Terian let out a sharp laugh, like a bark, then cut it off. “Sorry. The first and the last? What the hells, man? You’ve been divorced since before I’ve known you. And not before? What, did you marry when you were sixteen?”
“I … no, I didn’t even meet Imina until I was nineteen or so.” Cyrus caught his breath. “I don’t know. After her, I was focused on building my guild, and there wasn’t really much chance to-” He flushed. “You’ve seen where we lived when we were in the Kings of Reikonos. I didn’t want a public exhibition, and frankly, it’s not as though I met many women. Every now and again, I’d see my ex-wife, and we’d … well, you know. But that was it.”
“Yeah, but again, you’ve been with Sanctuary for … what? Over three years now?” Terian looked at him with guarded disbelief. “You’ve been an officer for most of that time, and I hate to break this to you, but the women say you’re easy on the old eyeballs, so I think you’d have had an offer or two. I’m saying if you really wanted to-”
“I came close once,” he said. “With Nyad.” He looked around and didn’t see the wizard in the formation with them. He caught sight of crimson robes further down the column. “When we were out on the recruiting mission. I mean, I had started to come out of the melancholy I was in after Narstron died, but, well, we were close to it, and she-” he flushed again, “-she found out about how I felt about Vara and stopped me.”
“Ouch.” Terian grimaced. “Nyad never stops anybody.” He looked behind them. “Guess there had to be a first time, but I’m a little shocked it was you. But since then, there have been offers, right?” He looked around again. “That ranger, Aisling? Hasn’t she been on your trail for a while?”
“Yes,” Cyrus said. “But Vara … I don’t know. I always … held out this hope in the back of my mind that Vara and I could … you know. It seemed like we were right there-she told me she felt the same way about me, and …” He sighed. “Everything … just completely fell apart.”
“What did she say to you that night?” Terian looked at him, and Cyrus could see the curiosity, curiosity and something else. “The last night in Sanctuary, before you came downstairs and offered to go with Longwell?”
Cyrus felt the tension run through him, felt his muscles ache, smelled the fresh air and the outdoors. “She said …”
We will not, cannot be. Not ever … I thank you for trying to comfort me in my hour of need, but I’ll have you take your leave now.
“She said that it would never work between us.” Cyrus heard the words echo in his mind, heard the quiet around them, felt the seeping darkness of her quarters as she had said them. “That she would outlive me by so long, that her pain would be so great that it wasn’t worth it to her.”
“Ouch.” Terian let out a low whistle. “She knows how to drive the dagger deep, doesn’t she? I mean, you’d think she’d had a hundred years of experience doing it to say something like that.”
“She was just trying to …” Cyrus let the words hang there. “Cut me loose with as little pain as she could.”
“Still. That’s the easiest she could come up with?” Terian shook his head. “Brutal. It was just brutal. She could have at least given you a roll in the proverbial hay for your years of pining before she booted you from beneath her sheets.”
“Oddly enough,” Cyrus said, “I don’t think that would have helped.” There was quiet for a few minutes, unbroken by either of them until Cyrus said finally, “I haven’t told anyone that yet. Thank you for listening.”
“Why wouldn’t I?” Terian asked.
“You’ve been a little strange lately,” Cyrus said. “One minute you act like my friend Terian, then the next it’s like you’re channeling Vara.”
“That’s low,” he said, wincing. “I’ve been your friend for a long time, Davidon.” The wince disappeared, replaced by a knowing smirk. “Can you think of anything you might have done that would change that?”
Cyrus thought about it and shrugged. “I can’t think of anything. But I wondered if maybe I’d done something to piss you off.”
“Yeah. Well …” Terian said, pensive, “… you did give me this very impressive sword.” He pulled the blade from his scabbard, holding it up. The steel held a bright red edge to it and it glimmered and shone, the mystical power beneath the forging obvious in the daylight. “This is a blade given by the Sovereign to his truly great dark knights, the ones of such skill and virtue that they remain unchallenged in the realm of personal combat. It’s a rare honor to get one of these and they say the red in the steel is from the blade, drinking the blood of its enemies to grow stronger.” He smiled, a very slight one. “So that’s noteworthy, isn’t it?”
“I suppose,” Cyrus said, inflectionless. “Such a trivial thing, though. I wasn’t ever going to use it.”
“Ah, yes, trivial things,” Terian said, a bitter smile on his lips. “It’s funny how the things we think are so trivial really aren’t. But that’s all right,” the dark knight said, his smile widening, the bitterness leaving it. “I’ll make good use of it.” He stared at the length of it and swung it to the side, causing his horse to shuffle footing with the change in weight. Terian laughed. “It’ll drink the blood of my enemies.” He looked back to Cyrus, and nodded his head in gratitude.
“Every last one of them.”
Chapter 13
Weeks passed as they traveled across the land. Cyrus stayed at the fore of the expedition save for once per day, when he would ride along the sides of the column and speak to the soldiers. They nodded and smiled at him, giving him hope and encouragement and taking his mind off Vara.
Aisling seemed to avoid Cyrus in the days that followed the castle siege. She nodded and smiled politely at him but made no attempt to initiate conversation. Uncertain of what to think or feel, he nodded courteously when he saw her and even doffed his helm but said nothing more than pleasantries.
While Cyrus spoke with the Baroness only occasionally to check in on her-to little effect, she would answer politely but offer little else-she seemed to be getting along well with almost all his other officers. He regularly saw her riding with J’anda and Curatio as well as Nyad and Ryin. Occasionally he would also see her speaking with Longwell or Odellan, or Martaina. Once he even saw her talking with Aisling. Both of them had been looking at him when he turned around, and they averted their eyes quickly, leaving him with a distinctly embarrassed sensation, his ears burning.
The weather changed as the weeks wore on. The sun grew warmer, and they made the turn into croplands, where corn dominated the fields, along with grains of all sorts. The days grew longer, and the breeze carried less chill. The hills gave way to long stretches of flat plains, with just the slightest roll to them; they reminded him most of the Plains of Perdamun, of Sanctuary and home-and of an elven girl that he could not get off his mind, no matter how he tried.
“We’re less than a week from my father’s castle,” Longwell said to Cyrus one day as they were passing a field with a fence of stone that encircled it. The skies were grey, a light drizzle of rain making its way down upon them.
“So we’ll be heading to his castle, not the front line?” Cyrus looked at the dragoon. Odellan rode on the other side of Cyrus, listening to them both.
“Aye,” Longwell said. “It has been something akin to six months since my father first sent his messenger to us; it would be difficult to tell where the army is after such an interval.” Tightness creased the dragoon’s face. “If it is as bad as he said in his message, we may not have far to go to find his army.”
“That doesn’t sound as if it bodes well,” Odellan said, the light rain trickling down over his armor.
“It didn’t bode well when my father contacted me.” Longwell looked glum. “He knew it would be an exceptionally long journey to send someone after me. I didn’t tell them exactly where I’d be, because I didn’t know anything of Arkaria when I left.” He paused, frowning. “Nor was I of a disposition to tell him at the time either, I suppose. I only told him I was going over the Endless Bridge to find a strong army to join. His messenger tracked me down based on whispers of my involvement in the defense of Termina.”