Chapter Eighteen

Darius puzzled over the scroll in front of him, his lips moving as he slowly worked his way through the foreign script. He'd been tutored in basic Ibalian as a youth, and he'd retained a good deal of that knowledge, but he'd never been fluent, and these weren't simple texts.

His initial quest had been simple enough; with Tanitha's agreement to stay a little longer, he wanted to introduce her to some foundational texts on her abilities, allowing her to begin exploring them. After some obligatory time spent that morning with Alethia of Zharen per his mother's instructions, he'd excused himself, then came here to the palace library. He'd had to be subtle about gathering the scrolls he wanted, as he had no desire for anyone to wonder why a prince might be interested in reading texts about the basics of a discipline he'd studied since childhood, but it hadn't been difficult to find a few good ones. The scrolls were gathered in a satchel that lay closed at his feet. After that, though, something had occurred to him, something that had been bothering him about an earlier conversation with Tanitha.

He repeatedly told himself that this was pointless, that he needed to stay focused on his objective, which was to ensure a secure future for Tanitha, one where she would use her abilities to protect his kind, not fight against them. But despite his best efforts, his mind kept going back to the moment when she'd told him about her parents' deaths. For someone describing something as horrible as a plague outbreak, she'd been matter-of-fact about it, no real emotion in her voice.

Perhaps he could ascribe that simply to her not remembering her parents well, as she'd said. But somehow, he didn't think that was really what was at play. She'd been similarly dispassionate that night atop the necropolis' hill. She hadn't panicked or begged or pleaded. She'd just asked for his word that her sister would be safe. And the more he'd thought about it, the more he realized why both instances seemed paradoxically both strange and familiar. They both reminded him of the shift that had occurred in his mother after his father had died, how she hadn't seemed able to express strong emotions. As if she didn't even seem to be able to properly feel them after that wound had been inflicted.

Of course, any comparison between his mother and Tanitha could only go so far, he thought wryly. But at the same time, he thought he might be onto something. When his father had died, there had been ceremony and ritual to mark his passing. Tanitha would have had no such markers on the path of grief. In fact, she likely would have been encouraged to forget her past outside the Shadowborn City altogether. Foundlings were expected to assimilate themselves fully into the land that sheltered them, and that would have been doubly true of her and her sister, given their association with Sabria. She might never have had the space to mourn her parents' deaths.

He set the scroll aside with a sigh, turning to an unfurled leather map beside him on the table. He'd requested texts on the hill tribes of Ibalia, and the archivist he'd enlisted had brought him a wealth of information, but linguistic difficulties aside, he didn't really know what he was looking for. Initially he'd meant to see if he could simply identify which tribe she was from, or at least which general region of Ibalia, but again, what was the point? He'd already gone above and beyond any self-imposed responsibility he might have inflicted on himself. He'd preserved Tanitha's life, and with some help from Kai, he was already in the process of anonymously arranging for her to start a new one.

But that very fact brought a deep stirring of discomfort with it. Perhaps it was just the realization that this wasn't the first time her entire world had been torn from her. And he didn't think she'd ever truly had the opportunity to heal from the first time it had occurred.

He leaned against the chair's back, lips pursed. After Tanitha's display with the moths, it was clear that he ought to be primarily wary of her potential. She clearly had innate strength, perhaps even on a level comparable with most demons, though he wouldn't be certain on that point until she'd begun to develop it. He should be keeping her firmly at arm's length. And yet, the urge to draw closer to her, to offer comfort and perhaps connection, was persistent.

Again, though, what did he hope to accomplish? What was he even looking for in this mess of maps and scrolls?

He traced a hand over the line of the river that nominally separated Ibalia from Sabria, the leather of the map cool under his hand. Maybe, on some level, Tanitha wasn't the only one he thought was in need of connection.

"I've been there," a voice from behind him said, and he startled violently. "To that part of Ibalia."

He turned quickly to look at Alethia, berating himself silently; though she didn't present a danger to him, he prided himself on keeping alert to his surroundings, even in such an innocuous setting as the palace library.

Alethia, who was wearing a deep blue silk kaftan embroidered with silver, was looking at him almost quizzically.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I assumed you'd heard me enter." She looked at the table, at the scrolls spread across it, then nodded to the chair beside him. "May I?"

"Of course," he said, standing to pull it back from the table for her, despite his misgivings; he obviously didn't want to give her an opportunity to ask why Karazhen's prince was so interested in a collection of hill tribes many leagues away on the north side of the Akkenthian, but acting as if he had something to hide would be worse.

Alethia took the seat with easy grace, and Darius returned to his own. Alethia looked at the map for a moment, then turned to Darius.

"You don't have a reputation for being particularly scholarly," she said, her tone light. "I was surprised when I was told I could find you here."

Darius gave a wry smile. "Contrary to general perception," he said, "it's not really that shocking of an occurrence for me to pick up a loose scroll here and there."

"This is considerably more than a loose scroll," she replied with an arch look at the table. She returned her gaze to him, her own level and assessing. "Scholar or not, you do have a reputation for being single-minded in your pursuit of your objectives," she said. "So I was rather surprised at how distracted you seemed this morning." She leaned one elbow on the table, regarding him steadily. The blue scales on her temples glittered in the magelight. "It's led me to wonder if courting me is not, in fact, one of your goals."

Darius cursed himself mentally. He'd tried to focus on her, he really had, but his mind insisted on drifting back to Tanitha. On everything she'd gone through, on what she was still going through. It was perhaps understandable that he'd want to know as much as he could about the woman he was sheltering, but that didn't excuse him from failing to give Alethia the attention she was due after he'd invited her to remain.

"I'm sorry," he said. "You're right that I've been distracted of late, but I truly don't mean to seem disinterested. It's just a matter that I need to address. It's drawing to a close soon." The thought gave him a sharp pang of sadness. Despite the danger Tanitha presented while residing with him… he was strangely discontented to think of watching her leave.

He realized Alethia was speaking, and he returned his attention to her sharply. There he was again, letting his mind wander to Tanitha instead of the woman directly in front of him. The one he was supposed to be courting. Why was it so difficult to keep his mind on that task?

"The matter you need to address," Alethia was saying. She tilted her head to the parchments and scrolls. "It's related to all this? To Ibalia?"

He shook his head. "This is just me addressing a gap in my knowledge," he said. Best that he not give too many clues about what was really distracting him. "There's been talk of increasing our clandestine presence in Ibalia," he said. That was true, at least. "Those tribes have an unusually high percentage of elementalists in their bloodlines, and there are some indications that Sabria is beginning to make inroads in recruiting them, despite the history between them."

She pursed her lips. "That's unfortunate," she said, her tone clearly indicating she knew how much of an understatement that was. "Though if I might ask, what is the gap you are trying to address? Ibalian poetry is certainly a beautiful art form, but I don't see its applicability to the situation at hand."

He blinked. "Poetry?" he asked.

She pointed at the scrolls near the bottom of the pile, at the leather tags labeling them. "Songs of praise to one of their deities, a stylized historical account of a territory dispute with Sabria, and…" She flipped one of the tags so it faced upward, "…a funerary chant from the southern tribes, the ones closest to us," she said. She turned back to him, waiting.

He looked at her in surprise. She'd gleaned all of that with barely more than a glance. "You read Ibalian fluently?" he asked.

She nodded. "About eight years ago, I spent some time there," she said. "I was tutored extensively in the language and the culture of the region I was helping to monitor. That was before Magister Alodion decided that sending me that far abroad was imprudent."

Darius raised an eyebrow. "He thought sending you to work covertly in Ibalia was too dangerous but doesn't object to you fighting pirates?"

She smiled, though there was a faint edge of sadness to the expression. "In his defense, I hadn't yet developed the control to maintain a leviathan form when he pulled me from the rescue efforts."

Darius tilted his head. "Rescue?" he asked quietly. "Demon children, I take it?"

She nodded, a hint of emotion in her eyes before she glanced away. "I only ever managed to bring one back alive," she said. "It's grim work. Made the more so by witnessing what occurs when we fail." She shook her head once. "There was one occasion… the boy was about ten years old and showing signs of his elemental strength growing rather than fading. Some of the more migratory tribes welcome those signs as long as there aren't hints of the shapeshifting ability along with it, but not this one. I didn't witness what they did to him to try to force him to reveal what they thought his nature must be, but I saw the aftermath." She was still looking away. "He didn't survive it," she said. "The fact that he wasn't one of us didn't make the sight any easier to bear."

"I'm sorry," he said quietly.

She sighed softly. "I imagine you've had no shortage of unpleasant duties yourself, Your Highness," she said. "And seen no shortage of terrible acts, or at least their aftermath." She finally looked up. "It's truly horrifying, what they'll do when driven by fear," she said. "Even to their own."

At her words, his mind darted back to the sight of a young woman bound and alone in a place of blood and sacrifice. He stifled a surge of anger at the memory. She hadn't even been given enough aspholia root to stop her from suffering during the death that was meant to have taken her. The death that he'd been ordered to inflict on her. What was the difference, really, between the fear that led to horrors like what Alethia was describing and the fear that would have led to Tanitha's death?

It was an uncomfortable thought, made the more so by the fact that he'd fully intended to carry through with Naratha's order. Tanitha's assurance that his choice to spare her truly had been his own decision had soothed some of the disgust he felt toward himself for that, but at some level it was still present. Perhaps that was at the root of his desire to do more for her than what was strictly necessary to avoid the danger that her fate might present to him. Even if he fully recognized that seeking absolution for something he hadn't actually done was nonsensical.

"The humans aren't the only ones who will commit terrible acts out of fear," he said, matching her volume. She leaned back slightly, regarding him with a question in her gaze, and he shook his head. "Just something I was tasked with not long before your arrival here," he said. "I'd rather not go into detail."

She nodded, a bare hint of sympathy in her gaze before she smoothed her expression. "I understand," she said.

He turned back to the scrolls in front of him. Maybe this wasn't about absolution, he thought. Maybe it was just an instinct to offer relief from pain where he saw it. And Tanitha was carrying more than she perhaps even recognized herself.

"You said the more migratory tribes are less fearful of magical talent?" he asked. She nodded. "Which region do those groups generally hail from?" he asked.

She lightly traced out a crescent-shaped area on the south side of the Ibalian mountain range with one finger. "Here," she said. "They have a fairly sophisticated trading network, not dissimilar to ours, actually, but land based. They've been known to do business with our ships under cover of darkness." Darius looked intently at the map. That had to be it, then. The region Tanitha had come from as a child. Alethia continued, "They don't want to attract Sabrian ire by flaunting their willingness to trade with demons, understandably."

Darius nodded. Keeping his tone neutral, he asked, "Can you tell me what you know about the people of that area?"

She looked at him, a question in her eyes. For a moment he thought he'd misstepped, that he was inviting far too much curiosity as to why this mattered to him, but then she nodded.

"Of course," she said. "What would you like to know?"