The
White Stone
THE NEW VOICE in her head screamed and wailed and
raged, speaking half in the language of Nessantico and half in a
language she didn’t understand at all. The others in her head
laughed and hooted.
“Your lover Jan . . . What a pleasant vision he has of you
now!”
“Do you think he would marry the filthy assassin he
saw?”
“He laid with a murderer and now she carries his
child.”
“He’s glimpsed the truth. I hope you always remember the
horror on his face when he recognized you.”
That last one was
Fynn, pleased and smug. “Shut up!” she shouted at them, but they
only laughed all the louder, their voices crowding out what she
heard with her own ears.
She’d followed Talis
and the Westlander leader from the Isle back to the Red Swan after
she’d made certain that Nico seemed to be safe. She was angry,
furious with Talis—he’d broken his promise to her. The Numetodo . .
. they might be disgusting heretics, but they had treated Nico
kindly and with respect, the woman especially.
But Talis . .
.
Talis had betrayed
Nico and because of that Nico’s matarh lay near death, and she had
told Talis what the price would be. She had told him, and she would
exact payment. The White Stone always kept her word.
So she had followed
him, when—all out of nowhere—the sounds of battle had erupted from
the east and she’d watched the Westlander leader arrange his men to
ambush the Firenzcian chevarittai and soldiers. Suddenly there was
far too much fighting going on, too much movement for her to make a
move, and she was worried now about Nico and whether he was truly
safe and she wanted desperately to run back to him, afraid that
following Talis might have been a mistake. But she’d seen Talis
slip from the room into which he’d gone and rush out into the
street, and she’d followed. She watched the confrontation and she’d
seen the chance. She slashed her blade across his throat and she
felt him die as he dropped the flask of dark powder And as she laid
him down and started to put the stone on his eye, she’d glimpsed
him.
Jan.
The shock had been
palpable. She’d felt it as strongly as if her heart had been placed
directly on a bed of hidden, red-hot coals. Jan: he stood there,
and she had witnessed the slow recognition on his face. His
expression had frightened her. It was full of shock and affection,
of yearning and horror. Seeing him was awful and wonderful at the
same moment, and she had wanted to run to him, had wanted to take
his hand and place it on her swelling stomach and whisper,
Here, darling. This is the life we have
created together. This is what our love has made; she wanted
also to run, to flee, to hide her face and pretend this revelation
had never happened.
The second impulse
was the stronger.
She’d taken the white
stone from Talis’ eye and she’d fled, wanting Jan to follow her and
afraid that he actually would.
She didn’t stop until
she reached the Pontica Kralji. There were no strange,
bronze-colored men there; none who were living, anyway, though
their bodies littered the ground. She could see soldiers in the
black and silver of Firenzcia moving everywhere on the
streets—causing Fynn to exclaim excitedly inside her head—and she
carefully made her way across the Pontica and slid quickly into
cover on the island. That was easy; so many walls tumbled down, so
many fire-scarred buildings. She went to the gardener’s cottage on
the palais estates where they’d taken Nico and his matarh, where
the healer for the Westlander had worked over her injured
body.
The healer and all
the Westlander soldiers were gone, but her fears eased when she saw
that Nico was still there, holding onto his matarh’s hand as he
crouched next to the table on which she lay—it must have once been
one of the dining tables from the palais, still covered with fine,
lacy damask, now bloodstained and filthy. She could see Serafina’s
chest rise with a slow breath, but her eyes were still closed and
she seemed unresponsive.
“Nico,” she said, and
he started, his hand clenching his matarh’s tightly.
“Oh,” he said a
moment later. His face brightened slightly. He sniffed and ran his
hand across his nose. “Elle. It’s you.”
She nodded and came
to him. She clasped her own hands around his and his matarh’s. She
saw him stare at the blood that mottled her skin. “We need to go,
Nico,” she told him.
“I can’t leave
Matarh,” he said. “Talis will be back soon.”
She shook her head.
Her hands pressed tighter against his. His skin was warm, so warm,
and she felt the child within her jump at the touch—the stirring of
life, the quickening. She gasped slightly at the feel. “No,” she
told him. “I’m afraid Talis is dead, Nico.”
She saw the tears
start in his eyes and his lower lip trembled. Then he sniffed again
and blinked. “That’s the truth?”
She nodded. “The
truth, Nico. I’m sorry. I’m very sorry.”
He was crying fully
now, the words coming out between the sobbing breath. “But my
matarh . . . I can’t . . . They just left her . . . She’s asleep
and I . . . can’t wake her up. . . .”
“Your matarh would
want you to go with me. Look at her, Nico. She loves you so much, I
know she does, but I don’t know if she’s ever going to wake up, and
the city is full of soldiers and death. She would want you to go
with me because I can keep you safe. I will keep you safe.”
“But I did this to
her,” Nico said. “It was my fault. I want her to know that I’m
sorry.”
She pressed Nico’s
hand around his matarh’s. “She knows. Nico, we need to
hurry.”
She pulled his hand
away from his matarh’s, prying away the fingers gently. He released
his grip reluctantly but without protest. “Give her a kiss,” she
said. “She’ll feel it, and she’ll know.”
Nico stood up.
Leaning over his matarh’s body, he gave her a kiss on the cheek. He
put her hand, dangling over the side, on the table, and patted it.
He looked back over his shoulder, then, his eyes swimming with
tears that didn’t fall.
“I promise you,
Nico—I’ll find her again if she lives and bring her back to us. I
promise you.”
He nodded. She held
out her hand to him, and he took it. She brought him to her,
hugging him briefly, then releasing him with a sigh. She took his
hand again.
“It’s time,” she told
him.
Together, hand in
hand, they made their way from the smoldering, ruined
city.