darkened blade_ A fallen blade novel - Kelly McCullough Page 0,103
crossed the water on our way here, I sensed nothing like what I would expect from one of the greater elementals. But you speak of the lake as a sorcerer speaks of her familiar, and you feel . . . both human and . . . not. I don’t understand.”
“That is because I am human and not. Once, long ago, in the years when our kind first walked under the blue sky, I was not so very different from your Aral. More naturally gifted than most sorcerers perhaps, but fundamentally a creature not unlike what you call human, though I am of the founding generation and I had no parents other than the will of the gods. Then I met Leivas and she made me her own, and we became one.”
“I have never heard any of that before,” I said. “The people of Varya speak of the Lady of Leivas and think of you as something more akin to the divine than one of us.”
“The story was once widely known,” said the Lady. “But it is not, I think, sufficiently grand to suit the standards of the tellers of tales. And so, they embroider here and there, each adding their own bits, ultimately making of me more than I am.”
“I’ve some familiarity with that particular effect,” I said, wryly.
Again, the Lady laughed. “I imagine that you do, Slayer of Kings.” Then she turned her gaze back to Triss. “But I still haven’t answered your original question, little shadow. Leivas IS.”
“Uh . . .” Triss made a throat clearing noise, though he no more had a throat to clear than he had bone or blood or water in his substance—a bit of non-verbal communication learned from the humans who surrounded him.
“That is the fundamental truth,” said the Lady. “Leivas IS. But she is also a lake, and a mighty queen, and the mother of all freshwater dragons, though she has not taken that latter shape in half a millennia. This pearl that houses my throne is a cast-off jewel from her forehead, a token of her third eye.”
I had to agree. I felt utterly overwhelmed at the thought of that, of the Lady and her companion, and well, everything about the experience.
“Why did you call us here?” I finally asked, though I managed not to add, “What could we possibly have or do that you would care about?”
“Your goddess was dear to me. You were dear to her. I see her through you, and that pleases me.”
“Nothing more than that?” I asked, confused.
“Oh, child.” She shook her head. “You say that like the sight of a departed friend is a slight thing. I hope that you live long enough to understand that it is one of the true graces, even if, as in my case with you, you only have the chance to see your departed in reflection. There are few indeed who remember me in my youth—the Master of White Fang, some small number among the Sylvani and other First kindreds, the distant and detached gods. . . . None of them were friends to me in the same way that your Namara was. To see her as she is in your heart . . . it eases my old soul.”
“And?” I said.
“And what?” she asked.
“Exactly. We both know there’s more to it than that. Do you intend to tell me about it, or do I have to guess?”
Triss sat back on his haunches. Aral, tread lightly. Her power here in the heart of the lake is as great as one of the buried gods.
I won’t be lied to.
Sigh. He flicked his wings in a so-be-it sort of gesture.
“You doubt,” said the Lady.
“What?” I blinked. “I’m not sure I follow you.”
“You doubt your course and yourself,” she said. “I do not know what it is that you have set out to do, but I know that you do not know whether you can achieve it, or even if you should.”
“You read minds,” I said.
“No. I read hearts in the rhythms of the blood they pump. Yours is as troubled as any I’ve ever touched. You anticipate something that you cannot see your way through or around.”
Is that true? asked Triss. I thought that you had decided you must slay the Son of Heaven.
“It’s true,” I said, answering both the Lady and Triss. “There is a thing I believe that I must attempt, and yet, I believe the doing of it