Sword and Verse (30 page)

Sotia entered the great library, the symbols of the mortal girl's prayer still dancing before her eyes.
Light of wisdom, bold, brave, bright
. . .

It was time to read out the scrolls, to call all to account at last. She summoned a scroll to her and opened it, ready to read out its contents, but found that it was her own.

When light and hand and heart be one
. . .

Sotia bowed her head, for, goddess though she was, she could not bring herself to judge anyone.

“PETITIONERS?” I REPEATED,
but Jonis was already gone.

I hobbled after him down a narrow hallway and a curving staircase and out into a tree-lined courtyard. The ruined temple loomed in the distance, its platform a misshapen heap.

But that wasn't what made me stop short. The courtyard was packed with people, and more were entering from the two paths leading from the main road.

Suddenly Mati was beside me, taking my hand. “Jonis, what are you doing? She's not ready for this!”

“She'll be fine,” said Jonis shortly. “We need to get them out of here before the food runs out.”

“Did you at least explain to her?” hissed Mati.

Jonis stopped and looked at Mati. “I thought you did.”

“I did, some of it, but I wasn't planning to dump all this on her yet!”

Jonis looked quickly at me, then at the crowd. “Bit late to turn back now.”

Mati grimaced. “Yes, but talk to me next time. Isn't that the point of a council?”

Jonis smiled, but there was an edge to it. “Still getting used to that idea. Come on.”

I started. “Where?”

Jonis grabbed my hand and led me through the crowd. I clung tightly to Mati with my other hand. People melted back when they saw them—all except one. A tiny figure sprang forward and attached itself to my middle.

“Jera!” I bent down and hugged her.

“You're well now?” she whispered.

“Yes, I . . . think so.”

“You can talk to Raisa later, Jera,” said Jonis, gently prying her off me. “Go see Mother.”

Jonis took me to a chair under a canopy. I sank down onto it gratefully.

That's when I realized that everyone was facing me. I looked up at Jonis and Mati, but they were both watching the crowd. Jonis gestured to someone across the courtyard.

Kiti, grinning widely, led a young couple forward. They approached my chair slowly, almost reverently. The young man was fair, with reddish-brown hair, and the young woman had
olive skin and black hair that curled around her shoulders. A tiny fist waved from the bundle in her arms.

The people here wore brown, white, blue, red—any color except green. I fingered my soft rose-colored skirts. No one, it seemed, would wear green again.

To my utter shock, the young woman knelt and held the baby out to me. The young man knelt beside her.

“We ask your blessing on our daughter,” she whispered, her eyes downcast. “She was born the night after you saved us all.”

I stared at them, unable to speak. “I . . . I . . . bless her?” I choked out at last.

They took it as a statement, not a question. “Oh, thank you!” said the young woman. She dipped her head. “We have named her Raisa, in your honor.”

I leaned back against the cushions, bemused. “Thank you,” I managed to say. I reached out and touched the baby's cheek. Her eyelashes were dark against pale skin, and she sucked on her tiny fist. “She's beautiful,” I said.

“She'll grow up free,” said the young man in a gruff voice. He looked quickly at Mati, then away.

Jonis gestured them back, and an old man with a bandaged leg limped up. He tried to kneel on the stones, but I protested. Jonis produced a chair for him.

The man sat down and slowly removed the dressing on his leg, revealing a greenish, smelly wound. “One of them guards did this,” he announced. “They might have to take it off if it doesn't heal right.”

I gaped at him. “I'm not a physician,” I said at last. A rustling
went around the courtyard, and Mati squeezed my shoulder—whether in warning or support, I couldn't tell. I looked around at the eager faces, and realized—they had nothing to believe in now, and for some reason they'd chosen to believe in me. This was exactly what Mati had warned me about.

But, somehow, though their expectations terrified me, they didn't constrain me. I wasn't a slave any longer. I could get up and walk away in my rose-colored dress, if I wanted to.

I didn't want to. I wanted to help them. I didn't have the power to heal wounds, but I might be able to ease their minds. To share what I knew. That was a power too.

I leaned forward and flattened a patch of dirt at the edge of the stones, then used my finger to trace a circle with a line through it, and a line with a curve like a tail in the middle. “This is Arnath writing,” I told the old man. “It means
tabay
—whole. You write it.” He only gaped at me, so I took his finger and traced it in the dirt next to my writing. “You must practice these symbols—”
Fifty times to make it stick
floated through my head, and I bit back a tearful laugh. “Make them a prayer to Sotia, and the goddess will read them.”

All around the courtyard, people stared at me, stunned, as if they were waiting for guards to come, for lightning to strike, for the punishment that would surely come from such open use of the language of the gods.

But the sun only continued to shine on the silent crowd, and the old man wrapped up his bandage and moved soberly away.

I leaned back against the cushions, exhausted beyond explanation, as if writing that word had drawn more out of me than mere symbols.

“She's too tired for this, Jonis,” whispered Mati above me, taking my hand. “Tell them to come back tomorrow.”

Jonis bent down and spoke to me, but his eyes were on Mati. “Think you can handle one more? You'll probably be glad to get it over with.”

I closed my eyes wearily. “I don't understand you.”

“You'll see,” he muttered darkly.

“I'm sorry about this,” whispered Mati, gently disentangling his hand from mine.

I opened my eyes. Soraya Gamo stood before me. She wore a simple gown of yellow, her shining black hair uncovered, but her bearing was just as imperious as ever. A few feet away from her stood Mati, looking at me apologetically. The courtyard was silent. Somewhere a child babbled and was quickly hushed.

“I want my betrothal dissolved,” Soraya announced.

“Soraya,” said Mati reproachfully.

She shot him a begrudging look, then sighed. “I suppose I should thank you,” she said. “For saving our lives.” Her voice wavered, and I cringed, remembering Aliana's lifeless face, and the shouts of the guard I had pushed over the ledge.

“If you want your betrothal dissolved, why are you coming to me?” I said testily. “You need a high priest.”

Soraya laughed bitterly. “There
aren't
any priests anymore. They're all dead. Looks like you're the priestess now, whether you like it or not.” She looked down at me, a hint of uncertainty in her eyes. “So will you dissolve the betrothal or not? I don't think I need to explain why,” she added acidly.

“Let it be dissolved, then,” I said. I contemplated Soraya,
standing so haughtily in the midst of the motley crowd of Qilarites and Arnathim. She had kept that unbowed pride even while chained in the tombs. Whatever else could be said about Soraya, she was not weak.

Almost as if I'd been thrown into another vision, I saw the world as it must look to Soraya Gamo: the daughter of a Scholar, educated and petted beyond any other woman in the city, but all her education and intelligence mattering not nearly as much as the quality of husband she could catch. She'd been told she would be queen, would have a seat on the Scholars Council—and then she'd been publicly humiliated time and again because Mati loved me. I realized, thinking back over her words in the tomb, that it wasn't even really Mati that she wanted, but the things that being his wife would have given her—power, and respect. A measure of control over her life.

Mati was right—we had a chance to change things for the better. And the Arnathim weren't the only ones who needed it.

“Soraya,” I said impulsively, “will you take the fourth seat on the council?”

Murmurs started up around the courtyard, and Mati and Jonis both made sounds of shock. I ignored them and kept my gaze trained on Soraya. She studied me for a moment, then lifted her chin and turned away. “Fine,” she said, but I could see the pleased look she was trying to suppress, and knew that my intuition about her had been right.

Jonis and Mati hustled me out of the courtyard then, no doubt to question my sanity, but I just smiled, tired and satisfied.

Sotia made her home in the great library, and watched the mortals as they rebuilt their city and penned tales of the disaster. Her wrath was great, as was her forgiveness. She would not allow such injustice to fester in the land again.

And so she would watch.

THREE DAYS LATER,
Mati, Jonis, Soraya, and I went to the palace to survey the repair work. Adin was overseeing the Arnath workers, Kirol the Qilarites, but it was an uneasy truce. They worked in separate areas of the palace and rarely interacted. We wanted them to see the four of us getting along.

And for the most part, we did. Soraya was still jumpy around me, and especially Jonis, but I had come to respect how much she knew about finances—clearly she'd been paying attention to her father's mining operations. Jonis and Mati, though still a bit guarded, managed to speak to each other civilly, and even to joke on occasion.

I commented on this to Jonis as we lagged behind the others in the main hall of the palace.

“He threw himself in front of Jera,” Jonis said, as if that explained everything. And I supposed it did.

We stepped through the doors to the Library. The debris had
been removed, along with the statues and ruined furniture. Two barrels by the far wall held salvaged scrolls. The place where Gyotia's statue had been was only a lopsided hole in the wall.

“Well, that'll make a nice window,” said Jonis wryly.

“A training room here, do you think?” said Mati.

Jonis lifted his eyebrows. “Why not a library?”

“No,” Mati and I said together. We looked at each other.

“No library,” I said.

Jonis looked around speculatively. “I know why you're saying that, but what if we made it a different kind of library, one where
anyone
can come and learn?”

I pondered this. “Sotia would like that,” I said softly.

“Who's going to teach them?” said Soraya.

“Raisa and Mati,” said Jonis, as though this should have been obvious. Mati and I looked at each other. Just that morning he had begun practicing writing with his left hand, as his burned right one might never be dexterous enough to hold a quill again.

“You too, if you want,” Jonis said to Soraya, challenge in his eyes.

Soraya's perfect composure slipped. Quite apart from what he'd said, it was the first time Jonis had addressed her directly. She stared at him for a long moment. “Well, it sounds expensive,” she said, then looked around critically. “Especially with this architecture. If slave labor is no longer an option—”

“It isn't,” Jonis snapped.

Soraya rolled her eyes. I sighed, stepping between them. This would take time.

“The friezes would have to go anyway,” I said quietly. “That's
the only way I'd agree.” That was the least I could do for all the children who'd ever had to balance on a platform.

“That would bring costs down,” conceded Soraya, “but if this is open to anyone, there should be an admission price.”

“People will pay whatever they can—crops or livestock if necessary,” said Mati. He looked at Jonis. “It's the
idea
that's important—that anyone is welcome.”

Jonis nodded. He seemed surprised that Mati had understood this so easily.

We continued our tour of the palace. The scribe rooms were in the worst shape, with mountains of soggy paper everywhere, but the second floor was virtually untouched, and the first floor, apart from the Library and the main entrance, had suffered only minor damage.

Then Jonis went with Adin to discuss fortification of the walls, and Soraya went with Kirol to examine the remains of the bathhouse. Mati and I made our way out to the Adytum.

The gate, untouched, was closed, and Mati pushed it open slowly. Part of the canopy had fallen in—no doubt from the blast in the Library. Beneath it the damp writing chest poked out, one corner mangled. The asoti cage stood bare and empty, and there were no signs of dead birds. Had the asotis flown free of their imagined bars when the goddess had burst out of the tablet? I liked to think so.

I'd only seen a few asotis since the one on the temple windowsill, and they were always in the distance, watching. As if Sotia herself was watching to see how we would handle this new cooperation, to see if we were worthy of this chance.

Mati and I walked over to the wall, where the firepit had fallen from its base. The sea was calm today, fading into the greenish sky in the distance.

I sighed. “This isn't going to be easy.”

“No,” said Mati, taking my hand. “It'll take a long time.” He didn't sound discouraged though.

I leaned against him. “Wouldn't it be easier to just be king and order people to get along?”

He laughed. “It didn't work that way, even when I was king,” he said. “Besides, it didn't mean anything without the ability to make real changes. Or”—he took a deep breath—“without you as queen.” He gripped my upper arms and turned me to face him. “I guess this is as fitting a place to ask you as any. Raisa, will you marry me?”

I stared at him, and he looked nervously back. “I know there aren't any high priests anymore,” he said. “Well, except you, so I don't know how we'll work that out, but—”

His next words were cut off, because I pounced on him and kissed him.

We broke apart and I pressed my forehead against his. “As far as I am concerned, we're already married,” I whispered. “Can I declare it, just like that?”

Mati laughed giddily. “You probably can. Say it out loud, and it will be so because the High Priestess Raisa says it is.” He bowed.

I swatted his hand, reddening. “Stop that,” I said. “I feel ridiculous, being on this council. I don't know a thing about ruling anyone. All I know how to do is write.”

Mati smiled. “Luckily, you write extraordinarily well. And I
saw you with Jera. You'll be a wonderful teacher.”

Teacher
. For three days something had been fluttering around in my chest—now that I wasn't a slave, wasn't a Tutor, I didn't know what I was.
Councilor
and
priestess
, the labels tied to me by others, were uncomfortable too. Mati's easy words brought the fluttering thing to rest. Yes. I was a teacher.

I gripped Mati's hand. “I want to teach them everything. Arnath writing and higher order and lower order . . . none of it should be hidden. Only . . . it won't be just ours anymore.”

“I know,” said Mati, his smile growing wider, reminding me that every time I'd held my secrets and my words close, it had only ended in pain. He was right—it was time to open up. He'd taught me that too.

Unable to speak, I hugged him fiercely.

“What should we call this new library, anyway?” Mati said into my hair. “The Library of the Goddess?”

“No,” I said decisively. “The Library of the People.” I felt Sotia smiling down on my words, and I trembled with excitement. “We should gather as many scrolls as we can. Even . . . from the islands, if we can get them honestly. The best from everywhere.”

Mati smiled. “Then you'll have to put your own scrolls in there.”

“I burned them, remember?”

“So write more.” He led me to a table, then went to the cabinet and pried it open. He returned with paper, several battered quills, and ink, and set them before me. The scent of ink took me back so powerfully to my early days in the Adytum that my head swam.

“Tell the story,” said Mati. “Your story.”

“It's not that interesting,” I said doubtfully, but Mati only pulled a fresh piece of paper from the stack and laid it in front of me, then handed me a quill.

“Now,” he said, imitating Laiyonea, “lines in the correct order, please. No sloppiness.”

I shook my head. “If I'm going to do this, I'm going to do it my way,” I said. I closed my eyes, opening myself to the memories of my father's language, remembering my heart-verse and the symbols that had blazed with white fire on the tablet. And I found it within me—the language of my people.

I opened my eyes and began to write.

I never knew Tyasha ke Demit, but her execution started everything. . . .