Light of Eidon (Legends of the Guardian-King, Book 1) (37 page)

He grunted acknowledgment.

“One you want to accept, maybe?”

He met her eyes then, those deep pools he sometimes thought he might
drown in.

“Want to,” she repeated sadly, “but won’t.”

“Won’t I?”

“You are the White Pretender.” She traced the cup’s rim with a finger.
`And you are a man. A stubborn, prideful, glory-craving fool of a man. And
men can never do the sensible thing.”

“I have no wish to die.”

“Then don’t.” She set the cup upright and looked at him directly. “Tell
him you’ll join the Black Moon. Swear service to Khrell and allegiance to
Beltha’adi.”

Her words hung in the air. The dark gaze impaled him, and he felt the
conflict begin to rise again.

She looked away, her gaze cool, her finger once more circling the cup rim.
“But you won’t, will you? You’re the White Pretender, after all. The Dorsaddi’s great Deliverer.” Sarcasm sharpened her voice, and he understood she
meant to goad him, belittle him-the prideful, glory-craving fool of a man.
Except it wasn’t that at all.

“I don’t know what I am,” he said uneasily. “Only that it’s not so easy to
walk away from one’s past.”

“Oh, it is very easy. You just do it.”

“But then you have to live with what you’ve done. With what you’ve
become.”

“You would become a great man in Esurh. A respected champion in the
Army of the Black Moon. Perhaps even confidant to Beltha’adi himself, given
your connections. You’d be riding the wave of destiny.”

A destiny I’ve spent the last two years of my life fighting to deny.”

She studied the cup in her hand, her expression pensive. “I do not think
it can be denied. Not in the end. I’ve seen too many try and fail.”

“But if the Deliverer-“

She cut him off with a sharp, bitter laugh. “The Deliverer? He is but the
wishful thinking of desperate men who cannot bring themselves to accept the
inevitable. Do you know how many times my people have claimed the Deliverer has come? One hundred twenty years ago they rallied round Jonajhur.
Fifty past it was Nabal. He, too, was supposed to slay Beltha’adi, but of course he did not. Now it’s you, and you’re not even Dorsaddi.” She snorted.
“Which just shows how desperate they’ve become. Besides, if you don’t go
over to him, you’ll die, and how can you deliver anyone if you’re dead?”

He regarded her soberly. A man doesn’t have to be alive to start the fires
of revolution.”

She went from pensiveness to fury in the blink of an eye, lunging forward
to slap the table and snapping out, “You are not the Deliverer, Abramm Kalladorne? You are not! There is … no … Deliverer.”

He blinked, shocked by the intensity of her outburst. She seemed shocked
herself, quenching the fire at once and slumping back on the pillows.

The hand that lifted the cup to her lips trembled. He saw her swallow.
She set the vessel down and studied it a moment before she went on. “Stirring thoughts of freedom and inspiring the courage to resist is all very well,
but what’s the use of it if it only brings death? All those people talking rebellion-it’ll only get them killed. He’ll put them down. He always does. Nothing can stand against him, Pretender.” Her eyes bored into his own. “If you
fight tomorrow, you’ll die. And it won’t make any-” Her voice ran up the
scale and broke apart before she could finish.

Then, right there in front of him, the mask crumpled. She drove to her
feet, and he glimpsed a contorted grimace as she fled past him through the
beaded curtain to the balcony.

He sat in stunned incomprehension, his heart pounding against his breastbone. Something very like a muffled sob sounded from outside, but only one.
When she did not return he went to peer through the beads.

She stood at the railing, his tentlike tunic clutched around her, gold
threads glittering in the darkness. From this vantage he could not see her face,
but now and then she seemed to shudder. Part of him wanted to withdraw,
to leave her to her pain, for he had no idea how he might comfort her, and
the implications of what she’d just said had stirred up dangerous imaginings.

The beads rattled as he passed through them. Hesitantly he drew up
beside her, wary of an unwelcome reception. She stood unmoving, staring
over the city, her cheeks shining with lines of moisture.

He could think of nothing to say and soon felt awkward and stupid. But
just as he was about to leave, she spoke.

“I’m sorry.” She scrubbed at the tears, clutching the tunic one-handed. “I
didn’t mean to…” She exhaled sharply, then rubbed her upper arms beneath the tunic. She drew a deep breath, and this time the words came out steady.

“One thing I’ve learned in all this, and that’s to keep myself apart. If you
keep your feelings inside and never let yourself care too much about anything, you can’t be hurt. Men use you-it doesn’t matter. People die-that
doesn’t matter, either. It was a good plan, and I-“

She choked and fell into silence, still rubbing her arms. Then she drew
another breath and veered off on a new subject. “That day on the beach when
we first found you, you were so pathetic. So weak and scrawny. We couldn’t
believe Katahn was even looking at you, much less that he’d bid.” She chuckled at the memory. `And all the other Garners were beside themselves, wondering what he was up to. It was too funny when some of them bid on you,
tod”

The laughter faded, and she stopped rubbing her arms. Her expression
grew distant, almost wondering, and she tilted her head, like one working out
a puzzle. “I was sure you’d be dead in a week…. Never in a thousand lifetimes would I have guessed I’d fall in love with you.”

His thoughts, rambling uneasily through the shared memory, stopped
abruptly.

She turned to him, her eyes confirming the words, wide and shining with
tears. She laid a hand on his arm. “I don’t want you to die, Pretender,” she
murmured.

There was none of her mask now. Love, fear, grief-she laid her heart bare
to him in a way he could never have anticipated in a thousand lifetimes of
his own. Yet all he could do was stare at her.

It was like being in a dream, where you tried to run but the air was thick
as honey, tried to speak and nothing came out. Perhaps, indeed, he was
dreaming. Or injured and hallucinating.

Her expression began to harden, the tenderness giving way to bitter hurt.
Tears spilled again down her cheeks. “When you chose me I thought…” She
stopped, lifted her chin defiantly, and dashed the moisture from her face.
“But I see I was a fool. Even on your last night of life, what would you, a
great northern prince and a hero of the people, want with a Dorsaddi whore,
eh?”

She lurched toward the doorway. He caught her arm, his head spinning
with the scent of her and the force of the emotion finally erupting in him. Her face came around, etched with hurt and anger, and he stopped her protests with his mouth.

It was an awkward kiss, quick and clumsy-he had never kissed a woman
before. Had he stopped to think, he wouldn’t have done it now. But there
had been no thought. As in combat, there was only time for action, and he
had acted.

As he drew away, the cold conviction of error gripped him. What had he
done? That was surely the last thing she wanted, never mind what she’d said
about loving him.

She stared at him as if she’d been struck by Command, unmoving, her
mouth agape, her eyes so wide the whites ringed them. He had, at least,
stunned her as much as she had stunned him.

Still she said nothing, just stood there, staring up at him. When at last he
realized she hadn’t yet wrenched herself free of him and wasn’t going to, he
bent toward her again. She held her ground and lifted her lips to meet him.
Then her hand was pressing against the back of his neck, and suddenly,
incredibly, she was in his arms, her intoxicating softness pressed against the
length of his body.

The doors on that secret place in his soul blew off, and all his desire and
need and love came roaring out, igniting his flesh with fire and filling him
with a rising pressure that made his ears ring and his chest feel as if it might
explode.

He could not hold her close enough, could not get enough of her softness,
her spicy scent, her sweet, warm lips. Yesterday, today, tomorrow-vows and
heroes and the looming prospect of a horrible death-it was all blasted away
by the wild winds of his passion. There was no thought of restraint, no
thought of propriety or consequence. She loved him, wanted him as much as
he wanted her.

For a few hours that was all that mattered.

The morning mist hung chill and damp, heavy with the scent of the sea.
Pale tendrils curled around Abramm’s head and drifted between him and the
balconies to either side of him. It had swallowed most of the city and, from
this vantage, rendered even the plaza directly below veiled and indistinct.

He’d arisen a little while ago, pulled on shirt, britches, and tunic in the
darkness, and left Shettai asleep in the draperied bed. He should be sleeping
himself-he understood now why Brogai tradition demanded celibacy on the
eve of battle-but sleep had become impossible.

Last night had been … glorious. Never had he known such delight, such
intense physical pleasure, such deep contentment and satisfaction. It had
faded with the dawn, of course, but it had left behind the sense that somehow his soul had been expanded. It had changed everything. And nothing.

Awakening to find Shettai in his arms, her dark hair spread like a wing
across his chest, he’d been totally unprepared for the emotion that surged
through him, totally unprepared to find his righteous thoughts of heroism
and duty withering before the brightness of a desire magnified for having
been expressed and reciprocated. His desire for her, his fear of dying, his agonized reluctance to cause her pain, all the reasons Katahn had advanced for
his defection-as well as those Shettai herself had put forth-had all boiled
up in a hot surge of decision, and for a moment he was convinced he was
going to go over. And then, in the next moment, the heat had transmuted to
horror and revulsion and scalding self-contempt … only to revert back to
longing and rationalization. The cycle repeated over and over. It was the same excruciating duality he’d endured last night, intensified a hundredfold.

Consumed at length with the restless fervor of his indecision, he’d arisen,
dressed, and come out here-as if the brightening light and chill morning air
might somehow settle him one way or the other.

In the plaza below, lantern keepers were at work snuffing the flames of
the fish-bladder lanterns, one after the other of them winking out in the
gloom. Last night’s celebrants had gone home, replaced by eager fans waiting
for seats that would be assigned first come, first served. Many had arrived long
ago, still curled beneath their cloaks and blankets in a line that started at the
main gate somewhere to his right.

Already the merchants were returning to reopen their wagons and set out
their wares, sea gulls swooping around them, seeking booty that had been
dropped last night. Soon the sleepy fans were staggering to their feet as the
smell of fry bread warmed the air.

The scent triggered memories of distant summer morns, playing tag with
Carissa and Gillard and the cousins around striped festival tents. Squealing
with excitement, they’d darted between the horses and flags, the ropes and
gear and barrels, savoring the sweet scent of the baking sugar-crusted twistbreads they’d soon be eating….

He sighed and pushed the memory away. That was a long time-and
place-ago.

More and more people filtered into the plaza, taking their place in line. A
good number carried slender sticks topped with misshapen whitewashed diamond motifs that they occasionally waved above the crowd. Supposedly representing himself in costume, the diamonds proclaimed support for the
Pretender. Similar sticks bearing silvered crescent moons designated
Beltha’adi’s supporters, markedly in the minority this morning.

The rising level of babble below drew his attention leftward as a division
of gray-tunicked soldiers marched up behind the purple banner of the Black
Moon. Forcing the civilians to dive aside, the soldiers bored straight through
the waiting line and stopped at the main gate. As their commanding officer
began barking orders, men ran to take up posts alongside the gate, then at
points along the plaza’s outer and inner perimeters.

Another unit passed by them and entered the amphitheater itself.

Riot control, Abramm reflected grimly.

No one dared say anything to the soldiers, but as the ticket line reformed, he saw a few resentful shakings of the diamond-topped sticks at the soldiers’
backs.

After today they’ll be shaking those sticks at me, he thought. Or more likely,
will have broken them and thrown them in the fire. After today, if he chose
in favor of his desire, the White Pretender would be transformed from a symbol of hope and courage to one of betrayal and cowardice.