Carol Berg - Breath and Bone

“So, are you more sensible now?”

Sand in my mouth. In my eyes. Everywhere underneath me. Rain drummed on my back and cascaded over my head. I squinted into the murk. The pounding in my head was not just blood but waves, out there beyond the veils of rain that merged sea, air, cliffs, and sky into one mass of gray. Evaldamon. The salty residue in my mouth evidenced Kol had dunked me in the sea at the very least.

“Yes, rejongai. Better.” I sat up, feeling scoured inside and reasonably clearheaded. Recollection of his warning postponed my questions about nivat and what he’d done to aid me.

“Tell me of Ronila,” he said.

“The priestess who destroys your sianous is Ronila’s granddaughter, raised to be Ronila’s vengeance on humans and Danae alike. But it is Ronila and her toady that I fear most. They have some scheme…”

I told him all I knew of the old woman and Sila and Gildas. Though I did not describe Osriel’s particular plan, I revealed how Tuari had pledged to spend the power of the Winter Canon into the golden veins of Dashon Ra and fuel the prince’s dangerous enchantment.

“…but once Picus told me of Tuari’s hatred for humankind, I could not believe the archon would keep the bargain. I had to warn Osriel of the potential treachery. That’s why I left Aeginea so abruptly.”

Kol sat on his haunches, his mouth buried in his hands as he listened to my story. Through a sheen of raindrops, his dragon suffused his lean face with a sapphire glow. “Though my sire and I disagree with the archon on many matters, Tuari has always attended his responsibilities faithfully. He does not make bargains he has no intent to keep; nor would he ever compromise the Canon. When he failed to name me Chosen—the one of us who dances at the Center—none could understand it. My dancing is unmatched in this season.” Honesty, not pride, birthed his claim.

“As Picus told thee, Tuari is least likely of all of us to join a human—especially Eodward’s son—in any endeavor. Yet Dashon Ra is the Center of the Winter Canon, and he has named his consort Chosen. She could do this thing—divert the wholeness of the dance into the veins and not the land itself…” The words faded. His thoughts drifted deeper.

This was not what I wanted to hear. “Janus said the Chosen dances at the Center to ‘bring all life to joining.’ All life—human, Danae, birds, beasts…everything?”

“The dance of the Chosen joins all that is brought to the Canon by the long-lived—trees and rivers, mountains, stones, sea and shore, earth and all that grows, as well as all thou hast named.”

“But only the lands you remember. You can’t include the parts of the earth that are corrupt.”

Kol straightened abruptly. “I have told thee, I will not—”

“I know that you and your kind forget places that have been poisoned, Kol. Janus once created a great map, hoping to show you the places you had lost. But he didn’t understand that Danae could not make sense of such patterning. Somehow Sila Diaglou got hold of that map and was using it to judge her success in forcing your kind out of Aeginea.” I could not let him avoid the subject any longer. “Vayar, you vowed to provide me truth and healthy guidance. As you see I need both of those now more than I have ever done, else we have no hope of untangling this mess. My mother intended me to help. You know that. I’ve just no idea how. Permit me to do so. Please, uncle, teach me.”

Kol scooped a handful of sand, allowing the rain to wash it through his fingers. Only when his palm was clean did he respond. “Janus said he would help us reclaim the Plain. It is only a name in our tales of the Beginnings, yet we believe its importance equal to the Sea, the Mountain, and the Well. Thou hast judged rightly; we cannot bring it back into the Canon if we cannot find it. We cannot find it if we cannot remember. In the same way each of the sianous lost to the Scourge falls out of our memory and thus out of the Canon. Only the names linger to remind us of our loss.”

Sorrow, grief, and shame clothed him as new gards. “Clyste traveled with Janus as he marked his papers,” he continued, “returning joyful, for her eyes had seen these dead places. For one or two she was able to work a kiran to bring to the Spring Canon. With Janus’s magics we would be able to find these places again and reclaim them all. But when at last the Cartamandua returned and unrolled his great skin, we could see naught but scrawling that twisted our eyes and turned our heads wrong way out.”

“Ronila could read it,” I said. “But in her spite, she told no one. She must have taken the map from Janus then, or perhaps Picus gave it to her when he came back to Navronne. The hag burnt your only hope to find the dead lands. Sila wants you to forget Aeginea and interbreed with humans. Ronila wants to ensure you never remember. Ronila wants you dead.”

Kol scratched his head. “Neither of those could have taken it. Ronila was long away from Aeginea when Janus brought the great map. Picus too. I know that because the Cartamandua brought the skin map on his last visit, the same visit that Clyste lay with—”

He whirled about sharply, his golden eyes as bright as small moons in the gloom. Before I could ask what insight had struck him so forcefully, he yanked me to my feet. “Come, rejongai, we must resume your lessons. Take me to the Well.”

“We’ve no time. And I cannot—”

“The long-lived do not grasp humans’ constant invocation of time. Before and after, soon and how long seem to us but walls built to imprison you. But indeed, the change of season bites the air, and I see such danger and such possibility as tell me I have lived blind until inhaling this very breath that leaves my body.” His hands near burnt their image into my shoulders. “If thou wouldst justify Clyste’s fate, Valen Cartamandua-son, then do as I say, without thought, without distraction, without artifice, living only in the embrace of the Everlasting.”

His urgency made my heart race. And as dearly as I desired to determine my own course, the past months had taught me faith and trust. I trusted Kol in the same way I had trusted Luviar, when every mote of common wisdom said to distance myself from plots and conspiracies. In the same way as I trusted Osriel when the accumulated witness of my eyes and ears clamored for me to slay, not save him. But I hungered for answers as I hungered for spelled nivat. “I will obey, vayar, but I beg you answer one question: What have you guessed?”

“Many things, but only one sure. Tuari has given Ronila the map.”

No matter how I pestered, Kol was adamant. He would explain no more until I led him to Clyste’s Well. I had no capacity to judge what it might mean for the Canon if Tuari had been duped by his half-brother’s daughter. Duped, to be sure, for if the archon was a person who attended his responsibilities faithfully, and who would never compromise the Canon, then he could not possibly have read Ronila’s true intent. Yet no warning from Kol or from me could stop whatever scheme Tuari had devised. The archon had no use for either of us.

I had come to Kol for guidance. Thus, over the next hours, I indeed left everything behind and gave myself into the embrace of the Everlasting. We traveled the length of Navronne. Again and again I sank to my knees, placed head and palms on the mud, snow, or rocky ground, and released careful dollops of magic to seek a route to the Well. Though Kol’s dunking had eased my immediate sickness, the yearning for nivat dogged my heels like an unwanted hound, as I sought out landmarks…rivers, seas, mountains…anything that might tell me where we stood and where we must go next. Subtle steps on this journey; I needed naught else to make me heave.