Free Fortress of Dragons by C. J. Cherryh Page A

yourself?”
    â€œIf you work mischief here or anywhere, Lady Orien, I will prevent it. If you work any mischief against Cefwyn or anyone else, you won’t be safe here, or anywhere.”
    â€œI am your prisoner.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œI demanded my rights of my liege lord, my rights by oath, and Cefwyn denied me them and sent me and my sister away in a common cart in the mid of the night, like offal from the kitchens! Was that just? Was that justice? Better he had killed us!”
    â€œHe thought it mercy,” he said in all honestly. “And said it was a risk.”
    â€œAnd how long will this arrest go on?” Orien cried indignantly. “Are we to live here forever?”
    â€œAs long as you wish to oppose Cefwyn. I won’t ever permit that. And I know that you do.”
    Clearly this had taken a turn the ladies Aswydd did not like. Tears brimmed in Tarien’s eyes.
    â€œAnd shall we never leave this room? Shall we not at least have the freedom of the halls?”
    He had pity on them in that regard, if his sense of the danger in them were not so great. He had had his own fill of locked doors and silent guards.
    â€œNot while you intend harm. Think and change your minds if you can. Intend better if you can.”
    There was a moment of silence, in which Lady Orien gazed at him with heaving breast and fire in her eyes. But then the glance lowered, all but a bowed head, a meek clasping of hands—an implied acceptance he did not trust.
    â€œWe have no choice,” Tarien said in a low voice. “And we have no chance if we go on as we are.” Orien’s anger flared, scenting the very air of the room, but Tarien persisted: “Good sir, we did hear in the convent that you had been given Henas’amef, else we wouldn’t have dared come here. You were the kindest of the Marhanen’s friends. I expect nothing good of him, but you would never harm us.”
    â€œCefwyn didn’t harm you,” he returned. “And you tried to kill him.”
    â€œTo win him,” Tarien said, but he knew that for a lie, and Tarien perhaps knew he knew, for the gray space grew dark and troubled.
    â€œEmuin’s here, too, isn’t he?” Orien asked. “I heard him quite clearly.”
    â€œHe’s here.”
    â€œDry old Emuin,” Orien said. “Hypocrite.”
    â€œHe says very ill things of you, too,” Tristen said, “and I regard his opinion as far more fair.”
    It was perhaps more subtle a sting than Orien had expected. Her nostrils flared, but she did not glare. Rather she seemed to grow smaller, and more pliant.
    â€œWe shouldn’t quarrel. I never held any resentment for you, none at all. You never had a chance but to fall into the Marhanen’s hands, the same as we, and you have far more right to be here: I shouldn’t chide you.”
    He felt a subtle wizardry as she said it, and he wondered what she was attempting now.
    He broke off the blandishments and the weaving of a spell with a wave of his hand, and she flinched. So did Tarien, for that matter.
    â€œDon’t,” he said, to Tarien as much as to Orien. “Don’t press against the walls. You’re in danger, and you’re far safer here than anywhere else if you’ll accept it.”
    â€œAccept it!” Orien said in scorn.
    â€œAccept safety here. It’s my best advice.”
    â€œI need nothing from you or that dry stick of a wizard!”
    â€œBut you do,” he said. “You need it very much.” Orien turned her shoulder to him, but he went on trying to reach her, in the World and in the gray space alike. “Lady, you didn’t only open the wards and the window, you opened yourself and your sister to Hasufin. You thought it might give you a way to rule here and be rid of Cefwyn, but all Hasufin wanted was a way inside the wards.”
    â€œAnd an end of the Marhanen!”
    â€œLady Orien, the