a child. “Go to sleep now,” she said, and picking up the tray, hurried from the room.
Lara slept, as Rahil had predicted, until the following morning. She awoke to see through a small paned window to one side of her bed the sky colored with the coming sunrise. A gentle breeze slipped through the slightly open window. Lara stretched herself. For the first time in weeks she felt good. Her body no longer ached with sorrow and tension. She felt a faint excitement as she considered what might lie ahead for her. And she realized that she was looking forward to going into the Coastal Kingdom.
“Hetar.” She said the word softly. A place carefully divided into Forest, Desert, Coast and Midlands. A place where all roads led to the City at its center. Hetar, where appearance and possessions were everything; where each citizen’s life was lived by careful rules that dictated his or her place within society. And yet there were ways to advance if one followed the rules. She had not realized until she had begun her travels how stifling it had all been. She might have never known, had she not been sent from the City on that early morning over seven years ago.
She might now have been a Pleasure Woman in one of the City’s great Pleasure Houses. A creature of beauty, skilled in all the amatory arts, whose sole reason for being was to give and to receive pleasure. But if that had been her fate she should never have learned how to love, or to be loved. Or that her faerie blood allowed her to practice good magic. Or that her sire’s blood had given her the ability to be the great warrior she had become. She often wondered what John Swiftsword would think of his daughter now. Did he know she had played an important part in the Winter War?
Lara swung her legs over the edge of the bed and stood up. Yes! She was beginning to feel like herself again. She walked to the window, and pushing it all the way open, she breathed in the soft air, smelling the tangy salt of the sea on the breeze. Tomorrow. She would leave for King Archeron’s palace tomorrow! And then she heard Ethne, her crystal guardian, quite clearly. She reached for the crystal that hung from the gold chain about her neck.
No, Ethne said. You need more rest, my child. Here you are safe. You will never really be safe in Hetar while Gaius Prospero and his compatriots hold power.
But Rendor and his people must leave soon for the Gathering, Lara protested in the silent discourse they had always used to speak with one another.
The Gathering is over a month away, Lara. Take this time while you have it, my child. You must be strong for what lies ahead.
Very well, Lara agreed, and the tiny flame in the crystal flickered. “Why,” she muttered softly to herself, “do the magical beings surrounding me always speak in riddles?” Her ears pricked at the faint sound of laughter.
But Ethne had been right. Lara discovered that she was still tired, and very worn.
She enjoyed having Rahil fuss over her, plying her with tasty meals and making her sleep early, and rise late. Her strength began to return, and after two weeks had passed Lara decided it was now time to leave the Felan. “Tomorrow,” she said that evening to Rendor as they all sat at the high board.
He nodded. “Is dawn too early?”
“Rendor!” Rahil protested.
“It is perfect,” Lara agreed, and put a comforting hand on Rahil’s hand. “I am well and strong again, thanks to you,” she told the woman. “But it is now time for me to go, dear friend. I sense it.”
A tear slipped down Rahil’s sweet round face. “You have suffered so much,” she said. “It doesn’t seem fair to me.”
“You should see her with that sword of hers,” Rendor told his wife. “If you did you would not be fooled by her delicate face and form, wife.” And he chuckled. “Each time I hear Andraste sing it sends icy ripples through me.”
“She is a very fierce battle spirit,” Lara agreed.
“And will you appear before King Archeron as you did the first time?” Rendor wanted to know. “All beautiful and faerie in a flowing white gown?”
“No,” Lara told him. “I will appear as the warrior I am so Archeron will not be mistaken in his opinion of me. I have a destiny to fulfill, and I can allow none to stop me, Rendor.”
Rendor nodded. “Then I am reassured,” he said with a broad smile.
It was a full day’s ride to reach the palace of King Archeron. They left just before sunrise, and reached the sea as the sun pushed up over the horizon. As they rested their horses briefly Lara was suddenly assailed by a thought as she looked out over the blue waters. Where did these waters come from? Where did they end? Did the Coastal Kings know? Would they tell her? And why had she not considered this before, when she first saw the Sea of Sagitta?
Lara knew that her destiny had something to do with this great sea whose waves rolled onto the sandy beach she now traveled. But what? Archeron would surely know more about it. She would ask him. The sea had to end somewhere, didn’t it? Was there a sandy beach like this one on its far side? And if there was, were there people, too? Was it possible Hetar and the Outlands were not all there was to this world which they inhabited? The closer she got to Archeron’s palace the more questions seemed to flood her mind.
“You are quiet,” Rendor noted as they rode along.
“Do you know where the sea ends?” Lara asked him.
The Lord of the Felan look puzzled, and then he said, “The sea just is, Lara.”
“You have never considered what might be on the other side of this sea?” She could see she was confusing him, but perhaps he had heard something that she could coax him to recall by questioning him.
“The sea is the sea,” he answered her. “It is there. It has always been there.”
“Think, Rendor. Yours are the only lands among the Outlands clans to border this water. The Coastal Kings are the only ones in Hetar to border this water. The sea must begin in one place, and end in another. There must be something on its other side.”
“What other side?” Rendor asked now looking seriously befuddled.
He didn’t understand. And truth be known, Lara wasn’t certain she understood either. So many questions filling her head, brought about just by looking upon the Sea of Sagitta again. “I am being foolish,” she said to him, and when she saw the relief in his eyes she knew she had been wise to end the conversation. Rendor hadn’t the least notion to what she had been referring, or what she had meant. But she would wager that King Archeron would understand. The exquisite fabrics, the unique and beautiful jewelry the Coastal Kings brought into the City did not come from their hands. She had seen no manufactories on the coast. So where did the luxury goods come from?
As the morning became afternoon, and then late afternoon, they saw a troop of horsemen coming toward them. Lara was surprised until she realized that Archeron had sent an escort to bring her to him. “How did they know we were coming?” she asked Rendor.
He nodded his head toward the heights that bordered the beach. “Watchtowers. Discreetly placed, I will grant you, but there. You don’t notice them because they look like piles of stones. And they have developed some sort of silent code using flags so that one tower may signal to another.”
“How clever, and how very Hetarian,” Lara chuckled. “I did not notice them the first time we came. That was careless of me.”
