No response—save a faint racking shudder—from the woman. “She accepts,” the boy whispered. After a moment, Ehiru nodded.
So he stroked her eyelids shut and sent her to sleep, and crafted a dream that brought her pleasure in place of torment. When he opened his eyes to observe her last breath, her cheeks glistened with tears and her face was rapt with joy. He lifted the sheet to arrange her and to set his mark on her breast. It was beautiful against her unblemished red-brown skin. He so rarely Gathered women, and this was a young one at that.
“Thank you,” the boy whispered.
Ehiru focused on him, contemplating. “Where is your father?”
The boy only shook his head. He was servant-caste; any man who’d felt a passing fancy for his mother could’ve sired him. No relatives would be willing or able to support him. The master of the house might keep him, or release him to find a new master if he could. Then his life would continue in years of endless, mindless toil.
He held out a hand to the child. “Does it pain you?”
The boy’s eyes lifted slowly. “Hn?”
“Your heart.”
“Oh. Yes, Gatherer.”
Ehiru nodded. “I’m no Sharer, but I have your mother’s peace within me. If anyone has the right to it, you do. Give me your hand.”
The child took his hand—with no hesitation or fear, Ehiru noted, pleased. So he pulled the boy into his arms and held him and shared with him an instant of the bliss that his mother would now know for eternity. A bit of cautery; no more than that. Dreamblood might soothe wounds of the heart, but it was never right to take the pain away completely.
The child went limp in his arms and began to weep, and Ehiru smiled.
A step behind him. He rose and turned with the child in his arms and saw the master standing at the threshold of the cottage. The rest of the family and servants hovered behind him, peering in. “Gatherer?”
“If you have no objection, Sijankes-elder, I’ll take this child back to the Hetawa with me.”
The elder’s eyebrows rose. “I have no objection, Gatherer, but… are you certain? He’s only a child, too young yet to be much use as a servant.”
Only a child, and only a servant, but able to accept death and understand its blessing. Ehiru shifted the child to lean him against one shoulder and smiled as thin arms encircled his neck. As a Gatherer, he had never expected, nor wanted, sons. In spite of this, he stroked the boy’s back, and for just a moment wondered if this was how it felt to have one.
“He will serve the Goddess now,” he said.
And then he left with the boy safe in his arms, a mother’s dreamblood warm inside him, and tears of love drying against his skin.
Ehiru watched as Sharer Mni-inh, fingers on Nijiri’s closed lids, sighed and opened his eyes.
“You were right to share peace with him immediately. His umblikeh was a hair from snapping.” The Sharer took his hands from the boy. “He’ll recover with no permanent harm—physically, at least.”
Ehiru sent a prayer of thanks to the Goddess. “The creature was on him for only a breath. Gatherings are never so quick.”
“You can’t call this a Gathering.” Mni-inh scowled so fiercely that his thin, fine brows almost met in the middle of his forehead. “It’s too obscene for that. The humor was stripped with such speed and force that it left great rents in his mind. I’ve healed them, but there will be scars.”
Ehiru ached in silent misery, lowering his eyes to the alcove floor. “My fault.”
“Don’t you dare blame yourself. Though if I hadn’t seen the evidence with my own eyes, I would never have believed it. Gods; a Reaper.” He shook his head as he got to his feet to stretch, eyeing Ehiru sidelong. “I would’ve said the madness had taken you.”
“I would’ve said the same before tonight,” Ehiru replied. He lifted a hand to one temple to massage the dull ache there. “But visions don’t leave bruises, or bodies.”
Mni-inh frowned, stepping closer and pushing Ehiru’s hand away. Ehiru felt the Sharer’s cooler fingers press against his temple, followed by the more subtle touch of another soul against his own. “You spent your last reserve giving peace to the boy. And took no tithe tonight?”
“No.”
The Sharer’s lips twitched, probably in disapproval. “You need an infusion, then. I’ll wake Inesst. He has enough left to share with you, and it’s almost time for his duty-shift anyhow.”
Ehiru hesitated. “I think… I would prefer to face the pranje. Now, rather than at my usual time.”
Mni-inh scowled. “You’ve been foolish about this long enough, Ehiru. You’ve served more than enough penance—”
“That is for Hananja to say, not you.” Ehiru folded his arms and fixed his gaze on Nijiri, feeling more certain of his decision as he did so. “I tried to Gather last night, and circumstances demanded an abeyance. Then I tried to prevent a murder and failed. A child is dead, her soul banished to torment. Her body lies in an alley like trash, and now my apprentice has been harmed as well. Does that sound as though Hananja still wants me to work, Mni-inh?”
“It sounds like you’re seeing omens around every corner!”
Ehiru pointed a finger at Nijiri’s prone form. The boy still slept, but was beginning to breathe faster as he recovered. “There lies an omen. What do you think it means?” Mni-inh flinched at his sharpness, and with an effort Ehiru restrained his anger before it could alarm the Sharer further. More calmly he said, “Do you believe it was all a vision?”
Mni-inh rolled his eyes. “No, obviously something happened to Nijiri. But your reserves are low enough to be problematic, Ehiru, you cannot deny—”
“I don’t want to deny it. I welcome it. I’ll go into seclusion now if you think I should, but I won’t ignore this coincidence, if that it is. I think She calls me to commune with Her, Mni-inh. I am Her Servant; I must obey.”
“And your apprentice?” Mni-inh gestured toward Nijiri, his own anger bordering on the unpeaceful. “If you undergo the pranje now and She tells you to offer the Final Tithe, he’ll be left alone.”
“Sonta-i can—”
“Sonta-i has trouble mustering enough simple human compassion to comfort his tithebearers, much less anyone else!”
“Rabbaneh, then.”
Mni-inh scowled in exasperation and poked Ehiru in the chest with a finger. “You, stubborn fool. You’re the one the boy is in love with.” Ehiru flinched at Mni-inh’s bluntness—but then Mni-inh had always been too blunt, willing to say things no Gatherer would put to words. Most Sharers wouldn’t have, either; that was just Mni-inh’s way. “It’s a good thing; only love can heal scars like his. And yours, if you ever decide to do more than just let them fester.”
Ehiru took an involuntary step back, unbalanced by more than the jab. “I…”
Nijiri chose that moment, conveniently, to stir. Throwing a last glare at Ehiru, Mni-inh went to the boy’s pallet and knelt, lifting one of his eyelids to peer within. Pursing his lips as he gauged something only a Sharer could fathom, Mni-inh then leaned down and whispered in the boy’s ear.