Ashwalk Pilgrim (21 page)

“However you can, I’m sure you will.” Mara’s madame crossed her arms over her fiery silks. “And when he faces the king, what do you see for this son who should have been no more than a highborn’s servant?”

“I see…” Tears stained Mara’s vision as a vice slowly closed around her heart. “…It isn’t clear.”

“Look harder.”

Mara wiped her tears on a sleeve and squinted. “I see pain. I see fire. I see darkness, and…and…”

“Death,” Olessa stated flatly. “You have made your son a legend in your dreams, but you forget times of peace and prosperity do not heroes make. It is only through a bloodletting that a name is remembered beyond a generation. Knowing that, would you still want this life for him? Would you suffer his blood upon the sands to know his name would weigh a poet’s verses until the winds wore the mountains into valleys?”

“I don’t wish him harm. I don’t wish him suffering.”

“Then don’t dream of great things he could have done. Dream of him living a comfortable life, tucked away in servant’s quarters much like the ones beyond this willow, trimming hedges and pressing clothes for people who believe their shit is worth its weight in gold. He will never hunger. He will never thirst. No harm or suffering will come to him, just as you wish.”

“But he will never truly live,” Mara whispered.

“What does it matter? He doesn’t live now. Isn’t it easier to give up on the dream when you know it could never happen?”

Mara pressed her fingertip onto her son’s nose and smiled. “No. It’s much, much harder, because you think it just might have.”

“Then what do you say, girl? The night is late and dawn approaches.”

Two choices lay before her like the first fork in a very long road that would determine the course of countless lives. Her better half knew she should dream of a quiet, peaceful life for her son. Her better half knew living as a servant would be a thousand times over more peaceful than living as the king’s mortal enemy.
 

She lifted her chin and glared through the branches. Her better half never could have brought her so close to the Mother’s temple. Her better half could never have come so far and survived so much.
 

“I choose to dream of a legend. I choose to dream of a savior who is no saint. I choose to dream of a boy who will become a man and deliver the world from darkness. This is what I choose to dream, because I know in the deepest parts of my beating heart that should he have lived, it would have been the path he walked.”

Olessa turned to Mara. Her madame cupped Mara’s cheek and smiled. For the first time, Mara realized the vision of Olessa was not the one she remembered from the House of Sin and Silk. The Olessa standing before her no longer sported a burgundy bush of a wig but waves of russet hair running like polished agate down to her breasts. The deep fan of wrinkles around her eyes had smoothed, the dark rings beneath her lashes now pink-kissed cream.
 

Mara leaned closer to her madame’s face. “Olessa, you look so young!”

Olessa chuckled and tapped Mara’s cheek. “I feel much better than I have in ages, my dear.”

Mara’s throat thickened. “There is no going home, is there?”

“I am so, so sorry, my child, but no, you will never return to the House of Sin and Silk. I came to you to know for sure that—” Olessa fought her words, her dark eyes glassy with tears. “What am I saying? I came to you to ask forgiveness. I was harsh on you from the first day my brother brought you to me. But in truth, Mara, you were more my daughter than my moon maiden. I loved the little girl my brother brought to my barge. Please forgive me for the bruises, for the poisonous words and broken wine glasses. I never told you how I truly felt even as the skiff took you from our home, and now it is the painful burden I will bear until the last sun sets on the horizon.”

“I knew what you felt for me.” Mara placed her hand over the one Olessa used to cup Mara’s cheek and smiled. “You never needed to say the words. I saw the truth in your eyes. I knew, and it was all I ever wanted.”

Olessa cried. Her tears were glass pearls melting down her cheeks. “When you left my—our home, it broke my heart. I went into my room and wept. I wanted to go with you. I wanted to take you to the temple steps myself. I was such a coward, Mara. I will never forgive myself for not turning to you while Tolstes rowed you toward the shore. I raised you. I loved you. And when you needed me, I gave you glimmer and kicked you from our home. Forgive me, my child. Forgive me.”

“I forgive you. I forgive you a thousand times. You are my mother, Olessa. You always were.”

Madame Olessa’s form cracked and peeled, her smooth skin becoming the silk petals of the willow around them. “Gia was right. You are stronger than you know and so, so much more.”

Mara’s mother dipped her head and folded her arms across her chest. Her dress fluttered in the wind and dispersed into countless pale petals. Her arms and legs followed after.

“Never stop dreaming,” Olessa whispered, her voice fading on the wind. “And quit dawdling here like some glimmer fiend looking for a high. The king’s serpents slither through Hightable for their meal. Are you just going to sit around and pick flowers like a fool? Get to the temple, Mara, go!”

Mara took a last, fleeting look at her madame as what remained of the woman disappeared in a flurry of willow flowers. Mara turned on her heel and dashed from beneath the confines of the tree, her eyes set on the temples looming in the distance. Around the perimeter of Hightable, bells echoed in low tones, sending their deep notes vibrating through the still air.

Until the moment Mara heard the first bell ring, Hightable felt relatively safe even so close to the palace. But when the alarms cast their deep calls into the night, she knew they realized the ashwalk pilgrim no longer stalked the lower city.
 

Olessa had been right. The king’s serpents would slither through the district, looking for their meal.

She dodged and darted through manicured lawns and labyrinthine gardens. She hid beneath bloom-laden willows and peered around slender pillars. Nobles once retiring to their comfortable beds lit lanterns and lamps as the bells rang their siren song. Dark windows glowed with fresh lights, illuminating silhouettes of Sollan’s wealthiest.

Marching lines of armed men streamed into Hightable from its single grand gate leading to the Blooming Ring and beyond. The soldiers went from estate to sprawling estate. They hacked at willow branches, knocked over urns and toppled ivy-covered statues.

Somehow, she always just barely avoided them. They would flood a garden or lawn, stomping into the grounds and tearing up grass and flower alike, but they would always miss her by a moment.
 

She reached a mansion comprised of two tall wings walled by marble pillars. An archway connected the wings to one another. Beyond the arch, she spotted a small manicured lawn that ended at a wide plaza. On the other end of the plaza, a temple teased her hopes.

Mara glanced behind her. The wide eye of the moon pierced itself on one of the towers overlooking the district. Paling skies drowned all but the brightest stars. Soon, a new sun would rise. Harvest Festival would be a memory, and Mara would be…

She turned from the moon and pressed her son against her chest. She blinked, her legs suddenly wobbling like she stood on a skiff beneath a summer storm.
 

Nausea twisted her stomach, and she nearly spilled its contents on the grass. Then, as quickly as the queasiness came, it vanished. Her legs solidified, and her stomach uncurled and hardened.

“The glimmer,” she said. “It’s—it’s almost gone. It’s leaving me. The sun is rising. We don’t have much time, my love!”

The arch waited in a mix of silver and shadow. Mara swallowed and closed her eyes, inhaling the honeyed scents of flowers that pervaded Hightable’s stifling air.

Mara crossed the remaining flower-speckled greenery. She slipped beneath the grand archway and halted. The temple lay beyond the grand plaza, each mighty column supporting its tall roof dotted with brilliant lanterns. The words scrawled into its marble told the world the Shining Child lived within its walls, welcoming all who wished to cleanse themselves of sin.

A line of soldiers marched through the plaza. Their knuckles whitened on their swords’ grips. The temple’s lanterns reflected against their steel breastplates. A captain did not lead them. A serpent priestess did.

Sister Ialane’s white cloak billowed around her despite the bare breeze penetrating Hightable’s wall. She halted in the plaza and craned her neck. Her scowling mask’s gaze zeroed on the estate where Mara hid. Slowly, the woman’s body turned in the direction her mask faced.
 

Mara twisted into the shadows. With her back against the wall, she peeked into the plaza.
 

The soldiers turned and formed a steely barrier between Mara and the temple. Ialane tickled her serpent’s jaw and motioned toward the estate. “Three of you to that one,” she called. “The rest take the neighbors.”

Soldiers swarmed like angry hornets toward the neighboring estates while three men charged the one where Mara hid. They formed a tide of sharpened steel and shadowed eyes. The three soldiers poured into one of the wings, and in moments, dragged a husband and wife screaming into the yard.

“Please,” the woman wailed, “we’ve done nothing. We are loyal to Good King Sol!”

The three soldiers bearing swords and torches towered over the noblewoman and her husband. The pair kneeled before the king’s men in tattered and dirty silks, their eyes wide and brimmed with panicked tears. A necklace slipped from the woman’s nightgown and hung loose around her neck. On the necklace, a polished gold circle held a star with six points within it. The golden symbol glittered in the torchlight.

Sister Ialane floated like a porcelain phantom before the soldiers and their prisoners. She tilted her head to the woman and bent forward, her fingers flicking the symbol hung around the noble’s neck.

“You are loyal to Good King Sol?” Ialane asked.

The woman’s eyes widened at the sight of her necklace. She interlaced her fingers and scooted on her knees toward Ialane. “Y—yes, Sister Ialane. We are loyal to him in every way.”

“Really. In every way?
Every way
?”

She nodded enthusiastically. Her husband’s eye caught the symbol flashing in the torchlight, and the color drained from his smooth features.
 

“Nialle, take it off,” he whispered, his fingers shakily moving to the necklace.

“Quiet!” Ialane Donra backhanded the man. His head spun to the side, and he collapsed onto the ground.

The priestess clasped Nialle’s necklace. Her thumb rubbed the holy star that represented the Six major gods of Urum. “You say you are loyal to our king, yet you wear the symbol of the Six around your neck. Did you think they would protect your dreams? Did you think the Serpent Sun would be blind to your apostasy?”

A tear slipped down Nialle’s cheek, and her chin began trembling violently. “Please, Sister Ialane, I meant no disrespect. I am loyal to the king, but my family has prayed to the Six for generations. I—I did not think merely a prayer to them was illegal when their temples lay beyond my very doors.”

“You are a noble of Hightable. You stand here groveling like some beggar from the Floatwaif, thinking I’m such a fool I would believe you had no idea of the king’s wishes for his purest peoples?” Ialane straightened. “All in Hightable know the priests of the Six have plotted our king’s death. All in Hightable know a sorceress they summoned seeks his soul tonight. Yet you claim ignorance? I should run you and your husband through here and now and burn this home to the ground and all within it.”

She will die because of me
, Mara thought.
She has been nothing but faithful, but because of me, she will die.

So many had already died for her. So many had suffered because of the ashwalk. She looked down upon her son. Sickly blue tinged his cheeks and painted his lips. For the first time that night, he began to look less a boy and more a body.

“I can not let another suffer for me,” she said. “I’m so, so sorry, my darling love, but I know you would never forgive me knowing I let them suffer.”

She kissed his brow and took a deep breath. Gripping her son, she slid from the shadows and stepped beyond the arch.

“Wait,” a child hissed. A small hand grasped her arm and yanked her back beneath the relative safety of the breezeway.
 

Mara whipped around to face the child. Her eyes met his, and she nearly fell flat on her back. Mara caught herself and leaned forward, searching the boy’s familiar features, his little narrow nose and ashen cheeks. He gripped her arm with a hand that lacked a finger, and his eyes glimmered with the adventurous light of youth.

“Tag?” Mara pressed a hand against his cheek. “Tag, how did you come to Hightable? Did you climb the aqueduct? What did Sander call it? The Waterstair?”

He grinned and flashed his broken-toothed smile. “You’re silly, Mara. You’ve come so far, and you’d give it all up for a noble? I don’t think I’ll ever really understand you.”

Mara swallowed and licked her rough, chapped lips. “She is going to be hurt because of me. Ialane will murder her and her husband. They will die, all because of me. I won’t have it anymore.”

Tag wrinkled his nose and pulled her down to his level. “Mara, you know nothing of the world. They won’t suffer because of you. No one suffers because of you. She suffers because an evil man has his eyes on heaven and he will do anything and kill anyone if it means getting a little closer to the stars. A serpent kills them, not an ashwalk pilgrim.”

“But if I didn’t have my child—”

“There would be no hope. But you do have your son, and so there’s hope…although the night’s fading and your time’s getting shorter than I am. I should’ve taken you. The meal wasn’t worth what I lost.”

Mara clenched her jaw. She straightened, pulling away from Tag. “Why are you here, Tag? You betrayed me when I needed you. You left me in an alley. Yet now you come here speaking words of encouragement to continue my ashwalk when I could save a woman and her husband’s lives.”