Aster made a false cough that meant he wanted to speak. The boy was so quiet that it was easy to forget that he was there with them. Geder turned to him, even though it meant putting his back to Daskellin.
“If Elassae wants to avoid war, they can,” the boy said sweetly. “All they’d need to do is hand over the conspirators. And if they won’t do that, then we can’t really pretend they haven’t chosen sides.”
Geder felt objections boiling up, but he closed his lips against them. Talking to Aster wasn’t like sitting with Emming or Daskellin. Or even Jorey Kalliam. Aster would be king when he was old enough. The Severed Throne was his, and Geder was only protecting it for him. And Aster watched Geder as he’d watched King Simeon. He studied with his tutors and with Minister Basrahip, and his young mind, while not yet fully formed, was engaged and lively. Already, the shape of his face had changed from the roundness it had had. The first planes and angles were in his cheeks, showing what he would be when he’d grown to manhood. The same was true of his words. Letting him have his voice in the decisions of the crown wasn’t handing him live steel. Geder would still sign the commands. Hearing the boy out was the least he could do.
“So you think we shouldn’t press on?” he said.
“I think giving them the chance to avoid war would be the kind and honorable thing.”
“I agree with the prince,” Daskellin said. “If there is a way to end this gracefully and turn back to the business of rebuilding the kingdom, we should.”
Geder folded his hands together. “I will put together a proclamation for Ternigan to deliver before he comes to any more battles. If they turn over the conspirators—all the conspirators—we’ll show mercy. Agreed?”
“I do,” Aster said. “Though honestly, I can’t think they’ll take it. They’re Timzinae. It’s not as if they were people.”
Marcus
The dream came again. After so many months away, it was like encountering an old enemy. Marcus knew, even as it began, as the normal meaningless patterns of his sleeping mind began to change to the terrible and familiar, that it wasn’t real. Perhaps it should have helped.
Alys and Merian were there, with him. He couldn’t see their faces anymore. They had been lost from memory years ago, but the sense of their physical presence was unmistakable. His wife. Their daughter. The flood of love and joy filled him against his will. He didn’t want it, but it came. The sense of relief was like an assault, because he knew what would follow it.
The crackling of fire. Merian was screaming. Marcus ran, his legs refusing him. Tree branches held him back, or men’s arms, or the thickened air itself. He panted and gasped, he willed himself forward even as he knew that he was already years too late. The green scabbard bounced against his back, the poison of the blade making him stumble. Merian’s shrieks were like a cat being strangled. Even though he couldn’t reach her, he could feel her breath against his ear.
He was in the fire, cradling her. She was still in his arms, and he thought—as he always did in this part—that she was safe. That he’d saved her. This time, he’d saved her, and when he woke, she would be alive because of it. And then he understood. The grief was wider than oceans. He screamed out for a vengeance that he’d taken almost a decade before.
The burned child in his arms was Merian, but it was also Cithrin. He didn’t put her down, but in the logic of dreams he was also drawing the venomed blade. He felt himself running, and this time the speed was like falling. He would take his revenge.
He woke up trying to bring the blade down.
The stars of the Keshet glowed above him, a vast and milky horde. He muttered an obscenity and rolled to his side. His body ached like someone had beaten him, but at least he wasn’t dreaming anymore. Long experience had taught him that he could. If he closed his eyes again now, it would all begin again from the start. He’d known men with fevers that let them be for months or even years at a time, and then descended again, pulling them into delirium and illness for weeks. This wasn’t so different. Except that it was his, so he had to suffer it.
He sat up, yawned. The sky was clear, but the air smelled like rain. There would be a storm by midday. They’d stop and try to gather some drinking water from it. Not that they needed it. The dragon’s road they were following would meet another in a day or so, and there’d be a few semipermanent buildings there. A trader, a well, a place to sleep with a roof. The height of civilization.
“You’re awake,” Kit said. He was sitting by the dim embers of the last night’s cookfire, the blanket from his bedroll over his shoulders. His expression in the starlight seemed distant. Maybe sad.
“I guess that makes it my watch,” Marcus said.
“If you’d like,” the old actor said, shrugging.
“Doesn’t make sense both of us staying awake.”
“I find myself needing less sleep,” Kit said.
“You find yourself sleeping less than you need to,” Marcus said. “Not the same.”
“I suppose that’s true. Good night, then.”
Kit shifted from sitting down to a curled heap on the ground without actually seeming to move very much. Marcus stood, stretched, tried to decide whether he needed to piss. The mule woke enough to flick a wide ear, then went back to ignoring the men. Near the southern horizon, a plume of smoke stood dark against the dark sky, so dim and subtle that Marcus could only see it in the corner of his eye. A caravan or one of the nomadic cities. They’d have news, perhaps. They’d have something more convincing to eat than the two-days-dead rabbit that was his planned breakfast. Under other circumstances, he’d have discussed the possibility with Kit, come to an agreement. But he didn’t want to spend the time, and Kit didn’t care.
Kit didn’t care about much of anything, it seemed.
“You’re not sleeping,” Marcus said.
“I’m not.”
“Any particular reason for that?”
“Not that I’m aware of. Only I close my eyes, and then they seem to open again.”
“Well, a fine pair we are.”
Kit rose, taking his old position as if he’d never lain down. Marcus scratched at his shoulder. The place where the sword rode against him had a strange burned feel, and every few days a layer of grey skin would flake off. In truth, they were making good progress. They were two men accustomed to travel, carrying only what they needed and perhaps a bit less. If one of them grew sick or stepped on a snake, it would be a bad day, but they were going quickly. They’d be out of the Keshet and into Elassae well before the season turned. He was looking forward to it, and he wasn’t.
“I was a fool,” Kit said. “I feel I’ve wasted my life.”
“If you feel like that, you probably are a fool,” Marcus said.
“I thought of myself as wise,” Kit said. “I carried the secrets of the world with me like a bag of pretty stones. I knew of the goddess, which was a secret held by only a few. And I knew her madness. Her weakness. Her confusion of certainty and truth. And for that I was singular. The only man in the world who saw it all for what it was. I am astounded I could carry that arrogance so long and not notice the burden.”
“Arrogance doesn’t weigh much,” Marcus said. “No heft to it.”
Kit chuckled. “I suppose not. Still, I am ashamed.”
“You should get over that,” Marcus said.
“I appreciate that,” Kit said, “but I think you don’t understand.”
“Might. You thought you were some kind of God-touched cunning man because you had your spider tricks, only it turned out you were more like the rest of us than not. I was the greatest general in an age, determining who sat what throne and shaping the world with my will and a few thousand sharp blades. Only it turned out we were both men, and we both made mistakes. Yours set us off through some of the least pleasant terrain I’ve ever had the poor fortune to walk through and ended with me trying to hack a hunk of stone to death with a magic sword. Mine ended with a couple graves and a lot of bad dreams.”