Heir of Scars I: Parts 1-8 (6 page)

“
You should be asleep, Imani,
” Adria chided. “
What will your husband think?
”

Imani smiled. “
I like to make him jealous,
” she said. “
He pays better attention this way.
”

Adria shook her head and returned the smile as she rose and held Náme out between them. Each of them opened her mouth to say something, and then both closed them again, and laughed. Instead of a farewell, they exchanged the child between them.

“
Keep her well
,” Adria said. “
And
…
will you please keep my ceremonial things for me, as well? I
…
cannot take them on this journey
.”

Imani nodded and smiled sadly at both requests, then added, “
You should take your First Arrow
.”

She nodded. “
This I will
.”

Imani looked down at Náme then, but said to Adria, “
You are the mother of her spirit, Lilene. You must return, and name her as a woman when it is time
.”

“
If my body cannot reach her I will send my Spirit to hers
,” Adria answered, and they embraced each other, and the child between them, and Imani wandered off again, arms full of child and eyes full of tears.

Adria looked across the fire to find Preinon was still sitting, now considering her again. He smiled solemnly and nodded.

It is time,
Adria thought, and she rose and stretched and put the ghosts of her memories back in their places again.

Those She Would Choose

P
reinon joined Adria as she left the
Sh
í
me Okshowaniya
, and they walked to the Runners’ encampment together. When camped along with one of the tribes, the Runners always set their own tents and bedrolls a little distant, out of respect for the tribe’s sovereignty, and also to give them a vantage of protection should enemies befall them.

It was a steep walk, almost a climb, but Adria no longer tired as quickly as she once had. She had been an active child when she lived at Windberth, but nothing could have prepared her for the strenuous life of the tribal Aesidhe, much less the Runners, who had certainly not been named inappropriately.

With his height, Preinon had to lean significantly, not only for balance, but also to avoid low-hanging limbs. Adria enjoyed the benefit of her smaller stature, a sometimes welcome difference, though she still stood taller than nearly all the Aesidhe women she had met.

There was a silence between them again as they walked — not the shame of the evening before, but of simple sadness. Adria wanted to break this silence, but could not seem to find proper words, Aesidhe or Aeman.

“
Will you leave tonight or tomorrow?
”
Preinon said at last, after they had taken many careful steps.

“
I will start tonight
,” she sighed. “
Time will be short, and I slept well last night.
”

“
It is a long journey,”
he nodded. “
But you have made it before. And it will be easier this time, with three years of Aesidhe and Hunter training.
”

“Easier in body, perhaps, but not in spirit,”
she shook her head. “
Perhaps he will already have left. Perhaps whatever has happened will already be resolved.
It is a bad season for me to leave.
”

Preinon said nothing then. There was little point in encouraging or discouraging her, and either would be unfair. They had spoken of it all before, and had known they could not choose the season of her leaving, good or bad.

And there would be no good season that she could foresee. Each year she would grow to love the Aesidhe and her uncle more. Each year she would learn more from them and become more valuable as a Runner. Each year her presence among them would grow more dangerous as well, if her father or Taber decided she should return home — or should be named a traitor.

“They would not do such a thing,” Preinon had assured her, not long after her arrival. “You are too valuable to them.”

“As a political asset, you mean,” she scowled, but her tone held a little humor. “Ah, the glorious future of the Aeman princess, destined to vindicate some alliance or other through strategic marriage to a foreign lordling.”

Preinon smiled. “And you thought they taught you the languages of Somana and Kelmantium so you could work as a scribe for the Sisterhood?”

At that time, the notion of her return had seemed a fantasy, her life among the Aesidhe the reality — though they both knew the idea would resurface one day, with far less levity.

“They named you a traitor,” Adria said. “And I have joined you among the enemy.”

He did not like to speak of this, but did. “I was a Duke, the second most landed noble in Heiland. I was the brother of a king, and could have proved a threat should I produce heirs which could rival his. I might have made a claim upon the throne myself, given time and motive. As soon as I… proved unsympathetic to the Sisterhood’s agenda, I was named among the enemy. By joining that enemy, I proved myself one, and vindicated their belief.

“But it is not the same with you, Princess. You are your father’s child, not a rival. You are not landed, and not male. You might prove an embarrassment, but they would never frame you as a threat.”

Adria nodded. “The wayward princess, deluded by childish fantasies of ghosts in the woods, wanders off on a misadventure.”

Even as she said it, she realized she had done exactly that. A little embarrassed at the thought, she continued the argument hastily.

“It’s still dangerous for me to be here,” she reasoned. “They might claim I was kidnapped, or at least prevented from returning, and use this as an excuse for outright war against the Aesidhe.”

“They need no such excuse,” he said. “And there is no political reason for them to declare open hostilities. They would gain no advantage. It is better for them to make war slowly, to pace the destruction of the Aesidhe, so that there are enough Aeman to claim the lands that are taken, and so that more Knights can be brought to the cause. When this threat is gone, they will need another — and will likely have to cross borders to find it. That is too much of a risk… too much expense until Heiland is stronger. Your father’s kingdom is still young, as well as the Matriarch’s church. You are safe here, for the time being.”

“But when I first arrived, you said I had brought danger with me,” she said. “I remember.”

Preinon hesitated, then merely shook his head. “I was mistaken. I have a better understanding now.”

He seemed a little too certain, and Adria realized that he was keeping something from her, but she knew him well enough not to press him. If he did not think she was ready to know something, no amount of urging on her part would convince him that she was.

His words proved true enough, though,
Adria thought, as the memory faded and they continued their uphill climb among the bare roots of pine trees at the final embankment below the camp.
No armies were sent to find me, no open threats… not even messengers. I return on my own, but as whom? A princess back from a sojourn in distant lands? A prodigal, rebellious daughter, hoping to be forgiven her poor judgment? I have stolen from the Aeman, slain Knights and night guardsmen. By their laws, I should have my head separated from my body and raised on a pike
…

She shuddered, even though the notion seemed absurd. She would have plenty of time to consider upon the journey, anyway. On foot, it would take weeks to travel to the capital.
Unless, of course, I add horse thieving to my list of crimes.

At the top of the embankment they turned back for a moment, looking down over the camp, a good bow shot away. A dull orange glow from the campfires silhouetted the sparse trees and tents, the hanging game and stretched hides, and the few distant figures who still remained awake and in the open.

Adria knew many of the Aesidhe tribes, but the
Sh
í
me Okshowaniya
held a particular place in her heart. It felt like leaving home, even though the home itself would now likely be taken down in the coming weeks or months and moved further south and west into the greater wild.

Journey in a circle,
she signaled with her hands, in farewell to the tribe who had taught her half of herself.

They made their way among the tents of the Runners’ camp and to her own, where Adria knelt down to peek her head inside and retrieve a bundle of wrapped oiled furs from beside her bedroll.

She sat, half within the opening of the tent, and untied the double knotted straps around the furs, rolling them out onto the grass before her carefully. The dark bow she had brought from Windberth three years before lay within, and she took a few breaths to consider it as Preinon knelt across from her, nodding a little in sympathy.

“I feel almost afraid to touch it, even now,” she said in Aeman, nodding and smiling at her own superstition.

Without answering, and without hesitating, Preinon reached down and took the bow into both his hands, and he held it up a little to examine it more closely. For anyone else to have done this without permission would have been a great insult. But as her greatest teacher, and as one who understood her feelings for this weapon, his handling of it was like the breaking of a spell.

“And you have been even more afraid to use it,” he said, tracing the carved runes burnished in the wood and bone with his finger.

Adria only shrugged.

He shook his head. “You have, and not for the best reason,” and his eyes challenged hers to deny him. Were there time, Adria was certain he might have allowed her to come to terms with the bow on her own. But these might be the last moments between them, and he seemed determined to place instruction above tenderness.

Adria made no denial, and her uncle nodded, frowning, as he placed the bow back upon its furs and straightened the string she kept beside it. Then he rolled it all back up into its bundle, and he tied the straps into a slip knot, the one they used for weapons expected to be soon used. He lifted it between them, and extended it towards her a little.

“Chatechusho Chugloka,” he named it. “Fire Heart of the Black Tree. It
was
a black tree. They say that lightning struck it long ago, but that it would not burn.”

“But it could be cut.” Adria frowned. She could not yet bring herself to take the bow from him.

“
It is true
,” Preinon sighed, making certain he held her gaze. “For an Aesidhe to receive this weapon would be a grave insult. It would be taken to the place where both of them died, and it would be buried forever. For an Aeman soldier, for a Knight of Darkfire, it is a war trophy, a vindication of the ideals of the Sisterhood, the legacy of the King of Heiland, and a mark of honor.”

Neither of these truly pleased Adria, but she did not say this aloud.

Preinon nodded, inhaling the cold night air loudly. “I cannot say which of these was intended by Taber, or by your father. But for you it is a choice, a symbol of what unites and what divides the Aeman and the Aesidhe, a symbol of what divides you and all of Heiland.”

“I’m still divided, aren’t I?” she said. “I’ve never truly become an Aesidhe.”

“You expect too much.” He smiled a little. “You’ve lived less than seventeen years of life, Princess Adria of Heiland. That’s not enough time to become even yourself.”

Adria smiled also, shrugging, taking the bow from him, and he leaned to clasp her by the shoulders.

“
As long as we walk the Earth each of us is divided,
Pukshonisla.
But as long as we struggle to heal ourselves and our land, there is a use for such weapons, and a hope for the peace that will make them useless. You have proved yourself, as a Hunter and as a Healer. You’ve known both gifts and curses — you broke a curse at
Palmill
, and it will not be forgotten, neither by me nor by the People
.”

At last she nodded wordlessly, tearfully, as she replaced her Aesidhe bow with the strange shaft of black and bone. She offered the first to him.

“I’m a good archer,” she smiled, wiping her cheek reflexively with her off hand. “But I haven’t quite mastered using two at once.”

He smiled and nodded his appreciation as he accepted the gift on behalf of the Runners. “Well, then you have something left to learn. And if you learn such a feat, you can teach it to some of us, and half the Runners can retire and become… sailors or… swineherds.”

“And which of these will you choose, Uncle… sea foam or pig shit?”

“I’ll never retire,” he laughed, shaking his head. Then he returned to seriousness, and to Aesidhe. “
You will speak with
Shísha
before you leave?
”

“
You know I will.
”

“
She has grown particularly fond of you,
” he nodded. “
She says you were weaned from her breast too young
.”

Adria smiled. It was a jest, implying that Adria had suffered a difficult childhood, and yet an Aesidhe woman could give no greater compliment than to claim the child of another as her own.

“
I wish there were time enough to say goodbye to everyone, before
…”
she glanced around. “
Where
…
is
Mateko
? He did not wait for me.
”

“
He took this watch
.”

“
I understand
,” She nodded, but said nothing more to show her disappointment.

Preinon chuckled. “I sent him to the right place, Púksha. If he is not asleep, you will find him. I would not let you leave without saying goodbye to him. As for the rest of the Runners, your words at the council were enough.”

She nodded again, then turned back into the tent to take up her packs. After a moment, she shook her head and offered the heavier of the two to him.

“I won’t need this, of course… or my tent.”

He took the pack and slung it onto his back as easily as if it were a brace of hares. “
We will find a use for it
.”

There was a long silence after this, and then Adria’s voice broke as she continued, in Aeman. “Preinon, I....”

But he shushed and embraced her. She had not spoken that name aloud, and he had not heard it, since the first day he had found her, wandering and lost, far from Windberth, three spring thaws before.

“Oh, Adria…” he whispered, shaking his head. “The Aeman do not know how to say goodbye, and the Aesidhe wisely refuse to.”

She laughed and wept, and hugged him as tightly as she could, as if she were still a child, as if he had always been her father, chosen or not.