“Is it normal for Orinai to live that long?” Lhaurel asked. She thought she knew the answer already, but wanted to make sure.
“Just Sisters. Well, some of the second Iteration also live longer lives, but not nearly the span that we Sisters do.”
“What about vulcanists?”
Talha’s head snapped up and she almost spun about in the chair, eyes locking onto Lhaurel’s.
“Vulcanists are killed as soon as they are discovered,” Talha said in as intent and serious a voice as Lhaurel had ever heard before. “As are all of the Third Iteration.”
Something about that tugged at Lhaurel’s memory, something she’d read in the Schema. The Third Iterations were the most powerful, and the most unstable, if she remembered correctly. There was another Iteration up from her current power, an ability dealing with souls instead of blood?
“Why?”
“That is a discussion for another time. One which our other Sisters shall be present for. It seems your new knowledge and memories don’t recall everything after all. For now, I think I have a theory as to why your memories and learning are so advanced.”
“Why do the other Sisters need to be present? Why not just tell me yourself?” Lhaurel asked. Memories that wouldn’t quite coalesce tugged at her mind like the wind pulling at loose clothing. “I’m just curious.”
Talha frowned and her eyes flashed. “Because I won’t. Third tier Iterations are dangerous and deadly. That is all you need know for now.” Her tone was final and brooked no further argument. “Now, how long have you been having dreams of Elyana, child?”
Lhaurel wanted to protest, but Talha gave her such a hard look that she decided to let the matter drop. For now. The memories tugging at her mind faded, but didn’t fully disappear.
“Long enough,” she said, then paused to think about it. Her own memories were clearer and easy to access. “Since right after the events in the Oasis. Perhaps a few months? Maybe longer?”
Talha pursed her lips, but started writing again. Her quill scratched against the paper.
“And was that the first time you’d accessed your powers?”
“No. Khari, the mystic who found me, broke me well before that, though I had trouble with the wetta abilities. I didn’t realize that my powers were linked to blood until later, a few days before the Oasis, perhaps.”
“So half a year, then?”
Lhaurel shrugged. She really didn’t know an exact time, but that seemed as accurate a guess as anything.
Talha nodded and snorted at the same time, then shook her head. “It astounds me that a
mystic
helped you come into your powers. How backwards and barbaric of them to think you’d have access to the wetta’s abilities.”
“They didn’t know any better,” Lhaurel said. “They didn’t start reading the scrolls until after then and we didn’t understand even then.”
“Scrolls?” Talha arched an eyebrow, an eager gleam glinting in her eyes. “What scrolls? You mentioned them before. Do you know who would have written them or how long they were there in the Arena? I—” Talha cut off sharply as the ship rocked. Lhaurel had to reach out and put one hand against the wall to keep from falling.
Talha looked up at the ceiling with a furrowed brow and a frown, then sighed and snapped her book shut as muffled shouting drifted down to them. She stood and gathered up the books and other papers, getting ink on her hands and robes.
“What’s going on?” Lhaurel asked, as Talha made her way toward the door.
“Something unexpected, I expect,” Talha said with a sigh of resignation. “You may as well come with me. The captain will have sent a runner, I’m sure.”
Lhaurel followed, both intrigued and glad of the excuse to leave her room. Light still streamed through the porthole and Lhaurel had hope for an opportunity to go out on deck while the sun was still in the sky.
Several priestesses, both Lhaurel’s and Talha’s, stood in the dimly lit corridor outside Lhaurel’s door. Talha handed her pile of books to one of hers and kept walking, reaching the wooden steps that led up onto the deck of the ship at the same time that the doors above were flung open and light streamed down into the hall. Lhaurel blinked against the blinding light for half a moment, then a silhouette blocked out the greater part of the light.
“Honored Sisters,” a male voice said. Lhaurel couldn’t pick out any of the man’s features, backlit as he was in the doorway. “The captain wishes me ter beg your ladyships to meet him up here on the deck ifn’s it ain’t much trouble for you.”
Talha turned and looked beyond Lhaurel toward some of the priestesses who were following along behind them.
“Go fetch our staffs,” she ordered, then turned back to the man in the doorway.
From the way the shadow shifted, Lhaurel guessed he was fidgeting nervously.
“Tell your captain we will be with him shortly.”
The silhouette vanished and Lhaurel squinted against the light once more. A priestess hurried up with their staffs born on white cloth. Talha reached out and took hers and, after a moment, so did Lhaurel. Talha headed up the stairs and Lhaurel followed.
The smell of the sea hit Lhaurel as she stepped out onto the deck. The familiarity of it rang with a double resonance within her. The salty tang reminded her of the salt springs of the Sidena Warren where she had bathed on the fateful day of her marriage that had started all this. A mildew smell pulled up images of the vast underground lake beneath the Roterralar Warren, though the sea’s smell wasn’t stale. There was a freshness to it. But another part of Lhaurel recalled the smell of the spray itself with familiar longing. The misty water left a thin sheen on her cheek and she reached up a hand to feel at it, smelling the brine.
“Sister?” Lhaurel started. One of the priestesses behind her cleared her throat softly and Lhaurel moved forward, not having realized she’d stopped.
The ship rocked gently in the water, the movement more pronounced now that Lhaurel had a horizon to act as something to compare the motion to. Sailors huddled around the rails, watching her. A shoreline rested in the distance, visible through the ropes and rigging that stretched down from the masts. Lhaurel followed Talha across the deck and up another set of steps to where the captain waited behind the wheel. Noticing them approach, he stepped back from the wheel, letting another of the sailors take it, and whipped off his hat.
“I am sorry to have bothered you, Honored Sisters,” he said, hands clenching and unclenching on the hat, “but I didn’t know what else to do.” He licked his lips and pointed behind them with his hat.
Lhaurel turned, mirroring Talha’s movement at her side. Three more ships rested in the water not a hundred spans away, each as big or bigger than their own vessel. They formed an impenetrable line between their own ship and the shore, which lay only a few hundred spans further behind them. Lhaurel could barely make out people and wagons moving about on the shore.
“A blockade?” Talha said with more curiosity than anything else. “Who would be so foolish as to block the passage of one of the Sisters? You’re flying the appropriate colors, are you not?”
“Y-yes,” the captain said, shuffling his feet and pointing at one of the masts. “Since before we found you.”
Lhaurel glanced up the mast and saw a red and white flag fluttering from the top of the mast.
“What colors are they flying?” Talha asked, squinting across the distance at the other ships.
“House Kelkott.”
Talha frowned and leaned against her staff.
“Sir,” one of the sailors called from the prow. “They’re putting longboats in the water, sir. What’re your orders, Cap?”
“A thousand pardons, Sister,” the captain said, shooting a look across the deck at the sailor who had spoken. “Tinget has never had the honor of hosting a Sister aboard ship before. I will see to his punishment myself.”
Talha nodded.
Punishment?
“What would you have us do, Sister?”
“Wait.”
The captain nodded and licked his lips again, hands twisting the hat into a roll and then letting it go over and over again. Sweat beaded on his forehead and dripped down his face, sticking his long, brown hair to his scalp in wet mats. A few sailors moved across the deck below them, readying line and long poles with hooks at the end, but their movements seemed slow and lethargic. As if they were nervous.
As if they were afraid.
Lhaurel looked over at Talha, seeing her unconcerned expression and taking reassurance in that.
“I think we should go down and await our visitors, Lhaurel,” Talha said quietly, gesturing toward the stairs with one of her ink-stained hands. As Lhaurel stepped forward, Talha leaned in close and continued in a whisper, walking alongside her. “Watch your words, child. This smells of politics and you are woefully unprepared for that. As a Sister, your words will take on a hundred meanings both to the devout and unbeliever alike.”
Lhaurel tried not to let her confused curiosity show as she walked with Talha down the steps and onto the deck. This wasn’t the first time Talha had spoken so scathingly of politics, but it
was
the first time she’d implied a limit to her own power and authority along with it. While much of what Talha had been teaching her about the land and the people had been frighteningly familiar to her, this wasn’t. Lhaurel wasn’t sure if that fact alone made her more or less afraid.
Once again, the sailors moved back toward the rails as she and Talha passed, each of the men holding onto the wooden rungs as if they were about to fall. Several looked away, glancing at the longboats approaching over the water. A few—Lhaurel recognized some of their faces from the Devotions—bowed respectfully as she and Talha passed. Others simply stared at the floor. Their fear was palpable. Part of Lhaurel saw it as the respect due one of her station. The other part, the young woman who had lived in fear herself for most of her life in the Sharani Desert, felt pity for them and, partly, ashamed.
As they got to the rail at the front of the ship, Lhaurel couldn’t help but look out over the vastness of the ocean around them. The expanse of water stood there like a silent sentinel, reflecting light and undulating with the motion of the wind. She was struck by how much it resembled the shifting sands of the desert. Images and memories of those she’d left behind passed through her mind. She straightened and looked over at the approaching boats.
Three longboats bobbed in the water, two sailors working the oars on each one. Lhaurel was only slightly bemused at knowing the correct terms. She was starting to get used to it.
The middle longboat edged ahead of the others and a figure stood up at the prow. A figure with blood red hair.
“Another Sister?” Lhaurel asked in a muted whisper so only Talha, who was a few steps away from her, could hear.
Talha snorted and looked down at Lhaurel, face wrinkled in disgust.
“Not even close. There are some among the greater Houses who feel that imitation gleans additional support from the Sisters and our sphere of influence,” Talha said. “They’re nothing but panderers. Pay them no real mind.”
“Ahoy the ship!” the figure, clearly a woman by the timbre of her voice, said. “Permission to board?”
“My ladies?” the captain asked. Lhaurel hadn’t noticed him come up.
“Ask them what they want and why they have stopped a ship bearing the colors of the Seven Sisters.”
“Yes, Honored Sister,” the captain said, licking his lips. “Great One?” Talha glanced at him with a look that would have made Lhaurel squirm if it had been directed at her. “There are three of them and but one of us.”
Talha’s eyes flashed. “Do it now.” Talha’s voice wasn’t loud, but it was hard enough to break stone.
The captain took a half step back and swallowed hard, though his hand stilled on his hat. After half a heartbeat, he stepped forward again, seeming to have regained a measure of his resolve. Lhaurel would have felt some small pity for him if he hadn’t also stepped away from Talha and closer to her when he did so.
“What business are you about?” the captain shouted. “We bear the colors of the Seven Sisters.”
His voice seemed to echo over the waters. The longboats came ever closer. The figure standing in the prow of the lead longboat raised her hands to her mouth to shout back.
“We have a message for the Sister aboard your vessel, borne by Earth Ward through the stones.”
The captain looked over at Talha, but Lhaurel spoke before she could think to keep her mouth shut.
“What message?”
The captain’s head whipped around to face her so fast Lhaurel thought it might snap. Talha gave Lhaurel a cool look, but didn’t countermand her. Lhaurel nodded toward the approaching longboats.
“What message?” the captain shouted, turning slowly back out toward the other vessels.
“It comes from Estrelar, from the Sisters’ Temple!” The woman’s voice rang out. Even Lhaurel noticed the awe and fervor in it. It was strange to her, seeing the different reactions to even the mention of the Seven Sisters.
Talha stepped forward to the rail, ignoring the captain as an intermediary, which seemed to please him. He stepped back hastily as if wanting to get away as quickly as possible. Lhaurel looked from him out to the woman on the longboat and her rapt, pointed attention.