And now she’s exhausted again, and sleeping like a rock. I’m hoping she sleeps through the entire of her mother’s temper tantrum.”

“Has she asked to—see me?” The words slipped free before he could stop them.

Eredion gave him a long, hard stare. “She wants to talk to you,” he said after a moment. “I told her I needed to finish explaining some things first.”

Deiq exhaled slowly. “So she doesn’t know about . . . feeding.”

“Not yet. That’s the next part.” Eredion paused, then added, “I’m starting to see signs that the final changes are kicking in. You ought to stay close, instead of wandering around. It won’t be long now.”

Deiq’s stomach lurched with dread; he changed the topic. “Have we heard anything more from Idisio?”

“Nothing.” Eredion hesitated, as though considering whether to allow the diversion, then asked, “Are you thinking of going to find him?”

“No. By this point, he’s either dead or on her side. Let the Forest deal with them. Or Arason.”

“You don’t give him much credit.”

“He’s inexperienced, and barely adult.” Deiq fixed his gaze on a nearby gods’-glory flower, methodically tracing the blue and cream striations on the blossom, the variations of green down the vine and leaves.
It’s not my fault. It’s not. I didn’t have any way to stop it. The price was too damn high.
But that sounded too much like self-pity to voice aloud. He kept his tone hard. “She survived Ninnic’s child. He doesn’t stand a chance against her.”

Eredion let the silence settle for a moment, then said, in a low and carefully neutral tone: “And neither do you, at your current strength.”

Deiq blinked hard and stood.
If I’d been at full strength
was a road too painful to go down at the moment, and would leave someone writhing in entirely too much agony at the end.

He couldn’t face Alyea, not after how he’d failed her; knowing he would fail her yet again, and hurt her. He couldn’t go back to his kin, couldn’t stay among humans. There were too many temptations, and sooner or later he’d give in . . . no.
Never again.

“Where are you going?”

“To walk with other monsters,” Deiq said. “And to learn about prayer.”