Soul of Kandrith (The Kandrith Series) (25 page)

He
. Even drowning in guilt and
fear, Lance noticed the pronoun She used. Sara carried a baby boy. A son.
Somehow that made it worse. Not that he would’ve ached less for a daughter, but
somehow knowing the babe’s gender made it, him, more real.

Lance struggled to think, searching for a way out of the
nightmare that had swallowed him. He spoke through numb lips. “And if the baby
is born without a soul?”

“
He
will
refuse
nourishment
and
die
within
days
...” Her voice faded.

Sara made another cut.

Lance dropped to his knees in despair, still holding Sara’s
bloody arm. He listened, mute, while Sara calmly asked more questions.

“Can the baby’s soul split, leaving half with each of us and
then keep growing?”

“
No
.
The
rending
would
dissipate
it
.”

“If I, or the baby, die without a soul what will happen?”

“
Nothing
.
Mek
cannot
collect
something
that
is
not
there
.
You
will
cease
to
be
.”

Sara took this news with perfect calmness, but Lance felt as if
jackals were eating his entrails. His son lost forever, gone as if he’d never
been...Tears wet Lance’s face.

“Is there any way to obtain a new soul so that both I and the
baby have one?” Sara asked.

“
Another
may
gift
it
.”

Lance felt a sudden trickle of relief. A way to escape the
crushing pain. He opened his mouth—

“
No
,” the Goddess said, compassionate
but firm. “
I
will
NOT
accept
your
soulgift
.”

“How are babies’ new souls made?” Sara continued.

“
It
is
not
something
I
can
do
,” Loma said, her voice heavy with shared grief.
“
Nor
any
single
one
of
my
siblings
.
It
is
a
magic
we
wrought
together
at
the
beginning
of
time
,
a
cycle
that
renews
itself
.”

Sara fell silent. Her last cut healed over.

Lance had one more question. “Why didn’t you tell me?” His
throat rasped. Why let him hope? For the Goddess had known. When he thanked Her
for giving Sara back her soul, She had said it was none of Her doing.

“
I
am
sorry
,
my
child
.” Her arms seemed to embrace him, but he stood
stiffly in their circle. “
I
hoped
to
spare
you
the
misery
of
this
knowledge
and
protect
you
as
much
as
I
could
from
my
brother’s
spite
.”

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Lance said in a low voice, as
the Goddess stepped back into Her own world. His fists clenched. For the first
time that he could remember, he was angry with his Goddess: toweringly angry
with the kind of hot fury that would not fade for weeks or months.

Then he looked at Sara, and his heart broke all over again. Her
brow was only faintly wrinkled, her gaze abstracted as if she were thinking
hard.

“Come here.” He opened his arms. “We’ll find a way out of this,
I promise.”

Sara stepped into his embrace. His throat tightened until he
wanted to howl with the unfairness of it all. Every pain-staking step forward
Sara had taken was now wiped out. False.

He pressed his lips to her forehead, uncertain whether he was
comforting Sara or himself, just knowing he needed to hold her.

“Lance.” She kissed his chin, then his cheek and lips. Her
beautiful blue eyes brimmed with worry and regret, blank no longer. He glimpsed
Sara-who-had-a-soul.

The moment stretched.

“I know why you’re important now,” she said.

“Why?” Lance asked, baffled. Important how?

“Because Sara-who-had-a-soul loved you.”

Sara put her hand behind his neck and pulled him down for a
kiss. Lance let himself drown in her sweet taste and the press of her breasts
against his chest.

Passion flamed between them, and he grasped it with both hands
so he could forget the coming tragedy. Right now their child still lived, and
Sara was here, fully with him for the first time in months. He scooped her up in
his arms and strode away from the fire, seeking privacy in the darkened
forest.

Branches sighed far overhead in the soft wind, but all else was
still, the forest life wary of the nearby camp.

He crowded her against the massive trunk of a redolent cedar
and slanted his mouth against hers. She kissed him back, wrapping her legs
around his hips.

Urgently, he freed himself from his trousers and slid inside
her wet heat. He knew he wasn’t going to last long so he set his fingers at the
top of her mound and stroked her to a quick climax.

She convulsed in his arms, sending him over the edge.

When he opened his eyes again, she was pushing at his chest,
her eyes wide and frantic.

“What is it?” If someone had intruded on them, he would send
them away with a flea in their ear. He glanced behind, but no one was there.

Sara unhooked her ankles and slid to the ground.

“Sara?”

“The baby moved,” she said, her face in shadow.

Awe and helpless grief choked him.
Their
baby
. Unable to speak, he put his hand on her
stomach.

She stepped away from him. “No. When you touch me, the
connection between my body and the baby’s soul grows stronger.”

His arms dropped. He felt hollowed out as he completed the rest
of her reasoning. “And the babe’s grows weaker.” Bitterness coated his throat.
Now he couldn’t even comfort her.

Grief threatened to hammer him into the ground, but he refused
to surrender to it. Sara and the baby both still lived and shared a soul.

Lance drew in a harsh breath. “I’m not giving up, on you or the
baby. We have five months until the baby is born. We’ll find some solution.
Until then...” he broke off. He didn’t know what he was saying.

“I should return to Tolium,” Sara said.

Lance blinked. “What?”

He strove to make out her expression, but the filtered
moonlight didn’t provide enough illumination. Her voice was cool, logical.
“Because Sara-who-had-a-soul loved you, I am drawn to you. If I see you every
day, I won’t be able to keep my distance. It will be easier if we are
apart.”

Lance’s every instinct rose up in protest.
His
woman
,
his
baby
,
he
needed
to
keep
them
near
and
protect
them
. “No. It’s not safe.”

“Neither is travelling with rebels,” Sara pointed out, still
annoyingly logical.

“You don’t know anyone in Tolium. You have no place to stay,”
Lance argued.

She fell silent, and for a moment he thought he’d convinced
her. “I can go to the Temple of Mercy or Fertility. They both take in pregnant
women.”

Lance shook his head. “We’ll go back to Kandrith. Wenda will
look after you.” He hated to abandon his mission, but Sara and the baby were
more important. Perhaps Rhiain would want to stay and continue aiding the
rebellion.

“No,” Sara said. Any other time he would have been happy to see
her arguing with him, instead of obeying without question. “The journey would
mean weeks in close company.” Her hand went to her stomach. “I don’t think it’s
a coincidence that the baby moved while we were mating. I think he moved because
the soul bond almost snapped and he was distressed. If we travel together, I’m
almost certain to miscarry.”

The worst of it was, if the baby’s soul bond had snapped
yesterday, before he knew Sara was pregnant, if she’d simply had a heavy
menstrual flow and her soul suddenly back, he would’ve been happy. This was why
Cadwallader had tried to avoid telling him, and how the Goddess had hoped to
keep the truth from him. For a moment he damned Relena for opening his eyes.

But now that he knew, he couldn’t unknow. He couldn’t bear the
thought of his son dying soulless, ceasing to be, consigned to the outer
darkness. He had to try to save them both. To do that he needed time to find a
way. If living apart from Sara gave him that time, then that’s how it would have
to be.

Lance bowed his head, conceding defeat.

Chapter Fifteen

Sara dropped a carafe. It shattered on the stone floor
of the temple stillroom, splashing her sandalled feet with mercia. Her toes
promptly went numb.

The acolyte of Loma, an older woman with a round face, scolded
her and set her to cleaning up the mess. Sara obediently mopped up the
syrup-like potion with old rags and picked up the shards of broken pottery, but
she nicked her fingers twice because her mind kept wandering.

She kept thinking about Lance, replaying memories of how his
face had looked and the soft way he’d kissed her lips when he bid her
goodbye.

He wasn’t here and wouldn’t visit for another nine days, so why
was she spending all her time thinking about him? Why did doing so make her
throat ache and her eyes burn?

The acolyte stopped fussing over the loss of the precious
potion and patted her shoulder. “The first days are hard. You miss your man, I
know.”

Was that it? Yes. She missed Lance. Though she had suggested
their separation, it felt strange and wrong.

“Perhaps we should find a different task for you,” the acolyte
mused. She smoothed back a wisp of gray hair that had escaped her kerchief and
looked around.

The stillroom of the Temple of Mercy where the precious mercia
potion was distilled from plants was equipped with a large table, a fireplace
and shelves. Dried plants hung in bundles from the ceiling, sweetening the air.
The temple itself was unprepossessing compared to the ornate, gilded temples
Sara had visited in Temborium.

Since Lance couldn’t safely enter Tolium until the search for
the governor’s escaped slaves died down, Willem had escorted Sara to the temple.
He’d asked the elderly priestess that Sara be cared for and given light work
because of her pregnancy.

The acolyte set her to hanging wet laundry next. Sara repeated
the same mindless movements, her thoughts still focused on Lance.

She didn’t like being separated from him. How long would she
have to tolerate it? Lance had said he would think of something, but he would be
busy training the ex-slaves. What if he couldn’t come up with a solution?

The thought that they might have to endure a long separation
only to have the baby still die, soulless, at the end raised an unfamiliar
emotion in her chest. Something hot and angry and...and resentful. Maybe she
should just rejoin him and let nature take its course.

But then she thought of how the baby’s death would affect
Lance. It would make him sad. Wound him, in some way beyond the physical.

And Sara didn’t like the idea of Lance feeling bad because
she— Because he was important.

She
should
try
to
help
him
.

Yes. As soon as the thought occurred to her Sara knew it was
the right decision. She set her mind to solving the problem of her soullessness
while her body went through the motions of hanging laundry.

Reach into the basket and pull out a wet dress.

The Goddess of Mercy had said that new souls were created from
a magic wrought by all the gods and goddesses at the beginning of time.

Drape the sodden bodice over the rope strung between two
trees.

Loma would do anything to help Lance, but she couldn’t do it on
her own. Loma’s magic sprang from the worship of her followers, from prayers and
sacrifices.

Nudge the basket sideways with her foot.

No sacrifice was great enough to equal creating a soul, and a
soulgift would only transfer the problem, not solve it.

Bend and pick up another piece of clothing. Repeat. Repeat.

And then Sara remembered another source of magic. She stood
stock still, cold water dripping down her arms, thinking hard.

Sometime later, the acolyte came out into the yard and scolded
her for leaving the laundry to set, still wet, in the basket. “Are you
simple-minded?” the woman asked.

Sara pushed past her, through the temple gate, and started down
the street to find Esam, the Qiph Scholar.

* * *

Sara identified the Qiph tent in the market by its green
stripes. A brown-skinned middle-aged man smiled and held up a bolt of red silk
as she approached. “Most beauteous lady, I have for sale the finest Qiph silk.
Just feel—” He broke off when she moved around the table piled with fabric and
ducked past him into the tent behind.

The back wall of the tent was pinned open, allowing sunlight to
spill in. A young Qiph man bent over a low table, painting letters on
parchment.

“Esam.” Sara’s shoulder’s relaxed. Finding him still in Tolium
should save her time. “Can a woman walk the Men’s Path to Holiness?”

“What?” Esam looked up, dark eyes widening in surprise. “Lady
Sara? I wasn’t expecting you.” He smoothed a hand over the rows of his black
braids, spattering ink from the brush still in his hand, then stood. His head
almost touched the ceiling.

The middle-aged silk-seller had followed her in. He said
something sharp in Qiph, to which Esam nodded. The merchant shook his
head—disapprovingly?—then retreated to the front stall and began to hawk his
wares to other passersby.

Sara repeated her question. “Can a woman walk the Men’s Path to
Holiness?”

His head jerked back, nostrils flaring. “Of course not!”

Her stomach tightened. Her plan wouldn’t work, then. Almost,
Sara turned and walked away, but...”Why?”

“Because—because women are not men, because that is not the
Path laid out by the Holy Ones.” His voice rose, drawing attention from the Qiph
merchant in the stall outside.

“Has any woman tried to follow the Men’s Path?”

“No!”

Why was he shouting? Sara persisted. “Has no Qiph woman ever
been enslaved?”

“Well, yes, I have heard of such happening,” Esam admitted.
“But that is not the same as following the Men’s Path.”

Sara nodded to show she understood the distinction. “Is magic
only gained if one purposefully follows the Path?”

“I don’t know.” Esam’s brow wrinkled. “I am not a
Pathfinder.”

Sara considered this. “Could a Pathfinder answer my
questions?”

“Perhaps, but you won’t find any Pathfinders in the Republic.
Lady Sara, what is this about? You are Temborian. Why do you want to know about
the Qiph Way?”

Sara explained about the baby’s soul. By the time she reached
the part about the baby being born soulless and refusing to eat, his eyes shone
with moisture.

He captured her hands. “I am so sorry.”

His reaction puzzled her. “Why? It’s not your fault.”

“No,” he agreed, first squeezing then releasing her hands.
“This is the work of the Defiler.”

The Qiph called Vez, God of Malice, the Defiler. Loma had also
spoken of her “brother’s spite,” which supported Esam’s supposition. But knowing
the cause didn’t help her gain her objective.

Sara continued laying out the chains of logic she had forged.
“The Goddess of Mercy cannot grant me a new soul. A different kind of magic is
needed. I wish to earn magic by walking the Qiph Way, but I have only five
months until the baby is born. After that it will be too late. In slave magic,
the greater the sacrifice the greater the reward.” An old person’s Lifegift
would make a fruit tree, but the saints’ Lifegifts had raised the Red Mountains.
“The Women’s Path is shorter than the Men’s, with only three steps.”

“Yes. Water-Bearer, Mother and Dowser.”

“That disparity suggests that the same might be true with Qiph
magic, that more magic might be earned with harder steps.”

Esam’s brows drew together. “I hadn’t thought of that. You may
be right. I do not know. My mother always said us children turned her hair
white.”

“Of the Women’s Path, motherhood is closed to me, and Tolium
has plenty of water from the river, they do not need dowsers. I can bear water,
but I do not think five months of doing so will earn me enough magic to create a
new soul.”

“It does seem unlikely,” Esam conceded. “Usually a minimum of
two years is spent on each step.”

“Which brings me back to my original question. Can a woman gain
magic by walking the Men’s Path to Holiness?”

“I’m sorry, Sara, I just don’t know. I’m not a Pathfinder.” He
shook his head.

“But you do not know that they can’t.”

“No.”

Good enough. Sara moved on to her next question. “Which step on
the Men’s Path is considered the hardest?”

“It depends on which one the person finds hard. My two years as
a Warrior passed quickly. I fear my two years as a Scholar will feel much
longer.” He quirked his lips.

He was avoiding answering her. “I think Slave would be the most
difficult step,” Sara said.

Esam stared at her, but said nothing to refute her
reasoning.

Sara turned to go.

“Wait!” Esam sounded alarmed. “Where are you going?”

“To the slave market to sell myself.”

“But—but you don’t even know if your plan will work! You have
only the flimsiest of evidence.”

“If I do nothing, the baby will die,” Sara said bluntly. Lance
wanted the baby to live and have a soul; therefore she did, too. “Unless you
have a better suggestion?” She waited.

His mouth opened then closed. His shoulders sagged. “No.”

She exited through the tent’s rear flap and pushed her way
between the Qiph tent and a covered wagon back out into the busy
marketplace.

Instead of returning to his scholarship, Esam followed her.
“What is your plan?”

“I will find a Republican and sell myself to him.” She spotted
a brown-haired man in a toga perusing metalwork across the street and headed
toward him.

Esam stopped dead, then had to skip forward to keep up. “Oh,
no, Sara. That is a very bad idea. If you are set on doing this, I will help
you. We can do much better than selling you to the first person you meet.”

Sara absorbed that. “In what way?”

“Stipulations,” Esam said. “We need to find you a kind master,
or mistress, who will give you light duties.”

Sara shook her head. “No.” She stepped around two women
carrying baskets who’d stopped to haggle with a butcher.

Esam hurried after her. “What do you mean, ‘no’?”

She kept her gaze on the brown-haired Republican, who’d started
moving through the crowd again. “If I’m not treated like a slave, how will I
gain enough magic to earn a soul in five months?”

Esam didn’t answer.

“I must be a slave, and most slaves do not have kind masters,”
Sara said.

Esam’s brow creased as he kept pace beside her. “But what if
your master beats you?”

“Then I will have bruises,” Sara said absently. Two
legionnaires blocked her line of sight. She’d lost the Republican.

Esam grasped her arm, halting her in the middle of the street.
“Beautiful slaves, women slaves, often suffer a different fate,” he warned.

Did he think she did not know that? “Then I will be raped
again.”

Esam winced, but didn’t release Sara. A Republican matron
glared as she was forced to detour around them. She didn’t look kind. And the
sanguelle following her with a basket walked with head and shoulders bowed as if
trying to make herself smaller.

Esam shook her. “What if you’re beaten so hard you lose the
baby? Or if you are given some potion to make you miscarry? Many slave-owners
don’t want the expense of raising a baby, especially one that will be born
free.”

Sara hadn’t considered that. “That won’t work.”

“You need a contract,” Esam insisted, fingers tightening, “a
contract written by a Qiph scribe. You need me.”

Slowly, Sara nodded.

* * *

“Useless,” Fitch raged, scowling at the groups of new
recruits sparring tentatively between the tree trunks. A light drizzle fell,
moistening the air and enriching the green moss. “They’re useless mouths the lot
of them.” He put his hands on his hips and glared at Lance. “You know damn well
I gave you permission to bring the laggards only because I thought you’d
fail.”

“They’re untrained, that’s all.” Lance tried to hold on to his
patience in the face of his growing animosity toward the Gotian war chief. The
man was shortsighted, prejudiced, and far too quick to blame others for his
troubles. Lance reminded himself, again, that Kandrith needed this rebellion to
succeed and therefore needed Fitch.

Of course, Lance’s bad mood had started with Sara’s absence.
Worries about her and the babe preyed on his mind. If something went wrong, he
wouldn’t find out until five days from now when it would be safe for him to slip
into Tolium again. He wanted to be at her side; instead he was forced to waste
his time talking to the likes of Fitch.

“It takes years to train swordsmen,” Fitch objected. “I
received my first sword when I was four.”

Since one of the freed slaves had reduced his wooden sword to
splinters by hitting it against a tree, and another man cowered and flinched on
the ground to avoid being hit, Lance could hardly argue. He spoke through
clenched teeth. “Then train them with the bow or the quarterstaff.”

Fitch sneered again, but couldn’t find fault with the
suggestion. “That will still leave close to fifty useless mouths—women,
children, old men and cripples.”

Behind Fitch, Edvard flinched.

Lance carefully avoided looking at the boy, not wanting to add
to his humiliation, but he felt his temper flare. “The old men, as you call
them, had the same training you did as a boy and are picking up the skills
faster than the next generation. Relena has been a great help organizing the
women to fletch arrows—”

“Bah. Women are not warriors.” Fitch waved a hand.

“Winter Grass fights.”

“Only because she’s kissed Mek.”

Lance frowned, distracted by the unfamiliar term. “She’s a
priestess?”

“No, no. A widow with no children or a woman set aside by her
husband for barrenness may travel to war, since she is considered
half-dead.”