Ascendant's Rite (The Moontide Quartet) (40 page)

‘That implies that some part of you recognised what he was,’ Puravai commented.

Corinea’s eyes went wide. ‘It does, doesn’t it?’ She looked around the circle with uncharacteristic openness. ‘I’ve not thought of that before, but it makes sense. Somehow I knew – but how?’

They had no answers to that, and gradually the silence deepened as they waited. It was hard to watch; Alaron found it more distressing than going through the change himself. He was profoundly glad Ramita did not need to take the potion.

When the crisis came, they watched and waited with bated breath, until Yash suddenly coughed and shuddered and his eyes snapped open. Ramita gave a small cry and Puravai sat forward, his white knuckles the only indication of his anxiety. Then the young man sat up, looking dazed, and for a moment struggled to speak. Finally he said weakly, ‘So what happens next?’

Alaron frowned, then realised and silently spoke to Ramita and Corinea, <
Of course, Yash has never had the gnosis – but neither had the first magi . . .>
He looked at Corinea questioningly and she winked at him, then bent over the pallet and studied the young Zain.

‘Yash, look at me,’ she ordered, then turned, picked up her wine goblet and suddenly dashed the contents into his face. Half of it spattered over his face as he flinched and threw up an arm – but the rest of the fluid was swept sideways, a fan-shaped cascade of droplets pushed aside by an invisible force that knocked Corinea backwards off her stool and sent Master Puravai spinning into the corner.

‘Master!’ Yash cried out, but the old monk sat up, beaming as he rubbed his skull.

With a rueful smile he said, ‘Don’t worry about me, young Yash. I’m quite well.’ He came to his feet nimbly, his face shining, proud. ‘And so, it appears, are you.’

Yash stared at his hands. ‘I am! I truly am!’

*

Ramita shuddered at the sound of the wind howling against the iced-up shutters. A storm had blown up the valley that afternoon in the midst of the eighth acolyte’s transformation, which had been successful – they all had, so far, and she was so thankful. It was going better than they’d ever dared hope – luck, perhaps, but she didn’t believe that; she put it down to their thorough preparations. Now she and Master Puravai were instructing the new magi, while Alaron and Corinea worked on the ambrosia.

This storm was the worst yet. She’d experienced downpours in Baranasi that turned the sky liquid, and sand-storms that stripped stone, but snow was something else entirely. The peaks had turned white, and even the river that normally thrashed through the valley had frozen. Ice hung from balconies, turned into frozen waterfalls larger than a man. Translucent spears hung from the rims of the walkway covers. The air inside, though heated by the fires that burned in every room, was still cold enough to frost her breath.

She’d never seen snow up close, and now she had, she never wanted to again. The bitter, numbing chill made her feel like her toes and fingers were going to snap off. Leaving the guest suite meant braving frigid galleries where the cold was a solid thing. Even the blankets weren’t enough, but using the gnosis to stay warm was tiring and wasteful.

Ramita had always been a pragmatist. She slipped out of bed, ensured Dasra was warm enough in his cradle, then went seeking body-heat in Alaron’s room.

Alaron was sprawled across his bed, still clothed and half-covered by a great pile of blankets, sound asleep. The fire was unbanked, dying in the hearth, and his meal was unfinished; it looked as if he’d succumbed to exhaustion halfway through dinner. She put more logs onto the glowing embers and puffed until they caught, then went to his bedside. His face, earnest at the best of times, looked positively naked when he slept. She smiled fondly as she pulled up his blankets and tucked them in around him properly, then settled more blankets over the top, making a cozy nest. Then she crawled under his left arm and nestled against his side. Alaron groaned dozily as she nuzzled against his chest and put her arm over him. She murmured, ‘Sleep, my Goat,’ appreciating his warmth, and closed her eyes.

When she woke, he was already awake; she could hear it in his breathing, no longer slow and regular. She wriggled against him, feeling tentative, but happy too. ‘Namaste,’ she whispered.

‘Hey.’ He twisted slightly, self-consciously turning his hips slightly away. She could guess why.
An excitable body
, she and Huriya had used to joke about certain of the young men when they were growing up. But he had a good body, athletic and lean, and pleasing to the eye, for all it was so pale. She put her hand on his chest to keep him close and strained her neck to kiss his cheek, but he was turning to face her and she got his mouth instead. He tasted of spiced meat, strong but good.

She and Alaron had shared a blanket many times while travelling in the windskiff, but that was before they had started kissing. Since then there had been a new awkwardness; the agreement that they would do nothing more intimate than kissing had created tension, it was an almost tangible barrier between them – but to some extent, she knew, that barrier had always been there: she’d been pregnant, or wrapped up in motherhood, or they were somewhere uncomfortable and dangerous, or she was promised to another. It had never just been them, together and free.

She was tired of all that, tired of tiptoeing around each other – and she was tired of waking up cold.

‘Al’Rhon, what are the marital customs of Noros concerning widows?’ she asked.

He blinked at the unexpected question and thought for a moment. ‘Well, widows can marry, same as anyone, I guess. It’s like any other marriage – you have a priest of Kore leading the ceremony, of course – but it’s usually much quicker than first marriages. I think that’s because usually the widow marries another man from the same family as her first husband, so you don’t need to celebrate the merger of two families. We’re big on that sort of thing in the West.’

‘In Lakh most widows don’t ever remarry,’ Ramita said, a little sadly. ‘If they are lucky they will have their dowry to support them – but most never have new suitors, because men want virgin brides with many years of fertility ahead of them. Most widows stay in their husband’s family, but as servants. If they are not allowed to stay, or if there’s a problem, they end up in widow-houses – I think that would be like your Kore convents. They aren’t happy places. Widows are not valued in our land.’

Alaron murmured, ‘You’re valued.’

‘I know.’ She wriggled up to nuzzle his face while surreptitiously pulling the bow fastening her leggings undone. She edged them down, baring a strip of flesh around her belly, then took his hand. ‘Could you do something for me?’

He sensed the change in mood and went very still. ‘Sure . . .’

She kissed him again, while placing his palm against her bared midriff, then pushing it down until his fingers were resting in the thatch of hair beneath. He froze, holding his breath as if trying not to scare this moment away, then moved his fingers over her mound. She sighed happily and guided him to her cleft. His fingers brushed the wetness there and he hesitated, then slid one finger inside her, making her shudder at his touch. ‘Mmm, just there . . .’ she whispered. ‘Small movements, just there.’

He leaned over her and kissed her open mouth while his fingers explored, his member hard against her thigh, until she turned her face away because what he was doing was beginning to make it hard to breathe slowly and instead she pulled her nightshirt up over her breasts and gave him something else to do with his mouth. Dasra was weaned, and they’d receded to their normal size: ornamental again, finally. She cradled his head, enjoyed being suckled, but her awareness was continually drawn lower, to her little pleasure nub, and what he was drawing from it.

It was alarming to be so forward, so wanton, but she’d been so lonely, and wanting him for such a long time. She knew what she was missing – the wonder of having someone trusted and desired in her bed. And she was discovering just how powerful it was to be the experienced one, to know what she wanted and how to get it.

All at once, touching wasn’t enough; she pulled him onto her, opened herself and drew him in.

*

Alaron lay on his side in a state of stunned bliss, cradling Ramita to him, her back against his chest. It was close to dawn, the fire burning low, but his skin gleamed like snow against her darkness. He liked the way they looked together, and how they fit together, far better than he had feared, given the mismatch in height. But it had felt so natural and perfect. Already, she was all he could ever imagine wanting.

A golden thread my love has tied

round her heart-strings and mine

Betimes it chafes, betimes it cuts

Betimes it feels like chains

But most oft it is a sunbeam,

My lover’s golden thread.

The old Rimoni love song was playing over and over in his head. In that tongue it rhymed. Cym had taught it to him after a gnosis lesson – just to tease him, he could see now, but at the time he’d thought it was all about him and her. It was a little painful to think of Cym now, surely dead, but it was only a passing thought, because all he had to do was look at the girl in his arms and all other thoughts were gone.

Most of the blankets had been cast aside, unneeded after all their exertions. The air in the room was steamy and close. He’d tried to go slowly like she wanted, and sometimes he’d even managed it, but it didn’t really matter. He’d recovered quickly each time, and then the dance started again. He loved the sounds she made, the way she moved when she lost control, the sheer joy of being so close to her. It wasn’t like he’d imagined; it was better – far more earthy and sweaty and human. But most of all it was
her
.

‘Are you awake?’ he whispered.

‘You know I am.’

‘Was it okay?’

‘What do you want, more praise? It was
everything
.’

Everything
. It had been tumultuous, primal – and all his notions of needing to be gentle, to treat her like a fragile flower, had been quickly discarded as he’d found his need had overcome him, and even more importantly, it’d been Ramita demanding
more, harder, faster
, until they’d been wrestling fiercely.

He’d felt a little ashamed after that first time, afraid he’d been too rough and uncaring in his urgency, until she’d chuckled earthily, ‘Mmm,
so
good.’

‘It didn’t hurt?’

‘Ha! That little thing?’

‘Hey!’

She’d giggled. ‘Don’t worry, Goat, you are perfectly perfect.’

They’d occasionally dozed, but never for long, not with their blood racing and their heads and hearts pounding. He moved the curtain of long black hair from her neck and kissed it. She felt so small and precious in his arms that he wanted to hold her there for ever. But thinking of for ever brought other thoughts. ‘Why did you ask about widows?’

‘You know why,’ she purred. ‘It will be expected that we marry, if we wish to keep doing this.’ She looked up at him. ‘I presume you wish to, my Goat?’

He kissed her. ‘I do.’

‘Then we must marry.’

So they did, three days later on the next Holy Day. Master Puravai presided over a simple Zain ceremony in which they exchanged pledges of love. The whole monastery came to watch, including the eleven acolytes who’d so far taken the ambrosia. Corinea brought Dasra forward and Alaron pledged to be a father to him, an honour he was determined to live up to. He made the same promise to Nasatya too, although they still didn’t know where he was.

Touchingly, the Zains brought gifts for the newlyweds; Master Puravai gave a leather-bound book that made Ramita very excited. Alaron leafed through the first few pages, but it was all in Lakh and the occasional wood-cuts appeared to picture Omali gods, so he put it to one side for later study. The wedding feast was modest, just a little meat, and sweet-cakes for dessert, with an extra glass of wine for everyone.

They took two nights and one day to cement their new marriage, to just be themselves, Alaron and Ramita, alone together. Around midday they broke the ice around the shutters and stared out at the mountains for a while, but mostly they just lay together, alternately sleeping and coupling. It was the most blissful day of Alaron’s life, the closest thing to the Zains’
moksha
that he could conceive: too perfect to last, and all the more precious for being fleeting.

16

Rifts

The Jhafi

The Jhafi were once a Harkun tribe, who escaped the cycle of migration between northern Kesh and southwest Javon to found their own kingdom, Ja’afar. They built towns and started farming crops, giving up the nomadic life to become settled, and they fortified the Rift to prevent their Harkun kin from following and destroying everything they had built. But it was not until the Rimoni came that their nation achieved real prosperity.

S
ISTER
G
ULSEPPA,
S
OLLAN
S
CHOLAR,
J
AVON, 722

The Jhafi were great before the coming of the Rimoni, and we will be great when they have gone to dust.

G
ODSPEAKER
U
RKUL,
I
NTEMSA, 807

The Katlakoz Rift, Javon, on the continent of Antiopia

Zulhijja (Decore) 929

18
^th
month of the Moontide

Another trembling Harkun walked his mount over the brow of the Katlakoz, dropped to his knees and kissed the ground. He removed the blindfold from his horse, swung into his saddle and trotted down to join his fellows, puffing out his chest and feigning nonchalance, as if scaling the barrier that had haunted his people’s nightmares for hundreds of years were no great thing to a man such as he. A minute later another followed.