'But being of something is not the same as being that thing,' I pointed out. 'There is a difference, Herakleio. You are of the Stessoi, and you are a Stessa. You are these walls; your bones are made of them. It's your home.'
He was clearly perplexed.
'I am my home,' I said. 'Where I go, that is my home. My walls are built of air. There is no substance-no brick, no mortar-except the substance I give them, and that is air. A circle drawn in the sand.' I hitched a shoulder. 'A man born in and of a house doesn't truly comprehend what it is to be a house. Because there is no need.'
'But,' he said, 'you have that woman in it.'
That woman. Not a woman. That one. Specifically.
Herakleio understood semantics better than I'd believed.
'Because she chooses to be in it,' I said finally; and that in itself was so different from what I would have said three years before, when every part of me knew a woman was in a man's house because he put her there.
'Does she build them of air as well, those walls?'
'The walls of my home?' I shook my head. 'Del is my brick. My mortar.'
His intensity went up a notch. 'And if she left your house, would those walls collapse?'
This time it was my turn to stare hard across the horizon. 'I don't know.'
For him, for that question, the answer was enough.
TWENTY-SIX
A SPIRE OF stone tore ahole in the sky, punching upward like a fist in challenge to the gods. I poised upon the foremost knuckle of that fist, aware of the breath of those gods caressing naked flesh.
Caress. Keraka. The living embodiment of the gods-descended, sealed by spell or wish into the infant's flesh before it even knew the world, was yet safe in its mother's womb. All the colors of wine, all the shapes of the mind, staining the fragile shell before the sun so much as could warm it.
But there was none on my body. I was free of the blemish also called caress; was nothing more within or of myself than stranger, than foreigner, lacking the knowledge of gods-descended, the gifts of the Stessoi, the birthright of the Eleven.
What was I but a man born of a womb unknown to any save the woman and the man who together made a child, but who could or would not nurture that child; so that he was raised a slave in the hyorts of the Salset?
The spire beneath me shook. Bare feet grasped at stone. Wind beat into my eyes, blinded me with tears.
Skandi, they said, had been smoke made solid, then broken apart again.
If I was not to lose the spire, if I was not to let it shake me off its fist, I would have to sacrifice my own. Not to die, but to survive; not to destroy flesh, but to preserve it.
There was wind enough to do it, if I let it carry me.
There was power enough to fly, if I let myself try.
I stretched, leaned, felt the wind against my palms. Closed my eyes so I could see.
Was lifted-
'Tiger?' A hand came down on bunched, sweat-sheened shoulder. 'Tiger-wake up.'
The spire fell away, crumbled to dust beneath me, took me down with it –
'Tiger.'
–and all the bones shattered, all the flesh split into pulp-
'Tiger-wake up!'
I lurched, twisted, sat up as the fingers closed tightly into muscle taut as wire. I stared into darkness, aware of the noise of my breathing, the protests of my heart.
The metri's heart was ailing. And I might be her grandson.
'What is it?' Del asked.
All around me on the ground the stone of the spire was broken.
She got up then, crawled over me, got out of bed, fumbled around in the darkness, hissed a brief oath as she fumbled again. But I heard the metallic strike-and-scratch, smelled the tang, saw the first flare of spark as she used flint and steel to light the candle in its pottery cup.
She held the cup up high so the light spilled over me. 'Gods,' she whispered, 'what's wrong with you?'
I blinked then, and squinted, then shook my head to banish the visions. 'Bad dream.'
'You look scared out of your wits,' Del said dubiously. 'Rather like the stud when he's really spooked: all white of eye, and stiff enough to shatter his bones.'
Shattered bones.
'Don't,' I said simply, then swung my legs over the edge of the bed so my feet were flat on the floor. I hunched there, elbows set into thighs, the heels of my hands scouring out my eyes. 'Just-a bad dream.'
Del set the candle-cup down on the linens chest, then came to sit beside me. 'What was it?'
I shook my head. 'I don't know.' I looked up then, still squinting against the flame. 'I've had rather a lot to think about, lately.'
'Magic,' she said grimly.
I began to object-magic was not something I gave much thought to-then refrained. Magic was part of it; Nihkolara was more than priest, and he had proved it. Time and time again, simply by putting his hand on me. Time and time again my body had warned me before he touched me, and I had refused to listen.
Some people, the priest-mage had said, were more sensitive to magic. It made them ill, he said, like certain foods or herbs.
'Magic,' I muttered, and closed my hand around the necklet with its weight of sandtiger claws, and one silver ring.
Del was silent a long moment. Then, very quietly, 'Do you believe he's right?'
I knew whom she meant. 'No.'
'In your heart.'
The pounding, spasming heart. 'No.'
'All right-in your soul.'
I laughed a little. 'Just how many pieces of my anatomy do you want me to consult before you get the answer you want?'
'How about in your earlobe?'
I grinned, leaned into her with a shoulder even as she leaned back. 'He has rings in his earlobes, our blue- headed first mate.'
She nodded. 'You always swear you don't believe in magic-'
'I said I don't like it. There's a difference.'
'So, you mean you don't believe in this magic. This specific magic.'
'I don't necessarily believe I have it, no.'
'But-'
'But,' I said, overriding her, 'if what Nihko says is true, it doesn't mean I have it. It means I'm sensitive to it.'
'But he has called you ioSkandic.'
'I suspect Nihko has called me a lot of things.'
'Besides all that. You have a history of personal experience with magic. Shall I name all the incidents?'
'Let's not,' I suggested; likely it would fill six volumes to do so. 'But reacting to magic doesn't mean I have any magic myself.'
