by Unknown
Her farewell from Adris had been cordial, but hardly warm – she hadn’t welcomed Caledon’s company either, reminding him none too gently of his obligations in Talliel.
I had thought you’d be keen to see Pisa again and your father, as you’ve been away so long, she’d said. And given that you’ve only just returned from my lands, I would have thought you’d be tired of journeying.
Kira’s attempts to distance herself from him probably resulted from the hurt she’d suffered at the Feailner’s hands, but he was no closer to knowing what had caused the rift between her and Tierken. When Caledon had left the north, Kira had been steadfastly committed to the bond, despite the northern Leader’s obvious ambivalence. To have fled across the plain alone a scarce three moons later suggested a violent, and probably irreparable, breach.
It suited him to have Kira free of Tierken, but he didn’t know whether it suited the star pattern, and the fear that the Terak victory might be a prelude to even greater blood-letting troubled him greatly. As he walked, he mulled over whether Tresen and Laryia’s union alone would be strong enough to mitigate the warlike tendencies of the Terak. But he came to no conclusion; he would have to wait to see what unfolded.
They climbed steadily into the Azurcades, speaking of little except the way ahead, and of when they would eat and rest. The rosarin groves dwindled and they reached the summit of Shardos on the second day, then descended through the moist, shadowed stone of West Draganin Pass. Kira searched the skies anxiously the next morning, for they were now close to where they’d sheltered from the violent hail and rain storm shortly after they had met, but the weather remained fair. They went on, slowed by patches of shale, and by the time they reached the Aurantia Cave, anxiety over the slippery southern slope had woken Kira’s queasiness again.
She rested at the cave’s entrance, while Caledon built a fire and set a pan of water to boil. The last of the ilalas’ calls drifted away and Kira thought of when she’d first come here. She’d feared Caledon in the beginning, but it hadn’t taken long to learn of his kindness – and of his belief in the guidance of stars. No doubt they’d directed him to bring Adris and the northern Leader together, and to persuade her to betray everything Kasheron believed in by requesting Tremen volunteers join in the fighting.
But despite everything, Caledon had been right. The sacrifice of the Tremen volunteers had gifted a future free from fear for the Tremen who remained, and allowed the birth of a new Allogrenia.
Kira wondered whether her anxiety stemmed not only from the slippery mountain, but also of returning to a place so changed she might not recognise it – or it might not recognise her. Whatever she was now, she wasn’t the girl Healer Leader who had fled Allogrenia. Since then she had killed, bonded with a man who lived by the sword, and broken the bond by abandoning him.
‘You’re pale. Are you ill?’ asked Caledon.
Kira shook her head and he passed her a cup of metz, his fingers brushing her hand. ‘Adris gave me sleep-shelters but I don’t think we’ll be needing them,’ he said.
‘Autumn’s still young,’ agreed Kira.
‘Your people are rebuilding the Bough,’ said Caledon, putting nuts on to roast. ‘Most of Morclan are taken up with its ornamentation and I’m sure it will be very beautiful when it’s finished.’
A new Bough! If only everything else could be put to rights so easily. But Kandor was gone, and Tresen so badly hurt he’d never climb with her above the whispering leaves again. And he was damaged in other ways, too: his smile less ready, his anger closer to the surface, his ability to forgive more fragile.
‘What are you thinking of?’ asked Caledon, handing her a bowl of nuts and settling beside her.
‘Of Tresen, of the way things were, of why they can’t be like that again.’
‘Even without fighting, things alter over time,’ said Caledon. ‘But fighting brings violent change and it’s often difficult to return.’
‘Are you saying I won’t be able to settle back into Allogrenia?’ asked Kira anxiously.
‘It depends on whether you want to continue as Leader, or become a simple Healer once more; to remain alone, or to bond –’
‘I won’t be bonding again.’
‘I understand why you’d say that now,’ said Caledon, his gaze on the sidas below. ‘To trust someone enough to give them your heart, and then to have that trust destroyed . . .’
‘Have you ever given your heart to someone, Caledon?’
‘I’ve known two women – before you – who I loved enough to be willing to give up the stars for,’ he said.
‘But did you give either of them your heart?’ persisted Kira.
‘I believed I did.’
‘Did they believe it?’
Caledon hesitated. He hadn’t planned on having this conversation so early, while Kira was still raw from her break with Tierken, and her trust in any man, including him, tenuous.
‘They believed it until the stars sent that I must journey,’ he said. ‘Few people understand what it is to be a Placidien, to feel with every pulse the stars’ imperative. But my love for the stars didn’t lessen my love for them, nor does it lessen my love for you.’
‘But it does direct you. The stars told you that I should be stopped from going straight north to seek aid from my kin, and so you stopped me. Then the stars told you to relinquish me to the northern ruler, so you walked away. What do the stars tell you to do now, Caledon? To take me as a lover or to hand me back?’
‘The stars are rarely so crude,’ said Caledon stiffly.
Kira laid her hand over his. ‘I understand how the stars direct you better than you think, for healing drives me in the same way. And neither leaves room for the needs and wants of others, no matter how dear they are. If I’d done as others bid, I’d not have found fireweed, nor met you. Then you’d not have mended the breach between the Tain and the Terak, and their combined forces would not have prevented even worse bloodshed. But all things have a price, Caledon. The price we both might pay is the loss of those we love – if the dying continues.’
‘Is this why you left the northern Feailner?’ asked Caledon sharply. ‘Because he intends to keep killing?’
‘I don’t know what he intends. What do the stars say?’
‘Nothing at present . . . and when they do speak, their words are not quite as clear as message scrolls.’
Caledon lay awake long into the night, troubled by Kira’s words and sifting through all the possible consequences of the disrupted star pattern. Aeris had kept Kira safe on the plain, so perhaps the stars did intend Caledon to have her after all. However, the stars might also intend she return to Tierken. The northern Feailner certainly had passion for Kira, but little patience or understanding of the Tremen – or interest, it seemed.
Tierken had gone all the way to the southern forests to deliver his sister, but then turned north again without entering them. But Kira being in the south might draw the northern Leader there again and give him reason to amend these omissions and so strengthen the Terak–Tremen bond, which was perhaps the stars’ intent.
It was also possible that the effect of her departure would be the reverse, and that Tierken’s anger at having his authority flouted would translate into an icy silence. And whatever his intent, his responsibilities as Feailner could keep him in Sarnia or on patrol for many moons to come. But even if Tierken did pursue Kira immediately, he’d travel by horse and that meant he must come around the eastern Azurcades – a journey of close to a moon. Tierken wouldn’t reach Allogrenia until well after he and Kira did, giving the advantage in regaining Kira’s affections to the Placidien rather than the Feailner. But was that what the stars intended?
Caledon sighed, frustrated by his lack of knowing. He must wait, he reminded himself, and serve the stars; whatever that service involved, and whatever his own desires.
*
Palansa lifted Ersalan from the cool water of the bath-bowl and gently dried him. He grizzled but didn’t wa
ke, his skin still as hot as fire coals. He’d eaten nothing for two days, and had ceased the unsteady baby steps he’d been practising, lying listless on the bed instead. The fear that he was going to die was like a meat-worm, gnawing away at Palansa’s hope and hollowing out her strength.
The Grounds were dark with smoke, the air filled with wailing. Babes burned next to their mothers, while fathers and join-husbands spat the waste from their mouths as they tended the pyres, knowing that, soon enough, blood-ties would be tending theirs.
Tarkenda came to her side, but offered no words of comfort, for there were none. A nameless filth roamed the Grounds, as ravenous as a wolf, but stealthier. No one knew it neared until its jaws seized them and fever stained their skin red, sweat drenched their shirts and coughing brought foul, blood-streaked poisons from their lungs.
‘You’ve given him the cone-oil?’ asked Tarkenda, after a little.
‘I’ve given him everything!’ said Palansa, holding him close. ‘And I’ve offered squaziseed and shillyflower to the Sky Chiefs night after night. But how can they hear me, when so many others call upon them? He’s done no harm, Tarkenda. Why don’t the Sky Chiefs take Irdodun, or Arkendrin, whose power-lust seeded this evil, instead of babes like Orsron and Irsafin? And Ersalan!’
‘He’s not dead yet,’ said Tarkenda gently.
‘But he soon will be! The fever’s started, and in a few days he’ll be sweating. Then the coughing will start. Why didn’t your visions show you this? Or did they?’ she demanded, rounding on the older woman.
‘I’ve told you what my dreams and visions have shown.’
‘The Healer-creature here on the Grounds, and over all the cape of death? Maybe she’ll come to gloat, for she certainly won’t come to heal!’ cried Palansa, then stopped, eyes wide and chest heaving. ‘I’ll go there! I’ll go to the forests and beg she heals Ersalan. He’s only a babe, he’s done no one harm. He’s only a babe!’
‘Heal him?’ scoffed Tarkenda. ‘Do you think the Healer-creature will give cure to those who murdered her family? Would you?’
‘He’s done no harm,’ repeated Palansa.
‘He’s Shargh. You’re Shargh. They’ll kill you both.’
Palansa seemed to calm. ‘I won’t sit here and watch him die.’
‘If you go there you’ll both die,’ warned Tarkenda.
‘Perhaps what you say is true,’ said Palansa with a ghastly smile. ‘But at least he won’t go to the Skylands alone. He’ll have me there with him, forever.’
40
The ceiling beams of the newly built Bough were rich with the scents of resin and sap, and each one was adorned with its own set of carvings: lissium and sour-ripe vine with tippets darting between them, then castella and chrysen leaves, then slender espin and fallowood with springleslips frozen in flight, then brightwings and moon moths in dizzying patterns, then ashaels with roosting frostkings, then finally blue and rednut trees doused in blossom.
‘They’re so beautiful,’ exclaimed Laryia in delight, staring up at them as she wandered beneath. No furniture had been built yet and Laryia’s steps echoed in the cavernous space.
She came to a stop under the grand central beam where Tresen had settled on one of the Morclan carvers’ rough stools. He rose, folding his arms around her so that his palms lay over her belly, hoping to feel their child kicking. But the babe was quiet.
‘They’re for Kira, aren’t they?’ said Laryia, nestling back against him as she stared up at the central carvings of alwaysgreen leaves and mira kiraons.
‘Kasheron brought the alwaysgreen from the north to mark the octads and the tree is special to us. And the mira kiraon was named after his mother. But you’re right, my love. The heart of the Bough is decorated in memory of the greatest Healer Allogrenia’s ever had – including Kasheron himself – the youngest Leader we’ve ever birthed, and the only Leader we’ve ever lost to the outside.’
Laryia turned in the circle of his arms. ‘Tierken loves her as I love you,’ she said, kissing Tresen gently on the mouth.
‘I know,’ said Tresen, struggling to smile.
‘You’re in pain again, aren’t you?’
‘Yes,’ said Tresen, aware that Laryia’s healing skills made subterfuge impossible. ‘You should have married a man who was hale.’
‘I married the best man in the world.’
Mikini appeared and picked her way through the wood chips and shavings. ‘You’ll be shifting in soon,’ she said, peering about.
‘It’s big for just the two of us,’ said Laryia.
It was odd, she thought, that when she’d first come to the Kashclan longhouse, with its constant chatter and flow of people, she’d craved the quietness of the Domain, but now as she considered the hall, with its doorways leading off to numerous sleeping-rooms, stores, Haelens and Herberies, it seemed lonely.
‘There will be three of you soon,’ said Mikini, patting Laryia’s belly affectionately. ‘Besides, the Tremen Leader always lives in the Bough.’
‘Kira’s the Tremen Leader,’ said Tresen.
‘I know that, little brother,’ said Mikini, exchanging quick glances with Laryia. ‘Tenerini’s sent me to make sure my bond-sister doesn’t get lost on her way back to Kashclan,’ she continued with determined cheerfulness. ‘I thought Laryia was here alone and you were at the Warens with Protector Commander Kest.’
‘I was,’ said Tresen, as they left the Bough and set off across the Arborean. ‘It didn’t take long to discuss the stores and this moon’s patrols.’
In truth, there had been no real need for the meeting, Kest consulting him out of courtesy, as Kest would continue to consult with whoever replaced Kira. It was an attempt to rebuild the accord between the Warens and the Bough that Maxen had fractured.
‘I see why Kira named her mare as she did,’ said Laryia, watching a glittering spiral of winged creatures rise from the forest floor. ‘Now she has her very own Brightwings in the north.’
‘Somewhat larger,’ said Mikini, ‘though I’ve only got Tresen’s word for how big horses actually are.’
‘Are you questioning the honesty of your Leader?’ chided Tresen.
‘No, just his memory – for I clearly recall you telling me that Kira was the Leader, and not you,’ retorted Mikini.
Kira was halfway down the shattered face of Shardos when a wave of nausea broke over her so violently that she fell to her knees. Caledon was in front, probing the stone with a stick, and hastened back as fast as the treacherous ground allowed, steadying her until she’d ceased vomiting. Then he eased her down so she was sitting, and handed her his waterskin.
Caledon wondered whether it would be best to climb back up to the Aurantia Cave, despite them being closer to the Dendora. If they must delay for a time, the Aurantia Cave would be safer, the trees below providing little shelter from the weather and none from Shargh.
‘Do you know what ails you?’ he asked, helping Kira up, then having to bring his arm around her as her knees gave way.
‘No,’ she said, acutely aware of his sweet spice smell.
‘Do you want to return to the Aurantia Cave?’
‘I’m not going back.’
‘Come then. We’ll go slowly and you can tell me if you need to rest,’ he said, shifting his grip to her hand.
They crept on, the journey made difficult by them having to walk closely on a path barely wide enough for one. Caledon focused his attention on the broken stone, but he stopped often, insisting Kira drink, and soaking biscuit in water to make it easier for her to eat. She wasn’t sick again, but her eyes remained dark against the pallor of her face.
The light ebbed and, even though the slope made it awkward, they pitched the sleep-shelters and crawled into them. Caledon hadn’t risked a fire because it would be visible from the Dendora, and their lack of escort increased the dangers from any wandering Shargh. The Weshargh had been decimated in the fighting, but a lone herder’s spear could kill just as effectively as a warrior’s.
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br /> Kira seemed recovered in the morning and they came down into the foothills and out onto the plain without mishap, making good time and not setting their sleep-shelters until stars filled the sky. They went on again at dawn, but as the day drew to dusk, Kira’s illness returned and they were forced to stop.
‘Were you ill in the north?’ asked Caledon, when her vomiting had reduced to retching.
‘Not like this,’ replied Kira shakily, thinking of the warnings of poisonous plants she’d found in the first Kiraon’s lists.
If she had touched something like frailfrond in the Wastes – which could induce ‘a general malaise’ – she could be ill all the way to Allogrenia, becoming not only a nuisance to Caledon, but a dangerous burden as well.
Kira didn’t feel much better the next morning, only eating the biscuit to please Caledon. He kept the pace gentle, and stopped often, but as the day wore on he brought his arm around her and Kira didn’t protest. And when they set camp early, Kira crawled into the sleep-shelter and slept.
Caledon slept poorly, increasingly troubled by Kira’s apparent ignorance of her illness and wondering for the first time whether she was being honest with him. In the end he clambered out of his sleep-shelter and, taking a long, calming breath, stared up at the stars and opened himself. The sense of death – her death – was so powerful that it was like a blow.
What if Kira were journeying home to die and had broken with the Feailner to save him the pain of watching it? The idea was so disturbing that Caledon had to resist the urge to drag her out of the sleep-shelter and demand the truth. Instead, he forced himself to calm. He had an excellent ability to detect deceit, he reasoned, and he’d sensed none when Kira had professed not to know the nature of her illness.
