“I don’t understand,” Myrmeen said. “Why are you letting us go?”
“Because you no longer are of any consequence,” Zeal said coldly. “And this is what my lord desires.”
The wall leading out to the cliff vanished as Tamara kissed its cold surface, revealing a shoal of stars above the gently surging waters of the sea below. The humans led their mounts to the difficult trail outside, Myrmeen intentionally going last so that she could face Tamara, who remained close to her at all times.
“Why didn’t you kill me when you had the chance?” Myrmeen asked. Tamara raised her hand, and the wall appeared, separating them.
Myrmeen, the Harpers, and Krystin led their mounts along the rise, where they retraced their steps and eventually made their way to the top of the cliff. They mounted their horses and rode toward the city as if the red-haired man were chasing them, spitting fire at their heels.
Near the cavern’s entrance, Imperator Zeal confronted his wife. The candles and torches lining the walls flared as if they were about to explode. “What was the Lhal woman talking about?”
“I went to her room,” Tamara admitted.
“You were going to kill her?”
“I had planned to, yes,” Tamara said. “She burned our home to the ground, destroyed all I had, all that was important to me.”
“Those were just objects. They can be replaced.”
“You never had a family,” she whispered. “You wouldn’t understand.”
The fiery-haired man touched her arm with a gentle caress, his anger fading. Upon the walls, the brilliant light waned until the fires resumed their normal intensity.
“What stopped you?” he asked.
“You did,” she said, burying her face in his hard, muscular chest, “I thought of the displeasure you would face from Lord Sixx if she were found dead. I couldn’t do it.”
He knew she was lying but held her close. “I love you, wife.”
“And I love you,” she whispered.
These words he believed. As he brushed her hair with his nearly smoldering hands, Zeal formed another explanation for his wife’s actions. He decided that his wife had grown tired of having him ignore her urging to take Lord Shoe’s power. She had planned to assassinate the Lhal woman to force the two men into confrontation. Sixx would have wanted Tamara’s life for her actions, and Zeal would have murdered the man to protect her. At the last moment, she had changed her mind, granting Zeal the opportunity to decide for himself if he would try to usurp Lord Sixx, something that would be nearly impossible now that the man had the apparatus.
Imperator Zeal pulled back and kissed his wife’s hungry lips. As he felt the flames of passion stir within him, several torches exploded, startling them both. Once they realized what had happened, Zeal and his wife began to laugh uncontrollably. They sank to the ground, their arms still around one another as they rolled on the hard stone, giggling like children.
Between gasps of laughter Zeal said, “Yes, I will do it.”
The smile faded instantly from his wife’s face. “What are you—what do you mean?”
Cupping her face in his hands, Zeal whispered, “I would die for you, Tamara. If you ask me, I will kill for you as well. I know why you wanted the Lhal woman dead.”
“You do?” she said in a small voice.
He explained his theory, and she did not deny his words, though he was completely incorrect in his assumptions. “It will be difficult, and we will have to wait until the night of the festival, but that will give us time to plan and make our plans a reality.” He kissed her hard on the lips. “This is what you want, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” she said softly, imagining the sheer joy of watching Lord Sixx die, for reasons that even her husband knew nothing about. She threw her arms around him and held him tight. “Yes, my love, this is what I wanted.”
Around them, the light grew brighter. Had they been more aware of their surroundings and less lost within each other, they might have noticed a patch of darkness in the shape of a slightly hunched, long-haired figure that suddenly detached from the wall. The creature stole away quickly to the comforting shadows where it allowed itself to become enveloped. It huddled in the forgotten cavern where it had gone to hide and wondered what it should do with the knowledge it had acquired.
The being that had been Alden McGregor pulled up its knees and began to cry.
Miles away, as the hours quickly stretched toward dawn, Krystin rode beside Myrmeen. She said nothing to the older woman and Myrmeen acknowledged her presence with only a weak smile, but the gesture was enough to keep them together for the entire following day, their conversation picking up where they had left off before Shandower’s death.
Evening was approaching, and Myrmeen had found shelter for the party behind a group of towering gray obelisks. Reisz sat atop the tallest of the stones, watching for any signs of the night people. Myrmeen, Krystin, and Ord tended the mounts and prepared the evening meal.
Krystin knew that eventually they would have to talk about what had happened and the revelation that she was not, in fact, Myrmeen’s daughter. The girl fully expected Myrmeen to raise the subject, and when she did not, Krystin decided she would mention it. Before she had the chance, Ord surprised her by breaking the silence he had shared with Reisz as he strode before her and stopped. He stared at her with a flat, disinterested expression that suddenly gave way to a mask of rage. He struck her in the face with the back of his hand, knocking her from her feet. She landed with a grunt of surprise, her head striking the ground inches from a sharp stone jutting from the soft earth.
“Whore!” he shouted. “That I ever could have been attracted to such as you…”
Myrmeen was upon him instantly, shoving him back and away from the fallen girl. “That’s enough!”
“She betrayed us to the monsters who killed my parents!”
“She did it to save our lives,” Myrmeen said. “It’s not the same thing, and you know it.” Ord looked away. Myrmeen could not tell if her words had gotten through to him or not.
“I don’t care about her reasons,” Ord said, refusing to look at Krystin, who had picked herself up from the ground. “None of it makes up for what she did.”
“It does to me,” Myrmeen said. “You’re young, Ord. Wait until you’ve made a few mistakes of your own.”
“She’s right,” Reisz called from his perch. “Hating Krystin isn’t going to bring Burke and Varina back. She didn’t cause their deaths, and if it wasn’t for what she had done, we all would be dead.”
“Ord, I’m going back to Calimport with Krystin,” Myrmeen announced. “If you don’t want to come with us—”
“I’m a Harper, like my parents before me,” Ord said. “We are the lord protectors of the Realms.” He looked at Krystin. “I’m not going to let my personal feelings get in the way of that.”
Myrmeen nodded. “Your parents would be very proud.”
Ord left her and scrambled to the perch where Reisz was waiting. The olive-skinned man put his arm around the boy.
Krystin approached Myrmeen and said, “Did you mean what you said just now? Will you give me another chance?”
“No more lies,” Myrmeen said firmly.
The girl shook her head, and the two women stared at one another. Forgiveness would be difficult, and it would take time, but from the feelings that passed between them in that single moment, they knew it would not be impossible.
The next day, the group rode into the city. This time, Myrmeen gave her true name and demanded that she be given an audience with the ruler of Calimport, Pasha Rashid Djenispool. By late afternoon, her request had been granted, and she stood with Ord and Krystin before Djenispool and several members of his ruling council, many of whom had met with Myrmeen in Arabel. The older man’s son, Vizier Punjor Djenispool, stood to the side, an emotionless observer to the proceedings.