Maeander disembarked at Aos. He had something to attend to there but would likely arrive in Acacia about the same time as they would. Mena was left in Larken’s care. Out of Maeander’s shadow, the Acacian was a different man. He swaggered the same way, smiled with the same arrogance, held his body with the same self-adoration. But these things were natural to his character. What was different was that he conveyed himself as a free man, not just a hanger-on. He spoke with a casualness that almost suggested disdain for Maeander’s authority, although Mena was not entirely sure why it felt this way. It was nothing he actually said, just something in his attitude.
The evening after they sailed from Aos, Larken entered with several Acacian servants trailing behind him. Mena had noticed that all of the servants were Acacian and most of the crew was made up of Talayans. Only the captain himself, his first mate, and the Punisari guards were of Meinish blood. The servants set out trays of cheeses and olives, small broiled fish, a carafe of lemon wine. He thought he would share this last meal with her, he said. The next day they would sail into Acacia and she would no longer be exclusively his.
Mena found no reason to object. It was not that she liked Larken or wished for his company. He felt Mena’s fate was in his hands now and would soon be in Hanish’s hands. Mena herself had no say in the situation. But speaking from this assumption, Larken was somewhat careless in the things he said.
“Is it true?” Mena asked. “The things he said about my siblings, I mean.”
“Oh yes,” Larken said, running his fingers over his cheekbone, down and under his lips, a gesture he often made while talking. He sat on a stool, near enough that he could reach out and touch Mena if he leaned forward. “Maeander never lies. What he says is always true. It’s when he is silent that you have reason to fear things aren’t well.”
Mena lifted a glass of wine to her nose and inhaled it. The scent was familiar, but she was not sure why; she had never drunk wine before. “I look forward to seeing my sister. I will see her, won’t I? Hanish won’t keep me from her.”
Larken considered the question, seeming to weigh not the answer itself but to turn over how much of it he should give her. “Let’s just say that Hanish has a purpose for you and Hanish has a purpose for Corinn. But they are different purposes, separate destinies.”
Mena set the wineglass down, having consumed none of it. She realized the reason the wine scent had smelled familiar. It had often been on her father’s breath at night, when he told her and Dariel stories. He always had a glass of the wine nearby. He would sip it and talk, sip and talk, and when he kissed her good night she had tasted it on the warm air exhaled from inside him. “What makes you think my brother won’t have wiped Hanish Mein from the Known World before we get too far into these separate destinies?”
“It will not take that long.” Larken grinned and looked down in a manner that indicated he was leaving things unsaid. “And beyond that it’s a matter of simple logic. I hate to tell you this, Mena, but we’re ready for him. We welcome it, really. Meins are fighters. They are not happy when the peace lingers too long. They never stop training, preparing, hungering for the next battle. The boys not old enough to fight last time are young men now. Oh, how they want to prove themselves! We still have the Numrek. I’ve been surprised at how well they take to a life of leisure, but they will be happy enough to pick up their spears and axes again. And we have other weapons as well. Not the same sort that Hanish unleashed the first time. One can do such things only once. But we’ve other weapons, believe me. The type of things that will wake you screaming in the night. But they are no nightmare. When Hanish releases them, they’ll roam through the bright daylight. Believe me, Hanish is quite ready to face Aliver Akaran and an untrained, polyglot horde, no matter how large it is or how much Aliver whips them into a frenzy.”
Mena stared at him for a long time, fingering the eel pendant at her neck as she did. “Larken, tell me something… You are an Acacian. You always will be. Don’t you have some wish to redeem your honor? Is that not in you somewhere? You could do so even now. You could join me and my brother and help take back the things you betrayed earlier. With your knowledge you would be an immense aid to my brother. You could null your crime.”
“Hardly,” Larken said. “I hear you, though. I would not be the first to have a change of heart like that. But it’s not…a way of being that suits me. I’ve cast my lot with the Meins, and I’m quite happy with it. You should see my villa in Manil. I have servants for every purpose, Mena. Every purpose. I live a life I would never have achieved as a Marah guard. When Hanish or Maeander calls for me, I come and serve, but most days I am no different from the richest of nobles.”
“You care only about yourself, then?”
“Who else is there to care about? I am only myself…”
“Change yourself to something better, then! You have only to do it, and it will be done. This is something I’ve discovered for myself.”
Instead of answering directly, Larken asked her if she had ever heard the Meinish legend of the bear giant Thallach. This Thallach was an enormous northern bear, he said, against whom the first men of the Mein tested their valor. They went one after another into the mouth of his den and did single combat with him. They died one after another, such a steady feast that Thallach never even had to leave his den. His food came to him instead. This went on for many years. Many men died. One day a holy man convinced the people to try another way. Why send their best and strongest and most beloved to their deaths time and again? Why not make peace with the bear? The people, weakened and fearful, believed there was wisdom in this. The holy man went at the head of a delegation, offering Thallach a feather of peace, promising him that they would feed and care for him and worship him as a god from that day forward. “Do you know what Thallach said to them in answer?”
Larken had moved his stool up close to Mena’s bench. He let the question hang a moment, although from his pleased expression he obviously did not mean for her to answer. “Thallach said-” he leaned forward, bared his teeth, and growled, a long, low rumble of sound and vibration and the heat of his breath on her ear. “Then he devoured them, one and all, just as he had done all the others. What else, really, would you expect a bear to say or to do? Thallach could not be anything but what he was. Nor can I. Nor do I wish to be! So don’t try to make me something that I am not. I’ll tell you something you don’t know about me. I’ll ask you afterward if you still think I can be redeemed.”
He explained his role in handing Corinn over to Hanish. He wanted her to understand that he had not just switched sides from the standpoint of a defeated soldier. He had not just sworn loyalty to a new master. He had lived his life in preparation for just such a betrayal. He had behaved in such a way as to gain the highest degree of trust within the Marah hierarchy. He had been a perfect soldier, without a blemish on his record. He had honed his sword skills with a drive his teachers always commented on. He had withstood anything training threw at him without so much as a whimper of protest, and he had willingly put himself forward as a candidate for special assignments. But he had done all of this so that if the opportunity ever came to grasp for something grander, he would.
He had watched Hanish Mein rampage into the world, and he knew fighting against him was a losing proposition. He got his hands on Corinn with joy in his heart. She had been so easy to trap. You can believe in me. I live only to protect you, was all he had to say. When he turned her over, he felt not the slightest remorse. He would have done the same with any of the rest of them, even with Mena herself, if she’d had the misfortune of falling into his hands.