just nodded, and said, “Be careful.”
“I will.”
They stood in awkward silence for several moments. It seemed to Grinsa that they had reached some sort of ending, as if all that they had shared since Tavis’s escape from Kentigern was drawing to a close. And strangely, the gleaner found himself saddened by this.
“I suppose everything is going to be different once others know,” the boy said. The smile sprang to his lips again, looking forced and bitter among the scars Aindreas had left on his face. Once Grinsa had thought that the scars fit the boy, giving him a hardened look that was a match for his difficult manner. That was when they first began to journey together. Over the course of the past year, however, as they searched for Brienne’s assassin and prepared for this war, their relationship changed. Tavis changed. Where once he had been a selfish, undisciplined child, he now stood before Grinsa a man, still with his faults to be sure, but more mature than the gleaner would have thought possible. With time, perhaps, as Tavis’s face aged, adding other lines, and softening the effect of the old wounds, he’d look wise and strong. That struck Grinsa as more apt now.
“I won’t be the notorious one anymore,” Tavis said after a moment. “They’ll all be looking at you.”
“I’d think that you’d welcome that.”
“I guess I should.”
“But?”
Tavis shrugged, then shook his head. “But nothing.” The smile lingered, grew warmer. “What a pair we make.”
Before Grinsa could answer, Tavis stepped forward and gathered him in a rough embrace.
“Thank you, Grinsa,” he whispered. Then he pulled back, turned away, and hurried off.
The gleaner wandered off in a different direction, eventually taking a seat on a large grey stone and watching the sun set. As darkness gathered around the armies, the soldiers lit fires and the faint smell of roasting fowl reached him. He hadn’t eaten since morning, but he wasn’t hungry. He remained where he was, watching as stars began to spread across the night sky. Fragments of conversations reached him, occasionally he heard a burst of laughter, or the sound of rough voices singing some Eibitharian or Sanbiri folk song. After some time, Keziah came to him and sat as well. He thought that she would resume her argument against what he was planning, but she said nothing, just rested her head on his shoulder, and stared up at the stars. Eventually she began to nod off, jerking herself awake more than once. At last she stood, yawning deeply. Gazing at him in the darkness, she smiled sadly. Then she kissed his cheek, gave his hand a gentle squeeze, and moved off, leaving him alone with the soft wind and the distant, mournful cry of an owl.
Still he waited, watching for the moons. Only when both were up, did he finally close his eyes and stretch his mind forth, searching for the Weaver. He had known to look northward, expecting that Dusaan would be on the waters beyond Galdasten. Instead, he found the Weaver in the company of nearly two hundred Qirsi on the moors south of the castle, only a few days’ ride from the battle plain. Fear gripped him and he nearly opened his eyes once more and went immediately to Kearney. But such a warning could wait a short while-Dusaan and his army weren’t on the move just now. And the truth was, Grinsa wanted to face this man again. He wanted to prove to himself, and to the Weaver, that he could stand against the high chancellor’s power. He wasn’t proud of this-it was something he would have expected of Tavis, not himself-but there could be no denying the strength of the impulse. It was more than he could resist.
Taking one long, final breath, he entered Dusaan’s mind.
He had chosen the moors near Eardley for their encounter-the same place he usually spoke to Keziah when he entered her dreams. It was where he felt most comfortable; he wanted to keep all his attention on the Weaver and what he said, without having to give a thought to their surroundings. Still, he made certain that the sun was high overhead. Dusaan liked to hide his face during such encounters. Grinsa wouldn’t allow him that luxury.
An instant later, Dusaan stood before him, dressed in warrior’s garb, an amused grin on his square face.
“I’ve been expecting you,” he said.
Without bothering to respond, Grinsa reached for the man’s power-shaping first, then fire, then healing. Dusaan blocked his efforts with ease.
“You disappoint me, gleaner. You didn’t really think that you’d best me with such a predictable attack.”
“It was worth trying.”
Dusaan shrugged indifferently. “I suppose, though it seems to me that you do our relationship a disservice.”
“We have no relationship.”
“No? I walk in your dreams, you walk in mine.” He smiled. “People will talk.”
Again Grinsa tried to take hold of the Weaver’s healing power, but Dusaan had an iron grip on all his magic. The gleaner sensed no fear in the man. Only confidence, an unshakable faith in his own strength and the inevitability of his victory.
“Be honest with me, Grinsa. You’ve never known another Weaver, have you?”
“No,” he admitted.
“Nor have I. We share something unique. Before this moment, no one had ever entered my dreams as you’ve done. Just as I was the first to walk in your dreams. You can protest all you like, but we share a kinship, even if it is based solely on our desire to kill one another.”
“We’re both Weavers, but beyond that we have nothing at all in common. I’ve seen the things you do-you’re cruel, arbitrary, ambitious beyond reason.”
The Weaver shook his head, making a clicking noise with his tongue. “All this because I hurt your love? You judge me too harshly.”
Grinsa didn’t answer immediately. He needed to be more careful. As Keziah had told him, the Weaver could sense his emotions, and the last thing Grinsa wanted was to betray his sister’s secret.
“I know what I’ve seen,” he said at last.
“Cresenne betrayed me. Can you honestly say that an Eandi lord wouldn’t do the same to a traitor?”
“That’s a strange defense of your actions. You speak of a new future for the Qirsi people, and yet you look to the Eandi courts to justify torture.”
“Don’t try to goad me, Grinsa. It won’t work, nor is it necessary. No doubt you wish to know my plans, to divine the ploys I intend to use against your Eandi friends. The truth is, there are no ploys. I plan to lead my army onto the Moorlands and defeat the armies of the Forelands in battle. You found me, so you know where we are and how many I command. I don’t care. I’m sure you count it a victory that you can see my face, but at this point that doesn’t concern me, either. I’ve nothing to fear from Kearney and his allies, or from you for that matter. I defeated the emperor’s army with but a handful of Qirsi. I took Ayvencalde with less than half the number of Qirsi I have now. My army is the most powerful force to travel the Forelands in nine hundred years. There isn’t an army you could assemble that would stand against us.”
“That army of nine centuries ago was defeated, and yours will be as well.”
A bright angry grin lit the Weaver’s face. “No, Grinsa. You’re wrong. The Qirsi army of old was betrayed. But I know these Qirsi-my Qirsi. There’s no Carthach here.”
“How can you be so certain?”
Dusaan’s grin deepened. “Because you’re the only Carthach in the Forelands. You’ve already betrayed your people, and we’re going to prevail in spite of you.”
Now who was doing the goading? Grinsa shouldn’t have been bothered, but this talk of Carthach-why had he even mentioned the ancient traitor in the first place? — hewed too closely to his own deepest fears to be ignored. He knew that this man before him was not fit to lead his people, much less all the realms of the Forelands. But he knew as well that his people deserved to be treated better than they were by Eandi nobility, and he couldn’t help but wonder if he would be remembered as the Weaver who betrayed his people by fighting to save their oppressors.
“I’ve silenced you,” the Weaver said. “How glorious.”
There was nothing for him to say. All that was left, in his desperation and his fear, was to make one last attempt at killing the man. He grappled for the Weaver’s power once more, lunging for it with his mind, battering at Dusaan’s defenses. Fire, shaping, healing-any magic that might allow him to exact revenge for what the Weaver had done to Cresenne, what his schemes had done to Tavis, what the need to defeat him had done to Keziah. And again, he failed. Dusaan actually laughed at him, as if Grinsa were a child leaping to catch hold of wonders that
