[fan] diviners trilogy - complete series

by Nicolette Andrews

  He frowned. “You are not leaving so soon. I hoped you would travel with our clan a while longer. It would be an honor to have a dreau among us.”

  “Thank you for the offer, but I must decline. Last night I met the oracle, and she has taken me into her tent so that I might train with her.”

  He nodded, stroking his long beard. The beads in the tips of his beard clanked together. “I understand. You must go where the Mother leads.” He clapped me on the shoulder. “You danced beautifully last night. It would have been an honor had you lain with my son. We have not had a du-toath in the family for many generations,” Thero continued.

  I stared at him in open-mouthed shock. Had that been their plan from the beginning? Did Thero want me to marry Hett and become one of his son’s wives? Even if circumstances were different, the idea of being one of multiple wives is not an appealing one.

  I choked back my indignation and said, “I apologize if I ever gave any impression otherwise, but I cannot marry your son.”

  Thero laughed. “Dreaus do not marry; it is not acceptable. You bear children to continue your line, but to take a husband? No. That could limit the potential of your offspring.” He shook his head as if it were a ludicrous thought.

  That explains the virgin dance. They sleep with a man and hope to carry his seed so they can give birth to another generation of mystics. I wonder if a du-toath has multiple partners. I thought back to Johai’s allusions to my naivety—I had no idea how sheltered I had been. Even Thero, who had been raised in Danhad, thought nothing of this ritual, to him it was normal. I thought of the courtiers back home and their loose morals and ambitions; maybe it was not so different after all.

  “I will give back Shewa’s gown as soon as I am able. Will you tell her for me?” I said instead of voicing my thoughts.

  He frowned. “There is no need. That dress belonged to her sister who was promised to the du-toath. She died of a sickness before she had the chance to participate in the dance and make her final vows.”

  I touched the border along the neckline of the gown. This was her sister’s, and she gave it to me. I felt bad for getting angry at Thero for tricking me into the dance. They meant it as a positive thing. They must believe greater power comes to a woman than a girl. They were trying to help, in their own way. Johai’s face came to mind once more, unbidden. I could feel the touch of his hand against my skin and the way my flesh seemed to burn. Would completing the dance bring me greater power? Enough to defeat him?

  “Tell her thank you,” I said softly.

  “She did it to thank you. She missed her sister after she died. Sharing a tent with you brought renewed joy to my wife. Seeing you as an initiate, it is like she has Kita back, eh? Besides, seeing you join the dance and wear the gown is helping her heal.” Thero patted me on the head this time.

  I said my good-byes to the rest of the clan. Shewa cried as she embraced me. I promised to visit again before the end of the gathering. Nia gifted me with a necklace made of woven twine with three blue glass beads woven into it. I thanked her, Yellen and Wey for all they had done. I hugged all the children one by one and even gave Hett a kiss on the cheek upon parting. I packed up my small bag of things and headed back to my grandmother’s tent. They were like a family to me when I lost everything. I looked over my shoulder only once before I lost sight of their tents among the hundreds that surrounded them.

  When I returned to my grandmother’s tent, she was sitting outside crossed-legged in the grass with a mortar and pestle nestled between her scrawny legs. She was grinding some earthy-smelling herbs. She did not look up at me as I walked past her and put my things in her tent. When I came back outside, she spoke.

  “Hand me the jug.” She pointed at a water jug by one of the tent poles. I ran to do her bidding and collected it for her. She poured a drizzle of water down over the herbs and continued grinding.

  I sat down on the ground beside her and watched her work. “Is this some sort of herb that helps with visions?”

  She put her pinky into the mixture and sucked on the end of it. She rolled the herbs about in her mouth, then spit them out onto the ground. “It is healing herbs for pain in the joints.”

  I frowned in disappointment. “I thought you would teach me more about our people and our powers.”

  She did not reply but continued to grind. The stone pestle clinked against the sides of the mortar as she worked. She picked up a green leafy bundle. “What is the purpose of this herb?”

  I took the herb from her outstretched hand. It had a spicy scent. The leaves were thin and numerous. I had never studied herb lore, so I could not answer her.

  “I do not know,” I admitted.

  She sniffed and picked up a different bundle. “What about this?” She dropped a bundle of orange tubers into my lap. They were small, perhaps the size of my pointer finger.

  “I’ve never learned anything about herbs, just scrying.”

  She grabbed the leafy plant and waved it in my face. “This helps with a bad belly.” She picked up the tubers. “These help with swelling and heat on the skin.” She tossed me a bunch of twisted brown roots. They’d been dried and tied. These I knew.

  “Valerian root,” I said. “I use it when I do dream readings.”

  She smiled, showing her missing teeth. “I am glad you know something. Yes. The valerian root has been used by our ancestors for centuries, as have the fennel and turmeric plants. There is more to our gifts than seeing into the future. You are meant to heal and to guide. Wisdom comes with training. You will help me prepare the herbs and learn their names. Then we will train in the arts of the divine.”

  I wanted to argue. I didn’t need to heal the specter, I had to kill him. What if I could find a way to heal him from these herbs? What if there’s some spell that we have not yet discovered that could save him? I pushed that thought away. I knew the truth: Johai could not be saved. We stayed outside on the chilly afternoon, my grandmother taught me about different herbs and their uses as she instructed me in the ways to dry and store them. The next day we went in search of herbs out in the grass plains surrounding Mother Lake. The day after that, she showed me how to dig for tubers in the soft earth at Mother Lake’s edge.

  We had been bent over, collecting tubers, for quite some time. We went to a far side of the lake, one that I had not been to before. There were tents camped along here as there were along most of the shores, but these were different. The tents were lined in ordered groups of five to ten. The lanes between were orderly, and the animals were penned up with sturdy fences. I stood up to stretch my back and saw a group of men gathered around a cook fire talking. At the head of the circle, a man was speaking to the crowd. His bushy beard was forked and tied up with beads at the end. His long black hair was tied back in a long braid, and he gestured as he spoke to the men there.

  I stared at him for a moment. I know him but from where? He spoke in the Biski tongue, and I picked up a few words here and there, like ‘war’, ‘brothers’ and ‘plenty’. It was then I realized where I had wandered. This was the Stone Clan’s camp, and the man addressing the crowd was Aland, the would-be king of the Biski. He was much as I had seen in my dreams, though the dreams gave no justice to his charisma. The men shouted when he spoke, thrusting their fists up. They cheered for him, whooping and stomping their feet. He would wait for them to finish shouting and then continue, smiling and gazing at each man in turn, as if he were speaking to them personally. He is charming. No wonder so many have joined his clan. He spotted me over the shoulders of the other men. I dropped my gaze and pretended to be looking for more tubers.

  From the corner of my eye, I saw him break away from the other men and come in my direction. I stood up as he approached. He strode with an even swinging gait full of authority. As he drew close, I saw his expression go from anger to intrigue. He has seen what I am.

  “Guruth, Dreau,” he said with a smile. He bowed to me with a fist pressed to his chest.

  I smiled back. “
I am sorry. I don’t speak your language.”

  He startled for a moment before covering the action with a quirk of his brow. “A dreau from the north, how strange indeed.” He looked me up and down. I was wearing a long tunic and breeches rolled up to my knees so I could wade in the water. My feet were caked with mud. This is not how I thought I would meet the king of the Biski. “I’ve heard whispers of your existence, but to see you in the flesh is a delight indeed.”

  The way his eyes continued to travel over me made my flesh crawl. You will try to win me over with your sweet tongue, but I am not so easily swayed, not anymore. Adair had a sweet tongue as well, and there was danger behind it. I imagine this Biski king is no different. I did not speak my thoughts. I might have need of this king of the Biski if I wanted to prevent the war.

  “I hope you have heard good things about me.” I flung my braids over my shoulder to rest between my shoulder blades. I had kept the hairstyle. I would have all the Biski know that I was untouched. The king noticed; his eyes went from my hair to my neckline. He desires me—not for my flesh but for the power he thinks I have. He is one who is hungry for power and sophistication. I would bring both of those things to his clan.

  He laughed. “Yes. Many speak of your power, but few of your beauty.”

  I lowered my lashes and looked away in feigned embarrassment.

  “If you have completed your training, I would be honored to have you travel with my tribe.”

  “I have only begun my formal training, I am afraid, though I appreciate your invitation,” I demurred.

  I miscalculated my answer. He narrowed his eyes and studied my face. “Your dialect is much more formal than the usual peasants we meet and trade with. Where are you from?”

  I hesitated for a moment. Did I dare reveal my ties to the Johai that now was? Was it Johai that told him of my power? His offer may well have been part of Johai’s plot. Maybe this was no chance meeting at all.

  “I was raised in the north and worked in the palace in Keisan as a lady’s maid,” I replied, deciding on a half-truth. I had grown up in the north, at Johai’s estate, and then when I came to Keisan, I had been a lady-in-waiting to Sabine. I dared not reveal my ties to the throne to this man, however, not yet anyway.

  “Ah.” He nodded as if he had unraveled a puzzle. His eyes still regarded me with suspicion, however. “I must return to my men. We have many more things to discuss. I hope we meet again soon, and perhaps when you finish your training, you can join me and my clan to graze wider pastures.”

  I left that part of the riverbank in search of my grandmother after that. She was thigh deep in the lake, pulling up cattails by the stalk. She had a pile of tubers and cattails on the shore nearby. I helped her gather up what she had found, adding it to my own discoveries. As usual she had found much more than I.

  We ate roasted tubers for dinner that night along with a few fat trout my grandmother hand caught. As we ate, I told her about my interchange with the would-be king. She sucked the grease from her fingers as I spoke. Once I was finished, she was silent for a very long time. I almost thought she had slipped into some vision when she said, “The Mother’s children are in need of guidance, and I fear they will be deaf to her words.”

  “Do you think the Biski will agree to war?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “I do not know. The waters have been dark to me on this matter, as they are with others…” She did not elaborate, and no probing of mine could get her to speak further.

  That night I was kept up late thinking of ways I could prevent the Biski from going to war. How can I sway the king when Johai has him in his thrall? My grandmother had not come to bed, and it was late in the night. She was sitting beside her basin again, staring into the dark depths. I had tried on numerous occasions to coax her to sleep, but she only said, “I am an old woman. Soon I will sleep forever.” I had stopped trying to argue with her. I wondered what she was searching for in the water. If she found anything, she did not tell me.

  The next morning, the initiates came. The tinkling of bells rolled over the hills, accompanied by the murmur of the song they sang as they came over the hills towards our tent. I stumbled outside to watch their procession. They were all women, girls more like, from ages fourteen to seventeen. They wore white gowns as pristine as fresh snow, their dark hair streaming behind them. They wore necklaces with charms and bells upon them. Their feet were bare, and in their hands they carried the small ribbons I had seen upon the hillside. My grandmother was outside when they arrived. She kneeled upon the ground in front of her tent.

  “These are your sisters,” she said to me. “The Mother’s daughters who wish to give their lives to study the mysteries and healing craft. They have left their clans and will become one with the Mother, giving birth to her children and nurturing the land and her people.”

  The girls filed by, dropping the ribbons at the oracle’s feet. They piled up, red, greens, oranges and blues. Every color of the rainbow, with different markings notating their clan and the heritage the girls would leave behind. The last girl to approach was a head taller than the rest. She kneeled down in front of the oracle. Her head bowed as she laid down a green banner with a yellow horse upon it.

  She looked up at us and smiled.

  For a moment I was too shocked to speak. Then I blurted out her name, “Elenna?”

  Chapter Nine

  Elenna was a head taller than the other women. Her hair was loose and rippling down her shoulders. She wore the gown of the initiate, but it was plain to see she was no mere supplicant. She should have been a priestess in her own right, a fully trained du-toath, but she had fled from the destiny the oracle had foretold. The one that said she would die for me. I was overwhelmed by relief. I thought you were dead! I wanted to shout to her. Did the others survive the waters along the river ford? Had they made it out alive as well? My questions would have to wait. This was a sacred ceremony. Elenna stared straight forward as she kneeled down beside the other fresh young women in their white gowns. While the others looked like girls, Elenna was a woman with full curves and a wisdom in her eyes these girls lacked.

  The oracle walked down the line of women. I followed after her, holding a torch made of bundled herbs. My grandmother held a wooden bowl with water from the lake within it. She chanted over the women, speaking in an old tongue, older than the Biski tongue, I suspected. White smoke curled from the burning bundle I held, and a sweet scent filled the air. My grandmother brushed the brow of each initiate with the water from the basin. They bowed their heads as she passed until she came to Elenna at the end.

  “Welcome, daughter of my daughter.” I bit down on my lip to hide my surprise. Elenna is the oracle’s granddaughter as well? Is this the errant priestess she spoke of? That means that Elenna is my cousin. Elenna lifted her eyes to meet the oracle’s.

  “Grandmother, I have come to rededicate myself to the order.”

  The smoke twisted around the oracle’s head, haloing it. She studied her granddaughter for a moment, violet eyes probing. Elenna did not flinch nor look away.

  “Your path will not change, despite your detour,” the oracle said at last.

  “I know,” Elenna replied. She bowed her head.

  The oracle smiled. She brushed the water from the basin across Elenna’s brow. “Come, we shall be the first to see the Goddess’s path.”

  Elenna rose to her feet, graceful as a dancer. I stood beside the door, waiting for the signal from my grandmother. I tried to catch Elenna’s eye, but she was intent on the ceremony. Doesn’t she realize I have grieved for her all this time? The least she could do is acknowledge me. I was meant to help in the ceremony by reading the dreams of the initiates. We read their dreams to divine the path their lives would take. The oracle led Elenna to the door, and I held open the flap for them to come inside. Once they had disappeared into the dark depths of the tent, I followed them. Inside, the stone basin sat in the center of the room. We would not be using it today. The fire had
been built up to twice its usual size, and the tent was warm and near stifling. The earthy scent of dream herbs spiced the air. Elenna lay on the sleeping mat near the fire. She had already begun to perspire from the close proximity to the heat when I kneeled beside her. My grandmother sat on the side with her back to the flames. She did not seem to sense the heat upon her.

  Elenna seemed to know what was expected of her. She lay with her hands crossed over her chest, her eyes closed tight. Her hair was splayed across the pillow like a dark curtain. If her destiny was not to die on the riverbank, then when and where? What other trials does the Mother have prepared for us? Could fate be diverted? Was Elenna meant to die at the river, but instead she had survived. I had agreed not to kill Johai back in Sanore because Elenna had convinced me not to. Elenna said that we could prevent both of our destinies. I knew the truth about my own destiny. However, I wondered if Elenna hoped still that we might be able to avert tragedy for her. There was only one way to know. I met my grandmother’s eyes. She nodded her head, and I touched Elenna’s temple. Her blood pumped through her with a steady thump, thump, thump. I inhaled and matched her breathing pattern. I closed my eyes and let the vision take me.

  A horse screamed. I twirled about to see a man pinned beneath his mount. He held out his hand, beseeching me for assistance. My body was not under my control, and I could do nothing for him. Soldiers were clashing nearby, steel upon steel. No one saw the broken man dying beneath his lame horse. I could not see Elenna. I stumbled through the mud and the blood looking for her. Tattered blue and silver banners rippled in the wind, the silver oak of Danhad near indistinguishable upon them. Nearby, a man with the golden horse of Neaux upon his tarnished armor ran a spear through the gut of another man wearing leather and hides. He had braids in his hair and feathers tied in his forelocks. Before the Biski man could fall over, the ground beneath our feet began to roll and pitch back and forth. A chasm opened up, and half a dozen men fell into it.