“Well, let’s just say I’ll have some explaining to do when I get back.” He tossed his poking stick into the fire. “You’ll know what I mean soon enough.”
Melio already had some idea. He had noticed the way Dariel and Anira tended to stay near each other, how she spoke to him in touches on the wrist and back. “When you get back … When will that be? I get the feeling you don’t plan to leave until you’ve finished what you’ve started here.” He let his eyes drift around the sleeping forms. “I like these people already. Birké. Tunnel. What kind of name is Tunnel?”
Dariel smiled. He poured a viscous liquid from a carafe into two glasses. He offered one of the glasses to Melio, who took it, squinting warily at what looked, as near as he could tell, like frog’s eggs. “The tea’s not ready, but try this. It’s good. Just try it.” He did so himself.
Turning the glass in his fingers, Melio said, “You’re at the center of something here. I know that already. I’m surprised you didn’t go to the clan leaders meeting last night. I haven’t figured out your role here yet.”
“Nor have I, entirely. I’m no clan leader, though. Mór is the leader of the Free People. It’s for her to speak with her peers, not me. I’m … something different.”
One of the sleepers stirred. Birké rolled over and then settled again, on his back in a manner that moved his steady breathing toward a snore.
Melio leaned forward and said, “I have to ask: Can we take you home? Now, I mean. There’s a league clipper that …”
“I’ve been thinking about that all night,” Dariel said. “The things you all told me. It goes around and around in my mind like mad. But no matter how much I want to go home, I can’t. I’m already committed here. I allowed this.” He ran a finger over the symbol emblazoned on his forehead. Melio almost did the same, wondering at the texture of it. “I wanted this. It’s part of me now. And the thing is, Melio, all of this—all of these people—they’re part of our story already. If I can, I have to close the circle.”
“What circle?”
Dariel frowned as if he did not like hearing his own expression spoken back to him. “Do you know that when I sleep I have dreams in which I speak to people all around Ushen Brae? Individual conversations, with individual people, and yet somehow I speak with thousands each night. The number is only increasing, and, sometimes, I feel a part of myself—or of Nâ Gâmen—speaking with them even as I move through the world. Even right now, this very moment.” Dariel stared at the rim of his glass. His eyes were still, but Melio saw hidden motion in them, as if the surface of his brown irises hid other eyes beneath them, ones that moved in response to things that were not in front of the Dariel sitting here with a glass in his hands. “I can’t go home until I’m done,” he said. “That’s all there is to it. I can’t go home
unless
I’m done. One thing depends on the other.”
“All right,” Melio said. “I had to ask. Corinn would”—he was going to say
skin him alive
, but, considering what he’d seen at Teh, the expression lost its humor—“be displeased with me if I didn’t.”
Tam and several of the others strode through one of the open doors. Dariel looked up, nodded at them. “Well,” he said, “we wouldn’t want that, would we?” He pushed upright with the unfolding of his legs and walked to meet them.
A short time later, the entire party, awake and sipping hot tea, listened to the news Tam had gathered. It was more than the dark tattoos under his eyes that made him look tired. “Mór was with the clan leaders all night. She has gone to Skylene now, but she asked me to report to you, Dariel, so that you know what’s being proposed. The clans are agreed. They will sign binding declarations of unity. They wish for some autonomy, so that those who want to can retain clan identity, but they all agree to be grouped collectively as the People. They agree to have both clan councils for their own affairs and to send representatives to sit on a council that oversees the People. They will even respect a separate body, the Council of Elders, as another voice in decision making. Dividing up the holdings of Ushen Brae will be complicated, but they have agreed, in principle, to abide the boundaries we’ve proposed. They’ve put this in writing.”
That’s a lot of agreement, Melio thought.
“They’ve accepted everything we’ve worked for?” Anira said, pitching it somewhere between a question and exclamation.
“Not exactly,” Tam said, “but damn close.”
Tunnel took hold of one of his tusks and yanked on it. A strange gesture, but one that seemed to express mirth. “I told you all, the Rhuin Fá would make it so!”
Tam looked away from him, apparently not wanting his official façade to crumble yet. “They found Dariel very convincing, but it sounded like many of them always had this in their hearts. They just let the wrong voices rule them. Dariel helped give them courage. Not everyone agreed, but those who fought it saw their own people turn against them. Dukish has been stripped of his clan leadership. The Anets did that themselves because he carried a weapon into the gathering.”
“And used it,” Birké added, scowling.
“By the gathering codes, the clan could be exiled for that. The Anets voted new leaders for themselves and are begging for mercy. They say Dukish deceived them and that they will see to his punishment. The other clan leaders want to know what we wish them to do. Should the entire Anet clan be exiled? Or do we accept that they kill Dukish for his crimes? Or would you have him as a slave, Dariel? They could … wound him.”
“Wound him?”
“So that he would be a good boy,” Tunnel said. “The Auldek had ways of doing that to the troublesome ones. They knew it; we know it.”
Dariel had his response ready. “I don’t believe we should punish the Anet. We must get beyond that and quickly. If we can—and they can—it will be for the better. The Anet and Antoks should cede all they grabbed back to the People, and they should swear that their allegiance is to the Free People. They should help us fight the league. Dukish should be imprisoned for now, until the conflict is over and we can decide, in time, what should become of him. This way would be better for as all. No revenge, just justice. That’s what I think.”
Tam shifted. Melio was not sure how to read the movement, until he grinned. “That’s exactly what Mór said when I told her. She wasn’t sure you’d agree, though. There are other developments,” Tam continued. “Dukish had sent word to Sire Lethel about Dariel.”
“They know that Dariel is here?” Clytus asked. “That he’s your Rune Fan?”
“Rhuin Fá,” Tam said. “Dukish wanted to capture him and serve him up to the league. It would have been the gift that cemented their partnership.”
“Ah,” Geena said with a smirk, “if they hadn’t wanted to do you all in before, they certainly will now.”
Looking disgusted, Clytus emptied his tea on the coals. “The damned league … We shouldn’t have stopped with blowing up the platforms. Should have done it right the first time. Should have squeezed every last one of their pointed heads!” He scowled his way around the gathered faces, lingering on Melio and the others who had come across on the
Slipfin
. He seemed to see what he wanted to in them. He said, “All right, what do we have to do to finish this? Let’s get it done.”
“Yeah,” Kartholomé said, “let’s get it done.”
“One night and you are willing to fight with us?” Tunnel asked. “I didn’t think we were as charming as that.”
Geena strolled over, squeezed the man’s bulging, gray-hued bicep, and then hung from it. Melio felt a twinge of jealousy. “Don’t think of it that way. One night and
you’re
willing to help us finish
our
business with the league; that’s how I see it. A good deal for us. This is a muscle. Do you all see this thing?”
“If you mean it,” Dariel said, looking from Geena to Clytus to Melio, “you fill me with joy. You see, I thought a lot about how to proceed last night. I think I have it, but I do need my brigands to aid me.”
“You have us,” Clytus said.
“Then we have a fighting chance,” Dariel said. “First, let’s send the good leagueman a message … in Dukish’s name.”
Aliver and Barad walked side by side on the cobblestone streets that led from the palace down through the various tiers of the city. The prince had asked Barad to accompany him to see off the transport that was to depart that morning, taking Kelis and the last of the soldiers on Acacia to Alecia. Aliver himself would climb aboard his dragon there at the docks. He would lift up and fly away from the island of his birth and from the children he had just parted with. Nothing had ever been harder in his life, but it had to be. And he had to speak a little with this man before parting. He had two questions he wished to ask. This would be the only occasion he had left to do so.
Walking beside the tall, stone-eyed man, Aliver beheld Acacia for what he knew would be the last time. He would never see this view again, never look down at the terraced levels dropping away beneath him. Never again watch the bustle of ships in the great harbor or see that man stepping out of his house or those faces peering from a window or those workmen pausing on that rooftop to watch him pass.
So much of life was now made of
buts
and
nevers
and
cannots
and other words that denied. Despite them, Aliver was not morbid. To every failure he could think of there was a rebuttal. To each thing he had not done in his life he could respond,
Yes, but think of all I have seen. So much. Who is to say I deserve any more?
To the time he would not have to spend with those he loved he could say,
But if I hadn’t had the time I did with them, I would never know how special those moments were
. To thoughts that it was unfair his life would be cut short again, he could reply,
But I’ve had two lives, two chances. Who else has ever been as fortunate as that?
He faced his all too few remaining days with a tranquility he had never mastered when the future stretched before him. He would not have predicted that. How much of his life could he have predicted? Very little. He could not have anticipated that upon learning he had a daughter, he would have only one day of life with her. Nor that in that short span he would grow to love the girl. It amazed him how much he loved her. How much he felt that he knew her. Perhaps it was because his mother, Aleera, was behind the girl’s eyes, and that his father lived in the corners of her lips. Only hours together, but within them was all the lifetime of parenthood he would ever have. He could be bitter, but doing so would be unjust to what he had just learned. He would not die completely. His death was not his death, not when his daughter lived on.
The prince wore a tunic of black chain mail over a sleeveless vest and long, flowing trousers. The morning was chilly, but he wanted to display the tuvey band that rested snug above his bicep. It did not matter that the enemy was far away. He dressed for the crowds that had gathered to watch him pass. It was early, but the people knew he was to depart this day. Many called to him, bestowing blessings and the Giver’s speed on him. Others offered to join the army. An old man said he could not fight but he had once been a blacksmith. He could mend armor, sharpen weapons, and the like. A boy piped up, saying he could cook and tend a fire and carry water. “I’m strong!”
Aliver smiled his thanks to them and declined, telling them he would remember their offers always. He explained that they had gathered a great host already on the mainland and more were pouring in even yet. “Stay here,” he said, “and keep the island secure and proud. Do that for me.”
Many asked for news of the queen. Aliver had nothing new to offer them. “She has flown to destroy the Santoth. She will. She is your queen, and she swore to defeat them in your name.” The words sounded grandiose to his ears. Too simple a way to put a complex thing. Too buoyed by optimism he could not be entirely swayed by. He still projected the words with the grinning confidence he needed to, and each time he was amazed at the effect. People believed him, or they seemed to, at least. Both were gifts he—and they—needed.
“Barad,” Aliver said once they had pulled away a bit and could talk, “I love these people.”
“I know. They know it as well, which is what’s truly important. It almost softens me on the whole question of the monarchy.” He smiled. “Almost. If all monarchs were like you … if it were written into the laws that all monarchs must be just like Aliver Akaran in all important matters … But they’re not all like you, and such a law would not stand longer than it takes to wean a young tyrant from the breast. After you win this war—and after Corinn defeats the Santoth—you two will have to find a way to guide the nation into a different future. I don’t say it will be easy, or that you must change everything overnight, but you must put in place a system that lets people decide their own fates. You will do that, won’t you?”
Oh, Corinn and I won’t do that, Aliver thought. We’ll be dead. The people’s fate, for better and worse, will be in their own hands. He resisted the urge to confess to Barad, to unburden himself, and ask him to conceive of the fight going on without him and of the world after without him. He pressed it down beneath a clearing of his throat. It would not help anything. Telling anyone would be an indulgence that might do more harm than good. Though he could not have said whom he was beseeching, he thought, Just let me live long enough to finish this. Please.
Out loud, he said, “I wish we had more time to speak of such things, to plan. When the wars are over, will you help our young monarchs into that future?”
Barad did not seem to notice the peculiar wording. “In any way I can, I will.”
“Good,” Aliver said. “Then there is hope. Does this mean you’ve forgiven us?”
“I never needed to forgive you. Queen Corinn enslaved us both. For her, forgiveness is a long road. I’m yet only standing on the edge of it.”
The prince nodded his acceptance of this.
“I will admit that I do care about your family more than I imagined I could,” Barad said. “I still believe that no one family should rule the world, and I will not forget the things Corinn did to me and to the nation. But I cannot feel the anger I wish to.”