“What did you do?” Sadira asked. She found herself more interested in Faenaeyon’s dedication to his sister than in what happened at the Pristine Tower. From the tale he had told so far, the chief did not sound like a man who would abandon a pregnant lover into slavery.
“I killed all five, of course,” Faenaeyon answered. “Then I followed Celba into the wild lands. What I didn’t know was that the Sand Dancers had gotten a child on her. When I found her, she was already giving birth.”
“So Magnus is your nephew?” Sadira gasped.
The chief nodded. “Yes, but Celba didn’t live to raise him. Because of the blood she had shed during labor, the magic of the tower changed her into a hideous, mindless beast. She tried to devour her child, and to save Magnus I killed her with my own sword.”
“And Magnus was wounded, which is why he’s-”
“Do you take my blade to be that slow?” Faenaeyon demanded crossly. “Magnus was born as he is.”
The chief fell silent and began a gentle trot toward Nibenay. Sadira spent a moment trying to reconcile the image she had always had of her father as a coward with the tale of bravery she had just heard. When she could not, she gave up and urged her mount after him.
As her kank came up behind Faenaeyon, she called, “If you’re telling me this because you want me to stay with the tribe, it won’t work.”
Faenaeyon slowed, allowing Sadira to guide her mount to his side. When he spoke, his voice was overly calm. “What makes you think I want you to stay?”
“Don’t you?” Sadira demanded.
The chief allowed a conniving smile to cross his lips, but did not take his eyes off the ground over which he ran. “We might come to an arrangement-”
“I doubt it,” the sorceress spat. “My talents are not for sale.”
Faenaeyon shrugged. “That’s unfortunate,” he sighed. “But it doesn’t change what you’ll find at the Pristine Tower. Truly, it would be better if you stayed with us.”
“Better for you, perhaps,” Sadira answered. “But I’ve promised to go there, and I will.”
“Only a fool would let her promise kill her,” Faenaeyon answered, shaking his head. “There’s a reason fear is stronger than duty.”
Sadira wanted to ask if he had forsaken her mother because he was frightened, but restrained herself. To do so would have been to reveal her true identity, and she still thought it wise not to trust her father with that particular secret.
Instead, she said, “Fear isn’t always stronger than duty, even for an elf. You must have been afraid when you went after Celba.”
“I was angry, not scared. No one steals from me!” Faenaeyon said, glancing at her with a frown. “If I had let them take my sister, they would have come back for my kanks and my silver.”
“I should have known,” Sadira said. If there was a bitterness in her voice, it was because she felt naive for thinking her father had ever acted out of noble motives. “You elves live only for yourselves.”
“Who else?” Faenaeyon asked. They reached the bottom of the hill and started across the flat plain, pushing their way through a thick growth of brittlebrush. “Life is too short to waste on illusions like duty and loyalty.”
“What about love?” she asked. The sorceress was curious about Faenaeyon’s feelings for her mother, and how, if he knew Sadira’s true identity, he would feel about her. “Is that an illusion?”
“If so, it is a good one,” Faenaeyon said, grinning. The terrain here was less broken, so he could afford to look at Sadira more often. “I have loved many women.”
“Used them, perhaps, but you didn’t love them,” Sadira said acidly. She did not know whether she was more angered by the elf’s flippant use of the word love, or the implication that her mother had been one insignificant consort in a stream of many.
Faenaeyon frowned. “How would you know about my women?”
“If you feel no duty or loyalty to your women, you can’t love them,” Sadira countered, avoiding a direct answer to the question.
“Love is not bondage,” the chief scoffed.
“I know that as well as you,” Sadira countered. “But it’s not self-indulgence, either. Did you even care for all the women you took as lovers?”
“Of course,” the chief replied.
“Then prove it,” Sadira said.
“And how do you expect me to do that?”
“Nothing too difficult. Just name them,” Sadira replied, wondering what it would feel like to hear Faenaeyon speak her mother’s name-or to hear him forget it.
“All of them?”
Sadira nodded. “If you cared for them all.”
The chief shook his head. “I couldn’t possibly,” he said. “There’ve been too many.”
“I thought as much,” Sadira sneered. She tapped her kank’s antennae, urging it into a gallop.
Faenaeyon quickly caught up to her. “There’s no reason for haste,” he said, loping along at her side. “We’ll reach the city long before they close the gates for the night.”
“Good,” Sadira said, not slowing her mount.
They continued at that pace throughout the morning, eventually coming to a caravan track that led into the city. A spirited melody rose from the main gate and drifted out over the plains, welcoming the travelers to Nibenay. Many of the elves began to dance, trotting along the duty road in a heel-to-toe quickstep. Some of the warriors kept the beat by pounding the flats of their blades against a kank’s carapace. Even those fatigued by the morning’s hard run joined in the revelry and rocked their shoulders to and fro.
Only Faenaeyon seemed to resent the greeting, continuing toward the city at the unrelenting pace Sadira had set earlier. “By the wind, I hate this place,” he growled.
“The last time we were here, the guards demanded five silver coins to let us inside. No wonder they’re glad to see us.”
His gray eyes remained fixed on the gate, a high-pointed arch flanked by a pair of craggy minarets. On the terraces of these towers stood many Nibenese guards, each waving his bow over his head as he swayed to the music. Between the minarets, a buttressed porch extended from the city wall and overhung the gateway. A dozen musicians stood on this balcony, playing the huge drums, xylophones, and pipes that sent the melodies drifting into the silvery desert.
“I can get us inside for two coins,” said Sadira.
“How you can you save me this money?”
“Sorcery,” she answered.
Sadira gave him a knowing smile, hoping it would disguise the lie in her eyes. Her conversation with the chief had convinced her that Rhayn’s warning earlier had not been entirely self-serving. Despite the casual manner in which he had accepted the sorceress’s refusal to join the tribe, Faenaeyon clearly did not wish her to leave. As for her own feelings, Sadira’s curiosity about her father was sated. If he was braver than she had imagined, he was no less self-centered, and she had no desire to know him better.
Faenaeyon nodded. “Good. Do it.”
When, he did not reach into any of his purses to extract the coins, Sadira held out her palm. “Have you forgotten?” she asked. “I gave all my coins to you at the canyon.”
“In matters of money, I never forget,” the chief said. Instead of reaching for his purse, he summoned his son Huyar forward. The warrior’s relationship to Sadira showed only in his pale eyes, for his features were square and heavy for an elf. “Give her two silver, my son,” Faenaeyon ordered.
“I would, willingly, but you have taken all my coins,” answered, Huyar.
Faenaeyon frowned. “I would expect one who hopes to replace me someday to be wise enough to hold a few coins back,” the chief said, still waiting for his son to produce the money.
“I would never dishonor my tribe by disobeying my chief,” Huyar said. The warrior scowled at Sadira, clearly blaming her for this setback with his father.