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She stuck out her tongue and held its tip with thumb and two fingers. Raising the spine, she touched its pointed end to the pink flesh.
Feather Cloak sighed. “With this blood,” she said, “I let authority pass from my hand into the hand of the one who is chosen.”
She settled down cross-legged on the blood stone, leaning over the shallow basin that marked its center. She held her own tongue and pierced it smoothly. The pain flashed like fire, and it throbbed, but sharp red blood dropped into the basin made by the blood stone.
Kansi-a-lari did the same. Where blood melded and mixed, it smoked, bubbling for the space of one breath before it dissipated into the air with a scent so acrid that both sneezed.
“With this blood, I accept authority into my hands from the one who came before.”
Kansi held out her hands, palms up, and waited. At least she did not gloat, but she was, obviously, restraining her impatience with the leisurely pace of the ritual. She wanted to get on with it, get moving, make decisions, push forward.
The time for careful steps is done. The world she knew and understood was passing out of her hands. Fled, like a kiss stolen from a man who doesn’t really want you.
The headdress. The rustling cloak. The spines. All these were transferred. These sigils of the authority released her, and she was only what she had been before, called Secha by her family and named The-One-Who-Looks-Hard-at-the-Heart as a child for her habit of staring at her playmates with a level gaze when she found their antics distasteful or mean-spirited.
She-Who-Sits-in-the-Eagle-Seat rose, hands raised heavenward to show her palms to the sight of the gods, who through the hands can see into the heart. She might stand at the height of the temple dedicated to She-Who-Creates for a day or a year, waiting for the gods to speak to her, although Secha doubted that The Impatient One could stand still for more than twenty breaths.
And indeed, not twenty breaths later, Feather Cloak grunted, wiped away the sweat beading her forehead, and set off to descend the steps.
In that moment of solitude granted her, Secha touched chin and forehead to acknowledge the gods. The sky had lightened. The clouds shone like the underside of a pearl, and she glimpsed the shimmering disk of the sun high above and tasted its heat on her bloody tongue and in the sticky hot dust kicked up by the feet of the multitude below.
At length she stood and followed Feather Cloak down the steep stairs.
Feather Cloak was met on the lower terrace by a swarm of people who wore emblems of rank not seen in Secha’s lifetime: the marks of high lineage, of privilege, of priestly sanction and a warrior’s prestige. Sashes; a blood knife banner; a beaded neckpiece; bright feather headdresses; long, clay-red mantles; gauntlets of precious shells strung together on a net.
Secha passed around them like a shadow, forgotten and unseen. She was free, although the wound in her tongue burned and the taste of blood reminded her of the sharpness of defeat. No weight bowed her shoulders. She was only herself now, a woman with certain skills who must find her way in the new world whose landscape was still unexplored. The exiles and the ones who had walked in the shadows must build together.
It would not be easy.
XVI
A TEMPTING OFFER
1
“ARE you sure he is dead?” asked Adelheid.
“There is no escape from the galla.”
“Are you sure?”
When Antonia thought about Hugh of Austra, her gut burned and her heart hammered, and she had to murmur psalms until she calmed herself. “They are not mortal creatures, as we are. They desire only a return to the pit out of which they sprang. They will pursue those whose names they carry because when that soul is extinguished, the bond that binds them to Earth is broken.”
“The world is a large place!”
“They do not seek as would a human scout. If he walks on Earth, they will find him by other means than the five senses. Had he vanished out of this plane of existence, they would return to me seeking release. Only I, or the death of that soul, can release them. They did not. Thus, he must be dead.”
She and Adelheid walked through the enclosed garden beside the clematis. A few brave flowers budded among the leaves, but none had opened. Like her anger, they remained closed tight, waiting for more auspicious weather.
“What if he has a defense against them?” Adelheid worried at it, as a dog keeps chewing a bone long since shed of all its flecks of tasty fat and flesh. “Prince Sanglant did, with griffin feathers.”
“Prince Sanglant is in the north. He is Hugh’s sworn enemy. Think you Sanglant gave the man he most despises a dozen griffin feathers as a precaution?”
“Hugh might have stolen such feathers. He said he was at the Wendish court before he was exiled.”
“It might be true he was at the Wendish court. Or he might have lied to us. Perhaps you believe Hugh stole Princess Blessing to return her to her father in exchange for peace between them? Or that the old Eagle is the one who murdered Lady Elene?”
“He was covered in her blood. And caught in the stables, trying to saddle a horse and make his escape.”
