The winikin continued: “Vennie was crazy in love with your father and his family. She insisted on your being accepted into the harvester bloodline, and having a harvester winikin.” Shandi paused, her expression going unreadable. “I wasn’t actually in line to be your winikin—or anyone’s, really—but during your naming ceremony, the magic bypassed your intended winikin and tagged me with the aj-
winikin mark instead.” She turned her palms up to say bitterly, “And who are we to argue with the will of the gods?”
That in itself was a shock to Jade . . . yet at the same time it wasn’t, really. From what she’d read, magebound winikin had been selected through a rigorous process that had been part Nightkeeper foretelling, part psychological profiling, and had been designed to provide the best possible caregiver match. If Shandi hadn’t been chosen or trained . . . “What were you supposed to be, if not a winikin?”
Those of the blood who weren’t chosen to wear the aj-winikin “I serve” glyph had formed the core of daily life at Skywatch, a layer of support staffers below even the harvesters.
A spasm of pain crossed the other woman’s face, but she shook her head. “That doesn’t matter anymore. What’s done is done.” Conversation closed. “By the time King Scarred-Jaguar started planning to attack the intersection and seal the barrier, you were six months old, and your parents’ marriage had been limping along for about twice that.”
“But the jun tan is supposed to mark a lifelong bond.”
“Love doesn’t guarantee a problem- free re lationship.”
Ouch. How many times had she thought that before? More, how often had she seen a client out the door and stood there after it closed, thinking to herself that she would never fall into the trap of pining after a man, or letting a bad relationship crush her? Don’t be like Edda , she’d told herself over and over again, using one particular client to proxy for the sum total of the broken hearts—and broken spirits—she’d counseled in her five years of active practice. In that time, she’d gained a reputation as a relationship expert when all she’d really done was help the women—and a few men, but mostly women—learn to be the best them they could be, without using a relationship as a value mirror. And while she’d been teaching her clients how to self-actualize, she’d been confirming the value of her own chosen lifestyle, one of casual dates and sex between friends.
“So,” she said carefully, feeling her way, “when you used to tell me my parents loved each other, that was a lie?”
Shandi nodded. “They were gone, and I . . . ah, I thought you needed the illusion of parents who loved each other.”
“And who loved me?” Jade said softly.
Instead of the knee-jerk, Of course they loved you, the question called for, Shandi stayed silent.
When she met Jade’s eyes, though, her expression was resolute. “If you’d asked me that a few hours ago, my honest answer would have been that your father doted on you. All of your harvester relatives did.”
Jade’s mouth had gone drier than the too- humid desert outside. “But not my mother or the stars?”
“It wasn’t like human society. Once a woman married out of a bloodline, she might still wear her original bloodline mark, but her responsibility and affiliation shifted to her husband’s family. Vennie .
. . I believe she truly loved your father at first, and came into the marriage fully committed to the harvester bloodline. But once the newness of being a wife wore off and she started to understand what it meant to be a harvester instead of a star, she chafed at the restrictions. More, she began losing her magic.”
“But the jun tan bond is supposed to increase a Nightkeeper’s talent.”
“I’m just telling you what she told me—and everyone else within earshot—on a regular basis.”
Faint discomfort flitted across the winikin’s expression, but she kept going. “She was frustrated with the menial roles the harvesters were playing in the weeks leading up to the king’s attack. She wanted to fight, not sit in the background. More, she and your father fought over the attack itself. She questioned Scarred-Jaguar’s visions, which a harvester would never do. That was one of the few times I could ever remember seeing Joshua truly angry. He was furious with her for questioning the king, though I think a large part of it was a spillover of other, smaller disagreements that had been building up. Add that to the stress of their being young parents with a loud, colicky baby, and things got nasty.”
Shandi paused. “She took off three days before the attack, and she didn’t come back. We assumed she ran off, not wanting to be part of a battle she didn’t believe in. Based on Lucius’s description, though, I think it’s possible she somehow found and enacted the Prophet’s spell instead, hoping to find something within the library that would help her convince Scarred-Jaguar not to lead the attack . . . or something that would help him win it. Knowing her, she wouldn’t have cared which, as long as she got the credit. Instead, she somehow got caught up inside the library instead of forming the proper conduit. And she died there.”
Jade closed her eyes on a wash of emotion. She told herself it didn’t matter that her parents hadn’t died together, that their love hadn’t been the deep, abiding joy Shandi had let her believe. That was twenty-some years ago, and had little influence on her life now. She could only control her own thoughts and actions, not those of others . . . and certainly not the past. The sentiments rang badly hollow, though, and her chest ached. “You said she took off three days before the massacre. Didn’t the king and the others go looking for her? Surely, if she’d been lying around somewhere, half jacked into the library, someone could have found her.”
But Shandi shook her head. “There wasn’t an extensive search because nobody in the council knew she was gone. Neither the harvesters nor the stars wanted to draw attention to her disappearance. Back then, the political situation was volatile. There were . . . I wouldn’t call them factions, exactly, but there was definitely dissent within the Nightkeepers. Parents held their teenagers back from their talent ceremonies so they wouldn’t have to fight, and a few of the magi even spoke openly about leaving. In the end the king, with the queen at his side, declared that anyone involved in desertion, whether by act or knowledge, was guilty of treason . . . which was—and still is—punishable by death.”
“You all thought you were protecting her by covering up her disappearance.”
The winikin nodded. “Your father was heartbroken that she’d taken off, but he didn’t want her being charged with treason.”
Love strikes again, Jade thought, knowing that she should feel something but not sure what anymore. She was growing numb to the surprises, to the anguish. “He died thinking she had abandoned him. That she had abandoned both of us.” She paused as grief echoed through her. “Didn’t anyone stop to think that a woman who was all bent out of shape about being kept out of the action wasn’t going to just walk away from a fight?”
“Sure, there were questions, but like I said, she was impulsive . . . and I can’t say that motherhood had settled her down. She loved you fiercely when she was in the mood, but then, other times, she wanted to pretend she was the same girl she’d been before—the party girl who was always the center of attention.”