IV

"Your Highness, I hope I step not outside my bounds, but you look weary-- even ill." said Mrako, noting the lines that peppered Allendre's face.


"I think I am. Ill. I've been..." the colour left her face, "Mrako, would you leave me? And send a guard to the door, I will take no guests." She said with the lack of tact particular to the very ill. Mrako did as he was told.


She stared into nothing and thought. She thought of Lyron, and could feel nothing but contempt, and then guilt and then sorrow, and then contempt, and all over again. She did not understand this, and these feelings tried the very edges of her rationality. She twisted her ring. She decided to put her thoughts in order as best she could.


What she felt was love, unmistakable, purest, irrational love...and not for her Husband. No, she felt it for Rane. She slapped her wrist in frustration. She did not know Rane, she had no possible cause to love him, none. And that was useless to note, because she did.


Every dinner, every moment with Lyron made her hate him more. (Hate?) Yes....hate him. Hate the distracted way he looked at her, the intensity with which he looked at Rane-as though he knew.


She stopped. Still. Did he know? Did he feel her hate? Her love? What did he know? What would he do if he knew? Would he confront her? No, no he would hide it, yes...he would....


No.


He would have her killed. It would be simple enough, he could find a wife that did love him, or at the very least someone who didn't hate him. The sense of this, and it's logical course of action was utterly inescapable. Allendre felt for the first time in what seemed an eternity to reach a firm, rational decision.


She would kill him first.