James Wyatt: Dragon war

"That's hard for me to imagine," Ashara said. "The plan belonged to Kelas-no one else there had the initiative or the intelligence to pull it together."

"You're probably right. Even so, knowing Kelas, there were probably other pieces of the plan, pieces we don't know about, that might have enough momentum to keep moving without him."

Cart got to his feet. "I suppose I was being foolish to think I could just walk away from all that."

"You can," Ashara said, standing beside him and taking his arm. "You're a free man."

"I'm not asking you to come with me," Aunn said. "I really don't know what I'd do with you."

"I'll take care of myself." Cart turned to Ashara. "And freedom doesn't mean running away from responsibility. I played a part in Kelas's plans because I thought I had a duty to help and obey Haldren. Now I have a duty to help make it right."

Aunn smiled at the memory of walking with Gaven and Cart in Whitecliff, what seemed like years ago and worlds away. He had just started to see the mind behind Gaven's distracted appearance, and Gaven observed that Aunn, too, had been concealing his true face. No one had ever seen through him so easily. Cart had shattered the tension, though, by taking pains to point out that he, too, was "really quite complex. Many-layered." It had seemed like a joke at the time.

"I'll be glad to have you along, Cart," he said.

"Will you come as well?" the warforged asked Ashara.

"How can I?" Tears welled in Ashara's eyes. "I've betrayed my family. I'll be excoriated!"

"You'll be in excellent company," Aunn said, nodding toward Gaven.

"True," she said, smiling up at Cart.

"We'd better gather supplies," Cart said. "We have a long journey ahead of us."

Ashara's eyes widened, and her mouth spread slowly into a grin. "Not necessarily." Her gaze drifted to the upper rim of the canyon, the area where Aunn had fought Kelas.

"The circle!" Aunn said. The queen's party had used a ritual circle to transport themselves back to Fairhaven.

"Exactly," Ashara said. "Working together, I'm sure we can activate it again."

"Where will we appear?" Cart asked. "And how do we stay hidden?"

"Ah, that's where my plan gets devious." Aunn's face melted away, passing quickly through the blank gray of his natural face before it became the smiling visage of Kelas ir'Darren.

Rienne stood looking down over the airship's railing as the sun descended toward the green and gold expanse of the Towering Wood. The Aundairian army kept growing as more squads and companies trickled in from the ruins of Varna and the surrounding forest. They stood at attention, waiting for the command to march, but in their stillness she sensed an energy, a drive that would carry them forward to overwhelm the Eldeen Reaches.

The Reaches had been part of Aundair once, and the loss of their fertile farmlands and vast forests during the war was a hard blow. But with Thrane to the east and Breland to the south, Aundair couldn't mount a concentrated effort to take them back while the Last War still raged. Haldren ir'Brassek, the former general who had helped Gaven escape from Dreadhold, had earned his place in that prison by refusing to let the war end, continuing his campaign in the Reaches in violation of the Treaty of Thronehold-that, and his brutal treatment of prisoners and civilians, in defiance of every convention of war.

With the war over and after a few years passed to rebuild its military strength, Aundair could manage a more concentrated effort to retake the Reaches-at least until the other nations became involved and threatened its other borders again. Then Khorvaire would be back in the full heat of war, and what would Aundair have gained? Already, in their travels across Aundair, Rienne and Jordhan had heard rumors that Brelish troops were massing in the south, prepared to help defend the Reaches from Aundair's aggression.

The difference, Rienne supposed, was the barbarian horde sweeping into the Reaches from the west. It was Aundair's pretense for the invasion-Aundair couldn't rely on Reacher forces to fight back the barbarians, so it had to protect its borders with its own army, before the barbarians started pillaging Aundairian lands. It was a thin excuse to begin with, and the ruins of Varna proved that Aundair took the business of retaking the Reaches far more seriously than it did the barbarian threat.

And that, Rienne feared, was Aundair's deadly mistake.

Heavy footfalls on the deck stirred her from her thoughts. For a moment she dreamed that it was Gaven stepping up behind her, ready to enfold her in his arms. But it was Jordhan's voice that asked, "What's our course from here, Lady Alastra?"

She turned around and tried to smile at him. "I'm not sure," she said.

"Something tells me Gaven is somewhere south of here, if those storms were any indication." Jordhan's smile seemed forced as well. "Shall we head that way and look for him?"

Rienne sighed and turned back to the railing, gazing across Lake Galifar to the hazy silhouettes of the distant Blackcap Mountains. Jordhan's question had said a great deal, and his face had told her more. They had sighted two great storms in the last days of their journey west, both forming somewhere on the Aundairian side of the lake, near those mountains. The storms appeared in clear skies and flashed with lightning. The second one, though, had swept across the lake and crashed into the city, leaving it in ruins. Rienne didn't want to believe that Gaven was responsible for demolishing the city, for Aundair or any other cause. Perhaps the storm was some new weapon of Aundair, nothing to do with Gaven at all.

More than three weeks had passed since she last saw Gaven, and not an hour had gone by without some thought of him surfacing in her mind and pricking at her heart. But she had chosen to pursue her own destiny, whether that course brought her back with Gaven or not. She wouldn't veer from that path now.

"No," she said. "We'll continue west. Gaven will have to find us."

Evening found Rienne back at the railing, looking down at the farmland drifting along beneath them. She heard Jordhan's footsteps on the deck behind her and her grip tightened on the rail.

"We need to talk," Jordhan said, coming to stand behind her. Rienne took a breath and tried to brace herself for what was coming next.

Things with Jordhan were different than they had been before, when Gaven was in Dreadhold. Gaven had said, when they met Jordhan again in Sharavacion, that he always expected Jordhan to start courting Rienne as soon as Gaven was out of the way. He might have, if the circumstances of Gaven's arrest had been different. As it was, spending time together was a painful reminder of what had happened, and Gaven was always there, a haunting presence that squelched any feelings that might otherwise have blossomed between them.

On their journey to Argonnessen together, Gaven was a physical presence with them, and Jordhan kept his distance. But Gaven was gone again-dead, for all they knew. Rienne had chosen not to look for him, and that seemed to give Jordhan permission to show his feelings a little more openly. He held her gaze just a moment too long, stood half a step too close, touched her elbow or her shoulder as they spoke.

Jordhan was the best of friends, the only person-other than Gaven-she had ever been able to share her deepest thoughts and dreams with. She loved him. She would have been devastated to lose his friendship, but there was no passion in her feelings for him. But she didn't want to have to tell him that, to see the hurt in his eyes and watch him slowly drift away. She turned slowly to face him, to hear what he wanted to say.

Jordhan's face was serious, and he put both hands on her shoulders. "Rienne," he said, "you know how much I care about you."