Bound by Blood and Sand
Page 14

“The only thing I regret is that I won’t be able to see my grandchildren grow up,” Janna said. “But this way, I know they’ll be safe.” She reached for him again, tugged him down until she could kiss his forehead the way she had when he was a little boy, even though now he towered over her. He’d grown up well, and she’d made the right choice in trusting him with the Well’s power and its secrets. He and Mirrad would guide the others when the time came to make choices, and they’d raise their children, Taesann and Aredann, to do the same. The Bloodlines would continue, and so would the Well. And they would all be safe.
 
Jae’s startled shout echoed back at her. She hit the ground, unable to even catch herself, her head only missing the base of the fountain by inches. Then everything went silent. The world faded to black this time, and the pain finally, finally faded with it.
 
 
In her dream, the garden was flush with life. Red stones still marked the path across it, ringed the fountain, divided the courtyard into careful sections. Grass grew up everywhere else, bright green and high enough to tickle her ankles.
The cactus bloomed with red flowers, and the stunted bushes had come back to life, with deeper green leaves hanging from each bough. The flowers around the base of the fountain were an amazing rainbow of rich reds and yellows and even purple. Their blossoms were full, delicate petals rimming their pollen insides, and they smelled sweeter than Lady Shirrad’s perfumes. The fountain burbled behind them, the water fresh and cool, despite the sun—splashing, sometimes overflowing as the breeze picked up.
Jae stood in the middle of the garden, turning in a slow circle, staring at it all, feeling it all. Not just the damp breeze on her skin and the soft grass under her bare feet, but the life in all of it. More than anything else, she felt the fountain. It wasn’t alive, but it hummed with some kind of energy she didn’t recognize, brimming more with power than with water.
—
“Jae, Jae, please wake up, please.”
She could just make out Tal leaning over her, shaking her. She moaned, lances of pain shooting through her body, and managed to say, “I’m awake.”
He stopped, thankfully, and pressed a hand to her forehead, his palm cool against her skin. “You’re sick. You must be sick; you’re burning. But you were inside today.”
He stared at her imploringly, waiting for the answer to his unasked question. She tugged his arm away from her face and mumbled, “I don’t know. I think I just…fell.”
“Let me help you,” he said, and stood, then leaned down to offer his hands. She clenched her jaw so no scream of pain escaped when he moved her, but she must have gasped anyway, because he murmured, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Jae. You’ll be fine. I’ll get you inside….”
The pain was too much. She felt like she’d been in the sun all day without a drink, as if she’d been straining, hauling enormous water jugs by herself for hours until her body had given out. Everything hurt. The Curse throbbed in her head, and she didn’t even know what it was punishing her for.
When Tal finally managed to get a grip around her and pull her up into his arms, it was too much. The world went black again.
 
“These drawings are…They’re not as clear as I was expecting,” Lady Shirrad said, leaning forward over the papers with a slight frown. Elan waited, schooling himself to be patient and relaxed. Now that he and Desinn had settled in at Aredann, it was hard to find time to talk to the Lady alone.
The whole day had been long, boring, and hot. He’d spent it sitting in this same chamber with Shirrad, Desinn, and all of her Avowed. They’d been discussing how much water they had left at Aredann. It was Shirrad’s duty as the reservoir’s guardian to see it was used wisely, and doled out to the Avowed who served her, but the Avowed had spent the day quibbling over how many jugs each of them had been allotted. As if that made any difference. Aredann was going to be abandoned soon. But that just seemed to make them greedier, as if whoever finally drank the reservoir dry before they left would win.
Desinn had watched them all with a superior smile. He and Elan both knew how little any of this would mean, once the Avowed were sent to the central cities. But Elan had been sent here to see just how desperate the drought could make people, to be reminded of why the Highest had to make careful, sometimes even cruel, decisions for everyone’s safety.
It wasn’t until after dinner that Elan had finally managed to walk with Shirrad out around the grounds and mention that he was interested in learning more about Aredann’s history—and that he’d brought some old books and papers about it. The information in them was obscure, some of it seeming to be a completely different kind of writing, nothing he’d ever seen before. That was probably from before the War, maybe even before the Well had been crafted; he knew she wouldn’t be able to read it any more than he could. But she might be able to do something with the rest of it. If she recognized something, it might lead him to the Well’s location.
“Maybe that one isn’t the best to begin with,” Elan said. “There are some other drawings, here.” He shuffled the pages around, looking for one of the more complete images. There had been shockingly little information about Aredann in any of his father’s books, and Elan had barely had time to copy any of it properly before being sent away. What had been hard to decipher in the originals was all but impossible now, though he finally found one that was more clear: a quickly copied drawing of a garden.
Lady Shirrad studied it, then looked up, wide-eyed. “Highest, of course I know what this one is. Look.”
She pointed above his head. He turned to look over his shoulder—and there it was, the same image, the largest of the mosaics hanging on the wall. He bounded to his feet to examine it more closely.
The mosaic was enormous, some of the tiles as small as his fingertips and others as large as his fist. The wall was opposite the room’s windows, so the tiles themselves had lost some of their vividness, but they still gleamed in the torchlight. It must have been quite a sight when it had first been created, huge and bright, showing a man kneeling in a garden as he planted a flower.
“My father told me that it’s an image of Lord Aredann himself,” Shirrad explained.
Elan nodded a little, studying the picture. Aredann had been one of the greatest heroes of the War, a mage whose own brother, Taesann the traitor, had joined the Closest when they’d tried to seize the Well. Taesann had been the Closest’s final mage, and Aredann had eventually been forced to kill him. The estate where Aredann had grown up had been renamed in his honor. The mosaic itself was as tall as Elan, though it was hung above the shelves, with its bottom as high as his ribs. It was set within a green-gray frame with a rough texture.