Persius didn't really understand that. Why should Tarius care what happened to Kasiria? Was Hellibolt saying Tarius had forgiven him completely now, that she'd saved his daughter for the sake of their old friendship? Persius had just been happy that Tarius didn't hate him anymore; that she didn't sit and pray to her strange god for his slow and painful death. What other reason could she have for taking care of Kasiria? Concerning war Tarius never did anything without good reason. Perhaps she had saved Kasiria only to use her as leverage now, but even that didn't make sense. Persius had gone against Tarius's battle strategies before and the results had been tragic for his country. Surely she must know that he'd never resist her ideas concerning battle now. It made him wonder just what she might have planned if she thought she needed this sort of leverage. "Read on," he ordered.
"I hope that you will come to the meeting and that you will gather as many troops as we have and send them to the rendezvous point which Tarius says should be Pearson Garrison. Signed by my hand thi . . . "
"Go to general Orion at once, tell him I need at least seven hundred men and as many horses at Pearson Garrison as soon as possible. Tell the valet to pack my things and get my personal guard ready. We will leave immediately."
"But sire, it will be dark soon and . . . "
"Hellibolt will go with us and cast some spell so that we can see." Persius ignored all the cringing and outright animosity of his advisors. His people didn't like or trust witchcraft. That Hellibolt had served the kingdom as long as they had recorded history only made them distrust and fear him all the more. Had he been mortal he would have been dead many times over. Persius had no time for their superstitious idiocy. "We must not waste time, our allies come from over the sea to help us and I can't . . . I won't have them thinking that I have less concern for my own people than they do. Take this man and get him something to eat, he will ride with us."
And then they all just stood around looking at him. "Surely you can all see the urgency of this matter. Must I sit and make lists as to who should do what? Can none of you think for yourselves? Are you not supposed to be here only to advise me and if you can't take matters into your own hands and make simple decisions on your own then why would I ever need your council? I need men of action around me, not just mindless figureheads. Go now all of you and make yourselves useful for a change. Hellibolt you remain, I must speak with you in private." Then addressing the rest of the group again he said, "The sooner we leave the better and if we aren't on the road before nightfall heads will roll."
In seconds the throne room was empty save for himself, Hellibolt, and his personal guard who stood by the door and pretended not to listen as he always did. He was a constant and so Persius hardly even knew he was present most of the time.
Persius stood up and started pacing, thinking a dozen things at once, and it was Hellibolt who broke the silence with his words so softly spoken Persius barely heard him, "So, do you move so quickly because of the urgency of the matter or because you will see her again?"
"The matter is most urgent. I'm sure they already see me as having been asleep at my post, but of course I want to see my daughter to see for myself that Kasiria is well . . . "
"I was speaking of Tarius the Black."
Persius stopped pacing and spun on the wizard. He was about to spit out an angry retort when it died on his lips, his shoulders sagged and he sighed and asked, "Is it such an awful thing Hellibolt?"
Hellibolt smiled. "No, I was just wondering. Many things have changed over the years Persius, but many have not."
Persius ran his hands through his thinning hair and glared at Hellibolt. "What does that mean?"
"Many of the old wounds are closed, but many are still open and new ones have surfaced. Even after all these many years I do not believe you are as prepared for this meeting as you think you are. I do not believe you will leave this meeting the same man who arrived," Hellibolt said.
Persius took a minute to go over what Hellibolt had said then glared at him and said, "That is more confusing than what you said before. Why can't you simply answer my question?"
"Because I'm a wizard not a soothsayer. Sometimes I get a glimpse of what might happen in the future. I have no answers because I've had no such vision and even if I had there is no knowing what will happen for a certainty because the future can always be changed until it's the past. What I do know for a certainty is that you still harbor within you a desire for Tarius that has never been shared and will never be fulfilled. Tarius doesn't still hate you, but she does still hate what you did, and she thinks you a weak leader driven only by what things look like not what they truly are. She doesn't respect you. Jena's wound is as fresh as it was on the day that you cut it into Tarius's flesh. And Kasiria—their battles have become hers and she has chosen a path different than any you could have foreseen for her and one you will likely never fully understand."
"With every word you say you confound me more,"Persius said.
Hellibolt frowned. "That's because you hear, but do not listen."
"Arrr! Come on let's just go. And speak to me no more unless you can tell me something that might help me." Persius stormed out of the throne room mumbling and Hellibolt followed. "Nothing you have said helps me to know how I should conduct myself at this summit. I need to be advised as to what to expect at this meeting and . . . "
"That is precisely what I told you," Hellibolt interrupted, and yet that wasn't at all what Persius had heard.
* * *
They had gotten off the boat and it was only as he watched the crew unloading their horses that he finally started to miss Lex and he felt guilty.
He felt Kasiria's hand take his. "What's wrong?" she asked.
He looked down at her. "I was just remembering poor Lex. I loved that horse, Kasiria. He was a good horse, a good friend, and I hadn't even really thought about him being dead 'til right now. It's like everything I thought was important isn't, everything has changed since the last time we landed and I stepped foot on this soil for the first time. It's only been months but it seems like it was years ago that I came here with Jestia, Ufalla and Tarius seeking adventure, to fight our parent's enemies, because we didn't have our own enemies when we came here. I stood very near where I am right now and I watched them unload the horses so worried that something would happen to Lex because at the time I thought he was as important to me as any of my friends. Master Richard met us here. He went out of his way to make us feel like we belonged. He was a good man, now he's as dead as Lex. Lex got off the boat just fine, but he never got back on because I had to kill him to put him out of his misery, and since that time I haven't had time to even think about him or Richard . . . any of them. Everything has changed for all of us, and for you most of all. When we left Pearson Garrison none of us had ever been in love and now we are all bound to someone. None of us had ever been in battle and now all of us bear scars. You almost died. I used to spend hours with my friends just talking, playing, practicing. We, Tarius and Ufalla and I, we spent nearly every waking moment together from our births and now . . . Well when we were in the Kartik I'd go several days without seeing either of them and yet now we're so much closer than we ever where when we were always in each others' pockets. Everything that seemed so important to us now seems so frivolous. I loved my horse and now he's dead and the only thing that's really changed is that I no longer want to learn to unload horses from the boats."
"I'm sorry, Jabone," Kasiria said.
"Just a horse." He smiled at her, remembering a story his father Dustan had told him, a story he'd never really understood 'til now. "How can I morn for Lex? I almost lost you, Kasiria. When I think about that . . . I loved him but he was just a horse. I'll become attached to my new horse and that gap will be easily filled, but this new horse will never be as important to me as Lex was because I've changed. Do you know what I mean?"
"Yes, I think I do. I think what I miss most is my ignorance. People will talk about losing their innocence but that's not really right because if we were truly innocent we wouldn't have had any desire to go do battle and kill people. Tiny children are innocent and none of us were tiny children, but we were all ignorant, and now we aren't. I hate knowing what it's like to be nearly stomped to death by my own horse, what it's like to slice through a man, what it feels like to be shot with a arrow, to know the smell of blood and bowel and brain. Most of all I hate knowing how it feels to watch the life drain from a friend and have to leave them there for the Amalites to feed on or be just as dead.
"You are right. Everything has changed; we've all changed. When we were still on the boat and I could first see land I thought I'd feel a sense of home coming but I didn't. Then when we docked I thought, surely now I'll feel like I'm home. Then when we stepped off the gang plank I was sure I would feel something, but even now with the dirt of the shores around my feet . . . Well, I'd like to think that it's because we're in the territories—still not really in the Jethrik—but I don't think if I was in the castle sitting at my father's feet I would feel any sense of homecoming. I don't belong here, Jabone, I'm not sure I ever did. Looking back now I can't remember a single time in my life in the Jethrik that I felt like I belonged. I'm the Katabull but it's not just that. Like Jena my soul always yearned for everything I wasn't supposed to have. Hellibolt says it's because I'm the child born to my father when he was under Tarius's curse."
Jabone bent down to kiss her gently on the lips. "You are no one's curse."
"We'll see if that's what my father thinks when he sees me like this," she said, indicating her armor.
Jabone nodded silently. He was worried about this meeting. He hadn't told anyone because he didn't dare to speak it aloud, but he was afraid that everything Kasiria thought she wanted now might change when she saw her father. What if she wanted to stay in her country with her people after all? It was easy to forget about home when you were separated from your people and in a strange land. What would she really be feeling when she saw Persius?
Persius, how would she feel if she knew that many of their people spit when they spoke his name just like they did when they spoke of the Amalites?
What was he going to do if she wanted to go back to her country, go back to being a princess? What if, forced to choose between her father and him, she chose her father? His mind raced, thinking things he'd tried to get it not to think.
What if when all is done and said, she's the great love of my life and I'm just a fling—someone of her race thrown together with her and it's not real love, not for her.
Kasiria sighed, thinking she knew what he was thinking. "I know you hate my father, Jabone."
"I hate what he did to my mothers," he said simply. He started to say nothing and then realized he really was more like Jena than he wished sometimes because he found himself speaking from his heart. "I will hate him if you decide you'd rather go home with him than be with me. If you decide you need to be with your people."
Kasiria laughed and her grip on his hand tightened. "Jabone, did you not hear what I just said? I'm with my people now, and I could never in a million years leave you. Before we left the Kartik I knew that we'd be going back. I made my peace with that. Maybe that's why the Jethrik doesn't feel like home anymore, because now the Kartik is my home." She moved to wrap her arms around his waist and he embraced her and relaxed. Even a few weeks ago she wouldn't have been able to show him this much affection in public, so maybe she had embraced their ways.
Jabone kissed her gently on the lips and she kissed him back and any fear he'd had that she didn't really love him was gone as well.
* * *
When Persius and his entourage pulled into Port Sagal it was obvious that Tarius the Black had already been there several days. They had made camp just outside the town, a vast sea of colorful Kartik tents. Soldiers and Katabulls, in their beast form were milling around.
They were met by a Kartik soldier who stopped them and asked who they were, though Persius was sure he knew. After showing credentials they were led into the camp.
A young Katabull ran up to him and of course he did not bow. "The Great Leader asks that you be taken immediately to the war room."
The "war room" turned out to be a huge tent in the middle of the camp. As the flaps were held open he stopped, his face had gone flush his heart was pounding. He took a deep breath. Inside, just inside, was Tarius the Black, whom he hadn't seen in over twenty years and yet it seemed like only yesterday.
"Sire, are you all right?" his aide asked at his shoulder.
"I'm fine just . . . Nothing." He walked in the tent and there she stood bent over a table on which a map was drawn. Her black hair was braided in two small braids on either side of her head as the rest was just allowed to fly around her head. It was the same armor—or at least the very same make—that she'd been wearing when he'd last seen her, and to him it seemed like time had stood still for her. When she looked up at him and smiled he actually felt like his heart stopped for a moment.
"Persius, we weren't expecting you so soon," she said, and her voice was the same as well, strongly purposeful with a hint of mirth in it.
"I . . . I didn't want you to think that I didn't understand the enormity of this problem." Then he saw Jena not an arm's breadth from Tarius. She hadn't changed much, either. In fact, the burning hate she looked at him with was exactly the same as it had been when last he'd seen her. Harris was still with her as well, and he also gave Persius a look of total disdain. Jena and Harris were also wearing armor—the same armor Tarius wore with the skulls on the knee cops and palderons.
The way they looked at him made him feel stripped, but Tarius looked at him again and smiled and he was put at ease.