The Dowry Blade
Page 51
Brede didn’t want to enter that room again. She stood at the door, seeking out Ashe.
Ashe saw Brede waiting uncertainly at the door and stood to leave – this ceremony had no place for her, a no-voice. As she stepped past Islean, her one-time friend stayed her with a hand on her arm, holding Ashe still to watch as each in turn failed to touch the stones. Ashe tried to resist, but Islean would not allow her to leave, not until she had tried one last move: Islean pushed Ashe gently into the circle. Ashe’s presence there was greeted by an angry murmur from her sisters. Pride made her pull the shreds of her dignity together in the face of their hostility, she knelt and reached towards the nearest stone. It didn’t roll away from her. Ashe picked it up, and then another, and another. She hesitated, momentarily doubting that they were the same stones, but she knew them, could feel the gentle hum of them against her palm. She reached for the last stone.
Ashe held out her left hand, palm downwards, the four stones resting uneasily on the backs of her fingers. She turned a cautious circle, so that the assembled witches could see she had them all. The angry muttering was silent now, as they watched, willing her to fail, as they had failed. Ashe could feel that wishing, souring the air about her, and she believed with them, that she couldn’t do this thing. But what more could she lose? Ashe tossed the Singer stones into the air.
To complete the ritual Ashe should call the stones by their names and catch them again. How should she, having no voice, do this? The Songspinners stirred, watching those stones spin upward. Ashe looked up too, and smiled, caught suddenly by certainty and triumph; she spoke their names on her fingers. The stones waited for her stumbling signs to finish, and then dropped lightly, one by one, into the palm of her hand.
Power rushed, humming, through her bones, and Ashe feared it. She wasn’t ready for this; she didn’t want this; it made a mockery of her choices. Pride had fooled her once more.
Brede saw the change in Ashe, not something she could put into words, but something – her heart twisted, and she turned away, stumbling slightly in her fearful haste to get away from the power she recognised, and had seen only once before in Ashe.
Ashe turned to Islean, but Islean raised her hand, warding off her anger. She had done nothing but guess at what choice the stones would make; hoping that Ashe would regain her voice, or at least some of her power, that she would step once more into an existence that Islean could recognise and love.
Ashe felt the tremor of power again, intoxicating, like nothing else she had ever experienced. It was as though, lizard-like, she had regrown a severed limb.
Ashe remembered Brede’s analogy, telling Aneira that she had not thrown away a sword, but cut off her sword arm. Well, if she had the arm back she need not pick up a sword. She looked about her for Brede, found her gone from the doorway and found an impending loss that was far worse than a severed limb.
Brede reminded herself that she had grown used to being alone, but she still felt that strange echoing darkness inside, the almost fear; a bleakness that she used to welcome as a balm to her heart. She prodded at the feeling, trying to force it to its limits. The precipice was still there, the cold howling wind trying to drag her down. She found the edge and stood on it, daring the roaring monsters of her mind to tear at her, and the wind died, and the abyss was only a few feet wide, difficult to span, but not impossible. They had not taken Sorcha from her completely with their ritual, the memories were still there, safe, precious.
Brede saddled the horse. The citadel was strangely quiet in the aftermath of the singing. The horse clattered across the weedy cobbles, and she flinched from the noise. Morna stood at the door to the kitchen. Brede nodded to her as she passed. She was glad to be out in the bustle of the town. Out here, it was safe to think about Ashe, about the sudden rush of power Brede had seen engulf her. It was safe, out among ordinary mortals, to be bitter; to be angry that after all, she was not needed, not regretted, not missed.
Ashe almost saw her go, catching only the last flicker of the horse’s tail, the echo of its hooves under the gateway. The new power roared in her, swelling in her blood, tingling into her hands. She knew with an outraged certainty that if she raised those hands, if she made the sign for stay, Brede would not go. She watched her treacherous hands, already moving, and forced them down. Perhaps she should in truth cut off her arm. Would she so soon forget what could be accomplished by ordering a living creature to stillness? Bile rose in her throat, anger at herself outweighing even the dread that she had allowed Brede to turn her back on her once more.
She had passed some unseen barrier. She was no longer a Songspinner, she was something more, she need not rely on her voice, or any other one fragment of her self. She glared at the meaningless handful of stones in her palm. All this she had, and nothing that she wanted. Well. Ashe gathered all of that power, all of it, and focused on the stones, filling them brim full of the molten lightning that crackled through her bones.
And then she spoke.
Islean, leaving the hall behind Ashe, almost lost her footing at the top of the steps leading to the courtyard. A handful of small stones rolled away from under her feet. She recovered her balance, and recognised the stones, cracked and scorched though they were. She took in her breath to call for help, and then she saw that Ashe had left more than the stones. As she stared across the courtyard, there was a slight shimmer in the air. She looked closer, approaching carefully. Ashe had left a message; a feeling that seeped into her as the shimmer touched her. She heard a voice, one she had hoped to hear again, but the message was not so welcome.
I am not a Songspinner, Ashe’s voice whispered, and the shimmering faded.
Out in the town, Ashe ran as though the Scavenger were at her heels. She knew the town, far better than Brede; she knew the alleyways, the slips, the twists, and the stairs that were impassable to a horse. Reckless in her headlong race for the town gates, she stumbled often, still unused to relying on her body to get where she wanted to go. She slipped, she fell against the townsfolk; she knocked children flying. She was past caring. Ashe had but the one aim: to reach the gate before Brede. Her feet weren’t the only part of her body that she bruised. Her lungs burned and laboured, but it meant nothing, there was only the gate and the black horse approaching it.
Brede wasn’t hurrying, but the horse had a good steady pace, a long gait, and she went a route unimpeded by market stalls and the press of bodies. Brede didn’t notice, she was planning her best route, her hopes of employment, the chances of a change in the weather to the waiting snow; anything, so that she might ignore the shouting loneliness that crowded her. Somewhere within that wall of plans, she discovered that the Dowry blade was still beneath the bed in the Songspinners’ guest chamber. For the space of a heartbeat she considered turning the horse about and going back for it; but no: it was another ghost laid.
Brede reached the gate first.
Ashe had no breath left. She leant against the gate, raging, unable to find the strength to even step through the portal. Her legs trembled violently; she wanted to fold herself into the ground and cry. Now she might have used her power, had she not abandoned it.
Reckless, her mind screamed at her, you see what you’ve lost?
Ashe pulled herself up. Brede hadn’t gone far, she might still catch her.
And what then? she asked, harsh with dwindling hope, what then? Another silent, embarrassed denial?
But still Ashe walked, limping now, after the receding horse.
I’ve done with grieving, Brede told herself, wiping away tears, unable to understand why she was weeping. I am cured of my loss.
The stuff of sorrow no longer knit for her, there was only dragging regret; she had left behind something she needed. She pulled the horse to a stop.
The silence out here, almost into the shade of the forest edge, reminded her. Silence: Ashe.
Brede eased herself from the horse, landing heavily. She walked the horse around in a slow circle, loosening the cramping pa
in, thinking of unknotting muscles, of bones knit true and strong, thinking of Ashe’s fingers forcing the pain out of her, taking it into herself.
Ashe felt her name called; felt Brede’s thoughts touch her. She looked up. The dark blur ahead was a blur no longer. She could see Brede clearly, standing beside the horse, twitching the saddlecloth into place as though there were some deep significance to the way the fringes lay. Brede wouldn’t look at her, not yet.
Ashe stopped walking, and Brede felt the resistance to her call, only now realising that she had called. She glanced up, puzzled. She saw the unmoving figure on the road, scarcely believing in it; sure that it was her imagination conjuring the woman, but she left off arranging the horse’s gear.
Ashe resumed her weary walking. Brede saw the limping tiredness, and knew that this was real: that this was Ashe following her.
Brede held to the horse, uncertain of her balance, doubting the cautious delight that welled up in her mind. She pushed herself away from her support, found her balance secure and started to walk back towards the city, and towards Ashe.
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First published in UK 2016 by Arachne Press Limited
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© Cherry Potts 2016
ISBNs
Print: 978-1-909208-20-9
ePub: 978-1-909208-21-6
Mobi: 978-1-909208-22-3
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
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Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One