Trial of Intentions (31 page)

Wendra thought a moment. “And my song, did she know?”

He shook his head. “No, the Leiholan quality is not passed down from parent to child. Otherwise, we would surely have more singers here. You're either a miracle of improbability, or something about the magnitude of your mother's talent made your inheritance of her gift more likely. Either way, you are Leiholan
and
the daughter of one of my very best friends. Both good things. I look forward to getting to know you and helping you cultivate your song.”

Wendra stared back, feeling tentative again. “What if I choose not to stay? Or to sing the Song of Suffering?”

A look of shock and worry rose on the old man's face. Belamae gathered himself and fixed her with a serious look. “Wendra, you need to understand a few things before you ask such selfish questions. First, the Veil weakens. There aren't enough of us to sing Suffering to maintain its strength as it should be maintained. The effort is taking its toll on those Leiholan who offer the Song.”

The Maesteri gave a long look at those seated in the hall. “This memorial is for a young woman, Soluna … a Leiholan. She died singing the Song of Suffering.”

Wendra stared back at him in shock. “Died
while
singing?”

“The song is exacting at the best of times,” he explained. “But when the Bourne pushes at its chains, the Song requires more. Suffering is no tavern song. It's not even a well-intentioned history cycle. Your whole self is required each time you sing it. You need to understand this before we start teaching it to you.”

Wendra looked over at the large crowd waiting to honor a Leiholan who'd died singing Suffering. The weight of future needs pressed down on her, narrowing her options, as if she must replace vacancies—the vacancy left by her mother, the vacancy left by this young woman who'd just died.

Belamae softly cleared his throat. When she turned back to him, he gently cupped her chin, the way a father does when he wishes to convey both affection and the need to be understood. “And my child, I am dying.”

Her chest tightened. “Belamae?”

A regretful smile spread on his face. “Oh, not today, or tomorrow. But soon. I can feel it. My time to offer you what wisdom and training I can … well, it's not without its limits. And a good singer knows when to leave the stage.”

Belamae's revelation hit her harder than she might have expected. He'd only ever treated her with kindness. He'd never given her bad guidance. And now he was dying.

And yet, beneath it all, Wendra remembered Penit, who Sutter believed was still alive. She also thought of the countless others who'd been herded and sold into the Bourne as slaves. Just as the highwayman Jastail had tried to do to her. How many others had been taken over the years? How many were there now? She wanted to stay and learn, cultivate her love of song. But she also wondered what became of someone traded into Quiet hands. Wondered if she could help them. Wondered if she could do so with Suffering.

A door opened, echoing through the chamber. Wendra followed Belamae's gaze to see a lean woman, with a beautiful intensity about her, stride to the front row of the assembly and take a seat.

“We can begin,” Belamae said, and led Wendra to the middle of the rehearsal chamber. “Wendra, this is Telaya.” He gestured back and forth between them. “She's one of our finest Lyren here at Descant, and in many regards my right hand.” He guided Wendra to a seat beside the woman, who gave her a terse nod.

Seeing the puzzlement in Wendra's face, Telaya explained, “Lyren are music students who have no latent Leiholan ability.”

Wendra heard a hint of resentment in her voice.

Belamae then ascended the dais and came to stand behind the lectern. He waited a long while. Not for voices to quiet—the chamber had fallen silent in expectation. He seemed to wait for inspiration. His eyes might have met those of every mourner who'd come to pay respects. But rather than words, when the Maesteri opened his mouth, he sang. And what he sang was a long, drawn-out, monotone rendering of the fallen Leiholan's name: Soluna.

Wendra's heart beat fast just hearing it. The slow, low sound rang tortured and reverent and powerful. It filled up the Chamber of Anthems like nothing she could have imagined. And when he was done intoning her name, he paused, allowing the resonances of the room to carry the name to silence. After many more moments, he started again to sing. His words weren't scripted—this was no rote burial dirge. And he made no effort at rhyme. But neither did he search or falter in finding words to sing. They flowed as easily as his notes did. Slow. Processional. Sometimes heartfelt and heavy. Sometimes light and mirthful. Remembrances.

“So, a new Leiholan.” It was Telaya beside her, speaking just loud enough to be heard.

Wendra looked over. “I have no training.”

The woman shared a dismissive expression, one that said Wendra's admission was false modesty. “You're Souden, then—one training her Leiholan tendency. Nice that Belamae has a quick replacement for Soluna.”

“I'm not a replacement.”

Telaya's brows went up in an appreciative look that fell just as fast—more dismissiveness. She clearly didn't believe Wendra. “Learn your Suffering well, or we'll be here memorializing you next.”

Wendra began to get a clearer picture of the woman, and decided to set the right tone early. “And why were you late to this memorial? Is it all Leiholan you dislike? Or just Soluna?”

Rather than appearing affronted at the accusation, Telaya smiled, but only enough that she didn't appear to breach any memorial decorum. “I was late because a Leiholan needed a music lesson—clarity on the Shehalis scale, just before she walked into the
real
Chamber of Anthems to sing Suffering. We can hope she gets it right, so we don't have a double funeral today.”

“I see,” Wendra said, giving back with equal iciness, “then it's just the fact that you, yourself, can't sing with any real power.”

The woman's face returned a flat stare. “I don't dislike people. I dislike some of their ideas. Like the idea that being Leiholan is some kind of birthright.” Telaya then turned her attention to the lament Belamae was now singing. Real loss and regret touched her features. “Or will you embrace this as your fate, too?”

Wendra sat listening for a moment to the Maesteri's song. As it filled the great chamber, a thought struck her almost painfully. This Leiholan had recently died singing Suffering, to fortify the Veil against the Quiet. And only a few days ago Wendra had stood against an army out of the Bourne, who'd come through that Veil. She'd later check the specific timing of both, but she knew they'd fall in line with each other. This Leiholan, Soluna, was a casualty of the same battle Wendra had just witnessed and fought on the Soliel plain.

Had the Quiet army passed through the Veil because there'd been a lapse in its protection when Soluna died? Or had that army pressed at the boundary, and the pressure of it taken a mortal toll on her? Or was it some other external factor that had contributed to the weakening of the Veil? Of Soluna?

Whatever the truth, the risks of Suffering became clearer in those moments. More reaching.

 

CHAPTER THIRTY

A Fifth Man

You never want to face a Mal. They live for pain.

—Colloquialism captured in
Cruciations, The Use of Torture to Prepare for a Life of Service and War

F
our leagues east of Recityv stood the ruins of Calaphel. Hazy light fell in slanting patterns from a midmorning sun, warming crumbled stone and dusty surfaces. Motes lazed in those shafts of light, kicked up by Roth's thoughtful pacing. He made slow turns in a roofless room, passing before large windows where he watched the horizon for the others to arrive.

Generations ago, Calaphel had been a small but important lookout post, guarding against invasion from the Wynstout Dominion. “Invasion” was a generous term for it, though. Those attacks had rarely been more than raids, organized to strike hard and fast and seize things the Dominion believed itself entitled to. Calaphel had fallen to disuse when Recityv signed a trade agreement with the Dominion. Since then, the handful of feldspar buildings had been toppled by vandals, much of the stone harvested by range herders to build cattle pens near the oak forests up northeast of here.

Roth stopped in front of a gaping hole in the northern wall and stared out on the long, unobstructed view.
Industrious folks, those herders,
he thought. They'd hauled the pilfered stone another ten leagues before setting it down. He liked that. Reminded him of his father—a man not afraid to push a mop on a fish-stinking trawler deck to put mash on his family's supper table.

He nodded to the memory, and to the wisdom of choosing this site as a lookout post. In the light of day, it would be impossible to approach over the long, flat plain without being seen. It was a good place to meet in secret with his Jurshah leaders.

He looked up into the deep blue sky, and found himself grinning. This decrepit outpost. The trade agreement that put an end to its usefulness had come by recommendation of the commerce and finance wing of the League.
From war preparedness to cattle pens.
He liked that flow of events. It also made Calaphel the right place for today's discussion.

Within the hour, the leaders of each of the four Jurshah factions arrived, and each from a different direction.

From the east came Nama Septas, leader of the League's political agenda; from the south rode Wadov Pir, the League's finance and commerce secretary; from the north, leader of justice and defense, Bellial Sornahan; and out of the west rode Tuelin Cill, master of history.

Riding in from the four corners had always seemed prudent to Roth, giving their detractors less reason and ability to worry or follow; but Roth also liked its symbolism. It pleased him to imagine his men and women, adorned in clean, pressed, chestnut-colored cloaks, walking the streets in the four corners of the Eastlands, models of civility.

The League leaders tied up their horses and exchanged quiet greetings. Then they came inside, each nodding to Roth before sitting on one of several stones set in a broad circle at the center of the room.

Roth began to pace the outer circle, small plumes of stone dust rising around his boots and further hazing the light. He did a full circuit before beginning.

“I've given the order, and all the right leaguemen now watch for an opportunity … the regent will soon be dead.” He paused, allowing the declaration its moment to breathe. Each of his leaders nodded, generally pleased. “There will be an outcry, a call to find the villain. They'll marshal Recityv resources to investigate. Helaina's friends will suspect us. We'll deny. All the while, they'll be forced to plan for her successor. Amidst this chaos, we will act.”

Nama Septas spoke first. “The High Council will need to replace the regent quickly; the Convocation of Seats is set to begin.” She then offered a thin, lawyerly smile. “The Council will call for immediate nominations to replace her.” Looking at Roth, she finished, “How many of them do you have in your pocket?”

Roth thought a moment. “Securing the Regent's Seat may prove somewhat more challenging than I thought.”

“Perhaps not,” Wadov Pir chimed in. “I've just come from her treasury office. There were … discrepancies. I've agreed to a mutual silence with her treasurers, which should be worth their support.”

Roth nodded his thanks to Pir, a master at introducing digit falsehoods to a tax ledger. The man's mousy accountant's smile hid deceptively sharp teeth where pecuniary matters were concerned.

“But what of the vacant Council seats?” Nama asked. “We were going to see them filled with the right kinds of people.”

Roth continued to pace around the outer circle of his Jurshah leaders. “The authors won't be joining us,” he announced, frowning. “They're loosely organized anyway. And their unofficial leader is a cantankerous old fool who won't be persuaded.”

Roth stopped behind Tuelin Cill, and placed a hand on her shoulder. “But I learned something about this disorganized guild of scribblers.” He bent forward and pretended to write, as if on a chalkboard. “They seem to have an alchemy that gives them the ability to write on the air. Cill, we need to know about this. What are they capable of? And if they turn that sorcery against us, how do we stop it? Go to your archives. Enlist your brightest historians. We need answers.”

Cill nodded. “The moment I return.”

“But not having Author Garlen's support may not harm us, since I doubt he'll cast his vote for
anyone,
” Roth concluded. “I'd say he's hidebound, but I think he mostly just wants to be left alone. We have more work to do where authors in general are concerned, but we'll make do without his vote.”

“You won't have the vote of the Church, either,” Nama added. “They may not be able to prove you burned Bastulan, but they believe it anyway.” Nama's voice grew strained with impatience. “And why, may I ask, did you find it necessary to add arson to the list of allegations against the League? Wouldn't it have been simpler to convert the Reconciliationists to some better purpose
after
we've assumed control?”

Roth stood straight, and began again to pace. “You know the myths about Bastulan, its hidden relics. Its destruction will help many look for different answers to their questions. Answers the League can provide.”

“And if the relics are real?” Tuelin interjected. “The simplest rule any historian worth his binder's glue will follow is that anything recorded by more than three chroniclers has some basis in fact.” She gave Roth a slightly judicial look. “The relics qualify.”

He nodded patiently. “Of course. And Bastulan is half stone, isn't it? I imagine anything of great value is kept in—or was moved to—some safe place where fire's no threat. So, let us tally. Bastulan's pews are now ash. That's a meaningful start.” Roth got Nama's attention. “And it has the wonderful result of helping us gain control, don't you think? Reconciliationists will need a new touchstone.” He then narrowed his gaze. “If it makes you squeamish, perhaps you and I need to reconsider—”