We rode our stolen horses hard. It was still eight days from the Vencari border to Liddarn, where the court-in-exile lay waiting for us. It had been a year since I’d ridden a horse. Every part of me hurt by the time we arrived, and my thighs hurt like fire.
We all hurt. We were all tired. And we were all filthy like you could only be after hard travel by horseback. But we could not rest immediately. We had been gone for an entire year and some days, and the court demanded – deserved – answers. They were willing to wait only as long as it took to summon the servants of the Inevitable to purify us of the miasma of the killing we had done crossing into Vencar before we entered the mines, and for us to wash the worst of the road-dirt from our hands and faces.
Then we were ushered into the Elana’s council chamber, where she took her seat at the head of the table. Rennin was seated at her right hand; Derrek and I were left standing at the other. The seniormost members of the court took their customary seats. Less senior wizards and courtiers fought their way in to stand and hear what had become of us, and how we had returned.
They got their account in full, or as fully as it was possible to recount the events of a year in a single night. It was not possible to relate events entirely in order. There were obvious assumptions to be made by the mere facts of who had returned and who had not. When Orland’s wife, Divinia, appeared outside the council chambers, the prince brought proceedings to a halt so that she could personally present her surrogate father’s widow with his arms and armor, which we had carefully packed away in the wizard’s chest that I had built as we traversed the Lightning Plains. Divinia fell to the ground, wailing her grief loudly and tearing at her clothes. Men and women who had also known Orland well beat their breasts, too, and covered their faces. That there was no equally public mourning for the loss of Veralar Tann was a matter of deep hurt to me.
We did not, in this first meeting, expound upon who we had found in the Lightning Plains. Nor did we provide any details as to why the dragons who guarded the Eastern Veil had barred our way. Those were details and discussions for after Elana had secured her succession. Nor, to my surprise, did Elana denounce me before the court, or reveal Derrek’s more-distantly-foreign-than-suspected origins. Those, too, seemed to be matters for a future that had not yet been secured. To Elana’s consternation – at times bordering on outrage – Derrek and I were called upon to elaborate upon, and even confirm, aspects of her account. We did so faithfully, deferring to her version of events and refusing to broach subjects that she had left closed.
Finally, as midnight approached, Rennin presented the Blade of Xadaer to the assembled courtiers: drawing it from his back and holding it aloft for all to see. Oversized and gleaming red bronze, its ornate and elaborate details were almost certainly lost on most of the audience, but its magic filled the chamber, a palpable force. Stunned silence fell over the room. Then came a deafening chorus of cheers and applause.
Now, Elana began to demand an accounting from the court: what had transpired in her absence, and what was happening, now? In the chaos that erupted after her demands, Rennin came around the table to lead Derrek and I out of the audience hall.
“Not all of this will be for your ears,” he told us as he pushed us outside the door. “Get some sleep while you can.”
I was as insulted as I was grateful.
“You,” Rennin snagged a guard. “Find someone to take them to the baths, and then to their rooms. They can talk to whomever they want, but make sure they aren’t accosted.”
And then he closed the door behind us.
I looked to Derrek, who rolled his eyes. I knew Elana and Rennin better than he did, but he knew Vencar better. If he was unconcerned, for now, I would be, too.
A crowd had gathered outside the council chambers – people of every rank who had not warranted or won a place in this surprise, late-night meeting – large enough that we were grateful for the escort. Dozens of questions were shouted to us while we waited, and more as we pressed our way through to the lift. If it weren’t for the armed and armored guards, we might have been followed to the baths or even to our rooms.
We washed quickly and in silence. I did not undo my braids. There would be time for that, later. We locked eyes one last time before parting ways: him to his rooms, me to mine.
My people were less invasive in their curiosity, but no less boisterous. They cheered at the sight of me, even dressed in a tunic from the bathhouse with my bag slung over my shoulder. I had so few friends among my people here; I had not expected to be so well received, even so late at night. Questions were shouted from every corner, but always after welcome and congratulations, and they did nothing to bar me from my room. I was both disappointed and relieved not to see Rrii`aa in the common rooms: I was less filthy after my bath, but still felt dirty; as much as I wished to see her immediately, I did not feel fit for her company.
The guard took his post outside my room, and I sighed in relief as I slipped through the curtained portal. I conjured light to see by and opened my bag to retrieve the fresh grasses I had gathered for the mask of Es, and the first of many gifts I had accumulated for Urassarrain. Only after I had lit a lump of offering incense for each did I turn all the way into my rooms and see that someone was waiting for me.
I gasped in surprise, then let out an inarticulate sound of joy.
“Rrii`aa,” I said, at last.
For there she was, sitting on the bed, her bright eyes and crooked smile peeking out from behind the disheveled waves of her chestnut hair, a robe of saffron orange silk slipping off her soft brown shoulders and gaping open to reveal her generous cleavage. She looked like she’d fallen asleep waiting for me, and only awoken as I came in. She was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, and yet it was she who laughed with joy at the sight of me, bedraggled and road-weary as I was.
I wanted to be dignified, suave, masterful.
Instead, I ran toward her and fell to my knees at her feet, crying out in love and grief – and pain, because my poor, abused legs could not stand even a moment more. I planted my face in her silk covered lap and wrapped my arms around her waist and I cried – ugly, aching sobs.
Whatever she had imagined our reunion might be – and for all my uncertainty about our relationship, she had been waiting for me in my room, surely that meant the worst of my fears could not be true – I doubted this was it. It certainly wasn’t what I had imagined, what I had fantasized about. But she just stroked my hair gently and said, “It was a hard journey, I take it.”
“Yes,” I said. “Yes it was.”
I regained my composure slowly and crawled up on the bed beside her. After another moment I worked up the courage to meet her eyes. I feared frustration or rejection. I found only kindness and compassion.
“I’m glad you’ve made it back,” she said. “I worried. And I missed you.”
“I missed you, too,” I said, leaning in close. “And you were not wrong to worry.”
I did not want to tell the story again tonight, but I wanted even less to take the risk that I might not have the chance again soon to tell her. And, for all that I had promised myself that I would beg Rrii`aa to circle in marriage with me the moment that I laid eyes on her, those were not the words that tumbled from my lips.
Rrii`aa laid down on the bed as I began to speak, then pulled me down beside her. I spoke of the tensions between us from the beginning, of our need for Derrek and, at the same time, our deep mistrust of him, and the resentment that engendered. I told her about our passage through the Wolfwood, and the exotic and rustic beauty of the uurnigath. I told her of the dragon-fight, and of seducing Derrek afterward, and then the tragedy that befell Veralar before we crossed the Eastern Veil. I told her about the jungles of the Holy Lands, and the great canyon, and the charnel ground and its ancient tombs. I told her of my starring role in securing the Blade of Xadaer, and of the hopelessness we felt when we found the trio of dragons guarding our way back.
She stopped me there with a kiss and a hand on my face.
“You are a hero,” she said with no irony at all. “And I am no less in awe of you to learn that you were afraid while you were in danger.”
I closed my eyes and couldn’t quite bring myself to speak.
“Be here,” she said, “with me, now. Then sleep. And you can tell me the rest in the morning.”
Then she kissed me again, in a way that made it very, very easy to be there, with her, in the present. My legs ached, and my back, and I struggled even to get myself out of my tunic, and her out of her robes, let alone touch her the way I wanted to.
If she minded, she gave no sign. Her every touch was a caress and a benediction. When I could not grasp her, she pressed herself against me, moving my hands where she wanted them, putting my mouth where she needed it. When I could not turn or crawl to reach her, she moved herself to me, pressing herself to my face when I could not crawl between her legs.
Magical, healing warmth poured into me with her every caress. The knots in my legs and back undid themselves. Agony faded to mere ache. The lingering wound in my thigh, from when Derrek and I had been thrown off the face of the world, healed as if it had never been. Bruises and new scars faded. Old scars vanished.
I cried out at her touch. I wept for joy to taste her. I chanted her name like a prayer. When she had finally come, shuddering, atop me, she climbed behind me and used both hands and yet more magic to bring me to my own desperate, sobbing climax. Then, succumbing to the exhaustion of my travels, the strain of the healing, and to the luxurious lassitude of the afterglow, I fell asleep in her arms.
When I woke, refreshed and restored as I had not felt since leaving the Holy Lands, I was surprised and delighted to find that Rrii`aa was still there: one arm under my head and the other around my waist. It was not an unprecedented event, but it had only happened twice before and both times had required no small amount of advance planning on both our parts. The Sisters of Amalai were all in high demand, and they savagely defended what privacy they had.
I must have stirred, because she kissed the back of my neck and said, “Good morning.”
“Good morning,” I said, shifting myself backward into her embrace.
“Did you sleep well?”
“I did,” I said. “Thank you so much for staying.”
She kissed my neck again.
“I haven’t seen you in a year,” she said, “and things are tense. I was afraid you might disappear.”
Her tone was light but her words held a sincerity that made my heart ache.
“I would not leave again without saying goodbye,” I told her. Then asked, “Tense how?”
“I don’t know how long you’ve been back in … this world, or what you’ve heard, but the Usurper has discovered us. There were rumors of invasion all winter, and just two days ago our patrols spotted advance scouts. We expect the army here soon – five days at the earliest, fifteen at the latest. The hunters and sorceresses have been preparing to fight. The Sisters and I have been coordinating with the Vencari medics to offer our services as healers.”
I was stunned. Had we returned too late? Was the war already lost, even with the Blade of Xadaer?
“Do you have any idea what the prince plans to do?”
“I do not,” I told her honestly. “Nor am I certain that I will be included in her future councils.”
“Khanaarre! What happened?”
“I lied,” I said. “At the very beginning, and by implication every day after. I was … technically only a journeyman when I joined her forces. I have proved my mastery since, I think, and Derrek has vouched for my qualifications in … shockingly strong terms. But I lied, and the prince was embarrassed when she found out, and it has been a difficult year for all of us.”
Rrii`aa held me tight.
“You do still owe me the rest of the story,” she said. “Stay here. Let me get us breakfast, and gauge the level of chaos in the common room. Perhaps you can tell me the remainder while we eat.”
I wanted to argue, to insist that she stay, but I also had not had an actual moment alone since the last time I had locked myself in the bath in the house of Vol Mak Khan. So I let her go with a passionate kiss, and then gave myself a sponge-bath from the bowl and ewer that Rrii`aa had so generously refilled while she waited for my return.
I dressed in one of the Vencari costumes that Elana had gifted me over our first year together, then extracted my wizard’s chests. My room was not large enough to really go through them, but I had packed and repacked things on our journey so that what I wanted was relatively near the top. Lighting another lump of incense, I added a square of fine Holy Empire silk to the small collection of material gifts I had gathered behind the wooden mask of Es, and placed a gleaming uncut sapphire before the iron mask of Urassarrain. Then, almost changing my mind yet again, I took out the piece that I had picked for Rrii`aa and wrapped it in another square of fine silk. Then I leaned back against the wall and enjoyed the silence, and the rare moment of true solitude.
When Rrii`aa returned, she came bearing a heaping platter of dried winter fruit and deep bowls of yogurt and a pair of smaller bowls of honey and a pair of enormous breads that I had come to recognize as Georgi biscuits. She also had an ornate scrollcase that I immediately recognized as from Elana.
“The guard asked me to give you this,” she said, pointing to the scroll. “Is it … urgent?”
I sighed. Even if it wasn’t a summons, it was probably better that I know than that I didn’t.
“I won’t know until I open it. I’m sorry. I probably should.”
She nodded with her wry smile. I opened the case and read the contents. The full implications ricocheted around in my head, refusing to settle. But the immediate meaning was less fraught.
“I will be meeting with the prince tonight,” I said. “I am at your disposal until then.”
Rrii`aa’s smile brightened.
“Then I believe you were in the middle of a story.”
“I was,” I said. “Just as things were about to get … very strange. And a little more sad.”
And so I told her of our journey north, and the weirdly varying terrains we crossed as the Holy Lands became the Lighting Plains. She flinched at that name, and I nodded.
“Yes,” I said. “That was my reaction, as well. And the prince’s, for the Vencari have tales that paint it as a demon-infested place. And, in a sense, we were all right … and we were all wrong.”
I told her of the scorpion that stung Rennin, and the hunting cat that killed Orland, and our shock and horror when the giants came upon us just moments after, and when Derrek spoke to them in their own tongue. I told her of the fine hospitality we received, and the diplomat’s tongues spell, and of all the confusion and hurt and that we all felt – including Derrek, when I almost hated him.
“Most of our time in the sao`ashan empire makes for poor telling,” I said. “It was a strange and exotic land. We were treated with astounding courtesy. I struggled to accept that it wasn’t an elaborate trap. But, in the end, the only one of us they ever tried to hurt was Derrek…”
And I told her of how Inladat had kicked Derrek off the edge of the Great Ice Wall, and how my desperate attempt to catch him almost ended in both our deaths. I told the tale of our hike through the mountains, and our encounter with the ogre warriors. I told her how we had come through dwarven territory, and bought a boat, and how stopping to stay with my parents had revealed first my deception regarding my journeyman’s quest, and the degree of Derrek’s regard for me.
I had been half-afraid that Rrii`aa would be hurt by my lie – which I had also told to her – or jealous of my relationship with Derrek, but the one she dismissed out of hand and for the other she only laughed.
“You speak so highly of him,” she said, gentle and teasing, my hand tight in hers. “Are you thinking of bringing him into a marriage circle?”
“I have fantasized about it,” I admitted, “in weak and lonely moments. But though I care for him, and admire him, I do not yet trust him. We will see where the end of this war leaves us.”
She blinked in surprise. I had, perhaps, been supposed to laugh off the suggestion.
“And,” I went on, seizing the moment and all my courage in both hands, “there are more important things – more important people – to tend to first. My long and dangerous journey has made many things clear to me. Whatever future lays ahead of me, no matter who wins the war, or even if I die in it…”
I slipped off the bed with a groan, still sore despite the generous magical healing that Rrii`aa had bestowed upon me, and knelt at her feet, almost as I had last night. I pulled out the cloth-wrapped object I had hidden in my robes and unwrapped the gold and silver and onyx bracelet that I had made while teaching Derrek the arts of jewelry in the house of Vol Mak Khan.
“Whatever my marriages come to enjoin,” I said, holding the bracelet out to her on its silk bed, “I want my circle to begin with you.”
Rrii`aa’s eyes went wide and her mouth fell open. Her shoulders went stiff and her hands, always in motion, stilled. It was improper, I knew. One was supposed to start with a matchmaker and find who, within her circle of influence, was even looking to get married. Then, one presented their dowry for the matchmaker’s inspection, and she would begin negotiations on one’s behalf. Proposition, like I was doing, risked embarrassment and incompatibility and … I swallowed hard. And to proposition a Sister of Amalai? Sisters almost never married. They were goddess-touched healers, councilors, too valuable to the community to bind themselves to a marriage circle. It made their clients uncomfortable.
Her face was so stunned, and her silence so long, that I finally began to pull back my hands. Only then did she move, adder swift, catching my wrists in her strong, strong grip.
“Khanaarre,” she said my name with such weight and feeling that if I were not already on my knees, I’d have fallen.
“Khanaarre,” she said, again, tears erupting from her eyes, “I thought that I was going to have to ask you.”
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