Glenda Larke - The Heart of the mirage

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'Derya, what's wrong? Does it matter that much?'

T – No, I don't suppose so.' It was hard to speak, to put the coherent deception together without uttering a lie. 'It's – just that – yesterday I was just me. And now I find I've lain in a – a ruler's arms -' I gave a weak laugh. 'I'm such a fool.' You could say that again.

He took me in his arms once more and held me, brushing my hair with kisses, crooning to me as though I were a child. I felt like a child. Where was the compeer of the Brotherhood now? Where was my strength, my objectivity, my wits? Not so long ago, I had been one of the most powerful women in the Exaltarchy, now I was just a stupid female so caught up in the net cast by an attractive man that I was no longer in command of my senses.

'Was it you they tried to burn in Sandmurram?' I asked finally. Is it possible?

He nodded briefly, dismissing the incident as unimportant. 'Don't blame Korden for his mistrust of you,' he said. 'Or Pinar, either. They are both old enough to remember the invasion, the parents they

lost, the world that was destroyed. Korden is the oldest of the Magoroth, another nephew of the last Mirager, just as I am, yet I was the heir, not him, simply because my father was older than his. He finds that hard to remember sometimes. He thinks he could do a better job than me, you see. It is a situation that has made him more than my friend: he is my conscience. He feels it is his duty to keep me from making mistakes. And it is hard for him – for Pinar too – to trust you because they look at you and see Tyrans.'

I nodded. 'I think – I think I'll go back to the fire. I need to think things over.'

'Good idea. I, um, wasn't thinking of coming to you tonight, Derya. There are, er, complications.'

'You mean Pinar, of course.' The only unattached Magoria over twenty; I knew it with certainty. I'd seen the way she looked at him.

'We are not lovers, not yet, and for the time being we go our own ways, but she will be Miragerin-consort one day, and I would not insult her by lying in the arms of a lover so publicly. Perhaps elsewhere, if you accept or want a – a – temporary relationship. If that reeks of hypocrisy, well, I'm not in a position to be honest. I'm the Mirager. I'm sorry if that hurts you, but it is the way things are.'

It should have been amusing. Here was someone apologising for not taking me to bed, apologising because he was afraid he was about to hurt my feelings. How Rathrox Ligatan would have laughed. He trained his compeers to have no feelings, to use their bodies without compunction to further the interest of the task in hand. But I was more intrigued than amused. I thought, How he hates himself for this! Temellin was trapped in an impossible situation, and

no matter which way he twisted he would not like what he did.

I shrugged my indifference. 'Who am I to object? I have no claims on you. You did not speak to me of permanence. I have known you for a little over a day. I found something special in your arms. I would like to find it again. I can wait.' They were the words of a compeer intending to use this man and wrench out the heart of the Kardi insurgents and their terrorism – but there was truth in them too. I wanted to feel his arms about me again; I wanted to know the secret of the way I had felt when I had lain in his arms. I had found something then that most people never know, and it was hard to turn my back on it deliberately.

He touched my face with gentle fingers. 'Don't talk to Brand about the cabochons or such matters. It is better he does not know too much of what we are.' He bent to kiss me, but the brush of his lips meant a return of the memory of what his lovemaking had wrought the day before. It was far too easy to be seduced by that recollection. I felt like a moth, blinded by the allure of the torch, risking the scorch of its heat. I strove to tear myself free of the attraction.

'Goodnight, Temellin,' I said, hoping I sounded coolly collected.

I walked away from him back towards the campfires, pulling my cloak tight about me, feeling I'd just been spat out of a whirlwind. For the first time, my private life and my mission on behalf of the Brotherhood were at war and I didn't know what I was going to do. I was disgusted with myself, with my lack of control over my emotions. Damn them all to Acheron – how could I feel this way?

I battled to start thinking sensibly again, and when I did, my heart skidded somewhere down to stomach

level. If Temellin was the Mirager, then his behaviour that day, and the day before, was strange. What else had been going on unnoticed by me because I was too • busy thinking with my senses instead of my head? If I understood the situation correctly, Temellin was the leader of an insurgency. The man who would be ruler of the country, if they had their way.

But rulers did not normally go looking for lost property in person, not even precious property. They sent other people to do it for them. Nor did they risk their lives seeking out slave girls who could have been the bait in a rat trap. A ruler was too precious to risk.

And yet he was the Mirager; he hadn't been lying about that. So what was going on? What had I missed? Why had he risked himself to seek me out?

I was so engrossed in my private maelstrom I took no notice of the cloaked figure standing between me and the fires, until an arm shot out and clutched at me as I went to pass by. Startled out of my reverie I looked up. It was Pinar. 'Where's Temellin?' she asked harshly.

I gave a vague wave of my hand, knowing she could have sensed his whereabouts if she had really wanted to know. 'He went back that way' I tried to move on, but Pinar's hand, resting now in between my breasts, stopped me.

T know you for what you are,' she said. 'I can see what they are all blind to. You mean to betray us.'

I did not deign to answer. I attempted to brush past, but the hand stayed me. I was suddenly breathless, as if I had been running. 'Let me be, Pinar. You've no cause for jealousy tonight,' I said. But I could not pass. I felt her cabochon push against my heart, and the answering arrhythmia of the beat. I staggered and tried to push her away, but my arms felt weak. I wanted to scream, but no sound would come.

'I can't let you kill us all,' she said, her voice rough with dislike. 'You're just a Tyranian brute in Kardi disguise. You sold your birthright. It's better you die here, now, at my hand. I don't care what they all say; I know I'm right -'

I could not believe what was happening. I was dying. I knew half a dozen ways to kill using my bare hands – and I was helpless. I had just seconds before my heart stopped its beating. Goddess, J couldn't end like this, dead in this desert world, aged not yet thirty. Not me. My left hand crept upwards to Pinar's breast, each inch closer a desperate act of will and pain with no chance of ultimate success. This was power I knew nothing about. Magor magic. I was untrained, of a lesser rank -

I tried to send out my terror to alert the Magor, but I appeared to be cocooned within a barrier of her making. And she let nothing slip by. I tried to fight, but I knew nothing of the weapons – not hers, or mine.

I fell to my knees, incapable of resistance, so weak I couldn't even whisper a protest to the woman who was murdering me. My left hand was no longer part of me.. It moved on without my knowledge; it had a feeble life of its own and I was aware of it with a curious detachment. I saw it travel across the edge of my vision, reaching out to touch her just as she was touching me. The fingers uncurled and the cabochon on the palm rested against Pinar's breastbone.

And she smiled, not even bothering to brush it away. 'What can you do?' she whispered, her triumph foul in my senses. 'I am a trained Magoria.'

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