"At least let me explain this to my troops so they don't try to avenge me. Let me send to the capital so you can be crowned in peace when I'm gone."
Viro smiled sadly. "Oh, Lin. You always were slow on strategy. Did you imagine I'd plan to kill the Queen without any thought for the seat of her power? Did you imagine that I requested a summit here, on the border, just for my convenience of travel?" When Lin did not respond, Viro shook her head. "My men took Zufa yesterday, sister. I am told that your Royal Guard fought to the end, but they were sorely outnumbered."
Lin stared at her sister as a tear trickled down her weathered cheek. "Your conscience will carry a heavy burden, sister," she said in a whisper. "All I can do now is spare you the weight of one more life." And then she leaned into the sword point under her chin, and blood gushed.
"No!" shrieked Viro, springing forward to catch her sister as she fell. "The magic won't work that way!"
Lin's eyes were already fluttering. "Take the blood," she gasped, pulling Viro's fingers to her throat. "Heal the land."
"I can't!" Viro wailed. "Not now! I wanted you to consent, but it had to be my hand wielding the blade. Blood magic works by taking, not giving."
Lin did not answer. For several heartbeats, silence clung to the air as Viro crouched over the crimson body. Then, with a shout, Viro was on her feet again, eyes flashing with madness. Seizing the sword that had killed her sister, she decapitated the man who had held it. As troops from both armies watched in horror, she rubbed the palms of her hands on the bloody stump of his neck, raised fingers to her lips, and made a vicious flinging gesture. A stream of grating, harsh syllables erupted from her throat.
Death seemed to leap from her fingertips. The dry grass, already withered to a listless brown, blackened and crumbled. Hundreds of soldiers sagged into lifeless piles of armor without a word. One horse, caught at the borders of the zone of destruction, squealed in terror as its hindquarters rotted away. Its shrill soprano panic went on for an obscene interval, mixed with shrieks of psychotic merriment from Viro.
She conjured more swaths of death. Men and animals dropped in their tracks as they fled. Thunder rumbled. The ground heaved.
Hours later, Viro stood alone at the epicenter of the destruction she'd wrought. Nothing moved except steam emanating from gaping fissures she'd torn in the soil. The high pass between Altria and Zufa was now a wound in the earth, full of broken rock and lava flows. She staggered to her sister's body and gazed into lifeless eyes.
As she turned on her heel to limp away again, a glimmer of green caught her attention. The seedling Lin had carried as a peace offering peeked from cold white fingers.
"Insolent sprig!" Viro snarled. "See how long you last with nobody to coddle you." And she walked into the smoke, cackling.
47
the heartstone ~ Toril
As Paka wound down his story, Toril gazed at Lin’s tree. Somehow it had survived, even flourished; the thought gave him hope.
Oji and Shivi dressed wounds. Then hunger impelled all of them to search for food. They had consumed the provisions from the horse’s saddlebags yesterday, and had nothing to eat since.
Bees buzzed among the wildflowers, and the prospect of honey was tantalizing. Unfortunately, the hive was distant, or else it was well hidden; weak from fasting, Toril’s energy faded as he canvassed the hillside, scanning for higher concentrations of the insects. However, Shivi picked a double handful of wild raspberries, and Malena discovered a patch of edible mushrooms—“bark-bonnets”, she called them—sprouting in the damp at the roots of the tree. Oji contributed some prickly pear cactus that he gathered and de-spined, with sore fingers, from the much drier land along the margins of the haze.
It made an odd breakfast, but everyone was grateful to add something besides water to their bellies.
Anxiety over the children nagged, reminding them of the preciousness of each moment they weren’t on the move. However, after eating, the toll of a full day and night on their feet, plus a harrowing climb, settled on all. Shivi was rubbing her temples. Toril’s limbs felt leaden, and he could barely keep his eyes open; he wondered how Oji, used to frequent catnaps, was able to move at all.
“Can we afford to rest longer?” Malena asked, voicing the question in everyone’s mind.
“The staff’s not showing me much at the moment,” Toril said, “but from what I saw before, we’re just about through the Rift. There’s no way Gorumim could float his detour ahead of us. We ought to have at least one day to spare. Maybe even two.”
“I worry about climbing,” Oji said. “What if the only way out’s more of what it took to reach here? We could waste days seeking a route.”
Shivi shrugged. “The staff got us this far. It’ll help us again when we need it.” She scanned faces, seeming to weigh the doubts she saw there. “Or not. We’ll find out soon enough. But first, we rest. None of us can keep going. We won’t help the children if we break a leg sleepwalking. And we’re in no shape to fight off pishachas, either.”
Blink met blink in bleary agreement.
“I’ll take first watch,” Paka announced.
Toril, who had been steeling himself to say the same thing, and wondering if marching back and forth would be enough to keep him awake, sighed in surprise and gratitude. “You sure?”
Paka nodded. “Still gonna rub my feet for a while. Use up the last of the salve Malena made for me.”
Torn between duty and fatigue, Toril hesitated. But when he saw the others accept the offer without comment, he sank onto grass and closed his eyes.
Hours later, Toril kneaded neck muscles and inhaled as he yawned, gathering cool air into his lungs. His body and mind felt refreshed, if not exactly energetic. Yet a sort of weariness still lurked. Would he feel... quick, or carefree, or... buoyant, ever again? Or would the awfulness he’d seen in recent days weigh on his heart and his bones forever?
Morning sunshine had blanketed the glade as Toril and his companions closed their eyes. Now the four stars that formed the lips of The Maiden were dropping behind the mist at the west edge of the glade, and sky in the east was graying. Toril’s stomach twisted again with hunger. He hadn’t expected such a long hiatus. He felt uneasy about it.
Shivi had wakened him, not Paka. Who else had played the sentry while he snored? Had Oji?
He should have planned better. But he hadn’t been thinking clearly…
He tightened his belt and stood.
In pre-dawn dark, the oak emitted a silver glow from every vein and stem in its leaves. Though no breeze blew, he thought he caught a rustle from the branches as well—a musical murmur of peace.
Such a tree! Such beauty, in the very center of wasteland…
The others were assembling bundles of gear, lacing boots, tucking tunics into belts. They’d be busy for a while. But Malena, Toril noticed, had wandered over to the water to wash sweat out of some clothes; that meant that for once, she was beyond listening ears.
He sat down on a high spot at the edge of the brook, extended a hand, and smiled when she glanced up.
“Hunk of soap from the saddlebags,” he offered, nodding at the footwraps she was scrubbing against a rock.
Malena looked at the lump he held. “Thanks,” she said at last. She took it and rubbed.
“I’ve been wanting to talk to you.”
“About what?”
“About us.” Toril cleared his throat. “The awkwardness makes me sad.”
Malena swished. Her cheeks were painted in tree-silver, but the hollows below her brows were shadowed.
“I had hoped we’d be friends,” Toril continued after a pause.
Malena turned her head and stopped scrubbing. He watched the lift and fall of her shoulders through two breaths.
“Me too,” she whispered.
“We’ve had a rocky beginning.”
Her head nodded, and Toril heard a sigh.
“Can we work through how I’ve hurt you?” he said, doing his best to make his
voice neutral. It was not easy. A part of him rebelled at the question; he had done the best he could, at every juncture, and he longed to make a defense. As long as she didn’t accuse him directly, he was condemned without a trial.
Another part of Toril’s heart was a harsher critic than even Malena might be. In one way or another, he had put them on this course with his bungling of the war council. He had failed his father and his wife. He had lost his magic. He had gotten them caught in Two Forks…
Malena looked him in the eye. “It’s... complicated,” she said. She placed a wet hand on his knee and forced a smile. “You have good intentions. I know that, and I honor you for it.”
Toril blinked several times, waiting. He wondered what expression she read on his face.
“Remember the letters you wrote me, Toril?”
He nodded, surprised at the question. “I was happy about our troth. I wanted you to know.”
“You shared a few of your dreams.”
He nodded again.
She searched his face. “Didn’t you wonder why I sent such short responses?”
Toril raised his eyebrows.
“How I felt was... impossible to put in a letter.” Malena shrugged, then sighed. “My mother read most of what you sent, and no doubt my replies as well. But I hadn’t been able to share my dreams with my parents for years...”
She trailed off, seemingly lost in thought. Then she puffed her cheeks and breathed out. “I remember you described your mother’s illness, and how your father had nursed her through it. You said you hoped we could have that same tenderness.”
“I still do.”
Malena lifted a clammy palm to his cheek. “You gave me a daisy. Twice.”
Toril inhaled, preparing to speak, then hesitated. He had noticed a tear arcing down her jaw line.
In his mind’s eye he saw his mother rocking in a splash of sunlight from the open window, staring at nothing as saltwater glinted on her cheeks. She’d just received word of Amar’s death. He remembered his own desolation at the loss of a brother, deepened by a vague sense that his mother’s pain was worse, and that nothing he did could ease it.
Tat, face creased with sorrow of his own, had come to sit beside her. Toril had wandered away, unable to abide the silence. When he returned an hour later, his parents still sat, suffering together. He saw Tat fold his mother into his arms; she’d leaned into her husband then, as he ran calloused fingers along the whorls of her ear and kissed her forehead.
Toril found himself longing to offer that same comfort and understanding, and to feel it accepted. He had held Malena after he found her in the stable, with a breaking heart; as soon as she woke up, she’d pushed him away. He’d knelt at her side, calling life back into a limp body… and been accused for it. He’d cried for her at night, when she thought he was sleeping. He’d felt closeness, for a moment, when he held Malena in the dark and wet. That moment had been all too short, and it seemed unreal now, pushed into distant past by all that had happened since. He’d tried to give her space...
“I can’t... reciprocate,” Malena choked out, leaning her head sideways. “I just... can’t.”
“Not even a smile, now and then?”
Malena’s face went white. “You think I haven’t tried? What do you think it costs me to sit next to you, speak to you in a calm tone of voice, sleep next to you?”
Toril leaned back and blinked several times. “I don’t understand why it should ‘cost’ you anything. I’m only talking about simple courtesy.”
“You’re not talking about courtesy! You don’t want polite nods and respectful conversation between strangers; you want a wife.”
“Well, of course I want a wife,” Toril said, his voice rising. “Why do you think I got married?“ He could hear the tremble in his tone. “Why did you?” He heard his own volume, swallowed, and took a breath. “I don’t pretend to be a perfect spouse, but I haven’t been cruel or evil. And I’ve stayed at your side. You think that was easy for me?”
Malena’s reply, when it came, sounded forlorn.
“No.” She averted her gaze and sat for so long that Toril almost thought she had ended the conversation. At last she continued in a husky murmur, “No. Not easy.”
Toril reached out, hesitated, placed a hand on her shoulder. At first she stiffened; then he sensed a gradual relaxing. It wasn’t a moment of warmth, exactly—but at least it wasn’t a rejection.
“I can try to be friends, Toril,” she said, her voice scarcely audible. “Can we just start there?”
Toril stood, not speaking, not removing his hand, gazing with Malena into the wall of darkness at the edges of the glade. He felt tears of his own brimming. This woman would consent to try to be his friend?
When his arm was weary and his feet began to tingle, Toril sniffed, and rubbed his jaw on a shoulder to dry it. Surely the others were about ready to leave, now. He reached inside his shirt and lifted the leather pouch that hung there, tilting his head to free the cord around his neck. He loosened the drawstring and spread it open. The turquoise of his heartstone glinted, surrounded by a coil of silver chain. He caressed it with a thumb, then closed his eyes and nodded to himself.
He collected his breath.
“I think it’s time to give you this,” he murmured. He offered it cupped in both palms, the way precious gifts should be given.
Malena leaned forward, saw what he held, and froze.
She looked up at him, then back at his hands.
“Take it,” he urged. “We don’t have to... hang it the traditional way...” He felt his face flushing.
“Didn’t you hear what I just said?” Malena asked, her voice tense. The undercurrent of anger in her tone was unmistakable, and Toril felt confusion and hurt swirl.
He opened his mouth, but no words emerged.
She grabbed the heartstone out of his hands and held it up near his nose, the chain dangling. Her hand was trembling.
“This isn’t just jewelry, Toril, and I can’t ignore the traditions around it. It isn’t a token of friendship! It’s a symbol of marriage—consummated marriage. Intimacy in every sense of the word. The very thing I’m afraid of. The exact pain...”
Her voice broke.
“I just want to feel more connected to you,” Toril ventured.
“We’re not connected! And if you keep pushing, we’ll never be connected!” Malena yelled. She attempted to yank the stone; when the chain caught on his fingers, she jerked a second time, wild with anger. Toril felt a sting at his hand as the chain broke.
Malena flung the stone away.
Green flicked from his eyes. He heard clatter fade into billowing haze.
Malena looked up, registered his stare, and seemed to realize the import of what she’d just done. Her face contorted. She looked toward where the stone had vanished. Then, before Toril could stop her, she darted away, disappearing into the same darkness.
48
abandonment ~ Malena
Vapor seared Malena’s lungs. Her shin throbbed from a collision with rock.
She let sand fall through her fingers and whimpered in despair.
No heartstone.
She wasn’t sure how far she’d run in her flight from Toril—had she gone twenty paces into the gloom, or a hundred? Or more?
Whatever the distance, Malena was hopelessly lost.
Her flinging motion, and the rush that followed, had been away from the cliff they’d climbed to reach the tree. Perhaps, unconsciously, she’d been thinking enough to avoid a plunge to her death. Yet now a thrill of terror shot along her spine—she realized that such terrain might exist in any direction. She had no way of knowing.
If sheer drop-offs hemmed her in, she was stuck. But that didn’t mean she was safe; maybe those little monsters on their suvars would find a way up.
Maybe they already knew one.
Malena shivered.
Her best hope, she thought, was to stay as silent as possible, and have faith that she’d hear other
s calling to her as they came searching.
If they came searching.
She’d burned some bridges. She still felt the gall of Toril’s gesture, and the unreasoning panic that had flooded her mind as the horrors of the stable polluted images of marital intimacy. She hadn’t been able to think…
But throwing away the heartstone had been... cruel. Stupid. Brutal. Only lack of witnesses separated what she’d done from a traditional demand for divorce.
That hadn’t been her intent, had it?
Did Toril realize she’d gone after the stone?
Had she gone after the stone, really? Or just run away?
Pushing aside that bitter question brought her back to pishachas again. She trembled as she imagined them surrounding her here, while she waited, blind and defenseless.
Swallowing, she forced herself to consider. She could at least explore a few paces in each direction. Maybe there’d be another cliff face she could climb, or a crevice where she could hide. Maybe she’d still find the heartstone. She knelt and began sweeping her hands in a slow arc, biting her lip as she recalled the scorpion she’d seen when she held the staff.
An hour passed.
Malena’s lungs grew more raw. She became aware of the irregular saw of her breathing, worked the muscles of her throat, wiped grit from her eyes. She shifted the chunk of shale she’d picked up from one hand to another. It was a clumsy weapon, but better than nothing. Maybe.
Wraithlike voices came, swirling with the same directionless intensity that had spooked her upon entering the Rift for the first time. How long ago had that been, now? Three days, maybe? The oasis of the tree seemed like a fleeting dream—a moment of respite, not tangible like the dirt and the dark and the loneliness.
Sometimes the voices were no more than wild shrieks; other times, she could almost make out words. Mostly, they seemed to convey scorn and despair in equal measure. A few times, they were inviting, almost cajoling. Follow us. Listen to us.
Cordimancy Page 34