The Cedna (Tales of Blood & Light Book 2) (31 page)

T
hough
Ricknagel had assigned
Firebrand
to me—or so I’d understood from Sterling—Siomar Ricknagel took charge from the moment she stepped her pearled slipper upon the deck. She commanded a crewman to load her trunk into the largest cabin, and no one consulted me as the steam engine was fired to move us out of Shankar’s harbor. Siomar and the crew treated me as though I were but a cannon waiting to be fired.

Firebrand
swung wide around our destination, the easternmost Galatien port of Murana, taking a southern route through the Parting Sea. I sought out the man who served as ship’s navigator. His name was Vilanov, and he wore his black hair tied in a top-knot like an eastern sailor.

“Why do we not approach the city directly?” I asked as he charted our course in the ship’s office.

“You think Galatiens not watch for ships from east?” he said, lifting his gaze from the maps. “They expect enemies from east. We come from west, they think maybe we Amarian, Powdin fleet maybe. We surprise. We come from east, no surprise. They meet us full power.”

I frowned. “I can send my storm at them from so far that it won’t matter if we come from north, south, east or west.” Why had no one consulted me?

“Lady Siomar says we do this way,” he said mulishly.

Lady Siomar and her magic were problems. How would I take my ship to Queenstown if she insisted I follow Ricknagel’s exorbitant—and impossible—demands to destroy the Galatien fleets?

I did nothing to speed our passage. I needed time to consider what to do. Before Siomar had arrived, I had thought to sail directly to Orioneport. I had no desire to tax the already unstable Hinge with massive magic that served only warmongering. Faint traces of guilt touched my mind. Xander likely depended on my success in his strategies, but the fool man had not asked whether what he demanded was even possible. Or safe. He took me and my powers for granted.

After speaking with Vilanov, I went to the gunwale and opened my wrists, swaying, lightheaded. I wanted to be prepared for anything. For many years now, I had given a minimum of blood in my offerings—only enough to keep the Hinge alive. But now, I poured myself into the water to bolster my powers. I became equal parts flesh and ocean, existing somewhere between where I stood and where the water began. I flew away in surreal streams, blood to water, water to blood.

A
fter the third
day at sea, Vilanov angled the ship towards Murana’s waters.

I paced on the deck, the surrounding water pulsing in time to my rapid heartbeat.

Siomar Ricknagel had spent her days inside her cabin, but now she approached me at the gunwale where I stared into the dark water.

Her footsteps were soft, but her voice was hard. “Xander tells me you have a unique magic. A Gantean magic that controls the waters of the Parting Sea.”

A dull ache pounded behind my eyes. “I have some control over the water,” I admitted. “But I cannot do what Xander wants. It is too much—”

“He is ‘His Majesty’ to you,” Siomar interrupted. We stood eye to eye, her blue ones meeting my green. “He is now your King. You will obey his commands. You will destroy the Galatien ships in Murana’s harbor.”

“I don’t have the power to do that,” I snapped. “It would take—”

She lifted one hand in a flash of brilliant green. Fierce tendrils of magic crackled up my arms, wrapping around my neck like a spiked collar.

“What—” I gasped. Her magic lanced my throat and my breath, silencing me. I did not know how to fight it.

“He feared you would cause trouble,” she said. “That is why he sent me. Now, you will obey.” She flicked her right hand, and I saw what she held: the green Ophira. Sterling had told me she was giving it to Siomar, but I hadn’t put two and two together.

Sudden shouts rained down on us from above. A crewman called out, “Ship! To the west!” Siomar tugged on the magic leash she had wound around my neck. Like a helpless dog, I had to follow her. She met Vilanov near the stern.

“What is it they have seen?” she asked him.

Vilanov shrugged. “Ship. But what ship, I not know. That ship with us longer than I like. I see two days past, way out south. We turn, she turn. She big, good sails.”

“We must get to Murana with all haste,” Siomar said. “We’ve taken too long already.”

“Speed depend on winds, lady.” Vilanov peered through his spyglass again. “Three masts. Cut pretty. Warship. Probably cannons. We not have guns for that battle.”

Siomar turned her icy blue eyes on me. “You must act now,” she said, a steely bend in her voice.

A storm brewed inside me. The water pulled; it wanted to roil and push, to deal death from its black depths. My emotions coiled inside it: dismay and hurt and fury. I did not try to resist the compulsion Siomar put on me. No, I wanted this storm. I needed it.

I moved as though in a dream to the forecastle deck, unwrapping the linen bandages from my wrists, reopening the wounds there.

Beyond the ship, the sea throbbed. When I willed it, the waters surged, opening a narrow, safe route for
Firebrand
, but sending a tall wake behind us. Waves and storm raged towards the ship following us, sending it spinning over the water’s surface until it capsized.

The wind screamed over the turbulent sea with my voice.
Firebrand
flew towards Murana, faster than flame. Magic poured from my bloodlight in a great, black, smoldering wave, beyond my grasp.

I felt Siomar’s hold on me, but even she could do nothing against this black rush. She had no idea of the power that lived latent inside of me behind that dark door. My careful chains burst, and all my dread power exploded.

Monstrous, enormous birds molded from blackstone bloodlight beat the wind into a gale. Sharks with two-span fins cut the black sea, churning the waters into a frenzy, chasing shadows. More bloodlight erupted, pouring from me as though from a death wound. Was it coming from my body or the depths of the sea? I could not say, except that it was as painful as childbirth. In one part of my mind, I squatted again in the birthing tent in Gante, writhing to release Leila from my flesh. Tears streaked down my face.

This storm-child was not easy or beautiful as Leila had been. I birthed a monster, a great, tentacled horror. A nameless thing, a creature. Its long arms tossed waves against
Firebrand.
Distantly, the crew shouted. My beast ripped the water like a too-large babe tearing his mother as he exited.

I screamed as I had when Nautien lifted her ulio to cut the cord between Leila and me. Why did I see that cord again through the sheeting rain, whole, as it had been for that brief moment in the Gantean birthing tent, binding me to my daughter, a silky, perfect braid of black, indigo, and opal? There it was in Yaqi’s thick air, as clear as sunlight cutting clouds, pulling, pulling, pulling. As though Leila and I were still connected, despite everything. As though I could scream and summon my daughter to my side to assuage my heartache.

Chaos swirled everywhere. All my languages failed me. I became that lonely blackstone beast, ugly as tentacles, with a heart of saltwater.

Through the monster’s eyes, I saw the cause of the sailors’ latest desperate shouts. A new ship floundered in the raging sea to our starboard side, stuck in my fury. A small figure limned in opalescent bloodlight stood on the deck, my fey black power furling around her.

Like an angry child smashing a toy, the beast reached a glistening black tentacle to strike the small vessel. Shattering wood screamed through the pelting rain and crashing waves.

How good it felt to destroy! It soothed the beast. My heart retracted back into my human body. In the moment of transition from beast to woman, the grief of my losses—lost land, lost love, lost child, lost hope—swamped me. My breasts leaked wasted milk as they had after Nautien took Leila away.

When I looked down, blood, not milk, seeped from my chest. The world’s hunger could never be met, no matter how much I bled.

My vision cleared; I remained separate from the Cedna-beast for the space of a breath, long enough to look down from my perch on
Firebrand
and see clearly

The figure of blue bloodlight was a girl. In Yaqi she wore wings, opalescent blue wings, feathered like a bird’s. She held two small, vibrant balls of light. Babies, only half-formed. Like my baby, Leila, who they had taken from me. I did not know who this bird-girl was, nor why my magic had brought her here, but the sight of a mother holding her children against her breasts enraged me. I had never been allowed such contact and tenderness.

The beast took over. I snapped my beast-head towards the winged girl, looming above her ship like a giantess.
She held
babies. Like mine.
Two slim cords of silver and gold light connected them to her. The unsevered cords enraged me, made me feel all over again the pain and betrayal of what Nautien had done in the Gantean birthing tent.

I bled and bled, thick black blood, coating, raining down over us in a sheet of darkness.

I wanted my baby back. I wanted my Leila.

Why must we do the thing we hate? Why must we inflict the same pain that wounded us? There is a balance in our actions like the balance of magic and blood; it cannot be disturbed. You cannot escape tunixajiq. It is a law like gravity, keeping the world on its axis. All magic costs, and the balance will be paid.

My child had been ripped from me, so I ripped a child from someone, too. I did it because I could, because it gave me relief, because I was owed. Her mother’s pain did not matter. She would suffer what I had suffered, and a balance would be paid. Like so many countless hurt humans before me, I imagined that creating a suffering that mirrored mine could somehow ease my pain. I succumbed to that false arithmetic, hoping that two wrongs might make a right.

I snatched a child with hungry haste. One of the beast’s tentacles formed a black edge. A single cut severed the cord that connected baby to mother. If I could not have my baby, she could not have hers.

Tunixajiq. Balances kept.

The baby’s golden bloodlight was a small sun erasing the black night of my magic. I warmed myself in its rays, soothed by the brightness. A mother soothed by a baby, everything reversed, everything made right again.

That would have been a good moment to die, awash in that child’s golden light with both my purest and basest needs fulfilled. But something—or someone—knocked the babe from my arms. The baby tumbled away, taken from me like Leila—all my joy stolen again from my hands.

The beast screamed and screamed, thrashing, seeking.

The child’s golden light disappeared, lost in black waters. Lost. I was lost. There was nothing left of me but the beast; it dove down into the deeps and swam, howling, flailing, destroying everything in sight.

M
y body shocked me
. I had arms. I had legs, but I could not move them. I came awake to a strange world. My mind had forgotten how to interpret shape and contour into anything meaningful.

Heartbeats. I could not tell where my flesh ended and the air began, but the steady throb brought me back. Where my blood flowed, I existed, and my blood was once more contained. It could not escape the sure prison of my veins. I was whole. I was the Cedna.

I remembered breath. I took in air and pushed it back out by will and habit. I breathed. There was no beast.

There was no beast; there was only me.

V
ilanov
came
with hot tea and fish soup. It jarred me to see a man, a creature standing on two legs in morning sunlight. It shocked me to consider something as mundane as fish soup. Life could go on. I had only to sit up, to reach out, and to take what he offered.

Words returned. “What happened?” I managed.

“Wh—what?” Vilanov stared at me.

“The storm.” I couldn’t remember anything.

“Your storm,” Vilanov said. “You not say you do that. I prepare better next time. Hard storm.”

“My storm? Yes. Did we ever reach Murana?” Vague images filled my mind: crashing, smashing, wet howls, shattering bones. Screams. Screams enough to fill the rest of my days.

“Murana Harbor is destroyed. Lady Siomar is happy. She want see at you now.”

I felt too dull and helpless to argue. “Very well.”

Vilanov backed out of the cabin, as though fearing to turn his back to me. An eastern superstition. Never turn your back on a witch.

Siomar Ricknagel swept into the cabin in a rush of white robes, clutching the green Ophira in pale knuckles.

She surveyed me with a tight expression. “Have you recovered? Shall I send you one of the crew so you can replenish?”

I sipped my soup, recalling Siomar’s meddling fingers inside the magic of that storm. Had I the energy, I would have blasted her into the ocean right then. She’d dared to compel me, dared to try to hold
my
magic!

“We are nearly to Anastaia,” she said. “We need you ready.”

Ready.
I laughed. How could anyone prepare for brewing a nightmare? I tried to shake away memories: the smashing relief of water crushing wood, ships thrown into each other in a fury more violent than a god’s.

Traces of the water magic lingered, a dark, slick mass in my mind. The water had no need except for its own motion, no desire except to flow. It ebbed and surged inside me.

“I am recovered,” I said grimly, though I knew that no recovery existed. All magic had a cost. That fundamental rule governed the art. The cost must be paid. And though the ocean had gladly swallowed my dull, red life, the water demanded more. Slices of my mind were dropping away with my blood.

“If you say so.” Siomar frowned and brandished her damned green stone. Once again, her sayantaq magic caught me by the throat.

My legs moved with Siomar’s compulsion behind them, filling me with her own soft, orange bloodlight, giving me the energy I lacked.

Together, we proceeded to the deck and then to the starboard gunwale. She did not stop me as I opened my arm with the blade I had carried to the ship for just this purpose. Blood dripped into water. Beneath the surface, the beast woke again.

A
nastaia harbor rose
on the horizon. A rocky hillside shore jutted behind it. The shallow port had clear, turquoise water, but even this pretty water held and concealed the beast.

I left my body and lived in the water. Wooden hulls rubbed my flesh, leaving splinters. When they pushed, I pushed back, and in my pushing, I grew.

Hold yourself
.
Remember who you are.

For few moments, I could sense the boundaries of my body. I could even picture myself on
Firebrand’s
deck, a fleshly woman.

Arms, legs, eyes, I inventoried frantically. I wanted to stay in my own body. That alien, tentacled form frightened me. But Siomar pushed.
Do it,
she urged in voiceless command.
Call your storm.
To get away from her demands, I quested into the water again.

Water moves into available space. That is its nature. Only vessels with firm boundaries can hold it. Though a sea may appear to hold water as firmly as a goblet holds wine, that is not the truth of it. Water seeps into the land, moving anywhere and everywhere.

I moved underground. When I pulled, water came rushing, draining from its hiding places. When I pushed, my water held all the destruction of fire, because like fire, water wants to change more than it wants to remain.

No!
I wanted to do no more harm. The beast cried and howled as I remembered the horror of slicing that golden bloodlight, taking a tiny baby away from its mother. Had the baby died? I could not remember; I only knew I had lost it as I had lost my Leila.

I did not want to maim and kill and make suffering any more, but I had no control. Once I gave the water motion, I could not stop it. A wall of water ran towards Anastaia in one great tidal surge, eating everything in its path.

A
wareness of taste
came back first: brine-tinged water. Next came the contact of skin, flush against softness. Then came faraway sounds, the calls and conversations aboard ship, the low, grunting voices of men.

Glaring light hit my eyes. Shapes congealed—the edges of furnishings, the ship’s round windows brighter than everything else.

I was tired, bone-dry, and wasted. I missed the roses in Vorisipor, the pink flush of petals coaxed into fullness. I missed the simple stillness of a hothouse afternoon left to my own devices, uninterrupted and unknown. I missed being lost.

When Ikselian had lived, I had reserved my hatred for her. After Ikselian had gone, Malvyna Entila had taken her place. She, too, I had vanquished. I had no one left to hate but myself. Everywhere I looked, I saw failure. I had not won back Onatos. I had not saved Leila. I had become everything I hated. Whatever I touched smashed like a teacup beneath a giant’s fist.

I had nothing left. I had no tears to cry. The lone shining gem in my center, the diamond, a beacon of white in my sea of black, had been ground away to sand by the force of an ocean.

I slept and dreamed.

Dreams might not be real in Ijiq or Yaqi, nor even behind the veil of death, but perhaps there are other Layers, undefined, inaccessible. The Ganteans did not know everything. Perhaps in dreams we venture into the worlds where we made other choices. Perhaps as we sleep we drop into the lives we could have led.

Anything is possible. When your world is darkness, dreams might be your light. I know I saw her. I know she lived. I know we lived as I saw us in my dream.

The grass coming up from the earth is so bright and vivid, it must be the first growth after spring rain. It has the springy, vital look of healthy life, when sunshine, water, and good air are readily available. The new blades poke me. They smell so fresh I could eat them.

The sun casts a yellow, cheerful light over the grass. Is yellow the color of joy, as spring green is the color of life? I shield my eyes. Laughter rings out.

Four figures sit upon a large blanket spread over the new grass. Their postures are relaxed and easy; they sprawl as happily as puppies.

The Cedna of the dark world, the Cedna lying fevered and dreaming aboard
Firebrand
, knows these people.

Laughter comes from the tall one who looks like my Onatos. He reflects so much of his father, but where Onatos is all delicacy and grace, Laith expresses boldness; he is rougher, sharper. Even in this bright world, Laith has known a less comfortable life than his father. Yet his laughter comes easily.

The youth beside him gestures, pointing across the landscape at a bird wheeling in the sky. The bird dives and arrows towards the earth.

Jaasir is different in this world, too. His eyes are not ringed with lavender. He looks younger, not in years, but in cares. Instead of commanding his older brother around like a master does a slave, he laughs with him. The brothers are as brothers ought to be.

And here is a girl, a pretty thing, younger than Sterling. Her eyes match mine, and a shudder convulses my body. Her hair is thick and black, falling in a straight column down her back. Malvyna’s girl. Onatos’s living daughter.

With heavy dread my gaze rests on the final figure in the tableaux. She is the ghost. She is the love I cannot touch, the empty hole carved in the blackstone of my soul.

Her twilight blue eyes do not surprise me; I have seen them before. I am not surprised by the shapely lips, the delicate ivory skin, the petite frame, or the grace of her slim hands. She is all her father’s daughter.

I have seen this girl before. Crazy hope surges through me. I know this is a dream world, a place I can never get to but in the depths of fevered sleep. I know these carefree youths do not exist in the slice of reality in which I sleep.

But I have seen this girl in the dark world, too. She lives. My Leila is alive! Leila is the slender, black-haired girl Costas Galatien danced with at his Marriage Brokering. The one the prince loves.

Far away in my featherbed, I sweated and thrashed. “No, no.”

And I have seen her more recently than that. I summoned her from the blackness of my being, calling on a phantom bloodcord that should no longer have existed. I called her into my storm, seen her limned in blue light with bird wings springing from her shoulders. She had screamed as a monster stole her daughter.

Noises wanted to summon me from sleep.

“No,” I moaned. I could not face waking with this knowledge. “Not yet. Let me stay.” For once, my wish was granted. I sank deeper into dreams.

Another place, no sunshine here, no new grass pushing life into a sunlit world.

If green grass is the color of life, and sunlight the color of joy, what is moonlight? The deep, silver-blue sheen reminds me of Onatos, the color of his bloodlight—pure moonlight in a late-summer night. The color of a love deferred, unsatisfied, unsoothed.

Our bed is sheeted in indigo blue; it must be silk. No, it is the soft velvet of the night sky. Stars twinkle like jewels strewn in our bed. His mouth devours mine. I fall into the sky, dizzied, helpless, and happy. The sky is so large, so dense, so black, I almost believe in Onatos’s distant gods, for gods alone could have created such a vastness.

But even the creations of the gods fall away when he touches me.

“Love,” I whisper. “I’ll always love you, Onatos.”

He is inside me, his body fused to mine. All the way inside me, like the ocean. Tingles of fear sharpen my spine, but there is no escape, and I would not take it if there were.

I am awash in him. I live in him as he lives in me. I am his tongue on my throat, his lips, sucking. I am even his phallus, sliding inside a wet smooth sheath.

Bliss dissolves when we slip back into ourselves.

The fever is breaking. The feathers are poking. The sky’s velvet changes to rough wool.

“Wait!” I screamed. “Stay with me! Stay!”

But Onatos slips away, wrapping himself in the folds of blackening sky.

“Find me,” he whispers.

“Free me,” I beg.