THREE DROPS OF BLOOD (10 page)

Meghianna shook her head. She leaned against him, and he lifted an arm to wrap around
her shoulders. Such small, delicate shoulders, to carry such a heavy burden now, and far heavier
in the years, perhaps centuries, to come.

"But the Estall speaks to us from all the realms of time. What we see as the future, in
some aspects it has already happened. It is the mercy of the Estall to offer us warning, to avoid
evil and dangerous choices."

"Doesn't that make it even worse, when someone is warned and still chooses to do bad?"
she whispered.

"It does indeed. They have no excuse at all."

* * * *

Deyral joined them a short time later, to lead them to supper. The questions in his eyes,
the glances he cast at Meghianna, made Mrillis feel tired. And a little irritated. After all, this was
the child Ceera had seen in visions and had chosen as her heir, years before her birth. Meghianna
had never come to Wynystrys before, and most of the scholars and enchanters who lived here
rarely left the island. Glimpsing her through the Threads, through the eyes of others, and reading
reports about her progress wouldn't be satisfying in the slightest, for these men and women who
lived for knowledge and answers.

"I bid you a very late welcome, Meghianna Warhawk." Deyral bowed low to her,
entirely ruining the effect by winking as he straightened.

Meghianna giggled, and Mrillis sighed on a breath he hadn't realized he had been
holding. He knew he should have trusted his old friend to take exactly the right attitude in
approaching the child. Remind her of her position, but encourage her not to take it seriously all
the time. She was still a child, and she had every right to enjoy her childhood whenever possible.
Being made a pet and playmate by the people of Wynystrys might just be good for her. She
needed some balance among those who tried to protect her too much, and those who expected
her to be Ceera re-born, and wanted to heap all her duties on her from the moment she could
talk.

Nalla didn't return with Deyral, and he explained that she had chosen to sit a while with
Trevissa, using her healing power to calm her. Meghianna let him take her hand, and walked
between the two men to the long, oval building that had been the central meeting hall of the
island from time immemorial. Mrillis listened while Deyral gave the girl a short tour of the
village, pointing out the huts that had been dormitories for the boys who once studied there, and
were now homes for scholars, or guesthouses for the occasional visitors.

"Where did you live, Lord Mrillis?" she asked, when they reached the door of their
destination. When he indicated the building, and Deyral informed them that it now served as
storage for unneeded furniture, she laughed. "Did you tell them to do that?"

"No. Why do you ask?"

"Because Nalla told me your old room at the Stronghold is storage now, too, and you
would be very pleased if you knew."

"Hmm." Deyral nodded, stroking his beard, his mouth solemn but a twinkle in his eyes.
"I think you might just be right. Lord Mrillis has a strangely twisted sense of humor."

"I have a strong liking for common sense," Mrillis retorted, fighting not to laugh. "All
the rooms on that level of the Stronghold have been emptied of inhabitants, and set to other
purposes. Just like many of the buildings here." He tapped her nose, earning another sputter of
laughter from the child, which in turned warmed his heart. "I think you are in desperate need of
your dinner, to have such silly thoughts."

"You're right." She caught hold of his hand and turned, reaching with her free hand to
open the door.

The three of them laughed together as they crossed the threshold, earning wide-eyed
looks from the near-dozen people who waited around the far end of the long table. Mrillis was
relieved that so few of Wynystrys' scholars had descended on Meghianna tonight, yet at the same
time, the depleted numbers saddened him. When the Rey'kil enchanters had broken the island
free of its roots, to let it drift within a cloud of Threads for safety's sake, a long, strong tie with
the past had been severed. Scholars set up schools for Rey'kil children at towers close to strong
vales, where the power from the Threads collected. Family lines strong in
imbrose
no
longer sent their daughters to study at the Stronghold and their sons to Wynystrys, but kept them
closer to home. The illness that had ravaged the Stronghold, in those cruel days when Ceera and
Emrillian had died, was mostly to blame for the depleted population of the Stronghold. How long
until the numbers were as sparse as Wynystrys, and the Queen of Snows ruled a small, loyal knot
of powerful women, lost among shadows and dusty, empty, echoing chambers?

"That's it. Help him sit slowly," Deyral said, as Mrillis blinked away a gray haze from
his eyes. His knees tried to fold and he reached out in a momentary flash of panic.

"Lord Mrillis?" Meghianna appeared from the haze, holding out her hands wrapped in
blue Threads. She grasped his hands. Her flesh was warm, and he realized he was chilled
thoroughly. The power shot through his hands and up his arms, jolting his lungs and belly with
heat.

"Thank you, little one," he whispered, as half a dozen hands guided him into a chair in
front of a place set for dinner. "What happened?"

"You had a vision. And delayed our dinner barely long enough to make any difference,"
Deyral added with a diffident shrug.

"That's a matter of opinion," Scholar Ialani said with a sniff. She was the head cook for
the much-reduced community of scholars, Mrillis recalled. He also recalled she had a strong
sense of humor and an admirable sense of proportion--delaying her meal, no matter how long she
slaved over it, wouldn't bother her.

He thanked her for her teasing with a weary nod, and closed his eyes. "What did I
say?"

"She who waits will wait alone, holding the blade of stars for the hand it was made to fit,
and the hive once full of life will echo with memories and dust and the sounds of the winter
winds across the sea," Meghianna said. She squeezed Mrillis' hands one last time and released
them. "What hive?"

"The Estall knows." He opened one eye, and when he saw her watching him with a little
frown of worry wrinkling her forehead, he forced a smile to comfort her.

How many times had he and his friends jokingly referred to the Stronghold as a hive, in
their youth? With the Queen of Snows as the heart of the community, and the many chambers
dug out of the stone, it resembled a hive clearly enough for the most obtuse imagination to
recognize. Mrillis recalled the thoughts that had come to him moments before the vision, and he
repressed a shudder of certainty. Meghianna would hold Braenlicach safely for someone,
standing lonely vigil all alone in the Stronghold. His heart ached for the child, and he prayed that
it would be centuries until that bitter duty fell on her.

"Time to fill your belly. We can't have you fainting on us when we have important work
to do," Ialani said. She scowled when Mrillis made to get up, and pressed on his shoulder to keep
him in his seat. "Men. How you survived so many centuries without women to insert some
common sense into this island, I will never know."

"There were plenty of women who were kind enough to act as mothers and nursemaids,"
Deyral said. "Surely a higher calling than scholarship?"

Meghianna snorted, attempting to smother a giggle. Mrillis grinned at her, and was
pleased to see the other concerned, somber faces brighten. He fully intended to share his
interpretation of the vision with Deyral much later--after the subject of that vision was safely
back in her nursemaid's care. For good measure, he would wait until Meghianna was fast asleep,
just to ensure she didn't come upon the discussion.

There was no reason to frighten her with the duty that awaited her--hopefully decades,
centuries in the future--was there?

* * * *

Megassa grumbled when Gynefra and Nalla denied her breakfast the next morning. She
didn't grumble long, though. Meghianna wondered just how much the guard captain had told her
sister about the spell to be cast that morning. It made perfect sense not to let Megassa eat, in case
she had a bad reaction to the twisting of the Threads around her and through her flesh, to more
effectively bind her
imbrose.

Trevissa sat quietly to one side of the village square, drooping in the heavy chair
someone had brought out for her, wrapped in blankets against the chill morning air. Meghianna
watched her while High Scholar Deyral and the others involved in the spell wove guarding walls
of Threads. Was Trevissa her aunt, or her cousin? She couldn't call the woman her stepmother,
because she had never been married to Efrin. Meghianna knew better than to extend even the
lightest magical touch, to examine the woman, but she felt certain Trevissa had been drugged to
keep her quiet and compliant. If she understood this morning's magic was to bind Megassa's
imbrose
so she couldn't use it, so it wouldn't grow, and to siphon away the power that
sleeping
imbrose
generated, what would Trevissa do or say? Or would she even
care?

Meghianna shivered, remembering what the woman had said yesterday on their arrival.
How horrid, to believe she had to kill her own baby. Madness had to be very painful, and
sad.

If working this magic would protect Megassa from enemies trying to use her magic
against the Warhawk, their father, and prevent her going mad from the strain, the binding of her
inborn magic was a very good thing.

"Are you ready?" Mrillis said, stepping through the woven wall of Threads that
shimmered so strongly, she could see it with her physical eyes as well as the eyes of her
soul.

Meghianna nodded and held out her hands. Her throat felt tight, and she didn't trust her
voice not to break if she spoke. Maybe she shouldn't have eaten breakfast, either? Mrillis took
her hands in his left hand and traced a web of Threads around her wrists with deft flickers of his
right hand. He held onto the Threads and stretched them out as he walked away from her to
Trevissa, where he wove those Threads around her wrists. Meghianna wondered if he wrapped
the Threads around the arms of the chair at the same time, keeping Trevissa still.

Then Mrillis walked to the pallet near the well, where Megassa lay, guarded by Gynefra.
He wove the Threads leading from Trevissa and Meghianna around the younger girl's wrists and
ankles, binding the three together.

We are all that's left of the Nameless One,
Meghianna thought, and shivered.
Wouldn't the World be a better place if we were all dead?
Then she thought of the
prophecies she had heard or read, of the Three Drops of Blood. She and Megassa were two, and
every time she thought about the third, she envisioned a boy with golden-red hair and gray eyes,
holding Braenlicach until the glow from the star-metal sword grew blinding bright. No, she
decided as the scholars and enchanters formed a circle around the trio and the dome of woven
Threads that enclosed them. The World needed her to guard the third drop of blood... and the
Blood that would come from the Blood. Whose child would that child be? Hers, Megassa's, or
their brother's?

Mrillis had warned her there would be pain, but she winced and gasped aloud at the
sharp prick in all her fingertips as a single drop of blood came from each one. Trevissa didn't
react as the same happened to her. Megassa flinched and lines of effort formed around her mouth
and eyes, but she made no sound.

You will be a great warrior, my sister,
Meghianna thought.
I promise, I will
do everything I can so that you will be happy and loved, and you will stand with me against our
brother's enemies.

The taking of drops of blood wasn't the forbidden blood magic that their
great-grandfather had indulged in, but rather echoed the magic used when Braenlicach was formed and
bound to their bloodline through Athrar, their grandfather. Meghianna had listened hard to her
instructions and dreamed of this spell weaving all night. When Mrillis snagged more Threads
from Trevissa and Megassa and flung them to her, she reacted without thought, grasping the
Threads and wrapping them around her wrists with three deft twists. What should have been a
tangled knot vanished in a bright flash of light that was visible to the physical eye as well as the
soul-eye. The dome of Threads flashed and vanished. Megassa let out a yelp. Meghianna felt the
momentary sting in her sister's flesh, like a dozen individual hairs being yanked from her scalp.
Then the spell ended, complete and successful.

"Are you all right?" Meghianna called to her sister. She nearly leaped up from her seat,
but knew better.

"It's gone." Megassa sat up, rubbing at her temples, eyes narrowing in concentration.
Then she laughed and leaped to her feet, turning three somersaults in a row to cross the open area
and land in front of her sister's chair. "It's gone!"

"What's gone?" Deyral asked, amusement touching his eyes and voice.

"The humming. The fuzzy stuff in the air. Am I ordinary now?"

"You, my dear, will never be ordinary," Gynefra assured her.

"Are you all right, Meggi?"

"My head... feels like there's too much inside." Meghianna started to nod, but the
heaviness and thickness in her skull made her think that wasn't a wise move, either.

"You will be fine." Mrillis bent and scooped her up. "To your bed, little one. When you
wake, everything will feel normal again."

Meghianna closed her eyes and snuggled close against his chest. Her last clear thought
was to note that Mrillis hadn't said she would
be
normal again, only
feel
normal.

That made perfect sense. After all, she now held the
imbrose
siphoned away
from both Trevissa and Megassa.

* * * *

Some sense of impending sorrow subtly urged Mrillis to extend his stay at the
Stronghold longer than he originally planned. He let Meghianna lead him in explorations up
staircases and down passageways that he could have walked in his memories, with his eyes
closed. She made him laugh, with a threat of tears in his eyes, over her eagerness to play hostess
and lady of the Stronghold. The child knew he had grown up here, had lived here with Ceera and
Emrillian, so she knew nothing was unknown to him. Perhaps it was his long absence that
prompted her to re-introduce all the subtly changed yet familiar places to him. He let her,
delighting in her constant stream of too-wise questions mixed with piercingly sweet innocence
and wonder, and saw wisdom and understanding grow brighter in her eyes. Sometimes he looked
for Ceera looking at him through Meghianna's eyes, half-expecting to learn the Estall had been
merciful and allowed his beloved wife to return, even if only in an echo, to guide and teach and
form her successor.