Chapter 26

THE pavilion was silent as the sun sank below the horizon finally. The bard and mercenaries had taken Terrence with them to explore desert gambling. Taylin had accompanied Almek to speak more with the Desanti elders. The distant sounds of celebrations drifted through the evening air.

Ash lay on his back, staring at the ceiling, lost in his thoughts. Amelana leaned over, half resting on him, tracing circles across his chest. "Ash," she purred as her golden blond hair cascaded down her back and across his chest. "You are still so tense." She kissed him lightly, but he did not respond. "What is on your mind, Ash?"

"My thoughts are my own, Journeyman," he stated without inflection.

She sighed dramatically. "Do you still dwell on that dead servant girl of yours?" Heedless of the darkening expression on the Illaini Magus's face, Amelana said carelessly, "She was barely worth keeping as a servant. Holding onto grief for a lowborn such as her is beneath you. You should be happy you were able to be rid of her." Sliding her hand down his side to his hip, she purred, "What good are cold memories when you have me to keep you warm?"

The mage growled, shoving the naked girl off and sitting up. He closed his hand on her throat, glaring into her eyes. "If you ever speak of Dessa again, I will send you home marked as the tramp you are." Shoving her away, he glared, barely restraining from striking her. "Get your clothing. Leave me." Wide-eyed, Amelana obeyed, tripping over herself.

Alone, Ash sighed and lay back again. He created a privacy barrier with the wave of a hand, the invisible wall that kept sounds from penetrating it bringing him utter silence. "Dessa." His whispered voice carried a hint of desperation as he closed his eyes. The sight in his mind's eye was not that of the gentle girl he had known nearly all his life, who had forgiven him for his inability to protect her when he could never forgive himself.

The woman in the forefront of his mind was the Desanti woman Storm. Ash growled. "Be gone from my thoughts, Swordanzen!" The scene of Dessa's rape from his youth and the scene from the Desanti market inexplicably played themselves together in his mind. He shook his head sharply as he pushed himself to a sitting position, pressing the heels of his hands against his temples. "I will not allow anyone to taint Dessa's memory. Least of all an ungrateful savage like you!" Restless, he got dressed and stalked out of the pavilion.

Not particularly caring where he was going, Ash walked deeper into the darkness, away from the sounds of large numbers of people. Eventually, he came to a place lush with greenery. Strange trees were gnarled and windblown, ferns huddling around their trunks. Though incomparably foreign to anything he had ever known, the plants soothed his mind, giving him a modicum of peace. He went deeper into this unexpected refuge of greenery, finding a rock by the small pool of water in the oasis's center to sit on. He sighed softly, staring at the reflection of the waxing moons rippling with the gentle evening breeze.

A familiar, bitter voice disturbed the mage's tranquility. "Did you purposely choose this place, defiler, or did fate guide your feet here to disrupt my peace?" Storm's weary voice was touched with a great cat's purr. Studying him a long time, the irritation that radiated from her subsided. "I see. You seek solace from your own shadows pursuing you."

Unable to ignore her presence, bothered by her keen and unwanted insight, Ash glanced over at the woman seated amongst the tall ferns near the rock he had chosen to sit on. He frowned slightly as he studied her with more objectivity, noticing the stained bandages she wore. "You are injured. Was it one of those men who harmed you? That one called Sumalen?" Remembering the feeling of something unnamable bothering him about Sumalen, Ash's voice got a harsher, almost protective, edge to it. "You should have your wounds tended to."

Storm looked taken aback, opening her green-gold eyes to study him. "I am surprised it matters to you, treewalker."

"It doesn't," the mage denied tersely, looking back towards the water. "I simply wondered if that brute was the one who injured you." He looked over at the woman again, his mind making an intuitive leap. "You are the Swordanzen that Master Almek wished to meet." The woman was still and silent, though she opened her eyes again to study him narrowly. "Master Almek said you are taking us to the site where you encountered the darkling."

Still, Storm said nothing. Her eyes closed again, legs crossed, hands resting lightly on her knees. But he could see the tension across her shoulders. Finally, she stated, "The elders are informing the tribes that Lord Almek and his students are permitted beyond First Home so you will not be killed on sight." After a moment, she spoke again, but with visceral pleasure edging her chill tones. "Elder Verris wants you to bear witness to your ancestral failure."

Ash's eyes narrowed to slits. "Failure?"

Storm opened her eyes to meet his. "Our people still live." Ash ground his teeth at the cold words. "Do you revel seeing what your defiler ancestors had done? How they ripped the very life from the land, from not only warriors, but elders and infants and even the unborn, and left us to suffer? Does it anger you to discover they were not strong enough to destroy all of Desantiva completely?

"Perhaps knowing Desanti are not as weak as you convinced yourselves we were sits in the pit of your stomach like pieces of broken glass, cutting you inside a thousand times. Maybe you believe one day we might come to exact justice for your ancestors' crimes against the gods." Green-gold eyes narrowed as she insinuated, "It torments you with unreasoning fear, doesn't it?"

"Do not presume to know my thoughts, Swordanzen," Ash growled harshly. "You know nothing of what I think."

Rising with lithe suppleness, Storm stretched, unconcerned about the underlying threat behind his words, or that he could see the deep red of blood on her bandages from the wounds that continued to bleed. She leveled a hard look on the mage. "Lord Almek Two-Tones thinks you are worthy of serving him." Her voice was mocking and derisive. Turning to walk into the darkness, her voice drifted back. "You better be, defiler."