Lady of Mercy (The Sundered, Book 3) (43 page)

For the sake of the king, he did all of that.

For the sake of the king, he would do more.

 

The ten days passed slowly.

Renar practiced caution as if it were religion. He knew that Lady Verena’s message to the council would have already set in motion the rudiments of full-scale alert.

But Dagothrin was his city; he knew it as well as a Cosgrove could—or better. He avoided the city guard patrols with ease borne of long practice. He melted from sight before he left Tiras’
manor and returned without being seen. Of this he could be certain.

He visited his grandfather’s house three times. Each time he stopped at the flagstones; each time he bowed there. Whether they had been willing or no, he granted both his respect and his pain to those whose blood browned the stones.

Cosgrove itself was in a small uproar; he had never seen the like within its stately walls. Oh, there had been noise, yes, and shouting—neither Lisbeth or Stenton had ever been particularly quiet when cordoned off with family—but never had there been this quiver of excitement.

It was not good spirits, exactly; there was too much that was angry, even vicious, about it. But it was hope for change, hope for victory, both of which had been unlooked for. Hope was a gift, one that blood would be spilled to obtain, but no less precious for all that—the shame of survival, kept hidden for so long, might in one swift stroke be broken. And be justified.

Cospatric drilled his men in the courtyard; this was not unusual, as Stenton hastened to inform his grandson. What was unusual was the presence of the uncrowned king.

Renar sighed as he did his inspection at Lord Cosgrove’s behest. He sighed even more deeply as one or two of the younger men made haste to draw their swords and lay them at his feet, as if they were tempered hearts. He felt his grandfather’s mild frown and knew that even should they succeed, Maran and Cosgrove would have some struggle between them yet. But Lord Cosgrove did not discipline these guards of Cosgrove for their impulsive actions.

Renar spoke to these men seldom, and he measured his words, surprised at how difficult it had become. No flowery speech would serve him here as it had done in the past, and he could no longer seek comfort in the guise of the half-witted buffoon. These men were going to fight for him. Many would die. He owed them a leader that they would be proud to follow.

He paid as much of that debt as he could, thinking bitterly of how much better Gregory would have been.

Ah, Uncle,
he thought, and the word was a curse,
that, too, you will pay for.

“When it’s over,” he would say to Cospatric, “I’ll want a good drink.”

Cospatric would laugh, as he did only when they were alone. “Not at my inn.”

The tide was turning.

 

Darin summoned fire. He let it burn, red and ugly, before his eyes. The practice room, when not in use by Erin and Renar, contained the flame and hid it from prying eyes.

Only Trethar watched, commenting, encouraging, or disparaging. His words, his gentle, almost-imperceptible hands upon Darin’s shoulders, became a counterpoint to the rhythm of struggle and power.

Ten days.
Ten days, and they would have to make their stand. Darin let fire expand; letting the tingle flow down his arms and into the open space before him. Would ten days be enough?

Would the tenth day finally pay for all?

For if Renar was to regain a throne, Darin was to remake a line. Culverne must rise as well.

He worked as the days melted by in the heat of his unnatural blaze. He worked as the quill drifted horizontally across still air. And he worked to bring a flash of lightning into the air without the clouds and thunder that presaged it in nature.

“Don’t worry, Darin. You’ll be ready.”

Darin nodded grimly. What other choice had he?

 

Only for Erin did the ten days drag by.

She practiced in the drill room in isolation, choosing to spend her time there instead of at Renar’s side. Hours passed, warping and twisting themselves in her perception into minutes or days. She worked tirelessly, but the work called the ghosts of the past.

Telvar stood at her shoulder, the brisk shout of his annoyance ringing in her ears. Deirdre stood in the circle in front of her, her face a grim set of determined lines that Erin had forgotten she knew so well. The Grandfather came to visit, to watch as she progressed.

She fought for them, for all of her dead. But the living haunted her as well.

 

Memory was her enemy now. Without Renar or Darin to anchor her to the present, the past lived in all its dark splendor, growing steadily stronger as each dawn moved inevitably into
darkness. She did not dream; she wallced-and every step, fought against, struggled with, and ultimately denied, sought to bring her to the side of the Lord of the Empire. She did not think she had the ability to face him again.

But the road had strengthened her; Ruth had shown her the beginning of what might be a new life, a new position. Renar, quirky, loud, and unpredictable, had shown her a face that she had not thought to see: pain, fear, and vulnerability. Somehow, knowing that these things lived within him, her own ghosts became less daunting. But only a little.

And memory would not, in her chosen isolation, be denied. What she was came out of all that she had once been: and all that she had been cried out for reckoning.

 

She was in the drill room, in darkness. No windows let prying eyes watch; no windows let light in. Here, shadows reigned; here, memories refused to be dislodged.

She walked over to the wall and picked up her practice sword, hefting it easily in her right hand. Spinning lightly on her feet, she lunged forward, piercing empty air. She could almost feel Renar sidestepping and slid abruptly to the left so he could not take advantage of her overextension.

She struck again, her body tighter and more controlled. Dancing across the floor, the sword cut the air in a complex series of moves, outlined by the flow of light that was her power, called unknowing in the shadows of her internal battle.

He had seen her thus, recognizing, as she did not, the supple beauty of his Enemy’s hand.

Why?

Sword skittered off the wall, nearly overbalancing her; Renar’s block was absent.

Why had he kept her alive over the centuries? Why had he decided to wake her at all?

Sweat ran down her forehead in place of the tears she would not shed. No weakness was allowed in combat; if it had to be shown at all, it would wait until battle’s end. If there was an
end. Telvar’s training held her without demanding acknowledgment, but what must not be shown could still be felt.

With a strangled cry she threw the sword across the room, stepping out of the circle, paying her weaponsmaster his due. Her arms swung outward and up in a wide arc. There was precision to their wildness as they bent in unison to write a pattern across her chest.

Light flared, circling her feet and climbing upward—light, white and green, the power and peace of her heritage.

Why did
I
trust you?

White obscured her vision, and she held herself completely still in its circle. Because she had her answer. Even now she knew the answer.

He stood then, before her, his shadow long and cold, the gaunt lines of his jaw and cheekbones free from the grace of illusion. His eyes, crimson a moment, and then pure black, opened upon her. Limned in darkness of memory and anger, his arms spread wide and ringed with the ugliest of red, he waited.

His face, now expressionless, was turned toward her.

He wards,
she thought, and waited.

But his arms made no further movement; they hung wide on either side as if suspended.

She waited still, as if this sharp and clear a memory could finally answer her. But when words came, they were not his.

It was an old line, a Lernari teaching homily, uttered so often, and by so many, that it was thankfully faceless.

The memory image of Stefanos was not.

She thought that this was how she had first truly seen him, a finger of the enemy, lit with the Enemy’s fire and the Enemy’s destruction and pain. But no; his face held no expression that spoke of Malthan—just perhaps the hint of his pride.

She took a step forward, and the light parted to make way for her feet. It was just a step, but now he was closer, larger.

She did not forget Belfas, or his pain, or her own at his loss. But even so she stepped forward again, raising one arm.

The image held true.

“Stefanos.” Another step. “Hate is your greatest strength; the hatred of the Dark Heart for the Light. And often it is your kin’s most terrible weakness—do you remember the loss on the field of Kallen because the Karnari there could not contain his God’s great hatred?”

This ghost of his memory made no answer, and she edged forward again, beyond feeling foolish. She knew, on some level, that she was alone—but she did not feel it. There was something that had to be said.

“But without it, without this hatred-” He was so very close now. The tears began; without the accoutrements of battle, she had no control over them. “What choice but Light?”

She brought her hands up to touch his face, now no longer chill and distant. His arms swept downward, so familiar even here and now-And she stood alone in a gray empty stone room. Memory played its tricks even now. Memory and time. But even alone, she heard the echo of his voice; it cut her deeply before it ebbed into stillness.

Belfas’ face flashed before her, bloodstained and almost lifeless. The bodies of her line-mates, heaped like refuse, acted as kindling on the muted heart of her anger; the tears that traced her cheeks burned.

For a moment she froze and her anger raged outward, the color of it red. Red.

She saw it clearly. Her anger, her hatred-guilt turned outward.
Our greatest weakness.

But now she saw the pavilion again; saw those walk free by her judgment and his command, who otherwise would have perished.

The red burned into ashes. She felt the loss no less clearly, but now it was a clean thing, sharp as new blade.

As she thought it, she could hear the low, smooth utterance of his voice, a harmony or melody to hers. She held herself, cradling her upper body with her arms. If loss had a rhythm, she swayed to it. She understood now why he had committed his crime, and the full understanding brought her, at last, a measure of peace.

Through both the weakness and the strength, she had somehow become real to him; too real to lose to the course of time. He had given her everything that he could, for all that the giving struggled so harshly against his nature. Perhaps this, this is for what the Lady had hoped, and for what Lernan had hoped.

The thought of the Lady was still painful to her. If Stefanos had deceived her through misguided love, deception was still a large part of his nature—yet only once had he lied to her. The Lady had no such excuse.

Some part of her mind tried to argue with this: Deception was no part of the Lady of Elliath, and for no reason would she have forced herself to it against her very nature. Perhaps the deception had extracted as dear a price as the love that Stefanos had offered. Perhaps, but the argument held little sway; it was too new.

 

For if this was indeed the Lady’s hope, then that hope had failed.

Erin faced the fact squarely. She felt pain, but not the half-crazed frenzy that had driven her this far. Stefanos loved her, but he was what he was-Ruler of the Empire. During the centuries that she had slept, the changes she had wrought had not stopped him from destroying her kin and the rest of the seven lines; it had not stopped him from enslaving the last of the free kingdoms.

Perhaps the Lady had hoped that Erin might return to him; live out the slow centuries in the hope of seeing the First of Malthan truly leave his God. But the Lady, immortal, could not know the pain of whole generations born into slavery and dying without ever knowing what freedom truly meant. Erin was not the Lady, to feel so little.

Very gently she unsheathed her sword and watched its mesmerizing glow.

She lifted the sword slowly, as she asked the question honestly for the first time. Without the fury, without the pain of betrayal, no answer came.

And even that felt whole.

“I
am
the Sarillorn of Elliath.” She had not been sure until this moment. She loved him; he loved her—but they still remained true to what they were. She was Lernari. He was older and more fell. Between them, in private, all laws changed, but the world and the war remained too insistent for either to ignore or walk away from. The Dark Heart and the Light Heart still beat out their asynchronous rhythm.

“I swore the warrior’s oath—to fight against the Enemy until either of our deaths. In a moment of anger, I swore blood-pledge, and now in a moment of peace, I renew it. What I can do to free these lands, I must do.” She lowered her sword.