7

THE BLUE GLEN

That was not the welcome I had imagined.” Cyndere shrugged her heavy stormcloak into the hands of the guard behind her. “Where is the quiet, orderly Tilianpurth?”

She bowed to her guards, and they filed in perfect formation into the antechamber. Two of the towerhouse staff boys followed to gather up their damp woolen capes.

Cyndere turned just in time to catch Emeriene hobbling down the stairs to embrace her, and she laughed at the sisterly’s rush of apologies. “You have nothing to be sorry for, Em. It reminds me of chasing off your admirers when we were younger. Remember how my mother complained that you were inspiring more suitors than me?”

Emeriene bowed her head to hide her face.

“Are you still crying?” Cyndere grasped Emeriene’s shoulders and leaned in so their foreheads met.

“Someone has to.”

“I did not come here to cry.” She looked over Emeriene’s shoulder. “I came here to begin again.” The corridor was empty. They were alone, but she spoke softly anyway. “Officer Bauris met us at the gate. Can you believe how much has changed? He has to keep watch while the cooks gather herbs from the woods. Is it so dangerous here?”

As Emeriene dabbed at her cheeks and shared the report of Ryllion’s new prisoner, Cyndere felt willfulness stir like an animal within her. “Then it’s good that Bauris has agreed to help us. We’ll need him. If anybody discovers our plan, we’ll have more trouble than ever. They must believe I’m here for solitude.”

Two soldiers led four leashed hunting hounds through the front door. Cyndere knelt to scratch the dogs’ backs. “I should have brought my dogs, Em. Some quiet company for my chamber. Mother wouldn’t let me bring the viscorcat. He’s too wild.”

“I thought you’d bring Shakey.”

“Shakey? He’d bolt after the first gorrel he saw. We’d never see him again. Willow’s tending to two new pups. Drunkard and Trumpet. Mother calls them ‘Bad Dog’ and ‘Worse Dog.’ ”

One of the hounds shoved a wet nose into Cyndere’s cheek. “They know, don’t they?” said Emeriene. “They know just what will help—a warm, comforting presence. When the chillplague took your mother, that greenbird of hers would not leave her shoulder for days. He kept calling, ‘Hot rags! Hot rags!’ ”

“Mother could learn a thing or two from that bird. She’s never shown a care for people in trouble. I’m going to name the next puppy Cal-raven, just to poke at her conscience.”

“Cyndere!” Emeriene’s glare scolded the heiress. “You said you’re here to start over. Time to roll that scroll and put it away.”

Cyndere pressed on as if Emeriene had not even spoken. Clapping her hands, she knelt down before an invisible dog. “Here, Cal-raven! Here, boy!”

Emeriene pressed her lips together but too late. The tremors began. Soon they were both shaking with laughter as they had once upon a time. Emeriene shouted down the corridor, “Bad dog, Ryllion! Stay away from me! Where are your manners?”

When the heiress’s guards, free of their capes and armor, lumbered back into the corridor in long black tunics and leggings, they were surprised to see the women doubled over and holding their sides. They shared puzzled looks with each other, then bowed in embarrassment.

As the guards thundered up the stairs to their quarters, baths, and drinks, Emeriene steered Cyndere into the antechamber, and her amusement was soured by what she found there. “No, no, no!” She rushed to the empty tray, shaking her head at the scattered crumbs. “They’ve eaten what I set out for you!”

Cyndere pushed past Emeriene to the table, where she grasped the vase of wildflowers. “How I’ve missed this forest.” She pulled her veil aside and buried her face in the bouquet, breathing deep.

“Officer Bauris remembered how much you love the woods.” Emeriene pressed her palms against her forehead. “He doesn’t like our plan. He doesn’t see why he should risk opening the secret passage. And he is especially upset that you would dare send me into the forest at night. But he’s right, Cyndere. The woods are too dangerous now. If anybody discovers our deception, Bauris will be in trouble too.”

“I don’t care.” Cyndere covered her ears. “I came here to say good-bye to Deuneroi in my own way.” Pulling the blue headdress from her head, she grabbed fistfuls of her strawgold hair, which was quickly growing back after she had cut it all away. “Must Ryllion play the watchdog?”

Emeriene reminded her that they would be free of Ryllion during the day. Cyndere sighed. “What about at night? After seeing the way he treated you, I’d suggest you bar the door to your chamber. His brush with death in Abascar has only emboldened him.” She gazed at the portraits of her elders and at the tapestry. “I hate the way they look at me. I’m going up to my chamber.”

They returned to summon the lift, and it carried them up through four levels of the towerhouse. Soldiers on the first two floors bowed and smiled. Emeriene raised her hands as if this adulation was meant for her. She never tired of the joke. On the third level, servants moved between closets and bunkrooms, and sisterlies bowed to them on the fourth. Then it was on up through cooling air into the tower’s narrow span. Arriving at the highest platform, they stepped off into the sisterlies’ welcome. Cyndere thanked the attendants and dismissed them. While they slipped barefoot down the stairs, Cyndere walked into her bedchamber.

“There it is,” said Emeriene. “All you need in the world. A bed, a window, a fire, and hot water in the washtub.” She pointed to the cord hanging inside the door, which would summon the sisterlies at any hour, day or night. “And me, if you need any company.”

“You’ve scrubbed the stones on the wall. I have clean canvasses for sketching.”

“Who knows you better than I do?” Emeriene embraced her friend once more. “But you’ve had enough of everyone. Those voices clamoring in your head, they’re so loud that I can hear them too.” She placed her hands on Cyndere’s head. “I’m gathering them up, see? I’m taking those voices with me. All of them.” She pulled her hands away and cupped them together as if capturing a struggling creature. “I’m dragging them downstairs to lock them in the prison pit for the duration of your stay.”

“You know what to do at midnight, yes?”

“Bauris and I will be ready.”

Cyndere clasped her friend’s hands in gratitude. “Don’t fret, Emeriene.”

“Forgive me, but it’s my job.”

Cyndere’s smile was feeble. “Do you remember what we said when we were girls, when we were going to be apart?”

“Distance is an illusion,” they said together.

Emeriene departed, and the curtain fell behind her. Cyndere kicked aside the stone that held open the heavy door and then closed it urgently, slamming the iron bar into place as if locking out invaders.

The quiet of the room embraced her as if it had waited for years. She was surprised at how the soldiers’ commotion in the yard below sounded miles away. She stood at the sill, gazed out beyond the walls, and scanned the woods. Her memories stirred the way cobwebs waver when windows are opened. The forest. Fallen trees. Aromatic wildflowers. Her father, slashing a trail through dense thorn bushes. The smell of old wood, new leaves, silver tendrils of sap. An ancient well, besieged by ivy. Blue flowers. A bucket of warm water from deep underground. Deuneroi laughing with a crown of feathers on his head.

Cyndere reached out as if the scene were a map and imagined she could touch the frosted crowns of the treetops. “It’s a lie, Emeriene,” she whispered. “Distance is real and cruel.”

“Well, sound the biggest horn.” Bauris paused, set down the heavy pack, and stared up through the trees toward the starry sky. “There’s the old marrowwood tree house.”

For twenty years he had monitored the slow decline of Tilianpurth, but he had forgotten about this overgrown path, this ancient tree with its suspended shelter. He slapped his glove against its sturdy bark just the way he’d pat an old friend on the back. “We’re still standing, aren’t we?” he muttered. “Still stuck in the same woods.”

To the shivering woman in the hooded woolen cape, he added, “It really hasn’t been so long since you and Cyndere played here.” Kicking the husk of a lightning-smashed tree stump, he continued, “Back then I just watched over you to keep you out of trouble. But here, tonight, we have to step more carefully. Look at this, Sisterly.” He kicked a burnt tree stump. “The old rope-swing tree’s been blasted down.”

“You don’t have to call me ‘sisterly.’ I’m still the same Emeriene you used to carry on your shoulders.” The woman set down her woven basket. “That’s the tree house, all right. This is where the heiress told me we should turn and move uphill.”

“How can Cyndere’s memory be so sharp?” Bauris broke off a shard of burnt tree stump and sniffed it, as if he might discern some hint of smoke. All he smelled was rot. “I’ve watched over Tilianpurth since both of you were small and full of mischief. And yet I suspect Cyndere could map this patch of woods better than me. I guess that’s why she’s the heiress and I’m just a soldier.”

“She’s the heiress because she’s the daughter of Thesera and a descendant of Tammos Raak.”

“Oh, I’m just throwing elbows around. Don’t mind me.” He lifted the pack and moved on, watching as she took the basket and limped through the trees. “You know, when you were young and rowdy, you’d both keep secrets from me. I didn’t mind. But the secrets you keep now that you’re grown…they worry me. Like the reason we’re out here. What’s so important to Cyndere that she would send you out in the dark?”

No answer. Only a steady step, thump, step, thump as his companion’s cast complicated her steps.

“Nobody tells me much of anything anymore.” And yet, he argued with himself, this is more interesting than any task I’ve had in years. He felt young and ambitious again. Cyndere trusted him to guard Emeriene, stealing away from the vigilant guards. They had slipped through a secret kitchen door into an ancient escape tunnel known only to the royalty and the highest-ranking guard. Opening that passage for the first time in many years, Bauris had cut a trail through cobwebs. What Emeriene was to gather or achieve out here in these woods, he could not imagine. Her pack was full of heavy objects, but he was not allowed to look inside or ask questions about it.

A cold thrill of danger charged the air. Ryllion’s patrols had caught a beastman here yesterday. Any of the fidgeting shadows might come to life and threaten this young woman. She had pulled her hood up over her face as if afraid to survey their wild surroundings, and it pained him to see such a beauty struggle with that broken stride.

“I’ll tell you why Cyndere remembers the path so clearly.”

“Go on.” Bauris drew his sword, tested its edge.

“She spent her happiest days here. You remember?”

“Of course. I still remember Partayn learning to play harmonies on a perys. He’d wear ten bone rings and tap out melodies on the strings. Just ahead, there’s the glen where Cyndere asked Deuneroi to marry her.” Bauris cleared his throat. Why the heiress would want to mourn at Tilianpurth, closer to memories that would salt her wounds, bewildered him. “Don’t take us much farther,” he whispered. “The perimeter guards can’t hear us out here. These trees silence everything.”

They took a path through a patch of gnarled bushes. He watched her touch the silvery veins of a glitter tree. “It’s still here,” she whispered. “Why does it shimmer?”

“Glitter trees grow deep roots,” he answered. “If they find something in the ground that they like, they glow. I remember this tree. She’s a happy old sprout and probably one of the strongest in the region for rooting herself so deeply.”

“Cyndere said you must wait for me here. I’m going into a glen just ahead. Make sure nobody’s followed us.”

“You sure this is a good idea? Why risk it?”

“Call it the cost of friendship. Call it trust. The heiress’s will is my own. She’s not her mother. She’ll do things her own way. And you know better than to bother me about this.”

She sounded nervous. “No offense, Emeriene,” he murmured, but he thought, I do know better. About this whole endeavor.

“You gave me the tetherwings.” She lifted the basket. “They’re asleep. I poured a drop of slumberseed oil on the sponge, just as you taught me. But I’ll set them free while I do what Cyndere has sent me to do. They’ll watch over me.”

Bauris explained again that tetherwings could not protect her if a beastman came. The creatures were as fragile as the eggs that hatched them, and they would only do as they had been trained.

“If I’m wrong,” she said, “and if we really are in danger, you might finally get to fight a beastman, Bauris. Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted?” With that, she took the pack from him, hoisted it onto her back, and hobbled off through the trees.

As her footsteps faded, Bauris’s old ambition returned. He listened to the spaces between the trees, almost hoping to find a Cent Regus monster lurking there.

Jordam reached for the span of blue fabric that O-raya had spread across the stone table. “I found it in the forest,” she said. “It’s a quiet color, isn’t it? Like the coldest corner of an ice cave. Or like a song that you whisper, a sad song.”

“Sad song,” Jordam answered, trying to shape the Common words he was learning from the girl with the silverbrown hair. He watched her, entranced, then began to blink sleepily. Details dissolved until only a shimmering blue cloud remained.

Jordam tried to reach for that luminous array. But his body was imprisoned in some invisible shell.

A clump of snow splashed across his nose, startling him.

Moments of memory and dream melted away. He was not in O-raya’s cave. He lay limp on the coil tree’s bough in the dark, feeling nothing except a burn of thirst in his throat and the ache of an empty stomach. And yet, that mysterious blue light still glowed before him, faintly sketching the outline of his surroundings.

The coil tree stood on the edge of a foggy bowl. He could see down into a dark, grassy glen, where an ancient wall drew a curved barrier around half the open space. Someone had sought to enclose this place, a project never completed. The crumbling wall caught and amplified the rush of a stream, but he could not trace the sound to its source. In the middle of the glen, he saw a mound of colorful stones cloaked in steam that seemed to spill from the top. He moaned, unable to quench the flare of longing that responded to those colors. They were familiar. O-raya had been here.

Scratchwings chirped happily in the grass. Flap-hoppers croaked in the trees. Better than barking dogs, he thought. He breathed in deeply, smelling the snow suspended in the trees above him and fragrant, night-blooming flowers. It was strange, the scent of spring in winter.

Something the size of a knuckle-nut bolted across the clearing as a shadow descended into the glen, draped in a brown woodscloak.

Jordam held his breath. If it was a Bel Amican soldier, there was nothing he could do to escape. If it was Mordafey, he would be rescued and promptly thrashed with sharp objects.

The shadow paused at the clearing’s edge, as if suspicious of the light. Then it moved in a slow circle about the glow. He clenched his teeth, hoping his woodscloak would conceal him among the branches.

But when the shadow stopped and pushed back its hood, he almost laughed. It was neither hunter nor animal. It was a woman, her black hair gleaming with a blue sheen in the light. She wore a crown of grey feathers and carried a heavy pack on her shoulder. One hand rested on the hilt of her knife, the other held a woven basket. Her left leg was bound with stiff reeds.

It was not O-raya. It was someone else, a woman from Bel Amica, but a mystery all the same. As she limped about the open space, she touched each of the trees as if offering greetings to old friends. A maple of tiny, star-shaped leaves. A slender apple tree, high branched, its shallow roots widespread. Then she returned to the mound in the center. Through the streams of undulating mist, Jordam glimpsed wildflowers rooted between the stones. Their petals glowed—the source of the mysterious blue light.

Leaning back against the stone mound, the woman set the basket down and unbound the brace of reeds from her leg. She reached to touch the small blooms that sprouted from the tips of spiraling green stems, and he heard her voice at last—a question, a note of confusion. “Who’s been here? Who’s painted the stones?”

Then she opened the basket and withdrew a small vial of golden glass, placing it on the stones. A flurry of small, grey-feathered birds rose soundless from the basket. He recognized them at once. Tetherwings. Wealthy travelers released them at campsites, for the birds’ instincts made them subtle sentries. They would stay close together in the trees, watchful, calling out only if they sensed a predator nearby.

Like hummingbirds, the tetherwings hovered about their keeper’s head. One by one they dove in to peck at her crown of grey feathers as if in some ritual greeting. She did not wave them off. The birds seemed assured that she was, indeed, the one they must protect. Then they ascended in a widening spiral to higher ground and settled in the trees that surrounded the glen. One perched on the edge of a branch below Jordam, its back to the woman, eyes turned outward from the clearing.

He stared at his hand. He tried to move his fingers. If he were to be discovered here, he would be killed. By a vulnerable woman. With a simple knife.

The woman bowed her head, dark hair falling across her face. She plucked petals from the blue flowers and placed them on her tongue. Her face twisted, souring, and she choked. But instead of spitting them out, she forced more into her mouth until, with some effort, she chewed and swallowed them.

A long, low growl rumbled in Jordam’s empty belly. The woman turned abruptly in his direction. He held his breath.

For a moment he could see her face clearly, and he was surprised to see that her brow was beaded with dark droplets that ran in stark lines down her cheeks.

She stood and reached for the mound of stones. There was the sound of an indrawn breath. Something gave way. She staggered, lifting a heavy wooden cover and dropping it to the grass. Steam filled the clearing. The perfume of warm spring water intensified. And the sound was the rush of an underground river.

A well, Jordam realized. A well that opens to a stream. He dragged his stone-dry tongue across his lips.

The woman reached into the well. She began to draw out a length of rope with great effort. Hand over hand, she drew the rope. Something solid bumped against the well’s stone throat. Then she withdrew a heavy wooden bucket.

She set it on the ground, dropped to one knee, removed black gloves, and laid them on the edge of the well. Cupping her hands, she splashed water from the bucket across her face. Her shaking subsided. She cupped her hands again and drank, eyes closed. Then she stood and let the bucket back down into the well. A cloud of moths fluttered from the well into the air like scraps of ash. Jordam watched them rise toward the night sky, then noticed a light in the tower window far away. A figure in a gown and a headdress stepped into the frame.

After pulling more flowers free from the wellstones and placing them in the basket, the woman rose and walked to the cloudgrasper tree. She laid the pack on the ground and withdrew a sequined tunic. With trembling hands, she draped the tunic over one of the tree’s low, slender boughs. “It’s time,” she whispered to the tree. “You’re beautiful. I’ll give you all of these treasures. And you can give them back to the king. To Partayn. And to Deuneroi.”

Jordam gasped, then clamped his mouth shut.

One of the small grey birds spoke a quiet word of alarm. Jordam braced for the worst. But then he heard a rumor in the brush below.

A winter fox padded around the edge of the clearing. Ears pricked forward, pink tongue wagging, he stared at the woman. He looked as if his skin were wrapped too tight. She watched him. He snorted, changed direction, curiosity fighting with fear. Then he crouched low and inched toward her, sniffing the air. Jordam waited for her to reach for her dagger. But instead she held out her hand, offering a bright blue flower.

“I will not hurt you,” came the woman’s gentle voice. “I don’t think you want to hurt me. Let me help you.”

The fox’s ears swiveled and cupped, catching her words. His lean white body tensed.

Jordam ran those words through his mind. Let. Me. Help. You. He felt a sudden pang, and there was nothing he could do to stop his belly from rumbling again.

The fox’s ears flicked back. His tail twitched. He turned and bolted into the woods.

Every fiber in the beastman’s body quivered with the instinct to pursue. But he could not move.

The bird on the bough below him suddenly began to hoot. First cautiously, then with some insistence.

The woman looked up toward Jordam, then pulled the tunic from the tree branch and stuffed it into the pack. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Tomorrow. I’ll come back tomorrow.”

She carried the pack quickly from the base of the cloudgrasper to the well and let it down inside. He did not hear a splash. She hefted the lid back over the well, then took the golden glass vial and opened it. She drizzled a clear line of something like honey into the open bird basket and whistled sharply twice. Together the birds lifted from their perches, gathered again in a moving circle, and descended to settle in the basket. After pulling her gloves back on, the woman bound the cast of reeds around her leg. With one parting glance at the silhouette in the tower window, she limped up the path and out of sight.

While the sound of murmuring water teased Jordam’s thirst, the delicate blue that glimmered between the wellstones, and the vibrant colors on the stones themselves, filled a void he had learned to ignore. He drank in the sight, and his fears and anxieties melted away like snow in spring.

Startled out of his memories, Bauris sprang to his feet. “Sisterly Emeriene! I was just about to come looking for you! What kept you?”

“One of the tetherwings was slow in returning.” The cloaked woman limped back up the slope to the soldier.

Bauris observed that she was not carrying her pack. He had decided to trust her, though, and did not mention it. He followed her back through the bushes. “I trained those birds myself,” he said in disbelief. “Give me the basket. I’ll test them tomorrow. Perhaps they’re out of practice.”

“No, no, that won’t be necessary.” She paused beneath the glitter tree. “I’d like to keep them with me in case the heiress needs my help again.”

“Again? Why would she send you again? You won’t come back out here without me.”

She did not answer. He glanced back over his shoulder, determining that someday he would return to the glen to try to understand what sort of business required such risk, darkness, and secrecy.