himself.
He said, 'I would like to meet Yoen.'
'You really want to know us?' Mor asked. 'Us and these lands?'
Dariel said, 'Yes.'
'You know that I have not forgiven you anything. It may be that you are truly to have a role in the People's future, but that will only be decided over many, many more tests.'
'I know.'
'And you know that there is no easy road back to your land from here.'
'I know.'
Mor stared directly into his eyes for a long time, long enough that it grew hard for him to return her gaze. Dariel felt his eyes moisten, but he did not blink or break the exchange. 'It may be that you and I are both realists. Dreamers, too, I think. But realists as well. You cannot go to your land right now. I cannot accomplish the single greatest thing I hope to right now either. I'll tell you this, though. If the day comes that our work here is done, I will go with you to your lands. I will hunt until each and every Auldek is dead. And if I have my way, I'll be able to look into my brother's eyes before he fades from life. That's a dream of mine.'
She broke the stare as if it were nothing. 'Come then,' the woman said matter-of-factly. She showed him her back, and began to descend the granite slope.
Dariel watched her go for a moment, and then lifted his gaze and looked toward the setting sun, across the crowns of trees, verdant green, gilded beneath a flaming sky. He had the impulse to turn and look back over the route they had traveled, or make eye contact with Tunnel or Skylene, but for some reason he felt the need to look only forward. He began walking, feeling the slope of the stone under his feet. He followed Mor in search of her beautiful land, populated by wild things and free people.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
The night before she rose to attempt the greatest works of sorcery she had ever tried, Corinn had a dream. She awoke feeling it heavy with import, dripping with guilt. She had relived an afternoon earlier that spring, when she and Aaden had ridden together in a carriage bringing them down from Calfa Ven. The boy, as often happened, became sick from the jostling of the wheels over the rough stones. His face went pale and he sat for a time, percolating the stew that, as if on cue, erupted from him as they started down one particularly steep section of switchbacks.
Corinn hated the scent of vomit. It filled her nostrils like a taint of something poisonous. She had never been able to deal with this type of sickness, and she had not on the day she dreamed of. Instead, she got out of the carriage at the first opportunity, leaving maids to care for her son as she walked for a while in the mountain air, clearing her lungs.
That much of the dream was just a version of events that actually had happened, a small and inconsequential event one afternoon in the mountains. What happened next had not happened in actual life. It couldn't. The players had not all been alive on that day.
As she walked, taking in the mountain view-the green and blue of the peaks before her, slowly receding as they dropped in altitude-a man appeared on her left side and took in the landscape with her. Corinn looked over at him, knowing who he was before her eyes touched him: her brother, Aliver.
He said nothing, just smiled at her, shook his head, motioned back toward the carriage in which Aaden sat, likely still green with his illness. He was saying that he understood her and that he loved the boy. Such a good boy. He was saying that the boy would be the king he never got to be. He was saying that he understood Corinn's actions and she had no need to explain herself, even now, as she walked in the fresh air while maids swabbed the vomit from the corners of her son's mouth.
'I'm not a bad mother,' Corinn had said, though Aliver had said nothing to suggest he thought she was. 'You don't know how much I love him.'
'No, of course not,' a voice said. Not Aliver's but the man on her right side, walking with them as well. She turned toward him. Hanish Mein. His clean, crisp features. His blond hair shone around his face and draped his shoulders. His gray eyes glowed. She wanted to press her lips against them and pull in the gentle calm of them.
Before she could, Hanish dipped his head forward. He threw his body after it, jumping into a somersault. Before he had turned one circle, his body became one large, orange leaf. It danced on a sudden breeze. Aliver did the same, and the two men, who were now leaves, twirled and dipped and rose on currents in the air. Watching them, Corinn began to whistle.
Though there was joy in the final moments, she awoke with the memory of the dream-and of the actual day that began it-imbedded in her abdomen as a physical pain, a knot that remained within her even after she joined the flow of the living day. She swore to herself that if she ever, ever, got the chance to pull Aaden close and kiss and caress him in illness like that she would do it with all her heart, holding nothing back. But this was not something she could see to today. She set it aside and continued with the course she had decided on.
First, she surprised a guard by arriving outside the cell that housed the prisoner Barad the Lesser. The soldier stood nearly asleep on his feet and did not seem to register Corinn as a real person until she stood right before him. 'Soldier,' she said, 'open the door.'
The man shot fully awake at the sound of her voice. Suddenly terrified, he turned and fumbled a long time with the keys to the door, apologizing the entire time, dropping them twice and cursing himself and then apologizing more. His terror of her seemed out of all proportion to the circumstances, but on entering the cell Corinn recalled that any guard of this prisoner had reason to fear her.
Barad sat on a cot against the far wall, the bed tiny beneath him, like a child's. She wondered if he ever lay on it, for surely his legs and arms would have hung down to the stone floor. Thinner already than when last she had seen him, angles and joints measured his bulk. His legs rose unnaturally long, bent at knees on which he had set his crossed arms and rested his forehead. A single wrist chain attached him to an iron ring in the wall. On hearing her enter, Barad lifted his head and rolled his sightless stone eyes in her direction.
Yes, she thought, there is reason to fear me. She turned and gestured for the guard to leave them alone. He did so gladly.
'You don't smell like a Marah,' the prisoner said, after a few moments of silence. His voice carried the same grave timbre she remembered from before. It held a weight and substance at odds with the lanky, emaciated form that produced it.
'Do they feed you?' Corinn asked.
The man squinted. She knew he could not see her, but a lifetime of habits still ruled his mannerisms. 'The queen? So the queen pays a visit to a blind prisoner? And to ask after the quality of his meals? The world yet offers surprises. Yes, they bring me food. I have little appetite, though.'
'You must regain it, then,' Corinn said. 'If I wished you dead I would have killed you. I do not wish you to starve.'
Barad tilted his head back in a motion that became an openmouthed yawn, audible in the enclosed room. When he was finished with it, he rubbed his nose with his manacled hand. The chains clinked dully. 'Kind of you.'
'No, not really. I don't have much use for kindness anymore. Not for its own sake, at least.' Corinn looked about the cell for a moment, though there was nothing in it to catch an eye. 'Do you know that my son almost died?'
Barad crooked one eyebrow, another gesture made like a sighted man. 'I heard something about that,' he said. 'I am sorry. Innocents should not be victims of our wicked dance.'
'Traitors tried to kill him, Barad. Traitors who would kill you as well and enslave or butcher all the people you so love. Those traitors showed themselves by trying to kill my son and me. You see? This is something you haven't acknowledged. The Akarans represent the people you love to the world. When first an enemy aims to harm them, they aim at an Akaran heart. Think of my father.'
