The Changing of the Sun

by Lesley Smith

  “I am not Seaborn.”

  “Are you not the woman who survived the great wave that destroyed Caerim?”

  “I am Jeiana,” she replied, walking confidently even as the mortal part of her quaked. This was not for Jeiana to sort, this was for Jaisenthia, and her higher self embraced the moment. “And you are Jashri, formerly Kia of the Cavari, daughter of Ismena of Pesh and Adria, clanmother of the Ifunareki.”

  “Who told you my name? Was it her? Was it Meresia?”

  “Information like that is easy to find when you speak with departing souls as if they were friends. Adria spoke of you so fondly, as the second daughter she never had, and your mother grieved when she was ripped from your side. She wanted to wait for you but you never came, you fought. We came for you but you wanted to live so badly.”

  “Liar!” Jashri spat. “Is this some conspiracy to take my position? Is this Saiara’s method to try and undermine me?”

  “You remember that day, I know you do.” Jeiana felt the power of knowledge flowing through her. It was intoxicating, but more memories evaporated, memories that her dying mind could no longer hold onto. “I am not here to debate my existence.”

  “As High Oracle of Aia I demand you answer: Who are you?”

  “I am Jeiana of Caerim. Or, at least, I was.”

  Jashri’s face had gone a livid red, the same colour as the welts now covering her servant’s body. “Which god are you?”

  “I’m not a deity, even if you’ve labeled me one. In all honesty, I wouldn’t want to be one, not with the expectations that come with the privilege.” The words tripped over her tongue, even as she shuddered. She could feel Vashi dying in the bowels of the building and though her powers felt like something a god might have, the idea was anathema.

  “Tell me your name.”

  “No. You wouldn’t recognise it. I’ve had thousands,” Jeiana said. “You cannot bind me, you can’t force me to do what you wish. I have come to help save my sister’s beloved people in their time of trial. For the species to live, not everyone will survive and that could include you.”

  “I’m the Oracle.” Jashri looked startled. “I am Aia’s vessel.”

  “You were born and you will die, just as Thaeos rises and sets,” Jeiana said. “I will die, Eirian will die. Every person in this city, in this world will one day ‘cross the River’ as you say. The thing that you can sometimes chose is when that day will be. You have that choice, Jashri.”

  “You don’t glow like the scriptures say gods do,” Jashri said angrily. “You’re just some trickster sent to make me doubt.”

  “Your paranoia is your own, I don’t need to fan that fire.”

  “Aia would tell me if her daughter walked the world. She would not tell the Edoi before Her Voice.”

  “The being you call Aia speaks to everyone. She drifts as invisible as the atoms which connect the universe together,” Jeiana replied. “You forgot that you need to listen. That’s what oracles do, isn’t it? Listen to Aia? She gave you a choice and you refused to do the right thing. Instead you poisoned what hope people have and thousands will die because of it. I will come to take you and you will be wracked with grief at what you have done.”

  Jashri spoke the name with disbelief. “You claim to be the Lady of the River. Have you come to take Vashi?”

  “Your niece? I hope not, but if we have no choice and if she asks, then yes,” Jeiana said. “Did you see what your personal torturer did to her?”

  Jashri faltered. “No.”

  “You asked him not to kill her.” The words hit the High Oracle as if she’d been punched in the stomach. “But she cannot live and heal from this. You are going to be responsible for the death of your firstborn niece and you’ve known who she is since the day you asked Meresia for her. You’ve never had a death on your conscience, Jashri, and those weigh very heavily. I carry that weight with me each day, even in this form.”

  “Jaisenthia?”

  “I’ve never called myself by that name,” she said. “This form was borrowed from a dying woman to allow me to walk amongst the people of this world, to understand you even as I try to help. That’s why you can’t see me, Jashri, with your other senses. This has never been about faith, about belief in gods, it’s been about trust and hope. In this case, they’re not the same thing.”

  “I cast you and your Edoi from my city!”

  “We’re leaving anyway,” she said. “But thank you for making our passing easier. Now, for the sake of your soul, for your own peace and Vashi’s, let me ask you one thing before I go. I believe you still care, that you might run from what must be, but even you wouldn’t kill your sister’s daughter. If there’s any part of Kia left in you, you will answer me.”

  “What?”

  “If you could save Vashi, would you?” Jeiana asked. “If it would tip the balance only a little?”

  “I regret Vashi, the punishment was too harsh, but she still disobeyed me!”

  “She did not.” Jeiana thought back to the tavern. “She stole a moment not to see her mother but to find out why the Edoi plan to leave. She’s a girl in love who missed her family, who bent the rules of her bond but cared enough for you not to break them.”

  “A lover? Vashi?”

  “Is that so surprising?”

  On the climb up, Jeiana had cursed her inability to save Vashi. She wasn’t a healer and this was her life to walk, Uryen and the others would not come to aid her. Suddenly the path was clear and she knew how to save Vashi. Rules could be bent if not broken, and so as the mortal incarnation of death, she could also take from one and give to another.

  “Yes!” Jashri exclaimed.

  Jeiana smiled, even though she got no pleasure from it. She closed the gap between them and grabbed Jashri’s palm, placing her own flat against it.

  “Let me go!” Jashri squeaked, voice a few octaves too high. “What are you doing?”

  “The day of your death is set, not so many days from now. Had you gone with Saiara and her caravan you would have lived. You would have had a good life and died surrounded by people who loved you, you would have found the redemption you seek even as you bluster.” Jeiana let go and the High Oracle swayed. “I am simply taking the days you will never use to save your niece’s life. It’s the least you can do, given what you had your sadistic minion do to her. The balance will be restored, and you will thank me when we meet again.”

  Then Jeiana turned and, leaving a pale and breathless Oracle behind, walked out of the Hall of Oracles and ran down the steps as fast as her Kashinai legs would carry her.

  Senara was watching Vashi die. Now supported with pillows, her breathing was slowing. She had minutes left, but some part of her was still fighting, needing exoneration before she could leave this world behind.

  “I didn’t…tell,” Vashi faltered.

  “I know, my child,” Eirian said gently. “Rest now, Vashi. It’s all right.”

  “A man…” her voice faded. “He told me he came to take Iasei across the…”

  “Shhhh,” Senna soothed and looked up at Eirian, shaking her head. She knew the ex-Oracle had some vision, enough to make out a simple head movement in a lighted room. This was something that she couldn’t say even if she was sure Vashi knew it.

  Shaari let out a mix of a sob and a gulp, apparently she had some vision too, and the other oracles began to sing softly. That was when Senna heard footsteps on the stairs, and a minute later, Jeiana appeared, heaving as if she had run down the steps.

  “Step back!” Her voice came out more abruptly than she intended. “All of you, move, now!”

  The oracles parted, allowing the stranger, a woman with dark hair and strange, pale skin, to pass through them. Eirian squinted but could see nothing but mortality in the woman, was this the survivor of Caerim? The god-touched Seaborn that the city had been murmuring about since New Year?

  Jeiana knelt and moved to raise Vashi’s head.

  “Don’t. There’s nothing we can do.�
�� Senna stopped her, reaching out to touch her elbow, and she pulled her hand back, gasping as if she’d touched a fire. “Ow!”

  “Don’t touch me, not right now.” Jeiana was shaking from effort, her voice catching on exhaustion. “There’s a maelstrom inside of me and I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “Ana?” Senna was still puzzled and rubbing her hand in pain. “Vashi has only moments.”

  “That will be more than enough time.” Jeiana said, and then cupped Vashi’s head carefully in one hand, pulling off the bond-collar and casting the thing into the darkest corner of the room with more force than might have been needed. Carefully, Jeiana placed one palm over the girl’s trineal node, then she placed her other hand over the girl’s heart, bent down and kissed her.

  The oracles gasped collectively as the mortal woman in front of them suddenly glowed with silver-white light. Shaari swore and turned away on instinct, shielding her blind eyes from a light no one with vision could see. Eirian understood instantly; miracles were rare but not unheard of from those indwelled by gods. All of them realised at the same moment that if Jeiana of Caerim was a deity walking in mortal flesh then she was on their side and here to help.

  The light flooded Vashi and Senna didn’t understand the reaction, the oracles were reacting like they were staring into a fire. After a moment, though, she saw what the oracles did not. She might not see the light but some of this miracle needed the visible spectrum. The bruises melted away, the bones popped back into place and the welts smoothed over as if they were nothing more than dirt erased by running water. Vashi took a shuddering breath, as if she had been underwater far too long, and then fell back as the energy drained out of her.

  Jeiana sat back, suddenly tired, and for a second she saw him. He was dressed as he was in her dreams, in strange black clothes, a staff in one hand and his silver-white hair kept in check with a leather thong. Behind him, for an instant, she saw the shadow of a woman, older and smiling, still dressed in palletclothes. Then he was gone and Vashi opened her eyes.

  Seconds later, Jeiana passed out. She pitched sideways but was only gone for a moment. Her mind and body needed to reset after the surge of energy that had passed through her during the transfer.

  “Ana!” Senna caught her, there was no static dancing on her skin now, no painful bite. She was Jeiana again.

  “I’m sorry,” she answered. “I had to do something.

  Vashi was unconscious, but her face was peaceful and her breathing deep as her body assimilated the hundreds of days taken from her aunt, the book of her life extended by several chapters.

  “What did you do?” Senna was aghast.

  “Righted the balance, just a little.” Jeiana shook herself, blood leaking from her nose that she quickly wiped away with her sleeve. “We need to get her out of here, take her to her mother. I can’t do that again.”

  Exhausted, Jeiana and Senna wrapped the girl in the sheets as if they were her shroud. Darus would not be surprised if she vanished, bodies were typically removed for disposal quickly, lest they rot in the summer heat. Jeiana was quietly glad that Kashinai were light and delicate creatures with hollow bones, as otherwise carrying the girl between the two of them would have been impossible.

  As they carried her out, after Eirian instructed the oracles to weep as if Vashi had died, Hsia stopped what she was doing; for a moment grief flashed across her face, and then her features hardened, even as she made herself scarce. The entire temple had heard Vashi’s screams and news of her death would travel faster than the wind.

  When the two women walked into the Resting Baelish as night closed in, everyone fell silent. White was the colour of Jaisenthia, death’s shade, because it was also the colour the skin went once the soul had flown free; escorted by the Lady of the River or her Ferryman to the kerash on the River.

  Meresia knew, some part of her was certain of the body in the shroud and she gasped. “Adria?!”

  “Help us!” Senna said as they nearly dropped her, both exhausted.

  The clanmother pulled back the shroud and gasped; her daughter lived and breathed and a weight was lifted from her soul. “What happened?”

  “Long story,” Senna said softly. “She needs rest. Get her into a pallet and keep her hidden; Jashri and Darus intended her dead and undoubtedly still do.”

  Jeiana grabbed a glass and downed half a bottle of teirei, her throat burning at the sweet touch of the firewater. She coughed and slammed the bottle back down on the table.

  Meresia’s voice was low. “Tell me, what did my sister do to her?”

  Every Edoi—bar Taras, who had found the girl and long suspected her origins—stopped, stunned as they connected the dots. They all knew she had gone to see Jashri and rumblings ripped through the group. Jashri was a part-Edoi child, lost to them, and it suddenly explained the Ifunareki’s tie to the city all these years.

  “Darus beat her to within an inch of her life,” Senna said, looking at Jeiana. “But I don’t know what I saw. Jeiana kissed her and all her wounds just melted away as if Uryen was sitting in my beloved’s place.”

  “You are her. You are Jaisenthia, beloved of the Ferryman,” Meresia said, flinging her arms around the stranger who had become family. “Oh sweet Aia, you saved my daughter. Thank you.”

  Jeiana squeaked, the mortal part of her startled by the Clanmother’s embrace. Suddenly exhausted, when the indwelt woman spoke, the words were not hers, they were borrowed from an old friend she didn’t remember anymore. “It’s what I’m here for.”

  Naming

  Oracles must be named, they must be seen to serve the people and stand as guides. The mantle must move down the ages; I see my successor in my dreams and so will each of those who follow me. Aia whispers and so must we, her oracles, listen.

  The writings of Kaiene the Blessed, first Oracle of Aia.

  Saiara dreamed and her vision was not a happy one. She walked the halls of the temple as a wraith and saw the internal struggle which was tearing the temple apart.

  All the time, Aia whispered: Go, you must go north. The sandclock is running dry…

  This would be their last day in the city.

  Saiara watched as Hsia moved through the courtyard like a sand mouse who has just seen a carrion bird in the sky. She wasn’t sure how she knew the girl with the long straight hair and dark eyes was Hsia but Aia whispered and Saiara knew it was true.

  She was beautiful, but her inner light had long been extinguished. Her eyes were on the floor, darting up now and again to focus on a noise across the courtyard or voices wafting as two guardians moved through their patrol. For a moment Saiara drifted behind her and then, somewhere between the courtyard and the kitchens, Saiara’s consciousness slipped into the slave’s mind, becoming temporarily blended and able to access every memory Hsia had ever had.

  Hsia moved through the kitchens, robes trailing and dancing behind her. The sense of doom rising in her stomach was getting so severe that she wanted to double up and purge her stomach. How had she gotten to this point? Where had she left her former self, the child who had been named as an insult?

  In the tongue of Fenoi, her name meant ‘upstart’ and she had ended up in the temple because her extended family saw a way to advance their own standing. She had been tall and graceful, better suited to being a priestess than a slave. Yet she had only wanted to do her best, to accept her lot in this life. But on arrival had she been brought to the slave barracks and not the priestess’ dormitory.

  She moved through the deserted underbelly of the temple, vacated by people released from their oaths and intent on following the new Oracle even unto death.

  Hsia wasn’t planning on going with them.

  The knife was long and sharp, designed for cutting through meat, sinew, and bone; dagger-like and designed for dennabirds with their thick bones and smaller size. The birds were rarely killed, usually only for celebratory feasts on the high holy days or an Ascension.

  Every Ascension needed a sacrifice. />
  She slipped the blade into her robes. The sleeves were long enough to hide everything from brushes and vials of ink to a sheui. Hsia had seen Vashi secret dozen of things to pass to the sisterhood over the years, though she never imagined it was a skill she’d need. Nor did she imagine she’d ever need to quickly dispatch something the way a restrained animal was; destined for slaughter, its life taken before the doomed creature’s soul had even realised the River was there.

  Yet she had watched, eyes willing and mind unaware, for far too long as the cooks prepared food for the sisterhood and that bitch Jashri’s table. Hsia knew more than she thought she did, she knew just where to strike, but first she had to hide the blade. The seasons of abuse had left her to understand his predictable nature; Darus would not come to her until darkness took the world and he would die for all the pain and torment he had inflicted on her over the years.

  Morning was coming to the city. Above the cloisters, Hsia could see the bleeding gash that came with dawn, and by the time she had hidden the blade under her pallet in the small back room Darus had secured for her so their sharings—an absurd word for the twisting of a beautiful thing—might be clandestine, the sky was burning golden and blood red, the heralds of a hot day. It was a long time to wait to die and she realised, with the stark clarity which came with finality, that it would be her last dawn.

  With Vashi gone—dead most agreed—even if there had been no formal announcement to the fact, it fell to Hsia almost by default to help the sisterhood in the bowels of the tower. She was dreading facing Eirian again, now after everything that had happened.

  So she would do what she must, but she would put it off as long as possible.

  Hsia climbed the stairs. She pulled back Jashri’s drapes and opened the window to let the sea air circulate around a room so stuffy she couldn’t understand how the High Oracle could bear to sleep in it. Though awake, Jashri, with her back to the window, didn’t even stir at the customary greeting, much less answer Hsia’s question about what Her Grace would like for breakfast. After a few uneasy minutes, Hsia simply left, and wondered if she had truly heard Jashri crying into her pillows.