Michelle West - Sun Sword 04 - Sea of Sorrows (82 page)

"Fourteen summers."

"Old."

"Healer, I am the Matriarch of Arkosa—"

"And I am the master of the House of Healing. If you are about to offer me money, magic, or personal fealty for my services, let me make this, clear: There is nothing I want from you."

"Can you bring him back?"

"I? No."

The word was cold, gruff, final. But he relented before Jewel had a chance to harry him. "You cannot see him." His voice was soft, so soft, as he cupped Adam's chin. "You cannot see what is he doing. It appears, Evayne, that I owe you an apology."

The seer said nothing.

"I will have to take him with me," the healer continued, as if he hadn't expected a reply. Knowing Levec, he probably didn't give a damn one way or the other.

"You are his family?"

Margret nodded.

"When he wakes, if he is not in a… quiet place… he will go mad."

"W-what do you mean?"

"He has come late, and sudden, into his power, but his power—his power—"

"Levec." Jewel was surprised to hear her own voice. It was hard as the sand on which she rested. "Tell her."

Although he did not look up from the boy's face, his own had gentled; the lines of it were softer than Jewel had ever seen them. His students decried his harsh use of words, but they were fond of him in their fashion, and for the first time she could see—or could almost see—why.

"He is healer-born."

The Arkosans were silent. They had gathered, closer and closer to their Matriarch, and now they bore witness.

"He—"

"Most come into their power slowly. They become aware of the pain and the injuries, the illnesses and the infections, of others. They are called by it, they are consumed by it. If they cannot be trained, they are often devoured by it. You had no sign?"

She shook her head.

"He will find his way back; he is finding it back now. But—he Will be without even the rudimentary defenses that others, untrained, have."

"He's not—he's not—"

"Dead? No." He looked at Jewel. "ATerafin, you have held him; give him into my keeping and I will—you have my word—defend him as if he were my own."

She smiled. She had not thought to smile this evening, but it felt good, this turn of lips, this quirk of face. "I would, if I could move. You're right, it's damn cold here."

"May I?"

"Matriarch?"

"Yes. I gave you my word. Yes. But—"

"But?" Levec's voice resumed its deep rumble.

"Where will you take him?"

"To the Houses of Healing."

The distance between the healer and the Matriarch lessened, step by step, until she stood before him. She reached for her brother, and he flinched, drawing the arms that held the boy up to his chest.

But it was a defensive reaction, a bear's reaction; Margret did not seem to be displeased with it; she did not, Jewel thought, deign to acknowledge him at all. She reached out, placed a hand against her brother's chest, and stood in the cold silence, her brows changing the shape of her eyes, her face.

"Will he wake?"

"Yes. Did I not already say so?"

"Will you remain until he wakes?"

A look of unease stole across Levec's face. "It will be hours, Matriarch, before he is conscious. When he is, he will be disoriented."

"Disoriented?"

Levec frowned; the expression deepened.

You're not telling all of the truth
, Jewel thought.
And that's not a smart thing to do when you're holding her brother
.

"He will be easily confused and easily frightened."

"And you want to take him away from the only people he trusts?" Elena now, voice sharp as a lash, although Jewel noted that she stood behind Margret's squared shoulders.

Margret did not remove the hand from her brother's chest. He was still and pale.

"Matriarch," Kallandras of Senniel said, avoiding Levec's glare and Levec's burden as he approached Margret, "It will go ill if he wakes to the company of those he loves."

Margret lowered her face a moment, as if she had expected that answer. "Why?" She did not look up. Jewel could barely hear the word.

"He will have walked a long way in the darkness. He will desire light, life, anything at all that he can cling to. He will be—broken, in some way; unlike himself."

"This is true?"

Levec turned a cold, cold stare upon Kallandras. Margret outwaited him. He nodded.

"But then—"

"The healer-born give something of themselves when they heal, and they take something of their patients. Knowledge. They cannot avoid it. The greater the injury, the more they can take."

She tossed her head impatiently. "You tell me what every child knows. I am not a child. And I am not injured."

"No. But his gift is a gift of touch, of contact. And in order to walk back from the death that he was sent to meet, he will have invoked his power, his full power, for the first time." He looked down at the young boy's face. "He is walking as we speak, Matriarch, and the walk is terrible. Everything about him desires to remain where he is, for he has come to the fastness of the Lord of Judgment, where the winds do not howl, and the mother that he lost is almost—
was
almost—within his grasp."

"That is Northern belief. He is of the South."

Kallandras offered her an elegant lift of shoulder. He did not enter that argument.

"Enough, bard." Levec's voice was ice now. Jewel saw a real threat in the bear's expression, for it had become still; he had taken control of all temper and had begun to hoard it.

Kallandras switched to Weston. "They will owe you a debt of blood, Healer Levec, if you do as you have promised. They will not betray you, or your kind; they will not give up information that could be used to hurt their own. But she will not allow you to leave with her brother if you do not explain yourself.

"And your time—and his—grows short."

"Do not seek to use that famous voice on me," Levec snapped, but the lines of his face fell into the curves and wrinkles of open annoyance again, and he did not seek to interfere further.

Kallandras turned back to Margret. "Adam has not been allowed to stay with his mother. Instead, some terrible force that he does not understand has pulled him back, and struggle as he might, he cannot break free from it. Nothing he can ever do in his life will allow him that grace; he will live."

"You're saying that nothing can kill the healer-born?"

"Nothing natural, short of losing head or heart. And of the heart… death is not a given if the healer is powerful enough and well-trained."

Margret's eyes widened; she looked at her brother. She knew better than to smile, Jewel thought. Or perhaps it was just the Voyani habit of doubting all good news. Good was a precursor to loss and tragedy, a way of weakening the defenses.

"If Adam touches you in this state, he will pull from you what he might pull were you injured. He will try to fill the emptiness he feels with whatever it is you can offer.

"But he
knows
you. He trusts you. Are you prepared to pay for that trust by offering him all of the things that by the nature of your responsibilities as the Matriarch of all Arkosa, you
must
keep hidden? You know the price of that. You know what you would be honor bound to do."

"He—"

"And if not you, who? Elena? Stavos? Tamara? Who of you will fill a young boy's mind and heart with all of the shadows that you have felt no need to expose to him before? Yes, he knows you. Yes, you are the only people in the world that he trusts and honors. And yes, in time—in the fullness of his own time—he will come to understand your weaknesses just as well as he understands your strength. But I will tell you now, if you cannot see it for yourself, that should he be thrust from death to that weakness, that darkness, instead of to the comfort he will require to maintain his sanity, he will be scarred forever, and he will cease to trust."

"And this stranger?"

"This stranger has a heart that is capable of traversing the length of the
Voyanne
without bleeding. He will give your brother what you cannot in safety give, for your brother will take everything without expectation. If he sees shadow, he will not feel betrayed because he thought to see light.

"Levec has had experience in this. He may be able to protect himself; to give what he chooses to give and to withhold what must be withheld."

She lifted her head. Turned to Levec. "You may take him. But…"

"But?"

"I want him back. We want him back. This is his home."

"If, after his convalescence and his training, that is what he desires, I will arrange his return—but as I am not accustomed to this unsatisfactory form of travel, it would be best if I—"

"When the time is right," Kallandras said, "I will bring him back to the
Voyanne
."

"Thank you." But still she lingered.

"Lady," Levec said, sliding into Weston. They all looked at him, Margret with confusion, and he had the grace to flush. "We must leave."

But she clung, silent, hesitant.

It was the Serra Diora who understood. She had knelt, and she had cried. She rose now, as if those two acts had emptied her of the ability to feel at all. She came to stand at Margret's side, displacing Elena, who had the wisdom not to interrupt her cousin.

"May I?"

Margret turned, the softness of the honest request moving her where the gruff certainty of the healer could not. A frown touched her lips and the lines of her forehead, but did not settle.

Diora did not alter her position. She made no attempt to touch Adam, or to otherwise come between brother and sister; by whim of fate she already bore the responsibility for coming between the mother and daughter, and if she knew herself blameless in that regard, she also understood that pain assigned blame in accordance with the rules of the hidden heart.

She did not lift her face. Instead, she lowered it to stop her chin from visibly trembling. The cold that had descended into her marrow had a stronger voice than she would have thought possible.

Adam.

Adam, I have made peace with your sister, and she with me. Thank you for your gift. Let me take the lute; let me return it to its owner. You have kept your promise.
She faltered, continued after a moment.
Even if your promise was never given in words, even if no medallion was cut, and you lifted no sword to make it.

Come home. You have lost your mother; do not inflict your loss upon your sister; do not leave her alone. You will have the peace denied you in your time. You are needed here.

Come home, Adam. Come quickly.

She rose when she had finished, uncertain how far her voice reached.

She joined Margret, looking to the Matriarch for permission. It was given wordlessly.

Raising her hands, she caught the neck of the lute in one and gently pried his fingers from it. Then she lifted those fingers; the hand came with it; she pressed the palm briefly to cold lips and set it down again, taking care to arrange it against his breast.

Beneath Margret's hand, beneath her stiff and frozen fingers, she felt it: the fluttering start and stop of a beating heart, muffled as it was by wet, cold clothing.

She stopped breathing, as if she could lend what she did not take to her brother in his struggle, and waited. Waited until that beat was strong enough that it could not be an act of her imagination and her desperate desire.

And then she counted three simple beats, lifted her hand, and let him go.

But before Evayne left, before she could take a step forward, a hand clutched her robes. The robes drew back, but the grip of almost flawless fingers was sure.

The hood swiveled toward that hand, and from hand it followed the length of arm until eyes met in the darkness.

"Serra Diora." The seer inclined her head. "You are… forward."

Diora did not waver; did not falter. Her expression was now as serene an expression as had ever graced the face of the Tyr'agar's wife. She was beautiful, stark as moonlight. Cold as moonlight in this desert. "Forgive me." She spoke in a voice that asked nothing, accepted nothing, that was not her due.

And the seer listened.

"You will leave. I cannot prevent it. And it may be that in the end, I will thank you for your intervention in my life, and in the lives of my companions. But at this moment, beneath this moon, I say to you, stranger, that you owe me a boon, and I will claim it now."

The figure in the robe seemed to flinch. "What boon?" Her voice was distant and cool, but beneath the forced radiance of the Flower of the Dominion, that distance seemed brittle, forced.

"You can see some of what will happen, some of what has happened, if you choose to look."

This woman nodded.

"I wish to know where my seraf is."

Behind her straight back, the perfect line of her shoulders, she heard the sudden murmur of Arkosan voices. Heard Yollana's crisp growl, Ona Teresa's patient reply.

Yes
, she thought,
I reveal weakness beneath the open sky, but it
is
the Lady's time, and the risk is mine to take
.

She could clearly see Ramdan standing in the open rain, face turned toward the sky, waiting for her command. Folly, to think of him in this fashion, but she could not help it; Ona Teresa had given the seraf into her care, and she had left him behind because she knew that the Matriarch disliked his servitude.

She had left him behind.

For a moment, it seemed that the seer would refuse the request; the silence was long. But her hand moved; it was swallowed by robes, and when it emerged again, it contained a crystal shard. "
Do not
look, Serra. You have not walked the Oracle's path, and even you might be driven mad by what you see within the depths of this ball."

In the light of the orb, the seer's face was at last revealed. She was a woman, in her thirties, her face pale, the lines of it drawn as if she were in great pain. Her eyes were as dark as moonless night, from pupil to iris; the whites were devoured by shadow.