Chapter 6: The Warrior's Past
Recalled Into Light
The funny thing about guilt, I suppose, is that you feel it whether or not you are responsible for it. And those around you can choose to acknowledge their part in whatever caused the guilt, or they can do their best to ignore it. But regardless of their choice in the matter, it sticks with you, changes you.
I wasn't responsible for whatever it was that drove Lady Myrtia to the desperation that brought her three sevensuns from home, on foot, in hopes of protecting me from the same fate as my parents. Neither was I responsible for the people who came to Powell's Square to fulfil an order from their queen.
But in any case, I felt miserable guilt over her confession. Like it was somehow my fault that she had done all that led her to my bedroom, where she took excellent care of me for several suns, when she could have just stayed in the queendom's first district, living whatever kind of extravagant life she was accustomed to, being a noble lady of high birth.
I did nothing wrong, right?
Night fell a couple of hours after Lady Myrtia left, and she didn't return. I lay in my bed, barely able to move myself, until I fell asleep, still mostly upright from when Mrs. Reed assisted in clothing me.
My dreams were fits and flashes. A silver flower. Short and shaggy brown hair set around an angular face. Bursts of blue. Pain, searing every inch of me. Weight on my chest, stopping my breath. A subtle scent. Safety and warmth. Weightlessness.
The darkness was all encompassing as I woke, standing.
Or I was fairly certain that I was awake. The world didn't feel quite right. And obviously there was the problem with the fact that I was standing, something I definitely couldn't do when I fell asleep.
I looked around the space, not certain why I thought it would do any good. Instinctively, I lit a cold-flame in my hand, pale silver. Not enough light to see by, but enough to make out the features of the shapes around me. There was a rumbling growl not far from me, the sound of beasts I knew well.
There was a vague awareness that I was running behind. Light feet carried me quickly through the forest to the place the beasts were already pouncing on their prey. The visions had revealed she was passing fair, but I hadn't been prepared for what I found in those woods.
Something took hold of me, and my sword was in hand before my mind could actively respond. First priority was the big one that was on her. I had to be quick, or she wouldn't survive. I'd been through this before. With her in particular, but she was just a girl when that happened. When she got the first scars. And the second set that soon followed. Time and again, I rushed to her aid, but it had been several years, and the woman she'd become in that time. I knew I couldn't let her die.
Not this time.
The first several beasts were felled quickly. When they saw that I was no simple human, that I would be a danger if they stayed, the crowd of them fled. Probably for the best, as I was already exhausted.
I breathed a gentle sigh as I looked down on her, smiling. Yet again, I had successfully intervened. The brown haired girl would be safe, and I could rest until —
The silver of my cold-flame glinted on something wet trailing down the woman's arm. Blood.
Goddess cursed fate. She wouldn't survive after all unless I did something, and fast. "Salora. I know I ask for too many favours already, but this will be my last, I swear. Send me a sign."
My sword hand grew light as the weapon I held became a flower. Silverthorn. It was a dread poison, but that was always her style.
I strengthened my cold-flame to fill the whole space around us and placed the flower on the woman's chest.
"It's a shame, really," I mumbled to myself, "I was hoping we could properly meet one sun when she stopped being so reckless."
Kneeling beside the woman, I laid my hand on her arm, stopping the bleeding but weakening me in the process. As my strength left me, I lay beside her, pulling myself close.
I heard the sounds of steps approaching, but it was too late. Hopefully the incoming feet belonged to a friend.
The sun shone in my eyes as morning arrived. My vivid dream stayed with me, bringing tears to the surface. I couldn't help feeling a terrible sense of loss, even though it was just a dream. Truly, I hoped it was only some night vision and not a measure of prophecy, or worse, memory.
A subtle detail kept stabbing at my consciousness. The silver flower. I had called it silverthorn in the dream, but it looked so familiar, like something I'd previously admired and feared.
Lady Myrtia had said something the sun I awoke after the attack. She found me within a dark forest, but the area around me was filled with an eerie glow. What else had she said?
Instinctively, I fought to get out of the bed, but I was still too weak to stand, so my full weight collapsed to the floor, banging my head on the boards as it did. I wasn't hurt, but the impact shook me up, and it took a moment to begin moving, worry settling in that I might have made a mistake.
With some effort, I unfolded my terribly crumpled form and began the effort of dragging myself, inch by inch, along the floor and out of my bedroom.
I had to stop every few seconds to catch my breath. The burning in my left arm wasn't causing any trouble that morning, and most of the muscle pain was under control, but there was a lingering weakness that took every part of me to overcome.
After several minutes, I managed to crawl desperately into the family room of my lonely, empty home. My nephews' and niece's toys were still scattered about, as though they had been playing when they were taken. My brother-in-law's book was set on the side table, as though he'd expected to come back and pick up where he left off.
Sitting on a small stand near the window was a vase that wouldn't normally be displayed, given that it was one of the ugliest that Delia owned. In the vase was a flower I knew all too well. Poison, and powerful too. It smelled deadly sweet, earthy, and just a bit too much like home. That's probably why it was such a dangerous thing to allow anywhere around children.
Queen's Heart. The same flower I had called silverthorn in my dream. And also the very same herb the one called Briar had found on the deimward road.
I crawled to the small stand by the window and pulled myself to a seated position, just high enough to reach up and take the flower from its vase. As I inhaled its scent, a memory returned. A warrior woman with blue hair, who had arrived at the last possible moment and saved me from the larabrin attack.
But there was more. The warrior whispered something, and her sword had vanished. Then she'd held me close, and my pain began to subside. It felt like the dream I'd just awoken from. But there was something else. A woman with shorter brown hair kneeling down at my side.
"Don't worry, Roi-sin," she'd said, "we'll get you home safely." And then she'd lifted me from the ground like it was nothing.
The way she said it. Roi-sin. Like poison, but not quite. It was her.
I had known Lady Myrtia must have saved me, but in the memory, she was horrified, desperation guiding her every move. She'd gotten me safely home and watched over me for a sevensun. If I'd been conscious, or remembered anything from that night, I would've been a more gracious hostess to my true saviour. Now all I could do was wait patiently.
Return and Recompense
"Oh, goddess, Roisin! Are you okay?" The sound was a bit hazy, but I knew the voice, especially after remembering more of the night in the woods nine suns before. I must have fallen asleep by the door as I waited for my strength to return because that is where I sat when my eyes opened to find my uncertain ally fussing over me.
"I'm fine, Lady Myrtia," my voice was shaking around the words. I chose to blame it on hunger. I hadn't eaten since lunch the sun before, after all.
"Please. I don't deserve that title." She grimaced. "I ran from it, then I ran from you. And for what? To sit outside the town gate until I fell asleep. Call me something else."
"I could call you Miss Hawthorne, just as Mrs. Reed did," the teasing did its job, and she smiled, fighting back a laugh.
Her face turned severe, then considering, before she responded. "Jasmin. You may call me Jasmin," the words seemed to lift a weight from her shoulders.
"Jasmin," the word felt fluid in my mouth, comfortable and safe, just as she had made me feel until she — "You left me. I'm starving. Make up the former to me by fixing the latter, Jasmin.
She bowed as deeply as her kneeling position would allow before she lifted me from the floor. Just as the other times she'd done so, it seemed effortless for her. The work of carrying me to the nearby padded bench was nothing to Jasmin.
"Very well, Roisin. It is the least I owe you after all of ... that." She smiled as she carefully let my weight come to rest on the furniture, my back leaning against the wall. After stepping back, she took me in for a moment before blushing and moving toward the kitchen. "What would you like? If the answer is anything apart from seared mutton with tomatoes and bread, you might find yourself disappointed."
My laughter at the joke caused her to jump, bodily, and almost trip over herself as she arrived at the pantry door. Once I recovered, I assented to her suggestion. "Truthfully, Jasmin, anything is better than nothing. If the cooked food will take long, would you mind bringing me a couple of pieces of bread to hold me?"
"That's probably wise, yes." After milling about for a few moments, Jasmin came back with a small tray and several thick chunks of bread. "It's nice, by the way, hearing you say my name."
"If you'd asked sooner, I'd have made the effort immediately," I confessed with a devilish grin. "But I did take a subtle joy at your grimace every time I used the title, if I'm honest."
"Noted," she said and spun on her toes to return to the kitchen. I heard the stove begin to crackle with a woodfire she'd somehow started. Jasmin knew how to handle the stove, but she barely knew the first thing about cooking – at least she knew that much, or else I'd've demanded she get help from someone else for our food long before that moment.
I took a timid bite of the bread she'd given me and looked around the room again. The children's toys, my brother-in-law's book, several missives and letters that had arrived but not been handled. An order on official-looking letterhead that bore my name in bold letters.
My eyes settled on the Queen's Heart flower sitting on the floor by the window, where it must have fallen when I drifted into my dreamless sleep.
"Jasmin," I said the word as a whisper, yet still she heard me.
"Roisin?"
"The flower on the floor there," I lifted my hand weakly to point at the silver blossom. "I found it in the vase on that stand. Is it the one you found with me?"
She rushed into the room and picked it up, placing it back in its vase. "It is, yes. Why do you ask?"
"Do you know what it is? And did anyone in town see that you had it?"
She tilted her head at the questions. "I just assumed it was a local varietal of rose," she wasn't lying, somehow I was certain. "And it was dark, so I don't think anyone saw I was carrying it." Jasmin let the air between us sit before asking, abruptly. "Why?"
"It's a poisonous herb that grows here," I said flatly, "with a distinct scent and a terrifying history associated with it." She had begun moving back to the kitchen but turned and started toward the flower as I said it. "Leave it. It is only dangerous if eaten, or if the thorns pierce your skin. It looks like you removed those when you put it in water, and you're not dead, so you must have been careful."
"Still, Roisin, it seems foolhardy —"
"I promise it's okay." My sincerity apparently eased her worry some, because she returned to the kitchen without a fuss. "I asked because there are stories that people tell about that herb. That it means something special."
"Special good? Or special bad?"
Despite knowing she couldn't see me, I shrugged at the question. "It depends on where they hail from, mostly. Folks from phobward of here usually say it's part of a curse. But I hear that the people of Blue Stone consider it an omen of change."
"That's where your mother is from, right?" I noticed a warmth in my heart when she asked, as though I was pleased she remembered. Just then, I heard a pan start sizzling.
"It is, yes."
"Does anyone think the herb is a uniquely good sign?"
"Only the folks who live in the deepest of cold climes, so far deimward, that silverthorn is about the only thing that grows." I had deliberately used the proper name for the herb, even though I'd only learned it from my dream the night before. "They say a good bloom of the stuff is a sign of a gentle winter, since it tends to bloom after the first freeze."
"I've never heard that name before. Silverthorn. It's fitting." The sizzling stopped for a second, then resumed a bit more softly. I assumed Jasmin had turned whatever she was cooking. "I'll have to look it up when I get back to — well I suppose when I get to a library, since I'm not certain I'll ever get back to mine."
Her words sounded dismayed and yet oddly proud. Was her coming to protect me the first thing she'd ever done for herself? "You seem really invested in learning, Jasmin. I have a question or two that may sound a bit strange, or possibly crazy. But I have no idea who else to ask."
The sizzling stopped, and a few moments later, she came into the room holding two plates loaded with seared mutton and tomatoes and topped with more of the same bread. She set one on the tray she'd previously brought for my bread, then she sat beside me and put the other plate in her lap. The movements were oddly practiced.
"Well, I'm not certain I'll be able to answer, but you're correct I've spent a fair amount of time reading history and religion books." Her smile was pained, like she had lost something great. "It was sort of an escape from the weight of my tasks."
"Makes sense," I nodded and took a tentative bite of a tomato. The juice exploded into my mouth, warm and savoury sweet. A moan escaped me, and Jasmin giggled at the sound. Once I recovered, I took a short breath. "That night in the forest, did you see a woman with me? She had blue hair."
Jasmin almost threw her plate from her lap in excitement. "You've remembered something?" A pause followed by an odd gesture preceded her addressing my actual question. "Blue?"
"The colour of an early twilight sky. Deep blue."
Her expression turned deeply introspective. She took several bites of her food, which had me worried she might be trying to dodge the question, but she finally returned to speaking.
"You know how people sometimes say things like 'thank the goddess' or 'the goddess willing' or similar things?"
"I have been known to say them myself." The words were automatic, like I'd lived this moment before, and my response was inevitable. Jasmin didn't seem to notice my concern.
"Old tales tell of other goddesses. At least three, but no more than six. Scholars are conflicted about whether some of them are the same." She took another bite of mutton. "The queendom largely worships only one of them. A spiteful and jealous monster of a goddess who at some point supplanted the others and did all she could to remove them. Her name has been erased from everything. Now she is simply the goddess. Worse than that, none of the other names have survived, like they vanished when the goddesses did."
"What does that have to do with blue hair?"
"There's an old legend about messengers who saved the lives of people who were in mortal danger. They were supposed to have blue hair and carry swords of silver." Jasmin took a deep, exhausted breath. "There've been no confirmed sightings of them at least in the last hundred years. And before that, they were rare."
"I appreciate the history lesson, but —"
Jasmin levelled her gaze at me. "They spoke to the goddesses. All of them." The words were final. She didn't have more to tell me. "You said you had another question, right?"
"Unfortunately, you've answered it already. There's no way you could've heard the name Salora before."