Kaleb
Gorin, age eight, is chasing a rubber ball through the darkened streets of the Sault. It is his best toy, one he was given for his birthday by his cousin Mez, who is a gate guard. Being a gate guard makes him one of the most important people in the Sault. This, according to ’s mother, makes a very important person, too—which is why she also tells him that he must work extra hard to stay out of trouble. The Gorins have a reputation to maintain.
His mother would certainly not have approved of him racing through the streets after dark had fallen, whooping as his ball bounced off the walls of houses and grown-ups leaned out of windows to shake their fists at him. And she would have approved even less of him climbing the wall of the Shulamat garden because his ball had bounced over it. thought that probably didn’t matter since there was very little likelihood that she would ever find out.
It is easy enough to climb the wall; the crumbly old stone is full of handholds and footholds. He is already at the top when he hesitates. It has never occurred to him that there might be people in the garden; it is late, past moonrise, and most have gone inside after the evening prayer. But there they are: two people sitting together on a stone bench, surrounded by flowers and greenery.
The lamps caught in the tree branches illuminate them. freezes when he realizes who they are. One is the big blond man who answered all the children’s questions that day. The Exilarch. And the other is the woman who calls herself the Goddess. Lin Caster, wearing a dull-gray dress, her bright, fire-colored hair in braids.
has long known Lin as a physician, someone likely to turn up at his house when he is ill and force vile-smelling teas on him. But lately she has become something else, the subject of grown-up whispers and stares. does not understand how she can be the Goddess when the Goddess is a legend, a pillar of fire and magic, and Lin is quite clearly a person. But it is the sort of question that might get you smacked, so he doesn’t ask it.
He is much more afraid of the Exilarch. His mother has told him that Aron Benjudah is the most important of all the Ashkar, even more important than the Maharam, and that he has come to the Sault to make sure everyone is behaving themselves. If the Exilarch were to look up and see now, he would surely report his naughtiness to the Maharam—or worse, to ’s mother.
Slowly, flattens himself to the top of the wall, like a lizard hoping to be overlooked by a bird of prey. Below him, Lin Caster tugs on the end of one of her long braids and says, “Oh, I don’t know. I don’t think it would be so bad to have people be afraid of you, would it? As long as it meant they didn’t interfere with what you needed to be doing.”
The Exilarch is facing away from her, and sees him smile. It’s a real smile, the kind that has fondness in it as well as amusement. But when the Exilarch turns back to Lin, his face is a blank. “I am not so sure,” he says. “Have you ever wondered why the Malgasi turned against their Ashkar?”
The Malgasi. knows this name, a sort of curse, but he is not entirely sure who these people are or what they have done that was so terrible.
Lin seems to consider this. “No. Mariam has told me what it was like, but there seemed no reason in their hatred. More as if they were just—a nest of snakes.”
“You know the Queen there is Iren Belmany,” he says. “And the heir to the throne is her daughter, Elsabet. But there was a Prince, an heir before Elsabet. Prince Andras of House Belmany.”
“But he is no longer the heir?”
The Exilarch shakes his head. He is very blond, his skin and hair all turned to bronze by the sun. thinks enviously of all the adventures he must have had. “When Andras was a young man, he fell in love with an Ashkar woman. He was determined to learn all he could about her people, and she was eager to share her life with him. Of course she told him of the Goddess and her promised return. In all innocence he passed what he thought was a charming story along to his family, but they were not charmed. They were horrified.”
Lin looks very surprised. “Would they not dismiss the tale as harmless folklore? They have their own Gods, their own tales. They do not believe in ours.”
“House Belmany are unusual. They have always been superstitious, always had harsh punishments for the use of magic. Ashkar magic was always strictly regulated in Malgasi. So you might say it was in their nature to believe.” The Exilarch leans back on his hands, a disarmingly ordinary human gesture. “They determined among themselves that if there was even a chance that this was true—that an Ashkar woman could rise with the power of sorcery and challenge their authority—they must do what they could to stamp that possibility out.”
“But—”
“You must understand the power of legends, Lin. The Goddess is a Goddess if her people believe she is.”
squirms a little, uncomfortably. He knew his own mother did not believe Lin was really the Goddess Returned. “She’s just a little thing, not at all impressive,” she would say, even when Mez argued with her that they had all seen Lin use her power to burn the ships in the harbor. ( had not seen this; he had been sent to bed early that night and was still resentful.)
The Exilarch continues. “The Belmany Court began to target the Ashkar, and you know the rest. Your friend Mariam is one of those who escaped, but most did not.”
stirs again. He does not know what the Exilarch means, not exactly. He has heard stories of wolf-faced soldiers, of long rows of gallows where the dead hung like drying laundry. He has always thought they were just tales meant to frighten. Not real, like the magical animals that had disappeared with the Sundering: dragons and phoenixes and sea monsters.
“What happened to the Prince?” Lin’s face is pinched with real worry. “The one who loved the Ashkar girl?”
“He took his own life after she was murdered by the Wolfguards. It’s not a happy story, I’m afraid.”
In a quiet voice, Lin says, “I had never thought this destruction was brought on by love.”
The Exilarch looks at her and says something quiet, something has to lean sideways to hear. As he changes position, he loosens his grip and nearly tumbles off the wall. For a moment he is dizzy, clinging with his fingers to the stone wall under him. In that dizzy moment, he hears Lin cry out: He looks down to see her with her arms wrapped around her middle, her shoulders stiff with something that looks like pain.
“Fire,” hears her whisper. “I see a dark woman, and fire on the water—”
Aron Benjudah lays a hand on her shoulder. And in that moment, no longer sees before him the familiar figures of the Exilarch and the physician; he sees a woman wrapped in flames, her eyes like blank pearls, and beside her a great raven, with outstretched wings.
A moment later the vision is gone and is blinking in terror, his breath coming in small gasps. Looking down in fear, he sees only what he saw at first: the Exilarch with Lin beside him. The roaring in his ears blocks out their conversation. He begins to scrabble his way back down the wall, forgetting about retrieving his ball, forgetting about anything but getting away quickly.
The strangeness of the vision would haunt for many weeks. Ravens are not something he sees often, and they are mostly familiar illustrations from pictures in books of history. After all, in Castellane, the raven is a bird of ill omen, but to the Ashkar, the raven is the symbol of Judah Makabi, who had protected the Goddess in her most vulnerable time and led the Ashkar people to freedom.