Sins of Calate: BOOK II OF THE FOUR REALMS SERIES

Part XV | Fara

'Now you must tell me how this is possible?' Wyll said the moment the door closed behind them.

She'd kept her hood drawn as he'd led her through the castle to what appeared to be his chamber. She'd expected to be taken to the Great Hall, to be interrogated before Commandant Pagel and then Lord Ravol before being allowed within proximity of Valdr. 

Had anyone but Dacian met them at the gates she would have been.

The chamber was not overly large but was well-appointed like the rest of Alathy's castle. Its main feature was a large circular aspect at one corner overlooking the town and its bustling port. She could see lights glowing in open windows, soldiers swarming like ants through its streets, the sound of drums and revelry; a town hosting an army. A chill swept up her spine as she took in the number of ships floating just beyond the shadow of the bay. Hundreds, easily. Some with Zybar's black horned sigil, but a great many more with the blue and red Uphine flower of the Dacian Isles.

She turned to him, a question in her eyes. 'How is what possible?'

'The realm thinks you... dead. Your body was brought to us... or rather, what remained of it.' He shuddered at some memory.

'Lies and schemes. Which you swallowed as easily as a child swallows mooncake.' 

Even in the dim light, she saw him flush. Then he hardened, bruised by her derision.

'We had no reason to believe otherwise. Azura had fallen; the king was dead, the Crown Prince was dead. When news of your death at the hands of the Leothine Commander reached us it was easy to believe it.' Ah, yes. Her brutal, fabled death at Theodan's hand. She had to try hard not to roll her eyes. 'Now...' he stepped closer and lowered his voice to a whisper. 'Now, you return to us wearing a collar of black steel and a Leoth by your side to tell us that Zybar is our enemy?'

His meaning was clear. He suspected her to be here on some perfidious mission. Just as Leoth's council had. 'You think I have returned as a weapon of Leoth? To harm you, Wyllan? Gods, I return to save you. War with Leoth. This was the advice of my brother's consul of advisors? The wisest minds of the realm. To send scores of our people to slaughter at the hands of the deadliest warriors in Ethis?

He blanched a little. 'War was our only course. They struck us in our hearts when they took you from us. Were we to stand by and do nothing?'

'You mean as you did when they struck Azura? The realm to which I belonged?' Accusation blazed in her eyes. 'Was that not too a strike in your hearts? Why did Calate not raise their swords then?'

'The king favoured neutrality,' he said carefully.  Dacian had not favoured this. He would never openly disavow the actions of his king, but she could see it in the set of his mouth beneath his thick beard, and in the way his fingers curled to fists, released, curled again. 'Our strength is in our sea forces, Fara. We could not have hoped to match Leoth and Zybar on land.'

'So you left Azura to rot.' Accusation turned to fury, blurring her vision. 'I suppose it is fortunate Valdr's Zybarian wife has come along with her army of barbarians to strengthen our forces.'

'After Valdr received word of your death, it was to be war with or without Zybar. His grief, his rage,' he swallowed, shook his head. 'It was... immeasurable.'

A chill scraped up her spine. She recalled his grief well. It would often pour from him, after. I do not dare think what I would become if I lost you... if someone were to take you from me. 

What had he become? It frightened her to think of it.

She took a breath and met Wyllan's eye. 'Then I must hope for all our sakes that when he looks upon me alive and well he will be minded toward peace. For I will not see Azura's fate wrought upon Calate, and I will not stand side by side with Zybar for any cause. Let the Gods attest that I will stand with Leoth before I would stand with that monster and his army of dogs.'