382. Family
“All of your scars are gone,” Keri said, tracing the fingers of his right hand along Liv’s bare arm. He knew how she’d gotten the first of them, fighting beneath the very mountain on which the palace was built, during an eruption of the rift. Without any Elden family to teach her, she’d suffered from mana sickness just like any untrained human, and the chirurgeons had cut away the corrupted skin.
More scars had come later: Arjun had cut her open to the bone on every limb, so that he could carve Vædic sigils designed to stabilize the effects of her time in the Well of Bones. There’d been fight after fight, beneath rifts or at war, against mana beasts and cultists alike. By the time Keri had wed her, both their bodies had been permanently marked by everything they’d survived. But now, throwing aside the shift she’d slept in by the morning light coming in through their bedroom window, every inch of Liv’s skin looked as smooth and soft as if she’d never been wounded once in her life.
She turned toward him, and as the light shifted, he could see that even the faint stretch marks across her hips and her belly, which had been left behind after she’d given birth, were gone. It was almost enough to make him doubt whether she was still the same woman at all – save that he could feel her Authority gently brush his.
“They didn’t seem important enough to recreate from scratch,” Liv admitted. She took a step toward him, so that her legs were pressed right up against the mattress, and lifted his arm by the hand, examining last night’s linen bandages. “Which seems inconsiderate of me now, given how badly you were hurt. Let me see how your burns are looking this morning.”
Keri winced as she began to unwind the bandage on his right arm. “Arjun can take a look later today,” he protested, though he didn’t pull his hand out of her grasp.
“Everyone seems to forget that I tested out of the healing courses at Coral Bay, just like he did,” Liv grumbled. “Just because I don’t have any healing words – did you circulate your mana last night?”
The last layer of bandage came away moist with medicine and pus, and Keri couldn’t help but hiss at the pain. “Only for a few minutes,” he admitted. “I think I fell asleep just after you did.”
“We were both exhausted,” Liv murmured, more focused on examining the burn than on what she was saying. “You’re going to have scars, that’s for certain. And they won’t be pretty, my love.”
“Then I’ll just have to get rid of them the same way you have,” Keri told her, and at that she looked up and met his eyes. “What? I have a thousand years, isn’t that what you said? To get ready to leave with you?”
“Most Eld don’t live five hundred,” Liv pointed out.
“I have enough Vædic blood for more than that,” Keri reminded her. “And if another four or five centuries isn’t enough time for me to catch up with you, I don’t deserve it.”
Liv looked away, and he saw that there was a wet glimmer in her eye. Keri, being very careful of his unwrapped burn, sat up the rest of the way in their bed.
“Did you think you’d be going alone?” he asked. “You did, didn’t you? I’m not going to let you be the only one left, while everyone else dies around you, Liv. I promise you that. I’m going to go with you, and our children will, too.”
“I want that,” Liv said, very softly. “But I also have to get myself ready for the fact that it might not happen. A thousand years is a very long time.” She let out a choked laugh. “I’m not even sixty, and I’m talking about what’s going to happen a thousand years from now. It’s ridiculous.”
“You went through that bridge and came back. You’re the only one in the entire world who knows what it takes to do that, and to survive,” Keri reminded her. “There’s no one better to teach the rest of us.”
He slipped out from beneath the sheets and stood behind her, wrapping his arms around her body. The raw burn on his right arm screamed at the motion, but if there was one thing he was certain of, it was that his wife was more important than a moment of pain.
“What I don’t understand,” Keri said, “is why you have to go. Why not just stay here?”
“Because of what your great-grandfather told me,” Liv said. “That the world where the Vædim were born is gone, and that they had to leave to survive. That there are others living out among the stars, and that they make war on each other. That everything out there is collapsing, falling in on itself in a long, slow death. The only way to survive is to move out, and to stay ahead of the collapse. We can’t stay here forever.”
Keri considered it for a moment. The scale of what his wife was talking about was nearly incomprehensible – but shouldn’t that be the case, when speaking of gods? The death of worlds, war in the heavens, the end of all existence – an end in which, apparently, a thousand years was at once an eternity, and at the same time a perfectly reasonable time frame to plan a future meeting. “You believe him?” he asked. “You trust what Bælris told you?”
“He’s your ancestor,” Liv pointed out.
“An ancestor I’ve never met,” Keri pressed on. “One who was gone from this world before I was ever born. I don’t know him. He could be as bad as Ractia was, or worse.”
“No, I don’t think so,” Liv said, after thinking for a moment. “I got the impression that, once he knew I was married to one of his, that he’d decided to do what he could for us. Like we were his – responsibility? Not quite family, I don’t think but – perhaps someday. So yes, I believe him. I don’t think we can stay here forever.”
“We know our task, then,” Keri told her. “To get everyone we can ready, so that in a thousand years, you won’t be the only memory of our world.”
Liv nodded, leaning back against him, and then a knock came at the door to the chamber.
“Time to dress, Your Majesty,” Lenota Grenfell called from the next room, and it signalled the end of their stolen time together. The door opened, and in came the bustle of ladies-in-waiting, of washing and dressing and the day to come.
☙
Al’Fenthia wasn’t enough further north from Bald Peak to be significantly cooler, though the shade of the great trees which stretched their boughs out over the oldest part of the city might lead someone visiting for the first time to think otherwise.
The pyre of Aira tär Keria, Daughter of Thorns, had been raised at the center of the market square in the Elden quarter of the city. All of the merchants’ stalls and wagons had been packed up and moved out of the way, clearing a large enough area for, it seemed, half the city to turn out. Keri was surprised to see just how many elders from the other houses had come: her death had been sudden, and there hadn’t been time to send messages all throughout the north.
Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.
Still, with so many wounded, many of the more stable had been sent home by waystone, to recover under the care of their own families, and that meant word would already be spreading not only in Alliance lands, but throughout Lucania, as well. Keri hadn’t kept track of which patients had gone where – that was something he was more than happy to leave to Arjun and Soile. The presence of elders and their guards from not only Houses Keria, Syvä and Däivi, but Kaulris and Asuris as well, spoke to just how fast word of Ractia’s death travelled.
Keri remained at Liv’s side, keeping one hand on his daughter’s back, as they moved through the crowd. He was less concerned about Rei, now that his son was older, and in any event Miina had attached herself to his side in her role as the fun-and-slightly-bizarre aunt. The ease with which she slipped between that and lady-in-waiting never failed to amaze Keri. Thankfully, there were enough adult family members in the group that he didn’t really need to worry, between Liv’s grandmother and Valtteri, Matthew and Triss, and even Henriette, who’d now apparently proven herself to the Alliance soldiers. Even Liv’s mother had made the trip, to help with the children.
The elders came to his wife like supplicants, now – so different from when he’d watched her fight and scrap for every vote at the Hall of Ancestors. While she spoke to Raija kæn Kaulris, Keri caught sight of Taavetii kæn Asuris and his sister, Taika, picking their way toward him.
“How is that leg?” Keri asked, pivoting to face the pair. It had taken near a decade to dig the Foundry Rift out enough to get access to the machines. Rosemund had well and truly buried the place, to the extent that any work clearing rock risked a collapse, and damaging the ancient Vædic machines even more.
Clearing the rubble had been only the beginning, followed by the years of work required to understand how the ancient enchantments and technology worked, and to repair them to a functioning state, all before anything useful could be produced. Sidonie and Professor Norris had been a large part of that, and a dozen more members of both the Mages Guild and House Isakki, but the result was clear: a leg of enchanted metal allowed Taaveti to walk.
“It gets a bit sore at the stump when you’ve been standing on it all day,” Taaveti admitted, looking down. He wore a boot on his good foot, but the artificial one ended in a wide, claw-like base similar to what the feet of Ghveris’s armor looked like.
At the thought of his friend, Keri had to fight off his worries. Liv had sealed off the waystone at Coral Bay, and until she went back to fix things, they had no quick way of learning whether Ghveris had survived, or what he and Wren were doing.
“But a bit of pain is worth it to be able to walk again,” Taavetti continued. “When I saw my leg come off, I never thought I would. Blood and shadows, I didn’t even expect to survive. I still can’t believe I was the only one to make it out of the Tomb.”
Keri nodded, and turned to Taika. “I haven’t seen you since last I was in Calder’s Landing,” he said. “How is the Dancing Lady? And Petrona Wildheart?”
A shadow passed over the woman’s eyes. “She’s passed, Inkeris. It’s been nearly twenty years since you came to my inn. She was human, and she was old even then.”
“You have my condolences.” Keri winced. That was the pain that awaited Liv, he knew, if he couldn’t follow her. He’d never been a prodigy with magic, and now he’d promised his wife that he would somehow become, what – a god?
“They’re saying she killed Ractia,” Taavetti said, lowering his voice. He nodded his head in the direction of where Liv stood, giving her condolences to Airis ka Reimis and his family. “Is that true, Inkeris? That she spoke to the old gods?”
He could hear it in the man’s voice – the change that was coming. Keri knew that Liv had never been comfortable with the way the Temple of the Trinity treated her, the way that even some of her own soldiers seemed to worship her. It would be even worse, now.
“Yes,” he said, feeling as if he were dooming the woman he loved with the words. “Yes, she killed Ractia. She spoke to the rest of the Vædim. She spoke to Bælris.”
“What did they tell her?” Taika asked. “Are they coming back?”
A priest raised his hands, and the crowd quieted. Keri was grateful for the timing of it, because it saved him from answering any more questions. He steered Rianne through the crowd to rejoin the rest of their family, and let the words of the funeral rites wash over him. There’d been too many pyres, in recent years: for Pandit Sharma, and Caspian Loredan, and now Elder Aira. Was that the cost of human and Eld living together? Or was it simply life?
He reached a hand out, and found Liv’s fingers. She gave him a slight squeeze, but her eyes remained fixed atop the pyre, where the old woman’s body lay, cleaned and dressed. Her gray hair had been freshly braided, and with her arms crossed over her chest, and her cane at her side, Aira looked peaceful.
When the words were finished, and the flames caught, Keri let his eyes scan over the crowd. To his surprise, he found that the Elders of one more house had arrived. There, on the other side of the fire, stood his father, along with his Aunt Väina, Rika and Sohvis, and even Elder Torstis. The rest of them looked away, but his father met his eyes.
Keri searched for the stab of pain which had once pierced his chest whenever he’d seen Sohvis and Rika together, but after all of these years, nothing came. The family he’d once had was broken, but he stood next to the woman he loved, with his children at their side. He had nothing to be jealous of.
When the fire began to die down, and the edges of the crowd to drift away, as the people of Al’Fenthia went back to their lives, Keri leaned in to murmur in Liv’s ear. “I’m going to take the children to go and see my father.”
She nodded, and flashed him a smile. “That’s a good idea. I’m going to stay with Airis and his family a little longer.”
At Kaija’s nod, one of the guards split off to follow them as Keri led Rei and Rianne around the pyre, circling past the column of smoke that drifted up into the mountain sky. Beneath the scent of the herbs which had been strewn into the pyre, and the scented oil poured onto the wood, he caught just the hint of burned flesh. It brought back the memory of his own arms burning, while he grappled with Noghis.
“Inkeris,” Ilmari ka Väinis greeted them, his lined, solemn face breaking into a warm smile as he reached his arm out. “And my grandchildren! Reikis, Rianne. Come here.” The old man leaned down to gather them both up in his arms.
“It’s good to see you, Father,” Keri said, his eyes sliding past the rest of his family. His aunt looked like she’d swallowed a lemon, but Sohvis gave Keri a nod that seemed genuine. He sometimes wondered if they might repair their friendship, put things back to the way they used to be – but when he was honest with himself, he knew it would never happen.
“It’s over now, Father,” Keri said, once Ilmari had stood again. “Ractia is dead.”
“Liv killed her,” Rei said, still pulled tight to his grandfather’s side. “She went up to the moon, and then followed her all the way to where the gods live. She met Bælris.”
“Is it true, then?” Keri’s father asked him.
He had a feeling that he would be answering that same question, over and over, for months to come. Everyone who was too afraid to ask Liv herself would turn to her husband. “I don’t know what you’ve heard,” Keri said. “But it’s true that Liv ended things. That’s part of why I came over here to speak to you, Father. This has gone on long enough. Mountain Home needs to become part of the Alliance.”
“Have some respect for the dead,” his Aunt Väina said. “This is a funeral. Leave your politics back at Bald Peak, Inkeris.”
Keri fought down the urge to yell at the woman. Was it his imagination, that she hadn’t always been this bitter and cruel? He remembered happy times with her, when he and Rika and Sohvis had all been children.
“We can have the conversation later, if you wish,” he said, trying to avoid being dragged into an argument. “I can bring the children to Mountain Home, and we can speak there. But I want you to know that – things are going to change.”
“Not content with being a queen, now she’s going to be worshipped as a goddess, is that it?” Väina sneered.
But before Keri could respond, to his surprise, Sohvis reached out and took his mother by the arm.
“Come along, Mother,” Keri’s cousin said. “Let him speak to his father.” Their eyes met, and Keri gave him a nod of thanks.
Once his aunt had been led away, Keri leaned in, and lowered his voice. “Bælris has given us a thousand years, Father – to be ready to join him. I know that Liv will teach anyone who comes to her. I suspect it is too late for you and my aunt, but I hope you won’t let your stubbornness keep all of the rest of our family away.”
Ilmari looked over to where Rei was speaking to his mother, Rianne trailing just behind her brother, with an armed guard to watch over her. Then, he looked across the pyre to where Liv stood, and sighed.
“Very well, Inkeris. In a few weeks, come and visit, and we will talk. Perhaps you are right. Perhaps it is time to put old disagreements aside.”
Keri wrapped his arms around his father, and pulled him in close.