been surprised at the nature of their request. Orëska must be a pale, milk-fed sort of magic indeed, for two people possessed of such powerful souls not have the craft to make a simple skin binding. Had she understood then the true depth of their ignorance, she might have tried to share more of her knowledge with them before the time came to use it.
But she hadn’t understood until it was too late, until the moment her hand had faltered, letting the boy child draw his first breath. Iya would not wait for the necessary cleansing sacrifice. There was no time for anything but to complete the binding and flee, leaving the angry new spirit lost and alone.
Lhel balked again as the city gate came into sight ahead of them. ‘You cannot leave such a spirit earthbound!’ she said again, struggling to free her wrist from Iya’s grasp. ‘It grows to a demon before you know it, and then what will you do, you who couldn’t bind it in the first place?’
‘I will deal with it.’
‘You are a fool.’
The taller woman turned, bringing their faces close together. ‘I am saving your life, woman, and that of the child and her family! If the King’s wizard caught so much as a whiff of you we’d all be executed, starting with that baby. She’s all that matters now, not you or me or anyone else in this whole wretched land. It’s the will of Illior.’
Once again, Lhel felt the massive power coursing through the wizard. Different Iya might be and possessed of unfamiliar magic, but there was no question that she was god-touched, and more than a match for Lhel. So she’d let herself be led away, leaving the child and its skin-bound twin behind in the stinking city. She hoped Arkoniel had found a strong tree to hold the spirit down.
They bought horses and travelled together for two days. Lhel said little, but prayed silently to the Mother for guidance. When they reached the edge of the highlands, she allowed Iya to give her into the care of a band of caravaneers heading west into the mountains. As they parted, Iya had even tried to make peace with her.
‘You did well, my friend,’ she said, her hazel eyes sad as she took Lhel’s hands. ‘Stay safe in your mountains and all will be well. We must never meet again.’
Lhel chose to ignore the thinly veiled threat. Fishing in a pouch at her belt, she drew out a little silver amulet made in the shape of a full moon flanked on either side by slender crescents. ‘For when the child takes woman form again.’
Iya held it on her palm. ‘The Shield of the Mother.’
‘Keep it hidden. It’s only for women. As a boy, she must wear this.’ She gave Iya a short hazel twig capped on both ends with burnished copper bands.
Iya shook her head. ‘It’s too dangerous. I’m not the only wizard to have studied your ways.’
‘Then you keep them for her!’ Lhel urged. ‘This child will need much magic to survive.’
Iya closed her hand around the amulets, wood and silver together. ‘I will, I promise you. Farewell.’
Lhel stayed with the caravan for three days, and each day the black, cold weight of the dead child’s spirit lay heavier on her heart. Each night its cry grew louder in her dreams. She prayed to the shining Mother to show her why she had sent her here to create such a thing and what she must do to make the world right again.
The Mother answered, and on the third night Lhel danced the dreamsleep dance for her guides, seducing away just enough of their thoughts to remove any memory of her and the supplies she took with her.
Guided by a waning white sliver of moon, she threw her travelling sack over her horse’s neck and turned back for the stinking city.
In the uneasy days following the birth, only Nari and the Duke attended Ariani. Rhius sent word to Tharin, sending the captain on to the estate at Cirna to keep him away a while longer.
A silence fell over the household; black banners flew on the roof peaks, proclaiming mourning for the supposed stillbirth. On the household altar, Rhius set a fresh basin of water and burned the herbs sacred to Astellus, who smoothed the water road to birth and death and protected new mothers from childbed fever.
Sitting at Ariani’s bedside each day, however, Nari knew it was not birthing fever that ailed the woman, but a deep sickness of heart. Nari was old enough to remember Queen Agnalain’s last days and prayed that her daughter was not afflicted with the same curse of madness.
Day after day, night after night, Ariani tossed against her pillows, waking to cry out, ‘The child, Nari! Don’t you hear him? He’s so cold.’
‘The child is well, your highness,’ Nari told her each time. ‘See, Tobin is in the cradle here beside you. Look how plump he is.’
But Ariani would not look at the living child. ‘No, I hear him,’ she would insist, staring around wildly. ‘Why have you shut him outside? Fetch him in at once!’
‘There’s no child outside, your highness. You were only dreaming again.’
Nari spoke the truth, for she’d heard nothing, but some of the other servants claimed to have heard an infant’s cry in the darkness outside. Soon a rumour spread through the house that the second child had been stillborn with its eyes open; everyone knew that demons came into the world through such births. Several serving maids had been sent to Atyion already with orders to keep their gossip to themselves. Only Nari and Mynir knew the truth behind the second child’s death.
Loyalty to the Duke guaranteed Mynir’s silence. Nari owed allegiance to Iya. The wizard had been a benefactress to her family for three generations and there were times during those first few chaotic days when only that bond kept the nurse from running back to her own village. Iya had said nothing of demons when Nari agreed to serve.
In the end, however, she stayed for the child’s sake. Her milk flowed freely as soon as she put the dark-haired little mite to her breast and with it all the tenderness she’d thought she’d lost when her husband and son had died. Maker knew neither the Princess nor her husband had any to spare for the poor child.
They must all call Tobin ‘he’ and ‘him’ now. And thanks to the outlandish magic the witch had worked with her knives and needles, Tobin was to all appearances a fine healthy boy child. He slept well, nursed vigorously, and seemed happy with whatever attention was paid him, which was little enough by his own folk.
‘They’ll come ’round, little pet my love,’ Nari would croon to him as he dozed contentedly in her arms. ‘How could they not and you so sweet?’
As Tobin thrived, however, his mother sank ever faster into a darkness of spirit. The bout of fever passed but Ariani kept to her bed. She still would not touch her living child, and she would not even look at her husband, or her brother either, when he came to call.
Duke Rhius was near despair. He sat with her for hours, enduring her silence, and brought in the most skilled drysians from the temple of Dalna. The healers found no illness of the body to cure.
On the twelfth day after the birth, however, the Princess began to show signs of rallying. That afternoon, Nari found her curled in an armchair next to the fire, sewing a doll. The floor around her was littered with scraps of muslin, clumps of stuffing wool, snippets of embroidery silks and thread.
The new doll was finished by nightfall – a boy with no mouth. Another just like it followed the next day, and another. She did not bother to dress the things, but cast each aside as soon as the last stitch was tied off and immediately began on another. By week’s end half a dozen of the things were lined up on the mantelpiece.
‘They’re very pretty, my love, but why not finish the faces?’ Duke Rhius asked, sitting faithfully by her bedside each night.
‘So they won’t cry,’ Ariani hissed, needle flying as she stitched an arm to a wool-packed