Ready, brother? Deyral called through the Threads.
I can hear you, Meghianna said. Her eyes widened more and she pressed a little gloved hand over her mouth. Should I keep away?
You can listen, little one, but do not pull on the Threads, and say nothing until the doorway has closed on the other side, Mrillis said. Yes, brother, we are ready. He resisted the temptation to stretch a Thread out to Meghianna and enclose her in protection. She was strong enough to protect herself from any flares of energy through the Threads, and it was high time he trusted her to do so.
The others in their party had enough imbrose to protect themselves, or a small enough amount of magic the surge of energy through the Threads would not affect them at all. He trusted Gynefra to wrap a Thread around Megassa to effectively muffle her from any unpredictable reactions.
Mrillis urged his mount forward, and Mist followed just a step behind. He kept one hand on the front of his saddle and the other hand gripped the reins, while he sent out his mental hands to pull handfuls of the Threads hanging like a thick fringe from the edges of the doorway. A flash of energy burst inward and shot forward along one blue Thread thicker than the trunk of a century-old oak. Mrillis rode forward into the center of that Thread, using it as the guide to his path. Mist kept pace with his horse. Meghianna sat still, her mouth clamped tightly shut, eyes wide, little gloved fists digging into her saddle. Sparks of blue and white magic danced along the wisps of hair that slid free of her hood.
Four steps brought them out, onto the pebbly, sloping shore of Wynystrys. Mrillis turned his horse to the right, clearing the opening for the others. As soon as the tail of the last Valor's horse emerged from the shimmering wall of magic, the thick blue Thread vanished and the door closed with another burst of white light.
Meghianna let out a loud, gasping sigh that ended with a giggle. She slid down from the saddle, eliciting a cry of warning from Nalla. Her nursemaid stifled the sound when the child didn't move more than two steps away from Mist, but stayed in place, stamping her feet and waving her hands in the air a few times.
"It itches and tickles," she proclaimed, two bright spots of excitement in her cheeks.
"Ah, and that shows great sensitivity to the currents and power used by the Estall to hold our World together," Deyral said. He smiled, bowing his shaggy, hooded head to her when she jerked and turned quickly to face him. He seemed to emerge from the pile of driftwood kept on the shore as a signal fire, just as it had been done in Mrillis' childhood, though there was certainly no need for it any longer. If he hadn't been looking for the High Scholar to be waiting for them, and if he hadn't known the man's propensity for stillness and hiding in plain sight, Mrillis might have missed him.
Up to your old tricks? Mrillis asked.
There is no trickery involved. I'm an old man who happens to dress in colors that match the landscape, and when I sit perfectly still, no one notices me, his friend retorted, laughing in his mental voice. "Welcome, Princess Meghianna, Princess Megassa." Deyral bowed to both girls. His warm smile widened. "Nalla, my dear. It is wonderful to see you again. How long has it been?"
Meghianna let out a squeal when Deyral stepped forward, caught both of Nalla's hands in his own, and tugged her forward to press a quick kiss against her lips.
"Not long enough, you old rascal," Nalla spluttered. Then she surprised Mrillis as much as Meghianna by giggling and blushing.
"I suppose your dear nurse neglected to mention that we courted for quite a few years when we were young."
"No," Meghianna managed to say, though her mouth seemed to want to hang open rather than force the words.
"Young and foolish," Nalla said. She shook her head, eyes snapping with amusement despite the scowl she tried--and failed--to form on her lips. "Well, I hope you've made arrangements--"
"Three Drops of Blood," a woman said, her voice shaking with effort.
Trevissa staggered out of the grove of trees a good twenty paces from the water's edge. Her hair had gone silvery-white from the force of the power that flowed through her during her times of Seeing. Her clothes were clean, but ragged, and Mrillis suspected she had walked through a patch of brambles to reach the shore. She hunched over, arms wrapped around her ribs as if the effort of breathing pained her. Barefoot, she didn't react to the layer of splintered shells and pebbles she walked over as she approached their traveling party.
"Behold, two drops of blood stand here, and the third waits for the fullness of time. Pity she who produced the one who shall abominate. Pity she who produced the one who shall wait. Pity she who has yet to produce the one who shall suffer." Trevissa's knees folded and she settled down onto the pebbly shore, bracing herself on her shaking arms, palms pressed flat to the ground.
"Clear as mud, as always," Deyral said on a sigh. His actions were gentle, despite his slightly exasperated tone, as he knelt next to Trevissa and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
When the woman raised her head a few moments later, her eyes had lost the white mist of Seeing and she looked flushed, as if with a fever. She shivered and sweat beaded her forehead.
"Did I kill it?" she whispered, pressing against the High Scholar in visible terror.
Mrillis wished he could take the girls away. Chances were good Megassa had no idea this was her mother, but he knew from experience that their party would only escape Trevissa's notice, and the hysterics that sometimes followed a Seeing, if they stood perfectly still.
"It needs to die. It's weak. It's poisoned. It's a curse. No one wants it. Efrin doesn't want it. I need to stop the blood. I can give Efrin a son. Get rid of the baby before anyone knows she's here, and I can give him a son. We can save the World if I give him a son. I can't give him a daughter, or we're doomed." Her voice broke on a sob and she pressed her face into Deyral's dull brown robes.
"Efrin is safe," Deyral said. He lifted his gaze to meet Mrillis' for a moment.
"Good. I do love him, you know. That's how they used me. I already wanted him. He liked me. That's how they were able to trick him. If he had hated me, if I had hated him, it wouldn't have worked. Love makes everything weak, don't you know?"
"Come along. Back to your cottage. It's cold out here. You don't want to get sick." He stood, easing Trevissa up from the ground.
"Yes, I have to get strong. I have to stay healthy. Efrin needs a son. The third drop of blood." A cackle burst from her lips, shaking her body with enough force she nearly twisted free of Deyral's hold. "I can save the World. I can. I can."
"Of course you can," Nalla said, gliding forward, arms outstretched and pale green shimmers of healing magic streaking up her arms from her fingertips.
Mrillis nearly lost his breath at the surge of admiration for her strength and courage and selflessness, to reach out to Trevissa when she had to hate the woman. Nalla had been Belissa's guard and support during her pregnancy, and had wept herself ill when Belissa died. She loved Meghianna as if the child had come from her own flesh. The fact the girl would be Queen of Snows someday was a distant, foggy consideration to the fact that she was the daughter of her dear friend, who had likely died at the hands of Trevissa, her cousin.
"I have the girls," he said, when Nalla hesitated and glanced back.
She nodded, face creasing in concern, and turned back to her patient.
"I don't like her," Megassa pronounced, her voice a hard-edged whisper, shattering the fragile silence into shards.
"No, but you should pity her. No one chooses madness, or to be used by the enemy until your mind and soul are raw and stretched out of all semblance to anything human," Gynefra said in a gravelly voice. She took hold of Megassa's hand. "That's enough for now. We'll tend to our errand tomorrow. Let's explore, first, shall we?"
Mrillis could have laughed at the eagerness that lit the girl's face, but the oppressive sorrow that remained on the shore after Deyral and Nalla led Trevissa away choked him.
"Meggi, do you want to come?" Megassa said.
"I think I
'd rather stay with Lord Mrillis," the older girl said. "May I?"
"Of course." He held out his hand. Hers was cold inside its glove, and felt smaller than usual when she gave it into his grip. "Come. Master Breylon's quarters are a good place to rest."
They walked up the slope from the shore, while Gynefra and two of her women warriors headed to the left along the shore, aimed toward the piles of rocks that had once been watchtowers and fortresses, long before Mrillis' great-grandfather had been a student on the island. The rest of their party led the horses away, following them up the slope to the village and the waiting stables. Meghianna walked with her head bowed, her face hidden by the folds of her hood.
"I think it's good Megassa doesn't know that was her mother," the girl said, when they reached the well in the center of the neat, quiet village.
"Yes, I agree." He sat down with a weary sigh and reached for the crank to draw up a bucket, so they could both have a drink. Mrillis sensed the inhabitants of the community of scholars and enchanters watching them, listening through the Threads, but no one came out of the shadows of dusk or their doorways or from behind the cottages and huts. He appreciated their discretion, even as he wished he didn't have such sole and lonely responsibility for the child's training.
"Does it hurt? Being mad?" She settled down next to him, close enough to rest a little elbow on his knee and look up at him. In the shadows of her hood, for just a moment, he could fool himself he saw Ceera, somber and thoughtful, mature beyond her years.
"I don't know, as I've never been mad. I'm sure it's frightening, but we've never cured anyone of madness, so they can't really tell us, can they?"
"She talked about the prophecy of the Three Drops of Blood."
"Yes."
"I thought you said we always had choices."
"The Estall always gives us choices, yes."
"Then how can the prophecy be right? I don't want to do bad things, and Megassa doesn't want to do bad things. Will our brother have to do bad things? Just because the prophecy says so?"
"The Estall stands outside of time, yes?" Mrillis scrambled for answers while he waited for Meghianna to think over his question. She nodded, a short, sharp movement that helped her hood slide off the back of her head a little more.
He poured water into two of the mismatched cups set out for that purpose, and handed her drink to her. Mrillis wasn't ashamed to admit he used action to give him a little more time to think. He waited until she took a few sips, and he had time to down half of his cup, before speaking again.
"The Estall sends us visions and prophecies of things that have already happened, in one perspective. Yet a Seeing can be seen as a gift, a warning, a chance to change what is yet to come. Something like standing at the far end of a long, crooked hallway with a rough floor. You know where the holes and rough spots are, so you can call back to the people behind you to help them avoid places where they could fall and get hurt, or even take a wrong turn and get lost. It's their choice whether to continue down the hall and take your advice."
"That doesn't really fit." She shook her head.
"No, because I'm rather tired and sometimes you ask very hard questions, and I think you do so just to frustrate me." He tapped her nose for punctuation, startling a giggle out of her. "I wish I had all the answers you want, dear one. We have choices. The Estall promises us we will always have choices. Sometimes, when the battle is long and the night seems especially dark, we wish the Estall would take back those gifts of choices and simply tell us what to do. But would anyone obey?"
Meghianna shook her head. She leaned against him, and he lifted an arm to wrap around her shoulders. Such small, delicate shoulders, to carry such a heavy burden now, and far heavier in the years, perhaps centuries, to come.
"But the Estall speaks to us from all the realms of time. What we see as the future, in some aspects it has already happened. It is the mercy of the Estall to offer us warning, to avoid evil and dangerous choices."
"Doesn't that make it even worse, when someone is warned and still chooses to do bad?" she whispered.
"It does indeed. They have no excuse at all."
* * * *
Deyral joined them a short time later, to lead them to supper. The questions in his eyes, the glances he cast at Meghianna, made Mrillis feel tired. And a little irritated. After all, this was the child Ceera had seen in visions and had chosen as her heir, years before her birth. Meghianna had never come to Wynystrys before, and most of the scholars and enchanters who lived here rarely left the island. Glimpsing her through the Threads, through the eyes of others, and reading reports about her progress wouldn't be satisfying in the slightest, for these men and women who lived for knowledge and answers.
"I bid you a very late welcome, Meghianna Warhawk." Deyral bowed low to her, entirely ruining the effect by winking as he straightened.
Meghianna giggled, and Mrillis sighed on a breath he hadn't realized he had been holding. He knew he should have trusted his old friend to take exactly the right attitude in approaching the child. Remind her of her position, but encourage her not to take it seriously all the time. She was still a child, and she had every right to enjoy her childhood whenever possible. Being made a pet and playmate by the people of Wynystrys might just be good for her. She needed some balance among those who tried to protect her too much, and those who expected her to be Ceera re-born, and wanted to heap all her duties on her from the moment she could talk.
Nalla didn't return with Deyral, and he explained that she had chosen to sit a while with Trevissa, using her healing power to calm her. Meghianna let him take her hand, and walked between the two men to the long, oval building that had been the central meeting hall of the island from time immemorial. Mrillis listened while Deyral gave the girl a short tour of the village, pointing out the huts that had been dormitories for the boys who once studied there, and were now homes for scholars, or guesthouses for the occasional visitors.
"Where did you live, Lord Mrillis?" she asked, when they reached the door of their destination. When he indicated the building, and Deyral informed them that it now served as storage for unneeded furniture, she laughed. "Did you tell them to do that?"
"No. Why do you ask?"
"Because Nalla told me your old room at the Stronghold is storage now, too, and you would be very pleased if you knew."
"Hmm." Deyral nodded, stroking his beard, his mouth solemn but a twinkle in his eyes. "I think you might just be right. Lord Mrillis has a strangely twisted sense of humor."
"I have a strong liking for common sense," Mrillis retorted, fighting not to laugh. "All the rooms on that level of the Stronghold have been emptied of inhabitants, and set to other purposes. Just like many of the buildings here." He tapped her nose, earning another sputter of laughter from the child, which in turned warmed his heart. "I think you are in desperate need of your dinner, to have such silly thoughts."
"You're right." She caught hold of his hand and turned, reaching with her free hand to open the door.
The three of them laughed together as they crossed the threshold, earning wide-eyed looks from the near-dozen people who waited around the far end of the long table. Mrillis was relieved that so few of Wynystrys' scholars had descended on Meghianna tonight, yet at the same time, the depleted numbers saddened him. When the Rey'kil enchanters had broken the island free of its roots, to let it drift within a cloud of Threads for safety's sake, a long, strong tie with the past had been severed. Scholars set up schools for Rey'kil children at towers close to strong vales, where the power from the Threads collected. Family lines strong in imbrose no longer sent their daughters to study at the Stronghold and their sons to Wynystrys, but kept them closer to home. The illness that had ravaged the Stronghold, in those cruel days when Ceera and Emrillian had died, was mostly to blame for the depleted population of the Stronghold. How long until the numbers were as sparse as Wynystrys, and the Queen of Snows ruled a small, loyal knot of powerful women, lost among shadows and dusty,
empty, echoing chambers?
"That's it. Help him sit slowly," Deyral said, as Mrillis blinked away a gray haze from his eyes. His knees tried to fold and he reached out in a momentary flash of panic.
"Lord Mrillis?" Meghianna appeared from the haze, holding out her hands wrapped in blue Threads. She grasped his hands. Her flesh was warm, and he realized he was chilled thoroughly. The power shot through his hands and up his arms, jolting his lungs and belly with heat.
"Thank you, little one," he whispered, as half a dozen hands guided him into a chair in front of a place set for dinner. "What happened?"
"You had a vision. And delayed our dinner barely long enough to make any difference," Deyral added with a diffident shrug.
"That's a matter of opinion," Scholar Ialani said with a sniff. She was the head cook for the much-reduced community of scholars, Mrillis recalled. He also recalled she had a strong sense of humor and an admirable sense of proportion--delaying her meal, no matter how long she slaved over it, wouldn't bother her.
He thanked her for her teasing with a weary nod, and closed his eyes. "What did I say?"
"She who waits will wait alone, holding the blade of stars for the hand it was made to fit, and the hive once full of life will echo with memories and dust and the sounds of the winter winds across the sea," Meghianna said. She squeezed Mrillis' hands one last time and released them. "What hive?"
"The Estall knows." He opened one eye, and when he saw her watching him with a little frown of worry wrinkling her forehead, he forced a smile to comfort her.
How many times had he and his friends jokingly referred to the Stronghold as a hive, in their youth? With the Queen of Snows as the heart of the community, and the many chambers dug out of the stone, it resembled a hive clearly enough for the most obtuse imagination to recognize. Mrillis recalled the thoughts that had come to him moments before the vision, and he repressed a shudder of certainty. Meghianna would hold Braenlicach safely for someone, standing lonely vigil all alone in the Stronghold. His heart ached for the child, and he prayed that it would be centuries until that bitter duty fell on her.
THREE DROPS OF BLOOD Page 7