“At night?” Her fine brows rose a fraction.
“It is a moon-garden, my lady.” A slight flush warmed his face.
“Ah.” She regarded him, grave and beautiful, clad in a robe of pale blue. “So you would permit me a glimpse of sky.”
“I would.”
“Thank you.” Cerelinde inclined her head. “I would like that.”
Meara hissed through her teeth, stamping into the quarters beyond and returning with a pearl-white shawl, woven fine as gossamer. “Here,” she muttered, thrusting it at Cerelinde. “You’ll take a chill, Lady.”
“Thank you, Meara.” The Lady of the Ellylon smiled at the madling.
“Don’t.” She bit her lip, drawing a bead of blood, then whirled on Tanaros. “I told you it was a mistake to bring her, with all her beauty and kindness! Did you not think it would make it that much harder for the rest of us to endure ourselves?”
He blinked in perplexity, watching her storm away, doors slamming in her wake. “I thought she had taken kindly to you, my lady.”
“You don’t understand, do you?” Cerelinde glanced at him with pity.
“No:” Tanaros shook his head, extending his arm. “I don’t.”
He led her through the gleaming halls of Darkhaven, acutely aware of her white fingers resting on his forearm, of the hem of her silk robe sweeping along the black marble floors. There were shadows beneath her luminous eyes, but captivity had only refined her beauty, leavening it with sorrow. Haomane’s Child. The Havenguard on duty saluted as they passed, faces impassive, keeping their thoughts to themselves.
“Here, my lady.” A narrow hallway, ending in a wooden door polished smooth as silk, with hinges and locks of tarnished silver. Tanaros unlocked the door and pushed it ajar, admitting a waft of subtle fragrances. He stepped back, bowing. “The garden.”
Cerelinde passed him.
“Oh, Haomane!”
The mingled joy and grief in her tone made a knot in his belly. Tanaros entered the garden, closing the door carefully behind him. Only then did he dare look at her. The Lady of the Ellylon stood very still, and there were no words in the common tongue to describe her expression. The air was warm and balmy, rich with the scent of strange blossoms. Overhead, Arahila’s moon hung full and bright off the left side of the Tower of Ravens, drenching the garden in silvery light.
It was very beautiful.
She hadn’t expected that, Tanaros thought.
Tainted water, feeding tainted earth, saturated with the seeping ichor of Lord Satoris’ wound. Such was the garden of Darkhaven, and such flowers as grew here grew nowhere else on Urulat. By daylight, they shrank. Only at night did they bloom, stretching tendrils and leaves toward the kindly light of Arahila’s moon and stars, extending pale blossoms.
Cerelinde wandered, the hem of her robe leaving a dark trail where it disturbed the dewy grass. “What is this called?” She paused beneath the graceful, drooping branches of a flowering tree, its delicate blossoms, pale-pink as a bloodshot eye, weeping clear drops upon the ground.
“A mourning-tree.” Tanaros watched her. “It grieves for the slain.”
“And these?” She examined a vine twining round the trunk, bearing waxy, trumpet-shaped flowers that emitted a pallid glow.
“Corpse-flowers, my lady.” He saw her lift her head, startled. “At the dark of the moon, they utter the cries of the dead, or so it is said.”
Cerelinde shuddered, stepping back from the vines. “This is a dire beauty, General Tanaros.”
“Yes,” Tanaros said simply, taking her arm. Stars winked overhead like a thousand eyes as he led her to another bed, where blossoms opened like eyes underfoot, five-pointed petals streaked with pale violet. “Have you seen these?” A faint, sweet fragrance hung in the air, tantalizing. His eyes, unbidden, filled with tears.
… her face, his wife Calista, her eyes huge and fearful as she lay upon the birthing-bed, watching him hold the infant in his arms …
“No!” Cerelinde struggled out of his grip, eyeing him and breathing hard. “What manner of flower is this, Tanaros?”
“Vulnus-blossom.” His smile was taut. “What did you see?”
“You,” she said softly. “I saw you, in Lindanen Dale, your sword stained with my kinsmen’s blood.”
Tanaros nodded, once. “Their scent evokes memory. Painful memory.”
Cerelinde closed her eyes. “What do you see, Tanaros?”
“I see my wife.” The words came harsher than he intended. He watched her eyelids, raising like shutters, the sweep of lashes lifting to reveal the luminous grey.
“Poor Tanaros,” she murmured.
“Come.” He dragged at her arm, hauled her to another flowerbed, where bell-shaped blossoms bent on slender stalks, shivering in the moonlight with a pale, fretful sound. “Do you know what these are?”
She shook her head.
“Clamitus atroxis,” Tanaros said shortly. “Sorrow-bells. They sound for every senseless act of cruelty that takes place in the Sundered World. Do you wonder that they are seldom silent?”
“No.” Tears clung to her lashes. “Why, Tanaros?”
“Look.” He fell to his knees, parting the dense, green leaves of the clamitus. Another flower blossomed there, low to the ground, pure white and starry, shimmering in its bed of shadows. “Touch it.”
She did, kneeling beside him, stroking the petals with one fingertip.
The flower shuddered, its petals folding into limpness.
“What have I done?” Cerelinde’s expression was perturbed.
“Nothing.” Tanaros shook his head. “It is the mortexigus, Lady; the little-death flower. That is its nature, to mimic death at a touch. Thus does it loose its pollen.”
Cerelinde knelt, head bowed, watching the plant stir. “Why do you show this to me, Tanaros?” she asked quietly.
A soft breeze blew in the garden, redolent with the odor of memory, making the clamitus sound their fitful chimes. Tanaros stood, his knees popping. He walked some distance from her. “Lord Satoris has summoned you to speak with him.”
“Yes.” She did not move.
“What does he say?”
“Many things.” Cerelinde watched him. “He says that the Prophecy is a lie.”
“Do you believe him?” Tanaros turned back to her.
“No.” A simple truth, simply spoken.
“You should.” A harsh note entered his voice. “He speaks the truth, you know.”
Her face was calm. “Then why do you fear it, Tanaros? Why am I here, if the Prophecy is a lie? Why not let me wed Aracus Altorus in peace?”
“Is that what you would bring us here in Darkhaven?” he asked her. “Peace?”
At that, she looked away. “The Lord-of-Thought knows the will of Uru-Alat.”
“No!” Tanaros clenched his fist against his thigh, forced himself to breathe evenly. “No, he doesn’t. Haomane knows the power of thought, that’s all. The leap of water in the stream, of blood in the vein, of seed in the loins … these things are Uru-Alat too, and these things Haomane First-Born knows not. That is the core of truth he has Shaped into the lie of the Prophecy.”
Cerelinde composed herself. “The other Shapers disagree, General.”
“Do they?” Tanaros caught a bitter laugh in his throat and pointed to the moon. “See there, my lady. Arahila’s moon sheds its blessing on Lord Satoris’ garden.”
Her gaze was filled with compassion. “What would you have me say? Arahila the Fair is a Shaper, Tanaros. Not even the Sunderer is beyond redemption in her eyes.”
“No.” He shook his head. “Oh, Cerelinde! Don’t you understand ? Any of the Shapers, any of the Six, could leave Torath and cross the Sundered divide. They will not.” He raised his chin, gazing at the stars. “They will not,” he said, “because they fear. They fear Haomane’s wrath, and they fear their own mortality. Even Shapers can die, Cerelinde. And they fear to tread the same earth where Godslayer abides.”