Jaele was the last to leave. She looked back at the room. It seemed that the blue was flickering fainter, coaxing the stone into darkness. After she had closed the door, she laid her hand on the golden claw; it was cool. Aldreth kissed her neck lightly, and she took his hand—fingers warm and dry—and led him up the stairs, her iben-sight clear in the black. When she felt the sunlight and heat shimmering against her eyes and skin, iben-sight and silence poured away and she ached again, although she turned to Aldreth and smiled.
They did not ride immediately back to the camp. Alnon and Nossi unpacked bags of food and water, and they sat in the shade of a mountain dune. Nossi bent over Alnon with bread and sourspread; she drew her fingers through his hair. When she settled herself beside him, he put his big hand against her stomach and she laughed cool into the scorching wind.
“Goddesses smile on you,” Aldreth said with a wink, “—all three of you.”
Nossi looked at him accusingly. “How did you know? I only told Jaele.”
He reached over to tug gently at her ear. “I know things, sister,” he replied. “I am a man of considerable wisdom. As you should know.” He raised his water bag. “Joy,” he said.
After they had drunk, Nossi said, slowly, “Jaele—I don’t know how to begin . . . that Alnon and I—that we are sure—”
“You will not be able to come with me to the Raiders’ Land,” Jaele interrupted, though she did not realize it until she spoke. “You must stay and have your baby.”
She and Nossi gazed at each other, remembering words, vows, ribbons of cloud lit by a slender moon—a sudden blaze of hope and friendship. “That is absolutely as it should be,” Jaele said at last, over this new sadness. “You must have your child and tell her all about me. So that she will know me when I return.”
Nossi grinned, though her eyes still seemed laced with smoke. “Well, well,” she said. “When you return. We seem to have made an Alilan out of you after all, Aldreth and I.”
“And Aldreth is still planning to take you to the river and accompany you to the Raiders’ Land,” Aldreth said to Jaele. Their clasped hands were lying on his right knee. “I don’t believe we’ll even notice the absence of my sister.” She turned her head and they smiled at each other, even as they heard another name between them. But smiled, because of the blue room, the unborn baby, this long, lovely day.
“And,” Jaele said, looking again at Nossi, “I will fight with you, remember, if the Perona come. I will not continue my own journey until we are past the borders of their lands. This I still promise.”
“May the Twins smile on you, also, Jaele,” Nossi said.
The sun swept overhead and dune shadows stretched along the sand. They talked more and ate more. Alnon plaited Nossi’s hair; when he was finished, she unbound it and laughed and said it must be done again. As the light turned red-gold, they stacked a few pieces of wood and Alnon struck flints into sparks.
The flames shivered, bending against a fresher wind, and as the last twistings of colour faded into deep blue and stars, the fire breathed higher and they danced. Jaele wrapped herself around Aldreth’s body and felt herself smooth, her hair whispering around them both. Nossi sang and spun, and Jaele remembered watching her, so long ago—her grace wild and frightening. “You can’t speak? Write your name. . . .” She held Nossi’s hands and they danced until sand and sky were joined.
After they had all collapsed gasping onto the ground, Aldreth and Nossi beat at the fire until it died, black wood and billows of ash. Jaele looked away. Alnon smiled at her. The starlight was so bright that she could see herself in his eyes. “People will be worrying perhaps,” he said. “But such a day. One to remember when our wagons are sunk in snow and our grandchildren are dancing by the fire.”
“Yes,” Jaele said, “I will remember.”
Nossi and Alnon sent their horses flying over the sand. Aldreth and Jaele rode more slowly behind. She thought of snow and bone trees, and lifted her face to the desert sky. The fires of the camp appeared, caught among the black, jutting stones. Voices, drumming, children’s shouts; she strained to hear, but could not understand the words. Aldreth pulled Nilen to a stop near the first fire, and he and Jaele jumped to the ground.
They stood close together. She ran her fingers slowly down his chest and he squirmed, laughing. She slipped her arms around him and they were still. When at last she drew away, he kissed her, hands tangled in her hair. Afterward he said, “Jaele, in the blue chamber, just before Alnon and Nossi returned—what were you going to say?”
She looked at him—eyes and mouth, dagger scar—and smiled. “No matter what happens,” she said, “you know my heart.”
They turned then, and walked together toward the voices and the flames.
At first the riders were only clouds of dust on the horizon—blurs that could have been far-off windstorms wavering against the sun. Nossi looked up from where she was standing, brushing Sarla’s sides. Imagine everything shining: the horse’s hair, the copper rings around Nossi’s arms, the crystal veins in the rock. How you yearn for this light—while I remember it and feel only sorrow.
“Look,” Nossi said to Alnon and me, pointing at the distant clouds.
“Hmm,” Alnon said. Jaele said, “A storm?” as Sarla’s large velvet lips curled around the wrinkled sourfruit in her palm.
Alnon frowned, shading his eyes with his hand. “I don’t think so. Not dark enough.”
They all looked away.
They heard the horns later, when the sun was directly above. It was a low sound, like the rumbling of water far underground. Silence fell in the Alilan camp. Slow wind against cloth, slithering sand. A moment only—enough time for Aldreth to touch his scar once, lightly. Then he leapt to his feet and shouted, “Perona!” and Jaele felt her insides coil. Nossi cried out beside her and Alin gripped them both, his long sharp fingers bruising, and daggers sang against flint.
“And now?” Jaele asked, although she knew.
“We fight—what else?” Nossi answered, and looked at her with strange bloodless eyes. “And you with us, Alilan-friend.”
Jaele left them and ran to their wagon. Grandmother Alna did not speak as Jaele passed her in the doorway. Her hands shook as she opened her bundle—layers of woven cloth, her father’s colours unfolding beneath the flame and vines. The dagger fell to the floor, and its jewels glittered like eyes against the wood. She curled her fingers around its haft. Her brother’s silent lunge, the outstretched arm, the seabird’s hand she had thrown into the water of her bay. Smouldering.
She thrust the blade into her belt. Refolded her father’s cloak and placed it again in the seagreen bag, which she tied to her belt: she would carry these pieces of her home into battle. Just before she stepped into the heat and clamour, Alna laid a knob-twisted hand on her arm. Jaele saw tears pooled in the brittle creases of her face. “Be safe,” said Alna, and her voice was deep with echoes of Telling. “And know that there is choice for you, child.”
Jaele felt a need to stop, to stay and listen to Alna’s words until she understood—but Nossi was outside calling her. She bent and kissed Alna’s cheek, brushing tears and sun-beaten paper skin. “I’ll see you soon, grandmother,” she whispered, and was gone before she could see the old woman’s eyes.
Aldreth caught her hand as they ran to the stones. This time she climbed with them, up to where the young Alilan had waited for their windy leap. The indistinct shapes in the distance had become larger: light flashed on metal, and plumed heads rose and fell in waves.
“They use their horses’ tails to adorn their own heads,” Nossi said, her voice shaking. “They are barbarians. They use metal and straps to bind their animals and make them bleed. Twins,” she breathed, “thank you. At last they have come to us—to me, after so many Seasons.”
Jaele said quietly, “Your vengeance is also mine. You know this.” Nossi had turned to her with wide dark eyes. Jaele smiled and was f
ull, breathless with strength.
They waited together above the crimson sand. As the horns shrieked again, Aldreth held up his arms and cried out words Jaele did not understand. The Alilan flowed down the rock toward their waiting horses. She went with them and stood as they vaulted up and leaned to whisper into their animals’ ears. Alnon and Nossi stretched toward one another and clasped hands. Aldreth reached for Jaele and clutched her silently before they sprang away and she retreated before the churning hoofs.
Aldreth and Alnon and Nossi were among the first to go. Jaele watched them bending low over their horses’ heads, moving as one person and one animal, pounding through sand that hung in the air like sunlit sparks. She watched until all the riders had passed her, then slipped the sandals off her feet. When she began to run, she did not notice the burning of the sand, and she did not feel herself breathing through heat-sore lungs. The sun was lying bloated and red behind the fighters; she ran toward it. She ran until there was blood on the sand and horses reared above her. She saw swirling shapes, Alilan and Perona; she saw long cloaks billowing around sun-dark skin; she saw eyes surrounded by cloth and narrowed against blowing sand. She remembered the little desert girl she had walked with on the road to Luhr—her eyes gold-flecked black against white cloth—and the veiled woman who had swept the girl up outside a tasselled tent. The same people? Jaele thought, confused.
As she hesitated, she saw the Perona’s weapon. They had the three-pointed swords Aldreth had told her about, but she did not notice these; she saw only the fire. The cloaked riders held torches, blazing white against the sky: somehow there was wood and flame. They swept their torches in shuddering arcs, and the Alilan shrank on bellowing horses from Alnila’s breath. Some were already burned. Jaele could see cloth flaming, falling black from bubbling flesh. She took a few steps back—not sure if she was screaming—and sought out her friends.
Aldreth and Alnon were fighting together, leaning close to their enemies so that they could not use their swords. Jaele saw their knives darting, blurred with sun and speed. As she watched, Aldreth’s dagger sank into his opponent’s chest; she saw him twist it deep, until the two seemed joined by flesh. He jerked his hand free and pushed the man off his horse in a shower of blood. Alnon slashed again and again at the throat of the Perona rider beside him, first with his dagger and then with the rider’s own sword. Jaele saw the veiled head snap back and off; it landed on the sand and was kicked away by a horse. The body swayed slowly, as if in sleep. The horse reared and its rider fell like a diver into water, gently backward. Aldreth and Alnon had already pushed on.
Nossi’s hair was the first thing Jaele saw of her; it was unbound and streaming. Jaele could almost feel it in her hands, shell-smooth and hot as the sand. Sarla was tossing her head and pawing at the air; Nossi was urging her closer to a Perona woman. She was almost upon her, Sarla moving more smoothly now, when the woman looked away, only briefly, and gestured to a man nearby. Jaele saw it happen so slowly—it seemed that there should have been time for her to run and shriek Nossi’s name. Instead, she stood very still, as she had in dark water by a tumble of rocks, her nails digging. The woman reached up and caught the torch the man had thrown. Jaele stood still as the woman’s arm swept out and touched Sarla’s mane with fire. The horse screamed—Jaele heard it, soaring above the other noise—and as Nossi bent forward to smother the flames with her hands, the woman rose up in her saddle. Jaele saw Nossi’s eyes and mouth as the fire caught at her tunic. She heard her cry, and the death in it, and finally, finally, began to run.
Alnon reached Nossi moments before Aldreth and Jaele did. Jaele had darted among horses, heedless of blades and fire. A space had appeared around Sarla, who was stretched flailing and blazing on two legs. Nossi was falling, her clothing and skin and hair alight. Jaele halted, Aldreth behind her on Nilen. Everything had stopped—even the screaming, even the swollen throbbing of the sun. Into this quiet burst Alnon.
He was on his feet, straining as he ran. He reached his hands into the fire and grasped Nossi’s arms. She was shimmering like a body reflected—no longer made of lines and edges. As he bent his head into the flames, a Perona man rode up behind him. He leaned down and drew one blade of his three-pointed sword sharply across Alnon’s throat.
Suddenly there was no space, no frozen silence, and Jaele’s eyes were filled with red. She heard Aldreth scream and saw him thrusting forward. (She later remembered his cheek—the clear, sluggish wend of tears through the blood—and his twisted lips.) Her dagger was warm in her palm as she moved toward the rider who had killed Nossi. The Perona woman had turned to face Aldreth. Jaele held her in her eyes, and a cold passed through her limbs, although the red remained. It was so slow—like running through waist-high water, the dragging pull—but she was beneath the horse, whose mouth glistened foam and blood. Before Aldreth could strike, she pushed her dagger into the horse’s chest—pushed until it was up to the hilt—and slipped it out as the animal flailed and bucked. The Perona woman looked down as she fell. Jaele watched her eyes, dark inside the fluttering cloth, and saw them widen until they were rimmed with white. Jaele’s knee was against her ribs, and her hands tore at the cloth until it came loose and there was a face beneath her. She stabbed and ripped. The brown throat opened and the eyes rolled up and she heard a bubbling of air and wetness. She felt bone and thrust so that it splintered like driftwood. She was red, red.
Her hand slowed, and as it did, she heard Aldreth’s voice rising like a bird over the battle noise. Through the thickness in her head she remembered him saying something about Telling, about how it was a crime if used for violence—but the memory was gone, swept away by the soaring of his words. They were wailed and hollow, huge quivering drops of blood. The sand lifted and rock shattered and the Perona riders fell back and turned their eyes desperately to the sky.
When Jaele stood, her legs shook and she fell again to her knees. She crawled toward pure light, silence, an escape from the words that were tearing her. As she reached the edge of the battle, the earth shifted and she saw Aldreth’s face among the hoofs and curling smoke, and then something slammed against the back of her head and she lost sight of him and everything in the darkness that rushed through her eyes.
THE PALACE OF YAGOL
CHAPTER TEN
Jaele woke a few times to confusing glimpses of sky and metal. She was lying crumpled; being dragged face down; bent double over someone’s shoulder. There was one long moment when her eyes opened and she heard herself whimpering. The sky was dark blue; she thought she should be able to see her face in it. There was pain, somewhere, a feeling of clotted emptiness. And then there was a face, distant at first, later looming. “Dorin,” she wanted to say, and the face came closer, lowering itself into the hollow of her neck.
“Jaele,” said Dorin, and the darkness returned.
Jaele opened her eyes. She was lying in a high bed vivid with pillows and sunlight, in a room of red stone. There was a table and low chair, and on the table a row of tiny glass vials. A double-headed axe hanging on the wall above the table. A carpet of green vines woven together. A window, tall, open, overlooking a garden where trees bent with flowers, blossoms floating pink and blue among leaves and grass.
She saw all this in a moment that was empty except for breath. Then she breathed again, again, and remembered.
“Jaele?” Dorin’s voice was far away, but she heard it. She opened her eyes. Saw his hands—bones and skin, nails blunt and sand-grimed—covering hers on the yellow sheet. She tried to turn her head to look at him, but pain clawed at the base of her skull. She heard herself whimper.
Suddenly a man was bending over her, and she whimpered again. He was huge: his ears, nose, hands, chest, his head, which was brown and smooth as burnished wood. Around his neck was a wide band of polished black—perhaps stone, perhaps metal. She looked at his eyes but could not see them: they were hidden by a shelf of bone and shadow.
He leaned toward her.
One of his hands cupped her head. She writhed in the bed and Dorin squeezed her hands. “No, Jaele—it is all right. This is Keeper, Guardian of the Palace and the Princes of Yagol. That is where we are now,” he went on as Keeper drew his hand back. Jaele saw that he held a piece of cloth—wet crimson that had been white. Dorin said, “You and Keeper and I—only we three. It’s a place of beauty and strangeness and power. You’ll see, when you’re better. Keeper sewed your wound up. Be careful not to move too suddenly: it’s not nearly healed yet.”
She blinked as Keeper bowed his head slowly to the coverlet. “Keeper serves,” he said in a voice that was dark and time-deep, flames and waters roiling far below the firmness of earth. “The Two Princes and the One Wife. The creatures of the garden. All who enter here. Keeper is Bound.”
Dorin held a clay cup to her mouth. She felt water but did not taste it. Keeper retreated, vanished from her sight. Her tongue felt swollen as she moved it over her lips, tasting blood.
“How long?” she said. Blood and words, tangled. “How long since the battle?”
Dorin sat on the edge of the bed, still holding her hands. “Many days. You’ve been unconscious for a long time.”
“I must see the battleground.”
“No.” He was shaking his head, gazing out at the blossoms and the green. “No. I went back the day after, but there were only bodies. And burned wagons and . . . birds. Nothing—no one.”
She swallowed. “Tell me how you found me. What you saw.”
“Keeper told me about the battle and we both went to see. I don’t know what I expected to do. And there you were at the edge of the fighting, about to be set on fire. Keeper dealt with the man who was holding the torch. He carried us both back.”
“How did it end?” She watched his mouth as if he would speak in colours and heat. As if she would feel these things.
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