"Over_9780307446138_oeb_c31_r1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jeffrey Overstreet - Cynderes Midnight)
31
THE MEMORIAL TREE
A few snow flurries fell as the Forbidding Wall of the north flung new blankets of clouds across the Cragavar, but by midday it had warmed into rain. Winter was finished, all its conviction lost.
Jordam ventured west from the southern end of Deep Lake through the forest, then turned north, finding clear tracks of small, bare feet. Eventually the tracks bloodied, and then their shape changed. Bel had stopped to wrap her feet in cloth. He worried. The Bel Amicans were not likely to give up looking for their heiress. Good trackers would find her.
As night fell, his hopes failed. The tracks led straight to a camp of Bel Amican soldiers. Their tents glowed like lanterns, but Jordam saw no shadows moving within them. Nor did he find any trace of Bel’s scent. The men saddled their two vawns and three horses. A debate broke out over who would stand guard at the camp while others went hunting. Six soldiers, Jordam thought. But only five steeds.
Edging along the bough of a coil tree, he learned that a horse had been stolen. The soldiers argued about when the animal was taken and by whom. A watchman defended himself. He claimed that his job was to guard the tents not the animals. He insisted that a beastman had taken the horse. The others objected, saying a beastman would have killed something. “A blasted thief,” argued another. “Desperate merchants in desperate times.” Another blamed the missing horse on a tether poorly secured.
The argument turned to a debate over solutions, and Jordam crept away.
He picked up the horse’s trail and followed it wearily as the moon ascended toward midnight. The strength that he had gained in O-raya’s caves was failing. The horse traveled westward, and Jordam knew the rider was heading for Tilianpurth.
As the forest’s rainsong loudened, he heard hounds and the heavy footfalls of vawns. Two soldiers had been sent to recover the horse. He leapt off the path at the top of a ridge, bounding into the treetops just as the dogs began their ascent. They passed beneath him, a streak of torchlight, a clamor of vawns and dogs.
He dropped from the trees, distracted by another glow, this one north of the horse trail. Tied around a strong white branch of a birch, a long and trailing banner wavered gold and green in the wind. He touched the familiar weave. It was a frayed and unfinished sample of color from O-raya’s abandoned work.
Bel put this here for me.
He untied it from the bough and uncovered a simple figure etched into the white bark with a knife. It was the star shape of the blue flower from the glen.
Bel wants me to follow.
Her tracks reappeared beneath the tree, leading northward, away from the horse’s progress. Perhaps remembering their strategy with the prongbull, she had dismounted to confuse her pursuers. She was making for Tilianpurth now.
He found her just before daylight. She was asleep, rain-soaked, huddled at the base of a tree, blanketed with enormous dragonfern leaves. She had almost reached the edge of the valley above Tilianpurth.
When he blew softly through the oceandragon whistle, she did not open her eyes or lift her head, but she spoke. “You came back. You found me.”
He pointed to the way he had come, but she would not look at him. “Hunters,” he said. “Close. rrMust go.”
“I’m going home, Jordam. Back to House Bel Amica. I’m going back to my people. I have work to do.”
“rrWhy not go with hunters? Hunters search for Bel.”
“I have to get back to the glen first. One last time, before they find me. I have to finish something.” She surveyed the branches above. “Can we get there before daylight?”
He scowled. “rrLong way for you.”
“I can make it.” She stood and watched the cover of ferns fall away. “If you’ll carry me.”
He felt a burden, as if another garment of stone had been cast around his shoulders. She came forward, and he shrank back, pained, even as she raised her eyes to look at him. At first he feared she would be frightened by his changed appearance. But then he remembered that he would be only a patch of darkness to her.
She too had changed. He sought to understand what was different about her face, but he was distracted by the glint of a brooch pinned to her cloak. It was not her cloak at all. He wrapped his arms around his head as if to deflect himself from a blow.
“You were right,” she said, her voice hard and cold. “Auralia’s caves were full of surprises.”
He searched for words, words he might have heard from her before. “I lied,” he said. “I lied.”
“Jordam, I’m not going to hurt you. Is that what you’ve come to expect? No, I’m just going to ask you why. Why are you keeping secrets from me?”
He closed his hand around the whistle, as uncertain as he had been at their first meeting. “Can’t. Can’t grow alone.”
“You think you’ll lose me. Like Auralia.”
He remembered a word. “Help.”
She looked eastward, into the darkest part of the woods. “That’s a fear I understand.” He closed his eyes, began to assemble some manner of explanation. But before he found any words, he felt her arms slide up and around his neck. “Deuneroi promised he would bring me something from the ruins of Abascar. Maybe he did come back. Maybe he brought you.”
“Brothers went to Abascar,” he murmured. “Hunting. Mordafey—”
“Shh.” She touched his lips with her fingertips. “Hush, Jordam. I don’t ever want to hear another word about it. You’ve changed. I’m going to help you find a future. That’s my purpose now. To lead you out of the old life, to follow Deuneroi.”
She leaned in, her forehead on his shoulder. “I don’t want to do this. I’m worn out from depending on those I cannot trust, those who let me down. And I’m sick of being served and guarded and carried. But we have to reach the glen by daybreak.” She leaned in and quietly said, “Will you carry me, Jordam?”
He lifted her. She felt lighter than before. And yet with every step he felt lighter too, the weight of fear slipping away.
As the night sky grew pale and the horizon turned a cold blue, they reached the whitegrass, which wavered, already rising again as the snow melted away. Rain fell upon the forest in dark, ghostly veils. He could smell the smoke that rose in a thin line from the tower’s chimney ahead. He caught no trace of soldiers. The search for Bel had spread beyond the Tilianpurth wood.
But he was attentive for other signs as well. He was both relieved and troubled to find that the soldiers had cleared all traps from the whitegrass. He was free to move directly through the trees, but nothing would stop his brothers from tracking him to the glen.
“You…you’re wounded,” she said, seeing him clearly in the morning light. She touched the broken browbone, ran her fingers through the remaining shreds of his mane. “You look as if you’ve been flogged.”
“Hard work,” he sighed. “Hard work reaching Cal-raven.”
“You almost look like a…” Her voice trailed off, for she was suddenly distracted by a blue glow through the trees. “We’re here.” She pressed her face to Jordam’s mane, whispering, “Thank you.”
He almost stumbled, choking as his throat tightened, his sense of shame increasing with every kindness. Bel slid from his arms and walked down the slope, then paused to unbind her feet and walk barefoot in the grass.
“Traps!” Jordam hissed, not quite ready to believe that the soldiers had cleared them all.
Bel slowed her pace and surveyed the glen. “They’re gone. Jordam, look. I…I watched them. They stripped everything away.”
He remembered too. The vawns had trampled the glen. The soldiers had stripped the cloudgrasper bare, the ornaments carelessly cast aside.
But this morning the bold green boughs of the cloudgrasper sapling were decked in garlands of starflowers, beads, and bells and strung with the full array of belongings that Bel had hung there to remember those slain by the Cent Regus.
Bel tenderly traced the curve of her brother’s seven-stringed perys, then reached up to touch Deuneroi’s bow. “Emeriene,” she said, kneeling down to draw away a blanket, revealing the tetherwing basket. “She left the basket for me. She decorated the tree.” She lifted her eyes to the tower, then covered her face with her hands. “She’s prepared everything.”
Bel searched the ground around the loose stones and uncovered firestarters. She pinched one between both hands, readied to snap and ignite it.
Jordam, frustrated at the failures that haunted him, stalked down into the glen. Bel stood up as he bent to grasp the fallen apple tree, the casualty of his escape from the snare. The branches thrashed in surprise. Roots flailed about like gnarled fingers. He tried to stand it upright, but the ground had hardened; its grip was gone.
“You can’t replant a tree like that, Jordam. I’m afraid it’s too late.”
“rrToo late?” He cast the tree back down. While the branches wavered and went still, he slumped down with his back against it. “Too late for everything.” He picked up a fallen apple and hurled it into the trees. “You should send Jordam away.”
“What happened?” She walked to the well and began to pull at the rope slowly, hand over hand. “Did something go wrong at Abascar?”
“No,” he sighed. “Abascar safe.”
“You…delivered the message?”
He fumbled his way to words that would explain how he had warned Cal-raven, how Abascar had hastened into action, how the next night had come alive with fire and fury. “Abascar is good, safe,” he assured her. “Cent Regus army ruined.”
“Deuneroi would be—” She leaned back against the well, and her face was wet with tears.
“rrNot enough,” he growled.
“You can’t replace what’s lost, Jordam,” she said softly. “You were born into a curse. And you’ve done your part to make things worse. So have I, I suppose. But you’re awake now, thanks to Auralia. All you’ve lost…that void can fill with purpose. We’re not so different, are we?”
His hands opened and closed, as if he were searching the ruins of Abascar, digging for consolation.
Bel went back to the well and drew out the bucket. Propping it on the edge, she gazed into the well and listened to the rush of the water in faraway passages and caves. “I am waking up too,” she said. “I’m seeing what must be done.” She set the bucket on the ground beside him. “I won’t abandon you, Jordam. But I must go home to House Bel Amica for a while. I have to prepare the way so we can draw others from the curse. Just as Auralia brought you. Just as she brought you and the ale boy to me.”
“rrBel Amicans will finish me.” He made a gesture like drawing back a bowstring and letting the arrow fly. “Cent Regus no good to them. No help.”
She sat beside him for a long time, silent. Then she rose and moved to seize the tetherwing basket. “It’s time for me to finish this.” She drew out the feathered crown and broke it in two. She set half of the crown on Jordam’s head and half upon her own.
The birds rose slowly and hovered about their heads. He held still as they pecked at his feathery half crown. They chirped, baffled. And then those weightless puffs of feathers spread out about the clearing, sentries rising to settle in the branches of the trees above the glen.
“Now,” said Bel, “what comes next is not for me to do. I see that now. It is for you.”
Jordam grunted, puzzled.
“Take this.” She held out Deuneroi’s cloak to him. “Take it,” she said again, and her tone was far from friendly.
He cowered, shuddering. “No,” he growled, “not that. Not me. Could have stopped Mordafey. Could have helped—”
“So you took this cloak from Deuneroi. And a good deal more. It’s true.” She draped the garment on the ground before him. “Cast it on the Memorial Tree. Give it back to him in the flames. Give him a sign. Let it go. And you’ll be free.”
He regarded the cloak as if it might suddenly rise and attack him.
“Stand up, Jordam. Set your regrets on fire.”
Feeling suddenly ancient, Jordam climbed to his feet. He lifted the cloak, and it seemed heavier than ever. He crossed the glen, eyed the boughs of the cloudgrasper, then stretched to the high branches that had been beyond Emeriene’s reach. He cast the stained and tattered cloak over the crown of the tree. The edges fluttered in the faint breeze, and rain misted across it.
“Now.” Tears sparkled in Bel’s eyes. “The firestarter.” She took a bright white stick from the tetherwing basket, rose, and stood beside him. She held out an end of the firestarter. “Break it with me. We’ll say good-bye. To my husband. To my brother, Partayn.”
She sharply bent and broke the twig. Both pieces sparked into flame. She reached into the kindling she had shoved against the trunk of the tree. Flames caught hold, rapidly blackening the circle of thorns. They stepped away from the tree as smoke roiled about its base.
“Jordam, this is where his dream began,” she whispered. Then she reached out, and her small, cold hand found its way into his.
The flames crackled, exuberant. The cloudgrasper’s bark caught fire, peeling and curling. But only the outer skin burnt away, the greener layer beneath it repelling the flames. While the outer layer would be lost, the tree would stand bright and bold again. Eager to find more fuel, the fire climbed into the branches and moved out along the boughs.
“rrDoon-roy. Partayn,” he whispered solemnly. The name seemed strangely familiar to him. “Partayn,” he said again, trying to remember.
“Cent Regus killed him and all his guards as he traveled to House Jenta.” Bel stared at the blaze as if she would commit every floating speck of ash to memory. “He sang. Beautifully.”
The flames whipped and beat at the boughs. The perys warped and burst. When its strings broke, he felt her tense as if something within her had broken as well. Deuneroi’s cloak rippled above the branches in the swelling heat.
Unfamiliar emotions quivered in Jordam’s chest. They frightened him, and he looked away from the woman and her grief, then froze when he caught sight of a figure in the trees. The apparition stood quiet, watching, just as it had the first night Jordam had freed Bel from the trap. The figure raised a hand as if in acknowledgment. Compelled to see if Bel would once again share this unsettling vision, he put a hand on her shoulder. She turned to him and wiped the tears from her cheeks.
He gestured, but the figure was gone. He opened his mouth to explain, but something in the air tickled his nose, and he sneezed.
She laughed, wiping her eyes. “Too much smoke?”
Jordam sniffed the air. “Something…not good.” There was more than smoke on the air.
One of the tetherwings chirped a worried syllable.
Jordam touched the half crown of feathers; it was still on his head. His ears flicked forward.
“Soldiers.” Bel dropped to her knees. “Jordam, I think they’re coming for me. You have to run!”
“No,” Jordam said. “Not soldiers. Brothers.”
Burdened with dread, Goreth trudged through the trees toward Tilianpurth as if toward his own demise.
When the brothers hunted, this was his favorite moment—the closing in, the surrounding. Mordafey, Jorn, and Jordam would fan out around a target, then move in from all sides with great stealth. Sometimes the prey would run to him, trying to escape Jorn. Sometimes the prey would slip between the brothers, renewing the chase. Sometimes the brothers would gather about the base of a tree and laugh as their prey made a futile climb. There was suspense in guessing which brother would make the kill.
But today he felt no excitement. Today there were only three brothers, and they closed in on someone who was not prey.
Jordam was like him in so many ways, but smarter. Jordam would have known what to do here. Jordam would have made a good plan.
Goreth bore his weapon awkwardly; this Abascar sword, his favorite trophy, seemed heavier and cruel. “Older Brother kept secrets,” he argued. “Older Brother, he snuck out. But Jordam, he came home. Jordam told me everything. Told me to remember. Something.”
Goreth stopped and clutched at his belly, which was swollen with Essence. He clenched his eyes shut, sucked in the cold air, and smelled distant woodsmoke. He scooped up a handful of slush and ate it. It cleared his thoughts for a moment, the shock of the cold rushing down his throat. When he opened his eyes, he watched crystals dissolve in his hands, like a mystery fleeing from his grasp.
The woods were quiet. When he was still, the trees spoke only of melting snow. Perhaps the fight was already over. Young Brother had probably already found Jordam.
“Same Brother.” A strange thought entered his head. Born at the same time. Born so much the same. He worried—if Jordam was killed, perhaps they both would die.
Goreth growled and hacked hard at a young cloudgrasper tree with his blade, chopping straight through its trunk. The cut was so neat that the tree remained standing, the line barely perceptible. If it had stood alone, it would have fallen. But its branches were entangled in those of its neighbors; they held it up.
Something dropped from the tree into the brush. He lunged forward and snatched it up, then laughed. It was a tree turtle, and it pulled its head and legs deep into the shelter of its shell.
Goreth looked at the turtle awhile, and his smile faded. His memories stirred, and anger swelled within him. “Older Brother has no care for Goreth,” he announced. “Older Brother lies. Older Brother cheats. Older Brother makes secret plans. But Jordam always helps me.” He shook himself and gripped his sword in decision. “Same Brothers stronger together.”
He ran, gaining speed, and the trees became dark blurs, the snow a gleaming stream. He had run for hunger. He had run for the rush of power. He had never run for anger or raised a finger against Older Brother before. This was a strange exhilaration, rushing to protect Jordam. Together they would be stronger.
As a burning tree on lower ground came into view just ahead, Goreth paused. Jordam’s last words suddenly returned to him. “Let Older Brother go first.”
Perhaps he was wrong. Perhaps Jordam wanted Older Brother to find him first. Perhaps Jordam had prepared a trap, as he had beside Baldridge Hill. Or if Older Brother ran first, Goreth could always strike him from behind.
He slowed, holding to Jordam’s advice. He stepped into a bed of ferns, crouching low so that only his ears emerged from the leaves. He wrapped his arms tight around himself, trying to wrestle down the surging appetite of new Essence. Another will within him roared, pushed, reached for the glen just ahead. He listened, eager for a sign that Mordafey had made his move. He dug at the soil, found rockbeetles, and ate them. A scent caught his attention. Honey, he thought. Nearby. But he stayed where he was, waiting.
A faint vibration rippled through the ground beneath his feet. It was a familiar sensation. He thought back to the last time he and Jordam had run together through the whitegrass. What had they been hunting?
He heard twigs snap. He heard leaves rustle. Something was bounding in from the left. He heard Young Brother’s voice snarl, “Hel hel hel.” Goreth raised his head. Young Brother’s skin cloaked him with the colors of the surrounding trees, but Goreth could see his wild eyes, his gleaming teeth, and the shiny, jagged pike in his hand.
Young Brother pounced. “Got Jordam!” he shouted to the forest, exultant. Goreth looked down at the pike buried in his ribs. He forgot everything.
31
THE MEMORIAL TREE
A few snow flurries fell as the Forbidding Wall of the north flung new blankets of clouds across the Cragavar, but by midday it had warmed into rain. Winter was finished, all its conviction lost.
Jordam ventured west from the southern end of Deep Lake through the forest, then turned north, finding clear tracks of small, bare feet. Eventually the tracks bloodied, and then their shape changed. Bel had stopped to wrap her feet in cloth. He worried. The Bel Amicans were not likely to give up looking for their heiress. Good trackers would find her.
As night fell, his hopes failed. The tracks led straight to a camp of Bel Amican soldiers. Their tents glowed like lanterns, but Jordam saw no shadows moving within them. Nor did he find any trace of Bel’s scent. The men saddled their two vawns and three horses. A debate broke out over who would stand guard at the camp while others went hunting. Six soldiers, Jordam thought. But only five steeds.
Edging along the bough of a coil tree, he learned that a horse had been stolen. The soldiers argued about when the animal was taken and by whom. A watchman defended himself. He claimed that his job was to guard the tents not the animals. He insisted that a beastman had taken the horse. The others objected, saying a beastman would have killed something. “A blasted thief,” argued another. “Desperate merchants in desperate times.” Another blamed the missing horse on a tether poorly secured.
The argument turned to a debate over solutions, and Jordam crept away.
He picked up the horse’s trail and followed it wearily as the moon ascended toward midnight. The strength that he had gained in O-raya’s caves was failing. The horse traveled westward, and Jordam knew the rider was heading for Tilianpurth.
As the forest’s rainsong loudened, he heard hounds and the heavy footfalls of vawns. Two soldiers had been sent to recover the horse. He leapt off the path at the top of a ridge, bounding into the treetops just as the dogs began their ascent. They passed beneath him, a streak of torchlight, a clamor of vawns and dogs.
He dropped from the trees, distracted by another glow, this one north of the horse trail. Tied around a strong white branch of a birch, a long and trailing banner wavered gold and green in the wind. He touched the familiar weave. It was a frayed and unfinished sample of color from O-raya’s abandoned work.
Bel put this here for me.
He untied it from the bough and uncovered a simple figure etched into the white bark with a knife. It was the star shape of the blue flower from the glen.
Bel wants me to follow.
Her tracks reappeared beneath the tree, leading northward, away from the horse’s progress. Perhaps remembering their strategy with the prongbull, she had dismounted to confuse her pursuers. She was making for Tilianpurth now.
He found her just before daylight. She was asleep, rain-soaked, huddled at the base of a tree, blanketed with enormous dragonfern leaves. She had almost reached the edge of the valley above Tilianpurth.
When he blew softly through the oceandragon whistle, she did not open her eyes or lift her head, but she spoke. “You came back. You found me.”
He pointed to the way he had come, but she would not look at him. “Hunters,” he said. “Close. rrMust go.”
“I’m going home, Jordam. Back to House Bel Amica. I’m going back to my people. I have work to do.”
“rrWhy not go with hunters? Hunters search for Bel.”
“I have to get back to the glen first. One last time, before they find me. I have to finish something.” She surveyed the branches above. “Can we get there before daylight?”
He scowled. “rrLong way for you.”
“I can make it.” She stood and watched the cover of ferns fall away. “If you’ll carry me.”
He felt a burden, as if another garment of stone had been cast around his shoulders. She came forward, and he shrank back, pained, even as she raised her eyes to look at him. At first he feared she would be frightened by his changed appearance. But then he remembered that he would be only a patch of darkness to her.
She too had changed. He sought to understand what was different about her face, but he was distracted by the glint of a brooch pinned to her cloak. It was not her cloak at all. He wrapped his arms around his head as if to deflect himself from a blow.
“You were right,” she said, her voice hard and cold. “Auralia’s caves were full of surprises.”
He searched for words, words he might have heard from her before. “I lied,” he said. “I lied.”
“Jordam, I’m not going to hurt you. Is that what you’ve come to expect? No, I’m just going to ask you why. Why are you keeping secrets from me?”
He closed his hand around the whistle, as uncertain as he had been at their first meeting. “Can’t. Can’t grow alone.”
“You think you’ll lose me. Like Auralia.”
He remembered a word. “Help.”
She looked eastward, into the darkest part of the woods. “That’s a fear I understand.” He closed his eyes, began to assemble some manner of explanation. But before he found any words, he felt her arms slide up and around his neck. “Deuneroi promised he would bring me something from the ruins of Abascar. Maybe he did come back. Maybe he brought you.”
“Brothers went to Abascar,” he murmured. “Hunting. Mordafey—”
“Shh.” She touched his lips with her fingertips. “Hush, Jordam. I don’t ever want to hear another word about it. You’ve changed. I’m going to help you find a future. That’s my purpose now. To lead you out of the old life, to follow Deuneroi.”
She leaned in, her forehead on his shoulder. “I don’t want to do this. I’m worn out from depending on those I cannot trust, those who let me down. And I’m sick of being served and guarded and carried. But we have to reach the glen by daybreak.” She leaned in and quietly said, “Will you carry me, Jordam?”
He lifted her. She felt lighter than before. And yet with every step he felt lighter too, the weight of fear slipping away.
As the night sky grew pale and the horizon turned a cold blue, they reached the whitegrass, which wavered, already rising again as the snow melted away. Rain fell upon the forest in dark, ghostly veils. He could smell the smoke that rose in a thin line from the tower’s chimney ahead. He caught no trace of soldiers. The search for Bel had spread beyond the Tilianpurth wood.
But he was attentive for other signs as well. He was both relieved and troubled to find that the soldiers had cleared all traps from the whitegrass. He was free to move directly through the trees, but nothing would stop his brothers from tracking him to the glen.
“You…you’re wounded,” she said, seeing him clearly in the morning light. She touched the broken browbone, ran her fingers through the remaining shreds of his mane. “You look as if you’ve been flogged.”
“Hard work,” he sighed. “Hard work reaching Cal-raven.”
“You almost look like a…” Her voice trailed off, for she was suddenly distracted by a blue glow through the trees. “We’re here.” She pressed her face to Jordam’s mane, whispering, “Thank you.”
He almost stumbled, choking as his throat tightened, his sense of shame increasing with every kindness. Bel slid from his arms and walked down the slope, then paused to unbind her feet and walk barefoot in the grass.
“Traps!” Jordam hissed, not quite ready to believe that the soldiers had cleared them all.
Bel slowed her pace and surveyed the glen. “They’re gone. Jordam, look. I…I watched them. They stripped everything away.”
He remembered too. The vawns had trampled the glen. The soldiers had stripped the cloudgrasper bare, the ornaments carelessly cast aside.
But this morning the bold green boughs of the cloudgrasper sapling were decked in garlands of starflowers, beads, and bells and strung with the full array of belongings that Bel had hung there to remember those slain by the Cent Regus.
Bel tenderly traced the curve of her brother’s seven-stringed perys, then reached up to touch Deuneroi’s bow. “Emeriene,” she said, kneeling down to draw away a blanket, revealing the tetherwing basket. “She left the basket for me. She decorated the tree.” She lifted her eyes to the tower, then covered her face with her hands. “She’s prepared everything.”
Bel searched the ground around the loose stones and uncovered firestarters. She pinched one between both hands, readied to snap and ignite it.
Jordam, frustrated at the failures that haunted him, stalked down into the glen. Bel stood up as he bent to grasp the fallen apple tree, the casualty of his escape from the snare. The branches thrashed in surprise. Roots flailed about like gnarled fingers. He tried to stand it upright, but the ground had hardened; its grip was gone.
“You can’t replant a tree like that, Jordam. I’m afraid it’s too late.”
“rrToo late?” He cast the tree back down. While the branches wavered and went still, he slumped down with his back against it. “Too late for everything.” He picked up a fallen apple and hurled it into the trees. “You should send Jordam away.”
“What happened?” She walked to the well and began to pull at the rope slowly, hand over hand. “Did something go wrong at Abascar?”
“No,” he sighed. “Abascar safe.”
“You…delivered the message?”
He fumbled his way to words that would explain how he had warned Cal-raven, how Abascar had hastened into action, how the next night had come alive with fire and fury. “Abascar is good, safe,” he assured her. “Cent Regus army ruined.”
“Deuneroi would be—” She leaned back against the well, and her face was wet with tears.
“rrNot enough,” he growled.
“You can’t replace what’s lost, Jordam,” she said softly. “You were born into a curse. And you’ve done your part to make things worse. So have I, I suppose. But you’re awake now, thanks to Auralia. All you’ve lost…that void can fill with purpose. We’re not so different, are we?”
His hands opened and closed, as if he were searching the ruins of Abascar, digging for consolation.
Bel went back to the well and drew out the bucket. Propping it on the edge, she gazed into the well and listened to the rush of the water in faraway passages and caves. “I am waking up too,” she said. “I’m seeing what must be done.” She set the bucket on the ground beside him. “I won’t abandon you, Jordam. But I must go home to House Bel Amica for a while. I have to prepare the way so we can draw others from the curse. Just as Auralia brought you. Just as she brought you and the ale boy to me.”
“rrBel Amicans will finish me.” He made a gesture like drawing back a bowstring and letting the arrow fly. “Cent Regus no good to them. No help.”
She sat beside him for a long time, silent. Then she rose and moved to seize the tetherwing basket. “It’s time for me to finish this.” She drew out the feathered crown and broke it in two. She set half of the crown on Jordam’s head and half upon her own.
The birds rose slowly and hovered about their heads. He held still as they pecked at his feathery half crown. They chirped, baffled. And then those weightless puffs of feathers spread out about the clearing, sentries rising to settle in the branches of the trees above the glen.
“Now,” said Bel, “what comes next is not for me to do. I see that now. It is for you.”
Jordam grunted, puzzled.
“Take this.” She held out Deuneroi’s cloak to him. “Take it,” she said again, and her tone was far from friendly.
He cowered, shuddering. “No,” he growled, “not that. Not me. Could have stopped Mordafey. Could have helped—”
“So you took this cloak from Deuneroi. And a good deal more. It’s true.” She draped the garment on the ground before him. “Cast it on the Memorial Tree. Give it back to him in the flames. Give him a sign. Let it go. And you’ll be free.”
He regarded the cloak as if it might suddenly rise and attack him.
“Stand up, Jordam. Set your regrets on fire.”
Feeling suddenly ancient, Jordam climbed to his feet. He lifted the cloak, and it seemed heavier than ever. He crossed the glen, eyed the boughs of the cloudgrasper, then stretched to the high branches that had been beyond Emeriene’s reach. He cast the stained and tattered cloak over the crown of the tree. The edges fluttered in the faint breeze, and rain misted across it.
“Now.” Tears sparkled in Bel’s eyes. “The firestarter.” She took a bright white stick from the tetherwing basket, rose, and stood beside him. She held out an end of the firestarter. “Break it with me. We’ll say good-bye. To my husband. To my brother, Partayn.”
She sharply bent and broke the twig. Both pieces sparked into flame. She reached into the kindling she had shoved against the trunk of the tree. Flames caught hold, rapidly blackening the circle of thorns. They stepped away from the tree as smoke roiled about its base.
“Jordam, this is where his dream began,” she whispered. Then she reached out, and her small, cold hand found its way into his.
The flames crackled, exuberant. The cloudgrasper’s bark caught fire, peeling and curling. But only the outer skin burnt away, the greener layer beneath it repelling the flames. While the outer layer would be lost, the tree would stand bright and bold again. Eager to find more fuel, the fire climbed into the branches and moved out along the boughs.
“rrDoon-roy. Partayn,” he whispered solemnly. The name seemed strangely familiar to him. “Partayn,” he said again, trying to remember.
“Cent Regus killed him and all his guards as he traveled to House Jenta.” Bel stared at the blaze as if she would commit every floating speck of ash to memory. “He sang. Beautifully.”
The flames whipped and beat at the boughs. The perys warped and burst. When its strings broke, he felt her tense as if something within her had broken as well. Deuneroi’s cloak rippled above the branches in the swelling heat.
Unfamiliar emotions quivered in Jordam’s chest. They frightened him, and he looked away from the woman and her grief, then froze when he caught sight of a figure in the trees. The apparition stood quiet, watching, just as it had the first night Jordam had freed Bel from the trap. The figure raised a hand as if in acknowledgment. Compelled to see if Bel would once again share this unsettling vision, he put a hand on her shoulder. She turned to him and wiped the tears from her cheeks.
He gestured, but the figure was gone. He opened his mouth to explain, but something in the air tickled his nose, and he sneezed.
She laughed, wiping her eyes. “Too much smoke?”
Jordam sniffed the air. “Something…not good.” There was more than smoke on the air.
One of the tetherwings chirped a worried syllable.
Jordam touched the half crown of feathers; it was still on his head. His ears flicked forward.
“Soldiers.” Bel dropped to her knees. “Jordam, I think they’re coming for me. You have to run!”
“No,” Jordam said. “Not soldiers. Brothers.”
Burdened with dread, Goreth trudged through the trees toward Tilianpurth as if toward his own demise.
When the brothers hunted, this was his favorite moment—the closing in, the surrounding. Mordafey, Jorn, and Jordam would fan out around a target, then move in from all sides with great stealth. Sometimes the prey would run to him, trying to escape Jorn. Sometimes the prey would slip between the brothers, renewing the chase. Sometimes the brothers would gather about the base of a tree and laugh as their prey made a futile climb. There was suspense in guessing which brother would make the kill.
But today he felt no excitement. Today there were only three brothers, and they closed in on someone who was not prey.
Jordam was like him in so many ways, but smarter. Jordam would have known what to do here. Jordam would have made a good plan.
Goreth bore his weapon awkwardly; this Abascar sword, his favorite trophy, seemed heavier and cruel. “Older Brother kept secrets,” he argued. “Older Brother, he snuck out. But Jordam, he came home. Jordam told me everything. Told me to remember. Something.”
Goreth stopped and clutched at his belly, which was swollen with Essence. He clenched his eyes shut, sucked in the cold air, and smelled distant woodsmoke. He scooped up a handful of slush and ate it. It cleared his thoughts for a moment, the shock of the cold rushing down his throat. When he opened his eyes, he watched crystals dissolve in his hands, like a mystery fleeing from his grasp.
The woods were quiet. When he was still, the trees spoke only of melting snow. Perhaps the fight was already over. Young Brother had probably already found Jordam.
“Same Brother.” A strange thought entered his head. Born at the same time. Born so much the same. He worried—if Jordam was killed, perhaps they both would die.
Goreth growled and hacked hard at a young cloudgrasper tree with his blade, chopping straight through its trunk. The cut was so neat that the tree remained standing, the line barely perceptible. If it had stood alone, it would have fallen. But its branches were entangled in those of its neighbors; they held it up.
Something dropped from the tree into the brush. He lunged forward and snatched it up, then laughed. It was a tree turtle, and it pulled its head and legs deep into the shelter of its shell.
Goreth looked at the turtle awhile, and his smile faded. His memories stirred, and anger swelled within him. “Older Brother has no care for Goreth,” he announced. “Older Brother lies. Older Brother cheats. Older Brother makes secret plans. But Jordam always helps me.” He shook himself and gripped his sword in decision. “Same Brothers stronger together.”
He ran, gaining speed, and the trees became dark blurs, the snow a gleaming stream. He had run for hunger. He had run for the rush of power. He had never run for anger or raised a finger against Older Brother before. This was a strange exhilaration, rushing to protect Jordam. Together they would be stronger.
As a burning tree on lower ground came into view just ahead, Goreth paused. Jordam’s last words suddenly returned to him. “Let Older Brother go first.”
Perhaps he was wrong. Perhaps Jordam wanted Older Brother to find him first. Perhaps Jordam had prepared a trap, as he had beside Baldridge Hill. Or if Older Brother ran first, Goreth could always strike him from behind.
He slowed, holding to Jordam’s advice. He stepped into a bed of ferns, crouching low so that only his ears emerged from the leaves. He wrapped his arms tight around himself, trying to wrestle down the surging appetite of new Essence. Another will within him roared, pushed, reached for the glen just ahead. He listened, eager for a sign that Mordafey had made his move. He dug at the soil, found rockbeetles, and ate them. A scent caught his attention. Honey, he thought. Nearby. But he stayed where he was, waiting.
A faint vibration rippled through the ground beneath his feet. It was a familiar sensation. He thought back to the last time he and Jordam had run together through the whitegrass. What had they been hunting?
He heard twigs snap. He heard leaves rustle. Something was bounding in from the left. He heard Young Brother’s voice snarl, “Hel hel hel.” Goreth raised his head. Young Brother’s skin cloaked him with the colors of the surrounding trees, but Goreth could see his wild eyes, his gleaming teeth, and the shiny, jagged pike in his hand.
Young Brother pounced. “Got Jordam!” he shouted to the forest, exultant. Goreth looked down at the pike buried in his ribs. He forgot everything.
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