CHAPTER 20 #2
Callagh returned after my meal to sit with me.
Though I would have preferred time to myself, I didn’t have the heart to tell her.
I collected a few dyes and a fabric swatch from the black table in the lesson room and set them up in my chamber.
My mind wandered as we worked. So much had happened in the past day and a half.
It was strange to think that only yesterday morning I had been upset over a few harsh words from my challenger.
“Do you know much of that Meralda woman?” I asked while plotting out a test pattern.
“No,” Callagh answered, giving me a look. “She’s a bit older than me, and we don’t revolve in the same circles.”
I nodded, but I could tell there was something she wasn’t saying.
“She’s been rather nasty to me,” I tried.
Callagh nodded. “A streak of malice in her, to be sure. I heard Dane asked her to return to Cról, where her family lives.”
“Any particular reason?”
“Great Dragon, you’ve heard the rumors, haven’t you?”
I hadn’t heard anything, but she was now vibrating with the effort to keep whatever it was in. She just needed a tiny shove. I shrugged with what I hoped came off as nonchalance and said, “I may have.”
The dam burst. “Resorting to poison! I would never have imagined. And with her station and former title—no wonder Dane stripped it from her. He probably doesn’t have the evidence to charge her, or she’d be in a prison cell already. I wish she were.”
“It was her?” I asked, unable to stop myself. “She tried to poison me?”
“It looks that way, but I don’t think we’ll ever know for sure.”
Silence fell again. After a few minutes, I tried a different tactic: bold straightforwardness. “What do you think of Eldreth?”
Callagh looked away. Perhaps she was expecting a telling-off. “Why do you ask, my lady?”
“No opinion? I assumed you’d have one after that little stunt earlier.”
“I don’t see anything wrong with planning you a little alone time, my lady.”
“Ah, is that what they’re calling it now?”
“Oh, well,” Callagh made a show of rearranging my dye bottles and inspecting one of my brushes. “I can’t claim to be sorry for doing something kind for you.”
I swirled my brush in some of the alcohol Wep brought me from the market to cleanse it and selected a new color.
“Did it go well, at least?”
“Callagh, it’s not meant to be.”
“Don’t say that, my lady. There’s clearly something between you. I can see it, Bracht can see it—”
“Now there’s something to talk about. Spending a lot of time with Bracht lately, hmm?”
Callagh’s face bypassed red and went straight to fuchsia. I didn’t need my second sight to read her feelings. “I don’t know what you mean, my lady.”
“Oh, don’t you?” I grinned. “Tell me, while you two were scheming this little plan, where were you both? A bit of free time?”
“Serae!” she hissed.
“Spend it in any way you’d care to share?”
“Okay, okay!” She jumped from her chair and paced the room. “Your point’s taken.”
I cackled as Callagh’s scowl deepened. “You like him, though, don’t you?”
“The lives of humans are dreadfully dull.”
“Hush you.”
“I’m restless. Send her away. There is much for you to learn.”
“Patience.”
“Fine, keep shedding greenery. Or worse.”
Callagh sighed. “I do. Don’t take this the wrong way or anything, but reálti rarely marry. It’s just easier to remain unattached in our line of work. As your reálta, I’ve pledged myself to you. Forming lasting attachments to others can lead to a lot of…difficulties.”
Guilt crept through me and settled low in my gut.
Callagh had pledged her life to me, meanwhile I had been planning to run back to Inra the first chance I got.
Something in me shifted. I had already failed in securing Gerta the life she wanted.
I would not let that happen again. “We’ll change the rules, then.
We’ll make sure that you can have both.”
“Do you mean it?”
I nodded.
Callagh flung herself into me, spilling dye all over my practice square and nearly upending us both. “Thank you, my lady. Thank you so much.”
“Right.” I straightened. “If I’m going to be dana, I’m making some changes around here. First, knock it off with the my ladies in private. If you need to use the title in public, fine, but when it’s us, my name is Serae.”
“Got it.” She beamed at me.
“Next, I need you to arrange a meeting with the tailor. We have things to discuss.”
“Lanh Migram? Not what I was expecting, but okay.”
“And third, no more plotting between you and Bracht. I want you to spend time with him because you want to, not as some excuse.”
Again, she nodded. “I’m sorry about that. I truly thought you two got on.”
“We do. We get on a bit too well,” I admitted, rubbing my face in my hands and probably getting dye all over myself. “That’s the problem.”
THAT NIGHT, I lay in bed sleepless, sinking deeper and deeper into my wallowing. My bed was threatening to become a pile of leaves.
“Enough,” Vaya’la commanded. “Get up. We begin now.”
I rose and sat at the end of my bed.
“Close your eyes. We start simple. Imagine your favorite flower. See it in your mind’s eye. Then, hold out your hand, and make it.”
What utter nonsense.
“Try,” she chided.
I closed my eyes and thought of the little star jasmine that had riddled my bath water.
They grew along the archway in the manor gardens.
There was a bench beneath them where I could sit in the sun and read, surrounded by their beautiful scent.
Those were rare times of peace for me. I focused hard on those tiny blossoms. I held out my hand and pushed something into it.
I opened my eyes. My palm was empty.
“Try again.”
With a sigh, I closed my eyes and began visualizing again. And again. And again. I tried for several hours. I thought of every flower, herb, and plant I could remember. I tried standing, sitting, lying down.
“We will figure out a way. Do not be discouraged.”
“Haven’t you done this before?” I shot back at Vaya’la.
“It’s different for each of you, Small One. Open your senses and feel. Claim your emotions. Many first touch the power through fury, but not so for you, I think.”
“I’m fucking sick of being different,” I said aloud.
My mind flooded with images. “Is this you?” I asked, but they pushed everything else away.
It was Wep, standing on the dais at my Sun Trial, looking radiant.
I gasped. It was the first time I’d seen for certain the red of his hair.
The first time I hadn’t been the only one in a room with locks of flame and fire.
It was Wep, smiling at me after strength training, when I finally learned to balance.
It was Wep, sleeveless in the flickering firelight, moving like a force of strength and grace and perfection.
It was Wep, shining with pure, white lifelight before he kissed me in my room, in my bed, against my new favorite tree.
It was Wep, smiling at me like I was the one made of pure lifelight and engulfing me in his strong arms.
Warmth, like sunlight on a summer day, filled me from the inside out.
It started in my chest and spread through every inch of my body.
When it reached my fingertips, heat surged from my palms. I opened my eyes.
Jasmine petals littered the floor and bed around me.
They were falling from my hair and tumbling out of my palms. That feeling of pure, unhindered joy burst through me, and I laughed aloud as more flowers cascaded from my skin.
I opened my second sight, and each one shone with a tiny bit of starlight.
“Good.” Her praise was everything. “This is the key.”
It was Wep. Wep was the key. Not Tam, not Eldreth, Wep. My heart cracked into a thousand shards of glass within my chest. The flowers decayed to dust before my eyes. I fell to the floor in a puddle of my own misery. Tears pooled in my eyes and rained down onto the ashes of my ruined happiness.
“Do not despair, Small One. The future is ours for the making.”
I only cried harder, for she could not have been more wrong.
THE NEXT day, after two sleepless nights, I didn’t rise with the sun. Callagh brought me meals, which I told her to leave on the table and then ignored. My stomach was in knots. Eating felt impossible. Callagh tried multiple times to entice me out, but all I did was withdraw further into myself.
“Should I get Wep?” She asked that evening, desperation in her voice.
“No. Not him.”
How could I ever face him again? It was one thing to want him, but knowing that he alone brought me more joy than any other, that he was the key to tapping into my source—it was more than I could bear. My life would never be bound to Wep’s, and yet, in a twisted, gut-wrenching way, it already was.
I sent her away and wept.
When most of the following day had passed in solitude, I rose, sick of sitting with my thoughts.
I had nothing to do, so I washed, collected a clean shirt, and made my way to the kitchen.
I clutched my little spice box under one arm.
Bypassing the Main Hall, I went straight to the side entrance where trays were ordered.
Kish peeked at me through the window, then leaned all the way out.
“You’ve not been eating.”
“I know, I’m sorry.”
She thumped a meaty fist against the counter. “I’ll make you anything you like. A nice roll with jam? I’ve got an elderberry that’ll suit you nicely.”
“Just tea?”
“Hmm…how about chamomile?”
“Perfect. Could I throw a few things in the mug before you pour?”
That earned me a healthy dose of side-eye, but Kish stepped away and returned with a mug.
I threw in a pinch of lavender, some dried, crushed rose petals, and a small sprig of lemon balm.
She eyed me again, but this time, with an unmistakable glint.
A few minutes later, she came back with a small steaming pot and three plain biscuits on a tray.
“Eat all three.” She nodded at me. “It’ll settle the stomach.”
“You’re a dream. How can I thank you?” I took the proffered tray.