by Jane Kindred
She arrived at the Temple of Ra, now known as the House of UtMerit, apparently ruled by some new form of prelate who called himself the Lord Minister Protector of the Court of Rhyman. Ume’s admirers, swarming about her like bees in a flowering garden as she shopped in the market for information, were eager to tell her all the latest rumors. There had been a coup by this UtMerit at the same time that the fire at the Court of In’La had taken Prelate Nesre’s life. Ume had been there in Ludtaht Alya for that, but her concerns in the wake of the fire, with the knowledge that Cree had given birth all those years ago not to a stillborn child after all but to a live son they now believed had perished in the flames, had overshadowed everything else.
The Caretaker had told her and Cree that MeerRa herself, newly renaissanced, had started the fire at Ludtaht Alya to free Pearl. Apparently, she’d also destroyed the prelate of Rhyman at the same time, leaving UtMerit in charge. Some of Ume’s admirers were certain MeerRa was at the temple still, in the form of Lord Minister Merit’s Second, a man named Ahr Naiahn.
The coincidence was too great. Cree had told Ume, after running into him months ago at Mole Downs, that their one-time co-conspirator in the expurgation of the Meer now went by the name of Ahr. And where else keep the child of a Meer but in the temple of one? Ume thanked her new friends, accepted the posies and silk kerchiefs they gave her as tokens, and declined with gentle sincerity to entertain any offers at the present time. She had business with UtMerit’s Second.
The temple was guarded in the manner of old, with a quartet of sentinels at each approach to the open arches, and Ume’s charms worked as they once had, gaining her a blushing escort straight to the top of the steps. She firmly pushed away any thoughts of the first time she’d entered a Meeric temple, the day that Alya had asked for her. She couldn’t afford to indulge in those memories now.
The sentinels at the arch relayed her request to see Naiahn to the servants within. She’d given her name as Ume Sky, making no attempt to disguise her identity. Azhra—Ahr—would know it.
In a moment, the answer had come from Naiahn. Ume was ushered through the magnificent entrance hall, showing a hint of the single-domed interior and its mosaics of gemstones, into a cozy, wood-paneled study that seemed out of character with the rest of the place. The room was empty. She sat with courtesan grace, asking no questions and expressing no surprise when the servant left her, despite her curiosity. Ahr would come in due time. Outwardly, she was composed and serene. Inwardly, her stomach was in knots.
Ahr hesitated outside the arch, struck by the image of the Maiden Sky looking as if she’d stepped right out of the past. Ahr’s past, that he’d hoped was done coming back to haunt him. He’d avoided her—fled her, really—at Mole Downs last winter, terrified to face her in a way that not even his discomfort at seeing Cree, who’d known the old Ahr far better, could match. Ume had loved MeerAlya as Ahr had loved Ra, and Ahr had incited the mob that had murdered them both.
It was time he faced her. “Maiden Sky.”
Turning toward him on the divan to acknowledge his greeting, Ume rose gracefully. Her unusual amber eyes would have dominated her face even without the veil beneath them. Expertly applied kohl embellishments enhanced the almond shape, topped by a glittering blush of rose-gold flakes that had to be nearly impossible to come by in the post-Meeric Delta.
Ume bowed her head slightly in greeting. “UtAhr.”
“Ai, don’t. No need for that.” He strode into the room as if his legs weren’t rubbery with nerves and took her hand as she offered it, giving the soft knuckles an awkward kiss. “Please, sit,” he offered, and did so himself in the chair across from her to hide the unsteadiness. He waited until she was comfortable once more before he spoke again. “I’m surprised to see you here, Ume. What brings you to Rhyman?”
Ume unhooked the veil from the clip above one ear and let it drape against her shoulder. Over the other, a peek of the famous tawny tresses swung forward, striking against the earthy hue of her skin. “I wasn’t sure you would see me.”
“Why wouldn’t I see you?”
Ume blinked her eyes rapidly—on anyone else, he would have called it “batting” them, but she managed to look both seductive and sincere at once in the gesture. “You ran away from me in Mole Downs. Cree said you didn’t want to see me.”
“It wasn’t that I didn’t want to see you, it was…” He paused, lifting his shoulders in a helpless shrug. “I didn’t want to be seen.” He fiddled with the ring on his right little finger, turning it about beneath the knuckle in nervous revolutions. “After what I did—”
“What we did,” Ume said firmly. “We did it. All of us. No one bears more blame than anyone else.”
“I don’t know about that,” Ahr began, but Ume was already moving on.
“What brings me to Rhyman”—she lowered her voice—“is Pearl.”
Ahr tilted his head quizzically. Where had he heard someone mention “pearl” recently? “How do you mean?”
“There’s no need to be concerned,” she went on in the same low tone. “I have no intention of telling anyone what he is. It’s just that I have a particular interest in Pearl’s welfare. You know, I suppose, that it was Alya’s seed—”
“Ume, slow down.” Ahr shook his head, baffled. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Alya’s seed?”
Ume blinked again, as if she didn’t quite believe him. “Pearl.”
Ahr opened his hands in his lap in bemusement. Why was she going on about Alya’s seed and pearls? He felt as if he’d walked into the room mid-conversation, even had the peculiar sensation he might have been mesmerized by her words and had missed the conversation even while it was happening.
“Ahr, I don’t…” Ume’s words trailed off and she stared at him as though trying to ascertain whether he was playing stupid about whatever it was she was talking about.
The room was suddenly stifling, and he felt somewhat flushed. “Let’s take a walk in the garden,” he suggested, offering his arm as he rose.
The courtyard garden was exquisite, a sort of suspended-animation fairy tale place that Ume could have daydreamed in for hours. But she was distracted from its pink-blossomed beauty by Ahr’s peculiar behavior. It was clear from searching his eyes that he was genuinely confounded by her talk of Pearl. But the Caretaker had been certain the boy was with Ahr. The Hidden Folk couldn’t have made a mistake.
“Now,” said Ahr, leading her through the garden like any suitor in In’La. “What was it you wanted to discuss with me? Is Cree all right? Why isn’t she with you?”
“Cree’s fine. She’s taken a job on a fishing boat for a few weeks, and I’ve come to Rhyman on my own.” Ume decided to take a different tack. “May I speak freely here?”
“Of course,” Ahr assured her. “We’re alone, and Merit’s staff is unfailingly loyal and practices the utmost discretion.”
Ume slowed. “I was in Soth In’La when Ludtaht Alya burned.” She glanced at him to gauge his reaction. “At Ludtaht Alya itself, in fact.”
“Mee—” He stopped himself in the midst of a Meeric imprecation. “My goodness. But you weren’t injured?”
“No, I got out safely. And I believe there was only one who was meant to die in that fire.”
Ahr met her sidelong glance. “Prelate Nesre.” They walked for a moment longer and then he stopped and turned to her at a safe distance from the sentinels at either end of the courtyard. “You know how the fire began.”
“I believe I do. And I believe you do.”
“Is that why you’ve come?” Ahr stiffened. “Do you intend to blackmail Merit?”
“Blackmail him?” Ume laughed, astonished. “Meeralyá, no.” The use of the prohibited expletive seemed to convince him she was no anti-Meerist spy. “I just wanted to talk about…” She held his gaze a moment. “Them.”
Ahr’s eyebrow twitched with conf
lict. “What we did to them?” It was clear he knew whom she meant.
“No, I told you. I’ve forgiven us all for the past. I’m more interested in how they seem to live on—in the hearts of those who knew them.”
He nodded. “They do seem to…persist.” So he knew exactly what she was talking about now. He’d as much as admitted that Ra was alive. “Their legacy is difficult to let go of. But I have.” He gave her a significant gesture with his eyes. “Whether and where that legacy continues, I cannot tell you. But the Meer of Rhyman is no more.”
“And of In’La,” said Ume, dropping her head in a reverent nod to Alya’s memory. “Although I can’t help thinking there are some aspects of that legacy in particular that live on.”
Ahr tilted his head again. She was losing him. “The gadgets and inventions, perhaps.”
“So you believe there’s nothing more?” Her voice dropped to a whisper, and she spoke the forbidden name. “Of Alya?”
Ahr took her hand and pressed it, his deep blue eyes sorrowful. “What happened in Rhyman,” he said carefully, “was a fluke. The Expurgists were thorough. We were thorough. We destroyed them.” His voice caught, and he shut his eyes for a moment until he’d regained his composure. “We have to live with that, Ume. Don’t cling to the past. Accept it, but let it go.”
Ume nodded, squeezing the hand still holding hers. “It’s not the past that concerns me anymore.” She had to try once more. “It’s Pearl.”
His gaze didn’t falter, but something slithered over the surface of the deep blue like a sea serpent in the depths of an ocean. “I’m sorry, Ume. I don’t follow.”
Perhaps Pearl hadn’t spoken his name. Nesre had said he couldn’t speak. She gripped Ahr’s arm and glanced about before she leaned close and spoke urgently. “The boy,” she whispered. “I know he was with you.”
“Who? What boy?” Ahr’s confusion was genuine.
It didn’t make sense. The Caretaker couldn’t have been wrong, and she had no reason to lie. She’d asked for Ume’s help. Ume could only speculate that whatever trouble had come, whatever had broken the connection the Hidden Folk had with Pearl, it was something magical, and diabolical. Ahr had forgotten him.
She abandoned the line of questioning and turned the conversation in a direction that seemed safer. “May I ask you something personal, Ahr?”
“Of course.”
“Your transformation…”
Ahr nodded, looking down at his feet, a slight pink in his cheeks beneath the canopy of blossoms. “I’m a hypocrite, obviously. I solicited the services of one of them.”
Ume was tempted to remark that the Expurgists hadn’t been so thorough after all if yet another had survived, but she kept the observation to herself.
When Ahr glanced up, it was clear the pink in his complexion wasn’t a reflection of the blossoms. “It was a rather unconventional bargain. I don’t think this particular—practitioner—would be willing to do it again.”
Ume laughed. “I wasn’t asking, my dear.” She gave him the full Maiden Sky treatment, with a look that sized him up as well as down, conveyed her appreciation for his form and promised that should he ever feel so inclined, and were she in a favorable mood, he would find himself so thoroughly satisfied he wouldn’t know what hit him. “I’m quite comfortable with my innate femininity.”
Ahr’s blush turned crimson. “Of that, Maiden Sky, I have no doubt.”
Ume wrapped his arm around hers once more in a gesture of sisterly companionship, the provocative demeanor put away like one of her cosmetics, and headed back toward the temple as though the two of them were old chums and not co-conspirators in the greatest treason the Delta had ever witnessed.
“What I meant to ask,” she explained, “was why. You never seemed inclined in that direction.” Azhra had spoken bitterly of hating being a woman, but it had seemed more a resentment of the injustices she faced because of her sex than a discomfort with the form she was in.
“I wasn’t.” Ahr was quiet for a moment. “But I loathed myself after the Expurgation. Loathed the sight of myself. Loathed what I’d done to—” He cut off abruptly, and Ume continued to walk with him, respectful of his emotion as he brought it under control. “I’d forfeited my right to be a woman. And I suppose I thought being a man would be easier.” He laughed good-naturedly at himself, dispelling the heaviness of the moment.
“Well, it certainly can be,” Ume agreed, and then threw him a wink. “But having been both, I’d have to say I didn’t care for it.”
Ahr smiled. “I suppose it’s grown on me. It just feels like who I am now.”
“It does appear to suit you. You seem content.”
They’d reached the arch before the hall and Ahr stopped. “Do I?” The idea seemed to surprise him, but he nodded thoughtfully. “Do you have lodgings for the night? Merit and I would be happy to have you here.”
Ume swatted his arm playfully. “What cheek, sir! I’m a married woman.” He blushed again, which Ume found delightful. The female Azhra had been somewhat unmovable. “All teasing aside, I’d be very grateful for a room. I’m headed elsewhere in the morning, but it would be lovely to freshen up here instead of some tawdry inn.”
Accepting a room had seemed a fine idea at the time, and dinner with Ahr and Merit was a treat. Both the food and the company were exceptional. But after she’d retired for the night, Ume found it almost impossible to sleep. The last night she’d spent in a Meeric temple had ended in blood and horror. Whenever she closed her eyes and started to drift off, she jerked awake with her heart pounding, transported back to that early morning, after her rapturous night with Alya, when she’d been dragged naked from the bed by his templars and out onto the steps of the temple to watch Alya die.
There was no sense in continuing to lie here tormenting herself. Ume sat up, pulling on the robe Merit had provided, and lit the lamp by her bed. She’d persuaded Ahr to give her a tour of the temple, seeking any sign of Pearl, but found nothing, and her attempts to bring up the subject with UtMerit had been as fruitless as they’d been with Ahr. The only things that might have been Pearl’s were a handful of lovely pastel drawings that had been framed and hung here and there throughout the temple. When she’d asked Ahr about them, he’d turned to Merit, uncertain of their origin, and Merit had only shrugged and said they must have been here before he’d occupied the place.
One of the drawings hung on the wall above her bed, and Ume raised the lamp to study it. Pearl’s father, MeerAlya, had been an artist. He’d painted Ume, in fact, the beginning of his seduction of his own sacred courtesan. The memory of his stark appraisal of her still made her blush—and nothing made Ume Sky blush. He had engaged her, he said, to have her sit for him, and he’d drawn her first, and then brought her back for a second assignation to show her the sculpture he’d done of her. No one had ever looked at Ume without desire, but MeerAlya’s gaze had seemed purely analytical, a study of his subject for a work of art. And yet it hadn’t. His pale azure eyes had gazed not only on her but straight into her, making her feel naked in a way that she’d never experienced with any ordinary man.
Ume shook the memories away and concentrated on the drawing before her. These lines had the flawless look of the same Meeric sensibility to them, rendered with exceptional care and skill. The drawing depicted a bustling pier in the southern Delta, the color so vivid and the detail so rich she felt she could almost step into the scene.
Ume rubbed her eyes. She was sleepier than she thought. The waves beyond the pier seemed to be moving. In the distance, a ship she hadn’t noticed before was setting sail. Ume rose onto her knees to get closer and held the lamp higher. The ship, in fact, dominated the picture. She couldn’t imagine how she hadn’t noticed it before.
On its hull, the name of the ship was painted in white, clear script against an almost ebony wood: The Lady’s Bounty. Two figures stood on the deck, a man
and a child, isolated in a vignette of light. They turned toward her distinctly—impossibly—and Ume gasped. She knew the faces. The man was the Meerhunter, Pike, who’d abducted her twice in his quest to find MeerRa. And the child was Pearl.
Ten: Restitution
The vaguely troubling visit of Ume Sky was as brief as it was mysterious, but it had given Ahr a sense of closure to the life of the girl he’d been. It was an immense relief to know Ume didn’t blame him for the death of MeerAlya, even if Ahr still blamed himself. He’d hated feeling that his vendetta against Ra had destroyed the life of another Meeric consort—and who knew how many others throughout the soths there might have been? But Ume seemed happy, and he was glad she’d found peace with Cree outside the Delta.
Though it didn’t explain why she’d chosen to come back not once but twice in recent months. Somehow, he knew, it had something to do with Ra. If Ume and Cree had fallen in with Meerhunters—which he found unlikely—he knew there was no trace of Ra in Rhyman. He had to content himself with the knowledge that any threat to Merit’s reign had been successfully averted. The only trace of Ra was in Ahr’s merciless memory.
Both the Ra of the past and the Ra of the present seemed to be vying for Ahr’s affections within the ceaseless torment of that arena. Ahr couldn’t go anywhere within the temple without one of his ghosts following, reminding him of how MeerRa’s body had smelled and tasted—and how it had felt to be tasted by him—how the sheen of his ebony hair had caught the light here as it swung when he dipped his head to Ahr’s breast, how the petals in the courtyard had scattered in that deep silk as he lay above her there, both of them naked under the moonlight and unashamed.
When he tried to replace that memory with another, to punish himself by reliving the Expurgation as he had for most of his life, he saw instead the renaissanced Ra, wet from the river on that night she’d meant to drown—for Mila, she’d said; for the daughter she’d stolen from Ahr. Ahr had breathed life into her, refusing to let her go, and Ra had looked up at him when she’d opened her eyes, her hand brushing wistfully against his cheek. “How I loved you.” Gods, how he’d loved Ra also.
