It seemed cruel to Adam. He understood that Evayne would have to surrender all of that love. All of the life she had built. He had seen her before and was certain he would see her again—but she would never be this girl again. She would be a young woman, and an old woman, and the ages in between, who had faced and passed the Oracle’s test. She would learn the arts of the Sword’s Edge; she would walk in dark and fell places. She would face demons, and worse.
She would be what her father had intended her to be—but she would know, always, what she had lost. What she had chosen to give up.
“The Oracle came next,” Evayne said, confirming what seemed obvious to Adam. “She came when my mother had left the room—and time seemed to stop around her. I dropped a cup. It didn’t land.
“She expected me to go with her. She had come to take me someplace. To test me. To—” She shook her head. “She thought I had made my decision.”
This seemed impossible to Adam. The Oracle saw everything that had happened, and everything that might. Or so he had been told, and he believed it. But the Oracle was ancient, inhuman; lies told to mortals would be trivialities, things of little note, as all things that lacked consequences became.
“But she—she pulled out her heart, and she—she offered to let me look at it.”
“Did you?”
Evayne shook her head. Swallowed. There were more tears. “She told me that she had tried, and she bowed, and she walked through a wall. And then the cup landed, and my mother heard it and came running. And I told her—I told her I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t want—it would have been different. Maybe it would have been different if my father was still alive. They had no other children. They—” She shook herself. “But he’s dead. I’m all she has.
“I think she was happy. Sometimes, with my mother, it’s hard to tell. We went back to sleep.”
Her back was shaking. Her shoulders. Her head was bowed; she was speaking to her knees. Or not speaking, for three long breaths. “And then they came.”
Adam stiffened.
“I woke—there was so much noise. I could hear things breaking—wood, glass—I could hear people screaming. I—I told my mother to stay in the house. She told me to stay with her, but—I knew. I knew. I made her promise. That was the only smart thing I did. I made her promise, and I promised her that I would survive, I would be careful—
“Have you ever seen a demon?”
“Yes,” Adam said softly.
She looked up; her face was a tear-streaked red mess.
“It is why we are here, in the Oracle’s home. I told you—the Matriarch of Terafin seeks to take—has taken—the Oracle’s test.”
“Did she survive it?”
“Yes, although she sleeps.”
“Is she sane?”
“She is Matriarch,” Adam replied, as if that were an answer. To Adam, it was. Matriarchs saw more than the rest of their clan. They saw farther. They made decisions based on things that none of their kin could see. And it broke them, in small ways. He was certain that Jewel would break, too. His role—if he discounted the healing which no other clan member possessed—was to stop the small cracks from becoming huge fissures. That had been his role in Arkosa, as well.
But Evayne, he thought, would carry a burden far heavier than Jewel’s in the end. Heavier, lonelier. Shadow believed that Jewel would fall if she did not have her den—and Adam understood this. No one survived long without kin, without family. If her den was not bound by ties of blood, it merely proved that blood was irrelevant.
Evayne would have no kin.
He could not tell her this, but he did not need to. If she was here, she was beginning to understand it. What had his mother said? You cannot prevent pain. You should not cause it, but you cannot prevent it. Pain is our forge, Adam. It breaks us, or it makes us stronger—and we have need of strength.
Adam did not believe this to be true, except in one regard. He could not prevent pain because life had pain. But life had joy as well. And joy was strength, too.
“Demons came. To Callenton. They brought fire and death with them. If they hadn’t—” She almost raised her hands to her ears, as if the echoes of screams were still too loud, too visceral. “I ran to Wylen’s. He was alive. He was terrified because he’s not stupid—but he was alive. He asked about Darguar, but his father dragged him off, toward the Mother’s church. He tried to take me with him—Wylen did—but I had to find Darguar.” She swallowed.
“I met him on the road to my house. He had a sword in hand, a shield over his back; he was wearing a dented helm. We’d always wanted to see him in armor—but not like this. Not like this.” Her voice dropped. “He was angry that I was alone, but relieved to see me. And he intended to gather up the people who could fight. He meant to go to the Town Hall. I told him not to. Not there.
“He didn’t argue. I don’t know if that meant that he understood—but I knew it would be bad. They’d die. They’d be too close together, and the demons would go to where the people were.
“There were no god-born priests in our village. No mage-born researchers. There were no soldiers, and the armed men were caravan guards. That’s it. That’s all we had. I don’t know why—” she swallowed. “I don’t know why the demons came to Callenton.” She looked to Adam as if he could provide answers. He couldn’t.
“When was this?” he asked softly.
“Today.”
He hesitated and then said, “What was the date? Does Callenton use the Weston calendar?”
“It was the eighth of Wittan.”
“The year?”
“431.”
Three years from now, Adam thought. In three short years, the demons would be so bold they could sweep through a single mortal village without fear. He wondered, then, what Averalaan would look like. Would there be demons there as well? Ah, no. The demons already hunted the streets of that enormous city. But not openly. Not like this.
He apologized for interrupting her, and she once again found the threads of a story that was far too new to be comfortable, if it would ever be comfortable. “They were killing people. They were killing people slowly. They weren’t afraid of us, of any of us. Darguar told me to go home—or to go somewhere safe. As if anywhere was safe. But he—he gave me something before he left. I don’t know why—he had a birthday present for me.”
“It was your birthday.”
“Yes—but why would he even think of carrying it then?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he intended to give it to you when the demons attacked. It wasn’t large.” He thought of the box she had carried in her hands, set aside on the table in the room she would occupy for the next small while. Thought, again, of the Oracle.
“There was nothing we could do,” she continued. “Except die. Some people tried to flee the village; I think they were caught well before they’d managed to find the road. It was dark.”
She swallowed. “I knew. I knew this was why he’d come. I knew this is what the Oracle wanted me to see. I called my—the person who said he was my father.
“He came. I asked him to help. I begged him to help. Because he could. He could hear me, he could appear out of nowhere when I called him. He—I knew he could.”
“He wouldn’t.”
“No. He said I had to do it. Me. I could do what he asked, or I could die. And everyone I knew and loved—or hated, it made no difference—would die with me. And if I waited—if I wasted more time—those people would die, because . . . because what I’d seen once, I couldn’t change. What happened remained fixed.
“It made no sense. No, it should have made no sense. But I understood it. Wylen was alive. Darguar was alive. But if they died, they’d be dead no matter what I did. The Oracle came out of nowhere to stand beside him, and this time—this time, I went with her.”
“You didn’t look at her heart?”
“She didn’t offer. And I didn’t want to see it. I didn’t want to see anything else.” She leaned into him, her arms st
ill wrapped around her knees, her head bowed.
Adam held her, carefully, until she slept.
• • •
“She is noisy,” Snow said. Of course it was Snow. He appeared only after Adam had carried Evayne back to the bed in her room. She woke briefly, eyes wide; her lids grew heavy once she’d caught sight of him. For this reason, he did not wish to leave her side.
“She is not nearly as noisy as you or your brothers,” Adam replied. “Have you come to fetch me?”
“Fetch?”
“Has the Matriarch sent you to bring me back to her side?”
“Fetch!”
“If you cannot behave, go elsewhere. Now.”
Snow’s fur joined his ears as he turned a baleful glare on the Oracle. “Make me.”
“They are not the wisest of creatures,” the Oracle said to Adam, as Snow vanished. “But you may as well take advantage of the peace and quiet. Beyond this place, Adam, there will be very, very little of it in your future.”
“You want me to stay with Evayne.”
“I cannot compel you to do so. She does not seem strong, to you.”
“No one is strong when stripped of kin and home. No one. She is . . . young.”
“Yes. She is young. And precious,” she added softly. “Stay with her until she confronts what she must confront.”
“I will have to accompany the Matriarch.”
“Yes. But in this place, there will be no conflict. I am not Neamis. I am not your Matriarch. I cannot compel. Or perhaps I will not. What she needs now, I cannot give her. And so, in some fashion, I have brought her here, to you.”
“I cannot—”
“You cannot give her all that she needs, no. But no single person can give another everything that they need. What you can give will make a difference—perhaps a small difference, but a difference nonetheless. Give her what you can. I will not negotiate,” she continued when Adam said nothing. “I will not bribe. What you offer has value to Evayne because it is offered.” She looked at Evayne, sleeping in the bed, and stretched out one arm—but she did not cross the threshold. “She feels she was given no choice. That is not true. She was given choice. None were good choices. None were happy choices.
“But they were choices, and she was free to make either. Understand that, Adam of Arkosa, for it is something your Terafin must come to understand as well. She has made a very unfortunate decision, an impulsive one.
“It is Evayne, in the end, who must see that the consequence of that single, simple decision does not destroy everything The Terafin has ever chosen to do.”
Chapter Two
20th day of Morel, 428 A.A.
Order of Knowledge, Averalaan Aramarelas
SIGURNE MELLIFAS WOKE BEFORE the break of dawn. In the sky beyond her tower windows, night had not yet surrendered to brightness and color. She glanced at the complicated web of orange and gold that overlaid her doors, her walls, and one significant window and saw, immediately, the cause for her broken sleep.
The remnants of sleep fled as she rose, flinging wardrobe doors open with a flick of fingers before her feet touched the harsh chill of stone floor; she reached for her robes in the same way. Sigurne disdained the use of magic to accomplish mundane tasks—but anything that saved time was now essential.
She had not summoned Matteos. She had summoned no one. But she paused at her dresser for one long moment. Her hands shook as she fumbled with the top drawer, cursing age and cold. She was no longer a child, no longer a prisoner, and yet she felt something akin to the same fear that she had known as both in the Northern Wastes.
She did not name it.
Instead, her hands closed around a small box; shaking, they opened it. A ring was nestled within folds of what felt, to the touch, like velvet. She had examined the ring; she was magi, First Circle, and if she was not the scholar that many of her confederates were, she was not without curiosity or caution.
In the dim light, she could see a simple band which contained one embedded stone. A careless person might consider it a diamond, or even one of the lesser stones that mimicked them. It was not, or perhaps it was not simply diamond.
The ring was not enchanted. The essence of it, the whole of it, was a creation of magic. More than that, she had been unable to determine. She could see the shimmering of color just beneath its surface—and in the growing light of encroaching dawn, the surface was platinum, not gold; it lacked something as essential as gold’s visual warmth.
Not yet, Meralonne had said. Not yet, but soon.
But she knew, as the ring gained weight and lost warmth in the cup of her palm, that soon might arrive without warning.
She had been surprised to receive a gift of this nature from Meralonne APhaniel, a First Circle mage who had shown very, very little regard for material possessions, even as a statement of the power of the individual who owned them. His clothing was donned as an afterthought, and he had frequently appeared in lecture halls—when he could be forced to enter them at all—without shoes.
Only when he fought, only when he joined a battle that would kill lesser mages, did he don the most forbidding of his regalia. And it was regalia, in Sigurne’s observation. The armor. The sword. He had drawn no shield in over a decade, and that troubled her, although she never put the reason into words; she had shied away from even that much truth.
And it was not her way to do so.
When he had placed the small box in her hands, his eyes had been silver, narrow, his expression remote. I leave this in your care.
She had not opened the small box. Instead, she had looked up—had had to look up, more aware of the difference in their heights than she had been in decades. There is already too much in my care. If this is your responsibility, I beg you to continue to carry it.
It is not, little Sigurne. It is . . . a sign. It is a symbol. I have never worn it, and I never will. It was meant to be worn by those I chose worthy.
She had shaken her head; her hands had remained steady. She could almost see her reflection in his eyes: an aged and austere woman whom time had slowly but irrevocably bent.
I did not say that you must agree with my choice. And this time, his lips folded into a more familiar smile. We have seldom agreed, in that regard. You have, after all, accepted Matteos. And no, I do not need to hear his many sterling qualities enumerated yet again; I have only just finished breakfast and would like to retain some of it. And he had summoned his pipe. It is simply a reminder. A guarantee that I will know you as Sigurne Mellifas. You have been the most rewarding, and the most difficult, of my many, many students. And Sigurne?
Silence, then and now.
You will be my last.
And she had understood.
This ring was an ending, the close of a long story whose beginning she would never know. Had he been any other man, she would have pressed him for explanations about the ring: who had made it, of what, how long ago. But she knew without asking that there would be no answers.
And that was dishonest. It was truth, but it was not the whole of the truth, and it was not the reason she had retreated from anything except a shaky acceptance. She understood that the gift was not meant to be questioned or examined; that in the eyes of Meralonne APhaniel, he had bestowed upon her a singular honor—an honor that was to be gratefully, gravely accepted.
She had always understood—in her youth, in this foreign, crowded city, and as she learned the lessons that he was willing to teach her—that Meralonne was a power. The magi did not discuss him. They did not discuss his age, or any part of his tenure within the Order; they did complain and resent, but given his attitude that was almost inevitable, and their resentment only amused him.
But she had never forgotten the sight of him, sword and shield in hand, a small demonic army arrayed against him. She had heard his battle cry over the howling of the winds in the Northern Wastes. He had reminded her then of the most powerful of the demons the Ice Mage had summoned—and she had known that that demon, anc
ient, wise, and deadly, possessed merely an echo of this man’s power and grandeur.
She had known that Meralonne APhaniel was not, could not be, mortal.
And she had hungered for the sight of him, for each glimpse that time could afford her. She had known that he would be her death; that everyone and everything who served the demonologist in the Northern Wastes would perish that day. She had welcomed that death, had even anticipated it with something akin to desire—it was the only freedom she thought she could have.
But only, and ever, at his hands.
So many memories of the life between that day and this one had dimmed; she could not, without effort, remember what she had eaten a handful of days ago; could not remember the passing triviality of social conversations.
But she remembered clearly every time she had seen Meralonne draw his sword; it was the only time he truly seemed to be alive, shaking off existence in the Order as if waking from slumber. Decades had passed before she understood how very, very much she wished him not to wake. She could no more put an earthquake or tidal wave to sleep. But she had never considered them to be beautiful or compelling because they lacked intellect, will.
She closed her eyes, understanding that even that was not the whole of the truth. The ring was cool in her palm; her hands were cold. She did not ask Meralonne if it was time. She had no need.
She slid his gift onto a finger of her left hand; should it prove dangerous in ways she could not determine, she did not wish to lose use of the dominant hand.
She then lifted brush to hair, taking time for no other vanities before she departed her chambers.
• • •
The stairs were dark and long. She wished, as she began her descent, that she could dispense with the pretense of these drafty rooms; that she could reside much closer to the ground and the rest of the Order’s many halls. But Kings did not discard either throne or crown, and if she was not monarch, she was ruler, here: guildmaster of the Order of Knowledge. She would be guildmaster for as long as she lived—and, at the moment, she was uncertain that her reign would last another month.
Firstborn Page 5