With those words, the film before Kelis’s eyes vanished. The muffled sounds became sharp and the black wall withdrew. The prince propped him up and turned to face the queen with a formality that seemed at odds with the surroundings and the privacy of the chamber.
“Sister,” Aliver said, “forget the other things for a moment and listen to me. This man has brought us a wonder, a ray of light to break through all this darkness. You see. Inside this misery are the seeds of the future. Aaden is one. This girl is one.”
Corinn had watched it all from the higher landing. She said nothing, just stood there, straight-backed, with the cowl covering her neck and lower face. Kelis thought it must be there to hide her emotions, but then he decided that was not all there was to it.
“The wonder is my daughter,” Aliver went on. “She was given the name Larashen before her birth, but she prefers just Shen. This is too bad, because it was Kelis who gave her this name.”
Kelis started, turned to look in his face.
“Yes, it’s true,” Aliver said to him, and then continued speaking to his sister. “Kelis, he who taught me to run in Talay. He who was at my side when we killed the laryx, when I became a man. He who is a brother to me. He may not even know this, but I remember something now. One time, when he and I were alone in Talay, searching for the Santoth, I awoke to hear him speaking in his sleep. I listened and I heard him say a name. The name he said was Larashen. I did not know what it meant then. I do now. I know because he is a dreamer with the gift of prophecy. He tried to deny it, but it came up through him. And I know it because you are my sister, with a gift to restore life. Only with both of you is this possible. Do you hear me?”
The queen nodded.
“Then, Sister, come and meet your niece. Love her, as I already do. As I always have.” Aliver’s voice wavered, choked with emotion that he fought to contain. It escaped him, though, in sobs that made him hesitate before finishing. “Will you do that? Will you love her?”
The queen’s head turned slightly.
The man with the stone eyes said, “I don’t deserve to love her. If you knew all the things I’ve done, you would not ask for my love. I did not rule like you. I… am not the same as you.”
Aliver kept his eyes on the queen. “I do know you. I ask you to love her now… Love her now and earn that love with what you do from here. You can do that, Sister. I know you. You are the princess who dreamed of ruling an undersea kingdom. I’ve always known you.”
After a moment, Barad said for her, “When I tell you the things you need to know, will you turn against me then?”
“Never.”
Corinn’s face went ugly for a moment, distorted with a sudden misery. Barad said, “You don’t know. You can’t say that.”
Aliver inhaled a long breath. He lifted an arm and Shen moved under it. He looked back at the queen and said, “But I do say it. I have no anger in me, Corinn. There’s not room for it. I’m too filled with other emotions. Come meet my daughter. Aaden, come meet Shen. We have lost too much time already, and we have only a short time here. Let’s not waste it.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
The nighttime attack was Kant’s idea. The Scav did most of the work themselves. It went better than Mena could have imagined. It amazed her that they had snuck into the Auldek camp, found the vehicles that housed the pitch, and then set charges delayed to explode as they retreated. They destroyed four of the rolling stations, cost the Auldek some lives in slaves, and came away with several vats of the flammable pitch hitched to a sled and pulled by dogs that were uncannily silent. The Scav lost only two of their number in the process, and they had not asked anything of the Acacians. Mena, her captains, and her troops watched from a distance as the night sky bloomed with beautiful bursts of flame, a strange show of light in the arctic night.
No one could blame them for the causalities suffered when one unfortunate group of soldiers was pounced upon by a crazed frekete. The creature dropped right into their camp, a rider shouting from its back. The animal ripped ten soldiers apart before being forced to withdraw. Those creatures were going to be deadly troublesome. Mena might have wings because of Elya, but her beauty could not prevail against such brawn.
Thinking this, Mena went to her tent, more troubled about tomorrow than elated about the night’s successes. She closed her eyes in the dark and opened them in the dark, knowing that hours had passed and that she had not slipped into sleep during any of them. How many will die today? she wondered. How many will I kill? Though she might have, she did not mean kill with her own blade or with her soldiers’ blades. It was her own people’s lives that she felt responsible for. She hated that even the more recent plans she had come up with were not sufficient for what faced them.
Mena found her first officer waiting in the anteroom of her tent, a small space just enclosed enough to be a shelter. “Perrin? How long have you been here?”
“Not long.”
“Why didn’t you call for me?” she grumbled, pulling her outer layers on in front of him, her breath clouding the air.
“You deserved sleep.”
“And you don’t?” she asked.
“I got some yesterday,” he said. “I have someone you’ll want to talk to. A patrol picked him up at first light this morning. He was stumbling around like a drunken man. He says he was looking for us, though he was off to the north. If the patrol hadn’t spotted him, he’d likely have wandered off to freeze. Unless he was up to something more cunning. If I hear him right, he says his name is Rialus Neptos.”
Mena and Perrin arrived at the command tent a few minutes later. The room was just a little above freezing, the air clouded with steam and heavy with smoke from the oil lamps. The light was imperfect, flickering, but it revealed a pitiful version of the traitor. He stood trembling in the center of a circle of glaring officers.
“What are you doing here?” Mena asked, slipping into the ring to face him.
Rialus’s body jerked as if she had smacked him. His arms were crossed across his chest, clutching a book within the clumsy embrace of all his layers. Instead of answering, he tightened his embrace.
“Speak fast,” Mena said.
A moment later, she knew that was too much to ask of the man. He had a hard time getting his words out through his chattering teeth. “I-I’ve… ca-ca-come to he-help… Acacia. My nation.”
“Too late for that, don’t you think?” Bledas asked.
“Not… too late. Just late.”
Mena watched the man tremble for a time. “Rialus Neptos, you’ve walked from our enemy’s camp after having guided them here from the other side of the world. If you have something to say, say it. And then go back to die along with them.”
Rialus’s eyes widened in terror. “No! I can’t go back. They’d kill me. They’ll know by now.”
“They know already,” Edell said, “because they sent you. What lie did they send you to tell?”
“No lies.” He fumbled to get the book in his hands and then thrust it toward her. “Here. Read my journal. Read. It’s me in there.”
Edell shoved the book back at him. “You expect us to believe you? You?”
“No lies,” Rialus said, once he was steady on his feet again. “I came to you… to tell you th-th-things.”
Edell seemed ready to shove Rialus again, but Mena stayed him. “If you have something to say, do so.”
“The beasts… they ca-cannot fly on their own. They need the amulets. They have amulets. Chains that lift them-”
“What is he on about?” Bledas said. “Speak sense, man!”
“The freketes need magic to fly,” Rialus said, getting out the first complete sentence that captured the company’s attention. The effort seemed to exhaust him.
“The freketes need magic to fly.” Mena chewed that a moment, and then said, “Let’s get him food and hot water. Give him a hot water bottle and bring him a chair. I want him talking without chattering. And take that book from him.”