C HAPTER
Mena would never forget the strange song that Corinn whispered to Aaden as he lay unconscious and bleeding that horrible afternoon. She could not remember the words of it. She was not even sure there were words. It had a shape that might have been language but that was vague and hidden beneath a melody that defied description. It was sound and breath and notes. It contained more voices than just Corinn's, mixed with music and exhalation and sobbing and a thousand promises. It mystified her.
And the others as well. One of the servants asked if they should pull the queen away from the boy, but Mena shook her head. Whatever was happening-whether the song was a funeral dirge or a sorcerer's spell-it was Corinn's right to sing it. A mother's right. Perhaps a queen's right.
When finally Corinn drew back and let them attend the prince, the physicians gasped in amazement. Aaden's abdomen had healed. There was blood aplenty, but try as they might they could not find any cuts in the boy's flesh. Bruises, yes, a swollen line above his groin that looked like a long-healed wound, abrasions. But the boy simply was not suffering from the dagger wound they had come running to attend. He was no more hurt than if he had been through a rough patch of sword training. He slept, breathing steadily, his face as peaceful as that of any child deep in the dreamworld.
"He will sleep until he wakes," the queen said.
"But," one of the physicians began, "how did-"
"The Giver has helped me heal him," she said, inflecting the god's name in the manner that gave its feminine form. "Let us praise her and be thankful."
After verifying Aaden's lack of injury with her own eyes, Mena had sought out her sister. Corinn had already turned her back on the scene and was striding away, Rhrenna rushing to keep up with her. Mena caught her in the hallway, but Corinn would not even look her in the face. She mumbled something about washing the blood off. That was all. She left Mena standing in the hallway, caked in grime.
Corinn had not even looked at Elya, and that was cruel, for the creature was trembling with worry, obviously afraid that she had not done well enough. Mena returned to her and assured her, through whispered words and caresses, that she had done very well. Wonderfully well. She was a beauty. She had saved Aaden, and Corinn would thank her for it once she recovered from the shock.
Believing this to be true, Mena could not have been more surprised with how quickly her sister had-well, recovered seemed the proper word. Proper, but not the right one. Several days later, Aaden still remained asleep, but Corinn had put her grief and fear behind her. She emerged from her chambers as poised and controlled as ever, washed clean and seeming all the more forceful in her beauty. Her face was leaner, perhaps, just slightly more angular and perhaps several years older, though this may just have been because of the tight-lipped expression she took on.
She summoned the Queen's Council and demanded that the Senate in Alecia send representatives to witness what had happened firsthand and to hear Sire Dagon's testimony. She met in various sessions all day long, leaving one military briefing to receive ambassadors, after which she left for still more meetings. She even agreed to go to Alecia herself, to address the largest audience of senators and representatives from around the empire possible all at once.
She had time for everyone, it seemed, except her sister. Mena could not secure a moment alone with her. When they did speak, it was only on official matters in the company of others. The queen assigned Mena the duty of briefing all incoming soldiers on the best manner to fight the Numrek, even demanding she hold mock battles in the Carmelia. Mena could not help but think this cruel, for the stadium brought to mind again and again the horrible moment when the Numrek had sunk his blade into Aaden's belly, and then into Devlyn's-the poor boy. She fulfilled her role with Melio at her side. He was a comfort, but it was Corinn she needed. Like Elya in her simple way, Mena, too, craved Corinn's absolution. Her sister managed to deny her, without ever overtly saying that she was doing so.
Once, when Mena asked for a word alone with her, Corinn looked at her as if she were a slightly slow child. "Of course we can talk," she said. "Would you like me to have the merchants of Bocoum wait until we're done? They've only sailed across to promise their financial assistance and the invaluable use of their barges to transport troops and goods. They've come to offer their aid to the nation at a desperate time, but if you would like me to have them wait, I will. The other option is that we speak later. Which do you prefer?"
It was no real question, obviously. Mena bowed in answer and withdrew without complaint. How could she argue? What she wanted was intangible, emotional, a sense of connection Corinn might be incapable of providing. While, on the other hand, Corinn seemed a monarch with a hundred hands now, each of them was juggling different aspects of this new crisis.
Fortunately, Corinn allowed Mena access to Aaden whenever she wished. She went there often, as she did one afternoon after a long day of fighting and lecturing on the hot field of the Carmelia. She wanted to see him before returning to her own quarters. He slept on as before, but she still felt it necessary to visit him, thinking that somewhere in his core he might be aware of the world, might crave comfort even if he was incapable of asking for it.
There was a touch of perfume in the air, a musky scent that she had smelled before but could not place now. Some noble, perhaps, come recently to pay his respects and offer gifts. Indeed, quite a few had done that. Corinn had permitted only Agnates the honor, and only if they promised to enter quietly, view the prince from a distance, and leave whatever present they had in the space cleared to display them. A pile of them now crowded the corner.
"Oh, my lovely boy," Mena said, lowering herself gently to the edge of his bed. He lay on his side, head resting on his two hands in a posture that looked almost deliberate, as if he had taken it just to model sleeping, childish innocence. She ran her fingers over his hair, pulling a few strands back from his forehead, and then sat taking him in. There was much of Corinn in his features, which meant much of their mother. But there was no mistaking signs of the boy's gray-eyed father as well. She did not see it as much when he was awake. Now, though, with the leisure to gaze at his features, she could see how much Aaden was a child of two nations. She wondered if Corinn acknowledged it, too.
Mena had never seen Hanish Mein in person. Strange that a man who had affected so much of her life-and still did-had never been in the same room as she. She had met his brother Maeander. She had turned herself in to him in Vumu, and used him to transport her back to the world all those years ago, just after she had hunted and killed the god Maeben. When she looked close at the parts of Aaden that were not Akaran, it was Maeander she saw in her head. So sharp featured and tall; handsome, yes, but in a high-chinned, arrogant manner. Fortunate, then, that whatever Meinish traits Aaden showed had been softened by Corinn's round-edged beauty.
She did not doubt that the boy would wake just as Corinn said. Whatever had been in that song, part of it was power, the sorcery Corinn had been studying. But would he wake remembering the moment the Numrek betrayed him? Would he see that knife thrusting toward him, or would he be spared it? For that matter, had he seen what happened to Devlyn? Mena hoped not, for she could not bear the thought that he would live with that brutal image in his mind, with the responsibility he might feel for his friend's death.
"Don't remember it," she said. "None of it was your fault. The guilt all rests on others. Devlyn was a brave boy; think of him as dying to save you. That's what he wanted. That's why he will be remembered as a warrior. A hero. I'll make sure it's so. And you will, too, when you wake.