toes as he dodged around the furniture of a living room to which he wasn't yet accustomed. Then he snatched the door open and found her standing in the hallway, trembling.
He didn't speak. He simply opened his arms, and she fell into them, weeping. He held her close, rocked her gently, then guided her into the living room. He drew her down beside him on the divan in a pool of moonlight, and she huddled against him while she sobbed.
He surrounded her with his arms, with his love, with the caress of his Voice and the bond between them.
There were no words, for there was no need for words. There were only the two of them, clinging to one another in the midst of their grief, and that was enough.
'Reports are still coming in from Traisum,' she whispered finally. 'Chan Geraith's first report of the battle was relayed while he was still eleven hours out from Salbyton. He's sent three more since then.
It's … horrible.'
She relayed the images Kaliya chan Darma and Lisar chan Korthal had transmitted up the Voicenet.
Images of Fort Salby, still smoking, with a huge, monstrous winged creature draped over one tower.
Images of men burned into twisted charcoal, or lying like tattered scarecrows where lightning had left them. Bits and pieces of the bodies of Sharonian soldiers, and strewn among their mangled bodies the tumbled carcasses of the unnatural fusion of lion and eagle which had killed them. More bodies, breaches in a wall of adobe and stone, things which looked like horses, but obviously weren't, shattered platforms filled with the broken bodies of Arcanan soldiers, gun pits, row after row of bodies laid out in canvas shrouds … .
They went on and on, a catalog of destruction and desecration, and Darcel Kinlafia fought the surge of acid trying to come up out of his belly. His arms tightened around Alazon, and he held her while she shared the horror with him.
The images ended at last, and he kissed her hair, murmuring wordlessly to her. He never knew how long they sat there, just being there for each other, clinging to their love like some last, unshakable rock of sanity in the midst of a multiverse gone mad.
'How are they holding up?' he asked finally.
'Andrin is sedated now, too,' Alazon said. 'She didn't want to take it, but His Majesty insisted. She wanted to stay with Razial and Anbessa, but she has to rest-really rest.'
Kinlafia nodded, his jaw tightening once more.
'The Empress is in deep emotional shock,' Alazon continued. 'She knew the danger was there, but somehow it seemed so remote, especially when Janaki was ordered home with the Arcanan prisoners.
But I think … I think she'd guessed what's been worrying His Majesty and Andrin. She just didn't want to admit it to herself. He's her only son, Darcel, and-'
Her voice caught raggedly, and she shook herself.
'I already told you Razial had been sedated, but she's awake again. And Anbessa is finally realizing what's happened, I think. Both of them were clinging to their mother when I left the imperial apartments.
And Zindel-'
Her voice broke off again.
'What about him?' Kinlafia pressed gently, and she inhaled deeply.
'I've never seen His Majesty like this. He can barely speak above a rasping whisper. It's more than just losing his only son. He feels responsible for the massacres, for failing to move quickly enough and get reinforcements forward soon enough.'
'That's ridiculous!' Kinlafia snapped in hot defense. 'I've worked that transit chain, Alazon. Nobody could have moved in troops or material any faster-nobody! He isn't a god, to wave one hand and magically transport a division!'
'I know all that, Darcel. And he knows that, too. But he's a Calirath. He feels responsible for the deaths, for the undermanned forts. And he's not the only one.' Alazon shivered. 'Orem Limana is nearly suicidal with remorse. He feels like he's betrayed them, all of them-soldiers and civilians-by trying to build new forts before he had troops in place to adequately man them. Before he had artillery in place to defend their walls.'
'He's not a soldier,' Kinlafia protested. 'It's not his job to think like one. Besides, no one ever intended those portal forts to stand up to anything more dangerous than a few bands of brigands! There's never been anything more dangerous than a few bands of brigands-until now!'
'I know that, too.' She nodded. 'And the Emperor knows that. When Yaf Umani Spoke to me from Exploration Hall, he Said His Majesty's ordered two of the PA's Distance Viewers to watch the First Director twenty-four hours a day until this emotional shock passes. The Emperor has ordered Orem not to suicide.'
That shocked Kinlafia. Orem Limana was one of the strongest men he'd ever known. If he was that shaken, then … .
'What about the First Councilor's contacts with the other delegations?' he asked.
'It's going to be ugly,' Alazon told him. 'The Emperor was right about that, too. Isseth's requested an emergency meeting of the Conclave later this morning.'
'Isseth?' Kinlafia repeated incredulously.
'Everyone knows perfectly well that Chava is really behind it,' she said. 'No one's going to admit it, though.'
'And the Coronation?'
'That's been postponed,' she said bitterly. 'This 'spontaneous' request for a Conclave session supersedes it, under the circumstances.'
'That's just wonderful.'
'Actually,' she said unwillingly, 'it was inevitabe. If Isseth hadn't requested it, we probably would have had to do it ourselves, under the circumstances. Not that Isseth-or Chava-did it to do us any favors!'
Fresh anger swirled about deep inside Darcel Kinlafia, but he made himself step back from it. He remembered what Janaki had told him about the deadliness of hatred, yet that wasn't what let him step away from the demons of his inner fury. No, it was the woman in his arms. The lifeline he clung to. And as he did, he felt her clinging to him, in turn. Their strength flowed together, melding, merging into something greater than the sum of its parts, and he turned her tear-soaked face up to his and kissed it gently.
'All right,' he said softly. 'His Majesty was right about Andrin needing to rest. Well, so do we. Come with me.'
He stood, then scooped her up in his arms and carried her through the moonlight towards his bedroom door. She looked up at him, and he smiled crookedly.
'I said 'rest,' love,' he Told her, 'and I meant rest. There'll be time for other things later.'
'I didn't realize you were so chivalrous,' her Voice murmured in the back of his mind. 'Refusing to take advantage of a maiden's grief.'
He laughed softly, despite their grief, despite their loss, and kissed her once again.
'Chivalrous isn't exactly a word I'd apply to myself, love. Let's try … patient, instead.'
'I prefer chivalrous,' she Told him. 'And in this case, I think I may just know you better than you know yourself.'
'Maybe. But either way, woman,' he turned back the light spread at one side of the enormous bed and tucked her under it, 'you need rest. And so do I. So-' he bent over to kiss her once again, very gently '
– go to sleep.'
Chapter Thirty-Five
The tension in the Emperor Garim Chancellery could have been used to chip flint as Darcel Kinlafia settled into the place in the gallery to which his candidacy for the House of Talents entitled him.
The sunlight streaming in through the windows framed in the black-and-white banners of mourning revealed a very different set of faces from the ones he'd seen there just the day before. The vast majority of naysayers and fence-sitters had disappeared. Today's faces were shaken, sick … and enraged.
Zindel chan Calirath, who should have been at the Temple of Saint Taiy, preparing for his coronation, sat like a statue of Ternathian granite. The black mourning band around his right arm was matched by the bands around
