Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 04 (18 page)

           
"And in return I got his sister
for my wife. Gisella for a daughter." He raised dark brows. "Who
gained, who lost? Surely I benefited more than Donal did."

           
Surely he had. And he knew I knew
it. "Is a title so important? Worth so many wars?"

           
"This one is." A signet
ring glinted on Alaric's hand: silver set with jet. "It has belonged to
the Atvian lord since before I was born. My grandsire, Keough, won it from Ryan
of Erinn. Shea did not contest it until his heir was born."

           
"Your sister was wed to Shea.
Does it mean nothing to you?"

           
He uncrossed his legs and leaned
forward, elbows on his knees. "Boy, you must learn the practicalities of
alliances and wars. When one is broken, the other invariably follows." A
warning, perhaps? He rose. "For more than two hundred years Erinn and
Atvia have been at war. Intermittently, of course—we cannot always fight. But
it is as much a part of the Atvian and Erinnish way of life as shapechanging is
of yours." He movement was arrested. "Ah, but of course—you cannot. I
had heard you lack a lir."

           
I thrust myself out of the chair.
Impotent rage welled up as Alaric continued smiling.

           
Gods, if only I could close that
mouth forever—

           
"Niall," he said gently.
"Did you expect us to be friends?"

           
With effort, I said, "I
expected us to be civil."

           
He put his emptied goblet on the
table. "This is civil, boy. I am not Shea of Erinn."

           
"Shea of Erinn possesses more
integrity, honor, and manners than you could ever hope for!"

           
"No doubt," he said
easily. "Nonetheless, he is a fool." He looked past my shoulder and
smiled, gesturing a welcome. "Niall, there is someone who wishes to see
you."

           
Gisella. I turned, trying to arrange
my face into a mask of civility—Gisella was due it even if her father was
not—and saw Liliith instead of Gisella.

           
Again, she wore crimson. She was
cloaked in the weight of her hair. "I offered you a choice," she said
calmly. "You refused to accept my help. But I see you had other
alternatives,"

           
No more would I look away from the
woman. I stared intently back at her. "The gods look after their
own."

           
After an arrested moment, Liliith
began to smile. "The months have done you good,” she said obscurely. And
then she laughed.

           
I watched as she went to Alaric and
kissed him intimately, ignoring my presence entirely. He locked one hand in the
curtain of her hair. The other pressed her against his loins. Because they
wanted to make me uncomfortable, I did not look away.

           
Lillith broke from Alaric and turned
to me. Her black eyes seemed blacker yet. "I have come to escort you to
proper chambers. Tonight we honor you with a feast; you will need to rest until
then."

           
Her hand was on my arm. She waited.
But before I went, I looked over my shoulder at Alaric.

           
The Lord of Atvia was smiling.

           
My assigned chambers, as I shut the
door in Lillith's lovely face, were deeply shadowed. Again, there were no
casements to let in the sunlight. Only candles, and most were not lighted.
Though it was only afternoon, die room was gloomy. I wanted nothing to do with
it.

           
Lillith had remarked on my lack of
clothing, saying those lost in the shipwreck would be replaced with others.
Now, made aware I had nothing of my own save the ruby signet ring and my
silver-plated belt, I found myself longing for Cheysuli leathers.

           
"Niall." A shape moved out
of the shadows of the room. I spun, reaching for the knife I still did not
have, and then 1 stopped moving altogether.

           
The face was thin, too thin, so
gaunt, fined down to flesh stretched nearly to splitting over the prominent
bones of the skull. I saw hollowed pockets beneath high, angular cheekbones;
circles like bruises beneath eyes, the yellow eyes, filled with a dozen haunted
memories of what it was like to lose a brother. What it was like to lose a
soul. He was a stranger to me, my brother, and yet I knew him so very well.

           
"Ian!" And almost
instantly: Oh, gods, what have they done to my brother?

           
He was thin. His clothes were of
Atvian cut; no Cheysuli leathers here. When Ian had worn nothing else. His
thick hair was dull, though clean, and had been cut much shorter than normal.
It did not quite cover his ears; I saw the nakedness of his left lobe and
realized what he had done. Or what they had made him do.

           
What have they made of my brother?

           
"Rujho?" he asked
tentatively, and I saw the apprehension in his eyes.

           
I took a single step toward him.
"Gods! Ian, I thought you were dead! I thought you had drowned in the
storm!"

           
I stopped. I wanted to go to him, to
embrace him even as Rowan and I had embraced; to give him welcome as I could
give no other man. But I did not. Something in his manner held me back.

           
"Niall," he said.
"Oh—gods—I thought she lied—I thought she told me lies—“ He shut his eyes
so I would not see the tears. "But you are here—"

           
"Here," I echoed numbly.
Oh, rujho, what have they done to you? "Ian. . . ." At last I
stretched out a hand to touch his shoulder. But as I touched him he moved rigidly
away. Like a hound afraid of his master.

           
"She said you were coming,"
he told me. "She said so, but I did not believe her. She tells me so many
things."

           
His heavy swallow was visible, even
in the shadows.

           
"When there is one truth in
twenty lies, I cannot always choose which one to believe in."

           
"Ian, what is wrong? What is
wrong with you?"

           
He flinched. Visibly. As if the
master had struck the hound. "I know, now. I know what it is, now. The
pain. The emptiness. The void within a heart." He drew in an unsteady
breath. "I have seen how it is, how it has been with you all these years—
"

           
“Ian."

           
“—and now I know myself—"

           
“Ian."

           
“—what a lirless man goes
through—"

           
“Ian!"

           
“—when his lir is taken from
him." The sinews knotted even as his jaw muscles did. "I know what I
must do. But she will not let me do it.”

           
I did not hold back. I crossed to
him in a single stride and took him into my arms. And I thought how odd it was
that I, the younger, the lirless Prince of Homana, now comforted a lirless
warrior of the clan who had always comforted me.With words and without.

           
Beneath the woolen Atvian doublet
and linen shirt, I felt the nakedness of his arms. In shock I drew back.

           
"Where is your lir-gold?"

           
"Gone. I put it off." He
pulled away, turning away; turning his back on me.

           
As if he cannot face me.
"Ian—"

           
"A lirless warrior has no right
to wear the gold." and then he turned. "You should know that,
Niall."

           
Niall. No more rujho. Had Tasha's
loss also made him forget other bonds?

           
Or is it what they have done to him?

           
I wanted to shout at him. I did not.
I drew in a steadying breath and told him, very quietly, "You have more
right to wear the lir-gold than any warrior I know."

           
Ian laughed. There was no humor in
it. Only the vast emptiness of a man who has lost himself. "It is what a
warrior does," he told me bitterly, "this putting off of the gold. A
true warrior. One who conducts himself according the Cheysuli tradition—"

           
"—and seeks the
death-ritual?" I finished. "In Homana I would never question it. But
we are in Atvia, and—"

           
Interrupting rudely, another sign he
was not himself, Ian spat out an oath in the Old Tongue. "Do you think ,
that matters?—what kingdom I am in? Oh, Niall, our customs are not determined
by where we are but by who. I am Cheysuli. My lir is lost. There is only one
thing left to do."

           
"Then why are you here?" I
wanted to shout it, knowing the question was the only way to trick an
explanation from a man who so patently did not want to give me one."If you
are willing to stand before me and prate about Cheysuli tradition and lirlessness,
then why not complete the ritual? Live up to your heritage, shapechanger. Go out
and seek your death."

           
He twitched. Suddenly he was not Ian
before me, not my brother; not the boy to whom I had looked for guidance nor
the man to whom I had looked for companionship and protection in the court of
the Lion Throne. Somehow, he was—diminished.

           
"Oh rujho," I said in
despair, "what have they done to you?"

           
"Not they," said a female
voice distinctly. "What she has done to him."

           
This time it was Gisella. I had only
to look at her as she shouldered shut the door. "You do not deny it,
then?"

           
She did not answer. She came forward
into the wash of candlelight and I saw her-eyes: yellow as my brother's. No,
Alaric had not stamped Gisella as Shea had stamped Liam and Deirdre. Nor as
Carillon, through his daughter, had come back to live in me. In flesh and bone
and spirit, Gisella was more Cheysuli than
I.
Ian said nothing. Nor did I; I could think
of nothing succinct that would express what I was feeling. She wore a gown the
color of blood. Not the bright crimson red of Lillith's velvet skirts, but the
color of day-old blood. Dull, a man might say; ugly, a woman would, but on
Gisella the color was right.

           
She smiled. Ignoring Ian, Gisella
smiled at me, "I was not to let you see me before tonight's feast. But I
could not wait." Her black hair was worn Cheysuli-fashion: braided,
looped, twisted, fastened in place with golden combs that glittered with ice-white
diamonds. She had a widow's peak. It gave her a look of elegance, of maturity,
and yet I knew she lacked both. She was oddly childish. Or was it childlike?
"My father wanted you to be pleased with me. Are you pleased with
me?"

           
It is as if Ian is not even in the
room. "I think I might be more pleased if I knew what Lillith has done to
my brother."

           
Gisella shrugged. The gown was cut
wide of her shoulders, displaying smooth dark skin, elegant neck, a rope of
gold and diamonds. "Only what she has done before. Though they were not
Cheysuli." She looked at Ian and smiled. Her eyes lit up and she laughed.
"Because she wanted to do it. Because he hated her. Because he lacked a
lir."

           
"I lack a lir."

           
Her lips parted in surprise.
"Lillith would never ensorcell you!”

           
I turned to Ian. "We will
discover what she has done, rujho, I promise. And then we will—"

           
"—do what?" Gisella came
closer, skirts swinging. "He is lirless, Niall. Without a lir he will go
mad. But Lillith will keep him from it. She said so ... she said she wants
him."

           
I stared. Her tone was utterly
unconcerned, as if it mattered not one whit to her that the witch had
ensorcelled my brother. "Gisella—"

           
She spun and spun in place, holding
out blood-colored skirts. "Did Lillith not make me pretty?"

           
"Gisella!" I cried.
"By the gods, girl, are you blind? The woman is Ihlini!"

           
She stopped spinning. The skirts
settled. The diamonds stopped blinding me with their brilliant glitter.
"The woman is my mother."

           
"Your mother'" Aghast, I
gaped openly. "Has she driven the sense from your head? Lillith is not
your mother. Your mother was Bronwyn, sister to Donal of Homana. My aunt—su'fala
in the Old Tongue. You are my kinswoman, Gisella ... my cousin. No matter what
she has told you, Lillith is not your mother."