“Precisely. It’s never been done.” She turned to us suddenly, and we both flinched at the raw misery in her face. “Deka… I think she’s preparing to die.”
Deka went to her at once, ever the loving brother, taking her elbow. She leaned on him with such utter trust that I felt unexpected guilt. Had she come seeking us for comfort that night, only to find us comforting one another, uninterested in her? What had she felt, watching us make love while she stood alone, friendless, hopeless?
For just an instant, I saw her again at the window, stock-still, her hands behind her back. I saw Itempas gazing at the horizon, stock-still, too proud to let his loneliness show.
I went to them and reached for her, hesitating only at the last moment. But I had not stopped loving her, either. So I laid a hand on her shoulder. She started and lifted her head to look at me, her eyes bright with unshed tears. They searched mine, seeking—what? Forgiveness? I wasn’t certain I had that in me to give. But regret—yes, that I had.
Naturally, I could not let such a powerful moment pass without a joke. “And here I thought I had problem parents.” It wasn’t a very good joke.
She chuckled, blinking quickly against the tears and trying to compose herself. “Sometimes I wish I still wanted to kill her.” It was a better joke, or would have been if there had been a grain of truth in it. I smiled anyway, though uncomfortably. Deka did not smile at either joke—but then Remath had no interest in him, and he probably did want to kill her.
It seemed Deka was thinking along the same lines. “If she steps down in favor of you,” he said, all seriousness, “you will have to exile her.”
Shahar flinched, staring at him. “What?”
He sighed. “No beast can function with two heads. To have two Arameri palaces, two Arameri rulers…” He shook his head. “If you cannot see the potential danger in that, Shahar, you aren’t the sister I remember.”
She was, and she could. I saw her expression harden as she understood. She turned away from us, going back to the window and folding her arms across her breasts. “I’m surprised you’ve suggested only exile. I would have expected a more permanent solution from you, Brother.”
He shrugged. “Mother doubtless expects something along those lines herself. She’s not a fool, and she’s trained you well.” He paused. “If you didn’t love her, I would suggest it. But under the circumstances…”
She laughed once, harshly. “Yes. Love. So inconvenient.”
She turned then, looking at both of us, and suddenly I tensed again, because I knew that look. I had worn it too many times, in too many shapes, not to recognize it on another being. She was up to no good.
Yet when she focused on me, the look softened. “Sieh,” she said. “Are we friends again?”
Lie. The thought came to me so strongly that for an instant I thought it was not my own. Deka, perhaps, sending his words into my mind as gods could. But I knew the flavor of my own thoughts, and this had the particular bitter suspicion that came of years spent with this mad family and aeons of life amid my own madder one. She wanted the truth, and the truth would hurt her. And she was too powerful now, too dangerous, for me to hurt with impunity.
For the sake of what we’d once had, however, she deserved the truth, painful or not.
“No,” I said. I spoke softly, as if that would ease the blow. She stiffened, and I sighed. “I can’t trust you, Shahar. I need to trust the people I call friend.” I paused. “But I understand why you betrayed me. Perhaps I would even have made the same choice, in your position; I don’t know. I’m not angry about it anymore. I can’t be, given the result.”
And then I did something stupid. I looked at Deka and let my love for him show. He blinked, surprised, and I added insult to injury by smiling. It would hurt so much, leaving him, but he did not need an old man for a lover. Such things mattered for mortals. I would do the mature thing, preserve my dignity, and step aside before our relationship grew too awkward.
I have always been a selfish fool. I thought only of myself in that moment, when I should have thought of protecting him.
Shahar’s face went utterly blank. It was as though someone had thrust a knife into her and cut out her soul, leaving only a cold and implacable statue in her place. But it was not empty, this statue. Anger had filled its hollows.
“I see,” she said. “Very well. If you cannot trust me, then I can hardly allow myself to trust you, can I?” Her eyes flicked over to Deka, still cold. “That puts me in a difficult position, Brother.”