Sword and Verse (9 page)

All that happened upon the earth appeared in the scrolls of the gods. Sotia gathered the scrolls and built a great library upon the mountain to house them.

When first the other gods stepped inside the library, Gyotia scoffed at her efforts.

Aqil looked around in puzzlement. “What is this place?” he asked.

“It is everything,” whispered Sotia.

QILARA HAD ONLY
two seasons: Lilana, when soldiers praised Lila, goddess of war, for the fine, dry weather that made for easy movement over land, and Qorana, named for Qora, god of the fields, wet and temperate and ideal for growing things.

When the rains of Qorana came, parts of the city flooded, and the king ordered the floodwalls raised partway as a precaution. The gray wall loomed up between the arms of the mountains on either side of the inlet, cutting off our view of the sea.

I worried that the rains would damage my heart-verse. I checked it daily when I went to the Adytum to tend to the asotis, but I still couldn't make sense of the way the symbols had been strewn together, even the ones I recognized. What did
cheese
have to do with
honor
beside it? But I didn't dare linger in the Adytum.
We could not study in the outdoor courtyard during the rains, of course, and as it was against the law for me or Laiyonea to write anywhere else, lessons were put on hold until the sun shone again. On rainy days, I was imprisoned in the sitting room, cutting endless piles of quills. I didn't know how I would stand not seeing Mati for days on end.

Mati, however, found something better than the Adytum, better even than late nights in my room. He crept into the sitting room on an especially miserable, gray day, grinning from ear to ear. Laiyonea had gone to speak with the king. I was happy to take a break—my hands were stiff from the knife, as I'd already completed an entire basket of quills.

Mati held one finger to his lips as he took my hand and led me down the deserted corridor. The lamps were all lit against the overcast afternoon. When I asked where we were going, he only shook his head.

At last Mati pushed open a door. I balked as I realized that he was leading me into the king's own chambers.

“Come on,” he whispered. “It's all right.”

He tugged me inside and shut the door, then led me across an anteroom and into the bedroom. Gold-threaded tapestries hung from the walls, and the high bed, piled with pillows and thick blankets, was as large as a temple alcove.

Mati opened a mirrored door, pushed aside his father's tunics, and opened another, smaller door at the back of the closet.

“Pull that other door shut,” he whispered. He clutched my hand as he led me down a narrow staircase. We must have been close to the outer wall; I could hear rain pelting down as if it
were right above my head, and murky light came in through windows—little more than vertical slits—set near the ceiling.

At the bottom of the steps, Mati pointed to a passage winding away to the left into the darkness. “That leads down to the dungeons and scribe rooms. There's a branch up to the council chamber too,” he whispered. “But this is the best part.”

He moved his hand along the wall before us. With a soft click, part of it swung open.

We stepped into the Library of the Gods—though I hardly recognized it. I had never seen it with the furniture and carpets in place, the high friezes, white and pure and clean, shining in the light of the central firepit. Linti and the other children must have cleaned recently, because there was not a speck of dust anywhere. With all its finery, the Library of the Gods resembled a temple—except that a Qilarite temple would never have letters openly displayed.

It flitted through my mind that this—a holy place full of writing—was exactly what a temple to Sotia would look like. But the goddess of wisdom would never stand for her gift of writing to be locked away from her people like this. And the Qilarites would never build a temple to a goddess who had been imprisoned by Gyotia himself since ancient times.

Mati put his arm around me. “Father showed me this entrance a few days ago,” he said. “I'm not supposed to come without him.” He didn't seem to regret his disobedience. When he nuzzled my ear, I didn't either.

He led me over to a soft bench near the firepit. A narrow desk stood nearby, and a pot of quills—which I'd likely sharpened
myself—waited beside a fresh pile of paper.

A tall wooden case, adorned with a colorful tapestry, abutted the desk. As a child, I had polished that case countless times, but I'd never seen the tapestry before. I dropped Mati's hand and walked over to it. It showed the gods gathered on the mountainside in the very scene we'd played in the pantomime, Gyotia tall and regal, glaring down at Sotia on the ground before him. I imagined I could hear Gyotia's harsh voice telling Sotia that he had given her tablet of language to the chieftain who would keep it for the nobility only, that he had thwarted her plan to share the language of the gods with all people. Below the mountain, a line of ships tossed on a dark green sea, carrying away the banished followers of Sotia.

Mati touched my elbow. “Raisa?”

I turned to him. “What's in this case?”

“I'll bring the key next time,” he said with a grin. “I saw where Father keeps it.”

I cocked my head. “What is it?”

Mati kissed me quickly. “It'll be a surprise.”

Annoyed at this response, I turned away, my arms folded.

“Raisa!” Mati touched my shoulder. “What's wrong?”

I turned, ready to snap at him, but then realized I was upsetting him.

I took both his hands. “Sorry,” I whispered. “It's just . . . I've never seen the Library like this. It's . . . magnificent. A place the gods themselves would enjoy visiting.”

Mati laughed. “Ah, but they do all their reading at third bell, while we're at luncheon. No chance of running into them.” He
pulled me close. “Or anyone else, if we're careful. It's safe here.”

I started to protest, but he shook his head. “You're not the first Tutor to come into the Library,” he said. “I'll show you.” He went to the cache of letters on the wall by Gyotia's statue, pulled one out, and handed it to me. “Read this.”

I stared at him, the memory of the last time he had held out a letter to me in this Library flashing through my mind. He didn't seem to realize how dangerous this was.

“Well, read it,” he said, a bit crossly, then unrolled the scroll. He pointed to a line in the middle. “There.”

It was a letter from a long-ago king, begging Gyotia's forgiveness for consorting with his son's Tutor in the Library and having her write his letters for him. The seal at the top showed a lion with ten lines across its face.

“My great-great-grandfather wrote that,” said Mati. “And he wasn't the only one to do it. These old kings did all sorts of things to beg forgiveness for.”

“What happened—”

“To the Tutor? Nothing.” He took the letter and wrapped his arms around my waist. “No one will know we're here.”

“As long as your father doesn't find us.”

Mati's face fell. “My father will be in council all day. Laiyonea too. Don't you trust me?”

He touched the stone hanging around my neck, and looked so wounded that I kissed him right away. “Of course I do,” I said softly. He drew me down onto the couch, the one that stood before Gyotia, ready to receive the god should he come visit the Library, and kissed me some more.

We went back three times that Veiling. Each time, Mati found amusing letters for us to read aloud to each other. It was fascinating to hear about the things past kings had done, things they believed no one would see but their heirs and the gods. Sometimes I felt guilty about going into the Library of the Gods at all, let alone raiding the thoughts of past rulers. But I also knew that I would go, again and again, when Mati wanted me to.

Not until our fifth visit to the Library was Mati finally able to steal the key to the wooden case. He made me cover my eyes while he opened the doors, then came to stand behind me. “You can look now,” he whispered.

I opened my eyes and gasped. An enormous disc of yellowed stone, as wide across as my outstretched hands, stood upright inside the case. I recognized it at once as the tablet of the gods—the tablet that Sotia gave to the mortal Iano in the old stories, the tablet that Gyotia took back and gave to Belic, making him first king of Qilara in exchange for his promise to keep the language of the gods pure. I hadn't known until then that it truly existed, this tablet that the Qilarites had used to justify the enslavement of my people.

Mati's laughing voice faded behind me as I approached the case; I couldn't stop staring at the tablet. Our feeble imitation in the pantomime had not come anywhere near doing it justice. Firelight danced over the irregular cuts at the edges and the jagged gouge at the center, casting bizarre shadows over the symbols spiraling out upon it.

I touched the center of the tablet, where a chunk of stone was
missing. My fingers tingled. The stone was rough, cold . . . my mind screamed with memories of terrifying nights of punishment in the Stander. The icy stone walls were too close—I couldn't take in enough air to fill my aching lungs.

Mati turned me around to kiss him, unknowingly pulling me out of the nightmare panic. I was in the warm Library again, safe in his arms, clinging to him as my breathing slowed.

“Not even the high priests know it's here,” Mati said as his lips moved over my face. “Except my father, of course. You know, High Priest of Gyotia.” He said this jokingly, as if that part of the king's office meant nothing to him, but I could tell that he liked the idea of taking on that title someday. I understood; it was hard not to be awed by the presence of the ancient tablet. He paused and looked down at me in mock alarm. “You won't tell anyone, will you?”

I smiled. “Of course not.” Mati kissed me again, his fingers slipping down to the laces of my dress.

Perhaps I should have seen then where our time in the Library would lead. But all I knew was that I loved Mati with all my heart. We grew closer in every way in those quiet hours, whether it was reading letters, or lying on the couch sharing languid kisses, or just sitting together holding hands. We took more liberties there, our fevered fingers wandering as we kissed, until one of us—usually me—sat up breathlessly and suggested it was time to go. It would be treacherous to go any further down that road, no matter how tempting Mati's touch.

But then, one foggy afternoon half a year later, I didn't sit up, didn't protest, didn't stop Mati when he unlaced my dress and
pushed it away from my shoulders, and pressed me back against the couch, his warm skin on mine. I knew what would happen next, and I wanted it—wanted Mati—more than I had wanted anything in my life.

So the last barriers between us fell, there in the Library of the Gods.

Aqil could not understand his mother's passion for the great library, and that made him restless and angry. He went to his father, trailed by the flocks of crows that were his only companions. Bowing low, Aqil said, “I have no place here. My mother walks with wisdom, my half brother serves the fields, and the others tend to memory, hearth, and war. I beg that you grant me a way to serve you.”

Gyotia regarded his son's eager face and the cawing mob of birds that echoed his dissatisfaction. “Have patience,” said the king of the gods. “I shall find a use for you.”

IN THE ADYTUM
the next day, hazy sunlight filtered down through gray clouds, and I couldn't breathe properly. Mati had barely looked at me all morning. I focused on the story of Lila's bow that I was writing, and tried not to cry. When Laiyonea asked what was wrong, I insisted that I was fine.

At length, she left us alone. I kept writing, afraid to say anything.

“Raisa?”

I looked up into a face so full of concern that I burst into tears from sheer relief. I wrapped my arms around his neck and sobbed into his tunic, and when I had gained control of myself I
flushed with embarrassment.

Mati wiped my tears with his handkerchief. “What is it?”

I just shook my head. In the aftermath of what we'd done, I'd spent a sleepless, anxious night, cursing my own impulsive stupidity. What if there were consequences we couldn't hide, if it became clear that I was no chaste handmaiden of Aqil, as Tutors were meant to be? There were ways girls could prevent those things, I knew, but I had no way of getting them.

And then Mati had behaved so distantly this morning. I reminded myself that the distance was an act, and that Mati was a fine actor.

Still, it couldn't happen again, and I had to find a way to tell him so. I cleared my throat. “I . . . I love you,” I began.

Mati smiled. “I love you too.” Before I could say anything else, he kissed me so tenderly that it almost drove my fears away. Then he whispered, “I've got something for you.” He pulled out a tiny vial and handed it to me. I turned it over in my hands.

Mati turned pink. “It's a tincture of silphium for . . . well.” He gestured feebly at me. “You're supposed to drink it once a Shining, to make sure that nothing . . .”

I understood. Despite the fact that I'd been thinking about the same thing, my first, irrational reaction was shame. Was Mati ashamed of what we had done?

But I knew better than that. He was just taking care of me, of us.

I uncorked the vial and wrinkled my nose at the sharp, savory scent that wafted from it. Before I could think too much, I drank the contents; it was barely a mouthful, but the taste, like meat
close to rotting, lingered on my tongue. “Thank you,” I murmured. I wanted to ask what he was thinking, but I was afraid to hear his answer.

Mati touched my arm. “I can get more, if . . . if we . . . need it.”

My heart swelled. “I think we might,” I whispered, then buried my face in his shoulder, cheeks burning at my own audacity.

He sighed and put his arms around me. He kissed my hair, then reached down and tilted my chin up so that I was looking at him. “I love you, Raisa,” he said. A shadow passed over his expression. “No matter what happens, I will always love you.”

Seven days went by before the rains came back and we could return to the Library. I spent the time explaining to myself why it was a bad idea to go to the Library again, for so many reasons. Nevertheless when I woke to rain tapping on the shutters, my pulse sped up.

We didn't speak of it, but I knew Mati was burning for the moment as surely as I was. I didn't hesitate when he led me right to Gyotia's couch.

Afterward, Mati stroked my hair and murmured things that made me want to weep. I lay in his arms and contemplated the friezes I used to clean, wondering how so much had changed.

Mati asked what I was thinking about.

“I was so frightened when I first came here as a child,” I said. Mati's fingers paused on my hair for the barest instant. I looked at him, afraid of what I'd see in his face. But he was only watching intently, waiting for me to go on.

I'd never really told Mati about my life before the Selection,
but why hold back now? So I described the raid and the cages in the ship, the chains and the first, bewildering days on the platforms.

Mati listened carefully, occasionally kissing my shoulder or my hand. At last, my words spent, I lay on my back, fingers twined with his, and glanced sideways at his drawn mouth and furrowed brow.

“Do you remember your parents?” he asked quietly.

I tensed. I hadn't mentioned that my father was a Learned One, and only now did I realize that I didn't want to. That secret was so bone-deep that I couldn't share it, not even with him. Especially not here, in the Library of the Gods.

“Yes, I remember them,” I whispered. I flicked through childhood memories like Laiyonea sorting through a pot of quills, searching for one that was safe to share. But so many memories of my father were wrapped up in the sight of his strong hand wielding a quill or his kind face bending near as he gave me my heart-verse. I landed on an image of my mother, singing as she spun by the fire.

“My mother . . . had a lovely voice. Our cottage was always full of her singing. She used to sing this little nonsense song to me—” Softly I sang a few of the lilting syllables, like I used to sing to Linti to soothe her to sleep in the palace slave quarters. I broke off with a laugh. “I didn't inherit her voice. Wilel always said I sounded like a strangled asoti.”

“Wilel?”

“My brother.” I paused. “He died in the raid too.” I swallowed against the guilty lump in my throat; I was older now than Wilel
had ever had a chance to be.

Mati touched my cheek. “I'm sorry,” he whispered.

I shook my head. “You didn't send those raiders.”

Mati looked up at the ceiling, his jaw tightening. “No,” he said. “My father did that.” Something grim and steely in his tone frightened me.

I pushed myself up on my elbow and kissed him, trying to pull him out of this dark mood. “It's in the past,” I murmured against his lips. “At least . . . we're together now. Something good came of it.” I couldn't decide if the idea of our love being born out of so much death was comforting or horrible.

Mati seemed to be thinking the same thing. He frowned. “Tyasha was right,” he murmured.

I froze, then turned on my side so that he couldn't see my face, but I was still within the circle of his arms. “You cared for her,” I said to the dim Library.

“Yes, of course I—Raisa, don't be ridiculous.” He kissed my neck, working his way up to my ear, and when he got there he whispered, “I never have loved, and I never will love, anyone the way I love you.” He pushed himself up and faced me, as though to make sure I believed him. I did. No one could doubt his fervent tone. It lit me on fire and made me forget what we were talking about, so that when he flopped back down and went on, it took me a moment to follow.

“Tyasha was like . . . a big sister, I guess,” he said. “I was four when I started in the Adytum. She was eleven then. She loved telling me what to do.” He barked out a laugh. “When I went to see her before she died, I asked why she'd helped the Resistance.
She said she did it because no one deserves to die in ignorance, without dignity or humanity. She said that most Qilarites are too weak to see that, and that . . . that I might be able to be better than that, to be less of a coward.”

I pushed myself up and stared at him. “You're not—”

“She was right. I am.”

If Mati was a coward, then what was I—I, who could not even bear to consider doing what Tyasha had done?

“Here I am,” Mati went on, “making you sneak around, when I should be telling the world that I love you.”

My heart thrilled at the idea, but I laid a warning hand on his chest. “Mati, don't be insane.”

He took my hand. “I wouldn't put you in more danger, you know that. But I hate this hiding, and I hate—” He closed his eyes. “I wish I could just . . . just free all the Arnathim.”

Would he? Could he, when he became king? Just like that?

He looked at me sadly. “I don't know if it's possible. But I'll try.” He sat up and clasped both my hands. “And I promise, Raisa—no more raids on the Nath Tarin, ever. No more children will have to go through what you did.”

I couldn't speak. I held him tightly, ignoring the pain as the stone around my neck dug into my breastbone.