The White Dragon (59 page)

Not wine, not ale. Not tonight. Tonight, nothing less than Kintish fire brandy would do. Tonight, the world was coming to an end, and he wanted to be blissfully unconscious by the time it happened.

His head was reeling, but he was still alert enough to hear Elelar's slippered feet when she entered the library and, unaware of his presence, closed the doors behind her. She didn't see him. He was sitting in a big chair, with his back to the door.

And living with my back to the wall
.

Only when Elelar came forward to stare into the flames still burning magically in the hearth—would Derlen never douse that damn fire?—did she notice him. She gave a startled gasp and flinched, a much bigger reaction than he'd expected, then relaxed.

"Damn you," she snapped. "Don't sneak around this house like some... assassin."

"An interesting choice of words." Ronall vaguely wondered about the bruises on her face and throat. He didn't remember putting them there. "Are we expecting your friend Searlon?"

"He's not my friend." She glanced at him and added, "Or yours. He'd kill you just to spite me."

"If he's as clever as you said, he'd leave me alive to continue tormenting you."

"True enough. What are you doing here?" she demanded.

"Waiting for my wife."

She made no attempt to hide her impatience. "What do you want?"

"Waiting for my heroic wife," he elaborated, "who stood by the Imperial Advisor's side while he announced Valdania's surrender to the Silerian rebels." The tale had quickly spread throughout the city. Naturally, Ronall had heard it from someone other than his dear wife. "Dare I ask how you convinced Kaynall to do it? Or would a husband find the answer too shocking?"

"Searlon got him to do it," she replied tersely. "By killing Cyrill."

That stunned Ronall into momentary silence.
 

Elelar added, "Right in front of me and Kaynall."

"Three Into one, you're a ruthless woman," he murmured.

"It wasn't my plan, you fool! I had no idea—"

"But you took advantage of the moment, all the same."

She hesitated, as if remembering. "Yes. I did." She whirled on him, angry now. "And why shouldn't I? Cyrill spilled so much Silerian blood, like all the rest of them. What is his blood to me?"

"And my father's blood?"

"Your father?" she said blankly. "He wasn't there."

He downed some more of the fire brandy, so named for its glowing orange-gold color, not to mention its effects. He felt the burn going all the way down, and he welcomed it. "He was killed this afternoon."

He was pleased to see how stunned Elelar looked. "
What?
"

"I gather you hadn't heard."

"Your father was killed?"

"By Silerians on a rampage. Looting, burning, and killing every Valdan in their path."

"What about your mother?" she asked.

"Dead, too, beside her Valdani husband."

Elelar sank to her knees beside her pet Guardian's perpetual fire and whispered, "Dar have mercy."

"The Silerian servants escaped alive," he continued. "Except for the one that tried to protect my mother. He's dead. Two of the servants who survived came here to tell me what had happened and to ask my help in getting out of Shaljir before things get worse."

"I'll deal with it," she said absently.

"Damn you, woman!" How useless did she think he was? "I already did!"

"Oh." She seemed not to notice his flare of temper. "Good."

"You heard nothing about this?" he demanded.

"I heard there'd been violence, some attacks on Valdani civilians, a few people killed..." She shook her head. "That's all. I was busy all day..."

"Celebrating?" he snarled.

"Working. With the Alliance. We must consider... consider how to govern ourselves..." Her voice faltered.

"After you're done killing all the remaining Valdani in Sileria, you mean?"

"No!" She spoke sharply. "I had nothing to do with this!"

"Didn't you?"

"
No.
The Alliance has never condoned—"

"They massacred my parents!"

"An angry mob, Ronall! Not—"

"My mother, Elelar! Silerians slaughtered my helpless mother like some—"

"And how many of their mothers do you suppose the Valdani killed?" she asked furiously. "Ask Tansen, sometime, how his whole family died. His whole village! Ask Faradar how her parents d—"

"I hope you're happy with the new nation you've brought into this world! Angry mobs and bloodthirsty killers—"

"That is not the nation I helped free," she insisted. "It's just an enraged crowd who knew the Outlookers meant to sacrifice them, perhaps even kill them, if the city was besieged! A furious and resentful people suddenly free of restraint and—"

"Dar help me, you're defending them!"

"No!" She sat back on her heels and made an obvious effort to cool her temper. "I'm not defending them. I'm... trying to understand them."

"So you can be
understanding
about what they did to my parents?" he snarled.

Elelar met his gaze. "So I can understand how to stop them."

That surprised him. "Do you really intend to?"

"Of course. Enough incidents like this, and the Emperor might ignore the treaty and send—"

"I see. Angry mobs attacking Valdani civilians could jeopardize Sileria's independence."

She had the decency to look a little shamefaced. "I'm very sorry about your parents, Ronall."

"Why?" He changed tactics. "You never cared about them."

"I'm sorry for anyone who dies the way they did."

"Even Cyrill?"

She was silent.

Ronall prodded, "They're all just... Valdani to you, aren't they?"

"They
are
Val... were Valdani. What else—"

"My father tried to save your life when you were in prison," he reminded her. "He petitioned the Imperial Council—"

"Only because I was your wife."

"My father cared about Silerians, Elelar," he insisted. "He married one."

Her dark eyes were remarkably cold now. "Yet he opposed independence, and he supported a government whose laws didn't even nominally protect Silerians from rape, theft, assault, torture, or murder when the crime was committed by a Valdan."

"So you're glad he's dead."

"I'm not that glad a Silerian mob killed him."

"And my mother?" he prodded.

She looked away.

"Answer me, Elelar."

She finally said, "Your mother was what I pretended, for so long, to be. And I hated what I pretended to be."

The brandy burned his belly and made his head reel. "So you hated them both."

"Why do you want to talk about this now?"

"Call me whimsical," he said.

"You're drunk, as always."

"If you knew for certain that the Emperor wouldn't change his mind, the people of Valda wouldn't clamor for reprisals, some imperial army wouldn't swoop down on us... You wouldn't care if the people slaughtered every last Valdan in Sileria, would you?"

"I refuse to argue with you." Elelar rose and started to leave.

Rage burned inside him. It blocked out the sorrow and fed on the liquor. He surged unsteadily to his feet and stopped her departure. "And if they killed me... Me, most of all... That would send you dancing into the streets, wouldn't it?"

Rage. Hot and sweet. So much better than pain.

"Get out of my way," Elelar ordered.

The rage bubbled over like lava erupting from Darshon. He grabbed his wife, feeling the way her soft flesh gave beneath his cruelly squeezing fingers. "Answer me!"

"Let go of me!" She struggled to escape him

Ronall shook her. Shook her
hard.
Whether he meant to shake the truth from her or to punish her for wounding him, he didn't know. He only knew that he, the husband sworn to cherish and protect this delicate female,
enjoyed
the way she flopped helplessly in his grip as he shouted into her face, "You would love it if they killed everyone with Valdani blood, wouldn't you?"

"Stop it!" 
      
"You'll only be happy when they finally kill me, too!"

Desperate to be free, she aimed a blow at his groin. He twisted just in time to avoid it, then let go of her shoulders so he could take a furious swing at her. His fist connected with her face, and she went reeling backwards and fell on the floor.
 

Shock and shame flooded his veins. Liquor clouded his mind and made his balance unsteady. Rage and fear made his heart pound so loudly it deafened him. Yet above the roar of his own blood, he could hear her words clearly.

"Yes," she hissed. "I pray to Dar every night that you'll die. If the mob kills you, I'll throw open the doors of the house and offer a reward!"

Tears of sorrow, guilt, and fury misted his vision. He saw the blood gushing from her nose now. Saw what he had done to the only woman he had ever loved, the woman he had made hate him with such venomous loathing.

"Elelar..." Ronall heard the whine in his own voice and hated it. He took an unsteady step forward, alternately hoping for her forgiveness and damning her for not wanting his.

"Get away from me." She sounded like a growling dog. "If you ever touch me again, if you ever come near me again, I swear I'll go out into the street and
beg
the mob to come here and kill you!"

"Don't—"

"Get out of my house!" she screamed, flinching away from the hand he extended without thinking. "
Get out! Get out! Get out!"

He stumbled out of the room, pursued by her hate-filled voice. When he found himself outside, he didn't even remember how he'd left the house. Her vicious screams still rang in his ears.

The stables, he thought blearily. He could go farther if he had a horse. He could go
very
far away from his wife on a horse.

Get out! Get out! Get out
!

Ronall wasn't sure how he found his way to the stables, staggering drunk and blinded by the dark. Habit, he supposed. Good thing no one had moved the stables.

He shook awake a sleeping groom and ordered a horse to be saddled. Elelar's favorite horse, he decided. Yes, that was the one he'd take with him, away from his wife, far away, so far away she'd never see it again.

Luckily, it was a patient gelding, because it took him a few tries before he awkwardly hauled himself into the saddle.

"
Toren
," the groom ventured hesitantly. "May I ask where you're going? In case the
torena
inquires?"

Get out! Get out! Get out!

He thought it over for a moment, hoping for something crushingly witty to come to him. The best he could manage, though, was, "Tell the
torena
that I am going to embrace the mob."

"But—"

He kicked the horse and clung to its back, out of habit, as it trotted out of the stable yard and into the dark streets of Shaljir, where surely someone would oblige Elelar by killing him.

Tansen stood in the rain, staring down at Armian's corpse. After a moment, he sank to his knees.

"Forgive me, father," he whispered.

The night rained down upon him in dark condemnation for what he had done. Dar would punish him terribly for this, he knew. How could She not?

He picked up Armian's
shir—
which was his own now, by right of victorious combat... It came into his hand as if awaiting his touch, as if it knew it belonged to him now. Its previously unbearable cold fire was now a soothing coolness, and it seemed to extend its strange ensorcelled power to him, making him stronger, faster, deadlier...