The Last of the Wilds

what looked like both shock and anger. “Why?”

Juran shook his head. “Mirar opened his mind to her. He convinced her... of many things: that he smothered his own identity and invented Leiard in order to hide from the gods, that he didn’t intend any harm and means to leave Northern Ithania, that he does not deserve execution.” Juran sighed. “I cannot say if any of this is true. It may be that he is able to fill his mind with lies in a way that it appears he is offering up the truth. If he can or cannot is irrelevant. The gods ordered Auraya to kill him. She didn’t.”

The room fell silent. Mairae felt a pang of sympathy for Auraya, yet at the same time she was disappointed. It would not have surprised her to know Auraya had found it difficult and distressing to kill Mirar, but she had not expected to learn that Auraya had refused to do it.

“Wait...” she said. “Was she unable to bring herself to do it, or did she refuse?”

“What difference does that make?” Rian muttered.

“There’s a difference between hesitation and refusal. An experienced fighter may hesitate in battle when confronted with something unexpected - that his enemy is his friend, for example. Whatever Mirar showed her, it made her hesitate. If she’d had time she might have dismissed it. She should be given a second chance.”

“She has been,” Juran said. “She has until this afternoon to consider her actions, then she must complete her task. Mirar can’t have travelled far. Siyee have been sent out to locate him.”

“If she refuses again?” Rian asked.

Juran grimaced. “She will be punished.”

Mairae shook her head. “I still think this is too much to ask of her. She is still new to her role. One of us should go in her stead.”

“She must prove her loyalty to the gods,” Rian stated.

“He is right,” Dyara said. “If people knew that she had refused their order—”

“Who is going to tell them?” Mairae asked. “This happened in a distant place,” she glanced at Juran, “hopefully without witnesses. Nobody but us and the gods know about it.”

Dyara’s expression hardened. “If the gods ask this of her, it must be necessary. The gods see into our hearts and minds. They know when our loyalties need testing.”

Mairae stared at Dyara. The older woman could be stern and domineering, but she was not usually this lacking in sympathy. She sounded more like Rian. “How easily would you kill your adviser if the gods ordered it?”

Dyara’s eyes widened in surprise and anger. “Timare is a priest, not a... a filthy Wild.”

“How do you know? You didn’t detect Mirar’s mind behind Leiard’s.”

“I’ve known Timare for forty years. How well do you know your lovers?”

Mairae shrugged. “I don’t. I don’t need to.”

“It seems to me there are a lot more people in this world that you may find yourself reluctant to kill.”

“I use them for sex, Dyara. I’m not in love with any of them.”

“Mairae!” Juran protested. “This is not getting us anywhere.”

She looked up at him then smiled apologetically, knowing she was unlikely to gain Auraya any sympathy by arguing with Dyara. Juran was always more inclined to take Dyara’s side over hers, anyway.

“What are we going to do?” Rian asked.

Juran turned to regard him. “We have to be ready in case Auraya refuses again, or needs our help finding and killing Mirar. You and Dyara will sail south. We know Mirar intends to leave Northern Ithania so he will probably travel to the coast.”

Rian straightened in his seat.

“I will not hesitate. It will be a pleasure to serve the gods.”

Mairae smothered a sigh. I hope you find the resolve to do this, Auraya, she thought. Rian is going to be even more unbearable if he gets to kill someone as famous as the great Mirar.

40

Morning light revealed ominous clouds obscuring the mountains around the Blue Lake village. The air was icy and the vegetation around the bowers was white with frost. Auraya drew magic and dried off a log with a blast of hot air. As she sat down she realized it had only been a handful of days since she had rested here beside Mirar. It seemed a lot longer.

I suppose all those hours I’ve been awake thinking rather than sleeping make it seem longer. Last night she had only managed to fall asleep an hour or so before Mirar had linked with her. Afterward she had woken up fully. Something had nagged at her. Finally, as the light of the dawn filtered through the membrane of the bower, she had realized what it was.

Seeing into Mirar’s mind had been like seeing someone familiar and yet unknown. Like being reunited with someone she had known as a child, who had grown into an adult she didn’t know. Seeking a hint of Leiard, she had only seen that he was no longer the person she had known. Leiard was in him, but only as a part of a person she didn’t know - or love.

You’re wrong, Chaia, she thought. You see the remnants of the love I had for Leiard. You haven’t had the chance to see that I’m not attracted to Mirar in the same way - or what Mirar has become.

If Chaia didn’t see that, then perhaps he didn’t see that Mirar was not the person he had been a century ago. What he had done to survive had changed him - made him into a new person. As a new person he deserved to be judged on his own merits and character.

Huan had said that the past should be forgotten. That is even more true of Mirar than the gods. The gods haven’t changed. Mirar has. It’s unfair to punish him for the past crimes of another person.

But Mirar was not a completely new person, so she could understand that part of him was guilty and untrustworthy. However, when she considered what she had been told of his crimes she could not see how he deserved to be executed. Mirar had worked against the gods and the formation of the Circlian priesthood by seeding doubts about the fate of souls in the gods’ hands and spreading stories of terrible acts of cruelty that the gods were guilty of. One of the ways he had communicated to these people was through dreams.

Looking into his mind, she had seen an acknowledgment that he had done these things. She had also understood that he had done them out of concern that mortals would be ruled by beings he believed were capable of evil. Dream links were not banned then; he had broken no law. The Circlians had spread lies about Dreamweavers and he had used dreams, as he always had, to reassure mortals of Dreamweavers’ good intentions.

He hadn’t encouraged anyone to kill priests and priestesses, yet she knew that some Circlians had preached a hatred of Dreamweavers that had led to thousands of Dreamweaver deaths.

Yet she was disturbed by his conviction that the gods had done terrible deeds in the past. He had not revealed exactly what they had done, however. His fear that the gods would harm mortals through forming the Circlian priesthood proved unfounded, she told herself. They have done much good. Perhaps these evil deeds he accuses them of were only other ways in which the gods encouraged mortals to worship them - an aim he seems to think is wrong.

She sighed. Discouraging people from worshipping the gods was wrong because it cost them an eternal soul after death. Mirar hadn’t forced anyone to turn from the gods. He had given them an alternative. That was not a crime worthy of death. If it was, thousands of people would die every day. People resisted the gods’ will in many small ways.

How much easier is it to believe that resisting the will of the gods isn’t a crime when you’re guilty of it? she found herself thinking.

The priesthood existed to guide mortals toward a lawful and pious life. The White were the highest priests