Raven's Strike (12 page)

“She came here when she ran away from me,” he said. “I embarrassed her. I didn't mean to.”

That was it, she thought, the real reason he was upset. Hennea had been avoiding him all day. Seraph looked at her son and wished she knew how to make the pain of living easier on him.

“That's right.” She'd never found that lying about hurtful things made them hurt any less.

“But I embarrassed her, anyway.”

Seraph considered it. “If, say”—she glanced down at the roof below—“
Willon
told me I could touch him anytime I wanted, do you think I would run off in embarrassment?”

Wide-eyed, Jes was obviously having trouble imagining Willon saying any such thing to her. He shook his head. “They'd be picking up Willon pieces for years.”

She grinned. “Do you know what I think, Jes? I think if she hadn't wanted to touch you, they might be picking up pieces of Jes all over the place. I think she wanted to touch you, and that's what embarrassed her.”

Jes gave a long sigh. “Maybe you're right,” he said. “But you aren't always good at seeing why people do things. You're just like me.”

“Probably,” she conceded. She weighed the possible harm of telling him more. “But your father knows people. Do you want me to tell you the other thing he told me about Hennea?”

He looked at her, his dark eyes sad.

“He asked me why she was still with us. She came with us to Taela to fight the Path, but after the Path was gone, she still stayed with us.”

“For me?” he whispered.

“Jes, I want you to listen until I finish, will you do that?” Seraph said. “Promise.”

“I promise.”

“Your father told me she would not have stayed for you.”

Jes surged to his feet and took a step away, and Seraph continued quickly. “He said she would have left as soon as she could because of you, and I told him she was staying to help me with the Ordered gems and because of the Shadowed.”

“She'd have left because of me.”

“Because she's worried for you. Will you listen?” She kept her voice soft.

“All right,” he said, not looking at her—looking away from people while he talked to them was a habit of his. But he was
not looking
rather more pointedly than usual.

“You know there are very few Guardians who live as long as you have,” she said. “Of those who survive adolescence, most are women. As you said, the Eagle Order comes only to empaths, for whatever reason. Yet the Eagle, of all the Orders, is the most prone to violence—something that no empath can live with easily.”

“Stupid,” said Jes, with understandable emphasis.

Seraph shrugged. “The Elder Wizards created the Stalker, Jes. I don't know of anything more stupid, do you? Maybe there is a good reason for the Guardian Order to be so difficult to bear, but I can see none.”

He didn't say anything.

“The Travelers have tried a lot of things to help the Eagle,” she continued. “When an Eagle is born, the child is adopted out to another clan. They believe strangers won't have a strong
emotional attachment to a child who is not of their blood.”

“Sorry you didn't have a clan to give me to,” said Jes hotly.

“
Jesaphi,
that's enough.” Seraph snapped. She had no patience for self-pity. She took a deep breath. “Do you know that when your father and I were first married, I thought I had made the wrong decision when I accepted his proposal. I was Raven and had abandoned my duties out of cowardice.”

Jes turned to look at her, obviously surprised.

“I
was
a coward, Jes. I had responsibilities, and instead of trying to fulfill them, I hid in your father's shadow, where I was safe from the consequences of further failure. I hadn't saved my clan. I hadn't even managed to save my brother. I was afraid to fail again.”

“You tried. Trying is good enough,” Jes told her.

Seraph shook her head. “Not when people die. When people die, trying doesn't feel like it is good enough.”

He thought about it. “If Papa had died in Taela, I would not have felt like trying was good enough.”

She nodded. “But when I held you in my arms and realized the gift I had been given, I knew there was a reason I was in Redern.” She leaned toward him, willing him to feel the utter certainty that had come to her with his birth. “I
knew
your father would never make me give up my child in the mistaken belief that someone else, someone who didn't care as much, could do a better job of keeping you safe. From that day, I never felt I should go back to the clans. I had my home—in your father and in you.”

“Is that why I'm not dead, like the other Guardians?” he asked. “Because you didn't give me away? Were they wrong to give away their babies?”

“I wish I knew,” she said. “If there were a way to help other Guardians, I would tell the clans—but I think the answer is simpler. Too simple to help those others who bear the Eagle Order. The answer is you. You are strong, Jes, strong enough to bear a burden that would break other people. You can anchor the Guardian Order without losing your balance.”

Jes sat down next to her again and stared at Willon's roof some more.

“Hennea knows I am dangerous?” he asked after a while.

“She knows Guardians are vulnerable,” Seraph corrected firmly. “She knows there are things that are very dangerous for Guardians—very strong emotions, even good ones, are difficult. When you are falling in love, Jes, you have nothing but strong emotions. One minute you're happy, the next you're sad.”

Jes nodded in emphatic agreement.

She wished Tier was here, to say the next part. But she needed to warn Jes, and this was as good a time as any other.

“Another thing that will be very difficult for you is sex,” she told him.

Jes stiffened beside her, and Seraph kept her face a little averted so he couldn't see the rising color in her cheeks. She cleared her throat. “You have a hard enough time controlling the volatile nature of the Guardian without dealing with your own emotions running wild as well.” And that was all she was going to say about that, she thought firmly. “Hennea knows this last adventure was dangerous for you, because the Guardian was called out so often. The Eagles who have lived the longest avoid situations that might call on the Guardian. We depended upon your abilities while we were trying to save Tier, and there were consequences. You must have noticed some changes in yourself.”

“The Guardian is closer,” he told her. “He used to sleep a lot, but now he's always near. We switch more often, too.” He hesitated. “He listens to me better, though, and when he takes over, I can still be there with him. I used to wake up walking in the woods and not know why, but now he usually lets me stay if I want to.”

“I didn't know that,” said Seraph. “It sounds like a good thing to me.”

He nodded. “To me, too.”

“Hennea doesn't know about that part,” said Seraph. “She only knows you are very vulnerable right now. She believes she is too old for you—however old that is. She thinks what you feel for her is”—her command of the Rederni tongue twenty years in the gaining failed her, and she waved her hands before she found the word—“mooncalf love; which is, maybe, even more emotional than real love, but not permanent. Something you would recover from if she were gone.”

“She wants to leave to save me,” he said, and, from his aggravated tone, he wasn't appreciative of the idea.

“She wants you to be safe because she loves you,” said Seraph.

His head jerked around.

“Your father told me she loves you,” she told him, knowing he'd trust Tier's judgment.

He took a deep breath, his shoulders softening with some emotion Seraph thought might just be simple relief.

“She loves you too much to trust in your strength when it is your life at risk. She doesn't see what a gift she is to you: a woman who is not afraid of the Guardian, a Raven who has enough control she can touch you without causing you distress, a woman who is strong enough to love an Eagle.”

A slow smile crept across his face. “Pretty,” he said, and Seraph felt an answering smile rise in her.

“Very,” she agreed.

Jes stood up and started for the temple, but then stopped and turned back to her. Seraph got to her feet—slowly, because the hair on the back of her neck told her it was the Guardian who watched her out of her son's eyes.

“Why is she still here?” he asked. “If she wanted to leave to save us, why doesn't she just leave? The puzzle of the gems is more important than Jes is?”

“The gems are more than just a puzzle,” answered Seraph. “Guardian, the Travelers are dying. We can't afford to lose so many Orders when the Orders may be the only thing that can save us. I don't know why she hasn't told me everything she knows, but I think she has earned the right to expect me to trust her judgment.”

The Guardian nodded and retreated behind Jes's eyes. “It's all right if Hennea has secrets,” Jes said in his usual cheerful voice. “Ravens are happier with secrets. Papa says.”

Seraph raised her eyebrows and started walking toward the temple. “Oh, he does, does he?”

Jes laughed.

C
HAPTER
5

The pristine antechamber of Seraph's memory was gone.
The temple flooring was covered with dirt blown in through the open doors. The furnishings Seraph remembered were gone.

Only when she and Jes entered the great domed chamber with its frescoed birds flying in a circle around a false sky did the temple match her memories, even down to the magelights that illuminated the walls. She wondered how long the lights would continue without the wizard who fed them.

Jes paused to look at the eagle that dominated the sky. “He thought the Eagle was the Stalker, didn't he?”

“No,” Seraph said, walking briskly toward a door on the far side of the room. “He didn't know anything about the Stalker at all, except that it was trapped. He knew even less about the Eagle. You know Travelers don't talk about the Eagles because your Order has enough to bear, and the clans try to protect the Guardians from the few things we can. Volis heard whispers of parts of the two stories and put them together with a handful of straw and came out with nonsense.”

Jes followed her out of the room.

They found the library and the others, thanks to Jes, who followed the sounds of voices through the labyrinthine series of narrow halls dug into the stone of the mountain.

Though it was a large room, it was sparsely furnished, as if Volis had just begun to fill it. One wall was lined with shelves that were half-filled with books. On the other side of the room were a bench, a chest, and several cabinets. Lehr and Rinnie were parked in front of one bookcase paging through books, Hennea was doing the same thing in front of another.

Hennea looked up when they entered. She saw Jes, humming happily to himself, and raised an eyebrow at Seraph.

Seraph couldn't help but smile at her a little smugly. “Ravens like secrets.”

“Papa said,” agreed Jes cheerfully.

He walked behind Rinnie and crouched just behind where she sat on the floor, a book opened to a colorful illustration of a Traveler camp.

“That's a
karis,
” he said, pointing at a picture of one of the little wagons. “The Lark, Brewydd, had one of those she rode in because she was very old.” He looked up at Hennea. “Very old,” he said again, and winked.

Hennea stiffened. Then she turned on her heel, grabbed Seraph by the arm, and tugged her out of the room into the hallway.

“What did you say to him?” she demanded, her usual aura of calmness gone as if it had never been.

In contrast, Seraph felt quite tranquil—an unusual state for her. She enjoyed it.

“His hearing is quite good,” she reminded Hennea. “Though he'll pretend he didn't hear us because someone taught
him
manners.” She looked pointedly at Hennea's hand.

Hennea let her go as if Seraph's arm had turned hot as a coal.

“Why are you doing this? Why encourage him?” Hennea asked in a harsh whisper. “You know it's not safe.”

“My son doesn't hide from life,” said Seraph, making no effort to shield her words from the three people in the next room, who were doubtlessly holding their breath so they could hear better. “You might trust him to know what he can bear and what he cannot. He is not stupid.”

Hennea stared at her incredulously. “You
are
encouraging him.”

“I told him nothing but the truth as I know it,” said Seraph. “What he does with that knowledge is his business—and perhaps yours.” She looked at the other Raven and sighed, putting away her secret amusement. “Life can be so hard sometimes, Hennea; it's easy to forget it can also be wonderful. Don't throw away gifts that come your way.”

Deciding she had dispensed more advice than she was comfortable with, Seraph left Hennea and returned to the library, pulling a book out at random.

“Hennea's already been through that shelf,” murmured Lehr. “It might be best if you moved over one bookcase. We're setting aside any books that are about the Travelers, and there's a big pile here for books written in languages we can't read.”

“Thanks,” she said, touching his shoulder. Instead of sorting through a bookcase, she sat on the floor and began going through the pile of books until she came to some she could translate.

To someone who was used to having the
mermori
libraries at her fingertips, this library was disappointing. Illusionary books were almost as useful as the real thing, and you didn't have to worry about tearing pages. The Colossae wizards had been wealthy and, being—by all accounts—
solsenti
-style wizards, they had spent their wealth in books. Even Isolde's library dwarfed this one—and Isolde had been one of the lesser wizards.

Seraph paged through a book about the Travelers by someone who claimed to have lived with them for a year. It was full of unlikely events and bits of nonsense that led Seraph to believe that if the author had ever met a Traveler, it was no more than a momentary encounter that allowed him to describe the clothing. There was nothing else factual that she could find.

Hennea came back into the library while Seraph was still paging through the first book.

“Have you decided what we're looking for?” Seraph asked Hennea, as if the conversation in the hall had not happened.

Hennea, having drawn her usual cloak of equanimity back in place, said, “The books about Travelers I think we should
take with us so we can take more time to evaluate them. The books of wizardry that have nothing to do with us—I don't know. Most of what is in them is not very useful for us. It seems wrong simply to destroy them, but they are too dangerous to fall into just anyone's hands. There might be some correspondence—though he burned most of his letters after he read them. Keep your eyes open to anything that might point to the identity of the Shadowed.”

“What if we don't find anything about the Shadowed here?” asked Lehr.

“We'll find him sooner or later if he doesn't find us,” said Seraph. “A Shadowed lives by the deaths of others. Where he walks, the dead litter the ground. He can't hide forever, not once we are aware that there is a Shadowed once more.”

“If the wizard books belonged to the Secret Path,” said Rinnie, changing the subject for one she could comment on, “and the Secret Path people were all traitors, don't the books belong to the Emperor?”

Seraph had a brief moment of trying to imagine the logistics of getting a shipment of books of wizardry to the Emperor—who would have no more use for them than they did.

“Maybe your father will have a good idea,” she said. “And, just in case Hennea hasn't already given you the lecture, if you find something that feels
wrong,
let Hennea or me look at it before you open it.”

Lehr joined in the search through the books, but Jes, after picking up and setting down a few, paced back and forth restlessly. He could read, Tier had seen to that, but it held no interest for him.

“Go ahead and explore,” Seraph told him.

“Can I go explore, too?” asked Rinnie, putting up the book she'd been looking through.

Seraph shook her head. “No. I want you here with me.”

Jes, who'd paused to hear Seraph's answer, waved at everyone and left.

Rinnie's jaw set, much as her brother's had a short while ago. “I wish I were a Guardian, or a Raven or a Hunter. Being a Cormorant is
boring
.”

Seraph had no patience for any more drama. “Rinnie, you are too old to pout. Stop it.”

“I don't want to look through boring old books.”

Seraph sucked in her breath, but Lehr spoke first. “Why don't you look in the cabinets and the stuff on the other side of the room. There might be something interesting there.”

Rinnie let out a martyred sigh, but crossed the room anyway and began to open cabinet doors. Seraph went back to searching through books, though she kept an eye on Rinnie's progress. She wasn't really worried, only cautious. She and Hennea had already gone through the temple to make certain there was nothing harmful.

Of course, the Shadowed had come back and set a summoning rune since then.

“Be careful, Rinnie,” she said.

“There's nothing to be careful of, Mother.” Rinnie sounded disgusted. “There's nothing here. Wait.” She stuck her head farther into a cabinet and came out wearing dust and holding a leather satchel in her arms. “This is magicked!”

“Drop it, now!” Seraph let the book she'd been holding fall to the ground and hurried to Rinnie's side. “Being careful means don't touch, Rinnie.”

“It's not very magicked,” Rinnie muttered, but she dropped the satchel on the floor.

Seraph knelt beside Rinnie's find and waved a hand over it. The patterns of the spell were familiar with a few variations because whoever set the spell had been a wizard, not a Raven. “A preservation spell. You're right, Rinnie, there's no harm in this. Go ahead and open it and let us see what is inside.” She handed the satchel back.

Rinnie tugged open the buckles and looked—keeping the cover flap up so that Lehr, who had come over when she'd first announced her discovery, couldn't see inside. “Scrolls,” she said.

She took one out and unrolled it.

“It's a map.” Lehr looked over Rinnie's shoulder. “I can't read any of the place names, though. Can you, Mother?” He moved out of the way so Seraph could take his place.

Seraph shook her head. “Although something about the language looks familiar. Do you recognize it, Hennea?”

Hennea set aside an oversized, red-covered book on the “
solsenti
wizard books” pile, and came over to have a look.

Her first, casual appraisal lasted only a second. Then she knelt on the ground and began tracing the markings with a fingertip.

“I can read it,” she said in an odd voice.

Like Seraph, she took a moment to feel the shape of the spell on the satchel. Then she upended the whole thing so that eight rolls fell out, ignoring Rinnie's involuntary protest at her usurpation of Rinnie's possession of the satchel.

The map she unrolled first was a map of a city. “Merchant's District,” she said, her voice shaking as her fingers ran over the spidery ink. “Artisan's District. Old Town. High Town. Merchant's Gate. Low Gate. University Gate.”

Seraph stared at the upside-down map. She trying to place it in one of the cities she'd been in before. “University? There are only three universities in the Empire, but the layout doesn't fit any of those.”

Hennea turned the map around and tapped the large writing on the bottom of the sheet. “Can you read that?”

Seraph frowned. The larger letters looked very familiar, she decided. It was the style of writing that was throwing her. She used her finger to trace the thicker lines of the letters. “This first letter's a
C
and the second . . .” She let her voice trail off as the pattern became clear to her.

“What is it?” asked Lehr.

Seraph touched the map with her fingers again. “Colossae.” Awe filled her. “When this map was drawn, Colossae was a thriving city—before the birth of the Empire, before the Shadowed had ruled, before the first Travelers' feet touched a road—this map was drawn.”

“It could be a copy.” Lehr's voice was subdued, hushed.

“Maybe.” Hennea's hand brushed it again. “Or it could be a fake—there's no way to tell.”

“I might be able to tell,” said Seraph slowly.

“How?” asked Hennea.

“I'm going to read its past.” She reached out to touch it, but Hennea jerked it away.

“If it is that old, it is too dangerous.”

“Dangerous how?” asked Lehr.

Seraph gave an exasperated huff. “It's a map, Hennea. I'll
be lucky if anyone has held it long enough to leave any kind of impression at all. Can you read objects?”

“No.”

“Well then.” Seraph pulled the map out of the other Raven's hands and set it on the ground in front of her. “Now if I fall to the ground shrieking, feel free to take it away again.”

“Mother? Are you sure you should do this?”

She slanted a look at Lehr. “Allow me the courtesy of knowing my limits. Unless it was an object of worship, or someone used it to kill someone else, it will be fine.”

Before someone else could object, Seraph sent tendrils of magic into the parchment.

“It's all right,” she told them when the map's past came to her in whispered bits and pieces rather than an overwhelming wave.

Aside from a few barely formed images, the newest history came to her first, though that was not always the case. She felt Hennea's hands and the intense quiet that would have told her a Raven had held the map, even if she hadn't known Hennea.

“Volis had this.” She could feel the cold sweat on his palms and the fear someone might see him. “He stole it.” A new image, closer to her than the theft had been, and she knew that he hadn't been able to read any of the maps. “He had thought something so carefully hidden away would have been important, but he could see nothing useful in a pile of old maps.”