The Heart of the mirage

'Tem,' I said, 'I couldn't take away from you what you are! You are the Mirager of Kardiastan. More than that, you are the ruler everyone wants; not me. I'm not the person for this land.'

'You want power. I know you do.'

'But not this way.'

'When you walked the Shiver Barrens, what were you told? Did they show you a Mirager bestowing cabochons? Did they tell you the conjurations for it?'

I nodded. • 'Then you were given a Mirager's sword. And a mandate to rule. You just didn't realise what you had been told.' He pulled back a little so he could see my face. 'Derya, you are the rightful Mirager, not I.'

'I don't want it.'

He saw something in my expression I hadn't known was there. He exclaimed, bewildered, 'You – you knew all along! That's why you are leaving, isn't it? Damn it, you make me so ashamed. I didn't trust you, and all along you knew what you could have had.'

I interrupted. 'Not all along. And I'm no saintly handmaiden to the gods, either, Tem.' Just a better person than I once was. I'd felt the claws and teeth of

evil in my flesh, and the horror of it was still with me. In the creatures of the Ravage, I'd glimpsed the soul of what I had once nearly become, and I hadn't liked it. I wanted to be better than that, better than I had been – but there were limits to how much one could change in a single lifetime.

I said, with brutal honesty, 'I'm doing this for myself as much as for you. I don't want to rule Kardiastan. I'm not the person for the job: you are. The Mirage Makers may have given me the sword, but they haven't taken yours away. You still have a mandate to rule.'

He absorbed that, feeling my truth. And said, 'We could rule jointly. As husband and wife. How much better if Kardiastan had two Mirager swords! I almost wrecked everything when I lost mine.'

'You were going to kill yourself, weren't you? I saw the relief in your eyes, but I didn't recognise it for what it was. You were going to sacrifice yourself for your land because you'd lost your sword, and now, in a way, you want to do it all over again. For me. Well, I won't let it happen.'

'It's not a sacrifice! Not if we rule jointly. We need never fear the loss of a sword again. We'd have two! And you would stop me making so many mistakes. The only person I've ever been able to rely on is Korden – but I don't see eye to eye with him on so many things. Derya, I've been so damned lonely!

With that, he almost persuaded me. Almost. But something else prevailed. Commonsense? Selfishness? 'Tern, Tern – it wouldn't work. Think about it for a minute, the practicalities. We'd end up hating one another. It's one thing to make a sacrifice, it's quite another to live with the results. We want the same

things, you and I, but neither of us is big enough to

'¦"'-… ¦.»*

share them. And I'd never be accepted by most of the Magoroth. I killed one of the Ten, for a start!' Every word was the truth, and every word was a destruction of desire, a slash across the dream of a future. 'I bet you and Korden had yet another argument when you told him you were coming here to see me. Especially when you should be off fighting the legions.'

His anger stirred, a remnant ember glowing in the cold ashes of the rage that had once led him to fling his sword at me. 'You can't turn me down because of Korden!'

'No. Tern, I'm – I'm going to Tyrans. I'll work for Kardiastan there; I'm going to bring down the Exaltarch from within. I'm going to halt the slavery.'

'That's ridiculous! I can't let you go.'

'Tem, you can't keep me here against my will.' i' We stared at each other, and I felt the ember flicker as his anger burned brighter. 'Skies above,' he said, 'have you thought how dangerous it will be for you in Tyrans? Once the Stalwarts return to Tyr, the Brotherhood will be looking for you. And you would take our child into such danger?'

'It's no safer for me in Kardiastan. Less so, in fact, because I can't stay in the Mirage, because of the Ravage. It will be years before Pinar's son is strong enough to help the other Mirage Makers get rid of it. And even here, outside of the Mirage – well, the Tyranians must be scouring the streets looking for Ligea by now, and that's just when they think I'm on their side. You aren't going to take back your land overnight. You'll have to fight the legions every inch of the way, and there are still so few of you. I'd be no safer here than in Tyrans.'

'We need you, Derya. We need your Magoroth strength. J need you.' His voice shook. The ember of

anger was a glowing coal now; I could feel its heat. 'You still haven't given me a reason I can accept.'

'Tern, I have something to do in Tyr. Something I need to do. Until I have, I shan't be able to live at peace. I love you more than I can say, but I don't want to stay here.'

'There's something you're not telling me.' His shrewd brown eyes narrowed. 'What is it – guilt? You've guessed -?'

'About Solad? Yes. Had you realised he was the traitor before all this happened?'

'I wondered. I always wondered. It seemed so… convenient that he sent the Ten to safety just before the massacres. And as I was growing up I heard people say he was not acting normally after the death of his wife and daughter. And then Zerise told me long ago that Solad had his sword with him that night of the Shimmer Feast. She saw him kill legionnaires with it. But it was forbidden to bring swords into the hall, so that was strange too.' He scowled. 'A salve to his twisted conscience, I suppose. As if taking a few Tyranian soldiers with him could make up for what he did.'

'I've been unlucky in my fathers, haven't I? And I do feel I owe Kardiastan something because of that. But even that's not what drives me. It's more personal than that.' I took a deep breath. 'It's a need to do something about what was done to me. They wronged me, Temellin. Gayed, Rathrox Ligatan and Bator Korbus. They murdered my true mother in front of my eyes.' That golden woman, splattered with crimson. She died under the swords of Gayed's men while I ' watched, too young to understand what I saw. 'They turned my true father into a traitor and made him commit a crime, the immensity of which I can't even begin to imagine. They twisted him until there was no

way out but to join those he betrayed in death.' That laughing, loving man holding out his arms for me while I ran barefoot, across an agate floor, towards his embrace. 'They enslaved my people. They took me from what was left of my family, to raise me themselves. I was only a child when they began a deliberate plan to… deform me. They deprived me of everything that was mine, and distorted my life into something that was foul. And as they did it, as they watched me grow up, they mocked me.'

I met his eyes, begging him to understand. 'Then they threw me back into the arena, intending me to finish what they had begun. To have me kill my own people. My own cousin, the Mirager. What they did was evil. Vile, by anyone's standards. And they almost succeeded. They shouldn't be allowed to triumph. Do you understand?'

He nodded. 'Yes. Of course I do.' He cupped my face, touching me gently, belying the ever-present anger. 'But you can fight them here. We can defeat them here.'

'Perhaps. But it won't bring me the satisfaction I crave. Bator Korbus would still occupy the Exaltarch's seat in Tyr, and Rathrox Ligatan would still run the Brotherhood. Every year there would be another attempt on your borders. They would blockade your ports, sink your fishing fleet. Your whole rule will be one of battle and invasion. Is that what you want? Continually having to breed more Magoroth to throw against an enemy who can draw on resources all the way from here to the Western Reaches? Is that what I would be delivering our son to?'

The ember of anger flared, to unite with his scorn. 'I have an army. And I have fifty Magoroth swords behind me. You have no one except Brand, and you

think you can make a difference in Tyrans? You think you can help us by being in Tyr – one lone woman against the Exaltarch? Are you mad?