Free The Destroyer Goddess by Laura Resnick Page B

love." He smiled when he saw her doubtful expression. "Even I was once young and full of hope, Mirabar. And, well, I used to be very different. I was even..." He considered his words and nodded. "Yes, I think most people would say I was a good man. Or at least a decent one. But that was a long time ago." He sat down on the edge of the charred, wet, smoking bed. "Her name was Alcinar," he said. "I met her on my travels."
    "What travels?"
    "Trading. Mostly with the Kintish Kingdoms. I was born to a merchant family. In a reasonably prosperous village north of Adalian." He brushed cinders from the ruined bed. "The village is abandoned now, of course."
    "Valdani?"
    "Kiloran. He was trying to make me let go of the Idalar River, which I had frozen all the way from Illan to Shaljir. He flooded my entire native village. Right up to the edge of a cliff, where the water just stopped, as if it had run into a solid wall. It stayed there for a whole season." Baran smiled. "He really is very good."
    "What did you do then?" she asked.
    "Oh, I retaliated. Then he retaliated. And so on."
    "And your village?"
    Baran shrugged. "Some lives were lost in the flood, and most dwellings were ruined. The village has been abandoned ever since."
    It sickened her that he was so indifferent to the suffering he had helped cause. She couldn't imagine that he had ever been, as he claimed, a decent man. "Did love make you so hard?" she asked in bewilderment.
    "Love? No." He closed his eyes, remembering. "Love made me happy. Made me whole and content. Love gave my existence the real meaning it had lacked, the joy without which life isn't worth living." He opened his eyes and surprised her by saying, "You can't imagine how much I loved her."
    "Did she love you?"
    He blinked. "Yes." Then he seemed to understand the question, and he grinned. "I know. You find that hard to believe, to understand. But I've told you—I was a very different man then. So different, I doubt you can imagine who I was. Just as I know Alcinar would never believe who I have become."
    "So she married you, and then... What happened?"
    "My family's business had always required me to travel a great deal, and I didn't want to be away from her."
    "And she couldn't travel?" 
    "Alcinar had... made certain choices in order to marry me, and it seemed best for her peace that we settle down somewhere. So we went to live in the hills near Lake Kandahar."
    "Why? Didn't you know it was Kiloran's lair?"
    He nodded. "That's why we went there. Kiloran, who had taken an interest in me several years earlier, had always been frustrated by me. I loved water and wanted to explore my gift, my talent; but I had no interest in becoming a waterlord. I came and went, never staying at Kandahar for long. And he always said that if the time ever came that I was prepared to settle down, live nearby, and devote myself seriously to my apprenticeship, then he would welcome me."
    "So you changed your mind? You were ready to become a waterlord?"
    "No. I've told you, I lacked focus. I also lacked ambition. I just knew I didn't want to be a traveling trader anymore." He sighed. "We were so young, Alcinar and I. Even foolish. We thought we could live simply in the mountains, far from her past, and find a new future together. I knew from Kiloran that my talent was special, extraordinary, even for a waterlord. I could develop it, hone it, and eventually use it to be... I don't know. Something new, different. Something besides a waterlord." He shook his head, his expression sad. "I was dreamy-eyed, impractical, and naive."
    "Well, naive to think Kiloran wouldn't pull you into his web," she agreed. "But these were... worthy ideas, Baran." Mirabar thought briefly of the Beyah-Olvari. "Water magic itself isn't inherently evil; it's just the Honored Society which is."
    "That's what I thought," he said softly, looking away. "But you have no idea how seductive water magic is, Mirabar."
    "Then it seduced you?" she guessed.
    "Not then. Not