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“I’m not asking because I wish to judge you. Truthfully, I empathize with you. I’ve betrayed ones I love also. I understand what it’s like to make honest mistakes, ones that you regret and wish, wish, wish you could make amends for. I thought perhaps you were the same, Rialus.”
Empathy. That was the word. She empathized with him. It was too much to comprehend-both the emotion itself and the possibilities it suggested. In defense, he fell back to an old refrain. “We are hardly the same, Princess. I’m an ambassador. It’s a position of authority and importance-”
Cori
Tell her about Aliver? He almost asked her why she wanted to know. The reasons were obvious-although they were also contradictory. He’s my brother and I love him, she could say. But that was not what he wanted to hear for a variety of reasons. He was a threat to Hanish, she could say. But that, despite the safety it suggested in respect to his current allegiances, wasn’t quite what he wanted to hear either. So he tried to keep his answer neutral. “He remains a mystery, Princess. I ca
“Don’t lie to me. You don’t have to and I wouldn’t lie to you. The truth is, Rialus, that I don’t have a single friend in this palace. Not a single person cares what becomes of me. Hanish is not my friend, understand? He can never know that we’ve spoken or learn even a word that passes between us. Swear to me that you understand that.”
He nodded, though he did so in a hesitant way that was meant to indicate he was not agreeing to the entirety of whatever deception she might be proposing.
If Cori
“Rialus,” she said, “I very dearly need a friend-a powerful friend. That’s why I’m speaking to you now. Do you, Rialus, also want a friend?”
He answered before he had time to censor himself. “Yes, very much.”
“Then I will be your friend. We will give each other things, as friends do. First, tell me of my brother. Hanish tries to keep me ignorant, but he’s just cruel. It does you no damage to tell me things everybody else knows already. Just help me understand what’s happening in the world.”
He could do that, he thought. She needed him. She had said so herself. What would it hurt to tell her things that everybody else knew anyway? He was not ready to accept her empathy, but he could do this.
He spent the next half hour filling her in on everything he knew. He found his voice surprisingly nimble as he detailed Aliver’s movements, his troop strength and makeup. He told of the myths swirling around him, rumors of sorcery and such. Little of this impressed Hanish, however. The chieftain was a
He was surprised by the ma
“Yes, the undefeatable Numrek…Are they truly so fierce?”
Rialus spent a few moments singing their praises as regards martial matters. He was aware of the irony of this-considering how much he hated them-but the more Cori
“If the entire world turned against them, of course they’d be defeated,” he concluded, “but not without doing a great deal of damage. I’m sure Hanish Mein considered moving against them. But that was before. Now he’s quite happy to call them allies again.”
“So he needs them?”
“Very much so. Hanish may have tricks up his sleeve, but he most definitely needs and relies upon my wards.”
Cori
“Rialus, what do you want most in the world?” She turned toward him. The resolve on her face and in her voice indicated that she had settled whatever had been bothering her and was ready to move forward. “I think I know. You want to be respected. You want to be rewarded. You want Hanish to acknowledge that you helped him and Maeander triumph against my father. You want the sort of spoils men like Larken received. You want to never have to wake without a beauty beside you, one who’ll do exactly your bidding. These are some of the things you want. Why wouldn’t you? Why wouldn’t any ambitious man crave such things? I’m right, aren’t I?”
Rialus opened his mouth, but Cori
“Hanish will never give you any of those things. He laughs at you. He thinks you’re a fool, a coward, an idiot. He once joked that if he didn’t make you ambassador to the Numrek-a job he considers most foul-he’d have made you a court comedian. You wouldn’t even have to practice your act, he said. You’d only have to be yourself. That’s what he thinks of you.”
“I-”
“You know I’m telling you the truth. You’ve always known it, and you hate Hanish for it, don’t you?”
“Ha-ha-hate is not the word I’d use,” Rialus said. “Princess, I was under the-the impression that you quite loved Hanish. That you-”
Cori
“You are a fu
Rialus was relieved that she did not pause for him to answer that question.
“Of course you don’t. You’re like me.” She pressed the wedge of her hand between her breasts, somehow a belligerent, not sensuous, gesture. “You and I are done with love. I’ll never give this heart to a man again. Not even to you, Rialus, charmer though you are. You may think whatever thoughts of me you like. I ca
He nodded. He did understand. She was not, as she pointed out, the empty beauty that he had imagined her to be. There was much behind her face that he’d not been aware of before. She was, he realized, something he’d never considered her to be. Dangerous. That’s what she was. He did not know exactly how, could not imagine what power she wielded, and yet he now believed she was not a woman to be crossed.
As if answering this thought, Cori