by AB Bradley
Instead, she would have to be satisfied that the blood of the silent sons who died protecting Mara covered Lady Rin’s back. Ash from her cloak clogged the noblewoman’s pores. Threads of burlap seasoned the woman’s skin like peeled chives.
Mara straightened. “Lady Rin?”
“Yes, Pinne?”
“I’m afraid the oil’s run low, and I have another new technique I’d like to use that the other servants rave about. They say the king himself created the technique, and it has yet to filter down to the others in Hightable. It is a secret, and one I have kept so close to my heart because I loved you, so I wanted you to be the first in Hightable to experience it.”
“Oh dear, really? Be a good girl and fetch some more oil, then. Don’t take too long. I would hate to be forced to beat you on such a pretty night, and after you give me such a…gift as your, ah, love.”
“Of course, Lady Rin. I’ll return as quickly as I can.”
She spun on her heel and darted from the gazebo. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears. Her oil-soaked fingers trembled. She apologized to Pinne the servant girl who would probably get a beating when Lady Rin discovered that the ashwalk pilgrim had treated her that night and not her loyal servant.
Then again, perhaps the woman’s status would keep her lips sealed. Mara could only imagine how the other ladies of Hightable would shun the one who let the king’s would-be assassin and evil sorceress of the Six give her a back massage.
Mara grinned. Poor Lady Rin wouldn’t sleep for a week, and best of all, she wouldn’t dare tell another soul.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Mara's Choice
Mara wove through one frustratingly beautiful garden after another. She hid in the shadows of unlit gazebos and pressed her back against the marble pools of glorious fountains. Always she kept the temples and grand palace in sight. Slowly, she worked her way toward them, the infant’s body growing heavier with each breath she took, the stars in the night sky beginning to fade with the creeping dawn.
No alarms rang from Lady Rin’s home. No soldiers came marching through the wide streets, flooding into the woman’s tall, sprawling estate. Mara had been right to think the noble’s humiliation at the hands of the ashwalk pilgrim had kept her mouth shut. With any luck, the servant named Pinne also escaped a beating.
Few soldiers patrolled the streets of Hightable. Apparently, not even the king thought Mara would penetrate Sollan’s heart. She couldn’t blame them for thinking so. Even she surprised herself by making it that far, by skirting the sickening violence that fell everywhere around her like leaves in autumn.
She flitted like a burlap wraith behind an estate with darkened windows. A garden of trimmed hedges and round pools capped by miniature titan skeletons sprawled before her. Opposite the mansion and clear on the other side of the garden, a simple servant’s quarters sat amongst a throng of weeping willows with soft, curving branches weighed by countless pink and white blossoms.
A gold lamplight illuminated the second floor of the mansion. It melted from one window to another, slowly moving through the estate as its carrier made their way through the sprawling home. Mara narrowed her eyes and watched as the light drifted window to window.
“It could be a servant like Pinne,” she said.
The light paused before a window.
Mara chewed on the corner of her lip. “Or it could be a noble like Lady Rin…”
She didn’t have the time to spare on detours away from the temples, yet some part of her knew the safest path and the quickest one diverged before her. She spun on her heel and sprinted into the manicured yard.
Pool after pool she passed. Her breaths came hot and heavy. The wind pulled her hood from her head. Her dirty, matted hair bounced over her shoulders. Mara glanced behind her. The gold light had drifted from the second floor to the first like a hungry demon searching for its prey.
Ahead, the blooming willows loomed large. She leaned forward and sprinted harder. She took a last, fleeing look behind her. The light illuminated the crack beneath a door and the ground. The handle twisted, and the door parted.
Mara leapt into a curtain of blossoms. The soft petals kissed her cheeks and caressed her arms as she barreled through the silken veil. She twisted around a trunk and pressed her back against its rough bark, panting like a fox freshly escaped from a hungry wolf.
She closed her eyes and inhaled. Only her heartbeat kept her company beneath the willow’s boughs.
Exhaling, she peeked around the trunk. Across the garden, the door swung wide. A nobleman appeared with an oil lamp in hand, glaring down the length of his lawn.
“He can’t see you,” Mara told herself. “You’re safe.”
Her eyes locked onto the man. His gaze centered on the tree where she hid. Mara tightened her jaw. The willow branches swayed. His eyes narrowed, but he never called for soldiers. He never stepped beyond the comfort of his doorway. The nobleman retreated into his mansion, and the door swung quietly shut behind him.
Mara breathed a sigh of relief. She pinched her brow, rubbing her temples with her thumb and middle finger. She had precious little time to reach the temple before Olessa’s glimmer completely faded from her blood.
“Look at where your son would have lived,” she heard Olessa say. “Look at the luxury afforded to those in Hightable. It is the pearl of the shitty oyster that is Sollan. I see you still wear the ashen burlap. Good girl.”
“It’s what the ashwalk demands. I nearly changed earlier and it almost got me killed. The Six want me in burlap.” Mara closed her eyes so she could better picture her madame.
“Then you really do want to save that little bastard’s soul? This wasn’t about having an adventure for a night?”
Mara’s gaze drifted to her lifeless son. She smiled at his plump cheeks even though their blue hue brought tears to her eyes. “I do. It’s not.”
“If he had lived, I would have sold him to one of these highborns. This would have been his world.”
“I believe you,” Mara murmured. She brushed her finger through his wispy hair. “But that is not the life he would have lived.”
“And what life do you think that would have been? You are no longer faced with death on the Waterstair. Tell me what you see. Tell me what you believe, Mara.”
Mara leaned against the willow’s trunk. Around her, blossoms pale as fresh milk weighed the tree’s branches. They formed a cocoon for Mara and her thoughts. In her mind’s eye, she parted the branches, and beyond, the play of her son’s life spread out before her like an epic tale told for generations.
“Tell me,” Olessa repeated.
“This king of ours, many think he is a man with vision. But he has more than just vision. He has hunger. He has rage. Those that willingly bow before him will regret the act before long. Those that love him now will fear him later. They will give up hope.”
The words spilled from her like she’d rehearsed them. “But my son? He would never give up hope. He would have seen Good King Sol for the monster he truly is. My son would have stopped this king. As a boy, he would have hidden in shadow. As a man, he would have stepped into the light and raised armies to slay the king and his flying serpent and squelched the Serpent Sun before it rose. If a heart beat in the lands of Urum, they would know my son’s name.”
Mara stalked forward. She stared into the willow blooms. Olessa joined her, and together they watched the play of her son’s life unfold before them.
“Do you see him, Mara?” Olessa asked.
Mara smiled and pointed through the petals. “Look, Olessa, right there! He walks with five others. The days are dark and the world full of fear, but wherever he goes, a light shines. They follow him, Olessa, they follow him to the ends of Urum, to kingdoms I have only ever dreamed of and places long forgotten by men.”
Olessa pursed her lips and nodded. “He’s searching for something. But does he find it?”
“I’ll help him if he cannot find the way. I will always be there for him.
”
“However you can, I’m sure you will.” Mara’s madame crossed her arms over her fiery silks. “And when he faces the king, what do you see for this son who should have been no more than a highborn’s servant?”
“I see…” Tears stained Mara’s vision as a vice slowly closed around her heart. “…It isn’t clear.”
“Look harder.”
Mara wiped her tears on a sleeve and squinted. “I see pain. I see fire. I see darkness, and…and…”
“Death,” Olessa stated flatly. “You have made your son a legend in your dreams, but you forget times of peace and prosperity do not heroes make. It is only through a bloodletting that a name is remembered beyond a generation. Knowing that, would you still want this life for him? Would you suffer his blood upon the sands to know his name would weigh a poet’s verses until the winds wore the mountains into valleys?”
“I don’t wish him harm. I don’t wish him suffering.”
“Then don’t dream of great things he could have done. Dream of him living a comfortable life, tucked away in servant’s quarters much like the ones beyond this willow, trimming hedges and pressing clothes for people who believe their shit is worth its weight in gold. He will never hunger. He will never thirst. No harm or suffering will come to him, just as you wish.”
“But he will never truly live,” Mara whispered.
“What does it matter? He doesn’t live now. Isn’t it easier to give up on the dream when you know it could never happen?”
Mara pressed her fingertip onto her son’s nose and smiled. “No. It’s much, much harder, because you think it just might have.”
“Then what do you say, girl? The night is late and dawn approaches.”
Two choices lay before her like the first fork in a very long road that would determine the course of countless lives. Her better half knew she should dream of a quiet, peaceful life for her son. Her better half knew living as a servant would be a thousand times over more peaceful than living as the king’s mortal enemy.
She lifted her chin and glared through the branches. Her better half never could have brought her so close to the Mother’s temple. Her better half could never have come so far and survived so much.
“I choose to dream of a legend. I choose to dream of a savior who is no saint. I choose to dream of a boy who will become a man and deliver the world from darkness. This is what I choose to dream, because I know in the deepest parts of my beating heart that should he have lived, it would have been the path he walked.”
Olessa turned to Mara. Her madame cupped Mara’s cheek and smiled. For the first time, Mara realized the vision of Olessa was not the one she remembered from the House of Sin and Silk. The Olessa standing before her no longer sported a burgundy bush of a wig but waves of russet hair running like polished agate down to her breasts. The deep fan of wrinkles around her eyes had smoothed, the dark rings beneath her lashes now pink-kissed cream.
Mara leaned closer to her madame’s face. “Olessa, you look so young!”
Olessa chuckled and tapped Mara’s cheek. “I feel much better than I have in ages, my dear.”
Mara’s throat thickened. “There is no going home, is there?”
“I am so, so sorry, my child, but no, you will never return to the House of Sin and Silk. I came to you to know for sure that—” Olessa fought her words, her dark eyes glassy with tears. “What am I saying? I came to you to ask forgiveness. I was harsh on you from the first day my brother brought you to me. But in truth, Mara, you were more my daughter than my moon maiden. I loved the little girl my brother brought to my barge. Please forgive me for the bruises, for the poisonous words and broken wine glasses. I never told you how I truly felt even as the skiff took you from our home, and now it is the painful burden I will bear until the last sun sets on the horizon.”
“I knew what you felt for me.” Mara placed her hand over the one Olessa used to cup Mara’s cheek and smiled. “You never needed to say the words. I saw the truth in your eyes. I knew, and it was all I ever wanted.”
Olessa cried. Her tears were glass pearls melting down her cheeks. “When you left my—our home, it broke my heart. I went into my room and wept. I wanted to go with you. I wanted to take you to the temple steps myself. I was such a coward, Mara. I will never forgive myself for not turning to you while Tolstes rowed you toward the shore. I raised you. I loved you. And when you needed me, I gave you glimmer and kicked you from our home. Forgive me, my child. Forgive me.”
“I forgive you. I forgive you a thousand times. You are my mother, Olessa. You always were.”
Madame Olessa’s form cracked and peeled, her smooth skin becoming the silk petals of the willow around them. “Gia was right. You are stronger than you know and so, so much more.”
Mara’s mother dipped her head and folded her arms across her chest. Her dress fluttered in the wind and dispersed into countless pale petals. Her arms and legs followed after.
“Never stop dreaming,” Olessa whispered, her voice fading on the wind. “And quit dawdling here like some glimmer fiend looking for a high. The king’s serpents slither through Hightable for their meal. Are you just going to sit around and pick flowers like a fool? Get to the temple, Mara, go!”
Mara took a last, fleeting look at her madame as what remained of the woman disappeared in a flurry of willow flowers. Mara turned on her heel and dashed from beneath the confines of the tree, her eyes set on the temples looming in the distance. Around the perimeter of Hightable, bells echoed in low tones, sending their deep notes vibrating through the still air.
CHAPTER TWENTY
A Noble Sacrifice
Until the moment Mara heard the first bell ring, Hightable felt relatively safe even so close to the palace. But when the alarms cast their deep calls into the night, she knew they realized the ashwalk pilgrim no longer stalked the lower city.
Olessa had been right. The king’s serpents would slither through the district, looking for their meal.
She dodged and darted through manicured lawns and labyrinthine gardens. She hid beneath bloom-laden willows and peered around slender pillars. Nobles once retiring to their comfortable beds lit lanterns and lamps as the bells rang their siren song. Dark windows glowed with fresh lights, illuminating silhouettes of Sollan’s wealthiest.
Marching lines of armed men streamed into Hightable from its single grand gate leading to the Blooming Ring and beyond. The soldiers went from estate to sprawling estate. They hacked at willow branches, knocked over urns and toppled ivy-covered statues.
Somehow, she always just barely avoided them. They would flood a garden or lawn, stomping into the grounds and tearing up grass and flower alike, but they would always miss her by a moment.
She reached a mansion comprised of two tall wings walled by marble pillars. An archway connected the wings to one another. Beyond the arch, she spotted a small manicured lawn that ended at a wide plaza. On the other end of the plaza, a temple teased her hopes.
Mara glanced behind her. The wide eye of the moon pierced itself on one of the towers overlooking the district. Paling skies drowned all but the brightest stars. Soon, a new sun would rise. Harvest Festival would be a memory, and Mara would be…
She turned from the moon and pressed her son against her chest. She blinked, her legs suddenly wobbling like she stood on a skiff beneath a summer storm.
Nausea twisted her stomach, and she nearly spilled its contents on the grass. Then, as quickly as the queasiness came, it vanished. Her legs solidified, and her stomach uncurled and hardened.
“The glimmer,” she said. “It’s—it’s almost gone. It’s leaving me. The sun is rising. We don’t have much time, my love!”
The arch waited in a mix of silver and shadow. Mara swallowed and closed her eyes, inhaling the honeyed scents of flowers that pervaded Hightable’s stifling air.
Mara crossed the remaining flower-speckled greenery. She slipped beneath the grand archway and halted. The temple lay beyond the grand plaza, each m
ighty column supporting its tall roof dotted with brilliant lanterns. The words scrawled into its marble told the world the Shining Child lived within its walls, welcoming all who wished to cleanse themselves of sin.
A line of soldiers marched through the plaza. Their knuckles whitened on their swords’ grips. The temple’s lanterns reflected against their steel breastplates. A captain did not lead them. A serpent priestess did.
Sister Ialane’s white cloak billowed around her despite the bare breeze penetrating Hightable’s wall. She halted in the plaza and craned her neck. Her scowling mask’s gaze zeroed on the estate where Mara hid. Slowly, the woman’s body turned in the direction her mask faced.
Mara twisted into the shadows. With her back against the wall, she peeked into the plaza.
The soldiers turned and formed a steely barrier between Mara and the temple. Ialane tickled her serpent’s jaw and motioned toward the estate. “Three of you to that one,” she called. “The rest take the neighbors.”
Soldiers swarmed like angry hornets toward the neighboring estates while three men charged the one where Mara hid. They formed a tide of sharpened steel and shadowed eyes. The three soldiers poured into one of the wings, and in moments, dragged a husband and wife screaming into the yard.
“Please,” the woman wailed, “we’ve done nothing. We are loyal to Good King Sol!”
The three soldiers bearing swords and torches towered over the noblewoman and her husband. The pair kneeled before the king’s men in tattered and dirty silks, their eyes wide and brimmed with panicked tears. A necklace slipped from the woman’s nightgown and hung loose around her neck. On the necklace, a polished gold circle held a star with six points within it. The golden symbol glittered in the torchlight.
Sister Ialane floated like a porcelain phantom before the soldiers and their prisoners. She tilted her head to the woman and bent forward, her fingers flicking the symbol hung around the noble’s neck.