by Natalie Grey
I was not worthy of this training. I wanted to say desperately that it was the only thing that could redeem me, that if he refused to allow this, I was lost—but even amidst the rising panic, I could see a glimmer of hard truth. I was not worthy. I had brought myself beyond any road back.
I said nothing. I only turned away, to stare at the artwork on the walls.
My vision was blurry with tears, and so I did not at first make sense of the painting that lay above Taliesen’s desk. When I saw it more clearly, however, I stepped forward.
A tiny mud hut stood near the bend of a river. It was thatched with palm fronds, and it sat silent in the first rays of the dawn. The river was lit brilliantly with sunlight, shimmering between the reeds, and the landscape that stretched into the distance was golden sand, not green hills.
I knew this vista, but to see it here.... I turned to look at Taliesen, frowning perplexedly.
“Eshe,” I said. It was as much a question as a statement, and Taliesen came to join me.
“Yes,” he told me simply. He looked over at me with a small smile.
“She painted this for you?” I could not imagine Eshe, of all people, trying her hand at painting.
“I painted it,” he said. He did not seem inclined to explain, but his gaze held a distant sadness … and unmistakable warmth. He looked down. “And yes, before you ask, I know she is dead.”
I looked back at the painting, a lump in my throat.
My fault. It was my fault Eshe was dead. If I had never sought her out, Philip would never have killed her.
“It was peaceful in the end.” That was the only thing I could give him—and the only thing that redeemed me at all.
He hesitated. “Truly? Then I thank you. We are not supposed to fear death, but….”
Though Eshe had been terrified of her death, I knew somehow that Taliesen was not speaking of her. When I looked at him, I saw the same terror in his eyes that I had seen in hers, all those months ago.
It surprised me to see that from a druid, someone so connected to the web of life and death and rebirth, and then I felt ashamed of myself for judging him.
Taliesen was human before he was a druid. Humans feared the unknown, and what greater unknown existed than death?
I had the feeling I should not acknowledge this. That it would shame him.
I cleared my throat. “You know, I always wondered if Eshe had druidic training. It seems I was right to wonder. Did you train her?”
Taliesen considered the question. “In a way.” He gave me a clear-eyed look. “But you are not Eshe.”
And there it was: the fact I could not escape. I nodded. “I didn’t mean you owed it to me because—”
“I know. But you know my hands are tied. You know why there are reservations about you in particular, even more so than there would be for another sorcerer.”
“I know it.” I clenched my hands behind my back as I stared at the painting.
Eshe, I knew, would not have stood for this. She told me to use magic to redeem myself. She would have told me to find a way around this.
And that gave me the courage to ask for something I wasn’t sure I deserved.
“I am everything you say,” I told Taliesen. “I won’t deny it, or justify it. There was a time when I hoped to be killed for what I had done. I know I don’t deserve to live. But even if I die, that is only one life to trade for millions. Even that won’t clear the debt.”
He watched me carefully. He was waiting for me to make my appeal, and I honestly could not tell if he had already made up his mind … or not.
“I ripped the world apart.” I used the words deliberately. “Daiman told me once that the work of a druid is to make the world more whole. That is what I want to do, Chief Druid.”
He smiled at the title.
It went against everything I was to state my case like a petitioner, to act as though I had no right to anything—but it was the truth.
“Let me try,” I told him.
“So you may die at peace with yourself?” His voice was expressionless.
“So I may attempt to right the wrongs I have committed.” I threw the words down desperately. “What do you have to lose? What does the world have to lose? If I save as many as I killed, perhaps I will redeem myself and perhaps not. But even if I save a thousand rather than fifty million … isn’t the world more whole for that? Isn’t it better than if I had just gone to my grave as I always was?”
Talisen made a small noise. He linked his hands behind his back as he turned away from me to pace, and I watched him with a desperate sort of attention, exchanging a quick look with Daiman.
He, at least, was as uncertain as I. He looked hopeful once more.
At last, Taliesen sat.
“Do you know of the druidic rites?” he asked me.
“I know ... well, only the context. Daiman said I had to pass them before I could become a druid.”
“Before you may even start training to be a druid,” Taliesen corrected. He rubbed at his head. “And though I am loathe to admit it, because this is a time when I scarcely needed more enemies beating down my door … he was correct when he said you should be allowed the rite, at least.”
I gave a little sigh. My heart was beating very fast, and when I looked over at Daiman, I was surprised to see him still looking uncertain.
“If you wish to become a druid,” Taliesen said, “if you truly wish it, you may face the rite. It would be wrong to refuse you that. The path will be hard, sorceress. Are you sure you wish to walk it?”
Daiman opened his mouth, and I was sure it was to protest.
I didn’t know why, and I didn’t care. “I’m sure,” I said quickly. “I need to do this, Chief Druid. I need to learn this magic. I need to learn to heal the world.”
“Very well.” Taliesen nodded. “Tomorrow, then.” He looked at Daiman. “Remember … you are forbidden to offer either advice or your own experience. No aid may be given, Bradach. The fact that she has already learned some of our arts is complication enough.”
I looked over at Daiman and saw him nod.
But there was no relief in his eyes as he stood. He only held out his hand to me and left.
“Thank you,” he said at the door. He turned his head, just enough to see Taliesen, and waited for the other man to nod.
I looked between them, but I could glean nothing from Daiman’s sudden worry, or Taliesen’s neutral expression.
Chapter Five
Whatever was worrying Daiman, he refused to tell me.
“Taliesen was right,” was all he said. “I cannot offer aid.”
“Fine.” I knew how stubborn he was. I wasn’t going to win this.
He led me down twisting passages, through a side door in the hall that I could have sworn should lead back outside. Torches flickered with flames that didn’t seem quite real, and the floor beneath our feet was hardpacked dirt, covered by long woven rugs.
Daiman opened the door to a small room and ushered me inside. He gave a sigh as he stared around himself.
“It’s good to be home.”
His voice sounded a little unsure, but I didn’t want to mention it. “These are your rooms?”
I looked up at the carvings on the beams and the plain wooden desk and bed, a carved chest that could not have held much more than blankets and a few small possessions, and another of the leaf-carved lanterns I had seen in the hall.
Other than a hanging on the door, which I supposed he might have chosen, there was nothing personal here at all.
Daiman must have read my thoughts. He was smiling. “Yes, these are mine.” He pointed at the desk. “I studied there, for … years. Carved my initials on it more than once. Spent a lot of time staring out that window at the hawks.” His voice was quiet. “I always wanted to be able to fly. Shifting to bird form was hardest for me.”
“Why?”
“For the same reason I wanted it so much,” he said cryptically. He looked around himself. “But we
shouldn’t talk about training. Just say I spent a lot of time here.”
I pushed away my sense of disappointment. The fact that he was abiding by Taliesen’s instructions was good, I told myself.
I didn’t want to spend my life wondering if I’d passed my rite by cheating.
I cast around for another subject. “And you still have the same rooms, even now that you’re a full-fledged druid?”
He shrugged. “Child or druid, you get the same quarters, and as long as you’re a druid, the rooms are here for you.” His smile was infectious. “As you might have guessed, we’re not working with … normal constraints on space.”
“You and your alternate worlds all over the place.” I gave him a suspicious look. “So what now?”
“Now we prepare for the feast.” Daiman went to the chest and opened it. He drew out deep blue robes and laid them on the bed, giving me a glimpse of a woven blanket that was more hole than cloth at this point.
A memento from his childhood, I guessed. I sat at the desk and watched while he drew the robes on over his usual Hunter’s uniform of black.
The robes were resplendent. The woven cloth seemed almost luminous, holding a blue dye that captured the velvety color of the sky before full nightfall. Thread of gold and brown, and some that seemed undyed, picked out motifs on the breast and at the cuffs. When he turned to look at me, he frowned at my expression.
“What?”
“You look … very druid-y.” I lifted my shoulders. “I don’t know how else to describe it. Priest-y? You look like what I always thought druids looked like.”
When his face fell slightly, I hastened to explain.
“Not that you didn’t before! It’s just … well, when you think druid, you kind of think of old guys with beards in flowing robes. And then there was you, and you were a druid in a … different way.” I remembered the first night we’d met, Daiman calling down moonfire and trapping me with vines. “You always seemed at home in the forest, moving around. I don’t know what I’m saying. It’s just like I had two ideas of what druids were, and now you’re the other one.”
If it helps, I don’t particularly like the robes.” Daiman smiled and beckoned me over to sit by him on the bed, drawing me down next to him. “They’re hard to move in and they’re itchy.”
“See, that sounds like you.” I kissed him.
He smiled at that. “So. We have some time, and I for one would like to go hear more about this conclave.”
“You looked worried by what Taliesen said earlier.” I frowned over at him. “What does it mean that there’s no challenger?”
“It means that someone wants to change the way conclaves work.” Daiman looked troubled. “And I don’t know what I think of that. It doesn’t seem right that he’s being challenged without any cause. It makes me think … something more is going on.” He hesitated. “You know … I could use your help figuring it out.”
“What? No. Ohhhh, no.” I shook my head emphatically.
“What?” He stared at me in consternation.
“Not my circus, not my monkeys.” I held my hands up, palms out.
“You came here to become a druid,” he pointed out.
“And I’m not one yet, and I didn’t even know enough about conclaves to know this one was weird.” I shook my head. “I don’t get to have an opinion yet, and I shouldn’t be meddling.”
He stared at me, and I couldn’t make head nor tail of his expression.
“Besides,” I pointed out, “shouldn’t we all be worried about what happens when I get involved in politics?”
He looked away with a sigh.
“What?”
“Nicky….” He bit his lip. “I’m not good with politics. I don’t understand what’s happening here, and I’m afraid that I’ll miss something important.” He looked out the window for a long moment. “It seems that everywhere else you go, you tease out people’s plans and motivations. You find the fault lines. Why not here?”
“Because I’m sick of doing that.” It was true. “I am, Daiman. Everywhere I go, I meddle. And no place has ever been as obviously not mine to meddle with, as this one.”
“You’re not meddling,” he told me. “You’re watching. It’s different.”
“I can’t do one without the other,” I insisted. “I just … jump into things. You saw me with the Monarchists last time. I trusted Darcy. What if I give you the wrong advice because I misread someone? How much damage will I do? And it’s not my world to damage.”
He considered this.
“What do those symbols mean on your robe?” I wanted to turn his mind away from this, wanted him to focus on anything else. I traced my finger over the circular motif over his heart: a hawk soaring over hills and rivers. It was amazing how clearly it was picked out, even in simple lines.
“It means I’m a wanderer,” he said quietly. “It means … I chose to leave.”
His voice held so much sadness that my chest ached. I looked up at him and he forced a smile.
“There have been druids like me through all the ages,” he said. “It’s not a mark of shame, Nicky.”
“It makes you sad.” I was sure of that much.
“It’s a choice that contradicts itself,” he told me. “Because I love my people, I go to other courts to represent them, to show the world what druids can be. Because I love my home … I left it.” He looked away from me, swallowing. “I wanted to protect it. I knew that if we looked only inward, we would fall. But that meant someone had to leave, and so … I haven’t been home, haven’t lived here, for years. Centuries.” His eyes closed. “I don’t really know the world I’m protecting anymore. This conclave proves it.”
“Daiman.” I couldn’t bear to hear this. “The fact that you bear a symbol for what you do shows that the druids respect that. Maybe you’re not supposed to know everything you’re protecting. Maybe you’re supposed to know the rest of the world instead, and bring that back. At the conclave, they’ll need your perspective.”
“For that, I need your help.”
“Shh.” I lay my finger against his lips. “You say you’re not good at politics, but I don’t know what that means. You see things clearly, and you always do what you think is right. That’s what they need from you.”
I nodded my head to the door. “Go. Watch. Listen. I’ll meet you at the feast tonight.”
“Come with me,” he whispered.
“D’you think people will speak with you honestly if I’m there?” I prevaricated. “Learn what you can. The conclave will need you.”
He nodded and slipped out the door without a word, with only a kiss dropped on my forehead.
Left behind, I drew my knees up to my chest and considered.
The urge was there to follow him. The mystery of this conclave was just begging to be unraveled. What if Daiman was right? What if something more was at stake, something other than the usual sort of challenge? Plots within plots, secrets within secrets…. Part of me thrilled at that.
I shoved the urge to meddle down. I’d meant what I said: this wasn’t my world.
And I was here to learn a different way to be in the world. That meant, no meddling. No politics. No searching for divisions.
I was trying to learn to heal, not find secrets and save them for later. That was the old Nicola. I settled back on the bed with a nod, and told myself I was doing the right thing.
I wished I believed it.
Chapter Six
I spent the afternoon trying to perfect my trances. What I thought this would accomplish, I wasn’t quite sure, but I was relatively sure that it couldn’t hurt. I tried to feel the flowers and trees outside the hall, and sense the insects that clung to the tall, waving grasses.
At some point, however, I must have fallen asleep, because I awoke to find the room darker and a glowing orb on Daiman’s desk.
I stared at it warily, and frowned when it opened into a portal the size of a plate, showing me his smiling face.
“Goo
d nap?” he asked me.
“I wasn’t sleeping.”
He laughed. “Your hair says otherwise. In any case, the feast is starting. Should I come back to get you?”
“No, no. I can find my own way.” I waved my hands. “Uh … should I be wearing robes? I’m not sure jeans are banquet attire.”
“No need to worry,” he assured me. “I’ll see you in a few, then.”
The ball of light disappeared and I cast about for a mirror, cursing under my breath. As if I didn’t stand out enough, I was going to be the only one in the hall not wearing robes, and with my hair mussed, to boot.
There wasn’t a mirror, apparently. I pulled out my ponytail and ran my fingers through my black hair with a few choice mutters about Daiman, and then managed to get it into some semblance of a braid.
There wasn’t really anything else I could do. What I had worn here, a dark tank top under a tunic, and grey jeans tucked into leather boots, was just going to have to do.
Still, it was with trepidation that I eased my way out of the room and hurried down the hallway toward the banquet hall. My desire not to show up looking out of place was warring with my desire not to be late, and I resolved to peek around the door and take my time looking around before I emerged into the full glare of the druids’ scrutiny.
I was just coming up to a turn when I heard the hiss of voices. I grimaced, determined to continue quickly past whatever alcohol-fueled altercation was already starting—this wasn’t my first banquet, after all—but one phrase caught my ear.
“—really think removing him is the answer to your problems?” It was a man’s voice, contemptuous. “You had your chance to change things. They voted you out.”
The floor, rugs over dirt, had kept my steps silent up until now, and I drew against the wall just before the turn, cocking my head to listen.
I didn’t want to meddle, but I also didn’t want any high-ranking druids to think I’d been eavesdropping.
“For nothing,” a woman’s voice said. It was mellow, but clear. She sounded far older than I guessed she would look. “That conclave was fabricated from nothing, and you know it.”
