The Pearl of the Soul of the World - By Meredith Ann Pierce Page 0,62
remembered the heat of his body these few hours past: what she had hungered for all these day-months, ever since their marriage day.
"No longer my husband only in name," she murmured, kissing him as she reached to pull a few stray strands of hair back from his lyon-scored face.
Irrylath shifted, sighing, deeply asleep. He never roused. Only a little while ago, he had clasped her to him with such urgency and passion—as though some intervention loomed to part them, as though only a little time remained. Aeriel laughed, amazed at her own unaccustomed happiness. Here beneath their wedding silk, she gazed at her husband with the greatest attention, a lover's gaze. Every inch of him was beautiful to her.
Aeriel. The soft utterance came again, more insistently. Aeriel sat up with a start. She cast about her, baffled, but she and Irrylath were alone. The voice—eerily familiar—seemed to come from the air.
"Where are you?" she whispered.
Here, the answer came. Within. I am within you now.
Aeriel felt a tremor, something stirring in her blood. The scent came to her suddenly of Ancient flowers, dusky and sweet. Astonishment washed over her. She knew the voice.
"Ravenna," she breathed, shaken. When the pearl had shattered in Oriencor's hand, Aeriel had thought the Ancientlady—surely then if not before—utterly destroyed.
The still, inward voice seemed to chuckle. Hardly the whole of what Ravenna comprised, it murmured, but a little of her, yes. Call me Ravenna, if you will: I am part of what she was.
Aeriel struggled to catch her breath, to take it in. Overwhelming remorse seized her suddenly.
Why do you sorrow? Ravenna within her asked. The war is won.
Aeriel's breast heaved, but it was with dry sobs only. She felt the white marks in the shape of stars left upon her eyelids by the Witch's touch.
"Because I have failed you," she whispered,"and all the world. What matter that the war is won, if all the world is lost?"
Lost? the voice of the pearlstuff in her blood exclaimed. My daughter's evil is at an end, child—
her drought broken, her creatures drowned— and all my rime has come to pass…
"Except the last!" Aeriel exclaimed. Their shelter sighed in the gentle breeze. She gazed about her at the walls of silk, at their scattered garments, at Irrylath. Despair tasted like wormwood in her mouth.
"The last line of the prophecy is not fulfilled. Your gift is scattered to the winds. No daughter remains to heal the world and claim the crown. All's lost."
Not lost, the Ancient's voice within her whispered. It need not be lost.
Aeriel shook her head. How many more generations had this vast war won for the planet—a handful?
A score? So pitifully few it scarcely mattered. Without Ravenna's daughter to guide the healing of the world, Aeriel thought bitterly, everything she and Irrylath had struggled for was vainglory. In the face of the all-devouring entropy, it would all wind down to nothing in the end.
That need not be, the inner voice murmured, and Aeriel realized belatedly that the pearlstuff in her blood could read her thoughts whether or not she spoke them aloud. The entropy need not prevail.
Another might gather my scattered sorcery and heal the world in Oriencor's stead.
Aeriel blinked. Her own white radiance lit the enclosed space softly.
"I don't know what you mean," she breathed.
Be my successor, child, Ravenna's voice whispered. A little of my power is in you now, enough to guide you in gathering the rest.
"But," she protested, dazed, "I'm not your daughter. The rime says—"
Are you not? the other asked gently. Did I not tell you in NuRavenna that you and many others of your young race are descendants of my Ancient one, many generations removed? The world is yours now: your birthright, your inheritance. We Ancients are no more. Become my daughter even as Irrylath was once the Witch's son. Accept the crown of the world's heir, Aeriel. I've no one left but you.
Aeriel sat silent, unable to take it in, to fathom it. "I can't…" she stammered. "I don't know how."
You underestimate yourself Enough of me remains to show you how to start. It will be a long and mighty task, but not beyond you— with my aid.
Vistas unfolded before her, misty with possibility still: Ravenna's sorcery reclaimed and the world made whole again. Aeriel blinked in surprise, beholding, until she realized that the view came to her through the remnants of the pearl.
But we must haste, the still, quiet voice urged her. Better to go at once, while still he sleeps.