cool stones of her room, partially on the lap of her dead lover. Crying.
She wanted to move her head. The wetness from her tears pressed against her face, but so did the warmth of his skin. True, living warmth. She was sure of it, even though she doubted it each time she felt the pulse beat against her temple. Was that Hanish or herself? His life, or hers?
His voice measured the passing of time for her. He talked. She did not listen to everything he said. She faded in and out as other thoughts tried to carry her away. He kept on, and at some point she realized she had been listening to him talk his way through his life. That was good, to hear about him instead of her. He claimed to have loved his boyhood. It had been a time of such promise. His father and brothers alive, so much to do, what dreams they had. The future gleamed with righteous promise, everyone he loved intact around him. Back then, he had yet to come under the service of the Tunishnevre. “I was innocent, and hungry for war. I was a boy, like Aaden. That changed, though.”
He told of the time just before his manhood rites when he had danced a Maseret with Maeander. He was eleven, his brother just a little younger. It was the last time Hanish would ever perform the duel without it being to the death. They fought before the veterans in the Calathrock, a great honor accorded both of them, but mostly for him as his father’s firstborn and chosen. What he remembered about it was that he realized during the dance that Maeander was better than he-faster and stronger and more focused. He pressed Hanish to the edge of his ability and stopped there. He nicked Hanish’s nostril, yes, leaving a small scar for all the rest of his days, but he did not embarrass him, as he could have.
“I don’t think anyone knew,” Hanish said, “not even my father. I left there wondering why I had been born first. Maeander was more a Meinish warrior than I ever was. Thasren knew it. That’s why he did what he did, to secure his name in another way.”
He paused a moment and they both listened as someone moved about one of the adjoining rooms, making noise enough, Corinn knew, to remind her that the living world went on outside her room. She did not need to be reminded.
“Do you know what I did? That night I stole into his room and woke him from sleep with a knife to his back. I made him swear to never betray me. I made him swear on pain of death. He did swear, and he never betrayed me. In the years we had together, he was my strongest ally. Part of me always expected a knife in the back from him, but he stayed true. I wish I had thanked him for that. I couldn’t say it to him, though. I could not say, ‘Brother, I know that you consider killing me every day and taking over in my place. Thank you for not doing it.’ I wish I could have. Now, in death, honesty like that seems such an obvious good. In life it’s not as clear, but that’s only because in life you always think you have more time. You always believe that things that don’t matter do matter.”
He stroked Corinn’s hair, drew it back from her face with his fingers. “Another thing I wish is that I hadn’t put that blade to his back that night. What if I didn’t need to? What if he would never have betrayed me of his own accord? I can’t know, not after I’d told him I would rather kill him than have him best me. There,” Hanish said, raising his voice a little, “you’ve had my confession. More than one. I could go on, but my tales are of the dead. It’s the living that matter. Are you ready to discuss the living?”
Corinn thought of Jason. She had killed Jason. The spell that ripped the flesh from his body began in her mouth. Jason, who had never been anything but loyal. Jason, who had taught her to read, to know the map of the world. Jason, who had made her recite the names of Acacia’s monarchs from Edifus onward. Jason, whom she had set on the fool’s errand of creating a horse lore for a people who had never truly had such a lore. Jason, who was going to write the mythology of her winged riders… He was dead, as were so many others. All from a spell that began at her lips.
No, Corinn thought, tell me more things about the dead.
And so he did. He talked on.
T he light had changed enough to foretell the coming dawn when Hanish said, “It’s time.”
Corinn sat at her dressing table again, staring at herself.
Hanish stood behind her, both his hands resting on her shoulders now. “I know it’s not enough time, but it’s all we have. There are people waiting for you. People you love.”
Aaden, Corinn thought.
“Yes. He needs you to go to him.”
I can’t.
“Of course you can. You must. He’s your son. Think of it as if you were he. Would you rather see your mother alive-no matter the curse set upon her-than be kept from her?”
The knock on the door was gentle, as it had been every hour of the long night. As she had done on each previous occasion, Corinn ignored it. She did not even turn her head. Hanish did, though. “They want you,” he whispered.
She shook her head.
Whoever it was moved away after a moment.
“Aaden wants you.”
Look at what he’ll see. She drew her fingers across her not-mouth, elegant, gracefully for a few seconds, before she snapped her hand closed. I’m repellent.
“If this had happened to your mother, would you find her repellent? You saw your mother in death. You saw the bones of her dying hands and knew that they were yours. Remember that? Can you imagine not having that memory and not knowing that about yourself? What if she had forbidden you from sitting with her in her final days?”
That silenced her excuses. How did he know about that? Her mother’s hands; her hands. The same. The memory of that had always haunted her. No, she could not imagine having lived without that knowledge. As sad a memory as it was, nothing else had made it as clear to her who she was. Her mother’s daughter.
It’s not the same, Corinn thought. My mother fell ill. A sickness took her. She had no part in creating it. This, though… I brought on .
She paused there, waiting. For what? For Hanish to refute that statement. For him to say it was not her fault, that she was blameless. A victim. She wanted all those things, but Hanish did not offer them. She knew he would not, and that if he had, he would be lying. The curse that was her face and the horror that was the Santoth free in the world were part of the song she had been singing. The moment she felt Nualo’s spell burrow into her flesh she knew it. The spell itself. She recognized it. It was a part of the music that swirled inside her head. It was as akin to her as her hand had been to her mother’s.
I brought The Song back, and with it came evil.
Hanish leaned down, his gray eyes meeting her reflection’s gaze. “Tell him that. It is a bitter lesson, but it’s the one you have to tell. He will need to hear it, and only you can explain it. There is a way to speak to him. Corinn, there is. And not just to him. You have to speak to everyone, to Aliver and Mena, to the world.”
I can’t.
“You can. Listen, believe me on this. You have to be stronger now than you ever were before. And you were strong before, love. You were. I know that better than anyone.” He tried a smile, but it slipped away almost before it had started. “I would not have loved you so much if you hadn’t been. Nor would I have died as I did. Remember who you became when I betrayed you. You didn’t fold in on yourself. You fought. You struck. You outmaneuvered a world of ambitious men who wanted things from you. You can do that again. And even more. In the days that we have left, you must become the queen you were destined to be. Not the queen you envisioned, but the queen you are fated to become. The two things are never the same. Trust me on that as well. You won’t get another chance. That’s all there is to it.”
Her eyes brimmed with moisture. She twisted away and rose. Hanish moved with her toward the center of the room, where she stopped, unsure where she meant to go. I thought… I thought that I would meet the Auldek. Before my gathered army I would fly out to face them. My people would watch as I flew on Po, singing, hurling down spells that would destroy them all. I was going to save Acacia. It was to be legend. It would have been… magnificent.
“Yes, it would’ve been that,” Hanish said.
Now I’ve failed them.
“You’ll have to find some other way to be magnificent. You have a choice to make. You can take this curse that you’ve received and you can give it life. You can let it eat at you until it destroys you, and all you love and hate with you at the same time. That outcome is within your power. I hope you turn from it. There is another way, the
