by sun sword
There had been little rest in the past few months, and she was certain, although no battle's sound reached her ears, that there would be no rest here, for either herself or the girl. But the girl was not dead yet.
At least there was hope.
As if she could hear the intake of breath, the girl who lay curled upon the stone bed lifted her hands in a gesture that was half plea and half defense; her lips were thick and swollen, the side of her face, purpled by the blow— by several blows—of a large hand.
And yet, even this disfigured, Evayne a'Nolan recognized Askeyia a'Narin. Levee's student; a child, an almost-woman with a soft heart and a naive desire to see great deeds done. Of Levee's many students, Askeyia was one who hovered, hoping against hope to catch some snippet of dread destiny, as if it were a disease. Not even in her coldest moments would Evayne have pointed out that this, this meeting, was one such thing.
She had never seen a healer this injured who still lived; it was against their nature, and their instincts.
"D-don't—" the girl said piteously, "don't." But it was weak and fragile; the sound a mouse might make when it had been in play too long between the paws of a cat.
She, who had seen much, looked away.
She did not recognize this room; it was barren of any detail that might have given it light, or a sense of comfort or warmth. No; light came from the window, and the window was a thing of stone. She turned, as if the need for light was greater than any other impulse, and stared out; stared down.
When she turned back to the injured girl, she was as gray as the stone itself. Evayne's robes were blue, always blue; she spoke a word, frowned, and spoke another, a stronger one. In the haze of the light by the window—for she stood by the window itself—the midnight richness seeped skyward from the magical weave, leaving her in white, all white.
Because she knew where she was. And she knew that the white would be a comfort, even if it was a lie.
"Askeyia," she said softly, speaking for the first time since she'd entered this tower. She did not seek the crystal ball by which she was known as seer; she did not need it. She knew the when and she knew the where; the glance outside the single tower window told her both.
The girl looked up at the sound of the voice; she was not so broken that suspicion was her first reaction. "E-Evayne?"
The older woman swallowed and then smiled falsely. "Yes."
"What are you—what are you doing here?" Hope. "Have you come to—have you—did Levec send you?"
Levec doesn't know where you are. But she did not say it. Instead, she crossed the room, leaving shadows that were only the castoffs of light. She caught the girl in her arms and held her, and after a moment of stiffness that told Evayne more than she would ever ask, the girl relaxed and began to sob, very like a child, into her robes.
Those robes caught the tears and kept them, a bitter memento. Evayne spoke a word; saw the green glow of her mage-light halo Askeyia, her momentary ward. It was a spell better used in the presence of physicians, for it told her much about the condition of the body upon which it was cast. The spell came more easily than words would have.
And it gave her a bitter, bitter answer.
Askeyia was chilled by the fevers brought on by too great a use of power in too short a space of time. That, she expected. Her leg was broken cleanly, but poorly set; her face was bruised but whole, her vision had been hampered somehow by the strikes to the side of her face. These, and more, Evayne cataloged in an instant.
But it was the last thing that was the most terrible, because she understood it all then.
Askeyia a'Narin was pregnant.
She must have tightened her grip, for the girl looked up, the matted darkness of her hair scudding the underside of the seer's chin.
"Evayne?"
No. No, I will not do this.
"Evayne, what is it? What's wrong? Is he coming?"
I will not do this. The fifty-year-old woman, who had seen battles that were far darker and far more real than the glory of legend bit her lip until it bled. Held the girl, held Askeyia, a moment longer, as if her arms were bower or cradle—or armor. She lowered her face into the crook of the girl's neck; blood there, sticky but dried.
She had not been brought to rescue Askeyia.
The silver lily that hung round her throat bit into her collarbone; she did not move, thinking of what its maker would have said to her for what she was about to do.
"Askeyia," she said, in a voice so husky the word came out a rumble. "Forgive me. But I cannot take you from this place. The Lord who rules it has a grip that is far too strong."
Lies, all lies. She hated them. Because she knew, now, the how of Kiriel di'Ashaf, the dark, wild child that did not—in this year, at this time—exist. And she was glad that she had not known it sooner.
But Askeyia was gullible, even in fear.
"You are caught in a war, Askeyia. And you are a healer." Swallowing hurt; the words stuck. "You're— you're with child."
White-faced, the girl drew back, covering herself, pulling the scraps of dress together as if—as if the night just past had not passed. As if it never would. Her eyes were wide and dark and round.
And Evayne raised a hand, gentle with the girl as she could not be gentle with herself. "No, child," she said, although the Askeyia that she remembered did not care to be called a child. "Remember your talent. Remember your birth. You are healer-born. If the child you carry is not to your liking, you need not carry it to term."
"But I—"
"No, not tonight. And not tomorrow, if I am a judge of the power that you've used. But the night after, if you desire it, you will have your freedom from—from what you bear." She saw Askeyia's shoulders slump. Relief, of a sort.
"If you do nothing," the seer continued, "the child will never come to term." She stopped speaking a moment, and looked beyond the gray of wall, to whatever lay without. "Askeyia, I never told you who I was, and you asked. You always asked." She had hoped the girl would smile, but there was about her a watchful fear that Evayne was certain would never again leave her face.
"I was raised in Callenton."
At that, Askeyia's brows rose. "In Callenton? That's the town over from—from where I was born. Evanton. I went there once, with my father, in the summer." Her eyes clouded then, as she thought of the father who had sent her to the safety of the mighty healing houses in Averalaan.
"My father was a blacksmith, and until his death, I was only a strange-looking child. After his death—ah. After his death, I was a stranger, a foreigner. You know how cruel children are before they discover that they aren't children anymore.
"In Callenton, I came into the power that brings me to you." She very gently reached into her robes—her white robes—and pulled out a glowing sphere that pulsed in her hand like a heart. In it, silver clouds turned in upon themselves, roiling. Waiting.
"A man came to me, to teach me of my gift. I did not know who he was, but he knew me well, and he offered me great mystery, great adventure, glory. It required a sacrifice, of course." She shook her head, staring at the surface of the seer's crystal. "I was not as brave as you, Askeyia. I was timid. He told me that I would have to walk a path that no other man, or woman, had ever walked before. That I would walk it alone and that it would take me across decades and centuries. That, once I had chosen, I would be bound; I could speak of nothing that had not yet happened. Offer no warning. But if—if I did all these things, I might avert the crowning of the Lord of the Hells upon the mortal lands. I told you, Askeyia, that I was timid. What would you have done?"
Askeyia straightened her shoulders then, although her arms were still tightly wound across her body, covering her breasts. "I—" She looked at her lap. Swallowed. "I would have said yes."
"I said no."
"But you—"
"And that night, that terrible night, the demons came. We had no soldiers, Askeyia, except for one man who fled the Empire to forget the Dominion Wars. We had no mages. Ther
e were no god-born children to lead us or protect us.
"And he came back to me at that moment, and he asked me again if I would follow his path.
"And I told him yes. Yes, because everyone that I loved—precious few, but precious—was there."
"W-what happened?"
"I don't know," she told the young girl softly, more honest now than she had been in decades. "I've never been allowed to go back. I cannot choose where the path takes me. But it takes me where I need to be. I did not know that it would bring me to you." She smiled, but the smile was a bitter one. "I've lost them all. If I were to go back to them now, they would never recognize me. My life has been given to the fight, and taken by it."
"And will it work?" Askeyia said softly, as if asking the end of a story.
"I don't know. But I have to try. What happened here, what happened to you—it's not the worst thing that will happen if the Lord of the Hells rules all. Askeyia a'Narin, you carry his child."
"I won't for long."
Evayne swallowed. "If you do not carry this child to term, we stand no chance of winning this war."
The silence. Oh, the silence.
Of the two, it was Evayne who looked away, casting her gaze stoneward.
"And if I do? If I do, can you tell me that we will win? Against a god'?" Her voice was thin and high and strained. But it was not mad, it was not hysterical.
Evayne started to speak, and Askeyia cried out, "Look at me!" and the words died on the older woman's lips.
"No," she said, the lie that was so distasteful defeated. "I cannot say that with certainty. I can only say that she is hope, and she is our hope, as she is his."
"She?"
"If you have this child, this child will be a girl. And she will be all that she was born to be."
"How can you ask this?"
"Because, Askeyia, she will be his daughter, but she will be yours as well. It is only hope, yes. But it is hope."
"And for me?"
"I promise you that you will suffer no more in the birthing than many others suffer naturally."
"And will I go home? Will I be free?"
Evayne rose, and in rising, she took the weight of her answer with her, carrying it, burdened by it. She saw the clouds rolling in to either side.
"No," she whispered. "Just as I will never be. I cannot force you, Askeyia, and I would not. But if a healer's vocation is to save lives, you will be the greatest healer the world has ever had, known or not.
"And I promise you, before the end, you will be known."
She heard Askeyia begin to cry as the path closed in about her, taking her from the desperate young woman, and leaving her with the burden of what she had asked, of what she would ask.
She was Evayne a'Nolan.
II: ASHAF
15th of Wittan, 412 AA
The Terrean of Aver da, the Green Valley
She would always remember that he came at the break of dawn. Not at full morning, when the serafs were out in the fields, sun burnishing their forearms with color and the glow of sweat seen at a distance, but when the darkness had not yet been broken, and an old woman could take the time to sit beside the earthen shroud that lay over so many of her once-bright futures. It happened that way sometimes.
She lifted a goblet carefully, searched the still, dark surface of its liquid, and then spilled the contents, drop by careful drop, over the graves. The wine was almost finished for the season, and she'd little taste for it otherwise; it was folly to drink alone, a type of weakness that she'd sometimes longed for but never truly approached.
Harvest was around the corner; a day, maybe three, away. She'd seen enough of them to know that it would be a good year, Lord willing. The Tor'agar would be pleased.
Ashaf kep'Valente had much to be thankful for. She served a Tor who was just, if at times harsh; she had her health, her sight, her teeth, and the kind of strength that years of labor cannot destroy. Not labor.
But other things hurt, and over time it became harder and harder to ignore them. She was tired. The Lady knew it, if no one else did. She wanted to see her children again, and there was only one way she could ever do it. One way.
"Ashaf kep'Valente."
She looked up from the Lady's blessing, although the sun had not yet robbed the sky of all its hidden shadows, its quiet darkness. And she saw him for the first time.
He was neither young nor handsome as Ashaf reckoned either, but in his face she saw the conjunction of cool distance and absolute certainty that spoke of power. He did wear a fine and heavy cloak, out of season in the Averdan summer. It was the colors of harvest, gold and green and brown—but it felt black to her, and that was unsettling.
Had they a new Tor? It would not be the first time she had found out this way. But it would be the worst, and it would be painful; this Tor was a good man, a known one.
This stranger, she thought, although she did not know why, would be neither. Ah, age and family made a coward of a woman. Bow and scrape and beg and give way, if it kept you alive for your family.
But she had no family now.
Her eyes fell at once to his collar, his breast, but he wore no sun with rays to mark his importance among the clansman.
"No," he said quietly, "I am no Tor or Tyr; if you bow to me here, it is at the desire of your courtesy, no more."
"And have you come to find the Tor, then?" She rose, standing implacably between this stranger and those graves, as if by putting herself there she could guard her heart. As if she knew, even then, that it was necessary.
"No," he said quietly. "Your Tor has little of interest to offer me." He paused. "You are not a very curious woman, are you?"
She shrugged, wondering if she had time to raise a shout and call the men from the field. Wondering, in truth, if it was worth the effort. Perhaps the Lady heard her prayers, and if this was not the method she would have chosen to end her time and toil, one couldn't argue with the Lady. Sometimes the answers to your prayers were answers, like them or no, and once asked, very little could be taken back.
When he saw that she wasn't about to tender an answer, he smiled, the expression shrouded and somehow dangerous, although she thought he meant it to be friendly. She would learn the error of that, and many things, in time. "I was right," he told her. "The Averdans are different. Ashaf kep'Valente, I have come to purchase your service."
"Then you do want to speak with the Tor," she said firmly, thinking that he would take her from this place, these tangible, buried memories, and not much liking it.
"Perhaps. Perhaps not. You are the first woman I have met that I think suitable for my needs. But I will not take your service if it is offered unwillingly."
At that, the daylight broke; the Lady's time passed. Ashaf kep'Valente snorted and settled into things practical. "You aren't from the Dominion," she said boldly, "if you think that service and willing are one and the same. You buy me, I work. You don't, I work." She shrugged. "But it's not up to me to jump through your hoops either way. You talk to the Tor, and if he's willing, he'll give me the orders." She straightened her shoulders, first left, then right, and wiped dew-moistened hands on her apron, knowing what answer the Tor would tender. Or believing that she did. "Now, I've work to be about."
"Indeed. As have I."
But his eyes were the darkest brown she had ever seen as he caught, and held, her gaze. "I think we will speak, you and I," he said, and for a moment she felt like a young woman again. And she hadn't much liked being young, with no freedom, and choices that were so painfully few. Age had its precious value.
He came that evening, again at the bridge between darkness and light; dusk. Ashaf was not surprised to hear the knock at the sliding door of her one-room home. Her husband had built it, with the Tor's permission, when they'd birthed their third live child. He was proud, said the Tor, of their fecundity; he hoped that their children would serve the clan as well as their parents had.
Oh, her husband had been so proud of the praise offered
. And proud, too, of the fact that he could live, almost like a poor clansman, in a home of his own. Perhaps it was his hubris that angered the Lord above, although it had not angered the Tor. She would never know.
You are maudlin, she told herself. The Lady's night is going to be a long one. She rose, took the steps necessary to reach the screen. There, silhouetted against the darkness, she saw him for the second time. No face, no clothing, no voice—but she knew him by the shadows his lamp cast against the opaque cloth. She hesitated a moment, wondering whether to feign sleep, and knowing at the same time that he had heard her quiet shuffle to this entranceway.
She opened the screen.
"Ashaf kep'Valente," he said, and he bowed. He held a lamp that was burning brightly, some reminder of the Lord's power in the Lady's night. But she thought that he held it for her benefit, and not his own, for his eyes were the color of starless night.
She had always been taught that the golden-eyed pretenders were the demon changelings born to earth, but she felt at this moment that gold was life and night was death; the echoes of the Leonne wars.
And she was sun-scorched if she was going to let this man intimidate her in her own home, this one remaining artifact of her past life. "I don't believe I know you," she told him stiffly. "And strangers don't cross this threshold."
"Very well," he replied, bowing with such perfect grace she felt old, ungainly, ugly. "I am Isladar."
"Isladar of?"
"Just Isladar." He rose, lifting the lamp in his left hand. "As you will be just Ashaf, if you so choose. Have I satisfied the guardian of this abode? Might I be given leave to enter?"
There were old stories about creatures that could not enter, unless invited—but then could not be forced to leave before they had exacted their terrible price, if they could be forced to leave at all. She hesitated a moment, and then, feeling foolish, stepped aside. It was clear that this man had power, much of it unseen, a thing made not by birth and blood and rank, but by something other. If he were Widan, if he wielded the full night of the Sword of Knowledge, he could strike her down with a gesture, and destroy the timber and wood and cloth of her husband's making. What point in ill manners?