Irrial spun, sword outstretched, as he burst through the final door, and for an endless breath they didn't know each other. Her hair was chopped short in crude imitation of a military cut, and the hauberk weighed heavily on her shoulders, but her arm was steady. Blood dripped from the blade, adding to a larger pool of crimson that spread across the carpet from the body of Guildmaster Yarrick.
Sunder fell slowly, as though wilting, to Cerris's side. "Gods, what have you done?"
"What had to be done," she said flatly, daring him to argue.
He accepted, slamming the door behind him. "Damn it, Irrial. We needed him! We needed to know why, who else was involved-"
"I'm not an idiot, Cerris. I tried! But he came at me, I didn't have-"
"Don't you dare! You had a choice, all right. You could have asked me to come with you! We could have taken him without killing him."
"I thought-"
"You didn't think! You were angry, and you acted blindly. So how did you enjoy murder, Irrial? Is it everything you'd hoped?"
The baroness staggered as though he'd slapped her, nearly tripping as her heel struck the corpse by her feet. Her jaw worked soundlessly, and the sword fell unnoticed to the gore-soaked carpet. Even within the heavy hauberk, her shoulders quivered visibly, and she seemed unable to pull her gaze from her open hands.
"Cerris…" It was not the voice of an adult, but the call of a distraught child. "Oh, gods…"
Cerris understood, then, just as clearly as he'd understood where to find her. Taking a deep breath, he shoved his own anger aside and crossed the room, holding Irrial as her entire body shook with racking sobs.
He said nothing, for there was nothing to say. Both of them knew what she'd lost; knew for what she'd grieved, all unknowing, since the attack on the caravan. And they both knew that her tears, no matter how many she shed, would never wash the stain of blood from her hands. JUST AS THEY HAD THE PRIOR EVENING, Cerris and Irrial took the long way home, avoiding streets on which he might have earlier been seen. And just as they had the prior evening, they made the trip in silence.
Cerris helped her from the tabard and-as gently as the awkward mail allowed-the hauberk, dropping both in the corner near the scattered strands of hair. The rest of her clothes followed, not out of any romantic ardor but because they were spattered with Yarrick's blood. The normally modest baroness seemed disturbingly unaware of, or indifferent to, her nakedness. He handed her the nearest tunic and trousers; she climbed into them stiffly, mechanically.
Cerris, who could scarcely recall the years before he'd first learned to kill, found himself utterly at a loss. He didn't know what to say, or how to comfort her.
And gods damn him, more than a small part of him just wanted to shake her, to demand she get over it. To insist that they had larger worries than guilt.
'Well, finally! Now you're thinking like yourself again!'
He ruthlessly smothered those feelings, but every now and then he'd glance her way and feel not sympathy, but a flickering ember of irritation.
Some minutes later, she apparently came to the same conclusion. With a literal shake of her head, as though she could shed the crush of emotions like so much water, she took a deep breath and faced him. "What now, Cerris?"
"Now? Now we get the hell out of this damn town."
"What? But-"
"Irrial," he said, perhaps more sharply than he'd intended, "there's nothing more we can do here. The resistance is over. The Cephirans know our faces. Dying for a hopeless cause may sound noble, but I've come damn close to doing it myself, and it's really not as much fun as you'd think."
"I know," she admitted. "But I can't just abandon my people."
"You want to help Rahariem? The way to do it is out there." He gestured vaguely in what he was pretty sure was a westerly direction. "Find out what's keeping the Guilds and the nobles from reacting to this invasion, and fix it. I promise you, the armies of Imphallion have a much better chance of driving the Cephirans out than you do."
'Oh, right.' Gods, he wished that inner voice would just shut up, but it kept right on yammering. 'Like that's the reason you want to be out there. You couldn't care less about Rahariem. You want to find out about-'
"We already know part of the problem, don't we?" she asked. "It's Rebaine."
'Yeah. That.'
"It's not him, actually," Cerris said carefully. "Someone's lying, or-or something."
Irrial blinked twice. "What would make you think that? It's not as though he hasn't done this sort of thing before."
"I just-I just don't think it sounds right."
"Why not?"
"Look, it doesn't matter-"
"Cerris." She rose, stepping toward him, and there was something he didn't recognize, and didn't like, behind her expression. Her gaze flickered to his face, to Sunder, and back again, and while they still showed no sign of recognition, he could swear he saw the first gathering clouds of a terrible notion in the depths of her eyes. "Why not?"
He was utterly exhausted, his last reserves drained. He was worried, even terrified, at the repercussions of those rumors. He was furious at having been betrayed by Yarrick, at whoever or whatever was behind the falsehoods spreading through Imphallion. And maybe, just maybe, he was falling in love for only the third time in his life.
And even though he knew it was a mistake from the moment the words passed over his lips, a part of him exulted in freedom as Cerris spoke the truth he hadn't uttered to another living soul in years.
"Because I'm Corvis Rebaine, Irrial."
Irrial's features went so utterly slack that he wondered briefly if she'd passed out, even died, on her feet. It was the clenching of her fists, the slow flushing of her cheeks, that convinced him otherwise-and convinced him, as well, that it never once occurred to her to doubt his word.
After all, what halfway rational man would lie about such a thing?
"You bastard…" It wasn't even a whisper, barely a wisp of breath.
"Irrial, I-"
"You bastard!" No whisper, now, but a shriek of such fury that it almost, almost, hid the agonized heartbreak beneath it.
He never saw it coming. One instant he was standing, reaching for her with a pleading hand, and the next he was on the floor, his jaw throbbing, blood trickling from where his lips had split against his teeth.
Irrial stood over him, fists shaking, and he truly believed in that moment that had she held a weapon, Yarrick would not have been the only man to die at her hands that day.
"Irrial, please. I'm not the same man I-"
"Not the same man? Not the man who conquered Rahariem? Not the same man who slaughtered more people in one day than the Cephirans have killed in the last month? Not that man, Cerris?"
"Not anymore," he insisted, propping himself up on his elbows. "You've known me for three years! Do you really think those were all a lie? How about the past weeks? Were those?"
She glared, mouth twitching around two or three possible answers.
"Irrial, I don't even think of myself as 'Corvis' anymore. It was so long ago…"
"Long? Not so long that I don't still have nightmares. Not long enough to un-kill all the people-some of them my friends, my family!-that you butchered. No, Cerris, it hasn't been that long at all."
"Irrial, I'm sorry. I truly am. I lo-"
"If you say it," she hissed, "I swear to every god that I'll slit your damn throat!"