by E. S. Bell
“Connor hasn’t gone to the Devala Isles. He’s going to Isle Uago.”
Archer didn’t glance up. “Uago?” he muttered. “What for?”
“Our last bird came from Uago. From Selena Koren. She hired a ship to Saliz from there. Connor will go to Uago to follow her trail.”
He shook his head, his gaze still on his chart. Lines demarking various routes and currents curved from Isle Lillomet, all pointing to the same destination. “That’s nonsense. She could be anywhere. Connor went to Devala,” he tapped the island chain in the center of a whorl of black ink, “so he can call storms and talk to animals to his heart’s content.”
Celestine leaned over the desk to face Archer, demanding his attention. “What does Connor want more than anything? What has he striven for his whole life?”
“To be a Paladin for the Shining Face of the god,” Archer began. “But he—”
“Exactly. To be a Paladin. And the Paladin he knows best, the one who has been living in the Temple for nearly his entire life is Selena Koren.”
“Koren is a Paladin for a god that doesn’t Hear him…”
“No, but this Wor’ri does. This is his chance to become a warrior for his own god, one that has blessed him with his own…unique talents.”
“All the more reason he’d seek out the druids on Devala,” Archer said.
Celestine bit her lip. Archer’s logic made sense and yet…He’s entirely wrong.
“He’s going after Selena Koren,” Celestine said. “I know it. I know him. Your son is a skilled swordsman, partly by inborn talent, but also because of his unrelenting drive. He wants to be distinguished, and not for his illness. To be distinguished in spite of his illness.”
Archer shook his head. “It doesn’t—”
“It’s the dragonmen,” Celestine persisted. “Kyre and Ilior. Connor knows that Kyre’s presence makes him different. Special. Only one other person—Selena Koren—has a similar companion. And Selena is not only a Paladin, but a Summoner. Once in a thousand years do the Aluren find a Summoner in our ranks. Connor knows this. He’s put it all together. He’s gone to find the one person who is as special as he is. I stake my Reverency on it.”
Archer held her gaze for a moment and she thought his legendary stubbornness was going to hold, but he crumbled almost imperceptibly. He picked up a parchment from among the countless strewn over his desk and handed it to her. “This came yesterday. From the Harbor Master. He was finally able to glean from the Tallstaff Company which vessel Connor took passage on. An eastern bound packet.”
“East,” Celestine said, scanning the paper.
“Aye,” Archer said. “The Tallstaff merchant said the packet’s final destination was the Lords in the Eastern Edge.” He rubbed his hands over his eyes. “Until this moment, I thought it meant Connor grabbed the first available berth on the first available vessel, figuring he could reroute on a different island. But now…”
“A vessel sailing to the Lords would have to pass by Isle Uago.” Celestine set the paper down and her heart ached to see the fear clouding her friend’s eyes. “The danger is great, but he is an expert swordsman. And he has Kyre. And he has his magic.”
“Magic he doesn’t know to use. And he has episodes. On Uago that kind of weakness…”
“You may yet find him on Devala,” she said, “but send a ship to Uago too.” She laid her hand on his across the desk. “For peace of mind, if nothing else.”
“Whose? Yours or mine?” Archer asked tiredly.
“Both. I love him too.”
The admiral met her eye and without looking away called for his page to bring in his officers. To Celestine he said, “Thank you, High Reverent, that will be all.”
The formality of his tone stung until she saw his half-grin and the light that warmed his brown eyes. She smiled back and took her leave.
In the hallway, Celestine felt a weight in her heart lift as she listened to Archer relay to his men a new set of orders that would send a flotilla to Isle Uago. She had no doubt that was where Connor had gone, and now that unease was settled, another took its place. Uago was far more dangerous and Connor far less world savvy than she had described.
Please, let it not be too late.
As she walked through the utilitarian Citadel, all brick and stone, inside and out, she distracted herself from worry with a different mystery. Why did the Cloud Isles send a Vai’Ensai to Connor? And did they send one to Selena ten years ago? She strove to remember what Kyre had told them upon his arrival; he’d been so reticent, answering few questions.
The stone and the fire sent me.
The words—describing some ritual—had meant nothing to Celestine and still didn’t, but she realized they weren’t important anyway.
“Why did they send you, Kyre?” she muttered aloud. “Why?”
The First Lesson
Selena awoke as her chamber window showed dawn’s rays glowing in the east. She sat up and stretched languorously. The bed was stuffed with stiff straw and the linens were scratchy, but she’d slept as if on a pile of silk pillows. The heat of Saliz made the stone walls weep and her chamber smelled of mold, but it also brought her a small measure of relief from the constant cold of her wound. She should not have been so comfortable, she thought, in the home of a Bazira, and yet the morning’s light seemed a shade of gold she’d never seen before.
The god has sent me, through Skye, on the path to healing.
She rose and splashed water on her face from the basin set out by Ori. As she washed her face and neck, she wondered how the rest of the crew faired. Julian hadn’t been pleased last night that the plans had changed, that was plain. But when the natives brought from the old kitchen a feast fit for an admiral and a case of rum to wash it down, he was left with little choice but to accept Accora’s hospitality.
Choice had very little to do with it, Selena thought. They had no idea where on the island they were and, as Ori had reminded them, Saliz was not kind to those wandered its jungles aimlessly.
Julian had fumed, or at least Selena guessed he did. The blank mask had fallen over his handsome features, rendering him expressionless. But for his eyes. The gray-green color had become a murkier shade, as if dark thoughts passed behind them. Likely he brooded over his ship, burnt and broken and left on the shores of Saliz for scorpions to scuttle over. He drank little and ate nothing, watching in stony silence while his crew enjoyed themselves in their quiet way.
But the quiet was short-lived when the natives had joined them, filling the keep’s small feasting hall with their thick-tongued speech. They had exchanged their reeds of poison darts for reedy flutes, and there was music. Even dancing. Cat, Selena remembered with a smile, had swung arm-in-arm with Whistle, her brilliant orange hair like a burst of flame in the night.
Accora had warned Selena that her first lesson would begin at dawn so Selena had retired early, glancing at Julian before Ori showed her to her room. He stared at a candle flame, one hand on a flask of something strong, the other on his dagger that he’d laid on the table. He didn’t look up as she left the small feasting hall, but she thought she felt his attention follow her. Or perhaps it was her imagination. She fell asleep with the image of his face half lost to shadow and his finger trailing along his dagger’s edge, but still her sleep had been deep and dreamless.
Now Selena wiped her face dry and considered herself in the mirror. The wound remained hidden behind her bedclothes, its ugliness unable to mar her reflection. Her eyes weren’t shadowed with weariness and her hair fell along her shoulders in soft waves.
But Accora must know that I’m the god’s warrior.
She braided her hair and, for the first time in weeks, pulled on her chainmail shirt over her linen blouse. Over that, she smoothed her wool tunic, and strapped her sword to her waist. Now the mirror revealed an Aluren Paladin ready for battle. She nodded once, satisfied, and left her small room in Accora’s keep.
Ilior waited for her in the hallway.
Dawn’s light had not yet found its way into the crumbling keep and her friend was a hulking mass in the dimness. Irritation flared. Ilior always knew when to rouse himself to join her.
But my impatience with him is new.
“I hope you’ve reconsidered,” he said without preamble. “It’s not right being here. It’s feels strange.”
“I thought so at first too,” Selena said, “but the situation has changed.”
“Just like that?”
“I know that I am on the right path, Ilior. I slept well. Untroubled.”
“More witch’s potions perhaps,” Ilior said sourly. “You should have let me stand watch over you.”
Another stab of irritation knifed through her. The peace of her deep sleep bled away. “I must defeat Bacchus,” she said tightly. “She will show me how.”
“You believe her? A Bazira?”
“I don’t know that she is still Bazira—”
“You don’t know anything about her!” Ilior’s voice rumbled around hallway like an avalanche. “You trust too quickly.”
Selena clutched her elbows, her fingers digging in hard enough to cause pain. “Perhaps you’re right,” she said tightly. “But I learned much about Accora on Isle Nanokar. I learned many things there.”
I learned you lied to me…
Ilior crossed his arms, his lone wing twitching. “So. You go to meet her now?”
“Yes. She says I must train with her. Alone.”
“Already it begins. She is driving a wedge between us.”
She could scarcely see her friend in the dim light but she heard the pain in his voice. It is not Accora who is driving the wedge, she thought and her heart grew heavier when she thought of what more Accora might have learned about the Vai’Ensai. Things that Ilior knew as well, but that he kept silent about. Secrets he kept from her.
She drew herself up. “I need her to defeat Bacchus. That is what matters now.”
“What does she get from it? When Bacchus is dead, she will sacrifice herself to your sword? You believe that?”
“That is her promise.”
“A promise from a Bazira.”
“I’ll be cautious.”
“And I will stay beside you—”
“Not today!”
Ilior recoiled as if slapped and Selena felt as horrible as if she had struck him. But her voice was cold and stony in her own ears. “Nothing can interfere, Ilior. Nothing.”
She turned, leaving him in alone in the dark.
Accora met her at the kitchen door. The old woman studied the younger narrowly.
“You’re dressed for battle, but is it only a costume? Your eyes are heavy. If I had to guess, I’d say guilt haunts you. A wasted emotion that saps focus from your goal.”
“All I care about is closing the wound.” Selena said. “Everything else is trivial.”
Accora sniffed. “We shall see.”
She opened the door and led them into the outer bailey. Selena felt the heat of the jungle as a thickness in the air. The lightening sky was orange and purple with the dawn and smelled of rain. Accora wore gray silken robes that whispered as she walked, with blood-red embroidery about the neck and wrists. Gone was the paint she had worn to disguise herself as a native, and her long silver hair was plaited down her back. Her youthful beauty, refined and tested by age, was still very evident.
Their path wound behind the main house and was strewn with fallen rocks and weeds. Here and there, bright patches of green where the jungle sought to claim the castle seeped from under the outer bailey wall and crept up over the sagging stones.
“What is this place?” Selena asked. “Not one brick of it looks as though it belongs here.”
“That is true enough,” Accora said, “which is why I like it. This is Castle Penderlake. It was built during the Age of Horizons. That illustrious Age in which every lord from the Western Watch felt he had the right to plant a flag on every island in the Eastern Edge. Never mind if there were already people landed and settled on those islands since the Breaking. The rich merchants and lordlings from the four big islands claimed more than a hundred islands in the Eastern Edge as colonies of their own alone. Many were overthrown during the Age of Turbulence, of course. Many failed. Castle Penderlake—named for his lordship of the same—is the testament to one such failure. A perfect example of a man overstepping his bounds and so perishing for the hubris.”
“Perished how?”
“The Yu’kri are a peaceful people. Their ‘savage’ naked appearance is the result of living in such heat, the mud they wear to protect them from the bite of a thousand different insects. But when threatened, they show their teeth. Penderlake learned that. I learned that, when I washed ashore five years ago, half-dead of thirst and soaked to the bone with water I couldn’t drink.”
“Why did they spare you?” Selena asked.
Accora regarded her a moment with her sharp, bird-like eyes, and then waved a hand. “That is a long story and one that has no bearing on our present task. I came to show you this.”
They had traversed the entire circumference of the inner bailey and arrived at a structure Selena was certain had not been a part of Lord Penderlake’s original plans. Built into the space where part of the bailey wall had crumbled away was a little cottage made of glass.
Selena had visited the greenhouses on Isle Parish that the Guild kept to cultivate and study different flora from around Lunos. Those greenhouses were uniform in style—long rectangular structures with panes of clear glass supported by plain iron frames. Accora’s greenhouse gleamed like a multi-colored gem in the dawn’s light. The panes of glass were comprised of every color and were not uniform, but cobbled from different sources and patched together. Selena saw shards, large and small, melded like puzzle pieces with lead, and some smaller mosaics of multi-colored sea glass. Selena was awed at its inelegant beauty.
“What is it?”
Accora smiled thinly. “My collection.”
Selena followed her into the glass house through a door made of pale wood. Plants, flowers and small trees lined the walls and covered the tops of three tables that were laid end to end, and had likely once served in Penderlake’s kitchen. The foliage grew from pots made of glazed pottery Selena was sure the natives of Saliz had provided, and the air was perfumed with the scents of soil and flower. At the far end of the greenhouse, the shelves held jars and bottles, pots of unknown substances, and small animals that floated in thick liquids.
“This is my greenhouse,” Accora said, “but it is also laboratory and shrine: a shrine to learning and a place to give fealty to not the Shining nor the Shadow face of the god, but to the realm in between where balance lies. Where most life lives.”
“It reminds me a little bit of the library on Isle Nanokar,” Selena said, watching Accora’s reaction. “I think Byric would approve of your greenhouse.”
Accora smirked. “Don’t try to be sly, dear, it doesn’t suit you.” She sat on long wooden bench among the vials and bottles, and slapped her hands to her knees. “So Byric has spilled my secrets, eh?”
“Not all.” Selena remained standing, her hand resting lightly on her sword. “He couldn’t answer the one question I need answered more than any other.”
“And what might that be?” Accora asked. “No, no, let me guess. Byric told you that I arrived on that frigid island full of blasphemous questions and theories, and you left his cave worried that you’d been sent to kill an apostate.”
Selena crossed her arms. “That’s the short of it. Is it true?”
Accora smoothed her skirts over her knees. “No. It’s not.” She heaved a sigh. “Rest assured, sweeting, that when it comes time, you will plunge that pretty sword into the blackened, withered heart of a Bazira faithful.”
A peculiar sensation of relief and dread warred over Selena’s thoughts. “Why do you go so willingly to your own death?”
“I don’t,” Accora said. “Not yet, anyway. After your training, after you k
ill Bacchus…” She smiled to herself. “I will be ready for my rest.”
“If you teach me how to slay Bacchus, killing you after will not be easy.”
“Aye,” Accora said. “Another weakness, and one that is too ingrained to scrub out, I fear.”
Selena ignored the jibe. “If you’re still Bazira, why did Byric believe otherwise? He spoke at length about the doubts you had regarding both faces of the god.”
Accora waved a dismissive hand. “That was twenty years ago. The musings of a younger woman. A distraction.”
“A distraction from what?”
“From my task. Powerful Bazira adherents—such as myself—are often commanded to mentor younger pupils who show promise. I was so commanded, but my pupil was…difficult. I sought temporary relief on Isle Nanokar. A small rebellion against the duty, a rebellion that no doubt colored my discussions with Byric.”
Selena frowned. “Byric described you as fervent. He mentioned a book you tore a page from a rare book—”
“Yes, yes, I ruined his pretty book.” She laughed dryly. “You should have seen his face. As if I’d pissed on the Chainbreaker Treaties, and then set them afire.”
“What was that page?” Selena asked. “Byric said it had Ho Sun writing on it. Did you find a translation? Do you still have it?”
“No,” Accora said. “I do not.”
Selena was about to press her further when the old woman waved her hands as if the questions hovered in the air around her head.
“There was nothing of import to that page but what I infused into it myself. No, I was intrigued, for a time, by silly fables and the like, but as I said, that was an exercise in distraction.”
“From your pupil,” Selena said.
“My nightmare.” Her eyes grew cloudy with memories and Selena wondered if the woman realized she was speaking aloud. “The atrocities a man can perpetrate on woman are inconceivable to the man. Pain is but a small part. I can abide pain. Bazira are trained to withstand agonies of the body. But there are deeper agonies that cut deeper than flesh or bone, and leave scars that never heal.” Her gaze flickered to Selena and Selena saw she meant for her to hear every word. “You understand the pain of an open wound. That is why I know you will succeed where others have failed me.”