“Glorianna . . .”
“
Please
, Lee. Get out of the garden.
Now.
”
He took a step away from her. Took another. It hurt him to ask, but he asked because she was his sister and he still loved her. “Do you want Michael? Or Sebastian?”
“No. I don’t want anyone in this garden right now.”
His own heart had soured this time together. His own hurt at what she had done to save them all and how she came back kept getting in the way. Would it get in the way one time too many?
“I’m sorry, Glorianna,” he said.
“So am I.”
As he walked away from his sister and her dark landscapes, he heard her say, “Ephemera, hear me.”
He wasn’t sure who had summoned the world—the Guide who belonged to the Light or the monster who ruled the Dark.
She had walked those landscapes, folding them into each other, turning them into mazes that celebrated her Dark purity, altering them into labyrinths that offered no peace, no comfort. Those things did not exist in her world. She created out of the brutal beauty that came from the undiluted feelings that lived in the dark side of the human heart. She was sublime madness, magnificent rage, divine indifference.
In that place, she had been Belladonna.
Only Belladonna.
Setting her feet on the bench, Glorianna dropped her forehead to her knees and trembled with the effort not to give Ephemera a command as the world’s currents of Dark and Light swirled around her, waiting to resonate with whatever her heart wanted.
Unfortunately, when she wasn’t vigilant, she craved the undiluted power she had wielded in the dark landscape she had made for the Eater of the World. She wasn’t supposed to leave that landscape. The Warrior of Light must drink from the Dark Cup and cast out the Light from her own heart. Once she had done that, she became the greatest danger to the people around her.
But Michael, Sebastian, and Ephemera had found a way to reach her, made her remember who she had been, and hearing the music in Michael’s heart, she had used the access point Ephemera had created and taken the step between here and there.
And in taking that step, she had taken back the Light she had cast out of her heart. But she wasn’t whole. She wasn’t Glorianna Belladonna anymore. She was Glorianna and she was Belladonna. Separate. Opposite. Much like her dark landscapes and Sanctuary. The problem was that the middle ground was missing inside her, and she didn’t know how to fix that. Didn’t know if anyone could fix that.
Now she had this mysterious landscape that wasn’t yet hers. She
thought
its resonance might be enough for her to cross over and find out what the place was—and where it was. Only it didn’t feel like a dark landscape, despite Ephemera thinking it should connect with the Den, and it didn’t feel like a landscape that belonged to the Light.
And she wasn’t sure if that piece of the world called to Glorianna or to Belladonna.
Something rippled through Ephemera’s currents of power. Then it washed through her. Both parts of her.
“Maybe it’s not the landscape that’s calling to me,” she whispered as she raised her head to study the triangle of grass.
Someone from that landscape wanted something so much, a heart wish had gone out through the currents of power—and had found her because she wasn’t just a powerful Landscaper; she was also a Guide of the Heart.
Glorianna swung her feet off the bench, then lifted them again, startled by the gravel suddenly moving between her feet. A moment later, a pocket watch poked partway out of the gravel.
Oh, that can’t be good,
she thought as she reached for the watch with the same enthusiasm as a person feels when picking up a mouse the family cat left as a gift.
Before she could touch it, the watch wiggled back under the gravel.
She stared at the gravel, then at the triangle of grass. “It’s not time for me to go there?”
yes yes yes
At least she understood Ephemera’s message.
And she thought it best not to ask her lover where—and how—the wild child had acquired the watch.
Then she heard the music. Michael, tending to the garden he had made within her garden by playing his tin whistle. He heard the song of a place and kept his pieces of the world balanced with tunes—along with the ill-wishing and luck-bringing that were the ways a Magician’s power connected with the world.
Giving the triangle of grass a last, thoughtful look, she followed the sound of the whistle until she reached Michael’s garden.
He finished the tune and gave her a sheepish smile.
“So what have you and the wild child been up to today?” she asked.
“That depends,” he replied. “How do you feel about diamonds and emeralds?”
yes yes yes
Knowing better than to answer when Ephemera was so eager to please, she said, “Play another tune, Magician.”
“Lee.”
Swearing silently, Lee turned to wait for the man striding from Sanctuary’s guesthouse. If he hadn’t stopped for some food to add to his pack, he could have slipped away from Sanctuary like he had slipped away from the Island in the Mist after he left Glorianna’s garden.
“Honorable Yoshani,” he said. “Have you come to argue with me too?”
“Who have you argued with today?” Yoshani asked.
Lee saw nothing but compassion in the holy man’s dark eyes. “Michael. Sebastian. Glorianna.” He looked away, not wanting to meet Yoshani’s eyes. “You all think I’m wrong, that I should accept she will never be the same, and that I should make some kind of peace with Michael because I’m Glorianna’s brother and he’s as close to being her husband as a man can get without the formal vows.”
“He would speak those vows without hesitation. It is Glorianna Dark and Wise who is not ready to take that step.” Yoshani hesitated. “You have not asked for my advice, but as we are standing in Sanctuary, I will offer it anyway. There is much hurt and anger in your heart. It clouds your ability to see the people around you for who and what they are now. Perhaps you need this, but a man who does the work you do cannot afford to hold that much hurt and anger in his heart. People change, Lee. And the world changes. You know this better than most. Don’t let these dark feelings change you so much that you can’t find your way home again.”
“I’ll always be able to get back home,” Lee said, his voice turning sharp as a way to defy the odd shiver produced by Yoshani’s words.
“Will you?” Yoshani asked gently. “If you refuse to see the Landscaper, will you be able to find her landscapes?”
Lee took a couple of steps away from Yoshani. “I have to go.”
“Do your friends and family a kindness. Every two days, return to Sanctuary and let us know you are well. There are still wizards and some Dark Guides hiding in the landscapes beyond your mother’s and sister’s control. And the Bridges who survived the Eater’s attack haven’t stopped creating bridges for people who need to leave where they are.”
Which was why he needed to patrol and stay vigilant. But he couldn’t deny that Yoshani’s suggestion was prudent.
“All right,” he said. “I’ll use my island to reach Glorianna’s and Mother’s landscapes so I’m not spending a lot of time on the roads alone. And every second day I’ll return here and give you or Brighid my itinerary for the next bit of journeying.”
“Fair enough.” Yoshani smiled. “Travel lightly, Lee.”
Giving the man a terse nod, Lee walked to the stream and the small island that sat in the middle of it. His own personal landscape, it existed on the bridge of his will when he imposed it over other landscapes. Because of that, Sanctuary—and safety—was never more than a step away.
Nimbly walking across the stepping stones, he jumped to the island and staggered, off-balance.
Had
there been a moment when the island hadn’t been under his feet? But he was in Sanctuary, where the island actually existed. How was it possible for it
not
to be there?
Lee went to the center of the island and left his pack near the fountain—a bowl of black stone with a hollowed-out piece of cane that drew fresh water from the stream. He carefully inspected every section of the island to be certain nothing about it had changed. Then he shifted it to a landscape held by his mother.
Let your heart travel lightly. Because what you bring with you becomes part of the landscape.
Heart’s Blessing was one of the first things he had learned, but this was the first time in his twenty-nine years that the words made him uneasy.
Also by Anne Bishop
The Black Jewels Series
Daughter of the Blood
Heir to the Shadows
Queen of the Darkness
The Invisible Ring
Dreams Made Flesh
Tangled Webs
The Shadow Queen
Shalador’s Lady
Twilight’s Dawn
The Ephemera Series
Sebastian
Belladonna
Bridge of Dreams
The Tir Alainn Trilogy
The Pillars of the World
Shadows and Light
The House of Gaian