Bound by Blood and Sand (5 page)

“High enough,” the other assistant put in.

“Not even close,” the cook said. “That tutor of his told some of the Avowed all about it last night. Lord Elan's not the heir, and he won't ever be now that Lady Erra has children of her own. He's not even in favor with his father.”

“I don't believe it. How does the Highest's own son fall out of favor?”

Jae began arranging the bowls on a platter. The assistant garnished them with something green and slightly wilted.

“Well, what Lord Desinn says—not that we were meant to hear this, of course—but
he
says that Aredann isn't the only estate where the reservoir's run too low. Most towns are all right, and the central cities are all fine, but the farther out you get, the worse it is. It's bad enough that they've left some estates behind entirely—just packed up all the Avowed and moved. They're going to leave Aredann soon, too.”

Just like Firran had said. Jae frowned down at the bowls.

“But of course, the guardians don't like that too much. No one's going to question it, not when it was ordered by the Highest themselves. No one would dare…except Lord Elan. That's what Lord Desinn said, that Lord Elan heard the grumbling and asked his father about it, and, well, Highest Lord Elthis wasn't very happy with him.
He
said it was traitorous talk, even if it was coming from his own son. So now Lord Elan's here, to see what it's like in the
real
drought, to learn his lesson, and he's cursed lucky he wasn't disavowed. He definitely won't be questioning his father again.”

“But surely they won't really just leave Aredann behind,” one of the assistants said. “There's still
some
water here.”

“Not enough. And once the people are all gone, they'll work it so the Well sends its water to other reservoirs.”

Jae stared resolutely down at her work. Once the people were gone—once the Closest were dead.

“Hey—hey you there, Closest. The platter's ready. Get it out there before His Highest complains.”

Jae heaved the platter up, braced herself, and headed into the dining hall. The gossip had at least given her something to think about other than her terror of the gathered lords and ladies, but when she stepped out into the open, the fear flickered back to life. She moved as quickly as she could manage without risking tripping or spilling anything, making her way to the head of the table to serve Lord Elan first. He nodded his thanks when she set it down, though no one else at the table bothered to. Lady Shirrad sat next to him, along with her advisors, Aredann's few other Avowed.

Lord Rannith sat at the far end of the table. Jae's stomach clenched as she stepped near to him, hating how close she had to be to set the platter down. He was too large for her to reach around easily, with hugely muscled arms from his work as the captain of Shirrad's tiny guard squad. He reached for his fork and Jae darted away quickly, forcing back the memory of those hands on her body.

Thankfully, he didn't even look at her. He just leaned forward to eat and listen as Lord Elan talked about how everyone who went to search the desert for the Well left from Aredann. Jae caught her breath as she walked back to the kitchen, her skin crawling. The work wasn't hard, but she was tense, worried that a misstep would have everyone's eyes on her.

Eventually the meal wound down. She cleared the dishes and delivered them to the kitchen to be cleaned, then had to wait in the corner of the dining room. She stood like stone, schooling her breaths to come as silently as possible while she watched and listened to see if anyone needed anything.

Lord Elan gestured lazily with his mug as he spoke. “With all the desert lore I've read, if I had to guess, I'd say the Well is just beyond Aredann. It's to the west; it must be.”

“The Well was hidden for a reason,” the Avowed steward who'd arrived with him, Lord Desinn, said. “There's no point in anyone trying to find it—or wasting time with guessing games.”

“It's not a guessing game,” Lord Elan snapped. “It's easy enough to see, when you look at a map. You there—Jae.” He smiled for a split second when he recognized her. “There's a bundle of papers up in my rooms. One of them is a map. Go get it.”

“Highest, this a waste of time,” Lord Desinn said as Jae started to walk away.

“If you have something better to do, you're welcome to leave,” Lord Elan said behind her, his voice fading as she hurried off.

The papers were easy enough to find, tied together with gold ribbons and left on top of one of his trunks. She untied the ribbon carefully, amazed at how soft and clean it was, and then leafed through the papers. Most of them were lines and loops of text, which meant nothing at all to her, with a few illustrations decorating the pages. They were drawings of plants: leaves, the kind the trees in the orchard had had during better seasons, and flowers she'd never seen before. Fruit—grapes, melons, and some she didn't know.

Other pages were less detailed, barely sketches—of the quartered circle that Lady Shirrad and the other Avowed had branded on themselves, and other strange, flowing lines and intersecting circles.

Finally Jae found what she hoped was the map. It was like one of the illustrations but more detailed, with drawings of what looked like houses grouped together. Everything was carefully labeled, but since she couldn't read, she couldn't be sure. Still, she pulled it free of the stack carefully and carried it down to Lord Elan.

He just nodded at her, accepted it, and set it aside. The conversation had moved on to something else. He was talking with the Avowed about what they all did at Aredann, laughing and joking about what they might do if the estate was abandoned. Rannith seemed eager to be sent to a new estate, where he'd get to work with a larger group of guards. His booming laugh as he described how pathetic Shirrad's guard was made Jae shudder.

Finally the conversation died down. Lord Elan reached out to grab her arm as she walked by, and she nearly jumped out of her skin, but all he said was “Put that away, would you? Carefully.”

“Yes, Highest,” she murmured, compelled to speak, even though he probably hadn't even meant his order to be a question. She took the map and hurried back up to his room, then flitted through the papers, trying to remember where it had been placed. As she slid it back between two pages, she felt an insect wing's worth of annoyance that they hadn't even looked at it—and then she stopped, staring at a sketch on the paper beneath the map. More careful lines and shapes, more text she couldn't read, though it looked somehow different from the writing on the other pages. But at the center of the page was a figure she was sure she'd seen before: four circles, overlapping one another, all coming together in the middle—but she hadn't seen it quite like that. It was the design in the fountain. She was used to looking at it from the ground, where it looked like columns rather than circles. But from up here…

She went to the window and peered out, just to check. There it was, down in the garden. From the top, the fountain was four interlocked circles. She couldn't imagine why the fountain would interest anyone enough for it to be drawn on any of Lord Elan's papers. It had been dry for years, nothing but a useless sculpture.

But when she looked back at the papers, there it was, drawn in dark ink as if it were the most important illustration on the page.

The Avowed had mostly left the dining hall by the time Jae got back to it, including Lord Elan and Lady Shirrad. They were off having a discussion in Lady Shirrad's library. The meal was over, and though the sun was still high overhead, it was well past noon. Yes, it was still too warm out to work comfortably, but Lord Elan had only ordered her inside while the sun was at its peak. She was free to return to her usual duties—well, as free as she ever was. At least out in the courtyard, she knew what needed to be done, so no one bothered to give her orders, and she was away from the Avowed and their demands.

She stole glances at the fountain as she worked. She knew the four columns—circles, she now realized—represented the four elements, and that mages had once called on those elements for their power. But that didn't mean the fountain was anything special; the four elements were part of almost every piece of artwork and decoration at Aredann.

As the sun set, Jae took a half jug of water out to the garden so she could try to coax the plants back to life. She set the jug in the fountain's trough so there was no way someone could kick it over this time, and took a moment to run her hand over the smooth stone of the fountain. Dirt and sand caked its surface, but when she rubbed the grit away, it was a white-silver that almost shone.

The fountain really was unlike everything else at Aredann, she realized as she worked. She'd never paid much attention to it, but where the rest of Aredann was tan and red, the fountain was silver; and the rest of the estate was covered in intricate patterns and designs, but the fountain was solid, plain, and gleaming.

She didn't have the water to really wash the fountain clean, but she could still scour off most of the dirt. She probably didn't need to; it wasn't like the plants, which would die without constant care, and she doubted anyone else would even notice. But she'd know, and besides, she wanted the excuse to examine the fountain in detail.

Jae grabbed the sack that she'd use to gather up weeds later and dropped to her knees at the fountain's base. She used the sack to rub the worst of the grit off, scrubbing with her whole weight where the dirt was the most caked on.

From this angle, there was no way to see the linked circles of the fountain's design. Looking up, Jae could see only smooth columns rising from inside the trough. The highest was at the back, the lowest in front, and the crevices where the front column interlocked with the two on the sides were covered in dirt. She scraped off as much of it as she could easily, then scooped it up, using her hand as a makeshift dustpan so she could dump the dirt onto the ground.

Jae dug at the trough with her finger, scraping more stubborn dirt off—only to feel her finger dip slightly, into a tiny depression in the stone. No wonder dirt built up there, where it had a little texture to cling to.

Though that was odd. The rest of the fountain was smooth and even. She finished cleaning the area and looked down at it. Nothing looked different at first, until she shuffled to the side and light from the sinking sun reflected off it. There was definitely something there in the base of the fountain, an area where the surface dipped just slightly.

She squinted. It was almost impossible to see, but she ducked back down and ran her hand across it, tilted her head to see how the sunlight's reflection shifted. And there it was, finally taking shape in front of her, just as subtle as Gali's soot-and-ash sketches on the walls inside—the impression of a hand, as if someone had pressed their palm into wet clay. In the middle of the print was another shape—a teardrop, etched even more lightly.

Jae traced her finger along the handprint, amazed at how subtle the whole marking was. She couldn't think of anything it could be except a signature of whoever had built the fountain originally—but no builder would want their signature to be too subtle to spot. And it
wasn't
like Gali's drawings, designed to be washed off or drawn over, again and again. Even as subtle as it was, it would take generations for the handprint to wear away. It had been left there to last.

Jae pressed her palm against the print. It was barely larger than her own hand, and her fingers tingled a little.

She jerked her hand away. The tingling felt almost like the Curse—but the Curse always started in her head, right at the back of her skull. It sometimes spread and got worse, but she never allowed that to happen anymore. The pain spreading meant the Curse would take over her whole body soon, wrenching control away from her and forcing her to obey orders, no matter how hard she resisted. The agony when that happened was incredible, so bad that she'd heard stories of Closest who'd passed out, and their bodies had carried on working anyway.

Jae shuddered and shook her hand out. The tingling stopped.

She went back to work, grabbing her sack and stooping to pull weeds. They were nasty, thorny, almost as bad as the cactus that loomed at the back wall. She plucked them carefully, one by one, and shoved them into the dirty sack. As she picked up the sack, she found another weed, still growing between the rocks. She yanked it, and one of the thorns sank into the tender skin of her palm.

Biting down a yelp, she dropped the weed and the sack both. Her palm was bleeding, damp spots blotting her brown skin, and her whole hand had started tingling again. She shook it, sending a few more droplets trickling out, then pressed her other thumb against the wound. It was only a small scrape, the bleeding would stop in a moment—

She whipped her head around and stared at the fountain. The mark was a hand, and a droplet, but maybe
not
a teardrop. Maybe it was something else. Water would make sense—it was a fountain, after all—but maybe…

The tingling in her hand felt like a hundred thorns piercing her, and her breath came in shallow gasps. She stared down at the empty fountain basin, at the handprint she'd never noticed before, and wondered how many times she'd cleaned the fountain and never seen the mark.

She hesitated for a moment, heartbeat echoing loudly in her ears, then pressed her bloody hand down against the etching.

Pain exploded inside her head, a sudden onslaught from the Curse instead of its usual warning pressure. She screamed, the noise sharp against the stillness of the courtyard, as the whole world went white, bright flashes and flickers like sparks—

“It's the small touches that count,” Janna said. She laughed, staring at the gleaming stone. She had already given it shape and linked it to the streambed they'd built under the house. It was nearly finished, except for a final touch. Hovering in other-vision, she could see all four of the elements' energies and the whole house, as if she floated above it. Seen like this, the way a mage would see it, the fountain's design was much clearer—four circles, one to represent each element, all locking together in the center.

Janna drew on the elements' energies and concentrated on the fountain, building the image more clearly in her mind. Not just the shape this time, but the texture, the smoothness. She saw it gleaming, she focused, and then she poured the energy into the fountain until it glowed almost as brightly in real vision as in her other-vision. Finally she linked that to the water that was now beginning to gather at its base. The link was a simple binding that would give the magic permanence, tying the magical energy to the physical fountain itself. Now, as long as there was water to pull from, the fountain would shine.

Tandan shielded his eyes until the glow died down to something more subtle. “I think you have better things to do with your magic these days.”

“I don't have many days left now, so why shouldn't I use them for something frivolous and beautiful? Anyway, this is what people will remember me for,” she said.

Tandan scoffed. He'd always been impatient. “They'll remember you for creating the Well.”

“The Well wouldn't exist without all of us,” she corrected. “And when it is done, it will belong to all of us. But this fountain—this is mine alone. And I'm giving it to you, to remember me.”

He scowled again, but she recognized the sadness he was trying to mask. “It doesn't have to be you, then, Mother. If the Well belongs to all of us, then someone else—”

“No,” she said. “It isn't my Well, but it is my responsibility. It's an honor, and I would never ask this of anyone else. How could I?”

“If it's an honor, then someone else will volunteer. We can't lose you. I can't.”

“Oh, Tandan.” She opened her arms, and even though he was a grown man and embarrassed by his own emotions, he stepped into her embrace. She held him for a minute, knowing this was hard on him—harder than it was on her, by far. “This is how it has to be. If I do this, it will bind the Well until the Bloodlines die out, and you know they never will. Not with you and Mirrad going on like this.”

“Mother!” He backed away, horrified, and she couldn't help but laugh. She would be leaving them all behind soon, but she was grateful that crafting the Well had taken long enough for her to see her grandchildren, another generation of the Bloodlines that would bind the Well's power. With so many families making up the Bloodlines, the Well would last forever.

“The only thing I regret is that I won't be able to see my grandchildren grow up,” Janna said. “But this way, I know they'll be safe.” She reached for him again, tugged him down until she could kiss his forehead the way she had when he was a little boy, even though now he towered over her. He'd grown up well, and she'd made the right choice in trusting him with the Well's power and its secrets. He and Mirrad would guide the others when the time came to make choices, and they'd raise their children, Taesann and Aredann, to do the same. The Bloodlines would continue, and so would the Well. And they would all be safe.

Jae's startled shout echoed back at her. She hit the ground, unable to even catch herself, her head only missing the base of the fountain by inches. Then everything went silent. The world faded to black this time, and the pain finally, finally faded with it.