THREE DROPS OF BLOOD (7 page)

It was an adventure that rivaled Megassa's wildest rides, to creep down the long, chilly
stone hallways and wait until the guards on duty at the various doorways and stairways weren't
looking, so she could open doors without being detected. Twice, she met up with Valors on duty,
and held very still, trying not to disturb the Threads, so they wouldn't sense her presence.
Meghianna found it interesting, and something else to think about later, that the colors of the
Threads she saw wrapped once or twice around each Valor gave a hint to their strength or
sensitivity. She didn't know either one of them, and decided that was something else she needed
to add to her chores--getting to know all the Valors who served in the fortress.

Finally she reached Mrillis' workroom. She tugged the door open and slipped into the
room before it occurred to her that he might have woven Threads around the room and through
the lock, to keep people from intruding. Nothing happened, and after waiting a few moments for
her heart and breathing to settle back to normal, she crept into the long storage room, full of
racks of scrolls and tablets. Mrillis had made her learn the system he used for storing records
before she was allowed to retrieve anything without supervision.

Meghianna could touch the markings on the end of each tall rack and know what she
would find there. She never told him that some of the scrolls had a faint glow of energy to them,
as if they had absorbed magic from the Rey'kil who had written on them. That bit of
imbrose
-aided sensitivity helped her to decide which history scrolls to study first. She
reasoned that the leaders of the Rey'kil enchanters would have been entrusted with recording the
history of the Nameless One and his children. Something in Mrillis' eyes and voice when he
spoke of Endor made Meghianna curious. What had happened between him and the man who
had been his closest friend?

The first scroll she took down had a slip of parchment tucked into the magic-soaked
leather case, which listed the topics recorded on the scroll. She found nothing there that looked
interesting. The same with the next three. The fifth scroll held the history of the three children
retrieved from Flintan when the combined armies of Rey'kil and Noveni overran the Nameless
One's fortress. Hands trembling with anticipation, Meghianna took the scroll to the window
where she always sat to study, and carefully slid the cover off to unroll it.

She skimmed over the early histories, talking about the disposition of the three children.
It struck her as odd to read about her grandmother, Nainan, referred to as a troublesome,
unhappy child. Everyone she asked about her grandmother and mother always spoke of Nainan
and Belissa as good, wise, generous women who were loved by everyone who met them.

Her questions were answered a little more than halfway through the scroll, when the
style of handwriting changed for the fourth time, indicating yet another chronicler added to the
record. Meghianna paused to think, to try to digest the information.

Magic had been wrapped around Nainan, to use her against the people who had become
her family. She had broken the hold of that magic when she resisted long enough to become
unusable, worthless to the enemies of the Stronghold and Wynystrys. Now, Meghianna thought
she understood a little better why her caretakers, and those in charge of Megassa, were so
cautious. The same magic that had enfolded Triska and Endor could have been wrapped around
Trevissa, and passed on to Megassa when she was conceived, like the seed of a poisonous plant,
waiting quietly, undetected, until the opportune moment to sprout.

"But what if it's in me, and no one ever found it? What if it went to sleep and didn't die
when Grandmother Nainan thought she broke free?" she muttered, and sat back to cross her arms
and draw her legs up in the chair and think hard.

"What you choose to be is often far stronger than what people try to make you," Mrillis
said.

Meghianna gasped and nearly leaped out of the chair when the enchanter faded into
view in the middle of the room a heartbeat later. He smiled, but he didn't laugh, to her great
relief.

"No," he said, crossing the room to perch on the edge of the table, "you didn't sense the
magic woven into the lock. What use is an alarm that lets the intruder know he--or she--has been
detected? Your use of the Threads to shield yourself created a disturbance loud enough to wake
me. If I had been asleep. Which I wasn't."

"I'm in trouble... but I don't think I'm sorry," she finally said.

"Hmm, no, I didn't think you would be. Though we share no blood, it is amazing how
much alike we are. When Ceera and I were children, we ran full tilt into trouble, blind to the
dangers because we were so intent on learning, on doing, on being, on what we thought was right
and absolutely had to be done. You learned that invisibility spell quite well, but you aren't deft
enough with weaving the Threads so they mesh together in harmony."

"The Valors on patrol didn't sense me."

"Yes, they did. You were making enough noise they could hear you out in the courtyard.
I asked them to let you go, so we could see what you were up to."

Meghianna didn't know if she wanted to cry or scream vexation. She didn't like feeling
foolish. It startled her a little, how angry she felt at being caught--but not startled enough to stifle
her anger.

"Do you think we were playing tricks on you, little one?" He shook his head and glanced
across the room. A flicker among the Threads brought a chair to him, scraping on the uneven
spots in the flagstones of the floor. He turned Meghianna's chair so it faced him, and he sat
down, resting his hands on the arms of her chair--effectively blocking her from getting up and
running away.

"It wasn't very nice, hiding yourself and laughing at me when I made mistakes." She felt
her lower lip stick out, and didn't care that she sounded like she would burst into tears in another
minute.

"Oh, and what do you think you were doing?"

She opened her mouth to retort, to argue, and found she could only gasp a few times.
Tears burned hot in her eyes. Meghianna refused to let them fall. She couldn't look him in the
eyes, and that was the worst part of this whole embarrassing, frustrating incident.

"What did you want to know?" Mrillis said after several minutes of waiting, until she
could breathe evenly again and the hot ache left her eyes. But she still couldn't look at him.

"What happened to Endor?"

"Ah. Did you think it was a great, terrible secret, and we would be angry if you
asked?"

"You weren't happy when you talked about him. I didn't want you to be angry with me,
too."

"Angry with you?" Now he did laugh, sitting back in his chair and taking his hands off
her chair, so she could have escaped if she wished. "My dear child, I am sometimes frustrated,
sometimes afraid for you, sometimes perplexed and even fearful that we push you too hard, to
learn too much, but never angry. Disappointed, I suppose. Oh, how I wish Master Breylon were
here. He would laugh."

"Why?" Meghianna dared to knuckle the moisture from her eyes.

"Haven't you ever heard the proverb that the foulest curse a man can wish on his son is
that he have a son just like him someday?" He chuckled louder, his shoulders shaking, when
Meghianna could only stare at him and frown, confused. "All the terrors and worries Ceera and I
put our teachers through, I must now endure from your hand. And you not even seven summers
old yet." The amusement left his eyes between one heartbeat and the next, and Meghianna knew
some terrible, frightening thought had occurred to him.

"What is it?" she whispered. "What's wrong?"

"There must indeed be some awesome, heavy duty and burden waiting for you, for the
Estall to begin forming you for it so early. I thought it was enough to be the one to strengthen
and support Ceera for the making of the Zygradon and Braenlicach, and history would be done
with me. I think perhaps those things will be forgotten, and I will be known as the enchanter who
trained the greatest Queen of Snows the World will ever know."

"Is that a good thing, or a bad thing?"

"Neither, my dear. It simply is, and a wise man accepts his destiny and does his best to
serve and to please the Estall." He held out a hand to help her stand. "Come, time to get you back
into your bed."

"Does Nalla know?"

"Of course, but I am relieved to know she trusts me to look after you." He smiled, but
the expression didn't quite reach or warm his eyes.

"What did happen to Endor? What did you have to do, that makes you so sad when you
talk about him?"

"He killed Ceera, because she chose to love me rather than him. He killed our daughter,
Emrillian, because her death would destroy her mother, and because she was my child. And
when he came to kill me, thinking me weak and blind in my grief, I killed him with Braenlicach.
Keep this in mind, little one. The hardest task is to decide when mercy must end, and justice
must destroy evil before it grows any stronger and overcomes innocence altogether."

Meghianna thought it would take her years to understand all that his words meant and
implied, but her soul grasped the truth in what Mrillis said.

She was quiet and subdued when Mrillis walked her back to her quarters, so Nalla didn't
scold, only hugged her tight and tucked her into bed. Meghianna fell asleep to the murmurs of
Nalla and Mrillis talking in the outer room, and knowing they were there comforted her.

* * * *

"Lord Mrillis?"

"Lady Megassa." He nodded to Megassa as she approached him in the gates of the
fortress. Together, they watched the last noble leave, shrouded in the shadows of a looming
storm.

The summer had passed quickly, filled with the usual complaints about the different
enclaves of Encindi, friendly and unfriendly, and the expected conflicts among the Noveni minor
kings and nobles as more healed land on Moerta became open for re-settlement. It didn't matter
that some lords and kings didn't have enough people to hold and guard the land, everyone wanted
to expand their territory. Nearly one-third of the arguments and minor battles the Warhawk had
been forced to resolve that summer had been over stretches of land that had been neglected for
generations because of the poisoning of raw star-metal. Now that it was purified and cleansed
and usable, multiple claimants tried to take control, often leading to bloody battles. Efrin often
spent more time in Moerta, settling claims through negotiation and force, and battling Encindi
marauders, than he did in Lygroes. The title of 'The Bloody Sword' came from both Efrin's
admirers and his detractors.

Mrillis looked forward to the quieter moons of fall, even though the Warhawk's
resources would be called on to handle damage from storms, and to repel Encindi raiders who
prepared for winter's ravages by taking whatever they wanted from their neighbors, at the point
of a sword.

"Lord Mrillis... do I have any
imbrose
?" Megassa asked, when the departing
travelers had vanished into the shadowy horizon. "Because I don't want it."

The summer had brought changes to the girl. Mrillis bit his lip against a smile, when the
absence of her discontented little pout topped the list. She stood at least two fingers taller, not
through growth, but because she walked with pride now instead of shuffling and slouching and
staying in shadows. Her skin was a golden brown from hours spent outside on the practice field,
and she wore her hair braided out of her way, instead of the tangle of curls that had been her
usual style, mostly through the neglect of her nursemaid. No one could mistake the Warhawk's
two daughters for each other now. Mrillis rather hoped Megassa would grow up to disdain
cosmetics and jewelry and dresses, opting for trousers and tunics and simplicity, like Gynefra
and her women warriors. None of the nervous council members, either Rey'kil or Noveni, could
look at the girl now and insist that she be sent away before she tried to take Meghianna's place,
as they had when the two girls first met.

"Why don't you want
imbrose
?" he asked, after a short pause to test her. The
girl stood still and calm under his gaze, not fidgeting or growing nervous as she had done only a
few moons before.

"I see how much Meghianna works, how hard she works, everything she has to
learn."

"Meghianna has hard duties awaiting her when she grows up. I'm sure she would say the
same about you, learning to be a soldier."

"I like being a soldier!" A grin lit her face. "Not that I'm a real soldier yet, but I get to
ride with Captain Gynefra and learn about battles and maps and making arrows. I'm good at it.
She says I was born to be a warrior."

"Meghianna was born to be an enchantress." He offered his hand, and a warm pleasure
tinged with a little sadness washed over him when the child took his hand without hesitating.
Both of Efrin's daughters were older than their years, forced to mature sooner and to learn faster
because of the circumstances that surrounded them. It was the only way they could survive. "Are
you happy, Megassa?"

"Oh, yes." She bobbed her head and grinned up at him as they crossed the outer
courtyard. "I wasn't, before."

"I'm sorry about that. We made mistakes, deciding what was best for you."

"Gynefra says you have to be strong to admit you made mistakes." She let him release
her hand so he could open the little side door that led into the private quarters of the fortress.

"She is right, and very wise. I hope you grow up to be like her." Mrillis pulled the door
closed behind them and tugged on the Thread that acted as a more secure lock than anything
made of iron.

"I wish she was my mother," the child sighed. She reached for his hand again, and he
smiled down at her.

No, she isn't Emrillian, but she and Meghianna are a gift from you, blessed Estall,
to ease my empty heart.