Authors: Laura Resnick
Remembering it now, Ronall quipped, "He was so furious that my wife had cheated on him."
Ronall thought this over and started laughing. The more he thought about Borell's red-faced rage over the promiscuity of the married woman he'd been bedding, the funnier it seemed. Tears misted his eyes as his shoulders shook with bitter amusement. In his slack-limbed mirth, he spilled his wine. Dazed, his vision not quite in focus, he watched the chalice roll across the floor.
"Enjoying yourself, I see." Elelar's chill voice pierced his muddled reflections.
He whirled to face her, staggering a little as he did so.
"Elelar," he whispered.
He had barely seen her upon her arrival. She'd uttered a few angry words about the intruder he'd hit—Three Into One, how was he supposed to know it was Derlen, suddenly appearing out of nowhere after months with no word from Elelar or any of her escaped servants?—and then she'd gone up to her bedchamber, barring the door and telling him she would see him when she damn well felt up to it and not before.
Now he saw that she was as lovely as he remembered, even lovelier than the day they'd first met nearly seven years ago. Her softly waving black hair was pulled away from her face, braided and coiled in the elaborate style of a
torena
. She had never taken to wearing Valdani fashions, as did so many Silerian
toreni
in the city, not even after marrying into Ronall's family. And how her shapely body flattered the flowing lines of her silk pantaloons and the long tunic that hugged her lush breasts and slim waist. Her dark, long-lashed eyes still transfixed him after all these years. Her soft, wide mouth still made him hungry for her. Yes, he had seen more beautiful women, but he had never known one with his wife's allure.
"What are you doing here?" she asked with all the warmth and charm of an executioner.
He had also never known a woman who could so easily make him feel like something to be scraped off the bottom of a boot.
Ronall replied, "I thought you would come in here after you—"
"I don't mean in the library," she said impatiently. "I mean
here
."
He was a little confused. "I live here."
"This is my house," she snapped.
"I'm your husband." He peered at her. "I've been living here for six years."
"What could y—"
"
You
haven't, though," he continued. "You've been gone since before the long rains. Since before Josarian supposedly leaped into the volcano of Darshon and survived."
"He did leap and s—"
"Where in the Fires have you been?" Ronall demanded.
"In the mountains, obviously."
"What do you mean, 'obviously'?" Suddenly he was angry. Hotly, head-spinningly angry. "You escape from prison—with a body count that made the Fifth Moorlander War look like a minor squabble, I might add—and disappear for
months
. And you send no word and make no effort to let me know you're alive, let alone where you are."
"As if you wouldn't be watched," she spat.
"Watched? I was
imprisoned
, damn you!"
Elelar paused. "I know," she said in a more moderate voice. "I'm sor—"
"You
know
? How do you know? Who told you?"
"Advisor Kaynall."
"Kaynall? When did
you
have time to talk to the Imperial Advisor who was appointed after Borell killed himself because of you?"
"During peace negotiations," she said tersely. "But what are you still doing in Sh—"
"Peace negotiations?" Ronall repeated. "Ah. For your rebels. They want peace, do they?"
"They want the Valdani out of Sileria."
"Negotiations," he mused. "Josarian's giving Kaynall a chance to withdraw before Shaljir goes up in flames?"
Elelar went terribly still and stared at him, looking uneasy.
"Before thousands of Outlookers die here?" he continued. "Empire's last stand in Sileria, and all that." When she didn't reply, he asked, "Josarian thinks he can talk them out of fighting for it?" Ronall snorted and bent down to pick up the chalice. "He doesn't know the Valdani very well, does he?"
"He... He's..." She turned away from him and moved toward the fire.
"What?" When she didn't reply, he prodded, "Are you sleeping with Josarian, too?"
To his surprise, she merely said, "No."
He struck out again. "Lost your touch?"
She shook her head, staring into the flames. "He always belonged to the memory of his late wife. To her and to Dar."
Ronall thought he'd heard her wrong. "Belonged?"
Now she looked at him, her eyes churning with something so terrible that he wasn't surprised when she finally said, "Josarian is dead."
He digested that for a moment. "Valdani?"
"No."
"Silerians?" he asked incredulously.
"The Society."
"Ah."
"Kiloran."
Ronall nodded. "Well, that figures. If what they say about Josarian was true..." He shrugged. "Who but Kiloran could eliminate the Firebringer? And one Silerian killing another..." He sighed. "Nothing ever really changes here, does it?"
Her temper frayed a little more. "What are you
doing
here?"
He flinched at her tone. "You and I are not the only couple in Shaljir who share a house without sharing a bed," he pointed out.
"I mean, why haven't you gone home?"
"I will not let even
you
shame me into scurrying back to my father's house like a child, Elelar." Ronall swayed a little and muttered, "I'm sobering up. This is no good." He found the decanter and poured more jasmine wine.
"I didn't mean your father's house," she said. "Though that would be an acceptable start."
He swallowed a life-giving, hurt-soothing gulp and said, "Huh?"
His wife's mouth tightened. "I mean, why haven't you already left for Valda?"
"Valda?" he repeated blankly.
"Yes."
He stared at her in confusion. "I'm not planning..." He wondered if he was drunker than he'd realized. "Valda?"
"I didn't think you'd be here."
Or maybe he just wasn't drunk enough. "Where did you think I'd be? In prison still?"
"Valdani are fleeing Sileria by the thousands," Elelar said wearily, sinking into a chair without her usual grace.
"May the Three have mercy on them," he said, finishing his wine and reaching for more.
"Why haven't you left, too?"
"Leave Sileria?" He finally understood. "For Valda?"
"Yes." She sounded exasperated. "How many cups of that wine have you already had?"
"Far fewer than you've had men," he said nastily.
"When it came to fidelity," she struck back, "I followed your example."
"How I've missed you," Ronall said dryly. "I only hope we have enough wine for me to get through this reunion." He sat down in a chair opposite hers and tried to focus for a moment. "Elelar, I've never even been to Valda."
She made an impatient gesture. "Somewhere in Valdania then, wherever your—"
"I've never been to the mainland."
"Wherever your people come from."
"They come from here."
"Your father's people," she clarified.
"They come from here, too."
"They are Valdani," she said between clenched teeth.
"And like many Valdani in Sileria," he said, "I've never been off the island. Not once in my life."
"Nonetheless, it's time to go," she said. "You don't belong here."
Her words hurt him, but for once he didn't think they were personal. In this matter, he wasn't her despised husband, he was his bloodline. He was the Valdani stain on Silerian honor, the Valdani seed in a Silerian woman's belly, a Valdani name with a Silerian face. And given the woman that he had recently learned Elelar was, he realized that he was an anomaly she couldn't accept.
"Go?" he repeated. "Go where, Elelar? To a city I've never even seen, to a mainland empire nearly as foreign to me as the Kintish Kingdoms would be?"
"You will not be a foreigner there, you—"
"I look like a Silerian." He was a little fairer than most full-blooded Silerians, true, but no one would take him for a Valdan. Not with his coloring and features. "And I speak better Silerian than Valdan."
"Not really," she muttered rudely.
"When I speak Valdan, I have Silerian accent." He knew she couldn't deny that. "Just like you."
"Even so—"
"I don't know the mainland, or their ways, or their culture."
"You are not a Silerian," she hissed.
"I'm not a Valdan, either." He took more wine and then concluded, "If I'm not going to belong anywhere, I'd rather not belong in the country which I know than in the foreign lands that I don't."
She sneered. "You think the rebels will spare you when they take the city."
"So you're positive they'll take it?" His wife was more likely than any else he knew to be informed about the rebels' true strength.
"Kaynall will give it up or they will take it," she said.
"Either way, we
will
have native rule in Sileria, Ronall."
He saw the passion in her eyes and knew she wouldn't understand when he said, "I've never cared who rules Sileria."
Elelar's contempt was as familiar as it was painful. "No, as long as you're protected by your rank and your wealth—"
"That's right," he admitted. Why deny it?
"As long as you've got liquor in your cellar, dreamweed in your pipe, and women in your bed—"
"Though seldom my wife."
"Never again." Her voice was low and rough. "You will never touch me as a husband again."
He knew she meant it. He had even been expecting it. But he still couldn't accept it. "We are still married. We still need an heir, and—"
"Divorce me."
The room seemed to tilt. "What?"
"You heard me," she said. "Divorce me. It's an easy enough matter for a Valdan. Claim that I'm barren. It's probably true."
"We were also married as Silerians," he reminded her. A mixed-blood couple, they had married twice in one day: once before a priest of the Three, and once before a Sister who witnessed them reciting vows to Dar.
Seeing how deflated she looked, he said, "You shouldn't have married me under Silerian law if you were planning—"
"
I
didn't know what would happen, what the future held! I had my position to think of. I couldn't share a man's bed without—"
"How
many beds have you shared?"
"I mean," she said with obvious irritation, "I couldn't live respectably as your wife without a Silerian wedding."
"So now, even if I divorced you as a Val—"
"If you leave Sileria," she said, "I can claim abandonment and dissolve the marriage when you don't return after three years."
It was, he knew, one of the few ways to end a marriage in Silerian custom. The Valdani didn't care whether or not Silerians stayed married to each other, but Silerians themselves were inflexible about such things. This was a land where blood-ties and family alliances mattered even more than wealth, rank, or property.
"I see you've thought this through," he said.
"We've never had children," Elelar continued, warming to her theme. "There's no reason—"
"No!" Ronall didn't want to hear this. "I'm not leaving Sileria, Elelar, and I'm
especially
not leaving Sileria just so
you
—"
"—for us to continue this—"
"
No!"
he shouted. He rose to his feet, swaying, and flung his half-full chalice across the room. It flew into a delicate sculpture and broke it in a smashing shower of noise.
Elelar gasped and jumped up. "You drunken—"
"That's right," he snarled, smarting under her openly disgusted glare. "That's
right
. I'm the drunken, whoring pig you married, the fool you robbed, the cuckold you betrayed again and again."
"I won't st—"
"I'm the only one who shares your bed by right of law—"
"You will
never
—"
"You're my wife!" he shouted, seizing her by the shoulders.
"
Torena!"
It was a man's voice.
Ronall glanced over his shoulder and saw Derlen in the doorway. Then Faradar, bless her insolent little heart, tried to drag the Guardian away, saying, "No, Derlen, no. Let the
torena
deal with this."