And could she go round the circle of doubt yet again? What was a little extra scorn to add to the loathing she had already earned? The Medarists, the Hand, the Decians. Did she imagine that anything she did could actually make them hate her more? The only question was what she wanted to be, for what remained of her life. Did she want to be so small as to turn away from what Illukar las Cor-Ibis offered her, just because half the world might disapprove? Just because it was easier not to try and stop hating herself?
This was enough to get her into the hall, walking quietly so as not to give the two on guard reason to turn. But she paused at his door, trying to face the enormity of this decision. This wasn’t just for the night. Did she want to be known as Cor-Ibis' leman? Or was it to be a marriage, full formality, everything? Did she actually contemplate having his children?
The memory of Cor-Ibis' marriage, and the fact that it was widely believed he could not father a viable child, quite disrupted her ambiguous feelings. There was considerably more disappointment than relief tangled in that morass, and she thought that maybe it was simpler to accept that she wanted to spend her life with him and save the details for less uncertain times.
The door handle turned silently and she moved forward to see him standing candle-lit at his window. He was combing his hair: a mundane, everyday act made magical as much by his innate poise as the glow which had lit him since he shielded Athere. Medair stood motionless, watching the elegant tilt of his head, those long fingers holding the comb, and his cool, delicate profile. The painful scratch across his cheek was no longer so livid and did not stop him from being utterly beautiful.
The latch clicked as she closed the door and he turned and looked at her, his expression not changing one iota. But he held himself so very still. Naturally, she couldn’t begin to think of what to say next and deflected the subject of the future with questions about now.
"Have they found any sign of Vorclase?"
"No." Cor-Ibis put the comb down on a desk, expressionless. Her own face felt stiff and unhappy and she knew she could still walk out, but if she did she should never come back.
"Falcon Hill is a warren," he went on, smoothly enough. "And Estarion has traps and trips laced throughout. It may take days to find him."
"Do you trust Queen Sendel?" Her voice quavered, making her feel stupidly young. She wanted to touch him and was suddenly, unreasonably, afraid of rebuff.
"I took care in forming the geas." Cor-Ibis raised an equivocal hand. "Her previous incarnation was less forthright, but equally pragmatic. Herald N’Taive tells me this version has long been at odds with her brother, yet unwilling to act directly against him. I trust Sendel’s grasp of the situation, at least. Turning on us would only make matters worse for Decia. But there are others here who will see less clearly. The Kierash is a natural target." He moved to one side, offering her the chair from the desk. It was easier to sit than to continue to shift from foot to foot, trying to hide her nervousness. Cor-Ibis sat on the bed. "And you are in danger, of course," he said. "If word of your identity spreads."
"I know. And Avahn–" she began, and stopped, for it was no better a topic. She could not quite contemplate talking about Avahn’s possible demise. Like too many people, she had not had a chance to say goodbye to him.
"I examined him before I came here," Cor-Ibis told her, his attention never wavering from her face. "What little I could do, I have done. He seems to be breathing easier."
Medair nodded, then looked down at his hands, resting lightly on his knees. There was an awkward pause.
"Gates are beyond the Kierash’s casting rank," he said, again filling the breach. "But he is exceptional, and I believe there is a good chance we will succeed tomorrow morning. If not, I have sent a wend-whisper to the Kier, suggesting a gate be opened from Athere."
It was stupid to sit here making conversation. She cast about for some way to ease into talking about overcoming the past. And found herself asking, with appalling bluntness, "Why did your wife hate you?"
Shocked at her own words, she jerked her eyes up to meet his, and saw sudden distance. He took a moment before he replied.
"It is something you need to know," he said, and there was only the barest hint of reluctance in his voice. He shook his head when she started to stammer a denial. "Amaret. My mother recommended her to me. A sha-leon marriage, a business contract. They are still common. Amaret was an accomplished adept and, most important to my family, her blood was pure." He glanced at Medair. "My mother chose my father on the same basis. There are arguments that it keeps the blood more powerful, but it is essentially founded on a belief in Ibisian superiority, and entrenched tradition. At twenty–" He shrugged minutely. "I had never thought of love and saw no reason not to marry this particular woman."
"Did she feel the same way?" Medair asked. Her throat was tight. This was not how she had wanted to do this.
"Before the marriage, she gave no sign of wishing anything else. She was little interested in me, and apparently willing to treat the arrangement like the contract it was. In some sha-leon marriages, the couple comes together only for the making of children and I cannot say we did more than that. It was an alliance of convenience.
"Early on, I suspected she was unhappy, but it was not until she lost the second child that I realised it was more than dissatisfaction." He met her eyes again, his own frank. "I will not pretend I was not at fault. I was caught up in my studies, cared for little else, and was quite simply not interested in her. I was polite to her when I should at least have tried to make her my friend. After the second child’s loss, I tried to reach out, but she made it clear she considered it an intrusion. I thought she was mourning the miscarriages, as only natural, and I let her be." He paused, and she saw a muscle jump in his cheek. That mild voice was even softer than usual. "I did not know how truly she hated me until after my mother’s death."
"When she told you she was carrying someone else’s child." How must he have felt?
Cor-Ibis shook his head. His gaze was on his hands, lashes shading grey eyes which were strangely blank. "I knew of her affairs, suspected that the third child was not mine. No. That was when she told me she had not miscarried. That she had aborted them."
Medair could only stare at his lowered head. Then, when she could bring herself to speak at all, the only thing she could say was: "Why?"
"Because they were mine." The delicate mouth twisted and he looked abruptly tired, like someone who had risen with the dawn in enemy territory and not had a moment to stop since. "She had a secret, Amaret. Her family had some tiny strain of Farak-lar blood, and to them the keeping of that secret was the most important thing in existence. They bleached their brows, as a courtier would say. Then my mother approached them with a sha-leon proposal, with the Cor-Ibis fortune and title at her back.
"Amaret loathed me because she lived in eternal fear of being discovered by me. The babes were part of me, and would almost certainly reveal her. She told me that she had killed her own children as if it were the proudest thing she had ever done, and wept while she told me because killing them had wounded her so deeply she no longer cared who knew her blood."
He stopped, breathing deeply. Swallowed. His head was bowed to shield a naked hurt kept to himself for too many years. When he spoke again, his voice was uneven. "If she had only asked me, I could have told her how little her blood mattered to me. That it was a tradition I have never embraced. But she did not, and I looked to her only often enough to fulfil my role, not to see how frightened she was. It is the greatest wrong I have ever committed.