A Man Alone

Part Four: Kara

"She heard me coming a mile away. I don't know how she does that. It's creepy, I know I can move silently when I choose, but—"

"Not in the woods, you can't," Kara laughed. "You're like an infant in the woods. No clue how to silence yourself."

"I'm better now," he sulked.

"You'd almost have to be."

He rolled his eyes. "Anyway. She heard me coming, she had a sword out by the time I got there—she surprised me. I still won the scuffle, but then, I was a fully trained adult. She was a kid going on guesswork and instinct... Her instincts were good, though, I could see that much.

"I convinced her to tell me what had happened... Pretty much, the Duke had fucked over her village, and inadvertently caused her sister's death. Kara wanted to help her people and avenge her sister. I had nothing else to do and offered to help train her." He shrugged. "Figured it would keep me out of sight for awhile, and I've always liked teaching. It was my favorite thing about being Squad Leader—I got to train everyone who worked under me."

"You just offered to teach her? For no reason?" Kaiya demanded. Daevan shrugged.

"I'm sure the fact that she looks strikingly like his late wife had nothing to do with it," Arant put in innocently.

Daevan gave him a dark look. "Does she? I hadn't noticed," he said wryly.

"You're sick, Daevan," Kaiya spat.

"She didn't look like Mercy when she was thirteen!" he objected, then, "Well. Much."

"What?" Kara asked. "Arant? ...Daevan?"

Daevan sighed. "All right. So the reason I followed you, offered to train you might have been influenced by the fact that you could pass for Mercy's sister. I mean, your hair and skin are darker, and your eyes are hazel instead of blue, but there's definitely resemblance... I couldn't help but notice it. But that didn't really mean anything to me. You and she have absolutely nothing in common."

"Yeah. For one, Kara isn't a complete bitch," Kaiya commented.

Daevan narrowed his eyes. "Watch your mouth," he hissed. "Insult me, fine. I deserve it. But if you ever talk about my wife like that—"

"Daevan," Arant interrupted, peace maker as always.

"Yeah." Daevan took a deep breath. "Well. Kara and I headed back to my cottage, and I spent the next few years teaching her how to hold a sword. A little over five years of that, a year and a half of this," he said, gesturing vaguely at the tent around them, indicating the whole war which they were now very close to winning, "and here we are."

"I think that's glossing over a bit much," Kara said. "I want to know how you did get a pardon in Ledian eventually."

"Yeah," Arant said. "And what about those other attempts on your father's life?"

Daevan winced. "Well..." he sighed. "I wasn't directly involved with most of them; provided some information for Mythan and his group, but that was it. But there was one...

"Dad hates women. Which I know I've said before, but it goes beyond snapping the necks of a few cheap whores—the thought of women in power makes him crazy, he can't handle it. And given what a strong source of power Empress Breena Mystarin is... He hated her, he always had, and will continue to until his dying day.

"A few years ago... I think I'd been training Kara for two or three years—"

"When you were gone for a month with no warning?" Kara asked.

"Yeah."

"It had been two and a half years."

"Ok. So two and a half years into my disappearing act, Mythan sent word that he needed my help, I needed to get to Ledian right away. And I didn't want to explain what was happening to Kara, since she knew nothing about my past." He sighed. "I'm sorry about that, Kara."

"Go on, " was all she said.

"I got to Ledian, saw Mythan, he told me my father had been threatening Breena's life. There had been a few assassination attempts. He wanted Kyrvan dead, and wanted Breena kept safe in the meantime. So while we were working out a plan, I had the joy of playing bodyguard to the Empress."

"You?" Kaiya scoffed. "Why the hell would anyone trust you?"

"I had been helping Ledian for three years at that point, and had never had an urge to defect back to the Bladedancers. I would have been able to handle assassination attempts from any Squad members. Any sort of attempt."

"You're awfully damned full of yourself," she muttered.

"I'm also the best there is at what I do—did. And when the Squad members showed up, I dealt with them, just like Mythan asked me to. And then one night, he told me he knew Kyrvan was in town. He wanted me to kill him. Didn't care what it took.

"I agreed, nervously; this wasn't planned out or anything. This was me, slipping into Dad's private sanctuary, trying to avoid Squad members for long enough to get there and fight him—a fight I had no assurance of winning—and get out. I was willing to do it, but not exactly thrilled.

"So I went. I got inside, that wasn't a problem; I got past a few Squad members. Also not a problem. But I wasn't expecting... They knew I'd be coming, sooner or later, there was an ambush, and I had no choice but to walk straight in to it. I did damn well, giving the circumstances, but ultimately...

"Someone got in a lucky shot at me, got an arrow in my shoulder. Slowed me down enough that a few Squad members were enough to knock me out.

"I came to chained to a wall in the inner sanctum. Dad and Kain were both there, and a couple other Squad members. The whole thing... The attempts on Breena's life, everything... Had been to get me there, so they could deal with me. And they... Gods. I don't want to think about it, I can't—" he cut off abruptly, looking ill, and buried his head in his hand for a minute. When he finally looked up, he'd gained his composure back, somewhat.

"Any guilt I'd have felt about trying to kill my own father was gone after that. And he—he had Mercy's wedding ring. Saved it when Kain dealt with her body. At least I knew for sure that he knew we'd been married, small comfort though that was. That was why he'd killed her... It was my fault..." He trailed off again.

"That night is the sort of thing nightmares are made of. I haven't... There's a difference between losing a fight, painfully, and actual torture. There's a difference between watching a man torture someone and knowing it could be you someday and actually being the victim. There's... There was still a part of me that considered him my father, that believed he wouldn't do that to me. I was his son. I was...

"Gods. I was in hell, I have no idea how long it lasted. A few days, probably. When Dad wasn't there, Kain was standing guard. The mocked me with her ring, eventually... I ended up with it, their idea of a joke. They didn't expect that I'd ever leave alive, so it didn't matter to them. Taunted me with the sword, too. The fucking Heir's sword."

"Are you all right?" Kara asked again.

Daevan shrugged nonchalantly. "I'm alive. That's all that really matters." He took a deep breath and began the narrative again. "Eventually, somehow, Mythan's agents got in. He'd been planning to use me as a diversion all along. Some friend... But I can't be too angry at him; he did save my life, and came damn near murdering Dad that night. Didn't quite make it, unfortunately, but... They brought me back to the palace, cleaned me up, had some doctors working on me for days.

"Eventually, Breena stopped by—she said she didn't give a damn about politics, right then, that she was pardoning me. And her closest allies were doing the same, at her urging. She said it proved that I wasn't the same man I had been when I'd been a Bladedancer, and that I was as good as a one man army." He shrugged. "It was all flattery so I wouldn't be too angry with Mythan, in case they needed me again, but it was still nice to hear.

"Breena is good at what she does. She's a great woman, and I was honestly happy to have helped her out. That's the kind of effect she has on people, even fairly jaded, former assassins."

"Impressive," Arant said impassively.

"After about a month, I guess, I limped back home. Apologized to Kara for having disappeared on her—"

"It wasn't that unusual," she interrupted. "Is this what you were doing when you'd be gone for weekends?"

"Like that," he agreed quickly. "Usually not so... Usually I'm able to pick myself up afterwards, usually I don't get anywhere near Dad. Someday, though," he said, resolved. He hated to lie like this—some of the days he'd be gone had been attempts to bring down the Bladedancers. Others hadn't, others he had just felt an urge to leave. The guilt from Mercy's death would come back, and he'd go looking for a way to exorcise those demons.

For him, that exorcism usually meant finding himself on the receiving end of random abuse. He knew how to pick fights in crime-ridden city streets, and he knew how to lose them. He had just enough sense of self-preservation to make sure he never got killed, but by the time he'd make it back to his cottage, a day later, he'd be in rotten shape. But that was something he refused to talk about, no matter how much he respected his questioners.

"Anything else you're curious about, while I'm feeling honest?" he asked.

"Why me, Daevan? Why did you... Why did you care enough to help me with everything?" Kara asked.

He sighed. "The truth... All right. The truth is that I needed a way to keep out of sight, you looked like my wife and actually needed my help. I wanted to be needed." He shrugged a little. "As for all of this... Karliss is backed by the Bladedancers, has been for years. Long enough that I used to play errand boy between him and my father, before I was Squad Leader. And I'd do almost anything to make my father hurt, and if the best I can do is take out his allies, then that's what I'll do."

Kara started to talk, stopped, bit her lip, and nodded. "I suppose that's all I could have hoped for," she said finally.

"Hey—it's not like I didn't believe in you," he answered. "I did, I wanted to help you."

"Because I look like Mercy and because it would annoy your father."

"No—well, yes, but not only that. You... You're the best student I've ever worked with, you're amazing, Kara. I wanted to help you. I mean, I wouldn't have spent seven years on it, otherwise. If I didn't care."

"You didn't care. Not at first," she said, frustrated.

"No. Not at first—but I do now. Otherwise, I wouldn't still be here, I wouldn't have convinced Mythan to send troops. The tie between Karliss and my father isn't so close that he'd have been willing to, just to disrupt the Bladedancers, it was because I asked him to—and I was right. You were right, it was the right thing to do. This whole thing is right."

"When it's over," she said slowly, "I never want to see you again."

He slumped in his chair. "I figured you'd say that," he sighed. "I understand. I never meant... I've hurt so many people in my life, Kara, I never wanted to hurt you... I'm sorry."

"Sorry for what? For lying to me or for having been—having been what you were?"

And Daevan honestly didn't know which, so he didn't answer. There were a few days of fighting left, he was certain, and then it would be maybe a month to tie up loose ends of what was now being called Kara's Revolution. He had a month left by her side, before he'd have to leave her forever...

He'd have had to anyway, that was what hurt. No matter how far away from his past he tried to run, it caught up. Mercy had died because she'd married him. Breena had been subjected to assassination attempts because her husband had ties to him. He didn't dare let Kara stay close to him after the Revolution ended, for fear she'd be hurt for knowing him.

It was best that it happened like this, that she didn't want him to stay. It still hurt, though.

And he knew that's what his life would be like, from then on. It would be a life of avoiding friends and never having a family, it would be a life alone, always watching over his shoulder to see if anything other than his shadow was lurking in the dark. It would always be that way.