“Yes. What if it’s true?”

Sabíana guffawed, but stifled her laugh. He actually looked upset.

“Voran, you don’t believe those stories are actually true?”

He looked about to continue, but a thought occurred to him and he stopped, dropping Sabíana’s arm. He assessed her with cold eyes, the eyes of a stranger. She felt frigid and half-naked before his gaze.

He turned away without saying another word.

“I don’t think there is any way of preventing mass pilgrimage to the weeping tree,” Mirnían said as Sabíana and Voran entered.

“There’s nothing wrong with pilgrimage, my son,” said Dar Antomír, faintly disapproving. “I would go myself, had not Wicked Woman Age grabbed me by the left ankle.”

The room was tense with expectation. Dar Antomír, never more bent and careworn, insisted that Voran and Mirnían exchange the brotherly kiss. He beamed at them with sanguine eyes, though Sabíana could not help noticing how thin was his white beard—once an avalanche on his chest. They grudgingly embraced, and only the pleasant babble of the Dar’s speech managed to ease their tension as they stood around a small table, staring down at a map of Vasyllia.

“There must be military presence, of course,” said Mirnían, though he offered his counsel carefully now, as if expecting Sabíana to contradict him immediately. She kept her peace.

“Yes, and more than a few warriors,” said the Dar. “Do you see the opportunity, my children? I’ve long wanted to gauge the response to a strong military show on the outliers, especially those with Nebesti blood ties.”

“Have there been any rumors of discontent from that quarter, Father?” asked Sabíana.

He smiled ruefully. “Only Vasylli are simple enough to think that all lands relish to be under the lordship of Vasyllia. The purported place of the weeping tree is very near the Nebesti border. I know Lord Farlaav of Nebesta well, and I do not think he is the opportunistic kind. But the same cannot be said of others in his court. Do not forget Nebesta is traditionally governed by a kind of mass fist-war they call a representative assembly. Nothing like our Dumar. Voran, what do you think?”

Voran seemed mesmerized by something on the map, his concentration so great Sabíana expected the map to go up in flames. He seemed not to have heard the Dar.

“Voran?” she asked, touching his shoulder. He recoiled from her as though her touch were hot iron.

“I’m sorry, my love,” he whispered, shocked at himself and probably also at the livid flush she could not hide. “I am not myself.”

He looked away from Sabíana, shimmering with barely-repressed energy.

“Highness, I beg you to allow me to lead the pilgrims.”

He trembled feverishly, his face white except for a crimson smear on either cheek. A thin sheen of sweat gathered on his hairline.

“I don’t think so, Voran,” said the Dar, assessing Voran through half-closed lids. “I would be much comforted by your presence at my side, especially now that the Pilgrim has disappeared. Too many dark omens.”

Voran did not seem to have heard a single word.

“Highness, my family is indebted to you for everything, I know that. You have given far more generously than I or Lebía have ever deserved. You know I have never asked anything for myself.” He paused, seemingly out of breath.

“No, Voran, you have not,” said the Dar, his frown deepening.

“I ask it now. I must seek the Living Water. It is not merely for myself. The Pilgrim told me to. For Vasyllia.”

Mirnían snickered and rolled his eyes. To her surprise, Sabíana found herself agreeing with her brother’s reaction.

“Voran, you are not well,” said Mirnían, his voice lathered in sarcasm. Voran did not even acknowledge him. It was not that he ignored him; he seemed not to have heard him at all.

“Highness, I beg you.” Voran’s voice was no more than a whisper, but it seemed to echo.

Dar Antomír's eyes began to fill with tears. Sabíana knew why. This whole situation was a repetition of Otchigen’s ill-fated command of the embassy to Karila. It filled her with dread.

“I sense this is something I cannot prevent. May Adonais bless it.”

Voran fell on one knee and bowed his head. Dar Antomír placed his right hand on his head and kept it there for a moment. When he lowered it, Voran couldn’t help notice how covered it was with brown spots, how gnarled beyond recognition.

“Go, my child. Choose what warriors you wish. The pilgrimage will set out one week from tomorrow.”

Voran stood, bowed, and kissed Sabíana’s hand. He looked at her with a fleeting glance that refused to engage her eyes. She had the disconcerting sense that she had slipped into a dream. Everything moved slowly, and the loudest sound in the room was her own heart beating. Voran walked out without waiting for her.

“Father, am I the only one who sees?” Her throat had gone completely dry. “Or have I gone mad? Does no one else see the parallel?”

Dar Antomír would not look at her. “Voran sees a chance to redeem his family’s name, Sabíana. Would you deny him that?”

“Father,” said Mirnían. “You once assigned a half-mad Otchigen to the Karila embassy. Now you assign a half-mad Voran to take charge of tens, if not hundreds, of city-folk, right after an omen of the skies. You expect a different result?”

“I hope for one, yes,” said the Dar. He sat down again, exhausted. “My children, I fear that dark times are coming. After the omen of the skies, the Pilgrim came to me. Pilgrims are not as other men. They are closer to the Heights, and some barriers of the natural world are but trifles to them. Some of them live for three hundred years or more. So when he came, I listened.

“We spoke of many things, most of which you will know soon enough. He told me a darkness is coming the likes of which Vasyllia has not seen in hundreds of years. He spoke of a plague that would afflict man, beast, tree, blade of grass. He spoke of a fountainhead of healing flowing from a heart of stone.”

Sabíana gasped. “A heart of stone. Voran means stone in Old Vasylli.”

Dar Antomír smiled and closed his eyes, leaning back into his chair. “You understand, Sabíana. That is why I have hope for Voran.”

And yet, the dread in her chest tied itself into knots over and over again, until she feared she would never be able to untie it.

The soul-bond between man and Sirin is unlike any other bond of love. It defies clear explanation, but it is known by its fruits. The soul-bonded man can withstand inordinate pain, can carry burdens which no man can lift, can survive in battles, though he be the lone warrior in the field. But the true nature of the bond is that it removes a man from earthly wants, calling him to desires of eternity. No man, once bonded, will find rest until he has undergone the seven baptisms of fire and climbed to the very Heights of Aer.

From “On the Nature of the Soul-Bond”

(The Sayings, Book XI, 4:1-5)

Chapter 7

Sister of the Pariah

On the third morning of the pilgrimage, the fog glimmered, pregnant with the coming sun. The birth of the sun brought spring warmth in the midst of early winter. A steaming tarn in winter usually meant one thing—dreadful cold—but the children knew before anyone else that this steam was different. It meant warmth. By the time Lebía had made breakfast for Voran, three boys already blattered in the water with their dogs, while the girls, skirts hiked up, stood at the edge, toes longingly nibbling the water. Lebía had a giggling desire to push the girls in, then to jump in herself. Instead, she sat by the porridge to wait for Voran. She would not be welcome among the laughing children, not the daughter of Otchigen, not the sister of Voran. We are pariahs.

She began to plait a new set of bark shoes, humming to herself. Already some of the younger children’s shoes were wearing down on the hard roads. It was pleasant to do something for them, even if they might not want to accept a gift from her hands because of her association with Otchigen. She would have to think of a way of gifting them without being noticed.

The music she hummed was a new song, she realized. That often happened to her. She would hear snatches of music already formed in her heart. It never seemed strange to her; how could it? She had been hearing music since she was a small child. Only later did she realize its source.

She had seen her first Sirin when she was ten, on a day when her heart-pain at her mother’s loss was like a wedge splitting apart an ash log. It was only a glimpse, but she knew it was no accident, because the shards of her heart grafted together and blossomed. After that, whenever the pain threatened to break her, the memory was enough to bring her back to herself.

The Sirin had continued to visit her, though always at a distance. Lebía sensed that the distance was more for her benefit. She had no illusions about the Sirin’s love. It was not gentle; it was fierce as fire. More often the Sirin sent her gifts of music.