He showed her his hands and said, “I have completed the trials six times. I am a master. I’ve delved deep into the land you claim. Show me the marks of anyone within earshot. Are there any? What are we without this? You replace us, move us about, but can any of these people restore our legacy? Your legacy?”
He said it calmly and she suffered his insults. She was within her rights to kill them all, but there was truth here that eluded her, teased her from afar. She couldn’t let it go to the fire heap just yet.
“What else did your trial tell you?” she asked.
“Without tenders, the orchards will fail.”
“But that could mean many Hosmyr deaths in those black pits,” Julissa said. “Will you tend the funeral pyres?”
He didn’t blush this time; instead, his jaw hardened. It was a good question, and Gishna was proud of her daughter for asking it. It was the seminal Mornae question: was power worth the effort, especially if it meant death?
“If the orchards fail, Hosmyr is doomed,” he said. “The Mornae are doomed.”
“I think you are three thousand years too late,” Gishna said.
“No, high matron, we aren’t dead yet. But who will turn the tide of this decline? Picking hairs and taking children, to what end? To control this so-called taint? And when it is gone? Then what? What will be left?”
His voice rose, far too strident in a high matron’s presence, but perfectly acceptable in a matron’s. A consort shared his mind unvarnished, without guile, clear and true. Sometimes even children speak words straight from the goddess. The chamber grew still. Had this tender uttered a divine word for them?
Maunyn stiffened, but his hands remained relaxed, his thumbs hooked in his belt. It had been a long time since they’d heard such truths.
Taul opened his mouth to say more, but she halted him with two raised fingers. Ryldia rose then and poured her more tea, placing the saucer in her hands like a dutiful daughter. Taul had more words building up, his lips bunched up tightly, about to spew more, but Ryldia touched his arm and he let out a hissing breath, his venom depleted.
“Thank you, dear,” Gishna whispered as Ryldia sat.
Gishna leaned back, motioned to her daughter, and Julissa asked more questions about the Yatani and why Taul believed they held the key to survival. Such a foolish notion to allow nomads onto their land, especially when they were already invading the south valley. She battled the notion, but it refused to leave her. The Yatani had a gift on the same axis as the seer’s. A gift which, when melded with the Dark, had shaped the east valley. Oddly enough, this gift confounded her seer—or he’d recognized it and purposely rejected it, not because of the taint or her agenda, but for another reason. To keep them from ruining their appearance? If that was the case, the seer was playing into their need to appear Mornae.
“Vanity,” she muttered.
They turned to her, but she waved at Julissa to continue. Her daughter nodded, acknowledging her mother’s need for reverie.
Thensil’s lessons came together in Gishna’s mind. Her ancient ancestors had come from different Alcar districts who’d never mixed for a reason. When they entered Vailassa, they’d thrown off all strictures, claiming their freedom. The taint had gained strength, and the Dark made it worse! It amplified all their powers, including the taint. Then they discovered the Yuleh, the Yatani’s long gone ancestors. They became a remedy and an aid on their ascent to the gleaming Dark. The seer must sense their quality, but not have the power to comprehend it—or he did and, again, chose not to reveal it. She didn’t want to think he’d deceived her. She needed him and the valmasin.
Julissa’s voice rose as the young consort once again threatened them all with discovery. As if he wasn’t one of them? As if such a revelation wouldn’t devour his house as well?
“I am duly chastised, Prime Consort,” Gishna said, raising a finger to halt Maunyn’s attack. Is this how Joumina felt with her young champion? Reprimanded? Humbled? “I alone bear our failures. Like Zeldra’s rot at my very core.”
She placed her matron’s ring, ridiculously large on her emaciated hand, against her chest. Before they could ask for what they truly desired, she would throw herself before the beast’s maw. They’d not know it, but she’d give them a future like the one she wanted for her own daughter.
“I have something to propose to you,” she said.
They both stiffened, ready for a threat, or worse.
“If we guarantee Lor’Toshtolin’s position,” she said. Julissa bowed her head once. “If we had a way to tell you when to try again for an heiress. Would you wait if we had a way to strengthen you?”
She stared hard at the young matron, hopeful she’d agree.
“If you are unwilling to wait, I will get you a girl,” Gishna said. “I take on the offense. What’s one more, neh? Of any lineage you desire.”
The young matron remained calm, unmoved. “I will wait, high matron.”
Her consort’s eyes welled with tears. He was the emotional one, the one truly taken with love. The matron, on the other hand, was true to her role and loyal to her lineage. Gishna hoped Julissa was paying attention.
“We are as sisters,” Gishna said, a term she reserved only for the other high matrons. “Yes, valley sorcery is the answer. I see that now. That is what we need to succeed. Even if the crater rejects us, we have the valley.”
She’d given each what they needed, and they responded with Mornae pride. Even Julissa shimmered with newfound energy.
Yes, she marveled. This is how Joumina felt with her champion. Revived! Young again! Should she thrust herself down into the tender’s pit and see how it judged her? She chortled and coughed. They waited as she drank more of the tea.
“I sought to remove the taint, to keep Hosmyr at third,” she said. “We may not have true priestesses and knights any longer, but we could have the correct appearance. That was my grand scheme.”
It felt awkward sharing these secrets with people of little consequence. Terrible secrets. The death of an acolyte, not with kithaun, but common, southern steel, was the worst one. Julissa had seen the acolyte’s face—like marble, smooth and young, perfect. Yellow flames, colored with resins to look blue, devoured her on the funeral pyre. Every time Gishna witnessed a priestess funeral, a part of her died. A part of the Mornae died.
She glanced through the Dark at their forms. There was power there. Not blue fire or other calamitous things; nevertheless, true sorcery that made it possible to grow what shouldn’t grow in this far corner of the world.
“In time, Matron Lor’Toshtolin, you will have an heiress of your blood,” Gishna said. “Hosmyr will shield your house for as long as it stands. In exchange, your consort will spearhead the effort to recover the orchards. And with them, the gift.”
“We must have true tenders, High Matron,” Taul said.
She nodded. “You will have them.”
“Genuine trials. In the womb. Blood and sap.”
“As you say.”
Taul beamed at her. She’d found his ardent desire, no matter his love for his consort.
“Are you certain you’ll have the fortitude to do what must be done?” she asked. “To light the pyres which you will surely build? Our ancestors lost hundreds before the gift strengthened.”
