“Why did you do it?
He flinched, but didn’t turn to meet her eyes.
“Fash said . . .”
“Fash says many things. You shouldn’t listen.”
Clary hunched his shoulders as if against a blow. “I’ve been waiting for you to complain to the Commandant.”
“Have I ever, about anything? It isn’t likely to happen again, is it?”
The back of his neck turned dusky red. “No. It was a shoddy trick. I wish I hadn’t done it.”
“Good.”
She passed on to Brier, who was studying a map of the Southern Wastes.
“Urakarn,” said Brier, pointing to a mark on the western edge of the desert. “Here is the plain before it where my mother and your brother followed Genjar to defeat against the Karnids. Genjar came back. So many others didn’t. They say that the ground there is still white with powdered bones. And this”—she swept her hand eastward—“is the dry salt sea over which they escaped. Is it true that my mother returned under the salt, under the sand, to save you?”
The previous spring, a weirdingstrom had carried the entire Scrollsmen’s College all the way south taking Jame and Brier with it. Jame remembered the terror of sinking, of sand closing over her head, the salt on her lips turning wet, the ancient sea returning.
Then Rose Iron-thorn’s hand had closed over her own and drawn her up to the air, to life. For your brother’s sake . . .
“I think so.”
Would they soon be revisiting those mysterious regions? Hot, dry, barren . . . Jame glanced out the window at the cold rain still descending in rods. How far away the Wastes seemed. Strange to think that someday, in some foreign desert, she might regret that it wasn’t raining.
The downpour continued the next day, and the next. Nothing dried properly. The Silver rose, beginning to gnaw away its banks. Wells brimmed on the verge of overflowing. If the Eaten One indeed represented water, she was clearly showing her displeasure, but at what?
MINE. SHE. IS. NOT.
“She” undoubtedly referred to Prid, but why had the river goddess rejected her, with what consequences for her, her people, and all other dwellers of the Riverland? The solstice sacrifice usually went without a challenge from what Jame could learn. What happened to the sacrificed Favorite was more obscure.
And still the rain fell.
Oh, Gran Cyd, what have we done?
Late on the fourth day, the college had visitors.
The ten-commands of Jame and Timmon were on the second-floor balcony of the great hall, putting out pots to catch drips before they could run down the lower walls and soak the house banners which already sagged under the weight of their dank stitches.
“If this keeps up,” said Jame, emptying a sauce pan into a roasting pot, “wouldn’t it be better to roll them up and store them somewhere dry?”
Timmon grunted. “If such a place exists.”
The outer door ground open, swollen wood scraping on flagstones. Riders entered clad in oiled coats on dripping horses. Following them, a rose-colored canopy squeezed through the door. Something pale glimmered under it.
“It can’t be,” said Timmon, staring. “Sweet Trinity, it is. My mother.”
Lady Distan extended her gloved hand to a white-haired randon who helped her to dismount.
“And that’s Ran Aden. What in Perimal’s name are they doing here?”
“You’d better go down to greet them.”
Timmon chewed his lower lip. “Will you come with me?”
“Given how they both feel about me? Just go.”
Reluctantly, Timmon went. His mother offered him her pink-gloved hand to kiss and allowed herself to be escorted out of the hall.
The horses and riders descended into the subterranean stable.
Aden was left surveying the hall. From his expression, nothing he saw pleased him.
A randon of his house, hastily summoned, stepped forward to welcome him. The Highborn looked down his nose at him.
“What, not Sheth Sharp-tongue?”
“The Commandant has been summoned home for an urgent consultation, Ran.”
“Really. How irregular. In his absence, I am the senior officer here. Until Sheth deigns to resume his post, Tentir is under my command. Now, show me to the Commandant’s quarters.”
“Well,” said Brier at Jame’s shoulder as the two randon left.
Jame made a face. “That remains to be seen.”
“Can he really take over Tentir, just like that?” asked Dar over dinner. “I’ve never heard of such a thing before.”
Everything on the table was cold, the well having overflowed in the basement and put out the kitchen fire. Trocks and newts had taken refuge on all available tabletops, while salamanders smoldered under the surface, emitting sullen bubbles.
“Ran Hawthorn was left in charge, and she seems to have accepted it,” Mint remarked. “Ran Aden is just too senior to argue with.”
“The Commandant will be back soon,” said Erim. “She may not feel that it’s worth a fuss.”
Still, thought Jame, gnawing a slightly soggy heel of bread, she wished that Harn Grip-hard were here instead of with the Southern Host. If nothing else, as the Highlord’s war-leader he outranked his Ardeth counterpart. As Erim said, though, Aden’s tenure couldn’t last for long. Already the Commandant’s return was long overdue.
She also wondered about Lady Distan, Timmon’s mother. Granted, it wouldn’t have been raining when she set off with her escort from Omiroth, but what need had kept her stubbornly on the road in such inclement weather? A postprandial visit seemed in order.
When Jame arrived at the Ardeth barracks, however, everyone was still at table. She slipped up to Timmon’s quarters to wait for him there, not reckoning that his mother would come with him. There was her voice on the stair, though, and the swish of her damask robe. Too late to run. Where to hide? Ah, under Timmon’s bed, where she had taken cover once before, accidentally on top of the wolver. She could almost hear his amused, gravelly voice: Under other circumstances, this would be fun.
Under these circumstances, definitely not.
“At last,” said the lady, entering the room. “Privacy.”
“Mother, guest quarters have been prepared for you. After such a long ride, aren’t you tired?”
“Now, would you hustle me off so fast after I have ridden so far to see you?”
Timmon’s bed was covered with a lace counterpane. Jame watched their feet through it—Timmon’s in fine-grained but sensible boots, his mother’s in rose-colored slippers. For such a dainty woman, she had large feet, proud in the up step. One could imagine them mincing over armies of the fallen.
“Very well.” Timmon sounded resigned. “I’m pleased to see you, of course, but why are you here?” Then his tone sharpened. “Has something happened to Grandfather?”
“One might say so. My dear, I know that you didn’t mean to cause trouble at the High Council, but you must see what a problem you created by letting Adric think that you were Pereden.”
Timmon’s feet shuffled. “I didn’t tell him. He told me.”
“And you didn’t correct him. About everything else he seems rational—so far—but this quest for the relics of his beloved, fallen son has partly unhinged him. When he refers to you as Pereden, he is content. When he calls you Timmon, as he does more and more frequently, he grows fretful.”
Jame wondered what Timmon had done with the finger and ring of his father. For that matter, blood and bone, he was a sort of relic in himself.
“I’m sorry about that.”
“So are we all. You do see, though, if he names you his heir as Pereden, Dari will have good cause to question both his judgment and your claim.”
“Mother, you assume that I want to become Lord Ardeth.”
“Of course you do. Haven’t you enjoyed being his lordan?”
Timmon began to pace restlessly. “Here and now, yes. It gives me status at the college. I never thought that it would last, or wanted that responsibility.”