But then she rose to her feet, glancing toward the doorway, before she looked at him. “I have to go.”
He sat up clumsily, reaching out to her. She touched his hand, but shook her head. “I have to, Tammis… Clavally and Danaquil Lu will teach you how to control the Transfer, all that you need to know as a sibyl—beginning now, if you feel strong enough.” She let go of his hand again, with a forced smile. “I’ll come back to see you as soon as I can.” She turned away from the question in his eyes, and went out of the room.
TIAMAT: Carbuncle
“Well, cousin, this is a fine party. You should give one more often.”
Danaquil Lu turned, still smiling even though it was Kirard Set who was speaking to him, and that was usually enough to ruin his mood. “I only have one child to celebrate a marriage for, unfortunately. But one is better than none.” His smile widened as he looked past Kirard Set and saw his daughter’s face across the room, radiant with happiness as she danced to the traditional wedding music. Merovy had told him that she and Tammis had pledged with each other last year. He had lived long enough in Summer to be at ease with its customs, and he had not minded when she had moved out of their townhouse and into Tammis’s rooms at the palace. He and Clavally still saw her almost every day.
But now she was seventeen, old enough for the more formal wedding oath the Winters made, following the offworlders’ customs. He had found himself feeling a sense of tradition that was as strong as it was unexpected, wanting to mark his daughter’s rite of passage in the way his family had done for generations. He sipped at the offworlder wine in his crystal cup, savoring it. Both the cups and the wine had been among the things the Queen had donated from the remaining Winter stores at the Palace, to make the wedding feast of her son and his daughter so memorable that it had impressed even Kirard Set. “Excuse me,” he said, spotting Clavally waving at him from across the room. “Enjoy the party.”
He moved away, grateful to be out of Kirard Set’s orbit; letting his shoulders slump as his cousin wandered on through the crowd. His back was beginning to trouble him again, as Ngenet had predicted it would. He pushed the thought out of his mind, focusing on the present, and said a silent prayer to the Lady—to whom he had always directed the few prayers he made, since his exile to Summer—that they might all be as happy in the future as they were today.
Clavally was standing with Moon and Sparks in front of the enormous box decorated like a boat, which was piled with householding presents for the newlyweds. She gestured again, impatiently, as he approached. “Come on, old heart, we’re posing for a picture!”
“What, in the middle of all this?” He looked around, surprised, not seeing anyone with paints or charcoal; only Tor Starhiker and Shotwyn Crestrider, consulting furiously over some sort of vaguely familiar mechanical device. “Mother of Us All, is that a camera?”
Moon nodded, her expression caught somewhere between amusement and impatience. She pressed something into his hands. “They’ve made it work somehow with a battery pack. Come on, Shotwyn!” she called. “I’m late. I have to go—”
“Go?” Sparks said. “Go where, in the middle of Tammis’s wedding?”
She looked at him, all the pleasure disappearing from her face. “I told you. I have a meeting with Capella Goodventure.”
“Lady’s Eyes!” he said, frowning. “Why can’t she come to the wedding; then at least you could pretend your mind was on this.”
“She won’t come to a Winter ceremony,” Moon said.
Danaquil Lu glanced at the Queen as he moved into line beside his wife; seeing an unhappiness in her eyes that her voice did not reveal. He looked away again, down at the thing she had pressed into his hand—a startlingly lifelike three-dimensional image of Merovy and Tammis kissing, caught in some enchantment that held them perpetually in that moment of joy. He touched the image hesitantly, finding that his finger passed through it as if it were a hallucination, touching only a flat surface he could not see.
“Smile!” Tor called, her voice slightly slurred.
He looked up at the camera, but he was already smiling.
Sparks looked away from the camera’s pitiless eye as Tor finished trapping their souls inside it. (Some part of him would always think of it that way, the seed of superstition from his childhood, transformed by time into an uncomfortable pearl of irony.) Moon touched his arm briefly, as if in apology; but when he turned to look at her she was already disappearing into the crowd, on her way out.
He frowned, looking back at Danaquil Lu and Clavally, who were head to head over the holo of their daughter and his son, as Tor passed them the one of themselves. Suddenly not wanting to see the picture, he moved away. The band on the other side of the room began to play another traditional song, and he reached into his belt pouch for his flute. He had taken it back from Ariele, because she seemed to have no real interest in it. Now, hearing the band play, he thought of joining them. It was one of the few privileges of his position that actually mattered to him—that when he asked to play, almost no one would refuse him. The awareness that he would not disgrace himself by his musicianship if he did was one of the few things in his life that he still felt justifiably proud of.
“Da—”
He turned, surprised by Ancle’s voice behind him. He looked at her, her slothing wrapping her like rainbows in bright arcs of fabric, her long hair bound up in an attempt to imitate an elaborate offworlder style. She had always reminded him of Moon when he looked at her, in a way that pinched his heart; but today she reminded him suddenly, strikingly, of someone else. Arienrhod. He blinked, forcing himself to see only his daughter, in love with the offworlders’ legacy, the way he had been once, in his youth. “What?” he asked.
“Where did Mother go?”
“To meet with Capella Goodventure.”
Ariele made a face, and sighed. “Where’s Gran? Tammis said she was coming to the party with Borah. She was bringing me some tiller shells to make into combs. Isn’t she here yet?”
He looked away, searching the crowd, surprised again as he realized that he had not seen either of them here, when he knew they had been expected. “I don’t know,” he said.
“Well, they should have left earlier, then,” she said, with an impatient shake of her head. “They’re missing everything.”
“A storm could have delayed them.” Elco Teel Graymount came up behind Ariele, putting his hands on her familiarly, smirking as he glanced at her father.
Sparks felt himself begin to frown; made no comment as Ariele only smiled and sidled closer to the boy. At least she showed no signs of taking a special interest in him, or anyone, yet; although Elco Teel was at her constantly, like an insect at a flower. Sparks had wondered more than once whether Elco Teel would have been half as interested in his daughter if she were not going to be the next Summer Queen. The prospect of having Kirard Set’s only son for a son-in-law did not appeal to him. “What are you talking about?” he asked. “The weather report said that the weather down the coast was fine.”
Elco Teel shrugged. “There could be a storm. Squalls come up suddenly all the time, and swamp small boats. Especially when the ones sailing it are getting old…”
Sparks glared at him, about to chastise him for speaking ill-luck about a journey. But he saw Merovy come up behind Ariele, her hair garlanded with flowers, her gray eyes glancing curiously from face to face. Sparks smiled instead, the way her father had smiled as he looked at her picture. Ariele and Elco Teel turned as they saw his smile, to stare at her with unreadable expressions. “Have you seen Tammis?” she asked.