Chapter 13
Thirteen
I ran for Viviana, blood thronging in my ears. Elinor had struck the bench and slid to the floor. Her mouth went slack, skin pale as bone. Life was draining out of her.
Viviana scrambled through the cabinets, grasping at bottles and potions.
“Find the others,” she said, her voice a sharp bell.
The sisterhood raced to Elinor’s side. Viviana brushed the hair from her face and dribbled a purple elixir into her mouth.
I stood back, shaking, helpless. There was talk of apoplexy, of some sort of blockage.
I watched Elinor’s chest expand with pierced breaths, her eyes wide and unmoving.
She was my first and only friend and the lone tether to the mother I never got to know.
I turned to Galehaut but he was not there.
As the sisterhood prayed around her, I whispered my own prayers, directed at no god in particular. They presented a cosmic negotiation.
Save Elinor, and I vow to harm no one.
In the moment, I believed I could uphold this vow. I would say or do anything to ensure my grandmother pulled through. I wonder if the gods laughed.
Prayers aside, the color slowly returned to Elinor’s face. Her eyes were filled with tears.
“Lancelot will carry her back to my cottage,” Viviana declared.
The rest of the sisterhood turned to me, as if they’d forgotten I was in the temple. One by one they passed by without speaking. Glitonea stopped at the threshold.
“Viviana.” She looked back over her shoulder.
“Yes?”
“There are things we need to discuss.”
Glitonea’s eyes narrowed to me.
Elinor would move into our cottage until further notice, taking my spot by the hearth.
She had spiked a fever and suffered paralysis.
I sat by her side, returning again and again to the music lesson, wondering if I had caused her undue strain.
Night fell and she ate some bread but the collapse had stolen her speech.
Viviana remained calm, but the sisterhood shrieked around our cottage, arguing about how best to treat her. Sebile wanted to bring Elinor back to the temple, while Ganieda insisted on a draft of betony. There were notions of a healing ceremony in the grotto, even the suggestion of Sorelois.
“Sorelois?” Viviana grew frustrated. “Why would we ever bring her there? She needs to rest. Out with all of you.”
Reluctantly, the sisterhood left. But a serious question remained. If Elinor died, who would take her place? My birth mother was dead. I had no siblings. Was I the last in our lineage? Was it up to me to produce a female heir?
Viviana was sipping a mint infusion and watching Elinor sleep. I rested a hand on her shoulder.
“Who will replace Elinor?” I asked.
“No one, my prince. She will be fine.”
“But one day she will not be.”
“That day is far in the future.”
“But when it comes. Is there another descendant in waiting?”
Viviana rubbed her nose, visibly flustered. “Why do you ask such things?”
“Because I need to know if I am the lone descendant. And if a female heir must flow through me.”
“You are young yet.” Viviana waved me off. “Do not trouble yourself with such things. Elinor will be fine and—”
“Viviana.”
She sighed. “We know of no other descendants for Elinor.”
My stomach turned. I tried to compose myself.
“Then it is settled. I must marry and produce a daughter. The fate of the sisterhood depends on it.”
Viviana scowled. “I have raised you better than this.”
“Than what?”
“Than to assume that our fate would depend on a man. We are in control of our destiny.”
“But what should happen if I do not sire a daughter?”
She opened her mouth to speak but hesitated.
There were things she wanted to tell me but had sworn to keep private.
I wouldn’t understand until later that I was always just a thread in their tapestry.
A mere component of a larger plan that Viviana was orchestrating even as we spoke. How foolish of me to assume otherwise.
“I need you,” she said, voice layered with exhaustion, “to trust me.”
Just then Galehaut came in. I had not seen him for many hours, and he had red circles around his eyes. Without speaking he approached Elinor’s bedside and ran a warm cloth across her blue hands.
Viviana and I spoke no more of my fate or the fate of the sisterhood. But as I watched Galehaut tend to Elinor, tears pricked my eyes. I wiped them away before anyone could see.
“We should let her rest,” Viviana said after a time. She kissed Elinor’s forehead and turned to me. “We’ve displaced you. Where shall you sleep?”
“I can lay a pallet in the loft. Or the library floor. I do not mind.” Though Elinor’s own home would be vacant, it was out of the question to stay in another descendant’s cottage alone. And Bagotta’s hut could barely accommodate her, let alone another.
“Yes,” Viviana said, rising from her spot by the hearth. “I shall grab a coverlet.”
“No,” said Galehaut. “I am staying in your room. And there is a second bed.”
Viviana contemplated this, her finger resting on her lower lip. But to Galehaut the decision seemed simple.
“You do not mind?” I asked.
“It depends,” he said, sweeping a strand of auburn hair off his forehead. “Do you snore?”
My bedroom was small and straightforward. Slanted walls. Thin square rug. A window facing the sea. I followed Galehaut inside. He had kept it pristine.
Two beds were tucked on either side of the window between the sloping rafters.
As I restuffed the spare mattress, I caught sight of the shelf below the window and flushed with embarrassment.
It was lined with my belongings. Rocks, shells, whittled driftwood, little figures tied with sea twine. Childish things.
We sat on opposite beds and pulled off our boots.
The silence between us felt heightened. The walls seemed to compress.
This was a different kind of proximity, one charged with a sharper awareness of our bodies.
I could hear his fingers unknotting his laces, hear the plonk of each shoe as he rested them side by side.
Or maybe I was hearing myself doing these things—a mirror.
I snuck a furtive glance. His body was taut like mine, but more muscular, and there was a paddedness to his strength.
He blew out the tallow candle and rolled onto his side.
From the rhythm of his breath, I could tell he’d fallen right to sleep.
I looked at his pale back, rising and falling in the moonlight, and felt things I had never felt before.
When, after many hours, I could not sleep, I went to the lake again. This time the sword’s vision was nothing more than a flicker.
A woman was riding a horse through a verdant valley.
She was the only one on the road, and the only one in the valley, which stretched all the way to the sea.
The sun was setting into the ocean, turning the green slopes of the valley purple and blue.
The woman rode slowly. Judging by the slump of her shoulders, she seemed weary.
But I could only see her from the back. She had long auburn hair, slightly darker than Galehaut’s, and she wore a fern-colored cloak.
Unlike the other visions, I had no sense of her thoughts or feelings. I had no idea who she was.
The vision sputtered out after a few seconds. The lakebed went still. Unlike the other scenes, this one offered no real insight. A splendid valley. A brilliant sunset. Despite its beauty the vision left me with a vague sense of distress, as if it were a memory I had not been meant to see.