Terrael is in despair because he blames himself for not being able to read the minds of those long-dead bastards mages and produce the missing th’an. Cederic had to lecture him for a full minute until Terrael felt he was properly chastised, then told him to take a walk for five minutes to give himself a rest. It’s funny to remember when I resented Cederic’s ability to command, and how I’m so grateful for it now.
They’ve gotten a lot further than before. Looks like they’re ready for me to take part. I wish I’d realized sooner what the connection between th’an and pouvrin is. With more time we might have been able to translate the th’an he gave us into a pouvra. Cederic is certain part of the kathana must be performed using my magic, but that’s as much as he knows, and at this point we’re just experimenting.
Right now I’m going to sit in the circle, in a spot that’s been marked off by th’an, and go insubstantial when I’m told. It’s difficult, because I start to fall through the floor, and of course I can only stay that way for about two minutes before I need to breathe, but the hard part is all on them, trying to scribe the right th’an in that two minutes. No guarantee it will work, but at least it’s direction.
15 Coloine, two hours past midnight
I was encouraged too soon. It didn’t work at all. I’m trying not to feel as downhearted as Terrael was. I think he knew how I felt, because he came to sit next to me when I’d retreated to my corner, before I started writing again, and gave me a board with a th’an marked on it in that dotted-line shape.
“It’s a fire-making th’an,” he said. “The fire-starting pouvra seems to be the one you’re most comfortable with. This might help clear your head, and maybe you can work out how it intersects with your pouvra.”
He gave me some chalk and then went back to the circle. And he was right; it does help clear my head, even though I have no hope of learning to scribe the th’an in just a few hours. So I practice with it for half an hour, and then I go back to trying to make that complicated th’an work. It’s something to do when there’s nothing to write, like now.
15 Coloine, half an hour later
Had to take another turn in the kathana circle, this time manifesting the binding rune in fire. That was effective, but Cederic says there’s no way for them to know when or where in the kathana to use it. That frustrates me more than failure would. Cederic said, “It’s progress,” and then he kissed me in full view of everyone, which made me happy. He’s going to solve this problem.
I have faith in him and in all our mages—no more Vorantor mages and Darssan mages, all one group with our squabbles set aside. I’m going to practice Terrael’s th’an again for a bit. It’s as soothing as writing, at least for short periods. Then it gets tedious, and I go back to my futile efforts at creating a new pouvra.
Another tremor. There’s no way to predict when one will happen, they’re still coming at irregular intervals, but they’re definitely coming closer together.
15 Coloine, dawn
I can’t believe it. I’m starting to feel the pouvra come together! The problem is it doesn’t seem to do anything. Sovrin told me it’s another binding th’an, but I think—this is just my instinct—it won’t actually work unless there are specific things for it to bind. And I can’t tell if it’s supposed to work through my body, or around it—there’s a lot about it I don’t know. But Cederic closed his eyes and breathed out a long sigh of relief when I told him, so I’m accomplishing something. I’m trying not to feel too relaxed, because I haven’t succeeded yet.
15 Coloine, breakfast (not that anyone’s able to eat)
Something strange happened. Cederic came to sit with me for a few minutes—I’m glad he’s realized his going entirely without rest helps no one—and I leaned against his shoulder and pretended the world wasn’t about to end. He smells of fresh linen and, faintly, of old paper, which is one of my favorite smells, and now it’s doubly so. I had Terrael’s board in my lap, and Cederic picked it up and twirled it in his fingers, just for something to do, and then he stopped abruptly and held it at arm’s length to look at it.
Then he swore, and leaped up, and ran out of the room before I could ask him what was wrong. He took the board with him, whether because it was important or because he forgot he was holding it, I don’t know, but it left me with nothing but this book to entertain myself.
If things weren’t so urgent, the way everyone stopped in mid-step when Cederic left would be funny. One of the Sais rallied them, but it’s clear everyone knows if they’re going to discover a kathana that works, it will be thanks to Cederic’s genius, so him tearing out of here like he’s being chased left everyone bereft, including me, since everyone else’s leaning on him is metaphorical, and I nearly fell over when he got up. So it must be important.
Nothing else to write. I’ve accomplished as much as I can with the pouvra without actually taking part in the kathana. I don’t dare wander over to see what the mages are doing and possibly interrupt them. I’m going to look at the painting and think about what spring will look like. It’s six months away, according to my count, though I’ve said I don’t know if Castaviran seasons match up with mine. But how could they not?
Then again, how can the desert around the Darssan be grassy plains in my world? I don’t know. It all seems pointless when it’s possible both plains and desert might be destroyed.
15 Coloine, twenty minutes later
We won’t be destroyed. I can’t believe it was sitting in Cederic’s room this whole time. It seems obvious now, but I think—no, I should start at the beginning.
Cederic came racing back a few minutes ago, clutching some large papers that turned out to be our maps. He practically fell to his knees in front of me, spread them out one atop the other, and said, “There’s a pattern. I didn’t see it because I was so obsessed with the missing th’an—you won’t see it, Sesskia, you don’t know the th’an, but—come and look at this, everyone, and tell me what you see!”
It’s true, I was mystified, but Terrael came forward, rotated the maps to a sideways position, and said, “It’s the unlocking th’an.”
“The lines are not quite perfect,” Cederic said, “but even with Sesskia’s information, we knew we did not know the location of all the ruins. Knowing what th’an it is lets us extrapolate the position of the remaining ones.” He took my chalk and drew a th’an quickly, connecting the marks on the map and interrupting the line once so it wouldn’t activate. It’s an elaborate shape, and it’s surprising anyone could look at those X’s and see that pattern, but I think desperation makes everything look different.
“So what does it mean?” asked one of the mages.
“It means they bound the land to the kathana,” Cederic said. “It explains why the ruins are all so uniform, and so small; they were built specifically for that purpose. That is why Master Peressten was unable to identify the missing parts of their kathana. The ruins are the missing parts.”
He stood and brushed off his knees. “Sai Howert, take half our mages and clear the circle for a binding kathana. The rest of you, copy these marks to your boards—be accurate, but don’t worry about perfection. We need to connect these ruins in a new th’an. You are looking for anything that suggests union or coming together. Master Peressten, with me, please.”
He walked away without waiting for Terrael to respond. I followed him, Terrael trailing behind, to where the books of the Darssan library were piled on a couple of tables scrounged from nearby rooms.
“For this to work, we need three things,” Cederic told us—well, he told Terrael, and I listened. “We need a binding kathana—”
The room stretched and contracted with another tremor. Cederic fell silent until it passed. They feel like they’re lasting longer as well as coming more frequently now. “We need a binding kathana,” Cederic said, “one based on the original unlocking kathana. Sesskia—”
“It’s not the right one, is it?” I said, and I can’t describe how discouraged I was. “The
one I’ve been working on.”
Cederic shook his head and laid his hand along my cheek. “It was not wasted effort,” he said. “We still need your magic in the kathana. The binding th’an are simple; you may be able to learn them in time. Master Peressten, we also need to draw a new th’an that connects all the ruins, or as many as we can find. And we need some way to attune our kathana to the landscape, to the ruins themselves, in effect scribing th’an on them the way Sesskia draws on her board.”
He drew in a deep breath, and in a lower voice said, “And I have no knowledge of how to do that. I need you to go through the books I cannot read, looking for some hint to that secret.”
“Sai Aleynten,” Terrael said, “that could be impossible. We’ve been through these books dozens of times. I’ve never seen anything like that.”
“You saw that th’an on the map when no one else did,” Cederic said. “We need to look at these books with a fresh eye. And pray what we need is not in one of those books we cannot read.”
Terrael nodded. “I’ll—” Another tremor. “—do my best,” he said. “And I already have an idea.” He began shifting books on the table, making a neat stack, because even in this nightmare he’s still Terrael.
I pulled Cederic to the side, and said, “You know there’s no way I can learn a new th’an in time. What can I really do?”
Cederic sighed. “If we cannot find a way to put your magic into this kathana, everything else we do may be for nothing. And I see no way to accomplish that. What do you see?”
I had to shake my head and say, “I don’t know.”
“Then practice pouvrin,” he said, “and think, and allow me more time to consider. We still do not know what Aselfos has in mind, nor what the God-Empress might do. If it comes to it, you may be defending us against one or both of them.”
“I hope it doesn’t come to that,” I said, and went to stand near the door. I practiced pouvrin until my eyes and my chest ached, then rested and wrote for a bit, then back to pouvrin. My fire-summoning pouvra is more effective now; I think I could encircle five people at once, and I’m steeling myself to burn flesh. My mind-moving pouvra isn’t ever going to be strong enough to hurt anyone, and though I think I could drown someone by holding a globe of water around their head, that’s not practical in a fight, where the person might have fifteen friends trying to kill me at the same time.
But the concealment pouvra, and the walk-through-walls one—I figured out how to turn them outward, so I can work them on another person so long as I’m touching him or her. If we weren’t all so busy, I’d celebrate, but there’s no time. I’m not sure how useful that will be, particularly turning someone else virtually invisible, but it’s something.
Cederic and Terrael are having an intense discussion, Cederic gesturing with large swoops and Terrael shaking his head. It reminds me of the first time I saw them interact, when Terrael was trying to convince Cederic to use the aeden on me, and how much I disliked Cederic then. That seems so long ago, but really it was less than two months. Two months to go from hating someone to loving him—I think I must have been more lonely than I knew. I hope I didn’t
I was going to write “I hope I didn’t just attach myself to Cederic because I was desperate for love,” but I feel certain it’s not true. Maybe we haven’t known each other very long, and maybe that means our marriage is doomed, but I don’t think so. True, we still have so much to learn about each other, and I’m sure there are things I’ll do wrong. I don’t want to be like Mam, blaming Dad for every little thing that went wrong and for not being a good provider, even though he went out on that boat every night and brought home a good catch, then had to sell it himself because Mam was unreliable. But I feel more myself than I ever have when I’m with Cederic. I don’t want the world to end just as my life is finally beginning.
Another tremor. Cederic is pointing at a book and now Terrael is nodding. They’ve got their boards out and they’re drawing. I can’t believe they found anything useful—we weren’t able to bring the entire Darssan library here, so what are the odds one of those books would have the right th’an? No, more likely the two geniuses saw potential in something completely unrelated. I should be practicing, but I can’t stand the tension, I have to see if they’ve figured it out. I don’t want to disturb them, though, so all I can do is stand over here by the door
I hear someone coming. A lot of someones. Boots.
It’s soldiers. Aselfos or the God-Empress, I don’t know, but it can’t be good. I’ve called out a warning and now I’m going to stand where I’m the first thing anyone entering this room sees. Putting the book away now and hoping this isn’t my last record.
Chapter Twenty-Five
unknown, could be 15 Coloine still
Now that I’ve recovered from the kathana, I’m going to write everything down because, as is often the case, writing helps me stay sane when everything around me is confusion and strangeness. And then I’ll figure out what to do next.
As I wrote, I went to stand where I was the first thing visible to anyone coming through the door. Soldiers entered, silent except for the sound of their boots on the fancy wooden floor. It was eerily like the way they’d made a double file in the circle chamber, just before Vorantor was killed, and I think everyone felt the same way, because the mages all drew in together, into a loose clump near the middle of the room that put them behind me. Cederic came to stand beside me, not touching me, but his presence was a comfort—not enough to dispel all my anxiety, but still a comfort.
For a few seconds more, I held out hope it was Aselfos, that I’d be able to reason with him or at least threaten him with more of the walk-through-walls pouvra. Then the God-Empress came through the door, and the hard, cruel look on her face dispelled any hope this might end well for anyone. I tried not to look as despairing as I felt and waited, because I didn’t think I had any chance at tricking or manipulating her with words.
“Sesskia,” the God-Empress said, “you are God’s choice. Do you understand what that means?”
“No, Renatha, I don’t,” I said.
“Your magic is God’s gift, direct from her without need for all this scribbling,” the God-Empress said. “You should have been most high priestess from the beginning.”
“Thank you, Renatha, it is a gift—” I began.
“Do not waste my time, Sesskia, we all know no one deserves my gifts,” the God-Empress said. “And I have been especially generous with you. You are God’s choice. You will stand by God’s side today.”
“I—all right, Renatha,” I said, though I could sense Cederic going tense beside me. “How can I serve God?”
The God-Empress smiled. “We have rebellion,” she said. “There are fools who have chosen to fight against God. My army is going to war, Sesskia, and you will use your magic against the enemy, you and every mage here. Bring what you need, scribblers, and we’ll leave this place now.”
“The convergence is upon us,” Cederic said. “If we do not perform this kathana now, the world will face destruction that will make your battle irrelevant.”
“Your excuses are what’s irrelevant, Cederic Aleynten,” the God-Empress said. “God will not allow her world to be destroyed. Do you really want to disobey God?”
“You must surely have felt the signs of the convergence,” Cederic said. “We need more time.”
The God-Empress turned her mad eyes on me. “You gave me everything in exchange for him,” she said. “Command him. You are God’s choice.”
“No,” I said. “And he wouldn’t obey that command anyway.”
I don’t think anyone’s said no to the God-Empress in her life. For a moment, her eyes went wide and her jaw slack. Then she said, “Take them.”
I was too slow. So were the mages. Before I had time to do more than circle the God-Empress with fire, several of our mages were grabbed by soldiers and pinned against the walls or held tight with knives to their throats or hearts. One of them was Audryn.
/> Terrael brought his slate up and raised his stubby piece of chalk as if it were one of those sharp knives, and I shouted, “No!” though I had no idea what he intended to do with those unlikely weapons. “Let them go, Renatha,” I said, making the fire blaze hotter.
“Burn me, and my soldiers kill every one of them,” she said with a cruel smile. “You always were the soft one, Sesskia. How you can wield such power and still be so weak baffles me. Command them, or they die.”
I felt so weak. I could have killed the God-Empress, and ended that threat, but some of our mages would have died before the rest could defend themselves—at the time I didn’t know how effective that defense could be. Maybe I should have killed her. It would have changed everything.
But all those deaths…like I said, I felt weak, unable to condemn people I cared about, especially Audryn, to death. I dismissed the fire and said, “Let them go. We’ll do as you ask,” thinking we’d find a way out of it, that Cederic would see a solution I didn’t.
Instead, he raised both his hands and began rapidly scribing th’an on the air. Several soldiers screamed and dropped their weapons, their hands turning red like the coals of a blacksmith’s fire. “Get out!” he shouted, and I turned the fire pouvra on the rest of the soldiers while some of the mages moved and others, those holding their boards, began scrawling on them.
I set three soldiers on fire—I was too tired for more than that—and a few more soldiers shouted in pain as their skin smoked and cracked. But there were too many of them, and we were all weary from lack of sleep, and we still weren’t fast enough. Two mages screamed as knives found their mark, more soldiers tackled Cederic and immobilized his hands, and still more soldiers moved to block the exit, their swords drawn. More mages went down to those blades, and the rest of us fell back, away from the carnage.
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