Angel of Storms (Millennium's Rule, #2)(81)

Who was too powerful to be a mere general. Tyen watched as Keich realised he must be the Raen’s spy. The one the Raen had said was the most powerful rebel. The one he’d forbidden anyone to kill.

Keich relaxed. The spy wasn’t going to kill him, though he looked like he wanted to. “I guess he needs to look angry that I killed the leader,” he thought.

“I am angry,” Tyen said.

Keich scowled. “You expect me to not retaliate? Preketai was my friend!”

Tyen looked down at Yira. “She was mine.” He hesitated, caught by her vacant, staring eyes again. So lifeless. When he looked up again, he was alone.

He glanced around the room. It stank of people, even with no patrons inside. He briefly contemplated chasing after Keich and making him pay for Yira’s death, but when he looked down at Yira again he knew he could not leave her here. What am I going to do with her? The answer came swiftly. She must go back to her people.

Lifting her, he pushed out of the world. With each world he passed through, an ache grew. Not just in his heart, but in all of his body. His bones, muscles, gut and lungs. All he could think was: If I’d seen him, she wouldn’t be dead. If I’d gone to get the drinks, she wouldn’t be dead. If I hadn’t encouraged her to become leader, she wouldn’t be dead. If I had talked her into leaving the rebels… shamed her into returning to her children if that’s what it took… told her I was a spy of the Raen if that would make her listen… she wouldn’t be dead.

He thought back to Tarren’s question, asked less than a quarter of a cycle ago, though it seemed far, far longer: “What are you prepared to do in order to fulfil your promise to her?” Would he have chosen to spy for the Raen in exchange for freeing Vella, if he’d known it would lead to Yira’s death?

The next world was Roihe. He slowed to a stop just outside of the arrival place, seized by fear and guilt. Would the Matriarchy blame him?

No, he thought, they won’t conceive of a man having that much effect on the events of the worlds. Yira had known better, but she had ventured beyond her world and the ideas that were accepted as truth by her people.

As soon as he arrived, they took her body from him. He followed them to her house where the matriarch took charge of the funeral preparations. “You may stay,” the woman told him. “But I think maybe you should not, if those who did this might follow you here.”

He moved to the next world, to an isolated beach. Fishermen cast nets into water turned gold by the rising sun. Large sea creatures rolled about in the shadows, uttering bubbling, playful calls. The scene’s tranquillity did not touch him. He was frozen and empty.

A shadow appeared beside him. He glanced at it, then turned away as it resolved into a man. The last man in the worlds he wanted to speak to now.

“She was a brave warrior,” the Raen said. “Her attack was bold and well managed, if reckless.”

Tyen knew he ought to turn to face the Raen, but an echo of his earlier fury rose. He couldn’t help that his mind was open, but showing his disgust in his face would be more consciously defiant.

“She was my friend,” Tyen replied, and anger surged to the fore again. “Why do you make alliances with people like Preketai?” he demanded, then immediately wished he hadn’t.

“Because the alternative is worse,” the Raen replied, with no trace of indignation or anger at the question.

“What is the alternative?”

“That I kill all-powerful sorcerers. As some believe I do.”

A shiver ran down Tyen’s spine. He looked at the Raen. “Can’t… can’t you let the good ones live?”

Dark, impossible-to-read eyes met his. “They all were, once. Power and agelessness change people, and not always for the better.”

Tyen pressed a hand to the rectangle under his shirt, remembering what Vella had told him of the cost of being ageless. And you? he wanted to ask the Raen. How has it changed you?

“You are not to blame for Yira’s death.”

Exhaustion washed over him. If not me, then who? A thought struggled past his grief and anger, faint like a whisper. Yira. She chose to fight. You couldn’t unchoose that for her.

“If you do not wish to continue watching the rebels I will accept your decision.”

The prospect of leaving the rebels brought a flood of relief.

And what, then, of Vella? came the inevitable, unwelcome thought.

“I have devised a few methods that may restore Vella,” the Raen replied, as if the question had been directed at him. “Some show promise. It is proving an interesting challenge. My experiments have revealed some potential applications I had not expected.”

A liveliness had entered the man’s eyes. He looked like a different person and Tyen found himself wishing he could join the man in his tests and trials, or at least have the chance to watch them.

The spark faded, and the Raen’s expression became unreadable again. “You are most useful to me among the rebels.” He said nothing more, but an unspoken question hung in the air.

They’re leaderless, Tyen realised. And they don’t know it yet. “They might give up and go home now,” he said.

“They won’t,” the Raen replied, with quiet certainty. “When Keich found Yira she was contemplating the rebels’ return to Aei. He did not keep that fact to himself.”