If I’d had to listen to a single more ‘my lord’ from Lister,” Maximilian muttered, “I swear I would have shattered this damn glass.”
He looked up at the table. “It shall be most interesting for you, Axis, StarDrifter, and Salome, meeting your long-lost cousins.”
“I have only just got used to my new immediate family,” Salome said. “Now you say there are fifty thousand more arriving the morning after next? And a quarter million more lurking in the mountains? I shall never remember all their birthdays.”
The group about the table laughed, then chatted about inconsequential things for a few minutes as they ate and drank.
“Maxel,” Axis said eventually, “we need to talk about the army. It is—”
“I know,” said Maximilian. “We can speak tomorrow. For now I am weary, and can think clearly of nothing but my bed.”
“Before you think too longingly of bed,” Isaiah said, “there is something I need to talk to you about. I would also ask that Ishbel stays with us. This concerns both of you. It is a personal matter. Axis, would you stay, too?”
The group broke up with that, leaving Maximilian, Isaiah, Ishbel, and Axis sitting about the remains of the meal. Serge and Doyle shepherded in some servants to clear the table and to set out fruit and cheese, and then the group was left alone.
“If I can take a moment,” Maximilian said to Isaiah, “before you speak? Thank you. The Isembaardian soldiers worry about their families. Who can blame them? And I worry about what is happening down south, what is happening at DarkGlass Mountain and with the Skraelings. Isaiah,” he said, leaning forward a little, “I am going to test our newfound trust.”
“You want me to go there,” Isaiah said.
“Yes. I want you to go into Isembaard, do what you can for your people, and discover for me what that cursed glass pyramid is about, what it is doing, and what it has become. We know too little about it. Can you do that for me?”
Ishbel answered before Isaiah could speak. “Maxel! That is too dangerous! Isaiah is a man apart from many others, and with powers that few can command, but even so you are surely sending him to his—”
“I want to send some of Eleanon’s Lealfast fighters with Isaiah,” said Maximilian quietly. “They can move quickly, and they are of great power. They command the Star Dance, and, from what I have heard of the assassination attempt on your life, Isaiah, they are handy enough with their bows. Isaiah, I will give you half of Eleanon’s force—twenty-five thousand. Will you go?”
“Yes,” Isaiah said, “if the Lealfast agree. I cannot travel as fast as they, Maxel, but I can move faster than ordinary men. Once I reach the river, I can travel faster.”
“We will discuss the details later,” said Maximilian. “Axis, what do you think? If I send their Tyrant into Isembaard to rescue what he can, and with a strange, magical, powerful force at his back, will it ease some of the men’s fears?”
“It will surely surprise them,” said Axis. “But, yes, it will allay their fears, for a while. At least you are being seen to do something, and they trust Isaiah. Mostly. But…are you sure about the Lealfast? We know so little about them. To trust them with such a mission is—”
“Foolish?” said Maximilian. “Perhaps, but neither can I afford not to use them. I can’t sit about for a year trying to gauge the Lealfast and their potential for treachery. I’ll risk it, Axis. Isaiah knows how to look after himself, and how to command men.”
“Be careful, Isaiah,” Ishbel said, meeting his eyes. “Please.”
Maximilian hesitated as he looked between them, then spoke. “Once the Lealfast are here we can hash out the details, but I needed to speak to you first, Isaiah.”
Then he looked at Ishbel. “Ishbel, I shouldn’t have treated you the way I did last night. I—”
“It doesn’t matter, Maxel,” she said. “You have chosen Ravenna.”
“Ishbel—” Maximilian said.
“It is over now, Maxel,” Ishbel continued, her tone even and calm, her posture relaxed. “That is the best for both of us, I think. I’m sick of harboring fears and grudges, and it is time we forgot what lies behind us and just concentrate on what waits ahead. We both need to get to Elcho Falling.” She paused. “What lies between you and Ravenna doesn’t bother me, Maxel. Truly. I wish you the best.”
“Ishbel—” Maximilian said again, his voice tight.
“There was something you wanted to say to myself and Maxel?” Ishbel said to Isaiah, and Maximilian bit his tongue and looked away.
Axis looked at Ishbel, his eyes narrowed. A pretty speech and, even better, one that sounded relaxed and sincere. Had she truly turned her back on Maximilian?
Isaiah took a deep breath, and now Axis looked at him. That had been a breath of sheer nerves. Stars, what was Isaiah going to say? “I need to talk to you about your child,” Isaiah said to Maximilian and Ishbel. “Particularly now I won’t be here much longer.”
“The child is dead,” Ishbel said. “She no longer matters. There’s nothing you need say. Please don’t drag up the past, Isaiah.”
“She does matter, Ishbel,” Isaiah said. He took another deep breath. “Kanubai rose into flesh in that moment when Ba’al’uz killed your daughter, and I took Ba’al’uz’s head and that of the dog.”
Isaiah stopped there, wanting Maximilian and Ishbel to understand what he was trying to say without him actually having to say it.
There was silence, everyone looking at Isaiah.
“Maxel, Ishbel,” Isaiah said softly, dragging each word out, “Kanubai took flesh and was born of the sacrifice of your daughter. That was his plan. He wanted to take the flesh and blood of his enemy. He was born of both of you. And now…whatever has taken him also has that blood coursing through its veins.”
Again a silence, save that this one was rigid with shock and horror.
“I’m sorry,” Isaiah whispered, looking at Ishbel. “I should have taken better care of you.”
Ishbel left after that. She could not bear to stay another moment, nor could she bear to see Maximilian’s face.
That child had been so important to him. It was bad enough that the baby girl had died, but now to hear this foulness…to hear that Kanubai, and whatever had taken him, had Maximilian’s and Ishbel’s blood coursing through it…that the girl had died to create flesh for Kanubai…No. That was too much.
Ishbel could not have looked at Maximilian’s face at that point.
So she just rose and left.
Maximilian caught up with her within six or seven paces, catching at her arm with his hand, forcing her to stop and face him.
“Ishbel, I’m sorry.”
“Stop apologizing to me, Maxel. And just let me be for a while, please.”
“We need to speak at some point. Tonight or tomorrow.”
“Yes, very well. But not now, please, Maxel.”
“Not now,” he said softly, letting his hand slide from her arm. “Ishbel…”
She stared at him, clearly wanting to get away.
“Ishbel, if you need me, you can find me in the command tent.” He nodded at the tent they’d both just left. “I’m no longer sharing a tent with Ravenna and Venetia.”
Then he left her staring after him as he ducked inside the tent.
Ravenna stood in the shadow of a tent as Ishbel passed. She had watched the command tent for a half hour or more, knowing Maximilian and his commanders and Ishbel were inside, and not surprised at, yet resenting, the fact she had not been asked to attend.
She felt physically and emotionally exhausted. She could not understand why Maximilian kept Ishbel close after she had lost the child he’d wanted so much, and then treated him so vilely by flaunting Isaiah as her lover. She could not even comprehend why Maximilian could still consider Ishbel an ally after Ravenna had shown him the vision, the truth, for the Land of Dreams did not lie.
But Maximilian wanted Ishbel as much more than an ally, didn’t he? No matter what he had said to Ishbel last night in the snow, Maximilian still wanted her. Ravenna had watched as Ishbel emerged from the tent, clearly upset about something (had one of the others justly questioned her apparent good faith?), and then Maximilian had followed her, not a breath later, catching at Ishbel’s arm and pulling her close for a quiet conversation.
Ravenna had been sure Maximilian would lean down to kiss Ishbel, but he did not, and that likely due, Ravenna thought, to Ishbel’s determination to tease him and make him beg for her after he’d humiliated her before Ravenna.
Ishbel would have her way with him eventually. She would cajole Maximilian into her bed and his ring onto her finger.
Ravenna was now certain of that. There was nothing left that she could do or say to make Maximilian see sense, and realize that Ishbel would bring catastrophe to his life, and to Elcho Falling and the entire land.
She felt ill at the thought, and wished that Maximilian had been a stronger man.
Ravenna watched as Ishbel walked away toward her tent, then she moved away quietly into the night.
Ishbel stood twenty or so paces from her tent, not yet willing to enter it. She needed the night air, needed it to clear her mind and heart and restore some peace to her soul.
She wished Maximilian had not followed her out once she’d walked away from him.
“Are you all right?” Axis said softly, stepping up behind her.
“Not particularly,” she replied, not looking at him.
He stood with her silently for a little while, his eyes wandering over the stars in the sky.
“Did you mean what you said to Maxel,” he said finally, “that what lay between you is over?”
“Yes,” Ishbel said. “There is a freedom, you know, in not loving him as once I did, and in not yearning for him. It is more peaceful.”
As once I did…Axis wondered what she meant by that.
“Will you be my lover?” he said.
She looked at him, momentarily startled. “You waste no time, Axis SunSoar.”
“I mean to be first in line.”
Ishbel laughed softly. “My answer is no, Axis. I have had enough of lovers for the moment. The gods alone know my last was ill-timed enough.” She hesitated. “Did you mean it?”
He gave a small smile, his eyes reflecting the starshine. “No.”
“Azhure is a lucky woman,” Ishbel said.
Axis shrugged slightly. “Not so lucky, if you think that she rests still in the Otherworld while her husband lives untouchable in this.”
“Do you miss her?”
“Not as much as first I did. When Isaiah pulled me from the Otherworld, from death back into life, my yearning for her was a throbbing pain. Here.” He tapped his chest. “I used to write her letters every night. I think Isaiah had a servant steal them from my bedchamber so that I would think they had been spirited by magic into the Otherworld.”
Ishbel smiled.
“Then Isaiah sent me north, to fetch you from Ba’al’uz,” Axis continued, “and my yearning for Azhure dulled. I no longer write her letters. I think of her most days…but I do not yearn for her.” He sighed. “She has lost me, I think, to the adventures of life.”
“Do you think you will ever love again? As you did Azhure?”
“Not as I loved Azhure, no. Not that, not ever again. But love, in a different manner, shape, and form?” Axis paused. “I hope so, Ishbel. I could not bear to live this new life completely without love.”
When Axis left Ishbel he thought to stroll past the tents of the generals, to see if all was peaceful. But as he turned to go, he saw that StarDrifter and Salome’s tent was still lit, and he decided to speak with them.
The generals could wait until morning.
StarDrifter and Salome were sitting up on their bed, quite naked, Salome leaning against StarDrifter’s chest, one of his hands resting on her distended belly. Salome was now some seven months pregnant, glowing with satisfaction at the place in life she had unexpectedly found herself, and somewhat amused as she saw Axis’ slight discomfort at finding his father and her in such intimacy.
But he pulled up a stool, sat down, and nodded at Salome’s belly. “What do you think, StarDrifter?” he asked his father. “What kind of son are you breeding this time?”
“A peaceful one,” said StarDrifter, watching his son a little carefully. He was not sure how Axis would react to this child—for so long Axis had been the favored, and then the only, son.
Now he would have a brother.
Axis gave a slight smile at StarDrifter’s words. “Neither Gorgrael nor I had ever been ‘peaceful’ sons,” he said, referring to his half-brother and onetime Lord of the Skraelings whom Axis had eventually killed in battle. “And Salome, if you forgive me for saying this, is a considerably less ‘peaceful’ woman than either my mother or Gorgrael’s.”
“Then feel your brother,” said StarDrifter. “Place your hand on Salome’s belly and feel him.”
Axis hesitated. It was not simply the familiarity, and the amusement in both Salome’s and StarDrifter’s eyes at his uncertainty, but the fact that he would be able to intimately sense the baby. All Icarii could sense and communicate with unborn children, and it was not an ability they had lost with the Star Dance.
Axis was not sure if he wanted to meet his new brother just yet.
“Axis?” Salome said.
He leaned forward, sliding his hand over the mound of Salome’s belly as his father withdrew his.
Her skin was very warm, very soft, and very tight over her womb.
Axis could literally feel the curve of his brother’s body and two very slight bumps, either of hands or of feet.
And he could feel more. The rapid thrum of his brother’s heart…and his brother’s interest, the movement of his tiny body as he shifted within the womb so that more of his body was exposed to the gentle pressure of Axis’ hand.
“What do you sense?” StarDrifter said.
“Curiosity,” said Axis. “You had not told him about me. He did not know he had an elder brother.”
“There has been so little time…” StarDrifter said, waving a hand languidly, and Axis shot him a sharp look, then looked back to his hand, which he shifted gently this way and that.
“He is gentle and peaceful,” Axis said. “You are right.” His mouth quirked. “That is unexpected in a SunSoar. He wants to learn, he is so curious.”
Then Axis blinked, leaning back from Salome’s body and removing his hand from where it rested.
“He will be a great singer,” he said. “A beautiful voice. StarDrifter, what have you named him?”
Salome and StarDrifter glanced at each other.
“StarDancer,” said StarDrifter.
“And how shall he do that,” Axis said softly, holding his father’s eyes, “when none of us have access to the Star Dance?”
“The Lealfast arrive soon,” StarDrifter said. “They shall tell us how to touch the Star Dance again. They can touch it, and they will tell us.”
Axis doubted very much that the Lealfast would just “tell” anyone, but StarDrifter had now broached the subject Axis wanted to speak to him about.
“How do you feel about them, StarDrifter?” he asked. “They number so many, a quarter of a million, and shall be so strange to us. From my brief glimpse of the one who staged the assassination attempt on Isaiah, they are an alien people. They are—”
“They are Icarii,” StarDrifter said.
Axis shook his head slowly. “I don’t know, StarDrifter. They have the outward shape of an Icarii, but they are still so strange. They have Skraeling blood in them—and abilities that are beyond us, and beyond even what we commanded when we had the Star Dance and were at the full height of our powers.”
He paused. “And they give their loyalty to Maximilian, to the Lord of Elcho Falling. Not to you as Talon.”
“There will come a time,” StarDrifter said, “when both the Lealfast and the Icarii shall be one nation again. They came from us, Axis. They shall return to us.”
Axis grew more uncomfortable by the moment. Almost everything about this visit had disturbed him, just slightly, and he felt a distance between himself and his father that he hadn’t felt previously.
He really didn’t think the Lealfast would prove firm and fast and immediate friends to the Icarii, and he suspected that StarDrifter expected them to accept him as their Talon.
“Perhaps,” Axis answered, then he took his leave of Salome and StarDrifter.