“Yes,” I said, “because they believed—”
“There, you see?” crowed Ronila.
“Silence, Llio-daughter.” Tuari held up a warning finger to the old woman. “I have sought thy forgiveness for the wrongs I’ve done thee and thy dam, and thou hast offered me generous service in return. But I am archon and would hear what healing this Cartamandua-son believes he can bring to the Canon. Despite our hard experience of him, Stian is no mindless actor.”
Ronila pressed her hands together and bowed. “It is but sincerest concern for the Canon that drives my crone’s tongue, resagai. Thou art most generous to allow thy flawed kin to be of use.”
“Speak, Cartamandua-son.”
“I am born of a line of cartographers—human sorcerers who can find their way through the world with magic…” With cautious hope and urgency, I told the archon of my bent. Of finding the Well before I knew of my parentage. Of my ability to follow the paths of kirani laid down on this day or those long past. Though I dared not mention that the Well had chosen me as guardian—not with Ronila present, not when I was captive—I told him how I had walked my mother’s kiran to build Kol’s memory and understanding of the Well, and what Kol believed about my talents.
“I know not what to believe,” said Tuari, throwing up his hands. “How can I accept that a human-tainted abomination, one ignorant of the Canon, can accomplish what our finest dancers cannot? We feel the chaos of humankind; we suffer these poisonings and betrayals, and blind though we are, we know our lands diminished. To hear thy claim that we are responsible for this great imbalance drives me to fury.”
“Allow me to show you, good Tuari,” I said. “I can help you restore what is lost.”
“This halfbreed is poison, Archon,” snapped Ronila, growling with hate. “Stian has set him to bring you down in—”
Tuari silenced her with a gesture, then turned to Nysse, who had been quietly attentive throughout all. “Kol’s and Stian’s violation—deliberate and well considered—risks the very survival of Aeginea…of our kind,” he said in anguished indecision. “How can I allow it? And yet this halfbreed’s sincerity rings true, and Kol’s kiran hath bespoke a marvel this night. I must consider: What if his claims be true, and I refuse to heed?”
Before Ronila could burst or Tuari shatter with his vacillation, Nysse laid her hand on Tuari’s shoulder. “The season’s change is upon us, my love, yet clearly these matters cannot be settled in haste.” Her clear voice rippled with light, just as the pond did. “Stian and Kol have certainly trespassed the Law. Thokki to a lesser guilt. Yet unless we can prove, without doubt, that their violations have done damage, Kol must dance the Center. To force him out on uncertain grounds could be judged an equal risk to the Canon. Nor will I have it said that private jealousy spurred me to take his place. His kiran was flawless, and none other can approach our level. Only in the dance and its consequences can we judge truth.”
As a snarling Ronila clutched her walking stick and muttered indecipherable venom, Tuari kissed Nysse’s forehead and gazed adoringly on his consort. “Nysse’s wisdom frees my own thoughts, good Ronila,” he said, his relief blinding him to the old woman’s burgeoning malice.
But the archon immediately quenched my own surging hope. “By the halfbreed’s own word are Kol and Stian guilty,” he said. “We shall hold the Cartamandua-son as surety for their guilt until the dance is finished. If they value him sincerely, they will step forward to accept the consequences of their violations—myrtle and hyssop and forever unbinding. Then shall we give the halfbreed an opportunity to prove his promise of restoration. If they do not step forward, we shall judge their violations frivolous and force them to their punishment, proceeding with whatever is necessary to rend our unwholesome bond to the human realms.”
“Whatever is necessary?” I cried. “You mean you would lock the guardians of the Mountain and the Sea in their sianous, and allow them to be slaughtered as was my mother. But, of course, Ronila will see them dead in any case. Tuari Archon, Ronila despises human and long-lived alike. In the human world, she names herself the Scourge. She has corrupted her granddaughter and taught her to poison sianous. She wants to destroy all possibility of recovery for the Canon, condemning the world to chaos.”
But the weak-livered fool would hear none of it. “None shall be slaughtered,” he said, insufferably condescending. “If you are what you say, we shall discover it. Ronila has long suffered the consequences of her mixed blood and aspires to naught beyond her place. I sought her aid to recognize human-tainted corruption, and by your own word, she has done so.” He took Nysse’s arm. “Kennet, Ulfin, secure the halfbreed until we are ready for him, and see that Thokki is returned to the Canon undamaged.” The two regal Danae strolled toward the lake…fading…
“Archon,” I called in desperation, “I can restore the Plain!”
Tuari paused and looked back, shaking his head in disbelief. “Bring us to the Plain in the hour of Kol’s trial, halfbreed, and I shall deem all transgression worthy.” He and his consort vanished in a streak of light.
Despite my futile struggles and impotent pleas, the two young Danae seated me on a jumble of rock so that I had a place to rest my back for the long night to come. Ulfin left to find out where their third companion had taken Thokki, while Kennet gathered a handful of reeds from the lakeshore and spread them on the rocks as if to sort them. Ronila crouched in the lee of a pine tree, watching us and jabbing her stick repeatedly into the crusted snow.
Urgency near drove me wild. Kol danced the Center and would do as he promised, but all would go for naught did I fail to let Osriel know. And even then, I must persuade the prince that allowing dead souls to devour the Harrowers must surely violate the Canon we were trying to heal. Then must I bend my thoughts to finding the Plain before Kol could be imprisoned. I twisted my hands in their bindings of braided vines until warm blood welled from the raw scraping.
As I tore my wrists, Ronila drew a bundle from her voluminous robes. “Those of us half human can suffer from the cold,” she said. “The gards are never quite enough. I would lend the Cartamandua-son my spare cloak. No ill in that, eh, lad?”
“Come ahead,” said Kennet, who perched cross-legged beside me, head bent, braiding his reeds into a mat.
“I need naught from you, Scourge,” I said, cursing the bindings that would not stretch.
“Oh, you need this.” As the old woman approached our rocky perch, she juggled her bundle of brown wool and stumbled awkwardly over her walking stick.
Kennet reached out to catch her, and she fell forward into his lap, a shapeless heap. Startled, he looked down at her and grunted wordlessly. Ronila wrenched and twisted as if to free herself of his grasp, but his hands had fallen limp. She stepped back, and the young Dané shuddered and slumped sideways, his lifeblood gushing from the ragged hole just below his breastbone, his gards fading. His head rested on my thigh.
“Murdering witch!” I cried, horrified. Twisting my shoulders half out of their sockets, I slid my bound hands under me and around my legs to the front. Too late for Kennet. I pressed my shaking hands to his face and felt the surety of death.
Ronila backed away, laughing at my contortions. Dark stains covered her brown robes. “The long-lived take exception to those who slay their young. As you do. My faithful monk sends word that he plans to shred thy archangel before he bleeds him. He has only to choose which sianou to poison.”
She turned her back and hobbled away.
I bellowed in wordless rage. The knife lay on the rock in a pool of Kennet’s blood, and I fumbled it into my grasp. I sawed at the ropes on my ankles until they fell slack. Heedless of the blade’s lethal edge, I cut my hands free. Some of the blood that slathered them was certainly my own. Weapon in hand, I sped after the retreating demoness…