HM01 Moonspeaker

by K. D. Wentworth

  Haemas retraced her step and closed off her awareness of the ilsera vibrations. The people closest to her started and stared.

  “There!”

  Haemas glanced around the room. Several Lords were kneeling beside the Ralds, but everyone else was looking at her. Jarid’s still body sprawled in the middle of the Council’s half-circle.

  “It’s all right,” a male voice whispered in her ear. She whirled and looked into the concerned face of Master Ellirt. “He collapsed after you disappeared.” He shook his head. “Nice trick, that. Probably saved your father.”

  She swallowed hard. “Will he . . .?”

  “I don’t know, child.” He took her arm. “There’s the healer. You must ask him.”

  Haemas let the old master guide her back to Jarid’s side, where a man dressed in healer’s black knelt at his side. Her cousin’s eyes were closed and a sheen of perspiration covered his waxen face.

  The healer’s brow was furrowed as he concentrated, one hand resting on the fallen man’s forehead. After several minutes, he shook his head and stood.

  Haemas forced the words out. “Will he live?”

  Before the healer could speak, Jarid’s pale eyes, so like hers, slitted open. “Stupid—skivit.” His voice was only a hoarse whisper. “Can’t—you get any—thing right?” Then his eyes closed and his head rolled limply to the side.

  The healer touched her shoulder. “He was still weak from the accident at the temporal conclave. The energy he drew for even the first blow was too great. The second only speeded his inevitable death.”

  Haemas gazed down at Jarid’s colorless empty face. He looked more like a little boy now than a full-grown Kashi warrior.

  The healer gazed down at the body. “He must have known this would happen.”

  The memory of her time in the Lowlands flashed through her mind, those terrifying days when she had been both head-blind and head-deaf from her struggle to save her father. She remembered the terrible claustrophobia of being locked inside her own head and without control for what power remained, a danger to herself and others. No doubt the healer was right, Jarid had known what would happen. She would rather be dead herself than return to that half-alive state.

  Master Ellirt laid a warm hand on her arm. She let him lead her away from the sorrows buried in that room.

  Speaking in low whispers, the crowd of Kashi men and women drew aside as she and the blind Master of Shael’donn passed.

  * * *

  Dervlin opened the door of Master Ellirt’s study when his daughter knocked. Her pale-gold eyes studied him with cool indifference. He met her gaze, then turned away and gestured at the table where Aaren Killian waited to work out the details of the coming matrimonial.

  She brushed past him. “I have no intention of fulfilling the contract.”

  Dervlin saw Killian smile from the opposite side of the table, then felt anger burn through his veins. “You have no say in the matter! It is a father’s duty to contract his children’s marriages.”

  She crossed to the window and gazed down onto the Shael’donn grounds. She wore shimmering green today in the casual style she had always preferred over his objections, a long loose tunic over soft flowing pants, sharp contrast to the more formal gowns Alyssa affected. The sunlight transformed her waist-length hair to a mass of spun whitegold. A pang knifed through him. He had known that hair in another, happier life, and that high-cheekboned profile. She was Anyah, her long-dead mother, all over again. When had she found the time to grow so tall or graceful? He couldn’t think how it had happened.

  His throat was suddenly dry. “A child owes obedience to her parent!”

  Aaren Killian’s mouth tightened. “And how will you make her obey?” He pushed away from the small table and stood, pulling black leather gloves out of his belt. “Killian’ayn renounces the contract, Tal. I’ll have a list of the amounts and goods you owe me by tomorrow.”

  Dervlin stared at the younger man for a moment, stunned by the loss of face implied if he could not force this through. Would he even be able to hold onto his leadership in the Council? “Give me a few days,” he said. “I suppose she’s had a bad time, but she’ll get over it.”

  “A bad time?” Killian threw back his head and laughed. “You could call it that.” He studied Haemas’s slender form. “Even so, I could almost be tempted. Killian strength seems to have bred true in this one, and she carries herself well. She and Kimbrel would have made a good cross.”

  Dervlin pushed his chair away from the table, wincing at the twinge from his shoulder wound. “Then wait. She’ll come around!”

  Killian shook his head. “She’s been touched by the ilseri. How would Kimbrel keep her at home?”

  Dervlin watched him go. The bastard was right. Who would want an unNamed, disobedient girl who consorted with ilseri, no better than animals in his opinion, and who could apparently just disappear into Darkness-knew-where any time she damn well pleased?

  “I hope you’re satisfied!” He whirled on his daughter as the door closed behind Killian’s back. “No House will have you now!”

  “I don’t intend to marry.” She spread her fingers in the golden light streaming in through the window. “Master Ellirt said I may remain here at Shael’donn and study.”

  “Shael’donn takes no females!”

  “Go home, Father.” Her voice was low. “You have Tal’ayn to see after, as well as Alyssa.”

  “Alyssa Alimn Senn is no longer Lady of my House!”

  Haemas turned her pale-gold eyes to him. A shiver of fear ran up his spine. Those were Anyah’s eyes, he thought numbly. How had this child come to look at him with Anyah’s calm, indifferent moonlight eyes?

  “Alyssa should be your penance.” The reflected sunlight danced orange-gold in his daughter’s eyes. “If you could give her the forgiveness you have never given anyone, not even yourself, then perhaps you would finally be able to find some peace.”

  “Stuff and nonsense!” His hands closed over the carved wooden arms of his chair. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “No,” she said, turning her gaze back to the window, “and I don’t suppose you ever will.”

  He sat there for a dozen breaths, wanting to know what she meant almost badly enough to ask. In the hearth, the fire hissed, then the logs shifted, settling into the ashes.

  He rose and walked to the door of Ellirt’s study, overwhelmed by frustration and anger. “Don’t think that this is over yet!” He put his hand on the knob. “We’ll see what the rest of the Council has to say!”

  KEVISSON MONMART’S hand steadied Haemas’s shoulder as they walked through alternating strips of sunlight and shadow under the lattice-covered walkway. She glanced up at his expectant face, then hesitated when they reached the edge of the Shael’donn courtyard. Rain had fallen during the night, but now the sun shone down bright and strong, making the scattered puddles glitter with a rainbow intensity.

  The entire complement of Shael’donn’s Andiine Brothers and Masters waited in the middle of the courtyard in neat rows—Master Ellirt’s doing. Classes had been dismissed for the morning so the staff could assemble for her Testing. She knew it was intended as an honor, but she hung back, skittish and uncomfortable.

  Kevisson bent close to her ear. “Forget about them.” He squeezed her shoulder. “Master Ellirt is just trying to make a point. He wants witnesses who will testify that you belong here with us.”

  She drew a deep breath, remembering her struggle down in the Lowland forest where it had taken all the strength she could summon simply not to burn both herself and Kevisson into cinders with her out-of-control abilities. “It’s—too soon. I’m not ready for this.”

  If you’re not, then I don’t know who is. Besides, we’re measuring potential today, not training, he said into her mind, and his confident warmth cheered her. He looped his a
rm through hers and escorted her across the wet cobblestones to face Master Ellirt.

  The Lord High Master was robed in traditional white with a gold-embroidered stole of a deep maroon around his neck. “It’s all right,” he said softly. “I haven’t lost a candidate yet.”

  She lowered her head. “What—do have I have to do?”

  “Close your eyes.” He reached out and unerringly passed his hand over her face as her eyelids descended.

  How did he manage that without sight? She took a deep, centering breath and tried to relax.

  I’ll show you someday. His mental tone was touched with amusement.

  She felt his hands on her shoulders, warm and familiar.

  Open your shields and let me find the way. I’m an old hand at this.

  She let her shields dissolve, knowing she was safe with him. She felt the whisper of his mind against hers, then a dark-green coolness carried her away from the warm sun beating down on her face, the dankness of wet stone, the pressure of his hands. The coolness became a green-black river that picked up speed until it was roaring, bearing her faster and faster toward something she couldn’t even imagine.

  A faint light glimmered ahead in the darkness, intensifying rapidly until it was a searing silver-green brightness that burned everything dross and unnecessary away, all her fears and anxieties, doubts, needs. There was only the overpowering Light and its comforting warmth. She felt indescribable joy in that timeless second as she and it merged into an exquisite blending of cool green fire and self.

  As the searing glare faded from her mind, she wavered on the balls of her feet, dizzy, unable to think where she was or what she was supposed to be doing. She pried her eyes open and blinked in the golden morning sunlight.

  Kevisson steadied her with a hand on her arm. “By the Blessed Light, I’ve never seen anyone go that far before!”

  Lord High Master Ellirt dragged a sleeve back across his sweaty forehead. “Well, the next time the Council wants someone of this magnitude Tested, they can bloody well do it themselves!”

  The Test . . . suddenly remembering, she looked anxiously at the waiting faces of the Andiine Masters and Brothers. Had she passed?

  Ellirt winked a sightless eye at her. “I think that we can safely say your level of Talent will be acceptable.” He turned to Kevisson. “Do you agree, Searcher?”

  “Plus-Eleven . . .” Kevisson seemed to consider, his face solemn. “I suppose it will have to do.” Then he extended his hand, revealing a black obsidian ring in his palm.

  She reached out and took the familiar circlet of carved stone between her fingers.

  “Lord Senn gave it to me when he authorized the Search.”

  Haemas pressed the birthring between her palms. The memory of Anyah’s smile flashed through her mind and brought a sudden tingling warmth against her skin.

  Master Ellirt nodded. “And as you have now finally been Tested and certified to possess Talent of a high degree, you qualify for membership among the Kashi’an, the People of the Light. In coming forward to be Named, you are required to leave the days of childhood behind you. Now, before these witnesses, will you Name yourself and enter adulthood?”

  Lifting her face into the streaming sunlight, Haemas began to speak, but then a faint crystalline hum edged its way into her consciousness. Startled, she glanced at the simple Shael’donn portal of native spine-wood and saw the telltale glimmer of blue.

  A sharp black nose emerged from the blue mist, followed by the lithe, velvet-black body of a full-grown silsha.

  Small sister.

  “Summerstone!” Haemas glanced around the courtyard, but neither of the ilseri were visible.

  It is the custom of your people to take a name on this day so that all may know you.

  Haemas dropped to one knee as the silsha bounded across the courtyard to butt its huge head against her chest.

  You are sister to the ilseri now. We wish to give you a name in token of that sisterhood.

  The pale gold of Lyrdriat seeped through Haemas’s mind.

  We name you Moonspeaker, our sister who shall speak for the ilseri among your kind.

  Resting her hand on the silsha’s silken head, Haemas looked up into Master Ellirt’s wary face. “The ilseri also wish to give me a name.”

  “Oh—yes, the Old People.” The corners of his mouth quirked upward. I just hope you realize how livid the Council is already over the thought that their wives and daughters might learn to transfer across time while you insist none of the men ever will. Well, get on with it. We’ll taste that bread after it’s been baked.

  She smoothed the white bodice of her Naming gown. “I Name myself among the Kashi, Haemas of Shael’donn, and among my ilseri sisters, I take the name of Moonspeaker.”

  The silsha growled contentedly low in its throat.

  Master Ellirt shook his head. And now, I suppose this—beast—is to be a permanent fixture. He sighed. As with the rest, it’s going to take some getting used to.

  THE END

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