The Destroyer Goddess Read online

  "Sirana," he said softly, lowering his face to hers. "We may even find it easy, after all."

  "Perhaps you should just use my name," she murmured against his mouth.

  "You wouldn't find it disrespectful?" he whispered.

  She gave a faint gasp of surprise. "Considering where your hands are right now... no."

  Trying to keep Tansen's mind off the sirana's wedding night, now in progress farther down the slopes of Dalishar, Zarien had asked his bloodfather to start teaching him to fight. It seemed a sensible precaution, if he was to live among the bloodthirsty landfolk with Tansen from now on. Besides, Tansen wasn't the only one trying to stay too busy for the intrusion of unhappy thoughts and futile memories.

  By night, Zarien had bad dreams about his family's death, about Sharifar's betrayal, and about the vengeance she and Dar might take on him for refusing to bring Tansen to sea. By day, he grieved for the Lascari and nurtured a bitter hatred for the gods. And now, by day and night, here upon the high peak of Mount Dalishar, Zarien could see the distant summit of Mount Darshon. Its colorful, violent tumult chilled him with awe and foreboding. What did Dar want? What was She planning? Even the Guardians didn't know, though they babbled a lot of vague portents that sounded only slightly less bizarre than what the zanareen were saying. Did the unprecedented events at Darshon have anything to do with the sea king whom Zarien refused to bring to Sharifar now?

  If so... Zarien was afraid. But his fear didn't diminish his anger. He would endure whatever he must, but he would never give in. Never. However, since Sharifar had not taken his life when he'd turned his back upon her, he must now make a life for himself on the dryland; at least until someone took it.

  Fortunately, the life he had found on land was not without value. Indeed, it was more extraordinary than any destiny he had ever imagined when he was sea-bound and never thought he would set foot on land even once in his life.

  To have become the son of Tansen, the greatest warrior in Sileria... Zarien had trouble believing it even now, when Tansen introduced him in this capacity to everyone they encountered at Dalishar. He would always mourn the loss of his sea-bound family, and he would always wonder what secret they had kept about his birth all these years. But if he had to start a new life, then he had found the only one worth having.

  Tansen's son.

  How many young men in Sileria might give up twenty years of their lives for such an honor? If his sea-bound parents, Sorin and Palomar, knew his fate as they sailed in the seas of eternity, he hoped they were proud. Indeed, he knew they must be. Even they, usually dismissive of landfolk, had spoken Tansen's name with respect and admiration.

  "Ow!" Zarien jumped as a wooden stick hit him.

  "When you daydream," Tansen explained, "that's what happens."

  They were each holding a single long stick for Zarien's first lesson in sword fighting. Once Zarien had learned the first eight basic attacks and blocks, they started practicing them back and forth with each other.

  Zarien nodded in response to Tansen's comment and made himself concentrate. The stick lesson was easier than the yahr lesson they'd had earlier this evening. The yahr, after all, was a shallah weapon. So, of course, there was no way to learn it without lots and lots of pain. Shallaheen.

  "Now," Tansen instructed, "come forward while you attack." He grinned when Zarien stumbled and added, "One step at a time, son."

  Zarien tried it again. It wasn't much fun, this fighting business, and he didn't feel he had a knack for it. However, it kept him busy and... Well, Tansen was obviously pleased he had asked and seemed to enjoy teaching him.

  He stumbled again, tried to right himself, lost track of where he was in his striking pattern, and stopped, confused.

  "That's fine," Tansen said. "Don't go too fast. Take your time."

  He tried again, moving forward slowly. "How long did you do this to become so good?"

  "Five years."

  "Five years?" He'd rather quit now and just hope no landfolk ever felt compelled to attack him.

  "Well, not just this. I trained for armed and unarmed combat. Single sword, then double swords—"

  "That must have taken a long—Argh!"

  Tansen helped him off the ground. "That's all right. It happens. Don't let it bother you."

  "Maybe I just shouldn't talk."

  "No, it's often good to talk while you train," said his bloodfather. "It's as if it frees your body to learn without the interference of your thoughts."

  "My body is asking for something to eat."

  "What a surprise," Tansen said dryly. To Zarien's relief, he set the sticks aside and declared the training over for the evening.

  Now that they weren't occupied, Zarien again became aware of the Guardians chanting. Lots of people were chanting, in fact—Sisters, shallaheen, and those mad religious fanatics, the zanareen. There were even some city-dwellers who had come all the way from the southern coastal city of Adalian, having heard about the visions at Dalishar. The camp was very crowded compared to Zarien's previous visit here—before the events at Zilar, and before Shaljir.

  It seems so long ago now.

  "They're not going to do that all night, are they?" Zarien asked his father, indicating the chanting.

  "Dar, I hope not," Tansen muttered.

  Lann, who heard this exchange as he approached them, grinned, his teeth white against his black beard. "Don't worry. They usually stop when they get sleepy enough." The deep cut he had acquired while sleeping through an earthquake was now healing into a scar that started above one eyebrow and disappeared into his thick hair.

  "Good."

  Lann said loudly to Tansen, "I want to talk to you. I don't want to stay here. I should be fighting, not—"

  "I know," Tansen said.

  "I'm only waiting for you to put someone else in charge here," Lann continued.

  "I've spoken to Yorin," Tansen said. "He'll do it. I want you to replace Emelen, who's in Zilar—"

  "Still holding off the Society's attempt to regain the Shaljir River, at last report."

  Tansen nodded. "Tell him to meet me in Adalian. He'll be closer there to Jalilar, who's in Sanctuary."

  "Josarian's sister?" Zarien asked.

  "Yes. She's Emelen's wife."

  "Adalian is in chaos," Lann said.

  "We need to make sure it doesn't go the way of Cavasar and declare loyalty to Kiloran," Tansen said. "If we can keep Adalian, Shaljir, and Liron out of the Society's hands..."

  "Then Cavasar will be the only major city loyal to them." After a moment, Lann said, "What about the mines of Alizar?"

  Zarien knew that Kiloran had flooded the mines during the rebellion to help Josarian take them from the Valdani. The story of that battle was famous. Now Kiloran's watery power kept Josarian's loyalists from accessing Alizar's wealth.

  A strange expression crossed Tansen's face. For a moment, Zarien wondered if he was going to throw up. Then he said, "We'll have to get Mirabar to ask... her husband about that. If anyone should know how to free the mines from Kiloran's sorcery, it's Baran."

  "That's a good..."

  The big man's voice trailed off as the chanting throng suddenly became frantic with excitement. He, Tansen, and Zarien all turned to look at them... and then looked up at the night sky, where everyone else's attention was focused.

  Zarien heard praying, but didn't immediately realize it was his own voice. "May the winds carry me, may the waters be calm, may my sails remain strong and the skies clear above my head..."

  By all the gods of wind and sea, even hearing about the visions had not prepared him for this. He wasn't sure if he was excited or afraid, if he wanted to see more or just go hide in one of the caves until this strange visitation was over.

  He is coming!

  Zarien jumped as the voice echoed inside his head.

  Glowing eyes, so similar to Mirabar's, pierced his soul as they gazed down at him from the night sky. Until now, he had believed that the landfolk were being fanc
iful or were exaggerating when they spoke about this, but now he saw how true it all was. Those were eyes. This was real. No one who saw it could doubt it.

  Zarien was shaking, overwhelmed by this strange presence, this intrusive power. If this was even a little bit like what Mirabar experienced in her visions, then he knew he ought to treat her with a great deal more respect. He couldn't imagine regularly facing this sort of thing alone.

  It faded slowly, the eyes gradually dissolving in the sky, the echoing voice dimming in his head, and the unbearable, hot tension in the air finally dissipating.

  Tansen continued staring at the sky, his breath coming fast and shallow. Zarien found a rock and sat down very suddenly.

  Lann folded his arms and said, "Now do you see why I want to leave?"

  "Yes," Tansen said, his voice a little thin. "I just don't understand why Yorin's willing to stay."

  "He closes his eye," Lann explained.

  "I'm not hungry anymore," Zarien said.

  Tansen let out his breath in a rush. "You wonder how Mirabar stands it..." He shook his head, staring off into the distant darkness.

  "You wonder why everyone comes rushing up here to see it," Zarien added.

  "So they'll know," Tansen said. "So they can be sure that the risk is worth the terrible price they'll pay."

  "For what?"

  "For defying the Society."

  Lann nodded. "Every..." He stopped and looked around as a distant rumbling began.

  Tansen's pensive mood turned to sharp alertness as the rumbling turned to a roar. "That's—"

  Zarien felt shaking and realized it wasn't his own trembling this time.

  "Earthquake!" Lann shouted, joining similar shouts amidst the now-deafening roar.

  Zarien leaped up, then fell to his knees as the ground heaved beneath his feet. Tansen staggered over to him, pushed him facedown on the ground, then fell on top of him, shouting, "Stay down!"

  Zarien squeezed his eyes shut and lay there, unable to breathe due to his bloodfather's weight on top of him. Lay there terrified as the land shook and groaned, screamed and undulated. He heard falling rocks, shouts of terror, a fierce crack as rockface split, the clattering of weapons and shattering of crockery...

  Zarien screamed through clenched teeth, too scared to stay silent. Tansen didn't react, probably didn't even notice.

  And then it stopped. Probably before Zarien realized it, because the pounding of his own heart was deafening once there was nothing to interfere with its thunder.

  The whole camp waited in tense silence for a few moments. Finally, just when Zarien thought he would pass out, his father rolled off him and let him breathe again.

  Tansen sat up. After another moment, he asked Zarien, "Are you all right?"

  "No. Yes. I don't know. Yes."

  Tansen snorted. "As long as that's clear."

  Zarien smiled ruefully as he sat up. "I'm a little, um..."

  "Me, too." Tansen looked at the big shallah. "Lann?"

  "I don't like earthquakes," Lann said, sounding bad-tempered.

  "I'll inform Dar," Tansen replied.

  "Why does She keep doing it?" Lann asked plaintively.

  Tansen rose to his feet and dusted himself off. "Why do women do anything?" was his sour reply.

  Zarien, so far from the sea he couldn't possibly smell it, wondered what tonight's earthquake had wrought for the sea-born folk.

  "The ground doesn't move for everyone on their wedding night," Baran said to Mirabar as morning brought heat and light to Sileria. "We should be honored."

  "I could do with less honor and more peace."

  She was tired. Their rest had been interrupted by the earthquake. After running outside to relative safety, they had waited until dawn, enduring several aftershocks, before coming back inside. Since then, they'd been putting Sister Velikar's Sanctuary back into some semblance of order.

  Mirabar cast a critical eye on her husband. The wealthy life of a waterlord had evidently made him soft. A little honest work—cleaning up the mess left by the earthquake—had clearly exhausted him. Mirabar vowed silently that being a wealthy waterlord's wife would never make her that lazy.

  "Are we still leaving today?" she wondered aloud. Baran didn't look like he could endure the journey.

  "Yes." Meeting her doubtful gaze, he added, "I want to go home." He smiled beguilingly, "I want to bring you home."

  Mirabar shrugged. "As you wish."

  Their first night as man and wife had brought a few surprises, from the embarrassing to the unexpectedly pleasant. Baran himself was perhaps the greatest surprise of all. Mirabar had not told anyone, since everyone was already so uncomfortable with her marriage, but she had been genuinely afraid. What would a ruthless and half-mad waterlord do to her in the privacy of his bed? No matter whom she married, Mirabar would have been as nervous as any bride on her wedding night, she supposed; but the peculiar nature of her groom had made it hard for her not to run screaming into the darkness to get away from him.

  Until she realized that, contrary to her expectations, he was nervous, too. Until she discovered that, despite everything she had ever seen or heard of Baran, he could be reasonable, courteous—even kind.

  Yes, he had been kind. And mostly gentle—gentle until those strange, hot, dark moments between a man and a woman when gentleness became an obstacle to what they both blindly sought.

  Now, knowing things about him she had never foreseen in her wildest imaginings, she wondered about her husband. Women gossiped enough for Mirabar to be aware that not all men knew how to please a woman. But Baran knew, and he used the knowledge well. It made Mirabar wonder: Who had taught him? Why did he care enough to learn? Had he, of all people, once loved?

  Even now, with a frail rapport developing between them, she knew she couldn't ask him. Baran had claimed intimacies with her body which she could still feel lingering in her flesh, and he would do so again—after all, they both wanted a child. But their verbal relationship stopped well short of what they did together as man and woman, and her fear of him by day hadn't particularly decreased despite her acceptance of him by night.

  So Mirabar wondered about him, yes; but she found it hard to believe that Baran—who had slaughtered hundreds in vengeance and greed, who hadn't bestowed a truly tender look on her even in their most intimate moments, who seemed sardonic even in his sleep—had ever loved. Because love, Mirabar knew now, was the part of you that surrendered against your will, the part of your heart that bled willingly, the part of your nature that gave just for the sake of giving. And nothing about Baran suggested he was capable of love.

  Mirabar thought of Tansen, up at the Dalishar caves right now, and wished things could have been different.

  Love was the hunger that ate you alive a little every day.

  "Damn it, where is Velikar?" Baran said restlessly. "She said she'd be back in the morning."

  Love was the fire that even a Guardian couldn't control and which even her tears couldn't extinguish.

  "You're determined to bring Velikar to Belitar with us?" Mirabar asked, loathing the idea. "What about Sister Rahilar? She's up at the caves, and I like her. Well," she added more honestly, "I don't dislike her. I could ask—"

  "Now, now, there's no reason for you to feel threatened by Velikar," Baran chided. "I swore vows of fidelity yesterday, and I will keep them, regardless of the temptation she presents."

  Mirabar rolled her eyes. "I'd rather send for Sister Basimar."

  "Who's that?"

  "She was a personal friend of Josarian's. I've known her since..."

  Baran's gaze wandered idly around the room, and Mirabar sighed and gave up, realizing she was wasting her breath. Baran was determined to bring Velikar with them, but he would enjoy teasing Mirabar with the futile hope of leaving the nasty old woman behind.

  Baran took her arm as she turned away, and began, "Are y—"

  He stopped when she gasped in pain as his fingers pressed against the cut made by the assa
ssin she had killed during the nighttime battle on Mount Niran.

  "Excuse me," he said, watching as she rolled up her sleeve to examine the cut. "I noticed that last night, but I forgot. It looks fresh."

  "No," she said. "It's from a shir."

  "You were attacked?" After she nodded, he said, "I can heal that for you."

  She shook her head.

  He seemed amused. "You don't trust me?"

  "I can wait for it to heal."

  "That takes a long time."

  "I know." She rolled down her sleeve and said, "And until it stops hurting, it will remind me that I killed him."

  He smiled. "You're more vicious than I guessed."

  Mirabar didn't remember the incident with satisfaction. She wanted to remember the cost to herself of taking a life.

  Baran persisted, "If you change your mind..."

  "I don't want to talk about it." She poured them both some water to drink. "I'm hungry, aren't you?"

  "No."

  "You should eat." Darfire, she already sounded like a wife. "It'll be a long journey, and it was a busy night."

  He snorted with amusement and cast her an impertinent look.

  She ignored this and continued, "You don't want to eat now. You barely even nibbled at the wedding feast." She shook her head. "No wonder you've become so thin."

  "This from the woman who loves Tansen, who's always been a bit on the skinny side." Baran blinked innocently as she choked in surprise, spewed some water, and started coughing. "I'm sorry. Is it something I said?"

  Mirabar stared at him in wary confusion, her heart pounding hard.

  He grinned, enjoying her discomfort. "My dear, it was written all over your face when I saw you with him yesterday. All over his, too, actually—which, I confess, surprised me. Tansen always seems to be the ideal upon which the blank-faced shallah stare was based."

  She cleared her aching throat and just kept staring at him, totally unprepared for this.

  "Why are you looking at me like that?" Baran protested. "Am I some possessive, bloodthirsty shallah? I should say not! I'm hardly going to start a bloodfeud with the Gamalani—er, even if they still existed—just because one of them is in love with my wife." He leaned closer and murmured, "Not even because she returns his feelings."