Glenda Larke: The Heart of the mirage

I feigned indifference, hiding the truth in the way I phrased the next sentence. 'I don't think I'm cut out to be much of a mother.' Perhaps I wasn't, but when I thought of this growing life, tenderness seeped into my heart. Treachery from within.

Is this how Wendia once felt about me? And Aemid? Wendia died knowing she had failed to protect her daughter, and that must have been a terrible way to end one's conscious moments. And Aemid lived, knowing she had failed me. Perhaps I was only just now beginning to understand her anguish. And I was about to fail my son as a mother too…

Melete give me strength.

I knew I couldn't keep him, this boy of ours. He was Kardiastan's heir. I had a flash of memory: my hands soaked in Pinar's blood, her son cupped in my palms. Why was my life studded with separations of children from their mothers? My son would never know me. That gnawing at my insides, it was painful.

'But why must you go at all?' Temellin asked. The emotion he allowed me to feel was more puzzlement than anger. 'Is it because you haven't forgiven me for my disbelief?'

'No. Goddess knows, I gave you grounds enough to disbelieve! But I do have reasons for leaving Kardiastan. Half a dozen of them.'

'I don't need half a dozen. I need just one that makes sense to me. And – and the one you did have is not valid. This brother-sister thing. Derya -' He stood straighter, made an effort to be more in command of himself. 'I'll give you a reason to stay, the best I can think of. You aren't Shirin. You aren't my sister. We were wrong. You are Sarana, my cousin, Miragerin of Kardiastan.'

I went cold all over. He knew! And then: He loves me enough to tell me? Goddess, I didn't deserve that. I swallowed. 'How did you find out?'

His smile quirked with irony. 'You told me in your letter. When you hinted that the Mirage Makers mentioned to you their need of an unborn child. I couldn't believe they would give that information to Shirin. They hadn't given it to Korden when he walked the Shiver Barrens, and at that time he was my heir, so why would they give it to you? I tried to tell myself it was because you were bearing my child, but somehow it just didn't seem right. Especially when, in the end, it was Pinar's son who became a Mirage Maker. So I started to think about things. I remembered what you said about your memories of your childhood in Kardiastan, and suddenly it seemed more of a description of a fight involving a howdah. And then I went to Zerise again. I pestered her, and finally she admitted she was uneasy about you being Shirin. It seems you have Sarana's eyes.'

I waited for him to go on, to tell me how Solad had made a traitor of himself, but he said nothing, to spare me the pain, perhaps. He must have worked it out, of course. Maybe he'd always suspected it; Solad was the one who had sent the ten Magoroth children away, after all.

I stared at him, emotions suppressed, stomach churning. Was he truly willing to sacrifice all he was, all he had – for me? Sweet Elysium, he was prepared to trust me with his landl With his people.

This was what it was to love.

Something fundamental inside me shifted position, ¦ grinding into me with deep-felt, intense pain. I knew myself inadequate, less than he was. I loved, but my love was a damaged thing, torn by so many betrayals,

folded and put away and ignored until now, when I wanted to take it out again and shake it free – only to find it flawed and tattered, creased with memories of where it had been, of what had been done to it, of the pain it had caused. '..¦¦›!

He touched my shattered cheek with the back of his hand. 'You are beautiful,' he said, and perhaps I was to him.

My eyes filled with tears. He took me in his arms, holding me gently, shielding his feelings, as if afraid the strength of his passion would frighten me away. 'Stay,' he said. 'Be our Miragerin.'

'Tem,' I said, 'I couldn't take away from you what you are! You are the Mirager of Kardiastan. More than that, you are the ruler everyone wants; not me. I'm not the person for this land.'

'You want power. I know you do.'

'But not this way.'

'When you walked the Shiver Barrens, what were you told? Did they show you a Mirager bestowing cabochons? Did they tell you the conjurations for it?'

I nodded. • 'Then you were given a Mirager's sword. And a mandate to rule. You just didn't realise what you had been told.' He pulled back a little so he could see my face. 'Derya, you are the rightful Mirager, not I.'

'I don't want it.'

He saw something in my expression I hadn't known was there. He exclaimed, bewildered, 'You – you knew all along! That's why you are leaving, isn't it? Damn it, you make me so ashamed. I didn't trust you, and all along you knew what you could have had.'

I interrupted. 'Not all along. And I'm no saintly handmaiden to the gods, either, Tem.' Just a better person than I once was. I'd felt the claws and teeth of

evil in my flesh, and the horror of it was still with me. In the creatures of the Ravage, I'd glimpsed the soul of what I had once nearly become, and I hadn't liked it. I wanted to be better than that, better than I had been – but there were limits to how much one could change in a single lifetime.

I said, with brutal honesty, 'I'm doing this for myself as much as for you. I don't want to rule Kardiastan. I'm not the person for the job: you are. The Mirage Makers may have given me the sword, but they haven't taken yours away. You still have a mandate to rule.'

He absorbed that, feeling my truth. And said, 'We could rule jointly. As husband and wife. How much better if Kardiastan had two Mirager swords! I almost wrecked everything when I lost mine.'

'You were going to kill yourself, weren't you? I saw the relief in your eyes, but I didn't recognise it for what it was. You were going to sacrifice yourself for your land because you'd lost your sword, and now, in a way, you want to do it all over again. For me. Well, I won't let it happen.'

'It's not a sacrifice! Not if we rule jointly. We need never fear the loss of a sword again. We'd have two! And you would stop me making so many mistakes. The only person I've ever been able to rely on is Korden – but I don't see eye to eye with him on so many things. Derya, I've been so damned lonely!

With that, he almost persuaded me. Almost. But something else prevailed. Commonsense? Selfishness? 'Tern, Tern – it wouldn't work. Think about it for a minute, the practicalities. We'd end up hating one another. It's one thing to make a sacrifice, it's quite another to live with the results. We want the same

things, you and I, but neither of us is big enough to

'¦"'-… ¦.»*

share them. And I'd never be accepted by most of the Magoroth. I killed one of the Ten, for a start!' Every word was the truth, and every word was a destruction of desire, a slash across the dream of a future. 'I bet you and Korden had yet another argument when you told him you were coming here to see me. Especially when you should be off fighting the legions.'

His anger stirred, a remnant ember glowing in the cold ashes of the rage that had once led him to fling his sword at me. 'You can't turn me down because of Korden!'

'No. Tern, I'm – I'm going to Tyrans. I'll work for Kardiastan there; I'm going to bring down the Exaltarch from within. I'm going to halt the slavery.'

'That's ridiculous! I can't let you go.'

'Tem, you can't keep me here against my will.' i' We stared at each other, and I felt the ember flicker as his anger burned brighter. 'Skies above,' he said, 'have you thought how dangerous it will be for you in Tyrans? Once the Stalwarts return to Tyr, the Brotherhood will be looking for you. And you would take our child into such danger?'

'It's no safer for me in Kardiastan. Less so, in fact, because I can't stay in the Mirage, because of the Ravage. It will be years before Pinar's son is strong enough to help the other Mirage Makers get rid of it. And even here, outside of the Mirage – well, the Tyranians must be scouring the streets looking for Ligea by now, and that's just when they think I'm on their side. You aren't going to take back your land overnight. You'll have to fight the legions every inch of the way, and there are still so few of you. I'd be no safer here than in Tyrans.'