The Towers of the Sunset - L. E. Modesitt [89]
Creslin waits, trying not to gnaw his lips, trying to keep his hands still. Megaera is silent, not quite looking at him, but not overtly avoiding his glance.
“You said we still have to work together,” he finally ventures.
“What do you think we should do?”
“Do?” Creslin wants to bite his tongue for the stupidity of his words. “I’m not sure. I’d hoped to learn something in Fairhaven—”
“I trust you did learn something.” Megaera’s voice is dry.
“A great deal.” He forces a laugh. “But not exactly what I had intended.” He paused. “I can’t return to Westwind. So . . . where can we go?”
“It’s not where we can go. It’s where you can go.”
“That’s not quite true. I suspect we could return to Sarronnyn. Or we could stay here. The Duke needs all the support he can find, whether he’ll admit it or not.”
“Do you honestly think we would be safe for long in either place?”
“Why not here?” asks Creslin.
“The Duke has no heirs. As a young man, he had the spotted fever,” Megaera says flatly. “The Duchess died four years ago. She had no siblings.”
Creslin nods. “So the wizards will wait for his death, but if you stayed, with a claim on the Duchy . . .”
“I’m glad I don’t have to explain everything.”
Creslin tries not to clench his jaw, merely tightening his lips. Finally he speaks to break the silence. “That leaves nowhere in Candar.”
“You have moments of brilliance, best-betrothed. Especially when you note the obvious.”
“Are we looking for a solution, or are you more interested in insulting me?” Even as he says the words, Creslin wishes he had not.
“Truth is not an insult, not unless you are looking for deception.”
He wonders why he bothers. Then again, Megaera scarcely chose to be tied to him. “I know very little of human nature, of the intrigues of rulers, and . . . probably . . . little of women, at least of those not raised in Westwind. I know that, and you know that. I admit it. What good does it do to keep pointing it out to me? Does it make you feel superior?”
“Perhaps I am. In some ways,” she adds almost hastily, a strained look on her face. “Damn you . . .” she whispers, refusing to look at him, her head bowed and her eyes fixed on the polished wood of the table.
Creslin shakes his head. In one moment Megaera is almost approachable, yet in the next . . . She is like two different people. Then he swallows, understanding finally. His eyes burn, and he tries to wall off his feelings, knowing that it is already too late, knowing that she feels what he feels almost as soon as he does.
“Stop it! I don’t need your damned pity! Just go on being dense and stupid. It’s easier that way.” She has left the chair and turned her back to him, standing with her face toward the open leaded-glass windows.
The room is close, the air still, and Creslin touches the winds, bringing a breeze in through the narrow opening, watching as the air lifts strands of Megaera’s red hair. She does not acknowledge his actions or his presence.
Feeling increasingly uncomfortable, he pushes back his chair and stands. He walks over to the couch, away from Megaera.
“How much longer can we stay here?” he asks.
Megaera does not answer him at first, keeping her eyes fixed on the hills beyond the outer wall and to the south—a better view than that in Creslin’s room, which merely faces a corner tower of the outer wall.
“Korweil cannot force us to leave.”
“Do you want to stay?”
“Where could you—we—go?”
“What about Recluce?” Creslin asks.
“That desolate island waste? Better that I stayed behind iron walls with sister dear.”
Creslin shrugs. “Hamor?”
He senses that Hamor is no answer.
“Nordla?”
“That’s as cold as Westwind, and they don’t honor the Legend there.”
“I don’t think they do in Hamor, either. Not since the empire was founded.”
“Damn you all . . .”
“Then I guess it has to be Recluce, at least for a while. Unless you want to risk staying here.”
Megaera