Chapter Forty-Two

 

 

Tansen arrived in the middle of the night, in the silent hours when even rebels were lost in the solace of their dreams. The sight of two sleepy sentries confirmed that the torena was in residence at the half-ruined villa she inhabited near Chandar.

The Valdani were already pulling out of the region around Elelar's ancestral lands. In another few days, she could have reclaimed the estate she had inherited from Gaborian. Now she would never live to see it again. Now she would die before the sun rose over Darshon once more.

He had left his horse somewhere down the road, over-used and footsore. He had no wish to alert the sentries—or anyone else—to his presence before he killed the torena. He was too tired and injured to fight all the men who protected Elelar. He must do this quietly.

His seeping wound hurt like the branding ceremony he had endured to become a shatai. His lungs burned from working so hard to make up for the loss of blood and the lack of food and sleep. His whole body ached from the blows of the White Dragon. His flesh burned in a thousand places from the drops of ensorcelled water which had dripped onto him from that voracious monster. The cuts from its claws were as painful as wounds made by a shir.

What a fool I was, not to believe.

He ignored the pain, the exhaustion, and the light-headed dizziness as he crept through the dark and sought an entrance into the well-guarded villa. He shut out the ache in his heart as he thought of murdering the woman who had haunted his thoughts since his boyhood. He resisted the familiar longing that assailed him as he slipped through the silent shadows of her house and made his way to the chamber wherein she lay.

Soft-footed and shallow-breathed, he crept up beside the bed where she now slept alone.

The bed she shared with Zimran.

He unsheathed a sword, controlling the soft whisper of sound the blade made when he did so.

The light of the moons poured through the windows and spilled across the bed. How lovely she looked, lying in her gossamer gown with her black hair spread across the pillow. The rise and fall of her soft breasts looked so welcoming to one who had fought hard, lost tragically, and come so far since dawn. Her fair, flawless flesh almost seemed to glow in the dark nest of her bed. The scent that arose from her sleeping form clouded his mind and filled his senses.

Elelar.

He whispered her name, as so many other men must have done in the night. She turned her head. A shallow sleeper. Would he ever again hate anyone this much? Would he ever desire another woman this desperately? What a peaceful heart she must have, that it did not—she had told him—ever hold two such feelings at once.

He lay his blade across her throat, observing how the cold steel caught the moonlight, capturing the deadly beauty of the moment forever in his mind.

He had never killed a woman. He had never imagined that he would. He wondered how long he could bear to go on living after killing this one.

Tansen didn't know how he had kept on going after seeing Josarian devoured by the White Dragon. He could scarcely remember the hours which had followed. He knew that he had broken down, wailing like a child. He also knew that Najdan and Mirabar were unlikely ever to remind him of it. Of the rest—the mad flight away from the river, the long trek through the dark, the decision to stop and await dawn... He remembered almost none of it. He mostly remembered the hollow grief of loss, the empty ache of failure, and the horror of Josarian's brutal end.

His brother had never feared death because he had believed, with a faith which Tansen could envy but never emulate, that he would join his beloved Calidar in the Otherworld. He had even expected to be reunited there with his worthless cousin, reclaiming the long-lost harmony of their friendship in a place free of the concerns, quarrels, and burdens of this world.

Now Josarian would never see Calidar again. He would never answer Mirabar's Call. Nothing awaited him but oblivion, and until Kiloran died, Josarian would be locked in the agony of his own terrible destruction.

Tansen closed his eyes, gritting his teeth as he tried to escape the memory of Josarian's agonized screams.

Focus on the task at hand.

"Elelar," he whispered again.

She had heard too many men whisper her name in the dark to be alarmed. She slowly opened her eyes. She didn't even tense when she saw a shallah sitting on the edge of her bed.

"Zimran?" she murmured sleepily.

Elelar moved her head slightly—and felt the blade at her throat. She gasped and went very still. Then she focused her eyes on him and whispered incredulously, "Tansen?"

"Yes."

The moons highlighted him, too. He had some idea of how he must look. Hollow-eyed, clammy with feverish sweat, filthy, wounded, disheveled, haunted, exhausted... and his clothes liberally stained with blood: his own, Josarian's, Outlookers', and Zimran's.

Her gaze traveled over him, then rested on the hand holding a sword at her throat.

She licked her lips and guessed, "Zimran is dead."

"You've always been very quick." Even Kiloran's voice had never been as cold as his was now. "Make your peace with Dar."

Her breasts rose and fell with sudden agitation. Her breath trembled as she tried to speak. "How di... How did you know?"

"A secret treaty with the Valdani," he spat.

"Yes," she admitted. "To end the war."

"Hostage exchanges."

"To end—"

"Josarian's life in exchange for Shaljir!"

"To end the war."

"You betrayed him." Do it now. Kill her now.

"It was the price of our freedom," she said.

"You betrayed the Firebringer to free us?"

"From the moment he murdered Srijan, he was marked for death," she said desperately. "You know that! It's why you wouldn't leave his side!"

"Did you arrange to have me wounded so that he'd be easier to kill?" he asked suspiciously.

"No. How could I? I only..."

"What?" He pressed the blade a little harder against that soft flesh.

"I only saw the opportunity after... after I realized you were hurt too badly to return to his side."

"It's why you came all the way to the Shrine of the Three to see me."

"Yes... Please, Tan..."

"To tell your masters that you knew how my brother could be killed," he snarled.

"Before Kiloran could do it!" In her agitation, she moved too far. The sharp blade pricked her flesh. She gasped, thinking he had done it. "He was going to die, Tansen! No one could stop it! Not you or Mirabar or anyone! I wasn't going to let him die for nothing."

"Next you'll be telling me you did him a favor."

"Torena?" There was a knock at the bedchamber door, which Tansen had locked behind him. "Torena!"

Servants.

"Send them away," he whispered.

"Just a minute," she called. Then she whispered to him, "Put your sword away." Seeing him shake his head, she said, "If they know I'm not safe, they'll attack. You'll kill them all."

"What do you care? A few more deaths—"

"Tansen," she whispered urgently.

He hesitated, then sighed and sheathed his sword. He stood by the bed while Elelar got up to answer the door. Faradar stood outside with the two sentries whom he'd slipped past. The maid, who knew him, gasped at his appearance, but apparently shed any concern that her mistress might be in danger. Elelar's brief, whispered explanation suggested that Tansen had come at this unconventional hour to mix business and pleasure. He noted how quickly the torena's servants accepted this explanation. Elelar closed the door, locked it again, and asked if he would object to her lighting the lantern.

"I can kill you just fine by this light," he said.

Elelar sat on the edge of the bed and folded her hands. Moonlight and wavy black hair spilled over her shoulders. "The Valdani guaranteed total withdrawal from Shaljir upon receiving proof of Josarian's death."

"And you believed them?"

"They have fulfilled the rest of the treaty." When he didn't reply, she said quietly. "In the end, Josarian's death was the price of Sileria's freedom."

Tansen stared at her, appalled by this dispassionate assessment of her betrayal. "How could you have done it? How could you have betrayed him? Ho—"

"You can say that to me? You?" She jumped to her feet and stalked forward, her fear of him forgotten in her anger. "You, who murdered your own bloodfather?"

He took a step backward. He should have just killed her, should have never given her a chance to talk. Now she was opening more wounds.

"Armian trusted you!" she cried. "He loved you. And you slaughtered him rather than—"

"It's not the same!" he shouted. "What you did—"

"It's exactly the same!" she shouted back. "Do you think you're the only one who loves this land? The only one who's made sacrifices to free it?"

"I didn't sacrifice the Firebringer."

"Yes, you did!" she reminded him. "You thought Armian was the Firebringer, and you killed him anyhow."

His side felt like it was on fire. He was panting as if he had just run all the way here on foot.

"No..."

"I was there," she hissed.

Tansen felt dizzy. "It's not the same..."

"It's the same."

He shook his head, swaying slightly.

Elelar saw his weakness and pressed her advantage. "The war would have dragged on forever, Tansen. Maybe for years. You saw the butchery. Koroll's revenge. Whole villages slaughtered by night, one after another. Women, children, old men."

"Like Gamalan..." He thought he would be sick.

"How long could we hold out? And at what cost to our people? How long could the rebellion last once Kiloran and Josarian went to war against each other? How soon before the Valdani saw our vulnerability? They would have stayed in Shaljir, waiting until the wars on the mainland favored them, waiting until they could reconquer Sileria."

He leaned weakly against the wall, shying away from the onslaught of her words.

Armian. A windy night. A deadly decision. The father who loved and trusted me.

"Josarian was doomed from the moment he killed Srijan. I know..." Elelar sighed. "I know why he did it. I know how the shallaheen are. But he... he could never survive Kiloran's vengeance after that."

Josarian. A darkening forest. An ambush. The cousin he loved and trusted.

"No." He couldn't bear it. No one could bear this.

"Yes," she insisted. "Nothing and no one could have saved him, not even you! Not even nine years of exile would have saved Josarian. Kiloran would never rescind the bloodvow. Their feud would have destroyed the rebellion, destroyed all of Sileria! We had to act fast to save it."

Daurion. A night in Shaljir a thousand years ago. A deadly attack. The friend he loved and trusted.

"The Yahrdan..." The room was spinning, the years of blood and vengeance whirling around him.

"Who knows if he would have become Yahrdan, if he had survived?" she said. "And if he had, Tansen, don't you see how it would have destroyed us? The first Yahrdan in a thousand years, the leader of the newborn nation, murdered by a waterlord..." Her hands balled into fists. "Don't you see? It's exactly what made Sileria vulnerable to the Conquest in the first place." Elelar paced along the line of windows on the other side of the room. "Nations are born like men, in blood and fever and legend. But they must be ruled with strength and wisdom and power."

"Kiloran..." He struggled for air, suffocating beneath the tragedy his own race brought upon themselves again and again and again. Until now, until her words, he had never known how deeply his own sins were woven into its tapestry. Daurion, Armian, Josarian...

"No, it mustn't be Kiloran. It won't be Kiloran," Elelar said. "I have never wanted that any more than you do. But it could never have been the man who murdered Kiloran's son. Not while Kiloran lives."

Must it always be this way?

"You have given Sileria to Kiloran," Tansen said bitterly. "You and your precious Alliance have made us all his slaves."

Her pacing stopped abruptly as she whirled to face him. "Haven't you heard anything I've been saying? Now the Valdani will leave Sileria, before every piece of it is destroyed by another year, two years, five years of warfare, before people are starving in the streets, before—" 

"In destroying Josarian, you have become Kiloran's creature, just as Zimran was your creature."

"Kiloran has nothing to do with this!"

"Doesn't he?" Tansen pushed himself way from the wall and stalked forward. "You don't know what happened to Josarian."

She was staring at him intently. "I thought you came here because I do know what—"

"I got to him in time to save him from the ambush."

"You what?" Elelar sat down suddenly. "But I thought... Isn't he dead?"

"Oh, he's dead. I saw it myself. He's definitely dead."

She heard the change in his tone. The hatred. The horror. "If he didn't die in the ambush, then—"

"Kiloran," he said. "The White Dragon."

Elelar shot to her feet again. "You are lying."

"Am I? Ask Mirabar and Najdan. Ask Lann and the other shallaheen and some fifty zanareen. They were all there, too, and none of us could save him from that thing."

"The White Dragon? No... No, it's not possible."

She shook her head, backing away from him as she sought to deny his story. Tansen seized her shoulders, holding her in a grip that he hoped hurt like all the Fires, forcing her to listen as he told her how Josarian had died, sparing her nothing, painting a picture he wanted her to remember for the rest of her life. He wanted her to hear Josarian's screams of agony forever, just as he would.

"No!" she cried, shoving at him, shaking her head as if to rid it of the images, the sounds, the memories he wanted her to carry as a burden until the day she died. "No! How would Kiloran even know where he was? How would he—"

"He knew everything about the treaty, every move the Alliance and the Valdani made together."

Her eyes flew wide open. "No, you're wrong! Searlon... Yes, Searlon was my guide. He took me to the meeting where we made the treaty. But he wasn't involved! He never even asked me what we discussed!"

Tansen shook her, amazed that such a shrewd, scheming woman could have been so stupid. "You knew Searlon was connected to this thing, and yet you never wondered—"

"The Valdani simply contacted the Alliance through..." She gasped and stared at him, her mouth hanging open. Her knees buckled and she leaned against him. "The Valdani.." she panted. "They came to us..." A sob escaped her. "... through Kiloran."

"And who had betrayed Josarian to the Valdani once already?" He forced her to keep standing, using his voice the way he usually used his swords. "Who do you think told the Valdani that the Alliance could be convinced to betray Josarian? Who had the most to fear from the Firebringer's strength?" He shook her hard. "Who had the most to gain by Josarian's death?"

"Nooo!" she howled. She broke free of his hold and fell to her knees.

Servants knocked again at the door. "Torena! Torena!"

"Go away!" she screamed at them. "Go! Leave me alone!"

"He used you." Tansen forced her to hear him above her howls of rage and grief. "He knew where you were weak, what you wanted to believe, and just how blind to all else you would be when you thought you saw your goal in sight."

Tears streamed down her face as she raged at Kiloran and destiny, beating her fists against the floor until she was too weak to move. In the end, she simply knelt there, staring at nothing while her shoulders shook and sobs tore at her throat.

Elelar had shown no mercy to Josarian. She had shown none to Tansen tonight—Armian... And Tansen showed no mercy to her now.

"You've paved the way for Kiloran to rule Sileria by helping him destroy the only man strong enough to oppose him after the Valdani withdraw." Every breath made his wound scream in protest. "We were all better off under Valdani rule than we will be now."

"No..." she sobbed.

"I gave nine years of my life to prevent what you've just done to us all."

"No!" she cried.

"Nine years, wandering foreign lands, living among the roshaheen, fleeing the bloodvow you encouraged Kiloran to swear against me... Nine years of longing for Sileria, longing to come home. I killed my own bloodfather so that we wouldn't be ruled by the Society. And unlike you, torena, I loved the man I slaughtered for our freedom. Sometimes I miss him even now." He lowered himself into a chair, fighting the faintness, the darkness closing in on him. "Damn you, Elelar, did it never once occur to you that there's one person in Sileria even more clever than you?" After a moment, he sighed. "No, of course not. Kiloran counted on your arrogance. You and whoever else signed that damned treaty."

Elelar looked up at last, gazing at him through dark lashes which were spiky from her tears. Even in her grief and shame, she was still beautiful. It shouldn't move him, not now, not after all she had done... but it did.

"But Mirabar said..." Elelar gave a watery sigh. Longing filled her tear-streaked face. "The visions. Mirabar said we would be free."

"Perhaps we will." How weary life in Sileria made a man. "But not yet."

"I... I have no right to ask, Tansen, but I am afraid, and so I will."

"What?"

"After you kill me... Will you burn my body?"

Kill her. Kill Elelar.

He should do it. He knew he should. He had vowed to do it. Mirabar would never forgive him if he didn't.

Don't come back until it is done.

He rose to his feet and unsheathed a sword. Elelar met his gaze for a moment, bidding him silent farewell. She showed more courage than her lover had in his final moments. More courage than most men did.

Don't come back to me unless you can show me Elelar's blood on your sword.

He should do it. He must do it. She had betrayed them all by betraying their leader, the Firebringer, his brother.

So die all who betray Josarian.

He hadn't spared Zimran, not even when Josarian himself had begged him to.

There are... no exceptions.

Who could say what Elelar would do next if he let her live? She had betrayed him once, too.

Daurion, Armian, Josarian...

The tender flesh of her neck was exposed. Her hands were neatly folded on her knees as she waited for him to strike.

He raised his sword. One Silerian killing another in vengeance over bloodshed and betrayal.

Must it always be this way?

"Are we no more than this?" he finally said aloud, his voice hoarse with sorrow. "Will we never be more than this?"

She glanced up at him. "Tansen? I am ready."

"This is Sileria." He remembered the recent words of another traitor—one who had tried to save Josarian. "A man's friends are always more dangerous than his enemies."

"What?" she said faintly.

He couldn't do it. He looked down at the woman who had inspired love, hate, desire, contempt, and a myriad of other emotions in his breast, and he couldn't kill her. He gazed into that unmistakably Silerian face, and he could not take the life that had shaped so much of his own. He looked at the woman whose sins were so close to his own, and he found that he couldn't kill her unless he slit his own throat immediately thereafter—and he wasn't ready to do that. Not yet.

"We have work to do first," he said suddenly.

Prepared for death, she had trouble standing up, even with his arms to support her. "Work?"

"Kaynall was waiting for Josarian's body," he said briskly, leading her back to the bed. When she started trembling with reaction, he wrapped a blanket around her. "Searlon is supposed to identify it for him."

"B— B— But there will be no body. Not if the White Dr—"

"Exactly. I sent an Outlooker back to Shaljir to tell Kaynall that the treaty conditions have been met: Josarian is dead."

"You did what?"

"But I think it would be best if you go to Shaljir and pressure Kaynall to fulfill his part of the bargain and surrender Shaljir."

"Y—You want me to go to Shaljir?"

"Koroll's dead, and Kaynall has signed a treaty with you. You'll be safe enough. Besides," he added, "we can't have the Valdani changing their minds now, can we?"

She shook her head, teeth chattering. He found a flagon of wine on the table across the room and poured her a cup.

"Tell Kaynall and Cyrill that Kiloran is secretly part of the Alliance." He lifted one brow and added, "It should be a refreshing change for you, telling the truth."

"Very fu—fun—"

"Here." He pressed the cup against her lips and forced some wine down her throat. "Tell them that Kiloran finished what the Outlookers started. Find Searlon and convince him—I don't care how—to back you up when you talk to Kaynall. The one thing we all still agree on," he reminded her, "is that we want the Valdani out of Shaljir and out of Sileria."

"I thought..."

"What?"

"Wh—When Kaynall said we must give up Josarian, Varian convinced me... I convinced myself," she admitted more honestly, "that this must be Josarian's destiny. This was how the Firebringer would finally drive them out. There is nothing in the prophecy..."

"That says how he must do it," Tansen concluded.

Elelar nodded. Tansen felt sorrow cloud his eyes.

Josarian.

"There will be civil war now," he said.

"Yes." She swallowed more wine. "I know." Tears streamed down her face again, but she did not break down this time. "At least now..."

"What?"

"For the first time in a thousand years... It will be just us. Only Silerians in Sileria."

"Free to slaughter each other at will," he said bitterly. "If we're going to win our own land once and for all, we must do it before any of the mainland powers become strong enough to attack us again. If they do it while Sileria is still in turmoil..."

"I will leave for Shaljir at first light." Her eyes sought his. "You are not well, Tansen. You should rest here until—"

"I have to go to Dalishar." And he would have to tell Mirabar he had spared Elelar. He'd almost rather face the White Dragon again.

"Your injuries," she protested. "You must re—"

"No one can rest now, Elelar."

As he turned to leave her, she said, "You were wrong about one thing."

He paused. "What's that?"

"There is one other man strong enough to oppose Kiloran." She nodded slowly. "You."

He held that dark, troubled gaze. "May Dar make it so," he said.

Tansen left Elelar alone with her demons, knowing that his own would follow him. He ignored the wide-eyed stares of the torena's servants as he passed them in the corridor, and he left her house without a backward glance.

He was unspeakably weary and in more pain than even a shatai could bear with grace. But he was right—no one could rest now. All of Sileria was at stake, and the Society had held sway here for far longer than the Valdani. They would be even harder to defeat. Now there would be civil war, and if he couldn't win it, Sileria would know slavery beneath the cruelest yoke of all.

He had killed his bloodfather to prevent it nine years ago. And if he had to, he would take Josarian's place to prevent it now.

The night air was sweet and cool, perfumed by wild fennel and rosemary. The moon-streaked shadows invited him to lie down and sleep, and the serenade of a soft breeze sweeping through the trees soothed his senses. Sileria at her most enticing.

Tansen resisted her allure and, focusing on the task at hand, set his foot on the road leading toward Dalishar and his destiny.