“I don’t know,” Jennifer stammered, shocked by the naked threat.
“You don’t? A strange thing to do, is it not? To bring guests to the palace, then ride off alone. Leaving Matt behind, which is very strange. I wonder,” said Jaelle. “I wonder who he was looking for? How many of you really did cross?”
It was too sudden, too shrewd. Jennifer, heart pounding, was aware that she had flushed.
“You look warm,” Jaelle said, all solicitude. “Do have some wine.” She poured from a long-necked silver decanter. “Really,” she continued, “it is most uncharacteristic of Loren to abandon guests so suddenly.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Jennifer said. “There are four of us. None of us knows him very well. The wine is excellent.”
“It is from Morvran. I am glad you like it. I could swear Metran asked him to bring five of you.”
So Loren had been wrong. Someone did know. Someone knew a great deal indeed.
“Who is Metran?” Jennifer asked disingenuously. “Was he the old man you frightened so much yesterday?”
Balked, Jaelle leaned back on her own cushions. In the silence Jennifer sipped her wine, pleased to see that her hand was steady.
“You trust him, don’t you?” the Priestess said bitterly. “He has warned you against me. They all have. Silvercloak angles for power here as much as anyone, but you have aligned yourself with the men, it seems. Tell me, which of them is your lover, or has Diarmuid found your bed yet?”
Which was quite sufficient, thank you. Jennifer shot to her feet. Her wine glass spilled; she ignored it. “Is this how you treat a guest?” she burst out. “I came here in good faith—what right have you to say such things to me? I’m not aligned with anyone in your stupid power games. I’m only here for a few days—do you think I care who wins your little battles? I’ll tell you one thing, though,” she went on, breathing hard, “I’m not happy about male control in my world, either, but I’ve never in my life met anyone as screwed up on the subject as you are. If Ysanne fell in love—well, I doubt you can even guess what that feels like!”
White and rigid, Jaelle looked up at her, then rose in her turn. “You may be right,” she said softly, “but something tells me that you have no idea what it feels like, either. Which gives us a thing in common, doesn’t it?”
Back in her room a short while later, Jennifer closed the door on Laesha and Drance and cried about that for a long time.
The day crawled forward webbed in heat. A dry, unsettling wind rose in the north and slid through the High Kingdom, stirring the dust in the streets of Paras Derval like an uneasy ghost. The sun, westering at the end of day, shone red. Only at twilight was there any relief, as the wind shifted to the west, and the first stars came out in the sky over Brennin.
Very late that night, north and west of the capital, the breeze stirred the waters of a lake to muted murmuring. On a wide rock by the shore, under the lace-work of the stars, an old woman knelt, cradling the slight form of a younger one, on whose finger a red ring shone with a muted glimmering.
After a long time, Ysanne rose and called for Tyrth. Limping, he came from the cottage and, picking up the unconscious girl, walked back and laid her down in the bed he’d made that afternoon.
She remained unconscious for the rest of the night and all the next day. Ysanne did not sleep, but watched her through the hours of darkness, and then in the searing brightness of the following day, and on the face of the old Seer was an expression only one man, long dead, would have recognized.
Kimberly woke at sunset. Away to the south in that moment, Kevin and Paul were taking up their positions with Diarmuid’s men outside the walls of Larai Rigal.
For a moment, Kim was completely disoriented, then the Seer watched as a brutal surge of knowledge came flooding into the grey eyes. Lifting her head, Kim gazed at the old woman. Outside, Tyrth could be heard shutting up the animals for the night. The cat lay on the window sill in the last of the evening light.
“Welcome back,” said Ysanne.
Kim smiled; it took an effort. “I went so far.” She shook her head wonderingly, then her mouth tightened at another recollection. “Eilathen has gone?”
“Yes.”
“I saw him dive. I saw where he went, into the green far down. It is very beautiful there.”
“I know,” said the Seer.
Again, Kim drew breath before speaking. “Was it hard for you to watch?”
At that, Ysanne looked away for the first time. Then, “Yes,” she said. “Yes, it was hard. Remembering.”
Kim’s hand slipped from the coverlet and covered that of the old woman. When Ysanne spoke again, it was very low. “Raederth was First of the Mages before Ailell was King. He came one day to Morvran, on the shores of Lake Leinan… You know what lies in Gwen Ystrat?”
“I know,” said Kimberly. “I saw Dun Maura.”
“He came to the Temple by the lake, and stayed there a night, which was brave, for there is no love in that place for any of the mages since Amairgen’s day. Raederth was a brave man, though.
“He saw me there,” Ysanne continued. “I was seventeen and newly chosen to be of the Mormae—the inner circle—and no one so young had ever been chosen before. But Raederth saw me that night, and he marked me for something else.”
“As you did me?”
“As I did you. He knew me for a Seer, and he took me away from the Mother and changed my fate, or found it for me.”
“And you loved him?”
“Yes,” Ysanne said simply. “From the first, and I miss him still, though all the years have run away from us. He brought me here at midsummer, more than fifty years ago, and summoned Eilathen with the flowerfire, and the spirit spun for me as he did for you last night.”
“And Raederth?” Kim asked, after a moment.
“He died three years after of an arrow ordered by Garmisch, the High King,” Ysanne said flatly. “When Raederth was slain, Duke Ailell rose in Rhoden and began the war that broke the rule of Garmisch and the Garantae and took him to the throne.”
Kimberly nodded again. “I saw that, too. I saw him kill the King before the palace gate. He was brave and tall, Ailell.”
“And wise. A wise King, all his days. He wedded Marrien of the Garantae, and named Metran, her cousin, First Mage to follow Raederth, which angered me then and I told him so. But Ailell was trying to knit a sundered kingdom, and he did. He deserved more love than he has had.”
“He had yours.”
“Late,” Ysanne said, “and grudgingly. And only as King. I tried to help him, though, with his burden, and in return he found ways to ensure that I would be left alone here.”
“A long time alone,” Kim said softly.
“We all have our tasks,” the Seer said. There was a silence. In the barn out back, a cow lowed plaintively. Kim heard the click of a gate being shut, then Tyrth’s uneven steps crossing the yard. She met Ysanne’s gaze, a half-smile tugging at her mouth.
“You told me one lie yesterday,” she said.
Ysanne nodded. “I did. One. It was not my truth to tell.”
“I know,” said Kim. “You have carried a great deal alone. I am here now, though; do you want me to share your burden?” Her mouth crooked. “I seem to be a chalice. What power can you fill me with?”
There was a tear in the old woman’s eye. She wiped it away, shaking her head. “Such things as I can teach have little to do with power. It is in your dreams now that you must walk, as all the Seers must. And for you as well there is the stone.”
Kim glanced down. The ring on her right hand was no longer shining as it had when Eilathen wore it. It glowered, deep and dark, the color of old blood.
“I did dream this,” she said. “A terrible dream, the night before we crossed. What is it, Ysanne?”
“The Baelrath it was named, long ago, the Warstone. It is of the wild magic,” the Seer said, “a thing not made by man, and it cannot be controlled like the shapings of Ginserat or Amairgen, or even of the Priestesses. It has been lost for a very long time, which has happened before. It is never found without reason, or so the old tales say.”