Heaven's Needle

by Liane Merciel

  “You were hoping he’d refuse?” Malentir asked.

  “No. Just surprised he accepted so quickly. It’s the right choice.”

  “Is it?”

  “Of course it is.” She tossed her braid behind a shoulder impatiently. “You saved our lives in Shadefell. You could have killed us or left us to die after taking the Sword of the Dawn, but you didn’t.”

  “Ah. That convinces you of my good nature?”

  “No. But we’d be stupid to ignore it.”

  “Good.” The corners of his mouth twitched up in a cadaverous smile. In the few moments since their arrival in the clearing, the hollows of Malentir’s cheeks had sunk visibly. The bones rose above them sharp as knife blades. “It was need that drove me, not kindness. Need is … stronger.”

  “Aurandane’s taint?”

  “That is a part of it.” His hand crept toward the sword, which leaned against the boulder near his foot, the tiny jewel on its pommel twinkling. “I knew there was … some trap to it … but I thought it might have been drained like the other slaves and snares. I was wrong.”

  “It’s killing you.”

  “Perhaps.” The Thornlord’s eyes were glassy with fever, but he laughed raspily. “I hope so. The alternative would be worse. But if I am only dying … your knight owes me a life.”

  “The Spider held him in Ang’arta for a full winter. He doesn’t owe you anything.”

  “That is her debt, not mine. Your knight understands that. He is an honorable man … and a sensible one.” Malentir lapsed into silence for a time, watching the radiance of Kelland’s prayer wash over the undersides of the budding branches and turn the clearing’s grass into a white-capped sea. Malentir’s face looked like a ghaole’s, all dead white skin stretched over bone. “And you need me,” he added, his voice soft as the whisper of wind over ashes, “and need is stronger than kindness.”

  Bitharn didn’t answer. She looked away through the trees, where the light of Celestian magic was bright enough to sting her eyes. The children moaned and squirmed in the rotting leaves, trying to escape its embrace, but none of them had the strength to get up and run. Evenna thrashed wildly in the white light; Asharre sat stolid as stone, pink-tinged tears trickling down her chin. Blackfire dust whirled around them, pulled from their bodies into the light, where it burned in shimmers of colorless flame. The grayness receded from their bodies, and the emptiness cleared from their eyes as the dust blazed away.

  The power of faith allowed Kelland to purify them. The price of faith meant he had to. Despite his exhaustion he could no more refuse the children’s need than he could stop breathing. Bitharn was privately, grimly glad that not all of them had survived the passage. It might have killed him to heal more.

  Would it kill him to heal the Thorn? Now, or later? If Kelland waited until after sunrise, his magic would be stronger, but he would also risk the possibility that the Mad God might kill his victims rather than let the knight reclaim them. It wasn’t a chance worth taking for the innocents. Was it worth taking for the Thorn? Need is stronger than kindness. Did they need Malentir so badly?

  That choice was not hers to make. She’d spared him from sin in the bowels of Shadefell; she couldn’t do it again here. Brooding, she watched the prayer go on, and kept the Thorn in the corner of her eye.

  Finally the last of the blackfire dust burned off. Bitharn was surprised that the sky was still dark; it seemed that it should be dawn, if not the next day’s dusk. The children’s moans died out as the light receded, leaving them in the cool spring night.

  Kelland emerged from the tree shadows, his white surcoat stained with filth yet aglow with starlight. His eyes met Malentir’s, then Bitharn’s. Weariness weighted his shoulders and made every step a stumble. Nevertheless, the knight knelt wordlessly beside the Thorn, and the light of holy prayer sprang up around him again. The jewel on Aurandane’s hilt winked in the colorless flame. Bitharn thought she saw a glimmer of shadow in its dawn blue depths, and the reflection of a face that was not there. Burning eyes, a burning soul.

  It lasted just an instant, but she stared at the stone until the magic died.

  23

  “Close enough?” the wagon driver asked. His donkey brayed at an approaching oxcart on the road that circled the Dome of the Sun. Ahead the luminous glass of Heaven’s Needle was a spear of brighter fire against the sunset.

  “Yes, thank you,” Bitharn said. Yellow-robed Illuminers were hurrying toward them while acolytes ran to fetch healers’ bags and tell others of their arrival. Carts hauling the sick and injured were a common sight at the Dome of the Sun, and the temple’s servants were well versed in their response.

  They were home. Home, and as safe as they could be anywhere in this world. The relief of it was overwhelming.

  Bitharn climbed down from the wagon bench, balancing Aurandane awkwardly in one hand. She’d thought it best to disguise the Sword of the Dawn by carrying it in Kelland’s scabbard rather than its own, but it was too long for that sheath. A scarf wrapped loosely around the hilt concealed the poor fit, but it made the sword clumsy to handle. She’d be glad to get rid of it, for that small reason as well as the large ones.

  Once on the ground, she tried to offer the driver a coin, but the gnarled old farmer pushed her silver shield away.

  “No need for that. It’s honor enough to serve.” The farmer cleared his throat and straightened his battered hat, trying to look more respectable as the Illuminers approached. He’d been terrified when he first saw the burden he was asked to carry—all those children lying amid the frozen graylings, Evenna with her torn face, Kelland delirious and covered in black blood—but the long ride had calmed him enough to recognize, and take some pride in, the importance of his part. “I can’t guess what you went through, but I’m glad to have been able to help. The Burnt Knight, cursed children … You keep your shield. The story’s payment enough for me.” He chuckled in disbelief, shaking his head at the strangeness of the world. “Glad just to serve.”

  The Illuminers had arrived. Bitharn helped them move the children and Celestians from the farmer’s wagon bed onto the canvas-covered boards that the acolytes brought out from the temple. The carrying boards had restraints for patients at risk of hurting themselves or others, and Bitharn made sure every one was fastened before she let the Illuminers haul them back to the healing rooms. Malentir had said the corruption was cleansed from them, and she knew he couldn’t lie … but he could have been mistaken. Even if he wasn’t, there was no telling how the children would react when they came back to their senses. If they did. Passage through the perethil had nearly been enough to derange her, and she had only walked through it twice. Being mired in the Mad God’s power for days might have destroyed their minds altogether.

  They’d made it to the Dome of the Sun, though, and if they could be healed, they would be. There was no better place for it in Ithelas. She watched the acolytes carry the boards into the temple, then turned back to the farmer. “Thank you,” she said again.

  “Welcome. Most welcome. Bright Lady’s blessing.” He patted her shoulder, climbing back onto the wagon. Ordinarily the gesture might have annoyed her, but right then Bitharn was grateful for the farmer’s clumsy reassurance. He meant well, and she would never have gotten her charges back to Cailan without him.

  After Kelland healed him, Malentir had shadow-walked back to Cailan or Ang’arta or wherever it was he went, effectively leaving Bitharn alone in the forest. The Thorn hadn’t taken Aurandane with him, but the sword was no help; if anything, it added to her apprehension. Kelland had nearly killed himself with the strain of purging black-fire corruption from so many souls. Asharre, Evenna, and the children were delirious or comatose. Bitharn had been terrified to turn her back on them for a moment, much less abandon them for hours while she looked for help, but she hadn’t had any choice.

  Near dawn, she’d finally stumbled across the trail of poachers dragging a deer through the forest. They’d been clumsy—and would ha
ve been hanged for it if Lord Gildorath’s huntsmen had found the tracks instead of Bitharn—but in her exhaustion, it was only because of that clumsiness that she’d been able to follow the trampled trail back to their village. There she’d hammered on doors and begged for help until the sleepy, frightened villagers followed her back to the wounded. This turnip cart had been a godsend.

  Bitharn waved farewell to the retreating cart with all the politeness she could muster, then hurried after the retreating Illuminers.

  There was little she could do to help, but they let her into the healing rooms. She gave an abbreviated account of their experiences in Shadefell to the lead Illuminer, a woman who dispatched acolytes and fellow Blessed alike with the same efficient, steely calm. After answering the woman’s questions and handing the Sword of the Dawn off to a Sun Knight, Bitharn retired to a chair in the corner of the healing hall and surrendered to her fatigue.

  No sooner had she closed her eyes than a beige-robed acolyte was shaking her awake. “The High Solaros wishes to see you,” the boy said. “Sir Kelland and the sigrir Asharre have already been called to his study.”

  Sunlight warmed her face through a nearby window. It was late morning, almost midday. She’d slept through the night and the next day’s dawn prayers. One of the Blessed must have woven a small prayer over her while she slept; her teeth didn’t feel loose anymore, and her bruises had faded to yellow-green rosettes.

  Somehow, she managed to feel wretched despite the healing. Her limbs were stiff and sore after a night spent sleeping in the chair, and her mouth tasted like it had been packed with dirty wound lint. She was surprised she couldn’t hear her back creaking when she stood. “How long do I have?”

  “He expects you momentarily. The others are waiting.”

  “Let me wash.” A quick scrub of her teeth, followed by a rinse of cold whitebriar tea, had her feeling almost human; a splash of water on her face helped too. She longed for a bath, and for a good long stretch, but those would have to wait. The acolyte waited politely, and then she followed him to the High Solaros’ study.

  Kelland and Asharre sat in the library outside. Neither spoke. The knight gazed pensively at his sun medallion, winding its golden chain around his brown knuckles. The scarred sigrir stared at a bookshelf, seeming hardly more aware of her surroundings than she’d been in the pit below Shadefell. Her shoulders were slumped, her face slack. The healing of her physical wounds didn’t seem to have touched her despair; if anything, she looked worse.

  Bitharn hesitated, wanting to say something, but the acolyte was watching, and although he did not interrupt she could sense his impatience. She raised a hand in greeting instead, and just caught Kelland inclining his head in return before she was ushered through the door into the High Solaros’s study.

  Over the years, she had probably visited the High Solaros’ inner sanctum ten or fifteen times—not often, spread over the course of a decade and more, but enough to think of the place as eternal. There was always a hint of sweetness to the air: cedar and sandalwood from the costly carvings, roses from the gardens in summer and mint when the weather turned cool, fragrant candles in winter when the gardens were sleeping. But though the seasons might turn, and the scents change to match them, the study itself never did. It was a timeless sanctuary, warm and filled with light. Wide, clear windows invited in the sun, adding their own colored-glass sparkles of ruby and gold to its natural brilliance. The High Solaros’ collection of books and maps lent the room a whiff of leather and parchment, but far from being musty or unpleasant, to Bitharn it smelled purely of knowledge.

  Unlike his study, however, the High Solaros was subject to age. She was quietly shocked to see how much older he looked. Thierras d’Amalthier had never been young in Bitharn’s memory, and every year saw more snow in his hair and more lines on his face, but she had seldom seen him as weary as he was today. In his private chambers, he wore simple yellow robes with only muted gold embroidery about the hem to signify that he was not an ordinary Illuminer, yet even that small reminder of his office seemed to weigh heavy on the man. “Light’s blessing upon you. Please, sit.”

  “Thank you, Eminence.” Bitharn leaned on the armrest to lower herself into the chair. Her legs were still wobbly.

  The High Solaros sat opposite her, steepling his fingers over the map of Ithelas that covered his desk under glass. “I understand you were recently in Carden Vale.”

  That surprised her. She’d expected him to ask about the Thorn’s escape first. Surely he had to know that she’d helped Malentir flee Heaven’s Needle. “I was, Eminence.”

  “How did you come to be there?”

  So it was about the Thornlord after all. Inwardly Bitharn quailed. But she told him everything, from Kelland’s capture outside Tarne Crossing to her bargain with the Spider and betrayal of Versiel. There was no point in hiding it; he would have heard about Malentir’s presence in Shadefell from the others, and it was better for him to know the whole truth. At least then he might understand why she’d betrayed the faith.

  “Do you regret freeing him?” Thierras asked at the end of her tale.

  “I regret that it was the best of the choices I had. But I don’t think I made the wrong choice, if that’s what you’re asking. I’d do it again if I had to. I’d do it a thousand times over.”

  The High Solaros nodded, not in agreement, but as if he had expected no other answer. “Sir Kelland was not the first they took. The Thorns have been trying for some time to capture one of our Blessed. I suspected it when the first reports came back from Thelyand Ford; I was sure of it when I learned of Oralia’s death. But I did not know why until now.”

  “They want Duradh Mal. And they need a Blessed to purify it.”

  “So it seems.” The High Solaros’ gaze settled back upon her.

  Bitharn braced herself against his disappointment. “Will I be censured?”

  “No. Your guilt is penance enough. We’ll let the public story stand. The Thorn tricked you and escaped; as far as anyone outside this room needs to know, you were an unwilling captive. As it happens, your disobedience may be the only reason Evenna and Asharre came back to us alive. The goddess works in strange ways … here, it seems, by making a tool of love.”

  Bitharn stared at her fingertips. She felt the burn of a blush in her cheeks and wished desperately, hopelessly, that she could be anywhere else in the world.

  “We’ve … we’ve talked about that,” she mumbled at last, when the silence became too oppressive to bear. “We’ve found our answer.” It wasn’t the one she wanted, and she wasn’t sure it was right, but what she wanted had already caused enough shame.

  “Have you?” Thierras rang a small bronze bell on his desk. A moment later the door opened. The acolyte stood at the threshold, questioning.

  “Bring in Sir Kelland, please,” the High Solaros said.

  Bitharn knotted her hands together and tried to quell the hammering in her heart. She hadn’t expected this. Admitting her complicity in the Thornlord’s escape had been infinitely easier. She’d been ready for that. She had wrestled through sleepless nights with what she would say, had prepared herself for the buckling weight of the admission. But this … this was a surprise, and she was in no condition to deal with surprises.

  The acolyte returned with Kelland and a silver tray of pastries, some sweet, others savory. A teapot and a trio of porcelain cups sat in the center of the tray. He laid the platter on the desk, waited for the High Solaros’ nod of dismissal, and left discreetly. Bitharn took a sugared roll, more to occupy her hands than because she was hungry. She hadn’t eaten in two days, apart from a handful of mushrooms and sausages on the turnip cart, but anxiety strangled her appetite.

  Thierras rubbed a thumb over the heavy gold ring of his office. “When we spoke earlier, you asked whether the Spider lied about Celestia’s proscription of physical love.”

  “I asked whether that love was a sin,” Kelland said. Bitharn’s breath caught. She nearly dropped th
e sweet roll she’d been picking apart. He had asked that?

  “Yes. And I said—”

  “—that oaths are simple, but questions of sin are not. Which was not an answer.”

  “It was the best one I could give at that time.” The High Solaros sighed. He didn’t seem offended by Kelland’s lack of deference; his tone carried only a weight of regret, and perhaps of worry. “Now I see things more clearly.”

  Again he fell silent. Bitharn picked the raisins from her roll, showering her lap with flakes of pastry. It was a waste, but she couldn’t have swallowed a bite if it was the last food she’d get all day.

  Thierras tapped a jagged black line cut across the map: the Irontooths, a long line reaching north across Carden Vale. The town wasn’t marked on the High Solaros’ map, but Ang’duradh was. It had its proper name there; the map was very old. “You asked about Bysshelios too. His heresy.”

  “Yes,” Kelland said. “He broke his oaths, but he kept his magic.”

  “For a time. He lost it in the end, when his sins became excessive … but you are correct: Bysshelios kept Celestia’s Blessing after he took women to his bed.”

  “Then the oath of celibacy is a lie.”

  “No.” The High Solaros seemed to be looking through them more than at them, Bitharn thought; he had the air of a man remembering old conversations and weighing past words as much as choosing what he wanted to tell them in the here and now. It made her afraid. What was it that he was treading so gingerly around?

  “The oath,” Thierras said, “is founded on the belief that, in this matter, it is best to have a clear rule rather than allowing our Blessed to flounder into a treacherous and complicated sea.