The Garden of Stones - By Mark T. Barnes Page 0,182

as soon as we don’t think it’ll kill you.”

“How long—”

“Ten days.” Mari had felt hands on her body, her face, her arms and legs, yet the sensations were far removed. It was as if her body had been swaddled in thick silks and the softest of cotton. “Though you’re not out of the woods yet.”

“The Teshri—”

“Safe enough, thanks to—”

“My father—”

“Rest, Mari. You’ve been hero enough.”

Mari wanted to talk again, yet the effort of words, of which ones to choose, then to get her mouth to cooperate, all seemed too hard. Perhaps rest was the—

She smelled the lavender in the air first. On the edges of the lavender came the faint vinegar-like scent of antiseptic, jasmine incense, and the tang of the sea. Wind hummed somewhere nearby. There was the faint rattle of reeds. The susurrus of leaves. Music, distant, tinged with sadness, Seethe voices raised in breathy song over the metallic twang of sonesettes, the deep tones of theorbo, drums, and low-voiced kahi flutes.

Though she could not understand the words, the songs made her want to cry. Too tired to open her eyes, her body numb, she curled up once more and—

Mari opened her eyes to the soft ilhen light of her bower. Above her head the shadows of the leaves occluded more than half the sky. Much of the rest was strewn with the glory of the Ancestor’s Cloak, its long wide folds of misty yellow and red light stitched with starry beads of garnet, sapphire, amber, and diamond. From within the deep cowl, the Eye stared down at her with blue-white brilliance.

“You’re fortunate to be alive.” Indris gently closed the book he had been reading. “Though once the effects of the lotus milk wear off, you won’t feel like it.”

Mari tried to sit up, but she did not have enough command over her own limbs. Her torso was wrapped in linen strips painted with esoteric symbols. She lifted the sheet that covered her with trembling arms. Her legs were likewise wrapped, as was her right foot. Mari noted the skin on both her arms was similarly painted. A string of polished stones was wound about her wrist, each one glittering with faint carnelian light. “What treatment is this?”

“It’s something I learned from the Y’arrow-te-yi.” Indris grinned, a lopsided thing she found very attractive. The wind snagged the unruly tangles of his hair. She wanted to reach out and move it from where it fell over his eyes. “You should find your wounds will heal more quickly than expected, though you’ll tire easily for a couple of weeks yet.” He took her hand in his own, muscles firm under his skin. “You lingered on the rim of the Well of Souls for quite a while.”

“What happened?” she asked. “I remember getting an absolute thrashing from the Iphyri, then…blurs, mostly.”

“From what I understand, you and a small number of the Feyassin held the Tyr-Jahavān stair while Nazarafine tried to convince the Teshri of your father’s crimes.” He looked at her with admiration. “You stood against more than two hundred nahdi in your father’s employ, then you alone, wounded as you were, killed more than thirty Iphyri. It was Ekko and the Tau-se who came down to assist you. Perhaps I’m lucky we didn’t fight the Hamesaad after all.”

“It would’ve been a shame,” Mari said wryly. “My father and brother?”

Indris leaned back in his chair, expression thoughtful as he gazed out over Amnon. “The quorum was locked on the issue of your father’s guilt.”

“So, what happens now?”

“Nazarafine took a chance and vetoed the Teshri. She stripped your father of his post as Asrahn-Elect, as well as the governorship of Amnon. The Teshri is up in arms but has agreed to a ruling of the Arbiter’s Tribunal at the next Assembly of Peers. Your father is far from having his fangs pulled.”

“Where is he?”

“We don’t know.”

“What about me?” she asked quietly. “There’s nothing for me in Erebus Prefecture now.”

Indris laughed. It was a bright thing that rose into the air, easy and free. “Mari, after what you’ve done, I doubt there’s anybody who’d want you to leave.”

What about you? She wanted so much to ask the question. Would you like me to stay? Is there a future for us, now the dust has settled and we are who we’re supposed to be? Yet the words would not pass her lips.

“That’s a relief.” Though she had always wondered what it would be like to be set apart from her House, the idea of