Free Voice of the Lost : Medair Part 2 by Andrea K. Höst

everything worse, but she was glad, when finally there were no tears left, to simply be able to hold him.
    He loved her.  He had said so.  Why should it matter that he was Ibisian, when it did not matter to him that she was Farakkian?  There was no enmity between them.  But how could she contemplate a relationship with Cor-Ibis when it made her feel so shamed?  To lie alive in his arms, with the blood of thousands on her hands?
    Avahn had said she could be a unifying force in Palladium, just as the false Medairs had attempted to be the opposite.  But that was before she had blown the Horn, an act which would inevitably make her a rallying point for hatred.  Wouldn't taking an Ibisian lover do more harm, add insult to impossible injury?  Could she stand to be seen that way?  She, who had always wanted to follow a right and honourable course?  Being anything with Cor-Ibis would give too many an obvious reason for her actions.
    Until sleep came to claim her, Grevain Corminevar's words played over and over in her mind:
    *There was no right choice, messenger.  And no wrong decision.*

     

 
    CHAPTER SIX
    Morning light scoured the cave of all its secrets.  The pad of bedrolls and blankets had flattened wafer-thin, doing little to shield Medair from the uneven floor, and the scratches, bruises and scrapes of the previous night all gave tongue in a minor chorus of pain.
    Kierash Islantar lay on his stomach next to her, chin resting on crossed arms as he kept watch, gazing along the base of the hill.  He glanced back as she sat up, and she tried not to groan at the creaking and popping of her spine.
    "How long ago was dawn?" she asked, excavating sand from her eyes.  She felt blasted, battered, but somehow cleaner, better able to deal with what she had done, and might have to face.  The air smelled of pine, not blood.
    "The time limit is almost up.  I have not seen anyone going to the cave."
    Medair took refuge in practicality, ferreting through her satchel for breakfast.  After quickly finishing her share, she warned him not to turn around, so she could change into fresh clothing.  Islantar obligingly kept his eyes fixed on the shadow beneath the spur of rock as he munched on the dry biscuits she had offered.
    "When I was nine," he said, after she had stopped moving about, "I decided that Cor-Ibis should be my father."  He glanced back, and smiled at her expression.  "He is not, of course.  He would only have been fourteen when I was conceived.  But he is what I wanted my father to be.
    "That was the year when Athere heard of nothing but Cor-Ibis, awarded the honours of Keridahl Avec, whose acuity was so profound many believed he could read minds, whose manner was so perfect not the slightest fault could be recorded against him.  He is our most powerful adept, perhaps the most capable, certainly one of best respected of the Keridahl. 
    "That was also the year following the death of his mother and Keris Amaret.  Those who did not want to be him spent their time courting him.  Potential allies, lovers, those of his family who competed to be named his heir.  Even his enemies vied for his attention, each moment of his time, wanting what I wanted: to be special to him, to win him."
    Medair received this entirely un-Ibisian speech in silence, and searched for some hint of expression in the youth's profile.  "Did you succeed?"
    "I have no idea.  He is, as I said, perfectly correct, and he has never behaved toward me with anything but the courtesy due the future Kier.  He has ever held himself aloof from those who pursue.  Immensely frustrating, perhaps even more so for my mother, who disliked my too-apparent quest to capture Cor-Ibis' affection almost as much as his failure to gratify me.  It is not how I should behave."
    Islantar looked over his shoulder at her again, then turned resolutely away.  Medair thought of how Cor-Ibis had reacted when he had seen Islantar exposed in the midst of the battle on