Our Lady of the Islands (52 page)

“You’re … a
god
now?” Aros scoffed, seeming on the edge of laughter, unbelievably. “The one my sister’s husband had cut up to feed the poor?”

“Aros. Don’t,” Arian said quietly, her voice filled with fearful warning. She was staring at the priest from where she lay, her crying vanished all at once.

She knows too,
Sian realized in surprise. But then, Arian had been touched by the god as well. The night
she
had been beaten. Perhaps something in her recognized that voice as clearly.

“Well then,” Aros scoffed, “you’d just be here to gloat, I guess, not to raise him from the dead. Do you plan to have him cut up too? To feed … the temple maybe?”

“
He is gone beyond Me now, and wants no raising anyway,
” said the priest, advancing toward Aros. “
But
you
are still within My power to
assist
, poor little spider. Why keep trembling in the dark like this? The world is full of light this morning. Come out and join the dance.”

“
Spider?
Trembling in the …” Aros’s amusement seemed replaced by something tight — a little frantic even. “Whatever are you babbling about? Stay where you are.” He backed toward the wall, only seeming then to realize that he was cornered by the bed. “Come no closer, or I’ll call the guards and have you expelled.”

“
Six guards.
” The priest surprised Sian by stopping as requested. “
To protect the last living member of the ruling family, for all they knew. Left alone in this great building. At such a troubled time, with just six guards. Why so undervalued, spider? Can you be that little loved?”

“You …
presume
to come in here at such a time, and … and
lecture
me?” Aros sputtered.

Arian crawled off the bed, and stood up, backing toward Sian. “May I ask who we’re addressing now?” she asked the priest, almost convincingly calm.

The priest ignored her, still gazing at Aros. “
Even now, one of your sister’s loyal subjects rushes back here, bringing a little army to protect her. Yet for you, just one poor woman,
” he glanced briefly at Lucia, “
and … six … guards. Do you wish to know why, little spider?
”

“I wish for you to leave now,” Aros said, seeming caught between fear and fury.

The priest took another step in his direction. “
Those six guards were only left to honor and protect the bodies of your victims. The one who left them here, would have left none at all for you alone. Could it be that he’s already sensed the truth?”
Aros shied back reflexively, though there was still a bed between them. “
Might he have run against the strands of your web in the darkness somewhere, do you think, and left … suspecting?”

“Guards!” Aros shouted. “
Guards!
”

The priest just smiled, even as the sound of running, armored feet echoed through the doors behind them. He turned to Arian. “
Daughter, your people need you now, to give them hope and help them to repair what you and yours have broken. Heed them. Do not settle for despair.
”

The guards arrived then, rushing in with pikes half-lowered.

“Seize him!” Aros pointed at the priest. “Kill him! Now!”

“Don’t!” yelled Arian. “Stay where you are!”

The guards looked back and forth between them, clearly unsure of what to do, as Sian saw first Joreth, then Reikos appear in the next room, gazing through the door uncertainly.

“Am I not still Factora-Consort?” Arian asked the guardsmen.

“She is! I swear it!” said Lucia. “I helped dye her hair myself!”

“Stand down,” the commanding guard told his fellows.

“Arian! What are you doing?” Aros exclaimed. “Can’t you see that he’s —”

“Silence!” she hissed. “Or I will have them arrest
you!
”

He complied. As a volcano might be silent in between eruptions, Sian thought.

Arian turned back to the priest. “Can you cure them? Either of them? I’ll do anything. I’ll trade my life for theirs. My husband meant well — when your body … I know we … I … haven’t trusted you at times, but —”

“
Child, your husband is beyond your reach as well now, and would thank neither of us for changing that.
”

“My son?” she asked. “Can you … Will you return him to me, at least? Is there anything —”

“
— that you can pay Me with for such a favor?”
The priest smiled at her, pityingly. “
You told Me it was not a bargain you were making, but a vow. Is this no longer so?”

Her mouth fell open in surprise. Then she looked down, the very image of surrender. “And I will do my best to keep that vow, sir,” she said quietly. “If that is what you wish of me.”

Sian had no idea what this meant. Had Arian … talked with this god before somewhere?

“
Do you care, then, what I wish?”
the priest, or what he hosted, asked.

“What does a god wish?” she said sadly. “It would interest me to know.”

The priest turned to Sian, who backed still farther toward the windows.

“
You’ve no cause to fear Me now,
” the priest said — so apologetically that for a moment, Sian thought perhaps the god had left him. “
I wish only that you do what you have come for.
”

Sian looked at the bed, then back at him, confused. “But … they’re dead. I tried. And —”

“
You came to heal, did you not?”

“Yes … But how am I to —”

“
Then start with him,
” the priest said softly, pointing back at Aros.

“Don’t come near me,” Aros quavered.

“What … does he need to be healed of?” she asked.

“
Does it matter? Put your hand upon his heart, Sian Kattë. You will see.
”

“Don’t touch me!” Aros looked in desperation at his sister, then at the guards. “You’re supposed to guard me, aren’t you? Don’t just stand there! Stop her!”

“Leave her be,” Arian commanded them. “She is a
healer
. She won’t hurt him any.” She glanced back at Sian. “Will you?”

“Why would I hurt him? I …” Sian looked back at the priest, utterly confused. “I don’t understand what you want. I will not hurt him if I do this?”

“
Did I not just say you’d come to
heal?
”
the priest asked patiently.

We mean you no harm either, though we must harm you anyway, I fear.
This voice had said that to her also, once. She wondered what would happen if she attempted to refuse now.

“
I will not compel you,
” said the priest, answering her thought with an almost amiable shrug. “
Nor punish you, or anybody else here later. You punish yourselves and each other much more than sufficiently already. Heal him, or not,
Our Lady.
The choice is yours.
”

“Arian …
Sister
,” Aros pled. “Will you really give me to her? Do you hate me that much?”

“What are you so afraid of, Aros?” Arian replied. “She’s laid her hands on me, and I have only cause for thanks because of it.”

“
I don’t require healing!
Can’t any of you see that?” He turned to the guards again, then to Lucia, even to Sian. “There’s nothing wrong with me. I’ve done
nothing!
”

“Who said you had?” asked Arian. “Why has he been calling you a spider, brother?”

“Why does he do anything?
He’s mad!
” cried Aros. “You’re
all
mad, or you’d see that!”

“What exactly is it that you
haven’t
done?” Arian pressed, walking toward him now, without a shred of sympathy.

“What are you doing?” he asked, cringing back from her. “Stay away from me!”

“You fear
me
now,
brother
? Your own
sister
? Answer my questions!”

“Guards!” he pled. “Protect me!”

“From the Factora-Consort, sir?” The commander no longer sounded sympathetic either.

“Sian,” said Arian, her eyes still fastened coldly on her brother. “Come here and do as the god asked, please. I fear my brother may be unwell after all.”

Hardly able to believe, much less understand, any of what she witnessed, Sian came hesitantly forward.

“You’ve always hated me!” Aros rasped at Arian. “Ever since I came here, you’ve done all you could to shame me — just like Father, and the rest of them. Kept me throttled like a lap dog on your jeweled leash! I did
nothing wrong!
He was dying anyway! He was only
suffering!
”

“Who?” Arian demanded angrily. “Who was dying, Aros?”

Her brother only shook his head, trying to press himself into the wall. “You deserved this. It was not my fault. It was
yours
.
And his!
” He thrust an arm toward Viktor’s body. “He was destroying his whole family’s future — killing all of Alizar! His own cousin told me so!”

“
What have you done?
” Arian shouted at him.

“I never asked them to … I had no idea!” Aros looked in wide-eyed terror at the priest. “You have to know I never wanted any of this to happen! I just wanted … I just —” He grabbed a small bronze candlestand from the bedside table and swung it wildly at his sister.

As Arian threw herself against the wall to avoid the blow, Aros shoved past her and fled around the bed — straight into Sian’s path. Without any conscious thought, she thrust her hand out, hard and firm against the bare skin at his open collar.

Sian felt something even worse than fire coursing through his mind for just an instant before he collapsed. As she stared down at him, aghast, Aros clutched his head between his hands and started screaming — as if his skin were being peeled away. Horrified, she bent to put her hands on him again, desperate to heal whatever had just happened to him. But his eyes grew round, and he began to writhe and squirm away from her, screaming more hysterically than ever.

“What have I …” She rose and whirled toward the priest. “What have you done to him? You promised me that he would not be —”

Arian and Lucia both shouted in alarm, and Sian spun again to find Aros on his feet behind her. She stumbled backward, sure he meant to strike her, but he just ran off toward the windows, past the guards, who stared at him in shock as he threw himself against the glass. Several panes shattered, sending a cascade of sparkling shards into the plaza, but their frames were strong enough to hold him. He backed up to charge again, but was tackled and brought down by all six guards this time before he got the chance.

Everyone stood frozen, watching as they wrestled Aros into submission. “Someone … get me anything to bind him with!” one of them shouted. Two men leapt up, one grabbing at a braided curtain-pull, slashed free by the other with his belt knife. Moments later, they had Aros trussed up and comparatively quiescent on the floor, unaware of anybody now except himself, it seemed. He babbled quietly; an endless stream of barely audible excuses and accusations.

Sian turned on the priest again, her rage eclipsing both wisdom and fear. “You lied to me!” she spat. “You said I wouldn’t hurt him. Do you call this
healing
?”

“
Some things must be broken to be healed,
” the priest said, sadly — as he had done once before, on the beach that night. “
Who should understand this better than yourself by now?”

It was all she could do not to rush at him and pound his head and shoulders with her fists. She wanted a great bone to beat him with. A way to make him understand what it was like to be so used. “You make accomplices of us!” she yelled.

“
I but awaken what already sleeps within you,
” he replied. Unmoved. Unashamed. Un-offended. Insufferable. “
Do you suppose the gift you bear was My work?”

“If not yours, then whose?” she scoffed.

“
Miracles lie slumbering in all of you.”
He glanced from face to watching face around the room. “
Beaten into that forgetfulness. Until they are needed … with … sufficient urgency.
”

“You’re saying that this power was … my work?” Sian asked in disbelief.

“
I did not say that. I did say, you have choice.
” He fell silent for a moment. “
I am not your enemy, Sian Kattë. Or his.
” The priest’s eyes traveled back to Aros. “
And you have better things to do right now than rail at Me. Your work here is unfinished, healer.
”

“Oh, really.” She still felt far from mollified. “Is there some further torture I’m required to inflict for you? If I’m supposed to exercise some
choice
in all of this, should I not have a hint, at least, of what my choices are? Speak plainly for once.” She waited, but the priest just stared at her, looking … oddly confused. “Can a god not do that?” she asked.

Still, the priest just stared. Then looked around, seeming weak and pale. “He’s gone.”

“What?” Sian asked.

“The god,” murmured the young priest. “I’m sorry … I have no power to keep him.”

“Oh fine.” Sian looked into the air above her. “Just run away then. How god-like.” She turned to look at those around her. “Is someone else here in need of healing?” she asked wearily, abandoned, suddenly, by all the anger and adrenaline that had made her so recklessly fierce just moments before. Some shook their heads. No one spoke. She looked down at the bodies, lying just as they had been when she’d arrived. … Except … “Were his eyes open when we got here?” The words came out of her almost too quietly to carry. She was sure they hadn’t been. And sure they must have been, or else …

Everyone now looked where she was looking.

“
Oh!
” cried Arian. “Konrad?”

The boy reacted not at all as Sian rushed to the bed, his face and body as inert as ever, his deathly pallor unimproved. His eyes might simply have been opened by some reflex of stiffening muscles. She’d heard tales of corpses sitting up — or coughing. But she had never put her hands upon him. After trying with the Factor, there had seemed no point. And then Arian had broken down … Without further thought, or any fear at all this time, Sian yanked the nightgown’s collar open, and thrust her hands onto his chest.

“Oh!
Ohhhh
,” she groaned, leaning forward so that when she fell she’d still be pressed against him. For she knew that she would fall. What climbed up her arms into herself now was … not survivable. She knew this, in no rational way, as she slumped down to cover him. Already feeling like a third corpse on the bed.