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i_read_what2022-03-12 01:25 am
kalinara) wrote in i_read_what2022-03-12 01:25 am
Track of the White Wolf - Part 1 - Chapter 3
So last time, we saw that Donal's sons are both much more sympathetic and likable people than he is. And Strahan was a moron.
Shame.
We start this chapter in media res. Niall is getting a scolding from his worried mother:
“You should have come to me first.” She had both temper and tongue to complement the red-gold brilliance of her hair. “Do you know how I have worried since that horse returned without you?”
That horse had indeed returned (without me, of course) and my absence had set the palace into an uproar. Rather, my lady mother had. Most of the Mujharan Guard had been stripped from better duty and sent out looking for me, as if I were a foolish, spoiled child gone wandering in the streets. And they had found me, some of them, just as I approached the gates of Homana-Mujhar. It had been a humiliating experience trying to explain how my horse and I had come to be separated. Especially since I could say nothing of Strahan’s presence in the city. Not to them. Not at once. Not until I faced my father.
I can appreciate your embarrassment, Niall. But you're heir to the throne. Your dad got kidnapped for six months before he even got crowned king. Strahan's been pretty good at murdering a lot of your distant relatives. So I feel like Aislinn's reaction is pretty justified.
And credit where Niall's due, he does show her some empathy for that:
Deep down, I was touched she cared so much, knowing it arose out of insecurity because she had borne only a single son, but mostly I was resentful. Oh, aye, she meant well by it, but there were times the weight she placed upon me was nearly too much to bear.
The problem is that Aislinn has never come to terms with the fact that her father was actually a giant asshole who constantly undervalued her. She's still clinging to his memory, and Niall looks pretty much exactly like him.
I've never been clear how genetics actually work in this universe. But that's a rant for a later date.
So anyway, Niall gets a little mouthy at his mom, pointing out his filthy clothes. He'd wanted to bathe and change first. And honestly, I don't think Aislinn is unreasonable here. And we get some more analysis.
“It could have waited. I have seen men in worse conditions, and they were not my son.” The strain showed at the corners of eyes and mouth. She was still beautiful in a way harpers and poets had tried to describe for years, but it was a fragile, brittle beauty, as if she might break with the weight of who and what she was. Aislinn of Homana, daughter of Carillon; once a princess, now a queen, and the mother of her beloved father’s grandson.
I think she judged herself solely by the fact she had borne Carillon an heir. A true heir, that is; a man with much of his blood, not a Cheysuli warrior handpicked because Carillon had no choice. No, my mother did not view herself as woman, wife, mother or queen. Merely as a means to perpetuate her father’s growing legend.
The resentment died as I looked at her. I could not name what rose to take its place, for there was no single emotion. Just a jumble of them, tangled up together like threads of a tapestry; the back side, not the front, with none of the pattern showing.
I wonder how much is genuinely from Aislinn and how much is Niall's feelings of inadequacy. We know that he wishes he took more after his Cheysuli side than he does. And Aislinn (and Carillon) represent the opposite of what he wants. It's probably a combination of both.
Anyway, Niall really wants to tell Donal about Strahan, but not when his mother is in the room to worry. Fortunately, Donal distracts her with the mention of guests. And Niall is a bit sexist here:
Womanlike, she instantly put a hand to the knot of red-gold hair coiled at her neck to tend her appearance. There was no need. She was immaculate, as always. The bright hair, as yet undulled by her thirty-six years, was contained in a pearl-studded net of golden wire. Her velvet gown was plain white, unadorned save for the beaded golden girdle and the gold torque at her throat. My father’s bride-gift to her some twenty years before.
Thirty-six seems a lot younger now that I'm pushing forty. I forgot that Aislinn was basically a child bride. No wonder the poor thing has issues.
Anyway, Aislinn is not happy about the guests for some reason. And she's a bit cryptic about it:
“This concerns you as well, Niall,” she said abruptly. “More so than us, when it comes to that. And if your father does not tell you the whole of it, come to me. I will.”
Anyway, she leaves, so we get Niall's view of Donal:
My father. The Mujhar of Homana he was, but more and less than that to me. He was a Cheysuli warrior.
A son looking upon his father rarely sees the man, he sees the parent. The man who sired him, not the individual. I was no different. Day in, day out I saw him, and yet I did not. I saw what I was accustomed to seeing; what the son saw in the father, the king, the warrior. Too often I did not see the man.
Nor did I really know him.
Now, I looked. I saw the face that had helped mold my own, and yet showed nothing of that molding. The bones were characteristically angular, hard, almost sharp; even in light-skinned Cheysuli, the heritage is obvious in the shape of the bones beneath the flesh. The responsibilities of a Mujhar and a warrior dedicated to his tahlmorra had incised lines between black brows, fanned creases from yellow eyes, deepened brackets beside the blade-straight nose. There was silver in his hair, pale as winter frost, but only a little; we age early only in that respect, and with infinite grace.
It is interesting how Niall's narrative voice is different from his predecessors. Particularly Carillon, since they're both first person narration. Carillon was a lot more matter of fact (when he didn't want to fuck his liegeman.). Niall's more prone to florid description.
Niall notes the scars on his father's throat, and how he lacks the earth magic that had been used to save his father's life. More description:
He was tall, my father, but not so tall as I, with all of Carillon’s bulk. He lacked my weight, though no one would name him a small man; Cheysuli males rarely measure less than six feet, and he was three fingers taller yet. He was certainly more graceful than I, being more subtle in his movements. I wondered if that total ease of movement came with the race or age. The gods knew I had yet to discover it.
Beneath lowered lids, as I began to undress, I watched my father, and wondered how he had felt as Carillon bequeathed him the Lion Throne. I wondered what he had thought, knowing so much of Cheysuli tradition would have to be altered to fit the prophecy. To fit him: the first Cheysuli Mujhar in four hundred years.
I would be the second.
I guarantee you, Niall, Donal never gave a flying shit about anything that wasn't his immediate convenience until it was time to sell his sister into marriage.
So anyway, Niall brings up Strahan in a weirdly roundabout way. He doesn't say "I met Strahan" or even "I met an Ihlini", instead he says:
“I met a man tonight,” I began. “A stranger, at least to me. But he had a message meant for the Prince of Homana.” I took up the soap and began to lather my muddy skin. “He said I was not to wed my Atvian cousin.”
Donal finds this more baffling than alarming, and I mean, yeah. Niall's kind of burying the lede here. But the timing is significant. Because apparently Alaric's decided that the betrothal should become a marriage. Oh, hey, look at this historic revision:
His tone was a trifle dry. My father has no particular liking for Atvians, having fought them in the war; he has less affection for Alaric, the Lord of Atvia himself. For one, Alaric’s brother had slain Carillon, making my father Mujhar. And Alaric himself, upon swearing fealty to Donal of Homana, had demanded my father’s sister in marriage as a means to seal the alliance. Though my father had hated the idea, he had agreed at last because, in service to the prophecy of the Firstborn, he saw no other way of linking the proper bloodlines.
DID Donal hate the idea? Because as I recall, he only disliked the idea because he thought Bronwyn was Tynstar's daughter.
I'm probably not being fair. But I really do hate him. I hate him even more when Niall tells us that Bronwyn died in childbirth, "birthing [Niall's] half-Cheysuli cousin."
I wish Roberson wouldn't keep reminding us.
One thing I like about this scene is the way Niall continually reiterates and reinforces his identity as a Cheysuli. He doesn't look the part. He lacks a lir. But culture is more complicated than a few aspects.
Anyway, Niall takes it pretty well. He always knew he'd get married, even if he didn't expect it quite this soon. But it's not immediate: Atvians have a custom called a proxy marriage that takes place before the real one. Oh hey.
I frowned in distraction at a purplish bruise on my right knee. “How soon will this proxy wedding be performed?”
“Oh, I think in the morning.… I did say you had a little time.” The glint in his eyes was more pronounced.
“In the morning!” I stared at him in dismay. “Without warning?”
Ask your Aunt Bronwyn about surprise weddings. In fact, I kind of admire Alaric for doing it this way. HE surely remembers that whole scene. What epic trolling. And Aislinn, we're told, is pretty upset. She thinks that it's a purposeful insult (and she's absolutely right) and that Donal should send the delegation home until Alaric shows proper respect, since Alaric owes fealty.
To my annoyance, Niall and Donal share amusement over this, noting that Aislinn, being royal from birth, is more cognizant of those details that Donal finds less important.
Um, guys, you're a king and a prince. Surely you've realized by now that recognition of rank and respect is generally pretty important. I'm not saying Aislinn's right or wrong, but it's a valuable perspective.
FINALLY, Niall gets to the point and announces that the stranger who warned him was Strahan. Points for drama, but really, kid. Start there next time.
Donal, understandably, is pretty furious, and Niall is amazed to see the level of bitter hatred in his father's face. And Niall again, shows that very rare trait of his:
I had not known such hatred could live in my father. He can show anger, aye, and irritation, and more than a little intolerance of things he considers foolish, but to see such bitter hatred in his eyes, to hear it in his voice, made me a child again. It stripped me of size and confidence and made me small again.
I sat in the cask with water lapping around my chest and stared at the warrior who had sired me. And wondered what manner of man I might be had the Ihlini served me such pain and grief upon my platter.
Empathy. God knows where he learned it, but there it is.
Anyway, Donal is, to his credit, pretty frantic about the possibility that Strahan might have hurt Niall, but Niall reassures him. And he has a very good question:
“You are not in his way, not really.” My father, looking infinitely older, shook his head and sighed. “The gods know why, but it is an Ihlini trait to play with an enemy before the kill. They twist the mind before they twist the body, as if it makes the final snap that much more satisfying. Tynstar did it with Carillon for years, though in the end, as you know, Carillon slew Tynstar.” Of course I knew. It was all a part of the legend. “It may be a perverse manifestation of the power.” He shrugged again. “Who can say? Strahan did not let you live out of kindness. No. More like—anticipation.” His expression was very grim. “It means he has other plans for you. It means you are part of his game. And when he is done playing with you, he will end it. As he ended it for Finn.”
Hanging a lampshade on it doesn't make it less stupid, Roberson.
Niall is still pretty shocked at his dad's level of emotion. He says that if he'd known how much Donal hated Strahan, Niall would have tried to kill him. Oh, kid, that would have gone badly.
And indeed:
“Never,” he said hoarsely, “Never, never, Niall. He would slay you. He would slay you. He would take you from me as he has taken all the others, and I would be alone.”
Okay, while I am touched to see how much Donal cares for his son. The idea that he'd be alone is fucking bullshit. He has a wife. He has two other children. He has family in Clankeep. He has Rowan. He's not fucking alone.
But Niall realizes that Donal is afraid.
Oh, hey, more reason to like Niall:
“How?” I asked, when I could. “How could you be alone when you have so many others?”
“Name them,” he said unevenly. “Say their names to me.”
Niall does: his mother, Taj and Lorn, Rowan, Ian and Isolde. Donal's response is...interesting.
His breath was harsh. “I have them, aye, I have all of them: cheysula, lir, children, trusted general. But—it is not the same.” He rose abruptly, turning his back on me. His spine was rigid beneath leather jerkin and human flesh. Then, just as abruptly, he swung around to face me. “Look what I have done to your jehana. I would offer her the sort of love she craves, if I could, but so much was burned out of me when Sorcha—died.” Even now, he could not speak the truth; that his Cheysuli meijha, Ian’s and Isolde’s mother, had slain herself because she could not bear to share him with a Homanan. “There is much affection between Aislinn and me, of course, and honor, regard, respect—but that is not what she wants. Nor is it what she needs.” His anguish was manifest. “But I cannot offer falsehood to her when she is deserving of so much better.”
...I still hate you so fucking much, dude. SO fucking much. As I said before, Donal feels guilty for the shit he pulls, and that ought to be a good thing, but he never DOES anything about it. He doesn't even try to be the partner Aislinn wants. It's all about his pain and anguish.
And the others?
My father sighed and scraped a lock of black hair out of his eyes. “As for Taj and Lorn, aye—I share everything with my lir a warrior should. But they are lir, not men. Not kin. As for Rowan—” He grimaced. “Rowan and I work well together in the ordering of the realm, but we will never be easy together in personal things. I am not Carillon, whom he worshipped.” He bent and righted the stool. “Ian and Isolde are everything a jehan could desire in his children. But I am the Mujhar of Homana, and the Homanans perceive them as bastards. It makes them different. It soils them in Homanan eyes, and that perception affects me. And so it leaves me only you, Niall.” He smiled a little, but it had a bittersweet twist. “None of them are you. None of them are born of the prophecy.” I saw the trace of anguish in his eyes. “None of them will know the things I have known. Not as you will know them.”
...look at this bullshit.
a) Rowan loved Carillon, sure, but you're also a fucking dickweed, and I'm pretty sure THAT is the root of his dislike. You know, like all the times you called him soulless to his face? THAT.
b) I love how Ian and Isolde don't count for Donal because the HOMANANS see them as bastards. Donal isn't even fucking Homanan! And "that perception affects me". Like he didn't have an active role in their creation!!!
c) None of them are "born of the prophecy" and that is another reason they don't count. This prophecy that you BARELY ACKNOWLEDGED until you "had" to marry off your sister. (For the record, while he isn't and won't be King of Homana, Ian does have his own role to play in the prophecy, as we'll see.).
God, I hate Donal so fucking much.
Niall asks good questions though:
For a long moment I said nothing at all, being unable to speak. But when I could speak again, I asked a thing all men might desire to ask of warriors and Mujhars. “Would you have it differently?”
My father laughed, but there was no humor in the sound—only pain. “What warrior, looking fully into the face of his tahlmorra, would not?” His smile was twisted; wry and regretful. “I would change everything; I would change nothing. A paradox, Niall, that only a few men have known. Only a few men will know.” He sighed. “Carillon could tell you. So could Duncan and Finn. But all of them are gone, and I lack the proper words.”
“Jehan—”
But even as I began, he turned and walked out of the room.
Thanks for being ENTIRELY USELESS, dude. And with this, the chapter ends.
Shame.
We start this chapter in media res. Niall is getting a scolding from his worried mother:
“You should have come to me first.” She had both temper and tongue to complement the red-gold brilliance of her hair. “Do you know how I have worried since that horse returned without you?”
That horse had indeed returned (without me, of course) and my absence had set the palace into an uproar. Rather, my lady mother had. Most of the Mujharan Guard had been stripped from better duty and sent out looking for me, as if I were a foolish, spoiled child gone wandering in the streets. And they had found me, some of them, just as I approached the gates of Homana-Mujhar. It had been a humiliating experience trying to explain how my horse and I had come to be separated. Especially since I could say nothing of Strahan’s presence in the city. Not to them. Not at once. Not until I faced my father.
I can appreciate your embarrassment, Niall. But you're heir to the throne. Your dad got kidnapped for six months before he even got crowned king. Strahan's been pretty good at murdering a lot of your distant relatives. So I feel like Aislinn's reaction is pretty justified.
And credit where Niall's due, he does show her some empathy for that:
Deep down, I was touched she cared so much, knowing it arose out of insecurity because she had borne only a single son, but mostly I was resentful. Oh, aye, she meant well by it, but there were times the weight she placed upon me was nearly too much to bear.
The problem is that Aislinn has never come to terms with the fact that her father was actually a giant asshole who constantly undervalued her. She's still clinging to his memory, and Niall looks pretty much exactly like him.
I've never been clear how genetics actually work in this universe. But that's a rant for a later date.
So anyway, Niall gets a little mouthy at his mom, pointing out his filthy clothes. He'd wanted to bathe and change first. And honestly, I don't think Aislinn is unreasonable here. And we get some more analysis.
“It could have waited. I have seen men in worse conditions, and they were not my son.” The strain showed at the corners of eyes and mouth. She was still beautiful in a way harpers and poets had tried to describe for years, but it was a fragile, brittle beauty, as if she might break with the weight of who and what she was. Aislinn of Homana, daughter of Carillon; once a princess, now a queen, and the mother of her beloved father’s grandson.
I think she judged herself solely by the fact she had borne Carillon an heir. A true heir, that is; a man with much of his blood, not a Cheysuli warrior handpicked because Carillon had no choice. No, my mother did not view herself as woman, wife, mother or queen. Merely as a means to perpetuate her father’s growing legend.
The resentment died as I looked at her. I could not name what rose to take its place, for there was no single emotion. Just a jumble of them, tangled up together like threads of a tapestry; the back side, not the front, with none of the pattern showing.
I wonder how much is genuinely from Aislinn and how much is Niall's feelings of inadequacy. We know that he wishes he took more after his Cheysuli side than he does. And Aislinn (and Carillon) represent the opposite of what he wants. It's probably a combination of both.
Anyway, Niall really wants to tell Donal about Strahan, but not when his mother is in the room to worry. Fortunately, Donal distracts her with the mention of guests. And Niall is a bit sexist here:
Womanlike, she instantly put a hand to the knot of red-gold hair coiled at her neck to tend her appearance. There was no need. She was immaculate, as always. The bright hair, as yet undulled by her thirty-six years, was contained in a pearl-studded net of golden wire. Her velvet gown was plain white, unadorned save for the beaded golden girdle and the gold torque at her throat. My father’s bride-gift to her some twenty years before.
Thirty-six seems a lot younger now that I'm pushing forty. I forgot that Aislinn was basically a child bride. No wonder the poor thing has issues.
Anyway, Aislinn is not happy about the guests for some reason. And she's a bit cryptic about it:
“This concerns you as well, Niall,” she said abruptly. “More so than us, when it comes to that. And if your father does not tell you the whole of it, come to me. I will.”
Anyway, she leaves, so we get Niall's view of Donal:
My father. The Mujhar of Homana he was, but more and less than that to me. He was a Cheysuli warrior.
A son looking upon his father rarely sees the man, he sees the parent. The man who sired him, not the individual. I was no different. Day in, day out I saw him, and yet I did not. I saw what I was accustomed to seeing; what the son saw in the father, the king, the warrior. Too often I did not see the man.
Nor did I really know him.
Now, I looked. I saw the face that had helped mold my own, and yet showed nothing of that molding. The bones were characteristically angular, hard, almost sharp; even in light-skinned Cheysuli, the heritage is obvious in the shape of the bones beneath the flesh. The responsibilities of a Mujhar and a warrior dedicated to his tahlmorra had incised lines between black brows, fanned creases from yellow eyes, deepened brackets beside the blade-straight nose. There was silver in his hair, pale as winter frost, but only a little; we age early only in that respect, and with infinite grace.
It is interesting how Niall's narrative voice is different from his predecessors. Particularly Carillon, since they're both first person narration. Carillon was a lot more matter of fact (when he didn't want to fuck his liegeman.). Niall's more prone to florid description.
Niall notes the scars on his father's throat, and how he lacks the earth magic that had been used to save his father's life. More description:
He was tall, my father, but not so tall as I, with all of Carillon’s bulk. He lacked my weight, though no one would name him a small man; Cheysuli males rarely measure less than six feet, and he was three fingers taller yet. He was certainly more graceful than I, being more subtle in his movements. I wondered if that total ease of movement came with the race or age. The gods knew I had yet to discover it.
Beneath lowered lids, as I began to undress, I watched my father, and wondered how he had felt as Carillon bequeathed him the Lion Throne. I wondered what he had thought, knowing so much of Cheysuli tradition would have to be altered to fit the prophecy. To fit him: the first Cheysuli Mujhar in four hundred years.
I would be the second.
I guarantee you, Niall, Donal never gave a flying shit about anything that wasn't his immediate convenience until it was time to sell his sister into marriage.
So anyway, Niall brings up Strahan in a weirdly roundabout way. He doesn't say "I met Strahan" or even "I met an Ihlini", instead he says:
“I met a man tonight,” I began. “A stranger, at least to me. But he had a message meant for the Prince of Homana.” I took up the soap and began to lather my muddy skin. “He said I was not to wed my Atvian cousin.”
Donal finds this more baffling than alarming, and I mean, yeah. Niall's kind of burying the lede here. But the timing is significant. Because apparently Alaric's decided that the betrothal should become a marriage. Oh, hey, look at this historic revision:
His tone was a trifle dry. My father has no particular liking for Atvians, having fought them in the war; he has less affection for Alaric, the Lord of Atvia himself. For one, Alaric’s brother had slain Carillon, making my father Mujhar. And Alaric himself, upon swearing fealty to Donal of Homana, had demanded my father’s sister in marriage as a means to seal the alliance. Though my father had hated the idea, he had agreed at last because, in service to the prophecy of the Firstborn, he saw no other way of linking the proper bloodlines.
DID Donal hate the idea? Because as I recall, he only disliked the idea because he thought Bronwyn was Tynstar's daughter.
I'm probably not being fair. But I really do hate him. I hate him even more when Niall tells us that Bronwyn died in childbirth, "birthing [Niall's] half-Cheysuli cousin."
I wish Roberson wouldn't keep reminding us.
One thing I like about this scene is the way Niall continually reiterates and reinforces his identity as a Cheysuli. He doesn't look the part. He lacks a lir. But culture is more complicated than a few aspects.
Anyway, Niall takes it pretty well. He always knew he'd get married, even if he didn't expect it quite this soon. But it's not immediate: Atvians have a custom called a proxy marriage that takes place before the real one. Oh hey.
I frowned in distraction at a purplish bruise on my right knee. “How soon will this proxy wedding be performed?”
“Oh, I think in the morning.… I did say you had a little time.” The glint in his eyes was more pronounced.
“In the morning!” I stared at him in dismay. “Without warning?”
Ask your Aunt Bronwyn about surprise weddings. In fact, I kind of admire Alaric for doing it this way. HE surely remembers that whole scene. What epic trolling. And Aislinn, we're told, is pretty upset. She thinks that it's a purposeful insult (and she's absolutely right) and that Donal should send the delegation home until Alaric shows proper respect, since Alaric owes fealty.
To my annoyance, Niall and Donal share amusement over this, noting that Aislinn, being royal from birth, is more cognizant of those details that Donal finds less important.
Um, guys, you're a king and a prince. Surely you've realized by now that recognition of rank and respect is generally pretty important. I'm not saying Aislinn's right or wrong, but it's a valuable perspective.
FINALLY, Niall gets to the point and announces that the stranger who warned him was Strahan. Points for drama, but really, kid. Start there next time.
Donal, understandably, is pretty furious, and Niall is amazed to see the level of bitter hatred in his father's face. And Niall again, shows that very rare trait of his:
I had not known such hatred could live in my father. He can show anger, aye, and irritation, and more than a little intolerance of things he considers foolish, but to see such bitter hatred in his eyes, to hear it in his voice, made me a child again. It stripped me of size and confidence and made me small again.
I sat in the cask with water lapping around my chest and stared at the warrior who had sired me. And wondered what manner of man I might be had the Ihlini served me such pain and grief upon my platter.
Empathy. God knows where he learned it, but there it is.
Anyway, Donal is, to his credit, pretty frantic about the possibility that Strahan might have hurt Niall, but Niall reassures him. And he has a very good question:
“You are not in his way, not really.” My father, looking infinitely older, shook his head and sighed. “The gods know why, but it is an Ihlini trait to play with an enemy before the kill. They twist the mind before they twist the body, as if it makes the final snap that much more satisfying. Tynstar did it with Carillon for years, though in the end, as you know, Carillon slew Tynstar.” Of course I knew. It was all a part of the legend. “It may be a perverse manifestation of the power.” He shrugged again. “Who can say? Strahan did not let you live out of kindness. No. More like—anticipation.” His expression was very grim. “It means he has other plans for you. It means you are part of his game. And when he is done playing with you, he will end it. As he ended it for Finn.”
Hanging a lampshade on it doesn't make it less stupid, Roberson.
Niall is still pretty shocked at his dad's level of emotion. He says that if he'd known how much Donal hated Strahan, Niall would have tried to kill him. Oh, kid, that would have gone badly.
And indeed:
“Never,” he said hoarsely, “Never, never, Niall. He would slay you. He would slay you. He would take you from me as he has taken all the others, and I would be alone.”
Okay, while I am touched to see how much Donal cares for his son. The idea that he'd be alone is fucking bullshit. He has a wife. He has two other children. He has family in Clankeep. He has Rowan. He's not fucking alone.
But Niall realizes that Donal is afraid.
Oh, hey, more reason to like Niall:
“How?” I asked, when I could. “How could you be alone when you have so many others?”
“Name them,” he said unevenly. “Say their names to me.”
Niall does: his mother, Taj and Lorn, Rowan, Ian and Isolde. Donal's response is...interesting.
His breath was harsh. “I have them, aye, I have all of them: cheysula, lir, children, trusted general. But—it is not the same.” He rose abruptly, turning his back on me. His spine was rigid beneath leather jerkin and human flesh. Then, just as abruptly, he swung around to face me. “Look what I have done to your jehana. I would offer her the sort of love she craves, if I could, but so much was burned out of me when Sorcha—died.” Even now, he could not speak the truth; that his Cheysuli meijha, Ian’s and Isolde’s mother, had slain herself because she could not bear to share him with a Homanan. “There is much affection between Aislinn and me, of course, and honor, regard, respect—but that is not what she wants. Nor is it what she needs.” His anguish was manifest. “But I cannot offer falsehood to her when she is deserving of so much better.”
...I still hate you so fucking much, dude. SO fucking much. As I said before, Donal feels guilty for the shit he pulls, and that ought to be a good thing, but he never DOES anything about it. He doesn't even try to be the partner Aislinn wants. It's all about his pain and anguish.
And the others?
My father sighed and scraped a lock of black hair out of his eyes. “As for Taj and Lorn, aye—I share everything with my lir a warrior should. But they are lir, not men. Not kin. As for Rowan—” He grimaced. “Rowan and I work well together in the ordering of the realm, but we will never be easy together in personal things. I am not Carillon, whom he worshipped.” He bent and righted the stool. “Ian and Isolde are everything a jehan could desire in his children. But I am the Mujhar of Homana, and the Homanans perceive them as bastards. It makes them different. It soils them in Homanan eyes, and that perception affects me. And so it leaves me only you, Niall.” He smiled a little, but it had a bittersweet twist. “None of them are you. None of them are born of the prophecy.” I saw the trace of anguish in his eyes. “None of them will know the things I have known. Not as you will know them.”
...look at this bullshit.
a) Rowan loved Carillon, sure, but you're also a fucking dickweed, and I'm pretty sure THAT is the root of his dislike. You know, like all the times you called him soulless to his face? THAT.
b) I love how Ian and Isolde don't count for Donal because the HOMANANS see them as bastards. Donal isn't even fucking Homanan! And "that perception affects me". Like he didn't have an active role in their creation!!!
c) None of them are "born of the prophecy" and that is another reason they don't count. This prophecy that you BARELY ACKNOWLEDGED until you "had" to marry off your sister. (For the record, while he isn't and won't be King of Homana, Ian does have his own role to play in the prophecy, as we'll see.).
God, I hate Donal so fucking much.
Niall asks good questions though:
For a long moment I said nothing at all, being unable to speak. But when I could speak again, I asked a thing all men might desire to ask of warriors and Mujhars. “Would you have it differently?”
My father laughed, but there was no humor in the sound—only pain. “What warrior, looking fully into the face of his tahlmorra, would not?” His smile was twisted; wry and regretful. “I would change everything; I would change nothing. A paradox, Niall, that only a few men have known. Only a few men will know.” He sighed. “Carillon could tell you. So could Duncan and Finn. But all of them are gone, and I lack the proper words.”
“Jehan—”
But even as I began, he turned and walked out of the room.
Thanks for being ENTIRELY USELESS, dude. And with this, the chapter ends.
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Well, Niall is actually more badass than Donal somehow.
Also, hasn't Aislinn suffered enough?
His tone was a trifle dry. My father has no particular liking for Atvians, having fought them in the war; he has less affection for Alaric, the Lord of Atvia himself. For one, Alaric’s brother had slain Carillon, making my father Mujhar. And Alaric himself, upon swearing fealty to Donal of Homana, had demanded my father’s sister in marriage as a means to seal the alliance. Though my father had hated the idea, he had agreed at last because, in service to the prophecy of the Firstborn, he saw no other way of linking the proper bloodlines.
Have I mentioned how much I HATE seeing forced, abusive relationships happening because "fate says so"? Yes, but I will not shuddup about it.
How?” I asked, when I could. “How could you be alone when you have so many others?”
“Name them,” he said unevenly. “Say their names to me.”
Niall does: his mother, Taj and Lorn, Rowan, Ian and Isolde. Donal's response is...interesting.
His breath was harsh. “I have them, aye, I have all of them: cheysula, lir, children, trusted general. But—it is not the same.” He rose abruptly, turning his back on me. His spine was rigid beneath leather jerkin and human flesh. Then, just as abruptly, he swung around to face me. “Look what I have done to your jehana. I would offer her the sort of love she craves, if I could, but so much was burned out of me when Sorcha—died.” Even now, he could not speak the truth; that his Cheysuli meijha, Ian’s and Isolde’s mother, had slain herself because she could not bear to share him with a Homanan. “There is much affection between Aislinn and me, of course, and honor, regard, respect—but that is not what she wants. Nor is it what she needs.” His anguish was manifest. “But I cannot offer falsehood to her when she is deserving of so much better.”
Yes, she is. At least someone who isn't a rapist and didn't corrupt her into also becoming a rapist.
Also, thank you Niall for speaking sense.
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[confused]
(Anonymous) 2022-03-12 06:26 pm (UTC)(link)= Multi-Facets.
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(Anonymous) 2022-03-13 04:56 pm (UTC)(link)= Multi-Facets
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