But neither Denelor nor Parth Agon—who should have been the leaders, and who Shana had expected would act as the leaders—seemed to be up to the job. Instead they had been delegating more and more authority to her, regardless of how she felt about it. Denelor never had cared to stir himself more than he had to, after all—she already knew that his besetting sin was sloth—and Parth—
Parth, she suddenly realized, was old. How old, she didn't actually know, not in years—but once they had gotten settled here and it seemed that she and her young wizards had the situation well in hand, he'd started taking a back seat, letting her fight with Caellach and his cronies, waiting for her to make the decisions. From vague hints over the years, she realized that he must be at least a century old, and perhaps more.
He's too old and tired to lead anymore, especially now that the Wizards are doing things and not just hiding. He doesn 't want the leadership position either. It's too much for him now.
Maybe that was the case with Denelor, too.
But could she hand over that much authority to Lorryn? It would make her terribly vulnerable.
As vulnerable as if he truly is my lover, the way everyone seems to think he is—and this is the sort of thing they'd expect me to do, start making him my—my—ruling consort. This will only make them more certain that we're lovers even though we 're not—even though I—
She flushed as that thought came, unbidden, and she must have forgotten to shield it, for suddenly he flushed, too. "I can't help what other people think," he said, defensively. "I can't help it that we—that I—"
She flushed again, fumbled for words, and couldn't find any.
"This isn't a very nice position for you," he said at last. "Even my own sister thinks we're—you know. No matter what we do, people are going to make up their own minds about your personal life and there's nothing you can say or do that will change what they think. But that doesn't make things easy for you, when there's nothing going on between us."
"Nor for you," she managed. "I mean, here I've been dumping all these things on you, and people are making all these assumptions, and you aren't even getting—" Now her face reddened so it felt as if she were inches from a fire.
"Assumptions! I don't mind, but I'm not in the same position that you are. It's got to be intolerable for you!" he exclaimed. "I—Shana—I wish—"
Suddenly, everything fell beautifully into place, as if the broken shards of a vase flew back together again before her eyes. She knew what he wished; he didn't need to say it, he was projecting it so forcefully that he was almost shouting the words in her head. He wanted those assumptions to be true, but he had been afraid that if he tried to push himself onto her, she would react by sending him away. He—he loved her. He really did! And—
Fire and Rain! I feel the same way!
Lorryn wasn't just a supportive and clever friend anymore. It wasn't just his friendship she needed and wanted. How long had she been feeling this about him? When did she stop feeling mere attraction, just enjoying his company, and suddenly start needing his presence the way she needed to breathe?
"I didn't—I don't want to force you into anything," he was saying, a little wildly. "I knew how you'd felt about Valyn and I didn't want you to think I thought I could replace him! I wanted us to be friends, really good friends, and I wanted it to be that we could depend on each other, and then after a while, when things started to get calmed down, and we had the leisure to think about ourselves we could—I mean I know that—I don't know—"
"Oh, hush," she said, suddenly full of a half-mad joy, and kissed him, putting everything she felt behind it just so she could get it all past the wild tide of his feelings.
:oh: she heard in her mind.
And then, for some timeless time, there was no room in either of their minds for words at all. Finally, for that one moment, no matter what would come after, everything was perfectly, completely, right. And she knew that she could trust Lorryn more than she could even trust herself.
"This isn't exactly the choicest spot—" he said, finally, into her hair. "We're rather out in public, not to mention our audience."
"I suppose they could wake up." Shana sighed and reluctantly broke the embrace.
She smoothed down her hair, self-consciously. He brushed a strand or two out of her eyes and tucked it behind her ear for her. "Have you any time to spare?" he asked wistfully.
No—there's this, and the forges, and the slave-collars, and the defenses and—
"I'll make some," she replied.
The irony of the situation was that the only people affected by this sea-change in their relationship were Lorryn and Shana themselves. But oh, the difference for them!
No one seemed to have noticed that Lorryn's quarters had been stripped and converted into a storage area. Spiteful comments from Caellach Gwain as reported by Shana's sharp-eared observers among the children were in no wise changed. And yet—the difference to her!
But the world outside their chamber was not going to go away.
A plan—a large and complicated plan to safeguard the Citadel forever—was beginning to take shape between the two of them. When news came from Keman that Lord Kyrtian had either given or been ordered to give the command of the army to someone else while the Council debated its future, the need for that plan took on a new sense of urgency.
The old Citadel had defenses that this one didn't; it was time to put them in place. Alara and Kalamadea were the chief architects of the Citadel, and it was time to consult with them.
She and Lorryn, Alara and Father Dragon sat together over a three-dimensional "map" of the Citadel, sculpted in removable layers, trying to plan what next needed to be molded out of the rocks of their mountain. One grim consideration—escape tunnels. Just in case the Great Lords decided to send the formidable Lord Kyrtian after them. Another, a duplicate of the Citadel far enough away to flee to, but near enough that an evacuation could take place by means of the transportation spell. There were enough Wizards able to use it now that the entire population could be evacuated within hours, and the advantage of the spell was that there would be no tracks to trace them by.
The existence of this duplicate—which was near enough to Zed's iron-mines to provide extra protection, but at this point hardly more than a few chambers molded out of the rock by some of the youngest dragons—was for now a closely-kept secret. Even from the dragons working on it. Alara had told them it was nothing more than a new set of lairs.
Which we also need, Shana thought, wondering just how thin their resources could be stretched before things started snapping.
"The prisoners—how goes the memory-making?" Father Dragon asked. He and Alara were in halfblood form at the moment, or they would never have fit into the map-chamber. "I do not wish to alarm you unduly, but the sooner we can drop those two where they can be found, the better."
"Narshy's sorted out who's the best at planting the new memories, and he's got them stuffed with about a year's worth," Shana replied, tracing a possible exit tunnel from the lowest storage chamber onto the model with a wax pencil. "We decided to make the memories confused and foggy, as if they'd been kept drugged."
"We nominated Caellach as the Chief Wizard of this imaginary lot," Lorryn put in, getting a grin from Father Dragon and a head shake from Alara. "We had to have somebody, and at least he's memorable."