“What do you mean, he has left the continent?” Cuirin’nên’a asked quietly.
Something had passed in conversation that Leanâlhâm had missed, and she heard Brot’ân’duivé continue.
“Léshil and Magiere, and the majay-hì and the sage, have sailed for the eastern continent to hide the ...” He dropped silent for a moment. “Or this is what Osha reports.”
“It is true,” Osha whispered.
“Most Aged Father will not let them go,” Cuirin’nên’a countered. “He will twist the truth of Sgäilsheilleache’s death into an aberration of loyalties, to a betrayal of the caste.”
Leanâlhâm finally raised her head; there was more she had missed moments ago. Everyone spoke as if they all knew something that she did not.
Osha rose suddenly, pointing at Brot’ân’duivé as he spoke to Cuirin’nên’a.
“No! We have proof. Wynn Hygeorht recorded what happened. The council of clan elders have seen her ... heard of her. By her knowledge of us, and even our language, they will believe her.”
“An account?” Cuirin’nên’a asked. “Let me see it.”
As of yet, Grandfather had not said a word. He sat silent and stricken, barely noting all that took place around him. Leanâlhâm longed to grab him, to curl up in his arms for comfort—and to give comfort.
“Enough!” Brot’ân’duivé barked, and Leanâlhâm flinched, looking up.
He glared at Osha with an open anger that she had never before seen him display. Had he not wanted Osha to mention this account of Wynn’s? Leanâlhâm also wanted to know exactly what had happened, but Brot’ân’duivé glanced down at her once.
Grandfather reached over and grasped her hand. “The book,” was all he said.
Brot’ân’duivé hesitated and then reached inside his tunic and pulled out a small book. Its blue cover was worn and creased, and it did look like something Leanâlhâm had seen the human sage carry.
Brot’ân’duivé held it out to Cuirin’nên’a. In one firm step, she took it from him, turned away, and began leafing through its pages.
Leanâlhâm was left to suffer in ignorance. It did not matter, for Sgäilsheilleache was gone. She looked to the glass bottle that Osha had left upon the moss, and then buckled with her hands over her face and cried in silence.
Outside the archway Chap stood paralyzed by all he experienced in Leanâlhâm’s memories. It was like reliving the mourning of Sgäile’s death all over again. He hung his head but forced himself to focus on what he had learned.
Brot’an had returned with Osha to Sgäile’s home. Cuirin’nên’a had spoken of Most Aged Father with venom in her voice and had no reason to feel otherwise for all the years that he had imprisoned her. Leesil still believed that Brot’an had gotten his mother “mixed up” with the dissidents, but Chap was not so certain. From what he now pieced together, it seemed that both Gleann and Cuirin’nên’a were participants from the very beginning in whatever Brot’an had attempted.
Leanâlhâm had not been and perhaps was not even now. She had been allowed to remain that day only because Gleann was in too much grief to be without her. And poor Osha appeared to have been as much an ignorant victim as she was.
Not so for Brot’an.
The old assassin had been forced by Osha’s naïve but honorable intentions into exposing the journal to the others. If Osha had not done so, would Brot’an have even shared Wynn’s journal with Gleann and Leesil’s mother? Perhaps—or not—but he had hinted earlier to Magiere that this journal was the crux of all that followed.
Chap still did not see how, not completely.
Leanâlhâm suddenly sat up, turned her head toward the archway, and looked right at him.
Chap froze. He’d not made a sound, not a move that could have alerted her. Yet, half-startled, she gazed at him as if she’d heard something and turned to find him watching her.
Leanâlhâm swallowed once and turned away.
Chap backed up, still distracted by what he had learned and what he had not. As he walked up the stairs, he paused once to look behind him.
Leanâlhâm didn’t appear, though he lingered there a moment longer, watching for her and feeling unsettled.
The girl everyone called Leanâlhâm did not mind Chap’s presence anymore. He had not tried to disturb her, tried to make her interact with anyone, or told her to make a better effort to “adjust”—as the greimasg’äh so often did.
Still, she had felt watched, like the moments in the enclave when those eyes appeared in the forest. This time, it was not quite the same.
It was as if she had been talking out loud to herself, only to find someone was listening whom she had not noticed at first. No one had come into the room, but when she had looked, Chap had been there. She hesitantly turned her head again, leaning a little to peer around the armchair’s side.
Chap was gone, and she heaved a long breath in relief without knowing why.
Gripping the book tightly to her chest, she thought on that day when Osha had come to her home with that horrible news. She thought of the days that followed, some of which had slid by so slowly and yet had become dull and blurred and so hard to remember. She and Grandfather had struggled through the earliest, hardest part of mourning.
Osha, in his own grief, had been there for them. They understood his loss as well. There were strange moments she did remember. Three times she had come upon Grandfather sitting alone with the greimasg’äh, and the two had been whispering to each other. Brot’ân’duivé did not appear to be offering comfort, and Grandfather, though grieved, appeared more intense than Leanâlhâm could ever remember.
At that time, she had not thought much of this. She had been in a daze, aching from the loss and fearing a future without her uncle. And she had Osha constantly attending her. That Grandfather had his old friend to distract him with other things was a blessing she would not begrudge him. She should have paid more attention, but that time was long past.
With another deep breath she rose from her chair in the little front library and headed for the stairs. The greimasg’äh would expect her to choose a room before dinner. It was not until she was halfway up the stairs that she realized she still carried the book.
She almost turned back to put it away, then changed her mind and held on to it as she climbed the stairs to find the others.
Chapter Thirteen
On the annex’s upper floor, Brot’ân’duivé felt relieved as he left Léshil and Magiere’s room and they closed their door. His presence among them on this journey was necessary, but at times their company was exhausting. A few moments alone were welcome.
Walking down the hall, he peered inside various doorways. Finally deciding the choice did not matter, he entered the last room along the corridor. It was closest to the head of the stairs, and all of the rooms were equally oversoft and garish with thick quilts and heavy curtains.
Why humans lived with such cumbersome furnishings was beyond him. The life of an anmaglâhk was austere, but even his people chose possessions sparingly. Then he heard a soft click-scratch on the wooden floor outside the room.
He stood silently tracking the sound in his mind and knowing its every movement. From the upper steps of the central stairs to a left turn around the banister’s crest and down the hall, he followed it along the path he had come moments before. A soft scratching was followed by the sound of an opening door.
Returning quietly to crack open his door, Brot’ân’duivé peeked out to confirm Chap’s passage. He watched the tip of the majay-hì’s tail disappear into Léshil and Magiere’s room.
If Chap had come up, where was Leanâlhâm? Perhaps she was still downstairs looking at books.