“Who is…Anat?”
“My friend,” Hope said, as though I ought have known this. “We play together. Biddy says you were a Sister in the South.”
“That’s…right.” Hope was watching me again, but I could no longer tell what was passing behind her young features. “Biddy Callend?”
Hope nodded.
“She says she saw you in Dawnfire once.”
“I hadn’t known she was from Dawnfire.” I tried to smile. “She well might have. I lived there for many years.”
“I thought so,” she said with satisfaction. “I told Anat you can’t be a witch if you’re a nun.”
For an instant I was seized with the urge to argue the point. I settled for a more abstract approach.
“Some might say that druids are witches,” I said, gently challenging. Hope’s nose wrinkled for only a moment of contemplation.
“That’s wrong,” she said. “Druids are just people.”
“I’m just a person, too.”
Hope twisted her mouth all to one side thoughtfully, before she let her face fall slack.
“I think you’re nice,” she replied with finality. “I’m going to tell Anat she’s wrong.” She shrank back into her shawl, pulling it up over her shoulders. “It’s cold.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right. It’s not that cold.” She shook her head. “Lady Mariead?”
I stirred, halfway through voicing the instinctive thought. Just Mariead, please—I sighed.
“Yes, Hope?”
“In the Spring, can we go back home?” The candlelight danced in her eyes, but she did not look at me; only at the ring of dented metal before us. “My papa always said the garden would be a mess if it wasn’t tended in the Spring.”
“I’m…” My voice faltered. “I’m afraid we can’t. It isn’t safe.”
“Oh.” Hope pursed her lips, but said nothing else.
My chest felt hollow. The sweet, bitter emptiness was familiar. I thought of sulphurstars blooming on the hill of Caer Lunan. The wrench of leaving them behind, to find them again in Dawnfire…only to once again leave them.
I cast about for something to say. The girl beside me felt so familiar and so distant.
She does not belong to us, and she does not belong to the druids. I put a hand on her shoulder—less from a conscious thought and more because I feared she might fade away if I let her sit alone any longer. “Hope…” Faith might have added dear to her name. It felt trite, artificial, when I so much as thought of it. “I’m sorry about your parents. I…I’ve lost both of mine, as well.”
“You did?” This seemed to pique her curiosity. She looked at me in the dark with wide, somber eyes. “Did your parents die in Caer Lunan?”
“One of them did. My father.” Strange, to think of my father as dead. For years I had always thought of him as alive, just…elsewhere. Perhaps that was a kind of death. “My mother died when I was born. She was only twenty.”
Only twenty. My mother is younger than me. I felt a strangely-forceful sob threaten to make its way forward, the downward tug upon my lips. How quick and keen for a loss I had suffered three decades before!
“My papa was in the square,” Hope said. She looked at the object we were meant to be meditating. “Killian told me you were there.”
The memory of that first rebellion was quick and faceted, punctuated by the rhythm of loose, reload, aim, repeat. A frantic struggle beneath a gloomy iron sky in a town I had once known well. I felt my heart beat once to Her rhythm. I took a deep breath. The sorrow was not quelled, but I could speak. I could think.
“I was. If I saw your parents there, I wouldn’t know them. I’d been away for a long time.”
Hope nodded, still staring at the dented artifact. I saw her face wrench with some inner strain.
“I’m sorry,” she said, in a brittle little tone. The pause between this thought and the next was long, as though she needed some tremendous force to draw it forth. “I didn’t know it was from his mother.”
Her voice broke.
In all my years of life, I had never embraced a stranger’s child. It felt strange, uncharacteristic. I did not feel any more nurturing now.
Being motherless, I make a poor mother, I thought. But it was a distant thought, far-removed from reality.
We were crying. She was tiny, all bones and narrow shoulders under the blanket.
The glow of the lights around us receded like distant flowers, left us in a vast dark as tears painted the world around us in wavering candlelight. The gloom and the restless, circling draughts of the cavern seemed to pull at my hair, call me away. I held her tighter.
“You’re ours,” I whispered fiercely, aware even as I did that my words were nonsensical. They burned in my throat nevertheless. “Ours. We won’t give you up.”
Through tears I stared at the relic, silver and broken stone. Unique, beautiful, and irreparably broken.
We are all of us living between two worlds, I thought. Orphans of Caer Lunan.
For all that I felt unequal to the task, still I was something real enough for her to cling to.
Few other words were exchanged after that.
The candles burned lower. Grannine was with us in the cavern, circling the candlelight, looking out into the dark, a spectral sentinel.
I was surprised when the sound of another living voice disturbed the quiet—it felt as though hardly any time had passed.
“Suuna’astrea,” the woman called, holding high a single curling rushlight. She wore a single vivid orange piece of cloth as both mantle and headscarf, clutched close by her free hand. “Hope-dae?”
Hope had tucked her head down into the crook of her knees, but now she looked up with an expression like puzzlement.
“It’s Meva,” she said, and scrambled out from under my arm, rising to her feet to wave. The druid smiled, lifted a hand to mirror the gesture. “She’s nice.”
The woman’s face was familiar, but I could not quite place her. I pushed up off one knee, took Grannine’s arm to stand. I bowed, as did Grannine.
“Olem,” I said, and reached for Grannine’s hand. “Hope, are you…looked after? Where do you sleep?”
“Anywhere.” Hope shrugged. “I don’t like to be in the way. Mostly I sleep between Faith’s room and the Paces.” As if reacting to my expression, she added, “Not always. But they put a blanket out for me.”
“Is there—Olem,” I said to the druid woman who finally drew near. She had a round, sunny face. “Ah…ix kol-memma-dae,” I gestured to Hope, trying to cobble together the thought. “Bem olara?”
“Kolmemma-dae?” The woman repeated. Understanding dawned. She answered in a rush of Molok so quick that I lost track and laced my fingers through Grannine’s in surrender. “–children who have not mother. Hope-dae and I know one another well.” She stopped to smile at Hope, who, to my surprise, bobbed her head in another little curtsey. With an accent strong enough that I thought for a moment Grannine had stopped translating, Meva added, “I work. She teaches me in this, to speak to you.”
“Ix–” I stopped, switched languages in my head with a feeling like walking backwards while carrying a candle. “Where do children like her sleep? Children who haven’t a family. Is there a place for them?”
“Soi?” Meva bowed again. Through Grannine I heard her response, in laughing Molok. “Forgive me, suuna’astrea, I understand not.”
“Worry not,” I said, and forced a smile. We’ll speak to Faith. She’ll know. To Hope, I said “Will you be all right with Meva-dae?”
She nodded. I hesitated; it felt wrong to leave without some acknowledgement, something else. I settled for tousling her black hair as Faith had. “I’ll find you as soon as time permits. Perhaps we can speak again.”
“Perhaps,” she said, and I realized after a moment she was copying my voice. She smiled back at me, and like mine, her little smile did not quite reach all the way to her eyes. “Perhaps I’ll find you.”
“Perhaps,” I said, and ruffled her hair again. She giggled. “Meva-dan, I must go.” I bowed to the druid.
With a final look to Hope, I started down the path to the Arming-Hall with new purpose in my heart.
The Store-Hall was warm and clamorous in contrast to the solemn, empty Sonel-akad. I passed a team of six druids undertaking some complex process with ears of dried corn, providing one contribution after another to a central pile of husk and silk. The constant roll of grinding stone served as undercurrent to my thoughts, with the occasional murmured “Suuna’astrea” providing embellishment to my passage.
Grannine paced me. Her contemplative mood seemed to mirror mine; She was silent, but I could feel Her thoughts stirring beneath mine.
The cobwebs of morning had long left Us behind. I entered the Arming-Hall fresh, invigorated, light on my feet, and was greeted by a scene of martial activity.
A span of floor thirty paces across had been cleared at the end nearest the Ix-akad, and there a small ring of druids had formed, among them many Hunters in grey…and Eris, who seemed to catch sight of me the moment I entered. Nearer to the Store-Hall were weapons and packs laid out on dry and woven reeds, with three more of the grey-clad druids seated, passing their hands over seemingly every object. They tested straps, checked the edges of knives, and paused only to greet me with a nod.
“Mari,” Eris called, waving as she approached, as though I could ever fail to notice her. The gap her body left in the ring of druids was wide enough for me to glimpse a flurry of movement beyond, followed by a few laughs from those watching.
It still felt so strange, to run to her in greeting. That was a thing lovers did, husbands and wives. Eris and I had ever met in secret—yet I could still run to her in the Arming-Hall and take her hands in mine before God and man and druid alike. Not that there were many of us watching; all eyes seemed fixed upon the far end of the Arming-Hall.
“I worried I’d miss you.”
“I’m sure you will.”
“You look tired.” I reached up to touch her cheek. There were dark circles under her eyes, and they only deepened when she smiled. “If the tea didn’t help, we can see if Brix has anything else.” Eris pulled a rueful face.
“I’ve been enough of a bother. It’s not even that I can’t sleep.”
“Have you told Rina?”
“Told her what?” Eris laughed. “That I’ve had funny dreams? Not exactly life-threatening.”
“Still.”
“You’re sweet when you fuss over me,” Eris said, immediately shattering my focus. She spoke with a grin before I could muster a reply. “No chance I can talk you into joining the Hunt? Even Aidan’s coming.”
“If Meteth has chosen his Hunters, then I can hardly gainsay him. I’d be the sixteenth.” And perhaps the seventeenth, as well.
“Surely someone would step out for you. You can’t stay in here forever.”
“Forever?” I folded my arms. “Eris, it’s only been a few weeks.”
“Another few weeks and we’ll have been here longer than we haven’t.”
“I don’t believe that to be true.” I hid a smile—likely from most onlookers, but not from Eris. “Besides, it was enough of a fight to get them to take Astrid and Aidan.”
“Well, Astrid at least is taking to it,” Eris looked back over her shoulder. I leaned out to look around her.
At a glance I knew there were twenty-two Hunters in grey in the crowd at the end of the hall, intermingled with druids in cotton or deerskin or fur. Among them also were some of Caer Lunan; the Fensons, Blake Bauldry, Tyler Pace, and Lyn Dorsey. Those who wished to become Hunters.
A bystander moved, and I glimpsed Astrid Fuller—dressed from head to toe in Hunter grey, a patchwork of cloth and leather. Even as I watched, Huntress Urakad pulled tight on a buckle or strap on Astrid’s shoulder, let fall a mantle of moss-streaked grey cotton. If I had not known Astrid from before, I might have thought her to be the very picture of a druid in that moment, a bright and clear awe on her face as she flexed one dark-gloved hand.
The crowd shifted again, hiding Astrid from sight. Over the crowd I saw Dermot folded back against the wall, excluded from the ring but still keeping an eye. Not far from him was Aidan, hands at his sides, watching with some interest.
“Speaking of Aidan,” I said, in a lower voice. I half-expected him to turn and look right at me with the uncanny instinct he had always possessed for mischief in the making. “How long before you leave?”
“Haven’t a clue,” Eris answered promptly. She put her arm around my shoulder. No one seemed to notice. “Meteth said we’d be leaving before noon, but Urakad wanted to make a show of it when Astrid put on her greys. Why?”
“I’d hoped to have a word with Aidan. He ought to know.”
What it was that Aidan ought know needed no declaration. The last secret that remained between us.
“Ought he?” I didn’t need to look at Eris to know she was shaking her head. “I think he’s doing fine without knowing.”
“It’s not right.” I turned away to look up at her. “I can’t keep this from him.”
“But the demon, you can hide,” Eris said, amused. I frowned at her, not quite sure if I ought be truly offended. She rubbed my arm. “I’m only saying, my heart, this isn’t the kind of thing you just drop on a man. If he learnt who he was and turned back to the Church…he’d make their hold on Frydain stronger than ever.” She looked past me with that telltale glint of calculation in her eye. “They’d make him Hand of God.”
“He wouldn’t. You know he wouldn’t.”
“I surely don’t know that. You hardly know him anymore.”
“He’s my brother.”
“You were children. Besides which—what’s the good of telling him? I thought you wanted to stay here?”
“I–I do.” My stomach lurched as if the ground had been pulled out from beneath me. I heard young Hope’s voice again in memory. In the Spring, can we go back home? “I do.” I offered her a reassuring nod. “That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
Eris dropped her hand off my shoulder.
“What I want?”
“What we wanted–”
“I didn’t want some…farmwife, Madi,” Eris said. Her tone was…surly, and I resented it.
“I’m pleased to hear it,” I retorted, sharper than before. “For that’s one thing I am surely not.”
When Eris glared, the gold in her eyes turned blinding. That aurent frustration fell over me now, and I folded my arms over my chest, drawing myself up to meet her.
Eris worked her jaw for a moment. It reminded me of something that I did not at first place; of the way Dermot loosened his mandible before exchanging blows.
“Madi,” she said. “The cabin, the mountains…I just wanted to get you out of there. It broke my heart seeing you boxed up in that convent.”
“I was happy there. I’m happy here. I want…you. I want to…” I gestured, as if I could make her understand me by sign alone. “I want to want to stay here. With you.”
Eris nodded. Still there was anger on her face, but she spoke with exacting calmness.
“I know,” she said. She reached out to me again, held out her hand. I put my hand in hers. She grinned. It was sharp-edged, still angry, but fond, cutting with her smile instead of her words. It was a disquieting look on her sweet features, dark and deeply alluring. “You’re not a woman who can stay still for long.”
It was the certainty that most unsettled me, left me without a response that matched her in either emotion or eloquence.
“I want to be,” I said. It sounded plaintive even to me—but Eris laughed, and the dark cloud on her features dissolved.
“Madi,” she said, and she put her strong hands on my shoulders. She leaned in, and pressed her forehead down to mine. Her voice buzzed in my ears. “If you didn’t want the things you wished you hadn’t, I wouldn’t have been there to be with you now.”
“I’ll decide whether or not I agree after I’ve thought that over.”
Eris chuckled. In the laugh there was a flicker of the same strange, dark wildness that had shown on her face.
“Sure, love. I’ll be back in a few nights, so take your time.”
“Shame,” I whispered. A smile stole over my face even as I felt my cheeks start to burn. I lifted my head to breathe into her ear, afire with my own daring. “And here I was thinking of what I’d do tonight if you had stayed.”
I pulled back, tugging my hand out of her grasp—but she caught my shoulder with one hand. The other she brushed gently over my cheek. I saw her eyes flash past me, quick and brilliant, seeking the crowd, and before I knew what she was seeking I felt her lips press to mine.
She stole the kiss fiercely, swiftly, and for an instant I had no thought of who might be watching. When she withdrew, it was not far.
“I have to find Faith,” I murmured. I pulled myself back from her, cleared my throat, and cast a hasty look around. No one had seen, or seemed to pay us any mind—except one of the Hunters sharpening an axe against the wall. A man I had seen kiss another man like a woman on our first day in Raven Lake. He winked at me. I swallowed.
“Shame,” Eris said, echoing me. She pressed my hand in hers. “Take care, Madi. Good luck.”
“Happy hunting.” I clasped my hands behind my back, retreating a step. I felt not only alive but lively, young again, a Spring in midwinter. “Come home safe.”
Home.
She tapped a hand to her chest in a bow. The smile came across my face of its own accord. I twirled away and left her behind, feeling too bashful to speak.
Half a day gone and I’ve hardly started, I thought. First to find Faith and ensure Hope and the other orphans are looked after. We can’t let them fall by the wayside again. Grannine?
“Yes, my Mariead.”
Let’s get to work.
*
BLANK SLATE 
2 thoughts on “3.2.1 – Coil ”