He had changed direction and was now walking toward her. She forced herself to keep smiling, and to ignore the pounding of her heart. Stopping below her balcony, he looked up at her.
“The moonlight favors you, Reivan,” he said softly.
Her heart leapt into her throat, making it impossible to reply. He’s just being nice, she told herself. Flippant. Flirtatious.
His smile faded a little.
“I hope you aren’t allowing Imenja’s and my differences of opinion to spoil our friendship.”
Friendship? What friendship? I lust after him and he rightly ignores it. Reivan’s wry amusement eased the constriction around her throat.
“Of course not,” she replied, then impulsively added: “I’m just not used to flattery.”
His smile broadened again. “Then we shall have to amend that.”
She crossed her arms. “And what impression would that give people?”
“The right impression. You are an admirable woman.”
Heat rushed to her cheeks, and hope sent her heart racing again.
“Don’t tease me,” she said, then winced at the desperation in her voice. Embarrassed, she stepped back to hide her face.
“Forgive me.” His voice drifted up. “I did not mean to anger you.”
Angry? I’m not angry, I’m ashamed. Surely he sees that. Of course he does! She peered warily over the balcony again, but he had moved. Where is he now? She moved to the railing and searched the courtyard.
He had gone.
Feeling as if she had said something wrong, she returned to her bed to toss and turn some more.
7
Tyve had visited the cave twice more in the past week, apparently only to see if Auraya and Jade needed any food or help. Jade had thanked him politely and sent him away with a few of the cures she had made for people in his village.
We made, Auraya corrected as she continued grinding up the dried leaves Jade had left for her. Though Jade gathered the ingredients, venturing out for hours each day to find them, Auraya had spent much of her time preparing them. The woman was out foraging for cure ingredients now. Sometimes Auraya wondered if there was some special purpose for the growing supply of cures at the back of the room, or if Jade simply hated to be idle.
I wonder if she hesitates whenever she returns to the cave, trying not to imagine that I’ve betrayed her and one of the White is here waiting for her?
Auraya smiled, then sobered. Perhaps that was why Jade had skimmed her thoughts. Perhaps she had done it every time she was about to re-enter the cave, to ensure her student hadn’t betrayed her.
It was impossible not to worry about what Jade might have read from her mind. Having failed to extract a promise from Jade that she would not spy on Auraya’s thoughts again, Auraya was determined to achieve a strong, stable mind shield as soon as possible. She was finding it easier to hold it in place now, sometimes even forgetting that it was there. Soon she would be able to leave.
Before she did, however, she wanted to ask Jade some questions.
The jar of ground leaves was nearly full by the time Jade returned. The woman said nothing as she set her buckets beside the bed and sat down. She took a lump of what looked like rock from one bucket and began to break off and scratch out areas of a whitish substance into a jar.
“What is that?”
“Poison,” Jade replied. “At least in anything but the tiniest dose.”
“Do you often have a use for poison?”
“Surprisingly rarely. I’ve used poison only three times in the last thousand years. It’s the kind of death you reserve for truly unpleasant people.”
The other woman spoke so lightly, Auraya wasn’t sure if she was joking or not. She paused, then decided she didn’t want to know.
“So you’ve lived a thousand years,” she asked instead.
“At least.”
“You don’t know for certain?”
“No. I used to keep count, but after a while it became painfully obvious that the calendars people used to count the years were wrong, and then they made a great mess of recalculating. I moved around so much I lost count, but by then it didn’t seem to matter any more.”
“What is it like, living that long?”
Jade looked up at Auraya and shrugged. “Not as thrilling as you might think,” she said. “Most of the time you don’t think about it. Your thoughts are taken up with immediate concerns: what you will eat today, where you will sleep. You take the knowledge you’ve gathered over the years for granted. When you need it, it’s there, and you don’t often think back to when you learned it.
“Now and then something makes you stop and consider the past, and that’s when you are most conscious of your age. You are aware of changes that no one else notices, not even historians. You also see that some things never change. People will always fall in and out of love. Ambitious men and women will always crave power. Greedy men and women will always hoard wealth. Mortals will be mortals.”
“So can immortals change in ways mortals can’t?”
Jade looked thoughtful. “Yes and no. Immortality doesn’t make us smarter. Experience does. We try not to make the same mistake twice, but memories fade and some memories fade faster than others. And there are always new mistakes to make.” She grimaced. “Sometimes we want to make the same mistakes. Love, for instance. In falling in love, mortals always risk great pain; for immortals that pain is guaranteed. Either love dies, or those you love do.”
A hint of bitterness had entered Jade’s voice. Auraya felt a pang of sympathy.
“Is the pain worth enduring?”
Jade smiled humorlessly. “Yes, so long as you don’t suffer too often. I’ve borne children and watched them die as well. That was even more painful, yet I’ve done it more than once.”
“So immortals can have children?”
“Of course.” Jade frowned. “Why wouldn’t we?” Then her eyes widened in realization. “The gods made you unable to conceive while you were a White, didn’t they?”
Auraya shrugged. “We couldn’t have devoted ourselves to our work if we were bearing and raising children.”
“The gods aren’t ones for recreational time, are they? Still, children would have made you vulnerable. Believe me, I know how vulnerable children can make you, if they’re used against you.”
“What happened?”
Jade shook her head. “I would rather not speak of it. Some memories are best kept buried.”
Auraya nodded and considered how she could change the subject. “Were your children sorcerers?”
“A few. Some had little Gifts at all. None became immortal. Not strong enough. I don’t think any immortal has borne an immortal child.”
“Not even if both parents were immortal?”
“I’ve not heard of any who had such a parentage.”
“Perhaps that would make the difference.”
Jade shrugged, then she turned to stare at Auraya. “Are you planning any such experiment soon? I had the impression you weren’t that enamoured of Mirar.”
Auraya frowned at the woman, wondering at the sudden change in her mood.
“No.”
“Does Mirar know about you and Chaia?” Jade asked.
“Of course not.”
“Do you intend to tell him?”
“Do you?”
Jade put down her work. “Yes. Mirar deserves to know that you don’t return his feelings.”
“He knows,” she told Jade.
“If you don’t care for him, why would you care if he knew who your lover is?”
“Was,” Auraya corrected. “Because that information is private.”
“For better or worse, it’s no longer a secret. I may as well tell him before he finds some other stupid thing to do out of love for you.”
Auraya sighed. “Tell him, then. I’d hate to take the blame for his habit of getting himself into trouble—again.”
Jade’s eyes narrowed. “You really don’t care for
him, do you?”
“I loved Leiard, not Mirar.”
“He is Leiard. Leiard is part of him.”
Auraya forced herself to meet Jade’s eyes. “Leiard was never real. I can’t turn from the little I have left of my life for a made-up piece of a person buried somewhere within a man I don’t know. And after all you’ve said about love being a mistake, I don’t see why you expect me to feel any differently.”
Jade stared at Auraya for a long time, then she looked away.
“I think what infuriates me is that I agree with you,” she said in a fierce, quiet voice. “I would do the same. I think I want you to love him simply to ease my fears. If you did, you wouldn’t harm us. Instead I have to believe Mirar. He swears you will not. Fool that he is, he has never misjudged anyone in the past—not even when dazzled by love.” She raised a finger in warning. “Don’t prove him wrong.”
Auraya said nothing. Dropping her rock back into the bucket, Jade sealed the jar of white powder. She rose and placed it among her supplies, then turned to regard Auraya.
“I’m going to find us some dinner.”
After the woman had gone, the cave was oppressively silent. Auraya couldn’t help feeling she had let Jade down somehow. She is only disappointed that I don’t love Mirar, she thought. And there’s no reason I should feel guilty about that.
Looking around the cave, she sighed. I feel lonely, she realized. I wonder how Mischief is. She missed his company, his unquestioning loyalty. Why are veez like that? It’s not like attaching themselves to humans is good for their kind…except, I suppose, that they don’t have to hunt for food and have a good chance of a safe home and a warm bed…I think I just answered that question for myself.
He’d never liked it when she went away. If only she could communicate with him somehow.
I wonder…would I be able to find him through mind-skimming?
It was worth a try. Lying down on the bed, she closed her eyes and slowly settled into a dream trance. When she judged herself ready, she reached out in the direction of the Open.
Some time later she found the minds of three Siyee making their way back to their village after a successful hunt. Next she found a village, and paused to skim the mind of a female Siyee cooking a complicated meal. The woman’s hunger made Auraya notice her own.
She found several more Siyee and was relieved when she recognized the Open through a man’s eyes. Finding Mischief among the multitude of Siyee minds wouldn’t be easy. Eventually she saw her own bower through a Siyee child’s eyes and that gave her the clue she needed to find him.
Reaching toward the structure, she concentrated hard, expecting that the mind of a little creature like a veez would be somehow smaller and fainter. She sensed an animal mind focused intently on a task. Fascinated, she watched as he drew magic as easily as he drew breath, and used it to move a mechanism of some sort, then she felt the animal’s greedy satisfaction as he succeeded. He seized something edible, dragged it out of the container it had been sealed within, and began to eat.
I think Mischief may have just broken into some food container, she thought, amused. I’ve never watched him use magic….
Then something else caught at her attention. Something much closer. A voice spoke and she reeled as far stronger minds overwhelmed her senses and sent her rushing back to a place somewhere outside the cave.
:…send one of the Siyee Watchers with orders for her to meet me at the Temple. If Chaia is right, she won’t dare to disobey us.
:And if she does?
:We will all know Chaia is wrong.
The first speaker was Huan; the second took Auraya longer to recognize. As he spoke a second time she realized the voice was Saru’s.
:And he can’t stop us having her killed.
Auraya felt her blood go cold. Were they talking about her?
:He’ll still try, Huan said.
:Yes. Why do you think he’s so determined to keep her alive?
:Lust. She’s just another one of his little infatuations.
:If she was he wouldn’t think twice about casting her off as he did the others. This is different.
:In all the worst ways. She’s not some pretty doll he wants to play with, like the other girls. She’s too powerful. Huan’s voice darkened. He must have plans for her.
:Too powerful to kill?
:Not yet. Not while she is ignorant of her true strength. Which is why I do not like her vanishing into the void to treat this woman. If my suspicions are correct, that woman is no mere curer. Auraya could be learning everything we don’t want her to learn.
:You encouraged her by allowing her to learn to heal magically.
:That was meant to convince the others that she was too dangerous.
:It convinced me. What do you think would sway Lore and Yranna?
Huan was silent a moment.
:The confirmation of my suspicions. If she comes out of that void knowing what she shouldn’t, only Chaia will be opposed to her death.
:He will be outvoted at last.
:Yes.
:And if she comes out knowing nothing?
:We will find some other way to persuade them. Eventually Auraya will defy us again. It is only a matter of time.
:And her executors?
:Let’s check…
With dizzying speed, the two minds flashed away, leaving Auraya dazed by her brief contact with them. She roused herself into full consciousness. Lying on her bed, she heard the gods’ words repeating in her mind…encouraged her by allowing her to learn to heal magically…meant to convince the others that she was too dangerous…only Chaia will be opposed to her death.
Huan wants me dead, Auraya thought. She has since before I refused to kill Mirar! She is so determined to kill me, she will even manipulate her fellow gods to achieve her aims.
She felt a wave of nausea. It doesn’t matter that Chaia opposes her. The others will eventually outvote him. Sitting up, she stared at the wall of the cave.
The knowledge made her head spin. They would outvote him soon, because the moment she left the void the gods would know she’d learned to hide her mind, whether she actually hid it or not. It didn’t matter that she had never intended to hide her mind from them. Just learning such a thing had damned her.
Why? She felt a surge of curiosity and bitterness. Because I’m too powerful? How powerful, I wonder?
Powerful enough to frighten the gods.
She felt a thrill, but it quickly faded. I may be powerful enough to worry them, but I doubt I’m powerful enough to survive if they decide I must be killed.
Except that Mirar and Jade had both survived. If they could, she could too.
Standing up, she paced around the void and considered this. I have two choices, she decided eventually. Either I submit to the gods’ judgment and let them kill me, or I resist them. I doubt Huan or the others would take my soul when I die, but Chaia will. Would he still take it if I resist the others, and fail? Surely he wouldn’t abandon it to fade out of existence. How much defiance would he be willing to forgive?
Could she fight Huan and the other gods, and not Chaia?
I don’t want to defy Chaia, she thought. Then I must put this decision in his hands. I will fight the others or submit to death, according to his will.
The decision brought relief, but it did not completely erase the fear. Could she really submit to execution if Chaia decided she must? He won’t. And that brought her to another question. Who were the executioners Saru and Huan had spoken of?
The answer was painfully obvious: the White.
A noise interrupted her thoughts. She looked up to find Jade entering the cave carrying two girri. The woman lifted the birds high.
“We eat well tonight,” she said.
Auraya managed a smile. She wasn’t hungry any more. Her stomach was twisted in knots. Jade gave her an odd look.
“You look as though you’ve just received bad news.”
Auraya looked away. “Mind-skimming is mu
ch like mind-reading. Sometimes you find out things you wish you hadn’t.”
“Ah.” Jade dropped the birds onto the cooking stone between the beds. “Believe me, knowing too much is a familiar curse to us immortals.”
“Like knowing the secret of immortality?”
Jade’s eyes rose to meet Auraya’s, then narrowed. “No, that’s one piece of knowledge I don’t regret having.” One of her eyebrows lifted. “And it’s one you have, too. You just need to spend a little time thinking about it.”
Jade was right. The gods already considered her knowledge of magical healing to be almost as damning as knowledge of immortality. And Huan had allowed Auraya to learn magical healing in order to persuade the other gods to kill her.
“Thinking time? That’s all it takes?”
“Yes.” Jade smiled. “Consider everything Mirar taught you about healing a body with magic. All you need do is apply it to your own. Begin a constant state of renewal and you need never age or die. Mirar said you learned to heal easily; this should come just as naturally. But don’t think about it now,” she added, her tone suddenly practical. “I need you to pluck and gut these feathered darlings while I fetch some vegetables.”
The house smelled faintly of stale sweat and mold beneath the tang of cleansing herbs. Danjin started up the stairs, trying not to breathe too deeply.
Ella had hired a few rooms in a house across the road from the hospice. The condition of it couldn’t be helped. They needed to be in sight of the people passing the hospice and since the hospice was in the poor quarter most of the buildings were squalid. Ella didn’t appear to be bothered by the smell. She didn’t touch the food brought by the wife of the house’s owner, however, and Danjin took that as a warning not to be ignored. If someone who could read minds avoided eating something, it was always wise to follow suit.
Ella had assured Danjin that the owner and his wife would not gossip about their guests. Having seen the mobs that gathered outside the hospice, and heard of Dreamweaver murders, their hosts weren’t going to risk bringing any attention to themselves.
The alley behind the house was kept clear of the homeless and loiterers. Ella and Danjin arrived each day in an ordinary platten, entered the house via the rear door and for a few hours Ella sat by the window watching the people on the street below. She had seen a plan to block the hospice’s entrance in someone’s mind yesterday and managed to prevent it by stopping messages to supporters reaching their targets.