Chapter Thirty-Six: Cliché (The One Where They Fall in Love)
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Isra woke to footsteps. Several metres from the door, walking, she noted immediately. Half a minute. She had learned to push her sleepy mind into clarity years ago, and the transition was seamless. Without looking out the window, she calculated that it was far too late for anyone besides a priest or an assassin. Too still. Her head still resting on her folded arms, Isra didn't move from where she had fallen asleep on Gaffil's desk. She hadn't wanted to stay in the main servants' quarters (where she still officially slept), but Alon's office would have been too obvious. Too desperate, even if it was blatant enough for Alon to have offered it. At least in Gaffil's quarters she could claim that she had been going about her normal duties in case Gaffil really was just missing. The Holy Brothers might even believe her, when they came for her.
Or now, she thought as she recognized a second set of footsteps, these hurrying. Isra slowly straightened in her chair. A faint scuffle sounded, and then the curtains were shoved aside with a shriek.
Showtime.
She raised her eyes to greet death—solemn, remember, serene and shining and perhaps some awe, gratitude—but stopped at the sight before her. General Alon, faintly rumpled (had he just left his lover's arms?), had somehow snared himself a struggling, petulant Dara. "Good evening, general," Isra murmured. Years in the field kept her voice steady, though the surprise hadn't helped her paranoid nerves. She curtseyed, then rose with an arched eyebrow. He liked his acting with a dash of attitude. "This is an interesting time of night for you to visit."
Dara looked mad enough to spit, but she took a second to smirk at Isra. Perhaps Dara thought Isra stupid—or hopelessly naïve—for not lafiting every man who crossed her path? From what Isra had discovered about Dara, the girl didn't exactly think before taking even an illusory opportunity. Briefly, Isra let her expression flicker into something like a sneer. Dara was little more than a feline in heat. Where Geneva even found this girl, let alone the stupidity to trust her?
Alon caught the exchange, and Isra made sure he saw her disgust, faintly expressed though it was. Gaffil had liked the mask; Alon hated it.
"Isn't it more like morning by now?" Alon asked, when neither woman spoke. He smiled a little at Isra. So he didn't like Dara either. Isra decided to like him even more than she had.
"Perhaps it is," she said, glancing out the window. "I hadn't noticed the time."
"Sorry to wake you," he told Isra. He gave Dara a good shake, making her sway like a rag doll. "I was returning from a late meeting when I stumbled upon this one. It was trying to sneak into your rooms."
Isra noted the "your rooms" with a raised eyebrow—perhaps Alon had over-respected Gaffil's claim on her. Dismissing it for later, however, she focused on Dara. "How interesting," she remarked blandly.
"I told you," Dara snarled at Alon. "I work for Gaffil; I have as much right to be here as she does." Apparently, Dara hadn't liked the part where Alon ignored her favourite features—practically on display, had she no shame? no sense of self-preservation?—in favour of manhandling her. And calling her an it. "In fact," Dara said, giving them both a superior smirk, "I have more right. Gaffil's my lover."
Isra tried to imagine it, but found it impossible to both do that and keep a straight face. Gaffil could lafit any number of random girls while Isra wasn't looking, but the idea of him being a lover…. Isra slept in his bed most nights, and even she wouldn't call herself his lover.
Alon laughed outright at the idea. "Your gender really can pick them, Isra," he remarked.
"Haven't you heard?" she replied. "We're just leftovers. Not a lot left in the scrap pile. You'd better let her go before she does something stupid, though." Like try to lie about Gaffil's lovemaking prowess, she thought with a snort.
"I think I could take her," Alon said. He sounded rather like he wanted the opportunity, but he shoved Dara away from him anyway.
"Gaffil will not be happy to hear about—"
Isra quickly grabbed Dara around the shoulder. A too tight squeeze cut off the girl's careless words, and satisfied a little of the violence Dara always inspired in Isra. "I'll take it from here, General," she told him. "Thank you for your concern."
"It was my business," he replied. "We'll talk later."
Isra didn't let her confusion show, but she wondered at his response. Alon's business? "Certainly, sir."
The spy waited until she was sure he had left before turning to Dara. "What in the hells is wrong with you?" she demanded in exasperation.
Dara's eyes flashed. "Excuse me?"
"Do you want this entire world to know whatever you do?"
The other woman's face became sulky, resentful. "Gaffil is not going to be—"
"If you make one more stupid, laughably transparent claim, Dara Veik, I will be most upset." Without fully realizing it, Isra had donned Gaffil's cloak of icy command.
Dara's petulance collapsed under Isra's ego crush like a house of cards. "Gaffil's in the far stables," she muttered, averting her eyes.
First, Isra thought: This stupid chit managed to bring Gaffil's body back before Rafintair could desecrate it? But she had not even finished the thought when Isra realized what Dara had really brought back. Without waiting for further explanation, Isra left for the stables at a dead run. She spared only half a thought to hope Dara would use her brain and follow.
The halls were silent, but Isra knew better than to assume she was unobserved. She started to slow, but then decided to take the chance that no one would care about her on this night. She picked up speed, letting her sandals swish across the floor when they had to.
She didn't have time to miss her shawl, even as the night's chilled air whipped against her face. A live Gaffil was a dizzying renewed factor. If anyone else found out that he was alive before they had time to manipulate the situation—things could get out of control. Out of control would be the only thing worse than vows.
Isra slowed to a walk several metres away from the stables. Straightening her clothes, she winded around the stables and a few surrounding buildings. She found no other spies. When only she could tell how her heart raced, Isra ducked into the mostly empty stables. She made only enough noise for Gaffil to notice.
Something that sounded like her name gargled its way from one of the middle stalls. Frowning, she slowly approached it. Behind her, she heard Dara, who was catching up. "Your highness?" she called.
"Isra?"
Suddenly uncertain, Isra paused before she could see him. What could be on the other side? Shoving it into a box at the back of her mind, Isra entered the stall from which the noise had originated. "What hap—" She stopped.
"Isra."
She froze, horrified by the sight before her. "Oh, my goddess."
Gaffil, but he looked nothing like the dark, powerful, enigmatic prince who had been both terrifying and—everything and nothing she had expected. This man looked like he had been dragged (by Dara, the stupid niftyax) to and dropped in the straw to die. His skin, usually tight and tanned over taunt muscle, was covered in open scabs, lesions, and the start of several boils. When she could force herself to come closer, she saw the clammy sweat and the shudders that clutched his muscles. His eyes, though—glazed, and eerie, and…
Mad, Isra admitted to herself, or near enough to it. Gaffil was staring madness in the face.
She sank to her knees next to him, noting the damage further revealed by the lantern hanging near his face. "Gaffil, you need to tell me what happened," she insisted. When his eyes skittered over her, she frowned. She slapped him just hard enough to hurt. "Gaffil. I don't recognize these symptoms. What did Rafintair use? Do you know?"
His eyes darkened as he regained some form of sanity. "Poison. On his sword. Isra, I can see them, everywhere I look I can—"
"Do you know what kind?" she demanded.
"No. No, I—" He shook his head and balled his right hand in a weak fist. Gaffil's infamous steel will brought him back. "Foreign, as well as I know. Your Kavishka laced his sword with it."
"He isn't my Kavishka," she corrected absently. A sword wound, she thought. If she could find the entry wound, perhaps she could…
Her head jerked up. "The—?" She stared into Gaffil's dark eyes. "The man you were sent to kill—he did this?"
Isra thought: Mujir.
She told Dara: "Get all my medicinal herbs, right by my sleeping area. And find some soft-fibre blankets—you'll have to get those from a linen closet." When Dara lingered, Isra used her most vicious voice to snap, "Now, you stupid girl."
Geneva herself might have flinched; Dara fled without so much as a sulky look.
"That's my girl," Gaffil slurred. "You know she's—"
"I've known what Dara is days before Geneva informed her," Isra dismissed.
"Geneva, huh? Geneva Tal, the one who—"
It wasn't like he would survive to tell anyone. If her mind hadn't been swirling with what she had stumbled upon, Isra might have let Gaffil have his fun. "The Kavishka did this?" she repeated. Her heart crashed against her ribs in terror, in hope, in—ohgoddessgoddessMujir.
"Yes, he only—it's only a scratch, practically," Gaffil muttered.
She found it on his side. "I see it." The wound itself was still bleeding, though very slowly. The skin around it was crusty, deep red, definitely infected. The raw skin made the Mirese symbol, a dancing bear and woman. "Oh, goddess. It's—" She raised her wild eyes to Gaffil's muddled ones. "Is it—it's true. Oh, my—"
Something burned her eyes, and she realized with some amazement that these were tears. Goddess. She had not cried in— But the Kavishka, then, he was real, and— "She has not abandoned us."
Mujir had returned to them, had chosen Her moment at last. The Kavishka—a myth—he was real, and soon… "I have to tell—Geneva, she'll…" Isra didn't even try to stand. She knew her legs wouldn't hold her.
"He was a good fighter."
She had already known that. Gaffil had not killed him, the Kavishka was real. "Yes, I'm sure," she agreed belatedly. The tears tracked down her face, and she wiped them at her chin. She breathed shakily. A prayer—learned when she had regularly spoken only the common tongue—sang through her mind. Glory to the Mother Goddess who will triumph in battles and in the hearts of Her people. We do not doubt You, but wait patiently for Your day of reckoning. So we all say, so say we all.
"There is—" Isra swallowed, and fixed her voice. "I can do nothing for you," she told Gaffil. She met his eyes, and felt honest for the first time since she had been a child. "There is nothing anyone can do for you now. There is no cure for Vengeance."
Gaffil stared at her, but then his eyes hardened. "You believe Rafintair?" he sneered.
"I believe in this," she snapped, jabbing a finger at the Mirese symbol. "You might want to follow my lead for once. He's the one who will kill your brother, since you were stupid enough to get cut."
He reached up and brushed her face. He studied it. "Everything has an antidote, Isra." His hand slid down her body to rest on her leg. "And I don't think you really want to put up with morons for the rest of your…undoubtedly short life."
Isra smiled at him, and acknowledged her loss. The end of a calculated nightmare, an honest challenge. She acknowledged the loss of every indefinable part and parcel of Gaffil Jir—and then let it pass. "There is no mortal antidote for this one," she repeated firmly. She had heard the myth (prophecy), and remembered something of the Sildar's symptoms. "The poison has only started on your body, but soon enough it will move to your mind." Almost gently, she tapped a finger against his forehead. "You won't be able to escape from the things you've done."
"Meaning?" Gaffil Jir had never understood the concept of guilt. The closest he had ever come was his impatience with the emperor, and Rafintair's destructive effect on Na'Lein'yhpaon.
Dara chose that moment to return, interrupting Isra's response. "Here's the blanket," she said, holding it out.
Isra spared her a glance. "You forgot the medicines."
Dara scowled at her, but changed her expression to something vaguely more pleasant when Gaffil looked at her. "I couldn't find them. None of the girls could."
"None of—?" Isra bit back a curse. "They will be in the cabinet by my bed. In Gaffil's quarters. Where I keep them."
"Your Resistance sure can pick them," Gaffil muttered as Dara left in a huff.
Isra's lips tightened. "I doubt Geneva handpicked Dara for anything but her…skills."
She was going to make another remark—quite possibly about Dara's "lover" comment—but Gaffil pinned her with an impatient glare. Isra sighed. How to explain this to Gaffil? "The ghosts of the people you have harmed will be given their opportunity for revenge. I suppose," she eyed him critically, "it will take a nice long time for you to care about that. But in time—a few weeks, maybe a month of their hatred… Death will be the kindest thing they offer you. And then they will have your soul for eternal punishment."
She let her words sink and then settle in the pit of his gut. "Or," she said with a shrug, "it could just be a poison, with some cure that the later stages of your deterioration might hint at. Either way, I've never seen this combination, so any possible attempt will take time."
"But you don't expect to find anything."
It struck her as it sometimes—but very rarely—did that Gaffil trusted her as much as a man like him trusted anyone. If nothing else, he respected her skills, her honesty when a lie would not help her cause. "I think," she said, "that even if there is a cure, I will not find it in time to save you." She smirked. "Even if you trusted Rafintair enough to suppose that he would offer his healer-priests as help."
Gaffil snorted, feverish eyes rolling. "What has Geneva ordered you to do?"
Isra raised an eyebrow. "Geneva is quite pleased with my probable new position." She thought of the dagger hidden under her tunic. "I have some breathing room."
"Give it a week."
"You really overestimate her gratitude, don't you? I have two days."
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Sanar only looked at Kyp when he brought his paxi alongside hers. Dejah had finally agreed to slow their pace for a while. Kyp had apparently decided to try talking again during the break. Sanar had had some time to prepare. She had considered ignoring him, even simply pushing ahead of him until he got the idea. Jaina and Kyp's words—not to mention her own hallucination—however, stayed with her. She let him speak.
"How's your arm?" he started, sliding a look at her. He probably hoped she would think him nonchalant.
She glanced down at her shoulder. "Sore. The wound is closed up, though."
"Good. I can…that is, I'll help you with another healing trance tonight."
"Uh, thanks," she muttered. It had helped, after all. And she had actually slept without seeing Kyp's dream alter-ego.
If it had been Durron.
"I'm the Kavishka."
"Sanar, we need to talk about this."
"Not really," she protested half-heartedly. "Frankly, ignoring it sounds like a pretty good plan to me." She didn't kick her paxi to a canter, however, giving him her resigned acceptance.
"You were pretty upset the other day. Confused—something about Niha. Did you figure it out?"
"Not…" at all "…exactly. I'm kind of trying to just—forget Niha in general."
"I'm—I want to apologize, but I doubt you'd believe me." Kyp twisted his paxi's reins in his hand. "I certainly never intended for you to be dragged into this."
"Well, what did you intend?"
"Nothing," he said firmly. "I mean to—to fulfill my role in Prophecy. I only meant to do the right thing." He smirked. "On my tombstone, I'm sure it will say something about the 'road to hell.'"
Well, Larifx. It was a little harder to hate him when he even cut the sarcastic and confrontational reactions for an apology. She wasn't completely unreasonable. Sometimes.
"I had very little to do with it, really. I didn't notice in time. Kyp did. We're both very lucky that he can do two things at once."
"They set it all up, you know," she said. "Down to…Mujir, everything."
"Like?"
She stared ahead. "It's—well, frankly, it's embarrassing. Just—things. To try to make sure I would get past stuff." She hesitated. "How—how much of it do you think is real?" she asked, not looking at him.
"I'm hoping that it isn't," he told her. For a horrible half-second, she thought he had understood her. "It doesn't make sense to kriff you up just because of me."
Her breath came out in a whoosh. "That wasn't what I meant," she admitted, pushing out the words before she could realize what she was saying. "I meant—how much of the stuff on your side do you think they planned?"
"My side?" he repeated blankly. "You mean, did a cosmic force pick me out of a billion beings, and arrange my life precisely? Ensure that Exar Kun would possess me, and I would kill your father, and die, but have a conveniently dying clone? Even if there was, it doesn't matter. It wouldn't make it less real."
"No," she croaked. "Don't you…doesn't it bother you that they made you love me? That it isn't real?"
He grabbed her reins, halting both paxis. Pins poked around under her skin as the others passed them, staring, but she couldn't look away.
When he finally spoke, Durron was practically snarling. "You're still not listening. We went over this, just yesterday. Give me some Force-damned credit, Sanar Klis. For the love of— Give me the benefit of the doubt. I love you. Nothing made that happen—nothing, Sanar," he repeated, cutting off her protest. "I can tell the difference, you know. I felt it off and on when I came back, and it's another voice in the back of my head since we came to this planet. I know the difference between loving you and going along with Prophecy. It is the only thing real for me in this mess."
She tore her eyes away so he wouldn't notice the moisture that had sprung to them. With an impatient huff, Kyp kicked his paxi to catch up with the others. For a long moment, she couldn't move. Her mind, initially stunned to a standstill, began to swarm with a thousand moments, with Jaina and Kyp and Devnos and Niha's words.
And her lover, now even her lover's words—
"I had very little to do with it, really. I didn't notice in time. Kyp did."
So little made sense, and yet—
And yet…for the first time in too long…Sanar felt like she might be able to listen to some of the answers. Like they might get through this.
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Gaffil's breathing rasped in the night. Dara had brought Isra's herbs an hour before. When she had been assured that Gaffil would not recover, the younger spy had left. Probably to raid Gaffil's quarters for imagined riches, or to appeal to another kryntath for comfort and safety.
Isra stayed. The Holy Brothers would never think to look for her in the stables. And staying felt right. If anyone should see Gaffil Jir's death, she thought she was the right one. Who knew him better?
"I got your letter." She might have believed his smug, wicked grin if his eyes hadn't been so bright, and his skin so pale.
She wiped his brow with a wet cloth. "I know," she replied simply. In the past hour she had seen Gaffil lash out for old offences, and once even forget that they were not both healthy and about to turn to bed. She was becoming used to his hallucination swings.
"I burned it."
"I expected you would."
His hands moved, twined over her. She stared at him, her breath in her throat. "You played him too well for your own good."
"It seems so." She couldn't breathe. His fingers—up now in her hair, back down to her neck. This had never been his way. Hers, either, for that matter.
"Well." He rapped his knuckles against her breast bone. It could have been his motor functions coming under attack.
She batted his hand away. "Well?"
"You'll be fine."
That was more Gaffil. Using some pretence of tenderness to reveal the extent of his cruelty.
Isra gave him her own flat, cruel look. "Better than you," she pointed out. She had been considering the dagger again; Isra quite purposely forgot about it.
"You know, what you did—really stupid. I expected better of you. I always knew the truth. You never meant anything real."
And this, she thought—this was Gaffil, too, sometimes. Making her laugh just when she hated him more than ever. "I had to make sure."
"So you didn't really forget?" he asked, only a little sceptically.
"Of course not." Isra knew the score. "You just assumed."
"Good. I'd be very displeased if you turned out to be a cliché."
"Me, too," she retorted dryly.
"Alon should be useful, don't you think?" Gaffil flinched away from something only he could see, then continued. "He isn't Rafintair, of course, but the highest ranking Na'Lein general shouldn't be too much of a disappointment." He almost smiled when he saw her expression. "He already knows. It would have been…such a waste."
She couldn't swallow, her throat too tight and her mouth too dry. "Yes," she managed to say. Her voice didn't sound anything like her. "I imagine he will do."
"You'd still be better off for giving me the antidote."
"Perhaps," she said with a shrug. "But more likely I would have to kill Dara before she figured out how to prepare poison."
He started to say something, but then his body seized and convulsed. Before her eyes the boils became worse, and the inflamed colour spread across his skin. She flinched, but did not look away. Instead, she caught a flailing hand and held it tight between both of hers. It jerked several times before stilling.
"I'm gonna destroy him," Gaffil slurred angrily. "Gonna destroy Rafintair, I will, I'm the only one who—"
"No, you won't." She patted his hand, feeling strangely tender. "The Kavishka will kill you both."
The prince's eyes blazed, furious and mad, and his hand tried to crush hers. "I will," he swore, nearly gnashing his teeth. "I will destroy him."
At first she thought him finally, truly mad from the Sildar. Coherent, in a manner, but lost—and so perhaps she had not known Gaffil Jir as well as she had thought, if the Sildar had affected him so quickly. But then he dragged her down beside him so that their eyes were level. "And you're going to make sure of it."
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Gaffil Jir died at dawn.
After wiping her dagger clean of blood, Isra sheathed it. She closed the prince's eyes using a cloth to protect her hand from the infected skin. Seconds after his last strangled breath, Gaffil's sword wound reopened and wept black gunk. Poison. She was quite certain that it would follow him into the afterlife.
She stood and brushed her clothing free of straw. Some of her hair had escaped her scarf—the one Gaffil had given her, in fact. She fixed her hair, and straightened the stone-coloured fabric. She focused her eyes forward as she exited the stables.
Dara was in Gaffil's former quarters, searching for non-existent jewels. She nearly shrieked, and definitely jumped, when Isra strode through the door. "Isra," she stumbled. "I—I was—is he dead?"
Isra raised an eyebrow. "Yes." She raked her eyes over the familiar room, the familiar objects and sights. "I assume by now you have found a new situation." It was not a question; Isra didn't care.
Dara stared at her. Perhaps, the spy considered, Geneva had told her both to replace (and kill) Isra, and to turn to Isra whenever she ran into trouble. "I…yes," the less experienced one said, sounding uncertain.
"You can reach me in General Alon's quarters. If you absolutely must." In other words, Don't even think about it unless the sky explodes with Holy Brothers. And then Isra probably wouldn't be able to help anyway.
Dara caught the truth of the situation. "Uh huh."
"Gaffil is still in the stables. In three hours, you will be sent to clean them out, at which time you will discover his corpse. Rafintair won't try to find out how it happened if you're discrete."
"You're sure?"
Isra's face turned down in a glare. "You should leave now. Too many people already know you've been here. If you try to use my name or connections, don't expect to live long."
Dara shuddered and turned to leave.
"And Dara." The girl stopped, but didn't turn around. "I could have killed you, just the way you planned to do to me." Now Dara did turn around, her eyes wide with panic. "I can still change my mind."
"Geneva will—"
"—kill you if you say her name in this place again, and offer you no help when you fail at the task she gave you." Isra nodded to the door. "Now go."
Dara left. Isra prepared herself for her next role.