She felt a flush creep up her cheek. “I’m missing the key to the cipher, Father. What does this story have to do with what happened today in the square?”
“Then today,” said Mirnían, more boldly, “Tolnían, a young scout, reports that Living Water has been seen in the form of a weeping tree. At least one healing has been recorded.”
“Oh, by all the Heights,” she whispered in shock. “This is not your fault, Mirnían, but how terrible that you said nothing.”
“I don’t understand why everyone is so disturbed by this news,” complained Mirnían.
“Do you not?” said Sabíana. She shook her head. “Mirnían, what happened after the last appearance of the Living Water?”
Mirnían’s whole body sagged and he raised both hands to his face. They were shaking. “Internecine war between the city-states,” he said. “But how was I to know? It was just a little girl’s story.”
“Enough of that,” said Dar Antomír, more firmly. “No time for it. Now, lest someone in Nebesta or Karila decides to start another internecine war, we must act. Mirnían, stay with me and help me see through this mess. Sabíana, I want you to find Voran. Bring him here.”
She was grateful. Father always knows what I need, she thought. She walked out without another word.
Sabíana found Voran wandering the streets aimlessly, seeing nothing and no one. He looked thinner than he had in weeks, with dark shadows under his eyes that made their green color shine with an eldritch light. Where were his thoughts? Would he be upset to see her after Mirnían publicly insulted him?
He caught her eye standing across a cobbled street in the second reach amidst the merchant homes and public houses. People walked between them, only pretending not to see the daughter of the Dar and her future intended. It was not normal for them to appear in public together, certainly not like this. Luckily, he hurried across the cobbles to her.
“My love, I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there,” he said, breathless, though he had not been walking fast. His face was grey and sickly. He took her hand in both of his. They were hot to the touch.
“Voran, what has happened to you? You don’t look well.”
“Don’t mother me yet, dear,” he whispered, flashing his usual smile. It was brief, but enough to warm some of her doubts away. “There will be plenty of time for that later.”
“Voran, I came from the Dar. He needs to see you now. Will you come?”
A storm cloud passed over his face for a moment, but he nodded. His eyes glazed over again, and she felt no responding warmth from him when she took his arm.
Sabíana led Voran toward the waterfalls, up a narrow path hugging the headwall of the mountain, overlooking the empty marketplace of the second reach. The path rose gradually until it entered the mountain’s wall through a thick curtain of ivy, near the canals flowing from the twin chalices. It was her private way back home, a secret path in a city full of them. She vaguely remembered that her nanny never liked her taking this way. Apparently, there was an old tale about the Raven escaping Vasylli prisons through this passage.
“Sabíana,” Voran whispered as they walked through the torch-lit passage within the mountain. “What do you make of all this?”
“I don’t know, Voran, I haven’t had time to think.”
“Did you know the Pilgrim has been staying with us these past nights?”
It explained much of Voran’s absence. “No. No one bothered to tell me.”
He was silent, though she was sure she could smell his embarrassment in the dim light. Good. It was high time he apologized for neglecting her.
“Do you remember what your nanny used to say about this passage? About the Raven’s escape?”
She stifled her annoyance. She would make sure he would apologize later.
“Yes. She would still tell me the tale now, given half a chance.”
“You were not at the storytelling, were you?”
She had been expecting something about Mirnían’s outburst. She braced herself. “No. I’m sorry, Voran. Mirnían has so little self-control, sometimes.”
Voran looked at her with a confused expression. “Oh, that? I had forgotten about it already. No, I mention it because the story the Pilgrim told was about the Raven. One I have never heard before. It’s certainly not in the Old Tales.”
As if on purpose, a chill wind howled through the passage, dimming the torches. Sabíana’s blood chilled.
“Pilgrims don’t say anything without good reason,” she said.
“Yes, exactly. Just after the story, Tolnían came with news of Living Water. It made me think.”
“About the traditional link between the appearance of Living Water and the Raven’s eternal quest for immortality?”
“Yes. What if it’s true?”
Sabíana guffawed, but stifled her laugh. He actually looked upset.
“Voran, you don’t believe those stories are actually true?”
He looked about to continue, but a thought occurred to him and he stopped, dropping Sabíana’s arm. He assessed her with cold eyes, the eyes of a stranger. She felt frigid and half-naked before his gaze.
He turned away without saying another word.
“I don’t think there is any way of preventing mass pilgrimage to the weeping tree,” Mirnían said as Sabíana and Voran entered.
“There’s nothing wrong with pilgrimage, my son,” said Dar Antomír, faintly disapproving. “I would go myself, had not Wicked Woman Age grabbed me by the left ankle.”
The room was tense with expectation. Dar Antomír, never more bent and careworn, insisted that Voran and Mirnían exchange the brotherly kiss. He beamed at them with sanguine eyes, though Sabíana could not help noticing how thin was his white beard—once an avalanche on his chest. They grudgingly embraced, and only the pleasant babble of the Dar’s speech managed to ease their tension as they stood around a small table, staring down at a map of Vasyllia.
“There must be military presence, of course,” said Mirnían, though he offered his counsel carefully now, as if expecting Sabíana to contradict him immediately. She kept her peace.
“Yes, and more than a few warriors,” said the Dar. “Do you see the opportunity, my children? I’ve long wanted to gauge the response to a strong military show on the outliers, especially those with Nebesti blood ties.”
“Have there been any rumors of discontent from that quarter, Father?” asked Sabíana.
He smiled ruefully. “Only Vasylli are simple enough to think that all lands relish to be under the lordship of Vasyllia. The purported place of the weeping tree is very near the Nebesti border. I know Lord Farlaav of Nebesta well, and I do not think he is the opportunistic kind. But the same cannot be said of others in his court. Do not forget Nebesta is traditionally governed by a kind of mass fist-war they call a representative assembly. Nothing like our Dumar. Voran, what do you think?”
Voran seemed mesmerized by something on the map, his concentration so great Sabíana expected the map to go up in flames. He seemed not to have heard the Dar.
“Voran?” she asked, touching his shoulder. He recoiled from her as though her touch were hot iron.
“I’m sorry, my love,” he whispered, shocked at himself and probably also at the livid flush she could not hide. “I am not myself.”
He looked away from Sabíana, shimmering with barely-repressed energy.
“Highness, I beg you to allow me to lead the pilgrims.”
He trembled feverishly, his face white except for a crimson smear on either cheek. A thin sheen of sweat gathered on his hairline.
“I don’t think so, Voran,” said the Dar, assessing Voran through half-closed lids. “I would be much comforted by your presence at my side, especially now that the Pilgrim has disappeared. Too many dark omens.”
Voran did not seem to have heard a single word.
“Highness, my family is indebted to you for everything, I know that. You have given far more generously than I or Lebía have ever deserved. You know I have neve
r asked anything for myself.” He paused, seemingly out of breath.
“No, Voran, you have not,” said the Dar, his frown deepening.
“I ask it now. I must seek the Living Water. It is not merely for myself. The Pilgrim told me to. For Vasyllia.”
Mirnían snickered and rolled his eyes. To her surprise, Sabíana found herself agreeing with her brother’s reaction.
“Voran, you are not well,” said Mirnían, his voice lathered in sarcasm. Voran did not even acknowledge him. It was not that he ignored him; he seemed not to have heard him at all.
“Highness, I beg you.” Voran’s voice was no more than a whisper, but it seemed to echo.
Dar Antomír's eyes began to fill with tears. Sabíana knew why. This whole situation was a repetition of Otchigen’s ill-fated command of the embassy to Karila. It filled her with dread.
“I sense this is something I cannot prevent. May Adonais bless it.”
Voran fell on one knee and bowed his head. Dar Antomír placed his right hand on his head and kept it there for a moment. When he lowered it, Voran couldn’t help notice how covered it was with brown spots, how gnarled beyond recognition.
“Go, my child. Choose what warriors you wish. The pilgrimage will set out one week from tomorrow.”
Voran stood, bowed, and kissed Sabíana’s hand. He looked at her with a fleeting glance that refused to engage her eyes. She had the disconcerting sense that she had slipped into a dream. Everything moved slowly, and the loudest sound in the room was her own heart beating. Voran walked out without waiting for her.
“Father, am I the only one who sees?” Her throat had gone completely dry. “Or have I gone mad? Does no one else see the parallel?”
Dar Antomír would not look at her. “Voran sees a chance to redeem his family’s name, Sabíana. Would you deny him that?”
“Father,” said Mirnían. “You once assigned a half-mad Otchigen to the Karila embassy. Now you assign a half-mad Voran to take charge of tens, if not hundreds, of city-folk, right after an omen of the skies. You expect a different result?”
“I hope for one, yes,” said the Dar. He sat down again, exhausted. “My children, I fear that dark times are coming. After the omen of the skies, the Pilgrim came to me. Pilgrims are not as other men. They are closer to the Heights, and some barriers of the natural world are but trifles to them. Some of them live for three hundred years or more. So when he came, I listened.
“We spoke of many things, most of which you will know soon enough. He told me a darkness is coming the likes of which Vasyllia has not seen in hundreds of years. He spoke of a plague that would afflict man, beast, tree, blade of grass. He spoke of a fountainhead of healing flowing from a heart of stone.”
Sabíana gasped. “A heart of stone. Voran means stone in Old Vasylli.”
Dar Antomír smiled and closed his eyes, leaning back into his chair. “You understand, Sabíana. That is why I have hope for Voran.”
And yet, the dread in her chest tied itself into knots over and over again, until she feared she would never be able to untie it.
The soul-bond between man and Sirin is unlike any other bond of love. It defies clear explanation, but it is known by its fruits. The soul-bonded man can withstand inordinate pain, can carry burdens which no man can lift, can survive in battles, though he be the lone warrior in the field. But the true nature of the bond is that it removes a man from earthly wants, calling him to desires of eternity. No man, once bonded, will find rest until he has undergone the seven baptisms of fire and climbed to the very Heights of Aer.
-From “On the Nature of the Soul-Bond” (The Sayings, Book XI, 4:1-5)
CHAPTER SEVEN
Sister of the Pariah
On the third morning of the pilgrimage, the fog glimmered, pregnant with the coming sun. The birth of the sun brought spring warmth in the midst of early winter. A steaming tarn in winter usually meant one thing—dreadful cold—but the children knew before anyone else that this steam was different. It meant warmth. By the time Lebía had made breakfast for Voran, three boys already blattered in the water with their dogs, while the girls, skirts hiked up, stood at the edge, toes longingly nibbling the water. Lebía had a giggling desire to push the girls in, then to jump in herself. Instead, she sat by the porridge to wait for Voran. She would not be welcome among the laughing children, not the daughter of Otchigen, not the sister of Voran. We are pariahs.
She began to plait a new set of bark shoes, humming to herself. Already some of the younger children’s shoes were wearing down on the hard roads. It was pleasant to do something for them, even if they might not want to accept a gift from her hands because of her association with Otchigen. She would have to think of a way of gifting them without being noticed.
The music she hummed was a new song, she realized. That often happened to her. She would hear snatches of music already formed in her heart. It never seemed strange to her; how could it? She had been hearing music since she was a small child. Only later did she realize its source.
She had seen her first Sirin when she was ten, on a day when her heart-pain at her mother’s loss was like a wedge splitting apart an ash log. It was only a glimpse, but she knew it was no accident, because the shards of her heart grafted together and blossomed. After that, whenever the pain threatened to break her, the memory was enough to bring her back to herself.
The Sirin had continued to visit her, though always at a distance. Lebía sensed that the distance was more for her benefit. She had no illusions about the Sirin’s love. It was not gentle; it was fierce as fire. More often the Sirin sent her gifts of music.
The tent shivered behind her. Voran pushed through the flap, sodden with sleep. How strange that their roles should be reversed now. He was always the early riser in Vasyllia, but since they had begun the journey, he seemed incapable of getting up with the sun.
“Porridge again, swanling?” He complained, but with enough of a smile to make rejoinder unnecessary.
It was the first time since they left that he called her by his “little name,” and it warmed her more than the unseasonable sun. He had been categorically against her going on the pilgrimage. Only the most convincing stubbornness she could muster—never easy for her, especially toward Voran, who was almost a father to her—managed to sway him. He punished her with dour silence for the first day, and only spoke to her in clipped phrases the second.
“I’ve added dried apples this morning, Voran.”
He ate with the relish of a famished wolf. Poor Voran. He had changed so much since the coming of the Pilgrim. He was restless by nature, but this unquiet bordered on manic.
“Voran, what happened with Sabíana?”
Lebía couldn’t help noticing that Sabíana had left their house that morning weeping. She was not even there to see them out of the city with Dar Antomír.
“Lebía, why do you ask me such things?” His face was beet-red. “You are too young to understand.”
“Am I? Too young to see that you deliberately wounded the woman you claim to love?”
“It was not…” He stopped, breathed, and sagged a bit in the shoulders. “You are right. It was deliberate. I have not been able to put her face out of my mind since then. I do not know why I spoke to her like that.”
“Voran, I am not accusing you. I just want to understand. You know I love you.”
The creases in his forehead smoothed into his quick, winning smile. “Oh, swanling. Sometimes I forget about the weight of pain on your sixteen years. You want to know the truth?”
Lebía nodded, purposely not looking at him, intent on her fingers plaiting the rough bark. There were a few cuts on them, but only in the uncallused places.
“When I asked Sabíana to marry me, I did it like a madman jumping off a cliff. I never thought she would consider me, not after…”
He closed his eyes and sighed. His usually thick, curly black hair was mangy, hanging in strands around his shoulders. He had not shaved in weeks, but he looked the
better for it, his angular features set off pleasantly by the messy chin-beard.
“Swanling, it’s a terrible thing, our human nature. We spend all our energies on getting things we never expect to receive, but if by some miracle we receive them, they start to lose their luster very quickly.”
“You didn’t expect her to say yes?”
“Well, I hoped she would. But then the Dar had to agree as well. I was sure she was being kept for some Lord something-or-other in Nebesta. When he agreed, and blessed our union wholeheartedly, I thought my joy complete. I saw my life then as it would be. Lord Protector to Darina Sabíana, a life of luxury in the palace, the love of a passionate woman whose beauty has no compare in Vasyllia, children on the bear rug before the hearth.”
“Sounds like our father’s life when we were children.”
“Exactly. That was the first thought to give me pause. Then the small, still voice deep inside me. Not enough, it said. I still longed for something with no name, or someone whose name I had not yet found. That was the first time I heard the song of the Sirin.”
Lebía’s heart raced. She thought she was the only one who knew the longing that sometimes comforted, but sometimes emptied.
“Everything changed after that?”
“Not immediately. I was always with Sabíana in the palace, walking the secret cloisters and the summit cherry groves. Those were moments of happiness I had never known. Poor Sabíana. She doesn’t know what longing is. She is all fire, all desire, all forward movement.”
“Voran, do you love her?”
He stared at his porridge, his eyes never more green. He plucked at his chin-beard.
“I do, Lebía. I always have. I just didn’t know there could be a feeling more powerful than the love of a man for a woman.”
It took the better part of an hour for the mothers to convince the boys to come out of the tarn to begin the morning leg of their journey. As it was, the crowd of pilgrims usually left far later than was probably necessary, but there were nearly a hundred people on the pilgrimage of all ages, and it seemed some had come more for the change of scenery and the joy of good company than for a religious experience.
The Song of the Sirin (Raven Son Book 1) Page 7