“Moon,” a voice said softly, as if the speaker was reluctant to intrude on her solitude.
She turned, grateful for the thought behind that reticence, even as she was suddenly grateful to have Jerusha PalaThion standing beside her. She had grown as used to Jerusha’s presence as she had to her own shadow; to be without it was to be incomplete. “Look at them,” she said, pointing toward the beach, where Jerusha was already looking, watching the horseplay with smiling envy.
“I’m glad you came,” Jerusha said, glancing away up the hill toward the house, rubbing her arms as if she were cold, even on a day like this one.
“I’m glad you came with us.” Moon put her hand on Jerusha’s arm, touching her gently through the heavy layers of kleeskin and sweater. She studied Jerusha’s face as the other woman looked back at her, witnessing the changed woman that her Chief of Constables became—allowed herself to become—when they were away from the city; an easier, more peaceful woman. Jerusha looked as if she belonged to these lands, this world, in her rugged native clothing, with her dark hair falling unbound down her back or braided in a heavy plait like an islander; just as she herself ceased to be the Summer Queen and became only human, free for a time to breathe and think and move through patterns that had meaning only for her. “Being here heals me, somehow,” she said, looking back toward the beach, the sea.
Jerusha turned to watch with her. “Yes,” she said. “It always used to make me feel that way, when I was Commander of Police.” She sighed, glancing up the hill again. “I knew Miroe was involved with contraband goods. But the best moments of my life for over five years were always here, visiting him.” Moon heard sudden longing and disillusionment in the words,
“Not anymore—?” she asked softly.
Jerusha looked back at her; shook her head, looking away again. Moon had wondered why Jerusha did not spend more time here. Jerusha’s work in the city, her hours spent administering and consulting, were endlessly demanding; they kept her away from this place, and her husband, far too much of the time. Moon had often told her to take more time for herself. Jerusha had always refused.
She glanced again at Jerusha’s face, the deepening lines of its strong profile eased by her smile as she watched the children. Living on a world that was not her own, and living through four miscarriages, had taken their toll on her. Moon felt her heart squeezed, a coldness in her soul, as she watched her own children run and play, and imagined losing even one of them. She looked back at Jerusha, seeing the depths of sorrow below the surface of her smile; realizing suddenly, fully and frighteningly. the toll that Jerusha’s losses had taken on her relationship with her husband.
Neither Jerusha nor Miroe shared their emotions easily—not their pain, not even their joy. And the only way for two people to survive a lifetime together was by sharing those things—no matter how painful, how secret, how strange. The more things each one hid, the more a family became only solitary strangers leading parallel lives, blind to any needs but their own. , . .
She did not realize that she had moved, turning away from the sea and the sight of her husband and children, far down the beach now, until Jerusha touched her shoulder. She blinked, startled, found herself gazing inland toward the mountains … the remote, fanged peaks still covered with snow, wreathed in wisps of slowly drifting cloud. As she watched, the clouds seemed to take the form of a woman’s face and hands, of her blowing hair cloud-white against the blue ocean of sky—and through her hair, scattered by her hands, Moon saw, as she sometimes could on rare, perfectly clear days, a handful of stars, so bright that they were visible even in the daytime sky. She watched the vision of clouds scatter stars … remembering how she had watched other stars falling like a vision, above those distant snowfields on a distant night: the ships of the Hegemony arriving on Tiamat for the final visit of the Assembly, the final Festival of Winter. Remembering BZ Gundhalinu, there beside her …
“Moon—?” Jerusha’s voice pulled at her; she felt the other woman’s arms catch her, holding her steady as sudden vertigo overwhelmed her.
“Did you see it?” she whispered, her eyes still on the mountains, the sky. “The Lady …”
“What?” Jerusha squinted, following her gaze. But the cloudforms had flowed on, mutating, hiding the ragged scatter of stars, and she saw nothing.
“Nothing,” she murmured. “The clouds … the clouds were beautiful. It made me think of … other skies.” She shook her head, avoiding the look on Jerusha’s face as she began to turn away. But she turned back, suddenly. “Jerusha—I heard from BZ.”
“What?” Jerusha said again, more in disbelief than incomprehension. “Gundhalinu?” He had been one of her inspectors; she had seen him turn renegade out of love, defying her and breaking the Hegemony’s laws for Moon’s sake. But she had let him go, torn by his divided loyalties, and her own… . “That’s impossible,” she murmured, her eyes asking Moon to prove it was not. “How?” she said finally.
“In sibyl Transfer. He’s become a sibyl—” She explained, describing for Jerusha all that she could remember of what she had seen and heard.
“Why was he in World’s End?” Jerusha asked, shaking her head. “Was it a lice case? He was assigned to Four—”
“He didn’t tell me.”
“When did this happen?”
“Months ago.” Moon looked away.
“And you didn’t tell anyone?”
“No.” She shook her head, brushing pale strands of hair back from her face. “I couldn’t.” She turned, looking toward the beach again, where Sparks and the children were slowly making their way back along the shore. “I couldn’t tell him. …”
“Oh,” Jerusha said softly.
Moon watched Sparks stop on the sand, waving up at her, his red hair catching fire in the sunlight. She felt the heavy pressure inside her chest as she raised her own hand. “I can’t stop thinking about it. I gave him all I could, Jerusha, all it would let me give him—” This time seeing not her husband’s face but a stranger’s, as she had on that night as he took her in his arms… . “But I don’t know if it was enough. I don’t even know if he was able to save himself. There isn’t a day since then that I haven’t thought about him.” She felt her face redden. And night after night the memory of his final words had haunted her, kept her from sleep, when she needed sleep so desperately….
“Then you haven’t heard anything more?”
“Nothing.” She shook her head. “I don’t know how to reach him … I don’t even know how he found me. It isn’t supposed to be possible.”
“I know.” Jerusha glanced at her feet, half frowning. “Damn. I wish I had an answer.” She sighed. “But I’m glad you told me.” She met Moon’s eyes again, and smiled, ruefully. “If anyone will survive, he will. You gave him the gift of survival, before he ever left Tiamat.”
Moon looked away uncertainly.