Soul of Kandrith (The Kandrith Series) (5 page)

Poor Marcus. Lance wondered how long it would be before his
mother granted the new Protector a name.

“You missed the wedding,” his mother said sourly.

“When do you expect her back?” Lance asked.

“Toward the end of the week.”

Far too long to hide Sara in his room, damn it. “Did Wenda tell
you how the blue devil was defeated?” he asked abruptly.

“That your ladylove gifted it her soul? Yes.” A sniff. “Though
I find it hard to believe.”

“I was within inches of death,” Lance said brutally. “She saved
me. And Wenda, too.”

His mother frowned. “Wenda is the Kandrith. She could
have—”

Lance shook his head. “No. She tried, Mother. She knew a
Kandrith needed multiple sacrifices to gain that kind of power, so she
sacrificed her hand and her sight, but it wasn’t enough. Wenda didn’t have
enough years as Kandrith for her Lifegift to be great enough to hurt a blue
devil.”

His mother spread her arms. “What do you want me to say, that I
was wrong to order her execution? That I should somehow have anticipated her
sudden altruism? Her father broke the Hostage Pact. I obeyed the law.”

Have
you
ever
admitted
to
being
wrong
? Lance swallowed the words—he hadn’t
anticipated Sara’s selfless act either. “I need you to understand the importance
of what Sara did.”

“Why? What—” She stopped, mouth open. “You brought her home
with you, didn’t you.” It was an accusation not a question.

“I couldn’t leave her in the Republic,” Lance said shortly.
“She would’ve died.” In a thousand different ways. He had nightmares about it:
Sara forgetting to eat, Sara with a gangrenous foot from an untended wound, Sara
stoned to death by those unnerved by her stare.

A soft grunt from his mother. “Surely, she’s already dead if
she has no soul.”

I
don’t
want
to
argue
with
you
,
Mother
. Especially,
when he had a hunch he would lose.

An austere frown pinched her face. “However did you get her
past the Watcher?”

Lance had been very concerned about the possibility that the
Watcher at the Gate would mistake Sara for a blue devil, since both lacked
souls. Fortunately, the magic seemed able to tell the difference between a soul
sacrificed for power and one gifted for the good of the world; or perhaps blue
signaled the presence of Vez. In any case, they hadn’t been stopped. However,
Lance hadn’t had the courage to ask the Watcher if he’d seen some other colour
or nothing at all. They’d had the good luck to arrive with a group of three
slave escapees, and Lance and Sara had simply kept walking, unnoticed in the
tearful hubbub.

To his mother he said, “She isn’t a blue devil.”

“Hmmph. Where is she then? Show her to me.”

“A moment. We didn’t come alone.” Lance briefly explained about
Rhiain and her prisoner. By the time he finished answering his mother’s
questions, he was anxious to retrieve Sara from the hallway. He never knew what
she was going to do next.

Of course, he’d never been able to predict what
Sara-with-a-soul would do either.

* * *

“That was longer than a moment,” Sara said when Lance
came back into the hall.

His eyes widened, then his lips turned up. “So it was. I’m
sorry. Now, come.” He wrapped his fingers around her wrist. She followed the
gentle pull into a large room with weapons on the wall. A man in a red vest
stood in front of two high-backed wooden chairs. No, a woman—she had breasts—but
her dark hair was as short as a man’s.

“Sara, this is my mother. Mother, you remember Sara.” He
released her wrist.

The short-haired woman walked in a circle around Sara. “Lady
Sarathena Remillus. The last time I saw you, you were shorter by a head.” The
woman’s lips parted, showing her teeth. “I think I liked you better that
way.”

“Mother,” Lance said. His brows moved together.

Sara started to count the weapons on the wall behind her. Eight
rows of twelve, plus a partial row of five...a hundred and one in total.

“You’re looking at the axe, I see,” the woman said. “Do you
remember me ordering your head cut off?”

Sara thought back. Yes, this woman had been there. “I do.”

“And?”

“And what?” Sara didn’t understand the question.

“You must bear me some ill will!”

Lance let out a loud breath. “She doesn’t see it that way.
Sara, do you seek revenge against my mother?”

“No.”

“Are you convinced yet, Mother? She isn’t faking.”

“I’m not the one who needs convincing,” the short-haired woman
said.

Lance shifted from one foot to another. “May we stay? Or do we
need to seek out other lodging before night falls?”

“Of course, you’ll stay. I’ll take you to your rooms.”

“I know the way,” Lance said.

Ignoring him, the short-haired woman led Sara and Lance down a
second hallway to two interconnected rooms. The outer one had a bench; the inner
room had a large bed with brown blankets, a washstand, and a trunk. In one
corner stood an eight-inch carved figure of a woman.

“You must be tired, Sara. Sit,” Lance said.

Sara immediately folded her legs and sat on the floor.

Lance pinched the bridge of his nose. “On the bench,
please.”

Sara moved, though it made no difference to her. She would
stand on her head if Lance asked her to.

“Ah, I see what the problem is,” the short-haired woman said.
“It’s just like that mad girl who had conversations with thin air. You want to
heal her.”

Lance turned to the woman. “Of course, I want to heal her.”

“But she isn’t sick. She has no soul. She can’t be healed of
that,” the short-haired woman said.

“You don’t know that.” Lance’s voice was quiet.

“Yes, I do.” The woman pointed at the carved figurine. “What
does Loma say?”

Lance didn’t answer, but the woman acted as if he had.

“Ah. You haven’t asked, because you know what Her answer must
be.”

Lance shook his head. “Just because Sara can’t be healed by
Loma, doesn’t mean she’ll stay soulless. There have been some signs—”

“Like what?”

“Just now she complained that I was late—” His lips pressed
together. “You wouldn’t understand because you haven’t been with her all along.
It may not be much progress, but it is some. And in any case it’s only been nine
weeks. It’s too soon to draw conclusions.”

The woman pulled at her own hair. “You always were stubborn.”
She paused halfway out the door. “Shall I let it be known that One who Wears the
Brown is in residence? We don’t have any dire cases, but one of the servant’s
children has a cough.”

“Give me a half hour to settle in, then let them know I’m
available. All I have is a sore arm right now, so I can go to them if
necessary.”

“All? You look like you’re running a fever.” The short-haired
woman laid her hand on Lance’s forehead.

He moved away. “Only a low one. I’m fine.”

“As you wish.”

He had his first visitor within the hour. During the next six
days the outer room’s bench was often put to use, usually by people who weren’t
sick themselves, but accompanied one who was.

Except for the day when Lance vomited four times, they ate at
long tables with the rest of the Hall inhabitants. The short-haired woman always
sat at the head of the table. Lance sat on the benches with Sara beside him.
People talked to Lance, but soon only Lance talked to Sara. Only he said her
name.

Are you warm enough, Sara?

Be sure to tell me if you feel sick, Sara.

Go wash your hair, Sara.

Eat, Sara.

Sleep.

She did as he said, but as the days passed he spoke to her less
and less.

The short-haired woman came to see him on the fourth day as he
was healing a girl with a broken arm. “Healing is a wonderful gift,” she told
him after the child left with her parents, “but not everyone can be healed. Sara
is never going to get better. You have to face that. She’ll go on as she is year
after year after year. Only eating if you remind her to. Staring at the walls.
What kind of life is that?”

Sara didn’t stare at walls. She watched Lance, studying the way
he moved, trying to puzzle out why he was important.

“Leave her be,” Lance said. “She’s not hurting anyone.”

“She’s hurting you,” the woman said loudly. “I’m your mother.
Do you think I can’t see that this is killing you an inch at a time?”

Killing him? Lance had stopped vomiting and his current ailment
was a sprained knee—hardly life-threatening.

“Accept the gift Sara gave you and move on.” Liquid filled the
woman’s eyes.

“I can’t just give up on her,” Lance said, his voice low and
rough. “I love her.” His eyes filled, too, though Sara couldn’t detect a
cause—no injury, no eye-watering stench.

“Love? How can you love her? She’s a thing,” his mother said.
“It would be like kissing a doll.”

Lance’s face flushed.

He had kissed Sara once, putting his tongue in her mouth and
calling her sweetheart. It had been during one of the times on the journey back
to Kandrith when his skin had been hot to the touch and he couldn’t travel. Sara
had let him kiss her. The brush of his mustache and the softness of his lips had
felt interesting, but after a few minutes he’d stopped. Water had overflowed
from his eyes, and he hadn’t talked to her for a whole day.

“I beg of you, Lance. It’s cruel to keep her alive in such a
state. Do you think Lady Sarathena Remillus would want to live like this?” She
pointed to Sara sitting on the wooden bench. “Let Bors cut her throat. It will
be quick and painless, I promise.”

“No.” Lance’s jaw clenched. “Don’t ask me again.”

Three days passed before the short-haired woman visited them
again. She stood in the doorway of Lance’s room. “Wenda’s just been spotted
leaving the Labyrinth. Would you like to wait for her in the throne room?”

“I’ll go out to meet her,” Lance said. He eased his knee off
the bed and limped to the door.

The short-haired woman frowned. “Are you sure you should walk
that far?”

“I’ll be fine,” Lance said. “Sara, I need to talk to Wenda
alone. Please don’t follow me. I’ll be back in a little while.”

The two of them left together, but barely three hundred
heartbeats later the woman returned, alone. “Come with me.”

Silently, Sara trailed after her.

The woman walked briskly, glancing back once, then climbing two
flights of stone steps.

The steps led to a flat roof. Lance was not there, nor was
anyone else. Sara followed the woman to the roof’s edge. The woman’s red vest
stood out against the overcast sky.

“See that wall?” the short-haired woman asked. “Climb up on
it.”

The wall bordering the roof was only two feet high. Sara
stepped up and stood on the six-inch-wide ledge. The wind whipped at her skirts.
She could see the courtyard thirty feet below and the foggy woods beyond. She
searched out Lance. He looked tiny from this angle.

“Walk up and down.”

Obediently, Sara walked along the top of the wall to the
corner, then swiveled on her toes until she faced the other direction and walked
back. A gust of wind made her wobble, but she regained her balance and returned
to stand in front of the woman.

The woman formed fists with her hands. “Very good. Now do one
more thing for me, Sara. Jump.”

* * *

Lance’s knee throbbed from his haste, but by the time he
reached the courtyard someone else had beaten him to his sister.

The fat merchant who had petitioned Lance’s mother ignored
Wenda and jabbered at Marcus, “...as a gesture of goodwill.”

From the look on Wenda’s face, she found his inability to
accept a woman as leader vastly irritating, but she responded politely. “Your
request is timely. I’ve been thinking about Kandrith’s need for allies. Your
rebellion fits in with my own plans.”

“Excellent.” The merchant rubbed his hands together. “Let’s
talk numbers, shall we?”

Lance stopped a few paces back. Wenda’s red hair was neatly
braided into a coronet instead of escaping in its usual wisps. She looked well,
healthy, her colour good, but her milky eyes slayed Lance, for they didn’t see
him and never would again.

“Lance is here,” Marcus announced, acting as her eyes. His
sister’s new husband was a tall man. Despite his recent change of allegiance, he
still bore himself like a legionnaire: brown hair cropped so short it showed his
mutilated ear, jaw clean-shaven, gray eyes alert for danger.

Relief flashed over Wenda’s face. “Oh, good.” She directed her
voice at the merchant’s left shoulder. “Pray, excuse me. I need to speak to
my...envoy.”

“Envoy? Him? Is he a general?” the merchant asked.

Marcus moved between Wenda and the petitioner. His expression
was so polite, the merchant didn’t seem to realize he’d been dismissed.

Wenda opened her arms. “Lance?” she asked uncertainly when he
didn’t immediately hug her.

“I’m coming,” Lance panted. “Sprained my knee.”

A few more hops, and he folded her into a heartfelt embrace.
Her wrist stump touched his shoulder. “Praise Loma,” she murmured, stepping
back. “What took you so long on the road? Illness, I suppose.”

“In part,” Lance said. He should mention Sara, but he didn’t
want to spoil the reunion just yet. “It’s good to see you.” He studied her,
anxious to know how she was bearing up as Kandrith’s new leader and adjusting to
her two sacrifices, but unable to ask. The merchant was leaving, but slowly,
with many backward glances.

“What’s this about naming me an envoy?”

She grimaced. “You won’t like it.
I
don’t like it. You just got home! But,” she took a deep breath, “I need you to
go as my emissary to Gotia.”