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  “Emi would kill the god inside her. Let me talk to her while you and Rahan get your forces organized.”

  “We may not be on the same side at the moment. Evand has called a meeting to be held along the shore of the lake. All four brothers.”

  “That will not end well,” Leger said.

  “Has Rahan agreed?”

  “I don’t know that I have,” Barok said.

  “You will. We will need every man alive in this city working on the same side. Geart is enemy enough for us all.”

  “Could we not find a way to talk to Geart?” Leger asked.

  “I spoke to him at the Priests’ Home,” I said. “The Shadow has him. We will not get our friend back unless we set these warring gods aside. But that is a problem for another day. Call Rahan to join us, Barok. He must agree to the meeting.”

  A Chaukai carried word across while those from Soma’s ship mingled with those that had come with Barok. A few great hugs and exclamation of joy eased the tension while we waited on Rahan to cross, but none as much as when Burhn’s deep voice blasted our ears.

  “Mama? Mama!” he cried as he sank to his knees before an old Sermod. She took his head in her hands and folded over with great sobbing tears. Ghemma joined their hug and everyone on Barok’s side of the park seemed equally affected by the site.

  “That’s Lady Jayme,” Barok said with great difficulty, and I did not understand at all why they cared about the old witch until he managed to say, “The Hessier stole him from his mother when he was little.”

  “Just like they did to us,” Rahan said, startling us all. He handed Barok a kerchief from his sleeve, without seeming patronizing, and I would have like to think his expression was honest. “Hello, Dia.”

  “Trouble with your priests?” I asked him.

  “Where have we not had trouble with priests?” he asked back, and I had to give him that. “I’m going against the advice of everyone I trust walking over here. Any angry idiot with a yew bow could make a mess of things, so please make it fast.”

  I said to him, “I need you to go to Evand’s meeting.”

  “That is not happening, Dia. He has betrayed me, and were I to cross, Yarik’s Hurdu would swoop down and mount me on a pike.”

  “I’ll not see Yarik,” Barok said, almost as angry.

  “Yes, you will,” I said to them both. “Yarik helped me escape. And while he might have been nothing but a puppet all these seasons, he’s got hold of the army, at least for a while.”

  “Yarik? In charge? I do not believe you,” Rahan laughed.

  “He is. He learned a few words while my friend Ghemma there was singing to him. Half the magic you heard on the far side of the lake yesterday came from him—four nouns he learned. He also wanted me to tell you, Barok, how sorry he was about your mother.”

  “That lying fuck—”

  “He is not the boy who grew up upon the Deyalu, any more than either of you are. He meant it. Geart is coming and you will go to Evand’s meeting. You, too Selt. Sorry—Rahan.”

  Rahan’s next objections caught in his throat as Emilia and Soma stepped toward our small circle. The air between them crackled once and it seized the attention of every person there. Rahan took several steps back from them.

  “You better listen to Dia,” Emilia said. “The darkness is moving straight at us now. Sikhek failed and Geart is already watching us.”

  Soma pointed up at a large bird high over the city.

  “An albatross?” Barok asked. “They’ve never flown inland before.”

  “That is a Hessier,” Soma said.

  “And there will more. Many, many more,” Emilia said. “So while I loved every moment of your reunions, I need you all to hurry. Evand’s ships have arrived upriver.”

  “I will not meet him,” Rahan said.

  “Yes, you will,” Emilia, Soma, and I replied at the same time. He tried for a moment to face us but deflated. We turned on Barok, but he was a bit wiser that his older brother.

  “I’ll go.”

  “Eyes north,” Leger said to me, and I turned too late to prevent Fana and Evela from leading several girls across. One might have been Lilly but as with the rest, too much had changed.

  “Emilia,” Fana said. “I have someone here I think you should meet.”

  Soma hurried to block their path. “Do not come any closer.”

  Fana looked insulted. Evela’s attention was divided between the girls and her disgruntled husband. She has their son slung in a fashion similar to mine, but her technique was poor and her back was showing the strain.

  The girls came to a halt. Lilly needed Fana’s arm. She’d gone blind, and my battered heart broke to see it. Still she smiled though, as bright as the spring sun above.

  I stepped in and took over the introductions. “Everyone, this is Lilly. She and her friends here are trying to learn a very old song, if you did not already know. We hope it will wake the White Lady and knock back the Shadow.”

  “Why would you want to do that?” Emilia asked.

  “The Shadow is the cause of all of this,” Fana said. “We must stop him.”

  “Your White Lady is no better.”

  “Emilia,” Soma said, and Rahan began grousing at her, too. The Chaukai bristled.

  “In any event,” I said over them, “The song Lilly is learning will stop Geart and his Hessier.”

  “Oh, yes,” Fana said. “They’ll all fall dead and stay that way.”

  Lilly clapped her hand. “And all the ghosts, singer, and soul-iron—and anyone Soma hasn’t mended. The Shadow will be gone forever and he’ll take all those he touches with him.”

  “Sorry, Leger,” Fana said as the eerie blue glow slide across her, Evela, and Soma once again.

  “That’s alright,” Leger said. “This had been borrowed time.”

  It sickened me to see and hear it. These were not the women I’d known. They were in as little command of their actions as Geart.

  Emilia looked as upset as I was, and my skin flashed red-hot for a moment before she said, “I don’t know anything about helping someone learn a song, and I won’t be used to help you murdered half the world.”

  “It is a beautiful song,” Lilly said.

  Emilia shot back, “And if you or anyone else tries to sing near me without my permission you’ll find yourself floating away in the breeze instead.”

  I shared a look with Barok and stepped quickly between the girls. “I am sorry, Emilia. Lilly and rest are struggling like the rest of us to push back at those who mean to kill us all. Their song is the only way we know right now to fight the Shadow. Walk with me and the girls. We must all learn to fight.”

  Emilia eyed me. Trust would come hard for both of us.

  “What are you missing?” Soma asked Lilly.

  “Words,” Lilly said. “The animals. Lots of the animals.”

  Fana added, “If we can sing what we know near Emilia, we might be able to learn the rest.”

  Like hell, I thought. They wanted to sing the whole thing at once, burning every bit of Vesteal blood they could in the process, regardless of how many words they knew.

  “Hold on,” Barok said. “Sikhek had statues of every mammal known to man installed on the palace lawn last year. He was trying to learn the song, too, if you could ever believe a word he said. Perhaps he built them for a reason. Why not take that walk upon the palace lawns before we do anything rash. Are the statues still there, Rahan?”

  “Yes, but I’ll not have everyone traipsing through my palace.”

  “Yes, you will,” Fana, Soma, and I said, and the blow hit him much harder with so many people in attendance. I couldn’t bring myself to care at all about his hurt feeling.

  “Get the armies moving across to the meeting,” I said. “And I’ll take the girls across the lawn.”

  Lilly clapped and said hello to Emilia. Emilia frowned back at her.

  73

  Goddess Emilia Grano

  Mammals

 
Everyone wanted to rush around after that. Barok and Rahan started giving orders and their people were all so eager to do what they were told. Admiral Sewin’s galleys got busy moving men in blue and green across the lake a thousand at a time, while Dia and bunch of us waited on Soma to take us across to Deyalu Island. She didn’t arrive at the time we expected, and I found her on the far side of the dam, her soul aflame as she watched a line of ships make their way up the river into the city.

  “Who does Soma love aboard the ships coming from Enhedu?” I asked Dia. “I cannot pick out the man. There is one aboard another of she ships she seems fond of, but I can’t figure out who she loves so much aboard the lead ship. Or is it a woman, perhaps?”

  “Neither. She in love the ship itself, the Whittle. Here they come now.”

  I opened my eyes to look over the top of dam at the long line of ships upon the river south of the city. Several had already put in at the Harbor in the bottom corner of the Warrens. Soma seemed ready to burst as she looked at that ship and I was glad I’d gotten to see such happiness. It was rare.

  The men coming off the ships complicated things but Barok was pleased, despite all the confusion. Soma eventually sent word that she could not join us and that Rindsfar was to take command of the Kingfisher and ferried us across to the island. It was not the grandest of assignment for the first-time captain, but his soul bloomed as bright as Soma’s for the Whittle.

  Word arrived from Rahan, demanding I signal his position in the Silver Quarter the moment Yarik’s army moved to betray the truce. It took me a long moment to remember that he had tried to rename the Warrens the Silver Quarter. I had even used the name on one of my maps. No one from there would ever call it anything other than the Warrens, which was annoying enough. What truly disappointed me that day though was how he moved his army. He let Barok go ashore first and then moved up on his right leaving his brother no room, while keeping for himself all the space he needed to attack or retreat.

  I would have to sit Rahan down, soon, before he did something that made me hate him forever. Dia’s love for him was fading as fast, and it didn’t help that the guards around his palace kept us waiting while signalmen with pennant confirmed Rahan’s approval before letting us in.

  The space on the other side of those gates defied my eyes and ears. The lawns were as impossibly silent as they were immense. They swept before us as though the palace was high above us in the cloud. The effect was an obvious trick of angles, and it offended me. Rulers should not have to reply upon such devices to convince people they are powerful.

  The rest did not like the quiet and got to chatting as hey hurried forward. Dia was in no rush, so she and I paced behind the rest and enjoyed the quiet. She was almost as interesting to watch at Evand—her soul darting around twice as fast as his and three times as certain, but it got too predictable after a time. Her mission was to save her children, and every bit of her being was focused on the task. She would have a hard time, the way she refused to trust people, but I could not disagree with her feeling for Lilly and the rest. Her focus on me as we walk was the only thing new, and I was not sure of her intentions.

  It was a much longer walk from the gates to the lawns than I ever thought possible, despite knowing the exact distance with my eyes closed.

  “Have you been here before?” I asked as we walked.

  “In a carriage, once, long ago,” she replied and resumed her slow walk.

  “You walk like you’ve lived in the Warrens,” I said to Dia. “But I know you have not.”

  “Oh?”

  “Well, I don’t know what I mean by that, exactly. It’s nice, is all. Everyone wants to go so fast all the time.”

  She smiled and again said nothing.

  “How come you’re okay leaving your babies with ghosts?”

  “After carrying them down a glacier chased by death, it’s a special bliss to leave them with those I trust.”

  “Their souls are all twisted around. They scare me.”

  “How so?” she asked, her steady pace interrupted for a moment.

  “I don’t know, like burnt yarn being dragged across a damp floor. They do not belong here and are making a terrible mess.”

  “You don’t trust them?”

  “They don’t have much say, I think. Whoever is pulling their strings is the one you must trust.”

  “That would be Barok. I trust him most of all.”

  “He’s not their master.”

  She came to a halt. “Who is?”

  “Those two, Fana and Evela,” I said and her soul flashed in a thousand direction. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  She looked back the way we had come, as though she wished she could sprout wings and fly back to her children.

  “Leger as well?”

  I looked toward the one she meant. “He different, I suppose, and the rest do look to him. He is as interesting as you are.”

  Her soul continued to flail until all at once it slammed around and every bit of it pointed at me. She resumed her slow walk, and I could not wait to hear what she wanted to ask me.

  I liked her very much, I decided, and tried to make it easy for her to trust me. “I’ll keep a close eye on those two. If you ever feel three hot flashes, you’ll know their trying to get to your children.”

  His entire soul continued to beam at me, brighter and brighter, but she wouldn’t ask her question. It made me smile.

  “You can ask me anything,” I said.

  “Not this.”

  “Now you have to. I don’t care what it is. Come on, Dia, spit it out.”

  “When you set people on fire, can you control who gets burned?”

  “You are not the first to ask, Dia. The answer is no. If it gets away from me, everyone around me can turn to ash. It hasn’t happened in a while, though. I am in control. I won’t hurt your children by mistake.”

  “That is not what I mean, Emi. Can you aim it?”

  “I would never want to do that. That is a terrible.”

  “So are the terrors that are headed toward us. You might want to practice.”

  “Does everything have to be a weapon? You disappoint me, Dia. You were there when I said I did not want to be used to kill innocent people.”

  “You misunderstand me, Emilia. Could you choose to burn only Hessier?”

  “Oh,” I said, and had to stop to think about it while her soul continued to blast at me like a dozen blazing suns.

  “I rather my children grow old and live in a world where they do not have to make decision like this,” she said.

  “Wishing that doesn’t help us much, does it?”

  She didn’t reply.

  “They are like me, aren’t they? Your children, I mean. They make magic stronger.”

  “Yes. But only with their blood and bones.”

  “So, this song that is supposed to save everyone… is uses up the Vesteal?”

  She nodded.

  “Dia, that is insane.”

  She stopped, took hold of my arm, and knelt down in front of me. “You see the darkness coming, Emilia, but you’ve never felt the touch of the things coming to kill us. I carried my children all this way here so that those monsters couldn’t eat them, and I’ll be damned if I let someone else burn their blood to power a song or for any other damned reason. If your power can stop the Hessier when they get here, you must do so. I keep hearing you say you do not want to be a weapon, but in the same breath you seem willing to turn people who make you angry into ash. Decide which it is going to be before someone decides it for you.”

  All the girls had turned to look at us, and Dia stopped talking. None of them were concerned about her, only about me.

  “No one ever gets angry at me anymore,” I said and offered her my hand. “That was nice—well, not nice, but welcome. Walk with me some more? Come. I want to think more about what you said. I am only fifteen.”

  This made her laugh and we kept on with our slow walk.

  As soon
as the other girls neared the rows of tall wooden sculptures that filled the green expanse, they started running and hopping along. Lilly was yanking Fana forward.

  “You don’t like her much,” Dia said.

  “How can you tell?”

  “You don’t need magical powers to know when girls don’t like each other. What bothers you about her?”

  “She smiles too much. Like someone is always whispering jokes in her ear.”

  “No jokes. Screams. She is very close to the Spirit. They all are.”

  “You can’t tell me she wasn’t like that before, all happy and bouncing.”

  “That’s not a reason to dislike someone.”

  I shrugged. “How long do you think this is going to take?”

  “They need to walk the row and see if they can learn the magic names of each animal.”

  “All 5,420 of them? That could take days.”

  Dia staggered then and I caught her. “What’s wrong?”

  They were all stumbling, expect for Fana and Evela who stood as though they were two more empty statues of wood. Lilly collapsed and then Dia, too. I caught her head as she tumbled down. She was mumbling.

  “What do we do?” I shouted.

  “Nothing, this is perfect,” Lilly shrieked and began to thrash.

  I did not see how it could be. They all began to convulse and it went on forever. That sick blue glow crept across their skin and got so hot I could not bear to hold Dia’s hand. Rahan’s guard did not know what to do except get as far away as possible.

  Dia’s threads were all bend down, as if the spirit had hold of them. Each thread began pulse again and again, growing thicker with each beat. Dia’s eyes and ears began to bleed. She went limp, and the rest flopped once or twice like dying fish.

  “We are going to need that tower,” Fana said to a bluecoat. “And some books.”

  “Hey,” I shouted. “What just happened? They are bleeding.”

  “Don’t worry,” Fana said. “It only hurts them a little to learn. This was a fantastic result.”

  I did not like it at all. No god would ever make me bleed or hurt any—

  “Damn it,” I said and knelt down to clean Dia’s face and neck as she started to come to.