Glenda Larke: The Heart of the mirage

'We need you, Derya. We need your Magoroth strength. J need you.' His voice shook. The ember of

anger was a glowing coal now; I could feel its heat. 'You still haven't given me a reason I can accept.'

'Tern, I have something to do in Tyr. Something I need to do. Until I have, I shan't be able to live at peace. I love you more than I can say, but I don't want to stay here.'

'There's something you're not telling me.' His shrewd brown eyes narrowed. 'What is it – guilt? You've guessed -?'

'About Solad? Yes. Had you realised he was the traitor before all this happened?'

'I wondered. I always wondered. It seemed so… convenient that he sent the Ten to safety just before the massacres. And as I was growing up I heard people say he was not acting normally after the death of his wife and daughter. And then Zerise told me long ago that Solad had his sword with him that night of the Shimmer Feast. She saw him kill legionnaires with it. But it was forbidden to bring swords into the hall, so that was strange too.' He scowled. 'A salve to his twisted conscience, I suppose. As if taking a few Tyranian soldiers with him could make up for what he did.'

'I've been unlucky in my fathers, haven't I? And I do feel I owe Kardiastan something because of that. But even that's not what drives me. It's more personal than that.' I took a deep breath. 'It's a need to do something about what was done to me. They wronged me, Temellin. Gayed, Rathrox Ligatan and Bator Korbus. They murdered my true mother in front of my eyes.' That golden woman, splattered with crimson. She died under the swords of Gayed's men while I ' watched, too young to understand what I saw. 'They turned my true father into a traitor and made him commit a crime, the immensity of which I can't even begin to imagine. They twisted him until there was no

way out but to join those he betrayed in death.' That laughing, loving man holding out his arms for me while I ran barefoot, across an agate floor, towards his embrace. 'They enslaved my people. They took me from what was left of my family, to raise me themselves. I was only a child when they began a deliberate plan to… deform me. They deprived me of everything that was mine, and distorted my life into something that was foul. And as they did it, as they watched me grow up, they mocked me.'

I met his eyes, begging him to understand. 'Then they threw me back into the arena, intending me to finish what they had begun. To have me kill my own people. My own cousin, the Mirager. What they did was evil. Vile, by anyone's standards. And they almost succeeded. They shouldn't be allowed to triumph. Do you understand?'

He nodded. 'Yes. Of course I do.' He cupped my face, touching me gently, belying the ever-present anger. 'But you can fight them here. We can defeat them here.'

'Perhaps. But it won't bring me the satisfaction I crave. Bator Korbus would still occupy the Exaltarch's seat in Tyr, and Rathrox Ligatan would still run the Brotherhood. Every year there would be another attempt on your borders. They would blockade your ports, sink your fishing fleet. Your whole rule will be one of battle and invasion. Is that what you want? Continually having to breed more Magoroth to throw against an enemy who can draw on resources all the way from here to the Western Reaches? Is that what I would be delivering our son to?'

The ember of anger flared, to unite with his scorn. 'I have an army. And I have fifty Magoroth swords behind me. You have no one except Brand, and you

think you can make a difference in Tyrans? You think you can help us by being in Tyr – one lone woman against the Exaltarch? Are you mad?

'I won't be one lone woman for very long, Temellin. For every two citizens of Tyrans, there is a slave.'

His breath caught as he considered the enormity of what I planned to do, and the fire of his anger seared. I think he knew then that I needed justice for myself more than I needed him. More than I needed his son. How could such knowledge not hurt him? He was willing to sacrifice all he was for me, and I rejected that offering. Worse, the sacrifice I made, of my own chance at happiness, was made not for him, nor for our son – but for myself. I needed to bring down the men who had wronged me. I needed to obliterate the system that had made it possible. And I was willing to pay heavily.

He stepped away from me, but in the confines of that cabin there wasn't far he could go. I was so aware of the rage flaming through him.

'Yes,' he said. 'That is a reason I understand. There was a time when I burned with a similar passion for revenge. I grew out of it. Perhaps you're even right, we could become two reed monkeys fighting over the same stretch of rushes if you stayed, but I doubt it. I think what we had would have helped us rise above such pettiness.'

What we had. I heard the past tense and lowered my head so he wouldn't see the anguish in my eyes. 'I want justice. Not revenge.'

He snorted. 'Justice, revenge, whatever you call it. You will find out one day just how high the price you are going to pay really is.'

'I already know.'

'No. You haven't the faintest idea.' His scorn was obliterating, wiping my words away.

And, of course, he was right. I thought I knew, but I really had no idea at all…

If I had known, I would never have started.

By now his anger and his love and his hurt were so inextricably mixed, it was hard for him to pull them apart and for me to recognise them. When he showed me the way he felt, it was an assault on my senses, driving breath from my lungs. I turned away from him, leaning against the hull, resting my forehead against the boards. The cabin was awash with too much emotion.

There was a long silence until both of us had more control.

'Will you ever come back?' he asked finally.

'Yes, yes, of course.' I turned to face him. 'To see you – to see you both. And one day I shall come as Exaltarch, as the ruler of a State coming to visit a fellow monarch and his son.'

He stared, disbelieving. 'You're out of your mind! The Exaltarch? Cabochon, Derya -! How can you even envisage that? With a ragtag army of slaves more used to wielding a scythe or a pickaxe or a broom, against the empire's finest legionnaires? That's insane! And stupid. And it's not like you to be stupid.'

'I spent a lot of time warded in a room with no one to talk to, day after day. I did a lot of thinking about this. I have no intention of being stupid.'

There was another long silence. I could almost feel him dampening down his rage, smothering the flame, depriving it of fuel. It was still there, though, smouldering in some dark, deep recess of his soul. It always would be. What I was doing to him was just another form of betrayal and I was uniquely placed to know how much fury betrayal generates. Goddess, I thought, we are becoming experts at hurting one another.

Then his lips twitched, but there was more sardonic appreciation than amusement in the result. 'Sarana – you always were a little devil. I used to hate playing with you. Who'd have thought that would change so much?' He gave a laugh, half rueful, half bitter. 'Or maybe nothing's changed. You used to make me cry then, too. Ah, Derya – no, Sarana – fate played a nasty trick on us.'

'Do I go with your blessing then, Tem?'

He shook his head. 'Blessing? Never! But I don't know how to stop you.'

'No. That's because there is no way.' I let him feel the truth of that.

He threw up his hands in resignation. 'So when do you leave Ordensa?'

'We were just waiting for you to arrive. We'll sail tomorrow morning.'

He put his head on one side, regarding me with eyes that had lost their laughter and a gaze that hungered. 'I'm not your brother any more. Is that going to make any difference to how you spend the next few hours?'