She nodded and beckoned for the strand of perfectly white hair. The light had left it, but it still glimmered with the gloss of a true Mornae. So much potential locked away in that girl. Hosmyr must have it to overcome the taint. Once overcome, they could recover the Hosmyr line and be prepared for whatever the end of the Fifth Accord brought.
It would be her redemption. Then she could leave the rest to Julissa.
He was watching her. She knew he did not read her thoughts, but he read other things in her, in her body. His green orbs expressed her deep joy at finding the tool of her salvation.
“Are you pleased, Kandah?” she asked.
He drew back, unprepared for the question.
“Pleased to find the cure at last?” she insisted.
The milky white haze covered parts of his face and she strained against the blindness.
“I am hopeful, high matron,” he said, “but cautiously so. There is still far to go. We must hope nature answers as we wish.”
She nodded, chastised by his wisdom.
“There is also the second girl,” she said, “and a third, if the rumor is true. My boys will be good matches.”
She wiped her lips. Saugraen was the finest male to bear the Hosmyr name since the Fall. He was of the kind that must have walked the halls of this fortress when they were strong and filled with the power of the heavens.
He had to be.
“Yes, high matron,” he said, “They must be quite fine… if their ancestry is to be believed.”
Kandah always hedged. He had made the match, but if he was wrong, he could always hedge and remind her how fickle nature—the very goddess—was.
She would take their son and graft him into their ailing orchard. It happened all the time in the valleys. If it could work with those ancient trees, then it needed to happen with her house.
“Kandah, have you heard from your people?”
He shook his head.
“I know they have little love for us,” she said.
“I've sent the letters, via trusted merchants, but none have replied.”
She coughed and her frame shook. “Vakayne will hold us accountable for that day for many cycles to come.”
The last of the valmasin had fled at the Fourth Accord, against Vakayne's wishes. Most had fled quietly before then, sensing the disarray. Vakayne and its blood houses, and even Xaeltrin and its blood houses, saw the valmasin as the way to prevent total catastrophe. They may have been right, but every house was terrified then and willing to make concessions. Hosmyr had voted against Vakayne, already alert to the taint within its bloodlines. What followed angered Vakayne the most. The remaining valmasin, those that remained steadfast, were murdered at a South Valley estate while performing their ritual. Crater Mornae blamed colonists fleeing north. High-ranking houses guessed what had happened but remained silent. Vakayne withdrew even more, and while it kept its alliance with Hosmyr, they were cold and gave little in return.
Until now. The Lauxyn matron had aided the Zauhune champion. Was there hope still? Even they must yield to the pressures of time. According to Gishna's spies, they were not so innocent or pure. She hoped to form a secret council of valmasin as before the Fall and offer this service to Vakayne in atonement. Then they would be more willing to consort outside its own.
“Still, we must give it time, Matron,” he said. “My people wander. It may take years for a proper response.”
“Ah, time,” she said with a deep sigh. “The great enemy.”
He seemed unperturbed, as if time had no hold on him. He looked the same as the first time she’d met him.
“I would like to study the strand, high matron. A mere glance tells me something of her, but—”
She shook her head. It was too soon. She liked to keep him on a tight leash. “And you'll not write a word of it. Swear it.”
His thin lips spoke the words, but his eyes danced, the corners smiling. He was not bound to anything but his own quest for knowledge he never shared. Who was getting the most out of this arrangement?
She was. She must! As much as she wanted to have him shredded before her eyes and his secrets spilled out at the end of a torturer's whip, she could not risk any harm to his work.
“Maybe later,” she said, “when I've arranged it. Then you can study it if you wish… and paste it in that book of yours.”
Vakayne would honor the union and offer the first boy back to Hosmyr. She licked her lips. Anticipation welled in her chest.
Kandah smiled at her. Blast those eyes and their magic.
“Later, then,” he said.
Gishna spent all her strength rising from her seat. She shambled to the door and knocked. His desk, buried under pages and pages of unreadable script, made her wonder what he was really up to. The urge to take him, force the truth from him, grew daily. But this was one man she could not afford to sour.
She nodded and gave him a wretched smile.
He chuckled as she left.
21
Halkamas, unlike the other cities, had few inner high walls, and the small estates within marked their domains with low stone walls, often elaborately decorated with nature carvings, and their gardens like the land they oversaw in the valleys. Its broad streets had ancient blossoming trees with a wide spread of branches so that even during the daytime, Mornae could walk in the shade. It was an impossible feat to make them grow within the crater. A second blooming was ending, and white petals covered the temple promenade. There was a tavern called the Fifth Blossom, but since Taul was a boy, he'd only ever seen three in one year.
It was two miles to the Halkamas main gate, which stood open and unmanned. He reached the main promenade and crossed to the temple district bridge. He had only ever attended one temple funeral, for Lor'Lauxyn's matron, and only Ilor'Vakayne and its vassals had crossed over. It was a sacred place, but it seemed strange to him. No one had ever prohibited him from crossing, but he never had. Awe restrained him.
Taul set a foot to the bridge leading from Halkamas to the Temple District, the great central plateau upon which sat the temple spire with its globe, and Isilayne, the ancient academy.
