Khalaek watched him with a cold, knowing smile, and Aeren realized the lord was trying to provoke him.
“That still does not explain why you returned by land,” the Tamaell interjected, and Aeren dragged his attention away from Khalaek, back to the Tamaell.
“When my attempt in Corsair failed,” he said, “I traveled to the plains and met with one of the dwarren chiefs, Garius of the Thousand Springs Clan. If we cannot find peace with the humans, perhaps we can with the dwarren.”
“And?”
The Tamaell had shifted forward again, all his attention focused on Aeren. Behind him, he could see the Tamaea, her hand raised, the shears poised to snip a branch from the small topiary shrub. But she’d frozen in mid-motion, her face locked in a frown.
To the side, Khalaek had stood, his stance defensive, as if he were about to be attacked.
Aeren drew a tense breath, then said, “He’s summoned the Gathering. They intend to meet with us, with the Tamaell and the Evant, in three weeks.”
16
“It is… an opportunity.”
Moiran spoke carefully as she moved across the bed-chamber toward the window, afraid to let herself hope. She pushed the heavy curtains aside so that she could look out over the city, to where the sun set on the horizon. Sharp orange light spilled into the room, changing to a burnished gold before it began to fade as the sun vanished.
Behind her, she heard Fedorem grunt.
She closed her eyes, then sighed and turned.
Fedorem had settled into the chair behind the desk shoved into one corner. Candles had been lit throughout the room, giving the translucent drapes on the bed an ethereal glow. Wardrobes flanked the bed, and in the corner opposite Fedorem’s desk, chairs were arranged around a low table for intimate conversations. That corner was Moiran’s. An abstract glass sculpture in deep red shot with streaks of yellow sat in the center of the table, but it was rarely used.
As Fedorem reached for a stack of papers, Moiran frowned.
The desk was a recent addition to the room, brought in a few months after Fedorem had returned from the Escarpment. She had fought placing the desk here. She’d wanted this room to be theirs and only theirs, a sanctuary for both of them, without the taint of the Evant and the other lords upon it. But the Evant tainted everything.
Even Fedorem.
She let the curtains fall back into place, shutting out the darkness.
“What do you intend to do about Lord Aeren?” she asked. “About this meeting with the dwarren?”
Fedorem glanced up from his papers. “What business is that of the Tamaea?”
Moiran snorted, moving into the room. “Anything that may affect the stewardship of the House or my role as head of the Ilvaeran-the body that controls all of the economic resources of the Houses-is the business of the Tamaea. Peace with the dwarren could affect both. But more importantly, it’s the Tamaea’s business when it affects her Tamaell.”
His eyebrows rose, but not in annoyance. “And has it affected the Tamaell?”
“Yes, it has.”
“How so?”
A hard pressure seized Moiran’s chest, the hope surging up from her heart unwanted. She shoved it back down forcefully.
“It’s changed you, my Tamaell,” she said, searching his face. “It’s drained you.”
He stiffened, and she could sense his withdrawal, could feel him pulling away.
“Have you looked at yourself lately?” she asked. She moved to his side, took the papers from him, and caught hold of his hands. “Have you seen yourself? You aren’t sick, but you aren’t well.” She hesitated, but he hadn’t retreated, hadn’t withdrawn from her as he’d done so often in the last thirty years.
“It’s the Escarpment,” she said, the words thick, rushing up and out from the pressure in her chest. She felt his hands tense beneath hers, begin to pull back, but she tightened her grip and continued, relentless. “That’s where it started, there and the months before. You made a mistake, and ever since you returned from that battle, it has eaten at you, destroyed you from within. You need to acknowledge what you did, begin to make amends, and this is your opportuni-”
“Enough!”
The word cracked through the room, but Moiran didn’t flinch.
Instead, her jaw clenched and her eyes narrowed.
Fedorem saw and sighed wearily. “Enough, Moiran. We’ve been over this before. I will not speak of what happened at the Escarpment. It has passed.”
“But it hasn’t passed,” Moiran said, surprised at how rough her voice sounded, how torn. She could hear tears she had never allowed herself to shed beneath the words, fought against them, overrode them with anger. “It will never pass, not when you refuse to speak of it. Not when you refuse to acknowledge what happened. Lord Aeren is trying to move beyond what happened at the Escarpment. He’s trying to correct it. You-” The words stuck in her throat, but she forced them out, tasting their bitterness. “You’ve buried it, ignored it, and look what it has done to you! You’ve become tainted by it! Controlled by it!”
Fedorem jerked his hands free from hers. “It does not control me.”
“Ha!” Moiran stepped back. “The event may not control you, but those who participated in it do.”
Fedorem’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
“Can you be so blind?” she asked softly. “After all these years of manipulating the Lords of the Evant, can you not see how you are being manipulated in turn?”
Fedorem flinched, a gesture Moiran saw in his eyes, more than in any motion of his body. And with that one gesture, she realized that he knew, had known, and had allowed it to happen.
“Aielan’s Light,” she whispered, her voice thready. All her anger had vanished. She felt hollow, even the hardness in her chest gone. “You knew.”
She turned away and moved across the room toward her own wardrobe, opening its doors and riffling through the clothes that hung there, not seeing them, the material rough against her skin. Her hands tingled, as if numbed, and she realized her entire body trembled.
“Who in the Evant is manipulating me?” Fedorem asked, his voice following her, laced with warning, yet somehow distant.
When she didn’t answer, she heard him rise from his desk, his papers forgotten, heard him cross the room and felt his presence behind her. She started when he put his hands on her shoulders.
“Who do you believe is manipulating me?” he asked again, softer. But she could feel the tension in his grip.
She broke free and turned to face him. “Lord Khalaek,” she spat viciously. “Lord Khalaek is manipulating you. He’s been doing so since the betrayal of the human King at the Escarpment, the betrayal that you have condoned through your silence. By not denouncing the uprising of some of your own lords, members of your own Evant, there on the battlefield, you have given those lords your tacit support. You have given those lords power. And because Lord Khalaek is at the center of those lords, you have implicitly given him power. The other lords, like Aeren, don’t know what to think, and because they are outnumbered by Khalaek and his supporters, they dare not approach you or oppose you. You are the Tamaell! You could have halted his rise in the Evant over the last thirty years. All you had to do was admit that your support of Khalaek back then was a mistake. But no. Lord Khalaek is using your stubbornness and your own mistake to control you. And you’re letting him do it. ” She glared at him, not letting her gaze falter, knowing that there were tears in her eyes and hating them, knowing that the corners of her mouth trembled, even though her lips were pressed tight together. “He’s trying to seize the Evant, Fedorem. How
