“But when I first arrived, you said I had brought danger with me,” she said. “I remember.”
Preinon hesitated, then merely shook his head. “I was mistaken. I have a better understanding now.”
He seemed a little too certain, and Adria realized that he was keeping something from her, but she knew him well enough not to press him. If he did not think she was ready to know something, no amount of urging on her part would convince him that she was.
His words proved true enough, though, Adria thought, as the memory faded and they continued their uphill climb among the bare roots of pine trees at the final embankment below the camp. No armies were sent to find me, no open threats… not even messengers. I return on my own, but as whom? A princess back from a sojourn in distant lands? A prodigal, rebellious daughter, hoping to be forgiven her poor judgment? I have stolen from the Aeman, slain Knights and night guardsmen. By their laws, I should have my head separated from my body and raised on a pike…
She shuddered, even though the notion seemed absurd. She would have plenty of time to consider upon the journey, anyway. On foot, it would take weeks to travel to the capital. Unless, of course, I add horse thieving to my list of crimes.
At the top of the embankment they turned back for a moment, looking down over the camp, a good bow shot away. A dull orange glow from the campfires silhouetted the sparse trees and tents, the hanging game and stretched hides, and the few distant figures who still remained awake and in the open.
Adria knew many of the Aesidhe tribes, but the Shíme Okshowaniya held a particular place in her heart. It felt like leaving home, even though the home itself would now likely be taken down in the coming weeks or months and moved further south and west into the greater wild.
Journey in a circle, she signaled with her hands, in farewell to the tribe who had taught her half of herself.
They made their way among the tents of the Runners’ camp and to her own, where Adria knelt down to peek her head inside and retrieve a bundle of wrapped oiled furs from beside her bedroll.
She sat, half within the opening of the tent, and untied the double knotted straps around the furs, rolling them out onto the grass before her carefully. The dark bow she had brought from Windberth three years before lay within, and she took a few breaths to consider it as Preinon knelt across from her, nodding a little in sympathy.
“I feel almost afraid to touch it, even now,” she said in Aeman, nodding and smiling at her own superstition.
Without answering, and without hesitating, Preinon reached down and took the bow into both his hands, and he held it up a little to examine it more closely. For anyone else to have done this without permission would have been a great insult. But as her greatest teacher, and as one who understood her feelings for this weapon, his handling of it was like the breaking of a spell.
“And you have been even more afraid to use it,” he said, tracing the carved runes burnished in the wood and bone with his finger.
Adria only shrugged.
He shook his head. “You have, and not for the best reason,” and his eyes challenged hers to deny him. Were there time, Adria was certain he might have allowed her to come to terms with the bow on her own. But these might be the last moments between them, and he seemed determined to place instruction above tenderness.
Adria made no denial, and her uncle nodded, frowning, as he placed the bow back upon its furs and straightened the string she kept beside it. Then he rolled it all back up into its bundle, and he tied the straps into a slip knot, the one they used for weapons expected to be soon used. He lifted it between them, and extended it towards her a little.
“Chatechusho Chugloka,” he named it. “Fire Heart of the Black Tree. It was a black tree. They say that lightning struck it long ago, but that it would not burn.”
“But it could be cut.” Adria frowned. She could not yet bring herself to take the bow from him.
“It is true,” Preinon sighed, making certain he held her gaze. “For an Aesidhe to receive this weapon would be a grave insult. It would be taken to the place where both of them died, and it would be buried forever. For an Aeman soldier, for a Knight of Darkfire, it is a war trophy, a vindication of the ideals of the Sisterhood, the legacy of the King of Heiland, and a mark of honor.”
Neither of these truly pleased Adria, but she did not say this aloud.
Preinon nodded, inhaling the cold night air loudly. “I cannot say which of these was intended by Taber, or by your father. But for you it is a choice, a symbol of what unites and what divides the Aeman and the Aesidhe, a symbol of what divides you and all of Heiland.”
“I’m still divided, aren’t I?” she said. “I’ve never truly become an Aesidhe.”
“You expect too much.” He smiled a little. “You’ve lived less than seventeen years of life, Princess Adria of Heiland. That’s not enough time to become even yourself.”
Adria smiled also, shrugging, taking the bow from him, and he leaned to clasp her by the shoulders.
“As long as we walk the Earth each of us is divided, Pukshonisla. But as long as we struggle to heal ourselves and our land, there is a use for such weapons, and a hope for the peace that will make them useless. You have proved yourself, as a Hunter and as a Healer. You’ve known both gifts and curses — you broke a curse at Palmill, and it will not be forgotten, neither by me nor by the People.”
At last she nodded wordlessly, tearfully, as she replaced her Aesidhe bow with the strange shaft of black and bone. She offered the first to him.
“I’m a good archer,” she smiled, wiping her cheek reflexively with her off hand. “But I haven’t quite mastered using two at once.”
He smiled and nodded his appreciation as he accepted the gift on behalf of the Runners. “Well, then you have something left to learn. And if you learn such a feat, you can teach it to some of us, and half the Runners can retire and become… sailors or… swineherds.”
“And which of these will you choose, Uncle… sea foam or pig shit?”
“I’ll never retire,” he laughed, shaking his head. Then he returned to seriousness, and to Aesidhe. “You will speak with Shísha before you leave?”
“You know I will.”
“She has grown particularly fond of you,” he nodded. “She says you were weaned from her breast too young.”
Adria smiled. It was a jest, implying that Adria had suffered a difficult childhood, and yet an Aesidhe woman could give no greater compliment than to claim the child of another as her own.
“I wish there were time enough to say goodbye to everyone, before…” she glanced around. “Where… is Mateko? He did not wait for me.”
“He took this watch.”
“I understand,” She nodded, but said nothing more to show her disappointment.
Preinon chuckled. “I sent him to the right place, Púksha. If he is not asleep, you will find him. I would not let you leave without saying goodbye to him. As for the rest of the Runners, your words at the council were enough.”
She nodded again, then turned back into the tent to take up her packs. After a moment, she shook her head and offered the heavier of the two to him.
“I won’t need this, of course… or my tent.”
He took the pack and slung it onto his back as easily as if it were a brace of hares. “We will find a use for it.”
There was a long silence after this, and then Adria’s voice broke as she continued, in Aeman. “Preinon, I....”
But he shushed and embraced her. She had not spoken that name aloud, and he had not heard it, since the first day he had found her, wandering and lost, far from Windberth, three spring thaws before.
“Oh, Adria…” he whispered, shaking his head. “The Aeman do not know how to say goodbye, and the Aesidhe wisely refuse to.”
She laughed and wept, and hugged him as tightly as she could, as if she were s
till a child, as if he had always been her father, chosen or not.
Shísha poked at the fire of her own small camp with her scorched elk antler as Adria approached.
“You still make Aeman steps,” the seer complained as Adria stood before her across the fire. “My ancestors say you’ve awakened them.”
“Few ears are as keen as yours, Aunt,” Adria smiled. “If I flew with the eagle’s wings, you would not be caught unaware.”
The woman nodded and blinked her too-pale eyes. She had been blinded when very young, but her other senses had been sharpened, and now she ran among the Runners, for she saw into places few would ever know this side of death. Shísha was so sensitive to subtleties of sound and motion, thought and feeling, that she mostly kept apart from the others, especially in recent months. She complained of anyone, even the Runners, as “far too noisy.”
Like many of the Mechushegiya, the Holy Ones, much of what she said was half joke, half wisdom. Adria could never have guessed her age. Her limbs seemed as vital as the younger Hunters among them, but her face bore a timelessness, and her knowledge and wisdom were counted great among the Aesidhe elders.
When she spoke, it was with Yachaiotosu, The Voice of Many in One. Truth.
“Tonight I speak your tongue, for you will leave with it. And I will speak your Aeman name, Adria Idonea, for it is a beautiful name, and should never be forgotten, no matter where you walk.”
“You honor me, Lichushegi.”
Shísha stoked the fire a bit more, more out of contemplation than real need, and she seemed to watch the sparks and bits of ash as they rose up and vanished amidst the tall limbs wreathing the stars. Her eyes moved always, as if in waking dreams. Even when she rested, they were rarely completely closed. Or perhaps she had little need of rest, only Tainábe.
“You are a child of the Spring,” Shísha said. “You love spring the most, more even than summer.”
“Yes,” Adria smiled.
“Summer is tame. We expect its warmth and its sun. And when it fails us, we find it in fault.”
Adria wasn’t sure who the “we” was. It didn’t seem exactly the way she felt, and certainly not how Shísha must feel herself.
“The spring is different,” Shísha mused, and the limbs above creaked a little in the wind, as if in agreement. “It is stranger, full of change. Sometimes simple, sometimes sudden. The air stirs or storms. The waters rise or flood. The trees and the earth drink and breathe more deeply… even gasp themselves into bloom in a single dawn.”
Adria nodded and smiled at this. It fit her well enough. She felt saddened and anxious all at once — half of her empty and the other half thirst, as the saying went. Still, she felt a calm beneath it, a calm that she had begun to take for granted, which had begun when she first joined the Aesidhe three years before. It was there, still — and maybe if she held the feeling, she could take it with her back... home.
“And spring is war,” Shísha nodded, “Which you also still love, though you fear to see this in yourself, for you are young, but not young.”
Adria reddened a little at this. Despite all that had happened, all she had learned, she knew it to be Truth.
“The Aeman have taken many of our own people away from us, and they will take many more.” Shísha didn’t always trace her thoughts well for the outsider. And for her, everyone was something of an outsider. Nonetheless, she almost always said what needed to be said, or else was silent. Adria had learned not to second guess her, nor to assume the simplicity of her words. There was a space here, though, for an answer of some kind.
Adria spoke very slowly, with care for each word. “If I could, I would remain as one of you. I would fight for you, and join the long retreat which comes. I would die as one of you.”
Shísha only nodded, with no sign of emotion.
“I say what you already know to be true of me, Lichushegi,” Adria continued. “I say this because… because where the Aesidhe heart may not have had a choice, the Aeman heart has, and I have made a decision for both. But… where the Aesidhe heart returns me to my brother, my father, and my father’s kingdom, the Aeman heart longs to remain here.”
“I understand,” Shísha responded, with a small nod. “You wish to show me your weakness. You wish for healing.”
“I wish for the knowledge which brings calm to the heart.”
Shísha considered. Adria waited, head down. She breathed deeply, and she stilled her body and mind.
“No,” Shísha said at last. “That is not what you want. Not yet.”
Adria raised her head to see Shísha shaking hers.
“You love the war within yourself, your two webs and your two hearts,” Shísha continued. “You do not wish to choose. You want the heart of peace that many among us have, but you still follow the Fire Heart, the fierce heart of defiance.”
It took Adria a moment to understand her words. Then she swallowed, and even an Aeman could have heard the sound across the space. She felt the truth of the admonition which, strangely, wasn’t spoken as one — it mattered little to the sting of conscience Adria felt.
It is true… I asked to be a warrior among the Aeman, and now I am a Hunter among their enemy, destroying those I would have joined, had I been allowed. Where would I have ended, had Father allowed me that final request, somehow?
Adria offered, a little weakly, “A mind divided can only defeat itself.”
Shísha chuckled. “Good words. You have learned them well, but many of the best sayings have a bit of a trick within them.”
Again, Adria was a little slow to understand.
“Remember that being a whole person does not mean destroying half of yourself,” Shísha offered. “Healing does not mean denying that you are wounded. It means joining all parts into a whole. Even enemies can grow into friends, allies, lovers... We need not destroy each other to become a people of peace, nor can we ignore one another’s existence. It is the same for a nation, for a family, for the self. It is the same on the outside as within. No matter how much we may use the word, there is no Other.”
Adria nodded, and she realized truly, just then, that this could very well be the last time she spoke with Shísha, with Preinon Watelomoksho, with Mateko.
If I had only one thing to ask… Adria thought, and decided quickly. “Why do we want what we want, Chosen Mother?”
Shísha nodded for a long moment. It was a good question, whose answer was neither given swiftly nor easily. “To stop any village from burning, you must know why it burns.”
Adria remembered. And Adria Understood.
“Zho wateli limiyati,” Adria said. “We would burn what we know for the desire of something new.”
“Too often it is True,” Shísha nodded.
“The words work better in Aesidhe,” Adria smiled, nodding, having relearned her own lesson with words. “Aeman is a weak language for wisdom.”
Shísha shrugged. “Aeman is a young language, a much-borrowed language. It is a language of war, and there is purpose in it. It too will grow into itself, become whole, just as we pray its people will.”
“Will it be too late for us?”
Shísha gave no sign of response. It made it easy for Adria to again assume that, somehow, Shísha might actually know the future. And Adria realized, as well, that she didn’t truly want to know such a future herself, even were it carved in stone.
Still, I see a little, Adria nodded, then spoke aloud. “You sent Mateko to follow me yesterday. You knew I would fail.”
“It is not that simple,” Shísha frowned. “But… I sent him. It is True”
“What is it that you saw?” Adria dared. “And… what is it that I saw?”
“Tainábe?” Shísha answered. “You saw what some of us see, when we are most deeply aware, but most do not believe. You saw what I see in almost every moment.”
Adria st
illed her impatience. She was meant to think upon this. And still… she was meant to ask. It was almost a game sometimes, with Shísha. But then Shísha would probably say that games had a purpose as well. Adria could say it herself, for she had long played the game of kings.
So Adria closed her eyes, and she breathed, and she welcomed the careless memory. She felt the cold, the moonlight, the time of waiting before the hesitation. The blur gray motion, and before, at the edge of her notice, a figure. A figure, faceless, hooded and robed. A man. Watching.
Watching until watched. And then…
“You see what I see,” Adria whispered. “You see one of… us, but not one of us.”
“I see those who are meant to change this world, and those who are meant to watch. I see those who choose their path, and those who wait for the hunted to come to them. And I see and know that we are not the only ghosts who walk the Hei-land.”
Shísha said the Aeman name with a strange emphasis on each syllable — the way it was once spoken, Adria realized, her history lessons from the Sisterhood returning — the way only those now dead had spoken it.
This, as much as anything, sent a chill through Adria. Shísha was no nursemaid, full of superstition. Her words did not need the frailty of a child’s fears to give them weight. And there was a weight in Adria’s stomach, then. The anxious uneasiness she felt when speaking of forbidden things, when frightened to turn a corner in a strange deep corridor of her childhood.
“There is one thing more I would teach you,” Shísha said. “One think I have seen, but may not have the chance to tell you again.”
Adria opened her eyes.
“There are five great rites among our people, taught to us long ago by the White Wolf Woman,” Shísha continued. “These you know.”
Adria nodded patiently, immediately feeling a little ridiculous for it.
Shísha continued, “There was once a sixth.”
Heir of Scars I: Parts 1-8 Page 6