Raven's Strike (33 page)

He met her gaze and smiled, Jes and Guardian both. “Don't worry so,” he said, before continuing the journey he'd just begun.

His mouth followed her skin down her throat to her collarbone while his hands trailed heat down the curve of her spine, then across to her hips. He stopped with his mouth over her navel, his head against that ache of grief and memory his hand had found earlier.

“Here,” he said. “So much hurt. Let me loosen it for you.” He pressed his forehead against her, just below her ribs. And the warmth of him softened the old pain gently, then the Guardian's coolness eased the ache.

“Don't keep your hate and pain so tightly,” the Guardian said, his voice as gentle as Jes's had been. “I share my rage with Jes, and it lessens. Some hurts need the light of day, Hennea, so that they may be counted and let fly.”

She sighed and felt the ugliness she had carried for so long in secret, hidden even from herself, writhe under the light he would bring to it.

“So many dead,” Jes said, his voice subtly softer than the Guardian's. “Too many to keep here.” His callused hand brushed tenderly over her heart. “They were beloved by you, and loved you. It would hurt them to know they caused you such anguish. Let them go.”

“You can't read my mind,” she said, shaken by the accuracy of his words.

“No,” he said. “But I feel what you feel, and I remember the ones I have lost along the way, and the pain is the same. The cause the same.” He smiled against her cheek; she could feel his dimple. “Selfishness.”

“Selfishness?” It stung as if he were trivializing her suffering. She tried to pull away.

He laughed, low in his throat, and pulled her more tightly against him. The vibration of the Guardian's quiet laughter touched something deep inside, and she yielded to him again.

“Selfish,” he said again. “I do not know where the dead go.” Jes laughed this time, the sound less graceful, less beautiful, but more joyous. “But they do go and leave their bodies behind, I've seen it. I've
felt
it. They go in joy, Hennea, the pain and fear is left with the ones who stay behind and mourn. You and I. And
the pain we feel is for ourselves. I will never again see my little sister, Mehalla, who died the year Rinnie was born, and it makes me sad. For me. And I mourn even now, though she is eleven years dead. It is not bad that I mourn, but it is selfish.” He slid down to kiss her belly, then rubbed his cheek against her, his afternoon beard stubble catching on her shirt.

“Let their deaths go,” he said. “Let them leave off their haunting of your heart.”

He waited, as if he were listening for something she couldn't hear. His patience, and the warmth of his arms around her—as if he were protecting her from all harm—was too much to bear.

“Ah, that's it,” he said, coming back to his feet so she could bury her face against his chest as she sobbed. “We cry, too, the Guardian and I.” He rocked her softly and sang a lullaby, like a mother soothing an overly tired child. He wasn't Bard, but his voice was lovely all the same.

When she pulled back, he wiped her cheeks with his hands. “You need to forgive them,” he told her. “They are long dead, and your anger harms only you. Forgive them for dying and leaving you behind. Forgive Hinnum, if it was he, who loved you too much to allow you death to salve your pain.”

Hennea felt raw. “You are a child,” she whispered. “How can you know such things?”

The step she took away from him was more of a stumble than the firm distance-setting stride she'd intended, but it served its purpose. His touch was too unsettling, too necessary.

He smiled. “Some truths are truths, no matter who says them. My father knows a lot of them. ‘Forgiveness benefits you more than those you forgive' is one of his favorites.”

The smile faded, and his eyes darkened. “You lost so much,” he said, and she couldn't tell who spoke, Jes or the Guardian. “Is there nothing you found afterward? Were no gifts given to you?”

She stared at him, trying to maintain her dignity; but he waited patiently, a smile lurking just below the surface of his eyes.

“You,” she said.

He smiled again and closed the distance between them. As he pulled her into a hug that was more exuberant than sensual,
he whispered, “Next time you want to look dignified, you might tie your blouse closed first.”

He laughed when she pushed against him with an indignant huff. “Come,” he said. “I know of a place that'll be more comfortable for what I have in mind than this marble floor. I did a bit of exploring before we noticed the face on the statue was yours—the black color threw us off.”

“You just weren't looking at the face,” she said, and he threw back his head and gave one of his joy-ridden crows of amusement.

“Jealous of a statue?” he asked, and picked her up. “A man likes something softer and warmer than marble—no matter how beautiful.”

She let him carry her up the stairs of the dais and through the half-hidden door beyond. He took her through the halls and into a room built around a serene pool. The afternoon light reflected off the water from hidden skylights, giving the walls a dappled appearance.

“I remember that this was always my favorite room,” she said, as he laid her on one of the thick mats that covered the ground.

The Guardian buried his face under her hair, between her neck and shoulder, and inhaled. “I love your scent,” he growled.

“Wait,” she said, pulling away from him.

He let her go, though his hands clenched, and he grimaced.

“I have to tell you,” she said. “I have to tell Jes.”

“Jes is listening,” rumbled the Guardian, rolling until he was on his belly, his face hidden in his arms. “That is the best we can do right now.”

Hennea sat up and rubbed his back, then pulled her hand back because it was distracting to touch him and feel him shaking with passion under her fingers—and she needed him to understand just what she was before he made such a commitment to her.

“There were six of us in the days of Colossae. Raven, Eagle, Owl, Cormorant, Lark, and Falcon. We kept the world safe by the balance of our powers.”

She folded her legs and made herself small as she organized her newfound memories and composed a story that
would make sense to Jes without losing itself in useless details.

“Colossae was my city, and I loved her. I loved the wizards who lived in her. They asked me for power, and I gave it to them.”

The Guardian turned onto his side so he could watch her. His body was relaxing slowly from the tension of passion.

“The only thing I loved more than my city was my Consort. We were created for each other. There was balance between us: Eagle for Raven, Owl for Cormorant, and Lark for Hunter. Then my wizards, using the power I gave them, killed my Eagle.”

“How?” The Guardian's breathing had picked up, but not from passion.

“Like the Path took the Order from its bearer, the greedy wizards stole the Eagle's power. They died in the doing, but it killed my beloved, too.”

He turned his gaze to the pool of water, his face neutral, she could not read what he thought.

“The power we held was immortal, Jes, but we learned that we were not immune to the Stalker's gift. We lived, the six of us, to keep the greater gods in check. Our world is old and brittle; if the power of the Weaver and the Stalker were loosed upon it now, it would shatter like an old, dry pot. We maintained the balance that kept the gods bound.”

“One of you died.” It was Jes who spoke now, though she could feel the Guardian's presence in the chill that raised goose bumps on her arms.

She nodded. “When the war god was murdered, the Elder gods stirred. People died all over the world. The old god's power is involuntary, like the dread that always hangs about the Guardian whether he wills it or not: the Weaver creates, and the Stalker destroys, they have no choice. It's what they are. They came to us, those of us who still lived, and asked us to help them restore the balance.”

“To sacrifice Colossae.”

“The bindings that kept the Elder gods in check were failing, day by day, because there was no balanced outlet for their power. We had two problems to fix. We needed to create a new binding and a new balance. Colossae's sacrifice was necessary
to create the binding—as long as she stands frozen, so will the gods be bound.”

“But one of the gods was dead, so there could be no balance.”

“That's right.” It sounded like a story, Hennea thought, except she could remember it as if it had happened yesterday. “The Lark suggested the Weaver create a new Eagle.”

Even so many years later the rage she'd felt at that—as if her beloved were no more than a broken bowl that could be replaced with a potter's wheel and kiln—was hot in her breast.

“Why didn't he?”

“He couldn't,” she said. “The immortal power of the Eagle was still here, hosted in the mind of a child born the day my beloved died and held to sleep by the Lark. My beloved would not release his power, and not even the Weaver or the Stalker could force him to do so.”

“I was so angry with them all.” She remembered holding her grief and guilt and hiding them behind her anger. “It was my fault,” she whispered. “And it was for me to correct though we would all pay the price for my folly.”

“What did you do?”

“The Orders were created before the wizards left Colossae, Jes. I made them. I took the powers of my fellow gods and tore them from their bodies as my beloved's power had been torn from him. Because I was the goddess of magic, I could take them cleanly, pure power with nothing of the soul clinging to them. But I could not take them without killing the gods.”

She closed her eyes and remembered how it was, working magic with a pale and shuddering Hinnum, who aided her in doing what must be done. “They sacrificed themselves because five gods could not hold the bindings and keep the Elder gods confined, but if I took our power and divided it and bound it to mortals, then the balance would be served.”

“So Colossae died to confine the powers of the Elder gods, and the Orders were created to keep them confined.”

“Yes,” whispered Hennea.

Silence grew until Jes looked at her instead of the pool. “You didn't stop us for this.”

She shook her head, but she couldn't bear telling him yet, so she shared the lesser of the evils she was responsible for. “I was supposed to die, too, Jes. Hinnum helped me divide my
power and create the Ravens, leaving only what I needed to direct the spells that sacrificed Colossae. I think that my survival is why the Shadowed is able to draw power from the Stalker. My survival left a hole in the bindings.”

Jes sat up abruptly and gathered her into his arms, but she had the feeling his attention was on his own internal dialogue. “No,” the Guardian said after a moment. “It wasn't your life. You were the Raven, and had the Raven survived, it would have destroyed the balance. A Raven survived, Hennea, but not the Raven.”

She considered his words carefully, but could find no flaw in his argument. “All right,” she whispered. “All right. But something went wrong.”

“Hennea?” he asked, his lips against her ear. “Why is the Eagle Order different?”

“My fault,” she said, glad he'd found the worst of her crimes before she'd had to confess. “It is my fault, and I beg your forgiveness.”

Jes held still behind her, but he didn't push her away when she leaned against him. “When my sisters and brothers died, their spirits and body fell away, leaving only their power behind. When the wizards murdered the Eagle, they ripped his power and spirit from his body together. I could have divided his power into such small sparks it would have been no more than a glint in the eye that gave a person just an extra mote of courage or strength. And they would never have felt the remnant that was Him, and not just his power. I could have given him into the care of the warrior born, let loose his gifts on the field of battle. But this was
my
beloved.”

“So what did you do?”

Surely he knew, she thought, but she owed it to him to confess her guilt in full.

“I divided his power until his rage at his murder was small enough it did not instantly overwhelm the mortal who would hold it, then I gave him to the only people who could know what it was they held. The only people who might comfort him.”

“Empaths like Jes,” said the Guardian.

She nodded, awaiting his judgment. He pulled her into his lap and rocked a little as he thought.

“If,” whispered the Guardian “
if
you had given me a warrior to bind to, blood would have flowed like rivers until there were none more to kill. I remember generations of being only rage, incapable of coherent thought. Without Jes to love me, that is all I would ever be.”

“I know, beloved,” she said, holding his arms against her. “But so many have paid the cost of my decision. So many Eagles have lived short lives. Jes—Jes has paid such a price for a debt that was not his.”

“Hmm,” Jes said. “Papa says everyone pays a price for living.” He nuzzled behind her ear. “I like who I am, Hennea. I cannot imagine life without the Guardian. I think it would be terrible and lonely if I did not have him. Right now, in this room with you in my arms, I would trade my life with no other man alive. Do not ask for my forgiveness, because you have not sinned against me. Do not ask for our anger because there is none. We love you.”

C
HAPTER
16

Much to Tier's relief, the clouds seemed to be keeping their water to themselves,
and there was even a growing area of blue sky to let the sun out to warm his bones.

He hadn't been away from home this much since he'd been a soldier, but, moments of terror and worry aside, he didn't really mind it. Perhaps when his wife decided she could not go back to being a farmer's wife, he'd become a Traveler's husband and roam the world with her.

He missed his farm—missed the smell of the earth turning and the plants growing.

He deliberately turned his attention to the city.

The University District had evidently been where the wealthy lived. From his perch on top of a garden wall, he had a good view of most of gardens belonging to a three-story stone manor house. The lack of birds and insects bothered him, but did not diminish the elaborate beauty of the carefully laid out flowers and trees.

The real benefit of his chosen position was not the local flora, but the ability it gave him to keep an eye on all of his charges, who had a tendency to scatter as something interesting caught their attention.

Rinnie left Lehr, half-hidden by a hedge at the far end of the block near the boundary Tier had declared was as far as they could go until everyone was ready to move on, and had started toward him with Gura at her side.

A moment later Phoran trailed laconically after Rinnie and Gura with the look of bored cynicism—a mask left over from earlier times—that he wore whenever he remembered that he was the Emperor, and not merely another of Tier's boys. The work and riding Phoran had been doing had thinned down his face, showing wide cheekbones and a narrow, elegant nose. He wasn't handsome, but his tanned face had an angular cast that would be more interesting than mere handsomeness—especially when he smiled.

Though he still dressed in his flamboyant colors, they had grown worn over the weeks of work and riding. He'd given up on the elaborate hairstyles of court and taken to tying his hair back. The overall effect was more that of a rogue than an emperor.

Behind him, as usual, were Kissel and Toarsen. Ielian would be somewhere near, but not too near, always aware of where the Emperor was. Tier saw him leaning casually on a garden wall on the other side of the street. Rufort had taken the other side of the block and, like Tier, had found a position that allowed him to keep an eye on everyone. Tier smiled, proud of his Passerines. They would do to guard the Emperor's back.

Rinnie was getting closer, and Tier's smile widened to a grin as Ielian fell in to trail casually behind Toarsen and Kissel.
He
knew they were guarding Phoran, but to an outsider it would look as though Rinnie were very important.

She stood on the street just under Tier and shaded her eyes. “Papa,” she said, “Lehr says he's solved the mysteries of the places where the buildings have fallen, but he won't tell me until you come.”

“All right.” He knew the chances of anyone else being in Colossae were slim, but the silence made him wary, and he took one more good look around before dropping off the wall.

He followed his daughter, her emperor, and his guards down the cobbled street to the end of the block, where Lehr awaited them. Rufort, he noticed out of the corner of his eye, was strolling along behind them.

“Look, Papa,” Lehr said, his voice tight with excitement as soon as Tier could see around the bushes to the small plot of land with another of the rubble-covered places where a house had once stood.

Lehr pointed to the surrounding fence that was modest in comparison to its neighbors, being only waist high and made of wood. The fence was elaborately painted with green vines and small white flowers that wove in and out of the evenly cut slats.

Tier frowned; he'd seen a fence like that before, but for a moment he couldn't think just where. Lehr waited expectantly while Tier put a hand on the wood and bent to look more closely at one of the painted flowers. No, he thought, it hadn't been a fence. If his memory had been its usual self he would have had an easier time of it.

“Benroln's
mermora,
” he said at last. He'd seen it virtually every night on the trip from Taela until Benroln had led his people to Colbern. “Rongier the Librarian's house has this pattern on the windowsills.”

“And the lines of the building match the house, Papa. I think the buildings that have fallen are all the wizards' houses. If we get Mother, I bet we could figure out where all her
mermori
belong.”

“What's a
mermora
?” asked Phoran.

Rinnie and Lehr both started to explain. Rinnie would have stopped and let Lehr continue, but Lehr reproved her for being rude and talking over the top of him.

Tier let them work it out while he took a few steps out into the middle of the road and tried to see, in his mind's eye, what it would have looked like with Rongier's house in place of the scattered stones that were all that was left of his house.

He wondered if Rongier's house had been here first, and all the estates had grown up around it—or if the estates had been here and one of the owners of the properties on either side had given this land for Rongier's use. Certainly the relatively modest house must have looked out of place while Rongier had lived there.

He half closed his eyes and visualized it. His hands warmed and tingled as the picture formed—no, not just picture. Suddenly the sounds he'd been missing were here, the
wind in the trees and the birds twittering. He smelled the sweet scent of herbs and flowers and a faint tang of manure. The street wasn't busy, only the people who lived on it and the people who did business with them came here.

A horse was tied outside Rongier's house, smaller than the horses Tier was used to, and lighter built. Its mane was plaited with ribbons, and the horse's tack was whitened leather. It flicked its tail and stomped a back hoof, trying to dissuade some irksome insect.

“So the wizards found a way to take their
libraries
with them when they fled?” Phoran's voice broke Tier's concentration. “All I managed was two changes of clothes, my sword, a fat purse, and four guards to spend it on.”

“They were killing their families,” said Rufort slowly. “Libraries seem . . .” He floundered for the right word.

“Petty,” supplied Ielian.

“They couldn't bear to lose everything.” Tier said. The scene of the past had gone as soon as Phoran caught his attention. “If I were forced to kill my family and survive them, which is almost the most terrible fate I can imagine, then I would want some keepsake—something to show that once they had lived.”

“Isn't that what they sacrificed?” asked Lehr holding on to the fence. “Mother says magic is about patterns, and along with the lives of the people who lived here, it was the patterns of everyday life, all the things that made Colossae their home, that they sacrificed.”

“The library wasn't sacrificed,” said Rinnie. “It's not part of the spell. Maybe the
mermori
are like the library.”

Phoran smiled, and said wryly, “Maybe, but my uncle said if a wizard had a choice between rescuing a book or his only child from a flaming building, the wizard would save the—”

Phoran's voice broke off, and Tier was suddenly looking up at the branches of a tree.

“Papa?” Rinnie's voice was small and scared.

“I'm all right,” Tier said, instinctively answering the fear in his daughter's voice before he'd had a chance to assess the situation.

He hadn't realized he was being held down until his arms and legs were released. He was lying on his back in the street,
with the boys crouched around him and Rinnie's tearful face looking over Lehr's shoulder.

“Another fit, eh?” he said. He sat up too suddenly, and if Phoran's hand hadn't shifted unobtrusively behind his back, he would have fallen again. There was blood in his mouth, and he could feel a cut on the inside of his cheek.

“This one was bad, Papa,” said Lehr. His voice didn't tremble, and there were no tears, but Tier could see he'd scared Lehr as much as he'd scared Rinnie.

“Kissel caught you before you fell,” said Toarsen. “But it looked to me as if you hit your head pretty hard before I could steady you.”

“Thank you,” Tier said, putting a hand on Phoran's shoulder and using it to pull himself to his knees. When he didn't feel any dizziness, he got to his feet.

“I'm all right,” he told the worried faces gathered around him, and Bard that he was, he knew that he lied.

“The Raven could have set the magic upon Colossae herself,” said the Scholar, answering Seraph's question as he paced the short distance between Seraph's bench and the stairway. “But that would not have been a sacrifice capable of binding the Elder gods. Only the wizards could make the proper sacrifice of the wizards' city. The Raven directed the spell, and Hinnum served as the focus—but the power of the spell came from the wizards of Colossae.”

“They killed their loved ones,” said Seraph, trying to imagine how it was. “They destroyed all they held dear. How did you persuade them all?”

“We gathered them in the Raven's temple and explained what had happened. They knew the Weaver and the Stalker were unbound—no one could deny it by then, all of nature was in tumult.”

“They didn't all agree,” said Seraph, trying to imagine a roomful of Ravens agreeing on anything.

He stopped at the head of the stairs. “No,” he said heavily, and she heard death in that one word and saw it in his bowed shoulders. He took a deep breath, though she didn't think he really needed to breathe. “We left Colossae by the University Gate. And then we sacrificed her.”

“But not the library, not even the wizard's personal libraries,” she said slowly putting together the pieces as a Raven did, taking facts and using them to intuit beyond what she knew for certain. She remembered the way the Scholar focused on Hennea, and his voice as he spoke of his goddess. As if he were here, she could hear Tier say that he thought Hennea was
old
.

“And not the Raven. She planned on dying, didn't she?” Seraph whispered, awe rushing through her.
Hennea
was
the
Raven. “After she'd seen the whole of the business finished, she wanted to die like the other gods.”

“I couldn't bear it,” said the Scholar. “I couldn't bear that she die, too. I loved her.”

“So what did you do?”

“I took her memory instead. As you have seen, she still doesn't remember. I changed her face—just for a while, until all of those who would have known her for what she was were gone. So many of the wizards died that night, and those who lived were all damaged one way or another. She wasn't the only one to have lost her memory. There were wizards who never again worked magic, a handful who went blind. One who never said another word.”

“Isolde the Silent,” said Seraph.

He turned then and stared at her. “How do you know of Isolde? Are you of her house?”

Seraph nodded.

He smiled, remembering something with pleasure, she thought. “No. It wasn't Isolde who was struck dumb. Isolde could have studied under the Owl's wing—she had a singing voice like crystal strung to sound in the wind. In the days after Colossae fell, her songs comforted us all. We called her the Silent because she never said a word that didn't need to be said.” He paused. “You don't look like her, but you have something of her manner.”

Seraph pursed her lips. “I don't know how you are doing it, but you
are
Hinnum, himself.”

“Yes.”

Seraph leaned back, assessing the situation. She had in front of her the greatest wizard of Colossae, and she was going to make good use of him.

“Man is made of spirit, mind, and body,” said Seraph, “To see spirit, the wizard must push past the barriers that block his sight.” She set the book down with an ill-tempered thump. “Nonsense,” she told it—and her new instructor—irritably. “Moreover, it is useless nonsense. No real details, nothing except a collection of high-sounding poetical nonsense. I have done everything it says to do, and I cannot see anything other than my Order—which is
not
spirit.”

“It isn't nonsense,” said the illusion Hinnum wore mildly. “And if you are to keep your husband alive until I am capable of working magic, you need to know how to see spirit. All it takes is a little study and self-discipline.”

She turned to look at him, and he smiled at her—just like Tier. No one else laughed at her temper.

For Tier she would learn how to do this or die trying. And Hinnum, she reminded herself firmly, was the only wizard who could teach her—unless Hennea suddenly recalled herself. Seraph thought it would have happened already if it were going to.

It would probably be a kindness,
Seraph thought,
if Hennea never remembered
. From what Hinnum had told her, Hennea had no more power now than any other Raven: her memory of what she had been would gain her nothing but pain.