"Right," Ehren said. He nodded to Tavi and passed over his standard. "I don't get along very well with horses, anyway."
Tavi issued several more orders to other members of the Legion, but after that he found himself standing over Sari's fallen form. The Cane looked far smaller now, broken like a toy at Tavi's feet. His skinny body and mangy fur were only partly concealed by the scarlet armor, and his yellowed teeth were worn.
Tavi tried to find some sense of satisfaction that he had taken the life of an enemy of the Realm, of a murderous slive whose plans had nearly killed his friends and his patron at Wintersend, years ago. But he couldn't. Sari had been a threat. Now he was dead. There was no rancor in that thought, for Tavi-nor pride. Nor shame. But perhaps a twinge of regret. Sari might have been a murdering traitor, but Tavi doubted that every Cane who had followed him was the same kind of monster. And his orders had slain thousands of them. They, too, had been dangerous, but not in the same, malicious way. Or not entirely in that way. Regardless, he'd had little choice. But he wished he could have found a way that didn't involve so much blood. So much death.
He felt Kitai's presence behind him and glanced over his shoulder at her. They were now alone upon the bridge, though the wall behind them was manned by legionares. Tavi wondered how long he'd been staring at the dead.
Kitai stepped up to stand beside him, also regarding the fallen.
"You had to," she said quietly. "They would have killed you. Killed everyone."
"I know," Tavi said. "But..."
Kitai looked up and regarded him for a moment, a faint frown marring her brow. "You are mad, Aleran," she said, her tone gentle. "You can be strong. Hard." She laid her fingertips on Tavi's breastplate. "But beneath that, you bleed for the fallen. Even those who are not your own folk."
"I doubt there's another Aleran alive who has spent more time talking to Canim than I," Tavi said. "My people usually skip straight to the killing. So do theirs."
"You think this wrong?"
"I think..." Tavi said, frowning. "I think that it's been going on for so long, neither of us can consider the possibility of stopping it. There's too much history. Too much blood."
"In your place, they would not bleed for you."
"Doesn't matter," Tavi said. "It isn't about being fair and equal. It's about the difference between right and wrong." He stared out at the bloody Elinarch. "And this was wrong." His vision blurred with sudden tears, but his voice stayed steady. "Necessary. And wrong."
"You are mad, Aleran," Kitai said quietly. But her fingers found his, and they stood with clasped hands for a time. Rolling storm clouds still lay overhead, but now they were in motion, restless, and between heavy showers, there were frequently breaks in the clouds to let more sunlight in.
Tavi suddenly snorted out a little laugh.
Kitai tilted her head and waited.
"My ludus game with Nasaug. I was giving him a warning. Showing him that he should fear us. Or trying to, at least. But the whole time, he was playing me like one of the pieces. Pushing me where he wished me to be."
"In what way?" Kitai asked.
"He used me to kill Sari," Tavi said. "He couldn't abandon his countrymen with him. Nor could he permit Sari to lead them to disaster. Nor could he actually enlist my aid, the way Sari conspired with Kalarus. He saw me trying to call Sari out of their host, and he led that night assault and made sure that if Sari didn't step in at once, Nasaug would carry the day. Then, instead of backing Sari up, he stood back and watched. And we killed Sari for him. Just like he wanted."
Kitai shook her head. "The Canim are more like your people than mine, I think," Kitai said. "Only the mad would handle things in such a manner. When my father disagreed with Atsurak leading my people, he challenged him and killed him. It was over in minutes."
Tavi smiled. "Not all of us can be as wise as the Marat." He felt the smile fade. "I did what he wanted. But I may have made a mistake, in the long term."
Kitai nodded. "Nasaug may not have Sari's powers, but he will lead his people much more ably than Sari ever could have."
"Yes. Inspire loyalty. Courage. Nasaug is cut off from his home, from help. But he could turn every single Cane with him into the equals of his warriors. We dealt with the raiders fairly well, but we barely gave the warriors a bloody nose. Imagine if he'd had fifty thousand of them, instead of ten. He would have taken the bridge in a day."
"I will imagine it when it is before me, ' Kitai said firmly. "You beg fate to make your fears into reality, Aleran. But for the moment, they are only fears. They may come. If so, then face them and overcome them. Until then, pay them no mind. You have enough to think on."
Tavi took a deep breath and nodded. "You're probably right. I'll try."
Behind him, Tavi heard the makeshift walls groan and squeal. He looked over his shoulder, to where the engineers were raising the opening in the walls so that horses could slip through. Moments later, Max and his cavalry rode toward them.
"You go to watch the Canim retreat?" Kitai asked.
"Yes. Nasaug might rally them and hit us again, before we can recover. I don't think we could stop him, but as long as we keep them in sight, we can always take the bridge down before they reach it."
"I will go with you," Kitai said. Her tone brooked no dissent.
Tavi gave her part of a smile. "Once people have time to catch their breath, they're going to realize that you aren't Aleran."
Kitai's teeth flashed in a smile. "That will be interesting."
Tavi felt like ten miles of bad road, but he and Kitai mounted up and rode forth with Max and the cavalry. They trailed the main body of the Canim host at a distance as they marched back to Founderport. Twice during the ride, they were attacked by wounded Canim, stragglers who had fallen behind the column. The attacks were swift, brutal, and ended quickly, and the cavalry advanced in a loose line, finishing off any Canim who could not keep pace with the retreat.
At the end of the day, Tavi watched, exhausted, as a team of eight horsemen entered the occupied ruins of a barn in one of the burned-out steadholts. Tavi followed behind as they swept the ruins, and snarls and the ringing chimes of weaponplay sang out into the dusk.
Tavi watched as a single large, shadowy form leapt a ruined wall and ran. The Cane was slower than most, its gait unsteady, and in its panic it fled directly toward the Aleran cavalry outside the ruins. A second team spurred forward to intercept the lone Cane.
Then Kitai let out a harsh, sudden breath from her horse, beside Tavi's, and hissed, "Stop them. Do it now."
Tavi blinked at her, but then immediately barked, "Second spear, halt!"
The horsemen hauled their mounts to a stop, looking over their shoulders in confusion.
"Come, Aleran," Kitai said, and set out after the lone Cane.
"Wait here," Tavi told Max. "We'll be back in a minute."
"Uh. Sir?" Max said.
Tavi ignored him and followed Kitai. She led him into the twilight, until they found the fleeing Cane, crouched in the feeble shelter offered by a half-collapsed earthen overhang beside a stream.
She stared at them with wide, frightened eyes, and gathered a number of small, piteously mewling forms to her breast.
She.
She.
Tavi stared at her, speechless. A female Cane, with young. Newly born from the look of it. She must have been giving birth while the Canim retreat began. No Aleran had ever actually seen a female Cane, and over the centuries it had given rise to a number of unsavory rumors about how the Canim perpetuated themselves. The truth was simpler, more obvious, and embodiment of it shivered in the rain before him, clutching her young to her, as desperate and as frightened as any Aleran mother would be in her place.
Tavi stepped forward, toward the female Cane. He lowered his chin toward his chest and bared his teeth.
The female's eyes flashed with desperate anger, waging against even more desperate fear, and then her ears flattened, and she tilted her head far to one side, her body bending to bare her throat in abject surrender.
Tavi relaxed his own stance and nodded at the Canim female. Then he tilted his head slightly to one side, and moved a hand at her in a brushing-away gesture.
The female lifted her head and stared at him, ears twitching.
"Go," Tavi told her. He struggled to remember the proper Canish word, and settled for the one Varg would occasionally use when he thought Tavi was taking too long to move a piece on the ludus board, while making the same gesture. "Marrg."
The female stared at him for a moment. Then she bared her throat again, rose, never taking her eyes from him, and vanished into the dark.
Tavi watched her go, thinking furiously.
The Canim had come to Alera-and brought their mates and offspring, their families with them, something that had never happened before.
Which meant...
"Great furies," Tavi breathed. "I am not afraid of Nasaug anymore."
Kitai stared after the female Cane and nodded grimly.
"I'm afraid," Tavi whispered, "of what drove him from his home."
Isana woke to the sound of distant trumpets and a clamor in the hallway outside her room. She sat up, disoriented. She was in her bed. Someone had bathed her, and she wore a soft, white nightgown that was not her own. On the table next to the bed were three bowls and a simple mug. Two of the bowls were empty. The third was about half-filled with some kind of broth.
She sat up, a shockingly difficult task, and pushed her hair back out of her face.
Then she remembered. The healing tub.
Fade.
The tub was gone, and the maimed slave was not in sight.
If she hadn't been so tired, her heart would have been racing with fear for the man's fate. As it was, her worries were merely galvanizing. Isana got out of bed, though it became an act of sheer will, so weak did she feel. One of her simple grey dresses hung over the back of a chair, and she pulled it on over the nightgown, and walked carefully to the door.
There was shouting in the hallway outside, and the thud of running footsteps. She opened the door, and found Giraldi standing in the hall outside, facing the half-open door of the chamber across the hall from hers.
"That's as may be," the old soldier growled, "but you aren't the one who gets to decide whether you're well again or not." He paused as a trio of youths, probably pages, went sprinting by. "Lady Veradis says you're lucky to be alive. You stay in bed until she says otherwise."
"I don't see Lady Veradis anywhere," said a man in a legionares tunic and boots. He stood in the doorway, looking down the hallway so that Isana saw him in profile. He was handsome, if weathered, his brown hair flecked with grey, and shorn in a standard Legion cut. He was thin, but built of whipcord and sinew, and he carried himself with relaxed confidence, the heel of one hand resting in unconscious familiarity on the hilt of the gladius at his hip. He had a deep, soft voice. "So obviously, she can't say otherwise. Why don't we go and ask her?"
The man turned back to Giraldi, and Isana saw that the other side of his face was horribly maimed with burn scars, seared into the skin in the Legion mark of a coward.
Isana felt her mouth drop open.
"Araris," she said quietly.
Giraldi grunted in surprise and turned to her. "Steadholder. I didn't know you were awake..."
Isana met Araris's steady gaze. She tried to say something, but the only thing that came out of her mouth was, "Araris."
He smiled and gave her a small, formal bow. "I thank you for my life, my lady."
And she felt it. She felt it in him now, felt it as she met his eyes. She had never sensed it in the past, never in all the years he'd served her brother and then her. It was his eyes, she thought. In all those years, with his hair grown long and ill kempt, she had never, never once seen his entire face, seen both of his eyes at once. He'd never been willing to let her see him. Never been willing to let her know what he felt for her.
Love.
Selfless, quiet, strong.
It was love that had sustained him through years of labor and isolation, love that had prompted him to surrender his identity, brand himself, disguise himself, even though it cost him his position, his pride, his career as a soldier-and his family. He had willingly murdered everything he was in the name of that love, and not only that which he felt for Isana. She could feel that in him as well, the bittersweet, bone-deep sorrow and love for his friend and lord, Septimus, and by extension to his friend's wife and son.
For his love, he had fought to protect Septimus's family, endured a life of difficult labor in a steadholt smithy. For his love, he had destroyed his life, and if he was called upon to do so, he would spend his last breath, shed his last drop of blood to protect them without an instant's hesitation. Flis love would accept nothing less.
Isanas eyes blurred with sudden tears, as the warmth and power of that love washed over her, a silent ocean whose waves rippled in time with the beating of his heart. Isana was awed-and humbled-by it. And something stirred in her in answer. For twenty years, she had felt it only in dreams. Now, something broke inside her, shattering like a block of ice beneath a hammer, and her heart soared in exaltation, in the sheer, golden, bubbling laughter she thought was gone forever.
That was why she had never sensed it in him. She had never felt it growing in herself, over the long years of work and grief and regret. She'd never allowed herself to understand the seed had taken root and begun to grow. It had lain quietly, patiently, waiting for the end of the winter of mourning and grief and worry that had frozen her heart. Waiting for a new warmth. Waiting for spring.
His love had slain Araris Valerian.
Hers brought him back to life.
She didn't trust her legs to walk, so she held out one hand to him.
Araris moved carefully, evidently still recuperating himself. She couldn't see anything but a blur, but his hand touched hers, warm and gentle, and their fingers twined together. She began to laugh, through the tears, and she heard him join her. His arms wrapped around her, and they held one another, choking on laughter and tears.
They said nothing.
They didn't need to.
Amara wearily looked up from her book as the knob to the door to their chambers in guest quarters of Lord Cereus twisted. The door opened and Bernard came in, carrying a tray laden with various foods. He smiled at her, and said, "How are you feeling?"
Amara sighed. "You'd think I'd be used to cramps by now. I've had them every month since I was a girl." She shook her head. "I'm not curled up and whimpering anymore, at least."
"That's good," Bernard said quietly. "Here. Mint tea, your favorite. And some roast chicken..." He crossed to where she sat curled up in a chair in front of the fireplace. Despite the summer's heat, the interior of the thick stone walls of Cereus's citadel made it cool enough to be uncomfortable for her, particularly during her cramps. Between the exhaustion of travel, the bangs and scrapes and abrasions she'd acquired, the shoulder she'd dislocated, and the horrible new memories of violence and death, the disappointment as her cycle continued unabated had assumed monstrous proportions. So much so, in fact, that she'd accepted Bernard's offer to attend the debriefing with the First Lord and High Lords Cereus and Placidus in her place.
Perhaps that had been unprofessional of her. But then, it would hardly have been professional to break down weeping from the weight of so many different flavors of agony. No doubt, she would look back at that decision and berate herself for it in the future, when the memories of pain had softened-but where she was now, still in the shadow of some of the worst physical and emotional torment she'd ever felt, she did not begrudge herself the time to recuperate.
"How was the meeting?" she asked.
Bernard settled the tray on her lap, uncovered the chicken, and poured a few drops of cream into the tea. "Eat. Drink."
"I'm not a child, Bernard," Amara said. She certainly didn't mean for her voice to sound quite so petulant. It drew a smile from Bernard as he read her expression. "Don't say it," she told him.
"I wouldn't dream of it." He got the other chair and settled into it. "Now. Eat your dinner and drink your tea, and I'll tell you all about it."
Amara gave him another glowering glance and picked up the tea. It was the perfect temperature, just barely cool enough to drink without scalding herself, and she savored the warmth as it spread down her throat to her belly.
Bernard waited until she took the first bite of chicken to begin. "The long and short of it is that Kalarus's forces are in retreat. Which is good, because they're no longer coming here-and bad because there are still Legions able to retreat and fight another day.