Carnelian felt lost. He had so much counted on his father’s strength. The horror of what he had witnessed at the Gates piled onto that of the battlefield. It seemed as if he were succumbing to an avalanche of corpses. ‘I broke the Balance!’
His father regarded him with a frown of incomprehension. ‘Molochite…’
Carnelian was unable to dam the pouring out of a confession of his actions, of his influence on Osidian, of the influence on everything of his dreams and, as he did so, he was aware of his father’s face softening and, when his father put out his hands, he hesitated, but laid his own upon his father’s, whose thin fingers closed about them, tenderly. ‘Son, dreams are the chief way by which the gods communicate with men.’ He smiled. ‘Perhaps not “gods”, but those forces that move the world. Why did you follow your dreams?’
Carnelian frowned back tears, trying to find the words, eventually finding only one. ‘Compassion.’ A strange word; in Quya sounding almost shameful. His father smiled up at him, seeming suddenly very wise. ‘It was your heart that listened.’ He nodded, still smiling. ‘Then you have done only what was necessary.’
Carnelian gazed down at his father, something of whose former beauty shone out from his wasted face. ‘You say that, even though it has brought us all to ruin?’
The light went out in his father’s face. He let go Carnelian’s hands and folded his own together over his stomach as if nursing an ache. He gazed up, a strange, fearful expression in his eyes. ‘In truth, my first reaction to your news was relief.’
Carnelian stared at him.
‘It has lifted a burden from me. For a long, long time,’ he sighed the words, ‘I have thought of nothing but the succession here.’ He lifted his chin to take in the vast darkness round them. ‘Several times have you been taken from me. The last time, I knew the ruling of this House must pass to Opalid.’
‘But I sent you word to reassure you.’
His father smiled grimly. ‘The Maruli?’ And when Carnelian nodded, ‘It was not easy for me to believe you.’ He laughed, grimly. ‘How has it come to this: that I should find relief in the ending of the world?’ His eyes fell bright upon Carnelian. ‘You think me selfish?’
Carnelian did not know how to answer. It seemed so, but he too had a yearning to be free of the care of others.
His father’s head dropped and he seemed to be watching one of his hands as it crushed the knuckles of the other. ‘Whereas you have always followed your heart, I have striven to cut mine out.’ There was fury in his eyes as he glanced up. ‘As we teach and are taught to do.’ He looked away. ‘We face the world with our masks as proud and blind as the Sacred Wall. We raise these ramparts even between ourselves.’ He turned back to Carnelian, haunted. ‘Even on our island, far from Osrakum and the Law-that-must-be-obeyed, I told myself I must maintain this aloofness for your sake; for one day you must return here. Nevertheless, you know, to your cost, how poorly I prepared you to be Chosen.’ His face twisted as if he had something bitter in his mouth. ‘I lied to myself. It was for my own sake that I held onto my pride. In that remoteness, I was terrified I would cease to be Chosen.’ His eyes grew bright with tears. ‘You see, it became so difficult to believe that I was an angel. Even behind my mask, I was changing. I tried to blind myself to my degeneration by keeping before me always a vision of Osrakum and the manufactured hope and fantasy of return.’ He closed his eyes and breathed deep. ‘Powers and Essences forgive me, but when I saw in your face you were not of my blood, I seized on the danger to you as the excuse I needed not to return. In truth I did not want to return and we would not have, had the black ship not come.
‘When it did, I turned against my heart; intoxicated by visions of a glorious return; telling myself I had to do it for your sake.’ He looked up at Carnelian, tenderly. ‘Truly, however misguided, for your sake.’ He looked away into the darkness. ‘I hid deep in my heart my fear, my grief. For all my vaunted pride, my world had shrunk down to the limits of that small island. And, yet, it did not feel too small. It was full and warm. Everything I loved was there. Still, I allowed it to be destroyed and brought all that I should have sought to protect, from safety, here to this terrible place.’
Carnelian reached down to take his father’s hands. ‘By not heeding your warnings before the battle, I have done the same.’
His father gave him a crooked smile. ‘Well, it seems that everyone we love is now to die.’
Carnelian shook his head. ‘There is still hope they can be saved.’
His father regarded him as if he feared him mad, but, as Carnelian explained his plan, that look left his father’s face. ‘Your dreams led you to this?’
‘I think so.’
His father frowned. Carnelian was glad he did not go on to ask about how all the difficulties of his plan could possibly be overcome. What Carnelian was choosing to believe in was already the merest thread upon which to hang their hope, but it was all he had. ‘We will have to survive here for several days.’ Both knew that, once news got out that Osrakum was doomed, violent chaos would soon take possession of the coombs. Theirs would not be proof against it. As they talked, Carnelian sneaked sidelong glances at his father’s wasted face. Some part of him was testing what he felt for this man, who was and yet was not his father, but gradually the tension in his stomach lessened. He knew that what he felt was love.
‘You know Ebeny yearns to see you?’
Carnelian nodded. ‘I shall go to her now.’
Emerging from his father’s hall, Carnelian saw Krow between Tain and Fern. Carnelian smiled at him. He was not sure what he had expected back – certainly not Krow’s frown and his refusal to meet his gaze. As the guardsmen sank to their knees, clumsily, Krow did so too, even though Tain and Fern remained standing. Krow was dressed in the same way as the other guardsmen and could easily have passed for one of them were it not that his face was free of the chameleon tattoo. Carnelian reminded himself of how long Krow had been here in this daunting world among the tyadra. It was foolish to have expected him to remain unaffected by the awe with which these men regarded their Masters. He glanced round to make sure the white door was closed before he commanded them all to rise. ‘Fern, I’m going to see Tain’s mother. Do you want to come with me?’ Those words put pain in Fern’s eyes, but he gave a nod. Carnelian was aware Krow had glanced up.
‘Krow…?’
When the youth looked again, Carnelian held his gaze. ‘Do you want to come with us?’
Krow gave a nod, as Carnelian had hoped he would.
Tain brought them to a door and turned to Carnelian. ‘I won’t come in with you.’
Carnelian nodded.
‘I’m not allowed… not allowed to enter,’ said Krow.
Carnelian gave him a glance of concern, wondering why not: only Chosen women were subject to restrictive access. Clearly, Krow knew whose door this was, yet his tone implied he did not feel welcome there; but, if so, why had he agreed to come with them?
Fern’s face arrested any more conjectures. He seemed to be on the crumbling edge of some precipice. Carnelian’s pounding heart forced even this from his mind. Somewhere behind that door was Ebeny, whom he thought of as his mother. Almost he rapped upon the door in the special way that, in the Hold, had announced to Ebeny it was he. That had been another time. He gave the door a simple knock. Moments later it opened just enough to reveal a sliver of a face he recognized. The eye and mouth lit up. It was Poppy and he expected her to fling the door open and run to him, but she did not, instead biting her lip, half turning. ‘It’s Master Carnelian…’
‘Well, let him in, dear,’ said a voice in the chamber beyond. A voice that put a stone in Carnelian’s throat.