your subsequent actions forced me to guide my land toward a war I never asked for. That would be the only reason we wouldn’t have rendered aid to Syloreas given what’s happening, at least after my scout saw with his own eyes what we faced.”
“You seem to like the idea of fragmentation in the land of Luukessia as a whole,” Cyrus said. “But I note you don’t seem quite so fond of it when it happens in your own Kingdom.”
“No man enjoys having his own house thrown into chaos,” Tiernan said, his back to Cyrus while he hefted the water pitcher and poured it into his cup. “Make no mistake, Hoygraf has enough power to throw my house into a good deal of chaos.”
“You’re very frank about that,” Cyrus said. “I would have expected you’d do more to hide it, given your reputation for maneuvering and canniness. There doesn’t seem to be much advantage to be gained from telling me you’ve elevated a man to Grand Duke who is poised to tear your Kingdom apart should he so desire.”
Tiernan didn’t stiffen, not exactly, though his expression was masked from Cyrus, with his back turned as it was. The King took another sip of water without turning, and the warrior wondered if perhaps it was because Tiernan was taking the time to compose his reply. “There is little advantage in lying about the troubled state of my Kingdom to an outsider.” Tiernan pivoted and gave Cyrus a twisted smile. “Let us not be coy; you were my sister’s lover not so very long ago. I might not speak as freely with a complete stranger, but if she did not tell you at least a majority of the things I’ve ‘admitted’ to you in the last moments, I’ll eat my own horse for dinner.”
“She did tell me quite a bit about the goings-on of Actaluere,” Cyrus said, arms still folded. “But I assumed that it was from the perspective of the Baroness Hoygraf, not the … whatever her title was … Tiernan.”
“Her primary title would be ‘Princess,’” Tiernan said with a nod and a pained expression.
“Sounds oddly condescending,” Cyrus replied. “So your Kingdom is in trouble, what of it? Why are we discussing this?”
“We’re discussing it,” Tiernan said with a slightly raised eyebrow, “because you began with an admission that you intended my Kingdom no harm, and I responded by offering a similar statement which we then proceeded to descend into until we reached the current point of conversation.” He took a sip of the water, lightly, almost daintily, then pulled it away from his lips with a flourish. “I assumed that like my conversations with Unger, you preferred to remove all the guile from the subtext by throwing everything onto the table first, so that then we could proceed with our talk unfettered by the political silliness which I, incidentally, excel at.”
“Putting aside your strengths in a conversation with me doesn’t seem to be to your greatest advantage, either,” Cyrus said.
“It’s a strength; it’s hardly the only one I possess,” Tiernan said. “Speaking in circles around men like you and Unger nets me little when it’s only the two of us; you may discern what I’m going about but it profits me nothing when I’m merely trying to make a point.”
“What is your point?” Cyrus asked, not feeling half as overwhelmed as he thought he should given the waves of admissions and dizzying maneuvers that seemed already to have been employed.
“I’ve yet to approach it,” Tiernan said. “But here, let me say it without mincing the words-leave my sister be.”
Cyrus didn’t respond, not for a long, silent minute. “I have no more intention toward your sister.”
“Oh?” Tiernan stared him down, a smoky-eyed gaze. “You swore you’d protect her, go to war for her, but now you’re content to leave her to the hands of her loving husband?”
Cyrus felt a tightness all over his face. “Doesn’t it make it easier for you if that’s the case?”
Tiernan stared back at him. “As the King of Actaluere, yes.”
“And as her brother?”
Tiernan’s face twisted, his eyes narrower, little specks of green visible between the eyelids. “I don’t have the luxury of being her brother right now. I’m trying to keep a Kingdom from a bloody civil war at the hands of a sadistic madman while laboring to help save Luukessia from something we’ve never seen before.”
“I have no intention of making your job any harder as King,” Cyrus said. “She made her choice, for her own reasons. She went back to him, and this after lying to me about who she was and doing everything in her power to insult and provoke him.” He shrugged, dismissing the rumbling within him that wanted to argue. “I’ve done all I can for her at this point. My responsibility lies with helping to destroy this scourge that afflicts your land.”
“And after that?” Tiernan asked.
Cyrus laughed. “After that …” He let his words fade. “I suppose it’ll be time for me to go home, won’t it?”
“As the King of Actaluere, I would find great relief if you did.” Tiernan set aside the cup, and started toward the flap of the tent. “After all, there’s nothing so dangerous to a land that thrives on having a balance of power as something that could upset that balance, say, an army with more ability than anyone else’s. So, as King, I would heartily support your leaving after you finish your duty here.”
Cyrus shook his head in deep amusement. “To the hells with what you’d want as King. What you’re not saying is at least ten feet deeper than any of the shallow platitudes you’re throwing at me about what you’d desire and support as King. You want me to rescue her before I leave, don’t you?”
Tiernan held still, his body facing away from Cyrus, but he slowly pivoted on a foot, his cloak swaying at his feet. “As the King, you know I could never ask such a thing.”
“Well, all I’m looking at right now is a King and not much else,” Cyrus said. “Not much of a man, that’s for certain-”
“Easy to say without the responsibility,” Tiernan said. “I hear that when I walk among the people in Caenalys, sometimes, when I don a cowl and go out to hear what word on the street is. ‘If I were King, I’d …’ followed by a suggestion of such gut-wrenching stupidity that it would annihilate my entire Kingdom with more certainty than disbanding the army and sending written invitations to Galbadien and Syloreas to come visit and bring all their soldiers.” Tiernan took slow, striding steps toward Cyrus, his every word filled with emotion that Cyrus hadn’t caught even a hint of in any of the meetings he’d been in with Tiernan. “To be a statesman is to do what is best for the land you rule and to do that first. Family comes second, and your own concerns come later, if at all. So I’m quite content if I’ve measured up in the first way, and forgive me if I give less than a damn how much of a man or a brother I look like to you.”
“You sold your sister in marriage to a monster who whips her, naked, in front of crowds,” Cyrus said with barely controlled disgust. “Better hold to that Kingly air you’re sporting as tightly as you can. Did you know what he was when you gave her to him? Did you know what kind of man he was when you elevated him to Grand Duke?”
“I knew what kind of power he held when I did all those things,” Tiernan said with little other reaction. “I knew what my Kingdom’s peril was when I did it. I knew what the danger was if I didn’t hand her off or elevate him for his service. And by service I mean his stupidity in becoming entangled with an army from the west.” Tiernan spun, keeping his face away from Cyrus again. “I knew what I did as a King and I ask for no forgiveness. I made hard choices that others might not have. You may believe that or not. What I ask is that if you are going to leave these shores, take my sister with you so that she might have the opportunity to escape the horror of Hoygraf’s charms.”
“And thus allow you to salve the conscience of the brother so the King may continue to happily rule without one of his own.” Cyrus shook his head, the disgust welling up within him. “It must take courage indeed to ask a stranger to make right by his own risk what you refuse to make right with yours.”
“One life or a million,” Tiernan said quietly. “I rule a million, and I gave over one to smoothe the passage of all of them. Find me another man who would not make the same choice in the same situation, and I’ll show you a better man than I, one who perhaps enjoys a quieter mind and less concern for the far-reaching consequences of his acts.”
“It’s funny how a man can have such a long vision, to be so farsighted as to see all the problems of his land,” Cyrus said, “but shortsighted enough to miss the ones that happen in his own house. I believe that could be called a form of blindness-or perhaps uncaring.”
This time, Tiernan bristled. “I will see you at the battle and likely not before then. When we speak again, as surely we shall over the course of these events, I shall not make mention of this.” Tiernan reached for the flap of the tent.
