Aye, Maran. You’ve been saying the same thing for the last twenty years, but you’re here now. You’ve come the width of Kolmar to get here and got the blisters to prove it. Goddess, you’re a coward.
I shuddered. Truth is awful. I am a coward. That night, at that moment, I could no more walk up to my daughter and greet her than flap my arms and fly.
Weariness saved me, in the end. I was too damned tired to wake early and leave. As I laid my head on the pillow, my last coherent thought was, Perhaps it will look different in the morning. Goddess be my aid, let it look different in the morning.
Jamie
Rikard turned to me in amazement when Vilkas and Aral set to work. “Sweet Lady Shia! I’d no idea we could heal those creatures!”
“I’m not sure anyone else could,” I said. I was well impressed. “I know young Vilkas is capable of astounding work with people, but this …”
“Do you have any food for them?” asked Rikard suddenly. “Healing a human is hard enough on the body. They’re going to be starving.”
“Hells. No,” I said. I’d forgotten that Healers need food and drink and a great deal of rest after working. As do their patients.
“I’ll arrange something, for all of them,” said Rikard. He turned to go, then paused and turned back. “Ah—do you know what—er—dragons eat?”
I blinked. “I haven’t the faintest notion. Cattle, perhaps?” I considered the creatures’ teeth. “You’d think they’d need a great deal of whatever it is. Fresh meat surely never hurt anything with teeth like that.”
Rikard went off muttering, but in the end he was saved the effort. Rella had more sense than the rest of us. She had held back during the fight—or at least, I hadn’t seen her—but she appeared now, leading a cow with a rope, while Rikard was still trying to gather those students who were capable of movement. Behind her came Hygel, bearing bread and ale and a promise of beds, or at least a roof and a blanket, for those who required them.
Rikard very kindly obliged by looking after the rest of us—Lanen’s infected demon wounds, my aching jaw and demon scratches. As for the others, when the last scale was restored, when they at last released their combined power, Vilkas and Aral drew a deep breath, drank each a full pint of ale without pause, and proceeded to eat enough for four men between them, along with another pint each. When at last they were replete, Rella, Will, and I helped them stagger after Rikard and the meagre remnants of the College of Mages towards The Brewer’s Arms. They just about managed to stay awake long enough to fall into their beds. Rella and I left them there.
Shikrar and the one I learned was his son spoke at length, Kédra having a good long look at his father’s now-healed wound. He did not linger once his father started to eat, but took off again, flying northward. Shikrar finished eating, gave a great sigh, laid his head on his forearms there in the courtyard of the ruined College, bade us good night, and slept.
Varien and Lanen were nowhere to be seen.
I was weary as well, but my heart and head churned too much to allow for sleep just then. I had started pacing and thinking when I heard a small sigh. Lifting my head, I found Rella leaning against the wreck of a wall, watching me. Her face had a glow about it that at first I put down to being too near the remains of the fire; then I blinked and realised that it was the first hint of morning.
The opening of another day, this one more full of hope than I had dared trust to since that terrible morning Lanen was stolen away. She was safe now—I had found her and got her out of that ghastly place—though truth to tell, I wanted very much to know what in all the Hells that was that happened when she yelled at Berys. I think that was the first time it truly struck me that we might not have found her in time. That she might have died at Berys’s hands before we could reach her. I hadn’t let myself even consider that before, not for a moment.
Rella came up to me and silently put her hands on my shoulders. I closed my eyes and clasped her to me with all my strength, like a drowning man clutching at his last hope of air. “Goddess, Rella,” I choked, my lips against her hair, my voice fighting its way past a throat closing, stupidly, at the thought of what might have been.
“Not yet, heart, but I’m working on it,” she said lightly.
“Rella, she could have died. What if he had murdered her, eh? What if I had been too late? It was near as a toucher, my girl,” I said, starting to tremble. “Berys had us. He had me, Rella, and I couldn’t do a damn thing.”
Her arms tightened around me, strong but gentle. “I know, heart. I know.”
“This is stupid!” I cried, evoking a whiffle from the sleeping Shikrar. “She is safe now, we are all still alive, all is well—”
“Jamie—”
“Goddess, Rella,” I said, my voice barely a whisper, “I nearly lost her!”
I wept then, at last, bitterly, loosing the tears that I had locked away to make my anger serve me. Rella held me until the storm passed, then stood a little back and smoothed my hair from my eyes. “What happened?” she asked.
I told her and found that the telling eased my heart. Rella’s staunch sense steadied me, kept me to the point, until I came to the last of the tale. When I told her of Lanen’s outburst—“And I swear, Rella, she glowed like a fire for a moment there”—and what it had done to Berys, though, Rella drew in a sharp breath and made me go over everything in great detail.
“You have no idea what she said?” she asked, her eyes piercing.
“I’ve told you, I didn’t even recognise the language.”
And once again, Rella astounded me.
“Did it sound like this?” she asked, and proceeded to say the same thing Lanen had come out with, as best I could tell. This time, though, there was no pulse of light, no shattering of something I couldn’t see, no yelling demon-master. Thank the Lady.
“Hells take it, Rella!” I breathed. “That’s it, or near it as damn it. What in all the world?”
Rella shivered and looked away. “Goddess, Jamie. That’s—I thought only Her Servants ever did that.”
She fell silent until I prodded, “Did what? Rella, what did she do?”
Still staring at nothing, she replied, “Servants of the Lady for years and years, dear to Her, deep in Her Service, are sometimes known to overcome some dreadful peril through the gift of the Voice of the Goddess.”
“Which is?”
“It’s what it says it is, Jamie,” she said, finally looking into my eyes. “Mother Shia blesses those individuals, just for a moment, an instant, and says those words through them. Nobody knows what they mean, but nothing can stand against them.”
“That I can well believe,” I said, frowning. “Berys was thrown and no mistake.”
Rella shook her head. “It’s not that easy, Jamie,” she sighed. “The balance, remember? The great Powers always find balance.”
“And what form does that balance take?” I asked solemnly.
“Death, usually. Oh, not the Servant, unless they are very old,” she said quickly, “but—Jamie, every single time someone has been granted the Voice of the Lady, someone close to the Servant, someone they value dearly, has died within a se’ennight.”
Her eyes brimmed with tears—she, my rock, who was strong and held herself distant from such displays, had tears in her eyes.
I took her by both shoulders and gazed into her eyes. “Rella, what will happen will happen. She is safe. Lanen my daughter is safe. I’m not worried about what happens to me now.”
“Damn you,” she snarled, shaking my hands off and dashing the tears from her eyes, “I am! Don’t you dare die on me now, Jameth of Arinoc, I’ll never forgive you!”
I reached out again and drew her to me, held her so close I could feel her heart beating against mine. We stood there, comforting one another in silence, until false dawn gave way at last to true and a shaft of brilliant sunlight suddenly blazed across us both. I shivered.
She drew away from me gently and shook her head. “Besides, that gi
rl seems to break all the rules. Maybe she’ll break this one as well,” she said quietly, blinking in the brightness of dawn. “And you’ve never asked what happened while you were being a hero here in Verfaren. You missed a lot by leaving the rest of us early.”
“I saw them land,” I said, smiling.
“More than that, Jamie. Beyond belief more than that.”
I waited.
“The Lost have been restored,” she said quietly. “It was amazing, remind me to tell you all about it when I’m awake. That’s why we took so long to get here. There were nearly two hundred of them. It was Shikrar who did it, and Varien, and”—her voice fell to almost nothing—“and Maran.”
“What!” I cried.
“Yes, she’s here,” she said, her voice still calm and soft. “And with her, by chance or Fate or the Goddess Herself, has come our best hope of finding Berys again, if you’re still determined to do so now Lanen is safe. There’s a good chance we can learn where he is this very day.”
Oh. Of course. “Maran’s brought that Hells-be-damned Farseer, hasn’t she?” I growled.
Rella sighed. “Yes. Still, I’m not disposed to object too strongly. Demon-made as it is, we can make it serve us. In fact it already has, that’s how the Lost were restored. All three of them touching the Farseer.” She turned her head away for a moment. “It wasn’t like the little ones, the Lesser Kindred. There was precious little joy in any of them, and—Goddess—some of them had been aware the whole time. Five thousand years.” She shuddered and looked back to me. “Those were the ones that killed themselves.”
“Hells,” I muttered. “What of the rest?”
“They seem to be doing well enough, for now. I don’t think we’ll really know how they are until they’ve all had food and sleep. They all went away to a quiet place a friend of Will’s is providing. For a consideration,” she said, managing a smile. “Salera’s with them for now as well, though I don’t think she’ll stay away from Will for long. Or leave Varien and Lanen unattended. She and all her people practically think those two are gods, after all.” She snorted. “The Lo—oh, no, they want to be called the Restored—they could barely stand to look at either Varien or Maran, despite what they’d done, and they studiously ignored the rest of us.” Rella sighed. “I think that was the best they could do. Their hatred of humans runs awfully deep.”
“Maran,” I said, shaking my head, which was now filled with the most amazing visions, and smiling despite myself. “Helping dragons restore the Lost. And before today I’d wager my life she’d never seen one before. Took them in her stride, did she?”
Rella nodded, her own smile more strained now.
“How in all the Hells did she end up here, anyway?” I asked. “Unless she was—ah.” I faded to a halt. “She came looking for Lanen, didn’t she?”
Rella nodded.
I turned away, a mad mixture of relief, delight, anger, and hope fighting for first place in my heart. “Why now, after all this time?” I muttered, mostly to myself, but Rella’s hearing is excellent.
“Seems she saw what was happening to us all and decided she had to—I don’t know—make her peace. Help her daughter. Do something.” Rella’s tone of voice was decidedly dry. “Just don’t ask me why she didn’t damn well do this years ago. I’ve tried to persuade her to it since I met her.”
“She’s not an easy one to persuade into doing anything, as I’m sure you’ve discovered,” I said wryly, evoking a muffled “ha!” of agreement. I turned back to face Rella. The sunrise had brought a flush of youth to her face, mantling her cheeks for that brief moment with the gentle rose of dawn—but the marks of old pain and a hard life were etched in her skin. They gave her a singular character, showed a deep inner strength that simple youth could never hold a candle to. “You look well in the light, you know,” I said, reaching out to stroke her cheek.
She moved away from my touch. “You know that Maran has loved no one but you all her life,” she said, locking her gaze on me. “It’s very powerful, that kind of thing.” She lifted her chin. “Seductive.” When I didn’t rise to the bait, she sighed and just looked at me. “What are you going to tell her, Jamie?”
“What is it you fear, my heart?” I asked, quietly. “That I will race back into her arms and forget all about you?” I frowned. This wasn’t simple jealousy, which I might have expected. I should have known, nothing about Rella has ever been simple. It had the same tang to it, indeed, but it was something else.
Rella held her head high. “Lanen’s the very image of her, Jamie. The years have been kind. She’s tall and strong yet, she hardly looks her age—”
“Rella, what is this?” I interrupted.
She ignored me. “And her back is straight, and she’s a good soul, and I have never seen anything but sheer adoration in her eyes when she speaks of you.”
Rella, you wonderful idiot, I’ve got you now, I thought, for I realised now exactly what was troubling her. Goddess, I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it. “And she doesn’t have your sharp edges, and really any man with eyes could only make one choice, is that it?” I said sharply, challenging her. Rella, risen to prominence in the demanding ranks of the Silent Service, a warrior with a brilliant mind and enough character for any three people, had no confidence at all in herself as a woman.
“That’s it,” she said stiffly.
I stared at her for a moment. “The dawn light really is lovely on your skin, you know,” I said, touching her cheek gently. She sobbed and made to turn away, but I drew her to me and held her close with all my strength. “Do you think I’d let you go now I’ve found you?” I muttered into her hair. “And here I thought you were meant to be bright.”
“Bright enough to know when trouble’s coming,” she said softly.
“No, my heart. At least, there’s no trouble coming between the three of us.” I loosed her enough to look into her eyes again. “I’m yours, Rella, as long as you want me,” I said. “I won’t pretend Maran isn’t dear to me, of course she is. Lanen is my daughter in every way that matters, and Maran is her mother. I can’t escape that connection, nor would I want to.” I kissed her gently. “Maran walked out of my life more than twenty years gone without a word of farewell. It took me years to forgive her, but you may take my word upon it that I do not harbour any visions of lost love for her.” I smiled. “At least I don’t want to punch her anymore.” Rella answered my smile with a rather more mischievous one. “The honest truth is that you fill my heart, Rella. There is room there for friendship, there is room for Lanen, but as for my heart’s own—that room is taken by you alone.”
After a rather longer and more intense kiss, I sighed.
“What now, dear?” she asked, comfortable in my arms.
“It has occurred to me that I may well have to introduce Maran to her daughter.”
“Ow,” said Rella, wincing.
“Indeed. I don’t expect it to be a particularly loving meeting.”
Rella grinned wickedly. “I do admire your capacity for understatement. I expect they’ll hear them in Elimar.”
I grinned back at her. “Well, in the end it’s their headache, not ours. Still, it strikes me as strange. She must have left Beskin months ago. How could she know what was going to happen?”
Rella gazed at me. “It’s not so very odd. I know Maran well, Jamie, better in some ways than you, now.” She drew back, her arms still around my waist. “She has a damned strange way of showing it, but she has always loved her daughter fiercely.”
“Just as well. Lanen deserves it,” I said. “And ‘fierce’ is a good quality to have just now. I was so damned helpless, Rella. I thought I could fight any man or woman in the world, but Berys is pouring out his own power like water and using demons like a mad general uses conscripts—throwing them heedlessly into the front of any battle to disrupt the enemy. Us.”
“We don’t have to go after him, you know,” she said. “He’s gotten away …”
“Y
es, that’s the problem,” I growled. “He’s just killed who knows how many Magistri, and nearly the whole of the next generation of young Healers, and he’s gotten away. Again. If I can track him down, I will, but I’ll need help.”
She grinned. “You know Vilkas was out for his blood before. This night won’t have soothed his feelings at all. The good news is, we’ve got some damned fine help on our side. And by the Goddess, we’ve got the demons’ natural enemies as well—three full by-our-Lady races of them! We’ll just have to think of a way to work together.”
I held her close again, not speaking. I had forgotten how much simple human comfort there was in the touch of one you love. And Rella, who knew me far too well even then, said into my ear, “Lanen’s safe and well, Jamie, and if it means so much to you, we’ll find that bastard and make him pay. I swear it by my back.”
I straightened, moved a little away to look at her. “Your back?”
“It’s the one real, true thing I can count on in this world,” she said, one side of her mouth raised in a wry smile. “It may be crooked and it may not work overwell, but when I hear the creaks and feel the pains from it I never have any illusions about what’s true and what isn’t.”
“I’ve given up my illusions,” I said, holding her tight.
“Good, my heart,” she whispered. “Truth is always better.”
vii
The Calm and the Storm
Lanen
I woke late that morning, safe in my husband’s arms, to sunshine blazing through the windowpanes. I kept my eyes closed against the light for I knew, somehow I knew deep in my bones that I was right to treasure the night, and that the day was not my ally. I stirred, holding him closer, putting my head on his broad shoulder. His arms tightened around me and he turned to kiss my forehead, and I heard his blessed voice in my mind, pouring balm on my heart. There were no words. What words could possibly encompass all that we felt? There was simply love, sung strong as the mountains, deep as the sea, boundless as the sky, pouring between us tangible as light.