In Legend Born (93 page)

All things considered, Tashinar had been trying to think of some way to convince Mirabar to leave Niran without hurting her feelings. But this... No, this wasn't how she had wanted it to happen. The news had just reached them: Josarian had murdered Kiloran's son.

Dar have mercy, we are finished.

The information had brought chaos to the camp within moments. Assassins and rebels were squaring off, choosing sides, and launching bitter accusations against each other. Kiloran had betrayed Josarian, some said, and this was the Firebringer's revenge. No, Josarian had gone mad, others said, drunk on power and glory.

Baran's enmity with Kiloran was too deeply ingrained for his people to care what happened to Kiloran or his men. Given a choice between the Firebringer or a waterlord who was their own master's chief rival, they preferred Josarian. The lowlanders, sea-born folk, and Guardians would remain staunchly loyal to Josarian, since they had never pledged themselves to Kiloran. However, some
shallaheen
would be torn and divided by these events. Many of them still feared Kiloran too much to oppose him, and some clans had sworn loyalty to him many years before they'd ever even heard of Josarian.

This will destroy the rebellion.

Tashinar felt immensely weary as she listened to Mirabar and Najdan argue in hushed, desperate voices. Mirabar's eyes were hot and yellow with panic. Najdan seemed to have aged ten years since this morning. Tashinar didn't understand the loyalty between these two, but from the first moment she had seen them together after the birth of the rebel alliance at Lake Kandahar, she had seen how strong their bond was. Now it was dissolving in the disastrous tide of events beyond their control.

"This is the end of the rebel alliance," Najdan told Mirabar, his voice weary and full of regret. "It's over,
sirana
."

"No!" Mirabar shook her head, fighting the destiny that had already overtaken her own plans and dreams. "I will go to Josarian. You will talk to Kiloran. We will convince them—"

"Kiloran will never forgive this."

"But he can postpone his revenge until after the war," said Mirabar.

"He will not,
sirana
. And Josarian knew it when he killed Srijan."

"Then I will go to Kandahar and—"

"No!" Najdan's response was sharp and forceful. "My master would kill you,
sirana
."

Mirabar's hands twisted in the folds of her tattered tunic. "Then let that be the price of Srijan's death. Let Kiloran kill me in Josarian's place."

Heart pounding, Tashinar protested, "No, Mirabar, you can't! You—"

"
Nothing
is more important than defeating the Valdani," Mirabar insisted. "Not you, not me, not anyone. Josarian's destiny is to drive them out of Sileria. So we must protect him from Kiloran."

"Kiloran will accept no death in place of Josarian's,
sirana
," said Najdan. "Not even yours."

"Let's ask him," she said.

"No. I know him. Far better than you do. I have served him since before you were born." Najdan shook his head. "It must be Josarian. No one else."

Mirabar leaned forward, her gaze intent. Her hand trembled as she laid it over Najdan's. "Then help me kill Kiloran," she whispered.

He jerked away as if she had burned him. "
No.
"

"You and I, together, we could—"

"
No!
" He shook his head. "He is my master. I am his servant. I swore an oath to him twenty years ago. My life is his,
sirana
. I cannot betray him."

Anger washed across her expression. "I know what these oaths are worth to assassins! How many of your kind
have
betrayed their masters?"

"I don't know," he said through gritted teeth. "But
I
won't be one of them."

"He betrayed Josarian," Mirabar said fiercely. "He betrayed us all!"

"We have only Josarian's word for that. A secret ambush by a handful of Outlookers—"

"At a meeting place known only to Kiloran and Searlon!"

"A Sanctuary!" Najdan shouted. "One where Josarian has had meetings before! A site
he
chose! Who's to say that another cowardly
shallah
didn't betray him? It's happened before!"

"He said that the Outlookers knew Searlon!"

"He was already locked in a quarrel with Kiloran! What better way to attack my master than by pretending—"

"Would Josarian pretend something that would destroy the rebellion?" Mirabar demanded.

"He has changed since Darshon!"

"But he has not lost his mind!"

Their shouting was interrupted by Tashinar's next coughing fit. Mirabar came to her side and tried to ease her through the spasm. Her chest ached. She could hear phlegm moving through her lungs. Her head reeled from the argument. Her nerves quivered from the explosion of emotions in this tiny space. When the spasm ended, she lay back on her pallet, gasping for air, cursing old age and its burdens.

"
Sirana
..." Najdan's voice was filled with regret as he held Mirabar's gaze. "I must leave. I must return to my master. You are loyal to Josarian, and I know that is as it should be. But I... cannot honorably continue to serve the servant of my master's enemy."

"Najdan..." Mirabar's eyes filled with tears.

"I would never betray you. If my master... planned an attack on Josarian, he never confided in me. And regardless of why Josarian killed Srijan, you and I must now be enemies." Najdan looked away so as not to see her tears. "Serving you has been the greatest honor of my life,
sirana
." He rose and turned to leave. Speaking over his shoulder, he said quietly, "I wish you health, happiness, and a long, fruitful life."

"Najdan... When your time comes..." Mirabar's voice broke for a moment. "I pray to Dar that the Otherworld will welcome you."

The assassin lowered his head to slip through the low-hanging mouth of the cave, then disappeared from their lives. Mirabar drew in huge gulps of air, struggling not to weep.

"What will you do now?" Tashinar asked her.

"I must leave, too." Mirabar nodded wearily, forming her own plans. "I must find Josarian. I must.... protect him from Kiloran." She sighed, a soft sound full of sorrow. "I know why he did it, but..."

"But?" Tashinar prodded.

"Must it always be this way here?"

"Always? I don't know." Tashinar closed her eyes, unbearably weary after a lifetime in Sileria. "I only know that it always
has
been this way here."

Adalian fell even sooner than expected, but Zimran could not find it in his heart to celebrate when he heard the news. The
torena
had been desolate ever since Srijan's murder. At night, she allowed Zimran to comfort her in the dark privacy of their bed, but she was distant and dismissive by day. Moreover, she went away often now and didn't always take him with her. Sometimes she was gone for only a day, sometimes for three or four days. She revealed little about her activities when he questioned her, saying only that the Alliance was busy discussing how best to govern the cities coming under rebel control. Even when they were together at the villa near Chandar, she seemed to have less and less time for him, always writing letters or holding meetings with other high-born members of the Alliance.

It was perhaps only now that he realized how much he loved her. He would not have cared about the long, unexplained absences of any other woman. Indeed, any other woman's inattention would merely have spurred him on to his next conquest. But Josarian had been right; now that Zimran had found Elelar, he wanted no other woman. He wanted
this
one to pay attention to him as she had in the early days of their liaison. Nothing else would make him happy again. He had briefly considered pursuing another woman as a means of making Elelar jealous, but he had dismissed the idea. He knew enough about her by now to recognize that he would lose her with such behavior.

Although Elelar's habit of excluding him from her thoughts and activities since Srijan's violent death made Zimran increasingly unhappy, he hadn't quarreled with her about any of this until today, when she summoned Tansen to the villa for a private meeting—one which she insisted Zimran leave when he discovered them together. Tansen and Elelar's angry voices certainly seemed to preclude any possibility of the meeting being a pretense for more intimate activities, but Zimran was furious all the same. He knew how much the
shatai
had always wanted his woman, and he knew how close together anger and passion could live in a man's heart. Zimran left the two of them alone as ordered, but his heart raged with jealousy and humiliation. As soon as the
roshah
left, Zimran confronted Elelar.

"We argued about Josarian," Elelar informed him wearily. "What else?"

"Then why couldn't I be there? Why must I be sent from the room like some child?" Zimran demanded.

"Because you and Tansen do not get along," she said reasonably. "And the conversation was volatile enough without adding that fuel to the fire."

He hated it when she was reasonable, when her arguments were irrefutable and sensible. It made him sulky. "You are always having secret meetings these days. Always writing letters. Always going away."

"This is the life I led before being imprisoned in Shaljir," she said. "The life I have always lived."

"Can't you rest now? You are no longer living a secret life in Shaljir, and this war should not be women's business, anyhow."

She went very still. For a moment, he feared he had said the wrong thing. She could be rather difficult. But, then, she was a
torena
, and they were different. He must remember that.

Trying to call up her softness, the part of herself that she reserved for him alone, he slipped an arm around her waist and whispered in her ear, "I worry about you so,
kadriah
. These are dangerous times, and I can think of nothing but your safety when you go away without me."

"I'm... I know," she murmured, softening under his touch.

Her waist was so slim, her stomach so smooth and flat. He usually took pleasure in the exquisite beauty of her body, but now he longed to see her waist thicken and her belly swell with his child. He had always dreaded the thought of fatherhood; some years ago, he had even resisted pressure from Josarian and his self-righteous wife to marry a girl in Emeldar who claimed to be carrying his child. He enjoyed women for the pleasures they could share with him, not for the hungry mouths they could burden him with. Like so many other things, though, he found that this, too, had changed now that he was in love with Elelar. He wanted to plant his seed in her belly, to create a new life within her and someday watch her nurse his son.

Such an idea would have been unthinkable before the war. Even their relationship would have been unthinkable not so long ago, but everything was different now. And with the world turned upside down, Zimran intended to keep Elelar as his own. Forever.

He slid his palm up over her breast and gently massaged her, feeling her body quicken under his touch. Maybe a child would be just the thing, he realized. Maybe a baby would make her settle down at last, leaving the business of war to Josarian, Tansen, and their kind. Perhaps if Zimran got her with child, then the two of them could settle into a quiet life together, free of all this madness. Whether or not Josarian fulfilled the destiny of the Firebringer, he was as good as dead anyhow. Kiloran would never rest until he had avenged the death of his son. In the meantime, with Liron and Adalian already fallen and all of Sileria now involved in the war, surely destiny could play out the rest of this game without Zimran and his woman.

He kissed the slender column of her neck, inhaling the subtle fragrance that clung to her fair skin. He pulled her closer, glad he had locked the door when he had entered this room to quarrel in private; a
torena
's household was full of servants who were always inconveniently underfoot, bursting into her presence without warning or apology. It was so long since she had allowed him to make love to her in the middle of the day. He kissed her long and hard, intending to override any protest she might make now.

She let him unfasten the silken ties that held her tunic together. Beneath it, she was warm, soft, and fine-boned. His mind reeled away from the sudden unbidden memory of Srijan's blood covering the face he now kissed, soaking the hands which now slipped between his legs to stroke him. How could Josarian have murdered Srijan right in front of Elelar? Fury filled Zimran as he thought of it again, fury that flooded him with protective fervor as he swept her up into his arms.

How could Josarian have endangered her so?

What if there'd been a fight and she'd been hurt? What if Kiloran, who undoubtedly knew of her presence, didn't believe she was an innocent bystander who had actually tried to save Srijan?

Zimran had despised Srijan, but he knew that Elelar was right. Killing him, no matter what the provocation, had been an insane act. A
shallah
did not cross a waterlord and survive. Josarian may be the Firebringer, as people said, but this was
Kiloran
whom he had offended. And Kiloran no doubt now regretted having shown mercy to Tansen, Josarian's brother—a show of mercy that had obviously made Josarian lose respect for him. Kiloran would not make the same mistake twice.