They reminded Geder of the boy he’d been the first time he’d ridden on campaign, fat, bookish, friendless, and despised. And now he was the ruler of the greatest empire since the fall of the dragons. He wanted to give some rousing speech, some assurance that they were there on the work not of dragons or men, but of gods. However raw they looked, however awkwardly they wore their swords, what lay before them was glory. He wanted to, but he didn’t. Better to let Basrahip deliver the speeches. He was much more convincing, speaking with the voice of the goddess as he did.
The priest was a structure of smiles and broad gestures all through the review, but Aster’s expression was closed. The black eye he’d suffered was gone now, though there was a tiny scar now between the brow and the bridge of his nose where the blow had cut him. A tiny disfigurement that would always remind him, Geder thought, of his enemy. He was willing to bet that Myrin Shoat would live to regret that little scar deeply. The prospect made Geder smile. Aster frowned at him.
“Just thinking,” Geder said. “It’s nothing.”
“I wish I could go,” the boy said. “I don’t see why it’s safe enough for you to go but not for me.”
You’re still a boy, Geder thought but restrained himself from saying. It was true, but it wasn’t what Aster could hear. There was no way to explain war to someone who had never seen it. Never been touched by it. Never heard the voice of the fire in Vanai in his nightmares or seen a woman’s silhouette against the flames and thought, I’ve done this.
“Glory’s all well and good,” Geder said. “But you’ll have your chance later. Once you’ve taken the throne.”
“It’s all going to be over by then,” Aster complained. “The wars will all be ended, and the dragons and the Timzinae will all be dead, and it’ll be nothing but peace.”
“I know,” Geder said. “That won’t be a bad thing.”
“I just wish I could see it before it ends.”
“The triumphs when you come back are the best part,” Geder said. “Before that it’s mostly a lot of camping and a little bit of shouting.”
Aster managed a wan smile. “You’re just trying to make it sound bad so I’ll feel better.”
“Is it working?” Geder asked.
On the way back through the gates, Basrahip rode beside Geder, Aster riding a length or two ahead. The small people of the city bowed their heads as Lord Regent, high priest, and crown prince passed together surrounded by his guard. Three of the most powerful and noblest men in the empire. Geder put out his hand in a gesture of blessing.
“You are well, Prince Geder?” Basrahip asked. “You have lost your doubts?”
“I have,” Geder said.
“This is as it should be,” Basrahip said. “All of this is very, very well.”
“Do I have time to make a stop before we call the march?”
“What you do, you may do,” Basrahip said. “You have no need to ask me.”
“I’d like to stop by and see Sabiha Kalliam before we leave. And her daughter.”
“As you wish,” Basrahip said.
Still, Geder had seen Aster back to the Kingspire and made his farewell there. The prince had been brave about the whole thing, and his tutor had been there to whisk him away to lessons. Best to keep the boy’s mind occupied. He’d spend less time chewing at himself, worrying for Geder and envying him. Basrahip and half a dozen priests rode back for the army beyond the gates, and Geder had sought out his best friend’s wife. She was, after all, as near as he could get to saying goodbye to Jorey himself.
“Yes,” Lady Skestinin said. “I suppose anything is possible. I know I never imagined myself living through times like these.” For a moment, her reserve cracked and tears touched her pale eyes.
“If there is any way to bring Lord Skestinin back safely, we will do it,” Geder said. “And if he’s harmed, I will see that a thousand of the enemy are killed in his name.”
“Yes,” Lady Skestinin said. “Yes, of course. Thank you.”
Geder nodded. It hurt him to see her pain and to be unable to do anything to ease it. It hurt him to think of Aster’s aching loneliless and anxiety and of the fact that Jorey had already missed the first months of his daughter’s life. Lady Skestinin nodded again, much as she had before, and retreated to the hall without taking the risk of further speech. Geder sat again, his hands between his knees, and looked out at the garden. Bees filled the air around the pear trees, drawn, he thought, by the sweetness of the fruit where it had gone overripe and split. A striped grey cat streaked across the ground, fleeing from something or chasing it. Geder closed his eyes, and Cithrin was there, waiting for him. She was neither the cruel one, laughing at him for being too stupid as to believe in her love, nor the repentant one who begged his forgiveness. He couldn’t even conjure up her face, not clearly. It was Cithrin because he knew it was Cithrin. It was the Cithrin he’d created in his heart, and who was still there.
I loved you, he thought. And you laughed at me. Why did you have to laugh at me?
“Geder?”
His eyes opened, and Sabiha was there. He hadn’t heard her come in. Motherhood was agreeing with her. She’d put on weight that widened her face and her hips, brought a warmth to her cheeks. The baby clung to her side, riding Sabiha’s hip like a tiny bear shimmying up a tree. The small, bright eyes found Geder, boggled at him, lost him, and found him again.
“Sabiha,” he said. “And how is the perfect girl?”
Annalise made a low guh and swung her arms to grab Sabiha’s hair. Sabiha winced and gently disentangled her locks from the baby’s fingers. “The perfect girl,” she said, “is growing like weeds in springtime and doesn’t know her own strength.”
“She looks wonderful,” Geder said.
“She is wonderful,” Sabiha replied, sitting down on the chair opposite him. “I hear you’re going.”
“Yes. After this.”
Sabiha shifted the baby to her lap and jounced her gently on her knee. Annalise looked fascinated, and then startled, and then cooed delightedly and waved her tiny hands. Her hair was thin as high clouds on a windy day and the same color as Jorey’s. The soft place at the center of her head where the bones hadn’t grown closed was visible only because he knew to look for it. Geder imagined he could see something of his friend’s face in the pudgy curves of her cheeks. She met Geder’s eyes and shrieked with pleasure. Geder smiled.
“I wanted to see my niece again before I left,” Geder said, looking directly into the child’s eyes. “She’s going to be a different girl when I get back, isn’t she? Uncle Geder won’t even know her.”
“Would you like to hold her?” Sabiha asked.
“If I could,” Geder said, and Sabiha rose up, scooping the baby to him, to his lap. Annalise was lighter than he’d expected, as if her body were made from fluff and warmth. He held her carefully around the chest, supporting her neck the way Sabiha had shown him the first time, though the baby seemed quite able to hold up her own head now.
“You know my nurse back at Rivenhalm used to tell me that you should whisper all your secrets into the soft place there before it grows closed,” he said.
“My mother says that too,” Sabiha said. “It’s supposed to make the baby grow up wise.”
“Is it? I thought it was to give them something while they were still innocent enough to make it clean again. I may have gotten that part wrong. My skull had grown closed when she told me, but I was still fairly young. It’s hard to know what really happened back then.”