She shook her head slowly. «No more. Not ever again.»
She held the other's gaze for a moment longer, then turned and walked from the room. Unimpressed, Shadea watched her go. She thought it unfortunate that Iridia could no longer sort things out in a reasonable manner. Her attachment to Ahren Elessedil had left her emotionally unstable, and Shadea found herself hoping that the Elven Prince had gone the way of the Galaphile. Then, perhaps, Iridia would come back to herself.
Shadea looked over at Traunt Rowan. «Are you of a like mind?»
The Druid shrugged. «I am no one's tool, and I do what I choose. Iridia's problems are her own. On the other hand, I question the wisdom of your decision to send Terek Molt after that boy. I don't see the benefit to it. It distracts us from what matters.»
«What matters is making certain no one finds a way to bring the Ard Rhys back!» she snapped at him. «Why can't you see that? All of you are so certain it can't be done. But remember who she is. Others thought her dead and gone, as well, and lived to regret it.»
«No one can go into the Forbidding—'
«Hssst! Don't even speak the word!» She leaned close. «It is bad enough that Ahren Elessedil and the boy know what has happened, and it would be a mistake for us to think that they do not. They will seek a way to reach her. Successful or not, they will not forgive us for what we have done. This matter will not resolve itself while they live. If you think otherwise, say so now!»
He stared at her in silence, then shook his head. «I think as you do.»
Shadea wasn't sure she believed him, but it was enough of an affirmation for now. She looked back at the scrye waters. Another message would arrive by tomorrow if Terek Molt was still alive. If not, then she could only hope that he had taken the boy, the Elven Prince, and that sycophant
Tagwen with him to the grave. Then she could stop thinking about all of them and concentrate on what was happening at Paranor.
It occurred to her suddenly that she had forgotten about Aphasia Wye, dispatched with the Stiehl, as Iridia had reminded her, to eliminate the boy and his protectors. What of him? Even if the Galaphile was destroyed, even if Terek Molt was dead, perhaps the assassin was still carrying through on his task. Nothing would stop him once he set his mind to it. The only character flaw she had ever discovered was his troublesome streak of independence. On a whim, he might abandon the whole project.
She stared down again at the scrye waters, studying the diminishing series of ripples that marked the passing of the Galaphile.
With Aphasia Wye, she thought, you never knew.
* * *
Iridia Eleri strode blindly from the cold chamber and down the hallway beyond, so furious she could barely make herself think.
Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes, a series of ragged, glistening tracks on her perfect features. Had she stayed a moment longer, she would not have been able to hold them back. She stopped now, turning into a deep alcove in the empty hallway, and cried freely for several minutes, her body racked with sobs, her world collapsed about her. She knew what Shadea only suspected. Ahren Elessedil was dead. The voice had told her so.
When she stopped crying, she stood motionless in the alcove's darkness and forced herself to confront the truth. She had lied to herself, lied to them all. She was still in love with Ahren. She had always been in love with him and always would be. Shadea might sneer and the others might doubt, but it was so. It didn't even matter that he was dead. She loved him anyway.
What she could not bear was that he had not loved her, in turn.
She stared into space, the words echoing in her mind. The voice had promised that this would change, that with time and patience, he would. The voice had promised from the very beginning, when it had first summoned her and offered its help. The voice was persuasive and comforting, and so she had listened and believed. Ahren could be hers, and for that she would do anything.
And had.
She closed her eyes against a wave of memories that paraded through her mind like specters. A flood of emotion followed on their heels. The sadness she felt for the man she had left in order to pursue Ahren. The emptiness she had experienced when she had given birth to and then abandoned the man's baby. The humiliation she had endured when Grianne Ohmsford had discovered what she had done. The terrible hurt she had suffered when Ahren had told her that in spite of everything, they could not be together, that his life was meant to go another way. The rage she had called upon to ally herself with Shadea and the others in their determination to rid the Druids of Grianne Ohmsford. The hatred she had nurtured for the Ard Rhys, the person most responsible for her misery.
The sense of devastation and irreparable loss she felt now, with Ahren Elessedil forever beyond her reach.
— But it need not be so–Her eyes snapped open and she took a quick breath. The voice was back, come to comfort her anew. She nearly began crying again, so grateful was she to hear it. How much she depended on it. Just the sound of it was enough to give her fresh hope, new strength.
— He can still be yours–She nodded at the darkness, wanting it to be true. But how could it? Ahren was dead, the voice had already told her so. There was no way to bring him back, no way to restore life to his shattered body. She could join him, of course. She could end her own life and reunite with him in death. She believed that was possible and even preferable to what life offered without him. Maybe she would have that, anyway. Now that she had broken with Shadea, it would not take the other long to decide to eliminate her.
— You need not die to have him back–She had always trusted the voice, and she had never had cause to regret it. From the beginning, when it had summoned her north to the ruins of the Skull Kingdom and she had built the fires and made the sacrifices that had brought it into being, she had known it spoke the truth. It was a small thing for her to help it, when it was doing so much to help her. Shadea had believed from the first that she was the guiding force behind the conspiracy to eliminate the Ard Rhys, that she was the one who had sought out and found the means to carry out the act through her connection with Sen Dunsidan. The Federation Prime Minister, in turn, believed that he was the one who was determining the course of events, that his promises and gifts to Iridia, after she had approached him, had subverted her and made her his spy within the Druid camp. But she was the one to whom the voice spoke. She was the one who had brought it out of the darkness and into the light. She was the one to whom it had given the liquid night and the means by which she could gain some small measure of revenge against the woman who had turned Ahren Elessedil against her through scurrilous subterfuge and self– serving advice.
The others could think what they wished. She was the one who had made everything possible.
— I am here, Iridia–She felt a surge of expectation and joy. She had waited for it, longed for it, the time when the voice took form, as it had promised it would, to give her back her place in the world. It would happen after the exile of the Ard Rhys, it had told her. Once the High Druid was gone, the voice could come out of hiding. It could take form and become for Iridia the friend and confidant she had once thought Shadea might be.
— I can be more than that, Iridia. I can be him–Not quite willing to believe that she had heard the words correctly, she felt her heart lurch. She stood frozen in the darkness of the alcove, listening to their echo in the silence. I can be him. Was that possible? The voice was a chameleon, a changeling, capable of wondrous things. But could it bring back the dead? Could it make Ahren Elessedil whole again? Was the voice capable of that?
— Walk to me. In the cellars–She left the alcove at once and proceeded to the main staircase, descending in a rush, her footfalls tiny and lost in the cavernous passage. No other Druid was abroad; most were gathered in the dining hall, the rest in their rooms or libraries. It felt to her as if she were alone in the world, free of its constraints and discriminations. She had never been well liked, never a part of anything, always alone. It was because of her childhood, where she had been set apart by her skills and the mistrust of those who recognized them. Even her parents had looked on her with growing suspicion and doubt, distancing themselves and their other children, sending her away early to study with an old woman who was said to understand such magic. The old woman did not, but living with her gave Iridia space and time to grow as she wished, to hone her talents, to gain a better understanding of what they offered. She needed no mentor to help her with this. She needed only herself.
Ten years she lived with the old woman, a crone of demands and false promises that would have eroded a less determined student. But Iridia only smiled and agreed and acquiesced to all, pretending obedience and waiting
