The thorns shook. Tessera’s eye found the single figure remaining on the plain: a woman unwrapping veils as she called, loosing them into the wind where they soared like dark birds, tossed from current to current until they rose so high they were recognizable only in memory.
“Nepenthe!”
Nepenthe shook herself free of the thorns. They dwindled and vanished back into her, shedding leaves and flowers behind her as she ran toward her mother on the plain.
Later, hidden deep within the Floating School, surrounded by mages, the sorceress of Eben explained to the Queen of Raine what she had done. She wrote her words in the language of thorn; Nepenthe translated. Tessera watched their faces hovering close together over the paper; alike as sisters, they looked at once timeless and haunted by thousands of years of history.
“I told the emperor that I had led his army by accident too far into the future of Raine,” her thorns said in Nepenthe’s voice. “I asked him to return to Gilyriad while I searched for the true path to the kingdom where I had left our daughter. He believed me. He trusted me always. He will never see me again.” Her pen paused, ink swelling like a tear in the nib. The pen touched paper again before it could fall. “He cannot open the Gates of Time himself. He will remain trapped in his own time, in his world. He may still weave his life into legend and poetry, but he will do it in more predictable ways.
“Of Axis and Kane nothing more will ever be written.”
There was a longer silence from the pen, while the sorceress seemed to contemplate past and future in the blank paper beneath the nib. She wrote finally, “It was time. I had nothing of my own, not even my own name.” Nepenthe, as though hearing an echo of her own life, stared briefly at her mother. “I had only Axis and our child. I learned today that it is not possible for me to be with them both. I had to choose.” Her eyes went to Tessera before she continued. “You do not have to fear me. All I did on the battlefield, I did for Axis. The only thing I ever wanted for myself was him. And our daughter.
“Here in Raine, I can walk with the sunlight on my face. I can speak to anyone who speaks to me. I can learn my daughter’s language. I can be called the name I was given when I was born.
“Here I am no longer my own secret.
“Will you let me stay?”
Tessera tested the ring of silence around her as the mages waited for her answer. She sensed calm, astonishment, and very lively curiosity; the air seemed untroubled by mistrust or dissent. Her eyes went to Nepenthe, found nothing ambiguous in her face. She looked still stunned but on the whole quite willing to admit the woman who had emerged out of the pages of a book into her life. Lastly, Tessera consulted Vevay.
You are queen, the mage’s eyes told her. You choose.
The queen said to Nepenthe, “You may tell her that she is welcome.”
“Thank you,” Nepenthe breathed, and took the pen to curl thorns haltingly into words. Her mother did not glance at them. She gazed at Tessera, her eyes limpid, motionless, until with an inner start the queen began to realize what legendary power she had invited into her realm.
The sorceress bowed her head then to the queen, who added dazedly to Nepenthe, “You may stay with her here at the school with the mages while she learns to speak to us.”
Nepenthe’s glance flicked to Bourne, who was smiling. She said again, “Thank you. You—I caused so much trouble. You’re being very generous to us.”
“Without your mother’s sacrifices, I wouldn’t be wearing my crown,” Tessera said simply. “I owe her.”
“Indeed,” Felan said with satisfaction, “she will be an extraordinary asset both to the school and to the library.”
“There is still,” Tessera said, feeling suddenly weary, wishing to be crusted with moss again and spread thoughtlessly about the wood, “the problem of Ermin of Seale.”
“Who ceased being a problem some hours ago,” Vevay told her gently. “I spoke to Gavin before Axis appeared and told him to warn the queen’s warriors to take cover where they could and to attract no attention until it was no longer possible to avoid battle. Beyond that I didn’t explain. I wasn’t—I couldn’t think exactly how… Apparently Ermin reached the eastern foothills beyond the plain this afternoon while Axis and his army were still riding out of the sky. Ermin took one look at what was waiting for him on the plain, and according to Gavin, his army is on its way back to the Second Crown as fast as it can go. Gavin is completely mystified. I still haven’t really explained… Ermin will probably not stop fleeing until he has put the Twelve Crowns of Raine between him and you. You will have to decide what you want to do with his family. But not today. Everyone here saw what threatened to overwhelm us on Dreamer’s Plain. That will cause the rulers of the Crowns to think twice before they weaken the realm with war. And when they hear how you saved Raine—”
“I hid,” Tessera interrupted blankly.
“Well, it was more than any of us could think of doing. You found the thorns. You recognized the terrible danger to Raine. You didn’t panic. You outwitted your foe. And you performed more feats of magic in one afternoon than all but three rulers of Raine did in their lives. All the Crowns have profound reasons to be grateful for your courage.”
Tessera stared at her, astonished by the word. Nepenthe’s mother dipped the pen again; all eyes were drawn to its busy scratchings. Nepenthe translated.
“You would have outwitted Axis even without me,” the thorns said. “No other ruler in history has ever defeated the Emperor of Night.”
The queen felt a tremor within the circle, like a shock of recognition. She found its source in Vevay, who was gazing blankly at the air, her pale eyes filmy with thought.
“I was just remembering,” she explained vaguely, hearing Tessera’s wordless question, “something a fortune-teller on the plain foresaw in a rainbow of crystals and pigs’ knuckles at a time when it seemed your reign was doomed before it even began…” Whatever it was, it kindled a sudden confidence in Vevay that Tessera hadn’t seen since her father died. “Magic,” she murmured, “in the smallest, most unlikely things… I needed to be reminded of that.”
Nepenthe’s mother, her eye on Tessera, smiled faintly as though she had translated without thorns. The queen stood up, tugged toward the confusion and agitation under her roof.
“I’d better go and explain,” she said, then blinked at the enormity of putting a book of thorns, a three-thousand-year-old emperor, an orphaned transcriptor, a pathway through time, and swaths of ancient poetry into simple language. “How do I explain?”
“You’ll think of something,” Vevay said briskly, rising to accompany her as always into the next complication. “Just begin at the beginning and proceed whichever way you can into hope.”
Alphabet of Thorn Page 23