The Inheritance Trilogy Omnibus(87)

I glanced at him, surprised by this description.

“I was smitten, of course. Her beauty, her wit, all that power…” He shrugged. “But I would have been content to admire her from afar. I wasn’t that young. No one was more surprised than I when she offered me more.”

“My mother wouldn’t do that.”

Viraine just looked at me for a moment, during which I glared back at him.

“It was a brief affair,” he said. “Just a few weeks. Then she met your father and lost interest in me.” He smiled thinly. “I can’t say I was happy about that.”

“I told you—” I began with some heat.

“You didn’t know her,” he said softly. It was that softness that silenced me. “No child knows her parents, not truly.”

“You didn’t know her, either.” I refused to think about how childish that sounded.

For a moment there was such sorrow in Viraine’s face, such lingering pain, that I knew he was telling the truth. He had loved her. He had been her lover. She had gone off to marry my father, leaving Viraine with only memories and longing. And now fresh grief burned in my soul, because he was right—I hadn’t known her. Not if she could do something like this.

Viraine looked away. “Well. You wanted to know my reason for offering to escort you. You aren’t the only one who mourns Kinneth.” He took a deep breath. “If you change your mind, let me know.” He inclined his head, then headed for the door.

“Wait,” I said, and he stopped. “I told you before: my mother did nothing without reason. So why did she take up with you?”

“How should I know?”

“What do you think?”

He considered a moment, then shook his head. He was smiling again, hopelessly. “I think I don’t want to know. And neither do you.”

He left. I stared at the closed door for a long time.

Then I went looking for answers.


I went first to my mother’s room, where I took the chest of letters from behind the bed’s headboard. When I turned with it in my hands, I found my unknown maternal grandmother gazing directly at me from within her portrait. “Sorry,” I muttered, and left again.

It was not difficult to find an appropriate corridor. I simply wandered until a sense of nearby, familiar power tickled my awareness. I followed that sense until, before an otherwise nondescript wall, I knew I had found a good spot.

The gods’ langauge was not meant to be spoken by mortals, but I had a goddess’s soul. That had to be good for something.

“Atadie,” I whispered, and the wall opened up.

I went through two dead spaces before finding Sieh’s orrery. As the wall closed behind me, I looked around and noticed that the place looked starkly bare compared to the last time I’d seen it. Several dozen or so of the colored spheres lay scattered on the floor, unmoving, a few showing cracks or missing chunks. Only a handful floated in their usual places. The yellow ball was nowhere to be seen.

Beyond the spheres, Sieh lay on a gently curved hump of palacestuff, with Zhakkarn crouched beside him. Sieh was younger than I had seen him in the arena, but still too old: long-legged and lanky, he must have been somewhere in late adolescence. Zhakkarn, to my surprise, had removed her headkerchief; her hair lay in close-curled, flattened ringlets about her head. Rather like mine, except that it was blue-white in color.

They were both staring at me. I crouched beside them, setting down the chest. “Are you all right?” I asked Sieh.

Sieh struggled to sit up, but I could see in his movements how weak he was. I moved to help, but Zhakkarn had him, bracing his back with one big hand. “Amazing, Yeine,” Sieh said. “You opened the walls by yourself? I’m impressed.”

“Can I help you?” I asked. “Somehow?”

“Play with me.”

“Play—” But I trailed off as Zhakkarn caught my eye with a stern look. I thought a moment, then stretched out my hands, palms up. “Put your hands over mine.”

He did so. His hands were larger than mine, and they shook like an old man’s. So much wrongness. But he grinned. “Think you’re fast enough?”

I slapped at his hands, and scored. He moved so slowly that I could’ve recited a poem in the process. “Apparently I am.”

“Beginner’s luck. Let’s see you do it again.” I slapped at his hands again. He moved faster this time; I almost missed. “Ha! All right, third time’s the charm.” I slapped again, and this time did miss.

Surprised, I looked up at him. He grinned, visibly younger, though not by much. A year, perhaps. “See? I told you. You’re slow.”