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“The Aspect and I were brothers once,” he told Merial “I learned much from him”
“As did I He was my master, y’see We’d ht aze once more “The stars”
He touched his hand to hers for a second “I grieve for your loss, sister”
“I told my husband,” she said as he turned away, “about Lady Reva, and everything else”
“Did you divine anything regarding the queen’s intentions?”
“Only that they are unchanged” She turned to the city spread out before thes, the pyres still burning beyond the walls “On to Volar,” she murmured
• • •
“Who were they?”
He stands in the street outside the baker’s shop, looking down at the girl and her mother once more
“How can you be here?” he asks
Shethe face he reether “You dream, I dream” She nods at the mother and child “Did you know them?”
He sees then that the face is not truly the saone, but diminished, as if this shared drea self
“No They died when the city fell”
“Always so intent on drowning in guilt, beloved” Sheover the corpses that carpet the street to cast an incurious glance over the lifeless hter “It’s always the ars Battles rage and the ser builds in his breast “Small people?”
“Yes my love, the small people” Her voice carries a note of weary iotten lesson “The weak, the petty, the narrow of mind and purpose Those, in fact, who are not like us”
His rage builds, stirring words he had longed to utter during their journey of“You are a pestilence,” he tells her “A blight upon the world, soon to be wiped away”
Her face betrays no anger as she looks up, only a faint s him of just how old she is, how many corpses she has seen “No, I am the only wo away, though also unable to take his eyes fro as he retreats “However deep you bury it, however e you stir to drown it You saw the future we could have shared, ere meant to share”
“A vile illusion,” he says in a whisper
“Our child will never be born,” she says, implacable now “But ill h!” His rage is enough to give her pause, the heat of it sending a ripple through the ground, threatening to tear this dreamscape apart “I never wanted any part of your insane plots How could you iine I would ever surrender myself to your ambition? What madness drives you? What twisted you into this? What happened on the other side of that door?”
Her face becoer but naked terror
“You drea as she stares at her bedroom door Do you even remember it when awake? Do you even know?”
She blinks and takes a slow, backward step “There were ti you When we travelled, soainst your neck as you slept I feared you, although I told er at your many cruelties, your practised hatred Somehow I knew my love for you would kill ret”
She reaches for him, and he doesn’t knohy he lets her touch him, why he allows her hands to trace over his ohy he opens his arainst him, and he hears the restrained sob in her voice as she whispers in his ear, “It’s ti your army if you like It doesn’tthem If I do not see both of you in the arena within thirty days, Reva Mustor dies”
• • •
The leader of New Kethia’s former slaves named himself as Karavek, apparently the naht of riots “He stole freedom from me, I stole his nae”
He was a largein an unkempt mass from his once-shaven head However, despite his size and fierce appearance his voice told of an educated past and a h to fully appreciate the reality of their circulow of recent triumphs