The eyebrows did not drop, but the face beneath them sobered. “You’re not-”
“Prince Dariel Akaran. Hello, Lethel. I know, I’ve gone a bit native. Tattoos and such. And this-” He gestured at the rune on his forehead. “You would need to have been there to understand. I’m pleased to learn that you weren’t on Sire Fen’s warship when I dropped a pill in it. Or on the platforms when I blew them up. Or in the soul catcher when I destroyed that. Or on that soul vessel that I set alight down near Sumerled. Why does that please me? Because you’re still alive to be killed. I may be afloat in Ushen Brae, but, Lethel”-Dariel bent a little closer; the Ishtat bristled in response-“I still loathe the league. More now than ever.”
For the first time, Lethel’s face went blank. No readable emotion on it. Neither mirth nor arrogance, nor anything like fear. He said, “I could have my crossbowmen kill you right here and now.”
“You probably could,” Dariel agreed, “but you wouldn’t make it from here alive yourself. You are outnumbered.” He nodded that Lethel should take note of all the people who poured into the courtyard as they spoke. “Your Ishtat tried to mention it to you, but you were distracted.”
His eyes on the prince, Lethel spoke to Mor. “This man is one of you?”
Mor did not hesitate. “Yes.”
“This changes everything.” Lethel looked away from Dariel. His cheek twitched, and it was clearly with some effort that he kept emotion from his face. “This man is an enemy of the league. He’s a war criminal. A brigand. A murderer. Mor, here are the new terms I offer you. You give me Dariel Akaran. That’s it. If you don’t, I’ll bring armies down upon you. You have no-”
“You can’t have Dariel,” Mor said. “He’s one of us.”
“Rhuin Fa!” Tunnel said it first, but others echoed it, both in their group and around the wider circle.
“You’ve disappointed me,” Lethel said, shaking his head. “All of you have, but so be it.” He stood and drew himself up. Chin raised, he pronounced, “You leave me no other choice. On behalf of the league, I declare the inhabitants of Ushen Brae enemies. We will settle this through clash of arms. Will you impede us as we depart?”
After glancing at Dariel, Mor said, “No. Go safely. We’ll kill you later.”
Turning, Lethel said, “You want war? You have it.”
“I’ve never heard sweeter words from a leagueman’s mouth,” Dariel said.
“He makes good talk sometimes,” Tunnel said, watching the group exit. Turning to Dariel, he asked, “Now what? You have a plan, yes?”
D ariel waited until he knew Mor would be away for several hours. She stayed amazingly busy-especially in making their preparations for the league invasion-but she came and went from her chores to check on Skylene so often that he chose his moment carefully. She was crazy with grief. She hid it well, but all who knew her saw it. Skylene was dying, and she was taking Mor’s heart with her.
When she went off to the north of the city to oversee the fortifications being built there, he risked it. He went to her dying lover, hoping he would have enough time to accomplish what he had come to believe he could.
Skylene lay as she had when he had first seen her on his return. Odd that a face already tattooed to sky-blue hue could still look so sickly pale. Or perhaps it was stranger that Dariel no longer saw anything unusual about that color or about a nose altered to resemble an avian beak or about a hairline that included living feathers that sprang right out of her scalp. None of that was strange. It was all Skylene. It was this face that had looked on him with kindness in his first days as a captive here. Skylene, more than anybody, talked him out of ignorance and into a new understanding of the world. She had waked him from childhood and opened his eyes. It was a much gentler maturation than the quota children received, gentler than anyone bearing his family name deserved.
This made it all the more heart wrenching to see how drained she was of life. Her skin sagged into the cavities of her skull, her forehead was slick with perspiration. Even the lids of her closed eyes looked wrong, as if they were too thin and the orbs beneath them too large for the face in which they set. She smelled of death, not just in the festering wound in her chest. The scent seeped from the pores of her skin.
Dariel had closed the door behind him, leaving himself alone with her, and asked her caregivers to allow him some time in solitude with her. Had anyone else been in the room, they would have thought Dariel silent. He wasn’t. It’s just that the one-sided conversation he carried on with himself went on inside him. Can we do this? he asked. I feel that you’re part of me, but I don’t know where I begin or end. I don’t even know why I believe I can do this. That’s why I think it’s you telling me that we can do this. Am I right?
No answer came, but he had not expected it to. Na Gamen was not an active consciousness inside him, not a voice he heard or anything like that. It was more like the life force that had been Na Gamen had been absorbed into Dariel, body and mind and soul. To hear or understand Na Gamen, Dariel needed to listen to himself. The two were one now. And we always will be.
“Skylene,” he said, and then was not sure what to say. “Skylene, I want to help you. Can I?”
She stirred, but only with discomfort and only for a moment. She had not been awake or conscious for several days. If she were awake, he could have asked for her permission for what he proposed. But if she were awake, she would not have been as gravely ill, and if she were awake, she might give him an answer he did not want to hear. After all, she abhorred the trafficking in spirit energy that the Lothan Aklun had mastered. What he intended was a cousin of that, possible only because part of Na Gamen lived inside him. He had more than a single person’s life force inside him. Not much more. His two knife wounds in the gut had depleted him, but Na Gamen’s spirit was strong, ancient. It was thicker than other human souls and not so easily depleted.
The taking of souls was a corruption, the most horrible of crimes. That he believed without doubt. Nothing good could come of the theft of life. Not even the soul vessels justified it. But what about giving life, not taking it? That was not a crime. It was an offering he wanted to make. Na Gamen wanted it, too. If he did not, Dariel would never have known such an offering was even possible.
Skylene would not willingly accept even a sliver of Lothan Aklun life force into herself. “But I’m not talking about giving you any of Na Gamen,” Dariel said. “Only me. You wouldn’t turn that away. You don’t find me so repulsive. I hope not, at least.”
Another thought followed this-that when Mor loved Skylene in the future she would be loving a little bit of him as well. It made him blush. He brushed it aside. This was not about that. It really wasn’t. It was about giving what he could to Skylene. To Mor as well, true enough. But he was giving, not taking.
He lay one hand on Skylene’s hot, moist forehead. He smoothed his fingers back over the plumes of the feathers that were now a part of her hair, and then he set his hand back on her skin. Leaning close, he set his lips just beside hers.
Forgive me, he thought, but I wish you to live. Please live.
He kissed her. With the kiss, he exhaled life out of himself and into her.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
Unlike most of the Auldek, Sabeer did not carry a long sword. No battle-ax or halberd. Nothing massive or hooked or pronged. She stood with empty hands, the two long knives sheathed at her waist her only visible weapons. Slim and long limbed, she wore her body suit with an upright grace that was overtly athletic. When she spotted Calrach’s motionless body, a look of astonishment transformed her sharp features into softer versions of themselves. Ignoring the two Acacians, she walked to the corpse. She knelt and bent close to him, saying his name and then other words in her language. Judging by the cadence of it: a prayer.
“Mena,” Perrin whispered, casting his voice so that the Auldek woman would not hear it, “I’m no coward, but let’s… go? Let’s help the others.”
What a reasonable idea, Mena thought. Why can’t I think of ideas like that? She said, “Perrin, thank you for fighting with me. That was well fought. Remember how we did it. They may ask for you to document the Form someday. You go now; I’ll deal with her. Leave me, and don’t come back. Don’t bring others here.”
“No. Princess…”
“That’s an order! Take the others and flee. Obey me, Perrin.”
Sabeer straightened, rotating to face them as she did so. Sabeer said something. Her tone was casual, like an old friend commenting on the weather.
“But,” Perrin said, “what about-”
