The New Race woman's mask was quite, quite different. Her long red fingernails seemed impractical; nevertheless a rope had been thrown and pulled tight. Akashia couldn't think of one without thinking of the other.
"It had to be done," she repeated obstinately. "I told Pavek to take her to his grove—to the grove you bequeathed to him—but the Hero of Quraite refused. So I judged her myself."
"Ignoring his advice?"
"She'd already blinded his common sense. I'm not afraid, Grandmother; I'm not weak. There was no reason for you to turn to him instead of me. Pavek will never understand Quraite the way I do, even without your grove to guide me. He doesn't care the way I care."
"The white-skinned woman came from Hamanu, not his high templar," Telhami corrected her, ignoring everything else. "The Lion-King sent her. She alone traveled under his protection, she alone survived the Sun's Fist. It's not for druids to judge the Lion-King, or his messengers. If you will not believe the woman herself, if you refuse to listen to Pavek, believe me."
Why? Akashia wanted to scream. Why should she believe? All the while she'd been growing up, learning the druid secrets under Grandmother's tutelage, Urik and its sorcerer-king had been Quraite's enemy. Everything she learned was designed to nurture the ancient oasis community and hide it from the Lion-King's rapacious sulphur eyes. The only exception was zarneeka, which the druids grew in their groves and which Quraite sent to Urik to compound into an analgesic for the poor who couldn't afford to visit a healer. And then, they learned that Escrissar and his halfling alchemist were compounding their zarneeka not into Ral's Breath, but into the maddening poison Laq.
They'd made a mistake, she and Telhami; Escrissar's deadly ambitions had taken them by surprise. They'd paid dearly for that mistake. Quraite had paid dearly. Telhami had died to keep Escrissar from conquering zarneeka's source, villagers and other druids had died too, and they'd be years repairing the damage to the groves and field.
But they would have won—had won—before the sorcerer-king's intervention—Akashia believed that with all her heart. What she couldn't believe was Urik's ruler on his knees beside Grandmother's deathbed, caressing Grandmother's cheek with a wicked claw that was surely the inspiration for the talons Escrissar had used on her.
The sense of betrayal souring Akashia's gut was as potent now as it had been that night. Clenching a fist, relaxing it, then clenching it again, she waited for the spasms to subside. When they had, she calmly dragged a foot through the touchstone patterns—defying Telhami to restore them again.
"Mahtra went to House Escrissar frequently and willingly, she said so herself. She was there, Grandmother. She was there when Escrissar interrogated me, when he laid me to waste—just like the boy was! They witnessed... everything!"
She was, to her disgust, shaking again, and Telhami stood there, head drawn back and tilted slightly, glowing eyes narrowed, taking everything in, coldly judgmental—as Grandmother had never been.
"And what is it that you expected to accomplish?" "Justice! I want justice. I want judgment for what was done to me. They should all die. They should endure what I endured, and then they should die of shame."
"Them!"
The unnatural eyes blinked and were dimmer when they reappeared. "You didn't," Grandmother whispered. "That's the root, isn't it. You wanted to die of your shame, but you survived instead, and now you're angry. You can't forgive yourself for being alive."
"No," Akashia insisted. "I need no forgiving. They need judgment."
"Destroying Mahtra won't change your past or the future. Destroying Zvain won't, either. Born or made, life wants to go on living, Kashi. The stronger you are, the harder it is to choose death."
Not everyone is as determined as you, Kashi. Some of us have to stay alive, and while we live, we do what we have to do to keep on living. Pavek's sneering face surfaced in Akashia's memory, echoing Telhami.
"You were assailed by corruption, you were reduced to nothing, you wanted to die, but you survived instead. Now you want to punish Mahtra for your own failure and call it justice. What judgment for you, then, if Mahtra's only crime were the same as yours: She survived the unsurvivable?"
It was a bitter mirror that Pavek and Telhami raised. Akashia raked her hair and, for the first time, averted her eyes.
"Where is my justice? Awake or asleep, I'm trapped in that room with him. I can't forget. I won't forgive. It's not right that I have all the scars, all the shame."
"Right has little to do with it, Kashi—"
"Right is all that remains!" Akashia shouted with loud anguish that surprised her and surely awoke the entire village. Embarrassment jangled every nerve, tightened every muscle. For a moment, she was frozen, then: "Everything's dark now. I see the sun, but not the light. I sleep, but I don't rest. I swallowed his evil and spat it back at him," she whispered bitterly. "I turned myself inside out, but he got nothing from me. Nothing! Every day I have to look at that boy and remember. And, she's come to put salt on my wounds. They know. They must know what he did to me. And yet they sleep sound and safe."
"Do they?"
She set her jaw, refusing to answer.
"Do they?" Telhami repeated, her voice a wind that ripped through Akashia's memory.
According to Ruari, Zvain at least did not sleep any better than she. And for that insight, she'd turned against her oldest friend, her little brother.
Something long-stressed within Akashia finally collapsed. "I'm weary, Grandmother," she said quietly. "I devote myself to Quraite. I live for them, but they don't seem to care. They do what I tell them to do, but they complain all the while. They complain about using their tools in weapons-practice. I have to remind them that they weren't ready when Escrissar came. They complain about the wall I've told them to build. They say it's too much work and that it's ugly—"
"It is."
"It's for their protection! I won't let anything harm them. I've put a stop to our trade with Urik. No one goes to the city; no one goes at all, not while I live. I'd put an end to the Moonracer trade, too... if I could convince them that we have everything that we need right here."
Akashia thought of the arguments she'd had trying to convince the Quraiters, farmers and druids alike. They didn't understand—couldn't understand without living through the horror of those days and nights inside House Escrissar.
"Alone," she said, more to herself than to Telhami. "I'm all alone."
"Alone!" Telhami snorted, and the sound cut Akashia's spirit like a honed knife. "Of course you're alone, silly bug. You've turned your back to everyone. Life didn't end in House Escrissar, not yours nor anyone else's. Walls won't keep out the past or the future. You're alive, so live. You've been pleading for my advice—yes, I've heard you; everything hears you—well, that's it. That, and let them go, Kashi. Let Pavek go, let Ruari go. Let them go with your blessing, or go with them yourself—"
"No," Akashia interrupted, chafing her arms against a sudden chill. "I can't. They can't. Pavek's the Hero of Quraite. The village believes in him. They'll lose heart if he goes—especially if he goes to stinking Urik—and doesn't come back. I had to judge that woman. If I could make her reveal what she truly was, he wouldn't follow her. He'd stay here, where he belongs. They'd all stay here."
The sleeping platform creaked as Telhami sat down beside Akashia. She had neither pulse nor breath, but her hands were warm enough to drive away the chill.
"At last we get down to the root: Pavek. Pavek and Ruari. They do know what happened. You can scarcely bear the sight of either of them—or the thought that they might leave you. It would be so much easier, wouldn't it, if all the heroes of Quraite were dead: Yohan, Pavek, Ruari, and Telhami— all of us buried deep in the ground where we could be remembered, but not seen."