Scion of Cyador

LXXIII

Lorn looks from the study window of the personal quarters at Inividra out into the purple twilight of a late-spring evening. He still has a trace of a headache, and every so often he has to blot his eyes.

He has finally completed a short version of his report, since there is little point in a longer version, which contains enough-the numbers of barbarians slain, towns sacked, blades seized, some six thousands golds recovered and being returned and, of course, a summary of the blade trade in Jera, and the profits going to Hamorian, Spidlarian, and, unfortunately, Cyadoran traders.

He takes out the chaos-glass and lays it on the desk. Then he pulls out the chair and sits down, concentrating. The silver mists form, then swirl aside into revealing an image-Ryalth is breast-feeding Kerial at a table-the lower inner dining area of Lorn’s parents’ dwelling, and Jerial, wearing a dark green or black tunic, is seated across the table from her.

Both women look up. Jerial says something, and Lorn swallows as he sees the tears roll down Ryalth’s cheeks. Jerial smiles, and Ryalth frees a hand and touches her fingers to her lips, as if to send a kiss across the hundreds of kays that separate them.

Lorn watches for several moments, wishing he could convey more than his presence or existence, before he finally releases the image.

They and Kerial are well, it appears, and at least, at least, they know he is alive.

He stands and walks nearer the open window, looking out and down at the courtyard.

“The Butcher of Nhais…and now the butcher of Jerans…” He shakes his head. Flutak and Baryat would have left Nhais defenseless, and Dettaur would have condemned three times as many lancers to die-and for what?

So that, in the first case, a corrupt enumerator and grower could gather more golds, and in the second, so that all the older lancer officers could rest assured that time-honored traditions did not change, even as the world did? Or so that traders in Summerdock and Swartheld could make more golds off those lancers’ deaths?

Even if the traders and cupritors of Cyad did make golds from selling blades, training more lancers and arming them would raise their tariffs, or shift the cost in golds to someone else’s tariffs. For those in Cyad, it makes no sense. Yet, is he the only one who sees such? Or the only one who is stupid enough to act on what he sees?

“The only one stupid enough…”

He turns from the window. He doubts he will sleep well, for all his self-justifications.