The Cedna (Tales of Blood & Light Book 2) (6 page)

Ikselian looked colder than a glacier. She was furious with me for coming back to the Ikniqs; I could read it on her face. Yet what could she do? Because the Fire People rightfully hosted the Cedna, when the Kaluqs had taken my mother to live among them, they had created a rift between the two clans. With only four men at her back, Ikselian would not dare to probe that old wound.

Esteriaq spoke. “The raids have been so bad on our western coast that the Shringars plan to move into Tuq lands for their own protection. We worry. Will the Tuq communities then look north and encroach upon our lands and hunting grounds? If the Cedna’s magical protections truly cannot be risked, then we must send a delegation to the Lethemian king to ask for his aid. Malvyna Entila sanctions these raids, but does the Lethemian king even know about them? Our children become slaves, but they have done no crime! Even according to Lethemian law, only criminals may be made slaves. What House Entila does is illegal, even for the sayantaqs. We must hold them to account for this.”

Ikselian glared at me across the flickering fire. “There will be no delegation. The ignorant southerners profane our magic. If we participate in their courts it appears we give credence to their laws. We will be little better than sayantaq ourselves! And any who travel there would be tainted.” A few Ikniqs murmured their agreement. This argument had been made around our fire earlier.

“Iksraqtaq are dying,” I said. “We cannot sit by and let the Entilans destroy us.”

“Who are you to speak on such matters?” snarled Ikselian. “You disobey; you make light of ritual, and you refuse to name a successor. If you were truly a Cedna you would offer yourself as tunixajiq and be done with it. You are a disgrace.”

“You mistake your own will for the will of the people, Ikselian Kaluq. The other clans care more for survival than for secrets. What do we protect, a crystal cavern or a people?” I said.

“Kaluqs protect what is essential!” Ikselian cried. “The people cannot survive without the Hinge’s magic. The Hinge keeps this island habitable. We’d freeze without its warmth. We all know this.” She closed her eyes as if she could not look at me for a moment longer.

Esteriaq surveyed our circle. “We have already decided on the delegation, Ikselian,” she said. “Even if we count the votes of you and your Kaluq hunt-fathers in this circle, our result would be the same. The delegation shall go. It is decided.”

The hatred that shadowed Ikselian’s face surprised even me. I leaned closer towards the fire to soothe my shivers.

Ikselian drew her ulio, frowning. “If the Cedna goes south, she will return tainted. We were never able to purge the sayantaq taint from our last Cedna. What will we do if this happens again? We must ritual before the delegation leaves. The Cedna must name a successor.”

I rose from my seat, my face as hard as deep-winter snow. When I named a successor, she would do with me what she had done with my mother. She wanted a Cedna more bendable to her own will.

Before I could refuse, Esteriaq said, “Very well. We may do the ritual now.” The Ikniqs around the fire moved back, joining hands and forming a circle around us with the Kaluq hunt-fathers. Esteriaq held out her arm to Ikselian.

Ikselian cut Esteriaq’s wrist. The tall Ikniq woman crossed to my side of the fire and held her arm to my mouth. I turned my face away.

Ikselian strode up to me, grabbing my braid with one hand and Esteriaq’s arm with the other. “You will do this.” She pressed Esteriaq’s wound to my mouth, and the coppery tang of blood hit my tongue, lifting the veil into Yaqi.

Bloodlights blended into the firelight, and my head swam. I barely felt the slice of Ikselian’s ulio on my own wrist.

“Who will be the next Cedna? Ask,” demanded Ikselian.

I had never been a fool enough to put this question to Skeleton Woman. If the Elders had another Cedna at the ready, they would not hesitate to be rid of me.

“Ask!” Ikselian pulled on my braids.

I attempted to snap free from Ikselian’s grip to no avail. My innards felt full of glass shards and my mind writhed with black hate.

“Ask!” Ikselian’s voice held a blackstone edge. I felt as though it sliced through my mouth and forced it open.

“Who shall follow me as the Cedna of the People?” The question reverberated in Yaqi,
Who shall follow, who shall follow, who shall follow
?

I began to shake. I hadn’t meant to ask. Ikselian had forced me with her own magic, compelling me like a sayantaq mage. Ganteans did not use that kind of spellwork. How dare she!

Blood oozed from my arm.

I could not take back the question. We waited for a long time while my blood dripped to the ground, until I swayed where I stood and blackness overset my vision.

To my relief, no answer came. Even so, there was something chilling and ominous in the fact that Skeleton Woman did not speak.

B
efore dawn Atanurat
slipped into the tapiat house where I had been living since coming to the Ikniqs. His hair had been braided into an intricate fashion, and I wondered if he had found an Ikniq girl he’d like to take as a mate. He was only just barely old enough to consider it.

“Ikselian would like us to mate before you depart,” he whispered, settling into the skins beside me.

A rush of shock and anger animated me. I sat up. “What? Why?”

“Ikselian believes that if we mate, the resulting ung-aneraq will stabilize your power. She says it will help the Hinge.”

I stood and threw the only thing to hand—my bone water flask—at the wall, just to hear it smash. I paced the small underground room. No mating, no bloodlight bind would stabilize the blasted Hinge. No. They meant to use Atanurat to control me. It was the only explanation.

Rage simmered in my gut.
“No,” I said, though I knew my refusal would hurt Atanurat, not only his feelings, but his standing as a man, too. To have a woman refuse him reflected badly on him. Even so, I could not do it. It would give Ikselian too much power, if she could make Atanurat her creature. For a long time I had assumed he was. Only since we’d come to the Ikniqs had I begun to trust him.

Atanurat left after the silence had stretched too long between us to be remedied. I should have thanked him for the offer. Of all the Kaluqs, only Atanurat had ever cared for me, the woman behind the figurehead of the Cedna.

I never had the chance to tell him what his friendship meant to me.

T
he
sky loomed above me
, too expansive, and Hemicylix’s crowded horizon left my breath tight and small. I surveyed the Lethemian city. Hulking chimneys spewed black filth into the air. Sparks glinted from glass windows bared to the sun. The buildings pressed on me like burdens as I descended a narrow gangway a few steps in front of Inarian, the woman who served as my guide and escort in Lethemia. She was none too happy about the job. The sail-father who had brought us to Hemicyclix hadn’t been pleased, either, for he had never gone so far into Lethemian waters. Like all Iksraqtaq, he’d feared he would be tainted by the south, and he’d left us in a hurry.

I’d never seen a place so crowded. People flocked on the boulevard that ran along the shore. None of them took any notice of Inarian and me, though we must have looked foreign in our skins and breeches. I felt as soft and helpless as a snail without its shell.

Inarian and I each had a rucksack. Hers contained Gantean foods, rich taku squares, dried seal jerky, saranaki root biscuits. Mine contained a sack of Lethemian money, extra cloaks, woolen socks, and my ulio.

I would have been hopelessly lost without Inarian to lead me through the muddy streets, but she quickly found an establishment where overland passage to Lethemia’s capital, Galantia, could be bought.

Inarian drew me to the side of the road. “I will do the talking, but you must handle the money. I will not touch sayantaq gold.”

I nodded.

“Wait here. Don’t speak to anyone.” Inarian, who was nearly ten winters my senior and as grim as any Kaluq, gave me a stern look as she approached the travel booth. I gazed over the street, as wide-eyed as the first time I’d seen the summer sky lights dancing over the northern horizon.

Amidst the bustle—the carriages, the peddlers pushing handcarts, the clopping of horse hooves—I found a single still point where my gaze alighted. A man. He wore black, head to toe, which set him apart from his countrymen. The southerners on this street were dressed in such a riot of color that my eyes could not take them in, but this man was easy to see.

He stuck in my mind like a burr in wool, leaving a warm trail of awareness through my flesh. He could not have been that many winters older than I, even with the ease of southern lives, which made the sayantaq youthful long beyond their natural season.

Ink-black hair fell to his shoulders. He was fine-boned and slim, with a face perhaps more appropriate on a woman. Even so, he appealed to me with a draw I could not categorize or explain, as though my very bloodlight reached for him.

He leaned against the brick wall of the building opposite me. I caught my breath. He was looking at
me.

I hurriedly looked away, searching for Inarian, but she was still busy at the travel booth.

The man’s gaze burned my skin, as though he were touching me with his eyes, trailing fingers over my neck, my cheeks, my braids. I wished I were dressed like the other women on the street, in colors, in a dress.

I could not help my gaze from meeting his; he stared at me so brazenly. His eyes! Beautiful, taaqsiraq eyes, a deep blue that spoke of the heavens and nightfall. I swayed where I stood, feeling almost as though I’d been plunged down into Yaqi. I pressed my hand against my chest where my heartbeat raced.

The traffic blurred around me. I could see only him.

He moved towards me, a slender black line cutting through the chaos.

He paused less than an arm’s reach away. We stood face to face, silent. I could almost taste his breath, fresh and tangy like berries. For my part, I could not move, could not inhale, could do nothing but drown in those taaqsiraq eyes.

“Breathe, miss,” he finally said, his voice as smooth as the best elderberry wine. “You must breath, or you’ll fall right over.” His face broke into a flashing smile with straight, white teeth and lips as lush as a woman’s.

I could not even gasp. I might as well have been thrown into Gante’s freezing sea, though I was anything but cold. My bloodlight surged crazily through my veins.

The man put his hand over mine where it still clutched my chest. Real heat, something furious and forceful, leapt over my skin at his touch. It was his turn to gasp. He squeezed my hand in his. “And you are a magitrix, too. This is—my gods— it’s unbelievable.”

“What is happening?” I found the Lethemian words, though it felt as though I had to bend metal in my mind to do it. My grasp of Lethemian was enhanced by the Cedna’s magic, which allowed me access to the knowledge of the previous Cednas who had come before me, but accessing the words was a struggle at first.

“Beautiful,” he said, as though speaking my name. “We are experiencing something very rare. Do you not recognize it? The aetherlumo di fieri? Our aetherlights are singing to each other. We are a match.”

I could only shake my head. “I do not understand.”

He did not release my hand. “Nor do I. I am simply … in a state of wonder.” He laughed. “I never imagined this could happen to me. I never knew what it might feel like. I never truly believed it was
real
.”

He smiled and laughed so easily. I wanted to steal that smile and hold it against my heart forever. “Aetherlight? This is what you call—” I patted my trapped hand on my chest “—bloodlight?”

A small furrow formed between his brows. “Bloodlight, yes, that is a much older term for it. Who—” he moved back from me enough to scan me, head to toe “—are you?”

Fear closed my throat. I’d never been so disoriented in all my life, not even after a pujoanuki purging or a hard ritual.

Soft footfalls broke the silence between us.

“Remove your hands from her!” Inarian’s ulio flashed between the man and me with expert precision. She did not cut him, but her blade hovered over his wrist.

He let go my hand, and my skin was bereft.

The man lifted his hands in a disarming manner. “I meant no harm,” he said, tracking the black, glittering blade of the ulio.

“Who are you?” Inarian asked in her accented speech. “What do you want?”

He inclined his head. “I’m Onatos Amar, Regent Lord of House Amar. May I know your names?” His gaze met mine, and an intimacy passed between us, something Inarian could not touch. I nearly smiled.

“Our names are our own business,” Inarian replied repressively. “Please, leave us alone.”

Onatos Amar seemed bewildered by her hostility. He did not move away, and I imagined it was because he, too, felt the force that pulled between us. He looked once more at me, with a pleading expression on his face. “I must know who you are.” He spoke to me directly, as though Inarian did not exist.

I twisted my hands into my sealskin cloak. Inarian would never forgive me if I told him the truth, yet I could not lie, either. I chose instead to say nothing.

“You are foreigners,” Onatos Amar said slowly, as though finally taking in our Gantean attire.

“We are Gantean,” I said. That much he would soon deduce.

Inarian kept her ulio ready.

“Ganteans are a rare sight this far south,” Onatos said. “Are you—what brings you here? Do you need help?” He spoke, again, only to me.

I cast a look at Inarian, whose face had only darkened further.

“Please,” I said to Onatos softly. “I must speak to my friend privately. Just one moment.”

His expression had grown concerned, but he nodded. “Of course.” He took a few long steps down the street, leaned against the nearest building, and stared at me.

“What did that man want with you?” Inarian hissed, leaning close.

I could never explain what had just happened, not to a Gantean. “He offers us help,” I said. “Do we need it?”

For the first time Inarian showed uncertainty. “There were no spaces available on the next five coaches,” she said. “We must wait here in Hemicyclix until they begin selling the seats for others.”

I peeked over my shoulder at Onatos, who had not moved from his position. “Perhaps this man, this Onatos Amar, can help. Amar … this is a name of one of the great Houses, no? Like House Entila?”

Inarian nodded grudgingly.

“We will need help, Inarian. We are strangers here, and we have come to seek aid from their king. Assistance from one of the Ten Houses—perhaps we cannot afford to turn it down. Perhaps there is a reason this man has found us here. Strong magic lives in innocent coincidence.” But was it even a coincidence? I felt as though I’d been drawn, forcibly and powerfully, to this moment, to this meeting with Onatos Amar. So much magic flew between us.

Inarian put away her ulio, sighing. Every Gantean knew that coincidence was only the tides of magic working upon one’s bloodlight; she could not argue with that. “Let us learn if this Onatos Amar can help us get to Galantia then.”

I hurried back to Onatos, beaming now that Inarian could not see my face. “Please, Mr. Amar,” I said. “Do you know a way we can get to the capital? The public stage coaches are all full.”

I stopped before him, keeping a Gantean distance between us. Already I could see that southerners did not observe the same customs of giving space.

“Please, you must call me Onatos. You wish to go to Galantia?”

“Yes.”

“How fortuitous, though a mage would say there is no luck about it, only the serendipity of magic. I am headed to Galantia myself. You must travel with me. I had planned to go tomorrow. Have you lodgings?”

I shook my head. “We only just arrived.”

He held out his arm. I had the feeling I was meant to know this gesture, but I could only stare down at the appendage in confusion.

“Please, Mr. Onatos, what does this mean?” I pointed at his arm.

He gifted me with that easy laughter again. “I mean for you to take it, of course. I will escort you to the inn.” As I gingerly placed a hand on his arm, his smile faded, and an intense, concentrated expression consumed his face. “Miss, you cannot deny me. Tell me your name.”

I looked at him from the corner of my eyes. “My friend, she will not like it if I say.”

“She does not trust me.”

“Our business here is delicate.”

He paused me by placing his hand over mine. The flare of our contact ignited all over again. “You trust me, though. How can you not? You feel this. We are not imagining what exists between us.”

I nodded shakily.

“Then give me a name, Beautiful.”

I took a deep breath. “I am the Cedna. I am the Cedna of Gante. I go by no name.”

Onatos Amar blinked as he absorbed my words. A shadow crossed his bright face. “What brings the Cedna of Gante to Lethemia?”

Did he regret his offer of help? “I go to the High Court of King Mydon Galatien to argue for my people.”

Onatos raised his eyebrows. “You mean to argue for Gante’s independence to King Mydon?”

“We are already independent,” I said. “I mean to ask him to put an end to Malvyna Entila’s endless raiding of our island.”

A
t the inn
, Onatos would not take any money. “My lady,” he told me when I brought out the sack of Lethemian gold, “to even suggest that I take your money is an insult to us both.” His words might have embarrassed me if he hadn’t taken my hand as he spoke and gently brushed my palm to his lips. I did not understand the gesture, but it made my stomach tremble.

Inarian and I shared a room, but Onatos had invited us to dine with him in his. I tried to smooth my flyaway hairs into a more becoming fashion while Inarian watched, disapproval writ over her face. She waved a strip of seal jerky at me. “Rich southern fare should be avoided. It will taint you, and then you will have to purge when you go home.”

“It would be rude if at least one of us does not go,” I answered.

Inarian huffed a scornful breath. “Go then if you must. Try to eat only the plain things, the bread, the water.”

I hurried down the hall, quivering with both anxiety and excitement. I hesitated at the entry to Onatos’s suite, where the door opened to reveal him lounging on a low bench covered in velvet cushions.

“Come in, Cedna!” he called as I hovered in the doorway. “Join me.”

I put a finger to my lips and hurried into the room. “Do not say it so loudly,” I pleaded. “I did not tell Inarian that I had told you who I was.”

Onatos only laughed.

The finery in the room intimidated me: the bench overflowing with pillows in emerald and garnet, the strong odors of decadent foodstuffs, the two glittering goblets upon the table, full of berry-red liquid—all impossibly foreign. Unlike Inarian, I did not fear becoming sayantaq—I’d been called that word all my life. I feared making a fool of myself.

Onatos’s smile proved irresistible. I stepped into the room, though I felt dirty and unkempt as I compared my sealskin breeches, my leather vest, and my woolen knit shawl to the sleek attire he wore.

Onatos gestured to the cushion at his side. “Sit and have a drink. Your friend, Inarian, is she coming?”

I shook my head. “She does not like the southern food. She will eat in our room.”

“I admit I am pleased to have you all to myself. Try this, Beautiful.” He pushed a goblet into my hand.

His calling me beautiful made me blush. No one had ever said such words to me before. The drink he offered reminded me of berries, but with a sharp bite. I drank more, never taking my gaze from his mercurial face.

His skin was pale, contrasting starkly with the black of his hair. Fine, quick hands captured his glass. Ganteans could have trained such agile hands to expert finesse in knotwork, knapping, or knifework. Seated side by side, we were of a height.

“Will the sayantaq king listen to me?” I voiced the fear that had been lurking in my stomach ever since I’d set out from Gante.

“The who?” Onatos’s face registered surprise.

I flushed. “Your king. Will he listen to me?”

“What you said before…sigh-an-tack—” Onatos struggled with the Gantean syllables.

“Sayantaq.”

“Yes, what does it mean?”

“It means the Cooked. Ganteans are Iksraqtaq, the Raw. In contrast, you, this—” I gestured around the fine room “—are the Cooked.”

“The Cooked,” he murmured. “Your kind do not think highly of us.”