‘It’s not the memories that are hurting, Acquitor. It’s how you feel about them. It’s the you, now, warring with the you, then. Can’t explain it any better-’
‘No, I understand you.’
‘Well, I can make you feel, uh, differently about it.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘End the war, lass.’
‘What would I feel, Corlo?’
‘I could make you cry it out. All out, Seren.’ He met her eyes. ‘And when that was done, you’d feel better. Not much better, but some. You release it all, but only once, I promise. There’s a risk with crying it all out, mind you. Could be as traumatic as the rape itself. But you won’t fall into the trap of cycling through it over and over again. Release gets addictive, you see. It becomes a fixed behaviour, as destructive as any other. Keep repeating the exercise of grief and it loses meaning, it becomes rote, false, a game of self-delusion, self-indulgence. A way of never getting over anything, ever.’
‘This sounds complicated, Corlo.’
‘It is. You stop the war all in one shot, and afterwards the memory leaves you feeling… nothing. A little remorse, maybe. The same as you feel for all the mistakes you left behind you during your whole life. Regrets, but no self-recrimination, because that’s your real enemy. Isn’t it? A part of you feeling like you somehow deserved it.’
She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
‘Making you want to punish yourself.’
Another nod.
Corlo raised his voice. ‘Avowed, we might-’
‘Aye,’ he said, lifting a gauntleted hand.
The troop halted.
Corlo’s hands were there, helping her down from the horse. She glared at him. ‘You’ve started, haven’t you?’
‘No, lass. You did. Remember what I said about natural talent? You’ve got it by the bucketful.’
‘I never cry,’ she said as he led her off the trail into the adjacent forest.
‘Of course not,’ he replied. ‘You’ve got the warren right there in your head, and you’ve spent most of your life manipulating it like a High Mage. Anything to keep going, right?’
She pulled up, looked behind them.
Iron Bars was just visible at the trail’s edge, watching.
Don’t mind him, he’s just worried, lass. He won’t be there when you-’
‘No,’ she said. ‘He comes with us.’
‘Acquitor?’
‘If I start beating on your chest, Corlo, I’m liable to break a rib or two. He’s tougher.’
The mage’s eyes widened, then he smiled. ‘Avowed! Stop hovering, if you please.’
Warrens. It occurred to Seren Pedac, much later, that they were a thing not easily defined, yet simply understood. Forces of nature, proclivities and patterns. Corlo’s explanations had worked to illuminate for her those mostly hidden forces, somewhat, but in the end it was the knowledge already within her that offered revelation.
In a simplistic world, four elements are commonly identified, and things are left at that. As if the universe could be confined to four observable, apposite manifestations. But Corlo had mentioned others, and once that notion was accepted, then it was as if the world opened out, as if new colours rose sudden and startling in their terrible beauty.
Time was such an element, she now believed. The stretch of existence between events, consisting of countless other events, all strung together in complex patterns of cause and effect, all laid out like images sewn onto a tapestry, creating a sequence of scenes that, once one stood back, was revealed to be co-existing. Present all at once.
She had been repeating scenes. A grim realization. Repeating scenes for most of her life. She had imposed her own pattern, bereft of nuance, and had viewed her despair as a legitimate response, perhaps the only legitimate response. A conceit of being intelligent, almost preter-naturally aware of the multitude of perspectives that was possible in all things. And that had been the trap, all along, the sorcerous incantation called grief, her invitation to the demons of self-recrimination, reappearing again and again on that tapestry – different scenes, the same leering faces.
Unravelling the ritual had proved frighteningly easy, like pulling a single thread. If it had been Corlo’s work, then he had been subtle beyond belief, for it had seemed that the effort was entirely her own. He had sat across from her, there in the glade they’d found thirty paces from the trail, his expression both relaxed and watchful, and, oddly enough, she had felt no shame weeping in front of him.
Iron Bars had begun by pacing restlessly, but his motion stilled when her first tears arrived, and eventually she found herself in the half-embrace of one of his arms, her face pressed against his neck.
It might have been sordid, under other circumstances. The critical part of herself could well have sneered at the contrivance, as if the only genuine gestures were the small ones, the ones devoid of an audience. As if true honesty belonged to solitude, since to be witnessed was to perform, and performance was inherently false since it invited expectation.
In the exhausted aftermath of a surprisingly short period of release, when it seemed in truth that she was empty inside, hollowed-out calm, she could explore what was left, without the fetters of emotion. She had chosen to have faith in Buruk the Pale, believed – because it was easy – that he would not give up on life. She never did, after all. She had refused the evidence of his sudden ease, the strange freedom in his words to her during those last few days. When he’d already made up his mind. He’d seen the war coming, after all, and wanted to excise his own role in its making. Cut himself from this particular tapestry. But there had been sorcery in her own self-deceit, the path to grief and guilt, and there had been a comforting familiarity to the ritual.
From her failure sprang the requirement to be punished.
She had not invited the rape. No sane person would do that. But she had woven the scene and all its potential horror.
Not all things about oneself were likeable.
So she had wept for her flaws, for her weaknesses and for her humanity. Before two witnesses who no doubt had their own stories, their own reasons to grieve.
But now it was done. There was no value in repeating this particular ritual. Exhaustion gave way to sleep, and when she awoke it was dawn. The squad had camped in the glade, and all were still asleep with the exception of Iron Bars, who was sitting before a small hearth, intent on stirring the flames to life once more.
A blanket had been thrown over her. The morning air was cool and damp. Seren sat up, drawing the wool about her shoulders, then rose and joined the Avowed at the smouldering fire.
He did not glance up. ‘Acquitor. You are rested?’
‘Yes, thank you. I don’t know if I should apologize-’
‘For what? I’ve been hearing horses, south of here.’
‘That would be Brous. There’s a garrison there, a small one.’
‘Brous is a city?’
‘A village, set in the midst of stone ruins. It was once a holy site for the Tarthenal, although they didn’t build it.’
‘How do you know?’
‘The scale is all wrong for Tarthenal.’
‘Too small?’
‘No, too big.’
He looked up, squinted, then rose. ‘Time to prepare a meal, I think.’
‘You’re a strange officer, Iron Bars,’ Seren said, smiling. ‘Cooking every breakfast for your soldiers.’
‘I always wake up first,’ he replied, dragging close a food pack.
She watched him working, wondering how often he had done this. How many glades like this one, how many mornings the first to rise among snoring soldiers. So far from anything resembling home. In a way, she understood
