Heaven's Needle (6 page)

Fourteen.

As many as it took to reach oblivion.

“Asharre. Asharre!”

She ignored the call. The voice was a gnat trying to disrupt her concentration. There was nothing worth coming
down from the bar. There hadn't been since Oralia died. Everyone at the Dome of the Sun knew that, and left her to her misery.

Fifteen.

“Asharre!”

Everyone except this gnat, evidently.

Asharre shook the sweat off her face and tilted her chin so that she could see the speaker. He was a young man, conventionally handsome, with strong shoulders and a square jaw beneath a fall of red-gold hair. Not Blessed; he wasn't wearing a Sun Knight's white tabard or an Illuminer's yellow robes. No doubt he cut quite a swath among the ladies of Cailan, then. What was his name? Heras—no, Heradion, that was it.

“What?” she snapped, keeping her arms flexed and herself suspended in the air. She could still work toward exhaustion, even if she had to waste time talking on the way.

“The High Solaros wants to see you.” The youth was out of breath; he must have run to get her. Of course he had. Thierras d'Amalthier, Anointed of Celestia, stood highest among the goddess' servants in Ithelas. His voice spoke for the entire faith. Kings quailed before his displeasure; the Emperor of Ardashir sent gifts of spices and carved ivory to curry his favor. No one kept the High Solaros waiting.

Asharre didn't straighten her arms. “Why?”

“I don't know.” The boy was not good at hiding his anxiety. “But you must come at once.”

She grunted and went back to ignoring him. Only after completing her count of twenty did Asharre lower herself to the ground. She stripped the weights off her ankles and stretched through a modified version of the dawn prayer to keep her limbs from tightening, then mopped her brow with a towel from a nearby bench. “Well, let's go.”

Heradion stared at her sleeveless, sweat-soaked tunic and loose cotton breeches. After an impressively short pause he mustered the courage to ask: “Do you need a moment to ready yourself?”

“No. He wanted me to come at once.” And Thierras d'Amalthier did not deserve that much respect from her. He was one of the reasons her sister was dead.

It was a credit to his good sense that Heradion did not protest again. He closed his mouth and took the lead, setting a swift pace through the chalk-dusted gymnasium and the baths beyond. Bathers crowded the communal pools of hot and cold water, soaking in the lassitude that came after hard exercise. Their conversations dwindled to uncomfortable silences as the pair passed. Asharre could feel their stares, curious and pitying, on her back. As tall as Heradion was, she stood a head taller, and her arms were thicker muscled to boot. There were no women like her in the summerlands. Southerners never knew what to make of
sigrir
.

She walked faster. Past the honey-veined marble arches that led to the baths, through the summer gardens that Oralia had loved and Asharre now avoided. The gardens lay dormant after a long winter; the rosebushes were gnarled brown sticks, the fountains dry. A thread of perfume from some early-blooming flower caught her, and she quickened her step to escape it.

The Dome of the Sun rose up before them. Its namesake dome glowed with the warm light of late afternoon; its ornate rose windows sparkled like gems. To the north, the spire of Heaven's Needle gleamed pink and gold against the clouds. The smaller buildings that serviced the temple's daily needs ringed the base of the hill where the Dome stood, so that none of them would touch it with shadow.
For Heaven's Needle, that was not a concern; the glass tower cast only a ribbon of softer light, clear as water, and never dimmed the earth at all.

Heradion led her through the budding trees and broad avenues to the Sanctuary of the High Solaros. The guards at the door were not ones she knew, but she saw recognition flash across their faces as she approached. They were too professional to let the pity show, though. Asharre was grateful for that.

Inside there were more guards, and long, hushed halls lined with rich Ardasi carpets over saffron marble polished until it shone. Maps and books in gilt-edged cases covered the walls. Scrolls from a hundred dead kingdoms, sheathed in ivory and bronze, rested in niches between them. Celestia represented the metaphorical light of knowledge as well as its more literal forms, and her temples drew scholars from sun-scorched Nebaioth to the White Seas. The High Solaros' private library was the envy of emperors.

In spite of herself Asharre was awed by the Sanctuary's grandeur, though she had seen it before and felt no particular reverence for the man at its center. Celestia had been Oralia's goddess, not hers, and while Asharre was not so foolish as to deny the Bright Lady's power in Ithelas, neither was she inclined to bow her own head in prayer. The goddess had failed them in their time of need. Asharre owed her nothing.

But she was conscious of the cooling sweat that matted her hair and made her clothes cling, and she half-wished she'd taken Heradion's hint.

Too late for that. Heradion bowed formally to the last set of guards and recited the first half of the holy verse that served as the day's passphrase. Even when guards could see their visitors' faces, they required passphrases for entry: it
was a safeguard against assassins who could wear the faces of the dead, or Thorns who seized people's bodies and used them like puppets.

The guards returned his bow and the verse's second part. Something about seasons of the soul; Asharre listened with half an ear. The doors to the High Solaros' private quarters swung open between them. She stepped through.

“The High Solaros will meet you in his study. Do you know where it is?” Heradion asked.

“I've been a few times.” More than a few. It seemed that they'd been summoned whenever Thierras needed a healer to ride circuit on dangerous roads. At the time Asharre had been pleased that her sister's talents were so well recognized by her temple, and proud to protect her in the course of her duties. Now those honors were bitter as ashes, and the thought of them brought only emptiness wrapped around a kernel of rage.

“Then I'll wait here for you,” the boy said, taking a blue-bound book from its shelf and settling onto a chair. “Good luck.”

That earned a snort. She wasn't the one who would need it.

Thierras was, as advised, in his study. It was a bright and airy space, with quatrefoil windows overlooking the south gardens. Red and gold glass in the mullions threw sparks of color across the parquetry floor. The High Solaros was reading at his desk when Asharre came in without knocking, but he rose and inclined his head courteously. “Asharre.
Sigrir.
Light's blessing upon you.”

She didn't return the greeting or the courtesy. They were alone, so there was no one to be shocked by her rudeness, but she wouldn't have bothered feigning politeness if they'd been in front of the Midsummer dawn service at the Dome
of the Sun. No doubt Thierras knew that, and had chosen to see her privately because of it. “Some boy said you wanted to see me.”

“I did. I have a task I hoped you might consider.”

“You don't give me tasks. You gave Oralia tasks. I went with her.”

“I am aware. I would not presume to order you. This is only … a request. A favor, if you will.” Thierras sat again, steepling his hands on the desk. The years had put a slight stoop in his shoulders, and his sandy hair was thinner and grayer than it had been when Asharre came to Cailan, but these things only added to his self-possessed dignity. His voice alone—patient, infinitely reasonable—could have calmed a battlefield.

It had no effect on her. “Why should I do you a favor? You've done me none.”

Thierras sighed. “Asharre. I share your grief. I will not trivialize it by asking you to simply move past it. Oralia was a bright soul, and her memory is not easily laid aside. But the needs of the living do not stop for our sorrows, and your talents are too valuable to let rust. You know this as well as I do.”

Asharre didn't answer. She'd kept in training, but only because it had been hammered into her so deeply that stopping would have been harder than maintaining the routine. It helped, a little, to work herself into exhaustion; then she didn't have to think, didn't have to remember. It held the memory of loss at bay. But she trained because it was a habit, not because she had any use for those skills. She stayed at the Dome, likewise, because it was habit, and because nothing had come to dislodge her from the simple inertia of grief.

There was no place for her in the world. Not really. Not that she cared to find. The Celestians made space for her,
letting her walk among the ghosts she hated but couldn't let go. Leaving them—and she wasn't sure which “them” she meant—would mean accepting herself as a solitary entity, and trying to make her way in the world that way, when all her life she'd been defined by her duties to another.

She wasn't sure she wanted that. She wasn't sure she wanted a new charge either. Why, when she'd failed her last so badly?

The High Solaros was undeterred by her silence. “You are
sigrir,
” he reminded her, as if she could have forgotten. His gaze lighted briefly on the blackened sigils that scarred her face from brow to chin in two vertical lines. “I know what that cost you.”

“You know nothing of
sigrir
.”

“I don't know
much,
it's true. But you might credit me with a little more than ‘nothing.' I've read Gaodhar. Attentively.”

“He was a summerlander.”

“He was a scholar, and he married into the Skarlar. Your clan.”

Asharre scowled, crossing her arms. “Giant's Spear Skarlar, not Frosthold, and that before my grandfather's day.”

“Have the
sigrir
changed so much?”

When she did not answer, Thierras sighed again and pressed on. “The point, if you will allow me one, is that I know it takes enormous dedication to become
sigrir,
and still more to bring a child safely from the White Seas to Cailan, particularly when you were a child yourself. It is a sin to waste such skill. You've had the winter to grieve. You may have the rest of your life to grieve, if you like, but I will not let you sit here idly while you do it.”

“My ward is dead.” Her
sister
. The last of her family in this world.

“There are others who need protection.”

She did not unfold her arms. But she asked: “Who?”

“I received a letter last week. The solaros in Carden Vale wishes to retire. He is an old man, and in poor health; it is past time I let him lay down his burdens. The town will need a new solaros. I've decided to assign two young Blessed to the post. Falcien and Evenna are ready for their
annovair.
”

Asharre nodded. Oralia had been given a similar assignment after completing her training in Cailan. The Celestians believed that it was important for one blessed with the goddess' power to serve a year or two as an ordinary solaros, learning the rhythms of village life and developing an understanding of the people they were meant to serve. The Knights of the Sun did not always serve the
annovair
—their gifts were often needed too urgently else-where—but all the Illuminers did, teaching and tending the commonfolk and learning from them in turn. The
annovair
strengthened the bond between the faith and the people. For most, it was a happy memory. Oralia had delighted in hers.

Was that why he wanted her to take this assignment? For the memory of her sister's happiness? Asharre narrowed her eyes, wondering, but Thierras' face revealed nothing.

“The mountain roads are wild and infested with bandits,” he continued. “I don't anticipate serious trouble, but I would like my Blessed to reach Carden Vale safely. Heradion will escort them, but he is young himself. I'd feel more confident if you went as well. Would you be willing to accompany them?”

Asharre did not answer quickly. She had grown tired of her ghosts, yes, but traveling with newly sworn Illuminers might reawaken them as easily as it put them to rest.

What was the harm, though? It would not be an especially long journey, or a hard one. She could always leave if she wanted; she was not beholden to Thierras or his goddess. And there was nothing to hold her here. “I'll go.”

“Thank you,” said the High Solaros.

Heradion was waiting by the great doors when she left the study. He followed her out wordlessly, warned into silence by the look on her face. Outside the Dome Asharre hesitated, unsure whether she wanted to go back to the gymnasium or into Cailan. The city was not hers, would never be
home,
but it was familiar and, at the moment, she wanted to be away from Celestians.

“I knew her,” Heradion said, unexpectedly, as Asharre stood undecided on the street. The dying sunlight caught his hair, brightening it almost to the fiery copper of Oralia's. “Your sister. Not very well, but we met a few times. She was years ahead of me, but the Burnt Knight was my
hadriel
and they were friends. It was a blessing to have known her.”

That was more than she wanted to hear. “I need a drink,” Asharre muttered.

“I know just the place.”

T
HE
W
HITE
H
OUND, SHE HAD TO
admit, was a good choice. Located near the city's north-facing Sun Gate, it was far enough from the main road to avoid travelers' dust and clamor, but close enough to draw their custom. The inn was two stories of whitewashed stone topped by glazed blue tile. Its window boxes were bare but for frosted dirt, but later in the year they would hold fragrant basil and mint.

Asharre had stopped in a few times, but, as Blessed were
forbidden wine or beer and she disliked being parted from her sister, it had been a year or more since she'd darkened its doorstep. “How did you know this place?” she asked as they approached.