The Silence of Medair

"No?" she asked, then shook her head. "It doesn’t matter, Avahn. We will forget it happened. Perhaps, instead, you can explain to me why the Ibisian Court tolerates a song with such a subject? Waiting for the hero of the conquered to return and drive you out? Even if it is Telsen’s masterwork, I find it difficult to understand why it hasn’t been banned in Athere."

"Tradition," Avahn replied, his eyelids drooping as he studied her. "You must have lived a sheltered life indeed, never to have heard the song or the story behind it."

"You can’t help but probe, can you?" she chided, and the faintest flush lent a delicate violet to his cheeks. "I suppose you believe that bizarre tale Cor-Ibis produced, of me being raised in isolation to pretend to be the past reborn."

"He told you that? Well, we have not found any other explanation which fits. I don’t suppose it really matters any more. So much else has changed, I wouldn’t be surprised if they no longer even have that legend, outside Athere."

"I sincerely hope not. Have you spoken with the Mersian Herald?"

"Tried to. But many others wish to claim her attention, and I am not able to pre-empt them."

"Not even as one of those who shielded the city?"

He made a dismissive gesture, but looked pleased. "That disconcerted a few."

"Your act won’t be as convincing, any more."

"Perhaps not. I think I shall have to abandon it, though it would be possible, I imagine, to have some believe that high-adept casting was mere luck."

"Just stumbled into doing the right passes. I’m sure." Medair sighed, and rubbed her left temple. "Tell me the story behind that song, Avahn," she commanded.

"Without trying to provoke revealing reactions," he said as if put-upon, and smiled charmingly. "Very well. It’s a short tale, after all. Telsen, with typical daring, asked the Niadril Kier for permission to play the piece, and a dispensation was granted. Speculation over why was naturally rife, but the Niadril Kier was famed for keeping his own counsel."

"Ah." Medair shook her head, feeling ill. "No wonder your cousin thought nothing of suggesting an affair. It would have become almost an accepted fact, for those who did not understand." And those who had known Medair would have berated Telsen for those inferences, seen Kier Ieskar’s silent acceptance, and wondered angrily if it could be true. The Ibisians of the time would have known it wasn’t possible, but those of her friends and family who had survived her might well have believed she had betrayed them. Consequences unrolled in her mind and she sat staring at her knees, not caring about Avahn’s steady gaze.

Hero or traitor? She felt like she’d been led through a series of decisions where she’d had no choice at all, just so she could betray her people. It seemed fitting that her name had come to represent both things. Doubtless "The Silence of Medair" was guaranteed to make any Medarist foam at the mouth, for the implications of both its lyrics and history. How a woman raised to believe herself Medair an Rynstar reborn would react was another question.

"Most do not believe as Adlenkar does," Avahn offered, in a conciliatory tone. "The Niadril Kier’s motives are unknown, and you were right to point out the stain it would be on his honour, if the speculation was true. Perhaps he shared my admiration for Telsen."

Medair tried to picture Kier Ieskar allowing such a lie to be spread, no matter how prettily presented. It seemed terribly unlikely, and spawned possibilities Medair did not care to think about at all.

"I have long since given up trying to comprehend the motives of Ibisians," she said, almost too softly for him to hear.

"We are just like you at our core, Medair," he replied, solemnly.

"That’s probably what’s so frightening." She sighed, and sat a little straighter. "Could I bring you to believe that I am no-one in particular?"

"It is a possibility we have considered, Kel," said Cor-Ibis, from the doorway. "But one, like many, we have dismissed. You may leave, Avahn."

Avahn, dismissed like the many possibilities, rose without protest and offered his cousin a slight inclination of the head as he passed him at the door. Medair, who had been convinced that seeing Cor-Ibis again would answer some of her most difficult questions, watched as he crossed the room and found no solution within her. That she cared about this Ibisian she had no doubt. Something which had been clenched painfully in her chest had relaxed when Ileaha had told her that he lived, and since then Medair had doubted her every motive, her every action.

As he arranged himself opposite her, she tried to sort through what she was feeling. Apprehension, mainly, for she had too much respect for his mind not to know that this interview would be difficult. She had come in part hoping that she could make herself hate him, see him as an adversary still, as a White Snake, as wrongness made flesh. And to see for herself that he was uninjured.