The Sacrifice

by Nhys Glover

  Mother was free. I was free. My husbands were safe. All was right in my world for once.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Beyen and his men rode through the night to get as far as possible from any who would give chase. He changed mounts regularly, but always kept Mother with him, as if afraid if he let her go she would disappear in a whiff of smoke. There were Masters of Magic who were known to conjure illusions. He worried Mother was one of them. Only by touching her could he reassure himself that she was substantial.

  I wanted to keep pace with them, but Calun demanded I get back to the homestead as fast as possible. 'You have taxed the baby. Your mother is safe with Beyen and his men, and will be with us soon. Now it's time to look after yourself and the little one.'

  I wanted to argue. I wanted to scream that I needed to be with my mother. But I knew he was right. My duty was to my own family now. Mother was safe, and soon she would be with us.

  So, by morning, we were home and I was bathed like a child and hustled off to bed. I didn't like sleeping alone so, tired as I was, I wandered back into the kitchen where the sound of voices told me my men were congregating.

  Darkin shook his head in disgust, but wrapped an arm around me and drew me into the group.

  "Are any of you injured?" I asked, eyeing each of them in turn for blood. Only Rama sported blood stains and I knew they weren't his.

  "By the time we'd finished with the arrows the fighting was over. We didn't get close enough to get hurt. Except Rama, of course. He had to have his taste of blood," Jaron joked, giving his big brother a little shove.

  Rama reddened but made no comment.

  "Rama did what he had to do and no more. He could have killed that poor bastard I kicked in his privates, but he didn't."

  Jaron laughed, moving in to kiss my cheek. "Remind me to protect my privates next time I make you mad."

  "You shouldn't have placed yourself in such danger," Darkin said, no humour to be seen on his face or in his voice.

  "I didn't know there was another trooper in the carriage with Mother. None of us did."

  Calun shuddered and inwardly grimaced.

  "You were relying on images sent by airlings. They can't count. You did an amazing job getting it as right as you did," I told him firmly, unwilling to let him wallow in self-doubt a moment longer. I was the master of self-doubt. No one else was allowed that privilege.

  "What was that rumbling? It sounded like thunder. I thought we were about to have an entire army riding down on us," Darkin asked, accepting my excuse about the unknown trooper, or at least knowing there was no use arguing about it.

  I shrugged, a little disconcerted by what I had done. An Air Mistress did not cause earth quakes and crack open the ground with a flick of her hand. A Mistress of Earth might.

  "They had an Air Master with them and he knocked the airlings away and then turned his gale on me. I couldn't fight back by using a gale against him. Wind against wind won't work." How I knew that I didn't know. I just did. "So I opened the ground up and let it swallow him and the rest of them."

  I looked down at my fingers, like I was checking to see if my nails were clean. My hands had been in a terrible state by the time I got home, but an hour in the tub and I was clean and less sore, for all the scrambling and fighting I'd done.

  Rama's mouth dropped open before he croaked out. "You made the earth swallow them?"

  I shrugged again, feeling heat rising up my neck to flood my cheeks. I did not want this conversation.

  "I seem to have more than just Air Magic. Maybe it belongs to my baby. I've never heard of any magical sons or daughters wielding more than one element, so it must be his." I patted my stomach, though my baby was no bigger than a seed right now.

  "You aren't just any Elemental Mistress, Airsha," Darkin said impatiently. "You're the Goddess' Chosen One. So it's likely that you have more than one element at your disposal. Wasn't that what the prophecy said? But to open up the earth like that... That's impressive."

  Again I shrugged. "I didn't really feel like I did it. It was like it was done through me. My Air Magic couldn't help me, and I was beginning to panic so something else stepped in. I was as shocked as you are now when it happened."

  Calun leaned across the counter and lifted my chin with the tip of his finger until I looked him in the eyes. I didn't need it to know what he was thinking and feeling, but there was another thread to our connection when our gazes meshed, as they did now. He showed me how he saw me. A powerful, glowing being of immense beauty, controlling the elements with a flick of my hand. In his mind I looked like what a goddess should look like.

  I pulled away from him. "Don't be stupid. I'm not like that."

  'You will be. This is only the beginning,' came the confident reply.

  It was such a disconcerting thought that I left my men and limped off to bed again. I still felt like a beastling had rolled on me, even after my bath. The man in the carriage had been bigger than even Darkin, and far heavier. I didn't know how he hadn't squashed me like a bug. So, aye, it would take me a day or two to recover from the soreness and bruises.

  The next afternoon Mother arrived. She looked filthy and exhausted, but the gentle smile on her face told me all I needed to know. I took her from Beyen and led her carefully into the house and to the bath. While I saw to her needs, we talked about some of the things that had happened in the time we were apart. I even told her about my harem.

  It didn't seem to concern her that I had a harem. But that I shared my bed with all of them at once, did. However, after a few tut-tuts and head shakes, she gave up trying to censure me and just settled in to appreciate having me back in her life. I liked that better.

  I made her eat and drink, once she was clean and dressed. Her appetite had returned now she knew I was alive, and daintily nibbling on a fresh slice of bread Bertil had provided for us.

  Later, when we joined the others in the living area, I noticed Mother's eyes always searched out Beyen, settling on him for moment, before resuming whatever conversation she was having. Beyen contributed little to the discussion, but his gaze never left Mother. Whatever had existed between them all those years ago had sprung back to life on the ride here. It was a little disconcerting to imagine my mother loving a man, but if I expected her to accept me and my four lovers, I should at least accept hers.

  And she wasn't old. She had been married to the Godling at seventeen and had borne twins the following suncycle. That meant she was only thirty-six. Still old enough to have more childlings if she and Beyen wanted. I had no idea why she hadn't had more childlings after Airshin and I. But mayhap it would be different with a man she loved. It was certainly true that the number of childlings the Godling had fathered in the last ten cycles or more had been reduced. Mayhap, as well as becoming magically impotent, he had also become infertile.

  We all sat around enjoying Calun's pipe music and Rama's singing late into the night. The fishermen even shared some sailor's songs with us, which were a blend of jaunty tunes and melancholy melodies.

  I saw tears in Mother's eyes when Beyen sang of lost love. She knew he was singing about her.

  "What now?" Mother asked after the music had ended and we all sat in comfortable silence. If it hadn't been so warm we would have had a fire to stare into. Instead, we just stared at the mugs in our hands, lost in our own thoughts.

  "Now?" I frowned. It seemed clear to me what happened now. At least for the next little while. We would all live here together and stay safe.

  "Yes, now. Your father will not rest. You have thwarted him twice. No, three times, if we count your initial escape. I did not recognise him when he sent me away. I always sensed there was darkness in him. It appeared whenever he was thwarted in any way. It became especially noticeable after his daughters started coming into magic, instead of his sons.

  "Castrating his daughters should have horrified him, but it didn't. It was as if he feared them, which made him hate them. The priests had too much control ove
r him, too. He believed every word they told him. And the more he saw his power evaporating, the more madness seemed to surface."

  I shook my head and stuck my chin out like a recalcitrant child. "I know, but we are safe here. The rebels have assured us of that. All we have to do is tame airlings for them, while they fight," I lied blithely, trying to ignore the pang of conscience I'd been feeling more and more often since I'd accepted the truth of what I was.

  'The airlings will join the fight,' Calun told me.

  I stared at him in stunned surprise. "What do you mean join the fight?"

  "What is she talking about?" Mother asked Darkin in confusion, not understanding that half the conversation was going on silently.

  "She's talking to Calun. What's he saying, Airsha?" Darkin asked, not liking it when we had our private conversations.

  Since I'd come into their lives Calun rarely exerted himself to speak to them through his mind. It was hard work, he told me. Our connection was easy, and he happily let me translate for him.

  A moment later Darkin stiffened. Calun must have sent him the same message I got.

  "But that can't be. They aren't interested in human activities," Darkin argued.

  When Calun replied to me alone, I repeated it aloud. "Calun is telling us that the airlings want to join the fight. We've been determined to keep them out of it up until now."

  "And yet they helped you rescue Airsha and me. It seems they have already joined the fight," Mother pointed out mildly.

  "That was for us. It was personal. The rebellion is ... not personal," I argued.

  'Tell them,' Calun demanded.

  I did so reluctantly. "Calun said the Goddess wants them to do this. She is their creator too."

  "But I thought that was what you were doing here, taming airlings for the rebellion," Beyen said, bemused.

  "I... well, I was not convinced I was the Prophesied One at first. It seemed too... coincidental. Like they latched onto the fact I had escaped being castrated as all the evidence they needed to support their cause. So I told them a lie to give us some space. We knew they wouldn't let us go easily, but I wasn't prepared to throw my life away for their made-up goddess, any more than I was willing to do it for Father and his made-up gods."

  Beyen made to interrupt me indignantly, but I went on. "Let me finish. Weird things have been happening ever since I found my husbands. Our bond, for one thing, which is more powerful than any of the other Elemental Mistresses have with their harems. Then there are my moments of Knowing. The Knowing told me that Mother being sent home for execution was a trap. And we planned accordingly." I petered off, unprepared to voice the most important revelation.

  "And then she Knew her baby was not only a boy but a magical son. Only the Goddess' Chosen One could produce magical sons. So she finally gave in and accepted who and what she is," Rama finished for me.

  "Which means we must follow our fate," Jaron continued, intercepting the glare I sent Rama's way. "And commit to this rebellion fully."

  I nodded in defeat. I knew this had to be the eventual outcome, but I had wanted to put it off a little longer.

  "And now the airlings are following theirs," Darkin added.

  "We are really going to raise an airling army?" I asked tentatively. This would crush Calun if his airlings were hurt fighting this war.

  'We raise an airling army and we fight for the Goddess,' Calun said firmly in my mind. I could see a sky full of airings, all heading into battle. I had once imagined just how powerful such an event would be. I never expected it to be possible. And certainly not fighting for me.

  "This Goddess better know what she's doing," I grumbled.

  "She does. She has given me back the woman I love, even when I thought her lost to me forever," Beyen said, drawing Mother into his side and smiling down at her in awed wonder.

  "The fishermen all believe in the Goddess," Mother told me. "My parents thought they were a foolish, superstitious lot. Intelligent people all know there are many gods, not just one female one."

  "All who survive by Nature's favour know there is only the Goddess," Beyen said sagely.

  I had gone my whole life never knowing about this Goddess, and now it seemed I was the only one who didn't. Well, my men had been ignorant too.

  Mayhap we weren't meant to.

  "What now?" my mother asked again, her gentle gaze resting on me, willing me to say the words.

  "I suppose we prepare the airlings for war. It will be just as hard as we told the rebel leaders it would be, taming an army of airlings."

  'War,' Calun agreed.

  "War," said Darkin, while his other two brothers nodded.

  "War it is."

  I felt my destiny opening out in front of me like a wide and rocky road. But I would not walk that road alone. I had my Airluds, my mother and her childhood love, the airlings, the rebels, and the Goddess and the powers She had gifted me. It would not be easy, but we would succeed. I didn't Know it, but I knew it.

  I felt hands grip mine and even more press into my shoulders. The love my men and I shared would see us through. I looked from one face to the next, seeing that love reflected there.

  "So it is written, so it will be," I said softly.