Shadowmarch

Earth!”

When the chief acolyte had gone, Qinnitan had begun putting her few personal articles into a bag—the carved bone comb her mother had given her when she had first been called to the sacred bees, a necklace of polished stones from her brothers, a tiny metal mirror from her sisters, the festival dress she had never worn since becoming a Hive Sister. As she packed these things up, trying to answer Duny’s excited questions as best she could— after all, how much could she tell when she had no idea what was to happen to her, why she had been chosen, or how she had been noticed?—she realized that from now on she was not going to be a person any more, at least for her Hive Sisters, but a Story.

I’m going to be Qinnitan, the girl the autarch noticed and plucked out of their midst. They’re going to talk about me at night. They’ll wonder if it ever might happen again, to one of them. They’re going to think it’s a wonderful, romantic tale, like Dasmet and the Girl With No Shadow.

“Don’t forget about me,” she said suddenly.

Duny stared at her in amazment. “Forget about you? Qin-ya, how could we ever… ?”

“No, I mean don’t forget about the real Qinnitan. Don’t make up silly stories about me.” She stared at her friend, who for once was shocked into silence. “I’m scared, Duny.”

“Getting married isn’t so bad,” her friend said. “My older sister told me…” She broke off, eyes wide. “I wonder if gods do it the same way people do… ?”

Qinnitan shook her head. Duny would never understand. “Do you think you could come visit me?” “What? You mean… in the Seclusion?”

“Of course. It’s only men who aren’t allowed in. Please say you will.” “Qin, I’ll… yes! Yes, I’ll come, as soon as the Sisters will let me.”

She threw her arms around Duny. Mistress Chryssa was standing in the doorway of the acolytes’ hall, letting her know that the soldiers were growing impatient outside the temple. “Don’t forget about me,” Qinnitan whispered in her friend’s ear. “Don’t make me into some… princess.”

Duny could only shake her head in confusion as Qinnitan took the sack with her pitiful array of possessions and followed the chief acolyte.

“One more thing,” Chryssa said. “Mother Mudry wishes a word with you before you go.”

“The… oracle? With me?” Mudry could hardly know Qinnitan at all. They had never been any nearer to each other than a dozen paces since Qinnitan had come to the Hive. Did even that august old woman desire to curry a little favor with the autarch? Qinnitan supposed she must. But the nicest thing he said about me was that I wasn’t ugly. Doesn’t give me much power to get favors done, now does it?

They walked through the darkest part of the Hive. The sleepy murmuring of the bees washed in through the air shafts high in the walls—there was nowhere in the Hive their song could not be heard. If the bees noticed the departure of one of the younger acolytes, it didn’t seem to bother them.

The oracle’s room smelled of lavender water and sandalwood incense. Oracle Mudry sat in her high-backed chair, her face lifted expectantly toward the door, blind eyes moving behind the lids. She reached out her hands. Qinnitan hesitated: they looked like claws.

“Is that the child? The girl?”

Qinnitan looked around but Chryssa had left her at the doorway to the inner chamber. “It’s me, Mother Mudry,” she said.

“Take my hands.”

“It’s very kind of you…”

“Hush!” She said it harshly, but without anger, a warning to a child not to touch a naked flame. Her cold hands closed on Qinnitan’s ringers. “We have never sent one to the Seclusion before, but Rugan tells me she thought you… unusual.” She shook her head. “Did you know that it was all ours, once, girl? Surigali was the Mistress of the Hive, and Nushash her cowering consort.”

Qinnitan had no idea what this meant, and it had been a long and confusing day. She stood silent as Mudry squeezed her fingers. The old woman paused as if listening, face lifted to the ceiling, much as earlier that day the autarch had stared at nothing while deciding to have a man’s bones shattered because he had coughed. The old woman’s hands seemed to grow warmer, almost hot, and Qinnitan had to force herself not to pull away. The oracle’s lined face seemed to grow slack, then the toothless mouth fell open in a gape of dismay.

“It is as I feared,” Mother Mudry said, letting go of Qmnitan’s hands. “It is bad. Very bad.”

“What? What do you mean?” Did the oracle have some knowledge of her fate? Was she to be slain by her husband-to-be, as so many others had been slain?

“A bird will fly before the storm.” Mudry spoke so quietly Qinnitan could barely hear her. “Yet it is hurt, and can scarcely keep wing. Still, that is all the hope that remains when the sleeper awakens. Still, the old blood is strong Not much hope at all…” She swayed for a moment, then stopped, her face turned straight toward Qinnitan s. If she had been sighted, she might have stared. “I am tired, forgive me. There is little we can do and it is of no use to frighten you. You must remember who you are, girl, that is all.”

Qinnitan had no idea if this was how the old woman usually behaved, but she knew the oracle was indeed frightening her, whether she wanted to or not. “What do you mean, remember? That I’m a Hive Sister?”

“Remember who you are. And when the cage is opened, you must fly. It will not be opened twice.” “But I don’t understand… !”

Chryssa put her head in the door. “Is everything all right? Mother Mudry?”

The old woman nodded. She gave Qinnitan’s hand one last leathery squeeze, then let go. “Remember Remember.” It was all Qinnitan could do not to cry as the Chief Acolyte handed her back over to the soldiers and their captain, silently glowering Jeddin, so they could conduct the new bride-to-be away to the hidden fastness of the Seclusion.

12. Sleeping in Stone

ON THE LONG AFTERNOON:

What are these that have fallen?

They sparkle beside the trail like jewels, like tears

Are they stars?

—from The Bonefall Oracles

Chert watched Mica and Talc dressing the stone on the wall above the tomb. The Schists could be clannish, and since they were Hornblende’s nephews, he had thought they might give trouble to their uncles replacement, but instead they had been nothing but helpful. In fact, his whole crew had been exemplary—even Pumice was doing his work with a minimum of complaining: whatever they might not have liked about the original job, they had swallowed it for the sake of getting the prince regent’s tomb ready. And a good thing, too. The only light where Chert stood were the torches in the stone wall sconces—four of the sconces new-carved—but he felt certain the morning sun must already be creeping above the eastern battlements, which meant only a few hours remained until the funeral.

It had not been easy, any of it, and Chert could only thank his Blue Quartz ancestors that it had been a comparatively small task, the construction of one new room, and that they were working mostly with limestone. Even so, in some cases they had been forced to cut corners—or not cut corners, to be more accurate, the new chamber was oddly shaped and still un finished on the far end where a low tunnel opened into farther caverns, and they had dressed only the wall into which the prince regent’s tomb had been cut Lumps of hard flint still floated like islands in all the finished walls, and most of the carvings would have to be completed later as well. There had barely been time for Little Carbon to decorate the tomb itself and the wall just around it, but the craftsman had done a fine job despite the haste, turning a raw hole in the bones of the Mount into a sort of forest bower. The stone plinth on which the prince regent’s coffin would he seemed a bed of long, living grasses, the tree trunks and hanging leafy branches carved into the walls of the crypt had been crafted with such delicacy that they seemed to fall away into the distance, row upon row Chert almost felt he could walk into the carving toward the