soon. Very soon. I've arranged a sloop for you leaving three days hence, to carry you first to Denben; then you'll go by land along the Tabith way. By the time you arrive there, your main generals will have gathered, and soon you'll head north. Your troops will mostly be Candovian, though I'm putting out a call for volunteers, with the promise of considerable rewards for those who accept. Maybe some of Dariel's raiders will join you. They're supposed to like a good fight, aren't they?' She smiled. 'These are just sketches of the details. Tomorrow, you can ask all the specific questions you like and have them answered. I know how much I ask, but whom can I ask but she whom I trust most? Mena-Sister-Akaran, do you accept this mission?'
'Of course,' Mena said. You've left me no choice, really, Corinn-Sister-Akaran.
'Wonderful!' Corinn said, smiling radiantly. 'Make the brutes regret they ever left home. I know you will.' She rounded the desk again, her fingers trailing over the papers there as she did. Thinking the meeting over, Mena turned to leave.
'By the way,' Corinn asked, in a matter-of-fact tone, 'what will you do with Elya while you are gone?'
'I don't know. As I said before, she is not built for war. I-'
Corinn interrupted her. 'That's become clear to me. I hope you know that she is welcome to stay here. Nothing would make me happier, in fact.'
Really? That Mena had not expected. 'Really?'
'Of course.' Corinn stepped around the desk and extended her hand, fingers beckoning. Unsure, Mena lifted one of her hands and let her sister grasp it. 'She did save Aaden's life, after all. Mena, I was wary of her. The way you arrived-quite frightening, really. I thought she might hide some corruption just below the surface, but I've seen no sign of it at all. And she more than proved herself by what she did for Aaden. I may just grow to love her as you do. And Aaden, you know how he adores her. It would do him so much good to have her here to greet him when he awakes. One fine thing within all this madness. Do say that you'll let her stay here. She may reside in your courtyards, just as she has been doing.'
Mena tried to think quickly through the possible implications of this. What about the eggs? She suspected they would not hatch for some time. She did not know this, but it felt that way. The eggs gave off an air of contentment, of peace, as Elya had when she stood watching, wide-eyed and trusting, as Mena gazed at them. She felt they would hatch when the time to hatch was right. Considering that, might it not be better to keep them secret longer? Corinn may have been struck with sudden fondness for her, but it was, as yet, a new fondness. Better that it grow more substantial. And it would. It will. If she lived weeks with Elya and saw her become more and more important to Aaden, well, then she would know for sure, and the eggs-or the hatchlings-would be welcomed as the blessings they would be.
Perhaps I'll even be back to see it happen. Let the Giver make that so.
'That sounds like it's for the best,' Mena said. 'Elya may follow me for a while when I first sail. She won't fully understand, but I'll explain what I can to her. I'm confident she will choose to stay in the palace.'
A thought flickered across Corinn's face, but it disappeared so fast Mena could not read it. The queen said, 'That would be perfect. That all sounds just perfect.'
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Sire Dagon met the others of the League Council in a darkened chamber of the league compound in Alecia. A light distillation of green mist clouded the air, moving in ghostly swirls on the air currents. The first rank of leaguemen sat in a tight circle, each of them leaning back in an intricate reclining chair. Beyond the first ring there was a second, and a third, and beyond that the nonspeakers huddled close, listening. At meetings like this only the first three circles could speak freely, and they all did so without really seeing the others. It could take a long time between the asking of a question and an answer, especially as the group's mist-drenched state meant that they shared a certain linkage of thought. Their minds hummed like tuning forks that spread the same note among them. They had separate minds, yes, but it was-in the council chamber-impossible for any of them to deceive the others.
'Events did not proceed as we expected,' Sire Dagon admitted. 'Our intelligence about the Auldek was… partial. Flawed, I'm afraid.'
An answering rumble of voices reverberated in the dim chamber of the League Council.
'You speak in understatement.' Sire Grau's voice had an unusual clarity to it, a cadence untroubled by the tremulous effects of his advanced years. Dagon recognized what powered it: flames of anger stirred up from the slow embers that usually fueled him. 'Neen saw what he wished to see, not the actual truth! He acted on what he wanted to believe, driven by emotion, blind to the flaws of his actions. Rarely has a leagueman made such grave mistakes.'
Sire Grau sat beside Dagon in the first circle. Neither man looked at the other. Usually, the mist had a calming effect, enough so that they conducted all council business-no matter how fractious-with heavy-lidded calm. On this occasion Dagon felt an increased level of clarity in his own mind, calmed not at all by the unease surging through the chamber in waves. It had been many, many years since they met to discuss so many events not entirely in their control. For the younger among them, this marked the first such time.
Sire Faleen, though below Grau in authority, calmed them. As the Council Speaker, it fell to him to shape the direction of the meeting. Dagon did not mind at all that he turned it first toward Sire Neen's fiasco in Ushen Brae. He shared among them all he knew of what had happened, which was a great deal. They had probed the minds of the few Ishtat to return alive from the meeting with Devoth. No leagueman had made it out of that butcher's chamber, but the Ishtat minds housed images of the gore and at least fragments of the conversation preceding Neen's abrupt beheading. All agreed that he should have seen that coming. Devoth had betrayed his intentions by the way he moved his body and in the way his eyes darted about. Neen had been too flushed with dubious victory over the Lothan Aklun to see, too sure he held the world's wealth in his hand.
'Fool,' more than one voice declared.
Faleen did not dispute the label. 'Sire Neen made grave mistakes. He cost us dearly.'
'Awkward the way he mishandled things,' a voice in the second row said. 'Should he be forgotten?'
A murmur of approval greeted this suggestion. 'Yes. Yes. Let him be forgotten,' several voices said at once.
The greatest enthusiasm was in the outer rows. Neen's demise would allow one of them quicker access to the inner circle. Dagon craned his head around just slightly and let his eyes cant farther from there, searching for the man who had proposed the forgetting. He spotted him. Lean faced, although with wide-set eyes that tilted downward at the outer edges. His name? Lethel. Sire Lethel. He was Neen's second cousin. So much for familial loyalty. Among the league, though, none would fault him for it. In truth, they all shared similar blood.
Sire El said, 'He may be forgotten, but his errors should not be.'
Grunts of affirmation. 'Forget the man; remember the folly so as not to repeat it.'
Dagon was not entirely sure how one could repeat the specifics of Neen's folly, but he let a low rumble build in his throat, his consent to the proposal.
'He is forgotten, then,' Faleen said some time later, once it was clear that nobody objected.
That small measure passed quickly. What to do with Ushen Brae now that so much had changed took somewhat longer to work through. They turned the issue over for some time, exploring the possibilities, the problems, the likelihood of salvaging something of the once so very prosperous trade. The Auldek were abandoning Ushen Brae as they spoke. They would leave the continent peopled with many of their former-and infertile-slaves. Do they find a way to return to the old order? Or must they create a new one? Let the quota in Ushen Brae die out? Or offer them trade instead? Perhaps they would like slaves of their own. So many questions.
The same in regard to the Known World. Would the Auldek conquer? Likely so. Many of them walked with a hundred souls beneath their skin. A hundred deaths at their disposal. How could weak Acacians stand before them? The fragile coalition of the Akaran Empire would shatter when such a threat approached.
'The bitch with her plan to end the quota,' Sire Revek said. 'Does she really mean it?'
There were moments that Dagon disliked the shared communion of the council. One could not lie. The others could even have measured the beating of his heart or felt the sweat on his palms if they wished. They would sense
