Alliances

Kerian thought of the seasoned warriors she’d led in Khur. If only she had them with her. But they were in the desert, chasing Gilthas’s foolish dream of a new homeland.

“I would speak with your leader.”

Alhana’s voice broke in on Kerian’s grim thoughts. “I sent Nalaryn to find him. He’s a very mysterious fellow. Comes and goes at all hours, and keeps no counsel but his own.”

Alhana seated herself on the pedestal of a broken statue, once the proud image of a former Qualinesti leader and, thanks to Olin’s despoilers, reduced to scattered lumps of stone.

“I shall wait.”

Kerian nodded. It would be worth waiting for, she thought. Alhana deserved to hear the truth.

“I’ll make every effort to send him to you,” she said, “Until then, I must see about finding more carts and horses. We’ll gain nothing if our enemies retake Bianost with the arsenal still here.”

She departed and Samar followed, intending to see how the royal guards were faring in their patrol of the outer edges of the town.

* * * * *

The sun set, and the diffuse glow of twilight faded slowly. Chathendor moved around the ruined hall, commenting on the decorations and architecture. His lady returned no answers, only listened politely to his chatter. At last, exhausted by the day’s events, he righted a large chair and seated himself. The first stars appeared in the hail’s high windows. The sound of voices outside was a low, soothing murmur. Chathendor began to snore.

Alhana sat immobile, her face reflecting none of the uncertainty swirling in her heart. Could this masked rebel leader be her husband? She had barely glimpsed him before his abrupt departure. So she waited, with the considerable patience of a long-lived elf, a well-trained queen, and a wife fully intending not to stir one inch until she had the answers she sought.

The sound of footfalls caused her to flinch, revealing how thin was her veneer of calm. They came from the shadows at the far end of the hall, deliberate and steady, like the tread of a herald determined to be heard. Alhana clenched her hands, cold as ice, in her lap. A silhouette appeared twenty feet away, featureless in the weak starshine. Her heart beat faster. She drew a shaky breath.

“You have nothing to fear.” His voice was low, hoarse, and completely unfamiliar.

Her back straightened. “I am not afraid.”

“You are. Your heart hammers like a gong.”

“I’m not accustomed to holding conversations in the dark.” Without moving from her perch, she looked around. “Is there no candle or lamp?”

“Light one, and I will go.”

It was her turn to offer reassurance. “You have nothing to fear from me. I am unarmed and”—Chathendor’s snores increased in volume—“well, not completely alone.”

He came a few steps closer, resolving into a shadowed form clad in a tattered, loosely fitting robe. Face and head were completely concealed by the robe’s hood.

“Why did you come here?” he asked.

“To lend my support to this rebellion.”

“You could have sent soldiers. Why did you come?”

With deliberate emphasis, she said, “To find you.”

“And who am I?”

His voice had changed. The difference was subtle, but to Alhana it was clear as a beacon. The timbre and cadence, the very feel of it, was excruciatingly familiar. He was Porthios!

Relief so strong it made her head swim was followed immediately by a surge of adrenaline. Her heart began to pound again. She wanted to hurl herself at him, to hold him in her arms, to demand answers. Most of all she wanted to tear away the ragged mask that stood like a wall between them.

She wanted to, but she did not. Instead, terrified of frightening him away, she held herself utterly still, a living statue seated on the broken alabaster plinth. Her only movement was the shifting of her eyes as she studied him.

“You are—” She cleared her throat. Even so, it came out as the barest of whispers. “You are someone I love.”

He withdrew suddenly, and Alhana feared he had gone, but when he spoke again, his voice came from the darkness to her right.

“If that were true, you would have stayed away.”

“Stayed away! How could I? As a queen, I lost my country. As a mother, I lost my child.” Her voice broke. From the corner of one eye, she saw him take a step toward her then subside again into stillness. She drew a deep, shaking breath. “I don’t live. I merely exist in the center of a great emptiness. It does not matter where I go or who I am with; the void is always with me. To answer the smallest part of ‘why,’ I would plunge to the bottom of Nalis Aren or climb the Icewall. Coming here was nothing!”

Giving voice to words carried so long unspoken calmed her. Not so Porthios.

“You want to know why?” he hissed. “Sometimes there is no why! Sometimes there is only what fate delivers. When the gods left us, they didn’t take Fate with them. It stayed in the world, cruel, capricious, and callous. It took away my life, but would not allow me to die. So here I am, caught between the two. Alone.”