She wept, because now she was faced with the truth, and there was to be no more self-denial.
Elas. . . .
In her mind, the word rang like a monumental bell in the Temple of Alhveh, lord of Empty Skies, god of death.
Elas . . . Elas . . . Elas.
And she was weak, impotent in the face of that. She had let go of the one thing within herself that allowed her to remain aside, aloof, free.
That thing was self-delusion.
What she felt for Elas, the one she knew as Elasand Vaeste, was like a wound now, a raw bleeding dark place. A place without fulfillment.
And now, this.
This man, who stood in this strange room with her, this warm-skinned beautiful alien, had taken a most intimate difficult piece of her trust, and spat it back at her, when she was already aching, pathetic and vulnerable.
She had walked with him, like a ewe to slaughter, knowing full well that something was not quite right. And yet, even here she allowed herself the luxury of self-delusion.
He was not erotene. . . . Then what? And what did it matter? She had wanted to believe that he was one, that he would do with her what she’d been unable to bring herself to do all these years, that he would use his Guild training and talent, and teach her the intimacy.
Teach her the damn intimacy! Her! As if she could still go on, deluding herself that because she was buying his time, she could also accept his services.
And yet, somewhere in the middle of it all, he had quite surprised her. He had a power, a hypnotic way, and a light touch which actually managed to seduce her . . . almost. For, of all things, she was vulnerable to a light touch.
When he had held her so closely, so warmly against his alienness, she had let go of herself willingly, would have let go all the way, if he took her there—for the events of the day had been leading up to this inevitable buildup.
But he broke his own spell. And then—what cruel twist of providence, what monster of a god had named him what it did?
Elas.
He couldn’t have known. Couldn’t have known any of it, of what was inside her mind, chewing at her gut, burrowing into the fabric of her. Or did he? Was this not a twist of fate but a joke of human making? Did he know her more than she knew herself up to this instant?
Her weeping had subsided. Sobs of a five-year-old child had receded back into her soul’s past again, stuffed back into the primal recess of her origins. Ranhé stood shivering and drained of all feeling, submerged in the warmth, and yet cold like silence, while the warm soft vapor of the pool water rose above her shoulders in the mauve dreamscape around her.
She felt a delicate touch on her shoulder, at which she did not even start, only turned her dead face very slowly, and then turned her whole body, still submerged.
The man with the sun-hair looked at her face, only inches away. “I am sorry . . .” he repeated seriously, “I don’t quite understand your reaction.”
“It is nothing. It is the name,” she replied in a wooden voice. “The name.”
“My name?” He sounded puzzled for an instant. “Does it offend you? It is Elas, short for Elasirr. Most call me Elas however—”
And then, it must have dawned on him. Something—something dawned on him. For, he allowed his words to trail off, and his eyes looked intently, boring into hers for an instant, while all his former semblance of gentleness had fled.
“I see . . .” he said. And then, there was a strange smile on his lips—thin, refined, sarcastic.
A killing smile.
For an instant, she saw indeed that this man was not at all what he seemed, that no erotene could smile like that, like the shadow of death.
And then, fearless Ranhé faced the terrifying smile head on.
“What exactly do you see—Elasirr?” she said slowly, distinctly, stressing the full name, staring into the eyes of this man with her own pale winter gaze, more calm than she had been with him all evening. Calm, for suddenly the tables were turning, and there was no more threat of intimacy of any sort, no more vulnerability. Rather, she was back in a confrontational mode, back in the role in which she excelled.
Ranhé was feeling definitely herself again.
But so was the man facing her. No more erotene. No more pretense. And she knew it.
“I see that you have certain feelings for the other Elas,” he said, taunting her, his eyes burning bright—wide like the serpent that he was—“the one you’d never dare call ‘Elas’ to his face. For, to you he would always remain ‘Lord Vaeste.’”
He surely expected her to react to this, to give certain things away.
He was wrong.
Ranhé’s expression remained blank, wooden, while she considered him. And he must have read eventually what was really in her face—a basic proud disdain.
Ranhé said nothing to him, then suddenly moved away, splashing through the warm water, past him, not caring at all any more that he saw the entirety of her nude body. She splashed up the stairs out of the pool, dripping water on the fine tiles. At the top stair of the pool, she paused for an instant, then bent to gather a palmful of water and washed her face.
He watched her as she washed off what was left of her tears.
And he looked at her strong large pale body, with all her imperfections, while she wrung the water out of her braid, then dripping, got all the way out of the pool, and began gathering up her clothes.
And all through this, she remained absolutely silent.
After she was fully clothed, and fully “daggered”—having stuck the tiny and big ones back into places on her person most people never dreamed possible (though he himself knew those places well)—Ranhé turned to him as though she had only now remembered he was still there.
Her gaze was intense, insolent, and just as sarcastic as his own. “I am sorry I dripped all over your floor,” she said. “But then, so will you, once you get out. No towels anywhere—not good, Elasirr, or whoever you are.”
And then, before he could say anything, she smiled. And that smile of hers, cold, proud, did something to his insides, something that not even her body had done.
It brought a pang of anger, surprise, admiration even.
“Thank you for your time,” she said, taking up her cloak, and with it, her long elegant sword, which she no longer cared to hide, as she was attaching it to her waist. “By the way, cloaks are wonderful things, aren’t they?” she continued, nodding at his own velvet cloak and the concealed weapon on the floor. “They cover up everything. Even irahi steel.”
She couldn’t have known his sword’s style, not even by the sheath, unless she had been an expert.
And now he knew that she was.
For she had seen through the velvet.
And for that alone, he would respect her now, more than she would ever suspect.
“Goodbye, Ranhé,” he said to her then, smiling like a demon in the mauve twilight of the room. “It has been a regretfully brief pleasure. Say hello to Elasand-re for me.”
She half-turned, her fingers on the door handle, and looked at him intensely. “I do believe I shall,” she said. “Though I doubt that Lord Vaeste would remember dealing with vermin.”
And with that she exited, slamming the door shut behind her.
Thus, she never got to see that the man with the sun-hair, who was Elasirr, began to laugh softly, and then, with a breath, submerged completely below the warm mauve waters of the pool.
When he resurfaced again, with an aggressive male splash, his blond hair was soft and plastered about his fine skull, and the waters rained down his perfect flesh like sweet drops of mauve honey.
They would meet again.
CHAPTER 12
Ranhé woke up to a hazy morning that perfectly expressed her mood. The previous night, she had returned to the Vaeste villa well after midnight, and collapsed in her room. The house had stood silent all around her as she crept back, and she never knew if the lord himself had returned from Dirvan.
T
he moon shone like the face of death upon her silk pillow. She lay for a long time in the silence, listening to her own breathing, feeling the weight of her still-wet braid on her neck, on her clammy flesh.
And now, the early grayness of morning was at the window. And with it a mist, seeping in from the silver outside, chilling her, pulling her out of bed.
Ranhé did not wait for a servant to knock upon her door. Her mind, awake like a sharp blade, and going over the events of the previous day, drove her with a fury.
Elas.
Now she had to contend with two of them.
Who the hell was that man, that other, and why did he seem to know her while she had no idea who he was? Should she mention any of this matter to Elasand? Would it endanger him if she didn’t?
Ranhé was dressed and ready, and downstairs, well before the servants of the villa.
She was not alone.
Elasand Vaeste sat in the reception room downstairs, still wearing his formal outfit from yesterday. Pale, with circles under his eyes, his face gaunt—he turned to her with a tired expression.
“My lord,” said Ranhé. And then she stopped. What else could she say to him, when she was thinking so much, so much.
Elas. . . .
And then he smiled at her.
“Ah, Ranhé,” he said very softly, speaking with a very light slur, “I am glad to see you. Glad. Did you have a good time? You must’ve, and I envy you. Believe me, you didn’t miss much. And luckily, I did not come in need of your services—unless you can count the lustful Her Grace herself, whose usual advances I had to beat off with every sharp spike of my wit, my logic, my reason! Damned woman.” And then he chuckled.
Ranhé looked at him silently.
“Ah-h-h,” he sighed then, putting his hands to his temples. “The Regentrix had me on edge all evening. Had to beat ‘er off with a stick. Do you know I’ve just come back now? The Palace Gates had been locked for the night, and all of us guests were locked in. Whether we wanted to be or not. Hestiam is so paranoid, that he wanted to make sure no one would come or go without his consent after midnight.”
“My lord, you should go and lie down now,” she said gently, and with a small measure of relief, a relief at she knew not what. “You are very tired.”
At which he again laughed. “Actually—I am very drunk.”
“Then you probably need help. Let me call the servants.”
But he turned his eyes to her, soft, mellow, and just stared. She was the first to look away.
“Do you know,” he said suddenly then, “that today is the Second Day of cousin Lixa’s Wedding? Yes, and the celebration goes on. My little cousin has officially bedded the Daqua, and is a real woman. Yes, a real woman, that is, if he was able to perform last night, after all that—that. Are you a real woman, Ranhé?”
At those words, she felt blood rising to her face. And she said nothing. Instead, she used the servant bell-pull to summon someone, anyone.
“I am sorry,” he said meanwhile, looking at her sideways, his cheek resting against the palm of his hand, his eyes so beautiful and clear, despite his condition. “I am sorry that I am drunk. Didn’t plan for it to happen. Can you please make sure that I am awake by noon? I am making you, Ranhé, you—you—you, personally responsible that I am up and awake and dressed by noon, because we have an—an appointment with His Damn Grace.”
“I will make sure of that,” said Ranhé softly, as servants came in to assist the Lord Vaeste, and he was all out of her hands.
She was thus resigned to an empty remainder of morning.
At half past one, with the sun brilliant over the City, the Lord Vaeste was escorted, together with Ranhé, into a small private audience chamber in the Palace, to meet with the Regent.
Elasand was still more than usually pale, but now well in control of his faculties, after having drunk several cups of strong black tea earlier in the Villa. Still, he was in a dark mood and had a sizable headache.
They were within an intricate chamber, all decorated in precious metals, that Hestiam preferred to use when privately receiving people. There were two large windows in the room, done in the arch style predominant in the rest of the Palace. The afternoon sunlight came oddly diffused into the chamber, over a mist gray cityscape low on the horizon, and a blinding clear silver sky toward the zenith.
Elasand immediately sat down on one of the sofas, while Ranhé remained standing. The servant left them alone, and went to fetch the Regent.
Within minutes, Hestiam Grelias sneaked into the room from a different tiny secret door in one of the walls, and Ranhé thought it was somewhat ridiculous of him to do that, considering how obscurely situated the chamber had been in the first place.
When Elasand saw the Regent, he arose tiredly, and inclined his head in a light bow. Hestiam looked quite hung-over himself after last night, with slitted eyes, and somewhat matted hair. His collar had been hastily buttoned one button over, leaving a silly gap, and one extra button at his throat.
“I am extremely glad to see you, Elasand-re . . .” he muttered urgently, in a conspirational tone. And then he noticed Ranhé.
“Your Grace,” said Elasand tiredly, “this is my aide and personal bodyguard. Please treat her like you would myself. All things may be spoken freely before her.”
Hestiam frowned, rubbed his forehead, staring for a moment at Ranhé’s trim figure in masculine attire. “A woman bodyguard? How piquant.” And then, equally tired, he promptly ignored her.
“Now then,” said Hestiam. “What is it that you wanted to see me about, Elasand-re? Hurry up and out with it, because I have something of my own to discuss with you, something that is of vital importance.”
“Actually, Your Grace, what I was planning to say can wait.”
“Wonderful! Then listen,” said Hestiam, “I want your opinion on what you saw—last night. What you saw in Vorn.”
“What did I see? Not much, except for the fact that he is definitely more than he lets on, and he sees, hears and understands more than is good for us. I noted his habit of silence, and also how he watches all, Your Grace and your sister.”
“You saw him staring at Deileala too, didn’t you?” Hestiam smirked. “Too bad she was so occupied by yourself last night, or else she might have paid more attention to our guest, in her own matchless way. In this situation it would’ve come in handy.”
“I remember this Lord Vorn mention how he wanted to see more of the City later. It was, I believe, the only thing of consequence—”
“Oh gods, Elasand-re!” Hestiam interrupted, squinting. He then neared Elasand, and pulled him by the hand, sitting down on the sofa. He began to speak in a breathless whisper, meanwhile clutching Vaeste’s hand, “I am scared . . . I am very very scared, Elasand-re, what can we do? What is happening to us? He is planning something, something terrible, and I don’t think I can face it, or his lord, that nameless one . . . Oh gods! This City is doomed, we have no way to defend against any serious invasion, the Army is in shambles, the call for conscription would be too late to make any difference . . . Tronaelend-Lis will fall like we’re made of paper. And we will all die, I will die! My sister, my horrible sweet sister will die, and they will dance on our graves as they sack the City—”
“I don’t know about the dancing part, but about the deaths, you might be right.”
Hestiam started like a rabbit. They glanced in the direction of the sound, and the new voice in the room.
Ranhé felt her stomach fall out from under her. She saw the man with the blond striking hair emerge from the same secret passage the Regent had used, and saunter into the room.
His hair shone like sun indeed now, in the light of day. And his eyes were lazy and half-lidded, wearing the same bored expression that she would now never forget. He wore a dark expensive outfit, and Ranhé grudgingly realized that he was not vermin at all, but rather—
“How did you get in here?” muttered Hestiam, and yet he appeared not at all surprised to see th
is one. “I hate it when you do that, creeping up from my back, popping up anywhere. Have you followed me here all the way from my bedchamber?”
The man with the sun-hair grinned, somewhat insolently, and walked through the room, then proceeded to sit down quite unceremoniously on the sofa, right next to Lord Vaeste. With a lazy microscopic inclination of his head, he replied, “Ah, Your Grace. Not at all. I was merely in the neighborhood, and hearing your noble voice, decided to pay my respects.”
And then he turned to Vaeste and smiled lightly. “Well, did I miss anything vital? Your favorite word, I believe, Elasand-re, ‘vital.’ And yours too, Your Grace. Vital, vital, everything is always vital for you two. Begging Your pardon, of course, Your Grace.”
All through the exchange, Ranhé stood stiffly. She was absolutely ignored.
Elasand looked at the blond man coldly, tiredly, and also seemed not at all surprised at his presence here.
“Why are you here, Elasirr?” Vaeste’s voice was faint, tinged with the strain of his headache.
“Since you’re both here, I’ll continue then,” said Hestiam.
“Deaths and dancing?” said Elasirr. “The topic, I believe.”
Hestiam frowned. “I am quite serious. And you ought to be also, since what is about to happen will affect your Guild as much as any one of us.”
“My Guild is more prepared than anyone else in this City,” said Elasirr, crossing one elegant booted leg over another, leaning back against the soft pillows of the sofa.
Elasand meanwhile, was observing him silently.
“I did not see you at the celebration yesterday,” said Hestiam, “or I would ask your opinion of the dark stranger also.”
“I was otherwise—preoccupied.” Elasirr’s gaze slipped for an instant in the direction of Ranhé, and she thought she noticed the ghost of a smile.
So, he had seen her after all. Knew she was there.