"Just so," Alera said. "I can guide you to within a mile or so, if she holds position for any length of time. But where the vord have claimed the territory... I am too numbed to be of use in any task so fine and focused."
"I'll find her," Tavi said quietly.
"I expect that you will," Alera said.
He looked over at her. "Can I defeat her?"
Alera considered the question for a time, her face looking more sunken. "It... seems doubtful."
Tavi frowned. "She's that strong?"
"And growing stronger by the day, young Gaius. In a way, every vord is nothing but an extension of her body, her mind, and her will. So is the croach."
Tavi assembled several thoughts into a logical order. "As the croach grows, so does her furycraft."
Alera inclined her head. "What I lose, she gains. When she fought the campaign against Sextus last year, she was already his equal in raw power. By now, she is stronger still. Considerably so. When one adds that to her native strength, speed, resilience, and intelligence, she becomes a formidable opponent. More so than anyone in your kind's history has seen, much less defeated."
Tavi inhaled deeply and blew his breath out very slowly. "And you cannot help me."
"I was created to advise and to support, young Gaius," Alera said. "Even when I was at the height of my strength, I could not have helped you in that way. I can and will help you find her. I can and will support your efforts to close to grips with her, as I already have since you landed at Antillus. But that is the limit of my power. You will prevail, or not, on your own."
Tavi was quiet for several moments before he said, "I've been doing that my whole life. This is no different."
Alera lifted her chin, a small smile on her strained mouth. "He used to talk about you, you know."
Tavi frowned. "You mean... my grandfather?"
"Yes. When you were at the Academy. After. He would watch over you, though you never knew it. Often, he would look in on you while you slept. Making sure that you were safe seemed to give him... a kind of satisfaction I never saw in him, otherwise."
Tavi frowned quietly up at the ceiling of the tent. Alera said nothing and let him think. She had, literally, inhuman patience. If it took him a week to consider his answer, she would be there waiting when he was ready. It was a portion of her personality that was both reassuring and annoying. One simply couldn't employ stalling tactics against her.
"I... We didn't speak to one another very often," Tavi said.
"No," she replied.
"I never understood... if all that time he knew who I was, then why didn't he ever... ever want to talk to me? Reach out?" Tavi shook his head. "He must have been lonely, too."
"Horribly," Alera said. "Though he never would have acknowledged such a thing openly, of course. He was, perhaps, the most isolated Aleran I have ever known."
"Then why?" Tavi asked.
Alera turned to one side, frowning thoughtfully. "I know your family well, young Gaius. But I cannot say that I knew his thoughts."
Tavi squinted at her and thought he had picked up on what she was hinting at. "If you were to guess?"
She smiled at him in approval. "Sextus had the gift of many of your bloodline, a kind of instinctive foreknowledge. You yourself have demonstrated it, now and then."
"I had rather assumed that was you," Tavi said.
She smiled whimsically. "Mmmm. I've already noted tonight how much your folk do without being aware of it. Since I am created by them, perhaps it follows that I am just as blindly unperceptive. I suppose it is possible that I am somehow unaware of knowledge I am inadvertently sending you."
"Sextus?" Tavi prompted.
Alera nodded and lifted a hand to draw a fallen lock of her hair back from her face, a very human gesture. The nails of her hand had turned black. Veins of darkness had progressed over her fingers and wrists. Tavi steeled himself against the further evidence of the fury's decay.
"Sextus had the gift more strongly than any scion of the House I have served," Alera said. "I think he sensed the storm coming years ago, since shortly after Septimus's death. I think he thought that he would be the one to guide your folk safely through the troubled times - and that you would be safer kept at a distance, until matters had calmed down." She sighed. "If not for the poisoning, he might have been right. Who can say?"
"He wanted to protect me," Tavi said quietly.
"And your mother, I think," Alera said. "Whatever Sextus may have thought of her personally, he knew that Septimus loved her. It carried weight with him."
Tavi sighed and closed his eyes. "I wish I'd known him better. I wish he were here now."
"As do I," Alera said quietly. "I've taught you all that I can in a limited time - and you've been an able pupil. But..."
"But I'm not ready for this," Tavi said.
Alera said nothing for a long moment. Then she said, "I think he would be proud of what you have done. I think he would have been proud of you."
Tavi closed his eyes quickly against a sudden irritating heat that flowed into them.
"You should rest, young Gaius. Regain your strength." Alera walked close and touched his shoulder lightly with one hand. "You will need it all in the days to come."
Chapter 30
Amara eyed the Knight standing guard outside the Princeps' command tent, and said, "I don't understand why you can't at least go in and ask."
The young man stared coldly over Amara's head at the Marat clan-head, and said, "No barbarians."
Amara fought down her irritation and remained expressionless, neutral. Doroga, for his part, returned the young man's stare steadily, leaning one elbow on the head of his cudgel. The massively muscled Marat showed no reaction at all to the half dozen very interested legionares commanded by the young Knight. He exuded a sense of patient confidence and let Amara do the talking - thank goodness.
"Was that your specific order, Sir..."
"Ceregus," the young Knight spat.
"Sir Ceregus," Amara said politely. "I must inquire if you are acting on a specific order from your lawful superiors."
The young Knight smiled woodenly. "If you recall what happened to the last Princeps who came into the presence of the barbarians in this valley, Countess, you'll find all the reason you need."
Doroga grunted. "Gave him a ride on a gargant and saved him and his people from being eaten by the Herdbane. Then your First Lord, old Sextus, gave me this shirt." Doroga plucked at the fine but worn old Aleran tunic, with its radical alterations to fit his frame.