386. Aurora
Though it had been a year since her guards had begun carrying muskets, rather than polearms, Liv hadn’t quite gotten used to the sight. The shining steel of the bayonets, affixed to the barrels, was only meant for stabbing, while the length and shape of the entire weapon was all wrong. She supposed that the jack-of-plate armor would be going, next; the only way to make it stand up to musket fire was to enchant every single set of armor, and it was more efficient simply to have each guard imprint Aluth.
She hadn’t realized how used to the old uniforms and weapons, how comforting and familiar her perpetual escorts were, until it all began to change. Kaija would, however, never be satisfied with anything less than the best, and that meant changing with the times.
Some changes were more pleasant than others. The coat that Keri wore, for instance, was very nicely cut, and revealed the brocade vest beneath to advantage. Liv saw no need to mourn doublets, when what had replaced them looked so striking. Her own whalebone farthingale she appreciated somewhat less, save that whalebone harvested from creatures grown massive on the mana which sprung from underwater rifts made a perfect material for enchantments. As a result, any musket-balls that came for her would end up rebounding off half a dozen layers of contingent mana shields, should it come to that.
“I still maintain that this is too much of a risk,” Thora muttered, voice pitched just loud enough that Liv could hear her clearly, but the steward’s face fixed in a pleasant smile so that no one in the crowd could catch a hint of her dissatisfaction. It was a trick the woman had perfected as the years went by: ever the image of propriety, even when she scolded Liv as if they were both back in Freeport, when they’d first met.
“Sidonie and I have triple checked the connections,” Liv assured her, plastering a smile on her face while she waved at the crowd which had assembled along both sides of the road. Alliance soldiers stood to either son as she and her family walked past, keeping the people of Bald Peak back at a safe distance. “Make sure you wave, dove,” she told Rianne. Her daughter was otherwise more concerned with her new shoes and their silver buckles; a purchase which had been necessitated by a growth spurt over the winter.
“Still, someone else could have been sent to test it,” Thora grumbled. “You wouldn’t even have had to tell anyone; you could have just kept it a secret, and told everyone you were the first trip.”
“Secrets always come to light, sooner or later,” Keri said, and Liv was grateful that she didn’t have to. He kept one hand on their daughter’s back, steering her toward the waystone, which was already visible through the open gate ahead. “And it’s hard to control when they do, or what sort of damage will be done. Better to simply be honest to begin with, if it’s at all possible.”
Rei required much less of his father’s attention; he was nearly as tall as Keri, now, and certainly taller than Liv. While he wasn’t technically in line to inherit anything, so far as the Alliance was concerned, between his connections to the monarchy and to the Elders of Mountain home, he was already beginning to attract crowds of opportunistic or ambitious young women, both human and Eld alike.
Liv had set Miina the task of running off the worst of them before they could take advantage of the boy, and her cousin had taken to the work as if she were the second coming of the Temple inquisitors. At least one fine young lady had already fled back to her family’s estates in Lucania, and Liv was certain that she would not be the last.
“There’s nothing to worry about, Thora,” Liv assured her steward one last time, before making her way through the gate and up to the waystone. “We’ll be back tomorrow evening.”
“Assuming your parts aren’t scattered across the ocean from here to Varuna,” Thora muttered, and then raised her open hands. “But I can see you won’t be listening to me. The palace will still be here when you get back.”
“I’m certain it will.” Liv reached out and took her by the hand, drawing Thora in so that she could kiss the other woman’s cheek. “This is important for everyone to see, for everyone to know how confident we are that it’s safe. You know that.”
Thora nodded reluctantly, and to Liv’s surprise it was Rei who picked up the line of conversation she’d begun.
“If we can move one waystone successfully, we can move them all,” the young man said. “Every abandoned stone that’s been sitting for a thousand years, overgrown on top of some mountain in Varuna, we can put at Gold Creek, or at Newport, or at Calder’s Landing. But people need to not be afraid to use them.”
Keri reached out and ruffled his son’s hair, which Liv knew was beginning to annoy Rei more and more. “Our young politician here,” he observed, fondly. “You want to be the one to activate the waystone?”
That offer was apparently tempting enough that Rei ignored the ignominity of the hair-ruffling. He practically leapt up onto the waystone, hurried over to a sigil which would not, the evening before, have appeared around the rim only when Liv had used the Crown of Celris, and knelt there. She’d even brought Rianne down with her, to get a feel for how it was done.
Rei waited, impatiently, until not only their family but also all of the guards had arranged themselves on the circle of white stone. Then, he touched his hand to the new sigil, and sent a ring of mana down through his arm, which was sucked up hungrily by the waystone.
Liv had made certain that there were no outgoing journeys before them, this morning, as so there was more than enough mana stored in the waystone to fuel their trip. She watched as Rei scrambled up and hurried back to the center of the circle to join them, and gave him a smile and a nod. “Good job,” she said. “You can help take us back when it’s time, as well, but I think we’ll need to share the burden a bit.”
Rei nodded, and light spilled out around them until finally, Liv knew, a blazing column shot up into the sky above the Aspen River Valley. The world went away, leaving only darkness behind – darkness through which Liv could feel, at the edge of her awareness, the faintest traces of the people she travelled with. It was little more than the gentlest brush of a finger along an insubstantial arm, but ever since her journey to the Last City, that awareness had become more and more clear with each waystone trip.
Liv had the thought – a thought she hadn’t spoken out loud to anyone yet, not even to Keri – that if the worst happened, and something went wrong, she could gather up everyone who’d come with her and take them the rest of the way herself. She couldn’t have explained it, couldn’t have framed the concept into words concrete enough for Sidonie to understand or accept, but the feeling was there, all the same.
She wouldn’t need it yet.
The air at Clear Water Cenote felt more heavy, more wet, more warm than in the mountains. To Liv, it was almost like being slapped in the face with a wet towel, despite the shade cast by the trees which had been allowed to continue flourishing along the edges of the streets. Those streets, themselves, were something of a surprise to Liv – she’d pictured hard, packed earth, perhaps, but not evenly cut and tightly fit cobbles of limestone. The paving looked recent, and the houses which surrounded the waystone were of two very different varieties. The newer ones were built upon limestone or sandstone foundations, with walls of wood planks harvested from the lower jungles, presumably, down toward the great river Airaduinë, which wound its way from the mountains at the center of the continent east to the sea. But the older homes were of baked mud brick, much smaller and more simple.
Dozens of Red Shield hunters, elders, craftsmen, mothers and children were gathered around the waystone, and as the light of passage died down, they burst into applause. Sidonie was there, looking like the fox who’d caught the hen, and Liv knew that she deserved to enjoy the moment. She’d put months of work into this, after all.
Soaring Eagle, Calm Waters, and Blossom were there. It was hard to believe that Rei and the young woman had once played together, and appeared to be of an age: Blossom was, if Liv recalled correctly, twenty-seven or twenty-eight now, and had been part of Sidonie’s expedition to recover the waystone from the southern peninsula where it had been abandoned for centuries. Compared to her, Rei still looked like a child.
But Liv’s eyes glanced over everyone else until they settled on Wren and Ghveris, standing near the chief of the tribe but still off to one side. They both wore hunting leathers on their legs, but loose, light Lucanian linen shirts. Wren’s hair had been dyed with a purple streak once again, and Ghveris held tight with both hands to the chubby little legs of a toddler perched on his shoulders.
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What she wanted to do most was to run down from the waystone, wrap her arms around Wren, and squeeze her old friend tight. Liv wanted to take Ghveris’s strong face between her hands and feel the reality of him, because for so long she’d been unable to replace the image in her mind of an enchanted steel helm and blazing blue eyes with anything else. Their last meeting in Bald Peak had been so short that, after, she’d hardly been able to recall what his true face looked like, or perhaps even believe that it was real. She wanted to take that child – plump cheeked and bright eyed – in her arms, swing her around, and make up for all the time she’d missed holding Aurora as a baby. Letters and one charcoal sketch were not enough.
Instead, Liv fixed her eyes on Soaring Eagle, stepped down from the waystone, and extended her hands. She could hear the shuffling of boots on stone as her family and their guards moved off the waystone and down onto the cobblestone street with her, but she kept her focus on the chief and raised her voice, so that all of the gathered Red Shields would hear her words.
“Thank you for welcoming us, at last, to your home,” Liv said. This was a smile that she didn’t need to fake. “We are so very pleased that at last, Clear Water Cenote and the Red Shields have a waystone of your own. This is a cause for celebration – not just for you, but for all of the cities and villages which will follow.”
Soaring Eagle took her hand, or rather clasped her forearm, rather than make a bow and a mimed kiss in the style of Lucania. “It is our pleasure to welcome you,” he said, his voice still strong and youthful. Like Liv and Keri, the years since the war hadn’t changed him – though in the case of the Red Shields, of course, it was blood that prevented aging, not Elden or Vædic ancestry.
“No longer will we need to make the trek through the jungle, or along the long river, to trade at Calder’s Landing, or to use the waystone at the great dam,” Soaring Eagle announced, dropping Liv’s arm as he turned to address his people. “Our furs, our fruits, our wood, will be sold from Bald Peak, to Al’Fenthia, to Lendh ka Dakruim. Our young men and women will learn at the colleges of Isvara, and return here to share what they know.”
The people gathered around cheered, and Liv felt a twinge of guilt. The Red Shields had so much reason to hope: they’d broken free from the goddess who’d tried to make them into her army; they’d rescued their sleeping kin from beneath Godsgrave, and now they were no longer isolated from the rest of the world, able to trade and travel as they pleased.
Are there going to be enough of them? She’d asked Arjun, after Godsgrave. Enough that they’re still here in another thousand years?
No, he’d told her. If they want to survive, the Red Shields are going to have to start having children with other people.
It was Liv’s hope that it would happen naturally – that in providing the link between Wren’s people and the rest of the world, the same thing which had happened in Al’Fenthia would happen here. Instead of half-Elden and half-human children, like her, in a few years there might be half-Red Shields. Would they be able to cast magic? To change shape? She didn’t know.
But before she could dwell on it any further, the first trading party to depart for Bald Peak was ushered up to meet her, and Liv forced the smile everyone expected to see on the face of a queen.
☙
Dinner was a mixture of some kind of dough, meat, and spicy peppers, all wrapped up inside a large green leaf which had been cooked over an open fire. Liv found herself mobbed by everyone but the person she wanted to talk to: every elder who wanted to speak about the history of the tribe, every hunter who wanted to know what game roamed the Aspen Valley, every young man or woman who dreamed of going to the College at Bald peak.
Liv even caught a glimpse of Wren’s father, though the former chief remained at the edges of the gathering, in the shadows and far from the evening’s visitors. The enchanted collar about his neck, which would keep him from ever changing his shape again, and would take his head should he try to remove it, glinted by firelight. Liv had made Sidonie and Professor Norris design it in a dream, which she took from them before they woke, so that no one would know how to break the abominable thing. It turned out there was only so far the mercy of the priests extended.
Keri had better luck than her – he and Ghveris entertained a circle of warriors with stories of their meeting beneath the Tomb of Celris, and though he’d heard it all before, Rei was packed right in there with the rest, enchanted, and he had his little sister on his lap.
She kept her eye on Wren, though, and when her old guardian and friend rose from her seat at one of the long wooden tables, daughter hoisted up over her shoulder, the girl’s head sagging with exhaustion and her limbs limp, Liv finally managed to excuse herself. She slipped away into the darkness, out of the fire-light and the embers which rose up to dance in the darkness before they died, and followed Wren to one of the newer houses.
“Would you like some help putting her down?” Liv asked, once she’d caught up. She couldn’t see very well in the dark – she’d been considering imprinting Bheuv more and more, as the years went on – but she caught Wren’s nod.
“Try to be quiet,” Wren whispered. “If she wakes up I’ll be here all night.” The huntress opened the door, and Liv held it wide, then closed it behind them once they were inside. She wanted to see her friend’s house in the light, because right then it was all shadows and indistinct shapes. But Wren moved through it confidently, in that way of a person who knows their home so thoroughly and with such familiarity that they didn’t need their eyes to navigate it.
Liv followed her up a flight up stairs to the second floor, and into a child’s room. The paned windows were open to let in the evening breeze, and the sheets were linen, with no blankets. Liv pulled them down so that Wren could lie the little girl down on her pillow, and together they untied and tugged off her little shoes.
Once they’d finally finished, and gotten Wren’s daughter tucked in, rather than head back toward the fire, Wren took Liv’s hand and pulled her over toward the cenote itself. They say down there, on the edge of the stone, with their legs dangling down over the drop to the water beneath. Above, through the hole in the trees, the stars shone, and the ring gleamed white by the light of the moon.
“You seem happy here,” Liv said, once they’d settled. “I’m glad. It’s what I was hoping for – it’s what you deserve.”
“I spent so long away,” Wren said. “I really did miss it, you know. I could tell you felt that way about Whitehill, whenever we went back. The valley. How’s your mother?”
“Just turned seventy-three. She can’t see so well anymore – her eyes are all cloudy,” Liv said. “I’ve got her living at the palace with me now, so we can take care of her. Her husband died.”
“I remember. You wrote about it in one of your letters.” Wren nodded.
“And you?” Liv asked. “Aurora’s beautiful. It doesn’t sound like a Red Shield name.”
“Red Shield names don’t sound like Red Shield names,” Wren said, with a laugh. “All the really old ones, like Ghveris, have names from Vædic. All the animals and plants and things came later. But since we met under those northern lights, it seemed like it fit.”
“It does.” Liv grinned.
“You have the temple calmed down?” Wren asked, after a moment of quiet.
“For the most part,” Liv said. “Having something to work toward helps. They can preach about the Last City now, and what people need to do to get there. I think if I’d just told them to stop hunting heretics, and not replaced it with something new, it wouldn’t have gone so well.”
“We might be able to come by for a visit, then,” Wren ventured. “If things have calmed down.”
Liv’s stomach twisted. “Not yet,” she said. “It’s only been four years, Wren. Give it another decade or so, and no one will remember. By the time Aurora’s old enough to come out and study at the college, I think we can get away with it.”
Wren sighed, and her shoulders slumped. “I know it shouldn’t feel like a punishment,” she said. “I’m living where my people are. I have what I wanted. And it’s good Liv – it’s so good. You should see it.” Liv heard her sniff. “You should see him with our baby cradled in his arms.”
“I will,” Liv promised. “Tomorrow. And it will be easier for us to come and visit now.”
“You know, I saw it with Rose, and how that ended,” Wren said. “Julianne taught you well. How to – to put your feelings out, like a fire, and be a queen. How to get cold. How to set your friendships aside. I just didn’t think it would ever happen to me, I suppose.”
“It isn’t gone,” Liv told her. “The feelings, or the friendship. You just do what you have to do anyway. But Wren – we’re going to live a very long time, you and me and Keri and Ghveris, all of us.” Not Arjun, or Sidonie. She forced the thought aside. “Ten years is nothing to us. It’s just a little while.”
She reached out with her right arm, and wrapped it around Wren’s body, pulling her close.