A welcome surge of fury drowned Liana’s frustration. That was what the stag had been about. A demand, a divine wish. Delivered by a messenger because Lela had known her daughter wouldn’t see her. She’d just wanted to upset her, to frighten her,to warn her she was being watched.
Liana let out a choking sound, halfway between a chortle and a wail. She crashed on the bed beside Telani. “Damn them all,” she said. “My mother, the king, the gods. Damn them!”
The tears finally came then, and she pushed her face into a crumpled pillow and cried. But the deluge didn’t last long. She was no frail lady in distress, and Telani was no chivalrous hero. He did manage to find a clear scrap of linen somewhere, though, and offer it to her to wipe her face with.
“I must leave Abia,” she said, sniffing.
“If you wish so,” he said. He let her have the bed and moved to the chair, which he straddled backwards. “There are people all over the kingdom who’d be happy to receive you. But I think you could do more than that.”
“More?” She blinked away the last tears.
“I imagine things will get unpleasant for the king soon. My lord protected him even when the king schemed against him. Now that protection is gone, and Abia has no lord, Larion has no ruler.”
She and Amron had never had children and, incredible as it seemed now, he’d never mentioned heirs to her.
“It reverted back to the crown,” she said. “Those were the conditions of Queen Orsiana’s dowry.”
“And you are fine with that?” He frowned, a flash of annoyance twisting his face. “You’re fine with leaving Abia to the king, who deliberately sent us on that depraved mission, or to some upstart bastard who will rise to claim it?”
“I don’t see what you expect me to do,” she said.
His annoyance turned into exasperation. “You’ve lived in Abia for thirteen years, you’ve had access to every nook and cranny of the palace, to every clerk, soldier, and diplomat who entered it, to every administrative decision my lord made. Don’t tell me you haven’t learned anything.”
His words poured over her like a bucket of icy water. Watching Amron all those years had been a lesson in ruling, indeed. People crowded around him, seeking help, advice, favors. The palace was always filled with nobles, soldiers, merchants, artists, and petitioners of all kinds. She could have played the role of the lady, she could have stepped into the public life and helped him carry that burden, she could have learned how to govern.
But if she had, she would have been someone else, a different, unrecognizable creature, a hawk pretending to be a parrot to placate the visitors. The divine blood that ran through her veins was as much a curse as it was a blessing. It gave her youth and strength and hunting skills second only to her mother’s. But it also gave her the ability to see how thin the world of humans was: like a silk scarf stretched in front of a fire, she could see right through it. She saw things as they were, and people too. She’d never learned how to weave a web of words, how to move through the meaningless structure of norms, expectations, traditions, and outright lies the society was built upon.
“I’m not fit to rule Abia,” she said. “I don’t want it. I want to find a way to bring him back.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean why?” She shot him an incredulous look. “Don’t you want him back?”
“He expressly asked you not to fight the gods,” Telani replied, motioning at the letter that lay unfolded on the blanket.
“Don’t you want him back?” she repeated.
The question cut through the stuffy room like a gust of northern wind. A sharp, metallic echo rang in Liana’s voice. Telani froze on the chair and gripped the wooden back so hard his knuckles turned white.
“Of course I want him back,” he said, his southern vowels stretching into a soft growl. “But have you paused to think what he might have wanted?”
She stared at him, his words reaching her ears but not her mind.
“He went willingly,” Telani continued. “With courage and determination. And there was something else, too.” His expression turned harsh and spare, like a craggy side of a mountain. “He was tired. I followed him around for almost twenty years and I’ve never seen him shirk his duty. Every task, no matter how difficult and unwelcome, he never said no.”
“He didn’t want it any other way.”
“He couldn’t do it any other way. But, Liana, he was exhausted, he was bone-tired and fed up with his duties. This was supposed to be the last mission, he wanted out.”
“He wrote about returning to Abia and staying here,” she said, remembering his words. “He said it was time the king took responsibility for the kingdom. But he wanted to retire, not die.”
“I don’t think you understand what I’m saying.” Telani shook his head. “If he miraculously returned this very moment, all his plans for a peaceful life in Abia would shatter. There’s trouble brewing in the kingdom. There always is. He would just go back to doing whatever was necessary to keep the peace.”
The never-ending echoes of war, spreading like tendrils of mist over a graveyard, waking the dead.
“I’d rather have him running around the kingdom than not at all,” she retorted.
“Yes, but this is not about you, is it?”
