3.

 

His words lingered, following her along the cobbled streets and past the activity on the Spine, beneath the arch of the gate to the Spine’s Keep. If the content of Zaifyr’s words surprised her, the effect they had on her did not: part of the reason for her guilt this morning was that she did not shrink from him after he had admitted to the horrors that she knew he had committed. She knew that he was, by turns, arrogant, cynical, and fatalistic, but yet …

Yet, she thought, yet he is a human.

Would she think the same if she ever met Aela Ren, the man who had the temerity to call himself the Innocent?

Beyond the gate of the Spine’s Keep, she experienced a surprise. Where before the gardens had been cleared, the ground reduced to dirt, she now found the Keep’s staff digging with shovel and hoe. It was not half a dozen, or even a dozen who did this, but rather the entire staff, from maids, to cooks, to guards, each stripped down to simple clothes and creating neat, orderly lines for which they would take one of the hundreds of small, potted plants behind them. The plants themselves were succulents, an array of greens and reds and purples, each as hardy as the next, and each being lifted and passed by Lady Wagan, who stood in the middle of it, while behind her sat the blind Lord Wagan.

To Ayae’s knowledge, this was the first she—or anyone outside the Keep—had seen of the Lord since his return, with reason.

Before he rode into Leera, Lord Wagan had been a tall, distinctively featured man who had gained a degree of gravitas about his face as he aged that had not been reflected in his intellect. Generally, the inhabitants of Mireea viewed Lord Elan Wagan as an attractive accessory to his politically minded wife, her trophy in a world where, on either side of Ger’s Spine, women were more often than not there to be seen, not heard. Lord Wagan, after fifteen years of marriage, was not as silent as the youngest and newest of those wives and was generally considered to be a capable horseman and superb host. He was even aware of the place he occupied in the city, taking a great pride in his ability as a host and its importance in a city built on trade. But of all that, there was no longer any indication: Lord Elan was a shrunken man in his wheelchair, his long frame and bones held together by the brown-and-white robe he wore and the white cloth that was bound over his torn eye sockets. His hair, still full, looked as if it threatened to overpower his face, the skin below having sunk into his cheekbones and following with the rest of his body in presenting a diminished appearance.

As Ayae approached Lady Wagan, it was also clear to her that her husband was unaware of where he was. Both he and his chair were surrounded by a faint odor of opiates and when he moved, slowly, it was as if parts of him were reacting to commands conveyed five to ten minutes beforehand.

“Lady Wagan,” she said, stepping through the rows of tiny potted plants. “You asked to see me?”

The Lady of the Spine bent down, lifting a plant that was predominantly red, but with swirls of black running through it. “Yes, though I was given the impression that I would be lucky if I did. Some men are best disabused of their power, quickly.” She smiled and passed the plant to a guard. “The pot is a little broken, Gerard, so be careful with it. With any luck, we will be done before the day is finished—before any of the fighting begins.”

Before she could stop herself, Ayae said, “But why?”

“Why plant?”

“Yes.”

“Is it not obvious?” Lady Wagan indicated the already half-filled garden before her. “No? The truth is, I have always liked my gardens. I have taken great pride in them, though they are not the finest in any land and the time I devote to them makes me an easy target of mockery for those who are my detractors. But still. It fills me with joy. It is life, creation, nurturing. A garden is not similar to childbirth, or even being a parent—something I can attest to, I assure you, but there is a pleasurable work in it. It does not have the darkness or the intellectual terror that being a parent can, especially in this world we find ourselves in. It is about growth. About life. And that is why we are planting—and planting a world that is difficult to kill, a world that will live in anything, even debris.”

The look on Ayae’s face caused the other woman to chuckle. “Look around. Are they not happy because of it?”

She admitted that they were and, with that, Ayae realized, the Lady of the Spine was also sending a second message, one coded through to the people around her, through the large amount of staff that worked the field.

“I do have things I wish to discuss with you, but not here.” She turned to the Mireean Guard who stood behind Lord Wagan, a tall, young woman whose startling blue eyes gazed at the work in front of her flatly. “Caeli, bring him in within the hour, please. The drugs will have begun to wear off by then.”

The guard made no reply, but Wagan had already stepped through the line of pots before her, and called out to those working. She offered her apologies and left the guard she had spoken to in charge of the pot arrangement, before turning and motioning for Ayae to follow her up to the entrance of the Keep.

Neither spoke until they had begun to walk down the long hall, toward the unused throne room. Then, quietly, Lady Wagan said, “He is gone. The man I loved, that is. He has been gone since they tore his eyes out, since whatever happened to him in Leera. When not drugged, he remembers what they did, and screams.” Ayae remained silent. “Some days, I have the deepest sympathy for him. On others, I resent him for it,” she went on. “They are the only emotions I have, now—love and arousal are gone. Do you know that feeling?”

“Yes,” she replied, thinking of Illaan, of how she felt about him in the hospital, of how little she felt, both before and after she entered his house.

“It is unfortunate, is it not?” The Lady of the Spine stopped them before the throne. The midday’s sun fell through the room, illuminating the silver arms. “To experience love and then to lose it, to feel at the same time betrayed by it. For you, it is perhaps worse than for me, because your youth will keep now. Thousands of years from now, the hollowed feeling you have will be gone and other memories will have replaced it. But for myself? I can only watch and wait for the remains of my love to die.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Why?” She laughed good-naturedly. “Because I am going to ask you a favor and this time I do not want to be denied.”