"You built the trade network," I said.
"And it worked because of who you are and what you'd done with Asara," Hesa said. It took a step forward. "All the things Minister Iren said about you are true, Pathen. If you take the seat, all the empire will follow you... and all the rebels too. And you will make a better Ke Bakil for all of us."
I cleared my throat and said, "Not alone."
It paused, ears splaying. "No... I... imagine not."
And then finally it began to seem funny, like something normal again. "Not ready for that much responsibility, ke eperu? To be pefna for a world?"
It glanced at me, then grinned. "I'm up for anything, ke emodo, as long as you're with me."
I caught its hands. One of them was fire-warm, the other cool. I kissed its fingers. "We'll have to have an anadi to complete the trinity. Not Kuli... I wouldn't want to pull her away from Darsi."
"We'll find someone," Hesa said. "So... you'll say yes?"
"Tomorrow," I said. "I want one last night as the Head of House Asara. We'll probably have to leave it."
"For het Kabbanil," Hesa agreed. And exhaled.
I pushed some of its hair away from its face and smiled. "Tension eased?"
"Yes," it said, fervent. "Yes. Not just mine, but... I feel the World sighing out. To be free. To be whole." It shuddered. "We have been waiting too long."
I pulled it into my arms, gentle, and rested my chin against its hair. It was the first time I'd ever risked such a thing in public... not because I'd cared what other people thought, but because I'd feared for Hesa's safety did they take issue with what they saw. And I... I had created this. Had made my world into a world where I could hold an eperu without fear of reprisal.
I had made a home without fear. Surely we could find a way to make a civilization without one also.
"Come," I said. "Let's talk to the rest of the House."
The following morning I sat in my office, my small quiet office. I studied the stacks of accounts yet to be approved, the contracts, the invitations. I looked at the desk where I'd stolen time with my beloved, the chairs where I'd entertained people who'd become friends. There was a discarded cloth doll on one of them, missing an ear.
I took up a piece of Asara's paper and smoothed it on my desk. Then I opened the ink pot and wrote two words.
I accept.
I closed the office door gently and rested a palm on it. The slim note in my hand felt as heavy as a stone tablet and as fragile as a breath, and on it was a new life... for all of us. And yet, I had loved and grown so much here.
I turned my back on my office and walked away. I didn't look back, but this time, I wanted to.
Walking down the ramp to the first floor I almost ran into the messenger, who was confused at the paper I offered it, too distracted by the news it had apparently been bringing me. "Ke Pathen! There are people here to see you! They're in the common room!"
And who, I wondered, could possibly incite such agitation after we'd received the highest level officials in the empire? "That is for Minister Iren at the seat," I said. "Take it to him, please."
"Yes, ke emodo," it replied.
I left it then and threaded my way through the crowd of nervous Jokka in the halls to the common room. I stopped in the door.
"Pathen," Keshul said. "It's been a little over a year, I think?"
"Your timing is impeccable," I said.
The avatar of the Void had seemed uncanny outside beneath the stars; inside a room, he looked positively unnatural. His hair still moved of its own accord, though only out of the corner of the eye. And he... glowed. Not brightly, but enough for the tea in the cup beside him to gather a dim white reflection. Bilil was tucked under one of his arms, leaning on him easily... and Dekashin was sitting across from them, warming its hands on the cup.
Abadil joined me with Hesa just behind. "They've come!"
"We've come," Keshul said. "We heard het Narel was a safer place for us to walk these days."
"You knew," I said. "Even then. You were deciding about me. Did you put the idea in Jushet's head?"
"Me?" Keshul said and chuckled. "No. I might have nudged Iren, though, once I heard about Jushet's interest."
I glanced at Dekashin and my eyes snagged on it, remembering the intense conversation it had been having with Hesa, the one it had thanked me for not asking about. "And you... you told Hesa."
Dekashin held up its hands. "Ah, no, ke emodo. I warned ke Hesa that the emperor was dying. The rest it decided for itself." It smiled. "Though I admit, I was hoping it would come to the conclusions it did."
"And you?" I said to Bilil. "What part have you played in this?"
Her smile held all the enigma of the anadi. "My part is almost done, and yet to come."
Keshul said, "I take it Jushet and Iren offered you the position and you said yes?"
"Yes," I said.
"Good," Keshul said, standing. "Then there's only one thing left to do." He smiled. "Abadil, I hope you're ready to serve the Jokka."
"I'll bring my paper!" Abadil exclaimed, and pushed past the Jokka peeking in the room to vanish into the hall.
"What is this thing, then, Fire in the Void?" I said, for his demeanor had changed. He stood poised, the long ropes of his mane hanging in front of his scarred chest and an aura of chill power easing from him, dimming the fire.
"We are riding east," Keshul said. "There to meet the ship that will be arriving shortly." He drew in a long breath and said, "It's time."
"I'm ready," I said, and it was true.
"Then go and prepare for the journey," Keshul said. "And at the end of it, we will crown a new emperor."
"Steward," I said. Keshul paused and I said, more firmly, "The new steward of Ke Bakil. One of three."
Keshul glanced at Hesa and a smile grew on his mouth. "Yes... of course." He gestured toward the door. "Ke Jokka. We should leave before dark."
"Don't get too comfortable up there in het Kabbanil," Darsi said, throwing the packs over the back of my rikka. "The moment Kuli and I can travel we'll be following you."
"Then who will care for House Asara?" I asked.
He snorted. "Abadil, of course. He's a native and he doesn't want to leave Eduñil. But expect him to visit frequently... he's got an itchy brush and he won't want to miss everything."
"Of course not," I said.
"There," Darsi said, giving a sharp tug to the cinch to make sure it was holding. "That should do." He turned to me. "Pathen—"
"Darsi," I said, and embraced him. "Don't be too long."
"Look for us in spring," he said. "With the babies, gods willing."
"Gods willing," I said and let him go.
The courtyard was a confusion of people and beasts: Iren, Jushet, Suker and the Claws were already there and mounted. Some of them would be accompanying us to the shore to await Roika's ship, sighted by the distant look-outs posted on the eastern cliffs. The rest of them would be continuing on to het Kabbanil to prepare for our arrival. Most of House Asara had turned out to see us go, and while it crowded the courtyard I didn't mind. I pulled myself into the saddle and settled in to wait for the rest of our party. Before us, the avatars of the gods were finishing their own preparations. As we watched, Keshul mounted and helped Bilil up behind him. Dekashin went up on the second beast, saying something to them that made the anadi laugh. Keshul just shook his head and offered his hand.... and Dekashin nudged its mount over until it could clasp it. They shared a pause filled with words unsaid, that needed no saying.
I turned my gaze up to the early autumn sky. It seemed so long ago that I'd watched het Kabbanil recede from the back of a caravan and promised myself I'd return. It had been sunset then, a violescent sky shading to dark blue. This sky was pale and perfect as an opal, unblemished save for a single mark.
Hesa nudged its mount up alongside mine and followed my gaze. "The stone moon," it said.
"Just the moon now," I said. The rikka shifted beneath me and I calmed it with a
gentle hand on the reins. I glanced toward the avatars of the gods, at Keshul's hand clasped in his beloved's. "I understand Abadil at last, you know."
Knowing me as well as it did, the eperu divined my meaning immediately. "Then at last you understand how a society based on love could function?"
"Yes," I said and glanced at it. "On trust. Because one does not love without trust. And a society can either be driven by a master with a sickle-knife, and produce people who obey the law and do what is necessary out of fear of reprisal... or a society can be based on trust. Trust that we will all work together. That we'll keep our promises to one another. That we'll choose to live together rather than die apart. We loved one another, Hesa, and through their trust in you, the truedark Jokka will follow me... and through their trust in me, the empire's Jokka will follow you. We have been making this web of trust since the moment we fled het Kabbanil. Since before it, when we met on Laisira’s fields." I looked up again at the moon and thought of the day I'd painted House Asara's stone. "There it is. The moon in daylight, sharing the sky with the sun."
Hesa lifted its head, considering the sight for a long moment. The pale autumn light shimmered on its copper roots.
Then it glanced toward me with a quirk of its mouth. "Emodo. Vision."
I smiled. "Eperu. Support."
Before us, Keshul let Dekashin's hand drop and looked over his shoulder at us. I inclined my head and he guided his rikka out of the courtyard.
I looked back at Hesa. "Ke eperu."
"Ke emodo," it said, eyes flashing, head high.
"With me?" I said.
It smiled. "Always."
Together we rode out of House Asara, and on to our future.
Thenet
I had not moved from the tent since Benih had arrived with the news, news it had ridden three rikka nearly to death to bring me. I'd gone outside at the sound of the swift tattoo on the earth and there listened to its hurried recitation, holding its arms in my hands. I remembered that better than the words: the feel of its dry skin against my palms, the tremor in the hard muscle. I remember the smell of its sweat mingled with the rikka's, the scent of leather tack and over it, as over everything, the brine breeze off the nearby ocean.
I could not recall the look on its face. I saw myself in its dilated pupils, fat as ink drops: my stone-still body, my impassive expression.
Then I'd retreated to the tent, and there I had remained. My heart continued to beat, faster than the surf I could hear through the thin fabric walls. I still breathed. This seemed nonsensical when I knew, absolutely, that there was a hole in my chest, a new one to augment the one that had never healed after Dlane's amputation from my life. I could not still be living.
Surely this was mourning. Or shock. I had known that what I'd built had been fragile, but I'd expected dissipation.
Not destruction.
Not murder.
I was still sitting in the tent when the Brightness's seer peeked into it, one long creamy tress spilling over her shoulder. "Ke anadi?"
"Seer," I answered, and discovered I still knew how to speak.
"Ke anadi, we've spotted them. They'll be here shortly."
"Thank you," I said.
The tent flap fell shut behind her, leaving a trace of her spiced perfume behind. She still wore the scents she'd used most of her life, a life she'd spent as an emodo. Like me she'd had a late Turning. Unlike me, she'd known it was coming. So it was, with seers. Perhaps it was that late Turning we had in common that led her to address me properly. Most of my friends and associates forgot.
My friends. My people. My dead.
Again, I heard the heavy footfalls of rikka outside... many of them this time. I stood on legs that seemed foreign to me and pushed open the flap. A group now: eight Claws of the empire in their charcoal gray uniforms, sashes swiped to one side by the sea-breeze. Before them the Void's oracle was dismounting, white mane dragging over the back of the rikka, sun glinting off his unearthly pallor. And in front of him, handing off the reins of his beast to one of the eperu... was Roika.
I had thought myself numb, resigned, stunned useless with shock until I saw him, and then my world paled to blood-white rage. The World held its breath and the Moment came and I moved through it, locked my hands around his neck, palm to throat, claws digging into the heavy muscle in the back.
"YOU!" I howled. "DESTROYER!"
He grabbed my arms as his Claws rushed for me. I savored the wheeze of his breath as I pressed. "KILLER!" I yelled. "YOU KILLED DLANE AND YOU KILLED REÑA AND NOW YOU'VE KILLED US ALL!"
"Ke Thenet!" the oracle said, and his voice pierced my grief and rage like a spear. His one lifted hand held the agitated Claws at bay, and with his presence alone he drew all our eyes, even mine. "You won't be on that ship if you kill its master."
"What good is it to go now?" I hissed.
"Now more than ever you must," he said, and in his black eyes I saw the fires of my destroyed hopes... and his sorrow over them. "Let him go," he said gently.
The tendons stood on the backs of my hands. I felt blood seeping past my claws to warm my fingertips, make them slippery.
Then I thrust Roika away from me. He stumbled back, coughing, one hand on his throat. I watched him, every muscle in my body tense, my heart racing so hard I could feel my pulse in my ears.
And then he spoke, and the rumbled bass that had troubled my sleep for years... it was different. Thicker, weary. "Ke Thenet. I... would have thought... when we met that it was for me to strangle you... given what you did to Edze the night you fled it."
"You dare?" I said. "You razed my settlement!"
"I did?" he said, ears flicking sideways.
This sign of puzzlement only infuriated me. "Don't be coy, det emodo. You've been hunting us since I left het Narel. You finally succeeded and you want me to believe you aren't pleased?"
Roika glanced at the oracle, who flicked his ears back. Receiving no more from him Roika looked again at me. "You have news I apparently don't."
"No one's met us on the road," Keshul added to me.
"You expect me to believe no imperial courier's raced up the eastern road to share news of the emperor's latest triumph with him?" I asked.
"We don't have regular courier runs down this road yet," Roika said. "And there's just the one wayhouse. The only thing down this way so far is the harbor, ke eperu—" I tried not to bristle, "—and since the success of the ship-building initiative was in question we didn't put the money into it." He took one step toward me. "I didn't expect to see you here."
I slicked my ears back but stood my ground. Behind Roika, Keshul said, "I told you someone would be waiting for you."
"Someone, yes," Roika said sharply. "But not this someone."
"It was past time," Keshul said. "For this, and for everything else."
Roika glanced at me, ears flat, then forced himself to relax. "So. Ke eperu. Are you going to tell me what I've done?"
Behind me a baritone belled forth, clear and strong. "You destroyed my home, father."
Kaduin stepped up beside me. The eldest of Roika's children I'd stolen from Edze's nursery, he had grown into a thoughtful, passionate young male, a scholar who'd dedicated himself to studying the ruins of our ancestors. It was he who'd made the discoveries that had led us to this harbor, to the knowledge that we needed to go north.
I had not taught him to hate Roika. He'd learned that on his own.
"Surely not," Roika whispered. "Kaduin?"
Kaduin lifted his chin. When he spoke I could smell the tears on his breath. "Your Claws found our settlement, emodo... found it and destroyed it, and killed or enslaved everyone in it. Including your other children from House Edze."
Roika stared at us, breath harsh in his throat, so thick I could hear it from here. Then he looked away.
"What is it, det emodo?" I said. "You're not going to tell us 'it had to be done?'"
"If you expect to go with me on that ship," Roika growled, voice low, "you'll
speak with more respect to me, Thenet."
"Don't use my name," I said. "You lost that right when you destroyed my family in het Narel."
"And what will you pay me for their deaths?" he asked. "They were alive and healthy before you came, eperu. It was your knife that opened their throats. We both have blood soaking our ruffs, don't we?"
Keshul stepped between us. "Enough," he said. He pointed at Roika. "You want to see where our ancestors came from." Looking at me, he said, "And you believe there is a secret there that we need. Yes?"
Reluctantly, we agreed.
"Then you will both go," Keshul said, and raised his hands when I began to protest. "You both must go. The solution you bring back must be acceptable to everyone on Ke Bakil—"
"—if its people are dead, that's hardly material," Roika said and raised his chin when I lifted my hand, claws out.
"Don't be an idiot," Keshul said to Roika, surprising me. "You know as well as I do that half the people in your empire would stick a knife in your back if they could. If you're to have any hope of a united Ke Bakil, then you will go together. Or were all your pretty speeches to me just that?"
I had only met the oracle recently, but nothing in that meeting had led me to believe he could speak to the emperor of the Stone Moon this way. I was savoring it when the oracle turned to me. "And you... I know you're in shock right now, ke Thenet. But now more than ever you have work to do. The dead are fewer than you think, and beyond aid. You must be strong now for the living."
I said, "Ke emodo—"
"No," he said. "No excuses. Are you eperu or not?"
It was a cruel question. I sealed my ears to my skull as he met my eyes, challenging. When I could no longer hold them, I looked away.
"Right," he said. "Then I suggest you prepare for the journey. You have to leave with the tide, yes? It goes out at sunset."
"He has no right to speak to you that way!" Kaduin hissed. "He killed everyone!"
I packed my bag and Seper's with motions made wooden by too many things: grief, shock, rage... fear. But at least I was moving. Without some spur I coasted to a halt, weighed down by the desolation of loss. For years, Dlane's vision had saved me from contemplation of Dlane's absence. Now that I had lost that as well, my only hope was to keep moving, to keep chasing her dream to the north and the possibility of the answers there.
A Bloom in the North Page 28
