"This morning. Depending on your condition, we will follow tomorrow morning."
She felt her own momentary withdrawal.
"We will not force you to wake the Ten," he murmured, after a pause. "It is a request, not a duty."
"No, I think it is exactly that," she said. "A duty of my family to people who are, substantially, a branch of that family. I keep shying away from the idea, but I think eventually I would have asked to see the Ten even if I had not stayed with you."
Illidian twined a strand of her hair around his fingers, watching it slip and fall. He was wearing another of her ribbons around his wrist: his own form of Symbolic Magic. Their marriage had been a series of challenges, but they met each one with—she would not even call it a determination not to be parted, but instead a mutual drawing together. Staying together was not work because she was as much home to him as he was to her.
Touching the tip of one of his fingers, she traced the shape of the naiclass="underline" not a sharp point, but it was longer than he had allowed himself for months.
"I no longer see blood beneath them," he murmured. "But the nightmares have not stopped."
Rennyn did not waste breath on platitudes, admitting instead: "I still don’t think I could sit through the end of that play. Even after watching him flinch as I took a piece of broken glass to his throat. I’m not altogether sure even killing him would have…maybe eventually."
"We have chosen to end our hunt for Prince Helecho." His tone was resigned. "Unless we discover he has found a way to cause harm. It is far from ideal for us, but we cannot justify killing him merely to protect ourselves from the possibility of inheritance."
Rennyn curled her fingers through his, thinking of the Kellian under the command of her Wicked Uncle. Her decisions had tied their hands, and so the possible ascendency of Helecho Montjuste-Surclere would haunt them for years to come. Not so complete a nightmare as Solace, but a thing to dread.
She wondered whether the Ten also had nightmares about Solace’s return. Endlessly, without waking. The idea made it feel like pure cowardice to postpone any longer, so she dressed and Illidian carried her through the drowsing shadows of late afternoon to where the Ten slept. Only Darian Faille joined them, falling silently into step with her son as they walked up the gentle slope to the Ten’s resting place. It was a beautiful afternoon, with southern light picking out points of colour on the hillside. Rennyn felt none of the reluctance she had experienced on their previous visit, merely an acceptance that this task belonged to her, as much as any magical puzzle.
But she could not help but remember the conversation she had had with Darian after her first visit to the Ten. Children. Kellian leadership. An endless reel of complications that brought her back to the possibility that the Symbolic casting that maintained the Kellian could unravel. She would certainly be glad to no longer be able to command them inadvertently, but she knew very well that it was not a solution Illidian—that any of the Kellian—would choose.
Autumn had come to the fan-shaped cave. Vivid leaves and berries, arranged in wreaths and garlands, decorated the walls and the stone coffins. Did the Kellian bring flowers in spring, and layer symbols of renewal on this place that spoke so strongly of death? Or had this been done in preparation for Rennyn’s visit, so that the original Kellian constructs would wake to a celebration of colour?
With an effort of will, Rennyn focused on the nine still-living constructs. When Solace’s control had been withdrawn, they had learned to protect each other, had found a friend and guide, and then discovered joy in creation. Had lived long lives, and now…
Imbuing into her voice all the command she tried to avoid around the Kellian, Rennyn said: "Wake up."
There was no immediate response, no alteration to the steady hush of sleepers' breath. Rennyn did not allow herself to hope this continued, for a non-response would only make matters more complicated. A minute shift in Illidian’s stance warned her of change, and her ear more than her eye detected a series of tiny movements among the sleepers. Then larger alterations: a hand raised to a face, a turn, a lifted head.
"I give you welcome," Darian Faille said, and her voice seemed firmer than usual, deep with added emotion. "I am glad."
Two of the sleepers sat up, and both moved their hands in response. Rennyn had only begun to learn Kellian hand-speaking, and could not follow.
"Thank you, child of Faille’s line," Illidian murmured, translating. "I give you thanks, Darian." Then, the one third from the left—Seya—rose, and Illidian added: "You have brought us a child of the Queen."
"This is Rennyn, eldest child of Tiandel’s line," Darian said. "In her lies the ability to command all descended from the Ten."
"We saw this one when the Queen returned," Seya responded. Her gaze had shifted to Rennyn, and her hands moved swiftly. "You asked if the Queen could separate herself from us. And yet your intention was the Queen’s death."
"Yes," Rennyn agreed, as more of the shadowy, attenuated women sat up. "I—in truth, I was not very eager to kill her. I was hoping she would answer differently, that she would show some sign of remorse."
"And what is it that you ask of us now?"
Rennyn realised her heart was beating faster. Was she imagining a palpable sense of threat? Before her were nine women who had been created to protect Solace Montjuste-Surclere, who had been used and abandoned, and who were far from likely to accept a replacement for Solace. Who had just been told that Rennyn could command their children.
"Tiandel exiled you from Tyrland," she said carefully. "Abandoned you. I came to apologise for that, and to revoke that exile. You are free to…" She hesitated, then repeated definitively. "You are free. Come and go as you please. Live and…live and die as you wish. I will aid you and yours if you ask that of me, but the line of Montjuste-Surclere claims only kinship with you, not ownership."
Nine pairs of grey eyes studied her, occasionally catching a flicker of torchlight. Nine heads turned as the Kellian forebears looked at each other. Rennyn took a long breath, and realised that her jumping pulse marked more than nerves. A steady flow of power was being drawn from her. In waking the Kellian constructs she had begun to actively feed the Symbolic casting that sustained them.
Two days ago, this would have killed me.
"We give you thanks, Rennyn of Tiandel’s line," Illidian translated, when Seya’s hands moved again. "And we give you welcome. To our home. To our family."
They rose then, from their coffins, and walked down to greet the children of their children. They admired the changes to their settlement, met the youngest of their grandchildren, and shared silent words and gentle embraces.
Then, one by one, they returned to the cave decked in crimson and gold, and died.
Epilogue
In the throne room of the Emperor of Kole, Fallon DeVries lay in one of four inter-connected Sigillic circles, contemplating his phlegm-clogged chest, his aching bones, and the awful grey weariness that had him longing for sleep, and yet somehow made it impossible to rest.
"Nearly there, Fallon," Duchess Surclere said, looking down at him. "Try to stay awake."
He nodded, and she moved on, reviewing the immensely complex Sigillic one last time. Her feet had healed to the point where she could wear shoes again, but Fallon noticed a faint hesitation whenever her weight came down on her right foot. At least the Duchess had avoided a truly serious cold, with only a mild cough lingering.