“I could go instead and run this risk,” Alain volunteered.
Mari came close and hugged him. “My love, you can do incredible things and think of stuff I never could, but you still have very little grasp of money and you don’t know how to bargain. An outdoor market isn’t like a storefront business where the prices are set and posted up front. In time I’ll teach you enough about those things that you can get by Right now you’d be cheated by the merchants and maybe get robbed as well, even if the nearest Imperial cops didn’t get suspicious of you. I can handle this. I won’t be that far off.”
He nodded slowly. “If you think it should be done this way.”
“Just stay safe here. You can watch our packs and keep them safe. If anything happens to me—”
“I will come looking for you.” Alain’s voice was calm, unemotional, and unyielding.
Mari gazed at him and knew argument would be futile. She felt both aggravation and a strong sense of reassurance. “All right.”
She rattled down the cheap stairs, hoping to get her errands done quickly. As worried as she was about being caught herself, Mari felt even worse at the idea of Alain being caught if he tried to rescue her.
The nearest market square was easy to find, with sellers shouting out the virtues of their wares and a steady stream of people entering and leaving thearea Mari lounged against a building for a while, studying the scene and watching for anyone who might be watching for her. Nothing unusual caught her eye, just the normal mix of common people going about their business, children darting among the crowd while stressed-out parents tried to rein them in, a few young couples clinging to each other, older folks sitting as they played cards or talked. To one side a street band played string instruments, their regulation street performer license posted nearby just in case any of the ubiquitous Imperial police wandered past.
Mari sighed as she took it all in. After everything she and Alain had been through in the last several months, the peaceful and familiar scene felt comforting as well as dreamlike.
But those thoughts led her back to Marandur, and for a moment Mari saw not this market square in Palandur crowded with life, but one of the ruined squares in Marandur, surrounded by crumbling, dead buildings and choked with rubble, rusting weapons and armor, and the splintered bones of the uncounted men, women and children who had died long before.
She blinked to clear her eyes of the vision and the tears it threatened to bring. Alain and I might have struggled our way through the square in Marandur which was the counterpart of this one. Everything here in Palandur seems so unchanging, like it was always here and always will be. But that’s an illusion. It will vanish, replaced by death and emptiness, and it will vanish soon if I can’t figure out how to do something that no one on Dematr has ever managed. Even the Empire will descend into the same chaos as Tiae if the grip of the Great Guilds isn’t lifted from this world, and all cities will become like Marandur.
Sometimes the whole prophecy and daughter thing feels overwhelming. Sometimes? Every time I think about it. But Alain is right. We can’t give up and we can’t afford to fail.
Swallowing and then breathing deeply to regain her composure, Mari
dove into the crowd of customers, trying to lose herself in her shopping tasks.
She felt more secure in the crowded marketplace. Without her Mechanics jacket on she was just one more person in the mass of commoners. Surely her and Alain’s enemies would have an impossible problem trying to find one of them in such a place. Mari went from seller to seller, picking up some necessary travel supplies, lingering for while over a jewelry display. She found herself looking at pairs of matching rings. Promise rings. Do I want to marry him? That other vision said it will happen. Might happen. There are no certainties, as my Mage keeps telling me. The stars above know that I could do a lot worse. Did I ever think I’d be looking at promise rings and thinking of a Mage?
What am I waiting for, anyway? He loves me. He’s risked his life for me so many times already that I can’t keep count. He trusts me. He respects me. He’s never failed me. And I love him. I have no trouble at all imagining myself with him. Mentally and physically. But he’s respecting my wishes to wait. What else do I want in a partner? What else could I possibly ask for? He’s already proposed to me. Why not say yes and promise myself to him?
And then someday Alain and I can have a daughter, and she can grow up until she’s about eight years old and go off to the Mechanics Guild schools and we can cut her completely out of our lives without a single letter of explanation or a single word of goodbye or any sign at all that her mother and father knew they were ripping out a little girl’s heart
Mari shuddered, biting her lip so hard she tasted blood, blinking away tears born of old anger and sorrow. You’re over that. Remember? So what if your mother and father cut all ties after you went to the Mechanics Guild schools? You’re grown up now. You’re too strong to let that get to you. They can’t hurt you any more.
Why? Why couldn’t they have sent one letter?
I won’t be like that. I could never do that to my child.
I don’t care what my mother did. I’m not her.
I could never hate her. Not even now. Doesn’t that mean I’m different?
But Mother never showed any signs of being like that. None I can remember. How do I know I won’t turn into that?
Face it, this isn’t about Alain. It’s about my worries about me. Until I resolve those fears, I’ll never know if I’m somebody who might be willing to cast her own daughter aside without a single look back.
Shaking her head in anguish and confusion over her feelings, Mari composed herself, then went to the food stalls to buy some provisions for the night’s meal and the journey to Landfall. She had just paid for the last and bent down to pick up her bags of purchases when a soft, emotionless voice sounded next to her.
“Mechanic Mari.”
Mari froze, her heart hammering in her chest, then slowly looked up to meet the gaze of a pair of beautiful blue eyes. The eyes were set in an even more beautiful face framed by long blond hair, all it mostly hidden within the cowl of a Mage’s robes. “Asha.” Then her shock subsided enough for Mari’s manners to come back to her. “Mage Asha. Sorry, Lady Mage.”
“I need to speak with Mage Alain.” Asha pulled her cowl a little higher to better hide her face and hair, but even with her Mage attempts to keep emotion from her voice, Mari could hear a faint note of urgency. Being around Alain had made her much more sensitive to subtle signs of emotion. “Is Mage Alain still safe?” Asha asked.
“As safe as I am. Which is to say, not nearly enough.” The crowds around them were all edging away, putting distance between themselves and the Mage. A few spared pitying glances for Mari. A pair of Imperial police on a corner were looking in another direction as if unaware of anything going on. Everyone watching thought Mari was a common like them whom a Mage had decided to hijack as a personal servant or to torture or for some other reason inexplicable to normal people. None of them were crazy enough to try to interfere, because no one in his or her right mind invited the attention of Mages. “Let’s pretend you’ve told me to come with you,” Mari said. “Go to your right, out of the market and down that street with the tavern on the corner. I’ll follow looking meek and terrified.”