Silver Eve (16 page)

I slid out from the bench. “May I go?”

Eudin nodded. I put my hand on my heart, bowed to the captain, and started to leave.

Then I came back to swallow the last of my cider. Fortification.

THE MOON WAS
high and bright as I crossed the length of quarry and followed the path back to the waterfall. Doves nested in crevices—their cooing suspended at my footsteps. I threaded my way under the leaves of the birch and walked past the first pool where I'd showered, to the wider basin of still water. I didn't choose this site for any reason other than I knew how to find it, but it felt a good place for privacy. I breathed in deeply. It smelled of cool, wet stone—of night. I unbuttoned my sandals, pulled my skirts out of the way, and sat on the rock facing out over the quarry. The faint spray of the waterfall brushed my bare legs.

Listen,
I directed myself, settling in. And so I listened, hard, to the silence, to the undersong and odd calls of night things. And then I wondered at the different ways creatures made their sounds. I stared at the moon, a lopsided circle on the wane, and counted the days 'til the dark moon—

Listen.
I closed my eyes and breathed more slowly. Breathed the metallic tang of the rocks, considered which minerals emitted that scent. I thought of the scents filling our herb shed and then of Grandmama and Lark. I pictured our hands plunged into the mixtures of Grandmama's recipes for soaps, spreading the mash into the trays for curing, and us laughing and reeking of lavender and lemon balm—

Listen!
I was terrible at this. This would be what Lark loved. She could drink in the peace of night or sunny meadow, sit in contemplation of raindrops spattering on the casements with no thought to time. I wanted the bustle and chatter of market day, where others would tell their stories, not mine—

Evie!
I pushed myself up from the ledge. I couldn't listen. I couldn't. I'd divined something about a shell, and that was done before I even knew what it was. Now the moment was lost, and how many waterfalls were here in the quarry let alone through the land? Would I have to search each one? What if it had nothing to do with a waterfall?

Always a question.
I turned my back on the moon and the gaping quarry, and kneeled by the pool, angry that my mind wandered so. And then I was angry that I was angry. Where had the calm Healer gone?

Lark would have heard her amulet right away.

The moon poured light into the little pool. The water was looking-glass still. I leaned forward a little to see how my reflection was caught, to see my own frown. My hair shimmered silver in the pool like a trail of moonlight.
Moonlight on water brings Nature's daughter…
floated back from memory. If that was true, then what of the rest?
Swift-bred terror and sorrow of slaughter. / Silver and sickle, the healing hand, / Find the shell's song; bring rain upon land….Rain. There was no rain. The Breeders had taken it.

A leaf from the birch screen was falling. There wasn't any breeze, yet the leaf drifted sideways, lilting down in slow death until it came to rest on the pool. I leaned over to clear it away, and my braid slipped from my shoulder and dropped heavily into the water, breaking the mirror surface. My face disappeared. “Guardian,” I called myself back.
Guardian…

The pool stilled, the reflection resolved, but I was no longer the picture. The swirls of my braid were weaving into something else entirely. An apparition suspended in the water. A shell. The whelk shell.

I held my breath and watched. Whorls—pearlescent spirals of shell folding and unfolding. A house, a hiding place, a gift, a remnant—constructed and then discarded. I reached my hand to hover over the image, understanding….

A shell as Death's amulet. Like a tiny window to the in-between of worlds, the remains of what once held life. It was itself a passing through, in exquisite miniature.

If I plunged my hand in, would it be there for me to take? But then it seemed my hand
was
stretching, dipping beneath the water to pull the amulet from its hold. And I thought with childish delight:
I am having a vision….

A cave. Almost dark. Oppressive walls of rock, a torrential pounding of water behind me. I stood hip-deep in water, staring at the little shell. It was tossed on a narrow ledge—so out of place, so abandoned. I felt the deepest yearning to pick it up, to take its care into my hands—as any mother to a lost child. The ache pulled me straight to it, a thread of heat in a cold space.

A vision, I reminded myself. Pay attention. Learn where you are.

My gaze went elsewhere, looking to identify. The walls were dank, slimed with algae and something more. My hand reached then, not for the shell, but for its stone coffin. I felt the cold wetness, the hard chipped edges, the mustard-yellow algae, and the slickness of whatever else was smeared there turning the algae brown in places. The water swirled at my hips as I moved to touch then draw away, to shift into the feeble light where I could look at the residue on my fingertips. Blood.

My breath caught and my head shot up, for I heard something else….

I was not alone.

There was a sharper sound, a splash, and I was back on the quarry ledge, panting for breath. My hand had dropped into the pool, ruining the vision—but maybe I'd seen enough, maybe. But the blood, the other sound…?

“Evie.”

It was soft, the calling of my name, just beyond the curtain of leaves. I yanked my hand from the water, turned to hold it out under the moonlight. “I'm here.” My voice shook.

Laurent pushed through the canopy. “I heard you gasp, heard the splash.” He stopped and looked at the pool, the falls, at me.

“You followed me?”
Clean.
There was no blood. I swallowed and wiped my palm on my sleeve.

“Only to be sure you were safe. I was waiting just beyond.”

“I thought the fort was very safe.” 'Twas rude, but I wasn't thinking very clearly.

There was a pause. “And so it is,” he said softly. “I'll leave you to your silence.”

He turned to leave. I blurted: “Rider…”

Another pause. His back was to me. “Lady?”

“I saw it.” My hand was out. A gesture of need, of
something.
It dropped into my lap. “I saw the shell.”

He turned around, saw I was wide-eyed with awe, with accomplishment, and then he smiled. I shifted, making it clear that he could join me, and he did, coming over to sit by my side. We both hung our feet over the edge and I described what I'd seen. I was breathless, I knew, excited and proud now that I'd achieved a vision; wound and set running like a jabber toy. “It needed me, Rider! It
needed
me.” As if that could express the depth of what I'd understood: that in the midst of burden or despair there was beauty to be found in caring for another.

The Rider said softly, “Remember that, Evie.”

There was a hint of warning in those words, stilling my jittery energy. I looked over and studied him for a moment. “Do you honestly think a Guardian could destroy her amulet?”

“We must be vigilant that they don't.”

We.
Keepers, Riders, those of Tarnec. I was hushed. “Would you kill a Guardian if she made that choice?”

“It has never yet come to that.”

“And what if it did? And what sort of
choice
is it to return or destroy her amulet if one of the options is a death sentence? And why would a Guardian
ever
—even accidentally—destroy her amulet?”

“One needs a shield…” Laurent sighed at my barrage of questions, then chose to answer one—or all, I wasn't sure. “We do not always act with clear mind.”

“Well…” I brushed my hands again and stood up, jitters back. I did not want to dwell on vulnerabilities; I was ready to save. “My mind is clear now. If Eudin knows the waterfall I describe, I can make my way there. The moon is bright enough.”

“Now?” Laurent chuckled, a faint mocking of our first encounter. “What happened to your need for sleep first?”

“The sooner claimed, the quicker the end. And I am not sleepy.”

His humor retreated and was replaced by a gentle grin. “Ever eager to mend, Healer. To spare pain,” Laurent murmured. “But do not take any moment of peace lightly, Healer. It allows for strength later, when we will need it.”

A different
we,
this time: he and I. The Rider meant to go with me, I knew, and yet that simple word seemed so powerful.
We.
I liked its sound.

Perhaps the Rider was tracking my thoughts. He asked, “In your vision you were not alone. Do you know who or what was there?”

“No.” I looked at him. “Maybe 'twas you.” I swallowed quickly, made light of my presumption. “Well, since you are my Complement.”

He gave a low laugh. “Is that a complaint?”

I shook my head. I wouldn't lie.

“Good, for it would be unseemly for a Complement
not
to protect his Guardian.”

“Or likewise,” I murmured, and he grinned.

“Really?”

“ 'Tis only fair.” I looked at him full on, how the silver light sank into his dark hair, how it made the white of his shirt gleam. Then I grinned too. “You need protection, perhaps more than I. You are already under siege, Rider.”

He cocked his brow. “Am I?”

“Do you not see what is in the pocket of your tunic?” There was something small shadowed there I'd just noted.

He looked down, reached into the fold of fabric, and drew out a withered-looking stem. I laughed. “Do you know what that is?”

“A daisy, by the look.”

“That, Rider, is a hopeful love charm.” I'd not expected Laurent to be Lill's choice, and it seemed a foolish one, for she was so young. But then my laughter caught in an odd squeeze of my heart. What did I know of Laurent? What if Lill
was
special?

I said quickly, “The girl, Lill. 'Tis hers. She fancies you.”

“She would.”

I stared at him. Laurent said, “The Riders saved her some ten years back. Soldiers were taking her family as slaves for Tyre.”

“Ah, so you saved them and she has adored you since.”

“I was not there and we did not save her family.” It was terse. “Her father and mother were killed. Her sister was lost to the slavers. And I was not there because—” He changed his mind. “Because I will not return to Tyre.” Then he seemed to relent, letting the past recede. “But I suppose I fit her imagination.”

Return.
The word leaped out. “I do not know your history.”

“You've seen what there is to know.” I waited and he looked at me sideways. “I am a Rider. Those of Tarnec who are chosen—the strongest, the bravest—”

“Most modest…,” I couldn't help chiding.

Laurent shrugged. “I only speak truth, my lady.” He drew a knee up, rested his arm there, and looked out over the quarry.

“Why do you not speak of your past?”

A snort. “ 'Tis a hard enough road for Riders—to be present, always at the ready, my lady. Past has no place in it.”

“Then I will imagine that scar along your temple holds the past for you. Does it have to do with Tyre?”

No answer to that. Except that he said, “I do not hold the past as dear as you do.”

“Then there is hope for Lill.” I pointed to his daisy.

Laurent glanced at it, smiled—a smile that dazzled. Brilliance and light. A warning. “Hold it for me,” he said, pushing it at me, then turned back to face the quarry, leaning forward on his hands. “This night is beautiful.”

I tucked the sprig into my pocket. Looked out. The moon was very high over the quarry, the limestone pearl-white.

“I am thinking about the shell.” I broke the now too-quiet space. 'Twasn't exactly true, but I was trying to sway my thoughts from Laurent and Lill…and Laurent.

“And?”

“A shell is a carcass. It makes a good amulet for Death. But there's more to the choice isn't there? If the primal forces bind Nature to Earth, then mightn't each force be tied with an element?”