“No,” said Derwyn, “that cannot be true.”
“I have tried to make up for my past mistakes,” she cried. “I have no other wish now than to be a wife and a mother, but no child quickens in my womb! Each day, I go to temple and pray to be forgiven, to be deemed worthy of you, to be blessed with your son, but my prayers remain unanswered, for I have been wicked! Oh, how you must hate me!
I wish I could die!”
Derwyn took her in his arms. “Hush, now, don’t say such things. We must not tempt the gods.”
“Send me away, Derwyn. Send me away to Ice Haven, where I may spend the remainder of my days atoning for my sins and trouble you no more!
It is no less than I deserve!”
Inwardly, she held her breath. She thought the moment right, but if she had misjudged things, there was every possibility he would do just that.
“No, Laera,” he said. “It is not you who must ask forgiveness. It is I. When I first brought you here, I was cold to you, filled with resentment. I thought to use you as nothing more than a means to an end, so it was I who acted selfishly. You were bitter because you had been hurt by Dosiere-yes, I know about that, too-and it was your anger and your bitterness that led you to do the things you did. Yet all that is in the past. You have been a good and faithful wife. I thought I could not trust you, but now I know I was wrong. You’ve changed, Laera.
You’ve done everything I asked of you and more. From now on, things will be different. I promise, you will see. If the gods mean for our union to be fruitless, so be it. But I will not send you away. I could never do that now. I love YOU.”
She looked at him, eyes wide with feigned disbelief, as if she had just heard the words she had always longed to hear, while inwardly, she laughed with scornful victory. The change had come. The tables were reversed. Now she was in control.
“Oh, Derwyn!” she said breathily. “I love you, too!”
A month later, she was pregnant, and the midwife decreed the child would be a son.
Almost four years had passed since the War of Rebellion, and the empire was united and stronger under Michael’s rule than it had ever been before.
For the most part, the nation was at peace, but there was still work for the Army of Anuire. Peace had to be maintained with strength, and there was never any shortage of those who would not hesitate to test that doctrine.
The ogre tribes in the Seamist Mountains had grown stronger while the war had occupied the humans, and periodically the emperor launched campaigns to assist the forces of Taeghas and Brosengae in holding them at bay. To the north of the Heartland territories, tribes of goblins and gnolls who made their headquarters in the Stonecrown Mountains continued raiding farms and villages in Mhoried and herdsmen in the southern part of Markazor, where the empire was attempting to expand its frontiers. Coeranys was subject to periodic raids from demihumans in the Chimaeron, and attacks from Khinasi pirates who plied the coast during the spring and summer seasons.
Rhuobhe Manslayer still remained a strong force to be reckoned with in the Western Marches, and his mountainous, heavily forested domain made a campaign to flush him out virtually impossible. During the eight years that the war progressed, he had taken advantage of the conflict to expand his domain into the forests of Boeruine, and he had pushed his eastern boundaries into the foothills of western Alamie, sweeping down into the valleys with his renegade elves to loot and pillage extensively. At best, the empire could do little more than pursue a strategy of containment by establishing strong garrisons along the western borders of western Alamie. The Five Peaks remained a lawless region, necessitating the establishment of outposts along the northern borders of Alamie to keep the bandits from raiding at their pleasure. And there still remained the punitive expedition into Thurazor, which Michael had been forced to put off time and again because his attention had been required elsewhere.
The outer reaches of Cerilia also occupied much of the emperor’s attention. His dream was to expand the boundaries of the empire to encompass the wild territories to the far north, such as Rjuvik, Svinik, Halskapa, jankaping, and Hogunmark, bringing the Vos tribes back into the fold. Ever since the Battle of Mount Deismaar, the Vos had been a law unto themselves, and Michael wanted to reclaim those territories and restore the empire to the glory of the days before the passing of the old gods. With the Vos territories under his control, he would then be able to mount campaigns from the far northern lands against the territories ruled by the goblin princes and the awnsheghlien, such as the Realm of the White Witch, Urga-Zai, the Giantdowns and, most challenging and dangerous of all, the Gorgon’s Crown, the foreboding domain of Prince Raesene.
Beyond that, there were the territories of the Far East, made almost inaccessible by land because to reach them an army would have to pass through Chimaeron. It was the only practicable route to reach the Tarvan Waste and the lands of the Black Spear Tribes, the forests of Rheulgard, Rhuannach, and Innishiere, as well as the Northeastern Territories such as Kal Kalathor, Drachenward, Wolfgaard, Molochev, and the awnsheghlien domains of the
Raven and the Manticore. At one time, before the War of Shadow, which had culminated in the Twilight of
