She would speak just so, she knew, to an injured child. Or an animal, half-mad with pain.
A dusk, heralding the northern, frozen night, had come; after it, after a night so long that she dared not close her eyes, the dawn had followed.
And the dawn, in this thin, dry air, was glorious.
The sun rose, framed by the stone sill; hands that barely felt like her own gripped its edge; breath stopped a moment. For the first time since she"d arrived in this terrible place, she did two things.
She accepted that this was no dream, no capricious nightmare. And she prayed.
There was, in this room, a bed; it was wide enough for two, she thought. Like the city that spread in silence far beneath the open window, the bed was gray and colorless-and as she approached it, as the sun"s rays crested the window"s sill, she realized that it was of a piece with the wall.
The headboard that grew out of the wall itself was tall and plain, except for a single small detail, a symbol that she did not recognize, but felt oddly comforted by, in its center. A circle, made, she thought, of chain, with a flower at its center. But the flower was unlike any flower she had seen; its petals were wild, unmatching. The first was a thing that seemed to flicker and burn, a leaf of flame, the second, a lily"s petal, the third a long, flat leaf-she thought it cornlike. There was a fourth petal, but it had been pulled from the flower, as if by wind. She reached out to touch the symbol. "I would not, were I you."
Her hand stopped a hair"s breadth from the stone; she did not look up, but his shadow fell across the bed. Swallowing, she pulled that hand away and buried it in the folds of her skirt.
"I have brought food."
Silently, she turned; he set it down. And then he stared at her for a long moment, displeased. "Askeyia a"Narin," he said softly, "why do you dispel my magicks?"
She shook her head numbly, her hair tumbling into her eyes and away at the force of the movement. "I-I don"t-I"m not-"
He shook his head. "The room," he said softly, "is warded; from without, no one should sense your presence. But this is the Shining Court." He frowned a moment, and then added, "Askeyia, you have no friends in this Court."
She nodded.
"Neither do I. I am Kialli. The Kialli do not know friendship in any way that you would understand it. It is a mortal flaw-an impulse that draws the weak together and binds them fast. We are, none of us, weak; we seek power, and the power that we seek overlaps in all things.
"You are a part of my plan, of my Lord"s plan; my enemies may well seek you. If you do not stop this, those who seek will find." He did not touch her; did not move at all.
"I-I don"t know what I"m doing. I don"t know what you want me to-to stop."
"I have cast this spell ten times. You-" and then he froze, his frown of a piece with the wall, gray and hard, but only half as cold as his narrowed eyes. "I see," he said softly. "This is most unfortunate."
What? she wanted to shout. What is most unfortunate? What am I doing? But she was afraid of the answer, and she said nothing, and this time he left at once, speaking no words at all, and making no gestures above her upturned face.
The tower was of the stone itself. The mattress, heavy rolls of cotton under broadsheet, was not, and the light warmed it. She sat. She sat in the silence of this terrible room, seeing the dawn give way to day.
It fascinated him, this unconscious rejection of his shadow. As if it were just another minor flaw, some petty injury like the sc.r.a.ping of skin or the breaking of a nail, his shadow, his hard-won Kialli cloak, was cast aside. He was certain a greater spell would hold her, just as a greater injury would call her attention; he could afford neither for the mere trifle of masking her fear; not when so much lay ahead that required true power.
He stood beyond her door, listening to the rhythms of her mortal body. Hearing the breath, the pa.s.sage of air into lung, the flow of blood in vessel and vein. Hearing, beneath that, other workings. He had stayed outside this door for the pa.s.sage of a day and a half, gleaning the information that he required to cast this final spell. It was unlike any spell that the kinlord had cast before it; a subtle spell-a spell that the healer herself might have used.
And because of its nature, the cost was high. The shadow struggled everywhere against his command as he drew it in; fought him as if it were sentient, as if it realized the perversion of its truest purpose.
Two battles, then. The casting of the spell. And the keeping of it. By sheer force of will, he could hold the spell in place, and it was necessary; it was her life.
He chose that moment when the night was strongest, and the moon dim. He touched the door, paused, and then spoke; his sigil burned a moment in air before his hand pa.s.sed through it. Let another Lord speak his name in this place, and the door would grant no pa.s.sage unless they could defeat the sigil itself.
She was awake. Which was unfortunate.
The window framed her; the wind chilled.
"Askeyia," he said. "Come."
But she knew, he thought-or some part of her did. She stood as if she were part of the mountain peak, frozen, immobile.
"Askeyia," he said again, ill-pleased, "if you fight me, this will be... difficult. Fight or no, you will fulfill your role. Come." He held out a hand but he knew, as he did so, that the gesture was futile. She could not give him what he demanded; not willingly. It was not in her nature. And that was, again, unfortunate. He could not wait; his plan required her presence, and it required his power, and the two would slip farther apart as the night waned. Without another word he crossed the room, taking a step, less than a step, so great was the shadow he cast.
She screamed, he silenced her.
Then, in the darkness of tower and pale moonlight, he surrounded her with the effort of days, submerging her. He forced her to drink, to breathe. And as he felt the shadows slide down her throat, as he felt them take root in her heart and her lungs and the vessels that carried her talent-born blood, he closed his eyes.
For she was not-quite-ready for the evening"s work, but he had her body now, and he brought it, quickly, to its time.
The screams could be heard across the breadth of the Shining City. The kin, lesser and greater, froze a moment and then shivered in this familiar wind. The fields of the h.e.l.ls were behind them, yes-but they were carried within as well. They had chosen their place so long ago the lesser kin could not remember the choosing. The greater kin did, but even they, like their lesser cousins, were drawn by the sounds of terror, of pain.
Through the empty streets they came, leaving the mockery of buildings, of manors, of dwellings that had ceased to have meaning for them. They came as if called, as if commanded, as if drawn by a spell they could not ignore.
And they came to ring the tower in which the Lord of the h.e.l.ls reigned. Th^re, in bitter silence, they accepted the crumbs from his table, for they knew that the mortal trapped within would never be thrown to them.
It was a rape, yes, but of more than the physical body; the demands of the Lord reached farther than the magicks of his most subtle servant could have guessed. In the darkness of tower and stone and shadow, her life was the beacon that drew him, and it had taken all of Isladar"s craft to preserve her mind and her life.
He did not hide from her the fact of her violation; could not-although had it been in his power, he would have.
Had she been other than healer-born, he might have been able to force her to see the Lord as the kin saw him, and against the face of such majesty, of such power, she would have willingly offered what had instead been taken.
And had she been of weaker blood, the act itself would not have had to be repeated, over and over, until the course of the evening itself had stripped her of the use of her power. But he knew the moment that those defenses flagged, and when they did, he knelt as the choked and raw noises she made died into a lull, the weakest form of applause that a soul could utter.
"My Lord," he said, speaking clearly enough to make his voice heard, but no more than that, "it is done." Waiting was as natural for the kin as drawing breath was for a mortal-and it was infinitely more necessary if one waited upon the Lord. Impatience was rewarded, in its fashion.
"Bring her back to me," the Lord replied, "when you are finished."
Isladar nodded, still waiting, and at last the Lord bade him rise. To rise, otherwise, was also rewarded. Isladar had stood by the side of his Lord since the h.e.l.ls first opened before them; he was the only one of the Kialli who had occupied the Lord"s s.p.a.ce so closely to remain within it. The others had perished in the charnel wind, their screams loud enough, for an instant, to quiet the whole of the h.e.l.ls. The will of the Lord.
He took the healer-born girl, lifting her tightly curled body in the span of two slender arms. He did not shift her; if he had had the power, he would not have touched her at all. Perhaps it was best this way. Without power, there was no shadow to linger in her eyes, across her skin, in all the wounds and openings.
She did not come at night, and night would have been merciful. The darkness, with moonlight"s weaker silver, would have hidden much: bruises, sc.r.a.pes, tears and rents in cloth and the surface skin beneath it. It might have hidden the odd angle of the leg that had not yet been set. More merciful still, it might have blinded her to the terrible emptiness of the young girl"s expression- or better, to the young givY"s familiar face.
But the sun was high and the sky as clear as the skies in the Northern Wastes almost always were. She could see everything; every detail. Nothing at all was spared her.
I am Evayne a"Nolan and Evayne a"Neaamis-but I swear to you, Father, that I will be a "Neaamis no longer if- Her hands hurt; she glanced down and saw that they were bleeding. Her own nails had pierced skin in the moment it had taken her to draw breath and think. She was, by her own reckoning, fifty Imperial years of age; her hair was a white-streaked darkness, her skin, weathered as even the rocks were weathered by the pa.s.sage of time and the scouring of sand, be it carried by wind or water.
The path of the otherwhen took her where no one desired to go, not even she; of late, it led her from death to death, and she was tired. For more than thirty years, she had walked it at the whim of immortal father and Time, and if it had been a hated path in her youth, it was now just a path, a part of her life.
But her life itself was dedicated to war, and in the service of that war, she was a lone soldier; she paused a moment to fight here and there at the sides of those who were allies, but she did not linger, no matter how much she might desire it. And perhaps, just perhaps, she had come to see the wisdom of that forced choice.
There had been little rest in the past few months, and she was certain, although no battle"s sound reached her ears, that there would be no rest here, for either herself or the girl. But the girl was not dead yet.
At least there was hope.
As if she could hear the intake of breath, the girl who lay curled upon the stone bed lifted her hands in a gesture that was half plea and half defense; her lips were thick and swollen, the side of her face, purpled by the blow- by several blows-of a large hand.
And yet, even this disfigured, Evayne a"Nolan recognized Askeyia a"Narin. Levee"s student; a child, an almost-woman with a soft heart and a naive desire to see great deeds done. Of Levee"s many students, Askeyia was one who hovered, hoping against hope to catch some snippet of dread destiny, as if it were a disease. Not even in her coldest moments would Evayne have pointed out that this, this meeting, was one such thing.
She had never seen a healer this injured who still lived; it was against their nature, and their instincts.
"D-don"t-" the girl said piteously, "don"t." But it was weak and fragile; the sound a mouse might make when it had been in play too long between the paws of a cat.
She, who had seen much, looked away.
She did not recognize this room; it was barren of any detail that might have given it light, or a sense of comfort or warmth. No; light came from the window, and the window was a thing of stone. She turned, as if the need for light was greater than any other impulse, and stared out; stared down.
When she turned back to the injured girl, she was as gray as the stone itself. Evayne"s robes were blue, always blue; she spoke a word, frowned, and spoke another, a stronger one. In the haze of the light by the window-for she stood by the window itself-the midnight richness seeped skyward from the magical weave, leaving her in white, all white.
Because she knew where she was. And she knew that the white would be a comfort, even if it was a lie.
"Askeyia," she said softly, speaking for the first time since she"d entered this tower. She did not seek the crystal ball by which she was known as seer; she did not need it. She knew the when and she knew the where; the glance outside the single tower window told her both.
The girl looked up at the sound of the voice; she was not so broken that suspicion was her first reaction. "E-Evayne?"
The older woman swallowed and then smiled falsely. "Yes."
"What are you-what are you doing here?" Hope. "Have you come to-have you-did Levee send you?"
Levee doesn"t know where you are. But she did not say it. Instead, she crossed the room, leaving shadows that were only the castoffs of light. She caught the girl in her arms and held her, and after a moment of stiffness that told Evayne more than she would ever ask, the girl relaxed and began to sob, very like a child, into her robes.
Those robes caught the tears and kept them, a bitter memento. Evayne spoke a word; saw the green glow of her mage-light halo Askeyia, her momentary ward. It was a spell better used in the presence of physicians, for it told her much about the condition of the body upon which it was cast. The spell came more easily than words would have.
And it gave her a bitter, bitter answer.
Askeyia was chilled by the fevers brought on by too great a use of power in too short a s.p.a.ce of time. That, she expected. Her leg was broken cleanly, but poorly set; her face was bruised but whole, her vision had been hampered somehow by the strikes to the side of her face. These, and more, Evayne cataloged in an instant.
But it was the last thing that was the most terrible, because she understood it all then.
Askeyia a"Narin was pregnant.
She must have tightened her grip, for the girl looked up, the matted darkness of her hair scudding the underside of the seer"s chin.
"Evayne?"
No. No, I will not do this.
"Evayne, what is it? What"s wrong? Is he coming?"
I will not do this. The fifty-year-old woman, who had seen battles that were far darker and far more real than the glory of legend bit her lip until it bled. Held the girl, held Askeyia, a moment longer, as if her arms were bower or cradle-or armor. She lowered her face into the crook of the girl"s neck; blood there, sticky but dried.
She had not been brought to rescue Askeyia.
The silver lily that hung round her throat bit into her collarbone; she did not move, thinking of what its maker would have said to her for what she was about to do.
"Askeyia," she said, in a voice so husky the word came out a rumble. "Forgive me. But I cannot take you from this place. The Lord who rules it has a grip that is far too strong."
Lies, all lies. She hated them. Because she knew, now, the how of Kiriel di"Ashaf, the dark, wild child that did not-in this year, at this time-exist. And she was glad that she had not known it sooner.
But Askeyia was gullible, even in fear.
"You are caught in a war, Askeyia. And you are a healer." Swallowing hurt; the words stuck. "You"re- you"re with child."
White-faced, the girl drew back, covering herself, pulling the sc.r.a.ps of dress together as if-as if the night just past had not pa.s.sed. As if it never would. Her eyes were wide and dark and round.
And Evayne raised a hand, gentle with the girl as she could not be gentle with herself. "No, child," she said, although the Askeyia that she remembered did not care to be called a child. "Remember your talent. Remember your birth. You are healer-born. If the child you carry is not to your liking, you need not carry it to term."
"But I-"
"No, not tonight. And not tomorrow, if I am a judge of the power that you"ve used. But the night after, if you desire it, you will have your freedom from-from what you bear." She saw Askeyia"s shoulders slump. Relief, of a sort.
"If you do nothing," the seer continued, "the child will never come to term." She stopped speaking a moment, and looked beyond the gray of wall, to whatever lay without. "Askeyia, I never told you who I was, and you asked. You always asked." She had hoped the girl would smile, but there was about her a watchful fear that Evayne was certain would never again leave her face.
"I was raised in Callenton."
At that, Askeyia"s brows rose. "In Callenton? That"s the town over from-from where I was born. Evanton. I went there once, with my father, in the summer." Her eyes clouded then, as she thought of the father who had sent her to the safety of the mighty healing houses in Averalaan.
"My father was a blacksmith, and until his death, I was only a strange-looking child. After his death-ah. After his death, I was a stranger, a foreigner. You know how cruel children are before they discover that they aren"t children anymore.
"In Callenton, I came into the power that brings me to you." She very gently reached into her robes-her white robes-and pulled out a glowing sphere that pulsed in her hand like a heart. In it, silver clouds turned in upon themselves, roiling. Waiting.
"A man came to me, to teach me of my gift. I did not know who he was, but he knew me well, and he offered me great mystery, great adventure, glory. It required a sacrifice, of course." She shook her head, staring at the surface of the seer"s crystal. "I was not as brave as you, Askeyia. I was timid. He told me that I would have to walk a path that no other man, or woman, had ever walked before. That I would walk it alone and that it would take me across decades and centuries. That, once I had chosen, I would be bound; I could speak of nothing that had not yet happened. Offer no warning. But if-if I did all these things, I might avert the crowning of the Lord of the h.e.l.ls upon the mortal lands. I told you, Askeyia, that I was timid. What would you have done?"
Askeyia straightened her shoulders then, although her arms were still tightly wound across her body, covering her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. "I-" She looked at her lap. Swallowed. "I would have said yes."
"I said no."
"But you-"
"And that night, that terrible night, the demons came. We had no soldiers, Askeyia, except for one man who fled the Empire to forget the Dominion Wars. We had no mages. There were no G.o.d-born children to lead us or protect us.
"And he came back to me at that moment, and he asked me again if I would follow his path.
"And I told him yes. Yes, because everyone that I loved-precious few, but precious-was there."
" W-what happened?"
"I don"t know," she told the young girl softly, more honest now than she had been in decades. "I"ve never been allowed to go back. I cannot choose where the path takes me. But it takes me where I need to be. I did not know that it would bring me to you." She smiled, but the smile was a bitter one. "I"ve lost them all. If I were to go back to them now, they would never recognize me. My life has been given to the fight, and taken by it."
"And will it work?" Askeyia said softly, as if asking the end of a story.
"I don"t know. But I have to try. What happened here, what happened to you-it"s not the worst thing that will happen if the Lord of the h.e.l.ls rules all. Askeyia a"Narin, you carry his child."