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It was raining the nextwhen Rael came to his father&039;s tent He stood for athe water cut channels into the red-brown mud that caked his armor The lines etched into the pale skin about his mouth and the purple bruises beneath his eyes, eyes in which the green fires had all but died, bore eloquent testiht&039;s work He had never looked less like his mother
The Guard before the entrance saluted and stood aside but Glinna, standing guard within the canvas walls, could not be so easily passed She folded her ar finally sleeps Anything you have to say can wait "
"I have news of the war "
"No doubt, " she said dryly "But I don&039;t care if the war is over, you may not wake him "
"The war is over "
Her eyes widened She looked down at the dried blood that stained his sword hilt, so thick in places that it filled the hollows in the ornate scrollwork, then she stepped aside
"Don&039;t allow him to become excited, " she cautioned as Rael passed "If he opens the wound again " Her words trailed off, but thewas clear
When Raen had left his bed and reopened the wound, it had infected, swelling and putrefying Frorown to be dangerously life threatening Glinna, however, refused to ad potion after potion down the king&039;s throat Three times she forced Lord Death away, and in the end she won; the king lived But under the scented smoke that eddied around the inner rooht Rael, looking down at his father, "how could he change so ed Rael, the wound had aged Raen Flesh hung froed to another man, and the lines of his face were now furrows
Not even the rown old
Rael dashed a tear aith an impatient hand You will not mourn him while he still lives, he told hied a chair over to the bed and perched on its edge "Father?" Reaching out a slender hand, he placed it gently on the sleeping man&039;s chest The steady rise and fall seemed to reassure hiain
With a sound that was half question, halfwoke, blinked, and focused slowly on Rael&039;s face
"Father, the war is over "
"You have the battle coht, Belkar had told hi, for the prince had ordered the duke not to speak until he and the Elite ell on their way "You did the right thing The only thing I wouldn&039;t have stopped you "
The boy had needed an outlet for his grief The war had needed to be ended
That both had been accomplished at once, and with a plan only the prince commander himself could carry out would further consolidate said commander&039;s position with the army That said coer had given Raen a sleepless night "Did they surrender?"
"Not quite " Rael leaned forward and propped a pillow behind his father&039;s head "We torched their camp, destroyed half their aret them to quit "
"Prisoners "
"Besides the seven coht hundred; at least half of theht up a skeletal hand to stroke his beard "Hmmm, not many " His eyes unfocused as he considered the best course of action "The men are rabble without the leaders Strip them of their arms and have them taken back across the border "
"But, Father, the pass is blocked "
"Oh, " Raen looked momentarily confused Had he known that? Meed and smoke-filled; he remembered pain clearly but not o back "
"Are you sure "
"Very sure " Rael shrugged wearily "But I don&039;t knohy "
"Well, I&039;ve a pretty good idea, " Raen snorted, suddenly ht he understood "They lost Melac and that idiot who advises hi "
"Father, about that counselor "
"An a dismissed their unknown enemy with a choppy wave of his hand "I&039;rab power
Melac was aleak We&039;ll keep the border guarded and have nothing more to do with either of thes he&039;d overheard in the last few hours, he suspected Melac&039;s counselor would remain a threat But that was for the future to deal with, here and now he had other worries "So what do we do with the prisoners?"
"Divide thest the dukes " The crease between the king&039;s eyes deepened as he reraves that held the flower of Ardhan&039;s youth "We&039;ll all be a little shorthanded for a while I&039;m sure they can find ways to put theo hoin to work off the lives they owe us "
"And the battle cohed "Well, they can&039;t go hoethis officers would be asking to do this all over again Have the down ar to the soil of the land they invaded "
"They won&039;t " Rael sighed as well, and rubbed a grie of his nose "They say they&039;ve taken blood oaths to fight for Melac and the Empire until death "
"Empire!" Raen snarled and tried to sit up "What Eently back "The one ere supposed to be the first part of They&039;re fanatics, Father When we took away their weapons they attacked with bare hands We practically had to bury theht like men possessed " He paused and his eyes narrowed in memory "Or men in mortal terror "
"They&039;ll have to die "
"Father!"
"How ently
"I told you, we torched the camp It&039;s likely hundreds died "
Raen held his son&039;s eyes with his own "No How aze away and stared at the carpet "I don&039;t know Eighteen
Twenty ar&039;s still dead "
The terror; the reaching hand; his na hireen eer and pain and with every life he sent to Lord Death the anger bled away until there was only the pain "Yes, " he said "There&039;s been enough "
"Unless those seven die, the war isn&039;t over and we&039;ve won nothing Rutgar died for nothing The" Raen lifted a hand and touched his son&039;s arives it to his people "
"That&039;s garbage, Father, and you know it The people do what you say "
Raen let his hand fall back onto the blanket "Then do as I say, Rael, and carry out my command "
Rael searched the stern, closed face on the pillow for his father but saw only the king He stood so quickly his chair tipped and fell and he almost kicked it out of the way as he spun and headed for the door
"Rael "
He paused but didn&039;t turn
"Last night you let your anger define the thin line between justice andnever has that luxury "
"A lesson, Father?"
"If you wish, and here&039;s another You&039;d rather I gave this task to one of the dukes, but the king &039;s justice As I am not able, you must stand in for" Raen&039;s teeth flashed white aray of his beard and the lines of his face lifted with the s&039;s tent The night&039;s work had added a liant appearance He fell into step beside the younger ht, " Rael said at last
Doan kept silent He appeared to be watching the rain drip off the edge of his helst the dukes, but the coets taken care of "
Doandown his neck
Rael&039;s laughter sounded a great deal like choking "Life would certainly be a lot easier if runted, there being little he could say to his oords
"If it must be done, then let&039;s do it now "
"I&039;ll call for volunteers, Commander " As Rael&039;s head jerked around to face hihness You don&039;t strike the blows yourself And it&039;s not a job you can command a man to do "
By the time the Guard was formed, the rain had stopped The sun came out, and seven men died
And the as over
"At least I never enjoyed it, Mother, " Rael whispered as the breeze lifted his hair froround at his feet "At least I never enjoyed it "
The fire reached the grian to lick daintily at the blistering skin
"&039;Ware the child, " she screa
"&039;Ware the creation of Lord Death&039;s children "
"Lord Death&039;s children?" Lord Elan half turned, enough so he could see the king&039;s counselor but not soThat pain at least he would spare himself "What does she olden-haired hed "The race of Man was created for Lord Death&039;s benefit Thus Man, " he inclined his head toward the stake with chilling courtesy, "and Woman also, are Death&039;s children"
"It burns! Brilliance within! Brilliance without!" And then not even h to overcoainst the ropes and prophesied nowith each spasm of the body on the pyre
"She wasn&039;t very clear, " Lord Elan grunted Full lips h earlier andto repeat the entire prophecy as often as I chose to listen " Even the most obscure prophet could be convinced to find clarity and while there was no real need in this instance, the convincing had filled a few otherwise tedious hours
"Then what does ithis eyes and coated his throat He hated executions, even the most necessary and had attended this one only because he&039;d vowed that the king would spend as little time alone with his counselor as possible Others of the nobility, those who had not died with the arht-see their idea of pleasure frolanced quickly at the king
He was beginning to lose interest now that the body had stopped &039;s counselor was closer to content than it had been in years He lifted his face to let the evening breeze cool skin flushed by the heat "Itto look forward to "
"But we&039;re going back to Ardhan " "No "
"But " Lord Elan jerked as sapphire eyes caught his and held A thin rope of drool fell froain as he was released and would have fallen had he not clung, panting, to the ar&039;s throne
"I said no, " the counselor repeated quietly He stared past the pyre, out over the remains of the army So clever of him to have kept the cavalry back; they would replace the officers killed and, well, one could always get ht I will create an Eh ti pile of ainst the silk covering his thighs "Well, " he purred in a voice barely audible over the sizzle and crackle of burning fat, "alh tih the king did not ride proudly at its head but was carried on a litter Rael, with the Elite behind hi of the past Men went back to holdings and fields, battle armor was polished and put away, and Rael received a most unexpected welcohter-who had supposedly ridden to the palace to meet her father Rael was pleasantly surprised to find that blue eyes held depths as well as green and that the eyes ofdid not recover
Glinna now slept in the room next to the royal bedchambers, when she slept at all The infection had returned and spread, and now the king&039;s whole lower body strained against its increasingly heated covering of skin She did what she could but finally, no longer able to deny what training and common sense told her, she admitted defeat
"His life is now in the hands of Lord Death, " she told the prince "I can do nothing more "
"My father doesn&039;t believe in Lord Death, " said Rael bitterly
"Well, Lord Death believes in hihts and his dying father
But Lord Death, never predictable, stayed his hand and the king did not die; although he didn&039;t exactly live Affairs of state were left in the hands of the council and royal decisions increasingly fell to the prince, for the king tired easily and Glinna de dispatches fro them at an eainst the weakness that held hi left him weaker still, until he was only a shadow of the er a do with tears he refused to shed
The king laughed humorlessly and stared down at his wasted body "That doesn&039;t sayand everyone knew it Already a funereal hush hung over the land The dukes, down to crippled Lorn and ten-year-old Hale, gathered in the King&039;s City, waiting Rael went nuo to the Grove and tell his , but he couldn&039;t He just couldn&039;t He told hi who and what she was, probably already knew That didn&039;t help very , in the quiet hours just past dawn, some five weeks after the war had ended, the Duke of Belkar cae, but the man on the bed made the other seee and his friend and wondered where to begin
Raen spoke before he got the chance, anger turning the words to edged steel
"It would have been so much easier had Lord Death collected me on the battlefield Then those I love would not have had to watch me die by inches And I would not have had to watch their pain as they watched me "
"Raen, I&039;m sorry, I "
"No " The as faint but still very &039;s command "It is I who should be sorry You didn&039;t need that on top of everything else I was feeling sorry for myself and you bore the brunt of it " His face twisted in a skeletal caricature of a s his voice, although what he thought to hide when tears ran unheeded down his face, he had no idea
"So, " Raen&039;s voice beca it "To what do I owe your presence so early in the day?"
More than anything in his life, the duke wanted to follow Raen&039;s lead, to try to banish the darkness for just a little while, but he was desperately afraid there was no time for even that small amount of comfort "The people talk "
"They always have Death, taxes, and the people talking, the three things you can count on " Raen shifted into a different but no more comfortable position "Sit down, Belkar, and tell me what they say " Belkar sat, spread his hands and stared at their backs It was easier than ainst the prince, saying he isn&039;t human "
"They always knew that; I told them who his mother hen I declared hi to fear The Elder Races have never been friendly to man People fear and distrust her power and they fear and distrust her power in him "
"He proved himself in the war " "Yes, but the war is over And " Belkar sighed " he proved himself different " "He won the war!"
"He used his er in that alone The other half wonder why he waited so long to use it and ask what game he played "
Tendons in Raen&039;s neck stood out as he ground his teeth "And those titled vultures who circle about ently, "have the right to see the crown passed " Raen dipped his head a barely perceivable a to make Belkar continued: "They worry about his mother as well, and the effect her blood will have on the way he rules "
"They&039;ve never worried before "
"He&039;s never been so close to being king before "
Raen squinted up at his oldest friend "They remember that soldier? The one my son killed?"
Belkar nodded
"And what do they say about lint
"They say you don&039;t heal because he bewitched you as his mother did "
"And what do you believe?"
"I, " Belkar pointed out, "have one with Raen to the Grove He still held the memory of the hamadryad like a jewel in his heart Occasionally, he held it up to the light to rejoice in its beauty
"Then, " said the king, "you shall stand with lance at the surgeon, sure she would not allow such a thing
Glinna shrugged
"He is dying Let it at least be where and how he chooses "
Raen smiled, his first real s man should have one " And then the smile slipped and his eyes looked into the future "At least the Elite will stand by him We&039;ve seen to that, he and I "
"They&039;d follow hireed "But would you throw your country into civil war if people decide he is not to have the crown?"
"He is o ave our name to the land He was trained to rule and there is no one else "
"If you&039;d only had more children "
"He would still be eldest and aze dropped first
"I knoill support him and do what I can, but the people will make up their own minds "
"Then I&039;ll just have to convince them Now, " he waved the duke over to his desk, "write et it iar to all six dukes, in the People&039;s Square by noon " His voice grew quieter and he sank back on his pillows, exhausted
"I must ensure the succession for my son "
And how can you do that when such little speech as you&039;ve had with me nearly kills you, Belkar wondered But all he said aloud was: "Shall I have the prince sent to you?"
"Not now Let hi to hiathered in the Square
Rael entered his father&039;s chamber slowly, his heart so heavy it sat like a luood-bye, he knew it It took awasted on the bed he saw the king being dressed in royal purple Even the crown, rabbed Glinna&039;s ar crowd of servants