by Sharon Shinn
Susannah kept her eyes on Gaaron’s face a moment longer, trying to read his expression. Relief—concern—surprise—and then a shutting down of all emotions. Whatever had drawn him to Mount Sinai, it had not been her presence here.
Summoning a smile, she looked down at Miriam, giving the blond girl a quick hug before letting her go. “I came to check on Kaski,” she said lightly. “Nothing more alarming than that. But you! Traveling with the Edori! And what are you doing here?”
“I came with Jossis.”
Susannah’s eyes lifted again, taking in the sight of the black-skinned man with the iridescent hair. Impossible as it seemed, he appeared to be deep in a halting conversation with Mahalah, though a lot of repetition and hand gestures seemed to be required for him to make his meaning clear. “You have made friends with one of our enemies,” she said softly. “But of course you have. If anyone could, it would be you.”
“He is not an enemy. He is a good man. He got hurt and he has lived with us for more than two months, and he has told me so much—”
“But which tribe did you travel with as you lived among the Edori?” Susannah interrupted, although she knew. She just did not want Gaaron to know she knew any part of this story.
“The Lohoras,” Miriam said defiantly.
Susannah took a step back to ostentatiously look over the younger girl. “Yes, you certainly seem to bear the stamp of the Lohoras. I would swear Claudia embroidered that belt for you.”
“She did. And this is a shirt that was too small for Tirza. Dathan made the gloves for me.”
At the name, Susannah started, and then hoped no one else had noticed her reaction. Blessed Yovah, Miriam and Dathan. That would be a combination likely to set the whole prairie on fire.
But no. Miriam was here with the dark-skinned man, claiming him as her friend and watching him closely even as she hovered next to Susannah. Miriam had not made the calamitous choice of falling in love with Dathan. She had made an even worse one.
“You’re right. We have much to talk about,” was all Susannah said. “Perhaps later—when we’ve sorted all this out—”
“Well, I’m staying here as long as Jossis stays here,” Miriam said. “So we can talk after Gaaron is gone.”
Mention of the name turned Susannah’s eyes in the angel’s direction again. He was standing beside Mahalah and the stranger, but he was watching his sister and his angelica. Nicholas had wandered out of the room shortly after entering it, muttering something about food.
So it was just the five of them.
“How did Gaaron happen to find you with the Lohoras?” Susannah asked, keeping her gaze on him.
“He was not looking for me. He was looking for you.”
And that Gaaron must have heard, because he finally walked over to greet her. His expression was still impassive, maybe a little stern. “No one knew where you had gone,” he told her. “I thought you might have sought out your Edori friends. Keren reminded me where they might be.”
“I’m sorry to have worried you,” she said, speaking as coolly as he had. “I thought I would be back before you returned. But Kaski was so happy to see me that I decided to stay a week or two.”
“I would have appreciated a note of some sort.”
“I will be sure to let you know all of my future movements.”
Miriam turned her head from side to side, watching each of their faces as they spoke. “You’ve argued about something,” she declared.
“No,” Gaaron and Susannah answered in unison.
“I hope it wasn’t about me,” Miriam said.
Gaaron laughed. “I would not spend the energy on something so insignificant,” he told her.
Before Miriam could reply to that, Mahalah called out. “Miriam! Come here and help me with this.” And the blond girl skipped away, to leave Susannah and Gaaron face-to-face.
“What is the story here?” Susannah asked. “With Miriam and this man? Surely she cannot—but it seems—”
“With Miriam, there is no ‘surely,’ ” Gaaron replied with faint humor. “She has taken it upon herself to befriend him—though to what extent I cannot be certain.”
“I will talk to her later and see what she will tell me.”
Gaaron looked at her. “You plan to stay here longer, then? I thought Nicky and I could take you back to the Eyrie.”
“I am not ready to go back to the Eyrie just yet,” she said.
He watched her a while in silence. She could read the trouble on his face—read also his thought that this was not the time and place to discuss it. “I wish you wouldn’t be gone very long,” he said at last.
She smiled a little. “I have things to think about. I have found that this is a good place for thinking.”
“If you can get away from all the silly girls,” he said.
“I like the silly girls. But I also like the silence, and I have found an abundance of it here.”
“I must go back,” he said. “Tonight, or in the morning.”
She nodded. “Will you take Miriam with you?”
“I promised to leave her with Jossis,” he answered somewhat bitterly. “And I do not think I can break my promise.”
“Then I will watch her for you as best I can.”
That was the last private conversation they had, which was both a relief and a frustration to Susannah. Part of her wanted to rail at him, weep at him, beat him on the shoulders and force him to pay attention to what feelings lay between them. Part of her wanted to step back, as cool and remote as he, and say, “Very well. You have closed your heart to me. I can close mine to you. Let us see how long it takes you to realize that you are bound to me more tightly than you thought.”
Instead, they joined Nicholas, Jossis, Miriam, Mahalah, the three older women who helped her run the retreat, and a dozen gossiping girls for a tasty but somewhat tempestuous dinner. Every five minutes, one of the acolytes would burst into laughter, or shrink down in tears—two girls jumped up and left the table at different points during the meal—and one came in late, obviously moping. Mahalah treated them all with cheery kindness, though now and then she rolled her eyes at Susannah, impatient with all the display of temper. Susannah could only smile.
Kaski had elected to eat with the cooks in the kitchen, since there would be men present at the meal. Susannah had been amazed at how quickly Kaski had blossomed under Mahalah’s care—the sullen child had become a shy but smiling little girl who would even talk now and then, in quick mumbled sentences. She had made friends with a few of the younger acolytes and positively adored Mahalah. There was no question that this had been the right place to bring her.
And when she was feeling more friendly toward Gaaron, Susannah would tell him so.
After the meal, Miriam dragged Susannah off to relate to her, in harrowing detail, the story of her last four months. They sat on the comfortable bed in the room that had been assigned to Susannah, blankets wrapped around their shoulders to chase away the chill. The tales of cold, hunger, and hard work were familiar to Susannah, and she could not help but see how well Miriam had functioned under the rough Edori lifestyle—but she was shocked by the reports of fending off attacks from invaders.
“You could have been killed—merciful Yovah—”
“Well, I wasn’t,” Miriam said briskly, and went on with her recital. She rather delicately conveyed her interactions with Jossis, dwelling on the slow understanding that had built up between them, emphasizing his intelligence and his thoughtfulness, but Susannah could hear all the words that were not being said.
“I will have to make sure to spend some time trying to get to know this young man,” was Susannah’s comment at the end. She took care to keep her voice noncommittal, so that Miriam did not think she either approved or disapproved of this development.
“I think Mahalah has him now. They went away together right after dinner.”
“Have you thought,” Susannah asked gently, “what happens to Jossis now? You say how well he
fit in with the Lohoras, but—does he want to stay with them? With us? Doesn’t he want to go back with his own people?”
“He doesn’t like his own people,” Miriam said sharply, but there seemed to be a touch of fear in her voice nonetheless. “He wants to stay here.”
“But what do his friends want? If they came to the camp to find him that second time—surely they were trying to recover him—”
“He doesn’t want to go with them. He’ll continue to hide from them.”
“For how long?”
“Until they go away.”
“But what will make them go away? Has he told you that?”
Somewhat fearfully, Miriam shook her head. “Maybe, if he can talk to Mahalah, he will tell her,” she said hopefully.
“He may not want to betray his friends.”
“They are not his friends! They are violent and cruel, and they have hurt him,” Miriam burst out. “He wants to stay here on Samaria, with the Edori and—and with me.”
Susannah nodded. “Well, then, we’ll see if we can make that happen,” she said quietly. “We’ll talk about it some more in the morning. Right now it’s late, and time for bed. Kaski has been sleeping with me. Would you like to spend the night with us? Or . . .” She hesitated and could not bring herself to ask the words. Or would you like to spend the night with Jossis instead? It was ridiculous, she knew. Miriam had as good as forced them all to acknowledge that she was an adult woman, capable of caring for herself and making the decisions that would please her, if they pleased no one else, and yet still Susannah could not help looking at her as a rather willful child. And she could not bring herself to condone this new relationship, however intelligent and wonderful Jossis might be. “Or perhaps you would rather sleep alone tonight,” she ended lamely.
Miriam gave her a smile full of all the wickedness in the world, and impulsively leaned over to throw her arms around Susannah. “I will share the bed with you and Kaski tonight,” she whispered in Susannah’s ear. “But not every night that we are here. Though I am thinking there might be another bed you should be sleeping in.”
Susannah drew away, blushing deeply. Yes, not only a woman, but an Edori woman; Miriam had grown up a great deal. “And I don’t think the issue of where I sleep is of much concern to you,” she said.
Miriam regarded her with a teasing half-smile. “Just ask me,” she invited. “I can tell you how to handle Gaaron.”
Susannah sighed. “You can only tell me how to push him away,” she said. “I want to bring him closer.”
Miriam bounced once on the bed and then came to her feet. “Let’s go say good night to him right now,” she said.
Susannah rather unwillingly stood up. “It’s late. He may already be in bed.”
“All the better.”
“Miriam!”
“We’ll just say good night. He said he was leaving in the morning. And then we’ll get a snack and say good night to Jossis and find Kaski.”
Although Susannah was still protesting, they left the room to put this plan in action. The long, cool corridors were finally quiet—it was late, and most of the whispering, chattering girls had already gone to bed. Susannah had not thought she could learn to love any place of stone and silence, but she was at peace in Mount Sinai. It reminded her of the great mountain chapels where the Edori camped from time to time. Every rock, every seam between hallway and floor, seemed alive with the mystical presence of the god.
But she still did not want to live here. She wanted to be back in the Eyrie, if there was some sort of life she could work out with Gaaron—or among her own people, away from any shelter at all.
They found Mahalah in the great central chamber, but she was alone. “I sent Jossis to bed,” she told them. “He found both the trip here and the effort of speaking with me so exhausting that he could not concentrate anymore.”
“Where is he?” Miriam asked.
Mahalah shook her head. “He is sleeping,” she said gently. “You can see him in the morning.”
“Have you learned anything from him?” Susannah asked.
Mahalah regarded her a moment with her eyes narrowed. “Many things,” she said at last. “Not all of them, I think, should be repeated. Forgive me while I take some time to think through what I know.”
“Well, that’s not fair!” Miriam exclaimed. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter if you won’t tell us anything. He’ll tell me what he told you.”
Now Mahalah studied Miriam with that same close attention. “Perhaps he will,” she said slowly. “But perhaps you won’t understand it as well as I do, or you—well, we will see. I need to talk to Gaaron.”
Miriam looked around the room, where Gaaron obviously was not. “Is he asleep, too?” she asked somewhat scornfully.
“Oh, no,” Mahalah said. “He’s gone.”
Gaaron had left Mount Sinai mostly because he wanted to stay. When he had looked up and seen Susannah standing there, he had been suffused with the strangest sensation—his whole body had tingled with shock. It had taken him a moment to remember that he had been searching for her—and why he had been searching for her—and the circumstances of their last meeting. And then the pleasant, unfamiliar tingling sensation went away, and he felt leaden and stupid and cold.
He had found it hard to talk to her, which was strange, since for the past week all he had wanted to do was talk to her. When he did manage to speak, his words ranged from the commonplace to the accusatory, which made him believe he would have been better off not speaking at all. It had been a relief to go into dinner and be surrounded by all those histrionic girls.
And another relief to see Miriam drag Susannah away for what was sure to be a long conference.
He’d turned to Mahalah. “I have to go,” he said.
She looked up in surprise. She’d been giving instructions to one of the women who worked with her, and her mind was clearly elsewhere. “Go? Go where?”
“Back to the Eyrie.”
“You mean, right now?”
He nodded. “I’ll leave Nicholas here for a day or two, in case you need to get word to me, or in case Susannah wants to return. But I’ll come back when I can.” He smiled. “Because, at some point, we’ll have to decide just what to do about Miriam’s new friend—and about Miriam.”
“He has told me some appalling things.”
“Which I hope you will share with me.”
Mahalah meditated. “If I can. Some of them—I do not know how to explain this—there are some things the god has made it very clear that he wants only the oracles to know. But Jossis knows them. And if I repeat them to you—I do not know how that changes your relationship with the god. I do not know that I want to be responsible for changing that relationship. I don’t know how to say it any more clearly than that.”
“Has he told you yet how we can defeat his people?” The look on her face was troubled, and he smiled somewhat grimly. “I thought not.”
“Jovah knows about his people,” she replied in a low voice. “And Jovah has a plan. But it—for him to carry it out—I am not sure how this can be accomplished . . .”
Too many secrets, too much hesitation and misdirection. Gaaron found himself edgy and restless. He must have action or explode. “You tell me what you can, when you can,” he said. “I’m off for the Eyrie.”
“Can you fly that far by night?” she asked gravely. “Gaaron, be sensible. You flew half the day today already.”
But he was already on his feet, and glancing around for any items he may have shed in this room when they first arrived. No, he had not been carrying much—besides Jossis. “It’s only three hours, and I am wide awake,” he assured her.
“What will I tell Miriam? And Susannah?”
“I’ll be back in two or three days. We’ll talk then.”
And though she argued halfheartedly for a few more minutes, he was determined to go. She followed him down the still hallways, the hissing of her chair wheels making a faint counterpoint to the sh
ushing sound of his feathers against the walls. He kissed her good-bye and then dove into the star-stained night.
After the warmth of the retreat, the cold outside was a shock against all his senses. The air was icy as river water against his skin; the wind smelled like snow. He felt both weightless and motionless, as if his wings merely ruffled the breeze for no purpose but decoration, and he hung suspended in a limitless black expanse of frigid night. It was too dark to see the landscape unfolding below him, too cold to gauge his progress by changing currents of wind against his flesh. He imagined himself just another small star pinned against the black ceiling of the heavens, fixed eternally in place and only intermittently visible.
And yet he flew west and south at a steady, confident pace, aware of the sweep and motion of his wings, the calm intake and exhalation of his breath, the slow but certain passage of time. It was an hour or so before midnight; he would make it to the Eyrie well before the arrival of dawn.
His muscles warmed up as the exertion of flying created a pleasant heat along his veins. Now he could differentiate his body from the ambient air just by the variation in temperature, and he liked the way it felt. The night stroked cool fingers along his spine, ran diaphanous hands through his heavy hair. He glistened with sweat and starlight, phosphorescent against the night.
And still the miles fell behind him like children too slow to keep up. Midnight approached and passed; the sky was still a layered, impenetrable black. Gaaron was almost sorry to think that he would be at the Eyrie within the hour. He felt strong enough to fly to Luminaux and back—to Ysral, if it existed—to the god’s stronghold, so high above him that he could not guess the distance. He could fly to all those places in a single night, and then back to Mount Sinai, where his heart lay.
He was closer now—a few minutes from the familiar home mountain range—and he began dropping down to a more reasonable altitude. The closer he grew to the ground, the more his mind began to fill with earthbound thoughts. He needed to get word to Adriel and Neri about their acquisition of an invader; he needed to consult with Esther on the plans for the wedding (so soon now! And he and Susannah had not even discussed it). He needed to decide what in the god’s name he would do with Miriam. And then there was the Gloria, scarcely two months away. He needed to consult with his own angels about how that event would be orchestrated, for it was more than a single mass sung under the shadow of Mount Galo. It was a whole day’s worth of feasting and entertainment, and there was much planning that had to be done to make sure the event went smoothly.
