That thought remained unvoiced but it haunted the room, nonetheless.
“Why would I not wish to return?” Jelena’s gaze lingered on Ashinji and Hatora. “Why would I choose death over life with my husband and child?”
“We elves believe that when we die, we go to dwell in Paradise, gathered to the bosom of the One Goddess. The afterlife is beautiful, peaceful…” Ashinji paused and raised a hand to cover his eyes. He sat very still for several heartbeats, then turned to her, his face filled with such despair, Jelena’s breath stopped.
“After I plunge the knife into your heart, you may not want to come back to me,” he said.
“What do you mean?” Jelena could feel all sensation trickling from her limbs, leaving them numb, immovable.
“The Kirians need someone to strike the killing blow at precisely the right moment,” Ashinji whispered in a torn voice. “I am to wield the knife, my love.”
Jelena swallowed hard. The room tilted, then righted itself, then tilted again. For a few heartbeats, blackness closed in on her and a foul, freezing wind tore through her. She heard a fearsome sound, as if from a great distance-the grinding squeal of metal scraping against metal. A sickening wave of savage emotion hit her-rage, arousal, anticipation, hunger…
Jelena awoke with a scream. She looked up to see Ashinji’s face floating above her, stricken. She felt the scratch of woven mats upon her back through the fine cotton of her tunic. Her mouth tasted of metal.
Somehow, she had ended up on the floor.
“Jelena! What happened?”
Jelena had never heard such fear in Ashinji’s voice. She pushed herself up to a sitting position.
“I’m all right,” she mumbled. She coughed and wiped her streaming eyes and nose on her sleeve. “I…I think I just had some kind of…of vision.”
“Goddess’ tits,” Ashinji muttered as he helped her back to her seat on the couch. Hatora wailed and thrashed in her grandmother’s arms.
“Jelena, tell us what you saw,” Taya commanded over the screeching baby.
“Whatever you saw, it obviously terrified you, pet,” Sonoe said. She sat beside Jelena and clasped her hands. “You’ve gone completely white!”
Jelena frowned, trying to recapture the essence of the vision. “I heard an awful sound, like metal ripping,” she whispered She paused and her nose wrinkled. “There was a smell like the stink from a garbage pit. I think…no, I’m certain it was the Nameless One. He knows I’m here and he knows what we’re doing, what we’re going to try to do. He’s certain he will defeat us.” She looked at Sonoe. “How did he find me? We’ve been so careful! I thought all of you were shielding me from him.”
“We have been, pet,” Sonoe replied, her pretty mouth twisted in a frown, “but the Nameless One has known of our plans from the beginning. He’s been awaiting the return of the Key since the time of his imprisonment. He knew when the Key returned, the Kirians would have no choice but to perform the Sundering. What we’ve done up ’til now is conceal your exact location and the time and place of the Ritual, in order to catch him off-guard. Our greatest hope of success lies with surprise, though perhaps we’ve lost that now.”
“Sonoe is right,” Taya confirmed.
“Gods, my head is throbbing!” Jelena muttered in Soldaran. She rubbed her temples, wishing she could crawl into bed, curl up in Ashi’s arms, and forget everything.
“This vision of Jelena’s means we can wait no longer,” Amara said.
“I agree,” Gran responded. “We’ve run out of time. We must perform the Ritual now.”
“What? Do you mean now as in right
“Son!” Amara snapped. “The Nameless One knows Jelena’s whereabouts. We can no longer delay!”
Even as she asked herself those questions, she already knew the answers. The weak and powerless often served as tools of the powerful precisely because they could do nothing else. The accident of her blood had made of her a perfect tool and pawn of mighty forces. She had no choice but to accept her destiny.
“Ashi, if the Kirians say we must do this now, then we must.” She stood and the others rose with her.
“I’m ready,” she said and clasped Ashinji’s hand.
Jelena bent to kiss her father’s brow in farewell, then allowed Ashinji to lead her from the bedchamber. Her eyes were dry for she had no more tears left. She had shed the last ones while saying goodbye to Hatora.
The sweet smell of her body, the softness of her skin; these memories of her baby, along with that of Ashinji’s touch, were the things Jelena most wanted to carry with her into death. When at last she could bring herself to let go, she had relinquished the child to Eikko’s waiting arms.
“Look after my daughter, Eikko, until my husband and my mother-in-law return,” she had instructed with as little emotion in her voice as she could manage. The hikui servant girl knew nothing specific, but she was no fool. As soon as she had taken Hatora into her arms, she gulped and shuddered as fat tears rolled from her brown eyes.
“Hush, Eikko, please!” Jelena had admonished gently. “You’ll upset the baby even more than she already is.” As she turned from her daughter for the last time, she heard in her mind the bird-like sound of Hatora calling to her. She had not dared to respond, for fear she would lose all courage.
He strode alongside her now, his arm linked with hers. The
Behind them walked Gran and Amara, each woman carrying a cloth-wrapped bundle in her arms. Sonoe had stayed behind for a few extra moments alone with the king, but had promised to catch up. She would bring the White Griffin Ring.
Taya led them at a brisk pace along a series of hallways and down two flights of stairs before stopping in front of a set of doors carved with the likenesses of figures from elven mythology.
“The library?” Jelena asked.
