“Death to the traitors!” Yadovír jabbed his right forefinger toward the people at the gates. “Go, and meet your just reward!”
Sabíana watched as the condemned walked out of the city, showing not the slightest sign of fear. At first quietly, then with greater intensity, they all began to sing. Even in the high turret of the palace in the third reach, Sabíana heard them clearly.
O Adonais, hear us,
Defend us, as we cry:
“Annihilate this Darkness,
And give us strength to die.”
Lord, give them strength to die, Sabíana thought.
No sooner had all of them left the city than a white light washed over them. A radiant Sirin appeared over each person—a lamentation of thousands of Sirin in flight and full-throated song—bemoaning the fall of Vasyllia with voices that cut Sabíana with their agonizing beauty. Taking each of the faithful by the arms, including the many wounded still lying on the field of battle, the Sirin flew up into the light of the sun. Their song faded, but the song in Sabíana’s heart rose to a great fury. She tested her limbs, and to her exhilaration, the smallest finger of her right hand twitched. The iron of her courage poured back into her heart. She could do this. She would be their hope.
Have you seen the hands of a healer?
Are they rough?
No.
Are they dirty?
No.
What are they like?
Like the sun reflected in water…
-Karila nursery chant
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Healer
Voran stood at the top of the world. He had crossed more than a single boundary. This was not the Lows of Aer; this was something deeper. Clouds were scattered below him, as though he were set here by a Power of Aer to herd them. Most of the clouds sat barely higher than a great moon-shaped tarn far below his feet, nestled among the crags that divided Vasyllia from Nebesta. The tarn was lined at one end with bunched conifers that looked like bristles on a hair-brush from this distance. Where he stood, there was hardly any vegetation, except for a few pines gnarled by the constant wind. The rest was grey-brown stone and snow, though there was strangely little white for this depth of winter.
Then there was the black hawthorn.
The young hawthorn, frothing with white flowers, stood on the tip of a conical rock, its roots trailing downward along the stone until their tips dug into great cracks. Its thorns were like iron nails, but each dripped opalescent water onto the rock. The drops rolled individually down the stone, slowly, carefully, as though they were looking for the right path down, until they followed the roots through the cracks into the earth. There were no clouds above them, Voran checked. The tree wept.
Though Voran’s panic and fear beat at his heart like hammers, he froze in wonder at the sight. The hawthorn sang. It was nothing like the song of the Sirin; it was far more ancient and alien, and it revealed to Voran a depth of natural power that he never could have imagined. He had no doubt this tree was capable of healing the sick, and much more than that.
Something thwacked in the thin air and whistled. Voran’s left shoulder jerked back at a violent angle, and when he looked down, it had sprouted an arrow. He tried to move, but the pain was like his shoulder ripping apart. He was pinned to a tree.
Voran turned his head, trying to gather his thoughts in the maelstrom of pain and panic. Mirnían came out of a shelter of a crag, a set expression on his face. Mirnían pulled the bowstring back to his cheek and waited. His hands trembled slightly, and his face had gone white. He shook his head and closed his eyes for a moment, then tensed and loosed. The arrow grazed Voran’s left arm, tearing the flesh. Its whistle lingered in the sparse air.
Voran caught Mirnían’s eye and nodded, then dropped his head. He waited for the next arrow, sure that this time a marksman as good as Mirnían would not miss. He couldn’t help but feel intense sadness that it had come to this, but to his surprise, he didn’t blame Mirnían. He breathed out and was strangely calm.
Mirnían’s breathing was loud enough for Voran to hear. “No,” whispered Mirnían, his breathing turning ragged, “No, it can’t be.”
Voran looked up to see Mirnían ripping off his tunic with hands shaking so violently that he remained fully clothed despite all his efforts to disrobe. Finally, he managed to pull part of a sleeve off. His chest was leprous, and it stank, even at this distance. Mirnían’s eyes were wild. He raised his hands, and they were riddled with sores. He showed them to Voran like a frightened child.
“They are back,” he said, his eyes nearly all whites. “They are back.”
He ran toward the hawthorn and scrabbled up the rock, but it was slick with the tree’s tears, and he kept falling down. Finally, he reached the lowest thorns with one hand as he clung to the stone face with the other. He grabbed and screamed with pain, let go, and fell head over heels to the ground, where he lay, twitching spasmodically and sobbing. His hands were torn where he had grabbed at the weeping thorns. The hawthorn had not healed him.
Voran could no longer bear it. Gritting his teeth, he pulled the arrow out of his shoulder and nearly passed out from the pain. He forced his mind to ignore it, even as his head began to spin and his limbs wanted desperately to give up the fight. Somehow, he made it to Mirnían’s side, and dropped to his knees next to him.
Mirnían no longer struggled; he merely sobbed, looking like a wounded animal more than a human being. He raised both hands to his face in a half-hearted gesture of protection. Voran put his good arm under Mirnían’s neck and hugged him close to his body. He wept again—he was weeping far too much lately.
“Look at us,” he said to Mirnían through the racking sobs. “Is this what we wanted? How did it come to this, my brother?”
Mirnían’s eyes were wide with shock. “You will not kill me?” The question was full of disappointment, as though he had given up on life and wished that Voran would be brave enough to end it for him, since he couldn’t do it himself.
Voran’s body shook from his anger. Not letting go of Mirnían, holding him with the same gentle care as a mother gives to a newborn, he looked up at the cloudless sky and screamed his defiance.
“Where are you, Adonais?!” Voran’s voice echoed, broken by the sobs. “Mirnían has served you with his life. He has sacrificed everything to follow my mad lead. How could you have allowed it to come to this? You have all-power. What Vasylli has given more of himself, lost more of himself, gained more of himself in your service? Will you curse your own child?”
“You’re asking the wrong questions, my boy,” said a familiar voice. Standing under the shadow of the hawthorn was the Pilgrim, even older than Voran remembered him, leaning on his staff now for support, not merely show. The setting sun above his head hung blood red, barely touching the tips of the hawthorn. “Why do you expect the Heights to intervene for you whenever you need saving?”
“How many times has Adonais already intervened?” said Voran, forcing his voice to remain contained, though it trembled from the effort. “How many times have I been guided precisely to the place I need to be, at the appointed time? Even after I turned away from him, he found me a deliverer. Tarin died for me. Why all the extraordinary care for me, and this disregard for Mirnían? I do not deserve any of it!”
The Pilgrim smiled. “No, you do not.”
“I do not hold Mirnían responsible for shooting me.” said Voran. “I deserve much worse at his hands. I should be dead.”
Mirnían’s expression was unreadable, but he had stopped crying.
“I call on Adonais,” cried Voran. “Let him answer. Why do I, the guilty one, enjoy his patronage, while the one who has suffered the most remains cursed by leprosy?”
The Pilgrim raised his arms and grew, larger and larger until the very sky seemed to rest on his head. His grey cloak thrust back, he exploded into the radiance of a thousand suns. His knee-length chainmail was woven of light itself, kaleidoscopic, yet purely and utterly white. His eyes were as twin beacons
, and his face was beyond youth or old age. His helmet-plume was a billowing flame; his hair was fluid gold on his massive shoulders. Joy poured out of him, joy like the first cry of a newborn, like the first star after a week-long snowstorm.
“I am the Harbinger, brother to Athíel of the Palymi. I am the mouth of the Most High. I am the light behind the dawn. I am the fire that burns the setting sun. I am the one who witnessed the covenant between Lassar and the Heights. Do not call on Adonais. Speak to me, if you dare.”
For a moment, Voran thought that the Harbinger spoke the name Adonais with distaste. But how could that be?
“I am a servant of the Heights,” whispered Voran, forcing himself to look at the giant of light. “I am nothing. Yet has not this man, this prince of Vasyllia, done enough to deserve more than this?”
“Do you doubt that all he has suffered is part of a design?”
“Design? What design can there be? Adonais has abandoned us, and old Powers are coming back to take the earth for themselves.”
“Voran. Consider the past days. You cannot fail to come to this conclusion. You four—Voran, Mirnían, Lebía, Sabíana—have been led. By me and by the white stag and by others, all along paths thorny and painful. You ask why? If I told you the full truth, you would not believe me. You must come to it yourself. The answer to all that your questioning heart desires is at the heart of Vasyllia.”
“The one place that I cannot reach.”
“You must reach it. Do not forget. Vasyllia is everything. Even if she falls, you must go back. Search for its heart. At the heart lie all the answers.”
The Harbinger’s light flared like a huge furnace and spun faster and faster, until the white light was a huge pillar, reaching up far beyond the sun, ending on Voran and Mirnían, blood pouring from both their wounds. The rest of the world was a colorless darkness; only they two were illumined in color and light. Then the Harbinger disappeared, and time seemed to begin anew. The sun descended behind the flowers and thorns of the weeping tree, turning the tears red as blood falling from spear-tips.
“And so it is the two of us at the end, Mirnían,” said Voran, smiling. “As it should be.”
He stood up awkwardly, nearly fainting again, and unsheathed his sword. His left hand limp and throbbing with fire, he somehow leveraged himself with his right, sword in hand, and clambered up the rock, foot by foot, until he lay under the shadow of the branches. Breathing with difficulty, he rose to his knees and touched the pale flowers, grazed his fingers over the thorns. It was so beautiful. His tears returned, and he spat in disgust at himself.
“No one should have to make this choice,” he whispered. “Forgive me, Mother.”
He breathed in, braced himself, and hacked at the thin trunk with his sword.
“What are you doing?” shrieked Mirnían.
Voran struck again and again like a man possessed, his eyes blurry with the flow of tears, his hands unsteady from the pain.
“No one should have access to so much power,” he said.
He saw Aglaia’s stricken body in his mind, and he despaired.
The sword finally broke through the trunk, and Voran pushed the hawthorn down the far side of the cliff. It fell out of sight. A fountain of fragrant water blossomed from the raw, jagged stump and immediately began to ebb. Voran had a sudden compulsion to drink the water before it disappeared completely. He caught a little in his hands. It sparkled in his cupped palms, multifaceted like a fluid diamond. He drank.
The waves of hot pain receded into the back of Mirnían’s awareness. He was tired, so tired that he could easily fall asleep on the bare rock. Now that it was over, now that Voran had singlehandedly destroyed Vasyllia and dashed all their hopes, there was little left to do except die. But he remembered Lebía; he remembered their coming child; he remembered the life in Ghavan, and somehow he knew he would press on.
Voran had stopped weeping. He looked at Mirnían with eyes that seemed centuries older, eyes so green that they seemed almost mad. Voran slipped off the top of the rock, holding on to the stone with his left arm and balancing with his right.
His left arm?
“Voran, your arm!”
Voran looked confused for a moment, then looked down at his shoulder. The black fabric was clotted with blood. Voran poked his fingers into the rip made by the two arrows, and his face turned white.
“Mirnían, I am healed.”
Mirnían’s heart raced. He thought he understood what had happened. He got up, groaned from the pain, and hobbled to Voran, feeling more an old man than a youth of twenty-two years. He took Voran’s right hand in both his own.
“No, Voran,” he said, strangely elated. “You are not healed. You are the healer.”
Mirnían placed Voran’s right palm on his own exposed chest, and his entire body felt as though it were burned with hot irons. He screamed, but held on to Voran’s wrist as if his life depended on it. It lasted a long time, but then the pain went out, like a fire extinguished by a gust of wind.
Mirnían knew that he was healed—this time completely—but to see that truth reflected in Voran’s expression was glorious. Voran looked like a gleeful boy, making his wiry, sparse beard seem a storyteller’s disguise. His strong features softened into a smile so full of joy, Mirnían realized he did not know the meaning of the word until he saw it in Voran’s face.
“Voran,” he said, unsure of the words, “I—”
“No, Mirnían,” said Voran, more calm and in control than Mirnían had ever seen him. “All that is past. There is a great deal of work left to be done. A great deal of hardship to be overcome. It would be easier to overcome it all together, as family.”
Mirnían felt as though an old version of himself died in that moment, and a new Mirnían arose in his place, a Mirnían who did not merely act the part of the solicitous leader, as he so often used to do in Vasyllia. At that moment, Mirnían felt ready to contain all of Vasyllia in his heart. It occurred to him that his father must have felt the same way every day of his life.
“There is something you should know, Voran. I married Lebía, and we are expecting…”
Voran grabbed him and raised him off the ground. At first, Mirnían thought that finally Voran’s temper had the better of him, but there was nothing but warmth in his embrace, and then Voran laughed. It echoed over the mountains.
“My little swanling picked you?” He chortled.
Mirnían felt himself blush violently, something he could not remember ever doing in his life. It was very strange for their roles to be so reversed, but there was something liberating in it. He returned Voran’s embrace.
“It is time, my brother. We must go,” said Voran, staring over Mirnían’s shoulder, his eyes illuminated by a golden light. Mirnían turned to see a majestic stag, his fur completely white, his antlers sparkling gold. It wasn’t entirely there. It shimmered, as though it were in water.
“Will you consent to bear us to the waystone, old friend?” asked Voran.
The white stag lowered its head.
As Voran stood before the waystone, he laughed.
It was the last thing either of the giants expected, and their expressions soured.
Voran turned his back to both of them and ran to Aglaia. Even with his new strength, even with the healing flowing through him, stoked by the Sirin’s flame, he was afraid to touch her. The spear point was deep in the ground, passing through her chest completely.
“Mirnían, help me,” he said.
Mirnían’s face was a fierce shade of green, but he came. Together, they snapped the haft of the spear in two and gently pulled her body up, until she was free of it. She gasped in pain as the blood gushed. Mirnían held his hand to his mouth, looking ready to vomit at any moment.
Voran closed his eyes and began to mouth the word—Saddaí, Saddaí. He placed both hands on the gaping wound and breathed out deeply. He reached for Tarin’s stillness, deeper and deeper within, then gently nudged at his heart-flame. Aglaia’s breathing
was ragged, then she moaned. Voran looked down at his hands, and the blood still flowed over them.
“She is not healing,” whispered Mirnían.
Voran plunged deeper within, and forced his accelerating heart to still again into the pleasant rhythm and presence of the word. He forced all thoughts to cease. When there was nothing but the word in his heart, he submitted. Let it be as it must.
A soft light throbbed from his hands, and Aglaia was bathed in it. Her eyes opened, wide and surprised, and she gently gasped.
“Oh,” she sighed and smiled. She looked at Voran chidingly. “I think now you have paid off your debt to me, my son.” Not only was there no wound on her, but her clothing was clean and untouched—a rich overdress of gold brocade, covered in jewels, like something out of an ancient tapestry. Mirnían chortled.
“That was a bit much, no?” He raised one eyebrow at Voran, and Voran shrugged his shoulders and shook his head.
Aglaia closed her eyes and fell into a deep sleep instantly, her wrinkles smoothing away to reveal the same face Voran remembered so well. Only her white hair told of her actual age.
“What have you done?” thundered Buyan. Zmei assumed a fighting stance. “Where is the Living Water?”
“It is gone. I destroyed the tree. Whatever power it left me is now gone in the healing.”
Zmei roared and charged the three of them. Mirnían reached for his bow.
“No, Mirnían,” whispered Voran, unfazed by the giant. “Wait.”
Voran raised both his hands. Zmei jerked back in fear, as though someone threw fire at his face. His sword out, he backed away.
“Very fine,” he growled. “But do not think that trick will work for longer than a day. You shine with the power now, but it will fade. You think you have come out the winner in this game? You fool. Every darkness, every shadow, every power in this world and all the others will hunt you from this moment forward. You thought the Raven was a problem. You do not know what you have unleashed on yourself. You will see me again, soon enough.”
The Song of the Sirin (Raven Son Book 1) Page 33