Exile. Part 24

No, he did not understand. She knew there was an entire company of men out in that harbor, wanting to arrest her. And there would be far more guarding the port at the capital. But she had to return now. Before it was too late.

"Your sister is already queen," he said.

Not plausible.

"She's completed the coronation."

"She can't-"

"She has," the horseman concluded. "And your stepmother has confirmed her daughter's right to the throne. They thwarted the period of mourning by claiming your father was poisoned and that justice must be done. The trial has already been held, Aurelia, and you were found guilty."

None of this made sense. Not in any world except the tainted, foul corruption that was her sister's reality. Where falsehoods were murder weapons and avarice was greater than love. Where lives-Aurelia's own, her father's, and those of her people-meant nothing!

All the anger that had been building since the news that her sister had charged her with a crime ripped loose. Aurelia whirled and slammed the shuttered window with her hand. "I can't-," she yelled. "I can't let Melony win!"

Silence exuded behind her, then the sound of retreating footsteps. And she crumpled against the boards, jabbing them with her knuckles. This was not about Drew, or the ship, or the plan.

Gently Robert's hand smoothed over the back of her head. He should understand. He had seen the flames, and the cinders, and heard the screams of the Jaheem. "I can't flee," she whispered, easing off the boards. "I can't betray my people."

His hand moved to her face, brushing away tears she had not known were there. "You won't betray them, Aurelia, as long as you are alive."

"I can't..." She trembled.

"Melony won't win." The blue eyes were sincere. He reached up and tugged back the shutters, forcing her to face the view of the hundreds of soldiers swarming the wharf. "The only way she wins is if you gift her with your death."

As he ducked beneath a ma.s.sive cobweb to enter the small stables an hour later, Robert could not regret the harshness of his words. He had not wanted to frighten Aurelia, or to inflict any more hurt than she had already suffered. She had a right to her anger, but he could not allow her to ignore the truth. And he could not protect her from the pain of saying good-bye.

Falcon nickered over the warped boards beside the door. Robert ran his hand gently along her bronze snout, then crossed the ill-lit s.p.a.ce and entered the final stall.

Horizon thrust his way forward, trying to break free of the cramped interior, to no avail, as Robert shut the latch.

Turning, he buried his face in the stallion's warm coat, trying to imprint the feel in his memory.

Images flashed in his mind: of a little bay colt, kicking and tossing his heels in the fresh green fields of spring, the blur of those same fields as the stallion took his rider on their first genuine run, and the silhouette of avenging hooves outside a burning tent. "You saved my life," Robert murmured.

And Aurelia's. That mist-filled morning in the palace arena.

He babbled then. Explaining. Though he knew the stallion would not care about the reason for the departure. The bay would only know his rider was gone and would wait for him to come back. Robert had to struggle not to make promises he had no power to keep. "Remember, you are in charge. If Drew takes one misstep, you break the boards."

Horizon snorted, and Robert laughed, then buried a sudden rush of tears in the stallion's neck. "I'll miss you," he murmured. "I'll miss you."

"No, Robert." Her voice came from behind him.

He tried to wipe his eyes on the red-brown coat, but his vision remained blurry.

"I can't ask you to come with me," she said. He struggled to comprehend the statement. "I can't ask you to leave Horizon and your family, and Tyralt-" Her breath caught. "I know you love this country as much as I do. I would never have understood half of what I have seen on this expedition if you had not been the one to show me. And I'm grateful. I'm so ..."

He turned, this time obliterating the tears from his face without any attempt at disguise. "You don't need to ask me, Aurelia. I am coming anyway."

She was biting her lip and staring at the sandy floor, her fingers threading aimlessly through Falcon's coat. "Robert, I know you think you love me."

He thought?

"But I ... I can't ..."

The dagger shredded his insides like a blackened knife. He had not expected her to profess her love. She had lost her father and her country all in one day. But- "I can't marry you," she finished.

Marry?! He vaulted out of the stall. Who had said anything about marriage?

"Your parents were right," she told the stable floor.

His parents? What had they said to her? When?

"And Daria-even Daria tried to tell me, but I didn't listen."

Tell her what? These other people had no right to wreak havoc on his life!

"But I'm not ready, Robert." Her hand fell from the filly's neck. "I can't give it up. It's not the crown. Or the palace. Or the power-that is, I don't even have any, but the thought of giving up forever the chance to help, to change things. I don't know why I can't be like Daria or your mother or-"

That was quite enough.

"Stop." He crossed the gap and put his hands on her shoulders. This was his fault for not telling her how he felt about her.

While apparently other people had been telling her nonsense.

"If I wanted a girl like that," he said, "I'd have stayed on the frontier and married one." Then he looked, really looked at her. In her travelstained clothing and her tangled hair. With her natural brown skin burned darker by the desert and her boots worn through. She was so much more than any other girl he had ever met.

And he had not even known when he returned to the palace-had not fathomed half the emotions that ran beneath her confident exterior. "What I love about you, Aurelia," he said, very clearly, "is that you aren't satisfied with life as it is." He thought about the kuro and the Lion and the desert raids. "I love that you refuse to accept problems just because they exist and that you want to learn more about everything. I love that you don't have your future all planned out and that you're messy and contradictory and you feel too much." He understood that. He had felt too much his entire life. Looking into her dark eyes, he found the person below the surface, the person who was so scared of letting people down that she had even tried to save him from her own heart. "And Aurelia, I would never-I could never fault you for caring too much for your people."

She had stiffened in his arms, and now he felt her shudder. "How can you say that when I'm abandoning them to my sister's rule?"

"You aren't abandoning them."

She was the least selfish person he knew. He had learned, from the Oracle himself, about what she had done to save the Jaheem. And it rang true, with every wild, insane, gut-wrenching action she had taken on this journey.

Everything she did, every risk she took, was for her people.

"If I don't speak for them," she said, "who will?"

"They can speak for themselves."

"Then of what use am-"

"Hope," he cut her off. "As long as you're alive, they'll have hope. Aurelia, you aren't the voice of Tyralt. You're its heart."

Something reverberated through her frame.

"And mine too," he added. "I am going with you." He had already made that commitment. Had known what he was choosing on that dark night in the stables when he had found her asleep on Horizon's back. And had known when this moment came-or something far worse-he would be with her.

His hand touched her cheek. The sacrifice he could not make-the one thing he could not live without-was her. "I love you, Aurelia."

The thought flowed through her blood, her brain, her body. It wasn't something she could deny. Or relinquish. Or put off until a later time when she was somehow better equipped to sort out her contradictory life. He loved her. Not some mental fiction, some facade she performed, or even some childhood fantasy.

The past six months had blown through all those ill-fitting versions of her in a hail of blood, flames, and tears. She returned to the unanswered question: Had the expedition held worth?

Yes. It had taught her how much she did not know. About the Valshone and the role they played in Tyralt's defense. About the outlaws of the Asyan who had built a community after being proscribed as useless. About the travelers to the north who risked everything to begin new lives, the frontiersmen who had the grit to survive that dream, and the tribes who maintained their beliefs despite a barrage of indignations.

She could not regret knowing her kingdom.

You're its heart.

Was that what her sister really feared?

Aurelia had lost Tyralt, and everything and everyone.

Except the young man before her.

The expedition had taught her about him as well-the companion who somehow knew her kingdom better than she did. Who knew her. Whose arms around her were gentle and strong all at once. And who was waiting, patiently, with those deep blue eyes, for a response after spilling his heart into her hands.

She leaned forward, closing the final s.p.a.ce between them, and cradled his head in those hands, then found his lips with her own and spilled back all of her messy, contradictory, pa.s.sionate heart.

Epilogue.

AURELIA SCRAMBLED UP THE LADDER FROM THE hold and the secret compartment that, according to the captain, had provided sanctuary to hundreds of refugees. She had promised to stay out of sight as long as the ship's deck remained within view of the dock. But the heaving sc.r.a.pe of the anchor against the wooden exterior, the shouts of the sailors, and the sudden jerk that had nearly knocked her from her feet had all indicated that the vessel had pulled away. And the more gentle rocking motion suggested the ship had settled in for its journey.

She could not wait a moment longer. Her hand reached for the upper hatch and thrust up the square panel. Salt air a.s.sailed her nostrils, and bright sunlight invaded her eyes. She stumbled the final steps to the deck, then propped herself against the rigging.

Slowly the ocean revealed itself. A magnificent stretch of turquoise waters, pulsing and glimmering under a beckoning sun. Who knew what lay before her, across its vibrant waves? As a child, she had dreamed about distant sh.o.r.es beyond the ocean.

But that was not what she had climbed to see. Regaining her footing, she hurried to the ship's side. There!

She gripped the smooth surface of the railing and hung on, savoring every last detail of the view. The melded buildings of the red-stone city rose in unison like a mythical castle upon the sand. On their right stretched the everlasting beach of crimson, and above towered the glossy cliffs of the Quartian. She could understand now why people chose to defy them. There was something in the challenge, something that could not be taken away once achieved.

She would look toward other challenges soon.

But now was the time to secure forever in her heart and mind this final vision of the Tyralian Sh.o.r.e. A sorrow, unlike any she had ever known, lodged in her throat, and she could not swallow or wash away the grief. Because she could not afford to cry and lose her last chance to witness this incredible view. It was more than a place. It was a set of dreams and hopes and a future that had defined her for as long as she could remember. How could she watch it drift from her life? But she must-she must because it was happening and there was nothing she could do but bear witness to the moment.

Despite herself, the emotion broke free from her throat and began to seep through the corners of her eyes.

Then a strong warm arm encircled her stomach, and she sank back against Robert's chest. His chin rested on her head. When had he grown so tall? She supposed she should have noticed, as she should have heard him come up behind her. But neither lapse mattered. She could feel him. The warm, companionable comfort that came from sharing her deepest sorrow. They didn't speak. Did not need to. All they needed was to be there for one another. As together they watched their home drift away into oblivion.

end.