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Ihvan knelt swiftly beside the two limp forms, his fingers brushing Mai's temple as he stared down at her with wide, worried eyes. "I can feel her, somewhere. She is still alive, but I can't reach her."
"What did she do to the Wise Man?" a young Red Hand demanded from the crowd. "Is she a demon?"
Tamla flicked her wrist. A moment later a knife quivered between the man's feet, neatly balanced in the ground. "Do not ever say such things about my friend. She has never walked in the shadow of Shagul - any more than you."
Ihvan turned away from the strange songmistress quickly. She frightened him in some way he could not explain, and he did not like to be frightened of anything. He was quick on the attack, swift to set himself against foes he could see. This strange thing that had afflicted Mai was beyond him. All he could do was keep the Light's champion from bleeding to death. Wat hovered nearby, moving his hands as if he wanted to rip Ihvan away. It was fortunate that he did nothing; although he had the greatest potential in idan that the Helios heir had ever seen, he had clearly never been trained.
"There's nothing I can do," he said reluctantly. "I think she might be in the Dreaming, but I don't know how to call her back. She's walled herself away."
"I can try," Wat offered. "Maybe I can reach the Dreaming if I follow her."
"Would you risk killing her?" Tamla asked softly. "A wrong move could leave her Severed or worse. Let the Soldier handle it."
Wat glowered at her, but settled down slightly. "Then do something, Ihvan. I'd give the moon to see her open her eyes."
For some reason, those words produced a strange chill. "I'm doing the best I can. I'm not a healer. If she was my Guardian I might be able to call her back, but..."
Wat looked at him. That was all.
Ihvan swallowed hard. Now he knew what pain and desperation became when they had no hope to balance them.
Despair. Raw fury.
If he was not careful, he would end up as their target.
***
"The High Seat really should sleep. He is the Mouth of the Light, but that does not mean he is immortal." Gwaindlyn gave Elador a meaningful look, as if he was a wayward chick and she the reproachful mother hen. "Shall I have the kitchens fetch the High Seat's dinner? I'm sure he'll be wanting it, since he missed breakfast."
Elador had learned over the course of two years that Gwaindlyn expressed disapproval with formality. When she started speaking in the Ancient Tongues he would pay attention to her; until then he would let her be. It was a wonder that the Helios line, for centuries the thwarter of both Tashiri emperors and the ever-growing Order, could have produced a woman as completely oblivious and blatantly stupid as the good Lady Helios.
"If you're not too busy fluttering," he said finally, "would you be so kind as to tell me what you were blabbing about this morning?"
"Hm?" Gwaindlyn stop mid-tirade and blinked those eyes that so resembled a cow. Even in his spare study she looked dumpy and plain. "Yes, High Seat. Of course. The grain shipments from the south are a bit early. We'll have to use another silo." She flicked her eyes from one side to the other as if reading off a mental list. Which, of course, was exactly what she was doing. "A guard has been dismissed for conduct unbecoming. One of the female prisoners has, um..." Her face flushed as red as a sunset. "Well, we might report her as 'gone missing', High Seat."
Elador smiled tightly - not at the girl's fate, but at Gwaindlyn's reaction. He knew what she was referring to; sometimes the guards took a condemned prisoner and had fun, if that was the way to describe the distasteful things they did. No doubt that was what that particular man had been dismissed for, even if bashful Gwaindlyn would not say so aloud. He would speak to the captain of the guard. Such a practice was out of bounds and completely horrific, even to one whom many misguided men would call a demon and an abomination. The gallows would have been a far better fate for the woman. "Try the hayloft. You'll probably find the body there."
"Of course, High Seat." Her inner list-scanning resumed as the blush faded. "The Tashiri regent is demanding the return of the Sun Prince and Princess."
"How many times have he asked this?"
"Too many to count. He will not listen to reason, sir."
Elador rubbed the bridge of his nose and silently promised the regent a non-too-swift and decidedly painful end. "Make our meaning clear this time."
"Yes, High Seat." Gwaindlyn stopped again. "We lost one of the boys last night."
"The boys?" He knew which ones she was referring to. "How?"
"You know how it is, High Seat. Sometimes a friend is able to slip in and give them something, sometimes they find a way to fashion a knife..." She clasped her hands together, no doubt in silent prayer for the deceased. "I had the body removed this morning before it could upset any of the Sisters."
"Probably for the best. Anything else?"
"Sister Nyrae claimed she was attacked by a ghost woman," Gwaindlyn said flatly. "You've heard what she's like."
He had indeed heard - and enjoyed. One of the few pleasures in this job was hearing the drunken exploits of Sister Nyrae. "See that it is investigated as usual." Which translated as not at all. "Thank you. You may leave." It was not a request, not even to his aide's addled thoughts. She bobbed a curtsy and scurried out. Before she was halfway across the study, he had returned his full attention to the ever-present paperwork.
Which was why he did not see the small, satisfied smile flit across her face.
***
"Mother! Mother, come quickly!"
Wendre tore her eyes from the girl and the Wise Man as her elder son came running into the camp. He carried a strange girl's limp form tenderly. Death has come with these strangers, she thought grimly. Death walks the world.
Darris set the girl gently on the earth. Her features would never be beautiful, nor would it strike fear into the hearts of her followers. But there was something there that made the hardened Red Hand stop and watch her for a moment, touching the pale face with callused fingers. "Is this our missing Tem?"
"Yes, Mother. She just collapsed. I was hoping the Wise Man could – "
"The Wise Man will be doing nothing. He's in the same state as your friend." After attacking a girl, she added silently. Or defending himself against her. Light, I wish I knew which! "So's Mai."
Darris started up so quickly that he was almost to his feet before she could pull him back down. Even now, when he had grown so much taller, her grip was still strong and her sway stronger still. "The Soldier is with her. There's nothing you can do." She did not need to ask which of the two injured he was so concerned about. Nor did he seem surprised that she knew. "You can't do anything now."
"Ihvan's a warrior, not a healer."
"I know. But he's been trained more, much as I hate to say it." She brushed Tem's cheek and did her best to make the girl comfortable. At least there were no visible wounds on her. Her faint smile did not reach her eyes. How do I tell you what I suspect of Mai DeShellay, my son? When she did look up at Darris, he was still watching the crowd around the other afflicted girl.
"You care for them," she said finally, nodding to Tem to show that she meant the women.
He jumped, but recovered himself fairly well. "Of course I do. They're my friends."
"Do you love them?"
Darris just looked at her. Wendre knew her son; she waited patiently, tending to the girl without so much as a significant glance. When he was ready, he would speak.
"Tem's a friend, Mother. I care for her, but..." He shrugged helplessly. "She's just a friend."
"I wasn't talking about Tem."
He did not say anything. He did not need to.
***
Jaia prodded Dav to his feet, making her voice light despite the insistant tugging in the far corners of her mind. Vereni calling vereni. She knew it. "Come on, lazy bones. We have to go."
"Go where?" Merion asked. He had been content to nap inside the cool cave, apparently without a care in the world. "You aren't exactly near anyplace. And those eyes will get you noticed as fast as your height will."
Jaia glowered at him and found herself suppressing the unsettling urge to growl.
"When Jaia says we have to go, we have to go." Dav's piping defense gladdened her heart, but it did not lessen Merion's glower. She could trust the Tashiri - in fact, she could almost smell the genuine concern radiating under the cockiness - but she was reluctant to tell him anything. For his sake if nothing else.
"Please. Just trust me on this. I think my friends are in trouble. I have to go to them." She tucked what remained of the berries into her kerchief and knotted it neatly. Her hair would just have to hang loose for the time being, even if it did turn into a tangled mess. "You don't have to come if you don't want to," she added without really looking at Merion. "They're in Aravalon and I'm sure that's a long way from wherever here is."
Merion frowned at her. "Aravalon? No woman goes there willingly except those who think they have nothing left but madness." Sudden understanding flashed across his face. "Jaia, can one of these friends channel?"
Jaia remained still, hardly daring to breath lest she give something away. But she should not have bothered. Dav spun around and glared at the Tashiri as if he could leap out and strike him down, his eyes narrowing as his hands curled into fists. That, naturally, was enough to confirm Merion's suspicions. There was no use denying anything now.
"One of my friends can channel, yes. She doesn't mean to." Loyalty and stubbornness prompted her to add a few lies, just to discourage questions. "She isn't very powerful and she hasn't been doing it for long. All she wants is to be Severed, but she won't join the Sisterhood if it means swearing oaths."
"She doesn't believe in the Order's teachings?"
Jaia was not stupid; she could read between the lines. "None of us do, if that's what you mean. We're poor, but we have our dignity. The Order let the Tashiri – your people – overrun my home and what your troops can't control, they burn." She scooped Dav up before he could start protesting all the falsehoods she had said about Mai. The words spilled from her as if a great flood of water had been released from a dam. "I saw my mother and brothers die because the High Seat ignored us when we most needed him. My father will never walk again because your people decided he looked like he might stand up to them one day. I don't care if you are Tashiri or if you are noble. I'm Manthrinian and I'll scrape to no one."
"Baradell doesn't belong to Tashiri," Dav added defiantly.
Merion frowned at both of them. "Baradell is a village in Manthrin?"
"The biggest village in the world and the grandest in North Manthrin!" Dav, ever the patriot, smirked proudly as he announced this. Jaia did not have the heart to tell him otherwise.
Neither, apparently, did Merion. He barely seemed to notice the boy at all. "I do not doubt it. It seems I am coming with you, though." He gathered his scant belongings quickly, never taking his eyes from Jaia. It was as if he was seeing her for the first time all over again. "I suppose I should show you now. Light knows I'll be seeing enough of you to place some trust in you."
Jaia frowned at him. "Oh?"
"I was told by the Protector that I would find a beastspeaker on the Dician border - which is where we are now, incidentally. She would have a boy with her and she would be from Ay'ba's Dell."
Baradell. That made sense, in a way. "What did you have to show me, then?"
"A treasure of the Tashiri royal family. I stole it," he added proudly, as if the crime was not enough to earn him years in a torturer's chamber. From the recesses of his overtunic he produced a small, green-swathed bundle no larger than Jaia's hand. "Here. You are a better keeper of this than I."
Juggling Dav to one side, Jaia hefted the strangely heavy bundle and unwrapped it.
Sweet Light and Creation shelter me.
There, held together by thin silken cords, was a broken stone disk, half white and half black. A sinuous line divided the two colors so that they appeared to flow into each other, an ever-spinning wheel with no beginning and no end.
And she knew, in a way that went beyond the memories and knowledge she had accumulated in her sixteen years, that she was holding the missing seventh Seal.
"Do you know what others would pay to just know that this exists?" she asked softly. "Why are you trusting me?"
"Because I know that I can," Merion answered solemnly. "The beastspeaker I found would be the Paladin's friend, tied to him by the Wheel. And one day that selfsame friend would become Regent Mother of the Tashar Empire."
Jaia shook her head, words completely failing her. "Merion, I'm a farmer. I don't even know what a Regent Mother is."
Merion smiled as if he did not believe it himself. "It means, Jaia Beastspeaker of Ay'ba's Dell, that you will be the mother of the next Tashiri emperor."
***
Tamla reached the dagger just in time to step on it.
Keiran gave her a hurt look. "It's not your knife," he muttered as he tried to get a grip on it. Tamla planted her other dainty foot on the hilt so that everything was completely covered. The waves of filth that rose through her were like the taint on idar a hundred times over.
Great Lord forgive me. I sensed this. I should have warned Mai. She gave Keiran the nastiest look she could manage. "This isn't for you. It's evil."
"So's hurting a Wise Man." The boy met her stare levelly, watching her with calculating eyes. "What's the mark on her cheek mean?"
Tamla cursed silently. Mai's bonnet must have fallen off. She had not noticed in her panic. "It's a tattoo," she lied. "I don't know what it means."
"I think it's something important," Keiran said quietly. "And I think you don't want to tell me what it means."
Tamla risked a glance at Mai and the Wise Man. The latter had been laid out on soft furs and was surrounded by worried members of the Red Hand; the former was being attended to by Ihvan and Wat alone. Mel stood nearby, watching everyone who came near with the utmost suspicion. "No, I don't want to tell you," she agreed. "I wish I could, but I can't. Creation send my soul to Shagul if I speak false."
She was saved from hearing Keiran's answer by Wendre's call. "Songmistress! We've found your friend!"
Tamla hesitated. She could not leave the dagger to the Red Hand, but the thought of touching it made her want to retch. Bracing herself, she wrapped her fingers around the filthy thing and jammed it into her belt before hurrying in the direction of Wendre's voice. Keiran's eyes bored into her back.
***
Shagul on a spit! Where am I? Tem's voice echoed soundlessly in the emptiness. There was no sight, no sound, no touch – nothing to tell her if she was awake or asleep, or even if she still lived. She tried to turn, but there was no sensation of movement. For the first time in her life, she was completely, utterly alone.
Except for the voice resounding around her. She heard it without ears and felt it buffet her nonexistent body. "Mordeth! I know you're here! Come and get me!"
More by instinct than plan, Tem followed the voice, drinking in every word as a man lost in the desert would drink sweet, clear water. The first steps were a struggle against the blackness, which sucked at her as it sought to claim her for its own. A spark of desperate defiance ignited in her. I am Tem E'Brell and I'm not giving up for anyone. I'm not giving up!
The world rushed back to her in a heartbeat. She staggered on blood-slicked rock and caught herself with awkward, too-large hands. The world careened wildly around her as the howling wind sought to bear her back to the earth.
Shagul. And over that certain knowledge, an insidious whisper. Three lives for one. I didn't have a choice.
She shook her head desperately. Everything felt wrong.
"You can't make up your mind, can you?"
The woman appeared suddenly, a hazy figure that wavered in and out of focus. She was cloaked in gray, with a silver-trimmed shawl hiding her hair. She had years on Tem, but it was impossible to say if they numbered ten or a hundred. And yet she was not ageless, simply eternal, as if she had always existed and always would.
"You're the Protector." Tem stopped at the sound of her own voice. It deepened with every word. Someone else was speaking from her mouth. She stared down at her own body and bit back a shriek as it rippled and wavered, unable to settle on a single shape.
No! I am Tem E –
I am Aemon al Caar al –
I am Mat Cauth –
I am –
I am -
"Shall I name you Arei Therin Mirachelle, who set steel against her brother's madness?" The woman advanced slowly, her form as insubstantial as a ghost. "Or Aemon al Caar al Thorin, the last king of the Mountain Home, slain on a field of blood and death for the sake of the future? Or Matrim Cauthon of Emond's Field, born where you died? Or Dayane of the Tashar, the first woman to have a M'Hael call her his queen? What shall I name you?"
The defiant spark became an inferno.
I am Tem E'Brell of Baradell! Do you hear me?! I am Temmene bloody E'Brell and I am not going to be named anything else while I still breathe!
The memories that had threatened to drown her subsided, vanishing to whatever depths they had appeared from. "My name is Tem," she spat. "And if you're so bloody smart, you tell me how to defeat Ma'sha Mreth."
"And if I do not?"
"I'll hang you with your own hair," she said flatly.
The Protector smiled.
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