by Sarah Zettel
Bridget pressed her hand against her mouth as if she were about to be sick. She was suddenly glad she was sitting, because her knees would not have supported her at that moment.
“Could Kalami have murdered my daughter? Why? Why would he murder a baby? Why not me? I was the threat to him.”
“The children of sorcerers are a rare breed,” said Sakra slowly. “When they come into being, they are powerful. You are the daughter of a sorcerer, Bridget. Your daughter would have been the third of her line, and I don’t know that there has ever been such a child. There is no telling what her powers would have been.”
Rage swelled like a fire in Bridget’s heart. A single hot tear ran down her cheek, but whether it was for that rage or the cold sorrow that warred with it, she could not tell.
“Murdering bastard.” She clenched her fists. “Murdering bastard.” She tried to control herself, without success. “How could he do such a thing? Anna was an infant. She’d barely drawn breath. How could he do it!” She pounded the arm of her chair.
“There is one other possibility.” Sakra held himself very still.
“What?” demanded Bridget. “Do you think Medeoan did this? Medeoan killed my child?”
“Bridget, your child might not be dead.”
Bridget stared at him. She couldn’t understand. His words made no sense. “What?”
“Your daughter, your Anna, might still be alive.”
“Sakra, do not taunt me like this. Anna is dead. I buried her.”
“Bridget, have you ever heard of a changeling? Or a stock?”
“A changeling is a fairy child left in place …” Bridget’s voice died in her throat.
Sakra nodded as if she had completed a full sentance. “A stock is a wooden image, made to look like a certain individual, whoever or whatever the sorcerer desires. It is then enchanted and left in that person’s place. It will live a few days, or a few weeks, depending on the strength of the spell, and then it appears to die, and is given funerary rites, as if it were the real person, but the real person is still alive.”
It took a moment for Sakra’s words to assemble themselves inside Bridget’s mind in comprehensible phrases. When they did, Bridget knew her mouth fell open, but she could not move to close it.
“That’s impossible. It couldn’t be.”
“Why?”
“Because.” Because I have been nine years alone mourning my child. Because I stood accused of her murder. Because if she were alive for all these nine years I could have been looking for her. I could have found her. Because if she was alive, I should have been doing something other than grieving her death.
Oh, God. Oh, God. Bridget closed her eyes. “It can’t be. I would have known.”
“How, Bridget?”
“Because I was … I am … I was her mother!” Bridget bowed her head into her hands. “That was my baby I held. I would have known if it wasn’t. I would have seen it! I would have seen her!” Her hands clenched into fists, and her knuckles pressed against her eyes. She would not cry. She would not cry.
Silence, and then the touch of Sakra’s hand. Bridget unknotted one fist and wrapped her fingers tightly around his. She stayed like that for a moment, eyes closed, holding his warm hand like a lifeline, and not saying a word.
Gradually, she was able to open her eyes and lift up her head. Sakra stood beside her, his eyes filled with sympathy and concern. She drank in his gaze for a long moment, drawing into herself all the strength he could give, she needed it all to speak her next words.
“God Almighty, Sakra, could … could it be so? Could my Anna still be alive somewhere?”
Are you that sure of all your family? Had the Vixen truly stressed the word “all,” or was that only Bridget’s fancy?
“I don’t know. I only know that such a thing can be done, and that Kalami was aware of you much longer than you were aware of him.”
“God, Sakra, I don’t … I have to …” She took a deep breath. “What do I do? Do I try to find her ghost?”
“That is one way.”
The idea made her sick with fear, and worse than fear. Fear of what failure of such a spell would mean, and fear of what success would mean. She was in no way certain she could stand to look on the ghost of her infant daughter. Ashamed of her own cowardice, she asked, “Can you do it?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I have no tie to her, Bridget. You and I are not married.”
Bridget’s throat tightened. She was not sure she could speak. To see her child again, even as a spirit. To see Anna with the eye of memory and imagination, which was how one beheld a ghost, to see the little girl and the young woman she had once imagined her child would one day be …
“Why is the Vixen doing this to me?” Bridget choked out. “Was it something I did? Have I offended her?”
Again, Sakra shook his head. “I cannot say. We have none such as her in Hastinapura. She was banished by the Seven Mothers millennia ago. I think, though, if she meant to avenge some offense, she would find another way than this to make you pay.”
Bridget got to her feet. She paced aimlessly around the firepit. The stone walls seemed suffocating now. She wanted to tear them down, to see right through them to the Land of Death and Spirit to see Anna’s ghost at peace there, and she wanted to be struck blind so she never would have to see such a thing.
At the same time, this was an uncertainty she could not bear. The whole of her felt balanced on a knife’s edge. Now that the possibility that Anna might be alive had been raised, she had to know for certain.
Another thought came to her. “I’d have to go back to Wisconsin, wouldn’t I?”
“I’m sorry?”
Bridget turned and faced Sakra. “To be sure, I’d have to go back to Wisconsin. Otherwise, any spell I might use, even with my second sight, if it didn’t reach her … spirit, it might just be because I can’t reach far enough, or that she can’t cross to Isavalta. That’s right, isn’t it?”
Sakra considered and then nodded. “Ties of love and blood are immensely strong, but the space between worlds is vast. Were I to perform such a working, I would want to be near the bones.”
“And if I went, now this minute, and the Firebird came to Isavalta, I’d be out of reach and unable to help stop whatever this vengeance might be.”
Sakra considered, his brown eyes flickering back and forth. “That is also true.”
“So either the Vixen is doing me a great favor by telling me my daughter may still be alive, or she is luring me away from Isavalta when my help would be most needed.”
“Luring us,” corrected Sakra.
For a single heartbeat, Bridget thought to say, “What do you mean?” but she realized she had no need. Sakra meant he would go with her back home. He would not leave her to face her daughter’s grave alone.
Instead of that, she said, “You may not be permitted to go.” Sakra was bound-sorcerer to the Empress Ananda. His first duty lay in serving her and the bond that had been solemnized by a series of complex oaths. Bridget knew he carried those oaths in the center of his soul.
She wanted to say, “Let’s wait until we’ve found the Firebird. Then we’ll go.” But the words would not come. Anna’s name pulsed through her mind in time to the beating of her quickened heart. What few memories she had appeared before her mind’s eye. She remembered Anna, red and wrinkled, her dark hair plastered to her skull, how her eyes had opened and shown themselves to be green already, instead of the usual baby blue. She remembered warmth and living weight and the scent of sweet milk. With these actual memories came the remembrance of dreams. All mothers dreamed of their child’s future, but Bridget with her second sight had more than usual reason to think hers might be true. She remembered telling herself how beautiful, how tall, how strong Anna would be. How she’d always raise her hand in class, how she’d be so quick and clever at her chores, and how well she’d read in the evenings. She’d go on to the teacher’s college, or nu
rsing school. Anna, Bridget, and, of course, Asa would move down to Madison …
So many dreams and not one of them showing her daughter’s death. Was that because she did not die?
Bridget knew she would not be able to wait. The world might burn down around her ears, but she would still go. If it was possible that Anna lived, if there was even a faintest whisper of that impossible hope …
Bridget bowed her head. If this was the Vixen’s trickery, she had done her work very well.
But Sakra had other duties, and other claims on his loyalties, whatever he might feel for her, or however much he might wish to help. Bridget knew that. She always knew that.
Perhaps that was why he had not yet spoken of love to her.
Bridget brushed that thought aside. “I’ll speak to the empress in the morning,” she said, clasping and unclasping her hands. “She’ll surely give us leave once she understands …”
Which was something else she had to stop to consider. What if the empress did not give leave? She knotted her fingers together. Bridget would go anyway. She would find her way back across the gulf between worlds, but what then? If Anna lived, could Bridget find her alone? If Kalami had done this unspeakable thing, where would he have taken her? To Tuukos, his homeland? Or someplace else? She had to leave to be sure Anna was alive, but could she come back to Isavalta if by leaving she defied the empress? Or would she be giving up this new life that promised to be so sweet, for something too faint even to be called hope?
Too many questions. Bridget felt positively sick with all of them churning around her skull.
“I have to go.” The words fell from her one at a time without strength. She felt only defeat and fear, fear that this thing might be true and fear that it might not. “It doesn’t matter what the Vixen’s plan is.”
“I know,” said Sakra simply. Was that sorrow beneath his voice? She couldn’t tell. She was too caught up in the whirl of her own emotions. She did not want to be this way. She wanted to be able to reach out to him, but the gulf was too wide.
“We can do nothing until morning,” Sakra went on, setting his cup of cider down. “Will you try to sleep?”
“I don’t think I can.” Bridget ran her hands over her hair, as if trying to press down the thoughts filling her skull.
“Come, you must try.” Sakra mustered a small smile. “If only for Richikha’s and Prathad’s sakes. They cannot go to bed until you do.”
“Of course, of course, you’re right.” She glanced across at her maids, who waited in the corner, each sewing at some piecework, pretending to ignore what was happening by the fire. She stood, smoothing her dress down fussily. “I will go to bed now.”
Prathad rose and reverenced, her face betraying no hint of the relief Bridget was sure she must be feeling. With Richikha, she went back behind the wooden screens that separated Bridget’s bed from the rest of the apartment. The rustling of bedding being turned down and night attire being shaken out drifted from the sleeping alcove.
“I’m almost afraid to sleep,” Bridget breathed. “I’m afraid I’ll dream, or see something … Anna’s ghost, or I don’t know what.” To her shame, her voice began to shake. “Sakra, this can’t be true, but if it is … I don’t know which way to turn.”
Sakra moved closer to her so she could feel his warmth, his solidity. Close enough so she could touch him if she wanted to. “You have nothing to fear in this place, Bridget. I will watch over you until sleep comes.”
It was a highly improper suggestion that he stay at her bedside, but Bridget only looked up at him in mute gratitude. His eyes were warm, and filled with the kindness she had come to understand was so much a part of him. But there was something else, and again Bridget thought of sadness. Her hand longed to move, to take his hand, to ask what was wrong, what he thought, whether he would help her, no matter what Ananda said, because this was about her daughter, the most precious thing she ever had, ever would have.
Because she wanted to be able to love him.
But this was not the time, nor the place, and she still had a reputation here. She had to remember that. Prathad and Richikha were not given to gossip, but still, that Sakra would stay after she had gone to bed was outrageous enough, without such overt gestures of affection, and she desperately wanted him to stay. She did not want to be alone with her fears.
She smiled at the awkwardness this kindness of his created and went behind the screens to her sleeping alcove. The bed was a huge affair, big enough to sleep five people who didn’t much care for each other. Posts carved with hawks and running deer held up a canopy and curtains of moss-green velvet.
In contrast, her night dress was pure white with more lace flounces than any one garment should possess. She had spoken with Prathad about acquiring some simpler night attire, and they had met with the seamstress, but for the moment being dressed for bed involved feeling done up like some elaborate French pastry.
She was not sure she wanted Sakra to see her like this. Whatever else might be happening, she still had her pride. But she looked at the bed in the flickering brazier light and thought about lying alone for hours, staring at the blackness, waiting to see something, and afraid of what it might be.
She climbed beneath the layers of throws and blankets, stretching her toes out automatically to reach the felt-wrapped bed warmer Richikha had already placed there. Her maids said nothing about the fact that there was still a man in the room. They reverenced in silent unison and withdrew, taking the lit brazier with them. It was only the reflection of the light beyond the screens that allowed her to see Sakra come and sit beside her. His face was lost in shadow, but she could smell his scents of warmth and spice, and the faint fragrance of oranges that always seemed to accompany him. Now that there was no one to witness it, her hand moved of its own accord, reaching out, telling him with its motion all she needed, and he covered it with his own.
They sat like that for a while, holding hands, Bridget drawing strength and calm from his presence and, after a while, Sakra began to sing. It was a low, slow song, perhaps a lullabye, in some language Bridget could not understand. Perhaps there was magic in it, for Bridget’s hopes and fears gradually sank toward sleep. Her last conscious thought, though, was not of Anna. It was the memory of seeing the Firebird, rising into the night sky, spreading out its flaming wings to encompass the world, and the awe she had felt at that sight.
As sleep took her, she wondered where that magnificent terror had gone.
Chapter Two
The Heart of the World, Hung-Tse, Year of the Son
But where is the Phoenix?
Xuan, the Minister of Fire, felt his whole being strain forward as An Thao, the Minister of the North, spoke.
“The details are not yet clear.” An Thao lowered her eyes slightly to indicate that she felt shame at this inadequacy. “But we do know that the Dowager Empress Medeoan of Isavalta has died or been displaced, and Emperor Mikkel has assumed the throne in full.”
Her words fell heavily into the expectant air of the Chamber of Eternal Voices. All the Nine Elders of Hung-Tse, the Ministers of Directions and Elements, were assembled in their circle, sitting cross-legged on their platforms of camphor wood. The symbols of their offices glittered on their robes in the flickering light from the lanterns and braziers. Behind their tattoos, the Elders’ faces wore identical expressions of composure. Xuan strove to keep his face properly calm as did all his colleagues, but in his heart he wanted nothing more than to leap to his feet and shout.
Where is the Phoenix?
None spoke in answer to An Thao’s blunt statement. His life as one of the Elders had given Xuan the ability to read the weight and quality of the silences that could fill the room like water in a lacquer cup. This news of Isavalta disturbed the other ministers, and it should. They had not planned well for this contingency. All signs, all forecasts, had pointed toward Medeoan dying an early death, which would shatter Isavalta, both removing the threat from the northern border and freeing th
e heavenly guardian she had imprisoned with a single stroke.
What had changed? How had all the predictions of magic, spies, and politics gone wrong?
And where is the Phoenix?
But it was not his time to speak. Xuan struggled to hold his tongue. He cast his gaze down so that he did not have to look at the others as he fought to compose himself. That was a mistake, because now he saw the Phoenix, emblazoned on his hands, on his robes where they folded neatly across his knees, and even inlaid on the floor at his feet with images of the three other great guardians. It arched its trailing wings and opened its hooked beak in song. Or in a scream of pain. Or in a call to the minister of its element to be free.
Xuan wished the Chamber of Eternal Voices had a window. He wanted to see Heaven’s blue overhead. He wanted to know if there was some sign, some bright star or thunderstroke to show that the Phoenix was at last free from the cage woven for it by the empress of Isavalta. But no window could be permitted here, or even any reflection. The surfaces were all of dull or rough finish. Windows and reflections could become the eyes of a sorcerer, so that they might see to create an attack. Should any be so foolish as to think they might commit an assault on the Nine Elders with the high arts.
And yet wasn’t that what Medeoan had done?
“Is the spell that held their emperor broken?” asked En Lai, the Minister of Earth. Her robes were brown, gold, and green, as were the tattoos on her face and hands. The symbol of the tortoise that was her guardian was repeated over and over across her skin and clothing. Like her guardian and her element, En Lai was a long and purposeful thinker. Just to be next to her was calming and strengthening. Xuan wished she sat beside him now. Instead he sat between Chi Tahn, the Minister of Water, and Quan, the Minister of the South. Their presences spoke of heat and fluidity and only agitated him, sending his thought flaring out.
“Yes, the spell is broken,” said An Thao. She delivered her news in absolute stillness. Her white robes with their embroidery of wolves and snow geese did not flutter at all as she spoke. Xuan did not believe she could feel so calm inside. Isavalta was her special study. This news could mean that the greatest threat to Hung-Tse had just intensified. There could be no knowing yet. “The Emperor Mikkel’s mind is whole again.”