Skies (37 page)

Shallee got fluidly to her feet, her expression calm and demeanor as far from worried as it was possible to be. Rolling up her sleeves, she took charge as she strode toward the room.

“Farah, fetch all the lanterns and bring them into Cather’s room. Benji.”

The boy jumped a little, face growing—if anything—even paler.

“Set some water to boil and then start ripping one of the blankets into long strips.”

Neither Farah nor Benji moved. Farah stared at Shallee, all her former worries about the storm forgotten in the panic that gripped her. Shallee wasn’t
honestly
implying that she was going to deliver the baby, was she?

Shallee paused at the door and looked back at them both. “Now!” she snapped.

Farah leapt into action and heard Benji scrambling as well.

***

They flew through the storm, Gavin using his powers to still the winds as best he could as they flew. Gavin kept a close watch over Evrouin, though they’d tied him into the saddle with a few extra lengths of rope. They flew for several long hours, the storm lessening as they approached the valley. Even with that and Gavin’s powers, his arms quickly grew numb from the cold. And his mind, now clear, worried over the receptions he’d receive when he brought the people news of Brisson’s death and betrayal.

He no longer had the greatsword. He no longer held the same optimistic illusions to which he’d so desperately clung throughout his whole life. They were still there, deep within him, but they were like old wounds now, hidden beneath layers of hardened scars. But he
was
sure of one thing. If the people were to survive, they would need to be united. He couldn’t let them be two separate nations anymore. He would unite them, even if he had to beat the sense into every single one of them. The Orinai would be waiting for them as soon as the snows melted.

***

Farah shied away from the smell of blood. Squeamishness had never been something of which Farah had been accused, she was stronger and fiercer than most men among the Rahuli, but that smell made her stomach churn.

Cather lay on her bed, propped up by several blankets so she was almost sitting, her legs up on the end of the bed. Shallee stood down there, peering up at the woman.

“I can see the head,” she said, reaching up.

Farah looked away, cursing herself as her stomach clenched and threatened to empty itself. She’d rather be cleaning up aevian droppings than stay in the room another minute. She stayed anyway. It was part of who she was.
She
was in control, not her body. For her entire life, Farah had pushed herself harder than anyone else she knew to become better, to
be
stronger, smarter, and fiercer than everyone else. She would
not
back down now.

“I need you to push now, Cather,” Shallee said.

Cather groaned, but nodded, holding herself up partially by her elbows. Her face contorted and a moan of pain that was almost a scream tore from her lips as she pushed. Farah grit her own teeth and winced involuntarily, skin crawling along her back.

“Here it comes, Cather. Here it comes . . .” Shallee paused, red-brown hair splayed across her forehead.

“What’s wrong?” Farah asked.

Shallee tossed her head to get the hair out of her eyes, though it was plastered to her forehead by sweat. She didn’t look up as she answered.

“The cord is wrapped around its neck. If we’re not careful, the baby will suffocate.” Shallee grabbed a small knife off the ground near her, blade having already been sharpened and boiled in the water Benji had provided.

Cather started to cry. Farah hesitated. This was
Evrouin’s
wife, spouse of the man she hated above all others. Farah found that feeling a dull thing in the light of everything else going on in the room. Farah reached out and gripped the woman’s arm. Cather reached out with her other and wrapped it around Farah’s wrist, grip so tight Farah almost cried out.

“I need you to push some more,” Shallee said, looking up and meeting Cather’s eyes. “We’ll get through this.”

Cather screamed and pushed again. Her nails dug into Farah’s skin, though Farah didn’t care. Her own heart raced in writhing opposition to the turmoil in her stomach. She didn’t know what was going on, but the look on Shallee’s face, one of pure and utter concentration so absolute as to appear painful, told her that it was deadly serious. The salty tang of blood and wetness became almost overpowering.

Something clattered to the ground and Cather gasped in the middle of a scream, breathing in and out in shallow, quick bursts, then suddenly relaxed, body going almost limp. Her grip on Farah’s arm relaxed and slipped free.

“Cather?” Farah said, panic in her voice. She couldn’t have died, could she? “You will not die! You will fight this. You’re a strong, powerful woman. You can—”

Anything further fell away as a small, yet powerful cry broke through the sudden silence. Shallee looked up, a small bloody bundle of tiny, flailing limbs in her arms.

“It’s a boy,” Shallee said, voice weary, yet brusque with emotion.

Farah grabbed a bundle of cloth and gave it to Shallee as the woman got to her feet, baby held firmly in her grip. Shallee wrapped the infant in the cloth and then handed the child to his mother, who clutched it to her chest with trembling arms.

She looked up at Farah and Shallee. There were tears in her eyes. “Thank you.”

Shallee wiped her hands on another cloth, though there was so much blood there that the cloth didn’t seem to be doing much good.

Farah found tears welling up in her own eyes as she looked between the two exhausted women, one who had delivered a baby and the other who had helped it into the world.

“I’ll go get you some water to clean up with,” Farah said, ducking her head so Shallee wouldn’t see the tears. Farah darted out of the room before Shallee could reply. She only got a few steps before she was stopped dead in her tracks.

Gavin stood in the doorway, his once brown hair now streaked through with white-blond streaks. Dried blood covered a large portion of his exposed skin and he looked exhausted, but
he was alive
!

Farah covered the space between them in the space of half a heartbeat, tossing her arms around him and nestling her head against his chest beneath his chin. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders, holding her close. She’d always loved the feel of those arms around her.

Tears streamed down her face. “I thought you were lost, or worse,” she mumbled into his chest.

“I love you,” Gavin said, his voice barely a whisper as he kissed her on the top of her head.

Farah felt herself flush. “I thought you were dead.”

“This thing was almost true,” said another voice, one Farah recognized as belonging to Tadeo, the strange ex-Orinai soldier. “But your leader here is a hard man to kill. All your people are like this one here. Stubborn. He wanted to come here instead of the medical building.”

Farah pulled away from Gavin long enough to glance around him. Tadeo stood just inside the doorway, supporting a very haggard, pale-looking Evrouin. His head sagged down toward his chest, but as Farah looked over at him, his head came up and their eyes locked for one brief moment. Understanding passed through them in that look and Farah realized she no longer hated him. She didn’t like him, that much remained the same, and she certainly didn’t trust the man, but the hatred was gone.

“You’re a father, Evrouin,” she said, slipping around Gavin and hurrying over to Evrouin to take up his other side and lead him toward the back room. “Let me introduce you to your son.”

“Son?” Evrouin’s voice cracked with weariness, but despite that, he managed a small smile. “I have a son.”

He looked over at Gavin, who nodded at the man and smiled.

“I have a son,” Evrouin repeated. He shrugged off Tadeo’s support and stumbled toward the door to his room on his own. He paused at the door and looked back at Farah. Light glistened off the wetness in his eyes.

“I have a son,” he whispered then limped into the room.

Outside, snow continued to fall.

“Still, the Path itself is true. That much is undeniable fact. The only question that remains is who allows others into it and is there any escape for the fallen?”

From the Discourses on Knowledge, Volume 17, Year 1171

The buildings on either side of the canal were as varied in shape and design as anything Lhaurel had seen. One was large, blocky, and looked rather plain when compared to its closest neighbor, a tall affair with massive spires rising from both the outside walls and the tops of the buildings. Large, glass windows adorned with carvings and archways made of white and black marbled stone accented the sweeping, majestic style.

Alcine and Talha kept up a running commentary as they passed each house. Talha pointed out which Great House belonged to which High Family and where they sat in the political structure of the Empire. Alcine, of course, spoke rather tangentially about the various schools of art that had been influential in the construction of each mansion and the aesthetic appeal of each. Lhaurel only half paid attention to their discourse.

People swarmed over the grounds surrounding each of the houses they passed. Lhaurel watched them, noticing the larger Orinai and the far more plentiful and smaller slave peoples. In particular, she noticed a group of younger slaves, children really, carrying enormous loads of what looked like laundry up massive flights of stairs. All of them stopped whatever they were doing when the ship passed by and prostrated themselves on the ground. None of the other sisters paid it much mind, but Lhaurel watched them all, seeing how the slaves remained prone far longer than their Orinai masters and the way they were treated. It was . . . Lhaurel didn’t know what it was.

“Oars up!”

Lhaurel jumped. She turned and looked at Celiana, who had stepped back toward the drum. “Retract oars!” she shouted.

Wood scraped against wood and the bristling rows of oars on either side of the narrow ship were retreated inside the lower holds.

“Ready the lines!”

A half a dozen uniformed sailors ran forward, bowing low as they approached Lhaurel and the other Sisters. Talha gestured for Lhaurel to stand aside, Mhenna and Alcine doing the same. The sailors moved where they had been and fastened several long ropes to the railing there.

Lhaurel glanced ahead. They were approaching the massive red structure in the center of Estrelar. The canal actually
entered
the building, disappearing into an arched opening in the center of the red stone building. The momentum of the ship was carrying it toward that opening at an amazingly quick speed.

Lhaurel flinched involuntarily and half closed her eyes as the ship passed under the archway. The blaring light of the sun dimmed and Lhaurel forced her eyes open so they could adjust to the gloom within. Torches crackled in brackets along the wall. Red stone passed over their heads as they passed through what looked to be a long, stone corridor. For a moment, Lhaurel was reminded of the long, sandstone passages of the warrens in the Sharani Desert, then the corridor opened up into a room so large that the torches didn’t even begin to provide enough light to illuminate it all.

The sailors at the rail tossed ropes to shadowy figures at the edges of one side of the room, who caught them and began pulling the ship in that direction. Lhaurel glanced around the massive, gloomy expanse, noticing the outlines of several other ships identical to theirs tied up along both edges. The ship bumped up against the stone.

“Stick close to me, Lhaurel,” Talha said. The woman’s tone sent a shiver down Lhaurel’s spine and she licked her lips, forcing herself not to chew on the bottom one.

“What about—” Lhaurel began, but Talha cut her off.

“I’ve already instructed Lance to take her to your tower. Your other priestesses are waiting there to welcome you home.” Talha met her eyes and her voice dropped to a whisper so only Lhaurel could hear. “Please, just stick close to me. There are things that must be done today which will go easier for you if you just follow my lead. Do not fight it. Please.”

Alcine raised a painted eyebrow behind Talha.

Lhaurel shivered again, though, by this time, her mind had started to numb to what was going on around her once again. Elyana’s voice in the back of her mind gave her some small measure of continuity and comfort, though Lhaurel felt slightly disturbed by the fact. Still, the larger part of her mind had retreated to what Lhaurel was starting to call her overwhelmed state. She fought against it, but her mind refused to cooperate. Maybe if she’d had her powers . . .

Some of the sailors lit lanterns as others ran out a ramp, connecting the ship to the stone walkway beyond. The lamp illuminated several tall figures clothed in white standing just at the end of the short wooden ramp. Priestesses garbed in yellow-gold
shufari
.

“Come along, little Sister,” Alcine said with a grin, sauntering over. “Sellia is waiting, it would seem.”

Lhaurel glanced at Talha, who nodded and made a gesture that indicated that Lhaurel was to follow Alcine. Lhaurel walked toward the ramp, knuckles white on her staff. The silence in the room only added to Lhaurel’s growing sense of unease. The sailors parted and allowed the Sisters to pass, bowing low as they did so. The priestesses ahead of them also bowed, though not quite as low and, after a moment, rose and took up the lead at the head of the small procession. Celiana went first, followed by Mhenna, then Alcine, Lhaurel, and lastly Talha. They turned onto a set of stone stairs, striding through the gloom in silence except for the sound of their feet and staves against the stone.

They climbed upward for what seemed an eternity, passing through so many unlit rooms that Lhaurel soon lost track of where they were or what direction they were traveling other than up. After an interminable amount of time, they reached the end of the stairway, which ceased as a large wooden door set into the stone. One of the priestesses knocked on the door with a mallet affixed to the wall by a chain near the doorway. It opened immediately.

Lhaurel felt the hair on her arms stand on end. The priestesses moved aside, not entering the room but instead formed a row of living statues on either side of the hall. Celiana led the Sisters onward. Lhaurel followed.

The room they entered was perfectly round and large enough that the other end of the room was shrouded in shadow, even with half a dozen lanterns set around the doorway. Lhaurel’s attention was immediately drawn to the two figures seated in chairs in the center of the room. Five additional chairs sat around a circle carved into the stone floor, on which a bound and gagged woman rested. Lhaurel felt her brain attempting to engage, confusion lancing through her detached state with sharp intensity, but it only succeeded in stirring up the haze and fog.

Celiana led the procession of Sisters forward, circling around the chairs to stop behind one on Lhaurel’s right. As she got nearer, Lhaurel recognized the two Sisters sitting there watching her with intent, hard eyes. Sellia, the Sister who had supposedly been alive for over a thousand years, and the other Sister who had been with her and Talha in the Sharani Desert. Lhaurel had never learned her name.

Talha came up behind Lhaurel and nudged her forward.

“Stand in the center of the circle,” Talha whispered. “Do not try and talk to the woman on the ground.”

Confused, Lhaurel did as asked. The door creaked shut behind them. Light shone down on Lhaurel from above, though she couldn’t tell from where it originated. The woman at her feet, clad only in a thin garment of brown cloth and bound with ropes, struggled vainly. She also had red hair, though as Lhaurel glanced down at her—an involuntary reaction to her movement—noticed that the color wasn’t nearly deep enough. A small cut on one cheek fed a small trickle of scarlet blood.
Who was she?

“Ah yes, welcome, Lhaurel,” Sellia said, nodding. The other Sisters took seats around her, leaving one next to Talha empty. “Welcome, true Sister. Your journey went well, I trust?”

Lhaurel licked her lips, unsure of how to respond. How had Sellia and the other Sister managed to get here so much more quickly than she had?

“I understand your reticence to speak, Sister,” Sellia continued, “but you are among family now. These are your Sisters.” Sellia gestured at the other seated women, then her eyes darted to the woman on the floor. “She, on the other hand, is the puppet we’ve been forced to use in your absence.”

At Lhaurel’s feet, the woman began to whimper. It was a pitiful, desperate sound that tugged at Lhaurel’s heart.

“I don’t understand,” Lhaurel said, carefully. She felt a growing sense of foreboding and the hair on her arms and neck refused to lie back down.

“It is quite simple, once you understand the Progressions and how our lives return to new bodies with each Incarnation,” the other Sister, who Lhaurel did not know, said. “For a thousand years, we have been without Honor among us. Rather, we have had the pale shadow of you here. There have been dozens like that one,” she pointed at the woman on the floor, “but none have been true Sisters. We’ve perpetuated a charade in order to maintain the semblance of continuity for those who follow the Paths. That ends today. Honor has returned.”

“You have returned to us, after your prior Incarnation destroyed what we had spent centuries building.” This came from Celiana, her voice a rough growl. “And after all these many years, we have become something more than we were even then. The Sharani Arena broke and reforged us. It unified the Empire for nine hundred years and taught us much about what was and was not possible with our abilities.”

“It unified us all in a single, glorious goal. We fought a war we thought was one, and, when we left, the Seven Sisters held all true power in the Empire.” Alcine spoke now. Lhaurel turned to look at her, moving slowly. “But over the centuries, the Great Houses have wrested some measure of control. The unity we once had is starting to crack. The slaves rebel and even some Great Ones have fallen away from the true Path.”

“The Empire needs a new sense of unity,” Talha said, her voice oddly hollow. “You will give it to them.”

Talha stood and the other Sisters around her got to their feet, staffs held out before them, red glass spheres on the ends pointed toward Lhaurel. Lhaurel felt panic rise up and claw at her heart. She held up her hands, one of which still held her own staff. Her foot hit the bound woman on the floor. Lhaurel hadn’t realized she’d been backing up.

“We will bind you to us, Sister,” Sellia said, voice full of a hard passion that hadn’t been there before. “And return your powers to you. We would have Honor back, but we will not be betrayed again.”

The red orbs began to glow. The Sisters stepped closer, moving in concert with one another. Lhaurel found herself frozen in place. The orbs drew closer until they were only inches from her, then, in the space of half a heartbeat, they were touching her.

Pain lanced through Lhaurel, feeling like she’d been touched by heated metal instead of glass. She screamed and sucked in a deep breath, tasting smoke and char as the orbs burned through her clothes and touched her flesh.

Something
surged
through her. Her mind came alive, the fog of confusion burned away beneath a new fire of sudden alertness and understanding. Her heart thundered in her chest and a red mist appeared in the air around her, thick as any Lhaurel had ever seen before. Blood pounded through her veins.

“A blood oath is sworn with power returned,” Mhenna said, her voice distant and echoey, as if spoken from a long, long way away.

The alertness grew, swelling into something else, something
more
. Lhaurel could
feel
the other Sisters now. Her powers swelled within her and her body responded, pulling at it like a man dying of thirst drew in water. It thundered through her. She felt them all and her body responding, pulling at more, pulling at
everything
.

“You will serve the Empire and all it stands for,” the Sister Lhaurel did not know intoned.

The strength of her magic gripped her and surged in her veins.

“You will not harm any of your Sisters and more, you shall protect them against any that would,” Sellia said.

Lhaurel felt a moan of pleasure slip from her lips. Her awareness flew outward and she felt the trembling fear of the woman at her feet, the weakened state she was in, then her powers shot outward, reaching out through the vast, enthralling building and touching on the hundreds of people that walked within its walls.

“You will follow the Path and lead others along the way,” Talha said. The red mist grew thick around Lhaurel and she pulled it in hungrily. She wanted more,
needed
more. This . . . this was everything she’d lacked before. She felt whole, complete, and free.

“You will crush the enemies of the Empire from within and from without,” Celiana said. “Mercy will not burden the bonds of justice.”

Inside Lhaurel’s mind, Elyana’s voice started shouting, though Lhaurel was so deep into the joy and ecstasy of the powers flooding through her that she didn’t notice, except for as a small, passing burr in an otherwise perfect experience.

No! No, don’t do this! Briane! Dear, sweet Briane!

A small part of Lhaurel felt fear and pain flit through the waves of power rolling within her. It was like a small taste of something bitter in the midst of a mouthful of sweet, succulent fruit.