Duskfall (37 page)

Then Lian grabbed her shoulders. Winter was surprised at how roughly he did it; he squeezed her so tightly her arms hurt, forcing her to look at him.

“You killed people, Winter,” he said, looking right into her eyes. “I watched you do it. I saw you take the frost. I know it wasn’t Nash; I helped him protect you. What you did… that ain’t something you just
come back from
. D’you realize that? D’you even realize what you did?”

His grip on her was tightening, his fingers digging into her skin. Winter wrenched herself away and slapped him, hard. She stood. She had to get away from him. How dare he bring up what happened in Navone?

“You’re envious,” she said.
That’s not true
. She didn’t even know why she was saying it. “You’re envious because frost affects me and not you.” He wasn’t. He loathed
faltira
, and he loathed her. She could see it in his eyes.

Lian just looked up at her sadly. The fight, whatever had made him shake her, seemed to have drained from him.

“You hear yourself?” he asked. “D’you even hear what you’re saying?”

Winter knew exactly what she was saying; it horrified her.

Lian shook his head. “I used to love you. You used to amaze me. The way you made those flower crowns when we were children, or the way you could steer your father’s boat when you were a little girl, so confident. The way you brushed your hair behind your ears drove me crazy. I used to look at you and marvel. But I don’t know you anymore. You even dress differently.”

“We
have
to dress differently, Lian. We’re in Roden, for Canta’s sake.”

Lian shrugged. “There’s more to it than that. There is for you, anyway. You’re a stranger now.”

“I’ve always been a stranger to you,” Winter whispered. “But I never had the strength to say so.” With the exception of her father, she had been a stranger to everyone, no matter how hard she tried.

Either Lian didn’t hear what she’d said, or he didn’t care. “What’s worse,” Lian said, “I see that look in your eyes. The look I once had, I see in you. It just ain’t for me.”

“I don’t love him,” Winter said. Knot was her husband, but that didn’t mean she loved him. She had known, ever since they were first engaged, that she didn’t love this man. She admired him, she was intrigued by him. But love?

“If that’s what you tell yourself, then I’m sorry for you,” Lian said.

Winter remained quiet. What could she say?

They remained there, in silence, for a moment.

“Knot might be a psimancer,” Lian said.

Winter looked up sharply.

“On the boat, that night when we first found him… your father made us promise not to say anything. But something happened. Objects moved of their own accord. I thought it was a daemon, but… Bahc explained things differently. I wanted to tell you earlier, but you wouldn’t let me. Now you know.”

Winter wasn’t sure what to think. Knot was a
psimancer
? A telenic, by the sound of it, if things had been moving of their own accord. Did
Knot
know? Was that one of the things he was keeping from her?

Lian stood. “If you don’t tell him soon, I will. You’re endangering everyone. Someone has to take responsibility for that, even if you won’t.” He walked towards the door, then stopped. “I hope you tell him yourself.”

Lian left her alone. Winter wanted to cry, to feel tears stream down her face. Or she wanted the anger. She wanted anything but this.

Silently, she reached into the pouch and pulled out a crystal, pressing it to her lips. She swallowed it, and in minutes she and all her pain were swallowed up, and Winter just sat there, floating on the verges of sensation.

“W
HAT DO YOU MEAN
you can’t read Old Khalic?” Jane asked incredulously. They were in the small room Knot had assigned them in the inn. Kovac stood guard at the door. Cinzia told him he needn’t be so formal, but he had insisted. She sat on one of the beds, staring up at Jane, who paced in front of her.

“I mean I
cannot read it
. Why does it even matter, Jane?”

Jane stared at her, frowning. “I just do not know how I am expected to
translate
if I do not have someone who speaks Old Khalic. I thought you did, that’s why Canta told me that you were the one who needed to help translate it in the first place.”

“Translate? What are we supposed to be translating?”

“We are going to translate the Nine Scriptures.”

Cinzia blinked. In all the chaos of the Holy Crucible and the massacre in Navone, helping her family escape and deciding to go to Roden, Cinzia had completely forgotten.

Jane claimed to have found the Nine Scriptures.

“You… you brought it here?” Cinzia asked.

“Of course I did. I was not about to leave it in Navone.”

Cinzia’s curiosity was piqued. Jane could not have the real Nine Scriptures; such a thing was impossible. But whatever Jane
had
found…

Cinzia sighed. “Why would you think I could read Old Khalic?” she asked. “It’s not even an
option
at the seminary.”

Jane frowned at her. “There is no way for me to know that, is there? Why do they
not
teach Old Khalic at the seminary? The language is the heart of Canticism. Canta Herself spoke it. How can people hope to understand anything without at least attempting to learn it?” Jane mumbled something further under her breath.

“What was that?” Cinzia asked.

“The fact that they do
not
teach it seems more evidence that the Denomination itself is failing.”

Kovac shifted by the door. The conversation would be making him severely uncomfortable. Cinzia’s face flushed. The Denomination had its flaws, she was the first to admit it. Given what had happened in Navone, Cinzia was not sure she could ever go back to it. But the fact that her sister was so
blatantly
against it made her furious.

“Sorry,” Jane said, her voice softer. “That was unkind. I should not criticize something you have spent so much of your life working for.”

Cinzia rolled her eyes, but she appreciated the apology.

“I’m just having a hard time finding direction,” Jane said. “I’ve felt less connected since leaving Navone. I have not heard anything from Canta since I turned myself in to the Crucible. I know I—we—are supposed to translate the scriptures, but if you cannot read Old Khalic, I’ve no idea how to do it.”

Despite Cinzia’s confusion, she felt for Jane. Cinzia had been through it herself, in a way.

“I am sorry, too,” Cinzia said. “Things have been difficult for all of us.”

Jane sighed, and stopped pacing. Finally. It was driving Cinzia mad.

“You are right,” Jane said. “I am being selfish. All I can think about is what this means for me, how I can overcome my problems, when you have problems of your own.”

Not exactly what Cinzia had meant, but she couldn’t disagree; Jane
had
been selfish.

“I cannot imagine what it would be like to have lived your whole life as a priestess, only to come home to a family who seems to have abandoned everything you stood for. I am so sorry, Cinzia.”

“It is all right,” Cinzia found herself saying. Right now, Cinzia wanted to be at peace.

“Thank you for putting yourself in my shoes. I shall try to do the same.”
Although how I will ever be able to see the world through your eyes, I do not know.

Jane nodded. “All right,” she said. “Well, what do we do now, Cinzi?”

Cinzia sighed, leaning back on the bed and staring at the ceiling. “I do not know.” She certainly could not read Old Khalic. But she would not mind seeing the scriptures. If only to decide for herself whether they were what Jane said. “Where are they? Can I see them?”

Jane glanced at Kovac. “I was expressly forbidden to show them to anyone except those who were to help translate.”

Cinzia frowned. She did not think it was a good idea to send Kovac away, but… “Kovac, we need to eat at some point, anyway. Would you mind going down to the common room and ordering us dinner?”

Kovac frowned. “Mistress, I do not think—”

Cinzia walked over to her Goddessguard and placed her hand on his arm. “We will be safe on our own for a few moments.”

Kovac nodded, glancing at Jane. Then he left the room, closing the door behind him.

Cinzia turned to her sister. “Now can I see them?”

Jane sighed. “You are the only one who has been shown to me as a translator. I suppose it cannot hurt.”

Jane walked to her pack and reached inside, pulling out odds and ends. Clothing, a coat, an extra pair of traveling boots. Then she pulled out a large cloth bundle and set it on the bed, which creaked under the weight.

Jane smoothed her skirts fussily, and Cinzia was of half a mind to tear open the bundle immediately. Could Jane not sense her anticipation?

“You will have to help me,” Jane said. “Hold it up while I unwrap.”

Cinzia did as she was told, and almost fell over as she tried to lift the thing.

Jane laughed. “Heavier than one would think, is it not?”

Cinzia nodded. The bundle felt as if it were made of lead. She repositioned herself and lifted again, this time ready for the weight. Jane reached underneath and unwrapped the thick cloth.

“Okay, set them down,” Jane said. Cinzia did so with relief, her arms already burning. How had Jane carried these all the way from Navone? No wonder her pack was so outrageously huge, and she refused to let anyone else shoulder it. She had not wanted to risk anyone else coming in contact with the Nine Scriptures.

Cinzia found herself looking directly at the Nine Scriptures.
Or what Jane
claims
to be the Nine Scriptures
, Cinzia corrected herself.

They did not look very
old
. Cinzia had expected them to be tattered, soiled, and generally… well, very old-looking. The book before her did not look that way at all. It was very large, more than half a rod in height and nearly as wide, and more than two spans thick. The cover was of worn, creased leather.

Cinzia reached towards the book. She glanced at Jane, who nodded. Cinzia touched the cover, felt the softness of the thick leather; it seemed to overlay a hard metal of some kind.

Cinzia lifted the cover, and gasped. She looked at her sister.

Jane smiled. “Not what I thought, either. But it makes sense. Paper would fade, rot, tear. This—whatever this is—has done nothing of the sort.”

Cinzia ran her fingers over the pages, if they could be called pages. They were not made of paper, or vellum, or any material Cinzia had ever seen, but rather an extremely thin—although durable, as Cinzia ran her fingers along their edges—metal. The metal had a matte finish, hardly reflecting anything in its dark-gray surface. On occasion the pages
did
reflect, or perhaps shone with a reddish tint that rippled across the metal. Hundreds of tiny characters were etched into the first page. Cinzia’s fingers brushed against the imprints, feeling their contours. It
felt
like metal, smooth and cool. The sheets were not bound, she saw, but connected by three large rings embedded in the thick covering, each ring running through the inside edge of each page.

“They were very well crafted, as you can see.”

“Yes,” Cinzia whispered, her voice hoarse. As one who had grown up with a woodworker for a father, she knew good craftsmanship when she saw it. This was exquisite.

“They are made of metal,” Cinzia said, catching another scarlet ripple across the front page.

“I think so,” Jane replied. “That’s one of the reasons it is so heavy I assume. Although I have a feeling that if the pages were made of any metal
we
know of, it would be much heavier still.”

“Their reflection is red.” Cinzia knew how simple she sounded, but she could not help it. She still could not accept that these were the Nine Scriptures, but she had to admit, the book certainly
looked
the part.

“They do. Not always, and only at certain angles. I have not quite understood in what conditions the red tint occurs.”

Cinzia stared at the first page, taking it all in. She looked closely at the characters, reading the title out loud.

“‘The Codex of Elwene,’” Cinzia read. “‘A compendium of Canta’s Life and Her Great Miracles, and Her Prophecies, and Her Teachings. Copied from the Scriptures of the Nine Disciples that Canta chose during Her time on the Sfaera, and abridged by the hand of Elwene.’

“Title is a bit long,” Cinzia murmured. “It does sound interesting, though. The Codex of Elwene. I thought you said these were the Nine Scriptures? Although I suppose it mentions them. This Elwene person put them together, apparently? Seems a bit arrogant to name a book after oneself.”

Cinzia realized she was rambling, and when Jane did not respond, she looked up. Jane was staring at her, mouth slack, eyes wide.

“What?” Cinzia asked. Then she understood.

She had just read the title page.

Cinzia looked down. Sure enough, she could read every word. This first page contained the title, and below that a description of the purpose of the book and what it would mean for the people of the Sfaera.

“You told me it was written in Old Khalic,” Cinzia said.

“It
is
written in Old Khalic. Which you expressly told me you
could not
read.”

“This is not Old Khalic, Jane. This is Rodenese. You could read it just as well as I.”

Jane’s eyebrows shot up. “
Rodenese?
Cinzia, this,” she said, pointing at the characters on the page, “is
not
Rodenese. There is not a single Rodenese character in this entire book. I have checked, time and again.”

Cinzia looked down at the page, about to point out the contrary, when she realized something odd. She did not see any Rodenese characters on the page. She could read it, just as well as she could read anything, but no single mark made sense to her; it just looked like a strange mess of scratches and circles. When she looked at the page as a whole, at entire words and sentences, she could read it easily.

“I do not believe it,” she said. She heard a thump beside her, and looked at Jane slumped into one of the chairs by the desk, her hands at her temples.