Heirs of the Blade_ Shadows of the Apt_ Book Seven - Adiran Tchaikovsky [210]
And they got him, and then the Shadow Box was sundered, and they ceased to be – and whatever was left of Achaeos went with them, scattered to the four winds.
No last reconciliation. No apologies. No parting words. No closing of the wound. No final blessing that would let her live her life again without all the grief.
Only then did Che realize how she had staked far more on that, emotionally, than on trying to draw the poisoned dart of Tisamon out of Tynisa’s mind. Her intentions had become hopelessly tangled and self-involved.
She glanced from Maure to Tynisa, as though looking for an escape.
‘Che, listen to me,’ her sister said patiently. ‘None of this is real. I understand why you’ve resorted to it, but you’ve got to face the real world.’ Confronting that bland scepticism, Che now almost believed her. After all, how much easier life would be if everything, from Khanaphes onwards, had been only a bad dream?
But she knew it was real, and she knew that if Maure could not so much as detect a loose thread of Achaeos, then the Darakyon had got him, and that was that.
And, with that revelation, she could not stay in the incense-heavy air of the claustrophobic room, so she fumbled a panel aside and dashed out into the rain, unable to face either of the other women any more.
Maure was on her feet instantly, chasing after Che. It was not clear whether it was to comfort the Beetle girl or because, for all her words and wards, the mystic did not feel safe close to Tynisa’s rapier without Che there to protect her.
Tynisa shook her head, listening to the rain. Che was out there getting wet, but experience had told her that running around after her sister, once the girl got upset, achieved nothing. Che was best left to herself to calm down, then come back embarrassed at whatever outburst she had been provoked into. And the best medicine after that would be to act as though nothing had happened, and thus spare the girl’s blushes. Still, Maure obviously had not known Che long enough to learn that lesson. Now that it seemed the mummery was over for the evening, Tynisa decided to wait out the worst of the rain under Gaved’s roof, and then set off on the long road back for Leose. She had unfinished business there, for certain.
And such foolishness, she considered. Still, Che is my sister, in fact if not in kinden. She called and I came, despite this waste of my time. Nobody can ask more of me than that.
She stood up and leant over the circle, trying to fathom how people could imagine that such marks on the ground could have any power in the real world.
Tynisa . . .
The world seemed to lurch around her. Her name whispered, at the very edge of hearing. For a moment she felt a tide of fear rising up in her, primal and unreasoning, and tainted by memories that she had cast off or locked away. But no, I do not believe . . .
Tynisa . . . have I found you? It is so hard to tell.
Although the voice came from everywhere and nowhere, and within her, she conceived the feeling that someone stood behind her . . . someone familiar.
There is a door here half open, the voice whispered, still coming from just beside her, and yet far, far away. I see you only as in twilight, but it is you, is it not?
The room seemed darker than before, the fireflies no longer lighting anything but themselves, the incense smouldering into ash. The rain outside had blotted out the sun and covered the entire house in shadow.
She swallowed. If I speak, I will admit to hearing it. I must not answer it. But she knew that voice now, beyond all doubt, and she could not stop herself from saying, ‘Salma.’
It is you, then, truly? But who else would venture so far to call on me?
‘I’d have thought your cursed Butterfly woman, if she cared.’ The vindictive words were out of Tynisa’s mouth before she could stop them, and she did not know now whether she was more afraid that he would speak to her again, or that she might have driven him away. In her