“I have.”
He did not sigh or complain. His voice did not change in the least.
“And you have come to kill me?”
“I have.”
A sigh now. “Good.” She said nothing but the man began to speak. “She was born blue, that girl. Took her mother as she came. She didn’t speak a word until twenty years had come and gone. And then, Drow. She’d seen one in town. Became obsessed. Learned to read to learn about them.” He stood and moved to a chest of drawers, pulling open a large one. “Took to calling me Tramman, asking after Drow things. I built this for her. All of it.” He pulled a large sack from the drawer and turned toward Aile. “This is all you had. I’d have used it to take more of them. To build this Kingdom for her.” He threw it at Aile’s feet and returned to the oil lamp. “Thank you.”
He tipped the lamp from the counter and it shattered at his feet, spilling flame across the floor. Aile hurriedly snatched the bag up, feeling the heft of the gold in it. It was more than her own. Bag in hand, she looked back up at the man, flames moving up his clothes. He made no sound as the skin on his neck began to melt and drip, only stared at her with empty eyes.
She left the house, flames hurrying through the work of destroying everything within it. There must have been horses, at least a few. None so useful as the one they took from her, but anything that moved her away from that wretched field would be good enough.
Part Sixteen S
Z
Socair
Rún had made her presence in the Bastion felt immediately, insisting on quarters. Meirge showed his annoyance with her and each of the demands she made of his guard members. There was a seemingly unending of complaints from her about every piece of security that had been put into place, the bulk of them argued on Socair’s behalf. She drilled angry words into his ears even now, when he had come to her room to apprise her of the preparations for the day’s ceremony.
“She is the Goddess of Glassruth! What do you imagine will happen to her? I have seen her kill a dozen of those disgusting horsefolk without so much as sweating. And did she not save this entire realm from Crosta’s treachery? I heard of it. You’re being unreasonable. She is miserable here. Though she would never tell you, so it falls to me.”
Meirge rubbed his temples, exhausted. “If you would mind your flapping gums for half a minute, you’d have heard that Socair will be free to move as she likes as soon as the words are said. I will not let your prattle stir me from my duties, Rún. Now, would you be kind enough to let me say what I have come to say?”
Rún looked at Socair who smiled awkwardly. Rún sighed and left, sitting herself in a chair under a window, looking out at the sky. Práta was at Socair’s side and kept quiet, though Socair could imagine she had many things to say.
Meirge continued. “The hippocamps have moved back to Glascroí. They hold there for now.”
Socair nodded. “I doubt they will make it a permanent home. They could not abide it. If it were a proper retreat, it would be full. They regroup in the south.”
“To make for Innecarnán again?”
“It is possible, but I have my doubts. If they acted as they had before, I would expect it, but even their retreat from the crossroads as it stands is strange by those standards. I would guess they mean to make for Ciúnasmaidin.”
“Trouble if you are wrong.”
Socair sighed. “Any decision would be. They mean to kill us all. What of the recalled soldiery from the northern cities?”
“Deployed across the Rith.”
“Split them as best we can. More to Ciúnasmaidin, less to Innecarnán. But keep some back.” She leaned back on the plush couch, finding it hard to make herself comfortable.
Meirge made notes of her orders and when he was done looked at her. “There are only a few hours left.”
“Please… I would rather think of it as little as I can.”
He laughed and stood. “The entire yard is filled. They chant your name.”
Socair groaned at the thought of it. “Enough. Please.”
The door closed behind Meirge and Socair was left in a quiet room. There was little she could do to keep the coming ceremony from her mind. With Rún’s coming to the Bastion, Meirge had finally decided that she ought to know the state of things fully. There had been four official petitions to have her appointment to Treorai thrown out. Two came from other Binse members and the other two each came from Ataim. When the first had been declined, he immediately filed another. Meirge had brought her a copy of the second. It was an insane document, rambling about how she had likely killed the Treorai herself after tricking her. She had been accused of leaving, in his words, “a slug-trail of her cunt’s fetid slime across Deifir’s heart.” Práta had suggested that the imagery was actually rather beautiful in a way, but she had not found agreement from any of the others in the room. She cursed them for tactless and dismissed herself to the privy in a huff.
Rún had offered a torrent of advice from the moment the guards gave up trying to drag her off. She kept to Socair’s quarters, leaving to sleep, but appearing again at sun up. Práta seemed put off by her presence and kept mostly to herself. She had complained before they slept that Rún had essentially invited herself through and could not be trusted. Socair failed to see it that way, but the words seemed to do little to dissuade Práta. They clashed hourly it seemed.
