Of Sand and Snow, page 28
part #5 of Wings of War Series
Rather, it was Syrah the older female approached, clawed hands reaching carefully for her raised hood.
As though understanding the importance of the moment, Syrah allowed the Queen to carefully pull down the black silks, revealing the plain shape of her wrapped head. Slowly, almost fondly, Shas-hana Rhan found the edge of the bindings and began to unwind them, Syrah not even so much as shivering despite the proximity of the atherian’s sharp, curved claws.
When the wrappings finally fell—the dark fabric pulled free in the Queen’s hand—Shas-hana Rhan stepped away to reveal Syrah’s face to the trio of males who’d been standing silently where their sovereign had left them.
Though he didn’t understand what they said, Raz could tell the three shared a combination of curses and prayers at the sight of her.
To Raz, there was nothing strange about Syrah’s face. She was beautiful, even among humans, he had come to understand, but he doubted this had the slightest impact on Sassyl Gal and the two sentries. He suspected, rather, watching their reactions, that it was other details of Syrah’s figure which drew their amazement. The paleness of her skin, almost translucent in the morning Sun. The whiteness of her hair, like strands of bleached bone which made her stand out even within the world of man. The White Witch, she had been called for so long now, by friend and foe alike.
A woman of ice and snow…
The line came to Raz again, striking as firmly as a blow to the chest. Though he hadn’t really doubted the authenticity of the rhythmic telling Zal’en had translated—seers and prophecy were far from alien concepts to him, after all—the realization that the atherian could not, in any way, have known of Syrah before her arrival brought with it an iron certainty. While he watched the spymaster and his underlings gape at the woman’s one good eye—bright and warm as a newly bloomed rose, the other hidden by the diagonal loop of black cloth that acted as a patch—the rest of the telling rocked through Raz, driving even further the confusion of the remaining lines that had struck him so vividly.
To leave and then return…
He spoke, then, voicing the surge of realization.
“You… know me,” he said unsteadily, eyes trailing from Sassyl Gal to the sentries before finally settling on the Queen standing not two feet away, who’d looked around at him as he spoke. “You know me…”
Syrah, at his words, shook herself free of whatever epiphanies had seized her own mind, translating in a shaking voice.
In answer, Shas-hana Rhan only smiled. It was different, this time. The sadness still clung there, chiseled into her reptilian features as though she’d borne it for far, far too long for it ever to truly fade away. It was muted, though, buried under something brighter, something more alive. Raz looked into the female’s eyes, seeking whatever it was, needing to understand it more than he comprehended.
Finally, it came to him.
Hope. What he saw there, rising in the light behind the Queen’s eyes, was hope.
“Who am I?”
The question slipped out before Raz could so much as think to hold it back. That thing, that memory or understanding that lingered just at the edge of his consciousness was so close now, so near he thought he could feel its presence brushing against the surface of his mind.
For a time the Queen said nothing, watching him, studying him as Zal’en had, like she wanted to make sure she knew every detail of his face before answering. Eventually she turned, and this time she did approach him. From a seemingly distant place Raz watched her, barely registering her steps, barely seeing the shaking of her claws as she slowly, lovingly brought them up. The female paused there for a brief moment, her fingers pulling away slightly like she was afraid to touch him, like she was afraid of what would happen when her skin met the cool black of his own cheeks. After a second, Shas-hana Rhan took in a small, steadying breath, and allowed herself that touch, her scales as gentle as silk against Raz’s own.
Then she answered, and it pulled Raz down into himself, down into a deep, warm, bright place he had never even imagined might linger within him. That word, that single word, distinctly atherian and yet all-too familiar, called to him from a time he didn’t know he could remember.
He heard Syrah sob from beside him, felt her hand still shaking in his as she told him what it meant. He didn’t need her to, of course. Those faded fragments of recollection, which had been dancing along just out of reach, had fallen together all at once, slipping into his mind as mere shadows, but present all the same.
He understood, then, what it was that had been so familiar about the Queen now standing before them, looking up at him and cupping his cheeks carefully in both her hands. He understood the warmth that had seemed so peculiar, and yet so well known. The way she’d looked at him, the way she’d taken him in from the moment he erupted into her world in a wave of white flames.
It was the same way Grea Arro had once looked at him, so long ago, in a life long-since burned away…
It was the way only a mother could look upon their child…
XXIII
Raz was told the story of his birth, then. His true birth. He listened without interruption, neither releasing Syrah’s hand, nor pulling away from the Queen’s touch as it lingered about his face. In the silence that might have claimed control of the world itself for all he knew, Raz took in every word, seeing the events pass by as though in a dream across his vision.
His father, his mother told him, had been selected by the Last Queen—his grandmother—some years before Shas-hana took the throne. When the crown had passed to her, the need for their line to continue had grown urgent, and so the pair’s coupling had been moved up. It had been brief and loveless, as such matches had often been for the females of their family, and his father had not stayed long after the Queen found herself with child. The male had moved on, as his gender often did within the mountains, and Shas-hana had heard he’d been killed by slavers not long after, choosing to die by their blades rather than live under the weight of their chains.
The news saddened Raz, in a way. He would have liked to meet his birth father, if only to have known his face…
Raz had been a lively infant from the moment after his hatching onward. Strong, quick, and clever beyond his age. None of this, however, was more impressive than the fact that he’d come into the world with wings. A winged male. The first in four generations, since the time of Shas-hana’s grandfather, Raz’s great-grandfather. It had been generally thought, before his arrival, that the line had long died out, that the last of the winged rulers had come and gone, leaving behind a time under “the Daystar”—the atherian’s concept of the Sun, Raz came to realize—in which their kind had not bowed in fear to the whips of the cities like Cyro and Dynec. Raz’s birth had shaken the court in many ways, the Queen’s retainers split on what to make of him. To some, he’d been a sign of hope in the steady darkening of their fate with each passing year. To others, he was nothing more than an omen of impending war and destruction.
Then Uhsula of the Other Worlds, seer to the Queen of the Under Caves, had been granted a vision. She had given a telling before the court in its entirety, the very fortune Raz and Syrah had just heard. As a result, Shas-hana had come to a realization:
War and hope were not necessarily mutually exclusive.
His mother told him, her voice distinctly hoarse as Syrah continued her emotional translation, that she had made a choice in that moment. She had made a decision, one so difficult it had ripped her in two, and one she would both take pride in and endlessly regret for the next two decades of her life.
Bowing to the will of the Daystar and the Night-Eye, the Queen of the atherian had cast her only child from the safety of the Under Caves, banishing him from the borders of her mountains, and seen to it that he was handed to the slavers of the world of man.
A lump formed in Raz’s throat when he heard this, a hard stone of pain and regret and—yet—understanding.
He had long since come to terms with the fact that the intent of the gods often made itself known through less than pleasant means.
From there, Raz knew the story, or could piece it together. He’d been taken—undoubtedly greedily, given his wings—from his home, stolen away by the slavers. Court spies—Zal’en among them—had tailed him in the hopes of seeing the prophetic words fulfilled. He’d attacked some of the drivers, very nearly earning himself a hard death at the hands of the Cienbal, abandoned to the wicked heat of the day and the cruel chill of the night.
That was how Agais and Jarden Arro had found him. A child of the Sun—no, the Daystar, Raz couldn’t help but think—very nearly already within reach of the Moon and Her Stars.
As the Queen finished her story, she pulled her fingers away tentatively, and Raz saw that they were shaking. For a long time he could do nothing about that, could do nothing more than stand and stare at her, his free hand still trembling in Syrah’s, his mind reeling with this new reality that had suddenly been thrust upon him.
His mother. His true mother…
Raz didn’t know how to comprehend it, didn’t know how to manage the emotions that were writhing within him. For the first time in a long, long time, the loss of the Arros suddenly felt raw, felt new, like he was only just stumbling free of the carnage and fire which had been all that was left of their caravan that fateful night within the walls of Karth. He saw the images of his parents, Agais and Grea, smiling and laughing over the face of his little sister, Ahna. Raz blinked, looking unsteadily away from the Queen, toward the eastern horizon where he knew the trio of Her Stars he had grown so familiar with would shine once more come nightfall. He ached for them. He ached for his uncle, for his aunts and his cousins. He ached for Lueski and Arrun Koyt, for Talo Brahnt and the friends he and Syrah had made and lost on the Sylgid, nearly half-a-year gone.
And yet now, standing before him, was something returned he had never even thought to hope for…
He was conflicted, Raz realized as he looked back to meet his mother’s nervous eyes. He was torn. There, right there, was the being who had birthed him, who had loved him—clearly loved him—and cared for him for years he could not recall. And yet, at the same time, there was the being who had cast him out, who had thrown him into the cruelties of the world for what sounded like a mere chance at hope. She was the start of his path, a path which led to the warmth of family and the love of the woman standing by his side, but also to the madness and mayhem and bloodshed which had consumed him for so, so many years.
On the one hand, Raz wanted to drop Ahna and wrap his arms around the female, embracing her as he had often embraced Grea Arro, taken from him more than a decade gone, now. He wanted to experience the touch of a parent once again, to feel once more that unconditional affection any true mother has for her child.
On the other, Raz wanted to tear Shas-hana Rhan limb from limb, wanted to do to her what he had done to the man who had truly set him on the corpse-strewn road that was the last decade of his life.
By the time he’d been done with Crom Ayzenbas, the ragroot-addled ringleader had looked more like a bloody flower than anything human, petals made of flesh and skin and outwardly snapped ribs.
Raz’s hands spasmed at the thought, though whether in horror or desire he couldn’t tell, still meeting his mother’s golden gaze.
As ever, a cool, calm voice pulled him away from the dangerous edge of the chasm buried deep within his own mind.
“Raz,” Syrah said gently, her words reaching him as though from some far-off place, and he felt her hand come up to turn his face to hers. “Come back. Come back, now.”
Then it was her eye he was staring into. Her smile he was lost in, in that darkness. Without her wraps, he took in her porcelain skin and the dance of her fair hair in the mountain wind. She was squinting in the brightness of the day, and wet tracts down her left cheek made him realize that she’d been crying what he hoped were tears of joy. Her pale lips, red only when compared to the coolness of her complexion, were slightly parted, revealing a bare hint of her white teeth.
He thought, in that moment, that if the Moon had ever chosen to take physical form, Her beauty would have paled in comparison to Syrah Brahnt’s.
And then he was back, standing beneath the brightness of the early morning, feeling the chill touch of the stone beneath his clawed feet and hearing the whistle of the wind and the distant cawing of the carrion birds echoing across the peaks.
Raz drew a shaky breath, not looking away from Syrah even as her hand fell from his face. He took her in a moment more, allowing the vision of her to ground him, to settle him again into the world, removed from the momentary lapse he’d almost made into an old madness.
Then, squeezing her other hand in silent thanks, he turned once more to the Queen of the Under Caves. He found her looking between the pair of them, from Raz to Syrah and back again, and there was something almost like satisfaction in her tired face. Not quite happiness, but perhaps… content?
He decided that that alone was worth a point in the female’s favor.
“You are… You are ‘mother’,” he said with some difficulty, the alternating sharp and deep syllables of the atherian language feeling all-too awkward on his tongue. “This, understand I do. But time. Time, I will need…”
Sadness returned to the Queen’s smile, then, far come from the heartbroken pain it had borne only minutes ago, but still distinctly present. Her lips quivered, like the expression was a hard one to hold up, and her nod of understanding was unsteady. She’d expected such a response, Raz could tell. It hurt him to see the pain the memories of a child he did not remember being must be causing her, but he suspected just as much that Shas-hana Rhan knew she was fortunate to receive even such a neutral answer.
Had Syrah not been there, the Monster might just have reared its head to the great chagrin of all present.
As though she were thinking something similar, the Queen looked once more around to the woman, her eyes brightening slightly. She held out the black wrapping she’d freed Syrah’s head from, and spoke a word of gratitude simple enough for even Raz to understand.
Syrah gave a brief bow of acknowledgement, accepting the silks and responding quietly.
Karan, fortunately, seemed to have finally found her tongue.
“Syrah tells the Queen that you are her balance, as much as she is yours,” the young female got out in a hurry, coming to stand by Raz so she could hear the conversation. “She says that for every time she has brought you back from a frightening place, so you have pulled her away from her own terrors.”
Raz frowned at that, and had to shake his head briefly to clear it of bad memories before he could keep listening.
“The Queen has told her that she understands, that losing one’s self to instinct and emotion is not an uncommon trait among the males of our kind.” Karan paused, letting Shas-hana speak for a bit before continuing. “She has asked Syrah how it is she came to be by your side. She asks how it is you came to find your ‘woman of ice and snow’?”
Raz bristled, ready to interject again, but Syrah spoke before he could. Her expression was strange, like she was fondly recalling a sad memory.
“Syrah says that your shared tale is not a pleasant one, at least to begin with.” Karan looked uneasy, and Raz could tell she knew where the story was going. Syrah shared everything with the female, so this was a tale with which she would already be all-too familiar. “She says that you saved her life, but paid a terrible price for the act. She claims you have saved it time and time again since, and she doubts she will ever come close to repaying you your bravery and kindness.”
“She’s not the one who’s in debt, in this relationship,” Raz said gently, loudly enough for her to hear.
He caught the quick smile the woman didn’t managed to hide, despite never looking away from the Queen.
Syrah and Shas-hana Rhan spent a while talking after that, Karan or Zal’en occasionally stepping in to help manage a difficult word from one language to the other, though these occurrences were rare. Raz had Karan cease her translation, after a while, as Syrah told his story, then hers, then theirs. The tale did not often bring back fond memories, and when she started to speak of Azbar, of her old Priest-Mentor and the two children whose love had been Raz’s light in the darkness of that city, he found his emotions stretched to their limit.
He allowed the rest of the story to be told without his hearing it, turning his eyes skyward and letting his mind wander to the greater gift the climbing Sun had given him that day.
His mother… His true mother…
A half-hour passed before Syrah brought her recounting to an end. Raz had drifted away from the conversation, drawn back into his own recollections and contemplations of the last two years, and had to be brought back via a quick poke to his elbow by Zal’en. He blinked as he returned to the present, realizing Karan was translating again.
“Syrah is telling the Queen of the situation in Cyro, and your decision to hunt down the city’s former army. She repeats that the greatest portion of our forces were left behind to handle the riots, but that we will need to join with them again before we seek to challenge Miropa.”
The Queen’s expression shifted at these words, and she glanced between Syrah and Karan, as though unsure she had understood correctly. Zal’en was quickest to pick up on her confusion, answer her questioning look in atherian, and Raz understood enough that she was explaining that Miropa was the largest of the South’s fringe cities, seated along the upper border of the desert, several weeks north and west. Shas-hana nodded slowly at this, contemplating this news for several seconds before looking around at Raz directly.
“The Queen says she understands.” Syrah took over translating again now that their conversation seemed to have come to an end. “But she is concerned as to how the chieftains of the tribes will respond to this. With Dynec and Cyro gone, they may see little point in rallying to your banner, whether she commands them to or not.”
