“He is bringing the Tunishnevre here?” Thaddeus asked. He sat in silence for a time, mouth hanging open, eyes glazed. “I should have known that. Of course he is… He’s had the time to prepare a chamber here. He sent his brother to fight Aliver, not because he did not take the threat seriously, but because he had a greater purpose for himself. He has had you safely here all along… I should have foreseen this. We have looked back into our own myths for allies; why would Hanish not do the same?”
He looked up at Corinn, his old, veined eyes fixed on her face. “You asked me what I think of it? I think Hanish is lying. The lore says that there are two ways to end the curse on the Tunishnevre. He could free them with a gift of your blood, a forgiveness offering. But that is not what he intends. If he takes your life from you unwillingly and slays you on the altar, then he will wake his ancestors, not free them to death. He will bring them back to life. They will get their bodies back and walk the earth again, Corinn. They will be incredibly powerful and vengeful in a way that has no bounds. If that happens, we have lost for good. This is why you must come with me.”
“Is that why you came here,” Corinn asked, “to rescue me?”
“I came for another reason,” the former chancellor said. He told her about the Santoth and the corruption of their knowledge and about the great, great need for The Song of Elenet. He had found it, he explained, because he finally put together the clues that Leodan had left for them. Aliver did not yet know of his success. He did not even know he had come here. He needed to get the book to him as quickly as possible, but now it was just as important that she flee the island with him. It would be risky, but if they escaped via the route he had come into the palace, they would emerge not far from the Temple of Vada. He could cross to the temple and, he was sure, he could convince the priests to give him some small vessel. He would return and pick her up and then they would fly with the wind. Perhaps he could even send word to Aliver from the temple, so that he could act accordingly.
Corinn kept her face blank. She did not want to address this notion of flight yet. “Is that book The Song of Elenet?” she asked, pointing to the volume sitting on the man’s thighs. It did not look like much, really, but she noticed that he had never taken his hand from atop its cover, as if he feared something might befall it even here, with just the two of them in the alcove.
Guardedly, he nodded.
She stretched out her hands toward it.
“Princess, we don’t have much time,” Thaddeus said. “I gather Hanish is to return tomorrow. We must-”
“Let me see the book,” she said, keeping her eyes focused on the chancellor’s and making sure her words had the ring of command to them. She was sure that if she had not been looking at him so intently he might have refused, delayed somehow, thought of an excuse, or changed the subject. He opened his mouth to say something, but before he could she pulled the book from his grasp and moved away a few steps.
The book was much lighter than it looked. It opened with the slightest pull of her fingers. From the moment she looked upon its contents she knew for a certainty that nothing in her life would ever be the same. The page was full of script, curling, looping, dancing words. They moved before her eyes, growing and changing as she watched, becoming one word and then another, written in a foreign, beautiful language. The words she read struck her like notes ringing in her soul. She did not know what they meant, but as her eyes touched them, they rose off the page and filled her with song. They welcomed her. They praised her. They danced in the air around her like exotic birds. They assured her that they had been waiting for her. Waiting for her. Now everything would be all right. She, she, she could make it all all right. They rubbed the entirety of her being with the sensuous, humming intensity of a hungry housecat. She could not explain how she knew or heard or understood any of these sensations or declarations or promises at that moment. But the messages and the sublime radiance of the voices that spoke them were undeniable. This book was, without doubt, the very gift she had waited her entire life to receive.
When she folded it closed and the room returned to normal and she could again focus on Thaddeus, she already understood things she had not before. She already saw with clarity what had to be done. “This is wonderful,” she said, meaning it completely. “Tell me the truth-does anybody know of this book? That you have it and that it is here, with me?”
“No, you need not fear that. Only you and I know. By the look on your face…You-you saw something in it?”
She smiled warmly but did not answer him. “You have done a great thing. My father was right to love you.”
Whatever his doubts, this assertion brushed them away. His old eyes instantly brimmed with moisture. “Thank you,” Thaddeus said. “Thank you for saying so. You can forgive me, then?” Corinn said she did not know what he meant. What had she to forgive? She could only thank him. This caused a tear to drop from one of his eyes, which he wiped off his cheek. He fell into another discourse. A stream of words tumbled from his tongue, a whole explanation of what and why he had done it, how he had regretted and prayed and worked to see things put right.
Corinn did not listen to much of it, but she did look at him, nodding, her eyes open and large. Before he finished, his fatigue started to overcome him. His gestures grew sloppier. His words blurred at the edges. When he blinked, his eyelids fought his efforts to reopen them. She sat there only long enough to decide what she was about to do, and then she interrupted him.
“Enough, Thaddeus,” she said. “I see no stain on you. Understand?” She reached forward and touched her hand gently to his chin. “You are unblemished. We need say no more about it. I’ll get you something to eat and drink. Rest here. When I return we’ll figure out what to do and how to do it.”
Sensing that he might protest, she pressed The Song of Elenet back against his chest. This seemed to ease him. A moment later, after having stepped out of her barred door and sent a servant for tea and light fare, Corinn stood alone, trembling and hushed. The memory of the song was already bittersweet. She so loved it. It had made life seem a blessed thing, right and good. With the song anything would be possible. She already hungered to go back and open the book again. She knew that learning the language it spoke would not be easy. It would require months or years of focused study. The book had somehow conveyed this to her. It would give her so much, but only if she created the opportunity to study it quietly, perhaps secretly. Why had her father-and the generations before him-ignored the Song, hidden it away? Such folly. She would not make that mistake.
If she was to do what she was coming to believe she must, there were so many things to see to and so little time to complete them in. The challenges still before her had to be met with her wits alone, with the cunning she already possessed, building on things she had already set in motion. She would have to think every step of it through, cleaning every possible mistake away ahead of time. She had to turn over everything Thaddeus had said about Aliver’s intentions in her mind so that she understood it all and knew how best to face it. She would have to pen a note to Rialus and find a way to send it via messenger bird. That would not be easy, but she had to manage it only once. She would need to explore these passageways in the walls. And she’d have to take care of Thaddeus first.
When the servant returned, Corinn took the tray from her and said she still did not wish to be disturbed for any reason. She watched the young woman, an Acacian, depart, closing the door behind her. Corinn set the tray down. She slipped her fingers into her belt and pulled out the folded paper bird. With a tap of her finger it took on its swanlike shape. She squeezed the ends of it between her fingers, tilted, and watched as a fine powder fell sparkling into the tea. She hoped it was as odorless and tasteless as the league chemists claimed. She realized that in some portion of her consciousness she had already planned on using this poison on Hanish. As she watched the tiny grains dissolve, she put that from her mind. She would find another way to deal with him. How fortuitous that the package arrived today, just before the chancellor stepped out of the wall. Another sign this was meant to be, meant to happen this way.