Chapter 73
Mia just sat by Corben’s body for a long while, not moving. Her skin resonated with a shivering that wouldn’t stop, and her eyes stared out into the darkness, avoiding the mounds of dead bodies, man and beast, that littered the ground around her.
Eventually, noticing that the brand she was still clutching was dying out, she rose to her feet and trudged over to the bonfire. She didn’t even bother looking around for more wolves, too weary and bone-tired and drained to care.
Nothing came at her.
With numb hands, she fed the fire again, then shrank down, her back to the tree Corben had been leaning against, and cupped her face with her hands.
Dawn was far off. She’d lost all notion of time, but she knew she had a long night ahead of her. It didn’t matter. She wasn’t going anywhere. She was going to stay there, riveted to that spot, until someone — or something — came and plucked her off it.
A lone, distant howl broke the stillness.
It wasn’t answered.
The creature sounded mournful, as if lamenting the great loss of life, the monsoon of death that had drenched the parched soil of the mountain.
And then she saw them.
Distant lights, flickering in and out from behind trees, a slow convoy snaking its way towards her.
She strained to get a clearer picture of who, or what, they were, but they were far off. They would disappear behind a ridge, then reappear a few minutes later, slightly closer. Gradually, they made their way to her, traveling in silence, a muted procession. When they finally came into view, she saw that there were several of them, on horseback, half a dozen or more perhaps, holding up flaming torches and oil lanterns.
She didn’t recognize any of them. She didn’t think they were from Nerva Zhori — she’d met a lot of the villagers in the commotion after the helicopter had exploded — then she saw the familiar face of the mokhtar as he climbed off his horse and approached her with a weary smile and a blanket.
He draped it over and led her to a waiting horse, the others watching her every move in respectful, if intrigued, silence.
Chapter 74
The fireplace crackled in the small but comfortable room as Thérésia stared out the window. A light dusting of snow was falling on the trees outside, the flakes twinkling in the suffused moonlight as they glided to a gentle rest.
She knew he wouldn’t be coming back.
She’d known it at the quayside in Lisbon, almost two decades earlier.
Had it been that long ago?
Her face relaxed into a bittersweet smile at the memories floating through her mind.
Thérésia hadn’t wanted Sebastian to leave, but she knew he had to. Those years in Lisbon had been the happiest, the most fulfilling of her long life — living with him, traveling in his company, learning with him, and, of course, raising their young son together. She had never wanted it to end, she desperately wanted him to stay or take her and Miguel with him, but she realized it wasn’t possible. He had to follow his destiny, and she had to keep their son safe.
His leaving her, and her move across the ocean, had — as he’d promised — brought her peace. No one had bothered her or Miguel — Michael now — since they’d settled in Philadelphia. The City of Brotherly Love had lived up to its name. The last few years had been turbulent — revolutions usually are — but, mercifully, she and Michael had survived the turmoil and with the Treaty of Paris now signed, it looked as if the worst was well behind them.
How long she would live to enjoy the peace, though, was a question now haranguing her. The small, hard lumps that had appeared under her arms and in her left breast were troubling her. She had prided herself on her independence and her fitness throughout the troubled times of the conflict and was certainly as fit as a sixty-year-old widow — that small lie had readily been accepted upon her arrival in the new city — could be. But since discovering the lumps, she felt a tiredness in her bones when she woke up every morning, a shortness of breath, a heaviness in her head that accosted her in worrying waves. She knew that the blood that had, in the last week, appeared when she coughed was a bad augur.
She didn’t have much time left.
She wondered how Sebastian was keeping. She imagined he was drinking the distillation again and smiled inwardly at the thought that he would be little changed from how she remembered him. She caught a glimpse of her own, wrinkled face reflected back at her in the thin glass of the window and willed him to success. What a wonderful gift it would be. A most worthy of quests…even if it did cost her the love of her life and cost Michael his father.
She saw her son appear at the gate and make his way into the house. He had grown into a fine young man and had performed admirably during the troubles, working alongside his mother at liaising with the French envoys who were assisting the revolutionary effort against the British. His diplomatic and organizational talents were evident, and throughout the conflict she had imagined great things in his future, in his adopted homeland. But with each passing day, he also reminded her more and more of Sebastian. She could see it in his eyes, in his stance, even in small things such as the way he held a quill. And as the boy grew into the man, she knew she couldn’t ignore his unique provenance.
She also couldn’t ignore his father’s legacy.
She had promised Sebastian she would never tell the boy what had led his father to leave them. Sebastian had made her promise it to him, and, at the time, she saw the sense in it. He wanted his son to have a normal life. He didn’t want him to have his life ambushed by an oath he had himself made. It was his burden to bear, not his son’s.
It was a promise she could no longer keep.
She owed it to Sebastian. To his memory and to his legacy. If he was going to die away from her, alone, in a foreign land, she had to try to ensure that his death wouldn’t be in vain.
Deep down, she knew he would have wanted her to.
“Mother?”
She heard Michael take off his boots and make his way to join her in the sitting room. She turned to him, the pain in her limbs receding at the sight of his radiant face. She saw the quizzical expression on his face at the sight of her and saw his eyes drop lower to the ancient, leatherbound book with the strange circular symbol tooled into its cover that she held to her chest.
“I have something to tell you,” she told him as she invited him to join her.
Chapter 75
Mia stirred in the narrow bed. Beams of dusty sunlight bathed the room around her. Still weary and foggy-brained, she pushed herself up to her elbows and looked around. Plain, hand-finished walls, simple oak furniture, and lace curtains greeted her in hushed silence.
She scoured her mind for clarity, and a cloud of confused images slowly drifted into focus. She remembered being part of a slow convoy, riding into the night, leaving behind the mangled corpses. She remembered the furtive glances of the men and women accompanying her, as well as the mokhtar, riding directly ahead of her, keeping a supportive eye on her as they snaked their way down the mountainside until they’d reached a village she didn’t recognize. She remembered being led into one of its houses, sitting at a rickety kitchen table by a blazing fireplace, being offered a hot, herbal infusion of a flavor she wasn’t familiar with, and being watched with warm curiosity by the mokhtar and an elderly couple as she drank it gratefully.