'You never learn!' she screamed at him. 'You never …'
He was crouching at her feet, making no effort to defend himself. The sword at his belt was still sheathed, the snapbow out of reach.
'… learn …' she finished, staring stupidly at the stump of blade in her hand. She let it drop, hearing it clang and clatter distantly. 'Totho?'
He made some muffled reply.
She looked from him back at Thalric, who was groaning, plucking at his wound. 'Oh Totho, why do you always get it so wrong? I'm sorry, Totho, I'm sorry,' she said, horrified, frightened by herself. 'I'm so sorry.'
He was saying something, the words blurred with tears, and eventually she heard it as, 'I held the bridge. I held the bridge for you. I wanted to do right.'
Horror and pity swept over her, in equal measures, and she thought, And I never learn either, and I always get it wrong. In that we two are soulmates, if in nothing else. 'I know you did, Totho. I saw you on the bridge, believe it or not. You did well. You saved the city. I'm proud of you, but you have to let me go, please. Totho, look at all you've built. Don't throw it away for me.'
'I would,' he got out. 'All of it, if you asked.'
'But I won't ask,' she replied. The sudden dispersal of all that rage had left her feeling weak and sick. 'Please, Totho, how often must we go through this? Who else will we hurt?' She stood up, stepped away, feeling sicker than ever. He got to his feet, flinching away when she offered her hand, then taking it like a drowning man. She took Totho in her arms and held him close just for a moment.
'I am not the girl you knew at the College,' she said softly, after releasing him. 'You are not that boy, nor is Thalric the same Rekef man who came hunting us. None of us are those people any more.' A sudden realization struck her that made her feel unsteady on her feet. 'Totho, I understand you.'
He was frowning, desperate for help from any quarter.
'Totho,' she told him, 'you still carry a picture of me in your mind, a memory from all those years ago. You let it torment you, but it's not me, Totho. It's not me that hurts you. I would never want to hurt you. You do it to yourself. Let go of me, please. I'm not who you think I am any more, and you deserve more than that.'
She heard movement behind her and turned to see Thalric. He had a shallow gash across his temple and one hand clutching to his shoulder, but she knew the strength of his armour of old. His old tricks had always preserved him before and, as the bolt had struck him, she had guessed that not even Totho's snapbows were his equal. In the instant she glanced at him, she noticed his expression was pure murder, his hand extended ready to sting. Che quickly interposed herself between them, to protect Totho from the Wasp's rage.
Thalric grimaced, made two efforts to speak, to order her out of the way, his eyes fierce with incomprehension. On the scales, his personal and cultural pride swung up and down against how she would see him if he killed her former friend.
He finally closed his hand and took a long breath, but it still was a long time before he could lower his hand.
'Che …?' Totho began quietly, as though releasing her name into a great silent room and waiting for the echo.
'I've used you badly,' she told him quietly. 'I'm sorry. And for what you did during the war, I have no right to judge, because I wasn't there.' She put a hand on his arm, feeling the battered mail. 'Be safe, Totho.'
He closed his eyes, keeping his expression very still, and then he nodded, and she half expected to see a filmy grey shape leave him, the ghost of all of their failed futures exorcized at last.
At last, he smiled, something weak and faint but still recognizable as a smile, and then he turned and left.
Thalric was working patiently with one hand to free the bolt in his shoulder. She reached to help, finding that the missile had punched through the fine rings of his copperweave but was snagged hopelessly in layers of cloth beneath. Spider silk, she realized.
'If you're wondering,' he said, 'it still hurts like the rack.' His voice was taut, with pain and the stale dregs of his own emotions. She opened her mouth to reply and he said, 'That was very elegantly handled. You're a born ambassador.'
'What, breaking a sword over him and then mouthing platitudes?' she replied.
'Everyone walked away from it.' Thalric finally held up the bolt and she saw a pinprick of blood at its tip.
'Closer than you'd like to admit?' she suggested.
'Being the pleasant-natured creature you are, and beloved of so many, you cannot imagine how many have tried to kill me over the years,' he told her, and she could not decide whether he was mocking her, and to what extent. 'That halfway artificer hasn't come the closest, and he's more reason than many to attempt it.' His smile was flat. 'I happen to agree with him. I think you're worth killing for too.'
She instantly felt deeply uncomfortable, remembering that he was a killer from a race of killers. At the same time, something responded in her that someone should say such a thing about her and not her sister … her sister … Tynisa.
'Where now, Thalric? Where do we take this now?'
'I have some temporary plans, regarding some matters I need to put right. All the more so if you'll be travelling with me.'
'I have plans as well,' she told him. 'There is something I must do.' The feeling of that moment's wrath, that Mantis-fury pure and deadly as forged steel, still terrified her. Not Tynisa, she thought. You shall not have her.
There was a ship that had already departed, and a ship that was preparing to leave. Two voyages to mark the end of this blighted moment in Khanaphir history.
Already on the seas were the Iron Glove men, finally enacting their long-promised banishment. Che had not spoken to Totho before he left, by unspoken consent. The fragile detente they had achieved would not bear too much inspection.
Now there was a second vessel, a Spider trader called Flighty Drachmis, and it would be heading to Porta Rabi, and from there one could find a way to Solarno, and from Solarno, home.
They were fewer than they had been, the Collegiate scholars. Trallo of the dubious loyalties had been loyal enough to die for them, and poor Mannerly Gorget too. They were also reinforced though, for as well as Praeda and old Berjek Gripshod, and the brace of Vekken, there was now the looming figure of Amnon, former First Soldier of Khanaphes. Even in his simple white tunic he still looked like a warrior.
'Are you sure you're not coming with us, Miss Maker?' Berjek asked. 'What precisely am I to tell your uncle?'
'I've thought of that,' Che said, producing a folded and sealed letter. 'This will satisfy him. I'll send messengers when I can — if I can. Tell him not to worry about me.'
He huffed, and asked balefully, 'Any other impossible tasks?' After a moment he added, sadly, 'It's not worked out well here, has it?'
'Not so well, no,' she admitted. 'I have had my hand in that, I think. I'm sure I could have done more.' She thought of Petri Coggen, and knew that, of all of their losses, she could have prevented that death, had she not been so wrapped up in her own problems. I am sorry. There were so many people that she owed apologies to, and most would never hear them.
'Che, come back to us,' Praeda told her. 'If not now, then soon.'
Che shrugged, unwilling to commit herself. 'I will try. I can make no promises. I have a long road.'
Praeda glared at Thalric, over Che's shoulder. 'And you'd travel with this Wasp, rather than us?'
'Yes, I would.'
The other woman made a wry expression. 'Well, be safe.'
'And you.' After which, Che turned to the last two waiting to embark. They looked back at her from near-identical faces, dark and expressionless.