"Despite the Conflagration, you are still hunted."
Medair shrugged. What could she say to this Ibisian who was important to her? Should her undefined feeling for him make any difference to the greater question? "Do you hold out hope of surviving this attack, Keridahl?"
"There is always hope. Athere faces a great threat – her walls are strong and woven with magic, but we deal with an unknown quantity along with strength of numbers and casting to equal our own. The fruits of wild magic, as yet not fully known. Why does Estarion hunt you, Kel?"
"Not to fire his troops with tales of Medair an Rynstar reborn," she replied, sourly.
"No. Answer my question, Kel. I am not able to allow you the luxury of continued evasion."
This was better. Threats would make it easier. "Would you force me then, Keridahl?"
"If you were allied with Estarion, then I would be wise to at the very least restrict your movements."
"I’ve never met the man," Medair protested. "Besides, why would he hunt me, if I worked for him?"
"Why would he offer you protection?"
"I doubt it’s concern for my health and well-being."
As an attempt to rile a White Snake, Medair’s answers failed miserably. He just looked at her, pale eyes stripping away her veneer of carelessness to the confusion beneath.
"Kel, we face a battle beyond the scope of any before brought to these walls. War to be waged on young and old alike, with the promise of slaughter without mercy. We will not bargain with Estarion, for the reward he sets upon your life is none we would care to accept. But such a demand can only mean that you have a value we have not yet realised. If there is some knowledge you hold, I would ask that you share it."
"I have no knowledge of Estarion," Medair replied.
"You know why he wants you," Cor-Ibis countered, with complete certainty.
Medair hesitated, then nodded minutely. "Yes." She stared down at the map in her hand, found she had crumpled it, and carefully smoothed it out again. She knew that she needed to give him something and let out a breath. "A True Seeing. Estarion has no idea who or what I am, but follows a Seer’s pronouncement that to possess me is to gain some advantage in this war."
"And is this true?"
"Where would Athere be without the rahlstones, Keridahl? Arguably, the Seeing is already proved. Estarion’s magics may be formidable, but the rahlstones have ever made Ibisian mages an army in their own right."
"He seeks you still, and you no longer possess the rahlstones, Kel." But Cor-Ibis had been struck by this twist, she could tell. His eyelids had dropped completely for a moment, and now were open much wider than before, as if he had suddenly woken.
"Does he necessarily know my role in that misadventure?" she asked, the picture of reason.
Cor-Ibis rose to his feet with slow grace, and stood looking down at her. "Perhaps not. This is not the whole truth, Kel. If it were, if you were that blameless passer-by you posited, you would not have any reason for mystery." He held up a pale hand to arrest speech. "You need not try to convince me you have a love of playing games. It is not so. Tell me this, Kel ar Corleaux. Will you remain silent as Athere’s walls fall? Are your secrets worth so much?"
"This is not my war, Keridahl." A tight, small, obstinate voice.
"You are here. It is your war." As soft and calm as ever.
"No."
"Will you maintain this stance as you watch children cut down in the streets, Kel? It will not only be warriors, not only Ibis-lar, who die after dawn."
Medair could only sit silent, angry and ashamed and frozen by vows to the dead. And the part of her which could not forget that Kier Inelkar sat a stolen throne. Cor-Ibis studied her face, his own a mask which betrayed no emotion. Then he turned and walked away, pausing at the door to look back. In the shadows, away from the window, the subtle difference which had teased Medair’s perception earlier suddenly became clear. Faintly but surely, Illukar Síahn las Cor-Ibis was glowing.
"I thought better of you, Kel ar Corleaux," he said, cool voice turned to ice. Then he was gone.
"Medair?"
This time it was Ileaha. Medair raked the girl from head to toe with a searching glance, then closed her eyes. "Would you ever betray your Kier, Ileaha?" Her voice was harsh.
"I–" Ileaha took two steps forward, then stopped. "No," she said flatly, as if Medair were inviting such an action rather than asking a question. "Inelkar is Kier. I would give my life for her."
"Even if it seemed the right thing to do? If it would prevent deaths?"
"What seems the right thing to do is not always the best path, Medair," Ileaha replied. She was uncertain of the ground she was venturing onto, but sure of her convictions. "On my name day I gave oath to serve, to obey, to protect. There are no ifs or buts or half-measures. That is like being a little bit pregnant."
Medair lifted the corner of her mouth in a weak smile. "Partly a traitor. You are very certain. And if your Kier were killed, and the survivors surrendered, would you serve Estarion? What do you do when everything has changed but you, Ileaha?"
"If my Kier were killed, my life would already have been spent."
"Matters do not always arrange themselves so conveniently."
"Perhaps not." The young woman stood behind the couch recently vacated, trying to find hidden meaning in Medair’s questions. "We will not surrender, Medair, even if the opportunity were offered to us. If I survived my Kier, I would avenge her, or die in the attempt."
"Like a Medarist, fighting on when the cause is lost?"
"That’s no comparison," Ileaha objected. "The Medarists fight over something long past, something they did not participate in. Like Estarion, they ground their violence in the dead, lay blame on the living, and have motives based in greed rather than justice."
"Some of them think it just," Medair said, and frowned down at the paper in her hands, not truly seeing it. Cor-Ibis hadn’t changed anything, except by making her feel a little unhappier. Baiting Ileaha as a way to lash her own wounds was pointless. She couldn’t decide how her oath bound her, could not resolve the conflicting voices of conscience. She wanted so much to give in, to relinquish the burden she carried to those who needed it, but could not bring herself to take a step she knew she would always regard as a betrayal. Give the salvation of the Empire to those who had destroyed it?
"For you have to ask, Ileaha," she said, wearily. "What is justice? Whatever Estarion’s motives, can you deny the very core of his arguments? That the Ibis-lar stole Palladium, that an Ibisian on the Silver Throne will always cause dissension, that the hatreds will not die?"
"I stole nothing, Medair," Ileaha replied, skin splotchy with anger, hurt in her eyes.
"No."
Medair retrieved her satchel from underneath the couch, then handed Ileaha the crumpled map. "This is the Mersian Herald’s, I believe."
She left without farewells, tired of talking to people who could not understand because she dared not explain. Ileaha did not try to stop her, and the guards did not seem to know she was not supposed to go.
With no help amongst the living, Medair decided to search for it in the halls of the dead. Her oath had been to Grevain Corminevar. She would seek counsel from his grave.
Chapter Nineteen
Even stone ages.
The Hall of Mourning was a place of high ceilings and dark shadows. It covered several echoing chambers, tiered and separated by balustrades. Telsen had called the Hall the Gallery of the Dead.