'I don't understand you, Corvis,' she finally told him. 'But I think I understand Tyannon a little better. There really are two different people inside that soul of yours, aren't there?'
'I'm not sure I follow.' Or maybe you're just going somewhere I don't want to follow. Postponing her reply, he waved over one of the barmaids, barked an order for another flagon and more bread and cheese. It was gooey, salty stuff, that last, but after weeks of dried meats, it'd do.
Irrial waited, her face blank, until the woman had come and gone, returned with the order and gone once more. She leaned in, so she might make herself heard over the growing crowd without shouting.
'You so clearly care about Mellorin-about all your family. I know you're worried sick about Seilloah, I saw your concern for our brethren in the Rahariem resistance. I think… I think you even truly care about me, despite the last few months. I know you certainly used to.'
'Well, gods be-'
'I'm not done.'
A pause. 'Sorry.'
'I've seen all that, Corvis. I've seen that you're not just a monster. And I know that you care for the people of Imphallion as a whole-or you think you do, at any rate. You're helping them now, even if you also have personal reasons. You told me once that everything you've done, you did for them, and I think part of you really means that.'
Corvis swirled his mug until it sloshed. 'Um, thank you?'
'And yet,' she said, her tone growing hard once more, 'you have no trouble at all wading to your goal through rivers of blood. Slaughtering families, hanging body parts like bunting.
'Consorting with demons.'
'It wasn't like I wanted to-'
'But you did. It doesn't matter if you wanted to-you were willing to. You know what I think, Corvis?' she asked, gesturing with an empty fork.
'I'm not certain I want to,' he confessed.
'Too bad. I think that you're so disdainful of people as a whole that you forget-that you let yourself forget- that each one is a person. You talk about Imphallion like it was a single entity, because that's how you see it; it's the only way you can give a damn about it. You've added it to your list of 'worthwhile individuals,' and everyone else can hang. I think that you're so focused on those few you care about, it's never even occurred to you that everyone else is just like them. I think you're so wounded, inside, that you only have so much sympathy, and the more people you're dealing with, the thinner that sympathy is spread.
'You care about people, yes. Deeply, passionately. But only some people-because nobody else is a person to you at all. And to pretend that you do what you do for 'the people,' rather than the handful of souls that mean a damn to you, is the biggest lie you've ever told.'
Corvis found himself staring into his tankard, clasping it with all ten fingers for fear that he might otherwise lash out. 'And even if…' He cleared his throat, coughed twice. 'If all this is true, why point it out? What difference could it possibly make?'
'Because I also think…' It was her turn to pause. Her voice had gone soft, softer than he'd heard since they left Rahariem. He wanted to look up, to see if her face had softened as well, and found he didn't dare. 'Because I think Tyannon was right. I think you could be Cerris, instead of Corvis Rebaine. I'd like you to be. But I don't think you know how, and I don't think any of us are ever going to be able to show you.'
By the time Corvis forced himself to raise his head, she was gone from the table. And for just an instant, as the tavern disappeared beneath the memory of a flower garden behind a dilapidated old church, he couldn't tell if it was Irrial or Tyannon who was walking away.
Chapter Twenty-two
AS THREE DUSTY TRAVELERS MOUNTED the broad stone steps, the guards at the door-and there were guards at the door, now, accompanying the ubiquitous clerk-moved to block their path. Jassion marched in the lead, poised, arrogant, and without visible trace of the hideous injury he would sport until the end of his days. Behind him trailed two figures clad in the costly but relatively bland garb of servants. One, the woman, held the arm of the elder man, who took small, hesitant steps as though injured or ill.
He was, in fact, gritting his teeth and straining not in pain, but in concentration, trying to keep three separate images affixed firmly in his mind. It would have been easier had he not still suffered lingering aftereffects of Khanda's attack; had his soul not been wringing its hands inside his body, wracked with fear for Mellorin and Seilloah; had he been at his best.
But only a little easier, for all that.
While Jassion spoke in low but commanding tones to the soldiers, Corvis glanced upward, peering intently at the sky through the illusion that masked his features. The uppermost reaches of the Hall of Meeting blended with the overcast skies, dark grey on darker. Only a smattering of windows and, in a few instances, the crows and sparrows perching along the roof's edge, made the looming structure visible against the clouds.
'I'm really not comfortable with this, Corvis,' Irrial whispered in his ear.
'They can't see our real faces,' he reminded her.
'And that worked out so well for us last time?'
He shrugged. 'We've just spent weeks in the saddle. I'm not recovered from one of the top five worst experiences in my life. My head feels like a sack of meal left out in the rain, and my body like there's a pair of ogres waltzing up and down my spine. You're lucky I'm lucid; you want new ideas, go pester someone else.'
'I suppose that's fair.' Then, 'Only one of the top five?'
'My years have been blessed with an astonishing variety of discomfort.'
They didn't hear what Jassion said to the guards, but eventually he waved them forward. The soldiers stepped aside, and the trio walked with measured tread into the seat of Imphallion's mercantile government.
'It's disgraceful!' Jassion hissed as they walked, his tone still vaguely nasal. He kept his voice low despite his clear agitation, lest any of the many scurrying pages and couriers overhear. 'War with Cephira, attacks by-ah, 'Rebaine'-and for all their added security, the guards just took me at my word and let us in!'
'Well, you are who you said you were,' Irrial pointed out.
'They didn't know that!'
'We're pretty far from the front. And it's not as though they expect You-Know-Who to walk in the front door.'
'It's disgraceful,' he muttered again. 'If a soldier has a job to do, he should do it! I'd have these men flogged if they worked for me.'
Corvis, feeling that Jassion's sense of propriety was perhaps misplaced at the moment-particularly since they were the security breach the guards' negligence permitted-chose not to say anything to get the baron even more riled. He did, however, roll his eyes at Irrial, who rewarded him, oh so briefly, with that amused curl of her lips he'd not seen in far too long.
Through familiar corridors, up familiar stairs-and even, once, past a stain of what was probably familiar blood-they wended their way. It looked much as it had the last time they'd been here, save for the presence of many more guards. Corvis began to have serious doubts about their plan, unsure if they could win free should it go wrong. But as he had no better notions to offer, and as it was already too late even if he had, he kept his misgivings private.
The top floor, and back to that one particular office guarded by half a dozen sentries. Jassion made as if to march right past them, until they steadfastly refused to clear the way. With a full-blown aristocratic glower that Corvis wasn't certain was feigned, he announced, 'The Baron Jassion of Braetlyn, and associates, to see Guildmistress Salia Mavere. Right now.'
'Have you an appointment?' the guard asked, just as impressed with this strutting noble as he'd been with all the others he'd thrown out.
'No.'
'Then-'
