“Yes,” she said. “I knew.”
“Why didn’t you surrender, then?” Blaise furrowed his brow. “That’s the part I don’t understand. The battle was all but lost. You could have told us that the Lady Cerelinde was in Darkhaven. And if you had—”
“I know!” Lilias cut him off, and drew a shuddering breath. “I would still be a prisoner, but Calandor would live. Might live. How many other things might have happened, Borderguardsman? If you had arrived a day later, Calandor would have prevailed against Aracus’ army. Or we might have escaped together, he and I. Did you never wonder at that?” They could have fled; they could have hidden. For a time, Liliass. Only that. The too-ready tears burned her eyes. “Aye, I regret it! Is that what you want to hear? A few months, a few years. Would that I had them, now. But you had reclaimed the Arrow of Fire. Could it have ended otherwise?”
“No.” Blaise Caveros murmured the word, bowing his head. A lock of dark hair fell across his brow. “Not really.”
“Ask yourself the same question,” Lilias said harshly. “What is it worth, this victory? Aracus could buy peace for the price of his wedding vows.”
“Aye.” He ran both hands through his dark, springing hair to push it back, peering at her. “For a time, Lilias. And then what? It begins anew. A red star appears on the horizon, and the Sunderer raises his army and plots anew to destroy us. If not in our lifetimes, then our children’s, or their descendants’. You heard Malthus’ words in the council, Lilias. You may disdain his methods, but it is a true dream; Urulat made whole, and the power to forge peace—a lasting peace—in our hands. Aracus believes it, and I do, too.”
“Malthus …” Lilias broke off her words, too weary to argue. “Ah, Blaise! Satoris didn’t raise the red star.”
He stared at her, uncomprehending. “What now, Sorceress? Do you claim it is not Dergail’s Soumanië?”
“No.” Outside her window, the sea-eagles circled while the Aven River unfurled beneath them, making its serene way to the sea. She sighed. “Dergail flung himself into the Sundering Sea, Blaise. It was never Satoris who reclaimed his Soumanië.”
There was genuine perplexity in his frown. “Who, then?”
“This is the Shapers’ War,” Lilias said in a gentle tone. “It has never been anything else. And in the end, it has very little to do with us.”
“No.” Blaise shook his head. “I don’t believe it.” Something mute and intransigent surfaced in his expression. “Aracus was right about you. ’Tis dangerous to listen to your words.” He heaved himself to his feet, the chair creaking ominously under his weight. “Never mind. You’ve made your choice, Sorceress, insofar as you were able. In the end, well …” He gestured around her quarters. “’Tis yours to endure.”
Lilias gazed up at him. “Aracus said that?”
“Aye.” He gave her a wry smile. “He did. I’m sorry, Lilias. Would that I could have found words that would make your heart relent. In truth, it’s not why I came here today. Still, I do not think it is a choice you would have regretted.”
“Blaise.” Lilias found herself on her feet. One step; two, three, closing the distance between them. She raised her hand, touching the collar of his shirt. Beneath it, his pulse beat in the hollow of his throat.
“Don’t.” He captured her hand in his, holding it gently. “I am loyal to the House of Altorus, Lilias. It is all I have to cling to, all that defines me. And you have seen that brightness in Aracus, that makes him worthy of it.” Blaise favored her with one last smile, tinged with bitter sorrow. “I have seen it in your face and heard it in your words. You find him worthy of admiration; perhaps, even, of love. If I understand my enemy a little better, I have you to thank for it.”
“Blaise,” she whispered again; but it was a broken whisper. Lilias sank back into her chair. “If you would but listen—”
“What is there to say that has not been said?” He gave a helpless shrug. “I put no faith in the counsel of dragons. Without them, the world would never have been Sundered.”
It was true; too true. And yet, there was so much to explain. Lilias struggled for the words to articulate the understanding Calandor had imparted to her. From the beginning, from the moment the red star had first risen, he had shared knowledge with her, terrible knowledge.
All things musst be as they musst.
The words did not come; would never come. Fearful mortality crowded her thoughts. A void yawned between them, and the effort of bridging it was beyond her. “Go,” she said to him. “Just … go, and be gone from here.”
Blaise Caveros bowed, precise and exacting. “You should know,” he said, hesitating. “The Soumanië, your Soumanië—”
“Ardrath’s Soumanië,” Lilias said wearily. “I know its provenance, Borderguardsman. Have you listened to nothing I say?”
“Your pardon.” He inclined his head in acknowledgment. “You should know, having once possessed, having still possession of it—it is being set into a sword. It was Aracus’ choice,” he added, “with Malthus’ approval. ’Tis to be set in the hilt of his ancestral sword, as a pommelstone. Malthus is teaching him the use of it, that he might draw upon its power should your heart relent. Does it not, Aracus will carry it into battle against the Sunderer nonetheless.”
“How men do love their sharp, pointy toys. I wish him the joy of it.” Lilias turned her head to gaze out the window. “You may go, Blaise.”
After a moment’s hesitation, he went. “Good-bye, Lilias.”
Although he did not say it, she knew he would not return. He would go forth to live or die a hero, to find love or squander it among others who shared the same fierce, hard-edged certainty of his faith. And so it would continue, generation upon generation, living and dying, his children and his children’s children bound to the yoke of the Shapers’ endless battle, never reckoning the cost of a war not of their making. She would tell them, if only they had ears to hear. It was not worth the cost; nor ever would be. But they would never hear, and Lilias, who had lived a life of immortality surrounded by mortals, was doomed to spend her mortality among the ageless.
Outside her window, the sea-eagles soared, tracing an endless parabola around the tower. Beyond her door, the sound of his receding footsteps began to fade.
Already, she was lonely.
SEVEN
Peering into the chasm, Speros gave a low whistle. The brilliant flicker of the marrow-fire far below cast a masklike shadow on his face. “That’s what this place is built on?”
“That’s it,” Tanaros said. “What do you think? Is there aught we can do?”
The Midlander glanced up at raw rock exposed on the ceiling, then back at the chasm, frowning. “It’s beyond my skills, Lord General. I can make a better job of patching it than Lord Vorax’s Staccians did, but it’s only a matter of time.”
“Where does the fault lie?”
Speros shrugged. “There’s no fault, not exactly. Only the heat of the marrow-fire is so intense, it’s causing the rock to crack. Do you feel it? There’s no forge in the world throws off that kind of heat. I’d wager it’s nearly hot enough to melt stone down there at the Source.”
Tanaros’ brand itched beneath his doublet. He suppressed an urge to scratch it. “Aye, and so it has been for a thousand years and more. Why does it crack now?”