Carol Berg - Breath and Bone

It was Brother Victor started laughing first. Jullian appeared to have acquired a healthy sunburn, but soon ducked his head and snorted into his sleeve. The prince blurted a modest chuckle that soon erupted into Gram’s best humor, and even the two women, one beset by indignant grief and the other by gods knew what, soon joined in. Elene knew very well that her intent to ride off to the bridge was rash and futile.

Naught was fundamentally changed by our laughter. Grievance and worry held their grip on each of us. But no one argued with my pronouncement. Osriel returned to his chair, and we talked for a while of how the lighthouse had come to be. Brother Victor recounted the story of my novice punishment when he first showed me the astonishing library, and we spoke of what might be needed to keep the two scholars safe in a future that was naught but hope.

As Brother Victor and Jullian withdrew to their night prayers, Osriel saluted the monk with a hand on his heart, then turned to Jullian and bowed. “Brave Scholar, wisdom, courage, and honor must ever be our beacon through this storm. I can think of no one better suited to light our lighthouse.”

Elene touched my hand as she made to follow them from the room. “I want to be angry with you, Valen, but you make it difficult.”

“I must keep practicing, then. No one has ever noted such a difficulty.”

“When you’ve done with Osriel…”

“I’ll come.”

Saverian had slipped out without a word to anyone. Her anger afflicted me like a saddle sore. Every passing moment seemed to aggravate it. Only duty kept me from running after her to settle matters. Osriel was waiting.

“As always, you tread the verge of treason, friend Valen.” Cup refilled and in hand, he stretched his feet toward the fire. “But I do thank you for reminding us of our common purpose. And most especially—Elene will not hear logic from me.”

Without waiting for an invitation I dragged my stool closer and perched. “And it is entirely logic that forces you to hold her back from danger?”

His color rose. “Logic is all I can afford. Believe it or not, Elene is her father’s worthy heir, a dauntless and skilled warrior, and a leader warriors will respect. Anger makes her even more formidable. But for this mission, courage must take on a different face. Zurina knows exactly what I’m asking of her.”

“To run. To let the Harrowers believe that her sex makes her weak and afraid, so they will think nothing of chasing her all the way to Renna and the world’s end.”

He drank and then swirled his cup idly. “So must I die on the solstice or not?”

“If Kol succeeds at what he plans, no…”

I told him all. And as I feared, neither Kol’s intentions nor the chance that I could heal the world’s wounds changed his determination.

“If you bring me word that Kol has won his challenge, I will joyfully accept the personal reprieve,” he said, after reviewing every nuance of my story. “And that you could be destined to heal these plagues and storms leaves me in awe and inspires hope for our future. My faith in you is immeasurable. But I must and will raise the revenant legion. Tales of hope and faith will not persuade Sila’s fighters to lay down their arms, even if you were to stand before the hosts in all your glory to deliver them. Do I not fight the battle two days hence at Dashon Ra, then it must be fought another day in Ardra or Morian. Here I can set the terms. If you’ve brought me an alternative, Valen, then tell me.”

And I could not. Though I believed Osriel’s enslavement of dead souls would carry him down a path of wickedness no honorable intent could redeem, I had no argument to stay his hand. Sila Diaglou and her grandmother would leave Navronne in ashes and Aeginea desolate.

My conversation with Elene was little easier. We sat stiffly in her chilly retiring room. The hearth fire had already been banked. I spoke of her father’s courage, but gave no details of his horrific end. And I confessed that I had not been able to redeem my promise to turn Osriel from his path. “I’ve brought him hope, though,” I said, but did not reveal how slim. “How goes it with”—I waved vaguely at her belly—“you? You seem well.”

“I could not hide it longer from Saverian. She says all seems to be as it should be. A hundred times I’ve thought to tell Osriel, but then I say: If he did not change his plans for me, why would he change them for a child he does not even know?” She did not weep or plead this time. Nor did she invite an embrace or comfort.

“Hold your secret close, mistress. Even so important a matter, from one who is dearer to him than all others…I doubt it could sway him just now. He is too locked into this course, and at the least, we need him clearheaded. But there will come a time when it’s right.” I hoped.

We agreed to leave for Gillarine at midmorning.

I returned to the tower room assigned to me, threw open the window, and sat on the bed to unlace my boots, imagining each of my friends doing the same. Each of us alone, anticipating the trial to come. Of a sudden I could not bear solitude. I relaced my boots and hurried down.

I gulped great breaths of air before descending the stair to Saverian’s den. You’re being wholly irrational, I told myself. What difference does it make what she thinks of you? No answer made itself known, and would have made no difference anyway. I needed to see her.

“Saverian?” I tapped on the open door.

“I’m here.” The rattling and banging going on inside the low-ceilinged chamber where we had revived Voushanti served as evidence enough of that.

It was impossible to tell what she was doing, beyond removing every bottle, box, and packet from her well-ordered shelves and putting them back again. I stood awkwardly in the middle of the room, waiting for her to turn around to see who had come.

I cleared my throat. “I thought you might be interested…as my physician…as a matter of your studies…” Weak. Insipid. “As you weren’t with me this time, and I found myself thinking about you right when something most astonishing happened. I fell out of my body—”

She spun about, a nasty-looking pair of sprung forceps in her hand. “You damnable, god-cursed, splotch-skinned toad. How can you let him do this? I’m to bleed him? Watch him suffer? Watch him die? And then perform this despicable enchantment to bring him back to lead an army of dead men?”

I felt unreasonably stung. “I tried to talk him out of it. I thought you knew what he planned.”

“About the dead men’s eyes, and giving the Harrowers to the dead, yes. That’s vile enough. But not the other. Not murdering him. And of course Riel chooses to explain my part in his villainous little scheme after you vanished without saying anything to anyone. No one knew where you were going or when or if you might come back, and then the boy told us what Gildas did to you, and I can’t conceive of how your mind or body can deal with the doulon again so soon. And every moment I thought we’d have to take Voushanti through another death ritual. He must either taste your blood soon or die again—it’s surely some marvel of your damnable blood that he has survived this long. So comes tonight, and after worrying myself half sick, you stroll through the door all politeness and deference to Riel, and offering such kindness to poor, half-crazed Elene, and such honor to that brave child—able to work this magic of yours, twisting them all inside out for love of you. But I won’t do any of it. Not for you, not for him, not for anyone. By this unmerciful, coldhearted, god-forsaken universe, I won’t.”

But, of course, she would, because she loved Osriel and believed in him, though it ripped her asunder. And somehow hearing that concern for me had some small part in her fury scratched the itch that had driven me down into her pit of a workplace to stand in the way of this outpouring.