Ah, Anull.
Chapter Thirty-six has some parts in it that I find exceedingly awkward, but I cannot find a remedy for it. If you spot the parts and have something better, please, feel free to let me know.
Chapter Thirty-five
King Anull tapped his fingers restlessly against the gold of his throne. The throne room was, uncharacteristically, empty, at his request. He wished to be alone, and to contemplate matters in silence. Since his order to eliminate the Resistance and the J’engar envoy, it seemed his men were suddenly incapable of completing anything. No one had been caught, or killed. It was most distressing.
More distressing yet was Oiden’s report that the J’engar king had somehow escaped during questioning. Now that he was free, he would no doubt flee to his precious desert city, and tear down the idiots Anull had financed. His fingers increased their speed. It had been a mistake, forcing J’engar to be spies—they were fools. All of them. Especially that greedy bastard Pilan.
And Lord Genor had disappeared! Genor itself was locked up tighter than a drum. Breaching the city would take time and manpower he couldn’t afford at the moment, regardless of his suspicions. His advisors told him that Lord Genor had had problems with his cousins, but he’d known about that. He’d orchestrated it, damn it all. And yet, somehow, this Lord Genor, empty-headed fool that he was, managed to turn it around. He had to have had help; he was one step from being mentally retarded. If Lord Genor had brains King Anull would wear a corset.
Fools.
“Oiden!” Anull shouted, his fingers stilling in their restless tapping. “Where’s my dinner?”
Chapter Thirty-six
“It’s so bloody hot,” Daeun complained, lying stark naked on top of the bed, sweat slicking down his sides. Ianna was sitting languidly in a chair, watching him, still wearing the full, thick robes that had dealt so well with Talon’s cold weather. “How can it be this hot?”
“You say that again and I’ll make it hotter,” Ianna said flatly. “I didn’t complain this much.”
“What’d you have to complain about? Talon is perfect in the spring!”
“Oh, come here,” Ianna growled pleasantly, rising up and crossing to the bed. She laid a hand on his brow and blew softly; a moment later the air around him cooled considerably, to the temperature he was used to. “Better?”
“Much,” Daeun sighed. He looked up at her, blue eyes mischievous. “Now that I’m cooled down—”
“No,” Ianna said flatly. “I can’t, not in the palace, unless you wish to marry me, and you know that will never happen.”
“And why not?” Daeun demanded, sitting up. “Why can’t you just say to hell with the rules and keep on ruling?”
“I can’t rule from afar, Daeun.” She adjusted her sash absently, though it didn’t need adjusting. “Neither can you. Our kingdoms would only fall to ruin.”
“One month there, one month here, it would work.” He was serious, she realized, and grew suddenly uncomfortable. “It wouldn’t be that hard, dinsatas.”
“Not here!” Ianna insisted. “All things are binding in the palace!”
“Fine,” Daeun said darkly, reaching for his clothes. “We’ll talk later.”
“Where are you going?”
“For a walk,” he snapped, and slammed the door shut behind him.
He hadn’t exactly lied; he was certainly walking. He did not, however, simply meander through the castle, but went to the farthest reaches of Kaenul. He climbed atop the last sturdy building and stood facing east, towards Talon. He couldn’t see Genor, not from here, but he could almost feel it, like a physical presence coming to stand before you when your eyes were shut.
“Goddess,” he prayed, closing his eyes against the unbroken expanse of gold, “the throne is mine—I must claim it—but what I am without her?”
There was no answer. He hadn’t expected any. The Goddess spoke through black slips of paper, not through sunlight and ghostly whispers. He reopened his eyes, their blue all the brighter now, for the sky over J’engar was a pale blue-green. There was no blue here, and there never would be.
But there were golden grasses in Genor, and golden palaces, and in fall the trees all wore their most brilliant clothes, dashing in gold and fiery red; there was a place for her there.
There was no place for him here.
The realization did not pain him as he thought it would, for he had, in many ways, already known it to be true. He climbed slowly back down, surprising the thick, dark-eyed woman within, and shoved his hands in his pockets as he walked back to the palace. In the streets the people stopped to stare, their dark skin and dark eyes alien to his eyes, just as his pale skin and blue eyes were alien to them.
She was waiting for him, at the palace gates, leaning against the stucco walls with her arms folded. Her eyes were flickering from amber to brown and back again, speaking of an uncertainty in her that had never existed before. He disliked its presence far more than he disliked the idea that he could not exist in her world after she had tried to hard to exist in his.
“Before all things I am queen,” Ianna said, as he approached her. “This must be foremost in all my considerations.” He opened his mouth to speak, to tell her to not worry, for he would be gone by morning—but she held up a hand, stilling his tongue. “J’engar-ai is dying. We are now smaller than His Majesty’s personal guard, a useless kingdom riding on the coattails of tradition. I have made my decision, Daeun. We will return with you—all of us—to Talon.”
“Why?” Daeun asked, angry with her for being so selfless, especially when he could not find it within himself to be so. “Why give up J’engar? There is no assurance even now that we will succeed!”
Her eyes met his, settling on a firm brown. “I see the way you look at the sands, the way you fidget at our customs. You do not say so, but you cannot stand it here. Even now I see it in your eyes. Do you think I am blind? You went to the east, towards Talon.” She crossed the distance between them with a few quick steps, her hand coming up to touch his cheek, dark cinnamon against tanned olive. “You are the blue king, m’lord, meant only for the blue throne. You forget; we are born of Talon, not the other way around. Talon is in our blood, in our hearts—it is not hard for us. But you, you who have not been born in the sands, you cannot love it here. To you it is the hell to which your blood was sentenced, and no more.”
Compulsively he took her into his arms, holding her tightly. He buried his face in her hair and breathed her in, wondering how he would ever be worthy of her, and glad that she believed he was. “Dinsatas,” he said, his voice hoarse with remorse, “I do not deserve you.”
“Careful,” Ianna murmured back. “Remember what happened last time you pronounced yourself unworthy.”
“What will your king say?” Daeun asked suddenly, pulling away. “You are his favorite, dinsatas.”
“If he tries to stop me, I will disobey him, and become a traitor,” Ianna replied, shrugging.
“Do you hear yourself? First you give up J’engar—now you are willing to become a traitor? Are you completely out of you mind, dinsatas? I am only one man!”
“You say I am your fire,” Ianna snapped. “What I do not say is that you are mine. What am I without you?”
She whirled and stalked for the yawning archway that led into the interior of the palace. Daeun had to run to catch up with her. “Where are you going?”
“To finish this before you decide what is best for me,” Ianna declared angrily. “Whatever you think, there is a brain between my eyes, and I use it as well as you do. I have made my decision, and that is all there is to be said on the subject.”
“I will not argue.” Daeun gazed at her as they moved, half walking, half running, towards the throne room. “It was only a question.”
They exploded into the throne room to find Anae playing with Caelun in the corner while Baesa spoke quietly to Aedaan. Anae had spent much of her time with Caelun during their stay in J’engar, correctly assuming that he would show her the most of the city with the littlest arm-twisting.
“Ianna, Daeun,” Aedaan greeted them, as Baesa bowed respectfully out. “To what do I owe the honor of your presence?”
“I’m leaving,” Ianna announced, chin in the air, “and I’m taking J’engar-ai with me.”
Aedaan’s smile disappeared instantly. “You return me to my throne only to defect?”
“I will be of J’engar till I die, but my duty lies elsewhere.”
“Duty!” Aedaan cried. “You speak of duty? Your duty is here, to your people. What you speak of is your heart, clouding your judgment!”
“I have decided,” Ianna said flatly. “If you will not give me your blessing, then I will leave without them.”
“And become a traitor?”
“If need be,” Ianna replied stoically, “yes.”
Aedaan sat back abruptly, frowning down at her. “I would not have relations with Talon soured because of this. You will leave with my reluctant blessings immediately.” He turned his face away, eyes shut. “Leave my sight.”
Ianna flinched but bowed; Daeun remained upright. “I have not forgotten your promise,” Daeun said bluntly, drawing Aedaan’s eyes. “I need your help if I am to have any hope of succeeding.”
“The armies will be in Tvaar in a fortnight,” Aedaan said, and turned away again, this time with a dark hand covering his eyes.
“Anae, Caelun, come,” Ianna said, her voice a little broken. Anae hesitated for a moment, feeling Aedaan’s sadness and unwilling to leave it unresolved. In the end, however, she fled, taking Ianna’s hand and following them out. Words, no matter how well chosen, would do nothing; such was Aedaan’s deispaire.
Ianna had once said Aedaan was all she had left; the same, all the more sharply felt now, could be said of the latter.
.