Paladin of Souls - Lois McMaster Bujold [178]
Arhys smiled briefly at his brother and forbore to argue or correct, or pull that thin hope from his hands. He turned back to Ista. “Second, I beg a boon.”
“Anything within my power.”
His clear eyes fixed on her with penetrating intensity; she felt targeted. “If this dy Lutez manages to die well tonight, let it complete the set that was left undone so long ago. Let what victory I may gain swallow up forever the old, cold dereliction. And be you healed of the long wound that another dy Lutez dealt you.”
“Oh,” said Ista. Oh. She dared not let her voice break; she had still an office to perform. “I was given a message for you, too.”
His brows rose; he looked a little taken aback. “No courier has penetrated the Jokonan blockade for a day. What messenger was this?”
“I met Him on the stairs but now. It is this.” She swallowed to clear her voice.
“Your Father calls you to His Court. You need not pack; you go garbed in glory as you stand. He waits eagerly by His palace doors to welcome you, and has prepared a place at His high table by His side, in the company of the great-souled, honored, and best-beloved. In this I speak true. Bend your head.”
Wide-eyed, astonished, he did so. She pressed her lips to his brow, the pale skin neither hot nor cold, unsheened with sweat. Her mouth seemed to leave a brief ring of frost that steamed in the heavy night air. A new line appeared in her second sight, a fine thread of gray light, strung from him to her. It is a life-line. It could, she somehow knew, stretch to the ends of the earth without breaking. Oh.
Moved, she completed the full formal rite, kissing the back of each hand, then bending to his feet and touching her lips to each boot as well. He jerked a little, as if to dissuade her, but then stood still and allowed the gesture. He recaptured her hands and helped pull her back to her feet. Her knees felt like water.
“Surely,” he whispered in awe, “we are blessed.”
“Yes. For we bless each other. Be at rest in your heart. It will be very well.”
She backed away to let Illvin embrace his brother. Illvin held Arhys away by his shoulders, after, and gazed with smiling puzzlement into those strange exultant eyes, which seemed to look back from some great and receding distance. The cool lips smiled kindly, though. Illvin turned to give him a leg up on the painfully obedient red stallion, check his girths and stirrups and gear one last time, and slap his leather-clad leg in some habitual gesture. He stood away.
Ista looked around through blurred and stinging eyes to find Liss, standing at the shoulder of Foix’s horse. Foix was already mounted. He saluted Liss in the gesture of the Daughter’s Order, touching his forehead. She returned a courier’s salute, fist tapped over her heart. Foix, meeting Ista’s eyes, saluted her as well; she gave back the sign of the fivefold blessing.
The dozen men of Arhys’s forlorn little company mounted up at his quiet word. No one spoke much.
“Liss,” Ista choked, and cleared her throat. “Liss,” she began again. “Attend on me. We must get to the tower.”
Both Liss and Illvin fell in beside her, and they started back through the archway. Behind them, Ista could hear Porifors’s gates begin to creak open, the iron ratcheting of the drawbridge chains echoing among the dying flowers. Illvin walked backward a moment, staring into the fire-streaked dark, but Ista schooled herself not to turn around.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
ISTA’S ACHING LEGS PUSHED HER UP THE NARROW TOWER STAIRS, the curving stone wall harsh beneath her groping hand, into a square of unexpected radiance. Rows of candles were lined up at the base of the parapet walls on the north and south sides, stuck into blobs of their own wax, burning clear and unwavering in the breezeless night air. The heat seemed to stream upward into the starry night sky, but withal the air of the tower was much less close and stale than that of the forecourt.
With their arrival, the platform seemed crowded. Ista surveyed