Andrea Höst - Voice of the Lost

"Forbearance, rather than forgiveness."

"I suppose so," Medair said. "But Tarsus, who would rule Palladium, cleaves to this idea of cleansing it first. He believes it the right thing to do. The only way."

The carriage jolted around a corner, reminding Medair just how tired and aching she was. Islantar leaned across to steady Avahn, then looked down at his hand. Against custom, though no longer against law, for him to touch.

"Perhaps, for Tarsus to rule, that would be necessary," he said. "I do not know enough of him. Or Prince Thessan, who is in truth the greater threat, since he is Decia’s heir. Do you know," he added, those clear eyes widening in faint amazement, "Queen Sendel had left him locked in those cells? She sent someone to let him out, before we came down."

"They don’t seem close," Medair commented, as they at last rattled through the gates of The Avenue. "King Xarus' influence, perhaps."

"Perhaps." The Kierash lapsed into thought, and Medair was glad to give up thinking of any futures beyond getting clean and finding somewhere to rest.

A pair of Illukar’s over-efficient servants had taken charge of Medair. They had scrubbed her and bandaged her, poured hot sugary liquid down her throat and treated her much like a two-year child. The petite Farakkian woman who cleaned and salved her grazes acted like she and Medair had met before, and her attitude, beneath the bland mask of service, was not entirely friendly. Uncertainty was stretching Medair’s weary nerves, and she was very glad to see Ileaha, who arrived just as Medair was being wrapped in a voluminous robe.

Looking strangely naked without her braid, Ileaha waited a moment for the two women to tie the sash about Medair’s waist, then dismissed them from the room.

"Do I know either of those women?" Medair asked, the moment the door to the guestroom had closed behind them.

Ileaha paused for consideration. "You have been to The Avenue before, so it is likely you have at least seen them. Keris Arona is 'Lukar’s selvurgeon – one who heals without magic. The other is Lekmet, who is fourth in the House’s order of attendants. They exist in both my memories, but I don’t know of any connection with you." Ileaha lifted an equivocal hand. "Despite knowing two worlds, I don’t have every answer you seek."

"Do you have the answers you seek?" Medair asked, then added: "You seem less distressed."

"Less?" Ileaha looked down at herself. She was wearing another variation of what Medair thought of as the uniform of a Velvet Sword – the most abbreviated of demi-robes over workmanlike shirt and trousers. "Seeing Falcon Black above Finrathlar made my own divides seem…petty. I cannot undo what has been done to me, and there is no gain in running from it. I am two halves of a third whole." She shook her head. "I will not waste my energies repining."

"And Avahn?"

Ileaha’s face tightened, then she sighed. "I know it wasn’t his intention to hurt me, yet he did. But, if I take his current protestations at face value, his fault was only that he saw too late. And…in either life, there was a bond between us. I can’t change that either."

"What was he like? The Avahn from this remade world?"

"Much the same." Ileaha paced about Medair, glancing at the tub of water which had not yet been removed from the room. "In both cases, Avahn turned somersaults to avoid winning Illukar’s approval. There were many different incidents, but at core he is the same person. It is on an errand of his that I am here."

"Yes?" Medair was surprised. "He’s conscious again?"

"He drifts in and out. One of Sedesten’s students is tending him, so there is little chance of a further decline." Ileaha found Medair’s satchel and picked it up. "He was most insistent I see to you."

Ileaha wouldn’t elaborate further, simply leading a weary and reluctant Medair out of her room and up a flight of stairs to the third level of the house, a place she hadn’t been before.

"You are not very different, either," Ileaha said, opening a heavy door of near-black wood. "I have been hoping for this in both my memories." She stepped aside to allow Medair to look into the room.

The covering on the bed immediately captured attention. If someone had taken a dozen armfuls of dragonflies and dropped them onto a mossy hill, it would have something of the same effect. Thousands of embroidered insects seethed together in the centre of the spread and dripped down its sides to hover above the floor. They were delicately rendered in pale, shimmering colours, which saved the bed from overwhelming the rest of the room.

A wide, flat bowl of translucent porcelain, beautiful for the extreme perfection of its proportions, was set upon a black table to her left. It was filled with water, with a scattering of rose petals on the still surface. White screens were set before sun-filled doors of glass, each panel glowing with light so that every fleck in the material was clearly outlined. Two pens had been placed neatly on a block of heavy paper sitting in the exact centre of an ebony writing desk. The room was spare and balanced and inexpressibly Illukar, in a way which made Medair feel his absence acutely.

Ileaha crossed to the chair before the writing desk and set Medair’s satchel in its lap. The movement had an air of confirmation and finality about it, as if Ileaha was declaring a homecoming. Medair walked into the room far less certainly, feeling stupidly shy.

"You are wanting to sleep, I know," Ileaha said, and left her, closing the door firmly. The air of light conspiracy was unexpected, especially when Ileaha had been so furiously wounded that very morning. It felt like decades ago, but the sun was not far past midday.

The depth of Ileaha’s hurt, and how much of her apparent recovery was merely brave show, was difficult to judge. Medair had not missed the way she had altered course when speaking of Avahn, and her departure felt abrupt. But it was apparently Avahn who had sent her. Could she believe Ileaha had simply chosen to accept and move on? The very thing Medair had struggled so long to achieve. She supposed the important thing was to make the attempt.

Too tired to speculate further, Medair crossed to the bed and sat down. She felt out of place, but pushed the uneasiness aside. Sleep would dull the edge of some of her doubts, and if she was to find any way to help, to think of some solution, she needed rest to clear her mind.

There were tiny blue smudges on the very outer edges of Illukar’s eyelids. Medair lay staring at them, trying to remember if they had always been there. They might be a symptom of fatigue, or something every Ibisian had, and she had never noticed because she’d never before had the occasion or the desire to study the details of a sleeping Ibisian’s face.

It was still the same afternoon, though the angle of the sunlight suggested it was closing in on evening. She’d woken listening to his steady breathing and found him lying next to her, arranged on his side in a position loosely symmetrical to her own. The scratch down his cheek looked older, though it would be a long time before it faded completely. He was dressed in linen, as if he had meant to go out and only stopped for a short rest which weariness had prolonged. That mass of pale hair shone in two neat braids, and he smelled very clean. Quite captivating.

Medair was taking the opportunity to enjoy him, to examine each quirk of his delicate brows and pale lashes, and these little smudges which she’d never looked hard enough to notice before. He was such a beautiful man, and she supposed that was part of the reason she had been drawn to him, along with his intelligence and fine sense of courtesy. But she had fallen in love with him for his smile, and most especially for the tale he had told her of Ourvette’s Lake, because he had found his own family’s pride amusing.