Milton started. ‘I don’t believe it. She killed your brother.’
‘And your daughter has killed your wife and my sister-in-law. She is farther gone than Bel. No woman can handle the True Map – and a woman with the wild talent is a danger to the whole world.’
‘She’s my daughter. You took my wife. I will not let you take my child.’
‘Then you will die defending her.’
‘So be it.’
All around the chamber men raised their swords. Faced them squarely. ‘Will none of you help me?’ said Milton.
‘How does allowing a young woman of wild talent to hold the world to ransom fit with your theories of balance?’ asked one old Map Maker.
Sharra looked at the warlike faces of the men around her. Gently she touched her father on the shoulder, moving him aside, and stepped in front. Ethan’s sword was inches from her face, but she didn’t flinch.
‘I have no wild talent,’ Sharra said in a calm, but loud voice. ‘I was tested when I was very young. I don’t have a drop of Map Maker talent within me.’
Ethan hesitated. Sharra met his gaze without fear. The lines of the Map rippled across her skin. Involuntarily Ethan took a step back. ‘Is that true? But how?’
‘It’s true she was tested,’ said Camden. ‘But she must have been too young for it to show.’
‘Or her father lied,’ shouted another voice. ‘Kill her now. Kill the abomination.’
‘I had no part in her testing,’ said Milton.
‘That’s true,’ said Silverton. ‘He didn’t.’
The Map rippled inside Sharra’s mind and she could not repress a smile. ‘You don’t understand. I am part of the True Map and it is part of me. If you kill me then you will unmake the world and everyone within it.’
Ethan sneered. ‘We will preserve your skin.’
Sharra stretched her arms above her head and allowed the Map to play across her skin so all could see. ‘The Map has bound itself to me. It has grown in form and size. It shows you now more details than you have ever seen of the world, because it is finally whole. It is not only on my skin, it is in my blood and bones.’
Milton went white. ‘No. It can’t be. Bel could not have . . .’
Sharra turned to him. ‘But she did, Father. When my mother came to the Archive she knew I was dying. She tried to draw me at the Hold, didn’t she? But she wasn’t strong enough. I had been touched by black fire and I was being unmade. So she came here to the True Map. You thought she was helping you steal and save the Map, so you could work together to put the world back as it should have been, but my mother never had that intention. She thought only of me. She drew me onto the True Map, into the True Map. Her drawing stole some of the essence of the world and gave it to me to give me life. You cannot kill me without killing the world.’
‘Are you immortal?’ asked Ethan.
Sharra shook her head. ‘No, you must find a way to redraw this Map or I suspect it will pass to my children.’ She cocked her head on one side. ‘Assuming you allow me to live long enough to have children. But then your only alternative is to end the world right now.’
There was silence. Sharra feared everyone would hear her heart beating wildly in her chest. She didn’t know if she was right. She didn’t want to be right. This wasn’t what she had intended, not any of it. And to realise that everything she could do was the result of her mother’s drawing and talent, not her own . . . idiotically that felt the most painful of all. She turned slowly to look at each of the men in front of her. ‘Do not let those who died to bring us to this moment to have died in vain. My father is right. We can bring the world to balance.’
Though the True Map did nothing it seemed again to Sharra as if time had stopped. The emotions of the men in front of her were wide and ranging. Mostly there was fear, some anger and somewhere even jealousy that she had such power. Sharra waited and then it was there, a tiny flicker of hope. ‘I can bring balance,’ she said. The hope grew. ‘You must let me focus on closing the chaos this battle has caused. I must close the pits of black fire. Let me do this before more lives are lost. I beg you.’
‘I believe you.’ Camden came forward and laid his sword at her feet.
One by one the men present followed his example.
Quietly, so no one else would hear, Milton said, ‘We will find a way to redraw the Map, Sharra. Draw it so it comes out of you and into a new, stable form. I promise we will make everything right.’
Sharra kissed him on the cheek and spoke into his ear. ‘I hope so, Father, for all our sakes.’
They made their way out into the garden. The first sun had begun to set and cast a golden glow over the ravaged pathways. At first Sharra thought she must be mistaken. She broke away from her father’s arm and ran forward. There by the last standing tree stood a shadow that didn’t belong here. Couldn’t be here.
Hardly daring to breath she walked forward, slower now, every fibre of her being, willing the impossible to be true.
‘Sharra, you succeeded. I knew you would.’
Laughing and crying at the same time Sharra ran into Maven’s arms, but he caught her by the elbows, held her away. ‘No.’
‘How did you escape? Are you hurt?’
Maven shook his head. ‘I’m not hurt, but neither did I escape. The fissure closed beneath me. I never touched the black fire. But then I found myself trapped in a cavern below. It took me a while to make my way back up here. By that time it seems it was all over. You had done your worst.’ He gave a wry smile. ‘It suits you, you know, the Map. Looks like it belongs on your skin.’
‘It doesn’t. I want it off me. But I couldn’t think of what else to do.’
‘You’ll find a way. You always do. If ever there was a girl who could do the impossible it would be you.’
‘Us. Come with us.’
Maven looked over her shoulder and nodded to Milton. ‘I’m not coming with you.’
Sharra began to protest, but he placed his fingers on her lips. ‘I don’t belong in your world. You need those of your own kind to help you and if you are to set the worlds to rights – as you no doubt intend – then you do not need me to distract you.’
Sharra’s throat constricted. ‘But I do.’
Maven shook his head once more. ‘It is too much. I will forever be asking you to bring back Yasmeen. You are more powerful now. Maybe you could even manage it. But we both know it would be wrong. I need time by myself to accept my loss and to grieve.’
‘Will I never see you again?’
‘If I have learnt one thing from being with you, Sharra, it is that no one ever knows where tomorrow may take them.’
He placed a kiss on her forehead, released her arms and turned to walk away. Milton came up behind her. ‘I would not object if you asked him to stay.’
Sharra shook her head. ‘He has to realise for himself that we belong together.’
‘Will he?’
‘I don’t know, Father. He is almost as head-strong as me. But I hope so. That’s all any of us have now,’ Sharra gestured at the Map on her skin, ‘hope.’
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to Hannah Sheppard for her inspiring editing, Bloomsbury Spark for believing in The Map Maker’s Daughter and the Scottish Book Trust for my mentorship.
Bloomsbury Publishing, London, New Delhi, New York and Sydney
Copyright © 2014 by Caroline Dunford
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First published in April 2014
by Bloomsbury Spark, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing, Inc.
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 4088 5743 4
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