Fires of Azeroth

"Roh-"

"Did you not tell them about her, about your half-qhal liege? What else is she? Not pure qhal. Nor human. Doubtless she has done what I have done, no higher nor nobler. And I think you have always known it."

Almost he struck… held his hand, trembling with the effort; there were the arrhendim outside, their freedom at hazard. "Quiet," he hissed. "Be quiet."

"I have said nothing. There is much that I could say, and I have not, and you know it. I have not betrayed her."

It was truth. He stared at Roh's distraught face and reckoned that it was no more and no less than Roh believed. And Roh had not betrayed them.

"I know it," he said. "I will repay that, Roh."

"But you are not free to say so, are you? You forget what you are."

"My word is worth something… among them, and with her."

Roh's face tautened as if he had been struck. "Ah, you do grow proud, ilin, to think that. And you trade words with qhal- lords in their own language, and dispose of me how you will."

"You are lord of my mother's clan. I do not forget that. I do not forget that you offered me shelter, in a time when others of my kin would not."

"Ah, is it 'cousin,' now?"

There was no appeal to that hardness. It had been there since Arrhel gazed at him. Vanye turned his face from it. "I will do what I said, Roh. See you do the same. If you ask apology as my clan-lord, that I will give; if as my kinsman, that will I give; if it galls you that qhal speak civilly to me and not to you… that involves another side of you that I have no reason to love; with him there is no dealing, and I will not."

Roh said nothing. Quietly they packed their belongings into what would be easy to carry on the saddles. They put on only their weapons.

"I will do what I said," Roh offered finally.

It was Roh again. Vanye inclined his head in the respect he had withheld.

In not a long time, khemi came to summon them.