The Gantean (Tales of Blood & Light Book 1) (29 page)

C
ostas
rested only
a few more moments in the bed before rising and shaking himself out like a dog after a swim. “Where is the ship headed?” he demanded as he leaned into the cabin’s lone looking glass to comb his fingers through his hair.

I continued to stroke Tiriq’s head, still lost in my imagined haven. “We directed them to sail west. We didn’t know where it would be safe for us to make harbor.”

Costas turned away from the mirror. “Xander Ricknagel is dead. It will be safe in any province that supported House Galatien during the conflict. Amphicylix is the nearest friendly harbor, and only a day’s good sailing away.” He stood, gave me a cryptic nod, and stalked from the cabin. It would be a long time until we recaptured that brief shared tenderness again. I sighed and let Tiriq pull at my neckline, though my milk had nearly dried after so many days apart from him. Nursing him would be a joy I sorely needed.

As we pulled into the broad, deep harbor that opened between Amphicylix and Hemicylix, the opal ring Laith had given me flared with heat and light. Laith’s news must be important if he risked an aether-sending—I had not heard anything from him since we parted ways. He would have called his timing magically serendipitous. I glanced around to ensure privacy while I listened to my brother’s message. Costas stood on the far side of the deck, Tiriq in his arms, watching the approaching skyline of the twin cities.

Costas had rarely let Tiriq out of his sight since we’d set sail. With no mage aboard, he’d had no means to get a message to anyone on land, but he’d used the quiet time as we traveled south to plan, holding Tiriq in his lap the whole time. I had never realized the military bent of my husband’s mind. He spent long hours hunched over maps and papers, murmuring to himself as he planned how to retake the High City from Ricknagel’s army—if they even still occupied it. Costas knew he’d step ashore to chaos. The usurper was dead, but Costas, by disappearing in the wake of that confusion, had left Lethemia essentially leaderless. The people of the country did not know that Costas still lived. It would be work to reclaim his country. Though he had no idea what awaited him in Galantia, he strategized for every eventuality. His thoughts never rested; they creased lines into his forehead as he paced the deck with Tiriq.

As soon as we arrived in harbor, Costas sent two crewmen ashore to hire a wet nurse—at an exorbitant price—for Tiriq. Earlier I had claimed my own milk had dried up during our separation, and my husband had not questioned the lie.

I dreaded what I must do. No matter what plan Costas devised for re-establishing his power, he would guard Tiriq more carefully than his most precious possession—I knew that in my bones. Tiriq was better off with him, much as I hated the idea of being apart from my boy again. I watched them. Tiriq patted at Costas’ hair. Costas grabbed his probing hand and kissed it.

I sighed and dropped my gaze to the small ring on my right hand. An aura of heat radiated from it, nagging me to listen to the waiting Sending. Costas was well occupied getting ready to disembark, so I traced the sigil for Tianiq’s star above the ring.

Laith’s message seared into my head:
Come as fast as you can to Queenstown
.
I have no idea how long she’ll stay here, and if she leaves, I must leave with her. I’m waiting for you at the only inn on Varesa Street.

I walked the deck of
Lady Tourmaline
long
after
Costas and Tiriq retreated to the cabin to prepare to go ashore before sundown as Costas had commanded.

I could find a vessel to take me north here. The twin cities’ harbors were large and full of ships. But I knew I had to sneak away—I could not face Tiriq and manage to leave him. How did the Gantean mothers do it? How did they let go of their own flesh and blood, never to know them again?

Gantean mothers never held their own children. After birth the midwives took them away to sever their bloodlight cords as soon as possible. With that severing, a Gantean mother’s emotions melted away like snow in summer. Hadn’t I felt it when the Cedna had cut Tianiq from me? The sudden lack? The long ache of Tianiq’s absence hit me anew, but I could not let anything stop me from finishing my task.

I slipped into the ship’s office and collected a bag of jhass from Allian’s box, tying it against my body beneath my clothes. I had borrowed a black crew uniform from the storage on
Lady Tourmaline
—sturdy trousers rolled to my calves and a lightweight tunic that left my arms free to move. I needed this freedom as I swung over the gunwale and descended the rope I’d rigged.

I schooled myself with Gantean expressions as I left.
The cold keeps you clear
, I said silently as I sank my body into the southern waters of the harbor.
Flow like water.

If I had waited another moment, Costas would have prevented me. If I had stopped to kiss my son goodbye, Tiriq would have fixed me in place as surely as a nail fastens wood. So I slipped into the waters without saying goodbye, without argument, without acknowledging any of the ties that anchored me in the sayantaq world. I swam across the broad harbor into the darkening evening.

I did not even leave a note.

A Gantean’s duty trumps everything: love, safety, desire, need. I had known ever since Nautien had given me her anbuaq that I had been selected for this sacrifice.
Tunixajiq.
The balance must be paid. Individual needs paled beside this requirement.
Clear, clear,
I chanted to the rhythm of my strokes.
Cold, cold
, my skin replied against the water’s touch.

Sacrifice was never meant to be comfortable.

A
fter arriving onshore in Amphicylix
, I took passage north again on a small ship known for its speed. The vessel made the trip direct; I stepped into the chaos of Queenstown only a day after I’d left Costas and Tiriq. As I hurried down the Queenstown quay that teemed with the bright colors and textures of Lethemian life, I recalled that first breathless sight I’d had of the southern lands when I had stepped from the Entilan slaver. How had this world seduced me so easily?

I nearly turned back then. The thought of Tiriq’s lonely cries haunted me. He would miss me so much. If I never made it back, he’d never know why I had left him. He’d be sayantaq. The bloodlight cords pulled and pulled.

Don’t think of them
, I told myself.
Think of what you must do. No one else can shoulder this duty. No one else has the anbuaq. And what does Laith Amar know of Gantean sacrifice?

I patted at the thigh of my trousers where the Cedna’s ulio sat as I wove through the maze of Queenstown’s streets, looking for the one Laith had named. I’d asked for the blade back from Miki, and he had nodded knowingly. Only he would know where I had gone.

A northern chill laced the air. I had one chance to do what must be done.

“
J
ust in time
!” Laith threw open the door to his inn room. Typically extravagant, he’d rented the entire top suite. “We should go down to the harbor immediately,” he said. “I’ve been worried she would depart before you arrived.”

I nodded. The sooner I finished this dark task, the better.

I followed Laith down the long pier. Dusk had fallen, shadowing everything. Laith lit the way with his magestone, his face impassive, unreadable.

“
Firebrand
!” I exclaimed as Laith pulled up short. I’d been carefully reading the names of each ship we passed.

Firebrand
was a perfect ship: slender, light, and graceful. Laith drew his magestone through the air in three swift arcs.

His magic spiraled into the night. “She knows we’re here,” he murmured. “Come, there’s no use delaying.” He pulled me down the dock until we stood in the Firebrand’s shadow.

“Is that you, Cedna?” he called up the steep face of the ship. “I can feel you there.”

“It is I,” a low voice said from the ship’s deck. “I suppose you want your brother, Laith Amar.”

I stared up at the ship, trying to get a look at her, but the black fold of the night concealed the ship’s deck.
My mother.
I sought inside myself, looking for any hint of that bind, that unavoidable, desperate, and delightful tug that I shared with Tiriq. I felt nothing. She and I were completely severed from each other, Gantean to the core. Like Tianiq and me.

Free
, Iksraqtaq would say.
Lost
, sayantaq would think.

“May we come aboard, my lady?” Laith requested.

Wood striking wood rattled the air. Laith directed his magelight towards the racket. She had thrown down a rope ladder with wooden rungs.

“Do you need light?” she asked from above. Her voice meant nothing to me, but it was a rich, alluring voice all the same. I’d expected the pride in it—she was the Cedna, after all—but not the grief. Sorrow, the kind of deep sorrow that has no cure, tainted every word. Perhaps she anticipated our ritual. Perhaps she'd only been waiting for a Gantean to come for her. Perhaps she wished for an end.

“We’ll manage,” Laith replied as he ascended the flimsy ladder.

He spoke with the Cedna in low tones that I could not hear as he approached the gunwale. I grabbed the ladder and began my own climb so I could listen.

“I will give you your brother,” the Cedna was saying. Her voice put up no contention; she leaked an incurable sadness that pressed around us, a black burden, as though the night sky had suddenly failed to support itself and leaned now upon our shoulders.

“I would not have settled for anything else,” Laith said, apparently untouched by her despair.

I hauled myself up to the deck. “That—that is not all we require. I am Gantean.” She would know what I meant by those words.

I faced her now, my mother. We had played games as children in Gante, trying to guess our blood-mothers based on appearance, but I would never have guessed her mine. We shared no similarity of face or form. When I’d seen her before, in the stone mansion of House Entila, she had strode at Sterling Ricknagel’s side as though she owned the world, full of unusual strength. Later, she’d argued with my friend Tiercel.
Onatos
, she’d called him. The sky grew heavier.

Laith had told me his father—
Onatos Amar
—had loved the Cedna so much he’d disappeared searching for her. My mind spun.

Laith’s magestone only cast a circle of dim blue light, but within it the Cedna’s hair glittered like fire, auburn laced with gold. Her face had strong bones, forcing the overlying skin into angles sharper than it desired.

She stared at me.

I stared at her.

She lifted one hand. Hers was a Gantean hand, broad and sinewy, with long fingers that valued strength over grace. The skin that stretched from her fingers to her elbows was covered with scars, long cuts made by countless ulios, tiny cuts made from the blackstone she sculpted.

I firmed my resolve. I was Iksraqtaq. I would see my duty done, despite the dread that unfurled in a shaking wave through my body. I tightened my grip on the ulio at my waist. One fingertip touched the blade and bled. I grasped Nautien’s anbuaq with my other hand.

Even the sharp hiss of her devastated breath, saturated with pain and recognition when she saw me, would not prevent me.

I would see this through.

I was Gantean.