She swiped at her face to erase the traces of sentiment. Then, she rose from the chair and stepped to the door. She opened it, and, there, waiting, stood not only Bala and Eloise, but Nalin as well. They looked to her as though they expected her to announce a miracle, but, one by one, their expressions lost all semblance of hope.
“He’s gone,” she told them, her feelings fighting to have her. “I saw Jozan and his spouse, I believe, there to greet him.” She paused, closed her eyes, breathed deeply and became Ariannas once again. “It was a peaceful passing,” she concluded after opening her eyes, her demeanor flat after silencing her emotions.
Bala and Eloise pushed past her into the bedchamber, but she didn’t move.
“Are you all right?” Nalin asked, and she nodded. “You were in there for hours.”
Ariannas looked around and realized the light seemed more like midday than morning.
“I need to rest,” she told Nalin.
“Your room is ready.”
And with a nod, she followed Nalin down the hall where hopefully a soft bed awaited her.
CHAPTER NINE
comings and goings
Korin woke up and felt as tired, cranky and achy as he’d felt this morning when he’d laid himself down on the pallet. The child in his pouch continued to grow, drawing energy from him. He’d never complain, but each night spent tending the malla crop on top of the mesa grew harder and longer, tapping deeper into his endurance. Two months remained before this child would emerge, and he wasn’t sure how much more he, much less his back, could take.
He lay there for another minute or so, his fingers stroking the down-covered babe at his teat. He’d once believed he loved Lisen, but this was different, a love so all encompassing and demanding he could do nothing save surrender to its power. No matter the discomfort, underlying everything a child grew within his pouch, and that was a miracle—a word he’d never expected to use describing anything in his life.
He rose finally, slipped into his old Guard tunic—beige, with its emblem removed—and noted that he’d soon have to find something looser around the belly to wear. He’d ask around; there were always post-outcoming parents with a tunic they were willing to pass on to someone in need.
Soon maybe. But not now. He gave his tunic a little tug over the bulge. He patted his pouch softly and allowed a smile to drift across his lips. Then he adjusted his black eye patch, abandoned his smile and stepped out to the dining area for the first meal of the day.
A cacophony of conversation greeted him as he reached the dining area’s opening. He paused, considering the possible source of so much noise from this group of Thristans who had lately practiced quieter discourse. Something had aroused them, and he could only learn what that was by stepping in and getting involved.
“Korin!”
He heard the shout, looked towards its source and saw Ondra, dressed in a celebratory red. She was back, and her presence explained all the noise.
“Ondra. You’re here,” he responded and realized the cave had gone silent at his arrival.
“And you’re getting bigger.”
He watched her step towards him, filled with herself and whatever she’d been up to while she was gone.
“We need to talk,” she said, cornering him at the entry.
“And I need to eat,” he replied. He wanted nothing to do with her bundle-of-joy-filled plans.
“Rika, make a plate for our friend.” She barked this order to her spouse and then dragged Korin out into the tunnel.
“Ondra,” Korin said in a measured tone, “is this necessary?”
“Korin, I miss you.”
“What?” His eye locked on her eyes—one, then the other—as he absently took the plate Rika offered, noting how quickly Rika disappeared back into the dining chamber.
“You were gone for years,” Ondra said with a pout. “Now you’re back, but you’re not really back, are you.”
“What are you talking about?” Confusion was a companion he’d learned to accept as the pouching continued, but he doubted he’d have understood what Ondra was trying to say even if he weren’t filling up with child.
“You still feel the tug of the comforting green lands beyond the Rim, but whatever happened over there, you’re no longer welcome. Otherwise, you’d be there and not here.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, don’t I?” Ondra raised an eyebrow. “Just don’t go looking for a way to redeem yourself with the Garlans,” she enunciated carefully.
He sighed in frustration. “Now, if you don’t mind, it’s time for breakfast.” He stepped away from her and into the dining chamber. Most everyone was finished now, so he sat alone, and he heard Ondra huff and then the slap of her sandals as she barreled down the tunnel and away from him. This was anything but over.
Later, on top of the mesa, Korin’s mind wrestled with Ondra’s summation of his attachment to Garla. Did he still feel the tug? Of course he did. He missed the Guard. His place was there, protecting his Empir, wasn’t it? And what in the name of the Maker and the Destroyer had moved Ondra to confront him? She herself had been gone for a while, long enough to get well into Garla, but why? What was she up to? Was she looking for Lisen? Wanting to be sure she was dead or prove that she wasn’t?
“Korin?”
He turned, believing the voice had come from behind him. But, no, he was alone. He returned to his work.
“Korin?”
The babe at its teat shifted in his pouch, and he straightened up this time to counteract the pain in his lower back.
“You will not sssee me.”
Korin stood still, worried that one of the snakes was aiming for him. Or perhaps one had already bitten him, and he hadn’t noticed the sting of the bite. Either way, he was hallucinating. He’d known it wasn’t safe for one pouched to work out here on top of the mesa. The damn snakes usually hid from people. But every once in a while…, he thought. And the victim requires a quick response from those nearby. But he was alone, no one around to help him.
“You wonder about your friend. You ssseek truth. She doesssn’t want you to know the truth.”
“What have you done to me?”
“Do not fear. You are unharmed. Jussst communion with ssspirit.”
Overwhelmed unexpectedly, Korin dropped to the ground and sat there, wishing for sense to emerge from the nonsense, but it never came. Nor did any further word from the thing, whatever it was, that had spoken to him. If he’d possessed faith in the unknowable, he would have thought it Mantar who had spoken to him. But he believed none of that. He sat a bit longer, regaining his bearings, and when he stood, he returned to the mesa, early. It was time to put in his request.
He made his way through the upper mesa labyrinth and came to the Elders’ chamber. He sat outside on the small curved waiting bench, knowing his presence there would summon someone to meet with him. Finally, he rose and stepped through the curtain and into the chamber. He bowed—left, right, center—following tradition, momentarily ignoring the face of the one standing there waiting for him, the face he’d hoped for.
“Korin,” Elder Hozia said.
He bowed directly to her this time, his heart full of awe. “Elder Hozia.”
“You appear troubled. You left your work midway through. The question is why.”
“Forgive me,” Korin began.
“Come, sit with me, Korin,” Hozia invited, and the two of them sat down on the stone bench circling the domed chamber.
“I wish to be removed from my duties on top of the mesa. The manta roam there, and I think it unwise to expose a pouched child to their poison.”
“They rarely bite anyone outside of the Farii,” Hozia reminded him.
“I know. But I’ve felt their sting there and believe the child I carry should be spared the agony of their venom.”
“I will speak to your tasker. Latlor, I believe, isn’t it?”
“Yes, she’s the one.”
> “It is done,” Hozia assured him. “Return to your chamber. By tomorrow’s breaking of the fast, you will have a new assignment.”
“Thank you, Elder,” Korin said and started to rise.
“Stay,” she said, touching Korin’s arm. “Something else troubles you. Perhaps the return of an old friend?”
Korin sighed. He could hide nothing from this woman. Her keen perception was one of the reasons he’d chosen Hozia to work with Lisen all those months ago.
“Ondra’s not my friend, not anymore.”
“Her movements, then. Her comings and goings.”
“This is the first coming and going I know of. How could that trouble me?”
“Only you can answer that.”
Korin nodded. Hozia read through to the truth of things and now urged him to do the same. Her and whatever spoke to me up top, he thought. It seemed to be the real task for this time of awaiting emergence—seek Ondra’s truth.
“I will consider it, Elder,” he promised.
“For your sake, Korin, not mine.”
He nodded again, and this time he rose from the bench. He bowed to Hozia, who remained sitting, and strode from the room.
His mind refused to work as it should. The demands of the pouching ate away at his reason, requiring more and more concentration for him to maintain his guard. Hearing voices up on top of the mesa was one sign of how unbalanced he was. And he still had two months until the outcoming. How in the name of the Maker and Destroyer would he manage to sustain any semblance of sanity? Seek the truth, he told himself as he headed down the tunnel. Seek the truth and hope I find it.
Ariannas stepped out into the morning sunshine of Seffa’s receiving yard and found everyone in her party waiting for her as she’d ordered, including Nalin. He looked at her, disgruntled. She’d only issued her orders a short time ago and hadn’t discussed her departure with him in advance. She understood his displeasure; they weren’t staying for Elsba’s funeral.
But they’d been here for nearly two weeks already with the funeral still five days away, and although she’d hoped to endure Eloise’s presence here—both of them avoiding each other around every corner—she’d failed miserably. So, last night, in a moment of billowing grief and unremitting anger, she’d decided to leave before she could no longer conquer the urge to kill the damn sooth who’d laid waste to her life. Her dream this morning of snakes eating babies—the details of which she couldn’t recall—had sealed her decision.
“Have you apologized to Bala?” Nalin asked as Ariannas approached him. He stood beside their two horses, their reins in his hand. Pharaoh looked ready to fly.
“I’ve said my good-byes.” Did he think she lacked common courtesy?
“You’re not staying for the funeral. An apology is in order.”
She huffed, slapped the gloves she was about to pull on into the palm of one hand, turned on her heel and returned to the castle.
Bala looked up as Ariannas stepped into the entry. The young noble’s brown eyes glistened, and Ariannas realized she’d caught the new holder crying. Bala was nearly two years younger than she, but Ariannas had never seen her this vulnerable.
“My Liege?” Bala said. Her words echoed against the stone of the two-story entry hall.
“Yes.” Ariannas cleared her throat. She had to find a way to explain this sudden departure, something better than “I can’t stand your aunt.”
“Did you forget something?” Bala asked.
“No. No, that’s not it. I…I want to apologize. I know I should stay. I’d like to, really, but you see, I’m the necropath. And if I’d come from Erinina or Solsta, I’d have been gone long before now. Necropaths don’t attend funerals. They guide and then leave. I hope you understand.”
Bala nodded at the barrage of words. Ariannas hadn’t been able to stop them; they’d burst forth from her mouth and kept coming.
“No. Yes. Of course I understand. And Nalin’s returning with you?”
“Well, that’s what I’d planned on, but it’s really up to him.”
Bala nodded, and after touching the new holder of Minol on the shoulder, Ariannas exited the main castle entryway. She stepped across the yard directly to Nalin who still held their horses’ reins.
“You can stay if you wish,” she said flatly.
“May I speak with you privately?” It sounded like a question, but this was how people ordered their superiors around—by making that order sound like a request, one that would accept no denial.
“Yes, of course,” she replied.
He handed the horses off to one of her guards, and he led her behind the huge wooden barn on the other side of the courtyard. He looked off into the distance, avoiding her eyes, and took a deep breath.
“What did you tell Bala?” he asked, refocusing on her.
“What?”
“If I stay, our stories will have to agree. I assume you told her some sort of lie.”
“Not exactly,” Ariannas replied. She’d never heard him so angry. “I told her as necropath I couldn’t stay.”
“But you could if you wanted to.”
“She has her aunt here. She doesn’t need me.”
“She does, but she’d never tell you that. And you do realize that this has nothing and everything to do with what Bala needs, don’t you? You’re not a necropath; you’re the Empir. It’s your duty to be here for the funeral, especially with Seffa being so close to Avaret and you here already. It looks bad. Very bad.”
“You’re lecturing me.”
“I am your Will. You can release me from that responsibility and send me home or accept that this probably isn’t the last time I will, as you say, lecture you. And what is it between you and Eloise? That is the real reason you’re leaving, isn’t it?”
Ariannas struggled with what she wished she could say and what she didn’t dare speak of. “I have no mother. I have no brother. I’m here, and they’re not, and that’s her fault.”
“I’m sure she had her reasons.”
Oh, how she despised him when he turned all logical on her. “Yeah? Well, what were they? Hiding me away at Solsta until my mother hated my brother and my brother hated my mother to the point where one of them had to die? And me, right in the middle, forced to destroy the one left over? There was no one to love me, much less hate me.”
“I am your Will,” Nalin enunciated with quiet determination. “It is my job to advise you when I think you’re making a mistake. This is a mistake. Those attending Elsba’s funeral will think it odd you’re not here. Bala will cover for you about how you were the necropath and all, but your absence is only going to make it harder for the nobles to accept you.”
Ariannas looked down and watched herself dig into the dirt with the toe of her boot. “Stay. I wish I could, but I can’t. Stay for you, not for me.”
Nalin nodded slowly. “I’ll be back in Avaret in a week.”
She couldn’t take any more, so she turned and left him. When she returned to her small entourage, she took Pharaoh’s reins from one of the guards. “Have Holder Corday’s horse returned to the stable. He’s staying.” She looked up at Nalin’s servant who sat on his horse, ready to leave. “You’re staying, too,” she told him. Then she threw the reins over Pharaoh’s neck and mounted him easily. “Let’s get out of here,” she ordered, and she and the three guards took their leave of the Tuane castle for the two-day ride back to Avaret.
Lorain sat, feet up on the couch, fanning herself as she sweltered in the heat of the late July morning. She was hot and huge, her feet a bit swollen, and the baby moved around, distorting her belly. Thank the Creators I only have a few days left in this unpleasant state.
Primate Niko stopped by nearly every day now. A healer before he was called to the primacy of Avaret, he normally didn’t involve himself in such things. But since she was alone, no spouse to keep watch over her, he had taken to checking in on her. He would assure her all was well, would tell her not to worry and then would leave again. Wh
at a comfort he is, she thought ruefully.
She missed Ariel now more than she’d ever missed him before. He would have proved himself to be practically useless in all of this, probably sending her off to where she was now to complete the child’s emergence rather than in the Keep. And yet, not having him anywhere at all was worse than rejection.
The girl, who’d claimed for her own what should have been Ariel’s Keep, stayed locked up with Nalin most of the day, often going out in the morning to ride but keeping to herself otherwise. Nalin returned every night to his quarters here in the old palace, so Flandari’s hopes for a coupling there showed little chance of materializing. For over a fortnight, though, the girl had been gone, and not long after her departure, word had come that Holder Tuane had succumbed to the malady he’d endured during and after the time he’d fought Ariel. But this time, Lorain thought with a smile, he lost.
She knew all of this, of course, because she needed to. Despite the Thristan woman’s promise that her people would watch the Empir in order to plan whatever they meant to do, Lorain felt more secure knowing Ariannas’ day-to-day movements for herself.
Lorain had sent her regrets that she would be unable to attend Elsba’s funeral due to the closeness of her release from pouching’s imprisonment, and she didn’t expect the girl Empir home again for at least another week.
So here she sat, fat and barely able to move, and hating it. She patted her belly and thanked the Creators it was a boy. She knew the way all carrying parents knew—by slipping her hand into the pouch, as she was often drawn to do, and finding the baby in the proper position to inspect the little boy’s anatomy. She had gasped in joy at the discovery; a little Ariel, but an Ariel she could control. She smiled now at the memory. And the best part of it all was that this child had bought her favor with the Thristan woman and her rebels. With the girl gone, she would realize her greatest dream; she would be regent and her son would reign.
Blooded (Lisen of Solsta Book 3) Page 10
