Arjuro looked at Lirah. As much a prisoner to the godshouse as Lirah was to the palace. Two young girls taken from their homes at the same age. One to be the King’s whore, the other to be Oracle to a people.
‘As far as we Priestlings were concerned, she had always been there. We thought she was ancient, of course. The hubris of the young who think that everyone else is too old or too young.’ He smiled. ‘Old and decrepit, and she would have been younger than my brother and I are now.’
Arjuro took the old man’s hand.
‘If what you fear is that she was controlled by the Priests who took her, then I will reassure you that the Oracle allowed no one, man or woman, to tell her how to think or what to say. Regardless of how she was placed in the godshouse, she had power. We loved nothing more than watching the older Priests travel from the provinces and get a serving from her tongue. More than anything, she could not be bought. She could not be convinced to lie. The gift of foretelling, she would say, was not meant to bring on war and nurture greed. It was meant to guide.’
Froi could see that Hesta was touched by Arjuro’s fierce respect for her sister.
‘And the events in the godshouse all those years ago?’ she asked. ‘The carnage?’
‘All true, I’m afraid,’ Arjuro said sadly.
‘And she took her life all those months later?’
Arjuro looked at Gargarin.
‘No,’ Gargarin said. ‘I was with her at her death. She died …’ he swallowed hard. ‘She died in childbirth.’
Hesta was shocked to hear the words.
‘How can that be?’ Hesta asked.
‘It was … nine months after the attack on the godshouse,’ Arjuro said.
Hesta wept, understanding the truth.
‘By who?’ she asked, her voice broken. ‘Was it the Serkers?’
No one spoke for a moment.
‘By my father, the King,’ Quintana said, her voice quiet. ‘When Lirah and I went searching for my mother’s spirit that one time in the lake of the half-dead, it was not to be found. But there was another. A second child born dead, who had somehow become separated from our mother, the Oracle, in spirit.’
Hesta stared at her, stunned. ‘Your mother?’
A look passed between the two of them and Hesta shivered.
‘She was just the Oracle Queen to us,’ Arjuro said. ‘Blessed, we would call her. At their deaths, Gargarin gave the babe a name. Perhaps it was for that reason Regina of Turla made it to the lake of the half-dead to wait for her mother’s spirit. But her mother’s name was never known and so the Oracle has been lost, except in the dreams of her father and her daughter.’
Hesta’s eyes were still fixed on Quintana.
‘Solange,’ she said. ‘My sister’s name was Solange.’
Quintana looked down at the old man. ‘He cannot bear the idea of being separated from his daughter in both life and death. He needs to take the spirit of Solange with him and somehow she sent me to him because he wants to die.’
She turned to Arjuro. ‘Can you do that for him, Arjuro? Now that you know her name. Can you call her spirit home after all these years?’
Arjuro nodded solemnly.
‘Leave us,’ Quintana said to Froi and the others. ‘I need to speak to my Turlan kin.’
Outside Ariston took a ragged breath.
‘Our women are hidden,’ he said after a while. ‘Ever since the talk of calamity in the Citavita we’ve kept them protected. We long suspected that the Oracle came from Turla. If the Priests found an Oracle amongst us long ago, then the palace will find a girl to produce the first now. The last thing we wanted were madmen riding into our villages and taking our lastborns.’
‘Do you know what the lettering means, Ariston?’ Gargarin asked.
The Turlan shook his head. ‘We’ve always believed the mark of the lastborn to be a message from the gods.’
‘It’s not godspeak,’ Arjuro said. ‘But it is certainly a message of some sort.’
Ariston looked back into the cottage.
‘I thought it strange that the girl had some of the features of our Turlan women,’ he said. ‘But the despised King’s daughter? We are lowly enough in this kingdom without Charynites claiming that the cursemaker belongs to us.’
‘You’re never to speak of it,’ Gargarin said sharply. ‘Do you hear me? The mystique of the Oracle stays as it is. As far as this kingdom is concerned, the Oracle was not from Turla and she did not birth the King’s child. If a King is born to us in years to come, ignorant men could use that against him.’
Ariston nodded, looking back at the old man’s cottage.
‘Will you come down from this mountain, Ariston?’ Gargarin asked. ‘To fight for Charyn when the time comes?’
Ariston shook his head. ‘We’re Turlans, not Charynites. We fight for no one, only to protect ourselves.’
‘How can you say that?’ Froi shouted angrily. ‘You practise all day long to be the best, but you can’t fight for your people. In Lumatere, no one is prouder of being a Lumateran than a Mont. Why can’t you be both?’
‘You’re a Lumateran?’ Ariston asked, surprised.
‘Does it matter?’ Froi asked.
‘Do you know what we say to each other every day, Lumateran?’ Ariston asked. ‘ “Remember Serker.” Annihilated by Charynites. They had no one on their side but each other. Mark my words, you will find no province who will fight for Charyn. You don’t have to be a mountain goat to know that.’
‘Would you fight for a King, Ariston?’ Gargarin persisted. ‘For the cursebreaker? Would you fight so that your lastborn girls need not fear the mark on the back of their necks?’
‘I would fight to the death to protect my people on this mountain,’ Ariston said, glancing at Froi. ‘You know they say that the Lumaterans will strike when we least expect it, out of revenge for Charyn’s part in their cursed ten years.’
Froi shook his head. ‘They would never attack the innocent.’
‘Where do you hail from in Lumatere?’ he asked suspiciously.
‘I was found in exile,’ Froi said, having no reason to lie to Ariston. ‘I belong to all of them.’
Ariston glanced at the others, as though not knowing what to believe.
‘I mean no offence, Gargarin of Abroi, but the sooner you and your companions get off my mountain, the safer I’ll feel for my people.’
They camped that night under a full moon and a sky crowded with stars that made Froi forget that there was an old man waiting to die and remember that there was a kingdom dying to live.
Quintana hadn’t spoken a word since she walked out of the cottage with Hesta. She merely rested her head in Lirah’s lap.
‘I think it will be soon,’ she whispered.
And soon it was. Hesta came outside to feed them goat stew and when she returned to the cottage the old man had died without her there.
‘By his side all these years,’ she wept, ‘yet he died alone.’
Arjuro stood to follow her and sing his song, calling the spirit of the Oracle and her father.
‘Arjuro,’ Quintana said, sitting up. ‘You must call hers as well.’
He nodded. ‘The Oracle Queen?’
‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘Regina of Turla. You need to return her spirit to where it belongs.’
Lirah froze. Froi leapt to his feet, shaking his head. ‘Quintana, what are you saying?’
Gargarin and Arjuro stared at her in anguish.
‘We cannot protect this child if we are not whole,’ Quintana said.
‘Arjuro, don’t do it!’ Lirah said.
‘There’s nothing wrong with two people living inside of you,’ Froi said. ‘You said it yourself. That I have more than one. We all do.’ He turned to Arjuro. ‘Sing the old man and the Oracle home, Arjuro, and let’s leave this place and take the Princess to the safety of Paladozza.’
But Quintan’s eyes stayed on Arjuro. ‘If you loved my mother, blessed Arjuro, you’ll do it. You’ll do it for these people. Solange of Turla deserves to be with the spirit of her dead child and perhaps only then can she guide the little King into this world.’