The Gates of Winter - Mark Anthony [110]
If she could have, Aryn would have let out a scream. Had she been seen somehow?
“It's not as if I really had a choice,” sneered another voice, which Aryn instantly recognized as Teravian's. It was not Aryn the woman had addressed, but the prince.
Aryn drifted around a curve in the path and came to halt. Before her was a grotto sheltered by valsindar trees. Teravian stood in the center, his dark attire blending with the night, his face pale in the moonlight. The woman who had spoken stood a few feet from him, though who she was Aryn couldn't say, as she was clad from head to toe in a dark cloak.
“You are dutiful,” the woman said to Teravian, her voice hoarse. “Just as a son should be.”
He let out a sharp laugh. “I'm his son, too, aren't I? But here I am all the same.”
Confusion filled Aryn. What were they talking about? Teravian was son only to King Boreas. His mother, Queen Narenya, had died long years ago.
“You know what you will be asked to do, don't you?” the woman said.
He stared into the darkness. “I've seen it. Bits of it, anyway. It comes in flashes. There's a battlefield, and two armies face each other. Both of the armies carry banners bearing the crown and swords of Calavan, only one is green and yellow instead of silver and blue.”
The woman drew closer. “And what else do you see? Which army will prevail?”
“I don't know. It's all a fog after that—I can't see it.” His eyes narrowed. “And what do you care, anyway? You've cut yourself off from them, haven't you?”
“Care? What do I care?” The woman muttered the words, as if trying to fathom their meaning. “I suppose I care for nothing now, save to keep him from using you.”
His lip curled into a sneer. “What, so you can use me yourself, is that what you mean? I know you've been watching me all these years, prodding me, trying to figure out a way to use me for your own ends.”
The woman pressed a hand to her chest. “You know much. And yet so much less than you think. Perhaps once I did seek to use you, though my intentions were good. But no more. My thoughts are for you only. I would have you do this thing not for them, but for yourself. That's why I've come.”
“I wish I could believe that.”
She reached a hand toward him. “You must trust me.”
“Trust you?” Anger twisted his face, and he clenched a fist. “How can I trust you when you've lied to me all these years about who you really are, who I really am? You're no better than he is. Why should I trust either of you, Mother?”
Shock coursed through Aryn. Mother? What was he talking about? Before she could wonder more, the woman reached up with shaking hands and pushed back the hood of her cloak. Her flaxen hair was colorless in the moonlight, and tears streamed down her smooth cheeks.
“Trust me because I love you, my son,” Queen Ivalaine said. “As I have always loved you, even when I could not tell you the truth.”
Teravian laughed. “Now you're lying again. But I'm not a child anymore. You can't trick me as you used to.”
“Please,” Ivalaine said. “Please don't turn from me, Teravian. You're all I have left.”
He gazed at her, his eyes calculating. “Then you have nothing, Mother.”
The prince turned and walked from the grotto. He moved right past Aryn, but he did not pause. The shadows took him, and he was gone.
“Go,” Ivalaine hissed, the tears drying on her cheeks.
She was staring right at Aryn. Only that was impossible. She must have meant the word for Teravian.
“I see you there, witch,” Ivalaine said, her face a white mask of rage. She pointed a trembling finger at Aryn. “Go spin your evil threads with your shadow coven and leave me alone!”
Horror flooded Aryn. The world became a dark blur, and she felt a wrenching inside. Her eyes snapped open. The garden was gone; she was back in her chamber, and she was terribly cold.
Aryn forced her stiff muscles to move, pushing herself out of the chair. She had to find Lirith and Mirda and tell them Queen Ivalaine had gone mad.
28.
After the battle against the feydrim and wraithlings, the army turned north. They