The Oracle's Queen

  “Tamír?” He gently urged her head down on his chest and held her tight. “It’s all right. I don’t want to think about anything but you being here right now, alive and well. If you’d—died tonight, like that?” His voice went husky again. “I couldn’t have stood it!” He fell silent a moment and his arms tightened around her. “I was never scared like this for you in battle. What do you suppose that means?”

  She found his hand with her own and clasped it. “That no matter what, we’re both still warriors, before all else?” Somehow, that was comforting. At least in this, she still knew who she was.

  She could still feel the hardness against her thigh, but Ki seemed content just to lie next to her, as they used to. Without thinking, she shifted her leg a little to get a better sense of his body.

  It’s bigger than what I had, she thought, then froze as Ki let out a soft sigh and shifted a little against her.

  Arkoniel sat in the doorway of his workroom, gaze fixed on the tower door, and wondered if he dared leave long enough to fetch Tharin. He ached here and there from his tumble down the stairs and his ears were still ringing from the spell he’d cast to seal the door.

  No, he decided. He’d stay until dawn, then go down and make certain the others didn’t worry at finding Tamír’s bed empty.

  And what will I do if Ariani does come looking for her child again?

  It had been Ki who’d saved Tamír, not him. He’d only driven the ghost off after Ki had her safe.

  Blessed Lightbearer, what was your purpose, putting that into her mind? You couldn’t mean for her to die, so what was it you were trying to show her? Why open up those old wounds now?

  His bruised limbs were beginning to stiffen. He stood and paced the corridor, pausing a moment outside the bedchamber door. All was quiet inside. He reached for the latch, thinking to check on them, then drew it back. He stood there a moment longer, debating, and cast a wizard eye instead.

  Ki and Tamír were fast asleep, wrapped in each other’s arms like lovers.

  Lovers?

  Arkoniel took a closer look. They were both still dressed as they had been, but he could make out the faint smiles they both wore in sleep. Ki had a smear of dried blood on his chin that matched nicely with the cut on Tamír’s chin.

  Arkoniel dispersed the spell and turned away smiling. Not yet, but there’s been a change. Perhaps some good will come out of this night, after all.

  Chapter 39

  Ki had intended to get Tamír downstairs to her own bed before anyone noticed they were gone, but instead he fell asleep, and woke just after dawn with Tamír still in his arms. She didn’t stir when he tilted his head back to see if she was asleep.

  Her face was half-hidden behind a fall of black hair. The cut on her chin was scabbed over, the area around it bruised and a little swollen. She’d have a new scar there, to show for last night’s adventure.

  Even in daylight, Ki felt a chill as he thought of the spirit haunting the tower room. He’d never met Ariani in life. Last night he’d seen no sign of the woman Arkoniel described, only a vengeful specter. He unconsciously tightened his arm around Tamír’s shoulders.

  “Ki?” She gazed sleepily at him for a moment, then gasped and sat up, taking in the fact that they were still in bed together. The lacings of her bodice were still undone, showing the swell of a breast.

  Ki looked hastily away. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to stay all night.”

  He started to untangle himself from the bedclothes, but the way she colored and looked away made him stop. He stroked the hair back from her cheek, then leaned in and kissed her on the mouth again, the way he had last night. He did it as much to reassure himself as her, and was glad it still felt right in daylight. Her hand came up to cradle his cheek and he felt her relax against him. Blue eyes met brown and widened in unspoken acknowledgment.

  “I’m sorry about Afra,” he said.

  She closed a hand over his on the comforter. “I’m sorry about last night. I just hoped—Well, I suppose I’ll have to try again. But I’m not sorry about—” She waved a hand at the rumpled bed.

  “Neither am I. First decent night’s sleep I’ve had in months.”

  She grinned, then threw back the covers and got up. Ki had another glimpse of those long bare legs before her skirt fell into place. She was still very slender and coltish, but those were girl’s legs now, the muscle subtly rounder on the long bones, though just as taut. How could he not have seen it before?

  She turned and caught him staring. “You look like you swallowed a fish bone.”

  Ki climbed out of bed and went to her, looking her over again, as if he’d never seen her properly before. She was just a handspan shorter than he was.

  She raised an eyebrow. “Well?”

  “Nari’s right. You have gotten prettier.”

  “So have you.” She licked her thumb and rubbed at the dried blood on his chin. Then she ran a finger over his sparse moustache. “This makes my lip itch when you kiss me.”

  “You’re the queen. You can ban beards if you want.”

  She considered this, then kissed him again. “No, I think I might get used to it. We don’t want anyone saying that all my court turned into girls along with me.”

  Ki nodded, then voiced the question hanging between them. “What now?”

  She shrugged. “I can’t take a consort until I’m sixteen, but that’s scarcely two months away.” She stopped, blushing hotly as she realized what she’d said. “Oh, Ki! I don’t mean to—That is—”

  He shrugged and scratched nervously at the back of his neck. Marriage was too big a thing to contemplate right now.

  Her eyes still held a question. He took her face between his hands and kissed her again. It was chaste, as kisses went in his experience, but his body warmed to it and he could tell by the way her eyes fluttered closed that she felt it, too.

  Before he could think of anything to say, Arkoniel knocked and came in. They jumped back from each other with a guilty start.

  Arkoniel grinned. “Ah, good, you’re awake. Nari was a bit frantic, finding your bed empty—”

  Nari pushed past him and gave the two of them a narrow look. “What have you two been up to?”

  “Nothing you need upset yourself over,” Arkoniel assured her.

  But Nari was still frowning. “It won’t do, her getting a big belly so young. She hasn’t the hips for it yet. You ought to know better, Ki, even if she doesn’t!”

  “I suppose you have a point,” said Arkoniel, looking like he was trying not to laugh.

  “I didn’t do anything like that!” Ki objected.

  “We didn’t!” Tamír exclaimed, blushing scarlet.

  Nari shook a finger at Tamír. “Well, see you don’t, not before you know how to keep from catching. I don’t suppose anyone’s even shown you how to make a pessary yet?”

  “There’s been no need,” said the wizard.

  “Fools, the lot of you! Any girl who has her moon times ought to know that. Out, you men, and leave me to have a proper chat with my girl.”

  She all but pushed Ki and Arkoniel from the room and shut the door after them.

  “I know what a pessary is!” Ki grumbled. His sisters and the servant women had sat around the fire, making the little hanks of wool and ribbon and soaking them in sweet oil. With the whole household sleeping all but on top of one another, there’d been no mystery as to their use either. If a girl didn’t want a baby, she put one up her cunny before she bedded her man. The thought of Tamír in that light still left him feeling very odd. “I only kissed her. I wouldn’t touch her like that!”

  Arkoniel chuckled and said nothing.

  Scowling, Ki folded his arms and settled himself to wait for Tamír.

  She emerged at last, looking a bit pale. Nari leveled an accusing finger at Ki. “You just keep your trousers laced!”

  “I will, damn it!” he called after her as she stomped off downstairs. “Tamír, are you all right?”

  She
still looked a little stunned. “Yes. But I think I’d rather go into battle naked than have a baby, if all Nari says is true.” She shivered, then straightened up and glanced over at the tower door. “Is it locked?”

  Arkoniel nodded. “I’ll open it, if you like.”

  “I have to try one more time. You two can come up with me.”

  “Just try and stop us,” Ki told her, not meaning it as a joke.

  Arkoniel touched the door and it swung open. “Let me go first and remove the ward from the upper door.”

  Ki followed close behind Tamír as she climbed the stairs, and was surprised at how ordinary it all looked in daylight. Dust motes glinted in the shafts of early-morning light, and he could smell the sweetness of balsam on the breeze that stirred through the arrow slits.

  More brightness greeted them as Arkoniel opened the door to Ariani’s room, but Ki stayed close beside Tamír and scanned every corner suspiciously. The shutters on the west window were still open and Ki could hear the sound of the river below, and the calls of birds in the forest.

  Tamír stood in the middle of the room and turned slowly around. “She’s not here,” she said at last, looking more forlorn than relieved.

  “No,” Arkoniel agreed. “I’ve felt her presence often at night, but never in daylight.”

  “I see Brother all the time, day or night.”

  “He’s a different sort of spirit.”

  Tamír went to the window. Ki followed, unwilling to trust in Arkoniel’s appraisal of ghosts. For all he knew, that bloodied nightmare could come rushing out of nowhere at any moment. Ghosts were always unlucky things, or so he’d been taught, and those who haunted Tamír gave truth to the saying.

  “What do I do?” Tamír wondered aloud.

  “Perhaps nothing,” Arkoniel replied.

  “Why did the Oracle send me back, then?”

  “Some things can’t be mended, Tamír.”

  “What about Lhel?” asked Ki. “We haven’t even looked for her yet. She could always put Brother in his place. Come on, Tamír, let’s ride up the road, like we used to.”

  Tamír brightened at once and made for the door. “Of course! I bet she’s waiting for us, like always.”

  “Wait.” Arkoniel called after them.

  Ki turned to find Arkoniel regarding them sorrowfully.

  “She’s not here anymore.”

  “How do you know that?” asked Tamír. “You know how she is. If she doesn’t want to be found, then you can’t, and if she does, she’s right there waiting for you, every time.”

  “I thought the same, until—” Arkoniel paused, and Ki read the truth in his face before he even said it. “She’s dead, Tamír. The Oracle told me.”

  “Dead?” Tamír sank slowly to her knees among scattered bits of yellowed wool. “But how?”

  “If I were to guess, I’d say Brother was responsible. I’m sorry. I should have told you, but you already had so much to contend with.”

  “Dead.” Tamír shivered and buried her face in her hands. “Another one. More blood!”

  Ki knelt and put an arm around her, blinking back tears of his own. “I thought—I thought she’d always be there waiting for us in that hollow tree of hers.”

  “So did I,” Arkoniel agreed sadly.

  Tamír raised a hand to the hidden scar on her chest. “I want to look for her. I want to bury her. It’s only right.”

  “Have a bite to eat and change your clothes,” Arkoniel advised.

  Tamír nodded and turned to go.

  “Hold on,” said Ki. He ran his fingers through her disheveled hair. “That’s better, eh?” he said, straightening his own rumpled tunic. “No sense giving them too much to gossip about.”

  That was easier said than done. As Tamír went to her chamber to change, she noticed Lynx and Nikides watching her from their open doorway. Tamír didn’t think she or Ki gave anything away, but they took one look and turned away with knowing smiles.

  “Damn it!” she muttered, mortified.

  “I’ll talk to them.” Ki gave her a rueful look and went off to deal with their friends.

  Tamír shook her head as she closed her own door, wondering what he’d say. She wasn’t entirely sure herself what had happened between them, but she somehow felt lighter, and more hopeful, even with her sorrow over Lhel.

  Whatever Ki told them, no one asked any questions.

  As soon as they could slip away she, Ki, and Arkoniel set off up the old mountain road.

  It would have been a pleasant ride if not for the sad knowledge they carried. The sun was bright and the forest showed early splashes of yellow and crimson.

  Ki spotted the faint hint of a trail half a mile on from the keep. Leaving their horses tethered, they followed it on foot.

  “It could just be a game trail,” he noted.

  “No, there’s her mark,” Arkoniel said, pointing out a faded, rust-colored mark on the white trunk of a birch. Looking closer, Ki saw that it was a handprint, much smaller than his own.

  “That’s from her hiding spell,” Arkoniel explained, touching it sadly. “The power of it died with her.”

  The faded traces of more handprints guided them along a faint path winding through the trees and up a slope to the clearing.

  At first glance nothing had changed. The deerskin flap still covered the low doorway at the base of the huge hollow oak. Beyond it, the spring roiled silently in its round pool.

  As he approached the tree, however, Ki saw that the ashes in the fire pit were old, and her wooden drying racks were empty and in need of repair. Tamír pushed the deerskin aside and disappeared inside. Ki and Arkoniel followed.

  Animals had been in here. Lhel’s baskets were scattered and gnawed, the dried fruit and meat long gone. Her few implements still lay on low shelves, and her pallet of furs was undisturbed.

  What remained of Lhel was there, as if she’d lain down to sleep and never wakened again. Animals and insects had done their work. The shapeless dress with its deer tooth beading was torn and pulled awry, exposing the bare bones beneath. Only her hair remained, a dark tumble of black curls framing the eyeless skull.

  Arkoniel sank down with a groan and wept quietly. Tamír remained silent, shedding no tears. The empty look in her eyes as she silently turned and went outside troubled Ki.

  He found her standing by the spring.

  “She showed me my true face here,” she whispered, staring down at her shifting reflection in the water. Ki was tempted to put an arm around her, but she stepped away, still lost and empty. “The ground is hard and we have nothing to dig with. We should have brought a spade.”

  There was nothing among Lhel’s meager possessions that would serve, either. Arkoniel found her silver knife and needle and tucked them into his belt. The rest they left, and piled stones in front of the doorway, making her home her tomb. Arkoniel cast a spell on the stones so that they would not fall away.

  Through it all Tamír did not weep. When they were finished with the stones she pressed a hand to the oak’s gnarled trunk, as if communing with the spirit of the woman immured inside.

  “There’s nothing more to be done here,” she said at last. “We’d better get on to Atyion.”

  Ki and the wizard exchanged a sad look and followed, letting her alone with her silent grief.

  She’s seen too much of death already, Ki thought. And we still have a war ahead of us.

  Chapter 40

  The pain of Lhel’s death, compounded with the knowledge of the role she’d played in Brother’s death, was too black and deep to give voice to. Tamír left those feelings behind with the witch’s bones, taking away only a numb sense of shock and loss.

  There was no reason to stay, and the keep was once again a place with too many bad memories. They left that same day.

  Nari and Cook kissed her and Ki both over and over again, then wept in their aprons when they finally departed. As she rode along the river, Tamír turned and looked up at the tower window one last t
ime. The broken shutter on the east window was still hanging by one twisted hinge. She saw no face in the opening, but she swore she felt eyes on her back until they rode into the cover of the trees.

  I’m sorry, Mother. Perhaps another time.

  Ki leaned over and touched her arm. “Let it go. You did what you could. Arkoniel’s right. Some things can’t be mended.”

  Perhaps he was right, but she still felt she’d failed.

  They rode hard that day and slept wrapped in their cloaks that night. Lying there among the others, Tamír touched the bruise on her chin, letting her thoughts stray back to Ki and the way it had felt to kiss him and fall asleep in his arms.

  He lay within arm’s reach, but she couldn’t touch him. As she was about to turn over he opened his eyes and smiled.

  It was almost as good as a kiss.

  She wondered what they’d do when they were in the castle again, under so many watchful eyes.

  When they were in half a day’s ride of the town, Tamír sent Lynx and Tyrien ahead with news of her safe return. By the time they came in sight of Atyion early that evening, the city was brightly lit with torches and lanterns, and a great crowd had assembled along the main street, eager to hear the Oracle’s words to their queen. Illardi met her on horseback at the town gate, dressed in the robe and chain of his office. Kaliya, head priestess of the Illioran temple of Atyion, and Imonus were with him.

  “Majesty, did the Oracle speak to you?” Imonus inquired.

  “Yes, she did,” she replied, loud enough to be heard by those gathered around the small square there.

  “If it please Your Majesty, will you share it with us, in the temple square?” asked Kaliya.

  Tamír nodded and led her entourage toward the square of the Four. Illardi leaned closer in the saddle. “I have news for you, Majesty. That young fellow of Arkoniel’s—Eyoli—he sent word a few days ago by pigeon from Cirna. Korin is preparing to move against you. It seems he finally got his new wife with child.”

  “Is he on the march?” asked Tharin.

  “Not by today’s report, but from what your wizards were able to show us of the encampments, they are nearly ready.”