Lin swallowed. Blood on the rags on Mariam’s bed, streaks of blood on her hands. Then Mariam telling her the pain was better. What she had done had not fixed Mariam forever; she knew that. But with only a few hours’ reading of Qasmuna’s book, she had done something she had never managed before—she had helped Mariam, using magic. To give up that chance now was more bitter than the taste of blood.
But she knew what had to be said.
“No,” she whispered. “I—don’t mind.”
There was a moment of silence. Finally, the Maharam nodded. “The Law is satisfied.”
“That’s all?” Oren cried. “You’re just going to take these stupid books away from her? Isn’t she going to be punished? Exiled?”
“Now, now, young man,” Mayesh said. “Don’t overexcite yourself. The Maharam has spoken.”
“But—”
“She is young, Oren,” said the Maharam. “She will learn better. The Law can be merciful, too.”
Merciful, Lin thought, bitterly, as the Maharam directed Oren to gather up her books. They seemed a pitifully small pile in the end, as Oren, glaring furiously, marched out the door with them. The Maharam lingered a moment longer before he, too, departed.
Lin sank down in a kitchen chair, all the strength gone from her legs. She was trembling suddenly, her body shaking with frustration. It was unfair, so very unfair—
“That could have been much worse, Lin,” said Mayesh. “Had I not been here, had the Maharam not been in a generous mood—”
“A generous mood?” Lin flared. “That was generous?”
“For him. He has a special hatred for this sort of thing, even the hint of interest in medicine that is not Ashkari medicine. And as for magic, the study of it”—he shook his head—“he would never have let you keep those books, and he might have done worse.”
“We are supposed to save lives,” Lin whispered. “How is that something he does not understand?”
“He understands it well enough,” said Mayesh. “In his mind, he is weighing the life of one against the lives of many. If the malbushim thought we were practicing forbidden lore—”
“It is the Prince of the malbushim who gave me the book in the first place!”
“Do you think Conor had the slightest idea what it was he was giving you?” Mayesh said. He did not sound angry, only tired. “I assure you, he has never given this sort of thing any thought; he has never had to. You refused the first thing he offered, so he wanted to offer something he did not think you could reject. It was a challenge, and he wanted to win it. He does not like to lose.”
Lin stared at her grandfather. “You know him so well,” she said. “I suppose that is because you spent every day of his childhood with him, as you did not with me, or with Josit.”
It was a low blow, she knew. He did not flinch, but his eyes darkened. “Conor Aurelian is dangerous,” he said, heading for the door. He turned on the threshold to look back at her. “In ways that he does not even understand, he is dangerous. You were right to refuse the first gift he offered you. You should have refused this one, as well.”
When the battle was done, and victory secured with blood, the people of Aram fell to their knees in thanks. And before them appeared a white doe, and spoke to them in the voice of Adassa:
“Once, in another land, I was your Queen, but now I am your Goddess. You are my people. You will no longer be Aramites. Instead, you will be known as the Ashkar: the people who wait. For there will come a time when the Ashkar will be needed. You must be preserved, you must continue, until that day. You must become a people of all nations, so that if one community of Ashkar is destroyed, the others shall survive. You must be everywhere, though none of these places will be home.”
“But what of you, O Goddess?” cried Makabi. “Where will you be?”
“I will be all around you and with you, my hand on your shoulder to guide you, and my light to lead you. And one day, when the time has come, I will return to you clothed in the flesh of a woman of the Ashkari people. I will be once again your Queen, and we will rise in peace and glory.”
And then the Goddess ascended into the heavens, and as she went, she took Makabi’s hand and brought him with her, and she gave his sword to his son and named him Benjudah, son of Judah, the next Exilarch. All Exilarchs from that day forth would be descended from Makabi, and would carry the name Benjudah and the Evening Sword, the gift of the Goddess.
Thus dawned the new age of the Ashkar.
—Book of Makabi
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Lin stared stonily at the wall as Chana Dorin helped lace her into her Festival dress. Her eyes burned from sleeplessness, but she had not cried. Not even after Mayesh had left the night before and she had been alone in her house. Not even when she looked at the few dusty bits of old paper that were all that remained of Qasmuna’s book. Not even through the long hours of the night when she blamed herself. How stupid had she been, imagining the Prince’s visit would go unremarked? That the Maharam would not investigate? That Oren would not have spied on her?
She had tried again to create a spark within the stone, using her own visualization and energy. It had not worked. The stone had flickered only dully, and she had exhausted herself badly enough that she had fallen asleep with her head on the kitchen table.
While she slept, she dreamed. The dream was vivid, as had been all her dreams since the stone came into her possession, but for a change she did not dream about the tower and the desert, the last battle of Aram. Instead she dreamed of the harbor of Castellane and the sky over it painted with white fire. And in her mind, she heard Ciprian Cabrol’s words, though not spoken in his voice:
I need them to see my vengeance written in fire across the sky. The harbor will shine as though the lights of the Gods have returned. As though their magic still burns across the waters.
When she woke at dawn, her eyes felt as if sand had been poured into them. As she went to splash water on her face, she thought of Mariam, of the Maharam, and of her dream. The beginning of an idea had taken root inside her mind. Perhaps there might be a way to get Qasmuna’s book back after all.
“Stop it,” Chana said now, her hands moving efficiently in Lin’s hair. “I can hear you scheming.”
“As can I,” agreed Mariam. She was sitting on her bed in her shift, her dress thrown over the footboard. When Chana was done with Lin, she would begin on Mariam: lacing her dress, braiding her hair into an elaborate, flowery coil. These were the things Lin and Mariam’s mothers would have done for them before the Goddess Festival, if they had had mothers. Chana had stepped in to fill that gap years before, as she had filled so many. “It is not your fault, Lin. I’d like to tell the Maharam exactly what I think of him, taking your books like that. But tonight is the Festival, and we cannot let him ruin our fun.”
She broke into a cough and Lin whirled anxiously. She had arrived at the Etse Kebeth at first light to see Mariam, who, to her relief, had slept through the night and was feeling much better. “Good days and bad days,” Chana had muttered as she let Lin into the house. “This is one of the good ones, praise the Name.”