“Not the Lothan Aklun?”
“They are a separate matter.”
“I know they are,” Corinn said, again drawing nearer to him as she spoke. “They are not the power you have always led people to believe, are they? Hanish told me what you told him. You do business with them because doing so is a lesser evil than being without the trade they facilitate. They are rich. Richer than you, and you covet their wealth, don’t you? You call them a great power because of their riches, because that is all that matters to you. But you hate it that you must share the trade with them, as an unequal partner. Sometimes at night you dream of having their palaces as your own. That is what arouses you more than anything else in the world. Am I right?”
Sire Dagon backed away, his face soured. “First I lecture you; then you attempt to lecture me. I’ve no time for this. I’ll give you one last opportunity to tell me what brought you here.”
Corinn, feeling strangely at ease with being prompted and with the lie she was about to utter, said, “I come with a message from my brother. He wants you to stop aiding Hanish. If you do, he’ll make it greatly worth your while.”
“He wants us to stop aiding Hanish?” he repeated, his eyebrows wrinkled and dismissive. “Did I not just explain that neither Meins nor Akarans control the world?”
“But neither do you, not alone, at least. Not without winning the consent of the masses. That’s what my brother can bring you, even more completely than Hanish.”
“Your brother! He angers me as much as he amuses me. Do you know that he’s somehow convinced people to come off mist? It’s most disruptive.”
Corinn had not known anything about people coming off mist, but she took it in without showing surprise on her face. “That is exactly why you should wish him victory. He frees them to help him win this war. Once won, however, the situation afterward will be very different. We can make it one that will please us both. Aliver isn’t my father, nor am I. Tell me that in truth you don’t think a new Akaran dynasty would benefit us both. Think of all we accomplished together before. Hanish Mein was but a necessary awakening for us. But, believe me, we are now fully alert.”
Sire Dagon focused his narrow-set eyes on her and stared with an intensity that would have withered Corinn only a few days ago. Even now, it was hard to meet. “Let us say that I take you at your word,” he said. “I’ve heard nothing that would merit such a change of policy. Your brother is not going to win this contest, Corinn. Trust me. I have access to information you do not. As that is so, why would I align myself with a losing cause, especially one that espouses a desire to hurt my interests? Answer that question convincingly and we will talk further. Fail to, and I will take my leave, Princess.”
Struggling not to look away, Corinn tried to prepare the entirety of what she had to say. There was a great deal to sort through, and it all swirled in her head as she met the leagueman’s gaze. Part of her wanted to release a whole litany of confessions, to lay it all before him and be judged, understood, sentenced. But she was not here for that. She would not tell him how she had loved Hanish and how it twisted her with misery to find their relationship all false. She was not going to admit that she hated her own weaknesses, that she realized she had been a fool all her life, a lamb being led to slaughter. Nor did she intend to tell him how much pain she carried within her; that she still ached from longing for the life she might have had with her siblings; that she sometimes thought of Igguldan, the prince who had fallen to his knees loving her; and that she still raged against having her father taken from her and against losing her mother while she was but a girl. She held all these things eddying in her mind, but she plucked her message from among them.
Soon the words she would speak fell into place. She would repeat that the league must-for their own preservation-distance themselves from Hanish. They must pull back the navy supporting Maeander, disregard that fleet of Vumuan ships. They must wait. That was all they need do, for now. Not act against Hanish-just not act for him either. Just as they had not aided or hindered either side in the first war. If Hanish prevailed, the league’s inactions would not have caused him that much harm. They would be chided but forgiven. What else could Hanish do? Really, they would lose nothing by drawing back. But if the league continued to aid the Meins and they lost…then Aliver would be without mercy upon them. He would abolish the trade completely. He would turn the rage of the world squarely on them and fight with all his power to destroy them. And if none of that convinced him, she had yet another promise to make, one that she doubted he would easily ignore.
It was a lot to ask, but on the tenth flare of the leagueman’s nostrils she opened her mouth. “Sire Dagon, I can tell you on my brother’s behalf that he has no desire to hurt your interests. Just the opposite, he-and I-believe that a partnership between the league and the Akarans can be even more profitable than ever before.”
With this opening, she had the leagueman’s interest. Sire Dagon nodded that she should continue, that his attention was hers, for one last time, at least.
CHAPTER
There was nothing of the familiar, natural order of the world to be heard in the dawning day. None of his usual awareness that creatures of the night were bedding down as the day laborers took their place. No morning birdsongs. No cockerels with their heads lifted to announce their ownership of the brightening world. No barking of village dogs. He heard no children with their instant enthusiasm, their shouts and laughter. Nowhere did he hear the lilting of women’s voices as they greeted each other in ways and with words that were themselves ancient Talayan customs. Nor was the air brushed with the sound of threshing, that rhythm that over the years had become a gentle enticement to awake, as constant as the rising sun and just as welcome.
On the morning that his contest with Maeander Mein was to resume, Aliver lay awake on his pallet in his war tent, missing all these things. Such moments felt as far gone now as memories from his childhood. They were glimpses of an innocent world that he could scarcely believe in anymore. Back then, he had thought of himself as suffering through an exile, but now every day of his years in Talay seemed idyllic. Remembering that he had once lived like any other person in a normal world pained him physically, a bodily ache that had plagued him through the night, even during his short bouts of sleep. All the troubles and worries and fears that had seemed to matter back then were inconsequential compared to what he now faced.
He rolled himself upright and pressed the fatigue from his eyes with the knuckles of his fists. A few minutes later he pushed through his tent flap. Around him spread the throng of humanity that had rallied to his cause. Hundreds of tents and shelters, thousands of men, women, and children rising for another day of his war. The Halaly guards, who by their own initiative shadowed his every motion, nodded greetings to him. He saw faces all around lift toward him, smiling and hopeful. They all believed that this war was as good as won. They trusted him completely now, felt he was like Edifus returned, like Tinhadin. Though he explained that it was not so, they seemed to think he was the power protecting them, not the unseen Santoth.
He kept his eyes moving, afraid lest his gaze rest too long on any one of his faithful followers. He could show them no uncertainty. You can feel it, Thaddeus had said shortly before he disappeared, but never show it. Aliver had not realized how he had come to lean on the old chancellor until he departed. In a way it felt like his father had spoken through his betrayer’s mouth, strange as that seemed. He had said that all people were fumblers at life, even kings. But an effective king moves as if he were a hero of old. Such heroes never doubted themselves. Not as far as the world could tell, at least. Aliver missed the man greatly. Thaddeus had not said a word of parting, but the prince knew what he searched for. He prayed him speed in finding it.