by Callie Bates
I nod, wordless, recalling how the earth bellowed after he died, and how Tuah looked at me.
She looked at me, and she said, Set him free.
“Dropping my blood to the stones has never done anything but summon the ancestors,” I say quietly, “or wake the land’s grief. Even if I bled out—”
“Hush!” Granya exclaims, throwing up a hand with surprising violence. “Do not speak of such things. You will not die like Ossian. That’s not what the land wants. Nor is it, if I read the history correctly, what Tuah wanted.” She stands abruptly. “Come and look. There are books we must read, and things you must learn.”
—
GRANYA AND I spend the next days cloistered in the library, struggling with the old texts written in difficult, archaic Caerisian. Most of the time, she has to help me make sense of them. She explains that once I wake the land, setting the ancestors free of their bonds, I will be more deeply aware of the earth in my being. Not only that, but my increased awareness means that I will be able to control it better. Wildegarde could bring trees alive in her hands and make springs spontaneously shoot from the ground; she could transform into a mountain or a wave in the sea. Now that I have wed the land, now that I have integrated my body and the land, these phenomena seem almost within my own reach, though surely I will never possess all her power. It sounds utterly overwhelming.
Rhia occasionally joins us; she has a surprising amount of patience for digging through books, though her father inevitably calls her away. Once when she leaves, I say to Granya, “Is Rhia training to be a memory-keeper, like you?”
She chuckles. “Oh, this is a debate Ingram and I have almost every day, whether it’s Rhia who should be the next warden or the next memory-keeper of Dalriada.”
“I suppose her father wants her to be the warden.”
Granya snorts. “Not at all. Half the warden’s duties involve settling disputes and maintaining the old laws—Ingram is a lawyer as much as anything.” She sees my puzzled look, and sets down the scroll she was reading to explain. “Before the conquest, the Caveadear kept the magic of the land alive, while the king or queen carried out affairs of state and went to war, and the wardens wrote the laws and kept the traditions. Now, of course, the warden mostly settles disputes within the mountains, but once their jurisdiction extended over all of Caer-Ys.” She tries not to smile. “Ingram doesn’t think Rhia has enough diplomacy in her to manage such a thing.”
I bite my lip against a laugh. “It’s a bit hard to imagine.”
“But the warden had other abilities,” Granya adds, more seriously. “You’ve seen Rhia walk the folds of the land. The folds, and the maps showing them, are part of the ancient knowledge, so it is something wardens do. And also, according to this writer”—she shakes the scroll she’s holding—“the Caveadear and the warden worked together in times of war or strife. They could shift armies through the folds of the land.”
“Armies?” I reach out my hand. “Let me see that scroll!”
We resume working in quiet. The scroll describes an ancient battle against the Tinani—a border dispute alarmingly similar to the one ten years ago—in which the Caveadear and the warden won a victory for Caer-Ys by shifting an army through the land to outflank the Tinani.
I drum my fingers on the table. We could use this knowledge; Rhia and I could work together.
I have to tell Finn and the others that we have another way to fight. Something that could give us an advantage, especially with our smaller forces.
But I can’t go back until we hold the council meeting and the mountain lords agree to offer their help. No wonder the wardens are in charge of the ancient laws; the mountain lords are querulous enough that keeping them in order must require someone’s full attention.
Granya looks up from the book she’s reading, an account of Ossian’s last days. She looks rather pleased, but seems to be trying not to show it. “Listen to this. After Ossian’s death, the bindings went into effect, and we’ve often believed that Tuah told the people to start the blood rituals. But perhaps that’s not right. According to this writer, who was there, she said, Blood has bound your ancestors and your land, and blood can unbind them. But you will need more than blood to wake the land again and use the power in the circles.”
“What more?” I ask.
“That, she doesn’t say.” Granya is smiling. “But this is good, Elanna! Don’t you see? Spilling blood became ritual because it does unbind the land—to a degree. Your blood brings the ancestors and the land’s power to you. But that’s only half the secret.”
“The other half is how I free them,” I say, thinking of their grief.
She looks at me sternly. “Not only that, but how to use the power they’ve given. How to wake the land.”
She’s right, although I’m not sure how she knows our ancestors have been bound to help me, not to mention the land itself. But however it happened, I must make use of their sacrifice. There must be a way to not only wake the land and loosen the bindings, but also use that power to win our rebellion. Jahan seems to have known this all along; I think of his talk of winning through using our magic openly.
Is he safe? Alive? What of Finn and the others?
I can’t let myself think of them, or I start snapping at Granya and retaining nothing from the books.
“The stones have intelligence, it seems,” Granya says. “The oldest stories, the ones that predate Ossian, tell of the Caveadears weaving their magic in cooperation with the power in the circles. Perhaps that’s why our ancestors built their settlements near the monuments—because they knew they could use the energy. If you loose the bonds, you can direct the stones to help you.”
I drag my hands through my hair. “But to do what? Shall I make a forest walk, like Wildegarde, or streams switch their courses? Shall I summon herds of deer for my army and flights of crows to swoop on the Ereni? We don’t live a thousand years ago in Wildegarde’s time, Granya. Even if I could make those things happen, what good would it do us?”
She looks at me sidelong, as if the answer is obvious.
And perhaps it is. Magic has been held as an anathema for more than two centuries now. But there’s power in anathema: terror. No matter how good the Butcher’s training, the Ereni armies would turn tail and run at the sight of marching forests.
Besides which, how on earth would they fight moving hills or swelling streams? It’s not as if a musket shot would stop the earth itself.
Perhaps we can win—and without bloodshed. We could stop the cycle of violence by reclaiming Caeris and Eren without battles and costly deaths. The land itself could claim what’s hers.
And if Rhia and I can work together…
“Would I have to go from circle to circle, then?” I ask Granya. “Freeing the ancestors from one place, then the next?”
“It seems likely,” she says. “You could begin here in Dalriada.”
“Or in Barrody or Cerid Aven. Wherever the Ereni are gathered—wherever we might win a tactical advantage.” I wish I had paid more attention during my lessons on military history in Laon now; I was always thinking of the greenhouse instead. But, of course, this is why I have colleagues who know strategy better than I do. Ingram Knoll, Hugh Rathsay, and Alistar Connell can guide us.
I twist my ring. “But we still don’t know how to free the ancestors and actually summon their power—how to actually wake the land.”
“No,” Granya says, with the first hint of real anger I’ve seen from her. “Tuah left no instructions.”
If we can’t wake the land by freeing the ancestors, my power will be confined to small, local things—fogs, swollen streams, the awareness of the earth and the creatures on it. It is something—it is a great deal—but it’s not enough. Not enough to win with less violence; certainly not enough to terrify Eren and maybe even Paladis into recognizing Caeris as its own nation.
But the answer to this question doesn’t exist in any of the library records or the memory of the people, be
cause Tuah never told it to anyone.
I know what I need to do.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
I wake from an uneasy dream the next morning. Granya tells me that the dreams are part of my wedding the land, for my night-images are filled with stones and streams, the fleeting movements of animals, the ever-present weight of Ossian’s blood.
This morning I dreamed of Taich-na-Ivaugh as a ruin: a destruction of ash spread over the peaceful valley.
Was it now, or will it be in the future? Has it happened in the past, and they have since rebuilt the castle I know? All I know is that I heard the bell crying danger before we left. I have abandoned my friends—again—to try to bring the mountain lords to our aid.
But the lords still haven’t arrived from the Western Isles. We still haven’t held the council meeting.
I dress and let myself out of the palace. I think of telling Granya what I intend to do—but no, she might stop me. And what if it doesn’t work?
In the half dark, I climb the hill. It doesn’t wind me so much this time. The words of the old poem spring to mind. I speak them, letting their cadence fall on the not-quite-dawn air.
“From the cold mountains behind the moon, Wildegarde came…”
Wildegarde lived long before Tuah and Ossian. She lived in the days when the stones were radiant with light, not heavy with the memory of Ossian’s blood. Granya tells me that almost nothing is known of her, except what is preserved in the poem, in which she sounds more like a goddess than a human Caveadear. She is not quite a goddess, for she lived after the old gods departed our lands; yet she’s not quite human, either. But, I am told, she often appears to those who see her—which is rare—in a white garment. Like the woman I saw on my first morning here.
She doesn’t guide me up the hill this morning, but I have the feeling that she observes me from someplace beyond time.
When I reach them, the stones sit deep within the earth, heavy with unforgotten grief.
I walk through to the altar stone. Instinctively, I reach for the dagger in my pocket, but I stop short of scoring my palm. I shouldn’t need blood for this, and I already know what Ossian will say.
Mo cri, mo tire, mo fiel.
My heart, my land, my blood. My land—not Tuah’s. What brought her here? Why did she bind our ancestors? Why did she care?
I shake out my shoulders. My heart is beating fast. There is no reflective surface for me to use, but maybe I don’t need one. Jahan said that speaking a sorcerer’s name can act as a summons, if you have power enough. The right kind of power. I’m betting that Tuah’s ties to this place are strong; that when I speak her name, the mix of her own grief and magic will spur her to respond.
Time is thin here, and it’s her specter I anticipate, pulled from some other time.
“Tuah.” I don’t know her full name. I don’t know if the simple two syllables are enough.
Nothing happens.
I try again. Still nothing. Anger pulses up from my stomach. This woman bound my ancestors to these stones, and she doesn’t even respond when I call her?
Maybe I do need something stronger.
I score the dagger down my palm, wincing at the sting of it, and drop blood onto the earth. “Tuah,” I order, “come to me now. Tell me how to loosen your binding and wake the land.”
The air hums around me, static and alive. The witch stone in my pocket is vibrating. The earth seems to shake. A fog is gathering, pooling between the great tall stones. I brace my legs wider and hold my ground.
There’s a movement through the fog: a silver fox darts into the circle. Its gait is wary, and its keen orange eyes look straight at me. It comes toward me, one step, another.
Then it dashes off, back into the fog, with a sweep of its white-tipped tail.
I glance around. Even though I spilled my blood, Ossian hasn’t appeared. None of the ancestors are here to whisper Mo cri, mo tire, mo fiel; the ridge seems deserted except for me. And the fox.
There’s a warmth behind me. The faint sound of a breath.
I whirl.
It’s a woman—no, a silver fox. My vision blurs between the two. The woman is small, her black hair in a messy braid, her arms folded. The fox pins back its black velvety ears and stares me down.
“I don’t like blood magic,” the woman hisses in archaic Caerisian.
My head aches from the double vision. “You began it. They say you didn’t have a choice.”
Her eyes—the fox’s eyes—soften a little. She shakes her head. “There is always a choice. Not always a good one.”
“How do I break your bindings?” I ask. “How do I wake the land?”
The fox cocks its head. “Your ancestors agreed to be bound and serve Caeris with one great act after they are freed.” With a sudden movement, the creature dashes forward: Then the woman, Tuah, is in front of me. She leans down so our faces are inches apart. I feel the puff of her breath as she whispers, “Sing them free, Elanna. You know the song.”
Before I have time to blink, to question her and ask how she knows my name, the fox spins away and flashes on its swift feet into the fog.
—
“CAVEADEAR!”
The shout rings up from below the hill.
I’m on my feet. The fog has dissipated, as if it never was. And the silver fox, I know, is long gone. Though whether she came out of the past or present, I can’t guess.
“Caveadear!” The shout comes again. It’s Aengus.
I hurry to the edge of the circle. He’s at the base of the hill, waving his arms and grinning.
I walk down the path. Sing them free, she said.
Songs. The golden pines make a song; their sap sings. But how am I to use that?
Aengus has run off already, and I wonder if the last mountain lords have arrived from the distant islands. If it is time, at last, for the gathering to begin, for Ingram Knoll and his lords to decide whether or not they will travel into the lowlands, to help us.
Thanks to my conversations with Granya, I have a better idea what to say when the mountain lords call on me, how to convince them. This time, when I speak to them, they will listen. They must. We have no more time. No choice. The vision of Taich-na-Ivaugh, destroyed, passes through my mind.
But it’s not the remaining lords from the Western Isles who have arrived.
It’s a woman in the courtyard: a woman with blond hair bound up on her head. And behind her, a man, whose olive skin and short, disheveled hair do not belong here.
It can’t be.
“El!” Sophy runs to me, clasping me against her in an embrace.
“What are you doing here?” I stammer.
Then I’m looking up at Jahan, reaching for his hands, pushing myself into his arms. I inhale the smell of him, the cinnamon and cloves, the smell of horse and sweat. He squeezes me, then sets me back. The corners of his uncanny light eyes are crinkled with a smile. “We found you, Caveadear.”
The way he pronounces the word warms me. I reach up to touch his cheek, but he captures my hand, kisses it, and pulls my arm around his so that we’re side by side, facing the courtyard.
“Why did you do that?” I say, exasperated. “I was going to kiss you.”
“Do you want everyone to know we’re lovers?” he retorts.
“Is there some reason to hide it?”
Sophy clears her throat. “We’re not alone, you two.”
Other people are crowding out into the courtyard—Ingram Knoll and Rhia, Hebar Manahan and his supporters, other mountain lords. A hand touches my shoulder, and I look over to see Granya, who has arrived somewhat breathless. She stares between Jahan and Sophy.
“Lady,” she says to Sophy.
Sophy flushes. “I’m not a lady. Just plain Sophy Dunbarron.”
Granya nods, but I see the thoughts forming behind her eyes. There will be another, she said—and Sophy is Finn’s sister.
“I had a vision,” I say. “Taich-na-Ivaugh—is it still standing?”
&n
bsp; Sophy and Jahan exchange a glance.
“The Ereni attacked us there,” Jahan says, while Sophy looks down, her throat working. “They drove us out the morning you disappeared.” He keeps his own voice even, but I sense the reproach under his words. “We thought you’d been captured—or killed.”
I glance at Rhia, who has the grace to appear somewhat embarrassed. “How did you know I’d come here?”
“She was missing, too.” Sophy nods at Rhia. “We knew she wanted you to come up here.”
“And why have you come now?” Ingram Knoll asks.
Sophy turns to him. “Because our band of rebels is being driven back to the mountains. We need your help. You need to give us shelter—or aid.”
“Is it an order?” Ingram Knoll says with some irony.
But Sophy doesn’t back down. “We’re all Caerisians—perhaps not Caerisians alike, but Caerisians together. We’re fighting for your freedom as much as ours. Don’t you get tired of hiding in the mountains? Of not having a say in council, of having your traditions disrespected? I know I’m tired of it, and I do not even know all the old ways.”
“And does the new king promise that he will not follow the ways of the Ereni?” Ingram Knoll asks, the same question he asked the other day. “Can you make that promise for him?”
Sophy bows her head. Then she looks at me. I give her a nod. She turns back to Ingram Knoll. “I can’t. But the Caveadear is with us, and she gives her word to support the mountain lords and the old ways.”
“A king in the Paladisan style may not listen to a woman with such ancient power,” says Granya.
“I know,” Sophy says. “But he may listen to both of us. Because I am his daughter, though unacknowledged and born out of wedlock. And I give you my word that I will make every effort to put your case before the king—because it is my belief that you are right to follow the old ways.”
There is silence, and then a murmur spreads through the courtyard. Jahan winks at me.
“We must hold council and deliberate upon this,” Ingram Knoll says at last. “You are fortunate, daughter of the king. This is the time of year when all the clan chiefs assemble. The lords have not yet arrived from the Western Isles, but we will meet without them—now.”