Song of Homana - Part Two - Chapter Three
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i_read_whatSo last time, Carillon fell for an incredibly obvious set up and divorced the wrong damn person, making me incredibly sad.
So let's see how this situation can get worse.
So Carillon makes his way down the corridor. It's empty and silent. His servants, "knowing how to serve, left [him] to [himself]." He notes that there's no more howling. Storr had left with Finn, and Carillon's felt as extinguished as the torches.
...just in case you thought that Finn and Carillon's divorce would make this less suggestive, we get a scene where Carillon tucks the Homanan blade into his belt beside the Cheysuli knife, and descends into the Cheysuli vault. He counts the steps this time: one hundred and two. He can see dampness where the rain soaked in. He stops in the doorway to admire all the lir shapes. Then he goes inside.
He takes the cheysuli knife from his sheath, and of course, of course, it has a snarling wolf's head hilt. Of course it does.
He stands next to the oubliette, thinks of how he had, for four days, thought himself Cheysuli. While I remember how he somehow turned this ritual into yet another marriage ceremony. Then, to complete the divorce, he's about to drop the knife in.
Then he's interrupted. By Tourmaline. She's dressed to travel and she's got something to say:
“You have sent him away,” she said, “and so you send me as well.”
And here's where Carillon finally figures out that it was never Lachlan for Tourmaline. Remember how I said that it looked a lot like Tourmaline and Carillon had the same taste in men? Well, apparently, Tourmaline is a lot smarter about things.
I'd judge, but hell, Carillon up and married a woman. Finn's allowed to date someone else too. The fact that he chose Carillon's sister...well...that's just funny.
“We did not dare tell you,” she said quietly. “We knew what you would do. He says—” already she had fallen into the easy attribution so common to women when they speak of their men “—that in the clans women are never bartered to the warriors. That a man and woman are left to their own decisions, without another to turn them against their will.”
...having read Shapechangers, I call fucking bullshit on that.
That said, if I pretend I'm still the young Kalinara who read this book long before I got ahold of its prequel, I like this bit a lot.
Tourmaline is calm, intelligent, and has always played things close to her vest. She loves her brother. She understands her brother's position. She never overtly challenges it. Instead, she just...goes and does what she wants anyway. I admire that.
And I don't blame her. As long as we pretend Shapechangers never existed, this IS a good sell. It's what Shapechangers, in all its racist captive fantasy, failed to do. I can absolutely understand why a young woman, tired of having her wishes discounted, would choose Finn and the Cheysuli.
Again, as long as Shapechangers doesn't exist.
Carillon tries to justify it:
“Tourmaline…” I felt tired suddenly, and full of aches and pains. “Torry, you know why I had to do it. In our House rank is matched with rank; I wanted a prince for you because you deserve that much, if not more. Torry—I did not wish to make you unhappy. But I need the aid from another realm—”
Oh Carillon. Platitudes before honesty. It was about the aid. You love your sister, but you didn't care what she deserved or whether she was unhappy. And Tourmaline points this out:
“Did you think to ask me?” Slowly she shook her head and the torchlight gleamed in her hair. “No. Did you think I would mind? No. Did you think I would even protest?” She smiled a little. “Think you upon my place, Carillon, and see how you would feel.”
Carillon infuriates me a bit with this next bit though, and I really have to be careful or I really will excerpt this whole scene:
The pit was at my back. I thought now another one yawned before me. “Torry,” I said finally, “think you I had any choice in whom I wed? Princes—and kings—have no more say than their women. There was nothing I could do.”
“You might have asked me. But no, you ever told. The Mujhar of Homana orders his sister to wed where he will decide.” She put up a silencing hand. Her fingers seemed sharp as a blade. “Aye, I know—it has ever been this way. And ever will be. But this once, this once, I say no. I say I choose my way.”
That's fucking bullshit, Carillon. This entire section of the book was about your choice. You never had to marry Electra. In fact every single person who cared about you and supported you thought it was a fucking bad idea. Electra sure as hell didn't want it.
In a later book, this argument will come up again, when siblings Brennan and Keely argue about sexism and assumptions. But in that later book, it's actually valid. Both Brennan and Keely were betrothed at birth to the heirs of their father's ally: first son to first daughter, first (legitimate) daughter to first son.
That is not fucking true for Carillon, and shame on him for even trying.
Carillon brings up their mother, but she's already gone back to Joyenne. She knows what Tourmaline is doing and thinks she's mad, but she knows that she can't stop her.
And Tourmaline calls Carillon out on Electra:
“She has raised willful children, Carillon—they do what they will do when it comes to whom they marry.” She laughed softly. “Think you that I was fooled about Electra? Oh Carillon, I am not blind. I do not deny she was a pathway to Solinde, but she is more than that to you. You wanted her because—like all men who see her—you simply had to have her. That is a measure of her power.”
I'm not fond of the victim blaming tone here. But I like that Tourmaline is shredding Carillon's claim that he didn't choose his spouse.
So Tourmaline is going. She does tell him, from both her and Finn, that it wasn't intended. Finn had been sent to the Keep to recover from his wounds. Carillon had sent Torry there for safety (and to keep her away from Lachlan). She tended Finn when Alix wouldn't. She was curious about him, and they talked. It became more.
Carillon tries to convince her to stay, but she says, only if he takes Finn back. Carillon says he can't:
“Do you not see? Electra is the Queen, and he a Cheysuli shapechanger. No matter what I say in this, they will always suspect Finn of wishing to slay the Queen. And if he stayed, he might. Did he not tell you what he tried to do?"
He may be right about this. It's hard to say. The common people certainly don't love Solinde anymore than they love the Cheysuli. But Finn will be an easy scapegoat. It probably is too late, and had been as soon as Carillon forced an unwilling woman into marriage.
The love is still there though:
“Nor do I have one now.” I shook my head. “Do you think I do not want him back? Gods, Torry, you do not know what it was for the two of us in exile. He has been with me for too long to make this parting simple. But it must be done. What else is there to do? I could never trust him with Electra—”
Torry points out that maybe he shouldn't trust Electra, but Carillon insists that he wed her. He says he needs her. If anything happened to Electra, Solinde would rise in outrage.
...would it?
We've seen nothing to indicate that Electra is particularly loved by her realm. We've seen only weak indignation when she got forced into marriage to begin with. The Solindishmen outright said that they would surrender to him without marriage even being on the table.
The more plausible concern is that this would bring back the qu'mahlin. And true, there are people who still have racist hatred against the Cheysuli.
But then, the Cheysuli bought Carillon his throne. Carillon's constantly had a Cheysuli at his side. And Electra is not a Homanan woman. So...who can say really. I'll grant that this part of the scenario is much more plausible than Solinde going to war.
Finally Tourmaline delivers the argument that Carillon can't gainsay: she's pregnant. Carillon asks how he didn't see it. She tells him, calmly, that he'd never looked. He'd never asked. And now it's too late. She leaves the vault.
...because that's right. This entire exchange happened in the vault beneath the throne room. Tourmaline, looking for her brother, finds this open hole in the fucking firepit and just goes down it. Why the fuck not.
Tourmaline is a fucking badass.
And Carillon has, in one fell swoop, lost partner, sister, and mother (though that last at least isn't an estrangement.) Are the revelations finally over?
Not quite yet.
Because when Carillon comes out of the vault, he hears music. And admittedly, the lyrics are a bit better this time:
Come, lady, and hear of my soul,
for a harper’s poor magic
does little to hold
a fine lady’s heart
when she keeps it her own.
It seems pretty clear that Lachlan is not a lyricist.
Carillon goes to find him, and break the news.
The music died away. Silence. And then he looked up and, seeing me, rose at once from his stool. “Carillon! I thought you had gone to bed.”
“No.”
He frowned. “You are all over ash, and still damp. Do you not think you would do better—”
“He is gone.” I cut him off. “And so is Tourmaline.”
Remember that bit, above, when he talks about the assurance with which women talk about their men. Now think about how "he" doesn't have a proper name attached. We all know who he means.
Lachlan is of course devastated and uncomprehending. He's hung up on the idea that she was meant to wed, for a prince.
Carillon agrees: a prince, never a harper. Which seems a dick move now, dude, considering she's gone anyway.
Lachlan makes a cryptic statement about waiting too long. He urges Carillon to get her back. There's something he needs to say to her. But then Carillon tells him that she's pregnant with Finn's child.
And the reveals aren't quite over.
Remember in that second or third chapter, before Lachlan was introduced, Carillon had gone on about the straightforward and honest tendencies of the Ellasians. And I said that, from that, we could predict that the first Ellasian that Carillon met would be duplicitous?
Lachlan removes something from beneath his doublet: a ring on a thong. This ring has the harp and crown that make up the crest of Ellas. There are seven of those rings, Lachlan says. Five of them are worn by his brothers. The last one is worn by his father: the High King of Ellas.
Lachlan is Cuinn Lachlan Llewellyn. The High Prince of Ellas.
And that's where this all gets darkly funny. Carillon sent Tourmaline to the Keep to keep her from getting too close to Lachlan. Because he wanted her to marry a Prince. Oh dear.
He demands to know why Lachlan kept it a secret.
It was an agreement between the King and Lachlan. He wasn't really the sort of heir his father wanted: he preferred harping and healing to governing and courting women. He wanted freedom, without a retinue or the burden of heirship. His father agreed, but under very specific terms: he was forbidden to divulge name or rank unless he was in danger.
Carillon is boggling over this of course:
“But—all this silence with Torry. And me!” I thought he had been a fool. “Had you said anything, none of this might have happened!”
To be fair, Carillon, if you decided to treat your sister like a person instead of a tool. And if you'd trusted her instead of shipping her out of reach. This might not have happened.
And it was partly because of Carillon that he continued to keep the secret. He'd wanted to see what Carillon could do. And his father, when he saw what Carillon meant to do, wanted him to win too.
Carillon points out that Ellas hadn't sent aid. Lachlan explains that Bellam had been encroaching on Ellas too. He'd offered Electra to "Rhodri's heir" (which is a fascinating choice of words. What he's saying, indirectly, is that Electra had been offered to LACHLAN). Ellas has enemies themselves, they could not be seen to support Carillon's bid for the throne.
As for Lachlan himself, well, he didn't take any real risks: he didn't fight, he just played harper. Part of the terms with Rhodri was that Lachlan was forbidden to fight. He'd said that Lachlan was to watch and learn what he could. If Carillon won the war, and held the realm for a year, Rhodri would offer alliance.
I think Lachlan is being modest. Going into Bellam's Castle, negotiating for Tourmaline vs Electra. That was a big risk. But that's not relevant to the conversation.
Carillon says that it's been more than a year. Lachlan says that Carillon has only just started sending out the offer for Tourmaline's hand in marriage. It wasn't Lachlan's place to respond: the High King had to choose and Lachlan had to wait. Unfortunately, Torry didn't wait for him.
“Could you have said nothing to her?”
He stared at the cushion-strewn floor. “I nearly did. More times than I can count. Once I even spoke of Rhodri’s heir, but she only bid me to be quiet. She did not wish to think on marriage.” He sighed. “She was ever gentle with my feelings, seeking to keep me—a harper—from looking too high, as did her brother, the Mujhar.” He did not smile. “And I thought, in all my complacency, she would say differently when she knew. And you. And so I savored the waiting, instead.”
Classism is the root of all misfortune, that and heteronormativity.
Carillon agrees, finally, that there was nothing that Lachlan could have done. He understands the responsibilities of princes. Lachlan thinks he still should have done something or said something.
And yet it would have done no good. We both realized it, saying nothing because the saying would bring more pain. A man may love a woman while the woman loves another, but no man may force her to love where she has no desire to do so.
Carillon...
So anyway, Lachlan realizes that he has to leave. He puts the ring away, noting he came as a harper and he'll leave as one.
“Do you leave me, old friend, I will be quite alone.” It was all I could say to him; the only plea I would ever make.
But Lachlan has always known he'd have to leave. He'd just hoped he wouldn't have to leave alone.
Oh Tourmaline. I can understand the appeal of Finn in this book, but Ellas sounds like SUCH a great place. And Lachlan's a decent guy.
Heh. If you think about it. Lachlan's the same age as Carillon. If Alix had done as I kept saying and flown to the Ellasian capitol city. She might have married him.
Lachlan wishes him goodbye, and Carillon notes that his "Song of Homana" was done.
And here we see the full tragedy of all this heteronormativity. If Carillon and Finn could have accepted their love, Carillon wouldn't have been distracted by Electra (and her pride and scorn...). Carillon might not have been such a dick about the arranged marriage, and therefore Torry and Lachlan might have been able to talk about it. Maybe she would have been happy enough with him.
Who knows.
But the tragedy is building up momentum. Carillon has lost his best friend/love, his sister, his mother, and Lachlan.
What is left?
...well, Electra. Electra is left.
Carillon goes to his chambers and finds her there. He can't face her:
I stopped. I could not face her now. To look at her was to recall what Finn had done, and how it had ended in banishment. How it had ended with Torry and Lachlan gone as well. To look at her was to look on the face of aloneness, and that I could not bear.
First she offers to leave, but the, she offers to lift the grief from him. She kneels to help him with his boots, and he notices the bruises around her neck ("the marks of a crazed man's madness"), and then, grossly, he wonders if she ever knelt for Tynstar.
She says that, for him, she's sorry that Finn had to go. And well, things go as expected from here. Though it's sad more than anything else:
To be rid of the loneliness, I would lie with the dark god himself.
The chapter ends with him telling Electra how much he needs her.
I feel like he'd be better off remembering the lessons he himself imparted this chapter. But if he did that...well, who knows. It might already be too late.
So let's see how this situation can get worse.
So Carillon makes his way down the corridor. It's empty and silent. His servants, "knowing how to serve, left [him] to [himself]." He notes that there's no more howling. Storr had left with Finn, and Carillon's felt as extinguished as the torches.
...just in case you thought that Finn and Carillon's divorce would make this less suggestive, we get a scene where Carillon tucks the Homanan blade into his belt beside the Cheysuli knife, and descends into the Cheysuli vault. He counts the steps this time: one hundred and two. He can see dampness where the rain soaked in. He stops in the doorway to admire all the lir shapes. Then he goes inside.
He takes the cheysuli knife from his sheath, and of course, of course, it has a snarling wolf's head hilt. Of course it does.
He stands next to the oubliette, thinks of how he had, for four days, thought himself Cheysuli. While I remember how he somehow turned this ritual into yet another marriage ceremony. Then, to complete the divorce, he's about to drop the knife in.
Then he's interrupted. By Tourmaline. She's dressed to travel and she's got something to say:
“You have sent him away,” she said, “and so you send me as well.”
And here's where Carillon finally figures out that it was never Lachlan for Tourmaline. Remember how I said that it looked a lot like Tourmaline and Carillon had the same taste in men? Well, apparently, Tourmaline is a lot smarter about things.
I'd judge, but hell, Carillon up and married a woman. Finn's allowed to date someone else too. The fact that he chose Carillon's sister...well...that's just funny.
“We did not dare tell you,” she said quietly. “We knew what you would do. He says—” already she had fallen into the easy attribution so common to women when they speak of their men “—that in the clans women are never bartered to the warriors. That a man and woman are left to their own decisions, without another to turn them against their will.”
...having read Shapechangers, I call fucking bullshit on that.
That said, if I pretend I'm still the young Kalinara who read this book long before I got ahold of its prequel, I like this bit a lot.
Tourmaline is calm, intelligent, and has always played things close to her vest. She loves her brother. She understands her brother's position. She never overtly challenges it. Instead, she just...goes and does what she wants anyway. I admire that.
And I don't blame her. As long as we pretend Shapechangers never existed, this IS a good sell. It's what Shapechangers, in all its racist captive fantasy, failed to do. I can absolutely understand why a young woman, tired of having her wishes discounted, would choose Finn and the Cheysuli.
Again, as long as Shapechangers doesn't exist.
Carillon tries to justify it:
“Tourmaline…” I felt tired suddenly, and full of aches and pains. “Torry, you know why I had to do it. In our House rank is matched with rank; I wanted a prince for you because you deserve that much, if not more. Torry—I did not wish to make you unhappy. But I need the aid from another realm—”
Oh Carillon. Platitudes before honesty. It was about the aid. You love your sister, but you didn't care what she deserved or whether she was unhappy. And Tourmaline points this out:
“Did you think to ask me?” Slowly she shook her head and the torchlight gleamed in her hair. “No. Did you think I would mind? No. Did you think I would even protest?” She smiled a little. “Think you upon my place, Carillon, and see how you would feel.”
Carillon infuriates me a bit with this next bit though, and I really have to be careful or I really will excerpt this whole scene:
The pit was at my back. I thought now another one yawned before me. “Torry,” I said finally, “think you I had any choice in whom I wed? Princes—and kings—have no more say than their women. There was nothing I could do.”
“You might have asked me. But no, you ever told. The Mujhar of Homana orders his sister to wed where he will decide.” She put up a silencing hand. Her fingers seemed sharp as a blade. “Aye, I know—it has ever been this way. And ever will be. But this once, this once, I say no. I say I choose my way.”
That's fucking bullshit, Carillon. This entire section of the book was about your choice. You never had to marry Electra. In fact every single person who cared about you and supported you thought it was a fucking bad idea. Electra sure as hell didn't want it.
In a later book, this argument will come up again, when siblings Brennan and Keely argue about sexism and assumptions. But in that later book, it's actually valid. Both Brennan and Keely were betrothed at birth to the heirs of their father's ally: first son to first daughter, first (legitimate) daughter to first son.
That is not fucking true for Carillon, and shame on him for even trying.
Carillon brings up their mother, but she's already gone back to Joyenne. She knows what Tourmaline is doing and thinks she's mad, but she knows that she can't stop her.
And Tourmaline calls Carillon out on Electra:
“She has raised willful children, Carillon—they do what they will do when it comes to whom they marry.” She laughed softly. “Think you that I was fooled about Electra? Oh Carillon, I am not blind. I do not deny she was a pathway to Solinde, but she is more than that to you. You wanted her because—like all men who see her—you simply had to have her. That is a measure of her power.”
I'm not fond of the victim blaming tone here. But I like that Tourmaline is shredding Carillon's claim that he didn't choose his spouse.
So Tourmaline is going. She does tell him, from both her and Finn, that it wasn't intended. Finn had been sent to the Keep to recover from his wounds. Carillon had sent Torry there for safety (and to keep her away from Lachlan). She tended Finn when Alix wouldn't. She was curious about him, and they talked. It became more.
Carillon tries to convince her to stay, but she says, only if he takes Finn back. Carillon says he can't:
“Do you not see? Electra is the Queen, and he a Cheysuli shapechanger. No matter what I say in this, they will always suspect Finn of wishing to slay the Queen. And if he stayed, he might. Did he not tell you what he tried to do?"
He may be right about this. It's hard to say. The common people certainly don't love Solinde anymore than they love the Cheysuli. But Finn will be an easy scapegoat. It probably is too late, and had been as soon as Carillon forced an unwilling woman into marriage.
The love is still there though:
“Nor do I have one now.” I shook my head. “Do you think I do not want him back? Gods, Torry, you do not know what it was for the two of us in exile. He has been with me for too long to make this parting simple. But it must be done. What else is there to do? I could never trust him with Electra—”
Torry points out that maybe he shouldn't trust Electra, but Carillon insists that he wed her. He says he needs her. If anything happened to Electra, Solinde would rise in outrage.
...would it?
We've seen nothing to indicate that Electra is particularly loved by her realm. We've seen only weak indignation when she got forced into marriage to begin with. The Solindishmen outright said that they would surrender to him without marriage even being on the table.
The more plausible concern is that this would bring back the qu'mahlin. And true, there are people who still have racist hatred against the Cheysuli.
But then, the Cheysuli bought Carillon his throne. Carillon's constantly had a Cheysuli at his side. And Electra is not a Homanan woman. So...who can say really. I'll grant that this part of the scenario is much more plausible than Solinde going to war.
Finally Tourmaline delivers the argument that Carillon can't gainsay: she's pregnant. Carillon asks how he didn't see it. She tells him, calmly, that he'd never looked. He'd never asked. And now it's too late. She leaves the vault.
...because that's right. This entire exchange happened in the vault beneath the throne room. Tourmaline, looking for her brother, finds this open hole in the fucking firepit and just goes down it. Why the fuck not.
Tourmaline is a fucking badass.
And Carillon has, in one fell swoop, lost partner, sister, and mother (though that last at least isn't an estrangement.) Are the revelations finally over?
Not quite yet.
Because when Carillon comes out of the vault, he hears music. And admittedly, the lyrics are a bit better this time:
Come, lady, and hear of my soul,
for a harper’s poor magic
does little to hold
a fine lady’s heart
when she keeps it her own.
It seems pretty clear that Lachlan is not a lyricist.
Carillon goes to find him, and break the news.
The music died away. Silence. And then he looked up and, seeing me, rose at once from his stool. “Carillon! I thought you had gone to bed.”
“No.”
He frowned. “You are all over ash, and still damp. Do you not think you would do better—”
“He is gone.” I cut him off. “And so is Tourmaline.”
Remember that bit, above, when he talks about the assurance with which women talk about their men. Now think about how "he" doesn't have a proper name attached. We all know who he means.
Lachlan is of course devastated and uncomprehending. He's hung up on the idea that she was meant to wed, for a prince.
Carillon agrees: a prince, never a harper. Which seems a dick move now, dude, considering she's gone anyway.
Lachlan makes a cryptic statement about waiting too long. He urges Carillon to get her back. There's something he needs to say to her. But then Carillon tells him that she's pregnant with Finn's child.
And the reveals aren't quite over.
Remember in that second or third chapter, before Lachlan was introduced, Carillon had gone on about the straightforward and honest tendencies of the Ellasians. And I said that, from that, we could predict that the first Ellasian that Carillon met would be duplicitous?
Lachlan removes something from beneath his doublet: a ring on a thong. This ring has the harp and crown that make up the crest of Ellas. There are seven of those rings, Lachlan says. Five of them are worn by his brothers. The last one is worn by his father: the High King of Ellas.
Lachlan is Cuinn Lachlan Llewellyn. The High Prince of Ellas.
And that's where this all gets darkly funny. Carillon sent Tourmaline to the Keep to keep her from getting too close to Lachlan. Because he wanted her to marry a Prince. Oh dear.
He demands to know why Lachlan kept it a secret.
It was an agreement between the King and Lachlan. He wasn't really the sort of heir his father wanted: he preferred harping and healing to governing and courting women. He wanted freedom, without a retinue or the burden of heirship. His father agreed, but under very specific terms: he was forbidden to divulge name or rank unless he was in danger.
Carillon is boggling over this of course:
“But—all this silence with Torry. And me!” I thought he had been a fool. “Had you said anything, none of this might have happened!”
To be fair, Carillon, if you decided to treat your sister like a person instead of a tool. And if you'd trusted her instead of shipping her out of reach. This might not have happened.
And it was partly because of Carillon that he continued to keep the secret. He'd wanted to see what Carillon could do. And his father, when he saw what Carillon meant to do, wanted him to win too.
Carillon points out that Ellas hadn't sent aid. Lachlan explains that Bellam had been encroaching on Ellas too. He'd offered Electra to "Rhodri's heir" (which is a fascinating choice of words. What he's saying, indirectly, is that Electra had been offered to LACHLAN). Ellas has enemies themselves, they could not be seen to support Carillon's bid for the throne.
As for Lachlan himself, well, he didn't take any real risks: he didn't fight, he just played harper. Part of the terms with Rhodri was that Lachlan was forbidden to fight. He'd said that Lachlan was to watch and learn what he could. If Carillon won the war, and held the realm for a year, Rhodri would offer alliance.
I think Lachlan is being modest. Going into Bellam's Castle, negotiating for Tourmaline vs Electra. That was a big risk. But that's not relevant to the conversation.
Carillon says that it's been more than a year. Lachlan says that Carillon has only just started sending out the offer for Tourmaline's hand in marriage. It wasn't Lachlan's place to respond: the High King had to choose and Lachlan had to wait. Unfortunately, Torry didn't wait for him.
“Could you have said nothing to her?”
He stared at the cushion-strewn floor. “I nearly did. More times than I can count. Once I even spoke of Rhodri’s heir, but she only bid me to be quiet. She did not wish to think on marriage.” He sighed. “She was ever gentle with my feelings, seeking to keep me—a harper—from looking too high, as did her brother, the Mujhar.” He did not smile. “And I thought, in all my complacency, she would say differently when she knew. And you. And so I savored the waiting, instead.”
Classism is the root of all misfortune, that and heteronormativity.
Carillon agrees, finally, that there was nothing that Lachlan could have done. He understands the responsibilities of princes. Lachlan thinks he still should have done something or said something.
And yet it would have done no good. We both realized it, saying nothing because the saying would bring more pain. A man may love a woman while the woman loves another, but no man may force her to love where she has no desire to do so.
Carillon...
So anyway, Lachlan realizes that he has to leave. He puts the ring away, noting he came as a harper and he'll leave as one.
“Do you leave me, old friend, I will be quite alone.” It was all I could say to him; the only plea I would ever make.
But Lachlan has always known he'd have to leave. He'd just hoped he wouldn't have to leave alone.
Oh Tourmaline. I can understand the appeal of Finn in this book, but Ellas sounds like SUCH a great place. And Lachlan's a decent guy.
Heh. If you think about it. Lachlan's the same age as Carillon. If Alix had done as I kept saying and flown to the Ellasian capitol city. She might have married him.
Lachlan wishes him goodbye, and Carillon notes that his "Song of Homana" was done.
And here we see the full tragedy of all this heteronormativity. If Carillon and Finn could have accepted their love, Carillon wouldn't have been distracted by Electra (and her pride and scorn...). Carillon might not have been such a dick about the arranged marriage, and therefore Torry and Lachlan might have been able to talk about it. Maybe she would have been happy enough with him.
Who knows.
But the tragedy is building up momentum. Carillon has lost his best friend/
What is left?
...well, Electra. Electra is left.
Carillon goes to his chambers and finds her there. He can't face her:
I stopped. I could not face her now. To look at her was to recall what Finn had done, and how it had ended in banishment. How it had ended with Torry and Lachlan gone as well. To look at her was to look on the face of aloneness, and that I could not bear.
First she offers to leave, but the, she offers to lift the grief from him. She kneels to help him with his boots, and he notices the bruises around her neck ("the marks of a crazed man's madness"), and then, grossly, he wonders if she ever knelt for Tynstar.
She says that, for him, she's sorry that Finn had to go. And well, things go as expected from here. Though it's sad more than anything else:
To be rid of the loneliness, I would lie with the dark god himself.
The chapter ends with him telling Electra how much he needs her.
I feel like he'd be better off remembering the lessons he himself imparted this chapter. But if he did that...well, who knows. It might already be too late.
no subject
Date: 2020-09-30 11:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-09-04 01:34 am (UTC)100% right, Torry. Definitely Carillon's lowest point and so out of nowhere.
Lachlan is Cuinn Lachlan Llewellyn. The High Prince of Ellas.
I should have guessed, because now he's basically Olivier/Prince Olivert from the JRPG Trails series! Though Olivier had a much better time in pretty much every way. Maybe because his tragedy was in his backstory.
no subject
Date: 2024-09-04 06:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-09-04 07:13 am (UTC)