So if I had been gaeshed, would I notice the difference?
I paced. “You think it was Xaltorath?”
“Who else? It couldn’t have been Khored. That would make no sense.”5
“Why would Xaltorath help me? That makes no sense either.”
“No more sense than demons ever make.”
I sat back down again. “Xaltorath breaks many rules for a demon. She ignored the emperor when he ordered her to leave me. You should have seen his mouth drop open.” I blinked at Teraeth, who stared at me with a shocked expression. “Rather like that.”
Teraeth rubbed his hand over his face. “Do you realize what you just said? When all the demons were bound, they were gaeshed. Who do you think controls those gaeshe? The emperor does. That’s what the Crown and Scepter were created to do. You’re telling me a demon just laughed off a gaesh command?” He exhaled. “That would only be possible if Xaltorath isn’t a demon, which is obviously not true.”6
I found myself standing again. “Are you suggesting I’m ‘mistaken’ about the single most traumatic experience of my entire life?”
“Janel, it was traumatic! It’s not unreasonable to think the horror of what you experienced distorted your memory.”
“The high general was there. Emperor Sandus was there. Do you think Sandus forgot to order a demon to leave a possessed child?”
“Damn it, Janel, I’ve worn the things. I’m telling you that’s not how this works!”
I paused, whatever defense I’d planned on shouting back at him dying on my lips. Instead, in a normal tone, I asked, “How has a Manol vané ever worn a human crown—never mind the Crown and Scepter of Quur?”
He froze.
“Teraeth…,” I started again. “How has a Manol vané—?”
“I heard you the first time.” He inhaled deeply. “Fuck.”
“Then answer the question, please.”
He didn’t, not for a long time. Then he walked away from me and sat down on a rock overlooking the cliff. The Afterlife’s broken, twisted trees spread out ahead. In the distance, yellow mist floated fingers over a lake’s surface, more creepy than romantic.
I walked toward him.
“The cycle,” he said, “is that we die and we’re reborn and we’re not supposed to know what happened to us from one life to the next. Except I remember perfectly. And in my last life, I ended up as emperor of Quur.”
“Which one?”
He grimaced. “Janel, that’s not important—”
“Which one?”
“Atrin Kandor.”
I stared at him in shock. “What?”7
He rolled his eyes. “I was Atrin Kandor. You remember, the man who—”
“I know who Atrin Kandor is! Everyone knows who Atrin Kandor is! Most of Quur wouldn’t exist without Atrin Kandor. The man who built Atrine in a single night and slew the god-king Khorsal and kicked the Kirpis vané out of their homeland. That was you?”
“You forgot the part where I ordered a goodly chunk of the Quuros army to their deaths, trying to invade the Manol.”
“Did you … lose a bet with your mother Thaena? Because the idea that Atrin Kandor would be reincarnated as—as you—is the punch line to a joke. You were the single greatest threat to the vané to ever walk the earth, and she reincarnates you as a vané?”8
“She does love her poetic justice.” He raised a finger. “But for the record, I’ve been saddled with sins I never committed. For example, I did not wipe out the dreth. They’re still around. Just underground. Literally.”
“I see,” I said. I did too, since as Janel “Danorak” I knew all about the power of distorted myth. “Are there any other confessions you feel like making while we linger here?”
He didn’t answer. Teraeth sat there, drumming his fingers against the rock.
“Teraeth—”
“When I was Atrin Kandor, you were my wife.”
I waited, just in case he felt like revealing that last part was a joke.
He didn’t.
I couldn’t fault him for his honesty, but the confession felt awkward. Intimate and also ugly. Like finding out you’d been so drunk, you’d done something you didn’t remember. Even if I had been willing at the time, the idea I couldn’t remember the choices I’d made or the reasoning behind them left me with a blank, heavy feeling in my stomach.
“I suppose it was a romance for the ages,” I said at last, because I didn’t know what else to say.
“No,” he said, his voice ragged. “No, not in the least. I treated you horribly, I didn’t deserve you, and by the time I realized, I couldn’t make it right.” His voice was smooth and dark and dripped, dripped, dripped with the deepest regret. “When I met you—”
“Don’t,” I said.
“I just want you to know—”
I put my hand to his mouth. “Shut up.”
He stared at me.
“I don’t care,” I said, which I tried to make myself believe was true. “Some other woman who shares my soul married some other man who shared yours.” I lifted my hand away from his mouth. “Are you still Atrin Kandor?”
He laughed. “No.”
“And I’m not her. How could I be? What was she? A princess? Some duke’s daughter?”
“No,” he said. “No. She was nobody.” He winced. “I mean, a musician. Played the harp—” His eyes went wide. “Oh gods. I have a type.”
“See, if that’s your type, then I don’t qualify. I don’t know how to play any instrument but slaughter. I don’t even know how to sing. I like to dance and dress up for parties, although not quite as much as I love to win. I’m no man’s wife, although I cannot promise someone won’t be my wife or husband or both. I may not limit myself to just one.”
He gave me a stunned look, but he didn’t seem upset. “Will you marry me?”
“Given our history, I don’t think we should ask that question until we know each other much better. I would wager you had no clue of your wife’s favorite color or food or what personal goals she carried in her heart. I doubt marrying you capped her life’s ambitions.”9
Teraeth pulled me into his arms. “That is all very true, but I still think you’re amazing.”
“That’s a good start.” I tucked myself against his side and waited.
He waited too.
I whispered into his ear. “This is the part where you ask me what goals I carry in my heart.”
“Oh! Uh, I—” He didn’t let me go, but the awkwardness returned.
I leaned back to look at him. “Let’s start with something easy. My favorite color is turquoise.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Turquoise? Really?”
“The color of a cloudless sky in summer. Really. Now what’s yours?”
“If I say red, you’ll think I’m flattering you.”
“Not if it’s true.”
“It’s true.” Teraeth’s eyes went far away. “There’s this red, a shifting crimson, which results from using copper to glaze porcelain. It’s very difficult to create it on purpose. Most people use copper to create green glazes. But if you know what you’re doing, you can make red and shade it anywhere from Khorveshan sandstone to the freshest arterial blood. My father used to make—” He stopped himself. “I mean, my father in my last life. Not this life. I don’t really know my father in this life.”