by R. K. Hart
Lida stared at the flowers and gave an incredulous laugh. She wasn’t entirely sure at what: herself, perhaps. ‘We haven’t even been here a day.’
‘He looks like Lir come to life and his children will inherit most of Kell,’ snapped Alys. ‘Not everyone drags their feet at such a prospect, Lida.’
‘Bronwyn didn’t waste a moment,’ Dylan muttered. ‘Where in Andastra’s name did she get those roses?’
‘How is he going to refuse her?’ Alys said; her voice was almost stricken ‘You know what happened last time he was here.’
‘What happened last time he was here?’ Lida said softly. Other than a child.
Alys chewed on her lip and looked determinedly at the foye fe; Dylan was braver and met Lida’s stare with a steady green gaze, but he did not speak.
Lida took a step forward. ‘What happened?’ she demanded.
‘Best ask him, soer,’ Dylan said evenly.
Lida’s hands bunched into fists. ‘I am sick to death of secrets,’ she hissed, and she yanked the curtains closed around her bed before she lay down. She twisted Siva’s ring around her finger for a very long time before she shut her eyes.
***
The white place was crowded with dreamlines now that Lida was in l’Cour du Kali. She floated carefully, waiting for more to appear. After a while, one flickered close to her. She held a cautious hand near its glow, closing her eyes. It had a feeling of warm brashness and, oddly enough, made her think of freshly-baked bread.
‘Dylan,’ she muttered, pulling her hand back.
Aaron’s dreamline would be further away. The farther she got from where she guessed her sleeping body lay, the harder it was to move; she had to draw illae to fuel her pushes forward. She circled tentatively, feeling her way. She had no sense of the direction of the physical world, nor of distance: the encompassing, never ending white seemed to swallow those senses, and there were no landmarks with which to orient herself.
She held her hands out before her as she moved. One dreamline was full of yearning and smelled metallic, like blood, but Lida didn’t think that was right. Another was ambition and rage obscuring an underlying skittishness; she frowned and kept trying.
There was the still calm of a frozen lake, overlain with the sweet, heady scent of a winter rose: Katrin. The next dreamline was the crisp of snow and arrogant heat and Lida smiled, reaching out her hand.
It was not a memory dream this time, but a shifting world of white and shadows. Lida watched, fascinated, as a flock of tiny golden birds erupted from the white mist, flying up on silent wings to be swallowed by the black sky.
‘You found me, then,’ Aaron said from behind her.
‘Can you stop doing that?’ she snapped, spinning around. She straightened uneasily, finding no one there.
She swallowed, hating the feeling of vulnerability. Something moved behind her left shoulder and she swung a wild punch; he caught her fist easily and twisted her arm behind her back. She struggled against the hold.
‘Next time I’m bringing my friend Ava,’ she spat furiously.
‘I hope she dances better than you, cheri. You need training.’ He released her and she turned, but he had gone again.
‘Is this answering my questions?’ she shouted into the mist. It swirled around her, silent.
From the darkness to her left came the sound of a child crying. It was the awful, heart-wrenching sobbing of a little one truly afraid and Lida forgot where she was for a moment, walking towards the sound, searching.
‘What is wrong, m’bebe lapiun?’
Lida stopped still. ‘Maya?’ she called, confused, before she realised it could not possibly be her sister.
‘Ma joli, j’ai l’reve ancore,’ the child sobbed. The mist and darkness merged, and from it appeared a small wooden bed. A tiny boy with white hair sat upon it, crying unreservedly among a pile of pillows, his back soldier-straight. Lida’s mother perched next to him, her arm around his shoulders, stroking his hair. Her own mop of coiling curls were unbound and fuzzy from sleep, her green eyes heavy.
‘It’s all right, lapiun,’ she crooned. Her voice was very gentle, and it was accented in a way Lida had never heard before. Siva’s voice had the same timbre as Maya’s, deep and smooth and warm, not at all like Lida’s knife-edge sharpness. ‘You’re safe. All is well.’
‘It was the same again, ma joli. The leopard came for me.’
‘Did you do as I taught you, bebe? Did you throw her out?’
‘Non, joli Siva. J’n povais pas.’
‘Shh, now, cher bebe. I will stay with you, and if the leopard comes back, I will show you how again.’
Aaron lay down, scrubbing at his cheeks with tiny hands. Siva pulled his blankets up, tucking them around his body, gently stroking his hair back from his forehead. Lida felt a pang of jealousy so sharp she clutched her stomach. She looked smaller, somehow, than Lida had imagined her to be, and Maya’s generously rounded figure must have come from elsewhere, for Lida had inherited Siva’s slighter curves and slender muscle. Her mother looked up and straight at her, green eyes boring into brown, and it was all Lida could do to hold back from running forward and throwing herself into Siva’s arms.
‘I have two shields, yes?’ Aaron said, appearing next to Lida and watching his younger self sleep dispassionately. ‘One around my thoughts, that I take down and put back up at will, and one around my inner self, around the core of me. Most people leave this be, if they can find it at all, but Siva taught me to walk in my memories. It is how I remember her so well.’ He looked down at Lida. ‘You would have one shield only, I think.’
Lida blinked. ‘Yes.’
‘Siva, too, had only one. It is only my suspicion, but I think it is this that allows your gift. You are closer to your memories, and closer to death, and through death you can reach others.’
‘Through death?’
‘You see a white place, no?’
‘Yes,’ she whispered uneasily.
‘Your mother came to me once, when I was older, around ten summers or so. It must have been just before she died.’ He fixed his eyes back on the bed. ‘I was injured, badly.’ He pulled up his shirt to reveal a mess of scars on the side of his torso, raised and angry on his fair skin. The blood drained from Lida’s face, but he continued, unperturbed. ‘I lost a lot of blood, and when I lost consciousness after that, I was in a white place. Siva came, and told me to leave. She said that the white place was for dreamers and the dying, and as I was neither I had no business being there.’ He gave a brief smile.
‘Cathan Valson wrote to my mother when Siva died, but he did not write how it happened. She had given me something when she left - a necklace of hers, with a sea pearl. I sent it back to Cathan.’
‘I have it,’ Lida whispered. ‘Thank you.’ Aaron’s memory-dream had frozen into a tableau; Siva’s eyes shone, otherworldly. Lida swallowed and turned away.
‘She told me you would come one day,’ Aaron said conversationally. ‘She called you m’etoile.’
The scene shifted suddenly, and they stood on a snow-covered plateau, looking up into a sky that stretched further than Lida could imagine, bright with stars. It was so beautiful she found herself breathless; the air was chill on her face and she reached up, as if she could touch the heavens.
He tossed her abruptly from the dream and Lida woke with a start, sitting up in bed with a hand to her forehead. Her blankets were in a pile on the floor and she was shivering. She picked up the covers slowly, carefully spreading them back over her bed.
In her memory, her mother’s green eyes burned.
***
‘Again.’
Lida doubled over, dripping sweat onto the snow. She’d stripped off her tunic and shirt and stood in the flurries of white clad only in a breastband and jodhpurs and she was still flushed with heat. She hadn’t yet had breakfast, and she was ravenous, tired, and above all, angry.
She’d tried to walk from the training ring three times. Each time, Aaron h
ad calmly followed, picked her up, and dumped her back in. Each time, he had demonstrated the ten flowing movements - called l’salut - that formed the basics of all Brinnican fighting styles. Each time, he’d made Lida repeat them. Each time, he had demanded that she do it again. And again.
‘Don’t slouch,’ he’d snapped, and ‘Shift your weight back.’ ‘Lengthen your neck,’ was a comment that made Lida particularly furious - ‘How?’ she’d demanded, more than once - but the latest command had been ‘Lift your arms and stop being lazy,’ at which point she had entirely lost her temper and spat every Eilin expletive she knew. Aaron had merely smiled and ordered her to start at the beginning. Again.
After an hour or so, they had accumulated an audience. It was mostly made up of young women, and Lida doubted they were there to see her sweat. Aaron had removed his tunic, for little reason she could see other than to goad her further; she had torn her eyes from the deliberate display of muscle more than once, grinding her teeth as she stared determinedly at the mountain range instead. He didn’t look wholly real against the backdrop of the snow, as if he’d been plucked from the pages of some faerytale and deposited into the world instead, though Lida thought resentfully that the ethereal effect was ruined every time he opened his mouth. The mess of scar tissue on his side was shocking against the cream of his skin; it made Lida shudder, imagining what might have caused such a dreadful injury, though Aaron himself paid no mind to it.
She moved through the ten positions again, sweating and swearing silently, vowing that she would somehow pay him back. As she brought her arms above her head in the last stance, her entire body shook.
She lowered her hands slowly - it was an effort - and glared at him. ‘Am I done?’
Aaron’s lips curled. ‘For the moment. Wash and rest, and I will see you after lunch. We are going riding. Do not eat too much,’ he warned, walking away without bothering to replace his tunic. The eyes of their audience followed him through the snow.
Lida picked up her clothes, fuming, and trudged back to Katrin’s circle. Breakfast had come and gone hours ago, so she stomped around the tenat angrily, scrounging some bread and cheese to fill her cramping stomach.
‘Aaron is training you?’ Alys said, disbelieving, pulling aside the tenat door to hand Lida a fresh cup of tea. ‘He doesn’t train anyone.’
‘I wish he wouldn’t,’ Lida snapped.
‘Don’t be stupid. Other than Katrin, he’s the best dancer in Brinnica. I’d kill for him to train me.’
‘I will happily swap, Aly.’
‘No, you wouldn’t,’ Alys said smugly. ‘Your face when he touched your hair! I thought you might swoon like a proper Eilin lady.’
‘I’m not a lady, and I don’t swoon. He’s not that handsome,’ Lida snarled, embarrassed, and grabbed her towel for the hot springs, taking the remains of her meagre meal with her.
‘Lor might be glad to hear that,’ Alys called after her.
Lida enjoyed the riding in the afternoon far more than the training. Her muscles were strong after the month-long trek to the north. She merely smiled when Aaron refused to let her saddle or rein Sacred, handing her a light headstall instead. Cathan had taught her and Maya to ride that way, using balance and their knees and light touches to guide the horse, and Lida was proud on her father’s behalf when Aaron begrudgingly admitted that she rode almost as well as a Brinnican child. Even so, the pace he set as he led her through the mountains and across a snowy plain was gruelling, and by the end of it she was so tired that she almost went to bed without dinner. It was Alys who led her from the tenat to the heartfire to eat, and Dylan who elbowed her in the ribs to keep her awake as she slowly chewed and swallowed.
She didn’t remember which one of them put her to bed.
Despite her exhaustion, there was no respite from Aaron during the night. He seemed to have no concept of beginning slowly, or at least not as Lida understood it; his teaching method seemed to be to throw Lida into the middle of something and watch what happened. He did not ask if she was willing, or what she might like to learn; he simply taught, and the rest was up to Lida.
The first lesson in the dreamscape was one that Siva had taught him: how to throw something from a dream. From the way he explained it, Lida likened it to pulling up a quick and solid mindshield and using it as a kind of buffer to push the image back into the subconscious. It was how Aaron had thrown her out, only she was tossed back into the white place or consciousness. Although she did exactly what he told her, drawing and channelling and pushing against him, again and again, she couldn’t manage it.
‘The steps may be different for you,’ Aaron said, frowning, after she’d failed a handful of times. ‘It is not your mind you work within.’ He considered her with narrowed eyes, and disappeared.
‘Aaron?’ she called uneasily. The ground beneath her changed from spring-green grass to a carpet of snow, the air thick with sudden white, and Lida began to shiver.
She spun around, thinking she heard the soft tread of a foot, but she could see nothing through the snow. Her uneasiness blossomed into fear.
There was a low growl behind her.
She spun back in time to see a movement from the corner of her eye. A soft outline, small spots of black moving in the white. A paw print left in the snow, erased in seconds by the falling flakes.
She swallowed. She knew that leopards did not toy with their prey: had she been awake, she would already be dead. She took a deep breath and tried to banish the snow.
It didn’t work. Panic climbed up her throat.
In Alys’ nightmare, she had not known how many of the changes had come from her, and how many had been Alys. She felt the familiar pull of power around her as Aaron began to draw and channel, using his strength to hold the dreamscape firm.
Another growl came from her left. She bit the inside of her cheek and tried to remember to breathe. Something brushed roughly past her legs and she stumbled.
Afraid, she drew until she trembled and her hands were glowing gold. She waved one and the snow stopped falling, frozen in place. She waited, trying to be still while every instinct screamed at her to run.
The leopard came from her right, bounding towards her with a snarl. She threw her hands up wildly and it froze as the snow had, close enough for her to touch its outstretched paws and count its wickedly sharp teeth. Aaron pushed a wave of illae against her and she staggered, determinedly holding the leopard more firmly, realising dimly that she was shaking all over. One of its paws twitched and Lida took in its claws, long as her thumbs, extended and ready to tear. She sobbed, losing hold for a moment, just long enough for it to twist its head, its yellow eyes fixed on her throat.
She drew again, until she felt illae swirl over her skin, but try as she might - push as she might - she could not banish the leopard. Aaron was still fighting, waves of power battering her like a sea wind, but it was as if he was doing it from a distance. He drew, more and more, until Lida could see gold through the snow and the pull plucked almost painfully at her chest; it stopped abruptly.
She waited.
Aaron pushed at her again, frustrated, and this time she barely moved. She realised with a thrill that he had reached his limit; she knew that she had not reached hers. She bit her cheek again to stop a smug smile, and decided on a small measure of revenge. It was an effort, but she stubbornly held the leopard still and walked slowly around it, making a show of admiring its feral strength, its beautiful coat. She reached out to touch it, stroking its graceful back and tracing the dark spots against the white; its fur was surprisingly soft for a creature so dangerous.
She knew she couldn’t banish it, so she stood still for a moment, her skin prickling as power raced across it and around her body. Her fingertips were tingling and her hands were burning hot. The illae was restless: it swirled, waiting, caressing.
Aaron waited with it. ‘What now, Sivasdotter?’ he taunted, his voice snaking through the snow.
The illae wanted to be used. Lida
could feel it wanting. It wanted to move. It wanted to change. She breathed out and flicked her wrist, and she knew a moment of full, pure joy as instinct took over and power flowed through her and she thought, in that fleeting moment of something close to euphoria, this is my gift.
The leopard shrank into a lovely white kitten, pouncing playfully in the snow. Lida picked it up and cuddled it close to her chest, where it purred and licked her chin with a raspy tongue. She laughed, half from relief, and set it down, watching it amble in the drift. Aaron reappeared at her side with a frown.
‘You are stronger than I,’ he observed.
‘Yes,’ Lida said quietly.
‘Hmm,’ he said, but offered no further comment. Lida let the snow fall again with a tired sigh.
‘I will see you tomorrow at dawn, Sivasdotter,’ Aaron said, and he was far gentler this time as he pushed her from his dream.
Chapter Twenty: Whole
Aaron woke Lida the next morning with a rough shake to the shoulder. Lida’s limbs were lethargic, her eyes heavy, and so she ignored him, rolling away and pressing her face into her pillow.
He shook her again.
‘Go away, Aaron,’ she muttered. ‘The sun isn’t up yet.’
‘You have two minutes,’ he said. Lida heard his footsteps recede as she drifted back to sleep.
She woke again as he grabbed her arm and pulled her from the bed. She shrieked, trying to shake him off, but his grip was too strong. She landed on the floor with a thump.
Aaron didn’t let go, just dragged her towards the door of the tenat. She fought him furiously, struggling and kicking; for a moment she considered biting his hand.
He paused in the doorway, as if he’d heard her thought. ‘Will you walk like an adult? Or will I carry you like a child?’
