She stopped, breathing hard. Just a short while before, she had warned Grinsa about provoking the a'laq. Now she'd done much the same thing with his wife. What was it about these two that brought out the worst in them?
Cresenne drew breath, intending to apologize for her outburst. But before she could form the words, she felt a sudden sharp pressure on her throat. She couldn't speak; she couldn't exhale. It seemed that someone had wrapped a powerful hand around her neck, though the n'qlae hadn't moved. Cresenne began to panic. She even reached up with a hand, as if she might pry those invisible fingers away from her neck. Then she let the hand drop to her side. She closed her eyes and tried to calm herself. She still couldn't breathe, but she didn't think that the woman had it in mind to do anything more than scare her. D'Pera was a Weaver. If she'd truly wanted Cresenne dead, she could have snapped her neck with a thought.
After a few more harrowing seconds, the pressure on her throat vanished. Cresenne took a long shuddering breath and opened her eyes again, swaying slightly as her vision swam. When she could focus again, she saw that the n'qlae was regarding her with obvious curiosity.
"You may have some courage after all," the woman said.
"Thank you, N'Qlae."
"What did you think would happen here today?" D'Pera asked. "Did you think I'd…?" She pressed her lips in a thin line, looking away briefly before facing Cresenne once more. "What did you think I'd say?"
Cresenne shrugged. "I don't know. I believe that you did just what Grinsa and I hoped you would. You allowed Besh to tell us the truth. But I also think that something else happened back there, something that you weren't expecting. Something that troubled you."
D'Pera looked away. "You're wrong." She kept her voice low. Cresenne heard no anger in her denial.
"Besh felt a second presence in his mind. Someone forced him to say those things about making Grinsa and Q'Daer sick, and about the protective spell not being real."
"Of course he'd say that," the n'qlae said, still not looking at her. The words were just what Cresenne would have expected, but D'Pera's voice sounded flat, passionless. "He'd probably say anything to save his life and that of the other man."
"I was struck by what you said before, when Grinsa asked you if Besh had responded truthfully to every question. You said that as long as your magic controlled him he couldn't tell a lie."
"Yes. That's right."
"But as soon as the a'laq began to use his magic on Besh, you weren't controlling him anymore, were you?"
"The a'laq did no such thing."
Cresenne said nothing. She couldn't challenge this statement without calling the n'qlae a liar, and thus putting her own life at risk, but she refused to accept the woman's denials. So she merely stood there, staring at the n'qlae, waiting for her to say more.
For a long time D'Pera kept silent as well. She began to fidget, clearly uncomfortable under Cresenne's gaze. Finally she looked away again.
"What is it you want from me?" she asked.
"I want you to tell me what really happened."
"Why? You can't save them, you know. The Mettai have made themselves enemies of the Fal'Borna."
"Not these Mettai. These men have done nothing wrong. They saved my husband's life, and Q'Daer's, too. They created a spell that will save us all. You know this is true, regardless of what E'Menua made Besh say."
"You don't understand the Southlands. You haven't been here long enough. You haven't grown up in the shadow of the Blood Wars."
"I understand it better than you think. The Forelands had its share of trouble before Grinsa and I left. And if the Eandi king who decided my fate had thought as you do, I'd be dead."
D'Pera shook her head and stared off toward the western horizon, where a smudge of rain had appeared just below the dark clouds.
"You can't save them," she said quietly. "No one can. E'Menua has made up his mind, and that's the end of it."
"You can save them, N'Qlae. You may be the only one who has that power now. The a'laq is your husband and you love him. I understand that, as well. But he used you, and you let him. And unless you do something to stop him, two innocent men are going to die."
The n'qlae looked at her, her expression bleak. Cresenne hoped that D'Pera would say more, at least to admit that E'Menua had used his magic on Besh. But the woman remained silent. For her part, Cresenne had said all that she could. If she went on, she risked angering D'Pera further, and she knew that she'd already made her point. Either the n'qlae would heed her words or she wouldn't. So after staring back at the woman for a moment or two, she turned and started toward the sept.
Thoughts swarmed through Q'Daer's mind like flies in the middle of the Growing. He should have been pleased. The Mettai had admitted that he was an enemy of the Fal'Borna, proving that Q'Daer had been right to doubt him, and that Grinsa had been a fool to place his trust in the dark-eye sorcerers. The rift between the Forelander and E'Menua had never been greater, which meant that Q'Daer's status as the a'laq's most trusted Weaver, aside from D'Pera of course, was secure. In every way, the day had been a good one for him.
Yet he felt sick to his stomach. He hadn't realized it until the moment when E'Menua began questioning the old Mettai man, but he wanted to believe that the dark-eye sorcerers had saved his life. He wanted to go to sleep at night secure in the knowledge that their spell would protect every Fal'Borna on the plain from the curse of the Mettai witch, which remained a threat to them even though the woman herself was dead. Most of all, he wanted to believe that the a'laq had allowed the Mettai man to speak the truth. He wanted to he certain that the leader of his sept hadn't used his magic to make the man lie. And he wasn't sure of this. Not at all.
"Something is troubling you," the a'laq said, as they made their way past the z'kals of his people toward E'Menua's shelter. The a'laq offered this quietly, as a statement rather than as a question. But Q'Daer felt as though he had demanded the truth. Ile felt as though E'Menua was holding a knife to his throat.
"It's… it's nothing, A'Laq."
E'Menua looked at him, raising an eyebrow.
"I… I had hoped the Mettai's spell would protect us. I'm disappointed. That's all."
"Ah, of course," E'Menua said, nodding. "I understand. You journeyed with the Mettai for many leagues. You'd come to believe that they might be our friends."
"Yes, A'Laq. I had hoped it was so."
"No doubt the Forelander tried to convince you of this."
"He trusts them, yes."
"But do you trust him?"
Q'Daer stared at the ground. He could feel the a'laq's eyes upon him, but at that moment he didn't dare meet the man's gaze.
All of this should have been so simple. He was Fal'Borna. Nothing else mattered. I hadn't he said as much to Grinsa a hundred times as they traveled across the plain together? The Forelander had refused to submit to the a'laq's authority. He had spent every moment of the last several turns trying to leave the sept, making it clear that he wanted nothing to do with the Fal'Borna or their traditions. Q'Daer had no reason to trust him. Faced with a conflict between the Forelander and the Mettai on one hand, and the a'laq and his people on the other, there should have been no question as to where his loyalties lay.
But on this day nothing seemed as clear as it should. If he was to be honest with himself, he had to admit that he didn't just want to believe the Mettai. He did believe him. He didn't merely wish that Grinsa had been right about all of this. He felt certain that the Forelander was right.
And that meant that the a'laq had deceived them.
He did it to protect the sept, said a voice inside his mind. We're at war! Nothing matters more than the safety of our people.