"Um… All right," she said finally. "So where are we going?"
"Give me a minute." Then, at her expression, "I don't actually know, Irrial. Ever since my first campaign, I've cast a particular spell on my lieutenants. It lets me locate them far more easily than I could with any traditional divination."
Irrial shook her head. "I can't imagine why anyone could ever mistrust you. So we're looking for one of your lieutenants, then?"
"Ah, no." Corvis was clearly hedging now. "I, uh, I've also cast that spell on… On someone else I thought I might need to find."
"Fine. So get to-whatever it is you need to get to, already."
Corvis leaned against the stirrup, lost in deliberation. Distance, direction… He spread a mental map of Imphallion across his vision, and if they'd come roughly as far from Mecepheum as he thought they had, then that meant…
He couldn't quite repress a groan. They'd been there! They'd passed through on their way to Mecepheum! She'd been so near, if he'd only known to look!
Could that, come to think of it, have been what his dream had been trying to tell him?
"Where to?" Irrial asked again.
"Abtheum. We're going back to Abtheum." CORVIS LEANED BACK IN HIS CHAIR, the shredded remnants of egg and pork sitting on the table before him, and idly ran a whetstone along an edge of steel. The metal rasped and screeched through the common room of Whatever The Hell This Latest Roadside Inn Was Called. The barkeep scowled from across the counter, but because there were few paying customers this early in the day-just Corvis himself and a few bleary fellows who'd drunkenly slept the night away in that very room-he didn't quite seem willing to object.
"It's not going to get any sharper if I do it outside," Corvis said casually. The man began fussing with something behind the bar. Corvis continued to work, and the steel continued to shriek.
Sunder, of course, never needed sharpening, but the same couldn't be said for Irrial's sword. He'd shown the baroness the proper way to hone the blade, but he trusted his technique more than hers.
Rasp, shriek. Shriek, rasp.
"How did you get that?" a familiar voice demanded.
He looked up as Irrial dropped into the seat across from him. "I'm sneaky."
"Apparently. You stay the hell out of my room."
"Yes, my lady."
Shriek, rasp.
He'd hoped her mood might have improved at least a little this morning. During the previous day's travels, they'd passed several detachments of infantry. Men and women, their faces grim-clad in padded armor, pikes resting on shoulders-marched east beneath the banners of four different noble Houses. One unit had been led by a team of steel-encased knights on horseback; another time, they'd seen an entire squad of knights, and their squires, upon the property of a vast estate, making ready for war. It seemed that, even without the backing of the Guilds, at least a few of Imphallion's nobles were finally preparing to mobilize against the invaders.
It was the most hopeful sign they'd yet seen, but Irrial seemed to draw no hope from it. "They'll all be killed," she'd said simply when Corvis raised the topic last night, and given their numbers, he'd been unable to argue the point.
She was clearly no more cheerful today.
"Shouldn't we be getting on the road?" she asked him.
"You haven't breakfasted."
"I'm not hungry."
"You will be. I'll wait."
Rasp, shriek.
"You're nervous!" It was uttered with the reverence of revelation.
"No, I…" Corvis finally ceased his efforts, much to the barkeep's patent relief. "Maybe," he admitted grudgingly. "There's a lot left unsaid between us."
"I'll just bet." Then, more softly, "Rebaine? Why?"
He winced at the use of his real name, but a quick glance suggested that nobody had overheard. "Why was there a lot left unsaid between-?"
"No."
"Ah." Well, he'd known it had to come eventually.
Corvis propped the sword against the chair and craned his neck back as though reading the past in the dust and cobwebs along the ceiling. "Would any answer I could give make any difference, Irrial?"
"Probably not. Try anyway."
"Because Imphallion was dying-is dying. Slowly rotting away, while a few parasites grow fat off its diseased wounds. The cities grow corrupt and stagnant, while small villages starve. The Guilds want only to make themselves rich, and the nobility are too weak, and often too selfish, to stand up to them.
"I wanted to change that. I wanted to make Imphallion great again. Not just for me, but for everyone."
"And if you had to kill a few thousand people to do it, well, that was just fair trade, was it?" Clearly she didn't believe a word of it. "Was it worth those lives? The lives of my friends and my family?"
"Yes," he told her without hesitation. "If it had worked out the way that I'd planned, absolutely." Then, more softly, "I'm just… not sure anymore that it would have. Even if I'd won."
Irrial rose, swept up her sword, and disappeared back up the stairs, leaving the former conqueror alone with his thoughts.
"Hello, Cerris."
Through the open door, Corvis stared through time, listened to a voice carried from the past on a gentle breath. He knew she must have changed in five years, but damn if he could see it. Only the faint circles under her eyes were new.
"Hello, Tyannon."
Silence, for a while. Then, "I hate the beard. It makes you look old."
"No, the fact that I'm getting old makes me look old. The beard just makes me look hairy." He watched, expectant, but the smile he'd hoped to elicit never appeared. "You don't seem surprised to see me," he added finally.
"I'm not." Tyannon stepped back from the door. "You'd better come in, both of you." She punched the word both perhaps a bit harder than she'd needed to.
"Ah. Tyannon, this is the Baroness Irrial, of Rahariem. Lady Irrial, Tyannon. My wi-my former wife."
"My lady." Tyannon somehow managed to curtsy without breaking stride.
"Tyannon."
They were in the dining room, now, though Corvis had no memory of taking a single step. Habit, rather than courtesy, kept him on his feet until the women were seated-habit, and perhaps more than a touch of confusion. He finally selected a chair beside Irrial and across from Tyannon, and couldn't help but wonder if he'd chosen properly.
"The children?" he asked softly.
"They're fine," she said, voice tight.
"Could I-?"
"No, that's not a good idea. Anyway, they're not here."
Corvis found himself scowling. "Damn it, Tyannon, I'm not going to hurt them. I just want to see-"
"You've already hurt them more than enough, thanks."
"Gods damn it, you're the one who left! You…" He stopped at the pain shooting through his hands, startled to find himself pounding the edge of the table without even realizing it. Corvis examined his fist, as though unsure what it was. Tyannon watched him. Irrial watched them both, her face unreadable.
"But they're all right?" Corvis asked finally, rather than retort to the voice only he could hear. "You're all doing well?"
"As well as can be expected. Cerris, why are you here?"
Tyannon, he couldn't help but note, hadn't even bothered to ask how he'd found her. Either she had a pretty good guess, or she didn't want to know.
Or both.
'You should tell her anyway,' the ugly inner voice suggested. 'Don't you think she'd love to know about your spell? About how much you actually trusted her? Come on, it'll be funny!'
"I suppose you've heard the rumors?"
She nodded brusquely. "From some fairly reliable sources."
"I didn't do it, Tyannon. I've been in Rahariem until just recently. I haven't murdered anyone."
'Oh? Those Cephiran soldiers, and the guards in Mecepheum, they just dropped dead on their own, did they?'
"You came all this way just to tell me that?" She sounded-not doubtful, exactly, just vaguely astonished. "Why?"