Naamah's Curse - Jacqueline Carey [14]
Desire.
I saw it in his flush, in the sudden heat of his eyes. There was a part of me that responded to it, my blood quickening. He was handsome and pleasant, and I was lonely. I did not know how many days or weeks or months it would take before I found Bao. When all was said and done, I was Naamah’s child, and I responded to desire. It was the path I trod and the element in which I swam.
My diadh-anam flared in rebellion.
“Aye,” I murmured. “I am.”
Chen Peng bowed. “Will you permit me one indulgence? I would beg you to ascend the wall and behold the scope of your task.”
I nodded. “All right.”
He escorted me to the right-hand gate tower. We climbed a winding stair and emerged atop the wall. The sky overhead was impossibly vast, a fathomless vault of vivid blue. I stood silent beneath it, gazing out at the endless expanse of grassy plain that stretched into the horizon as far as the eye could see. There were no farms, no villages. Nothing but grass and sky, and a few dots in the distance that might have been animals grazing.
“There is not even a road, you see,” Peng said quietly, watching me. “In the summer during peace-times, the Tatars drive their livestock here to trade.”
I felt Bao’s presence far away, the twinned spark of his diadh-anam calling to mine over the leagues. “I do not require a road.”
“They are a war-like folk.” The soldier nodded at the Emperor’s medallion. “And that will mean nothing to them.”
“I know,” I said. “But Ch’in is at peace with them now, is it not?”
He shrugged. “Peace is never certain with the Tatars. I beg you one last time, Noble Lady. Allow me to assemble an escort.”
The wind was cold on my cheeks. Standing atop the wall, I consulted my own diadh-anam one last time, trying to tune out the insistent call of Bao’s to discern the will of the Maghuin Dhonn Herself.
The open space of the gate yawned beneath the stone ramparts of the Great Wall. A powerful memory came to me unbidden. I had passed through another stone doorway long ago in Alba. It was a rite of passage among my people. Alone, I went through the stone doorway in the valley beyond the hollow hills into a world of dazzling night and shadowy day, a world of piercing beauty deeper and more profound than my soft, familiar twilight, a world where darkness and light were one and the same.
There, I had waited and waited, until the Great Bear Herself came to me, the Brown Bear of the Maghuin Dhonn.
At first, She came as a presence so immense She blotted out the stars. The earth had trembled beneath Her tread. With each slow, mighty pace, She had dwindled and shaped Herself to a mortal scale.
Her eyes had been so kind, so wise, so filled with compassion and sorrow.
She had breathed upon me, claiming me as Her own; and I had rejoiced, happy to bask in Her presence. And then She had shown me a vision of sparkling oceans filling the stone doorway behind me, and I had understood that I had a destiny to fulfill.
I still did.
And I would not find it until I found Bao, and somehow managed to reunite my divided diadh-anam.
I sighed.
Dangerous or no, foolish or no, this was my quest; and I was bound to undertake it alone. That was the meaning of my memory’s vision, confirming the truth of my reluctant heart. I breathed the Breath of Wind’s Sigh, feeling the space behind my eyes expand to encompass the enormous ocean of grass I beheld.
My kind soldier Peng waited patiently, hopeful.
Standing atop the wall, I turned back to face the Empire of Ch’in itself, breathing the Breath of Earth’s Pulse to ground myself. The land that had once seemed strange to me had become a familiar place, filled with folk I could easily love.
Somewhere behind me, Auntie Li was reading tea leaves and regaling customers with tales of the Emperor’s jade-eyed witch, who had seen fit to patronize her inn. Closer, Auntie Ai was fondly scolding Bao’s mother and sister, bent over their embroidery, jade bangles on their wrists, exchanging glances and smiling.
No doubt young Hui was already boasting of our acquaintance to anyone who would listen.