Allegiance (River of Souls 3)

“My guards were dutiful and told you how to find me.”

He shrugged. “I would have guessed, no matter.”

That surprised her. “How?”

“Because I know the history of this palace.”

Of course.

She had asked the way, he had known from earlier years, where Tanja Duhr met her beloved soldier. Not her first lover, but the one she remained true to, from death to death, and if legend were correct, into life beyond.

It was a splendid place to meet one’s forever love. Tanja Duhr and Adele Visser. One the poet of the empire, the other a soldier and guardian of the realm. Of course Raul had guessed she would come here.

“Who am I?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Who was I? A pirate. A minor diplomat. A scholar in the service of Leos Dzavek. What matters now is that we are queen and king.”

The truth. She recognized it, even as she shuddered away. One story winding to its end, another beginning. Dzavek dead. Armand of Angersee, as well. So many others, who had cast their loyalty to one side or another. Others had survived and would grow into new lives and families. So and so. It was true. Seeds did sprout. New trees sprang upward to the sky, branching, arching, interweaving, like the walls of a temple summoned by the gods. Oh, yes, she remembered how the gods had visited her, and Miro Karasek, and Valara Baussay, in the far north of Károví. It would never do to forget the gods.

She thought next of Valara and Miro, who had fled to Morennioù, still hiding behind its veil of magic, and of Károví, which hovered on the edge of chaos without its immortal king.

“We are not done, are we?” she said.

Raul smiled, as if he guessed her thought. “No, and never shall be, not until our souls depart this world forever, to join the gods in their eternal delight.”

Duhr again. No, not Duhr, but a later poet that some said was Duhr reborn.

Ilse stood and held out her hand to her husband. “Come,” she said. “Let us begin the new day.”