The Silence of Medair

Medair was wholly oppressed by the mere idea of seeing the Ibisian Corminevar. She remained silent and distant as they passed farmland townlets, crossed the Lapring Bridge and approached Athere. Only a small part of her mind was free to catalogue the wide gates, the guards who watched but did not interfere, the passers-by who halted in their day’s tasks to follow the progress of a Keridahl and his company. Athere was more crowded than it had been, but cleaner, for Ibisians were fastidious beasts. And it was very blonde.

Medair tried to ignore it all, her mind wavering between taking in her surroundings and memories of previous journeys through the great city. Ahrenrhen. Ariensel. Remembrance, once called Arren. Cantry. Shield. Patrin.

The nature of the city changed beyond Patrin Wall. The hill sloped steeply. The houses were fewer, terraced, some with towers to mimic those which crowned the hill. There were five main roads, spokes with the palace as hub, but the rest of Patrin was a tangle of winding, secluded streets. Entire blocks were sectioned off by their own gates, exclusive domains of wealthy families.

They’d called this the Shadowland in Medair’s day, eclipsed as it was by the palace. The middle and upper rungs of the aristocracy dwelled here, the most exalted also claiming apartments within the palace itself. Now, she saw Ibisians everywhere, and fewer of darker complexion. Athere might be home to both races, but she would do well not to forget that it was the White Snakes who held the reins.

There. She had been trying not to think of them by that name, but it was a difficult habit to break. Parts of her were too obstinate to accept that these were not invaders, but inhabitants of this land. Born and bred here, knowing no other home. Was it self-indulgent to stoke her resentment by thinking that to be a full Farakkian in Athere could be a disadvantage? Or only too reasonable? Was anger not preferable to loss and hurt? Medair tried to empty her mind, to be detached and analytical, to feel nothing as the pale grey stone of the palace loomed ever larger. Last year she had avoided the palace. She had known she would not be able to bear all which should have been.

She swallowed, keeping her eyes resolutely on her hands, refusing to look at the gates they approached. Guards in uniforms she didn’t recognise stood beneath the south portcullis, which was still surmounted by an ancient carving of the Corminevar Crown. She had ridden this way in a dream, a fantasy of victory and acclamation. She had been astride a foam-flecked horse whose heart was near to bursting. Clad in her Herald’s uniform, with the thunder of an approaching army dinning in her ears and a thick, tasselled cord of silk wrapped around one hand. Athere’s defenders had felt the power of the Horn, and were gathered to wait. They had raised a cry of exultation at the sight of her, toiling up the last rise to this stone archway with the crown of the Corminevars carved above. In a dream.

Five hundred years too late, Medair an Rynstar finally crossed into the fastness of the White Palace. Her face was as pale and weary as the stone which mocked her loyalties and the company she kept. She took a harsh breath, like a swimmer coming up for air, and her chestnut tossed his head, for her grip on the reins was too tight. Aware of the gaze of fellow travellers and palace guards alike, she clenched jaw and hands and willed a blankness to her mind. How to survive this last distance?

Riders, coming the other way, scattered in the face of a party of higher rank. A cluster of men and women gathered around a hay wagon stopped unloading and stared. The horses' hooves set up an echo in the bailey yard. It was too much like coming home.

Telsen had taken her on a tour of the palace, when she’d first arrived in Athere. He’d been starting to gain respect for his work then, and she’d been flattered and suspicious, forewarned of his reputation and disarmed by his fascination with the past and his love of the palace. He’d known everything about the city, and he would probably be capable of loving even the changes the Ibisians had made. He had flirted and charmed and bedded and moved on from her, all in quick and easy succession.

Somehow, that old, lesser pain was enough to muffle the moment. Medair had tried to consider Telsen a youthful folly, but had never been able to genuinely dismiss love and loss and treat him as a friend. The never quite forgiven hurt of seeing that he was bored with her, the anger this realisation had roused, served now to straighten her back and ease the constriction in her throat.