by Sonia Lyris
Amarta, who must surely be alive if they were still being held here.
Pas had made the ride with the silent mage bearable. From all appearances it had not even occurred to the boy to be afraid. Rather, he seemed to delight in the horse, the lands they passed, and even had some fascination with their taciturn captor.
The next time Pas ran by, she grabbed him and lifted him into her arms, propped him on her hip, and kissed his forehead. He wrapped his arms around her neck.
“I think it’s him,” Pas said in her ear.
Him.
“You’re heavier every day,” she muttered at the wriggling child, letting him slip to the ground. He took her hand, pulling her this way and that with surprising force.
A knock, and the door opened. In the doorway stood a tall uniformed man, hands on the doorframe. He looked at her a moment, then stepped inside. He was breathing hard. He had the look of someone who had rushed to get somewhere, but having arrived wasn’t quite sure what to do next.
Pas pulled out of her grip and ran to him, taking his hand.
“Nalas! You came back!” He pulled the man into the room.
“Are you well?” Nalas asked her, resisting the pull but letting Pas draw him one step closer.
“You said you were coming back soon,” Dirina said accusingly. “Sorry,” she added quickly. “But no one talks to us.”
“I wanted to. I meant to. There was a—” He waved his free hand, let Pas draw him another step closer. “It’s a long story. But you’re no longer captive here. You are free to go.”
“Amarta?” Dirina breathed.
“She’s fine. On her way here. Not far behind.”
Relief flooded Dirina. “Oh!”
“She’s”—he allowed himself to be taken another step forward by Pas’s relentless pull—“free of her contract. She means to take you home to Perripur.”
“Will you come with us?” Pas asked him.
“Ah. No,” Nalas said, grinning down at him, the smile vanishing as he looked at Dirina. “I am sworn to the Lord Commander. I can’t.”
As if he needed to explain anything to her. “We understand.”
Still Pas was tugging at him. Nalas stepped again in her direction and stopped, ignoring the boy’s repeated snapping of his arm.
“Why did you come ahead of her?” Dirina asked. “Are you not her escort?”
“She’ll be fine. She has a substantial guard.” He scrunched up his face in that way he had, as if trying to sort something out. “I wanted to ask you something first.”
Outside dogs began to bark again. Horses’ hooves sounded on the stone road.
“That’s her,” he said with a tilt of his head. “I should go.” He began to turn away, but Pas held him tight.
“Ask, ask, ask,” Pas said, bouncing.
At this Nalas turned a sober look on Dirina. “I have no right to ask you anything, let alone this.”
If this kept up, he’d never get to it. “Ask, ask, ask,” Dirina repeated softly.
“Would you stay? Not here. The palace, if you want. Just for a time. Free to come and go, of course. Go back to Perripur whenever you wish. I only thought—I just wanted—” Again he fell silent, his mouth opening and closing silently.
“What? What did you want?”
“Time. To know you better. Both of you,” he said to Pas, who was still inexhaustibly tugging on his hand.
“Yes, yes, yes,” Pas said, now jumping up and down, still trying to move him closer to his mother. “I want to see the palace!”
“So,” he said to Dirina, “do you think you might—”
The door opened again. At first Dirina didn’t recognize the figure there, dressed in riding leathers, oversized red and black vest, hair cut short. “Amarta?”
Her sister ran to her, wrapped her in an embrace. “If they hurt you—” Amarta began.
“We’re fine, Ama,” Dirina muttered through her sister’s hair into her ear, emotion overcoming her from the familiar, warm scent of her sister. She swallowed hard, held her tight. Below, Pas was hugging them both.
“I was so worried,” Amarta said.
“What?” Dirina took her sister’s shoulders and held her at arm’s length. “Worried? You?”
Amarta laughed, eyes bright with tears. “There is a distance between vision and what will happen. Sometimes”—the smile left—“the gap is filled with blood.” She took Pas’s hand. Then she noticed the man watching.
“Nalas? You came ahead of me?”
“I did, Seer,” he said.
She frowned at him as she picked up Pas and held him in her arms. “Why?” She looked at Dirina, then back at Nalas, letting Pas down to the ground. “No,” she breathed, her expression falling. “Diri, he’s—no. Do you know who he is?”
“Ama—”
“We have a home in Perripur with Maris. I came to fetch you. To rescue you.”
“Ama. Yes, but. He—” How to explain what she herself didn’t understand?
“I want to see the palace,” Pas said earnestly to Amarta.
“You can’t stay in Yarpin.”
“Why not?” asked Pas.
“Yes, why not?” Dirina asked. “It’s all right for you to wander off anywhere you like, on dangerous adventures, but we must stay safely tucked away until you return for us?”
“That’s not what I meant. But I worked so hard to keep you safe.”
Dirina took her sister and her son back into an embrace. She whispered into Amarta’s ear. “Ama. I like him. Pas likes him. Is he not a good man? Tell me truly, will he treat us well?”
A returned whisper. “But we’ve always stayed together.”
Dirina stepped back and gave her sister a reproachful look. “No, we haven’t. And he will treat us well or you would have said otherwise.”
Amarta gave Nalas a glare. “You had better, ser, or I will come for you.”
Nalas held his hands up, a gesture of surrender. “Seer, I know.”
“Ama, you could stay with us.”
“No, I don’t think I can.”
“Then, but—what will you do?”
Amarta looked around the room, took a deep breath. “I don’t know yet.”
“How can you not know?” Nalas asked. “Can you not”—he waved a hand—“simply look to the future and see?”
Amarta laughed a little, shook her head. “First I must choose. Like everyone else.”
Chapter Thirty-nine
Maris stood at the edge of the small farm, inhaling the scents of mountain lily, spiceflower, and pine. The sun had just risen over the high mountains to the east, bringing the fields of amaranth to brilliant shades of pink and gold and green.
Under a thickly canopied alder, Maris borrowed the tree’s shadow and a dusting of magic to stay hidden as Samnt walked the rows of tall plants nearly as tall as he was, inspecting them, every now and then toeing one aside to look at the earth below.
Sending her focus through his body, she dipped into his blood, tissue, bone. Except for a tooth that needed attention, he was sound and strong.
Had Keyretura done this, she wondered, for the first time, watching her before he sat with her parents to create the contract that had changed her life? Had he asked himself if Maris were worth the devotion of so many years of his life and such consuming labor?
Was she herself really ready to make such a sacrifice?
Readiness comes from need. Not before.
She stepped forward and dropped her stealth. “Warmth of the season to you, Samnt.”
He whirled and stumbled backwards into the high stalks of flowers and green, brushing grain off his shirt as he stepped forward again, out of the high stalks and onto open grass. His mouth went slack with astonishment. “Maris,” he said at last.
“Good looking crop you have here,” she said when it was clear he wasn’t going to say anything else anytime soon.
He nodded, expression uncertain. Wary.
Afraid.
For a mo
ment she remembered the deep chill of winter as the door stood open after he had fled.
Magic. Now you’ve seen it.
“I went by my old cabin,” she said. “I see it’s been rented out again.”
“We still have your things,” he said quickly. “Someone suggested we sell them, but no, of course we wouldn’t do that.”
The familiar, deferring tone. He had not forgotten how she had treated him. Did she expect him to?
“You should have sold them,” she said. “Not the books. Those you should have kept.”
He shrugged a little, looked away. “I went back to your place after you left. The door was open. I thought it might be you. It wasn’t.”
“Who was it?”
“I don’t know. A mage, I guess. Dressed in black. Dark, like you. Asked me where you were.”
Keyretura had been looking for her. Not long ago this would have filled her with a craving to run, deep into the forests, in case he was still nearby. But now?
Now she might willingly have tea with him again.
“What did you tell him?” she asked.
Samnt sucked his top lip uneasily. “I should have held my tongue.”
“No doubt. What did you say?”
“I told him I didn’t know what shithole you were using these days and I didn’t care. Told him it wasn’t his business anyway.” He looked at Maris. “I was angry. Not thinking clearly.”
She shook her head slowly, found herself smiling. The courage of ignorance.
“What did he say?”
“Nothing. I ran as soon as the words came from my mouth, realizing I’d made a mistake. Half expected him to set me on fire or melt me into wax or something.”
Had Keyretura sensed her touch on Samnt and let him go without consequence because of that? She could not imagine he would simply forgive such an insult.
Then again, she was no longer quite certain she knew him as well as she’d thought.
“Really,” he said, “I should have known better, after—” He faltered. “After—”
“After our last exchange.”
“Yes. That.” He crossed his arms, looked at his feet. “You tried so hard to teach me. I wasn’t a very good student.”
“I could have been a better teacher.”
“No,” he said. “It was me. I was young.”
Maris laughed. He rolled his eyes, grinning.
“Younger,” he corrected.
“Younger,” she agreed, smiling back.
“I practiced letters, as you taught me,” he said. “In the dirt. Not much. Some.”
“Good. You should do more.”
“Maybe,” he said with a shrug and made a show of inspecting a nearby plant. “Maris, do you remember how I kept at you to teach me magic?”
“Keenly.”
He toed the dirt, kicked out a divot with his toe. “There’s a rich merchant in town. So rich, he can do anything he wants. Not a big man, but he seemed big to me, with all his money and his painted carriage. I used to watch him at market and think: if I could be like him, have that carriage, that would be enough.”
She nodded, waiting for him to continue.
“Last month I saw him watch a carriage go by. So magnificent I could barely think. From Yarpin, I suppose. Shiny and black with silver designs and sparkling red bits on top. Made his carriage seem ragged by comparison. I realized he was looking at the owner of that carriage the way I was looking at him. That’s when I knew there was always going to be someone who—how do I explain—”
“Someone with a bigger carriage.”
“Yes. That’s why I pestered you about magic, Maris. I thought it would be like that. Like having a bigger carriage. But it won’t, will it.”
“No,” she said.
Instead it would break him, rip his world to shreds. Change everything he thought he knew.
Teach him to build roads.
“If I had it to do over again—” he said.
“You don’t,” she said. “Bury your remorse.” She considered him a moment. “I have something for you.” She knelt by her pack, pulled out a book, held it out for him to take.
He dropped down beside her in the grass. “Oh, Maris.” He opened it, looked at the first page, his expression falling. “I can’t read any of this.”
“You merely need practice.”
“Sure,” he said insincerely. “But no. It would be wasted on me.” He held the book out to her. For a moment they stayed like that, him offering, her refusing to take.
His stubbornness seemed intact, in any case.
At last she took the book back. Together they stood.
“Who was he?” he asked, “The man at your cabin? Tell me I didn’t insult a powerful mage.”
She laughed. “But yes, that’s precisely what you did.”
“Good thing I’m just a farmer’s brat, then. He’ll forget me. Won’t he? Mages don’t carry grudges, do they?”
The warm sun reminded her of Perripur, of the years with Keyretura. Days of hard words, nights of harder silences.
How easy it was to be sure of what you thought you knew.
“Some do,” she admitted. “But I don’t think you need to be worried about that.”
“Look—The sun’s already moved, and I haven’t offered you anything. You hungry? Thirsty? Come to the house and we’ll find you something.” In his eyes was the hope that she would say yes, the fear she would refuse.
She went to pick up her pack, but he was there first, hefting it easily, grinning, turning to walk with her on the path to the house.
“I’m glad you’re here,” he said, voice low. “I thought I’d never see you again.”
Well, if she were going to prove Keyretura wrong, she had better get started.
“Samnt, do you want to study with me again?”
He shook his head. “I don’t want to disappoint you. I’d waste your time.”
“Then answer my question.”
“Yes!”
Maris smiled. From the farmhouse came a call. Samnt’s mother. She waved.
“Then we will talk. All of us.”
“About what?”
“Feed me first.”
He darted in front of her, animatedly stepping backwards to keep her in sight, her bag swinging from his shoulder. “Maris, talk about what? Tell me.”
“Be patient,” she said. “If this leads to something, you’re going to need a whole lot of that.”
And stubbornness. And many other things.
“What something more do you mean?” She could see his his clever mind casting about for answers.
But she would not answer, not yet. First she would tell him what it had cost her.
Chapter Forty
Amarta dismounted, aware that the many uniformed riders dismounting around her were attracting a good deal of attention in this seaside town. Some townspeople stood and stared. Most backed away.
She inhaled the scents of the town in summer: hot stone roads, rotting garbage, sluggish sewers. Then the winds changed: sea breezes, woodsmoke, baking breads. A strange world, where things could change so quickly and thoroughly.
She thought of the Lord Commander and their last conversation. He had held the reins of the horse on which she sat. A gift, he told her.
“Stay,” he had urged. “Your queen and empire still need you.”
“I can’t, Lord Commander. And I will not.”
“Seer, things are very different now. Your family—free to come and go. You, likewise, at full liberty. Stay with us, Amarta al Arunkel, as our guest. I can offer you—”
“I want none of it.”
He nodded, seeming unsurprised. For a moment he studied her closely, and she had the odd feeling he was seeing her now. For the first time. “What, then?” he asked, voice low. “Some apology or reparation? Would that change your mind?”
She thought of the years behind her. Of being hunted. Of being afraid. Of the lives she had cost.
“Or perhaps this?�
�� He held something up to her, and she took it. For a moment she didn’t recognize it. Then she did.
A blue and white seashell. Her mother’s seashell. She found herself smiling. “No, ser. You can’t give me what I want.”
“Name it.”
She looked at the squadron of guards he had put at her disposal and thought of all the things she could ask for, and how each one would bind her more closely to him and his queen.
“I want to be free of all this, ser.”
“Ah.” He took a deep breath. “So be it. One last question, then: what do I most need to know about my future?”
Amarta had come to very much doubt that answering this question did anyone any good at all. Even when she saw the future clearly, even when it changed little between prediction and outcome—even in those rare cases where people did as she directed—what did they gain?
Were they not then her tools, as she had been his?
In any case, people usually did what they wanted to, regardless of what she said.
And there was wisdom in that, perhaps.
As she considered how to answer him, she looked into the future and what was to come for Innel sev Cern esse Arunkel. Images of him with his queen. Of Arunkel soldiers alongside Teva on striped shaota. Of Houses of metal and stone and ocean, of people and colors moving across the land. Children to be born, deaths to come. A rich tapestry.
But she was done being one of its threads.
As he waited for her answer, she realized that no matter what she said now, whether based in vision or fully invented, whether smoothly spoken or absurdly clumsy, her words would carry influence far beyond anything she might expect or intend, and once said, they were out of her hands entirely. What could she possibly say to him now that would do more good than ill?
She laughed a little. “Listen, ser. Try to understand.”
He was silent a time. Considering, she hoped.
“The crown offers you hospitality, Amarta al Arunkel,” he said, handing her the reins. “We welcome your return.”
Her return. She did not want to think about that, but as long as Dirina and Pas were here with Nalas, she would feel the pull. But for now—
She had left the palace, then, and the city, with a guard of red and black trailing her along the Great Road, past houses and hovels, shipyards and markets. The ocean was to one side, sometimes close enough to be booming with surf, other times only sending a distant salt breeze her way.