by Anne Logston
“Seba, you spent some time at one of the Temples of Healing,” Kayli said, noting the child’s immediate slight relaxation as no rebuke seemed forthcoming. “Did you witness many of the rituals performed there?”
“Many,” Seba murmured. “The temple was near the border, an area frequented by Sarkondish raiders. Many came to our temple for healing or shelter. I was permitted to serve the temple in small ways—arranging the ritual instruments, preparing the inner temple for ceremonies, other such duties. I hoped to be allowed to stay, to cook or clean, perhaps.”
Kayli sighed and patted Seba’s hand comfortingly. The poor child must have had not so much as a glimmer of the healing gift. Novices at the Healing Temples were fortunate that there was need for even those with very little of the gift, as midwives, herbalists, and so on. Elemental magic was not nearly so forgiving; either a novice had enough of the gift to train as a mage, or she did not.
But why had the temple not kept Seba on to study as an herbalist or an assistant to one of the traveling healers? Perhaps the priests and priestesses thought Seba had a vocation better realized among the horse clans.
“Seba, I wish to perform a very important ritual in the forge,” Kayli said slowly. “An assistant would be helpful. It would be simple work and there would be no danger to you, but I wish to keep the ritual secret until it is completed. Would you be willing to assist me?”
Seba ducked her head in a quick nod. That was all, but the glow in her eyes spoke eloquently.
Randon did not return as promised after dinner, and Kayli decided finally that she could not bear the inside of her chambers one moment longer. Resolutely she crept out into the hallway after making sure none of the servants were about. She would find Randon at whatever administrative work he was doing. He would chide her for disobeying Stevann’s orders, but he would let her stay, and perhaps she could read papers for him. Anything was better than another afternoon in bed.
After dodging around corners a dozen times to avoid detection, Kayli resolutely squared her shoulders and walked openly down the stairs. She occasioned a number of surprised stares, but no one came to herd her back to bed. And why should they? She was their mistress and their High Lady.
To her surprise, Randon was neither in the study where she expected to find him nor in the library. Kayli feared that he had had to sit in an afternoon audience after all, but a look out the front windows showed no carriages waiting outside, nor peasants waiting their turn. At last she made her way to the council chambers and, with more assurance than she felt, waved the guards away from the door. When they had retired, rather reluctantly Kayli thought, she opened the door just a crack. If Randon was alone, she could still join him.
When she peeped through the crack, however, she was dismayed to see that the full council in session. She had already started to shut the door when the sound of her name froze her where she was.
“I tell you, there’s no need to argue about the matter now,” Randon said. “Three days ago Kayli had one foot in the Dark Realms, and all because we failed to protect her—we who asked for this wedding in the first place.”
“All I’m asking, High Lord presumptive,” Lord Jaxon’s voice insisted, “is that you give the matter due thought. Every month that passes places you both at greater jeopardy.”
“I think you’re wrong,” Randon said. “I’ve seen it in my audiences. I’ve heard it in rumors from the city, in the reports of my guard captains. The people are coming to accept Kayli. Those who disapprove of the match are being won over.”
“And one of those people who are growing to love our new High Lady poisoned her,” Lord Kereg said gently. “She can’t bear your heir anytime soon—perhaps never—and she’s in constant danger of further attempts on her life. What will it gain either of you if she costs you the throne of Agrond?”
Randon was silent for a long moment, and that very silence almost broke Kayli’s heart.
“If I sent Kayli back to Bregond,” he said at last, “I might as well give up the throne to Terralt and be done with it My father named me as Heir to make this alliance between Agrond and Bregond at last. What do I have to offer Agrond without that alliance? Terralt’s more prepared for this work than I am, I can’t deny it No, whatever I can give my country as High Lord depends on Kayli as my High Lady. Together, we do have something to offer. I’ll take my chances with her.”
His words should have comforted Kayli, but it was with a heavy heart that she closed the door and made her way back to her room. By the time she regained her chambers, removed her gown, and crawled back into bed, she was tired beyond any illness, tired to her very soul. From the day she had arrived in Agrond, she had tried in every way she knew to be a good wife to Randon, a good High Lady. Now it seemed that all that was not—might never be—enough. And there was nothing more she could do.
Well, no. There was one thing more. And that step, too, she would take. Because it was her duty.
And because it was her only hope.
Chapter Nine
Kayli rose in the cold, empty hours before dawn, the noise as she slid out of bed covered by the continuing storm outside. She retrieved her grimoire from the table and slipped quietly out into the hall. When Randon awakened, he would not be surprised to find her gone; she had left a letter for him, telling him that she would be meditating in the forge.
It was not a lie. Not wholly, at least
Kayli easily eluded the few servants in the halls and made her way to the forge, where Seba waited. How the child managed it, Kayli had no idea, but she had brought down a bathtub and enough water for a proper purifying bath. Seba had not kindled a fire in the firepit—it was vital for the ritual that Kayli light that fire herself—but she had lit the small forge in order to heat the water, and she had laid a bed of fresh coal ready in the firepit.
The familiar scent of cleansing herbs and unguents calmed Kayli even as they refreshed her, allowing her to focus on her preparations. Even so, she could not help thinking of Randon asleep in their chambers, and felt a pang at the thought.
It was past suppertime when Randon had returned to their chambers, but Kayli had asked Stevann for a sleeping potion and was so deeply asleep that she had only half roused at his return. The potion guaranteed her rest before the ritual, but better yet, sleep spared her the necessity of talking to Randon. She did not want to hear his explanation of why he had not returned earlier; she thought she could not bear it if he lied to her, as he surely must.
Seba, bless her, knew better than to distract Kayli with talk. She quietly made sure that everything Kayli might want lay within easy reach, then retired until Kayli might need her for another task. She emerged from her corner only long enough to help Kayli braid her hair and coil it up under the protective leather cap; then she melted back into the shadows.
When Kayli was satisfied with her preparations, she knelt at the edge of the firepit. Her skill had increased since she’d consecrated the forge; now she lit the coal almost casually. She felt a brief pang; she should never have had to dare a firepit for the first time alone. There should be other priestesses to kindle the flames for her fìrewalk.
But this was no simple fìrewalk. Kayli did not let the fire burn down to coals; instead, she prodded the flames higher, Seba moving unobtrusively to operate the large bellows as Kayli had instructed her.
The flames burned hotter, feeding on the coal, on the air from the bellows, on the power within her, until they burned so bright she could scarcely look at them, so hot that the stone floor around the edge of the firepit glowed red. Kayli held her arms out over the flames and began her chant.
The fire burned even more brightly in the firepit, and Kayli felt an answering flame growing within her, building quickly until she wondered whether it was the Flame within her, not the fire outside, that would immolate her. Then there was a moment of utter stillness, of incredible precise balance in which the backfire within Kayli’s soul equaled exactly the flames in the firepit before her. In th
at instant of complete clarity, there was no room for fear or doubt; Kayli spoke the last words of her chant and stepped forward into the fire.
There was pain, incredible pain as Kayli felt herself consumed utterly—but was it from the inside or the outside that the Flame devoured her flesh, her spirit? And in the wake of that pain, even as surely as the flesh crisped and fell from her bones, her bones charred and crumbled to ash, came a wild, excruciating pleasure as she burned red-hot, white-hot, molten, and was forged anew, every nerve and fiber singing with the Flame. It fed her even as it consumed her, filling the last corner of her spirit as her power, in turn, fed it.
Kayli collapsed to her knees (Knees? I still have knees?), then fell to her back, crying out (Voice? I have a voice, and ears to hear it?) as the Flame filled her, consumed her, dissolved her and resurrected her, knew her as no lover could. Fiery fingers stroked their way up her nerves, through her veins, down her spine, filled her womb, and curled around her heart. She cried out again, frightened and at the same glad that she was losing control—no, no, that was not the truth, the truth was that she was lost, utterly lost, that she belonged to the Flame now, that even the tiny inner core that was Kayli was consumed. She was losing herself, and at the same time she wanted that dissolution, to be one with the Flame and burn forever—
But a tiny, stubborn core of her will refused to give in, and it was finally that small nagging core that made her raise her head and slowly crawl from the center of the firepit, sobbing as she forced her leaden limbs to move. Was the fire cooling slightly around her, relinquishing her as reluctantly as she pulled away from its heart?
Her fingertips touched hot stone, and Kayli crawled, fingerwidth by fingerwidth, from the firepit. Hot stone gave way to warm stone to cool stone to cold stone, and at last she rolled to her back and panted, whimpering as the fire within her subsided only slightly.
Seba abandoned the bellows, and the fire in the pit of exhausted coal, with neither Kayli’s energy nor the gusts of air to feed on, subsided. Seba dampened a cloth in a bucket of clean water and gently washed most of the ash and cinders from Kayli’s skin, but Kayli could be still no longer. She pulled the leather cap from her hair and flung it aside, pulled her robe impatiently around her, and half ran to the door.
“Send a maid for my husband,” she said breathlessly, striving to think over the pulsing heat in her body. “Tell him he must come to our chambers immediately. Immediately.”
This time, although Kayli kept to the backstairs as before, she did not care in the slightest when some of the servants saw her; she did not care how they stared at their mistress dashing up the stairs, her hair tumbled and her feet bare, her gown barely closed and her eyes burning. Kayli dashed into her chamber and flung her robe heedlessly aside, kindling the fire in the hearth with the merest wisp of casual thought. As the hearth fire flared alight, she almost screamed as her awareness of it raced up and down her nerves. But no matter how hotly that fire burned, she burned hotter still, and she paced impatiently, clasping her arms around herself as if to hold back that fire within her.
It seemed an eternity before Randon burst through the door, worry plain on his face, his fingers stained with ink, and a pen still clenched in his hand. He saw Kayli at the hearth and knelt beside her, dropping the pen.
“What’s the matter?” he said breathlessly, frowning at her nakedness. “Has your fever come back? Should I send for Stevann? I was told—”
“Not Stevann,” Kayli gasped through the tumult in her mind, her body. “You are all I need.” His tunic tore under her desperate grip as she tried to pull it from his body by main force. Flame flowed through her body, into his and back again in a wave that was almost painful in its intensity. Words. Why must there be words now?
Randon seized her wrists, a scowl of mixed puzzlement and anger gathering on his brow. Even that slight contact made her blood sing.
“Damn all, Kayli, I was in council signing important documents. By the Bright Ones, what did you think—”
“Don’t speak,” Kayli said urgently, pulling him to her. “Don’t speak.”
“What—” Randon began, but she stopped his words with her lips, her momentum toppling them both to the hearth fur.
Randon did not react for a moment, as if utterly amazed by Kayli’s insistence, but then the heat of her body kindled his as a spark might kindle dry grass. And like that same grass fire, the flames swept heedlessly through them both, burning hot and furious. And when the fire had spent itself, Kayli and Randon lay panting on the hearth furs among the rags of Randon’s clothing, too tired to move.
It was some time before Randon spoke, rather breathlessly. “Well! I’m sure this won’t be the last time I’m called out of a council session, but I wonder if the other occasions will be so pleasant an interruption. Still, I don’t know what got into you, Kayli. That was an important meeting. And besides, however well you might feel, I doubt Stevann would have approved of such—well, such vigorous activity for you.”
Kayli leaned her face into his sweaty shoulder. No, she would not tell him yet. Not until she was certain. She did not owe him the full truth now, not while he discussed her fate with the council behind closed doors.
“I beg your pardon,” she said softly. “Please forgive me. I have felt—very lonely. Very confined.”
Randon sighed, and his hand smoothed her hair.
“I know,” he said. “I’m sorry. Look, if you’re well enough for this, I don’t see why you should stay in your room. I’ll talk to Stevann. And I suppose it was my fault, after all. I promised I’d spend the afternoon with you yesterday.”
“Do you need to go back?” Kayli asked quietly. “To make your excuses to your advisers.”
“Too late,” Randon said, chuckling. “I’m sure they’ve gone by now. I’ll send a messenger around to apologize, and by the next meeting I’ll think of something to tell them.”
Randon dispatched the messenger and sent a maid to fetch up dinner. Kayli tried not to look at Randon’s food while she soaked up her soup with sodden bread, but the meal depressed her, the more so because there was now no need for her to bear this liquid fast, and there was no way to explain that without causing more trouble. Randon and Brother Stevann, rather than being relieved by her recovery, would no doubt be incensed at the risk she had taken, even though they had no idea of the full extent of that risk. Kayli remembered the searing touch of the Flame and shivered.
“Must you work this afternoon?” she asked Randon, but she rather hoped he would. She had no desire to pass the afternoon in his company while a coal of resentment still smoldered in her heart after what she had overheard. She felt a guilty relief when she saw the regret in Randon’s expression.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “but I’m going to work with Terralt and Brother Santee with the freed slaves. I’m hoping Terralt can take over completely when Brother Santee is gone. His Bregondish isn’t good, but he’s a better administrator than I am, and the responsibility will placate him. But I’ll meet with the advisers very early tomorrow, and I swear I’ll be done before dinner and I won’t let anything disrupt our afternoon, not if the blighted castle is burning down around us.”
When Randon was gone, Kayli pulled on a dressing gown and slipped back down to the forge. She was surprised and dismayed to find the forge spotlessly clean, every tool in its place, fresh coal laid in the firepit, the tub removed—even the water barrel filled with clean water. How poor Seba must have worked to finish so quickly!
Kayli returned to her rooms and lay down, her hands folded thoughtfully over her belly. If she had conceived—and if she had performed the Rite of Renewal properly, she had—by tomorrow Stevann should be able to detect it. In the meantime a nap to recoup her strength would at least pass the time.
She had only just closed her eyes, however, when she found herself back in the heart of the fire, flame searing its way along her nerves. Light and warmth filled her, consuming her, her spirit burning bright as the sun—
Kayli jolted awake, shaking, her body drenched with sweat. She slid out of the bed, wrapping her arms around herself, and walked to the window, unfastening the shutters. A gust of cold wind and rain blew in, startling her; she’d forgotten the storm raging anew outside. Still, the cool rain felt good against her flushed face, and she leaned out the window, letting the wind run icy fingers through her sweat-damp hair.
A brilliant flash of lightning reached down from the sky to touch the horizon, and an answering wave of heat flashed through her loins, and she gasped and clutched the window ledge as her knees almost gave way under her. Fear seized her heart. Had the Rite of Renewal attuned her so thoroughly to the Flame that even lightning affected her? Brisi’s notes on the Rite of Renewal had mentioned no such effect, but she had lost control of the ritual. What might the raw power of the Flame have done to her?
But no. Surely it was only a lingering sensitivity induced by her recent poisoning and her present weariness. Surely that sensitivity would fade as she recovered her own energies.
Kayli stood at the window until she was cold and wet. Each flash of lightning seared through her body, but she had to marvel at the sheer quantity of water pouring down upon the land. Surely the river must be overflowing its banks by now.
When she was chilled, Kayli closed the shutters and curled up by the fire with one of Ynea’s flower books. Thunder crashed, wind howled, and rain pounded against the castle; the storm in Kayli’s body at last quieted somewhat despite her heightened awareness of the hearth fire, and she drowsed pleasantly until Randon opened the door.
“Good, you’ve been resting,” he said, sighing with relief. “Do you know, after I left, I started wondering whether what happened wasn’t a sort of lingering effect of the poison. I worried about it all afternoon.”