“No. No. That is not so bad.” Her stomach roiled. “But that is not all.”
“Ghisla?”
“The late queen was not Alba’s mother. And I am not at all convinced that King Banruud is her father.”
Ghisla had never sought Dagmar out for conversation before. She did her best to observe and listen and let the questions others asked answer her own. But she was troubled. More troubled than she’d ever been, and she had questions that needed answering.
“Dagmar?” she asked, approaching him as he bent over his scrolls. He raised his head, surprised by her voice.
“Can I speak to you for a moment?” she asked.
“Of course. What is it you need, Liis?” He extended his hand to her, but she did not take it. She was afraid to touch anyone right now.
“You say we—the daughters—are the salvation of Saylok,” she blurted out.
“Yes,” he said, eyes searching, hand still extended.
“How . . . exactly . . . are we the salvation of Saylok?”
“Without women, Saylok will eventually . . . die,” Dagmar said softly.
“But . . . if we are kept in the temple, none of us will ever become mothers.”
Dagmar’s eyes cleared and his mouth twitched as though someone so young should not be contemplating such things. He folded his hands together and sat back in his chair.
“Is that why you are worried? There is time enough for that, Liis, in the years to come. You are a child yet.”
“I am fifteen!” she snapped. “Soon I will be sixteen.”
He frowned in disbelief. She’d never told anyone how old she really was, but the words spilled out, angry and hot. She was not a child anymore. She had not been a child for a very long time.
“Will Chief Lothgar or King Banruud decide what happens to me? Or will the Highest Keeper?” she demanded.
Dagmar seemed shocked by her questions, and his surprise made her even angrier. Did the keepers understand nothing?
She stared at him coldly, waiting for an answer.
“I don’t know,” he whispered. “I don’t know who will decide.”
It was as she thought, but at least he did not lie.
“And what will happen to our children?”
“What do you mean?”
“Will they be taken from us, the way we were taken?” The way Alba was taken from Ghost? She did not say the words. They were not her words to say. But she thought them.
“Daughter . . . ,” he said, stunned. “Where is this coming from?”
She turned to leave, but he called out to her as she neared the door.
“Liis.” His voice was sharp.
She stopped.
“My sister, Desdemona, Bayr’s mother, felt as you do. As if she had no choice. I did not protect her as I should have. But I will do everything in my power to protect you.”
She believed him. But there was no real safety within the walls of the temple, and no safety without. There was only waiting. Waiting for time to pass and for the powerful to determine what happened next. Gods, kings, and keepers would decide their fate. And there was little she could do about it.
Hod had given up hope of ever hearing Ghisla sing again.
And then one day, she was simply there, her voice ringing in his head.
“Give me a home in hope, give me a place to go, give me a faith that will never grow old.”
The rune on his right hand, the rune he’d drawn to mirror hers, began to burn, and he’d walked from the cave and out into the waning day, feeling the light on his skin, and lifted his face to better hear.
Arwin had followed him, but when Hod had waved him away—“’Tis just a new bird, Master”—he’d grown bored and returned to his supper.
For several minutes, it was just her voice. No images. No colors. Just her voice, like she sang with her eyes closed. But it was enough, and he stood, enraptured, listening. Rejoicing. Then the song ended and he heard her speak. He heard her ask a question, but she was not talking to him.
“Why will no one look at me?” she asked.
“Ghisla?” he whispered, afraid Arwin would hear. He scrambled down the path to the beach, needing distance and space and the roar of the water to muffle his voice.
He was almost running, moving too quickly on a path that would never be clear enough for a blind man to run down; he could not hear rocks, after all. He broke out onto the beach without mishap but stumbled in the sand.