Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 07 (53 page)

 
          
Lillith
gave up her entreaty of Aidan and resorted to a tongue he did not know. She
shouted, hissed, chanted; calling, no doubt, on the noxious god she had served
for so long. But the chain ignored her grasping, desperate fingers and settled
snuggly around her throat, cutting off her voice entirely. All Aidan heard was
a throttled inhalation.

 
          
White
teeth showed in a rictus grin. Lillith staggered up from the bed, clad only in
hair and gold, and turned toward Aidan, pleading soundlessly. Her color was
deepening. Black eyes protruded slightly.

 
          
Aidan,
unmoving, stood next to the casement. Lillith stumbled toward him, still
wrenching at the chain, clutching at hair and flesh and metal.

 
          
She
saw the answer in his eyes. Comprehension convulsed her briefly. Then she
turned from him, took two steps, and flung herself through the casement into
the skies beyond.

 
          
When
he could move again, he dressed. Slowly, because he still shook. He waited,
sitting slumped on the wide bed, and when his strength began to return he
thought he could manage the stairs. Carefully he went down, taking up his cloak
from the crooked table, and went out to find her.

 
          
She
lay sprawled on thick green turf, awkward in death as she had never been in
life. He had thought she might have aged in death, showing her true features.
But she was still Lillith. Still young, still beautiful—and still very dead.

 
          
Her
hands were locked around the chain. Distaste stirred sluggishly, but numbness
replaced it. Aidan pulled her hands away and freed the chain, then unwound it
from throat and black hair. He set it aside and shook out his cloak.

 
          
When
she was covered, save for the curtain of hair fanned out against the turf,
Aidan walked out to the edge of the cliff. The chain dangled from one hand. He
considered, for an angry moment, throwing it into the sea so far below, but did
not. The anger dissipated. The chain was his, fashioned expressly for him by
the gods themselves. It was so infinitely a part of him it even answered his
wishes.

 
          
Or
did the gods?

 
          
Aidan
stared blindly across the turbulent Dragon's Tail to the clifftop Aerie of
Erinn. And nodded his acceptance.

 
          
"
Resh'ta-ni
," he murmured. "
Tahlmorra lujhala mei wiccan, cheysu.
Y'ja'hai
."

 
          
«
^
»

 
          
When
Aidan, still somewhat shaken, returned to the castle, he was met by a servant
who said he must go to Gisella's chamber at once. Foreboding swept in from the
distance he had built brick by brick in his soul as he rode down from the
headlands, and he realized the delicately nurtured equanamity was nothing more
than a sham. He understood the gods—or himself—no more than he had
before
Lillith's death, and now Gisella
commanded his presence yet again.

 
          
Corin
met him just outside the chamber. His face, beneath the blond beard, was
excessively stiff. Only the eyes gave him away. "She wants you," he
said harshly. "The physicians say there is very little time…" He
passed a hand over bloodshot eyes. "I think they have the right of it, no
matter what she believes." His mouth flattened as he took his hand away.
"She said she could sing to herself until you came."

 
          
"Gods,"
Aidan blurted. "How have you stood it so long? She is mad, completely mad—how
can you bear to look at her and know she is your
jehana
?"

 
          
Corin
shrugged awkwardly. "I learned years ago it was easier if I thought of her
as someone else. Deirdre has always been my
jehana
—"
He saw the expression on Aidan's face, the concurrence, and sighed, nodding.
"Deirdre has been many things to very many of us. While Gisella has been—Gisella."
He gestured. "Go in, Aidan. It will be the last time." A muscle
twitched high on his cheek, beneath an eye. "This time I come, too."

 
          
Aidan
went in. He was aware of Glyn's presence almost at once, which somehow soothed
him. She sat very still in a chair beside the door, keeping vigil. A queen,
even cast off, deserved whatever honor could be offered at her death. And word
must be sent to the man she had married so many years before.

 
          
Glyn
did not smile, though she looked up at him. Her eyes, so large and eloquent,
seemed to offer strength, which he needed. He nodded gratitude almost
imperceptibly, the moved slowly toward the bed.

 
          
Gisella's
breathing was audible. It caught, was throttled, then rasped raggedly in her
throat, as if expelled from lungs too tired to function. Her color was a sickly
grayish yellow. Her eyes were closed, but as Aidan stepped noiselessly to her
bedside, they opened.

 
          
Gisella
smiled. "Do you know the story?"

 
          
Wary,
he said nothing.

 
          
"The
story," she repeated. "How I came to be mad."

 
          
Oh, gods
… Aidan swallowed tightly.
"I have heard it."

 
          
Her
voice was thready, but unyielding. "She was a raven, my mother… not knowing
it was a bad thing. Not knowing here, in Atvia, ravens are killed whenever they
can be. They are a death-omen, you see." The cords stood out in her
throat, like knotted wire. "My father saw her—saw a raven—and shot her out
of the sky. Not knowing it was Bronwyn in
lir
-shape.
Not knowing she fled him, meaning to go back to Homana… he shot her down. And
as she died, she bore me." The yellow eyes were unflinching, untouched by
the tale. "They say it is why I am mad."

 
          
She
did not sound it. She sounded perfectly lucid. Perfectly normal. And Aidan,
looking at the fading old woman, wondered if Lillith's death had somehow broken
through Gisella's addled wits to another woman beneath. To the
real
Gisella, sane as anyone else, and
worthy of wearing a crown.

 
          
Gisella's
breath rasped. "The chain is broken."

 
          
He
twitched. "What?"

 
          
"The
chain. Lillith told me about it. She said she would break it. Destroy it. So
the prophecy would die."

 
          
Aidan
frowned. "When did Lillith tell you this?"

 
          
Gisella's
face folded upon itself as she thought. "Days? Weeks? Perhaps
months." She looked past him to Corin, who approached quietly. She
forestalled his question. "
He
said he sent her away, but she came back. Lillith always came back. She
loved
me."

 
          
Aidan
nodded perfunctorily, unwilling to argue that Lillith's attentiveness had
nothing at all to do with love. "Granddame—"

 
          
"She
broke it."

 
          
The
chain again. Aidan reached for patience. "No."

 
          
"She
said
she would."

 
          
"The
chain is not broken ." He put his hand on one of the links. "Do you
see?"

 
          
Feral
eyes stared at the gleaming links. Gisella attempted to push herself up in the
bed, but failed. And Aidan, much as he longed to help her, could not bring
himself to touch her.

 
          
Gisella's
mouth opened. "She said she would break it! She
promised
!"

 
          
"She
failed." Aidan glanced sidelong at Corin. "Lillith is dead."

 
          
Gisella's
eyes stretched wide. "
No
—"

 
          
"All
of them are dead. Tynstar. Strahan. Now Lillith. Do you see, granddame? Their
time is finished. The prophecy is nearly complete. Everything Lillith told you
was a lie. The chain is whole. I am alive. And the prophecy
will
be completed."

 
          
"No."
She glared up at him, trembling. "Throneless Mujhar. Uncrowned king—"

 
          
"Granddame,
it is over."

 
          
"I
talk to gods," she whispered.

 
          
Aidan's
belly knotted.

 
          
"I
talk to
gods
," she repeated.

 
          
Corin
murmured something beneath his breath. Something to do with madness, and dying.
But Aidan knew better. Perhaps she
did
talk to gods.

 
          
He
drew a careful breath. "What did they tell you? That I am to die?"

 
          
Her
eyes lost their focus. "You are not to be Mujhar. The Lion wants someone
else."

 
          
It
chilled him clear to bone. Aidan suppressed a shudder, shutting one hand around
a link. For all he knew, it was his own; for a moment, it did not matter.
"Granddame…" It took all his strength to sound very calm. "Lady,
if that is true, then surely the gods will tell
me
."

 
          
Gisella
gazed at him. "The broken link…" she whispered.

 
          
Aidan
marked the bluish tint of her tips, the weakening of her voice. "Granddame—"

 
          
But
she no longer looked at him. Her grandson was forgotten. Now it was her son she
tried to reach, third-born of Niall's children. "Strahan never would have
slain you," she said in a poignant appeal. "He only wanted to
use
you. He needed you. He needed me. He
needed all of us." The cords of her neck tautened. "I needed to be
needed. What I did was not so bad."

 
          
Corin's
posture was impossibly rigid. "What you did cursed you in the eyes of your
children forever," he said hoarsely. "You must decide if it was worth
the sacrifice."

 
          
Her
eyes were fixed on his face. As the last breath rattled in her throat, she
whispered something no one in the chamber could hear.

 
          
When
it was certain she was dead, Corin called in a servant from the corridor and
ordered arrangements for the news to be carried throughout Atvia. Then, as the
servant departed at once, Corin walked slowly back to the bed. He leaned down,
shut the withered lids, then sat down upon the edge. From the bedside table he
picked up a twisted gold torque.

 
          
He
gazed at it steadily, turning it over in his hands. Aidan, looking at it,
recognized the workmanship as Cheysuli. He had several similar torques of his
own, though none such as this. It was, he knew, a Cheysuli wedding torque,
signifying the bond between warrior and wife.

 
          
Corin's
voice was odd. "He gave it to her before he had a
lir
. Before he knew what she was, and what she meant to do."
He sighed heavily, frowning. Aidan sensed anguish, regret, sorrow, and more
than a little confusion. No doubt Corin had expected to feel relief. But relief
was slow in coming; what he felt mostly was grief. "She was Cheysuli,
once. But they never gave her the chance to know what it meant."

 
          
Aidan
damped the
kivarna
purposely, giving
Corin privacy. "I would not presume to speak for Hart and my
jehan
, to say if they would or would not
have forgiven her. I know Keely did not." He paused. "What of
you?"

 
          
Corin's
mouth twisted painfully. "She never asked. I doubt she knew how."