Seven: Disintegration

The memory of his eyes drove Ra onward. When she’d looked up into that dreadful, uncompromising blue, the core of her being had shifted like tectonic plates sliding along a fault line in a prelude to a tremendous temblor. The memories she’d so carefully cocooned within herself had splintered and were cracking apart.

Wind tore at Ra’s cloak and her soft boots sank in the drifting snow as she made her way across the moor, chilling her to the bone. She relied on instinct to deliver her to the door of the small mound set apart from the others, recalling that she’d passed this way before. As she raised her hand to knock with her chilled fingers, he opened the door and held it aside without surprise for her to enter.

She pried off the thick gloves conjured on the way across the plain, already stiff with icicles, and was unable to speak for a moment, her lungs constricted with cold. Ahr gave her a stone from the fire wrapped in a scarf, and she held it between her fingers, gasping at the contrast. At last, she looked at him, probing the hooded indigo eyes, and noting with a start the beauty of his lashes, still tipped with frost.

“You know why I’ve come,” she said on a cold-ragged breath.

“Retribution?” Color rose in his cheeks that was neither from cold nor from shame. When she didn’t answer, he continued, as though he couldn’t bear her silence. “You are Ra of Rhyman, are you not? You’ve come again, despite…” He paused, turning pale. “Despite the manner of your death?”

Rhyman. In this word, she heard the clamor of the Deltan streets in summer, incongruous in this dreary, winter-buried hill. She smelled the scent of holy oil, felt the motion of a serf-borne litter beneath her.

He had taken her maidenhead in a crowd of thousands.

Ra reeled before the dizzying image of a bustling city, superimposed upon the backdrop of this quaint hillside house, uncertain which was vision and which was real.

She stood in the street, watching him, and he had seen—from inside his curtained box, carried on the broad shoulders of his men, the Meer had seen her, and she was undone. Heat, and sweat and dust from the street roiled together as he drew her inside the heavy layers of silk, muting the atonal notes of cymbals and supplication. Thick incense completed the barrier that kept commoner from Meer, but she’d violated that barrier; she was within. The litter began to move. Darkness, except for the glowing embers of the incense and the glinting of his hair where sunlight caught it through pinholes in the curtaining drapes. She was silent as he undressed her, silent as he entered her.

She lost her maidenhead in the streets of Rhyman.

The vision drifted apart like soap bubbles on the surface of a drum of wash water, and where that other place had been, Ahr’s blue eyes challenged her, waiting for an answer. He knew her, as she didn’t know herself.

The pain in her head intensified as she snatched at the fragments of images she couldn’t quite call memory. She was only an observer to their seductive dance, floating disembodied above them. His eyes and his scent distracted her—a hint of bitter citrus and musk that brought another memory to mind: lips touching skin, claiming every part in a slow, relentless ritual of possession. A sudden conviction seized her that he was the Meer in her visions. It was right. Still, she couldn’t place herself as the girl in the veil. But that was irrelevant. He was Meer, and he had known her.

Even if her gut hadn’t told her, she’d heard enough about the Meer from Geffn and Keiren to know he was dangerous. Should she kneel? Did she risk her life with this challenge to his authority? Or should he fear her exposure of him as a fugitive, a form of man forbidden? The potency of his presence confused her. Ra bowed her head in a muddled compromise, but spoke with the defiance of her convictions.

“Your kind,” she said with a bitter twist of her lips, “think they can get away with anything. Seducing, deceiving, destroying. You were not worthy to have laid a hand on me.”

When she looked up, it was to a bloodless rage in the otherwise refined features as he stared at her for an instant that felt like an eternity. And then the elastic band of time snapped back, and he struck her across the face. Ra tumbled and fell in an indelicate heap, the wrapped stone bouncing away from her in slow motion, every strike against the stone floor like a hollow gourd or a clay pot breaking on a marble step. Tectonic plates ground together and she heard a terrible sound, as if her cells were screaming as they came apart. He’d done something terrible. She’d done something worse.

Ra looked up at him, fear and anger warring within her as the slipping plates tore jagged pieces from one another. She opened her mouth to rebuke him, but instead, burst into tears.

Ahr was unable to do anything but stare in shock. He’d never struck a woman before, and the force of his own hand surprised him as much as her fragility. He’d expected the resistance of the firm, muscular jaw of a Meer, and possibly a return volley that might have knocked Ahr on his ass instead of Ra. Despite the years of hatred he harbored, and rightly so, this new Ra was a fantastic creature, erratic and fine, like a piece of painted porcelain broken to a serrated edge. How was it possible the Meer could return in such a slight incarnation, so easily overcome? Surely, the soul couldn’t recreate itself of different matter.

He clung to his fury as if it were his lifeline, afraid to let go, lest he discover what lay beneath it. “What do you want from me?”

Ra flinched as though stung by the sound of his voice. “Myself.” Her eyes beseeched him. “Tell me who I am.”

So it was true. She’d lost the memory of her past life. Clearly, she knew something of their association, but not the essence. Most importantly, she had no idea what Ahr had done to her.

Before he could speak, the door to his mound opened with a fierce howl of wind, and Jak stumbled in. “I knocked,” Jak gasped, fighting against the wind to push the door shut again. “I guess you couldn’t hear…”

Beside the hearth, Ra still sprawled at Ahr’s feet, face streaked with obscene tears, the reddening welt on her cheek unmistakable. Jak’s eyes narrowed on Ahr from within the shadows of the icy hood, flashing with warning like those of a wild boar hidden in a thicket.

There wasn’t even time to react before Jak came at him and tackled him at the waist. The momentum crashed both of them into the handmade table and one of the chairs that were nearly the whole of Ahr’s possessions. His poor craftsmanship gave under their weight, and they went down in a pile of splintered wood. Ahr gave an exclamation of surprise and outrage and kicked out with his boot as Jak scrambled toward him, meeting Jak squarely in the gut. Jak doubled over, looking green.

“Dammit, Jak!” He rubbed his bruised head where he’d struck it against a cabinet. “Are you all right? I’m sorry, but what in sooth?”

“Sooth?” Jak gasped in a tight voice. “What would you know about sooth?” Ra moved toward Jak in concern, but Jak shrugged off her attempts to help. “You’re a damned fraud.”

Ahr swallowed. That was truer than Jak knew. He got to his feet and took a cup from the sideboard, pumping water into it at the sink with deliberation, and then turned and crouched to hand the cup to Jak. “This is none of your business,” he warned, voice low, as Jak took the cup.

Eyes heavy with judgment regarded him over the rim. “The hell it isn’t. Ra is a member of our mound, and you’re a Deltan Expurgist. And she—” Jak looked at Ra, and the fire went out of the steel eyes. The ruby streaks of Meersblood still marked Ra’s cheeks. “She is MeerRa of Rhyman.”

Ra picked herself up and backed away. “No,” she said. “No, that’s wrong. You’re wrong.” She stared at Ahr through ashen eyes. “Tell Jak that isn’t true.”

Jak gave Ahr a brief, unyielding look. “I believe he’s been waiting for you.”

A surprised, bitter outburst escaped him. “Waiting for Ra!” He wasn’t sure if the tremor in his voice was laughter or mounting hysteria. He’d left Rhyman to escape Ra. Rhyman was full of Ra, wherever he went. He wiped his mouth where he’d spat the words like a madman, and Ra focused on the ring on his finger.

From within her cloak, she drew a thread that hung about her neck. On its end dangled another piece of jewelry, this one more ancient, more ornate, and designed for a larger hand; but both contained the set of rubies at their center, rubies that looked like Meersblood, caught and solidified.

Jak stood and went to examine it. “Where did you get this?”

She flashed Jak an apologetic look. “I spoke, and it came to me. I knew my conjury before alarmed you, so I hid it.” Ra lifted her eyes to Ahr’s, and her face changed, as though an integral piece of it that had been missing had fallen into place. He was all out of outrage, and the fear it had been staving off crawled over his limbs like the tendrils of a poisonous vine. “It was you,” she said mournfully. “You’re the maiden in the veil.”

Despite the bitter cold surrounding the mound, Ahr began to sweat. He felt Jak’s gaze on him, probing the secrets of his past like a divining Meer. The last thing he wanted was to have this denouement, to discuss his seduction and corruption at the hands of Ra, here before Jak.

“Well, meerrá.” He used the Deltan oath with bitter sarcasm, folding his arms as he met Jak’s eyes. “I guess you didn’t see that coming.” He looked away, his eyes focusing on the arched window that had been his comfort and now only reminded him of Temple Ra. A high crescent of white piled against the pane in sharp contrast to the darkness while more snow hurtled in the howling wind. There was no way he could send Ra and Jak back out in that. “And I guess I’m hosting dinner.”

Beside Ahr at the stove, Jak whipped rubbed sage and garlic into the soft qirhu cheese from his larder while Ahr pulled together the ingredients for a quick frybread. He could tell Jak was biting back questions, but had honored his desire not to talk about Ra’s revelation. Ra, in turn, seemed to have slipped into a nearly catatonic state, perched on Ahr’s cot like a statue and staring into the fire.

Jak glanced at her as the first few loaves came out of the oil. “You should try these, Ra. I don’t think you even ate at all today in the excitement.”

Ra took a breath as if coming to life and shook her head. “I’m not hungry. The two of you should divide what you have between yourselves.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You have to eat.”

“She doesn’t.” Ahr’s jaw tightened with stony understanding. “Her kind can probably go for days without sustenance. Just as they can consume the bribery of an entire soth in a single sitting.”

Ra turned away, but not before he saw the flush of shame on her pale cheeks.

“There’s plenty,” Jak insisted. “You should at least taste Ahr’s frybread. It’s really delicious.”

Ra looked back at Jak with an entirely different expression, ebony eyes bright, as if there were a level of intimacy between them he hadn’t guessed at. As if she and Jak had— Ahr sucked in his breath. Sonofabitch. She seemed oblivious to him. “Peta and I made a wonderful bread for the feast.”

Ahr took a step toward her, and when he’d caught her gaze, he held it with a look of defiance. “My food is perfectly good. We don’t need anything you’d make.”

As he’d suspected, his challenge brought out the real MeerRa. The look of bright innocence and eagerness was gone as she rose from the cot, her face slipping into the mask of an idol while she approached him slowly. But what she did next, he hadn’t expected.

“Nothing, Ahr? What about wine? Chutney? Fowl? Roast cattle?” As she spoke, the sideboard filled with the decadence of an obscenely conjured feast, platters of silver and crystal dishes trimmed with gold materializing just as easily as the food that filled them, as though specificity were not even required, merely her thoughts behind the words necessary to speak them into being.

The sight of it made his blood run cold. He’d never really seen her conjure. He’d been a believer, but only in the abstract.

Ahr swallowed. “I will not have necromancy in my home. Get rid of it.”

Her expressionless mien fractured for an instant. “Contrary to popular belief, to create is much simpler than to destroy. We are often stuck with what we make. Whether we want it or not.” Ahr’s heart pounded and his gut tightened. Her words had conjured much more than what was visible.

Jak stared wide-eyed at the bounty. “Maybe we shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, Ahr. Who knows how long we’ll be stuck together.”

Ahr’s head and his heart pounded in competing beats, so many emotions warring with each other inside him he thought he might be torn apart. “She’s bewitched you.” He shook his head. “You have no idea who she is, Jak. What she’s capable of. But I suppose it wouldn’t matter to you anyway.” He picked off a leg of the stuffed bird and began to eat with exaggerated enthusiasm. “Since gender is immaterial.”

“What wouldn’t matter?”

“That MeerRa raped me.” He said it casually, hoping it punched Jak in the gut. But to give the lie to his words, Ra, amidst the resplendent feast that was a testament to her power, began to cry. Tears dripped like the wax of a red candle down the alabaster cheeks.

Staring wordlessly, Jak stumbled back and sat abruptly in Ahr’s remaining kitchen chair.

Ahr dropped the ravaged bone against the sideboard with a clatter and dug his hand into the steaming cavity of the hen, taking out the savory center and eating from his fist. “Well done,” he said with a mouthful, and nodded his approval. “It’s excellent artifice, Jak, you should have some. Though the tears are a bit much.”

Ra met his eyes with an expression that on anyone else he would have called humility, the pink in her cheeks underscoring the dripping red. “You were my great crime,” she acknowledged. “But it was one of weakness, not force.”

“Weakness?” Ahr poured himself a goblet of wine and laughed into it as he drank. “The Great weak Meer in his golden litter. I suppose it was I who seduced you?”

“I let you in, Ahr. I condemned us both. I let you in through the cloth that separated Meer from men, and in that moment you were already defiled.”

Ahr’s hand fumbled, and he spilled the wine. “No. You defiled me when you took my virginity.”

“Took it?” Ra’s tone evinced genuine incredulity. “I thought you gave it to me. I gave you mine.”

A strangled sound meant to be a laugh escaped him. “The myth of the celibate Meer. In all those undeserving years of your parasitic feeding on the soth of Rhyman, you’re going to claim I was your only indiscretion? You never even looked at my face.”

Ra’s eyes had filled once more with a rim of red stain. “You kept your veil, Ahr. I honored that.”

“Honor.” The word stuck him like a knife in the gut. “And how did you honor me when I begged for you to speak on my behalf? When I exposed myself to the shame of the Delta?”

Ra made a vague motion with her hands, clearing invisible cobwebs. “To speak is to create,” she murmured to herself, repeating it, trying to comprehend something that was beyond her reckoning.

Ahr moved toward her as if compelled. “You don’t remember all of it, do you? Vetmaaimeera.” He couldn’t resist the mocking entreaty. “You created without ever opening your mouth.”

She flinched, stepping back from his advance with dread in her eyes. “What creation? What do you mean?”

The misery he’d buried inside him like a stone weighing down a body against the deep bed of the Anamnesis rose mercilessly to the surface and nearly pulled him under. Ahr gripped her shoulders and held her gaze with his. He would show her no mercy. “RaNa, you son of a bitch.” He flung her from his grasp, and she struck the wall with her shoulder blades drawn back in defense. “Your daughter.”

Ra’s mouth opened, but she made no sound as she slid against the stone, staring at something they couldn’t see. “It broke. On the steps… It broke open.” Understanding dawned in her eyes at last. “Nana,” she whispered, and then shrieked, “RaNa!” The scream pierced the mound and shattered the pane of Ahr’s window. Ra dropped to her knees, gripping her head between white fingers, repeating a soft moan as she rocked: “Nana. Nana. Nana.”

Ahr wrapped his arms around himself as if that could protect him. “I didn’t think they’d touch her,” he said quietly. “She was a child.” The shame he’d tried to leave with his womanhood on the dusty floor of MeerShiva’s den was strangling him like a rope of eelgrass beneath the Anamnesis.

Ra began to retch, but only a clear liquid poured from her lips, and Jak, whom Ahr had forgotten for a moment, fading into the woodwork at the spectacle he’d begun, finally moved to help. Ra looked up with eyes that forbade it and after a moment of impotent misery, she climbed to her feet and mounted the stairs.

Jak bounded after her. “Ra, you can’t go out in that. I barely made it here.”

Ra turned and shook her head, her obsidian eyes like sunken bits of coal, and put her hand on Jak’s cheek. “It’s too late, Jak na Fyn. I shouldn’t have come.” Her other hand pulled down on the latch behind her, and as the door flew open, the wind caught her hair in a wild twist of whipping darkness against the snarling snow.

Jak grabbed for her as her hand slipped from the latch, but Ra moved like the wind itself, and she was gone, swallowed up into a swirl of white that nearly knocked Jak backward.

Ahr hurried up the steps and pulled the door from the frozen fingers to close it as Jak stood motionless. “You won’t find her. She’s Meer. The storm is nothing to her.”

Steel eyes accused Ahr silently of all he was guilty of, but he was destroyed by the whispered sound of Ra’s grief still echoing in his head. “He called her Nana.” Ahr choked out the words. “My Mila. My child.”