I awoke to low, slanting sunlight, the scent of pine-trees, and bird-song, and I laughed aloud for the sheer joy of it.
“What is it?” Aleksei mumbled, pushing himself upright. His tawny hair was disheveled with sleep and stuck about with pine needles. “Moirin?”
“Nothing, nothing. Everything’s fine.” I stretched luxuriously, arching my back and stretching my limbs as far as I could, free and unfettered. “I’m happy to find myself free, that’s all.”
Aleksei gazed at me, his blue, blue eyes wide, his lips parted. Naamah’s gift swirled between us. There was a question behind his eyes, and it was one that made the bright lady smile.
“Ah.” I smiled, too. “Yes.”
He ducked his head. “What do you mean, yes?”
I ran my fingers through my hair, dislodging pine needles of my own. “You are wondering if I mean to honor my offer. I do. Only not here, not now.” I probed my cheek with my fingertips, wincing at finding it still sore and swollen where Pyotr Rostov had struck me. “Later, when we are safer, I will honor it.”
“Naamah’s blessing?”
“Yes, my sweet boy.” I examined the raw, chafed marks the chains had left on my wrists and ankles. “Only if you wish it.”
“You don’t love me, though.” Aleksei’s head came up. “Do you?”
“I care for you,” I said honestly. “It is a gift I would like to give you, if you’re willing to accept it. It is a gift I would gladly accept from you, if you are willing to offer it.” I frowned, searching for words he would understand. “It is a sacrament, Aleksei. I could not offer it without love, although I do not know if it is the kind of love you mean when you ask if I love you.”
He met my eyes. “It’s not. Do you think you could, though? Come to love me?”
A vision unfolded.
I’d caught involuntary glimpses of others’ memories before, but never of their dreams of what might be. Now, here, I saw Aleksei’s—and it made me catch my breath. Aleksei and I, together as man and wife, forging a new path in eastern Vralia, preaching a doctrine of love in which desire and innocence walked hand in hand. Aleksei and I, a new Edom the First Man and Yeva the All-Mother, sanctifying a new Garden of Eden.
No, my diadh-anam whispered. No.
My eyes stung and watered. “No,” I murmured, wiping at them. “No, Aleksei. Not like that. I’m sorry.”
His throat worked. “You saw?”
I nodded.
Aleksei’s head dropped to his knees, his arms encircling them. “I thought….. maybe. Maybe my uncle was wrong and this was what God and Yeshua willed after all. I have feared it, yearned for it, struggled against it for so long. Now, now that this has come to pass…..” His broad shoulders rose and fell. “I thought if I accepted it….. maybe.”
I went to him, held him as I had longed to do before. “Sweet boy,” I whispered against his temple. “Why do you struggle so hard to discern your God’s will? Stop fighting, and let him reveal it to you. All will come clear in time.”
Nearby, the cart-horse whickered as though in agreement.
“Truly?”
I kissed his brow. “Truly. Now, please, can we gather ourselves and take to the road?”
After Aleksei went to scout to see that the road was clear, I cut the cart-horse’s hobbles and we set out north on foot. The horse followed us for a while, peering after us through his forelock with great, liquid-dark eyes. I had to shoo him away, reminding him that his stable-mate would be missing him.
“He likes you,” Aleksei commented.
“Animals usually do,” I said. “Though I suspect it had as much to do with the bits of bread you fed him.”
“Can you really talk to them?” he asked.
“After a fashion,” I said. “Not with words, not really. But I can touch their thoughts and feelings.”
“Like you read mine,” he murmured.
I shook my head. “That’s never happened before. Only with memories. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude. I don’t always know what form the Maghuin Dhonn’s gifts will take. It seems to change and grow as I get older.”
He processed that in silence. The sun sank low in the west, gilding the surface of the lake and sending our shadows stretching sideways. I didn’t relish the prospect of a long night’s walk, but at least it was peaceful here, and I felt a great deal better after some food and a few hours of sleep.
I was young, and gods willing, the various aches and pains my ordeal had inflicted on me would vanish in time. The bruises would fade, the welts would heal, the stiffness would pass. In time, I hoped, the memory of the Patriarch’s creamy smile as he heard my confession would fade, too, and the treasured memories he had violated would regain their luster.
I toyed with the jade bangle on my wrist as we walked, thinking about Aleksei’s plight, thinking about invoking Naamah’s blessing on Snow Tiger’s behalf. It was a piece of irony that my effort to protect that memory had nearly gotten me killed. If I hadn’t sworn the sacred oath in the Patriarch’s presence, he might never have known what form it took. No one had ever recorded the exact wording, not even Rebbe Avraham. I could simply have lied in the temple and sworn a false oath.
And what if I had?
Mayhap Pyotr Rostov would have kept his word and freed me. And the moment I fled, I would have been in exactly the danger Aleksei had described—alone, utterly dependent on my magic, conspicuous and vulnerable when my strength failed, sure to be pursued.
Instead, I had my awkward, fledgling hero to guide me, and the rudiments of a plan. Mayhap matters had fallen out for the best after all.
“What is that?” Aleksei broke the silence, nodding at the bangle. “Some sort of charm?”
“What is your obsession with charms?” I smiled to take the sting out of my words. “No, Aleksei. It’s a bracelet. It was a gift from the Emperor of Ch’in’s daughter.” I held out my wrist. “Do you see the color? It is the exact hue of a pool beneath the peak of White Jade Mountain, where the dragon gazes at his reflection. We jumped into that pool together from a very great height, the princess and I, and it was there that the dragon’s immortal spirit was freed.”
He eyed me. “Are you teasing me again?”
“Not in the least. You could ask your uncle if he were here; he’s got it all written down. Only he made me say the dragon was a fallen spirit.”
“Was it?”
“No,” I said. “He was a dragon.” It felt good to say it aloud, as though I were reclaiming the first of many truths the Patriarch had stolen.
The sun dipped beneath low mountains on the far side of the lake, and dusk, true dusk, settled over the empty road. Aleksei and I walked side by side, the only sound our steady footfalls and the faint jangling of the chains he carried in our bundle. I listened to the pine-trees murmur in the growing darkness.
“Moirin, why not?” Aleksei asked in a low voice. “Why are you so sure you couldn’t love me? Is it that you’re still mourning the young man you told me about?”
“No, my sweet boy,” I said with regret. “That was a long time ago. The grief never goes away, but it gets easier to bear. And if it were because I was in mourning for a lost love, it would be my lady Jehanne I was grieving for, since that loss is fresh and the ache of it far from fading.”
He stopped stock-still. “The D’Angeline Queen?”
I glanced at him in surprise. “I thought you knew. You were so kind to me.”
“That you cared for her, yes, but…..” Words failed him. “Did my uncle know?”
I sighed. “Yes, Aleksei. What did you think I was shouting about in the temple? He took great pleasure in extracting every detail, twisting, perverting, and tarnishing my happiest memories.”
Aleksei just stared at me.
“You see?” I said to him. “This is why I could never be the wife and helpmate you envision. You’re not seeing me as I am, Aleksei. Not yet. You’re seeing me as you think I ought to be.”
“What is wrong with wishing to see you perfected in God’s eyes?” he whispered. “A God of love, not punishment?”
“Nothing.” I set out walking again, forcing him to come after me. “Except that it will not happen. I told you before, I am a child of the Maghuin Dhonn, and I will die before I betray Her. And,” I added, “I am a child of Naamah and Anael, too. I cannot swear a sacred oath to serve them over the Maghuin Dhonn Herself, but I am grateful to allow Naamah to use me as her vessel when she sees fit. And when Anael the Good Steward makes his will known to me, I will obey that, too.”
With his long legs, Aleksei caught up to me easily. “So that’s why you cannot love me? The gods will not allow it?”
“No.” I shook my head. “I am sorry, Aleksei, truly. I didn’t know how you felt. And I thought you knew, I thought your uncle had shared the catalogue of my sins with you. It isn’t only a question of faith. There’s someone else.”
His voice took on a savage note. “Other than this Cillian, other than the D’Angeline Queen.”
“Aye,” I said coolly. “Other than Raphael de Mereliot, other than the carriage-driver not even your uncle knew about. Would you have me make my confession to you?”
“No! No, it’s just…..” His voice trailed away.
I sighed again. “I know, I know! You had a dream, and I dashed it. You took me by surprise, you know. I didn’t expect you to entertain such heretical fantasies.”
“Why do you think I struggled so hard against it?” he asked. “Why do you think I went to such extreme measures?”
I shrugged. “Ordinary mortal desire was enough to terrify you. How was I to know it was more than just that?”
“I suppose you weren’t,” Aleksei admitted. He walked without speaking for a while. “So who is he? This other?”
Unable to help myself, I glanced over my shoulder toward the south where Bao’s diadh-anam guttered so disturbingly low. “It’s a long story, and it’s difficult to explain. There are parts of it you will find blasphemous. And I will tell you one day, but I don’t feel like it tonight. He’s very far away, looking for me in the wrong place, and I’m worried about him.”
“You know where he is?” he asked.
“Always, except when I was in chains.” I rubbed my face wearily. “We’re joined together, Bao and I.”
Mercifully, Aleksei didn’t press me. The dusk deepened, stars and a ghostly half-moon emerging in the soft violet-blue sky. The sound of bird-song faded. Dusk gave way to true darkness, the moon and stars brightening to light our way. Slowly and steadily, step by step, we made our way north.
An hour or so before dawn, I suggested that we break once more for sleep. I would need more rest if I were to be able to summon the twilight in daylight tomorrow. Aleksei nodded in agreement, and we left the road, stumbling through the pine-scented darkness until we found a good place to make camp.
Once again, I curled gratefully onto the pine-mast, half-asleep by the time I pillowed my head on my scarf.
“Moirin?”
Aleksei’s voice jolted me awake. “Aye?”
“If you truly love this other man, how can you offer to invoke Naamah’s blessing for me?” he asked.
“Oh…..” I yawned in the darkness. “It is possible to love more than one person, Aleksei. But that is one of Naamah’s mysteries, and you will never understand it if you do not seek her blessing.”
He was silent for so long I almost fell asleep again. “I will pray on the matter.”
“You do that,” I murmured.
THIRTY-EIGHT
True to Aleksei’s prediction, we reached a settlement along the Ude River by mid-day.
Setting aside our differences, we worked together to hone our plans. He estimated it would take two days to reach Udinsk. I couldn’t hold the twilight for both of us that long, not even close. But it was most important that the villagers in the settlement didn’t see me, that we didn’t leave behind rumors of a green-eyed witch.
So I would conceal myself while Aleksei sought to book passage for us. He was conspicuous too, but not as much as I was, with his half-Vralian features and his fluent tongue. When the time came to board the barge, I would swaddle myself in my scarf as best I could, keep my head low and myself largely silent. Aleksei would pass me off as his pilgrim bride, recently arrived in Vralia, unable to speak the language.
If the barge-hands suspected otherwise, so be it. At least we were carrying any rumors upriver, away from pursuit.
Gods be thanked, it worked.
Aleksei was beaming with pride when he came to fetch me out of concealment on the outskirts of town. “Moirin! Moirin?”
I let the twilight go.
He startled. “Yeshua have mercy! It’s unnerving when you do that. Moirin, I did it! I booked passage for us on a fur-trapper’s boat. It’s a bit smelly and it took every coin I had, but I did it.”
I smiled at him, genuinely pleased at his sense of pride. “Well done, my hero. See, you’ve a knack for this after all.”
Color crept into his cheeks. Stone and sea, I’d never known a man who blushed so easily! “It’s a foolish thing to be proud of, I know.”
“Aleksei, I wasn’t teasing.” I laid my hand against his warm cheek. “It’s a good plan, and I would never have thought of it. You were right; without you, I’d be in dire trouble.”
It wasn’t a pleasant journey. The boat was low and narrow, piled high with furs; and yes, they smelled, being scraped but uncured. The fur-trappers were taciturn fellows who concentrated on paddling, content to leave us alone except for stealing speculative glances at me from time to time. I strongly suspected Aleksei could have driven a harder bargain than he did, leaving us without coin.