Jak avoided her, leaving Ra to her own devices. Merit continued his inexplicable slumber through day and night, and Shiva was nowhere to be found. Ra looked in on him, sitting for hours at his feet, wondering what could be happening inside his head. Why would Shiva send him under? The blood, still, was a mystery that worried Ra. She began to think Shiva might have wrung it from him, perhaps from his eyes as it appeared, but for what? She’d slept once at Shiva’s doing, and woken also drenched in blood, but hers had been the blood of menstruation. She could think of no equivalent for Merit that could explain this.
If Merit needed this submersion, it could only be the death of Ahr that had so drained him. Perhaps Shiva had tried to swallow his grief and it had gone wrong, manifested in this blood stigmata. And Shiva, perhaps, had attempted this too soon after the burden that had come before—the burden of healing Ra.
She wandered the halls in search of distraction. The temple was empty except for Jak. She’d sent the servants away. Merit had announced to them on the evening of her arrival that her word was to be considered his, and they obeyed, assisted in no small part by the instinctive awe her presence inspired.
In Merit’s room, Ra inspected his wardrobe and found only the same black uniform of waistcoat and pants repeated. He was a man of comfortable habits. Ra unfastened the robe of Shiva’s bedtime whim and let it fall to the crimson carpet, taking one of Merit’s suits from the wardrobe. Shiva had been providing for her and modifying her habiliment as she pleased of the same matter, a method of conservation that allowed the freedom to create without expending significant energy. She tried on the suit and stood before his mirror, and it provided her with a brief moment of amusement. He was taller and broad-shouldered, and the garments hung on her like a child playing dress-up with her father’s things.
Ra returned to the wardrobe and slipped out of the oversized clothes to put them in their place. Lowering the shirt, she started at a sound and turned to find Jak in the archway. Ra clutched the shirt around her, sleeves hanging loose, as though caught in the act of something shameful.
“You startled me,” she said with a nervous laugh. “I thought perhaps Merit had woken.”
“I wanted a book.” Steel eyes regarded her peculiarly. Jak tightened the cord holding back the stubby ponytail with a characteristic fidgety gesture that made Ra ache to bring Jak ease as she’d once done—conjuring away discomfort with a touch. But that sort of magical shortcut was how things had gone so wrong. Ra couldn’t conjure forgiveness.
“He’s been teaching me Deltan.”
Ra raised her brow with interest. “Has he? I hadn’t even thought how you were getting along.” She shifted her weight, holding the placket of the large shirt closed in front of her. “I came to see if there was something of Merit’s I could wear. The robe is all I have, and I was tiring of it. But his things don’t fit.”
“What are the scars?” Jak plowed through the veneer of politeness.
It was a moment of silence too long before she answered. “What scars?”
“You choose, Ra.”
Ra’s eyebrow flitted upward, noncommittal. “It’s nothing.”
“It was MeerShiva.” Jak didn’t pose it as a question. “She’s mad. More mad than you.”
“Shiva is wise.”
“Wise. And what wisdom do you suppose she’s exercising on Merit? She could be consuming him for all we know. Leaching out his soul.”
“No.”
“I’ve changed my mind about staying.” Jak’s shoulders drew back resolutely. “The wind is high today. I don’t want to be trapped here through winter. Merit may never wake.” When Ra merely nodded, Jak pushed back a stray pale-ash lock of hair and eyed the shirt Ra still clutched around herself. “So you really can’t conjure. If you need something to wear, take what you like of mine. It will lighten my load.”
Jak’s room was opposite the one Ahr had chosen when they were here last, its window looking out over the Anamnesis instead of the interior courtyard. Jak opened the wardrobe for Ra and stepped aside as she examined the brushed cotton and canvas. Jak was shorter, and notably smaller in the bust, but the clothes Jak preferred were loose and undefining. They ought to do. Jak turned away to the window. The river below was dark and indolent.
This moment called to Jak’s mind their first meeting, when Ra had arrived in Haethfalt—arrived in the world—wearing nothing but her skin, conjuring a cloak and boots of fur as she stumbled across the snow-blanketed moor toward shelter. Jak had found her and brought her home, finding her something to wear before the rest of the moundhold realized she was naked beneath the absurd cloak. Ra had dropped the cloak and stood waiting as if her nakedness were nothing.
The wardrobe door closed and Jak turned and observed the dusky twill and flannel Ra had chosen, wishing she hadn’t dressed in something so pale and complementary against her skin. Ra, in Jak’s clothing, was perhaps more sensual than in her own dramatic creations.
And Ra had murdered Ahr.
“In the morning, then,” said Jak, and Ra’s face registered recognition that she’d been dismissed.
Jak lay awake that night, tossing and kicking against the covers. It was important to be rested before setting out, but wishing for sleep, as always, only drove it away.
Drifting off at last when the sky over the Anamnesis began to pale with false dawn, Jak dreamt of the steel-dark water of the river moving through its bed like oil. From this darkness climbed a creature smooth and black with it, a preternatural Shiva wearing nothing but the sludge. Carrying a thin wand of soft metal, she prowled toward Jak, climbing in through the window. Jak was paralyzed by her form, a beauty beyond description that made even Ra seem ordinary. Shiva struck the switch against her own hand and speckled her palm with blood. A red stripe appeared, a razor-fine gash that closed and faded to a ghostly white line as Jak watched.
“She stood fast,” said Shiva. “Now you must.”
Something had disturbed Ra’s sleep, but she couldn’t place it. The mild silver light of winter was high on her wall, reflected from the looking glass that hung beyond the bed. She sat up, surprised. It was long past her accustomed waking time. Her image greeted her through the heavy glass, and she avoided her own eyes. She hadn’t quite found a way to redeem that person, despite the punishment she’d accepted at Shiva’s hands.
Rising onto her knees, she observed the evidence of that punishment. The marks made her ache for Shiva, but they didn’t absolve. She couldn’t repair Jak’s innocence, nor restore Ahr, whose absence was an ulcer in her heart. What a costly indulgence her raving had been.
Ra put on the comforting clothes she’d borrowed from Jak—the shirt of dove gray had recalled to her Jak’s breasts once released from it for her pleasure—and wound her hair into a loose knot at her neck. It was time to check on Merit. Then she would find Jak.
She’d pacified her own conscience with the brief dialogue they’d exchanged, and with her dubious “vetma” of the news of Kol, but she’d avoided a true accounting. She’d skirted around it out of fear, but she had no right, either, to the luxury of avoidance. The least she owed Jak was to acknowledge the wrongs she’d committed, without the self-serving assurances that she could never hurt Jak—for there was no strength left in that claim—or that she simply didn’t mean it. That was a child’s excuse.
Before departing Rhyman and Ludtaht Ra, Jak would have Ra’s naked admission of guilt, and Ra would seek a means to atonement. Whatever Jak decreed, Ra would do. It could only be a drop of blood in the vast circulation of the Anamnesis, but Ra must at least make this offering.
She descended the stairs and was drawn up short by the presence of Shiva, standing in the spot where Merit usually waited, dressed for cold weather in a long, sleek jacket of sturdy leather with matching pants tucked into heavy boots.
“Shiva.” Ra let out a breath of relief and ran down to her. “Where have you been? I thought you’d left me again.”
“I went for a walk.”
Ra threw her arms around Shiva’s neck, but Shiva remained passive, and Ra drew back. “What is it? Is it Merit? Are you punishing me?”
Shiva pulled on a pair of gloves, the same sable leather as her clothes. “Not everything is about you.” The icy tone stung her. It was the Shiva of her boyhood, and Ra had been demoted to the child. With a sigh, Shiva lifted Ra’s chin. “You’re being very self-indulgent, my dear.” Her punctuating kiss was a tactile reassurance that Ra’s fears were groundless. “You have focused on nothing but yourself since AhlZel. And that has been necessary. But now there are other matters to attend to, things that have nothing to do with you.” Shiva smoothed Ra’s hair with a calming, rhythmic motion, and Ra recognized Shiva was manipulating her through Meericry, pacifying with her touch so that Ra’s questions were quelled. But knowing it didn’t keep it from happening. “Your servant is unwell. His lungs are damaged.”
“What?” Ra found it difficult to focus on her words.
“I don’t know how long he’ll sleep, but perhaps it will do him good.” Shiva buttoned the wool-lined double breast of her coat and turned away from Ra, her boots marking the exodus with indisputable certainty.
Tongue heavy with the opiate of Shiva’s, Ra managed to speak as Shiva headed into the courtyard. “Where are you going?”
“To look after Jak.” Shiva never paused. “I left you plenty of time. And yet you managed to let Jak slip away.”
“Jak?” Ra’s head was still thick. Jak’s departure must have happened in the night, the disturbance she hadn’t been able to place.
But it was too late. Shiva had gone.
Merit. Ra turned toward the Sapphire Room but paused at the gilded console table that defined the symmetry of the opposing staircases like the mantel of a fireplace. Jak had apparently returned the urn to its spot on the console in the night. She reached out to touch it. The lid, which should have been sealed, rattled. With a sense of dread, Ra removed the cover from the clay jar. The vessel was empty.
“Ai, Jak.” Ra’s head began to throb with a familiar beat.