The False Martyr (64 page)

In the time since her
conversation with the Weaver, Teth had felt continuously as if she
were drowning. The weight of that old man’s revelations had crushed
her until she could barely pull herself from bed, barely eat, or
talk, or move. All she had wanted to do on the boat was sleep and,
barring that, lie on her bed and stare at the wall.

Dasen should have thrown
her out. She was a burden, a retched stinking heap that wasn’t
worth his time or effort. She had deserved no patience or sympathy
and had gotten all of it. Even through her despondence, she had
seen how he cared for her, how he worried over her, how he searched
for a way to save her. And now she wanted to reward him by turning
up dead in a bath a few feet from where he slept? She could not
imagine a more cruel trick to play.

She couldn’t do it. But
she also couldn’t continue living. That much had been decided that
afternoon. In that moment after they were robbed, when they had
lost everything, the revelation had hit her – she could not imagine
why she had not thought of it earlier. The Weaver had proved his
point beyond a doubt. He owned her, controlled every aspect of her
life, and he intended that life to be filled with nothing but pain.
He had put them on a path of constant struggle, hunger, fear, and
depravation with not a scrap of hope that it would ever end. But
most of all, no hope that they would ever have each other. Being
robbed even when they had nothing to steal had been the final blow,
the last reminder of the world that the Weaver had
created.

Then the revelation had
come.
Death
.
Weighed against the hardships, loneliness, and pain stretched
before her, death was a sanctuary. Just the thought of it had given
her strength like she had not felt in weeks.
It can all end
, she had told herself
and had felt almost instant relief. Even now, the very thought of
it was like a balm. Just knowing that it would all soon be over
made it possible to keep going.

She just had to find a
way. The alley had been the perfect chance. But Dasen had to pull
her back from the blade, had to use his power. And Kian just
happened to be following them, happened to be a few feet away. At
the time, Teth had been too stunned to see those things for what
they were. Now, she realized how powerful the Weaver truly was, how
hard her task would be.

“
Fuck you, old man,” she
said with a tremendous sigh. She beat her hand down into the water
beside her, sent it splashing to the floor. She felt the sorrow,
the helplessness rising inside her. Even in this, he would thwart
her. And why wouldn’t he? She felt all the energy seep from her,
leaking out with her hope. Sadness lodged in her chest, throbbing,
real pain stretching down her arms to her fingers. “You cruel
bastard,” she moaned through a sob. “You can’t even give me
this?”

But de Nardees defied
them
, she heard a voice say. The Weaver
had even told her so. He had said that she still had freewill. And
if she used it at the right time, if she found her moment and acted
against everything she believed everything the Order told her to
do, then she, like the first King of Liandria, could be
free.

The idea took hold,
germinated and grew. The moment would come. Death would face her.
She had to position herself to meet it, and then act against the
Weaver’s machinations and find the release she so desperately
desired. Where Nardees had run from the blade, she would run to it.
It was the only way. That bastard would have foreseen this, would
have planned any number of contingencies to stop her – if she tried
to drown herself, the tub would probably spring a leak – but
eventually the choice would come. She just had to see it and act,
had only to find death and embrace it.

And Dasen. He would see it
as a part of their struggle. He would not blame himself. He would
move on just as he was destined to do when he realized that he
could never have her. And they would both be spared the anguish of
a love that could never be realized, that could never be
complete.

Teth laid back in the tub
and smiled. It was not a smile of joy but rather of conviction, of
a decision made and accepted. She felt hope return with her
certainty that the black road would end and that the end would come
soon. With another long, shaking breath, she picked up the soap on
the side of the tub. She would get clean now, would face her life
as best she could until the time came to end it.

As she scrubbed the dirt
and stink away, she thought of Dasen. The very thought of him, made
her chest hurt. She couldn’t believe how much she loved him, how
much she wanted to be with him, to hold him, and kiss him, and even
. . . .

It could never be. Just
having him close caused her agony, made her think of everything she
could never have. And it made no sense to lead him on. They needed
to grow apart, so that it would be easier when the time came. In
the morning, she would say goodbye, then she would let him
go.

The bath was cold by the
time she stood, dried herself, slipped into the boy’s nightshirt
that the innkeeper had provided, and walked the few paces to the
room she was to share with her husband. She hoped that she had
waited long enough, that he was already asleep, that she would not
have to face him. In the morning she would be ready. Just not
now.

#

Dasen’s eyes drooped; his
head sagged. He stood from the chair and paced around the room,
thinking that movement might keep him from ceding to sleep. He
watched the door, praying and fearing that Teth would walk through.
She had been in the bath for what seemed like hours, and he was
beginning to wonder if he should check on her. She had insisted
that he bathe first. He had tried to be quick, but she was clearly
taking her time. That left him pacing, staring, begging his body to
stay awake long enough to see her before he collapsed.

He was in a
well-appointed single room.
It had a large bed, a small table, two chairs, an empty
fireplace, and a single window. Curtains billowed from the window,
allowing the evening breeze to stir the hot, stuffy air. The room
had been Kian’s, but he had given it up when Mark refused to cast
out one of his paying customers. The two of them were cousins as it
turned out – Kian’s mother having come from Gorin – but theirs was
clearly an arrangement of convenience. Kian and his gang’s main
activity was stealing the food that was being gathered for the
invaders. In a city strangled by rationing, that food was more
valuable than jewels, so Mark gave them rooms and cover in exchange
for a share, but sharing food did not mean they shared ideals.
Dasen was not sure that he was any more enthusiastic about Kian’s
plans, but there choices were limited, and this room was certainly
more comfortable than the alley, the infamous camp, or a mass grave
would have been. A hot meal, a bath, a bed, a clean nightshirt,
these were luxuries that he could barely imagine a few hours
before.

Now, if Teth would just
join him. After the days they’d spent on the river, he didn’t know
what to expect but hoped that her willingness to eat and bathe were
indications that she had come out of her malaise, that they could
celebrate their momentary good fortune with some of the closeness
that had been absent since Thoren. They had come so far before that
battle, and now that he was clean and fed, his last, greatest
desire was to kiss his wife, to feel her close, to . . . . He
stopped himself before his thoughts went too far. He had been
patient on the boat, had given her space and time, but his patience
was just about spent. He needed her, needed some solace, some
indication that it all meant something.

The door latch snapped
open. Dasen leapt and turned, heart suddenly pounding beyond any
momentary fear he had felt at being startled. The door crept open,
and Teth slid around the surface quiet as a ghost, wearing a too
big cotton nightshirt that matched his. He watched her in the light
of the candle that stood on the table at her side. She was a shadow
of the girl from the forest, wasted to bones and shrunken. But she
was still beautiful, clean and bright, short, uneven hair drying
into clumps, freckles stretching across her pert nose, long, white
neck leading to broad shoulders, thin arms, small breasts, nipples
just outlined by the shirt that hid everything else until it ended
just above her ankles and small, white feet. He wanted her more
than anything, could not help but imagine her without that shirt
on, imagine her as she had been at the Muldon’s so long ago, the
last time they’d shared a room.

Her eyes darted to the bed
then around the door to him. Her face fell. She sighed long and
deep, disappointment obvious. And Dasen knew that this night would
be much closer to the one at the Muldon’s than the one he longed
for, the one that his body was already preparing, against his will,
to have.

“
I’m tired,” she said with
another sigh. She diverted her eyes and walked to the bed. She
pulled aside the sheet and climbed in, facing the side, curled into
a ball as far from the center as was possible.

Dasen let out the breath
he did not realize he was holding, but it did nothing to lessen his
anticipation like a hunger that he could barely withhold.
Maybe she just needs to remember how it
feels
. He picked up the candle from the
table, blew it out, and stepped to the bed. It was a big bed, well
wide enough for two people to sleep and never touch. Teth was not
taking a quarter of it, but Dasen slid himself toward her, placed
his hand on her arm, conformed his body to hers, pressed himself
against her, smelled her hair, and kissed her shoulder.

She drew a long, shaking
breath that Dasen took for approval. He ran his hand down her arm
to her leg, pressed himself closer, moved his lips to her
neck.

“
Please don’t,” Teth said
through a sob. “Just don’t.” She brought her hand to her face and
covered her eyes. “Please,” she begged, though Dasen could barely
hear her.

For a second, he thought
about ignoring her. He thought about telling her no, of turning her
around and kissing her until she realized that it was exactly what
she needed.

He rolled away from her.
“Can you talk to me?” he asked the darkness. “Can you tell me what
this is about?” When there was no answer beyond the shaking
breaths, he started again, “I need you, Teth. I need to be close to
you. I’ve waited, I’ve been patient. It doesn’t need to be anything
more than what we did before, but I need that at least. I can’t be
around you all day and never touch you. I can’t look at you all day
without wanting to hold you, without wanting to kiss you. Do you
understand that?”

Snuffles answered him. He
sighed into the darkness and slammed his hand down onto the space
between them. Teth jumped. “Talk to me!” he yelled into the
darkness. “By the Order, at least tell me why.”

Gasps, sobs, shaking
breaths.

Dasen threw off the
covers, rose from the bed, and stormed from the room. He could not
sleep in his current state, and he could not stay there listening
to Teth cry. He stood in the hall for a while, realizing that
anyone stepping from their room would be horrified by the site of a
young man standing in nothing more than a nightshirt that was
propped in the middle like a tent. He strode to the
washroom.

When he returned to the
room, Teth was asleep. He watched her for a long time, then slid
under the sheet on the opposite side of the bed. He matched her
posture, curled as far from her as he could manage with two arm’s
length between them.

Chapter 37

The
35
^th
Day of Summer

Allard Stully was shorter
than Ipid always thought he should be. His stiff spine and high
chin created the illusion of height, but, in truth, he was a few
inches shorter than Ipid. Still, he was slim and fit with broad
shoulders and the presence to fill a room. Only slightly older than
Ipid, he was almost entirely bald, but the strong lines of his
starkly handsome, cleanly shaven face showed nary a sag. His brown
eyes were piercing, full of command. Thin lips were pulled into a
line as tight as the collar of his shirt, which looked as if it
would choke the very life from him. His suit was ash grey,
perfectly pressed, and starched stiff. His scarf was the same pale
blue as the water in his family crest. A shimmering trout pendant
covered it to complete the reference. In a change of protocol, his
shirt was midnight black so that the entire ensemble appeared
reversed. He completed it with a short, wide-rimmed felt hat in the
color of his suit, like a fine version of something a boatman might
wear. In his hand was a black cane topped with a silver leaping
trout. Steel capped its point so that is announced every step its
master took down the hall of his estate. Ipid had never seen him
without the device, which was as much his trademark as his
legendary poise.

“
A nice trick, that,” he
said, demonstrating that poise immediately. Allard Stully’s voice
was smooth and steady, perfectly pitched to require listeners to
devote all their attention to it lest they miss a word, and it
never wavered no matter the threat he faced or impossibility he had
witnessed. Ipid tried to match that poise as he recovered from the
disorientation of passing through Liano’s portal, struggling to
keep his face impassive despite vertigo and nausea.