“I’m doing what
Da
would want!” he said, fumbling the pack’s buckles. “I’m putting Lur first, just like he’s put Lur first pretty much his whole life. He’s lying in his bed like a breathing corpse, right now, for putting Lur first. And for me.”
“For you?” said Mama. “What do you mean?”
He stared at her across his clothes-scattered bed. These past long days of cruel uncertainty had been especially brutal for her. Eyes shadowed and sunken, cheeks pale, everything strong about her turned fearful. It was as though a stranger was wearing her face. Rain slashed against the chamber window, filling the silence with threats of strife.
“Goose,” he said at last. Hating to admit it. “Da thought if—” He had to stop, guilt burning his belly. “He thought—”
Mama dropped to the blanket box at the foot of the bed. Elbows on her knees, face buried in her hands, she looked so dejected, so small and lonely, he could’ve wept.
“I know what he thought,” she said, muffled. So weary. “Oh,
Asher
.”
And it had been for nothing, in the end. Goose and the others were gone over the mountains, and Barl alone knew what they were facing. There’d been no word yet through the talking stone they’d taken. Between fretting on him and Da and feeling Lur’s torment, it was getting harder and harder to sleep.
“Mama,” he said, close to despair. “You
know
he’d want me to go.” She looked up. “And what makes you think I care what he’d want?” He’d never seen her defeated, not like this. Not even in Westwailing, when she’d given up and walked away.
“Mama—”
“Don’t,” said Mama, and hid her face again. “Rafel, I can’t see the point of you doing this. Barl’s map is destroyed and there’s no more Weather Magic. The last threads binding it to Lur are snapped. So what can you do?”
Sighing, he tossed the buckled pack aside and joined his mother on the blanket box. Slipped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her against him. “I can feel the earth. Better than anyone, even you. Well, except Da.” He pulled a face. “And maybe Deenie.”
“Deenie?”
Mama pulled away from him and stood, arms wrapping tight round her ribs as though she held herself against a mortal wound. “You leave Deenie out of this madness, Rafel. You’re a man now. You’ll do what you want and I can’t stop you. But Deenie?” Her voice broke. “She’s younger than her years. Still a child, in many ways. I’ll not have her dragged into this. I’ll not have her life ruined by magic, by being different, by—”
“But Mama,” he said, as gently as he could. “She
is
different. You can’t—”
She turned on him, her dark eyes shimmering with tears and fury. “
Don’t you tell me what I can’t!
I am her
mother
and I will protect her till the last breath leaves
my
body! I was born Jervale’s Heir and I accepted that burden. I did all that was asked of me to see that evil was defeated. But the days of prophecy are
over,
Rafe. The Circle is broken and I’ll not see it mended. I’ll not give my daughter to it.” Fingers pressed to her lips, tears falling, she almost sobbed. “I’ll not forgive your father for giving you to it.”
“Mama!”
Shocked, he got to his feet. “Don’t blame Da for this. I
wanted
to help.”
“And now you want to leave,” she said bitterly. “But how does that help
me?
”
The need to hold her, to be held by her, was so sharp it hurt. But he didn’t dare move.
If she pushed me away now, I’d break
. “What helps Lur helps us all, Mama. Doesn’t it?”
She snorted. “Your father thought that way. Now look at him. He’s a lump of flesh in his bed. And is Lur helped? No. It’s suffering, worse than ever.”
“Which is why I’ve got to go. I’ve got to get beyond the City walls and into the Home Districts, so I can feel what’s going on without folk getting in the way. Doranen magic’s so loud.”
“That’s what Matt used to say,” she murmured. “And it killed him in the end. It kills everything. I
hate
it.”
“Mama, I would
never
ask Deenie to do this,” he said, willing her to believe him. “I know how much she’s hurting. And that’s one more reason for me to go. If I can feel what’s happened to Lur, if I can understand, then—”
“Then
what?
You can’t fix this, Rafel! Lur is ruined and there’s
nothing
to be done.”
Looking at her now, it was hard to believe she’d been Jervale’s Heir. She’d given up. Did Da know she’d given up? “You can’t be sure of that.”
“Yes, I
can,
” she insisted. “Rafe, it’s
over
. At long last this kingdom has run dry of Barl’s magic—and we have no choice but to endure the coming dark days. And I’m sure, Rafe,
I know,
that the Council is foolish to think you’ll save us.”
The derision in her voice lashed him. “Why? ’Cause I’m not the mage my father is?”
“No!” she cried. “Because what they want is
impossible
. What your
father
wanted is impossible. Nothing lives forever, Rafe. Not even a kingdom.”
He stepped back. “So—you want us to do nothing? To sit in the rain with our mouths open until we drown?”
His mother stared at him in bleak silence for a long time. Then she shook her head, slowly, and turned away. “You haven’t heard a word I said.”
“Oh, I heard you!” he retorted. “I just think you’re wrong!”
“Fine,” she sighed. “Then you go. Traipse about the Home Districts to your selfish heart’s content. Do the Council’s bidding. Just don’t be surprised that when you can’t snap your fingers and make everything all right, they blame you.”
“They won’t do that. They understand—”
“All they understand, Rafel, is that they want the world the way it was!” she said, swinging to face him. “And when they finally realise they won’t—
can’t
—have it, they’ll get angry.
Believe me
.”
“No. Mama, I’m not a fool,” he said, his own temper stirring. “I made the Council promise to heed me. I’ll be fine. I think you’re—”
“Take that condescending tone with me and you’ll be well sorry for it,” she said, her face and eyes so cold. “Am I some ole woman in my dotage?
I have lived through this before
. Face the truth, Rafel, no matter how painful or unpalatable it might be. Lur has used up all its second chances. This kingdom’s last frail hope of deliverance was Fernel Pintte’s misguided expedition. And with that lost we—”
Goose
. “Don’t call them lost,” he snapped. “You don’t know they’re lost. We just haven’t heard from them yet, that’s all. You don’t—”
“I don’t
what?
” she spat. “Remember Tollin and his expedition, and what happened to them? Well, my bright boy, here’s something else you were never told. I sat beside that man as he
died
. I breathed in the stench and corruption of his rotting flesh as it fell from his raddled bones. Your father was right—Pintte and Baden never should’ve gone. They and their followers have perished, and hope is perished with them. Now those of us left behind in Lur will reap what Barl and her precious Morgan sowed.”
He didn’t know how to answer that. He was so angry, so disappointed… any ticktock he was going to lose his temper and say something he could never take back. That she might not forgive.
“Rafe
…”
Halfway to the chamber door, his pack in one hand, his long, oiled riding-coat and broad-brimmed leather hat in the other, he stopped. Turned. The pain in her face was a punishment.
“Mama, I’m not doing this to hurt you,” he said, his voice tight. His throat tight, and his chest. Breathing hurt. “I’m doing it for Lur. For Da.”
“I know,” she said. There was no softness in her. “Make sure you farewell him. So you’ll know you’ve done it, even if he won’t.”
“Mama
…”
His eyes were burning. “I’ll be back in a few days. No more than a week.”
“You’ll be back when it suits you, Rafel,” she said, shrugging. “And not a moment sooner.”
He left her standing in his chamber, so much anger, so much pain, and thudded his way downstairs to his parents’ floor of the Tower. Dropping his pack, coat and hat on the landing he pushed the main doors open and walked soft-footed to their privy apartments.
Deenie was in there, reading to Da.
Looking up at his entrance, his sister marked her place on the book’s page with her finger. “Rafel. You’re leaving?”
“Aye,” he said roughly, halting two steps through the doorway. “Are you going to fratch at me too?”
Deenie shook her head. Pale and trembly, she looked too small for her clothes. “Why would I fratch at you, Rafe? You’re only trying to help.” Her face twisted. “I wish
I
could help. But I’m useless.”
“No, you ain’t,” he said, and walked further into the chamber. Looking at his sister, not his father, ’cause looking at Da made him come over girlish and weepy. “You’re keeping Da company.”
“For all the good it’s doing him.”
“You don’t know it’s not. You don’t know he can’t hear you.”
“I s’pose,” she said, disconsolate.
Looking at her closely, he saw pinch-prints of pain around her mouth. “You still feeling poorly?”
“I feel what I feel,” she said, her voice low. “No point talking on it, Rafe. I can’t make it go away, any more than you can.”
“No,” he agreed. “But you feel things harder. You always have.” He pulled a face. “I wish I was like you, Deenie. I wish—”
“No you bloody
don’t,
” she said, suddenly raging. But Deenie
never
raged. It was like a punch in his guts. “Why would you say that, Rafe?” Tears stood in her eyes, on her lashes. “You’ve grown up with me screaming. You know my nightmares. At least you can go out there and try
fixing
what’s gone wrong. Me? I get to stay cooped up in this Tower, drinking muck that make me feel like I’m only ever two breaths away from vomiting my guts out, and if you
were
like me then you would be too, so don’t you talk that folderol. Not to me.”
He walked all the way over to her and crouched by her side. “I’m sorry, Deenie. I never meant to—”
“I know you didn’t,” she muttered. “Don’t mind me. It’s not been a good morning, is all.”
He smoothed a wisp of dark hair behind her ear. “Reckon I can see that.”
“I’m frighted, Rafe,” she said, groping for his hand. “I’m so frighted Da’s going to die.”
“Deenie…” Her fingers felt fragile and defenceless in his. He raised them to his lips for a kiss… and then, at last, let himself look at their father.
Oh, Da.
So still. So silent. All his restless energy vanquished. He looked
empty
. Gone away. Just a shape beneath his blankets.
“I keep remembering Darran,” said Deenie, her voice thick. “I was tiddy, I know, but I remember him. I remember that last night.”
“Don’t,”
he said roughly, ’cause he remembered it too. “Darran was an ole man. Years and years older than Da. He was palsied.
Da ain’t dying
.”
Deenie looked to the chamber’s open door, then scrunched down in her chair. “I want to tell you something,” she said, so softly he could hardly hear her. “It’s bad. I tried to tell Mama, but—she won’t listen. She says it’s ’cause I’m not well. She says it’s the possets and elixirs making me imagine things. Pother Kerril says the same.” She leaned close to him, quivering. “And it’s true, I am having nightmares. But this ain’t a nightmare, Rafe. This is
real
.”
He’d never seen her so intense. “What, Deenie? What’s real?”
“There’s a darkness inside him, Rafe. Something bad is in there, making him sick. Keeping him asleep. Away from us.”
Uncertain, he stared at her. “Deenie…”
“I can
feel
it!” She pressed his hand palm-down to Da’s cold forehead. “Can’t
you
feel it, Rafe? Please,
please,
tell me you feel it!”
But the only thing he could feel was misery, to see Da sunk so low. “Maybe,” he said cautiously, and took his hand back. “Maybe I feel something.”
She shifted away from him, disgusted. “You’re just saying that to jolly me. You’re as bad as Mama, treating me like a sprat.” She stood, paying no heed to the book as it thudded to the carpet. “I have to take another posset now. If you’re going, goodbye.”
“No—Deenie, wait, don’t—”
But she was gone, stamping out of Da’s chamber all crooked elbows and crossness.
He looked at his father. “Is she right, Da?” he whispered. “Are you in there somewhere, trying to get out?”
Da didn’t answer. He hadn’t moved since Pother Kerril brought him out of his thrashing fit in the Weather Chamber. Days and days of silence and sorrow. Even his sunken eyes were unmoving behind his closed eyelids. His chest rose and fell as he breathed. That was it.
“Da…” Rafel kissed his father’s raspy, stubbled cheek, then stood. “I’m leaving for a bit. Council’s asked for my help. But I’ll be back, so don’t you go anywhere. You hear me?”
He turned for the door—and there was his mother, tears like rain sliding down her hollowed cheeks. She stood aside as he approached, and didn’t lift her face for his kiss. She
always
lifted her face for his kiss.