The Born Queen - J. Gregory Keyes [178]
She caught the strains of a song, and as she focused her attention on it, it began to swell, and her throat yearned to open and join its strange harmonies.
For some reason that frightened her more than anything.
She suddenly saw light in the water and heard a familiar voice speak as if from another room. Then something caught her and pulled her in, and her thoughts suddenly became a confusion of voices, as in her Black Marys. At first she thought that it was the end, that she was merging with the river, but then she understood that she was thinking in only two voices.
Then a place shaped, and a face.
It took her a moment.
“Austra?”
“It’s me, Anne,” her friend said. “You’ve been here a while, but you didn’t seem to hear me.”
“Where are we?”
The light came up a little, diffuse strands of it made spidery by the tiny root filaments around the edge of the hole above her. She saw a little more of Austra now and noticed that between them was a stone crypt.
“It’s the crypt,” she murmured. “The one we found as girls. Virgenya’s crypt.”
“Is it?” Austra asked, sounding confused. “It looks to me like the womb of Mefitis, where we escaped the men who attacked the coven. See, there’s light coming down the shaft.”
Anne felt a prickling. She reached across the tomb.
“Take my hand, Austra.”
The other stretched out her arm, but instead of the familiar grip of her friend’s fingers, Anne felt not even the substance of a cobweb.
Austra nodded. “I tried to shake you awake earlier.”
“Austra, what were you doing just before you found yourself here?”
“I was with Cazio,” she said. “I had been hurt, and there was a battle. I was trying to go to sleep, when suddenly it felt as if something ripped me open.” She looked up. “We’re dead, aren’t we?”
“I should be,” Anne said. “Hespero—he stabbed me, in the heart, I think.” She tried to touch the spot where the knife had gone in and found it as intangible as Austra. “But you were just trying to sleep. And why are we here?”
“Is this the same place we went that time we were trapped in the horz? The otherworld of the Faiths?”
“I don’t think so, or at least not exactly. If that were true, I think Hespero—or the other—could find me. I think we’re trapped somewhere, or maybe…” She drifted off, silenced by a sudden revelation.
“Austra, you walked the same faneway I did.”
“I thought of that,” Austra said. “There was a priest, doing things to me, and I—”
“I remember,” Anne said. “I was there. I was looking for you.”
“Saints,” Austra breathed. “You were there. I’d forgotten. What does it mean?”
“I don’t know,” Anne said. “Maybe I’m dead, but a little of me is living on in you for a while. Maybe all of my power passed to you and it was too much for you. I’m sorry, Austra.”
“Why did you send me away?” the girl asked.
“I saw you and Cazio dead if I kept you around me.” The image flashed through her mind, and she suddenly recognized it. “Saints,” she said. “You would have died, both of you, in the Red Hall, protecting me from Hespero. And you would have…”
“I thought it was because you didn’t want us around to remind you of who you are.”
“There’s that, too,” Anne said. “I have found new parts of me, Austra, furious ones. They are quiet now, because I’m here with you. I needed room for them to grow, to become strong. It doesn’t matter now, does it?”
“I don’t want to be dead,” Austra said. And more softly: “Cazio asked me to marry him.”
“Really?” Jealousy was quick venom.
“I know you love him, too.”
Anne didn’t answer for a moment. “You’re right,” she said. “Or at least I’m in love with the idea of him. It’s part of the notion that I can do anything I want.” She thought about telling Austra about Tam—had she ever called him that?—but she refrained. “Anyway, congratulations.”
“I love you, Anne,” Austra said. “More than anyone.”
“I love you, too,” Anne said. Without thinking, she reached for her friend again. This time their fingers touched. Austra