Naamah's Curse

TWO

I took a room at a travellers’ inn that first night. There was a time when I would have eschewed man-made walls for the freedom of the outdoors, but I had grown more civilized since leaving my home in Alba. After a long day’s ride, the notion of a hot meal and a roof over my head appealed to me.

The ostler at the stable gaped at the sight of me, revealing a few missing teeth. On the road, I’d managed not to attract overmuch attention merely by dint of keeping my head lowered and my eyes averted. To be sure, a seemingly well-off young woman travelling alone drew curious glances, but at a quick, stealthy glance, with my coloring I could almost pass for Ch’in. My straight, black hair, I’d inherited from my mother. My skin was a warm golden hue, fairer than my mother’s, but not nearly so fair as my D’Angeline father’s milk-white skin.

I had his eyes, though. Green as grass, green as the rushes grow. And I had a measure of the fearful, keen-edged symmetry of D’Angeline beauty, coupled with the untamed spark of the Maghuin Dhonn. No one looking me full in the face could mistake me for aught but what I was: the Emperor’s jade-eyed witch.

The ostler barked at a young stable-lad in an unfamiliar dialect. The boy went pelting toward the inn proper. I settled my battered canvas satchel over my shoulder and followed him. I hadn’t gone ten steps before a solidly built middle-aged woman, clearly the proprietress of the establishment, came bustling down the path toward me. Her shrewd gaze raked me over, taking in my fine robes, my jade bangles, and the Emperor’s medallion.

I bowed in the Ch’in manner, hand over fist, and spoke in the Shuntian scholar’s tongue, the only one I knew. “Greetings, Honored Aunt. I seek lodging for the night.”

A smile broke over her face. “You are the foreign witch, are you not? The one who freed the dragon?”

“Aye,” I agreed. “I am.”

She clutched my arm in a companionable manner, tugging me toward the inn. “Come, come! We are honored to give you hospitality. No charge, no charge at all. You must call me Auntie Li.”

“You’re very kind,” I said politely. “But I can pay.”

The proprietress snorted, squeezed my arm, and gave me a conspiratorial wink. “I’m nothing of the sort, child. I’m a greedy old widow who knows that folk will pay to hear tales of the Emperor’s witch’s stay here. Indulge me.”

I smiled. “All right, Auntie Li.”

She was right, of course. A silence fell over the common room of the inn when she ushered me inside. Men paused, teacups halfway to their mouths, staring.

But I was used to it.

I’d been stared at a great deal in my short life. In Alba, I had been my mother’s well-kept secret-not due to any sense of shame, but simply my mother’s own taciturn nature. Folk there had found it startling that a woman of the Maghuin Dhonn, a descendant of Alais the Wise, had borne a half-D’Angeline child.

In Terre d’Ange, folk had found it just as startling that a full-blooded D’Angeline man-a Priest of Naamah, no less-had chosen to couple with one of the infamous bear-witches of the Maghuin Dhonn, fathering a child on her.

And in Ch’in…

Vast as it was, the mighty empire of Ch’in was insular, circumscribed by its Great Wall and its outer shores. No one in that inn knew or cared aught about my heritage. I was the foreign witch who had helped free the dragon. It was enough.

“Sit.” Auntie Li showed me to a low table, pressed on my shoulder.

I sat.

She clapped her hands together. Food came-hot, steamed dumplings with spiced pork and a dipping sauce. Noodle soup with green onions floating atop the broth and chicken feet stewed until they were gelatinous and tender. Auntie Li hovered over me, pouring hot water into my teacup whenever it grew low, nodding approvingly as I shoveled noodles into my mouth and sucked chicken flesh from the bone, tilting the bowl to slurp the dregs of the broth.

“You eat like a proper Ch’in woman,” she observed.

I lowered the bowl. “I’ve had practice.”

“Huh.” Her shrewd gaze measured me. “Is it true you seek the twice-born one?”

I paused. “Twice-born?”

Auntie Li beckoned to one of her servers. He bowed and brought a small porcelain jar with two cups. She made an impatient gesture. “Drink your tea, drink it down. Indulge me, child. I will read the leaves for you while we enjoy this wine.”

I downed my tea, leaving the leaves strewn and stranded on the bottom and the sides of the thin porcelain cup. Auntie Li studied them, tilting the cup this way and that. She set it aside and poured a measure of rice-wine for both of us, motioning for me to drink.

“So?” I obeyed. “What did you mean by the twice-born one, Auntie?”

“Born once into life, twice out of death, or so they are saying.” Her brow furrowed. She drank her own rice-wine, then picked up the teacup again and bent her head over it, a straight white line delineating the part in her hair. “Hints of your fate are written here. Do you see? Here and here?”

I peered at the tea leaves. Despite Snow Tiger’s best efforts, I was fairly illiterate when it came to reading Ch’in characters. During that last week I had lingered in Shuntian, she had teased me about it, wielding her long, braided hair like a ticklish brush and drawing characters on my bare skin.

Surely you recognize that one, Moirin.

The memory made me smile. I saw the shape of that character echoed in the pattern of the tea leaves. “Desire?”

“Desire, yes.” Auntie Li nodded. Her forefinger moved, pointing. “But you see here, it lies in conflict with judgment. Does that mean anything to you?”

I thought about it before shaking my head. “No. I don’t know. Whose judgment, Auntie? Mine?”

She shrugged. “I can only tell you what the leaves say. I cannot tell you what it means. Desire in conflict with judgment lies ahead of you.”

“To be sure, it lies behind me.” Raphael de Mereliot’s face surfaced in my thoughts, his grey eyes stormy with anger. Even though there were untold oceans between us, it made me shiver. I had been very young and very foolish. I’d let Raphael use me to summon fallen spirits. If it hadn’t been for Bao and Master Lo, a terrible force would have been loosed into the world. “But that is not a mistake I will make again.”

Auntie Li smiled wryly, refilling our cups with rice-wine. “There are no end of mistakes to be made, dear.”

“Am I making one now?” I asked her.

Her face softened. “Ah, child! I cannot tell you that, either. Do you love the boy? Is that why you seek him?”

A hundred memories of Bao cascaded through my mind: Bao staring insolently at me as I sought to master the Five Styles of Breathing, Bao shouting at me as he drove the demon spirit back, Bao helping Master Lo tenderly to his feet, Bao sporting his battle-grin as he sparred with Snow Tiger.

It should have been simple, only it wasn’t.

I did love him. I remembered the moment I had realized it. When I had first fled Shuntian with the dragon-possessed princess and a handful of loyal ruffians, Bao and Master Lo had gone ahead to lay a false trail. They had been late in returning, and I’d begun to fear they weren’t coming.

I would not let that happen, Moirin.

Those were the words Bao had spoken when they did arrive and I confessed my fear to him, the closest he’d ever come to a declaration of love. My heart had leapt.

And yet…

It wasn’t why I was following him. I was following him because he had half of my diadh-anam and I couldn’t do otherwise.

“I don’t know, Auntie,” I said truthfully at last. “It’s a question I’m hoping to answer, and I cannot do it alone.”

“Poor child.” Auntie Li patted my hand. The look of kindness in her shrewd eyes nearly undid me. “Don’t pay too much heed to an old lady’s rambling. If the boy’s got a lick of sense, he won’t run far.”

I smiled despite the sting of tears. “I’m not sure he does.”

She sipped her rice-wine. “That probably makes two of you.”

I laughed. “You’re probably right.”