The note she held pinched between the fingers of her two hands testified to that.
M,
You were right about everything, of course. I was slow to learn, but I know it now,
She knew the words by heart, for she had written them to Melio almost ten years earlier. It was the note she had written him. And below it, the same postscript: I love you. If ever the world allows it I'll prove it to you.
Exactly what she had written just after returning from killing Maeben on Uvumal and just before she gave herself up to Maeander Mein. On that occasion, she could not face saying good-bye to Melio. There was too much uncertainty before her, everything in the world at risk, and she had not been sure that she would be able to face it if he asked her not to. She penned the letter and set it beside him and snuck away on silent feet. Cowardly in many ways. Hurtful in others. And yet the things she wrote to him were completely true. He had been right; she had been slow; she did love him and wanted to prove it someday.
How to interpret this newer version of the same? Was he making the same promises to her? No, because he had no need to prove himself. He had never failed her in any way. Or was he reminding her of the things she once promised and had failed, thus far, to deliver? Yes, she thought so. There was only one thing more she could have done to prove her love to him, and she had held off doing it year after year after year. She deserved to be reminded of it. If it really was meant to remind her of her note to him, she understood; and if the world allowed her another chance, she would not fail to give her all to him. She would prove her faith in him, if not in the goodness of the world.
If that was her refrain for the morning, by the afternoon she had taken on another. She's only my sister, Mena told herself time and time again. I don't fear my sister.
The fact that she repeated this a hundred times as she walked to answer Corinn's summons rather belied the assertion. When Mena entered her office, Corinn stood behind the chart table, studying the array of maps and documents displayed there. She looked up, distracted for a moment, and then calmed her features. "Mena, I'm sorry that Melio has had to leave. I know that must be hard for you."
Mena cleared her throat, finding the opening kindness somewhat disconcerting. "Thank you," she said.
"We are coming to times of great sacrifice," Corinn said. "Much will be asked of all of us. Much taken from each of us. You may believe, though, that Melio will be in my prayers just as much as you are, Sister, just as much as Dariel is." Corinn did not give Mena time to fumble through a response to that. She came around the table, but instead of approaching Mena she moved off to the side slightly, stopping beside another table. "I want you to have this. The King's Trust. It is your blade now. No one deserves it more than you."
The King's Trust? She did not know whether she wanted that blade. Too ancient. Too much history tempered in blood. If the legends of it were true, Tinhadin himself had infused it with Santoth sorcery, making it a blade that learned from each contest it fought and took something from each person it killed. Hadn't Tinhadin's grandson used it to execute prisoners? Something he wished to do personally and with only this sword.
"I have a blade," Mena said.
"Your Marah sword is special to you, I know," Corinn acknowledged. "I know well the tale of how you crawled out of the sea with it strapped to your wrist and became that bird god of yours, Maeben. And, true, perhaps the blade is a blessing to you. You've certainly accomplished much with it. But this"-she motioned as if to direct Mena's attention to the ancient sword, something she did not need to do because her eyes were already fixed on it-"this is the very blade that Edifus wielded with his own hand at Carni. It's stained with his blood. Look there on the hilt. That blackened area: that is the blood of the king's hand. I'm sure you know the details better than I-how he almost lost his hand when he caught a foe's blade pinched in his grip."
Mena's fingers itched. A real physical sensation. Of their own accord, they wanted to wrap around the stained hilt and slip the blade free. That's what her body cried to do. She held back. She put one hand to her chest, felt for the eel pendant beneath the fabric of her shirt. She pressed it. There must be awful power in this sword, for the look of it was nothing special. Old, battered, within a simple scabbard with few ornaments, and yet something in her so wanted to pull the blade free.
The last time she had touched that blade was in the hours after Aliver's death. She had picked it up only long enough to wrap it in a burlap cloth and stow it snugly with the king's possessions. When next she spoke of it, she gave other soldiers instructions on how to care for it and return it to Acacia safely. Since then, she had had no wish to handle it again.
"Why do you stand there gaping at it?" Corinn asked, a touch of annoyance in her voice. "It's a great gift. It's mine to give, and I offer it to you as a demonstration of my faith in you. You are worthy of it. Pick it up."
This last was an order, no other way to interpret the tone. Despite herself, Mena grasped the scabbard midway down the hilt and lifted it, horizontal, before her.
"Do you accept it?"
"Yes," Mena said, and then specified, "for now. I'll take it into safekeeping, and use it if I must. One day, though, I'll return it to you, so that you can give it to Aaden. It's rightfully his."
That seemed to please Corinn. "Good. Yes, good on both counts." She nodded.
With that confirmation, Mena laid the sword down again.
"Now," Corinn said, sharpening the edge on her voice, "I give you this sword for a reason. You have a mission, Mena. I can trust it only to you. Even if our brother were with us, this task would go to you. You, more than Dariel, are the wrath that drives the Akaran sword hand. You will soon have to make use of it." She paused, looking frankly at Mena. "I would have used this language no matter what, but since seeing you fighting the Numrek I mean it with much more sincere certainty. Thank you for what you did, Mena. I had only heard of your feats. I believed in them, but I didn't understand them. Now I think I do, a little, at least."
Of all the many persons-generals and foot soldiers, Marah and warriors from around the provinces-who had praised her martial abilities, none had ever touched her with quite the sense of pride Corinn just did.
"I have received firsthand intelligence that the Auldek will begin their march during their own winter. They're timing it that way, so that even if they suffer in the early weeks they'll still have solid ice on which to cross the frozen seas above the Ice Fields. Comparing that with league reconnaissance, we estimate that if they are unchallenged they could arrive on the Mein Plateau by midsummer."
"That's so soon," Mena said.
"Yes. Too soon. Look at these charts with me." She motioned Mena nearer. When they stood side by side, Corinn drew her finger up along the western coast of the Known World, from the Lakelands north, along the Ice Fields, and beyond the boundary that had normally bordered Acacian maps. "I proposed a way to delay them. A small force could hold them for some time along the pass through which they will likely traverse from their lands into ours. It's a narrow strip of land, all of it mountainous. If they would sail, they could bypass it, but the Auldek fear the sea. So they'll have to thread their entire force through a series of narrow passes. It wouldn't be easy in any event, but I plan for us to make it very much harder indeed."
She is sending me to my death, Mena thought. For a moment she pondered whether that should offend her. Was it a bigger crime to send a sibling to her death, or did it show a sort of valor on her part?