No one said a word in the time it took to ride back to Garramide. Even Rannilt was unaccountably silent.
Tali was free of the pain in her head, the hot and cold flushes from her fever, and the nausea in her belly. Lyf had lifted all that from her when he had taken her pain on himself. But she was still tired, still weak and still worried about Tobry. She had no idea how he felt about her, or if he could ever forgive her, though she felt sure he still wanted to die.
His own pain had not been lifted, nor the shifter curse.
After a late lunch they assembled upstairs, in an octagonal room below the old dame’s observatory. It had been one of Tobry’s favourite places and Rannilt had adopted it on their return, refusing to let him reoccupy the grim Black Hole far below.
Tali looked out the west-facing window. Volcanic dust had reduced the sun’s light to a feeble glow and it was almost as chilly as the endless winter that had only recently ended. Was it coming back—a volcanic winter?
“The harvest will be poor this year,” said Rix, as if to break the silence, “and perhaps for years to come. Life will be hard. And the ice closes in faster than ever.”
“I thought,” said Glynnie, “if the land was healed, the ice might be turned back.”
“Queen-magery won’t be easy to learn, much less to master, and nor will it be quick. The kings of old Cythe were trained from birth, but who will train Rannilt? Magery has always been forbidden among the Cythonians, and with Lyf and Errek gone, who can teach her?”
Rannilt looked up from a pamphlet on magery she was studying, then down again.
“Not many on our side, either,” said Tali. “Lyf targeted our magians as soon as the war began. Most of them are dead and I dare say the rest have gone into hiding. They won’t be easy to coax out.”
“But we did it!” cried Glynnie. She stood up. “When I look around the room, all I see is long faces. What’s the matter with you? We did it! We fought for our land and our people. We fought against overwhelming odds—and we won!”
No one spoke, though one or two people were smiling.
“Yes, the future looks gloomy,” Glynnie went on. “Yes, we’re probably going to be hungry, and cold, and afraid a lot of the time over the next few years. But that’s for tomorrow to worry about. For tonight, let’s celebrate that we’re alive, that we beat Grandys, that we have food in our bellies and a safe place to sleep. And that the war is over!”
“And Rannilt—queen,” Tobry said unexpectedly. “Rannilt—make world—better place.”
Rannilt did not look up this time.
Rix jumped up. “Stir up the fire, Glynnie, and fetch out the best goblets. Benn, run down to Catlin and declare a feast, for everyone. I’ll bring up a barrel of our finest wine—we’ve got a whole world to celebrate.”
When the needs of the servants and soldiers had been taken care of, and the children on the far side of the room, Rix pulled the shutters, drew the chairs closer to the fire, and handed around brimming goblets of a mature red that his great-aunt had laid down in the first year of her marriage, more than fifty years ago. They clinked their goblets and raised them.
“To a better world—Radian.”
Tali settled back in the shadows and sipped her wine, rather tentatively. She had never had a head for drink but, perhaps because the master pearl was gone, found that she could tolerate this wine very well. She drank the whole goblet and closed her eyes, thinking about the future Errek had laid out for her: the possibility that she might outlive everyone she knew. A long, lonely life seemed more a curse than a blessing.
“It’s time,” Tobry said after an hour had gone by and everyone was feeling mellow.
Fear shafted through her and her eyes sprang open. “Time for what?”
“Shifters end—with world that’s ended.”
“No!” cried Rannilt. “Tobry, you can’t go!”
“Shifter curse,” said Tobry. “Hurts too much. Never be free.”
He leaned back in his chair, and Tali saw that not even Rannilt could stop him this time. Tobry was in emotional torment from the shifter curse, the residue of the shifter madness, and perhaps her rejection too. He just wanted it to end.
Tali sat beside him and took his hand. To her surprise, Rannilt gave way to her.
“We don’t want you to go,” said Tali. “I don’t want you to go.”
“Holding you back,” said Tobry. “Need—move on.”
“I don’t want to move on. I failed you badly, but the best times of my life were spent with you, and I want to be with you.”
“What best times?”
“When Rannilt and I met you out in the Seethings and you were kind to me after—after Rix was not. When we saved each other, also in the Seethings. When you carried me to the ruins of Torgrist Manor that time. When we fought Lyf and the facinore in the wrythen’s caverns. When you took me to the Honouring Ball. What a night that was! I couldn’t dance a step,” Tali said dreamily, “yet when I was in your arms I was the belle of the ball.”
Tobry favoured her with the lopsided smile that lit up his face and took years off him. “Yes,” he said softly. “That was—best time.”
“I loved you,” she said. “Love you. Yet I failed you, over and over.”
“Don’t want—talk,” said Tobry.
“I have to tell you. I’ve got to acknowledge how terribly I let you down.”
“No!” said Tobry.
“But—”
“Forgive you.”
“But you can’t… I haven’t—”
“Forgive you,” he repeated. “Shut up—arms around—last time.”
Tali shuddered. Was this it? She could not speak; fear rose up her throat until it was choking her. She hugged him tightly and did not ever want to let go.
After a minute he pulled away and lay back in his chair. The deeply etched lines on his face seemed to dissolve as the tension drained from him. Rannilt laid her twisted hands on him but it did not seem to help.
He began to breathe shallowly. A flush developed on his face and throat. He went redder and grew hotter until he was drenched in sweat. He cried out, gasped, and fell silent.
The minutes passed into an hour, two, three. Tali did not move from his side. She was afraid to turn away in case it turned out to be his last moment, and when she turned back he would be gone.
Rannilt came and went with damp cloths and mugs of water. The fever passed, as quickly as it had come. His breathing was shallow now, the flush fading to grey. He breathed out, but did not breathe in.
“No!” Tali wailed.
Rannilt leapt over her and shook Tobry. His head lolled from side to side.
“Queen-magery!” said Rannilt.
She laid her hands on his head. “No,” she said, shaking her head. She moved her hands to his heart, frowned, pursed her lips, then lowered them to the region of his liver.
“The twin livers!” she shrieked. “That’s the true core of a shifter cat. It’s gotta be. That’s why no one’s ever healed a shifter—they were healin’ the wrong place.”
She pressed her hands down hard, trembled, and the golden light that had so characterised her ever since she came into her gift exploded from her fingers.
“Queen-magery,” she repeated, as if trying to call it when she did not know where it was—or perhaps what it was.
The golden light bathed Tobry’s midriff; it seemed to pass into him. His face went red. He jerked convulsively and Tali saw a bulge grow under Rannilt’s hands. Another bulge grew, a smaller one.
“It ain’t workin’,” said Rannilt. “What’s wrong?”
Rix started, then ran across the room and took the wrapped package from the coat he had been wearing at the Abysm. He unwrapped the circlet and put it on Rannilt’s head. It slipped down to her ears. He tilted it up at the front and down at the back so she could see.
Rannilt pressed down again. Tobry groaned; he thrashed and howled. His fingers hooked and clawed at her. The shifter side was fighting her all the way.
“A king’s magery was used to create shifters,” said Rix. “So queen-magery, in the hands of the rightful ruler, ought to be able to heal him from the shifter curse.”
The smaller bulge under Rannilt’s twisted fingers shrank and shrank again. The howling died away. Tobry’s eyelids fluttered. The red washed from his face, replaced by jaundice yellow that deepened until even his empty eyes and lips were that colour. Rannilt pressed harder.
“Queen-magery,” she called for the third time.
The second, smaller bulge continued to shrink until it disappeared. The larger bulge also shrank, though only a little. Tobry gave another jerk. A twitch. The yellow began to fade, first from the whites of his eyes, then from his lips and fingernails, and finally from the rest of his skin.
He slept for ten minutes, then his eyes opened, and this time they weren’t empty. They were the old familiar grey, and the whites were white, with those little bloodshot patches Tali remembered in the corners.
Rannilt lifted her hands. “Not lettin’ you die,” she said to Tobry. “I need you for my teacher.”
“There are far better teachers than I, child,” said Tobry, a trifle haltingly, though in the old, familiar voice. “Cleverer teachers. Harder-working and more knowledgeable.”
“And less sarcastic,” Rix said with feeling, remembering his own youth.
“But I want you,” said Rannilt.
Tobry smiled weakly, then raised his open hands, palms upward, as if to say, What can I do? She’s beaten me. “Then you shall have me, my little queen.”
He sat up and the strain was gone from his face, the tension that came from the shifter constantly attacking the man.
“Is the curse gone?” said Tali, suddenly feeling so light that she could have been weightless again, as she had been in the Abysm. It did not seem possible—no one could heal a shifter. She knew. She had tried. “Really gone?”
“I told you I could heal him,” said Rannilt. “After we met at Glimmering, at the peace conference, I told you.”
“Yes, you did,” said Tali. “And lots of times after that. But I never believed you.”
Rannilt looked down at her hands, which were red and swollen. She looked up again and Tali saw that she looked older, at least thirteen. The others had noticed it, too.
“You’ve aged in the healing,” she said, alarmed. “Rannilt, you look two years older.”
“I know.”
“You’ve got to hold back your gift. You’re just a kid and you’ve got your whole life ahead of you.”
“I’m never holdin’ back from healin’,” said Rannilt. “Never, ever.”
“But if healing a shifter has aged you two years, how much more life will you lose if you try to heal the land?”
“It’s gunna take years to learn enough queen-magery to heal the land.” Rannilt was glowing, radiant. “Years and years.”
“But… you’re just a little girl.”
“And since the night Mama died beside me, when I was three, all I’ve ever wanted was to heal.”