The Destroyer Goddess Read online

  "Waterlords kill for much less," Mirabar said tersely. "You've killed for less."

  "True, but never my allies." He frowned. "Oops! I'm lying. I've killed them, too, haven't I?" Baran shrugged and added, "But only when I was feeling particularly irritable."

  Her stomach hurt. "Tansen has never, um... I will never..."

  "I know." He smiled charmingly. "I wouldn't have married you if I questioned your commitment to the vows you made while taking a knife to my flesh." He looked down at his palm, where the long cut was red and angry. "Need you have made it quite so deep?"

  "No wonder you're eager for Velikar's return," Mirabar murmured, realizing that she had perhaps been a bit too enthusiastic about slicing open Baran's hand.

  He leaned back again and silently called to the water she had poured for him. It danced out of its cup drop by drop, and swirled towards his mouth. He parted his lips, and the quivering drops came to rest on his tongue. Baran closed his mouth, held her wide-eyed gaze, and smiled. "After all these years, that's still fun. Tell me, sirana, is fire magic ever just fun to you, just sheer delight? Or is it always wrapped up in duty, destiny, Dar-worship, and other dreary things?"

  "It's, uh..." She frowned, trying to remember. Had it ever been "fun," even once? She didn't think so.

  Baran glanced at the cup, indicating what he had just done, and said, "That was the first thing I learned to do upon apprenticing to water magic. Not the first thing I was supposed to learn," he added cheerfully, "but I was whimsical and lacked focus."

  "Whimsical? You surprise me," she said dryly.

  "I was, I fear, quite a trial to my teacher. He..." Baran sighed as he considered his past. "Ah, yes, he was perhaps the most focused individual I have ever met. Well, until I learned to focus, that is."

  He was baiting her, of course. Mirabar knew it, but she was nonetheless curious enough to ask, "Who was he?"

  Baran's eyes danced, and he clearly delighted in the shock he was about to deliver. "Kiloran."

  Her breath came out in a rush, and she sat down abruptly. "Of course!"

  He looked interested. "Why do you say that?"

  She nodded, thinking hard. "The old proverb is true, isn't it, Baran?"

  "Most of them are true, but which one—"

  "The more intimate the friendship, the deadlier the enemy," she quoted.

  "Oooh! Very good." He grinned, evidently pleased.

  "No wonder the two of you hate each other so much. Whatever happened between you, whatever you did to each other..." Mirabar nodded again. "No one hates a stranger or an acquaintance nearly as much as he hates someone who was once a friend." She arched her brows. "You were friends?"

  Baran considered this. "I don't think Kiloran has friends. He was, shall we say... more like a rich uncle to me." Guessing her next question, he added, "No, we're not related. He took an interest in my talent and tried to guide me." He paused and added, "For a while, that is. Mostly, of course—as you already know—he has spent the past fifteen years trying to kill me."

  "So what happened between the two of you?"

  "Well, I don't want to alarm you..." he replied coyly.

  "Baran," she said in exasperation.

  "If I tell you this, it's because I want you to understand, before we leave Sanctuary, just how serious I am about protecting you."

  "So you don't intend to kill me as soon as you can?"

  He touched her cheek. "I think I proved last night how serious I also am about getting a child with you."

  Mirabar wondered how he knew what she knew, why a waterlord had been the one to echo her visions: A child of water. A child of fire. But she didn't want to be distracted from what he intended to tell her now, so she said, "What happened between you and Kiloran?"

  "Come now, sirana," he said. "Surely you must have guessed by now that only one thing could make two men hate each other as much as Kiloran and I do?"

  She was puzzled. "No, I don't..."

  Then it came to her. Mirabar shook her head, sure she must be wrong—but she already saw it in his face. It seemed extraordinary that the years-long battle between these two giants had all begun over... "A woman?" she asked.

  Baran nodded and raised a hand to absently stroke the silver-and-jade necklace he always wore. His face was more serious than she had ever seen it when he replied, "He killed my wife."

  Chapter Three

  Silence is also speech.

  —Silerian Proverb

  Tansen let Sister Velikar precede him—by quite some distance—on the path to her Sanctuary. Part of him wanted to race ahead and make sure Mirabar hadn't been harmed in the earthquake. Mostly, though, he dreaded the possibility of finding her in Baran's arms—Dar have mercy, it was obscene! So he hung back with Najdan, who seemed equally reluctant to venture into a potentially embarrassing situation. Pyron and the rest of Mirabar's escort were trailing behind them.

  Zarien had stayed up at the caves this morning. Tansen was fighting an impulse to turn around and run back to join him there.

  "I have spoken with Baran several times since he proposed marriage to the sirana," Najdan said suddenly, speaking for the first time all morning. "I believe his intentions are... serious."

  "So do I," Tansen replied. "I just don't believe they're what he says they are."

  Najdan looked at him. "You really think he's going to kill her?"

  Tansen sighed. "She certainly doesn't seem to think so."

  "If he tries—"

  "I know, I know, you'll die to protect her." Tansen shrugged. "That's less comforting than it used to be."

  "She believes—"

  "I know. She told me."

  There seemed to be little else to say. They hadn't stopped her from marrying Baran, and they couldn't stop her from going to Belitar. All they could do was pray that her instincts were right... But since neither of them was on speaking terms with Dar, they weren't even praying.

  Walking more slowly than they had ever before walked in their lives, they eventually came upon Vinn, Baran's even-tempered assassin, who had been the waterlord's sole companion for his journey here.

  "The earthquake?" Tansen said.

  "They're fine," Vinn said.

  Tansen and Najdan kept walking.

  "I don't like him," said Najdan.

  "Of course not," said Tansen.

  They approached a bend and, knowing that Velikar's Sanctuary would be visible beyond it, they slowed down even more.

  "Congratulations on taking a son," Najdan said.

  "Thank you," Tansen said.

  "Too bad about his family."

  "Yes."

  "But even if they were alive, being sea-bound, they would have shunned him—for having been on land."

  "Probably," said Tansen.

  "It's good that he has you now."

  "We have each other."

  "Yes," said Najdan.

  They stopped. Looked at each other. Looked doubtfully ahead. Decided to go on.

  The Sanctuary was a bit of a shambles in the wake of the earthquake, but still standing. After a moment, Mirabar pushed aside the jashar covering the door and stepped out alone into the sunlight. Tansen's heart started thudding hard.

  She saw him and Najdan, and she said, "I cannot abide that woman!"

  "Is she—"

  "I suggested Sister Rahilar! I suggested Sister Basimar! But no," she said. "No, he has to have Sister Velikar with him. Only that sour-tongued, bad-tempered, nasty old woman will do for my half-mad husband. And I—I am cursed to live in the moldy ruins of Belitar with an insane waterlord and a Sister with the manners of a wounded mountain cat!"

  Najdan wisely held his silence.

  Tansen foolishly ventured, "Are you all right?"

  "No, I'm not all right!" she snapped. "I am going to be stuck with those two from now on!"

  "I, um..." Tansen looked at Najdan.

  Najdan looked down at his worn boots.

  Mirabar looked at them both. "What?" she demanded. "What?" />
  "Nothing," Tansen said.

  "Nothing," Najdan agreed.

  She collected herself. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to shout at you."

  "Sirana," Najdan said, "shall I help them prepare for the journey?"

  "No. They want to be alone." Mirabar shook her head. "I could almost swear Baran wasn't joking when he said she tempts him to be unfaithful to me."

  Tansen choked.

  Najdan asked, "Why do they want to be alone?"

  Mirabar shrugged. "She's tending his hand. He doesn't want me to watch. Or something." She waved a hand in the air. "I don't know."

  "Well," Najdan said, "you did cut him rather—"

  "I know, I know," she replied impatiently.

  Najdan told Tansen, "It bled quite a lot, even for a—"

  "I know," Mirabar repeated.

  "I'm almost sorry I missed that," Tansen murmured.

  Mirabar looked at him. Their gazes locked. Within moments, the air was thick with tension.

  "Will you excuse us?" Tansen said to Najdan.

  "I will wait at the edge of Sanctuary grounds with the others," Najdan said, turning away.

  When they were alone, Mirabar said, in a very different tone of voice, "I'm fine."

  "I, uh, I guess I can see that." He looked away and added, "I was worried."

  "So was I, to be honest," she said. "But, um, there was no reason to be."

  Tansen couldn't think of anything more awkward than talking with the woman he loved about her recent wedding night with another man. It actually made his chest hurt.

  "So..." He cleared his throat and tried to think of the vaguest possible way of asking what he wanted to know. "He didn't hurt you?"

  "He didn't hurt me. And, well, we talked some more this morning, and I believe he's not going to hurt me." Mirabar waited for him to look at her, then said, "I really believe that, Tansen."

  He nodded. He hated this, but he would accept her judgment.

  The pain in his chest wasn't going away. He asked her about something else that had been bothering him since yesterday. "How did Baran know? 'A child of fire, a child of water.' Where did he—"

  "I don't know. He won't tell me. At least, not yet." She folded her hands. "There are things at Belitar which I think he means to share with me. My visions tell me that many answers are there."

  "Belitar," he said without enthusiasm. You'd have to be as crazy as Baran to like that gloomy, damp place. Tansen's peasant blood assured him it was haunted, as legend said.

  "I'll be safer there than..." Now her face clouded. "Than you will be."

  "I'll be careful," he promised, feeling hollow as he looked at her. "I... Pyron told me about Tashinar. I'm so sorry." Mirabar's mentor had been captured and taken to Kiloran's underwater lair at Lake Kandahar.

  Her face darkened with grief. "I make a fire every day to pray for her, pray that she's already dead, pray that Kiloran isn't... I pray that she's already dead."

  "You can't tell?" he asked uncertainly.

  She shook her head. "No. But that's not unusual."

  "Oh."

  Mirabar shrugged and added pensively, "It feels strange, when I look for her. Even when I went up to the sacred caves and sought her in the ancient fires there, while waiting for Baran to return from Emeldar. It's as if..." She shook her head. "As if she's not in either world. Not this one or the Other one, but not lost or gone, either. Almost as if she's... I don't know... hovering somewhere."

  Tansen had no idea what she was talking about, but he tried to be comforting. "I'm sure she's dead by now." He wasn't at all sure, but didn't know what else to say. "If I find out anything, I'll send word to Belitar."

  She nodded. After a quiet moment, she changed the subject. "What will you do now?"

  "I need to establish our influence across the central portion of the country, spreading through the mountains from Shaljir to Adalian."

  "You intend to separate Kiloran's foundation of power in the west from the Idalar River and the mines of Alizar?" she guessed.

  "Yes. And to separate the eastern and western waterlords from each other." He asked her to speak to Baran about the mines of Alizar, and also to find out whatever she could about the rest of the Society, particularly the individual weaknesses of the waterlords whom Baran knew.

  "I will," she promised. "But I don't know how cooperative he'll be. All he cares about is destroying Kiloran. I don't think he cares who wins the war, or what happens to the Honored Society, the Guardians, or anyone else."

  "Now that," Tansen said, "I believe." It was even comforting in a way. If Baran's priorities remained unchanged, and he saw Mirabar as essential in his fight against Kiloran, then he really would protect and care for her.

  Still thinking, Tansen flexed his hand, where the shir wound acquired in the ambush on Dalishar still troubled him from time to time.

  Mirabar noticed. "Surely whatever force healed the wound at your side, which was much worse, should be able to heal that, too?"

  Tansen shrugged. "It's getting better by itself."

  "Maybe if you tried—"

  "I don't remember how it happened the first time," he reminded her. He'd been unconscious in a cave, tended only by a frightened sea-born boy, when the deadly wound in his torso suddenly healed, leaving only a silvery scar.

  "Maybe if Zarien tried," Mirabar suggested.

  "I've been wondering..."

  "What?"

  "Do you think he might be the sea king?"

  "I don't know." She frowned. "Why do you think so? Because of the way the wound healed?"

  "It could be the answer, couldn't it?"

  "I don't know," she repeated. "I don't know what the sea-born say about the sea king. Anyhow, if that wasn't it, then why—"

  "Something the Olvar said when Zarien and I visited the Beyah-Olvari in the tunnels beneath Shaljir."

  "This boy will be," the Olvar said to Tansen, "more than you imagine. Perhaps more than you can accept."

  "He said..." Tansen stopped, remembering other things the wizened Olvar, the gentle leader of his ancient tribe of small blue-skinned beings living in secrecy, had said.

  "There are other Beyah-Olvari," he said slowly, crying with joy. "Others like us. Alive. Somewhere in Sileria."

  Tansen almost told Mirabar this extraordinary news, but then he recalled the prophecy of the Olvar's which had made his blood run cold while he was in Shaljir.

  "He told me," Elelar said, "that Mirabar's going to kill me."

  Staring stupidly at Mirabar now, Tansen suddenly realized that she had married someone who could help her kill Elelar, or even do it for her. Someone who could do it easily and—knowing Baran—cheerfully.

  He had no idea what to say to her about Elelar now. Besides, Mirabar was about to leave for Belitar. Tansen didn't know when he'd see her again—didn't even know if they would both live to meet again—and he didn't want his last memory of her to be soiled with yet another fight about the torena.

  "Tansen?" Mirabar prodded.

  "Huh? Sorry."

  "What did the Olvar say?"

  "Oh. It's not... It doesn't matter."

  "Tansen." She sounded exasperated.

  "You know vague the Olvar is."

  "Not from experience, no."

  He smiled. "Well, you'd probably find him irritating."

  "Speaking of irritating..." She sighed. "It's a long journey to the next Sanctuary. I suppose I should go convince... them that it's time to leave."

  If they never met again, he wanted her to know. "I'll think of you often."

  Her mouth trembled. "So will I."

  "If you're ever afraid—if you ever feel he has lied to you, I want you to promise me you'll leave him." When she didn't reply, Tansen urged, "Send for me. I'll come get you."

  Mirabar looked uncomfortable. She compromised by saying, "If I think it's necessary, I will."

  "And I, uh..."

  She waited.

  He said, "I'll miss you."

  Her g
olden eyes glimmered with tears and she pressed her lips together. He filled his heart with the sight of her, then turned away, unwilling to stay and watch her leave with her husband.

  In the golden glow of the setting sun, Toren Ronall crawled half-dead onto Sanctuary grounds and called for help. When no one came, he tried, with the last strength he had left, to think of the shallah word for "help."

  He couldn't. Didn't even know if it was indeed different from the common Silerian word for it.

  So he just kept rasping, "Help! Someone, help!"

  Maybe the Sisters weren't coming because they just didn't hear him. His swollen tongue and aching throat, he now realized, barely produced any sound.

  Ronall lay face down on the rocky soil. Something sharp poked him in the belly. His swollen face, his abused ribs, his back, his legs... everything hurt abominably. His left arm was broken. His bare feet were cut, bleeding, and desperately sore.

  Oh, Three have mercy, just let me die. Let me die now.

  He started retching again. Dry heaves. The pain had made him black out before. He hoped it would make him black out again, because enduring it was awful.

  He was swimming darkly toward oblivion when he heard a woman's warm voice: "By all the Fires!"

  Ronall groaned when she touched him, her hands running over him to check for injuries. His loud gasps of pain let her know every time she found another one.

  "Can you stand up?" she asked at last.

  "No."

  "I can't carry you," she told him.

  "Get help," he muttered, eyes still closed, head throbbing.

  "There is no one here but me."

  "Then leave... me here," he mumbled.

  "I can't do that."

  He gasped a moment later when her strong hands seized him by the shoulders and started trying to haul him upright.

  "Ow! Ow! Ouch! Stop!"

  "Then help me," she insisted.

  Ronall opened his eyes and squinted at her. His first comment was probably beside the point: "You're not a Sister."