"Yes, Mama is going to spank Triska very badly," Ceera said, and held out her arms. Mrillis gave their daughter over to her, and she hurried out of the room, leaving him to decide what to do with Triska until she calmed down.
If she would ever calm down.
* * * *
"What have you done with my sister?" Endor demanded, stomping through the doorway from the tunnel that ran to Wynystrys less than three hours later.
Mrillis estimated he must have started up the tunnel the moment Ceera slapped his sister to the floor, and he had run the entire way. Or--
"You know perfectly well, I think," he said slowly, and waited for Endor to step out of the doorway so he could shove the door closed and bar it with spells. "Maybe you witnessed the entire argument?"
"What makes you think that?" Endor tried to grin, as if Mrillis' words were a joke.
"I think you fed Triska's anger. You told her everything people were saying against her, and none of the things said in her defense."
"Why would I do anything to hurt her feelings? She's my sister." He yanked off his cloak and used the edge to wipe his sweaty face.
"You ignored her until she became someone of importance...and then she changed." Mrillis fought a wave of exhaustion that swept over him along with the daunting feeling that he had been deliberately blind for too long. He felt as if the friend standing before him had died long ago, leaving an enemy to hide behind the mask and mirrored mannerisms.
What if Endor had been using Triska, just as the dead traitors had said Triska used them? Layer upon layer, wall after wall to baffle those who followed the trail of magic and tried to unravel the clues to lead them to their enemy. What if the Nameless One had spells woven so deeply into his children's minds and hearts, no one ever detected them, and Endor had been working all these years on his father's behalf?
What if all the accusations against Endor were true, and the ones against Triska?
What if Nainan was the only truly honest one of the three children?
Three Drops of Blood, Mrillis recited silently, and opened his thoughts to share with Ceera his sudden revelation. A sensation of warm arms wrapped around him, and a cheek damp with tears pressed against his cheek were her only response, but eloquent enough.
"You're...you're imagining things. On the edge of insanity." Endor laughed, his usual hearty, mocking laugh. Mrillis wondered if he had chosen to ignore the cruelty and irony in the sound all these years. He suspected he would second-guess his friendship with Endor for years to come.
"If Ceera chose Nainan as her heir, would you become friendly and protective of her once again?"
"She's my sister. Of course I care about her welfare. I care about both of them."
"You care about the power and influence they can give you," Mrillis said quietly. He wanted nothing more than to close his eyes and let the weariness sweep him away. We bound him to Braenlicach. Both of them. And through Braenlicach, they can touch the Zygradon!
It can be mended. We will mend it. But Ceera's mental voice trembled, as if she didn't quite believe herself.
"Just because you're consort to the Queen of Snows does not make you the source of all wisdom, judge and executioner," Endor snapped. "There's a reason why Breylon didn't choose you as his heir."
"He didn't choose you, either." The moment those words left his lips, Mrillis regretted them. Strange, because he didn't regret the other things he had said.
"Who says I want to be tied to Wynystrys for the rest of my life?" he retorted with a grin that bared his teeth and seemed more threatening than amused. He waved a hand to stop Mrillis when he opened his mouth respond. "This is useless. We're both tired and unsettled by Triska's stupidity. Her mistakes have nothing to do with us, with our friendship."
No, they have everything to do with it, but I just can't see clearly, Mrillis thought.
"I'm going to my usual room to wash up and rest, and then I'm going to wait until Triska has calmed down, and I'm going to speak reason to her and clear this up. We'll talk in the morning. You'll see." He clapped Mrillis on the shoulder as he walked past him, heading for the stairs up into the main chambers of the Stronghold. "Everything will be back to normal by morning."
No, they will not, Ceera retorted, when Mrillis shared this last with her. Whatever was 'normal' was not healthy or right, but we were too blinded by emotions and friendship and guilt to see, until now.
* * * *
Mrillis woke in the darkest watches of the night, his chest on fire, his fingers stinging as if burned, gasping for breath. The pain was such a shock, yanking him from sleep, he couldn't think clearly. It was all he could do to fight down the pain, and Ceera wrapped herself around him, body and imbrose, to soothe him.
When they both caught their breath, they could think clearly enough to cast out their awareness and decipher what had happened. There wasn't a mark on him, no signs inside his body of anything that had suddenly gone wrong. Looking further outward, they found damaged Threads, hanging limp and dark, flattened and drained of power, sparks hanging in the air around them where they had nearly been shredded.
"No one should be able to break the shielding magic around the Stronghold," Ceera said, shaking her head and raking her fingers through her sweaty hair in dismay. "Whoever it was would have had to follow someone else's Thread connection to the bowl, and then followed it back out to find you, and it is impossible for them to touch or even find the Zygradon unless they were part of the forging."
"Unless it was someone inside the Stronghold," Mrillis said, with a weary, pained, crooked smile.
In a way, he supposed, it could be found amusing. Ironic, at the very least.
"Endor and Triska both have a bond to the bowl through Braenlicach," she whispered. "But why would--"
Without another word between them, they joined forces and reached along the Threads Mrillis had used to bind Triska earlier that day. He nearly laughed aloud in bitter amusement to realize the damaged, drained Threads were the ones imprisoning Triska, not the ones binding him to the bowl or the sword.
Triska was free, no longer in the Stronghold, and Endor had vanished with her.
"Talk about it in the morning," Mrillis muttered, standing in Endor's guestroom. There was no sign that he had even sat on the bed, much less slept in it. "He had no intention of talking."
"The time for talking is ended, where those two are concerned," Ceera said. "Until they come to us and submit to judgment and examination, from this moment, let them be considered guilty of all the accusations that we once refused to even consider. They are indeed the tools of their father, traitors to those who called them friends and made a place for them among us. Endor is to be considered guilty of the massacre of those Noveni villagers, at the time the Zygradon was forged, and other deaths of innocents since then. Triska is indeed guilty of controlling the minds of others, forcing them to destroy their imbrose for the sake of blood magic, to use against us all. She is traitor to the Stronghold and to the Queen of Snows. Neither one shall stand within the Stronghold or upon Wynystrys until they answer to these charges. So I say. So I charge. Let it be done."
Her words echoed as she finished, and she bowed her head and hid her pale face in her hands as she silently wept. Mrillis held her, and just as it had been when Le'esha died, he saved his sorrow for later. Ceera needed him now.
Deep in the darkest corners of his mind, doubts whispered, taking days to become audible. Was Endor truly a traitor? Had he been involved in the deaths of the Warhawk, his guards, his children? Had he betrayed the location of the Vale of Bo'Lantier, causing the death of Le'esha, Queen of Snows?
* * * *
"We must take the Threads that connect Endor and Triska to Braenlicach and to the Zygradon out of their grasp," Ceera announced, when Master Breylon, Deyral, and the highest leaders of the Rey'kil convened in the council room in the Stronghold.
"Can that be done?" Haster immediately asked.
"In theory," Mrillis said. He had been thinking over the
necessity and the possibilities ever since Ceera had mentioned it two days before. After they realized Triska and Endor were traitors. "Triska's grasp is weak, because she was denied a large portion of the ceremony that created Braenlicach. It has grown in the years since then, which is what we had hoped for. But not strong enough yet for her to resist the attempt. And Endor has spent little time in the presence of either bowl or sword, so his bond is nearly as weak as it was when newly formed. Neither one realizes that, or they would have done something to rectify the problem."
Such as kill other makers of the Zygradon and Braenlicach, to try to grab hold of their severed bonds, he added silently.
"We must take all chances for power out of their grasp. Before the bond becomes strong enough to pass it on to any children they might produce," Ceera added. "Emrillian and other children born to forgers of the Zygradon have felt the attacks. I took Emrillian into the room where we keep the bowl and she saw it." A sigh of laughter escaped her, revealing just for a moment how weary she was, and Mrillis ached for her. "She called it a pretty flower, and was disappointed that it didn't have any smell. She touched it, and all the Threads hummed from the contact."
"It doesn't do that when the original group touch it," Master Breylon murmured. "The nature of the magic inherent in the bowl is changing as the generations rise up."
"And that is exactly why Triska's and Endor's children must be allowed no chance to take power from either sword or bowl." She sank down into her chair at the head of the table and met Mrillis' eyes, turning responsibility for the remainder of the discussion over to him.
He stood from his place at her right hand, and rested his hand on the table, covering hers. They needed to do this together, joined for the effort, just as they had always done everything momentous. They were stronger, joined, than either of them working separately.
"We have made a decision. Necessary but risky. The remaining forgers, and those bound to the bowl through the sword, must be protected. Until our enemy gains direct access to the bowl, by controlling at least one Thread--" Mrillis' voice broke as the image of Endor's smiling, cynical face flicked into his mind.
"All are at risk," Master Algis supplied. "Yes, we should have seen that long ago. After the first death."
"We cannot afford to lose our Warhawk," Ceera offered.
"Or any of you, my dear," Breylon offered. The other Rey'kil scholars and enchanters crowded around the table murmured agreement.
"We had originally thought of simply taking the Threads from the hands of all those bound to Zygradon," Mrillis continued. "But as I can attest, it is painful when the Threads are merely attacked and frayed, not severed. We are not sure yet if Nixtan died from the severing, or if the enemy severed the Thread after he was dead." He rubbed over his breastbone, where the ache had been worst.
"We do not want to find out the hard way. In the attack that took Brictan, I put myself between the bowl and Ceera, and blunted the pain of the attack for everyone. We should have learned from that and used it immediately. Our plan is to place someone between the Zygradon and all those bound to it, so power must flow through him. If the Threads are severed, hopefully the shock will not be so great as to kill, and the enemy will not be able to grasp the Threads because the intermediary will yank them out of his hands."
"Who?" Breylon asked quietly. The somber expression in his eyes told Mrillis his old teacher already knew the answer.
"Mrillis," Ceera said. She spoke calmly, no reaction in her face or eyes or voice. Through the hand he still held, Mrillis felt the tiny flinch of pain and worry she couldn't fight. She had argued with him nearly two hours, trying to find another way, someone else to stand between the bowl and those who would kill to control it. In the end, she had been the one to see that it would ultimately protect Mrillis, and agreed to his plan with an abruptness that worried him. What did she see or sense that he did not?
"Will the others have contact with the bowl, even after you hold the Threads?" Deyral wanted to know. "How can you take control of the Threads without harming the other forgers?"
"All we can do is try," Mrillis said. "Our theory is that if the forgers give conscious permission, there will be no harm to anyone. The deaths, the damage to the Threads, came because force was used. There was a struggle. Violence and resistance, rather than cooperation."
"And what if the enemy deduces you are the one who stands between him and what he wants?" Master Ayleron said, staring at his steepled fingers rather than looking at Mrillis.
"My death means the destruction of the Zygradon," Mrillis said simply. "I will stand so close to the bowl that it will be part of me, and I will be part of it." He offered a crooked smile. "There is a possibility that it will be such a part of me, I will not longer be able to see or touch it, as the other forgers do."
"That could be a liability," someone murmured from the far end of the long table.
"It will be a protection for him," Ceera countered. "He and the bowl are one. Can you see yourself, your face, without the help of others? If the two are one, then if the enemy wishes to preserve the bowl and use its powers, he will not try to kill Mrillis."
"But that means he will try to control you," another countered.
"Let him try," Mrillis said, and fought not to let the growl control his voice.
* * * *
Nainan was last to arrive at the Stronghold, for the ritual to place all the Threads of the sword and bowl into Mrillis' control. She carried Belissa in a sling across her chest, like a Noveni peasant woman working the fields. Her face was serene, but her eyes looked dark and distant, revealing the pain of Nixtan's death that still clung to her. Mrillis thought of how he would feel if he lost Ceera, and how much comfort Emrillian would be, and he understood why the woman rarely let the nurse handle her daughter.
"There is something you should know," Nainan said, after Ceera had embraced her in welcome. She looked around the entryway leading from the mist gates, and waited for the others in her party to walk through. Athrar and Ygerna had provided her with four serving women and ten guards for the journey, all Noveni, all people who would stay in the guesthouses in the canyon just outside the Stronghold. No one not of Rey'kil blood or possessing imbrose would be allowed inside during the attempt to change the pathway of the Threads.
"Serious," Ceera murmured, looking into the woman's eyes. She rested a hand on Emrillian's curly head and bent over to look into her daughter's eyes. "Sweetling, go find Deira and tell her to make starflower tea for us, will you?" She waited until the little girl scampered out of the room.
"Thank you." Nainan sighed and managed a wry little smile. "I have been under a spell. First my father's, then Endor's, when he grew strong enough to take control of it."
"Yes, you mentioned something like this before," Mrillis said. He sensed this would not take long, but might be straining, so he gestured at the benches carved into the walls of the entryway room. The three sat. Nainan shifted her baby daughter from the sling to rest against her shoulder.
"Endor let go of much of his control of me when you chose Triska as your heir," Nainan continued, after a long moment studying the tips of her boots peering out from under the long sweep of her cloak. "For so long, the only way I could fight his control, his purpose, was to be as nasty as possible. I didn't want anyone to get close to me, to be friends, because I knew... No, I didn't really know. What child so young really knows anything, clearly? I sensed that any friends I made, anyone who trusted me, Endor would eventually use. I didn't want to excel, to grow in power or authority. I just wanted to be an ordinary Rey'kil. To be accepted and left alone to study and discover what I liked and could do."
"Very clever," Ceera murmured. She rested a hand on Nainan's shoulder and the touch seemed to brighten the woman's expression and strengthen her.
"When he focused on Triska, I was freer to do what I wanted, and I could finally start making friends. I wasn't useful to him anymore, even though I know I am stronger."
"Stron
g through adversity," Mrillis offered.
"I wasn't free to tell anyone what he had done, what he was still doing, though I did try to warn you as much as I could." She offered Mrillis a flicker of a smile, reminding him of the night Emrillian was born, and how he had caught Nainan kissing Nixtan.
"Now you are free." Ceera nodded, her frown deepening. "But you are bound more closely to the sword and bowl than Triska. I wonder how long it will take before Endor tries to re-assert his control on you."
"That is why Ygerna and Athrar want me to return to the Stronghold, to raise Belissa here, in safety. If Endor can't bind me again in his spell, he could go after my baby." Her breath caught. "In fact, I want you to examine Belissa to see if perhaps he didn't already tie her with spells, as our father did with us when we were born."
"Blessed Estall, protect us," Ceera whispered. She nodded, angry tears in her eyes, mouth pressed flat with the strength of her feelings, and held out her hands. Nainan only hesitated a moment to pass her child over to her. Ceera gathered the sleeping baby close, wrapping her arms and her imbrose around her.
"Endor was unusually attentive to Belissa, the one time he came to visit." Nainan sniffed and scrubbed a few tears from her eyes. "I knew he wouldn't pay her so much attention unless he thought it would benefit him."
"You two are safe here, and if there is any spell wrapped around Belissa, she will be free," Mrillis promised. He reached out and took hold of her hands. Nainan's hands shook slightly, but they were warm and dry and he approved of her strength.
"She is safe," Ceera whispered, and slowly lowered her arms, to slide Belissa back into her mother's embrace. Her eyes went white, just briefly, with a vision. "Not Emrillian. Not you. Not Belissa. But from her will come a Queen of Snows who will outshine all others, when the ending of the matter comes. The firstborn of the Three Drops of Blood."
She sighed and slumped a little. Mrillis hurried to wrap his arms around her, and felt her tremble.
"Thank the Estall, the destiny won't rest on her," Nainan whispered, and kissed her baby's forehead.
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