She was not the only one to emerge scarred from the war. Dariel trudged just behind her, Wren at his side. The young woman seemed ill at ease in the formal dress the occasion required. She had been a raider all her life and she looked it still, her joints loose and her posture casual in a manner that was slightly aggressive. But Mena liked her and hoped that she would bring her brother happiness for a long time to come. Dariel needed joy. He was still quick to laugh, nimble with jokes. He had a mischievous beauty when he grinned, but he seemed to think himself solely responsible for Aliver’s death. When he thought nobody was looking at him, he wore the burden of it like a cloak of lead. Mena had yet to present the King’s Trust to him. He was not ready, but he would be someday.
Others had not emerged from the conflict at all. Thaddeus Clegg had been inside the palace when the Numrek had attacked. He apparently died in the slaughter that Corinn ordered. Why he was there and whether or not he had come close to finding The Song of Elenet might never be known. There was no sign of it. Corinn even questioned whether the volume existed at all. There had been a note in a pocket next to his chest that told where he had hidden King Leodan’s ashes, which he had kept safe all these years. He was the only reason they had the king’s remains now.
Leeka Alain’s fate was shrouded in still more mystery. A few swore that they had seen him trailing behind the Santoth when they turned from their destruction and retreated into exile again. If these ones could be believed, the old general ran behind the sorcerers, wrapped in the great confusion surrounding them. Perhaps he had become one of them. Or maybe he had just been vaporized by their fury. Either way, no trace of him remained in the Known World, except the high regard he would always be held in, rhinoceros rider that he was.
And the world itself had not been the same since the Santoth were unleashed. Mena could not pinpoint exactly what was different or how it might affect the future, but she knew the ramifications of that dreadful day in Talay were not completely behind them. At times she could feel the rents they had torn in the fabric of creation. At other times it felt like the seams holding the world together threatened to burst. The passing days eased some of the confusion in the air, but it was not gone completely. The Santoth had let spell after spell out on the battlefield that day. They had only spent a few hours weaving magic, but who could say how the remnants of the Giver’s twisted tongue would change the world?
When they climbed to the rolling plateau that stretched to the cliffs, Mena saw Corinn, who was ahead of her, look over her shoulder. She seemed to decide to slow so that Mena could catch up with her. What a revelation her sister was. Nothing at all like the girl Mena remembered. In truth, she felt little easy affection for her. There was an innate connection between them, a bond in the very blood essence of them, but it seemed an ever-prickly thing to navigate. It had been an incredible surprise to learn that Corinn had taken Acacia back from Hanish Mein. The fact that she had done so with the aid of the Numrek, and that she had forged some sort of agreement with the league, further stunned the younger siblings. The two of them had felt themselves in command just behind Aliver. They had been fighting the war, they thought. They had been at the center of all the struggle, or so they had believed. To discover that Corinn awaited them on a liberated Acacia, and that she was undeniably in power, with her own Numrek army and with a fleet of ships at her disposal…Mena had yet to come to terms with it all.
She still thought of their reunion with unease. An event that should have been joyous in so many ways was…well, she was not sure exactly how to categorize the experience, but it was not what she would have imagined. It was a week after the Santoth had cleared the field of every Meinish soldier in sight. She and Dariel sailed into Acacia’s harbor, the two of them standing at the prow of the sloop she’d taken from Larken, gazing up at the terraced city that had once been their home. It was all as she remembered, really, but that still felt strange because she had spent so many years doubting the details she had recalled from her past.
Behind them came a ragtag fleet bearing the remains of the great army. Though she knew they were weary, she felt propelled by the weight of them at her back, as if they were the wind that billowed the boat toward the docks. They were triumph. And relief. And fatigue. They bore grief with them as well, but this had already become inexorably commingled with victory. Mena doubted she would ever feel unadulterated joy. Thus far, life had not provided her this, not as Mena the girl princess, not as Maeben on earth, not as the sword-wielding warrior of the Talayan plains. Still, she watched the island approach with anticipation. She was finally going home.
They docked and disembarked amid a reveling throng. The air rang with the music of flutes and cymbals, sweet with incense and fragrant with roasting meat, simmering stews, and frying fish. Corinn, they were told by the officials that met them, awaited them nearby. Indeed, after leaving the docks and cutting through crowds gathered in the lower town and up to the second terrace, there was no missing Corinn. She stood at the first landing of the granite stairway, the central one that led up toward the palace. An entourage flanked her. It was a mixed company that appeared to be made up of advisers and officials, with a contingent of Numrek officers conspicuously close to her, like personal guards. Though they did not wear particular uniforms, they were all clothed in sanguine colors, shades of crimson and brown and auburn. Mena knew a little of how Corinn had recaptured the palace and defeated Hanish, but it surprised her that her sister seemed to already have some sort of government in place.
Corinn was the centerpiece of this arrangement. How marvelous she looked! Mena remembered that she had always thought her sister a beauty, but the sight of her was more astonishing than she had expected. She wore a long-sleeved gown of a light, shimmering fabric, a creamy color touched with a hint of orange. Her hair was intricately made up, ribbons woven into a tight bun, pierced through with a spray of quills and the white plume of some bird. Her features were perfectly formed, delicate, her bosom and the flare of her hips highlighted by the shapely gown. Her arms were sensuously formed-shapely but not overly lean or muscled, like Mena’s-her wrists and fingers as expressive as a dancer’s when she extended them in a gesture of greeting.
Clearly, she was waiting for them to climb the steps. As they did so, Mena had an unforgivable thought. She did not know where it came from and thought it a coarseness of her war-weary mind. She imagined Corinn snatching one of those hairpins out and snapping it forward, a weapon, a poisoned dart. How frustrating and foul, she thought, that such an image would come to her at what should be a happy moment. What was wrong with her?
With that question in mind, looking up at Corinn’s splendor, Mena realized what she herself looked like in comparison: half naked in a short skirt and sleeveless tunic, small and wiry, leather brown, her arms and legs scripted with all manner of cuts and abrasions, her hair an unkempt cascade. She suddenly felt the salt crusting her cheeks and the grime in the creases of her elbows and the film of dirt and sweat on her sandaled feet. She glanced at Dariel. Dashing as he was with his open raider’s shirt and sun-burnished skin, he too looked more a ruffian than a prince of Acacia. Why had they not thought to make themselves more presentable?