As I climb higher, the bamboo thins out and the wind picks up. I find myself atop a cliff again, the one with the altar to Yaras where I’d talked to Sarsine ages ago. The strait below looks empty without warships spanning its width.
I’d never leave Zivah to die alone. I’d spend a thousand years in the Amparan dungeons before I abandon her. But now the fears I’d kept at bay come back to prod me. We have a few weeks together, maybe months if Hefana smiles on us. And after she passes, what then? Where will I go?
Footsteps sound behind me. My hand is halfway to the knife in my belt when Hashama’s voice calls out, “Dineas, it’s me.”
I relax my knife hand, though I can’t say I’m thrilled to be found. I haven’t forgotten the risk Hashama took to support me when everyone else thought I was a traitor. He is a good man, but I’d rather be alone right now.
“Hashama.”
He comes to stand beside me and looks out onto the water. “Out here to think?”
“To think,” I say. “And for some time alone to clear my mind.”
I might imagine it, but I almost think I see a hint of a smile cross his face. Can’t be, though. This is Hashama.
“I won’t keep you long, then,” he says. “I wanted to let you know that our tribes voted on Karu’s and Vidarna’s successors today. Taja from Vidarna’s tribe will take his place. And Karu’s tribe has decided to join Gatha’s rather than return to Iyal.”
I’m not that surprised that Karu’s tribe has decided to join us. They were the smallest to begin with, and the war thinned their numbers even more. “And what about you? Will you go back to Central Ampara with Taja?”
He shakes his head. “I’ll stay here.”
I turn to him. “Really?”
“My closest friends in my tribe have gone to rest with Zenagua,” he says. “It wouldn’t be the same.”
I know how he feels. “We’ll be happy to have you.”
“And what about you?” he asks. “What will you do?”
And there it is again, the question I don’t want to face. “I’ll stay here for now, until Zivah...no longer needs me. And I’ll decide my place after that.”
“There are plenty of places for you,” he says.
“Thank you.” But I wonder why I can’t think of any.
Hashama rummages through a bag slung over his shoulder and pulls out a curved piece of scrap wood. “This is yours,” he says.
I take it, though it doesn’t look like anything I’ve ever owned. But the moment it touches my hand, my heart does a somersault, because I would know the feel of that wood anywhere, the finish lovingly maintained with oil and wax, the curves worn smooth from use. I turn it over, hardly daring to breathe, and run my finger over my mother’s carved initials.
“I’m sorry it was broken,” says Hashama. “But I guessed you’d want it anyway.”
I cradle the bow in my hands, not quite believing it’s real. “Where’d you find this? How?”
“Mansha from your tribe overheard Zivah talking about it. She roped me and a few others into combing that beach where you lost it. For some reason, they decided that I should present it to you, even though it was Mansha’s idea, and a girl from Karu’s tribe was the one to actually find it.”
Mansha of all people. I don’t think I’ve spoken ten words to her since I came back. “I cut off Mansha’s ear last year in battle.”
“So she told me,” says Hashama.
I squeeze the remnants of the bow, at a loss for words.
“There are plenty of places for you,” Hashama says again. “When you’re ready.” He stands up. “I’ll leave you to your thoughts.”
I reach to take his hand, but I jump back because his face shifts and blurs until Walgash stands before me.
We’re standing just inside the door to our barracks, half-hidden behind the first bunk and several hanging cloaks as we spy on Naudar in the middle of his morning routine. Actually we’re not very well hidden at all. No man Walgash’s size can take cover behind a single bunk and a cloak, but Naudar’s too engrossed in his grooming to notice us. It doesn’t matter how early our training is, he always gets up early to wash his face, press any clothes that need it, and comb cedar-scented oil through his hair.
“I can’t believe I let you talk me into this,” I mutter to Walgash.
The big man simply grins. “Just look at that peacock. He has it coming.”
Naudar frowns into his copper hand mirror and smooths his right eyebrow.
Walgash has a point.
Other soldiers pay us no attention as they get ready, too bleary-eyed to notice anything but what’s right in front of their faces. Walgash elbows me as Naudar reaches for his jar of cedar oil and pours a small amount into his palm. He’s rubbed one hand over his hair, when he stops and sniffs at his palm.
Walgash chortles silently.
Naudar sniffs his other palm. Fish oil from the bayside cities has a very distinctive scent. Then his head whips toward us as Walgash guffaws.
“Is this fish oil?” Naudar says, aghast. His eyes lock on us. “You two...”
As Naudar charges toward us, Walgash gives me a pat on the shoulder and beats me out the door. I follow, but my foot catches on the raised threshold and I go flying. As I spit dirt out of my mouth, the scent of fish wafts in my direction, and then Naudar is on my back raining blows on my shoulders, arms, and back. He’s pulling his punches—otherwise I’d be dead—but he’s sure aiming to leave bruises.
In the background Walgash laughs even harder. “Dineas, you clumsy dog. Watch the threshold!”
My vision clears, and Hashama is staring at me. “Are you all right?”
I take a few moments to blink the scene away. I wonder where Walgash is now. Is he fighting by Arxa’s side? I wonder if our paths will cross again.
“I’m all right,” I say. And I’m not lying.
Hashama gives me a long look and then apparently decides to believe me.
“Hashama,” I call out as he’s walking away.
He turns.
“Thank you.”
There it is again, maybe the hint of a smile, before he continues down the trail. It makes me wonder if perhaps he’d smiled all along, and I just hadn’t noticed.
I know I broke Dineas’s heart with that letter to Nush. That moment when he realized what I intended to write, his look of sheer desperation nearly undid me. The raw pain in his eyes was exactly what I tried to avoid by resisting his courtship. But we’ve chosen our path now.
The wedge driven between us by that note doesn’t stay there for long. After leaving early that afternoon, he comes back the next day and tells me I did the right thing. I suspect he’s lying to make things easier for me, but there also seems to be genuine peace in his eyes. We don’t speak of Nush or the suona pollen again.
A month after the final battle, Leora goes into labor. I’m a wreck, pacing the length of my cottage and demanding constant updates by crow. It’s all I can do not to send Kaylah instructions for delivering the baby. Finally, after a grueling two-day labor, I get the long-awaited message.
A healthy girl! We will name her Elannah.
A week later, Leora brings her to see me. I make her stay ten paces away, and even then, I’m terrified. But the sight of the wrinkled little face with Leora’s eyes and nose, suckling at her breast, heals parts of me I didn’t even know had been wounded.
Over the next weeks, I have good days and bad. The headaches come strong some evenings, but other days I can forget my illness. I still experiment with herbs, and I still look for a cure, though I’m less reckless now than I used to be. Part of it is because I’m too weak to recover from any catastrophic failures. It’s more than that, though. I simply don’t feel the same urgency or desperation.
One morning, as I’m resting outside my cottage, I glimpse an unexpected visitor in riding leathers. The Rovenni trader Nush comes down my trail, with Preener on his shoulder. I stand to greet him. “I’m glad to see you, Nush,” I say.
“How are your people?”
“We are well, though moving around a lot,” he says. “With all the unrest, we suspect that many people will soon be after our horses. We have no intention of sending them into a conflict such as this, so we are making ourselves scarce.” He takes a seat in one of the visitor chairs and lays a small pouch on the ground. “I bring a message from Kione. It must be an important one, as she made me swear on my steed that I would bring it safely.”
There’s only one thing I can think of that Kione might send. I pick up the bag and try not to hope for too much. There’s a note attached.
We felt it right to share the suona with you. Take this portion with our regards.
Just two short sentences, scrawled in uneven script, yet it’s enough to stop my breath. My hand is unacceptably clumsy as I untie the thong holding it closed. Inside the pouch is a jar sealed with wax. I cradle it between my fingers as I sit back down—I don’t dare open the seal while I’m standing. Sweat breaks out over my skin.
The lid pries up to reveal a handful of the pearly powder. It’s not much—a year’s supply at most. But it’s a year more than I had expected.
“Is it useful to you?” Nush asks.
I can’t bring myself to breathe, much less speak. I nod my reply.
“I’m glad.”
I sit, clutching the jar, for a long time after Nush leaves. What if I drop it? What if the lid falls off, trailing a month’s worth of golden dust? But finally I gather the courage to take the precious pollen inside. I already have a pot of tea warm over the fire. For a moment, I wonder how large a pinch I should put in my cup.
The tea still tastes the same. Perhaps I detect a slight astringent aroma. Unbidden, the memory of Mehtap pouring tea in her villa comes to me, along with a twinge of sadness that I cannot share this with her.
I don’t know what I expected after I drink, but I feel exactly the same. The light headache that had clung to me all day remains, and the only difference I detect is a warmth in my throat from the tea. It’s silly, of course, to expect a change right away. That evening, my headache doesn’t get better, but neither does it worsen. My fingers still shake as I prepare dinner, and I try to stave off disappointment as I fall asleep.
I wake the next morning to a tugging at my scalp. Scrawny stands on my pillow, picking through my hair.
“Scrawny!” The bird jumps away as I wave my hand groggily in his direction. He leaves ash streaks on my pillow—the bird must have come down the chimney. “Do you have anything for me?”
There’s nothing on his foot, and he seems more interested in poking through my bedclothes than giving me a message.
“Just here for company?” There’s no point in going back to sleep, so I put a dress on over my shift and pad over to the fire.
That’s when I realize my head is clear. No pain except the slightest lingering echo. Everything in my vision is crisp and sharp, sharper than it’s been in a long, long time.
I collapse into a chair. The clatter raises a squawk from Scrawny.
“I’m fine,” I tell him. Quite possibly, I’m more than fine. For once, my body’s holding firm. It’s my mind that made my legs give way.
My mind whirls, and my veins pulse with an expectant energy. It’s only a year, I remind myself. But it’s a year more than I expected to have, and even that possibility is equal parts exhilarating and frightening. When I find the strength in my legs, I coax the embers of my hearth into a new fire and boil some more water. Carefully, I take a second pinch of pollen from the jar.
I’ve about finished my tea when Scrawny caws and takes wing out the window. A few moments later, Dineas appears at the top of the path, carrying a bag over his shoulder. He smiles a greeting. I wonder if I look different, if the absence of pain shows in the lines of my face.
Dineas dumps his bag on the ground in front of me. It’s filled with foraged bamboo shoots, and I raise a questioning eye.
Dineas shrugs. “They looked good, if you trust my plant lore.”
“I trust it more than I used to.” Should I tell him? Should I wait? I pull at the hem of my apron.
“Why did Nush come to see you yesterday?” he asks.
“Been watching who comes and goes, have you?”
“Old habit, I suppose,” he says, unrepentant. “I wouldn’t have lived this long if I hadn’t learned to keep a good lookout.”
I hesitate, worried for a moment that saying something too soon would render it false. “He brought me a gift.”
“Oh?”
“A gift of time. Not much. A year, perhaps.”
Dineas is uncomprehending at first, until I lead him inside and carefully show him the sealed contents of the suona jar. Despite my warning, hope lights up his face.
“Suona pollen,” he whispers.
“It was a generous gift,” I say. “From some people who have suffered more than their share.”
For a moment, we’re both silent.
“A year at most?” he says again.
“Yes.” There’s a buzzing along my skin.
Dineas stares at the jar, blinking, and a myriad of emotions cross his face—joy, hope, fear. His eyes search mine. “And how will you live this year?”
It’s a good question. Having a year suddenly added to my life is disorienting, like coming out of a cave into the open air. But seeing Dineas in front of me clarifies my thoughts. “I’d like to live it similarly to how I’m living now. Rest, work on new potions. Learn more about suona pollen and see if it’s similar to the syeb flowers in these hills. Also, I discovered some rather beautiful corners of Monyar during the war. I’d like to see them again. I’d like to watch Elannah grow.” My voice catches. “From a distance of course. See her learn to walk.”
Dineas takes in my words, only half looking at me as he bobs his head. Then he gives me a crooked smile, one worthy of his most outrageous schemes. “Want company?”
The corners of my lips lift in response. “It might be monotonous, as I’m planning to do a lot of sitting around. I’ve had my fill of adventure.”
“Monotonous might not be so bad a thing. But I wouldn’t be so sure we can count on the next year being that way. Did you think, when you first became ill, that you’d end up freeing your people from Ampara? Who knows what another year might bring?”
He steps closer to me, more optimistic than I’ve seen him in a while. In fact, he looks almost like the other Dineas of Sehmar City. I think back to that night we spent in the emperor’s garden a lifetime ago. The heady scent of flowers, the yearning to say yes to love. “Mehtap told me I should do everything and experience everything while I can. She told me that trying too hard to control things would shut me away from the world as surely as any rose plague.”
“Mehtap was a smart girl.”
I look into his eyes, and they are earnest. Not naive, like the Dineas of Sehmar City, but wise. And hope, true hope, bubbles up within me. The journey ahead may be short, or perhaps the Goddess has more in store. Either way, Dineas is a traveling companion I’ve grown fond of.
And so I reach out, and take his hand.
I wrote Rosemarked while pregnant with my daughter. It therefore follows that writing Umbertouched occurred at an even more exciting (and discombobulating) stage of my life. Large portions of the first draft were dictated during 3 a.m. nursing sessions, and I turned in the last round of substantial revisions shortly before my daughter’s first birthday. It takes a village to raise a child, and it takes a village to publish a book. As for writing a book while raising a child...well, let’s just say that these acknowledgments are more heartfelt than ever.
First off, my editors! Abby Ranger, who bravely waded into that sleep-deprived first version and figured out exactly what worked, what needed to go, and provided a much-needed road map for me to find the heart of this story. And Rotem Moscovich (four books in now!), who huddled with me to brainstorm everything from the progression of Dineas’s hallucinations to the progression of Zivah and Dineas’s r
omance, who always managed to come up with great ideas for the questions that stumped me, and who never failed to make delighted noises at my baby pictures.
And then the rest of the Hyperion team. Cassie McGinty, publicist extraordinaire, supernaturally organized and always there with an encouraging word. Heather Crowley, always a reliable presence and a cover copy wizard, as well as the art and marketing departments, and everyone else who works behind the scenes.
Jim McCarthy was a constant cheerleader and sounding board throughout (and also exclaimed at baby pictures). Thanks for chasing that Rosemarked RT review all over town!
Many thanks to Courtyard Critiques: Amitha Knight, Rachal Aronson, Jen Barnes, and Emily Terry, for your reactions to my early drafts and your patience with my spotty and somewhat distracted attendance during those early months.
Beta readers provided much needed encouragement and ideas for enriching the story: Lauren James, Jenna DeTrapani, Emily Lo, Nicole Harlan, Bridget Howard, and Annie Earnshaw.
Other readers offered advice on their areas of expertise: Lisa Choi, MD, provided feedback on the various wounds and treatments in the story. Chris Lenyk once again gave pointers on the military aspects. Al Rosenberg read the story with an eye to terminal illness, and Lily Maase graciously discussed the psychological impact and experience of PTSD.
And last but most definitely not least, a heartfelt thanks to my family, without whose support this book would never have been turned in on time. My mom for spending countless hours watching my daughter while I holed up and wrote. My dad, for all those grocery and library runs, and for sharing my mom with us. My husband picked up the slack in so many ways, from dishes to childcare to absorbing my deadline grumpiness. Thank you to my family-in-law, for your support and encouragement from a distance, especially my mother-in-law, who must have handed out several thousand bookmarks by now. And of course, thank you to my dear daughter, the inspiration behind Leora’s baby. I hope you aren’t too badly traumatized from all those plague and war scenes Mommy dictated during your early infancy.
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