He said nothing, just smiled at her, shook his head, motioned back toward the carriage in which Aaden sat, likely still green with his illness. He was saying that he understood her and that he loved the boy. Such a good boy. He was saying that the boy would be the king he never got to be. He was saying that he understood Corinn's actions and she had no need to explain herself, even now, as she walked in the fresh air while maids swabbed the vomit from the corners of her son's mouth.
"I'm not a bad mother," Corinn had said, though Aliver had said nothing to suggest he thought she was. "You don't know how much I love him."
"No, of course not," a voice said. Not Aliver's but the man on her right side, walking with them as well. She turned toward him. Hanish Mein. His clean, crisp features. His blond hair shone around his face and draped his shoulders. His gray eyes glowed. She wanted to press her lips against them and pull in the gentle calm of them.
Before she could, Hanish dipped his head forward. He threw his body after it, jumping into a somersault. Before he had turned one circle, his body became one large, orange leaf. It danced on a sudden breeze. Aliver did the same, and the two men, who were now leaves, twirled and dipped and rose on currents in the air. Watching them, Corinn began to whistle.
Though there was joy in the final moments, she awoke with the memory of the dream-and of the actual day that began it-imbedded in her abdomen as a physical pain, a knot that remained within her even after she joined the flow of the living day. She swore to herself that if she ever, ever, got the chance to pull Aaden close and kiss and caress him in illness like that she would do it with all her heart, holding nothing back. But this was not something she could see to today. She set it aside and continued with the course she had decided on.
First, she surprised a guard by arriving outside the cell that housed the prisoner Barad the Lesser. The soldier stood nearly asleep on his feet and did not seem to register Corinn as a real person until she stood right before him. "Soldier," she said, "open the door."
The man shot fully awake at the sound of her voice. Suddenly terrified, he turned and fumbled a long time with the keys to the door, apologizing the entire time, dropping them twice and cursing himself and then apologizing more. His terror of her seemed out of all proportion to the circumstances, but on entering the cell Corinn recalled that any guard of this prisoner had reason to fear her.
Barad sat on a cot against the far wall, the bed tiny beneath him, like a child's. She wondered if he ever lay on it, for surely his legs and arms would have hung down to the stone floor. Thinner already than when last she had seen him, angles and joints measured his bulk. His legs rose unnaturally long, bent at knees on which he had set his crossed arms and rested his forehead. A single wrist chain attached him to an iron ring in the wall. On hearing her enter, Barad lifted his head and rolled his sightless stone eyes in her direction.
Yes, she thought, there is reason to fear me. She turned and gestured for the guard to leave them alone. He did so gladly.
"You don't smell like a Marah," the prisoner said, after a few moments of silence. His voice carried the same grave timbre she remembered from before. It held a weight and substance at odds with the lanky, emaciated form that produced it.
"Do they feed you?" Corinn asked.
The man squinted. She knew he could not see her, but a lifetime of habits still ruled his mannerisms. "The queen? So the queen pays a visit to a blind prisoner? And to ask after the quality of his meals? The world yet offers surprises. Yes, they bring me food. I have little appetite, though."
"You must regain it, then," Corinn said. "If I wished you dead I would have killed you. I do not wish you to starve."
Barad tilted his head back in a motion that became an openmouthed yawn, audible in the enclosed room. When he was finished with it, he rubbed his nose with his manacled hand. The chains clinked dully. "Kind of you."
"No, not really. I don't have much use for kindness anymore. Not for its own sake, at least." Corinn looked about the cell for a moment, though there was nothing in it to catch an eye. "Do you know that my son almost died?"
Barad crooked one eyebrow, another gesture made like a sighted man. "I heard something about that," he said. "I am sorry. Innocents should not be victims of our wicked dance."
"Traitors tried to kill him, Barad. Traitors who would kill you as well and enslave or butcher all the people you so love. Those traitors showed themselves by trying to kill my son and me. You see? This is something you haven't acknowledged. The Akarans represent the people you love to the world. When first an enemy aims to harm them, they aim at an Akaran heart. Think of my father."
The prisoner considered her words for a respectful length of time, and then said, "That's not quite how I see it."
"Yes," Corinn snapped, "but you don't see it any other way either. You don't see! You never did."
"And you've made sure I never will again." He said this sadly, inhaling as he did so. "I did like looking upon the world. I truly did. You don't know how it is not to see but to move your eyes and hear stone grinding inside your head."
"Before Aliver's war against Hanish, you claimed to have dreamed he would return. Back when nobody knew if he even lived, you boasted that he spoke to you in your dreams. Is that true, or was it a self-serving lie?"
"I was not boasting," Barad said, "and it was the truth as I understood it."
"How do you explain it, then?"
"I don't."
"Do you hear his voice now?"
Under a ridged, skeptical forehead, he said, "Aliver is dead, Your Majesty. I've never spoken with the dead."
No, but perhaps you will, she thought. Perhaps very soon. "Tell me, was my brother wise?"
"He was."
"And were you committed to him completely?"
"Of course. We all were. In the brief span that was Aliver's war, nobody-not one single person-betrayed him."
The thought of that almost took Corinn's words away. She wanted to spit that it could not be true. Somebody, somewhere said ill of him. Some soldier deserted camp at night. Some officer coveted his status. Somebody…
"Your Majesty, I think I understand you better now. What's wrong with you is that you feel you are alone. Isn't that it? You are alone, and it frightens you. But you don't have to-"
"I am not alone! Millions-millions-" She said the number, but was not sure how to complete the thought she began it with. Nor did it matter. A blind fool! "You will use all your gifts of oratory in my service."
"No," Barad said. "I will not."
"You will. You will bring to the people word that in my presence and through long conversation with me you have learned that you were wrong. You maligned me mistakenly. The truth-"
"Is not yours to create."
"— is that I am the last and only hope for the Known World."
"No."
"You know nothing! I have looked across the world and seen the coming enemy in my own mind. In my head!" She gestured savagely at her temple, as if she would jab her finger through it. "I've seen them, and they bring beasts and hunger and vengeance-"
"They will pay you back for the Akaran sins."
Corinn could not help but use her body to express herself. "No, that's where you're wrong. The Auldek will kill us all. They want to make our lands theirs. And-and the quota children returning with them hate all of us. Not just me. You, too. Will you explain to them that you are not the villain who sent them away? Do you really think they'll stop long enough to hear you? The difference between us is nothing-nothing! — if we're both dead. We will be, unless all the Known World unites behind me as fully as they did behind my brother."