EACH OF Unar’s laboured breaths felt as if it might be her last.
As the vestiges of her strength ebbed, Unar’s weightless motes coalesced into a body again. She lay facedown on the wide branch, her left hand embracing the bark, her right hand holding the ear bone to her lips. Kirrik’s bare foot, with all her weight behind it, pressed between Unar’s shoulder blades. Her skirts slid through Unar’s hair and over her shoulders.
“More,” someone exhorted. “More!”
She is killing me. This is what it is like to be used up. To be drained to death.
Another heave of her chest. Another rush of power through the bone flute and Unar’s body flying apart. Sounds of something enormous breaking. The whole world split in two by lightning and water. But neither were Unar’s domain. It was a monster’s spine that was breaking. Or maybe Unar’s own spine, ground beneath Kirrik’s hate.
She can’t kill me. She needs my body. Edax said so.
The forest roared as though a thunderhead had turned to stone and fallen on it.
“She did it.” Frog’s small, frightened voice. “It is finished. Core Kirrik, she is finished. Please, let ’er go.”
Frog loves me.
Weight lifted. Small hands dragged at the blindfold. Unar had no energy for opening her eyes. Her body felt like it would stay limp, forever. She didn’t want to know what she had done.
“Let her go.” Kirrik’s voice was mocking. “Very well. Rest here awhile, Nameless.” No more pretence about calling Unar by her name. “Recover your strength. And have no fear for Audblayin, I will fetch her for you. You want to know where she is? Not long before you came to us, a slave and her child were sent from the Garden to the House of Epatut. That child is your reincarnated goddess. If only you poor fools had known.”
Impossible. Unar wheezed. She hadn’t the strength to lift her head.. Audblayin is not a goddess. Not this time. “Audblayin is young. Too young for you to find.”
He is a boy child. He must be a boy child, if I am to guard him. That’s why I was given the gift. That’s why Audblayin called to me, waking my powers in my parents’ home, before I knelt beneath the night-yew.
“Birth screams hold a powerful magic.” The mocking voice floated closer. “I heard them, in my future-searching, and I saw the mother’s face.”
No. It is what I am for.
“I would have known,” Unar mumbled into the bark. “I stood by the cradle of that slave child. Ylly. Baby Ylly. I would have felt the soul inside her!”
It’s what I was born to do.
“Would you? Your bones were sleeping. You were untrained in song-magic. I felt the power in the baby’s cries, but you who are deaf search only with your eyes.”
It’s why I killed Edax.
“Isin. Is it true? It can’t be true. You would have told me.”
Frog’s lips, kissing her cheek. Kissing Unar good-bye. Was she dying, after all? Would Aforis make a better tool for Kirrik to use? A better body for the Master to steal?
“You speak to the dead.” Frog sighed. “Well, the dead will answer you, this one time. It is true, Unar. Audblayin sleeps in the House of Epatut, child of a slave. Twice, our people have tried to take ’er, tossin’ ’er out a window, and twice she has floated out of our reach.”
“Someone,” Kirrik said, sounding aggrieved, “made a powerful gift to Odel in that slave child’s name. But it does not matter. We will bring her below. I will carry her in my own arms. This road now leads across all of Canopy. Audblayinland waits at the far end, and Ehkisland lies along the way.”
“The rain goddess first,” Sikakis suggested.
“Yes. Lest she recover quickly enough to fend us off. Then, we will take the Waker of Senses, while her soldiers scramble and her adepts do not know her. Frog, take the man-tool and wake every warrior who can be instantly useful to us. If you can manage that much without losing control of him.”
“Yes, Core Kirrik.”
“Fetch the goddess we already have, Sikakis. You are strong enough to carry her. She will get us through. No need to wake her.”
“Yes, Core Kirrik.”
“And you, Warmed One.” Kirrik’s breath was suddenly hot in Unar’s ear. She pulled the ear bone out of Unar’s grip. “If I thought I could get one more scrap of magic out of you without killing you, I would take you along. As it is, as I said, you must wait for me here. Resting. Recovering. Be mindful of the lanterns. Forgive me if I do not leave you the means to quench them.”