“I don’t—” I found myself at a loss for what to say. I’d fought stupidly. I’d turned a practice session into a tantrum. I had no idea how to control the maelstrom of my emotions. I didn’t try to stand. I just lay there, miserable, every eye in the practice yard on me, too numb to even care.
Xivan moved the sword from my neck and knelt beside me. “Don’t tell me you loved him.”
“What? Who?” What she said couldn’t have been more startling than if it had been a slap, but at the same time, I felt remorse stab me. I knew who.
Oreth.
But no, I hadn’t loved him.
I had wanted to love him, though. I had wanted him to love me back too. Neither wish had come true. Instead, his pride had demanded he break me, and my pride—
“The knight. The one I executed.”
“No, I—” I shut my eyes, tears welling at their corners. “I just—” My voice came out as a ragged sob. “I didn’t. It’s all so pointless. So unnecessary. I didn’t mean for him to die. I never mean for any of them to die and—” My grief expressed itself as a jagged exhalation. Somehow his death became conflated with all the others—the citizens of Mereina, everyone at Lonezh, the Hellmarch, my parents, that Marakori man murdered on the bridge to Atrine—
All the people I couldn’t save.
“So it’s yourself you hate, then.” Xivan’s voice sounded sad.
I felt like she’d pulled out the last piece from a tottering foundation. A shudder, an ugly clenching feeling, and then the avalanche. Her words ripped through me, until I felt I would be lost in the tumult. Naturally, I hated myself. How could I not, when I always lived? Lived not because I deserved it, not because I’d earned it, but to serve the false games of demons, the commands of generals, and always those damn prophecies. Lived, but never once made anyone’s life better for it. I had become a stallion to protect the ones I loved, but I couldn’t even protect myself.
What good was it all, then? What purpose did it serve?
I turned on my stomach, away from her, and began sobbing into my hands. Brutal sobbing, and for a time, I couldn’t stop. If I faced the world, I’d have to do something about it. I’d have to try to fix it.
I didn’t think I could this time.
I felt her hand on my laevos, stroking my hair. “Oh, my sweet little girl. How all those fires in your heart must burn.”
I’d reached the stage of a full-on bawl, which is tears and hiccups and too much phlegm. We were in public. I wiped my eyes and nose with my hands, anyway.
“You let all those others define you,” she whispered to me. “So many people telling you who you must be.”
I couldn’t let that pass unanswered. “I’ve rebelled—”
“It’s no different. When opposing forces collide, they define each other. You cannot advance against an enemy without letting them shape you. You push, and you’re pushed against. You measure yourself against others, by their approval or by their displeasure, and every time you will find you have given them power over you, whether you realize it or not.” She cupped my cheek, and I felt her hand’s cold flesh, nothing like living tissue. It didn’t horrify me as much as it should have. “You must find yourself, my dear. Find your own heart, your own beauty, your own truth.”
She stood and offered her hand to me. “And then we can work on defeating your enemies.”
I laughed, a choking near-hysterical laugh even as I grabbed her desiccated hand and let her help me to my feet. Because you see, she was my enemy. The Kaens and Relos Var and all the forces aligned to help them. My enemies.
Or my friends.
And I didn’t know the difference anymore. Was Xivan nothing more than an obstacle in my quest to steal the dragon-slaying spear, Khoreval? Or was Xivan someone who would help me triumph over Duke Xun and Markreev Aroth, to regain Jorat? Was it better to truly be Duke Kaen’s tumai—or do as I’d promised the Goddess of Death and help destroy everyone helping Relos Var?
Ever since Tya, Goddess of Magic, had enchanted Arasgon to join me in the Afterlife, I had been the traitor hidden in Duke Kaen’s midst. I’d been passing messages and instructions back to my camp every night while I “slept.” Yet still I knew I hadn’t truly accepted my role. Maybe Oreth had been right. Maybe I’d never know my place.
I was supposed to find Yor’s crimes unforgivable, while ignoring the blood on my own hands.
Xivan Kaen pulled me into her arms and cradled me, while racking sobs claimed me again.
* * *
Talea guided me back to my room afterward, arm around my shoulders. She sat me down in a chair by the bed, kneeling next to me.
“Is there anything I can get you?” she asked. “Tea? Something stronger?”
“I messed up back there, didn’t I?”
She smiled. “Messed up? Hardly.” She turned back the furs on the bed. “You’re grieving. Let yourself. I’m still not over my—” Talea must have seen my expression, the question in my eyes. “I had a sister. She was murdered.”
Two sentences, thrown out like idle trivia, but the pain in her voice ripped at my heart. “And—” I returned her smile with a much more pallid version. “You’re going to kill the one responsible.”
She’d always approached her lessons with a rage I’d suspected was personal, as though she pictured a special someone on the other end of every sword swing.
She scoffed and turned around, sitting down on the bed. “I wish. Darzin D’Mon murdered her.”
I blinked as the declaration cut through my own numbness. “The royal? The same one who—” I’d almost said, “The same one who’d tried to have me killed,” but I didn’t think that was true anymore.
“That’s what Thurvishar says.” She shook her head. “I don’t think Darzin even realizes what he did. It was just bad luck. She happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, and his assassin didn’t want witnesses. Just another bystander caught up in the royal games of empire. And Darzin’s done so much worse—” She looked away. “His list of crimes is long.”
I moved from my chair and sat next to her, took her hands in mine. “I’m so sorry. Are you going to kill him? Do you want help?”
She laughed and squeezed my hands back. “I appreciate the offer. Ask me again in a few years. I’m told he’s phenomenal with a sword, so I suspect I’ll need a little more than eight months training, no matter how amazing Xivan might be.”
“When the time comes, it would be my pleasure to help.”
Talea grinned. “Thank you. One of these days, I’ll be good enough with a sword and Darzin will stop being useful to Duke Kaen, and I just hope I’m there. Or Thurvishar is. I think he might try to fight me for the honor of killing Darzin.”
“How can you be friends with a royal? With the D’Lorus Lord Heir?”
She swallowed. “He bought me from Darzin.” Talea saw the expression on my face and added, “But Thurvishar freed me. Right away, he freed me.1 He asked me what I wanted to do with myself, said he’d grant any wish I had. I felt like I was in a god-king tale where the peasant girl frees an injured lion from a trap—only the lion is a goddess who can grant any wish.” Talea cleared her throat. “Well, I told him I wanted revenge.”