Chapter 22
SHE IS LONG DEAD, forgotten. . . . A suicide.
Paledan looked again at the painting as he took another drink of his brew, Davorin’s calm, unemotional words echoing in his head. Only now they were followed by Ordam’s derisive rant about Davorin himself.
“. . . just a mother’s pet. When she hurled herself from Halfhead to her death, she might as well have taken him with her.”
Was it possible? Could that ethereal beauty in that painting truly be Iolana Davorin, widow of Torstan? The woman whose grief had driven her to throw herself off a cliff to her death? Mother of the man who stood just a few feet away, placidly wiping a spill off the bar?
And if it was, how could her son speak of her so coolly, with such detachment, especially if her death had so beaten him down? How could he live with this portrait before him, day after day?
Leaving four young children behind to fend for themselves.
Or rather, leaving her oldest son the responsibility of the younger three. Including those two mischief makers he had already encountered. Perhaps that was the explanation for the detachment. Surely any boy of that young age would resent having that kind of responsibility thrust upon him.
And yet it appeared he had lived up to it, to some extent anyway. His family ate, and had a solid roof. And he worked hard in this place to see to that. And was wise enough to see that a careful neutrality, if not outright servility, was the best way to assure keeping what he had.
He took another sip of the brew that was surprisingly good for this remote place. He glanced again at the man behind the bar.
It was a wise man who accepted facts and adjusted accordingly, as Davorin had. Far better than continuing to fight an impossible battle, and perhaps losing the very thing you were fighting to save in the process.
He had come to know a lot of different sorts of people in the Coalition’s romp across the galaxy. And a lot about each sort. Those who resisted, those who did not. Those who resented, and those who welcomed. Those who openly fought, and those who gave in. Those who talked, and those who led.
And a few who were combinations of two or more. Those were the ones that were the most dangerous, the ones that could lead to trouble larger than a few skirmishes here and there.
And that thought led him back to the man who had greatly occupied his mind of late. This raider, known only by that name, spoken by people as if it were a royal title, was more than just a thorn—he was a genuine wound. One that might hemorrhage if they were not careful.
There were different ways of dealing with such men. The success of any of those ways depending on knowing as much as possible about them. And Paledan had the feeling he still had much to learn about this one.
And so I will.
He drained the last of his brew, tossed a coin on the bar, and left without waiting for his change.
“YOU LOVE HIM, don’t you?”
Kye snapped out of her haze abruptly at the question. Ever since she and Eirlys had stopped here again at their favorite place beside the pond, her brain seemed to have slipped its tether and gone wandering.
“What?” she asked, stalling.
“The Raider. You love him.”
Images of that useless discussion raced through her head. She quashed them, and gave the answer the Raider would have. “Don’t be foolish. There is no time or place for such in our world now.”
Eirlys laughed, and that laugh sounded much older than her tender years. “As if even the Coalition could change the nature of humans. Have you not heard that war only intensifies such things?”
“Your brother is right,” Kye said dryly. “You are too clever for your own good.”
Eirlys looked away so quickly that Kye knew she was hiding something, something she feared would show in her eyes. No doubt the same as always; her disappointment in Drake. Or perhaps her distaste and disillusionment had descended into something worse, perhaps downright disgust. Kye would hate to think that was true, yet she would understand if it were. And for once, she couldn’t even bestir herself to try and defend the man she had loved so dearly.
It was not that she did not see the immensity of the burden left him by his mother’s suicide, and the courage and determination with which he undertook to carry it. It was that she missed the other side of him—the dashing, courageous, utterly planium-nerved cool side of him. The man who had dared things no other did, who had rallied a devastated city, and then an entire planet to him.
But that man was long gone, buried as surely as if he had died along with his parents. What remained only looked like Drake Davorin, and handsome as he was, she had no pleasure in looking at him any longer, not when all she could see was the servility, the bowing, the humiliation and mocking heaped on his head without rejoinder. And no matter how well she understood why he’d had to do it, how she lamented what it was costing him to do it, it still hurt. Especially when she disagreed that it would save them in the long run.
“If there is anyone to blame for what my brother has had to become,” Eirlys said, “perhaps it is my mother.”
Kye was so startled by what she’d said she barely noticed that the girl seemed to have followed along with her own thoughts with an eerie accuracy. “Your mother to blame?”
No one ever spoke ill of Iolana Davorin. Only sadness and loss were acknowledged. She had been their visionary, and the widow of their greatest man, and all of Ziem understood how it could be that she could not go on after his loss.
“It was she who abandoned us, was it not? She who left Drake to care for us? You said that yourself.”
“I never said that,” Kye said, protesting automatically. This was near heresy in Zelos. “I said only that Drake was very young to have all that responsibility dropped upon him.”
“But he had it dropped upon him because she could not carry it any longer. Or would not. She loved us, but not enough to stay.”
“Eirlys—”
“I know what you will say. She loved my father too much to go on without him.”
“Yes.”
“I,” Eirlys declared firmly, “do not ever want to love anyone like that.”
And yet it is what I wish more than anything, but cannot have. “I see,” she said, her tone carefully neutral.
“The price is too high. If you lose them, it is like the heart being ripped out of you.”
Kye thought of a man in a carved-out quarters on the mountain, his ruined face something that made people look away, and helped strike fear into those he fought. Thought of feelings denied, longings buried deep.
“You do love him, don’t you?” Eirlys repeated softly.
“Many people love the Raider for what he’s doing.”
“Yes. But that’s not what I mean and well you know it. You are in love with him. I can see it in your face.”
Kye turned to look at her young friend. “And if I were? Would you tell me I was a fool? Ask who could love a man with such scars?”
Eirlys drew herself up straight. “Never. For not only do I know you are not so small-brained as to let that matter, I know you are wise enough to see beyond that exterior damage to the man within. The man brave enough and steadfast enough to stand against the entire Coalition if need be. The man who would die for his people and his planet, if it is asked of him.”
“But would be bedamned sure to take as many of the Coalition with him as he possibly could,” Kye added.
Eirlys smiled, widely. “Yes. And that.”
For a long moment, Kye just looked at the girl before her. She was, as her brother often said, frighteningly clever. And fierce, even as she dealt with her beloved creatures with the gentleness of a true healer. Kye knew Eirlys had come to look upon her as a sort of older sister, especially after the loss of her mother. She had had no other older female to turn to.
And it was with that thought in mind that Kye answered her original question, as honestly and openly as she had ever answered it to anyone.
“Yes. I love him. I think I was half in love with him before I ever met him. But that was the idea of him, I think, the idea of a man who stood, who fought, who refused to be cowed no matter the odds, no matter the likelihood that he would bring about his own death. I had made him, in my mind, into something beyond reality. I believed in the legend of the Raider, and had forgotten one essential thing.”
“What?” Eirlys asked, looking at her raptly.
“That he is, in the end, only human. A man with a life to lose, and who has come very close to doing so more than once. More than any of us.”
When Eirlys smiled at her then, it was a different kind of smile, an oddly adult one. “I am glad that you see that. Many who think of him only as the legend do not.”
“I know. And that makes me even more afraid for him, for I think some of them believe him immortal.”
Eirlys frowned at that. “Meaning?”
“They might not take the care they could or should, if they think he cannot die.”
The girl went pale. “I had not thought of that.”
I do. Every day.
And it made her wonder if Eirlys was right. Perhaps the price was too high.