Despite our late start we make good progress before we break for the evening. There’s a festive air among the men that extends into Ragna’s entourage; the Godkindred are glad to be heading home (and without a fight to boot) and the Shraevenaese are escorting their queen on her first tour of their country. We’ve also been joined by stragglers here and there: the people Negrat led to the capital, those who hadn’t already left for home, are following us. So it is a merry and enormous encampment that assembles in the purple dusk, with copper fires glowing inside white tents and the sound of laughter and music drifting on the breeze.
I ache from spending most of the day aloft; I am no longer accustomed to flying for extended periods, a problem I plan to fix now that I have ever-so-slightly more freedom to do so. If the queen of the Kingdom cannot go for a daily flight, then what’s the good of being in charge? I’ll call it my daily constitutional. I’ll even be right.
I have one last stop before I find my bed.
Your guards will be horrified to find you’ve wandered off alone, the Godson observes as I land some distance from the camp.
I’m not alone, I say. You’re with me.
I’m not sure they’ll think that sufficient...
They’d better not say that to us, I say. Unless we run into the goddess of ice, I have the feeling you could handily put paid to anything attacking me. Besides…I draw in a deep breath of the wildflower scent of the plains at night, communion with the gods has to be done in private.
We talk quite a bit in company.
Foreign gods, I say and have a seat. I wrap my arms around my knees and look out over the horizon. Squint up into the night sky at the stars.
“What did it mean?” I ask. “To be Crowned. If I was not to be Shraeven’s queen, why the rumors? Why the paints?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” a voice says behind me.
I twist to look over my shoulder. “And here I thought you’d become Ragna’s problem.”
Negrat grins. “I’ll visit her after I’m done with you.”
“So,” I say. “The Crowned came to liberate Shraeven. Did you know? What it meant, my paints? The Crowned legends? Did you know about the temple of the Star-chosen?”
He pulls his robe under his knees and sits down, arranging the fabric around himself with a few pats. “Of course not. I see glimpses of the pattern, but it is not given to us to see its entirety.”
“Even you shamans,” I say.
“Even we shamans,” he says.
“And here I’d hoped to finally get some answers,” I say.
Negrat chuckles. “You should know better, Godkin woman. Life is not an answer.”
Thinking of the temple priest’s story, I say, “Not for us mortals, anyway.” I look at him. “And yet, you read me the bones.”
He is quiet. Then…“You, the Phoenix. Your company, the Thunderstorm. Your challenge, the Betrayal. Your future if you decline: Death. Your future if you accept: the Quest.”
“The end of all things,” I finish. “Sovereignty.”
“By way of a trial by love,” Negrat says, nodding. “So, Godkin Woman…did the bones speak your truth?”
I cover my face, torn between warring emotions. What I say when I finally look up is, “Can you teach me to do that?”
“Read bones?” Negrat grins. “Ah, no. That is my way. You will have to find your own, if you truly want to see forward into other people’s patterns.”
I am remembering the stone tile that represented Love in Negrat’s set: four interlocked circles, with the middle marked with a dot. For the Godkindred, love’s symbol uses only two circles. How prescient, that tile, to have guessed at just how complex my trial-by-love would prove to be.
“I think I’ll leave the future to itself,” I say.
“Wise,” Negrat says. “You’ll do well.”
I glance at him and say, “Thanks.”
He leaves me there to the wind and land and the distant scent of the sea.
What do you suppose the betrayal was? the Godson asks.
I think of Silfie turning against men, and me, and her unborn baby. I think of Colblain sneaking away to warn Nedwin of my plans. I think of Chordwain promising to protect his province and then using Nedwin to pillage it. I think of Nedwin agreeing to it. I think of my heart, torn in so many directions: against my beloved, against my body, against my religion, my country, my life. And I think of fate, giving us what we’ve worked toward for so long…only to reveal we will have to renounce it.
What part of any of this wasn’t?
He is silent, but I feel him sitting beside me. After a time, he says, I forgive you, you know.
I know. I draw in a long breath. Let’s get back before they send someone to find me.
A matter before we go, the Godson says.
I wish for a mirror, even a puddle of water, so I can see the expression that goes with that tone. Yes?
Since you like privacy for communing with gods, he says, and we have it...
I…don’t think this is the time, I say. The guards—
I’ll take care of them. Angharad, it needs to be said. Do you really think being raped makes you impure?
Do you blame me? I say, irritated. I tuck a strand of white hair behind one ear. Our religion thinks poorly of appropriated wombs.
Our religion thought poorly of people who appropriate them, he corrects. And thinks highly of children born of multiple bloodlines, no matter where they came from. The father of your child is a criminal. Your baby will be Godkin and free of stain.
You notice there’s no guidance here on how the woman caught between them should feel, I say.
No, he agrees. That’s up to her to decide. So why did you decide to feel soiled? Did you feel it was your fault?
I’ve made my living by the sword, I say, bringing my knees up and resting my wrists on them. And I couldn’t overcome them.
Yes, I heard it was a ‘them’ and not a ‘him’. The Godson sounds angry now. An entire pack of ‘them’.
I squint, tilting my head. “How’d you know that?”
You underestimate my information sources. I am…I was…a ruler, Angharad. It’s my job to know everything.
Talking out loud makes me feel better. “Guess that’ll be easier now that you’re a god.”
His sigh ruffles the side of my ear inside my head. Don’t change the subject.
I flex my toes and say nothing. I can almost feel his too-insightful mind working. Those eyes narrowing, ears flicking back.
There’s more to this than I can see, isn’t there? Let me think.
I wait, and strangely I’m more curious to see if he’ll figure it out than I am anxious that he will. And…he doesn’t disappoint me.
It’s because you have stained bloodlines already, isn’t it? You think somehow the violence that once perpetuated your bloodline returned, or makes it appropriate that you were assaulted.
A great weight rises from my heart. I feel no joy, only a kind of dull relief. Well, that and a remote amusement. “You’re far too smart.”
That was my job too. So what animal was it?
I exhale. “A coatl.”
A coatl. That must have been…uncomfortable.
I start laughing, though my cheeks are wet. “I’m sure it was.”
How far back?
“Three generations,” I say.
The night wind ruffles my hair, pulls it over my shoulders. I find his pause unexpected. I was anticipating some attempt at comfort, though I didn’t particularly want it.
My father, the Godson says, voice low, was raped by a hydra.
“What?” I say, startled. And then, “Your father?”
Yes. My father. No possibility of a child to redeem that violence. A raped woman has some dignity, particularly if she bears a child. A raped man is a joke.
Something about the way he says it…I flick my ears back. “You were there.”
No answer.
“How old were you?” I ask.
Nine. I was nine.
“Blood and gods,” I whisper. Imagining a boy that age witnessing his father’s assault is almost distracting enough that I miss the significance of the date. “Wait…that was when your father...”
Went insane, yes. Abandoning his twin and his son to drown in his own self-loathing. The anger in his voice is cold and hard, but the violence of fire is sizzling behind it. Ignore your baby and let it grow up without your love and guidance. Forsake the family who would wither without your presence in their lives. Fail in your duties and responsibilities because you want to withdraw from the world to contemplate your unworthiness. THEN we can talk about shame. But merely being raped? He stops. His voice is calmer when he finishes. It’s all in how you choose to act.
“I’m…gods, I’m sorry,” I say.
I imagine him rubbing his face. I am too. I didn’t mean to minimize your experiences. It’s just...
“No,” I say. “That was exactly the right thing to say.” And it was. Comfort would have affirmed a sense of victimhood, somehow, of crimes so far back in my family history they have no relevance to me, and of crimes that I did my best to prevent and couldn’t. But I don’t want to feel like a victim. I don’t want comfort. Duty has always been my anodyne to pain. And then I say, “What’s your name?”
Pardon? He sounds distracted, as if he was lost in his own thoughts as well.
“Your name,” I say. “You’re not the Godson anymore, and calling you ‘Fire’ is too impersonal. What was your name before your formal investiture?”
His pause feels like surprise somehow, but he answers. Lucien.
“Do you mind if I call you that?”
Only if I can call you Hara.
I laugh. “All right. You’ve earned that.”
I can hear his smile, though his voice sounds tired. Now we can go back, I think.
I nod. “Yes. And thank you. Lucien.”
You’re welcome, Hara.
As I sprint across the plains, wings spread, I say, I never expected to like you this much.
What can I say? I’m irresistible.