by Dora Machado
Poor keeper. To think he had lost his hand because of her. Sariah's heart ached. But at least he was alive. Alive.
“I couldn't find a way in. I swear to you, Sariah, I looked, and I tried, and the damn Shield was waiting at every corner, and the damn keep was sealed like a forbidden tomb. I called on Malord and he came, but he couldn't find a way in either. The others and I, we agreed. We laid siege to the Goodlands and advanced on the keep. Some Goodlanders joined us. Some stonewisers joined us too. The Domain's tribes put out their fair share, and even Mara from Targamon sent some of her newly trained Panadanians. But it was the Hounds who had the ready weapons and the warriors we needed. It is they who scattered Arron and his Shield and now guard the keep's wall. I know what you're thinking.” His tale sounded strained and tired. “You're right. I've unleashed the Hounds’ Going and there's no stopping it now.”
So much for preserving the peace and keeping the Hounds safe and out of the Goodlands. The world had changed while she was trapped in the Mating Hall. The war they had all feared had arrived.
“If you hadn't led us here,” Kael said, “we wouldn't have found you in time. Malord and Mia are trying to mend you, but you must try to rest and get better. Meanwhile, remember that our tales belong to each other. You'll get out of this. You'll be well.”
It was just like Kael to command her to health. His words were a welcome reprieve to the silence overwhelming her, a better alternative to her thoughts. But was the prism secured in his possession? Had the baby survived his birth? How much time did they have left?
She tried to issue her own imprint on the stone. She tried to ask the questions. It didn't work. The anguish was like a pillow to her face, like a bull sitting on her chest. Help yourself. Kael wasn't going to talk to her about the matters she cared about most in the limited confines of a tale. He didn't know if she was sound of mind and listening, let alone fit to endure his news. No, he would wait until he knew she was conscious. He would tell her face to face. That meant Sariah had to find a way to bust out of her broken body's prison, and fast.
Sariah resisted Mia's attempt to dose her with an infusion of contrived and youthful calm. She refused to fall asleep. However, she did allow the girl's efforts to soothe her heart's uneven palpitations so that Mia and Malord could resume their healings. She joined their work on her broken links. She kept at it long after they had to stop for the night, overcome with exhaustion.
She had just finished fusing a link when an image suddenly flickered in her mind—a blurry hand, very close to her face. Her skin was numb as cured hide, but wasn't that the feeling of someone scratching her nose? The hand. Was it hers? She tried to focus her eyes. They crossed ruefully. She tried again.
The banishment bracelet. It was her hand. It was moving of its own accord. It made a rustle when it landed on the bed. She heard that. She tried it again. Aye. The arm answered. It moved.
Slowly, now, old gal. Pace yourself.
A few candles lit the chamber where she lay. She didn't recognize the place, but it was comfortable, with a fireplace that stung her light-sensitive eyes. She lay on the bed for a moment, gathering her strength, savoring the sounds suddenly available to her, the roar of the hearth's fire, the bubbling of a pot on the spit, the voices next door. Then she forced her dazed eyes to focus on the bracelet.
Eight of the nine crystals glimmered with the opaque film. The last crystal was already half filled with the silvery mist. Her mind was like a cart stuck in a rut, slow moving and tentative. She had left Ars eight and a half months ago. She had been in the Mating Hall for almost… two months?
She still had some time to wise the prism and find the tale. But what about her son? Could he have survived his birth with so little time in the womb? Had he managed to fight off the prism's effects only to arrive unprepared for the rigors of breathing air?
She pushed herself up and slid off the mattress. Her legs didn't want to work, but she locked her knees and clung to the bedpost, trembling like a newborn lamb. The white nightgown she wore tripped the three tentative steps she dared. She leaned against the wall, ignoring her muscles’ screech for mercy. She could move, Meliahs be blessed, and she would.
She made a slow progress to the door. It was thankfully half-opened. She braced herself against the threshold and looked out into the small adjacent chamber that served as a sitting room. There were many people milling about, many of whom she didn't recognize. The ones who mattered were all there—Mia, playing cards with Rig by the fire; Malord, dozing on a stool; Delis, sharpening her hatchet; the keeper, missing a hand but very much alive; and Kael, sitting closest to the door with his back to her, studying a sheaf of parchment and a mountain of maps.
“How?” It was her voice, pathetically hoarse and discordant.
The explosion of motion and noise startled her long-stilled senses. Malord was down from the stool, batting the keeper out of his way. Delis was at her feet in two strides but had to hold Mia back. The girl's attempt at a hug toppled Sariah. Kael scooped her deftly, stilling the room with his glower.
“Not now,” he said in a tone that defied protest. He took Sariah into the bedchamber, kicked the door shut, and made for the bed.
“No, not there,” Sariah murmured.
“You're sick, love.”
“I don't want to lie down anymore.”
He looked around, then dragged a chair to the fireplace and settled himself in it, arranging her carefully on his lap. Sariah leaned against his shoulder and buried her face in his neck, inhaling his scent, appropriating his warmth, listening to the pulse hammering at the base of his throat. She felt weightless, like a feather perched on his lap, anchored to this world only by the strength of his arms.
He pressed a cloth between her legs. “There's been some bad bleeding. It's better now, but we must be careful.”
The shadows in his gaze were much darker than the stain on her nightgown. She fitted her fumbling hand under his tunic and set it against his heart.
“This might not be the best of time for that sort of thing,” he said.
“Please?” Her own eyes stared back at her, wide and enormous in the paleness of her face, reflecting in the pools of his black and green gaze.
He kissed her temple. “Go ahead.”
It was all there, like a mirror of her soul, the fears, the anxiety, the exhaustion, the hurt, the determination and the blessedly abundant affection.
“Tell me,” she said.
“It's not wise.”
“Tell me.” If she had to wait a moment longer, she would burst from desperation.
“All right.” He couldn't hide the dread in his voice.
The man who spoke was different from the Kael she knew. His face was hollow. His eyes were empty. His voice was strangled and curt. “What was done to you. It was wrong. I can't—for the life of me, I can't stand it. I think I'm broken, Sariah. Broken and mean.”
“Kael?”
“What they do. At the Mating Hall. Grimly told me. That they bred you and fostered a… wiserling, she called it, in your womb. That they brewed in two months a semblance of what the goddess grows in nine.”
“She said that?” Sariah tried to swallow, but her throat was parched.
“I knew the truth,” Kael said. “It wasn't really a baby. It was a foul creature, forged outside of Meliahs’ ways. But still, it was hard, because even if it was not of your body, it was the only possible trade.”
“It?” Something cold and bitter began to pool at the pit of her stomach. “Trade?”
“It was the only way to get to you. Grimly betrayed Arron, but that was to be expected. She allowed me safe conduct so that she could negotiate with me. She agreed to surrender the keep and you. In exchange, she took the wisers faithful to her, the sisters and the stones.”
“Oh, no, not the yellow prism. We need the prism.”
“All the stones,” Kael said. “She wouldn't trade for less.”
“And the baby?”
“She said
it wasn't right. She said it was… damaged.”
“Damaged? Are you sure?”
“It didn't make it.”
The pain punched through her knotted heart like a flaming blade. “Are you sure? How can you know?”
“I saw it.”
“The body? You saw a boy? The baby boy's dead body?”
“Aye, Sariah. The witch showed me the little monster.”
“He wasn't mine.” He couldn't be. “Grimly. She lies. I know she wanted him.”
“What I saw—I don't want to share that with you.”
Sariah clutched a fistful of his tunic. “Tell me.”
“No, Sariah. No.”
She sank her nails in his chest. “Tell me!”
He hesitated. “He was there… Next to you. There was… so much blood. His. Yours—”
She clung to hope. “He could've been someone else's.” Violet's maybe.
“He was still… connected to you. Grimly. She told the truth. It wasn't… right. He was—the sac—” He couldn't speak the horror reflected in his eyes. “It was yours.”
“Where is he?” Sariah said. “I want to see him.”
“Grimly took it. It was part of the trade. She wanted to study it—the remains—to see what had gone wrong with it.”
The grief struck her like a death blow, like a stoning, like the very last of the killer stones. She crawled out of Kael's lap, ignoring his anguished stare and rejecting his help. He didn't know. What he had done. He hadn't known.
The gush came all at once, a total dissolution of what remained of her, a gush of tears and useless milk and blood that drenched her robe and trailed her to the bed. Climbing on the mattress was as difficult as scaling the Bastions. Kael was calling for help, trying to aid her. He was speaking, but she couldn't hear him. She curled up as tight as her fists.
“Won't you understand?” he said. “Won't you forgive me?”
Her voice was a frail wail. “You won't.”
“Why Sariah? Why not?”
“Because that dead wiserling you traded was no misbegotten freak. He was Meliahs’ gift. Mine. Yours. Ours. And we forsook him to the Guild like a miserable rotting beast.”
Forty
THE WHISPERS STARTLED Sariah out of the depths of her nightmares. Her eyes burned with the sting of sweat pooling on her eyelids. Her muscles quivered with the aftershocks of a rattling fever. She remembered. The prism. Gone. The baby. Gone.
“You're awake.” Delis's face came into focus. “Here. Won't you drink a little?”
Sariah batted the cup away from her lips. “Time,” she rasped. “How much time do we have left?”
The grim faces of Malord, Mia, Delis and the keeper told her she didn't have a lot of time left. Her arm was heavy as a load of stone, but she managed to lift it to look at the bracelet. Like a creeping mold, the silvery haze advanced on the last crystal. What was it that the executioner had said? Nine months to honor Meliahs’ nine sisters, nine months to find and submit the tale she sought. Her eyes fell on the tiny tears engraved in the bracelet's ninth link. But never trust on the last of the nine, Mercy, for she squanders her gifts on others and has little compassion for her bearer. That was painfully obvious.
“Stones,” she said. “I need the stone.”
“You need more healing before you start wising again,” Malord said.
“Auntie, let me do some more.”
“No. Wait. Help me up.” Sariah managed to sit on the bed with Mia's aid. “Have you found any other stones at the keep?”
Malord shook his head. “Nothing of value. Grimly took them all.”
The mistress had taken a lot more than stones.
“We found these at the Mating Hall.” The keeper emptied a small purse on the bed.
“We think they're your stones,” Malord said, “the ones you had on you when you were captured.”
“I need something more than these.” She needed the prism. “Go, for Meliahs’ sake. Send out your Hounds. Keep looking!”
The keeper and Malord shuffled out of the chamber. She didn't think they harbored a hint of hope in their hearts.
“Drink, my donnis.” Delis was in no mood for disobedience. “You've been very sick. I won't let you die of thirst.”
The beaker's wooden nipple intruded in Sariah's mouth and fired its watery load. A good deal of tea ended up down the wrong passage and out her nose. Delis wasn't pleased. She wiped Sariah's face as if she were mopping an old floor.
“Won't you try to mend yourself, my donnis?”
“Aye, Auntie. You need to get well.”
She thought about Ars, about the rot loose in the Goodlands, the divided Guild, the breached keep, the restless blood-licking Hounds. How was she going to prevent the bloodshed coming? No, she didn't have time to be sick. Despite their losses, they couldn't give up. Kael. He was the only one who could help her through the haze. Belatedly, she realized he wasn't by her bedside.
“Where is Kael?”
Mia looked out the window. Delis's stare aimed at the floor.
“Well?”
“He picked up his weapons and shot out of here the day you woke, my donnis. He hasn't been seen since.”
What had he done? Vengeance. He had gone after the mistress. He was going to kill himself in the bargain. The grief. She couldn't handle the pain of her soul breaking.
“I've got to go after him.” She threw the covers aside and rolled out of the bed. Her legs failed as soon as she hit the floor.
Delis caught her. “You can't go after him. You need to mend first.”
“Don't you understand?” Sariah said. “I don't have time for mending.”
“And without mending you won't have any time left. Back to bed, my donnis. I have no intention of helping you kill yourself.”
“Get out of my way.”
“Wouldn't that be the same thing as letting you kill yourself? Now be good and do as I say. Remember—you swore me an oath.”
“I swore you an oath? You tricked me into making that daft oath and you know it.”
“Daft oath?”
Sariah fathomed she could feel the pain she had inflicted on Delis on her own flesh. “Look, Delis, I—”
“Not another word.” Delis grabbed her mantle and marched out the door. “I refuse to be a witness to your suicide on the whim of a daft oath.”
The whole chamber shook with the force of the door slamming.
Delis's faulty reasoning was right on one thing. Sariah was still too sick to be useful to herself. She had to get some strength into her body or risk becoming catatonic and useless.
“I think you're right, Mianina,” Sariah said. “I need more healing.”
“Good, Auntie. Right away.” Mia pressed her hands against Sariah's palms. Her luminous power reached out to repair Sariah's links.
Sariah closed her eyes and tried to help the healing along. Thoughts of Kael kept breaking her concentration. Was he alive? Her heart ached for him. For Delis, too. She guessed a weakling donnis was no prize to someone like Delis. She should feel relieved that the woman was gone, but she was surprised to discover that she was saddened by the sudden desertion. She tried to escape the hurt by focusing on Mia's power, flowing steadily through her links.
Her safety hadn't been neglected. The keeper had replaced Delis by her side. In her current mood, Sariah couldn't help but wonder if she would end up driving him away too.
“How did you lose your hand?” Mia asked the keeper at the same time she was healing Sariah, a testament to her extraordinary power.
“In the battle for the prism,” the keeper said. “Careless are the fools who trust speed over caution. I tripped the Guild's trap like a tame old goat.”
“Does it hurt?”
“Pain is life's sacred will to endure. Sometimes it feels like it's still there.”
“Rig and I, we could have helped if we had been there.”
“You're too young for that.”
“Rig doesn't think I'm too young. H
e thinks I could do it. He thinks he could fight with the Hounds too. You ought to let him join the Hounds on patrol.”
“That skinny rail of a boy? He couldn't hold a set of claws straight if he tried.”
“Oh, yes, he could. He's stronger than he seems, just like I am. He wants to fight Arron. Won't you order your Hounds to take him along?”
“Perhaps someday, when he's older and has learned the Wisdom—”
“Now,” Mia said. “He wants to join the Hounds now.”
“Patience is the sign of wisdom.”
“Action is the mark of destiny.”
“How do you know that?”
“Rig and I, we've been studying the Wisdom.”
“She who learns the Wisdom shatters the world with her knowledge.”
“That's funny,” Mia said. “That Mistress Uma said something similar to me today. And she's not even a Hound.”
“What did she say?”
“That she who had the strength would rule the world with her might. She said she had heard about me, that she could teach me more, about healing.”
Sariah was suddenly alarmed. She didn't like the thought of Uma near Mia. Mia's particular brand of healing was neither sanctioned nor known at the keep. Mia could inadvertently relinquish many advantages to Uma, but there was nothing Uma could teach Mia, except the Guild's dark and confining ways.
“You seem to have sense beyond your age,” the keeper said.
“I'm a freak. Say it.”
“I think no such thing.”
“That's because you're a freak too, a blood-licking one.”
“I might be. Here in the Goodlands.”
“People are scared of you. Of me.”
“Is that such a bad thing?”
“It is, at least when you are almost thirteen.”
Sariah couldn't help but hurt for her young pupil, for all the heartbreak that her extraordinary fate promised.
“I don't think you're a freak,” the keeper said. “I'd be honored to drink your blood.”
“I'd like that. Can we do it right after this?”
