Page 304 of Of Empires and Dust

“I’m not asking you to forgive. I’m asking you to allow her to live so that she may die trying to save those who deserve saving.” Calen drew a short breath, and as he did his eyes began to glow with a purple light, luminescent mist drifting outwards. “I’ve gone over this moment a thousand times in my head.” His voice trembled with anger, and above him, Valerys pulled backhis lips in a snarl. “I want Farda dead. I want to carve the black heart from his chest. And maybe one day I will…” Calen gripped that patch of silk hanging from his belt once more, twisting it in knots. “But not this day. You were right a thousand times over. My loss is not greater than yours. Tivar’s hands are just as bloody as his. And if we do not bend, both of us, we risk everything we love breaking. Is punishing them more important than saving the others? If I can look past my hate and my pain and this rage that blazes in me, Chora, can you? Can we make that noose a little longer?”

“You would set Farda free as well?” The words were less a question and more a stunned realisation.

Calen nodded, clenching his jaw, the glow from his eyes redoubling. “If it means you would set Tivar and Avandeer free and allow them to fly with me… then yes, so long as they swear the same oath. Forty thousand strong lay siege to Tarhelm. I cannot even those odds alone. And if those men and women die because I could not look past my own hate, well, then I am not fit to be a Draleid.”

“Do you truly trust Tivar to fight by your side?”

“If not for her, Valerys and I would already be dead. She came when she had no cause. I trust her shame, and her grief, and her guilt.”

“And you have spoken to your sister?”

“She was the first person I spoke to. She does not like it, but she understands it.”

“She doesn’t strike me as the ‘understanding’ type.”

“She’s trying.” Calen pulled at that patch of silk so hard Chora thought he might tear it in half. “I need an answer, Chora. If Tivar swears to fight at my side, to give her dying breath for this cause, and to not rest until the empire is nothing but ruin, will you change your vote?”

“And if she breaks her vow?”

“Then I will bear the weight of it, and I will kill her myself.”

It was in that moment that Chora realised Aeson was wrong about Calen. He didn’t have Alvira’s heart. He had something stronger. She nodded. “I will do as you ask. I will change my vote.”

Calen closed his eyes, a last rush of glowing purple mist slipping between his eyelids to drift upwards. He gave a short, bitter laugh and shook his head, then whispered, “Thank you.”

“Is this not what you want?”

“What I want?” He pressed his fingers into his cheeks and ran a hand through his hair. “I have just arranged for the life of my mother’s killer to be spared. A man I would strangle with my bare hands. It is the furthest thing in the world from what I want. But it is the choice I have to make.”

“I will inform the others,” Chora said. “There are many amongst the Rakina who will not be happy. I will keep them in line – for now. But if this decision goes sour, Calen, it will be you they turn on.”

“I am aware.”

Chora nodded to herself slowly. “Castor Kai, Aryana Torval, and the others. They will not be best pleased that you are leaving after all their time spent waiting, and I dare say I do not blame them.”

“I go to speak with them now. After I fly to the North, I will go to Salme. I have asked the Illyanaran leaders to move south towards Drifaien. Alleron Helmund requires our aid. I will need someone to march with those armies. Someone I can trust. A Rakina, a warrior of legend to show them they do not fight alone.”

“It is you they want, Calen, not me.”

“They have seen me, they have seen Valerys, they have heard what I have to say. You are wiser than I and have far more experience in these things. It’s time we start thinking about whatwe want the world to look like when this is all over, and I trust you to make those choices. Chora, if you truly want this world to change, it is time you leave this place and make that change happen. Let us not allow hope to die.”

Chora gave Calen a soft smile, then nodded. Before she wheeled herself back towards the arch, she watched Calen for a moment. The young man turned back to look out at the woodland, his fingers still twisted in the silk scarf at his hip, his other hand resting on Valerys’s side.

“Calen.”

Calen turned back, his eyes still misting purple light.

“We are defined by the choices we make in our darkest hours. It is easy to be honourable and dutiful when it comes at no cost. In my darkest hours, I chose to hide, and it has shamed me for hundreds of years.”

“There are plenty of dark hours left,” Calen replied, finally releasing his iron grip on the patch of red silk. “You made the same choice I did today – the lives of others over your own pain. The same choice Tarast and Kollna made. The choice of a Draleid.”

Chora gave Calen a nod, then turned and left. The two Dracurïn bowed and proceeded to funnel threads of Earth and Fire into the stairs, moulding them into a ramp. Chora thanked them and wove threads of Air around her wheels to slow her descent. At first, only her jaw trembled, but after a few moments, her eyes stung and tears fell, soft and soundless.

Chapter 73

What We Must

21stDay of the Blood Moon

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