She kept such thoughts exclusively to herself, of course. To the outside world she was a display of statuesque certainty. And why shouldn't she be? She was the queen of a vast empire and the keeper of the most powerful knowledge the world had ever known. She owed it to her people to be certain in all her actions. Hesitation, deliberation, second thoughts: these were signs of weakness, the kind of flaws that kept her father from being a truly great king. The failings that temporarily lost the empire.
No matter, she thought. Acacia now had a great queen. The nation would thrive because of it; she promised it would. A queen to stand strong, a mother to raise the nation's next king. That was what Aaden was to be, even if the world was not yet as sure of it as she was. Born outside of an official marriage, Aaden was not guaranteed the throne. He could succeed her, but not without challenges and protests from other Agnate families, those who would rather she marry among them and bear a legitimate child. Also, any child of a marriage of her siblings-like Mena and Melio's-would step before Aaden in the line of succession. But there was no such child yet, and before long Corinn would surprise them all.
As focused as the young swordsman had been, when he reached the end of his memorized routine he dropped his role completely. His sword arm went limp at his side and he strolled toward his mother's desk, a look of sudden boredom on his face. "That's about all I've learned. I wanted to learn the end bit, but Thotan said I had to begin at the beginning."
"Aaden," the queen said, "that's wonderful. You'll be a fine swordsman someday. Better than Dariel, I'd wager. Better even than Mena!"
The child accepted the praise with a curt nod. He assured her that he already was a fine swordsman. No someday needed to qualify it. Still, something about the compliment rekindled his focus. He turned his attention back to the Form, determination etched in the lines of his forehead, the tip of his tongue pinched between his front teeth.
"I enjoyed watching that," Corinn said, "but you should go. I have matters to consider."
"All right," the boy said, and then he lowered his voice, went conspiratorial. "But show me something first. An animal. Make something I've never seen before. No! Make something that nobody has ever seen before."
Glancing around, Corinn said, "Aaden, you know I don't like to do such things here with so many eyes around."
"But there's nobody here," Aaden said, incongruously leaning in and whispering.
"Wait until we're back at Calfa Ven."
"Mother! Just one thing and then I'll go. It's been ages since you've shown me something. We're alone. Look."
Corinn took a moment to verify that the room was empty, that no eyes watched, and no one was within hearing. She rarely indulged any living person anything not completely to her liking, but Aaden was difficult to refuse. Or, in truth, with him she did not want to refuse. Seeing pleasure on his face was a joy like none she'd known before.
She said, "Go make sure the door is pulled tight, then."
Stepping from around her desk, she withdrew into the small alcove in the corner of the room, out of sight lest somebody barge in unannounced. Such an act was strictly forbidden, of course, but she still chose caution. Certain that they would not be disturbed-and with a portion of her senses able to detect the movement of persons in the hallways nearby-Corinn began to sing. She did so softly, as if she wished to push the words out and into a shallow bowl on the floor before her, directing them carefully and so as not to spill over some imagined rim. She sang words that were not words, sounds that carried in them the ingredients of existence, the threads that wove together life. She felt Aaden return and knew him to be standing wide-eyed just beside her. She did not shift her gaze from the area above the floor that she sang to.
If she had been asked to explain just how the Giver's tongue worked she could not truly have done so. It was not a practice that led logically from one point to another. It was a language that never held still, that changed before her eyes and in her ears. There was an order to it, yes, a manner in which one moved toward greater and greater mastery. Yes, there was learning involved. She had labored for years over The Song of Elenet, especially when sheltered away with Aaden and a small staff at the hunting lodge of Calfa Ven. Countless times the text on those ancient pages had risen to speak to her, like spirits trapped on the parchment and unleashed by the touch of her eyes. They spoke to her of the Giver's true language. They put her through exercises, twisted her tongue around words made of sounds she had never heard uttered.
Despite all this, the act of singing remained something of an improvisation that leaped from all those hours of study and took on a life of its own. Though this frightened her-sometimes waking her from dreams in which her song had suddenly turned to nightmare-the act itself was a thing of such enraptured beauty that she could no longer be away from it long. Aaden wanted her to sing; truth be known, she hungered for it even more than he.
And sing she did. Her words-unintelligible, beautiful, and infused with an almost physical power-filled the alcove. Sound danced in the air as if the small chamber were laced with invisible ribbons, like snakes airborne and slithering, circling. As Corinn continued, the circle grew ever smaller. She pulled the spell in, drew it tighter, filled that invisible bowl with sounds that shrank into greater substance. Soon the words of her song swam like hundreds of sparkling minnows, a seething globe of them getting denser and denser. Within this, a form began to take shape.
Something that nobody has ever seen before: that's what Aaden asked for. And that was what she was singing into being. She would let it live there before them for a few moments, and then she would sing its unmaking.
CHAPTER THREE
The guards at the lower steps of the palace grounds made the mistake of barring the young man's passage. One of them asked him what he was about; the other hit the stranger's chest with the flat of his palm, his knife hand ready to pull his dagger from his waist sheath; a third sounded a whistle of alarm. They all expressed indignation that a laborer, a peasant-whatever the new arrival was in his tattered clothing, with unkempt hair, calloused hands, and bare feet-would dare try to gain entry to the royal residence. He could be executed on the spot for it. They held this fate off, the first guard said, only because they wished to know the nature of his insanity before doing the deed.
In answer, the intruder took a step back. He set his hands on his hips and stood smiling. He knew his garments were worn thin, grimed by what looked like years of wearing, patched in places and shredded in others. His toenails were black crescents; and the creases of his elbows, neck, and forehead were drawn with thin lines of dirt. He stood with easy confidence, however. His white-toothed smile asked them to see the person behind these outward trappings. See the mirth in his eyes and wonder at it. See the etched musculature beneath the rags. See his face for what it was, not what it appeared to be. It was a tense moment, although everyone but the young man seemed aware of this.