darkened blade_ A fallen blade novel - Kelly McCullough Page 0,102
and filled the goblet, taking a sip. The water felt cold and light on my tongue, and . . . like so much more than water. Drinking it reminded me of listening to someone reading a fine poem. It was as exhilarating as an exceptional vintage of the sweetest white wine, without any of the blurring of intoxication. I knew that I could drink down the whole pitcher without worrying about any loss of control.
For someone like me, who has to fight each day not to go back to the bottle again, it was a remarkable gift. After a few minutes slid past with no change in my surroundings, I picked up the chopsticks and took some of the fish and a bit of seaweed. It was fresh and quite as good as anything I could have found at one of the fancier dockside restaurants in Tien, but almost a disappointment after the revelation of the water.
When I had finished with the meal, I pushed my plate aside and poured the last of the water into my goblet. At that precise instant, a ripple began at the center of the enclosed pool, and something like an enormous pearl rose up from the deeps below. I nodded as though I had been expecting it all along. Somewhere, down deep, where dreams live, I knew that I had.
The pearl, if that was what it was, must have been a good ten feet through the center, and as perfect in color and luster as anything I’d ever seen gracing a great lady’s jewelry chest. It rose up until only the bottom third of it remained in the water, and then it opened like the oyster that might have birthed it. Inside sat an absolutely ancient woman on a nacreous throne that faced me. The Lady of Leivas, whom some called more than half a goddess.
Her hair was long and silver, brighter than the finest chain made by any Durkoth smith and dense with curls. It rolled down over her right shoulder and across the arm of her throne, spilling to almost touch the floor. She wore a deep green gown that covered her from throat to wrists and hid her feet completely. The fabric looked like living seaweed. Her skin was dark as old mahogany, and the intricate wrinkles on her face could have mapped a hundred labyrinths. Her eyes were black from lid to lid like a bird’s—a sharp contrast to the blinding whiteness of her teeth when she smiled at me.
“I see that you received my invitation,” she said.
“I did, though I’ve no idea how you delivered it,” I responded.
“And, somehow, I missed it completely.” Triss reshaped my shadow into his own dragon form as he spoke.
“That’s because you have no water in you, shadowkin. The lake can no more speak in your heart than a stone could. Whereas Aral here is more than half water, red though it runs.”
“You know my name, then,” I said. “I take it Shallowshunter announced us?”
She laughed lightly. “You were born in Emain Tarn on the shores of my domain. I have known your name longer than you have, child. When your mother first whispered it to herself in the quiet darkness one morning in the sixth month of her pregnancy, I heard. I knew you before you were you, and in ways that no one other than your goddess ever did. The tides that turn in your blood were born of the rhythms of my lake of Leivas.”
“Uh . . .” I had no idea how to answer that. “The stories paint you aloof to the concerns of mortals. I had no idea that you paid that much attention to the comings and goings of those who live beside the lake.”
“How could I not?” she asked. “I am no immortal, and the water of your life is the water of mine. Leivas is the living heart of everything that lies between the mountains and the deep wastes. The lake is the center of her soul, but her awareness extends throughout the whole of the watershed. Her power is greatest in deep water and still, and weakest at the little springs high in the mountains or the dying, magic-slicked pools of the great western reach. You were born here, and became the Kingslayer on shores hardly a day away. Though I had nothing to do with the shaping of you, you are a child of my soul’s sister.”