Blue fire blazed up and whirled around her, and the winds and thunders backed off. Aerin gave Gonturan an experimental swoop, and she sang, a shrill grim note, and the shards of red and black and claws of yellow and white disappeared into shadows and became a floor and five red walls and a ceiling overhead with things painted on it, fell things of red and black, with fangs and yellow claws.
And at the far end of the chamber stood a man dressed in white, with a red sword girt at his side, and she knew him at once, for she had seen his face often enough in her mirror.
She opened her mouth, but no words came out. He laughed, her own laugh, but greater, deeper, with terrible echoes that made tangled harmonies, and those harmonies found the places in her own mind that she had never looked into, that by their existence had long frightened her; that she had hoped always to be able to ignore. The air reeled over her in thick waves, and Gonturan’s blue fire dimmed and flickered as her hand trembled.
“Well met, sister’s daughter,” he said. His voice was low and soft and courteous; a thoughtful, philosophical, wise, and kindly voice, a voice anyone might trust; a voice nothing like Aerin’s own.
“Not well met,” Aerin said at last in a strangled voice, which seemed to cut ugly holes in the air currents between them, which destroyed the harmonies that still hummed in her mind; but by the sound of her own voice she felt she had lost something treasured and beautiful that might have forever been hers. “Not well met. You killed my mother and you would kill my people and my country.”
He raised his shoulders, and his white robe rippled and fell in long graceful folds that glinted softly, like the petals of spring flowers. His hazel eyes blinked gently at her; her own eyes, but larger and set more deeply beneath a higher brow. “And why, my dear, should you care? You never met your mother, so you cannot miss her. I may have done you a favor; many daughters would be glad to have escaped the tender ministrations of their mothers.
“And when has your land ever cared for you?” His voice sank lower yet, purring, and he smiled Aerin’s own smile. “They call you witch’s daughter—and so you are, and more, for your mother might have been given the mage mark had she not fled too soon—and they should revere you for it. But in their small vicious way they choose to revile you.
“Your father is kind—why should he not be? You have never been any trouble—you have never demanded your rightful place as his daughter and his only child; and lately you have been of some small use, slaying dragons, so that he need not send out his valuable men on so inglorious a task. You have kept to the shadows, and he has let you stay there, and has done nothing to deny his people’s voices when they whisper, witchwoman’s daughter.
“And Tor?” He chuckled. “Honest Tor. He loves you, you know. You know that. So does everyone. They all say that you are your mother’s daughter—I think even the worthy Arlbeth wonders just a little, sometimes—and your mother was a witch; never forget that. Tor himself is, of course, not in a position to do much thinking about this. And as you are your mother’s daughter, even when you do not remember it ... ” He smiled her smile at her again, but it seemed very full of teeth.
“No,” said Aerin; it was almost a shriek. Gonturan wavered in her hand.
“But yes. And think of who accompanied you to this fateful meeting. Do you come with your father’s finest cavalry? Do you come at least with a troop of well-meaning if inexperienced men? Why, no—you come without even the lowliest Damarian foot soldier, without even a ragged village brat to shine your boots. You come at all only because you escaped, like a prisoner, from the City which ought to be yours to command. You come draggle-tailed, with wild beasts of the hills, riding an old lame horse who should have been mercifully killed years ago.” He seemed to have some trouble saying the word “mercifully”: it was as if his teeth got in his way.
Aerin shook her head dumbly. His words buzzed in her ears like insects waiting to sting her; and the terrible harmonies of his laugh bit deeper into her each time she moved. If only her chest didn’t itch so; it was hard to concentrate on anything through the itching; it was worse even than the headache. He was talking about Talat, poor patient Talat, waiting for her while his saddle galled him; grey horses often had oversensitive skin. If she had been born a horse she would undoubtedly have been grey. Her chest felt like it no longer had skin on it at all; perhaps it was being torn by those red-and-black creatures with the claws. The low murmuring buzzing voice went on.
“And Luthe.” The voice paused a moment. “I knew Luthe very well once.” Even through the gentle gracious melody of that voice she heard the malice behind it when it spoke Luthe’s name; she was only too well aware of malice, for it was eating a hole in her breastbone now. Furthermore, it was her own voice she listened to, for all its beauty, and she knew, when it roughened, where the roughness came from. “Luthe, who doesn’t dare leave his mountain any more. Little Luthe, never one of Goriolo’s favorite pupils, for he was always a little slow—although he sometimes disguised this rather cleverly, I must admit, with his own unique style of obstinacy.”
Do you think I like sending a child to a doom like this, one I know I cannot myself face? It was as though she were hearing the words for the first time, so loudly did they crash in her ears; Luthe’s voice was not mellifluous, like her red-haired uncle’s; Luthe’s voice was raw and angry, like the spot on her chest.
“Luthe, and his games with children, for children’s games were as much as he was capable—”
“Now that,” Aerin said quite clearly and calmly, “is nonsense. If you can do no better than cheap insults, then the prophecy over-estimates you. I shall tell Luthe that he could have met you himself.”
“The prophecy!” howled Agsded; and he seemed to grow till he towered over her, his robes billowing, his hair red as fire; and dimly Aerin thought. His hair is the color mine used to be before Maur burned most of it off. My hair isn’t that color any more.
Agsded reached for his sword, and Aerin raised Gonturan again and shook her, and blue fire ran down her edge and over Aerin’s hand and wrist, and onto the floor; and where it touched, cracks appeared, and ran in tiny rays in all directions. “You may be right about Tor and my father,” Aerin went on conversationally. “You may even be right about me. But you are wrong about Luthe.”