Taking the final page of the manuscript, he twisted it into a tight squib and tossed it into the fire.
Alec rocked back on his heels, watching in silent consternation as the parchment blossomed into flame.
When it was consumed, Seregil knocked the ash to bits with the poker.
"But what about Nysander?" Alec asked. "What will you tell him?"
"Nothing, and neither will you."
"But—"
"We're not betraying him." Seregil took Alec by the shoulders, more gently this time, drawing their faces close together. "You have my oath on that. I believe he already knows what we just learned, but he can't know that you know. Not until I tell you it's safe. Understand?"
"More secrets," Alec said, looking solemn and unhappy.
"Yes, more secrets. I need your trust in this, Alec. Can you give it?"
Alec looked sidelong at the fire for a long moment, then locked eyes with him again and replied in halting Aurenfaie, "Rei phoril tos tokun meh brithir, vri sh 'ruit 'ya.»
Though you thrust your dagger at my eyes, I will not flinch. A solemn oath, and one Seregil had pledged him not so long ago. Seregil let out a small, relieved laugh. "Thank you. If you don't mind, I think I'll take a rest. Why don't you go have a look through those books we found?"
Alec got up to go without a word. But he paused in the doorway, looking back at Seregil still sitting by the fire.
"What does tali mean? Is it Aurenfaie?"
"Tali?"
A ghost of the old grin tugged at one corner of Seregil's mouth. "Yes, it's an Aurenfaie term of endearment, rather old-fashioned, like beloved. Where'd you pick that up?"
"I thought—"
Alec regarded him quizzically, then shook his head. "I don't know, at one of the salons, probably. Sleep well, Seregil."
"You, too."
When Alec was gone, Seregil walked to the window and rested his forehead against one cold pane, staring out over the dark garden.
Stone within ice. Secrets within secrets.
Silences inside of greater silences.
In all the time he'd known Nysander, he had never felt such distance between them. Or so alone.
Several days passed before Alec realized that they were not going to talk of the matter again. Despite his oath, it troubled him greatly. This silence toward the wizard seemed to create a small cold gap in a relationship that had been so seamlessly warm and safe.
For the first time in months he found himself wondering about Seregil's loyalties.
Try as he might to banish such thoughts, they nagged at him until at last he came out with it as they were out walking in the Noble Quarter one evening.
He'd feared that Seregil would evade the question or be annoyed. Instead, he looked as if he'd been expecting this discussion.
"Loyalty, eh? That's a large question for a thinking person. If you're asking if I'm still loyal to Nysander, then the answer is yes, for as long as I have faith in his honor. The same goes for any of my friends."
"But do you still have faith in him?" Alec pressed.
"I do, though he hasn't made it easy lately. You're too smart not to have noticed that there are unspoken things between him and me. I'm trying hard to be patient about all that, and so must you.
"But maybe that's not the real issue here. Are you losing faith in me?"
"No!" Alec exclaimed hastily, knowing the words were true as he spoke them. "I'm just trying to understand."
"Well, like I said, loyalty is no simple thing. For instance, would you say that you, Nysander, and I are loyal to Queen Idrilain and want to act in the best interests of Skala?"
"I've always thought so."
"But what if the Queen ordered us, for the good of Skala, to do harm to Micum? Should I keep faith with her or with him?"
"With Micum," Alec replied without hesitation.
"But what if Micum, without our knowledge, had committed treason against Skala? What then?"
"That's ridiculous!" Alec snorted. "He'd never do anything like that."
"People can surprise you, Alec. And perhaps he did it out of loyalty to something else, say his family. He's kept faith with his family but broken faith with the Queen. Which outweighs the other?"
"His family," Alec maintained, although he was beginning to feel a bit confused.
"Certainly. Any man ought to hold his family above all else. But what if his justified act of treason cost hundreds of other families their lives? And what if some of those killed were also friends of ours—Myrhini, Cilia, There. Well, maybe not Thero—"
"I don't know!" Alec shrugged uncomfortably.
"I can't say one way or the other without knowing the details. I guess I'd just have to have faith in him until I knew more. Maybe he didn't have any choice."
Seregil leveled a stern finger at him. "You always have a choice. Don't ever imagine you don't. Whatever you do, it's a decision and you have to accept responsibility for it. That's when honor becomes more than empty words."
"Well, I still say I'd have to know why he did it," Alec retorted stubbornly.
"That's good. But suppose, despite all his kindness to you, you discovered he really had betrayed your trust. Would you hunt him down and kill him as the law required?"
"How could I?"
"It would be difficult. Past kindness counts for something. But say you knew for certain that someone else would catch him—the Queen's officers, for instance—and that they'd kill him slowly and horribly. Then wouldn't it be your duty, as a friend and a man of honor, to see to it that he was granted a quick, merciful death? Looked at from that angle, I suppose killing Micum Cavish might be the greatest expression of friendship."
Alec stared at Seregil, mouth slightly ajar. "How the hell did we come to me killing Micum?"
Seregil shrugged. "You asked about loyalty. I told you it wasn't easy."
11
The hands moved more often now. As Nysander gazed down at them through the thick sheet of crystal that covered the case, a trick of the light superimposed his reflection over the splayed hands below, creating the illusion that his head lay within the case, gripped in the withered talons of the dead necromancer. The face he saw there was a very old one, etched with weariness.
While he watched, the hands slowly curled into fists, clenching so tightly that the skin over one knuckle split, showing brown bone beneath.
Continuing grimly on through the deserted museum, Nysander half expected to hear the Voice from his nightmares, roaring its taunting challenge up through the floor from the depths below. Those dreams came more often now, since Seregil's return from the Asheks.
Summoning an orb of light, Nysander opened the door at the back of the museum chamber and began the long descent through the vaults.
He'd wooed Magyana here in the days of their youth.
When she'd remained obdurate in her celibacy, they had continued to share long discussions as they wandered along these narrow stone corridors. Seregil had often come with them during his ill-starred apprenticeship, asking a thousand questions and poking into everything.
Thero came with him occasionally, though less often than he once had. Did Ylinestra bring him down here to make love, Nysander wondered, as she had him?
By the Four, she'd warmed the very stones with her relentless passion!
He shook his head in bemusement as he imagined her with Thero; a sunbird embracing a crow.
He'd never completely trusted the sorceress.
Talented as Ylinestra was at both magic and love, greed lurked just behind her smile. In that way she was not unlike Thero, but Thero was bound by Oreska law; she was not.
The fact that she had gone from his bed to Thero's troubled Nysander in a way that had nothing to do with former passions, though he had been unable to convince Thero of that. After two tense, unpleasant attempts, Nysander had dropped the subject.