“Something like that,” Isana said.
“I came here to offer you a chance to leave,” Antillus said, his tone steady, his words carefully neutral. “Take Rari and Lady Aria and get off my land. We won’t mention your challenge again. To anyone.”
Isana considered that for a moment. It was a significant gesture. Many folk in the southern portions of the Realm often sneered at the tendency of the more conservative to defend vigorously such notions as their sense of personal valor, but the fact was that in the war-torn north, such a thing was a survival trait. Without the personal courage to face his foes-and more importantly, his legionares’ belief in that courage-Antillus Raucus would face a horde of problems that could otherwise be avoided. When men had to stand on the battlefield, their courage itself a weapon that was every bit as deadly to the enemy as swords and arrows, one could not afford to appear as a coward to one’s men.
By offering Isana a chance to simply depart, Raucus was running the very real risk of appearing, to his men, to have been skittish about taking her on-particularly after the clash of their furycraft before the walls earlier that day. Granted, if Isana left quietly, and no one said anything further about it, that damage would be minimized, but there were bound to be rumors, regardless.
She supposed it made sense, from Raucus’s perspective. The man simply could not accept that the threat facing the Realm was greater than that which he’d spent his entire life-and the lives of who knew how many of his legionares- fighting.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I can’t do that.”
“You’re strong,” he said in that same distant, uninflected tone. “I’ll give you that. But you aren’t stronger than I am.” His gaze was steady. “If you see this through, I’ll kill you. Don’t think I won’t.”
Isana gestured at the table. “You’ve seen the dispatches. You know the danger.”
His features shifted subtly, hardening. “I’ve spent my life fighting a war no one in the south can be bothered about. Burying men no one down there mourns. Seeing steadholts devastated. I know what they’re going through, Your Highness. I’ve seen it more than once, visited on my own people.”
“Then it should make you more eager to stop it-not less.”
His eyes flashed in sudden anger. “If I take my Legions from the Wall, the Icemen will slaughter thousands of holders who can’t protect themselves. It’s as simple as that. Never mind what will happen to the rest of Alera if the Icemen decide to press south and grind us to pieces between two enemies.”
“What if they’re willing not to do that?”
“They aren’t,” Raucus growled. “Whatever you talked about in half of an hour today, take it from someone who has spent a lifetime dealing with them. They’ll fight. That’s all there is to it.”
“You use that phrase a great deal,” Isana said. She rose and lifted her chin, meeting Raucus’s eyes. “What if you’re wrong, my lord?”
“I’m not.”
“What if you are?” Isana demanded, her voice still gentle. “What if you could achieve a truce with the Icemen and take your forces south to the relief of the First Lord? What if you could be saving thousands of lives, right now-but you aren’t?”
His gaze never wavered. A long, silent moment passed.
“I’ll make sure your coach is standing by,” he said quietly. “Be gone by morning, First Lady.”
He bowed to her again, his back and shoulders stiff, then turned and swept from the room.
Isana felt herself begin to shake a moment later, in simple reaction to the tension and stress. She grimaced and folded her hands in her lap, closing her eyes and willing Rill into her own body, to exert some measure of control over her nerves. She urged blood to flow more smoothly, calmly through her limbs, and felt her hands warm up a little. She crossed the room to sit by the little fire-place, her hands extended, and took deep breaths until her quivering fingers stilled.
Araris entered silently and shut the door. He stood there, a silent presence against her senses, his concern a small thing beside the steady warmth of his love.
“He called you Rari,” Isana said, without turning.
She didn’t need to see him to know that a small smile had quirked up the unmarred side of his face. “I was in my first term at the Academy when he and Septimus were in their second. I followed them around a lot. Raucus bought me my first…” He coughed and she felt a flush of mild embarrassment from him. “… drink.”
Isana shook her head, and enjoyed the feel of the smile that came to her mouth. “Thirty years ago. It doesn’t seem like it should have been such a long time.”
“Time goes by,” Araris replied. “But yes. It doesn’t feel like it was all that long ago to me, either.” His mouth quirked into a small smile. “Then my knees ache and I see grey hairs in the mirror.”
She turned to face him. He was leaning back against the door, legs crossed, arms folded over his chest. Isana walked over to him and ran the fingers of one hand lightly over his hair, caressing the silver that peppered the dark brown. “I think you’re beautiful.”
He captured her fingers in his, and kissed them delicately before murmuring, “You have gone mad.”
She shook her head, smiling, and pressed herself against Araris, laying her head on his armored chest. His arms slid around her a moment later.
“You’re taking an awful risk,” he told her.
“I have little choice,” she replied. “The only way to take the Shield Legions south is with Raucus’s cooperation. You know the man. Do you think he would murder an essentially unarmed woman in cold blood?”
“Not back when I knew him. But he isn’t the man he was when we were young,” Araris said. “He’s harder. More bitter. I know you want to try to reach out to him, Isana, but bloody crows.”
Isana said nothing. She just held on to him.
“Maybe you should think about his offer,” Araris said. “Maybe there’s another way.”
“Such as?”
“Take him south. Let him see the Vord for himself. Reading dispatches is one thing. Seeing it with your own eyes is another.”
Isana inhaled and exhaled deeply and closed her eyes. “Open eyes are of little use when the mind behind them is closed.”
Araris stroked her hair with one hand. “True enough.”
“And… and there’s no time.” How could it go so quickly when you needed it most?
“If he… hurts you,” Araris said calmly, “I’m going to kill him.”
She lifted her head sharply and met his eyes. “You mustn’t.”
His scarred face was completely immobile. “Mustn’t I?”
She framed his face with her hands. “The point of this is to reach his heart, Araris. He’s built up layers and layers of defenses around his emotions-and being up here, it’s easy to see why. He’s channeled his passion into protecting his people, fighting the threat that’s right here in front of him. Even if I die, trying to reach him, I might get through. I think he’s a decent man, beneath the calluses and scars. If my blood is what it takes to wash them away, so be it.”
Araris stared down at her for a long moment.
“Bloody crows,” he whispered, finally. “I’ve never known such a woman as you, Isana.”
She found her face warming, but she couldn’t look away from his steady gaze.
“I love you,” he said, simply. “I’ll not try to carry you off before you can go out and get hurt tomorrow. I won’t try to change what you are.”
She didn’t trust herself to speak. So she kissed him. Their arms slid around one another, and time went by on the wings of a falcon.
When he finally broke the kiss, though, there was something cold and hard in his voice.