“A surprise to see you here, my lord.”
“Good morning, Radele.”
“She has a visitor this morning. The stable boy… but then you must know that. It’s why you’re here.”
“Has he said anything?”
“He’s only just found her.”
“I presume there has been… ”
“… no change, my lord.”
“Yes. Thank you, Radele.”
I left him and walked up to the little terrace centered by a dribbling fountain. Seri was sitting in a chair by the fountain as she did every morning, her lovely face bathed in the dawn light. A dusty, blistered Paulo knelt at her feet, panting as if he’d run all the way from Avonar.
“My lady, can you hear me? Please, my lady, what’s wrong? I’ve brought you a message.”
“She won’t answer you,” I said, stepping out of the shade.
He looked up, startled. Seri didn’t turn her head.
“She’s said no word since her injury. I think she hears us, but she makes no acknowledgment. She walks when we guide her. She eats whatever is put before her. She’ll hold a book and look at it, but she does not turn the page. She neither laughs nor smiles nor weeps, but I don’t know if she cannot speak or if she will not. No one has been able to tell me that.”
“Oh, my lord. I’m so… I never thought… ”
I brushed my hand over her beautiful hair, silky dark brown with the touch of fire in it. A few strands of gray. Her quiet expression with the little frown between her eyes did not change as she peered into the rising sun.
“And even you… ”
“I have nothing to give her.”
Paulo looked back at my wife, and to my surprise, took her limp hand and kissed it. “Ah, my lady, I’m so sorry,” he whispered. Tears rolled down his sunburned cheeks.
“Come,” I said. “Let’s walk a bit.”
He did not move or take his eyes from her.
“I insist.” I took his arm and pulled him up, noting that he’d grown again. He was almost as tall as I. “I wanted you to see my son’s handiwork for yourself, lest somehow he has managed to retain some remnant of your misdirected loyalty. He’s killed her, Paulo, as surely as if she had breathed her last.”
He was quiet for a long time, but I didn’t push him. There were other Dar’Nethi who would, but I believed nothing could be as devastatingly persuasive as the sight of Seri in her walking death. I knew what it had done to me.
“Now, tell me where you’ve been, and what is this message you’ve brought my wife.”
He didn’t look at me, just walked alongside me, his hands clasped behind his back. His sand-colored brows were drawn together in a thoughtful frown.
“Everything’s wicked confused; I suppose my head’s still muddled from the desert. I remember I followed the young master from the gardens at Windham. I was ready to kill him for what he done to the Lady. I caught him and took him down, but I don’t know for sure what happened then. We traveled someplace… a new place. It’s like a dream that lasted forever, but right now it won’t come into my mind any more than a dream what slipped away when you woke up. Next thing I remember, I woke up in the desert thinking I had to find the Lady.”
“Where did he take you? Was it Zhev’Na?”
“It wasn’t there. I’d have known Zhev’Na. We were in Valleor for a time, someplace in the north I’d never been before, but I’m no good at maps to tell you where. And then we were in this other place. Not an evil place, I don’t think.”
“And what message would he have you give Seri?”
“I can’t say the message.”
I left it for the moment. “Where is he now? Where did you leave him? Was he already joined with the Three?”
“He’s not one of the Lords no more. Even with my head so thick, I’ll swear as it’s true, my lord. And he’s not in Zhev’Na. But I can’t tell you where he is. He’s hiding, my lord, hiding where nobody can find him. He’s afraid of you.”
“As well he should be.”
“He knows you won’t believe him. He understands that and holds no blame to you for it. I think that’s why he sent me to the Lady.”
“You’re a good friend, Paulo. Seri and I, and everyone in both worlds, are forever in your debt. But it will all be undone, all the suffering and death, all the sacrifice of thousands of people will be wasted if Gerick rejoins the Lords. You understood the consequences before, and they’ve not changed except for the worse.”
We had come to the edge of the garden terrace, a white railing beyond which the land dropped away into the soft green swathes of the Lydian Vale, the Vale of Eidolon closest to Avonar. Its sun-drenched woodlands nestled between the spires of the Mountains of Light, and in autumn its leaves splashed fire-yellow and scarlet against Avonar’s deep blue skies. In my four years in Avonar, I had often walked this vale and dreamed of bringing Seri here. I had imagined her face reflecting its beauty, enriching it beyond measure with her delight. But now her eyes reflected nothing, and I saw no beauty anywhere. I gripped the white iron railing until my knuckles looked a part of it.
“Do you understand what Gerick’s betrayal has cost us? You knew the three who were once Zhid, the ones I healed at the Gate. They were ready to destroy the heart of power in Zhev’Na, while the finest sorcerers in Avonar encircled the fortress and created a barrier of enchantment the Lords could not breach. My counselor Jayereth had found the means necessary to free the Dar’Nethi slaves. We could have won without bloodshed, Paulo. We could have worked a healing on this blighted land. But all was undone by my son, and we are left with nothing but weapons and blood. But even they are not enough. Gerick’s betrayal has strengthened the Lords, revealed our vulnerabilities, and if he joins with them again, we will be lost. Both worlds. Forever. I cannot allow it. You must tell me where he is.”
Paulo, the youth I thought I knew, looked me in the eye as he had never done, one man to another. Neither fear nor awe nor willful deceit showed itself in him. “My lord Prince, I owe you and the Lady all as is possible to owe. I would lay down my life for you, or ride to the ends of the earth to fetch for you, or give you my legs back if you was to need them, or my arms or my head. If it means you must hang me or put me in irons or send me back to the life I was born to, then so be it, but I cannot tell you what you ask. I’ve sworn my oath… and I feel it as deep as a man can know what’s right. He is not with the Lords. He’s hiding where no one can find him. I can tell you no more than that.”
“You know that any Dar’Nethi could read you and find out everything you know.” Not exactly true. Few had the ability any longer, but Paulo couldn’t know that.
He did not waver. “The Prince I honor wouldn’t allow that. Not if I said to him that I gave him no leave to do it.”
“Maybe the Prince you honor doesn’t exist any more.”
“Then this war is lost anyway, no matter what I tell or don’t tell.”
And that, of course, had been the whisper in my own mind for four villainous months, but I would not hear it from an illiterate boy. I released the fury pent up in my hands and sent him sprawling across the terrace. “Radele!”
The young Dar’Nethi came running.
“Put this traitor under restraints. He is not to leave this house until I decide what to do with him. I want him to serve my wife, to see her every day as a reminder of what his friend has done to her.”
“Of course, I’ll do as you say, my lord, but that seems too good for a betrayer.” Radele… always ready to prove his zeal.
“You will not harm Paulo, not in any way. No one is to speak to him or make any attempt to question him. I alone will hear what he has to say when I decide he will say it. Do you understand me?”