The Forbidding Blue

by Monica Lee Kennedy

  Arman felt a stirring in him but lacked the speech to show her she was not alone in her grief. “Thank you for coming,” he finally said.

  Sara nodded in acceptance. “In good accord, Arman.”

  As she exited, he noted the flavor of intuit sliding from his lips as he whispered into the dim room, “Massada owes more to Bren than we can even fathom.”

  CHAPTER 17

  To care for another is a step in purpose.

  -Genesifin

  Colette drew Mari to her other breast. The initial soreness had eased, and feeding times had now morphed from pained clenching into sweet moments of consolation. Here, she could soak in the peace of semi-solitude, thankful for the one person present—however tiny—who loved her without hesitation. Mari nestled closer, and Colette released a gentle sigh as the babe’s eyelids drooped and her suckling rhythm drew to a close. The lunitata closed her own eyes briefly, attempting to steel herself for the morning.

  Why do I remember Darse so much in these moments?

  Every breath she took was spent longing for Brenol—and she expected as much—but grief for her father-friend had a tendency to whip upon her with scoring surprise. The image of his friendly face peered at her in memory, scattered between places and moments. She inhaled slowly and recalled herself.

  Her deft hands swept up her sling and wound the fabric to again secure the girl against her chest. It was a soothing sensation—intimate touch with one so beloved—yet did little to prevent the grasshoppers from dancing through her gut. She checked the knots and straightened her spine.

  I will. I will. This is my cartess.

  Her hands skimmed across her face as one would slide fingers across a skipping stone. Except she was not smooth. She winced as her fingers discerned the pocks and lines. The weathering was as present as it had been when she had first woken in this strange world. It would seem that the wind’s kiss was a permanent mark. Colette forced her hands down and willed her mind to recall Brenol.

  He loves me. He does. My face is of no import.

  Before her thoughts could grind to life in negation, she dipped her coffee-plaited head through the doorway, brushing aside the thin white curtain, and stepped out, only to be halted in mid-stride.

  “I am your escort today.”

  The gentle voice issued from a clansman, who appraised the lunitata with a peculiar expression behind light gray eyes. He was short, certainly no taller than she, thin as a milkweed stem, and had chalky skin and oily white hair. It was his face, though, that caused Colette’s eyes to widen, for it was open and handsome, with smooth, glabrous features that confessed the truth: he had never breathed a day upon the open perideta. He was the first adult she had seen without the wind’s kiss. She had to consciously push down the urge to slide her hands again over her own pocked face.

  Colette scrutinized him for a breath. Although she had difficulty discerning age amongst this people, it was evident he was young. She decided he could be no more than twenty-five or twenty-six orbits.

  The lunitata dipped her head slightly. “I’m Colette.”

  The man peered back quizzically but did not reply. She shuffled her feet in discomfort and then wordlessly chided herself to a still.

  The clansman opened his ivory hand in gesture to follow and led through the winding corridors. Colette hugged her slinged babe and trailed behind him.

  After several minutes he slowed and arched his head to gaze at her with a penetrating gray glance. “It’s uncustomary to reveal names until one has taken a meal together or been served an introduction.” His voice was not unkind.

  “Ah,” she said. Her initial meetings among the Tindel clarified immensely.

  His smile opened up, and his face grew even more handsome. “But I’m Gere.”

  Colette returned the smile, surprised. “Thank you. And this is Mari.”

  Gere arched his head forward to peer into the wrappings. He clucked his tongue in appreciation. “We don’t see red like that out here.” A finger flicked to her own dark locks. “Nor deep brown, for that matter.”

  Silently, she fingered her braids. She still forgot at times that the blonde had melted away in the septspan following the lifing of Mari. In the space of a blink, she saw Brenol’s face, smiling as he toyed with a golden strand. He leaned in to kiss her neck and whisper into her ear, “I can’t decide which color I love more.”

  Colette dipped her head in acknowledgment, for she distrusted her voice in the shadow of such a memory.

  Gere’s eyes flickered in hesitation. He opened his mouth as if to speak and then closed it with an embarrassed expression.

  Colette furrowed her brow and set her previous thoughts aside. “What is it?”

  Gere laughed. It was a joyful melody in the foreign tunnels. “Your skin?” he asked, casting his finger in indication.

  “Oh,” she said in sudden understanding. “You’ve never seen a lunitata?”

  “I’ve not.”

  “Our skin…it shines.”

  “That much I can see,” he said.

  “Some are brighter than others, and certain times,” she glanced around, “environments, can turn one brighter or dimmer.”

  He tilted his head and swept his gray gaze across her. He gave no indication of what he perceived and turned his heel and strode onward in silence, but with a gait that allowed Colette to attend his steps without disturbing the tucked-away child.

  After several minutes, Gere again halted and bent forward to speak in a hushed tone. “We’re coming upon the council’s alcove. There are only five members here currently, for Jurl is still in Hilata, but they will hear what you have to share and determine what to do.” His eyes were sincere. “Speak truth and all will fold in.”

  Colette accepted the odd phrase as a child does when asked to play safely—with an absent nod. Her lips bent to kiss the red down that rose and fell with the infant’s tiny breaths. She drew courage from the brief connection and straightened her spine.

  There was a touch of regality that veined through the motion, and Gere watched with interest—again with that open and foreign expression—before conducting her through the remaining tunnels.

  The clansman slowed as they approached a doorway and gripped a thick indigo curtain with sure hands, swept it aside, and motioned her to enter. As she stepped forward, she caressed the fabric with slender fingers, surprised to discover it both dense and as smooth as silk. It afforded much more concealment from ears and eyes than the threadbare sheet that swayed before her own allotted quarters.

  The room before her was circular and spacious. The ceiling arched up in the usual smooth rouge-brown, but the walls were clothed in thin curtains of simple colors—crimson, green, navy, tangerine, gold, violet—in the same manner that paintings bedecked castle walls. Thick black tapestries hung protectively before three doorways along the back arch of the room. As she stepped lightly in, the indigo door cloth behind her was released, and Gere disappeared.

  Colette inhaled with surprise at a slight click under her feet. The floor was not the usual swept clay. It was a mosaic. Tiny tiles of colored glass had been meticulously arranged in the shape of a sun. The corona burst forth from the center and extended out in a splash of tesseral light. She bent with the curiosity of a child and stroked her fingers across the smooth glass. Mari wriggled in protest at the awkward position until Colette regretfully righted herself and allowed the babe to ease back into slumber.

  A table rested beside the flaming sun, large enough to seat ten, while a buffet station was planted along the wall on her right, laden with tea cups and pitchers of steaming brews. The sharp scent alone drew her lids wider. This could only be the pungent beverage from the dining hall. A thin, pale child stood beside the table. The girl rested her soft fallow eyes on the floor but held her frame in tense expectation.

  “Please, allow Syla to serve you.”

  Colette tore her eyes across the room to find the source. Two figures had emerged from the left-most doorway and
tarried while silently observing her. Harta, bedecked in the flowing shock of red, stood beside a clansman of great age. He wore a matching braided sash in vibrant blue and peered at her suspiciously with faded green eyes. His hair was a stark white that no bleach could achieve, and his cheeks were sunken and marked with the usual pocks and weathering of the Tindel.

  Again, Harta indicated the refreshments and the small serving girl extending a cup out to Colette. The lunitata accepted it gratefully and breathed in the cloud of steam. The aroma was sharp but not unpleasant.

  Harta stepped to Colette’s side. “The council shall arrive soon,” she said. “You may take a seat here.” She indicated a chair and slid into one beside it. The aged man could barely contain his aversion and claimed a seat on the opposite side, as far from Colette as possible.

  Harta ignored the clansman. “Just speak truth, Colette.”

  Colette bristled at her tone and the now-persistent insinuation. “I’m not prone to dishonesty,” she replied, her emerald eyes flashing.

  Harta dipped her head sideways, pressing her lips together in a smirk. Colette did not respond; the meaning of Tindellan gestures was a mystery better reserved for another moment’s thought. Instead, Colette drew up her irritation into a fortress and steeled herself for the upcoming meeting.

  My cartess, she intoned. My cartess. She thought of Brenol, of Deniel, of Mari, of Massada, and her lunitata glow poured out from her like sun through clear glass. Harta observed with silent interest.

  They waited for the better part of an hour for the remaining three to trickle into the conference, and then Harta introduced each in turn. The green sash belonged to an elderly woman, Geartre, with pale amber eyes and creases like canyons scoring her face. Her lips were so aged that she barely appeared to have a mouth. A strip of yellow fabric clung about a middle-aged man called Irin, who despite being relatively young, wore a white beard that matched the bush atop his head. Smerol, the disdainful aging Tindel, claimed the blue sash and lastly, the bald Kelike shuffled in with his sagging band of orange. He, like the rest, was weathered through and through. His hands shook under his many orbits, but his eyes, a soft and faded sky blue, spoke of wisdom, however foreign. As he settled into his seat, the others turned to him with deferential attention.

  “Let us begin,” Kelike said in a low grumble. “You’ve been sent as emissary?”

  Colette’s eyes narrowed, for she was unsure of the question. “I came to beg for help,” she finally replied.

  The bald head nodded, and Colette saw the furrowing of the wind’s kiss flowing in fluid lines where hair once lay. “Tell us, then. Speak truth.”

  The lunitata did not rise in anger this time. A tumble of words splashed from her lips, and she unraveled the story of Chaul and how it had led to Selet’s—and most likely every terrisdan’s—demise.

  The council remained wordless. Colette looked to each expectantly. Silence pervaded every curve of the room, and she found herself gripping the table as if for balance.

  She could not hide her desperation when at last she broke the silence. “Please. We’ll all die without your aid. Please.”

  Kelike pushed his thin body back from the table and examined her with discerning eyes. Colette squirmed within; her heart felt naked and exposed.

  He pressed his shaking palms together. “How did you get Heart Render?” he asked, his eyes never leaving her.

  Colette sucked air in slowly. “Pearl, a frawnite, brought it to me.” She paused for a moment, deliberating. She did not understand the frawnite’s part herself and was loath to be called a liar yet again. In the space of a blink, she chose to not elaborate. “Pearl told me of Bren. She had spoken with Arman and gotten the sword from him.”

  The juile’s name issued in a stillness akin to that of a hurricane’s eye.

  “And this Bren—your soumme—he’s a foreigner, as was Chaul?” asked Geartre accusingly.

  Kelike frowned and met the old Tindellan’s eyes, and in a flash Geartre’s head dipped down in a humble blush.

  Kelike returned his glance to Colette and said, “The question does still remain. We all see its significance.”

  Colette’s face bunched in confusion. “I, however, do not.”

  “They are the same,” Harta said evenly.

  Colette felt her lips curl back in fury. “You compare my soumme to malitas? The monster? This is madness.”

  Every spine in the room straightened at her outburst, and she felt her own cheeks burn.

  “The question?” Kelike asked. His light blue eyes grasped hers again with a sure and even gaze.

  She softened her voice and held out a palm in a conciliatory gesture. “I’m sorry. I… Yes, Bren is not of Massada.” Colette met Harta’s gaze defiantly. “But he is not the same. They both came from different worlds, but Bren lives for benere. He killed Chaul. Bren is more for Massada than many lifed here.”

  The sky blue eyes of Kelike disappeared briefly under wrinkled lids. The clansman inhaled, exhaled, and the soft glance appeared again beside the crow’s feet. “You’ve nothing more to say?”

  Colette tightened her fists and sat erect. “I’ve said what I came to say. We’re lost without you.”

  Silence stretched her nerves as the moments lengthened. What am I to do? What do they want? Am I to beg? Even that would be misinterpreted.

  She flushed with a deepening sense of failure. I feel like I’m missing something key…

  “I extend questioning for the council.”

  Heads shook in sequence as Kelike glanced to each.

  “Would any seek to advise me before setting fede?”

  Again, the faces marked negation.

  Colette caught the look of triumph in Geartre’s eye, and her stomach settled around a cold stone of premonition.

  “So it is.” Kelike rested his pale hands upon the table with palms cupped. When he spoke, his voice was gentle, despite the blow of the words. “Colette, we cannot offer assistance at this time. It is incompatible with the Tindellan promise, with our history, with the safety of this world in its entirety.”

  Colette could hardly breathe, let alone speak. She stared forward, numbly, wondering what to do.

  “The council has set fede,” Kelike said with finality. “Go, and uphold life.”

  The members all replied, intoning as one, “Go, and uphold life.”

  With the meeting obviously adjourned, the members each dipped a digit into their cup and licked it. Geartre’s glance upon Colette was harder than stone as her middle finger met her wrinkled lips.

  Colette’s gaze drooped to the table. The custom was too foreign and too cold for her aching heart. The room seemed a blur, and she barely lifted her gaze as the council members rose and slid from the chamber with soft clicks upon the colored glass.

  “I’ve failed, then,” she whispered to herself. The memory of her tree stung with new vigor; her hope had only heightened the fall to despair. “I should never have believed Deniel. Or Pearl. I’ve failed. I have no cartess.”

  “Even the Tindel claim it is an addled mind that speaks to itself.”

  Colette lifted her head. The lunitata choked out a laugh in pained self-derision. “I fear I’m there, Harta.” She pressed her shaking hands against her clothing and raised her gaze to the clanswoman. Harta’s face surprised her; it was as tender as a mother’s to her sick brood.

  “You may appeal in time,” she said.

  “Appeal?”

  “Yes, but I doubt you’d have a different resolution unless more becomes apparent. I’d advise you to remain with us for some time.”

  “How long is ‘some time’?” Colette asked, but even as she spoke, she realized with a stinging sorrow that she would wait for orbits. If this was the only way, she must make it work. The world and so many lives depended upon it.

  Harta swept several digits across the opposing shoulder—another gesture that was lost upon Colette. “Stay and see.”

  “But you were part of his decisio
n. You didn’t argue.”

  It was as if they all knew Kelike’s mind before he spoke, Colette thought.

  “True, but I sense there’s more here than I see.” Harta held out her hand toward Colette as example. “I’ve found you enduring when I expected softness. Perhaps you shall show us still more. And us, to you… You may stay, at least for a time.”

  “You can grant that?”

  Harta bobbed her head. “Jurl sent seal. It has been approved.”

  Colette’s mind swirled. Her fate lay anywhere but in her own hands, it would seem. She inhaled and contemplated it all. Harta waited beside her patiently.

  “Why is helping us so wrong?” Colette finally asked quietly. Her eyes had cleared and met Harta’s with a steady gaze.

  The clanswoman smiled with a strange mix of ferocity and interest.

  Colette sighed within; the lack of response was an answer in itself, and a complicated one. “But what shall I do?”

  Harta repeated the gesture of hand upon shoulder. “Work.”

  “May I ask something of you?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Please help me. I have no one.” The words echoed through her: No one.

  Harta nodded with grim face and stood. Her sturdy hands smoothed the scarlet braid across her thick frame, and she left the lunitata to her thoughts.

  Colette stared around the room of decadent color with eyes that did not see any of it.

  Bren, I know you’re alive. I know it.

  Hold on. Please.

  Wait for me…

  CHAPTER 18

  Knowing the future does not ensure ease in its accomplishment.

  -Genesifin

  Several septspan elapsed before Arman and Brenol were deemed innocent. The prisoners had recounted their story until it seemed more tale than truth, but in the end, the investigators found no holes. Sara’s influence with the inquiry had been critical, and her biting defense chastened those judging. Arman’s reputation had also been key. He was known for wild scrapes and meddling in the business of other terrisdans, but was nonetheless regarded as honest and a juile of upright character.