Free Novel Read

Misery's Child (The Cadian Chronicles) Page 10


  “My lord, not knowing what you are to say, I cannot give such an oath—”

  “The beast in hell, woman! Do you despise me so much that you can spare me no comfort? Must your cursed duty to the cadia always outweigh your duty to me? Oman has forsaken me, so you see fit to do the same—”

  Speech deserted her. The Varden before her now was no shallan, only a broken old man floundering in despair. Not knowing what else to do, she sat down beside him and stroked his thinning hair as he cried.

  “I have prayed...” His voice wavered, rising thin and small from behind the hands that covered his face. “I have prayed, I have fasted and meditated.... I have swallowed every pill and powder of Soccia’s.... And still Oman denies me an heir. Why, Osane? Why?”

  “I do not know, my lord.” She tried to comfort him as she would a child, for that is what he most seemed. “Ssh, hush now. You must be strong a little while longer.”

  “I cannot. I cannot bear it any longer.... I am so tired.”

  “Ssh, I know. I know you are weary. You have labored longer than any of your forefathers and have been tested further. But Oman’s will cannot be moved by any man—”

  He lifted his head and the eyes that locked on hers were red-rimmed and wild.

  “But there are ways, Osane. You know as well as I do that there are ways—”

  She snatched her hand from his desperate grip and stood up.

  “Don’t even suggest such things, I will not hear them.”

  “What I attempted with Terred, I was wrong, I know that now! I should have consulted you and together we could have chosen another breda—”

  “Are you mad?” she hissed, color rising like flame to her cheeks. “You cannot simply choose another bride where and when you please! Would you tempt Oman with blasphemy, attempting to bend His will to your own?”

  “I am tired of this life, Osane.” The fire left his eyes. In its place was defeat. “Every day when I open my eyes, my heart shudders to know that I must somehow live another day.”

  His words wrung her heart and she tried to block out the despair that seeped from him. It was the most painful gift of the cadia, the honing of even the faintest glint of tadomani. She had very little of the talent, but enough that she could feel Varden’s aches seep into her own body, could feel the pain of so many losses as if they were her own. Not merely unborn children, but his own father and mother, long dead; boyhood friends, teachers, priests...he’d outlived everyone who’d ever mattered to him. Was it any wonder that he was half-mad with bitterness? She closed her eyes and tried to push his grief away.

  And still his mind cried out to hers. He’d always had a touch of the cadia’s power; it would have been impossible for him not to inherit a glimmer of it, coming as he did from a long line of cadian ancestors. Now he used what little tadomani he possessed to force his pain upon her until her own eyes were wet with tears. Help me, he pleaded. Help me sire a son so that I may die.

  “Stop it,” she cried softly, “I cannot bear it. Take it away from me. I cannot do what you ask.”

  The pain slipped from her. She realized she was lucky that Varden was too tired to push further and harder.

  “Then forget Terred,” he breathed. “There is a woman I have heard of—”

  Osane’s eyes snapped wide. “Don’t even speak the name. I know the witch of whom you speak.”

  “But is her magic so different from the powders that Soccia forces on me?”

  “Soccia uses no magic, you know that! She is a healer whose sole purpose to is to keep you strong and healthy with Oman’s own creations, not the abominations of black magic.”

  “You will not help me then.” He fell back onto the couch and turned his face to the wall.

  “My lord, I will do anything in Oman’s name to comfort and fortify you, but I cannot allow either of us to commit heresy. You are distraught or you would not speak of such desperate things.”

  “Go then and leave me to my misery.”

  She bowed deeply. “I am sorry, my lord Shallan. Truly. And you have my oath that I will not speak of this again.”

  As she left the room, neither Osane nor Varden saw the small carved panel slip back into place.

  Chapter 8: The Single Moon

  The twin moons began to converge in their six-summer orbits. The night before leaving, Lillitha could not sleep. She sat at her window watching the moons, heavenly lovers, joined at last.

  She was in her seventeenth summer now and lovelier than ever, though she had no inkling of it, seeing herself only in the eyes of her family. She’d grown a half jackle in height, which added to her gracefulness. Her delicate figure was more womanly than ever as a soft swell came to hips and breasts.

  Lillitha was lonelier than ever as well. Her mother and Edlin were too busy to spend much time with her; not that she had much free time anyway. Yanna kept her at her books morning and night. She had finally committed the entire Book of Belah to memory. Yanna could not stump her no matter how obscure a verse the cadia might choose.

  Paul was growing up. Between working with Rowle in the fields and playing at military drills and archery with his friends from the village, he seemed to have little time for her. He no longer snuck up the stairs to show her his latest find of robin’s eggs or fox teeth. Instead, he waved at her window as he hurried off towards whatever boy-things beckoned that particular day.

  Even Marta, whose company had been sporadic and a mixed blessing at best, no longer came to see her in the tower. She knew her sister’s visits had never had much to do with sisterly affection, but rather with envious glances and the sly appropriation of hair ribbons and the occasional comb. Apparently even her most precious possessions held little interest for Marta these days. When she did see Marta, her younger sister seemed deep into some hidden affairs of her own, like someone hugging a secret to her bosom yet unable to hide a satisfied smile.

  The first breezes of summer stirred an ache in her bones so strong she sometimes woke in the night to find tears on her pillow. She sighed often for no reason she could name, yearning for something that lay just beyond her grasp.

  Had she been an ordinary girl she might have laid her head on her mother’s lap and poured her heart out. Her mother would have told her that all her shapeless longing was merely a symptom of youth. But Lillitha was consecratia, not an ordinary girl at all. And her mother was too tired, stretched thin with exhaustion and worry over other matters, large and small, to see anything other than the quiet, dutiful face Lillitha wore with great care.

  Lillitha would have died rather than confess the confusion in her heart. Every day she felt more and more like a caged animal. All her summers of study and preparation had been pleasant and simple until the reality of its purpose suddenly loomed before her. How easy to think of becoming shallana when the day of reckoning was so far away! Now it was really happening and she was afraid. The bird in her chest had grown larger, more painful.

  She huddled on the window seat with her knees drawn up under her chin and her shift tucked down around her cold feet. She carefully refolded a ragged letter and put it back with the twenty-odd others. They all bore the same fierce handwriting, a childish but somehow masculine scrawl. She hadn’t looked at them in a very long time, but then she’d memorized most of them long ago. They contained nothing remarkable, just the rambling news of studies, which teachers he loathed and which he adored, accounts of market days and the latest escapades of the hounds he was training to hunt. The letters comforted her whenever she was feeling blue. Tonight was certainly one of those times.

  She retied a ribbon around the packet of letters and tucked them under her pillow. She wanted to be sure to pack them where Yanna or her mother would not find them.

  The night was so still that she was sure she could hear the sea two parsecs away if only she listened closely enough. When she closed her eyes she heard instead Edlin’s footsteps approaching stealthily.

  She turned to the door and smiled as her best friend c
rept inside, closing the door gently behind her. Edlin was no longer surprised that Lillitha always seemed to be expecting her, but merely stepped gingerly to the window and climbed up beside her.

  They cuddled together as they had since infancy. Edlin’s arms wrapped around Lillitha’s shoulders and her head rested in the crook of her neck.

  “Ooh, your hands are cold,” Edlin whispered.

  “And your nose is like a puppy’s. It’s wet too.”

  “Is not! What a rotten thing to say!”

  “Sssh, you’ll wake her up.” Lillitha nodded her head towards the antechamber where Yanna slept. Whenever Yanna discovered her out of bed at such hours, the cadia put a book in her hands and told her to study if she could not sleep. Lillitha was tired of studying. She snuggled closer, warming with the combined body heat against the cool night air. She drank in the comforting scent of kitchen fires that clung to Edlin’s curly hair. “Umm. That’s better. You make a lovely pillow.”

  “Why, thank you ever so kindly, milady!”

  “Oh, don’t even call me that in jest. Not tonight. Tonight I just want to be plain old Lilli.”

  The promise of the dawn and all it would bring hung between them.

  “I shall miss you so,” Edlin finally whispered.

  “Please, don’t. I don’t want to cry. Not tonight. I’m sure there’ll be plenty of time for tears on the way to Shamonoza.”

  “Tell me a story then.” Edlin nodded towards the twin moons. “Tell me about Pattia and Tatrahayna.”

  Lillitha wiped her eyes and took a calming breath. She bent with her lips close to Edlin’s ear.

  “Long ago, long before the Realm was even a passing thought in Oman’s great plan, there lived in ancient Kirrisian a mighty warrior named Tatrahayna. Now, Tatrahayna was betrothed to a great lady named Dubriel, a princess who was as jealous as she was beautiful. Dubriel knew that Tatrahayna did not love her and was only betrothed to her because her father the king had commanded it. But Dubriel loved Tatrahayna to distraction. She did not care that he had loved another since childhood, a poor girl from his own village named Pattia.

  “Tatrahayna was a good man and an honorable one. He did as his king commanded and married the princess. In body and deed he was always faithful and did his best to be a kind and decent husband to Dubriel. But he could not change the direction of his heart.

  “Dubriel was so jealous she had her guards spy on Tatrahayna wherever he went. Day after day, the spies reported the same thing: Tatrahayna never went into the village. He went nowhere but those places he had reason to go. No, he never met a woman.

  “No woman at all? asked Dubriel in exasperation one day.

  “No, milady. Unless you count the girl who draws water for his horse along the road. But he never even speaks to her.”

  “But he stops at the same well every day?”

  “Yes, milady.”

  “The next day, Dubriel disguised herself as an old beggar woman and waited by the well. Sure enough, a young girl came along.

  “‘Can I help you, mother?’ the girl asked. ‘Can I get you some water?’

  “‘Bless you, my child. I’m parched and too weak to draw up the bucket.’

  “After Dubriel had drunk the water the girl gave her, she said, ‘And why do you come all the way out to this well? Isn’t there a closer well in your village proper?’

  “‘Oh, yes,’ the girl said. ‘But the man I love more than life itself rides past this well every day. I know he and I can never speak again, for he is joined to another. Still, it eases my heart just to see him and know that he is well.’”

  “Dubriel choked back her rage, for just at that moment, Tatrahayna rode along. He took no notice of the old beggar woman, only drank in the face of his beloved Pattia—for that was her name—as he drank in the water. When Dubriel saw the way they looked at each other without speaking a word, something inside her heart shattered.

  “Now, in these days before Oman had revealed His Will and Purpose to the people of our lands, they worshipped the many lesser gods whom Oman had created for companions before He breathed life into man. Dubriel sought out one of the old gods of the rocks and sacrificed a black goat in his name. ‘Oh great god of the rocks, that the ancient ones called Erudicyes, I beg you to hear me and grant me this favor.”

  “Erudicyes came forward, summoned from his caves deep underground by the spilled blood of the goat. ‘Woman, why do you disturb my rest?’

  “‘My husband loves another and I cannot bear it. Send Pattia far far away, where he will never see her face again.’

  “Erudicyes sought out Pattia but could not bring himself to kill her because she was so innocent and kind. Instead, he made a bargain with the sun god to take Pattia’s soul and hide it in the heavens where Dubriel could never harm her, no matter how many old gods she called forth. Pattia agreed to this, because she would be able see her beloved’s face every single night. Even when she looked down and saw him sleeping beside Dubriel, she was happy still, because he was well and safe.

  “When Tatrahayna went to the well the next day and Pattia was not there, he was frantic. Forgetting his promise to the king and his wife, he searched the countryside for Pattia. He called up every old god he could think of and asked each if they had seen her. Finally, Erudicyes came forth and was very angry.

  ‘I understand your love for Pattia,’ the old god said, ‘but you have forgotten your pledge to king and country. You have humiliated your wife by roaming the countryside crying for the one you love. I cannot help you.’

  “Tatrahayna was shamed but he could not give up. For days and days he had not seen his beloved’s face. His soul wasted away. He went to his king and his wife, knelt before them and apologized for forgetting his honor and his pledge. He begged their forgiveness. Dubriel, thinking that at last Tatrahayna would love her, forgave him.

  ‘Come my love,’ Dubriel said, ‘we will go home and forget this ever happened.’

  ‘Oh, no, kind wife,’ Tatrahayna said with tears in his eyes. ‘I cannot live without Pattia. I am dying. Please forgive me.’

  “The great warrior fell down dead at Dubriel’s feet.

  “Jealous to the last, Dubriel tried to catch his soul as it left his body.

  “When the old gods saw Dubriel clutching at Tatrayhayna’s soul instead of letting it come to them, they turned her to stone. Her father, the king, wept and set her frozen figure in the village square as a warning to anyone foolish enough to keep a soul from the gods.

  “Pattia, seeing all this, sobbed and begged, calling on Erudicyes to pity her and her poor beloved. Erudicyes, because he loved Pattia himself and could not bear to hear her crying, gathered Tatrayhayna’s freed soul and took him into the heavens, where he made the warrior’s soul into a second moon.

  “And Pattia and Tatrahayna have been in the sky, looking at each other across the heavens ever since,” Lillitha whispered. “Every six summers, their orbits align and for a brief season they are together.”

  Edlin sighed.

  “Tis a sad story, Lilli. I don’t think I like it.”

  “Oh, no. I think it’s beautiful. Imagine loving someone so much that you could be happy just to look on his face.”

  “I don’t think I’ll ever have that kind of love, do you?” Edlin sighed and her fingers curled around a lock of her mistress’ hair. “There’s not a single face around here I’d give a second glance. Not like your friend, the prince.”

  Lillitha pinched Edlin until she squirmed. “That was ages ago. I was a child.”

  “If I could see your face, I’d bet you’re blushing! You mooned over him two whole seasons after you came back from the fair.”

  “That’s not true and you know it. I may have mooned for a little while, but that was before my dedication.”

  And, she thought wistfully, before his letters stopped without explanation.

  Her face grew hot just thinking about the ridiculous daydreams she’d woven about Scearce. What does a te
n-summers’ child know about real love? It was a fancy, that was all. His letters had carried nothing but friendship.

  “You said he was lovely. Like a girl, almost.”

  “Well, he’s forgotten I ever drew breath by now.”

  “Still, I’ll bet his is a face worth plenty of second glances. Not like the dolts around here.”

  “Not even Shemus Roddy? He fancies you, you know.”

  Edlin feigned a shudder. “He’s got a big nose.”

  “No, he doesn’t,” Lilli snorted. “He’s got an enormous nose!”

  This set the two girls to giggling breathlessly.

  “Do you think you will love the shallan? If you are chosen, I mean?”

  “I don’t know. Yanna says not, but perhaps it is no different than any other arranged marriage. I will certainly try to love him as I love Oman.”

  Tears welled in the corner of Edlin’s eyes. She tried to blink them away, not wanting to add to her best friend’s burdens. But as usual, Lillitha saw right through her.

  “Oh, Edlin, please don’t cry for me.”

  “I’m not crying for you, you silly goose!” Edlin forced a laugh, wiping at her eyes. “You’re going to sleep on silken sheets and eat berries and cream every single day for breakfast. You’ll make lots of new friends who are sure to be smarter than me. I’m going to be stuck here all alone. I will miss you so.”

  She could never make Edlin believe that she’d change places in a moment. She envied her friend who would stay behind with her family, choose the man whose bed she would share, to have ordinary children she could raise and love—not the future shallan who would be raised by cadia, bene priests and servants.

  “I’ll never make another friend like you,” Lillitha said, pressing her lips gently into Edlin’s hair. Her heart ached. No matter how learned and witty and kind the other cadia turned out to be, none of them would share the memories she and Edlin had forged over a shared childhood. They would not know about the kittens she and Edlin had rescued from the well and nursed back to health. They would not have heard the same calla-mundies at bedtime from her father, shivered in the same bed through harsh winters, thrown biscuits from the tower at her brothers, spent summers weaving wild flowers into crowns....