You can't hide your lyin' eyes
And your smile is a thin disguise
I thought by now you'd realize
There ain't no way to hide your lyin eyes
~Lyin' Eyes-The Eagles~
When the days are dark and there is nothing but strife, it is often repeated like a mantra the words and this too shall pass. It is a comfort during those times, staring straight ahead at the light at the end of the tunnel, knowing that you will come to it if you just keep believing and keep reaching for it.
But those words still ring true for those who are caught up in the rapturous haze of love and contentment.
Khadgar, Cordana, and their beautiful son were so blissfully happy. Their motivation to focus on the mission was gone, replaced by the wonderment of watching Khaidric grow. He was two months old, still a tiny, dependent baby, when Khadgar realized that their idyllic life could not continue.
There was war on the horizon. Gul'Dan had not put his plans on hold to please the little family of the Archmage. Their happy little bubble had to be burst.
"Our work must continue, Cordana," he said rather sadly one evening as they sat together by the fireplace in the library of the Tower.
"I know this, Khadgar," she said.
"Will you be at my side, or have you decided to give up your days as a Warden of the Enclave to raise Khaidric?"
She was reflective. "The life of a Warden is all I know, and I still feel I must continue this mission with you and see it through to completion."
He smiled at her. "I am so glad to hear it. But I do not want Khaidric here at the Tower when we are working. I think you understand."
Her heart seemed to clench up and skip a beat. "I cannot bear to have him away from me, Khadgar."
"I know my love, but what we do here is not something I wish him to be exposed to. My wards are excellent but I will not trust anything 100% when it comes to his well being. If you are not comfortable with him away from you, I will understand and ask Jaaral to assist me once more."
She shifted her position and lay back against him, Khaidric sleeping on her chest.
"Toriona will look after him," Cordana said sadly, stroking the little head. "But I must go and see him to feed him."
The Archmage nodded. "I know it is hard my love. I do not wish him away from me either but this is the safest way for us to continue our work. We will begin with Garona I believe. She has the most to offer at this time. Maiev can wait."
Cordana nodded and was quiet. Khadgar knew that she was very unhappy at having to leave Khaidric in someone else's care, even her friend's. Part of him wished that she would have chosen to take up the role as their son's mother completely, and allow someone else to do the dirty work. But Cordana was loyal and proud, and she did not wish to have a failure on her roster. She would give her all to him as she always had, and once the day came to a close, she would once more take up the role she had come to cherish more than any other.
"I am sorry my love," he said. "I need you to know that it is not a failure on your part should you decide you would rather stay with Khaidric!"
"Thank you, Khadgar," she responded. "But I must see this through."
Khadgar decided they would only work for a few hours a day. It was more important to him to spend time with his wife and his son, than to study the same old tomes he had done for most of his life. His tomes would always be there, likewise magic, but Khaidric would only be a baby for a short time and he meant to enjoy every moment of his dream come true.
Cordana was an excellent mother. The Archmage had worried, during the early months of her pregnancy, that she would not enjoy the role and be unable to give the little guy all of her heart. He was pleased when she seemed to bond with him before his birth, but now that he had seen her give all of herself to caring for him, he could not have asked for a better outcome. She was everything and more that he could have wished for in the mother of his child. To Khadgar, Cordana was, in a word, perfection in every way.
The rest of that evening Cordana was very quiet. She held onto Khaidric and would not put him down. She fed him longer than usual, took him into the bath barrel with her, then lay curled up in the bed with the baby beside her.
"Cordana," said Khadgar gently. "I think I would rather have Jaaral assist me."
She frowned at him, a strange expression on her face. "You find my attachment to my son a weakness! I am not weak, Khadgar! I will carry out my duties as expected."
She had felt an unidentifiable aggression inside her lately and it made her even more upset. Little things her mate said to her set her off and gave her a feeling of agitation. Her ire was always up, and more often than not she just wanted him to be quiet and leave her be. Cordana could not understand what was making her feel this way, but it overrode her usual senses and became all she could feel at times.
Her current agitation sat like a hard ball inside her, much like the fear she had felt when Maiev had infiltrated her position. What did Khadgar want from her? He wanted a mother for his child, and she filled that role. He wanted a wife, and she filled that role also. He wanted an assistant, a protector, and she was that to him as well. Now he would place guilt on her, because she showed that it hurt her to know she would be away from her son? This fact made her mate want to replace her?
Her eyes dulled and she gave him a withering look, her chest and lips tight.
Khadgar was puzzled. He knelt on the floor and stroked Khaidric's head and caressed Cordana's cheek. "My love, you do not need to be upset by this! Your heart is with our baby as it should be. Jaaral and I will manage!"
"I will not let you disgrace me," she said flatly.
"What? How could you think such a thing?"
He placed his fingers beneath her chin and turned her face up to him. "You are tired, Cordana. You are not yourself at this time. Please rest and I will look after Khaidric."
The tenderness and kindness in his voice should have been soothing to her, but instead it angered Cordana. Khadgar moved to pick the little boy up but she pushed his hand away. "Leave him alone!" Her voice was like a razor, cutting into him. She had never spoken to him that way, and he had, in truth, never heard her so angry.
Khadgar blinked in surprise. What had gotten into her? Cordana's eyes were once again softly glowing as they always did even though she did not look at him. He rose and stepped back without a word and left her and their son to sleep.
The Warden was edgy and irritated the following morning. Khadgar began his day with the puzzle of the transportation magic. He was still unable to cast portals or teleport anywhere. On his test runs he had to take a mage with him to return them home. He was confounded by the problem and wished he could concentrate solely on that until it was solved, but there was too much else to be done and he could not indulge himself. Cordana failed to understand why he would begin work on the one project that she could provide him no assistance for. All she could do was stand there and observe. It bored her. This puzzled her also. Had not most of her time with Khadgar been spent in stealth simply watching over him? Why did this now irritate her? Was it because of Khaidric?
Cordana had brought Khaidric to Toriona, who was beside herself with delight at being able to look after the little one.
"I will return to feed him as often as possible," the Warden said.
"He will be just fine, Cordana!" reassured Toriona. "I will hold him just as you do. I have mountains of paperwork to deal with and he will be right there with me. Come see him whenever you like."
Cordana had not been happy with any of it, but returned to the Tower to assist her mate. She looked at Maiev sitting in her arcane prison. Her former sister looked straight at her and stood at the wall, her hands pressed to the edge. Cordana did not realize she had begun walking towards her until Khadgar called her name.
"Cordana! Where are you going?"
She stopped and turned back to him. "I am not going anywhere," she stated, then realized she had wandered several feet away from him towards Maiev.
"How is Maiev able to see me?" she asked. "You told Jarrod they were in a pocket dimension."
"It is a prison, Cordana. Not a suite in the King's palace. They are relocated to the dimension three times a day for humane purposes but they do not get to live there, no."
She gave him an icy look. "So you lied to Jarrod."
"I did not lie. I merely did not give him the exacting details of the situation."
"A lie of omission is still a lie, Khadgar," said Cordana unhappily.
He did not respond to her. He understood she was torn between two worlds, and it aggravated and upset her, so he did not try and talk reason into her. There was no point.
With the Ogre tome floating in front of him, Khadgar began a new ritual circle. Cordana watched, disinterestedly.
She felt eyes on her.
"Cordana."
She turned. There was a sound barrier on the prisons and there was no way either Maiev or Garona could have called her name.
"Ask him how he saved your life."
Maiev was standing quietly, staring at her, not moving. With surprise she realized that Garona was doing the same. It had to be them. There was no one else around.
"Do it."
Cordana turned back to Khadgar. Why did she care what two insane and corrupted prisoners had to say? If it was indeed them speaking to her. Perhaps it was her own unhappy mind.
Cordana felt strange, her vision blurring and her mind suddenly shutting off, confusing her for a moment. It felt as though for a heartbeat, she had suffered amnesia and forgotten where she was and what she was doing.
"Do you want to know the truth?"
The voice was not coming from the prisons or from outside herself. It came from inside her mind, like a form of telepathy. Shocked, she turned and looked at the prisoners, then turned back, the strange haze on her mind returning.
"Cordana?" asked Khadgar. "Are you alright my love?"
She was staring at him fixedly, looking but not seeing. He walked to her and placed his hands on her shoulders. "Cordana!"
Her eyes focused on him. "How did you save me, Khadgar?" she asked.
He frowned. "Save you? I am not sure I understand what you are asking."
"When Khaidric was born and I nearly died. You could not teleport or create portals."
"I did create a portal and jumped us through it and hoped that we would land in a safe place which we did, thankfully."
"He lies, he lies!"
"It could have been horde territory," she said.
"Yes, it could have been," answered Khadgar. "Why all the questions about this now, Cordana?"
"You would not have risked my life and Khaidric's for any chance that we could have ended up in hostile territory. You were certain it would be a friendly landing. How did you do it, Khadgar? And why can you not repeat it now that you are at the Tower?"
He pulled her into an embrace. "You do not wish to hear the details of boring portal magic my dear. Why does it matter, since you and Khaidric are safe and healthy!"
"Make him show you!"
"Show me how you did it," she said.
"We have much to do Cordana, I do not have time to teach you about portal magic."
She felt her chest tighten. "I do not wish to learn it. Repeat what you did that day. Show me."
Khadgar kissed her on her forehead. "You are being very odd my love," he said. "Perhaps you are missing Khaidric and you should go and see him. Today we will not work with Garona. I will continue to try and decipher this transportation situation. You go ahead and see to our son."
"He lied to Jarrod and he is lying to you too!"
"Why work on something you already deciphered? Why are you evading the question, Archmage?" Cordana asked rather coldly.
"I am not evading anything. There is nothing to tell my dear. We were very lucky that day, and I for one am grateful for it. I would think that you would be also."
"You are not telling me everything, Khadgar," Cordana said.
Khadgar sighed. No one had been there but the two of them the day Khaidric was born. He did not like the fact that his wife seemed suspicious of him. He liked it even less that there had been no one else there to mention anything to her. Where was all of this coming from? Did she know more than she let on? And if so, how? Should he simply tell her and make light of it, or continue protesting his innocence? There was no way she could know about his involvement with the Fel energy. It had been an emergency, he had had no choice.
Khadgar would have had no problem going head to head with the Council of Six on anything he and they disagreed on. In fact, he prided himself on his open minded knowledge and trying to force them to see better ways of doing things. He didn't care when they looked at him askance, or told him he was dangerous and reckless. Their opinion of him mattered not in the slightest.
But hers did.
He looked at Cordana, her dusky skin and her violet hair, the wonderful sensuous lips that would curve into a smile when she saw him or beheld their beautiful son. She was his love, his light, his life. To see disappointment in her eyes would be terrible to him. He couldn't risk telling her, for fear that it would change her opinion of him, that it would make him lesser in her eyes in some way. The Wardens were known for their disdain of magic. Most of them shunned the arcane and all of them loathed and despised the Fel. Although his Cordana was open minded about arcane magic he knew she would not approve of what he had done.
Khadgar couldn't bear it.
"My love," he said gently. "Your life was saved through luck and chance, nothing more. I was desperate and had to take that risk of jumping an unpredictable portal. I would have fought off the entire horde if I had to, to save you and Khaidric. Let it go, Cordana. It was a frightening situation for me and I would rather not remember it."
Cordana's love for him, and her faith and trust told her that he was speaking the truth. But the other part of her, the part that felt something wasn't quite right, the part that heard the whispers in her mind, felt that he was being dishonest and she could not understand why. She let him kiss her, and she removed the encounter suit.
"I will go and feed Khaidric," she said, heading for the portal, glad the haze on her mind had gone and her vision had returned to normal.
Khadgar watched her go, then turned to the prisoners. They were both sitting facing him...smiling.