CHAPTER TWELVE

The FarReach Mountains, Southern Kyros

S omething terrible had happened. No one was quite sure what, but as soon as Salome had mentioned the name of her grandmother—Embeth—StarDrifter had let out a choked cry and sunk to the ground, his face contorted, his fingers clawing into the earth.

Maximilian was tired. Tired of all the complications the SunSoars brought into everyone’s lives. They just couldn’t lead normal, straightforward, blameless lives. Instead, the SunSoars demonstrated a remarkable talent for destroying everyone within flesh-touching distance.

It was dusk, and they were all now sitting about the campfire. Maximilian had introduced Salome to everyone—she was very quiet now, clearly emotionally and physically exhausted—and they had sat down. Ravenna, Serge, and one of BroadWing’s companions, SongFlight, handed about food and flasks of wine.

Maximilian thought they’d all needed the wine.

StarDrifter had joined the circle about the fire, but he refused the food, and had taken only a couple of sips of wine from the flask being handed about.

He looked completely wretched, and Maximilian sighed, supposing it would be up to him to find out what now had gone so wrong in StarDrifter’s life.

Doubtless it would affect them all sooner or later.

“Who was Embeth?” Maximilian said, looking at StarDrifter.

His face tightened. He did not speak, and it was Salome who answered.

“My grandmother,” she said, her voice quiet and lacking in any emotion at all. “The birth that killed her produced a daughter, Hasweb, who was my mother.”

“Hasweb,” StarDrifter murmured, and passed a hand over his eyes.

Maximilian glanced at him, but addressed Salome. “You said she died giving birth?”

Salome sighed, more from weariness than anything else. “Yes. She was not a Corolean. She came from Tencendor—”

Maximilian had a sudden terrible premonition of where this tale would lead.

“—but married into a noble Corolean family. She was pregnant at the time. Everyone thought it was her new husband’s child, but…she had a terrible labor. The child would not be born. It tore my grandmother apart. My mother, Hasweb, survived, but Embeth did not.

“Hasweb was an Icarii child. But she was a wanted and loved child, and Embeth’s husband forgave the fact she’d come into their marriage pregnant with an Icarii child, for he had loved Embeth, and raised the child as his own.

“When she was five they sent her to a specialist, who cut from her back her wing nubs.”

“Oh, gods!” StarDrifter said. “No! How could they—”

“StarDrifter, you will say no more until Salome has finished,” said Maximilian. “You will say nothing, do you understand?”

StarDrifter gave one tight nod.

“It was done cleanly and kindly,” said Salome, “as it would later be done to me. Hasweb was given a powerful drug that rendered her unconscious. There was only a little pain from the incisions later, when she awoke, and the scarring faded within a year or two. As it faded with me.” She paused, then continued. “Hasweb was married into the First. Embeth’s Corolean husband was a member of the First…and he passed Hasweb off as the child of his former wife, who had died only weeks before he’d married Embeth while he’d been on a diplomatic mission within Tencendor. So no one knew that Hasweb was not a born and bred child of the First. No one knew that I was not, until…” She shot a vicious glance at StarDrifter.

“So that is how you came by your Icarii blood,” said Maximilian. “From your mother’s unknown father.”

Salome grimaced slightly. “Not all of it. My mother Hasweb had married into the First, but…she took an Icarii lover herself. My own father was Icarii. I am almost full blood Icarii.”

“And did Hasweb die in your birth?” Venetia asked.

Salome shook her head. “No. Her lover came back for my birth, for he had loved my mother, and he sang me out of her womb.”

“Is Hasweb…is Hasweb still living?” StarDrifter asked, ignoring Maximilian’s injunction to keep his silence.

Salome did not appear to notice who had asked the question. “No. She died when I was fourteen, pining for her lover, I think.”

“Who was your father, Salome?” Maximilian asked.

She gave a little shrug. “I don’t know. Not really. My mother would only say that he was the loveliest man she had ever met, with copper hair and violet eyes, and a power so extraordinary that—”

“No!” StarDrifter cried. “I can’t believe this!”

Maximilian ignored him. “And Hasweb’s father?”

Again that shrug. “I have no idea. Embeth never said.”

Now Maximilian looked at StarDrifter. “Well?”

“How do you know?” said StarDrifter, his voice hoarse with emotion.

“Because the SunSoars destroy lives so effectively that I cannot imagine that you have not had a greater hand in the destruction of Salome’s life than what has occurred only in the past few weeks.”

StarDrifter did not reply immediately, and by now every eye about the campfire was trained on him.

“I was Embeth’s lover,” StarDrifter said eventually. “I was Hasweb’s father. I had no idea Embeth was pregnant when she left Carlon. Salome, I’m sorry. I had no idea.”

“You are my grandfather?” she said.

StarDrifter made a helpless gesture with a hand. “I had no idea, Salome. I am sorry.”

“But she was your lover!” Salome said. “How could you leave her pregnant and not know and not care?”

Maximilian thought of several highly cynical comments he could interject at this point, but thought it better to remain silent. This was now between Salome and StarDrifter only.

StarDrifter was too emotionally drained to couch the truth in palatable words. “I didn’t love her. Perhaps I liked her. I can’t really remember. She was just someone to have in my bed at night. It was during the heady days of Axis’ first wave of great success. He’d taken Carlon and defeated his brother, Borneheld.

Life was about celebrating. About getting drunk on song and wine and success and taking to bed the woman you wanted. But the woman I wanted, Azhure, was wedded to Axis, and so instead I took Embeth, Axis’ old lover. It seemed fitting, somehow.”

He paused, and didn’t seem to realize the silence about the fire was thick with horror.

“She left Carlon at some point,” StarDrifter continued. “With Faraday, I think. I never thought of her again.”

“Faraday being Axis’ rejected lover, also pregnant at that stage with his child,” BroadWing put in for the benefit of the non-Tencendorians among them who were not familiar with the twists in the tale.

Maximilian closed his eyes momentarily. He couldn’t believe it.

“And my father?” said Salome. “Who was he?”

“Your father could have been no one else but the fabled Enchanter-Talon WolfStar SunSoar,” said StarDrifter. “The description fits him perfectly. And WolfStar would have known, somehow, that Embeth had left Carlon pregnant with my child. He would have known Hasweb was my daughter. She was of SunSoar blood. He wouldn’t have been able to leave her alone, and her seduction would have amused him. He would have known that at some point it would cause havoc—and causing havoc was what WolfStar did best. The instant he laid eyes on Hasweb he would have known her SunSoar blood. All SunSoars are pulled to each other. We felt it, Salome. That’s why—”

“Just get on with it!” Salome hissed.

“I am your grandfather, Salome. WolfStar SunSoar, the greatest Enchanter the Icarii has ever known, was your father. You are not only virtually full blood Icarii, but you are also virtually full blood SunSoar. I don’t know what to do, Salome. I don’t know how to atone for what I have done to your family.

Hasweb…gods, I had another daughter, she would have been an Enchanter, and I had no idea…no idea…nor that you…Salome, I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry.”

For a long time no one said anything.

Then BroadWing gave a short laugh. “Trust the SunSoars to survive the destruction of Tencendor in virtual full force. You are the heir to the Icarii throne, StarDrifter. You are our Talon—an Enchanter-Talon. And now you have made an heir to succeed you, and on a hitherto unknown granddaughter of yours and a daughter of the renegade WolfStar. I don’t know whether to congratulate you, or to curse you.”