She wanted to tell him that she had never been Azura's trinket, neither had she been Galyns, for Galyn had never sought to own her. Galyn had always recognised her as an equal, as his wife. Sadness settled over her heart at the thought of him, at what she had done to him.

Could he have loved me without the curse I'd put upon his heart, she wondered.

He had been a good man. Noble. Honest. Brave. Nothing like the man who stood before her now.

'And that is how you have ever seen me,' she fixed him with a disdainful glare. 'A trinket. Something pretty to possess. Something you are convinced your divine blood has given you ownership of.'

'You sell yourself short, sister. You are, by degrees, far more than pretty; you are the most beautiful treasure in the four realms.' He smiled. 'In fact, I think you have grown even more so since I last looked upon you. Widowhood is to you as Sunalven is to the White Laurel tree.'

'And you are a monster!' She spat. Did he think this another of his games? War was not a game. Death and enslavement of innocents was not a game. Fury tore a path through her. 'We were taught as children to fear and hate the Leothine; inhuman beasts that are not like us. Monsters who will one day come to slaughter us all while we sleep, that will drink our blood like wine. But the monster has always been you. My monster has always been you, has it not, brother?'

The smile fell from his mouth as he strode forward and struck her hard across the face, the force of it sending her to her knees at his feet. Sharp hot pain flamed across her cheek.

'You would dare speak to me thus?' He thundered. 'When I have grieved and mourned and enshrined you, you would say that to me!? When everything I have done, I have done for you!?'

She took a deep breath and pressed her palm to her cheek and turned her head up slowly to look at him.

'For me?' she asked, her voice calm. 'I watched children ripped from the dead arms of their mothers. Priestesses raped and beaten by the men you now call your allies, farmers forced to watch while their lands were destroyed and their wives and children were...' she could not speak the words. She did not have to. For he knew, of course, he knew. 'Gods, how lucky I am to be loved as you love me, brother.'

Valdr's eyes were a black fire, pitiless depths of inky darkness. When he spoke his voice was cool as stone. 'Did not I warn you what would happen if you should try to leave me? Did not I warn you too what would become of whoever tried to take you from me?'

Yes. He had. She should have known. She should have stopped him. Should not have run from him. Galyn's fate would have been his own then. Would there have been fewer deaths? Perhaps. But she also knew the kind of male Torrik was and after taking Azura through the bedchamber it would not have been long before his eyes had turned eastward toward Calate.

Fara swallowed the bile which had risen to her throat, letting her eyes say all that her tongue did not.

Valdr stared at her a beat, then another, before his fury disappeared completely, like mist in the heat of the sun. Sinking to the floor beside her, he pulled her into his arms. 'Forgive me,' he pleaded softly. 'Please forgive me. It is not what I wish, Fara. It has never been what I wished...' His voice was riven with guilt now.

At first, she resisted by turning her head and pushing at his body, but he was, as ever, stronger than her. Thick, warm, arms overpowered her, the familiar scent of him assailing her senses, forcing down her resistance the way it always had. Her fury quieted with every stroke of her hair and soon she stopped fighting. Pulling her hand away from her cheek he kissed the burning skin tenderly.

'You must say it. Say you forgive me.'

Forgive him. How many times had he begged this of her? How many times had she complied? She raised her head to look into his eyes. Eyes so familiar to her it was as though she looked in a mirror.

'Which part?' She asked. 'Which part is it you seek forgiveness for? For striking me? For the war you started in my name? For the countless, brutal, deaths of those people who welcomed me? Or perhaps it is for something else? Something you have yet to do?' She shoved at him. 'Tell me! Which part am I to forgive you for, brother?' She thought she saw the corner of his mouth twitch into the semblance of a smile and it lit a fire of fury in her. She raised her hand and struck him hard across the face. He accepted it. His eyes, when they found hers again, were shining with a dark kind of satisfaction even. She struck him again. Then again. His face, his bare chest, over and over and over she hit him and over and over he welcomed it. When she finally tired he pulled her into him again, cradling her to his chest as he hushed her. She could hear his heart beating fast and loud.

'It is enough, Fara,' he whispered. 'It is enough.'

'I despise you...' she told him though she did not fight him anymore.

A soft sigh. 'You do not. You love me, as I love you, and you will forgive me for this as you have always forgiven me. Soon you will understand why it had to be this way.' He placed a gentle kiss beneath her ear, beneath her hair, on the nape of her neck.

'What of Dura of Zybar?' She asked him, wearily. 'Did you take her to wife for me too?'

He stiffened and raised his head to look into her eyes. Something akin to shame or embarrassment she thought flitted across the dark green.

'Yes.'

She made a small scornful noise. 'And what of your sorceress? If the rumours in Virheim are true then you also consort with an Irhith for me? Does she also share your bed?' She hated the tone of her voice, the accusation in it, the weakness in it. She pushed away from him and turned her head.

'I thought you dead,' he explained. 'I have felt nothing since Ravol uttered the words... have thought of nothing but you... of how I would avenge you... of how I would make the Leoth who took you from me pay.'

'As you made Galyn pay?' She accused.

A faint sneer twisted his mouth at the mention before he swallowed, hard. 'Torrik had his own debt to settle with the Princeling of Azura...' Princeling. She'd forgotten Valdr used the diminutive term when referring to him. He thought it a clever way to diminish him.

'Torrik's intent had only ever been to plunder Azura's riches for himself,' she fired angrily. When Galyn broke his betrothal he saw those riches slip from his blood-hungry hands.' She gave him a hard look. 'You achieved nothing by convincing him to war with Azura, for he had always been prepared for it. He had no intention of ever seeing his daughter married to Azura - his goal was always Azura herself.'

His eyes had grown narrow and cold, suspicion and doubt turning them from darkest black to serpent green.'How can you know this to be true?'

'Ask him,' she said instead. 'You will see the truth or lie clear in his eyes. He took you for a fool, Valdr. He told you of my death knowing you would declare war on Leoth, knowing that you would need his army to strengthen yours. And what was the cost of his allegiance? Why the hand of a king for his daughter of course.' A strange laugh broke from her throat. 'And you? Valdr, you have not gained an army. You have gained nothing except the enmity of Leoth.'

He had grown very still. Though she could clearly see that a storm raged behind his eyes. Whether his thoughts were of murder or vengeance or peace she could not say, but she sensed that he had heard her words. Sensing this moment may never present itself again, she decided to continue.

'You can stop this before it is too late. Send peace terms to Leoth, Valdr. Give thanks for my safe return and make reparations for the injury caused to their soldiers and camp in Azura.'

At first, she did not know if he heard her, so deep in thought was he. Then he blinked, his gaze refocusing on her. He made a wordless study of her for a few moments.

'Give thanks for your safe return...' he repeated.

'Not all voices on the council argue for war, Valdr. I heard it. They are suspicious but Zybar's treachery will never be forgotten. They have no true quarrel with us. Annul this marriage and cast Torrik aside. Send peace terms at once and we may yet save this realm and our brother.' She gripped hold of his hand then and squeezed her plea into it.

Valdr stared at her for many moments. She searched his face for some degree of conflict or indecision, but he looked strangely calm now.

Finally, he let out a breath and gave a nod, his mouth softening. He moved to stand, rising to his feet with an elegance that belied his tall size and ran a hand through his hair.

'The hour is late,' he said, reaching his hand down to help her up from the floor. 'We shall talk more tomorrow.'

'But you heard what I said, that Panos is in Leoth? That our brother is in chains in the realm of our enemies?'

He nodded. 'Yes, I know.'

'Then you have a plan to have him freed?'

'Panos is a soldier, Fara,' he explained patiently as though she were a child. 'He knew the risks when he allowed himself to be captured.' She recalled saying this to Theodan, but irrationally Valdr saying it only angered her, only magnified his arrogance.

'Allowed himself? He fights for you, his king.'

He gave her a pointed look. 'In fact, he went to Azura to avenge his sister.'

'Because Zybar lied to you. Because they sent you the body of some poor servant girl in my stead to incite your fury for their own ends.'

He sighed, as though tired now. 'Tomorrow. We shall talk of whatever you please, tomorrow. We will take morning-meal together in the arboretum? Yes,' he nodded, more to himself than her.

'But you will consider it?' She was losing him, could feel him slipping from her. 'You will consider sending terms of peace to Leoth? Before it is too late?'

He smiled a strange, empty smile which offered her no hope at all. 'All will be well, you shall see. I shall instruct Ravol to arrange morning-meal for us. Now, I urge you get some rest, sister.'

'It would be proper for you to take morning-meal with your wife, Valdr.'

'I shall take it with whomever I please!' He flared, loud enough that his voice echoed around the room. His next words were spoken gentler, warm even. 'And it pleases me to take it with my sister who has just this night returned to me from beyond the grave.'

With a decisive nod, he turned toward the door.

'The Leoth soldier in the guard tower,' she called out. 'I would have him treated kindly. If not for him then I would be dead, or worse. There were a group of soldiers in Virheim - deserters from your army. They did not believe my claim.'

'They harmed you?'

'They tried.'

Dark fury radiated from him again. 'Then they will be found and punished tenfold.'

'They are dead.'

He relaxed, visibly. 'Then the Leoth shall be treated kindly and thanked immeasurably for the safe return of our sister.'

'Thank you.'

Another nod. 'How is this chamber for you? I can have them find you another if it is not to your liking?'

'It is not Lord Dacian's?' She asked, looking around.

Valdr shook his head. 'Dacian sleeps aboard his ship with his men. It is almost as though he does not trust our allies...'

'Then he is smart.' Smarter than you, she thought.

He read her thoughts. 'You cannot truly think that I trust Torrik of Zybar?'

'I no longer know who you trust, Valdr.'

'You,' he said and strode back to her. He took her face in his hands. 'Always you. But you must also trust me.'

'Then all will be well?' She asked, quiet. There was a wretched hopefulness in her whisper which laid her bare.

He smiled. 'Yes.' He kissed her forehead. 'Gods, I cannot believe that they have returned you to me.... How I am favoured.' When he let go of her face he looked more relaxed, less burdened. 'Your ladies are not here, of course, but I shall send someone to serve you. You will eat, bathe, and sleep.'

Commands. She had forgotten how easily he commanded her. How much easier it was when she complied. She nodded faintly.

'Sleep well, sister,' he smiled before striding almost gaily to the door. He gave her a final look before slipping from the bedchamber.

Weary from exhaustion and compliance, she turned her eyes to gaze out at the port. Lights had begun to blink out and as she watched them smothered to a sooty death she suddenly felt the exhaustion yawn in her bones.

Tomorrow.

Tomorrow when she had rested her body and sharpened her weapons, she would fight this newest war for peace. In the pocket of her cloak, she wrapped her fingers tight around the band of warm black steel, stroking her fingers over the indent which bore the name of a warrior.  The greatest warrior in the four realms. The warrior she had matched, and equalled, in battle.

She would not drop her guard. Would not blink. Would not lower her sword.

She could do this.