“But I cannot,” she said. “Maeben cares for your daughter now. You, though, should love your son twice as much. You have given to the goddess. Now your lives will be blessed and your son will be a joy to you always.”
Leaving the chamber later, Mena wondered what the priest would have done to her if he had understood the language she had spoken in. It was bad enough that he had heard her speak the other language. He would likely chastise her for it later, but this never frightened her as much as the priest thought it did. Sometimes as he spoke she imagined herself drawing the old Marah sword she had arrived on the island with and cutting off his head. She saw just how she would do it, even imagining the blood and gore of it. It surprised her that her thoughts could turn so violent, but perhaps that was just a result of living so long as a representative of Maeben’s anger.
She wondered if her speech had done any good for the couple. Certainly her words had been gibberish to them. Perhaps it was just a cowardly act, an incomplete confession. Why was she always drawn to this other language when faced with the most difficult of moments?
She was still wrapped up in these thoughts that evening as she left the main temple building and headed for her private quarters. She was dressed in a simple shift to ward off the sea breeze. Her bare feet padded on the packed sand, the path before her lit to bone gray by the stars, hemmed in on one side by a hedge of low bushes. She knew the way by heart and never carried a light with her.
She froze in mid-step, thinking she heard something-a whisper, perhaps, some sound that did not belong and had already vanished. But there was nothing except near silence, an insect chirping in the undergrowth and the quick scrabble of a rodent alarmed at her sudden immobility, a dog barking in town and some voices from back at the temple: that was it. The longer she listened the more she doubted that there had been a sound of any consequence at all. She had almost settled in to the comfort of this, when there was a rustling in the brush behind her.
She spun around to see a man’s shape step into silhouetted being behind her. He must have hidden in the bushes until after she passed. He was taller than any Vumu in the village. He had to be an off islander, a sailor or raider, someone who meant her harm. Why else would he come upon her in the dark, alone? She calculated the distance to the village and considered her prospects of darting around him and back to the compound. She could scream. If so, how long would she have before someone reached her? She clenched her hands into fists, feeling the sharpness of her nails against her flesh, feeling the quick-beating calm that she understood as anger. She felt more the goddess at that moment than she had earlier, when she had worn her finery.
“Mena? It is you, isn’t it?”
She understood him clearly enough, and for a moment she noted that his accent was indeed not of the island. But then she understood something else. He had not spoken to her in Vumu. He spoke…he spoke that other language. She recognized the words and knew their meaning even as she tasted the strangeness of hearing them spoken by another. He had called her by her first name, something known to few on the island. For a moment she feared she had brought a demon upon herself. Perhaps the goddess abhorred her for speaking in that foreign tongue. Perhaps this one who addressed her was here to punish.
“What do you want?” she asked, consciously speaking in Vumu. “I have nothing you can have, so leave me. I serve the goddess. Her wrath is keen.”
“So I have heard,” he said. “But you don’t look like a giant sea eagle that snatches up young children. You don’t look like that at all.” The man took a step closer. She backed up, and he held up a hand to calm her. There was a noise in the compound. As the stranger cocked his head, the light on his profile was just strong enough for her to recognize the sailor who had stared at her that morning. For some reason, this mystified her more than it frightened her. “You speak Vumu like a native, but you are not, are you? Tell me I am not wrong. You are Mena Akaran, of the Tree of Acacia.”
Mena shook her head, saying “I am Maeben on earth” several times, but not loudly enough to interrupt him.
“Your brother was Aliver. Your sister, Corinn. Dariel was the youngest. Your father was Leodan-”
“What do you want?” she snapped, not a question at all but a sudden shout that burst from her chest, a need to silence him because the names he was saying and the language he was speaking so calmly did not reach her calmly at all.
“You know me, Mena. I was your brother’s companion, from his training group. My father was Althenos. He handled records for your father in the palace library. I danced with you when you were ten. Remember? You stood on the flat of my feet and caused me no end of pain. Say that you remember me. Please, Mena.”
All through this speech he moved closer to her. Though the light got no better, his nearness drew out his features. She could only partially recall the things he said. They jostled and shoved about in her mind, arguing with the impossibility that he was standing before her uttering such things. And yet she did know his face. She recognized the boy he had once been in his eyes, still so large on his face, wide set and calming. His lips were parted, but her internal vision remembered what they looked like when he smiled, the way mirth transformed his features.
“Princess,” the man said, dropping to his knees, “I had given up hope… Tell me you are you and that I am not mistaken.”
“What is your name?” she asked, her voice calmer than she felt. She could see his eyes reflecting the starlight. She watched something change in them and realized they had filled with tears.
He said, “I am Melio.”
CHAPTER
Rialus Neptos had once believed that his governorship of the Mein Satrapy had been the great curse of his life. He hated that frozen place, filled with rough, outcast citizens of the empire. He seethed when he thought about the dismissive air with which the Akarans treated him, so much so that he had been willing to do anything to win a better situation in life. Thus, he had called upon low elements among his acquaintances in Alecia-family members, criminals, opportunists of every stripe-to rise and cause all manner of confusion to coincide with Hanish Mein’s attack. He had watched with joy as the city spun into chaos. For a few short days he had lived in complete euphoria, seeing the old order swept away, awaiting the new reign of Hanish Mein, sure that he had earned a place of prominence within it.
How utter a betrayal, then, that Hanish had-in a maneuver that the new ruler must have thought the greatest joke on record-made Rialus personal liaison to Calrach, the headman of the thronging Numrek horde. Rialus often woke screaming from a nightmare of the moment when the chieftain had told him of the appointment. Hanish had pointed out that Rialus was one of the first Acacians the Numrek had encountered. He claimed that the Numrek still spoke warmly of the reception he had given them at Cathgergen. Rialus had demonstrated his fortitude, his skills at dealing with the rough race the Numrek were.
“You’re the man for it, Rialus,” he said. “You’ve more than earned it.”
Rialus had offered a nervous rebuttal. He knew nothing about the Numrek! He wasn’t suited to the cold portions of the country the Numrek were to settle in. He’d much prefer a post nearer the heart of the nation, in Alecia or along the coast near Manil. Perhaps he could serve Hanish as the chief magistrate of Bocoum? Some such position as that. But liaison to the Numrek? He did not even speak their language. He did not wish to seem ungrateful, Rialus had said, but perhaps Hanish could reconsider. The beasts ate human flesh, after all! Hardly the sort of company a valued ally should be keeping.