“Cynara,” he said. ‘Tell me what has happened.”
She looked through him. “I want to stay alive.”
Ronan had not believed himself capable of breaking under rightful chastisement, or even her justified contempt. But it came to him then how much he had come to rely upon Cynara’s warmth, her unfailing concern for others, the affection he had taken far too much for granted.
“You have changed,” he whispered.
“Because I fought for both of us?” She smiled. “What did I do that you found so disturbing? Escape your warrior friend? Threaten Lenko and start a coup among the Kalevii? Or take you out of there when you were as helpless as an infant?”
She mocked him, and yet she spoke as if those very feats must excite his amazement. The Cynara he knew was courageous and determined, and none of her recent actions were beyond her abilities.
“You fought bravely and well,” he said. “You saved my life and confounded Lenko. You have won the respect of many who would have killed you.”
“Their respect means nothing,” she said. “You’re allowing yourself to be vulnerable, Ronan. They might be listening even now.” She turned her face aside. “Sihvaaro’s dead, and you can’t bring him back.”
Her words clawed at his heart. “He died for me. For us.”
“And you feel guilt. You should have died in his place. Poor Ronan.” Her profile was carved of granite. “If I hadn’t acted as I did, Lenko would have handed us both to Darja.”
Ronan drew his knees up to his chest and closed his eyes. You believed she was my true lifemate, Sihvaaro. I never believed she would accept me. But at least she will not grieve. She will be free.
“You are right,” he said quietly. “I am not strong. I would have failed.”
“Your self-pity becomes tiresome. All I expect is that you do what is necessary.”
To survive. But mere survival had never been enough for this woman, not at any cost. “Who are you?” he asked. “Whose voice speaks to me now?”
She didn’t answer, but her fingers trembled when she pushed at her hair.
He opened his consciousness, listening for Kinsmen. The nearest minds seemed otherwise occupied; either they were overconfident of ultimate success, or they paradoxically held to the convention that forbade them from entering an unsuspecting mind.
It did not matter, as long as they stayed away. “I ask nothing of you but your name.”
Her eyes squeezed shut. “Stop.”
“Who are you?”
“No.” Her hands tightened into fists, and she gasped as if invisible forces buffeted her body. “Tyr was always stronger.” She hunched her back away from him. “You didn’t know. You didn’t see.”
He caught at the very edge of an idea so fantastic that he could not quite accept it. “Your cousin,” he said. “He is here now.”
Cynara looked into his eyes with such bleak resignation that he knew he was right. “Stay out,” she said. “Leave me alone.” The emotion, and the voice, were Cynara’s. But then she vanished, and the cold calculation of a stranger returned.
Tyr. It could be no one else. As Ronan had become a different person when the Kinsmen had taken away his positive memories of the shaauri, so she had somehow taken on the characteristics of the cousin who had helped shape her destiny.
Had she called upon this hidden part of herself when she found the situation on Aitu too difficult to bear? Had memories of Tyr arisen to take possession of her being, beyond her control?
Ronan feared for her, but he could not allow that fear to rule him. Cynara’s mental state might become a wedge for Kinsmen to pry into her past and her unique knowledge.
He must not fail her as he had failed Sihvaaro. Deliberately he relived the final battle, the moment of his teacher’s death, heard again the words that brought so little comfort: “Do not give up hope.”
Hope was a human emotion. Ronan could make his body function under conditions that would kill most humans, numb his senses to extreme heat and cold and hunger, ignore pain, speed the healing of wounds. He could not stop his grief.