Voice of the Gods

7

Tyve had visited the cave twice more in the past week, apparently only to see if Auraya and Jade needed any food or help. Jade had thanked him politely and sent him away with a few of the cures she had made for people in his village.

We made, Auraya corrected as she continued grinding up the dried leaves Jade had left for her. Though Jade gathered the ingredients, venturing out for hours each day to find them, Auraya had spent much of her time preparing them. The woman was out foraging for cure ingredients now. Sometimes Auraya wondered if there was some special purpose for the growing supply of cures at the back of the room, or if Jade simply hated to be idle.

I wonder if she hesitates whenever she returns to the cave, trying not to imagine that I’ve betrayed her and one of the White is here waiting for her?

Auraya smiled, then sobered. Perhaps that was why Jade had skimmed her thoughts. Perhaps she had done it every time she was about to re-enter the cave, to ensure her student hadn’t betrayed her.

It was impossible not to worry about what Jade might have read from her mind. Having failed to extract a promise from Jade that she would not spy on Auraya’s thoughts again, Auraya was determined to achieve a strong, stable mind shield as soon as possible. She was finding it easier to hold it in place now, sometimes even forgetting that it was there. Soon she would be able to leave.

Before she did, however, she wanted to ask Jade some questions.

The jar of ground leaves was nearly full by the time Jade returned. The woman said nothing as she set her buckets beside the bed and sat down. She took a lump of what looked like rock from one bucket and began to break off and scratch out areas of a whitish substance into a jar.

“What is that?”

“Poison,” Jade replied. “At least in anything but the tiniest dose.”

“Do you often have a use for poison?”

“Surprisingly rarely. I’ve used poison only three times in the last thousand years. It’s the kind of death you reserve for truly unpleasant people.”

The other woman spoke so lightly, Auraya wasn’t sure if she was joking or not. She paused, then decided she didn’t want to know.

“So you’ve lived a thousand years,” she asked instead.

“At least.”

“You don’t know for certain?”

“No. I used to keep count, but after a while it became painfully obvious that the calendars people used to count the years were wrong, and then they made a great mess of recalculating. I moved around so much I lost count, but by then it didn’t seem to matter any more.”

“What is it like, living that long?”

Jade looked up at Auraya and shrugged. “Not as thrilling as you might think,” she said. “Most of the time you don’t think about it. Your thoughts are taken up with immediate concerns: what you will eat today, where you will sleep. You take the knowledge you’ve gathered over the years for granted. When you need it, it’s there, and you don’t often think back to when you learned it.

“Now and then something makes you stop and consider the past, and that’s when you are most conscious of your age. You are aware of changes that no one else notices, not even historians. You also see that some things never change. People will always fall in and out of love. Ambitious men and women will always crave power. Greedy men and women will always hoard wealth. Mortals will be mortals.”

“So can immortals change in ways mortals can’t?”

Jade looked thoughtful. “Yes and no. Immortality doesn’t make us smarter. Experience does. We try not to make the same mistake twice, but memories fade and some memories fade faster than others. And there are always new mistakes to make.” She grimaced. “Sometimes we want to make the same mistakes. Love, for instance. In falling in love, mortals always risk great pain; for immortals that pain is guaranteed. Either love dies, or those you love do.”

A hint of bitterness had entered Jade’s voice. Auraya felt a pang of sympathy.

“Is the pain worth enduring?”

Jade smiled humorlessly. “Yes, so long as you don’t suffer too often. I’ve borne children and watched them die as well. That was even more painful, yet I’ve done it more than once.”

“So immortals can have children?”

“Of course.” Jade frowned. “Why wouldn’t we?” Then her eyes widened in realization. “The gods made you unable to conceive while you were a White, didn’t they?”

Auraya shrugged. “We couldn’t have devoted ourselves to our work if we were bearing and raising children.”

“The gods aren’t ones for recreational time, are they? Still, children would have made you vulnerable. Believe me, I know how vulnerable children can make you, if they’re used against you.”

“What happened?”

Jade shook her head. “I would rather not speak of it. Some memories are best kept buried.”

Auraya nodded and considered how she could change the subject. “Were your children sorcerers?”

“A few. Some had little Gifts at all. None became immortal. Not strong enough. I don’t think any immortal has borne an immortal child.”

“Not even if both parents were immortal?”

“I’ve not heard of any who had such a parentage.”

“Perhaps that would make the difference.”

Jade shrugged, then she turned to stare at Auraya. “Are you planning any such experiment soon? I had the impression you weren’t that enamoured of Mirar.”

Auraya frowned at the woman, wondering at the sudden change in her mood.

“No.”

“Does Mirar know about you and Chaia?” Jade asked.

“Of course not.”

“Do you intend to tell him?”

“Do you?”

Jade put down her work. “Yes. Mirar deserves to know that you don’t return his feelings.”

“He knows,” she told Jade.

“If you don’t care for him, why would you care if he knew who your lover is?”

“Was,” Auraya corrected. “Because that information is private.”

“For better or worse, it’s no longer a secret. I may as well tell him before he finds some other stupid thing to do out of love for you.”

Auraya sighed. “Tell him, then. I’d hate to take the blame for his habit of getting himself into trouble - again.”

Jade’s eyes narrowed. “You really don’t care for him, do you?”

“I loved Leiard, not Mirar.”

“He is Leiard. Leiard is part of him.”

Auraya forced herself to meet Jade’s eyes. “Leiard was never real. I can’t turn from the little I have left of my life for a made-up piece of a person buried somewhere within a man I don’t know. And after all you’ve said about love being a mistake, I don’t see why you expect me to feel any differently.”

Jade stared at Auraya for a long time, then she looked away.

“I think what infuriates me is that I agree with you,” she said in a fierce, quiet voice. “I would do the same. I think I want you to love him simply to ease my fears. If you did, you wouldn’t harm us. Instead I have to believe Mirar. He swears you will not. Fool that he is, he has never misjudged anyone in the past - not even when dazzled by love.” She raised a finger in warning. “Don’t prove him wrong.”

Auraya said nothing. Dropping her rock back into the bucket, Jade sealed the jar of white powder. She rose