This chapter means a lot to me, mostly because this is what the entire book is about.
I don't have much to say about it, because it's mostly self-explanatory.
~*~
Baesa was unable to quell her feelings of joy, for Talons or no Talons, her queen was returning. She and Ianna’s best fighters traveled out early to the border, so that they might spot them early and prepare. It was not, however, as hard as she had expected; they were riding enormous beasts, like barnu but finer and nobler, that cast up dust in every which direction.
The entire company slid to a halt before the J’engar, Ianna at their head. Baesa’s eyes traveled, slowly, from her queen’s face to the child held gently before her in the saddle. The child was too old to have been born during Ianna’s stay, but the shock of seeing a child overran her other senses.
“Baesa!” Caelun cried happily, and was a moment later hugging her, and they were laughing, and dancing together in the sands.
“Caelun!” Baesa gasped out, laughing. “I’m so glad to see you!”
“Baesa, this is Lord Daeun, Her Majesty’s—um—allay,” Caelun said, pointing up at a tall, black-haired fellow with sky-blue eyes. He gave the impression of being just barely out of childhood, full of barely-suppressed delight with the world around him. “That monster’s Anae, and the man just beyond them is Fenn—Daeun’s man-at-arms—and His Majesty the High King is on the cot behind Tsuunai. That’s Daeun’s familiar.”
Baesa looked at them, and managed a jerky bow. “Welcome.”
Caelun looked at her incredulously. “What’s wrong, Baesa?”
She felt, suddenly, as if she’d sent off her best friend and watched him return a total stranger. She looked at him narrowly, and said abruptly. “Nothing at all. Majesties, if you would follow me, we’ve chosen an area to set up camp that will be relatively free of the desert winds.”
“Thank you, Baesa,” Ianna said tiredly, giving her friend a smile. “Lead on.”
“Baesa,” Caelun begged, for the hundredth time. He was kneeling before her—kneeling!—and she was studiously ignoring him. “Tell me what is wrong!”
Daeun watched this, Anae in his lap, with great interest. Caelun and Baesa had kept up this battle between them for many hours now, and it was beginning to be an annoyance. Ianna was asleep, and Aedaan as well, and Daeun knew if he ordered Caelun to cease, Caelun would obey—but Baesa would not.
“Leave me be!” Baesa whispered harshly, sending Daeun a dark look. “Not here, you idiot!”
“No, here!” Caelun hissed back, quieting his voice for her sake. “Are you ill? Tell me what is the matter!”
“Look at you,” Baesa growled suddenly, eyes flashing viciously. “You left promising me Talon heads, and returned with them still attached!”
Caelun’s face slowly drained of all expression. “If it’s them you’re mad about, then have it out. Don’t think for a second she’d submit to Talon wiles without a good reason—or me either!”
“They murdered our families!” Baesa shouted, drawing Ianna out of her sleep, and everyone else besides. “They took your mother and your brother! How could you forgive that? You soil their memories by pretending they are your friends! They aren’t! We are!”
“They? They?” Caelun rose from the sand to stand before her, furious. “J’engar-ha betrayed the crown—is that to say that all J’engar are so foolish, and untrustworthy? You speak of them as if they were all the same!”
“They are Talon,” Baesa snarled. “That is all I need to know.”
“You are my greatest friend,” Caelun said darkly, “and I know you to be a kinder soul than you would have anyone believe. You are a fool to say they are all alike—all evil, all darkness and murder. Look—come here, Anae.” Anae obligingly stood up, though she usually took orders from no one, and stepped forward until she came level with him. “Anae was orphaned because of the Talon king’s cruelty, Baesa. Is she evil, too? Is this the evil we swore to stamp out?”
Baesa stared at Anae, a mixture of revulsion and pity warring on her face, and did not respond. Anae reached solemnly up and tapped Baesa’s heart. “The men you’re thinking of,” Anae whispered, “they’re from Agulin, not Genor. We love Mistress J’engar. I don’t know why you think we’d hurt friends of Mistress J’engar.”
“Baesa,” Ianna said, sharply. Anae jerked her hand back, and all eyes turned to Ianna, though Daeun’s eyes remained fixed on Baesa’s face. “You shame me, speaking thus. No one hated them more than I—you know this. Ask yourself what it would take to change my heart.”
Baesa’s eyes moved, ever so slightly, in Daeun’s direction, and his voice lashed out in response. It startled her, for the boyish exterior was gone, replaced with something entirely different, something almost … kingly. “This is how you reward her strength, and wisdom? You insult her, and your friends? Caelun and Taejon have told us stories of you, and your people, and how honor-bound you were. Were they lies?” He spit out the word as if it were poison, and Baesa flinched. “When they amused Anae with tales of your childhood with Caelun and Ianna, were they calling up falsehoods? For I see no such honor here; I see childishness and an unwillingness to see. My people are suffering, and I have reached out to yours for help—and in return I receive scorn and disgust. What do you know of me, that you may judge me thus?”
Baesa looked at Ianna, but her queen did not come to her defense. “He speaks the truth, Baesa,” Ianna said softly. “Perhaps you remember that saying, the one etched into the wall in the library.”
“ ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend,’ ” Baesa recited slowly.
“The men who have so wounded his people have so wounded ours.” Ianna rose, her footsteps making no impression in the sand beneath her feet. “These men you see before you have risked everything to bear our king to safety. They have earned our respect.”
Baesa’s eyes flicked away from her queen’s, and down to the ground. It was the only warning she gave before flattening herself to the sand. “Forgive me, m’lord, majesty,” Baesa cried, her voice muffled by sand. “It was not my place.”
“Caelun,” Ianna said, and he picked Baesa off the sand and led her, gently, away from the others.
“I like her,” Fenn said contemplatively.
“You would,” Daeun said mildly. “All of you, sleep. We’ve traveling again at nightfall.”
The oppressive heat and dry air seemed to act as a tonic for Aedaan, for by the time they reached Kaenul he walked without a limp and had regained his color. Guarded by the entire J’engar-ai hold—the entirety of whom, seeing Baesa’s willingness to cooperate and their queen’s own obvious love for the Talons, had accepted the Talons as somewhat reluctant brothers—they marched into Kaenul, Aedaan at their head. The first words he spoke upon his return to Kaenul would be etched in stone and sung to the heavens.
“Get off my throne.”
. No really, I liked this one a lot. Good job!