Shadow's Son by Shirley Meier, S.M. Stirling and Karen Wehrstein ...

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It had been more than a month since she'd decided not to kill him, since Shkai'ra's—she still couldn't
bring herself to say the word.Death . Her dark-work had been less necessary lately, and she'd avoided
him as well.Why am I more afraid of showing something now than when I really did have
something to hide ?
The days immediately after had been a shapeless blackness. So much practice mourning; she knew its
every stage, its every line and crack.I'm still denying. Because I didn't seeher die, I guess, the way I
did Mama and Papa . Then she'd realized, what Sova said was true: she couldn't know for certain
Shkai'ra was dead until she saw her corpse. Which meant…uncertainty, again. I'm practiced at that,
too. Maybe forever, I'll live not knowing. About the two people I love most, instead of one of
them. Koru, why did I send her … She cut that thought off.No. It's no use. We had to try something.
We had to .
Whatever happened, she could cling to what she still had. These days, some people would kill to sit at
Cheven-ga's right hand; now it was one of his command council, but Sova was only three down, her eyes
shining.Daughter . Every battle, she'd had to fight down sickness at the thought of the girl—whom her
mindknew was not as fragile as her thread-bare emotions felt—facing Arkan steel.Sometimes you don't
care if you break my heart, but I'd rather hear a hundred times as many cruel words from you,
than lose you .
At Chevenga's left sat Niku, his A-niah lover who'd been the subject of such controversy, when they'd
wanted to marry. Their toddling daughter Vriah, bright blond curls shining against warm brown skin,
crawled between her parents' laps until she fell asleep in his.Another child, I would have harmed ,
Megan thought,saving my own .
Imperator. In a day or two, what she had once created as an image bymanrauq would be real. She
watched his hands, the one curled shielding around the child, the other gesturing expansively, and
imagined the golden seals flashing on them.I guess I have you, too . He only still existed by her choice,
though he didn't know it; by not killing him, she'd made him, in a way, one of her own.
The topic turned to revenge, and he let everyone else do the talking.Ever quiet , she thought,about
your grudge. Are you hiding something from yourself ? She wet her lips with wine, and said, "I had
an experience of vengeance," she said. Faces turned to her, attentive.
"My second in command drugged me, sold me off— he thought he'd sent me off for an underling to
kill— and took over my House and my business. He'd almost ruined me by the time I came home. But I
had the backing to fight him, then. He'd hurt so many of my friends, to hurt me, that I was determined to
lock him in a cage too small for him to either sit, stand or lie, hang him in my hall-garden and torment him
for the rest of his life."
The silence deepened. She looked down at her claws, shining in the firelight, and thought of Habiku's
loving/ hating amber gaze in Ranion's arena where he'd died, almost at her feet. "The rage, the need for
vengeance, almost ate me alive."
"Almost?" someone else asked.
"I didn't let it," she said softly. "I didn't cage him, or even kill him, after all. I'd have tied myself to his
memory, if I'd done it, driven everyone else away from me and been alone and a little bug-fikken crazy
by now."