by Kat Parrish
Loic looked sidelong at Mirielle, and she was smiling too. And in that blink of an eye when they looked away, the goddess vanished.
For a moment all three of the mortals looked dazed. Then Berthe heaved herself upright.
“Well,” she said, “you cannot leave for a journey without breaking your fast.”
She set off briskly for the kitchen, with Mirielle and Loic trailing her.
There were two Daughters in the kitchen, tending the giant oven, pulling out freshly baked loaves of bread as if it was a perfectly ordinary morning.
They seemed startled to see Berthe.
“Holy Mother,” the youngest Daughter said. “Good morning.”
Berthe smiled benignly.
“Good morning Daughter,” she said, as if she had been the Holy Mother all her life. “We have guests for breakfast this morning. I think we should serve them some of that wonderful fig jam you made last summer.”
The girl blushed with pleasure, pleased that the Holy Mother had noticed her efforts.
As the other girl tended to the baking, the younger Daughter brought out plates and served Mirielle and Loic herself, fresh-cut loaves and butter, cold boiled eggs and the fig jam, which was indeed wonderful.
While Loic and Mirielle ate, Berthe filled sacks of provisions to take with them.
“If you’d come by yesterday, I could have given you some lovely roast lamb,” she said, as if Mirielle and Loic were dear friends who had come for a picnic. “But we had the Governor-General to dinner last night and you know how the cadets are, always hungry, like they have hollow legs.”
The little Daughter serving the table suppressed a giggle. Berthe shot her a mock severe look.
“You need to stay away from those cadets Daughter.”
“Yes Holy Mother,” the girl said meekly as Berthe winked at Mirielle over her head.
The two kitchen Daughters kept sneaking sidelong glances at her and Loic. Mirielle wondered how completely their memory of the previous Holy Mother had been erased.
“Would you like some smoked fish?” Berthe asked.
“Yes please,” Mirielle said, although she despised smoked fish.
“Jarannah,” Berthe said, addressing the youngest kitchen Daughter. “Fetch me some of those dried apples, won’t you?”
“Yes Holy Mother,” the girl said.
Berthe looked at Loic and Mirielle with a conspirator’s grin. “Is it wrong of me to like the way that sounds? ‘Holy Mother?”
Before either of them could answer, she’d answered herself.
“Well, my worst sin always was vanity,” she said. “I shall have to pray about that.”
“If that’s your worst sin,” Loic said, “I’d say you were better person than most.”
“Thank you Loic, that’s very kind of you to say.” She looked at his plate and was dismayed to see it was empty.
“Have some more bread,” Berthe said, pushing the loaf closer to him.
“I couldn’t eat another bite,” he said.
She beamed at him as if he’d just given her a present.
“It does my heart good to hear that,” she said. I’ve never sent a traveler away from my table hungry.”
She threw another pot of jam into the rucksack.
And then she kissed each of them upon the eyes, which is “Idrissa’s blessing.”
“Go,” she said briskly, “before I start crying.”
Mirielle went by her room to collect her few possessions in a little valise. There wasn’t much to take—a miniature painting of her mother, a book of poems, a copy of The Book of Devotions of the Rainbow, a pretty hairclip with a blue stone butterfly on it.
Not much of a life, she thought, if I can pack it up so quickly and move on.
She shook off the melancholy thought, and pulled the valise closed.
“Do you want to say goodbye to your mother?” she asked Loic.
A complicated expression crossed his face, pain and anger intermixed with something like sorrow, but when he spoke his voice was light.
“She has Arnaude,” he said. “I doubt she’ll even miss me.
“Besides,” he said, shaking off whatever regrets he had, “she knows I’ve always wanted to travel.”
Where should we go?” she asked.
Why ask me?” he responded. “You’re the one the goddess wants to go out into the world.
Then North, she said. “I think they need the gifts of the goddess in Daire.”
He squinted into the early morning light,
“I think you might be right. North it is then.”
Chapter Twelve
May Idrissa bless you and keep you as you journey on the rainbow path.
—A blessing for wayfarers
They took the old stone path that led to the Iron Mountains. Along the way they passed vendors selling vials of holy water from the “Fountain of Holy Tears” where once they had sold sets of counterfeit gems.
The streets were silent with no sign of the panic and fear that had filled them for days.
“I never believed in miracles,” Loic said as he reached for her hand.
“It’s odd to be part of one,” she said.
For a while they walked in silence.
It was a cold morning and the chilly wind flayed them despite the warm cloaks they wore.
Soon enough they were met by streams of refugees coming south, some of them leading wretched-looking pack animals and some of them pulling wagons as if they were oxen themselves.
Some just carried bags and pouches of their possessions. Many of the women had babies in their arms.
One woman walked up to them supporting an old man by her side. His eyes were sunken in his head from hunger. Mirielle looked at Loic and an unspoken message passed between them. He reached into the rucksack he carried and pulled out the packet of fish.
“Traveler,” he said to the woman, using the Dairish word. “May I give you a gift for your journey?”
She looked at him warily but her eyes widened when she caught the scent of the fish he was offering her.
“Jaire’s blessing on you,” she said in Dairish and then in Idrissan, “thank you.”
Loic bowed to her gravely and he and Mirielle moved on.
By noon they had given away all their food except one last jar of fig jam.
Toward sunset, they saw a gaunt woman with a baby bound to her breast coming their way.
“A gift for the baby,” Mirielle said, offering the jar.
The woman took it with a tired smile. “I’ll feed him when he wakes,” she said, looking down at her infant fondly. Mirielle moved closer to get a glimpse of the baby and realized to her horror that the baby was dead.
On impulse, Mirielle fingered the stones in her pocket and sent a silent prayer to the goddess.
“What a beautiful baby,” she said, ignoring Loic’s puzzled expression.
And before she could hesitate or question her impulse, Mirielle bent forward and kissed the child on his forehead.
The baby stirred and opened his eyes. Then he let out a pitiful wail.
“Oh,” Mirielle said, awe and gratitude flooding through her. “I’m so sorry I’ve wakened him.”
But the mother was so caught up in her own moment of joyous disbelief that Loic and Mirielle slipped away before she could make the connection between the child’s resurrection and her chance encounter with strangers on the road.
As they walked up the road, Mirielle looked at Loic sidelong, surprised to see tears in his eyes. “I have been in your company too long, he said, “it has made me soft. My mother would laugh to see me weeping for a stranger’s child.”
“Your mother did not deserve you,” Mirielle said. To her astonishment, Loic dropped to his knees on the stony path in front of her and reached for her hands.
“I promise you,” he said, “I swear it on the seven tears. I will never let you go hungry or thirsty. I will never let you feel pain.”
“I know,” she said for she
knew it was a promise from his heart.
Then he shook off the intensity and grinned at her, still holding her hands. “It’s a good thing you had a hearty breakfast because I’ve just given away all our food.”
The goddess will provide,” Mirielle said serenely.
“She already has,” Loic said, and from his pocket he pulled the necklace of golden gems he’d found in the Holy Mother’s room.
Mirielle frowned reflexively, which made Loic laugh. “It’s not as if she’ll miss the bauble,” he reminded her.” He dangled the necklace for a moment, admiring the dance of light sparking from the gems, then shook his head and put it back in his pocket.
“Do you wonder when she wore it? Perhaps under her robes? Or naked in bed at night? Did she have it because she thought it was beautiful or because she coveted shiny things?”
“Who can say what twisted paths her mind took,” Mirielle said.
“You sound sad,” he said.
“I was given to the goddess when I was a little girl,” she said. “I was in the Holy Mother’s care longer than I was with my own mother.” Mirielle blinked away her own tears and tried to smile.
“I am a little sad,” she admitted.
No fathers. No mothers. It’s just you and me now,” Loic said.
“You and me and a pocket of pebbles,” Mirielle replied.
“Just you and me and a pocket full of pebbles,” he agreed. “I suppose you have some ideas what we can do with them.”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” she said. Mirielle was about to say more when she noticed the sky.
“Look,” she said, and pointed to where a rainbow arched high above the forest.
Loic looked up.
“Just you and me and a goddess,” he grumbled. “I hope she doesn’t plan on living with us.”
Mirielle laughed and squeezed his hand.
Coming Soon: Storm Over Idrissa
The Black Tears sing to me and their song is so loud that I can no longer hear the music of the rainbow stones. I have been cast out of the light of Idrissa’s favor and must walk eternally in Her shadow.
—from the suicide note left by Holy Mother Alois, known as Alois the Mad.
The legend of the “Black Tears” rose in the early days of the Cult of Idrissa, spread by those who worshipped the goddess in her darker aspect as “the Bringer of Storms.” It is said that Idrissa’s dark tears were shed in sorrow after the death of a mortal child who drowned when her father’s fishing boat capsized in a storm.
Those tears fell to earth where they were transformed into rubies of such a dark crimson color that they looked black, even in the sunlight.
Letters and journals left behind by generations of Holy Mothers mention the “black tears” numerous times. So, too, are there mentions of the dark rituals performed with the bloodstones, rituals in which the stones were steeped an obsidian cup of wine; rituals which bestowed ark power to those who drank from the dark chalice.
And so, though the Black Tears disappeared from human sight, they did not disappear from human memory. Over the ages many have sought them, poring through legends and poetry, myth and music, searching for clues to their location.
The stones have been lost so long that many believe they never really existed except in legend. But those people would be wrong.
Power calls to ambition and great ambition seeks power.
Nothing that powerful can stay hidden forever…
About the Author
Kat Parrish is a fantasy and science fiction writer whose work has appeared in various magazines and online sites. She is the author of the “Shadow Palace” and “La Bruja Roja” series. She was born in Washington, DC, but now lives in the Pacific Northwest.
Subscribe to Kat’s newsletter here.
Kat Parrish on the Web:
Also by Kat Parrish
La Bruja Roja:
Aixa and the Scorpion
Aixa and the Shark
Aixa and the Spider
The Shadow Palace:
Bride of the Midnight King
Daughter of the Midnight King
The Midnight Queen
A Dream of Sun and Roses
The Summer Garden
L.A. Nocturne Collection
Hunter’s Kiss
Fashionista