Stone of Tears

“I crawled to my grandmother Lindel’s. How I made my way, I cannot imagine, except to think the gift guided me. When she saw me, she be furious. She pulled me to my feet and demanded to know if I had broken my oath.”

Zedd leaned forward. “But you couldn’t speak. How did you answer?”

Adie smiled a small, cold smile. “I picked her up by the throat, with the power of the gift, and slammed her against the wall. I walked up to her and nodded my head. I squeezed her throat in anger. She fought me. She fought me with all her power. But I be stronger, much stronger. I never knew until that moment that the gift be different in different people. She be as helpless as a stick doll.

“But I could not hurt her, as much as I wished to for her asking that question before any other. I released her and sagged to the floor; I could stand no longer. She came to me and began tending to my wounds. She told me I had done wrong, by breaking my oath, but that what was done to me was a more grievous wrong.

“I never feared Grandmother Lindel again. Not because she be helping me, but because I had broken the oath, I be beyond the laws I had been taught, and because I knew I was stronger than she. From that day on, she be afraid of me. I think she helped me because she wanted me well, so I could leave.

“A few days later, Grandmother Lindel came home to tell me that she had been called before the king’s circle and questioned. She said all the men at the mill, all the Blood of the Fold, be dead, except Mathrin. He had escaped. She told the circle she had not seen me. They believed her, or said they did because they did not want to confront her and additionally a sorceress who had killed that many men in such a shocking manner, so they let her go about her business.”

Some of the tension seemed to ease from her shoulders. She studied the teacup a moment and then took another sip. She held the cup out for him to warm. Zedd poured a little more. He idly wished he had put some of the powdered cloud leaf in his own tea. He didn’t think that was the end of the story.

“I lost my child,” Adie said in a soft rasp.

Zedd looked up. “I’m sorry, Adie.”

She looked up to meet his eyes. “I know.” She took one of his hands in both hers after he set down the kettle. “I know.” She took her hands back. “My throat healed.” She touched her fingers lightly to her neck, then knitted them together. “But it left me with a voice like dragging iron over rock.”

He smiled at her. “I like your voice. Iron fits the rest of you.”

The ghost of a smile passed across her face. “My eyes, though, did not grow better. I be blind. Grandmother Lindel not be as strong as me, but she be old, and had seen many a trick with the gift. She taught me to see without my eyes. She taught me to see with the gift. It not be the same as eyes, but in some ways, it be better. In some ways, I see more.

“After I be healed, Grandmother Lindel wanted me to leave. She not be fond of living with one who had broken the oath, even though I be of her blood. She feared I would bring trouble. Whether from the Keeper, for breaking my oath, or from the Blood of the Fold, she did not know, but she feared trouble would come because of me.”

Zedd leaned back in his chair, stretching his tense muscles a bit. “And did trouble come?”

“Oh, yes,” Adie hissed, raising her eyebrows as she leaned forward. “Trouble came. Mathrin Galliene brought them: twenty Blood of the Fold. Ones paid by the Crown. Professionals. Battle-hard men; big men, grim-faced, savage men, all pretty on horseback in neat ranks with swords, shields, and banners, every spear held just so, at the same angle. All pretty in their chain mail and polished breastplates shining with the embossed crest of the Crown, and all wearing helmets with red plumes that flicked as they rode. Every horse white.

“I stood on the porch and watched with the eyes of the gift as they spread rank before me with perfect precision, like they be performing for the king himself. Every horse put every foot the same, stopping in a line at the lifting of a finger from the commander. They be spread out before me, ready, eager, to do their grisly duty. Mathrin waited behind them on his horse, watching. The commander called out to me, “You be under arrest as a baneling, and are to be executed as such.’”

Adie lifted her head from the specters of her memory, her eyes meeting Zedd’s. “I thought of Pell. My Pell.”

Her expression hardened into an iron mask. “Not one sword cleared a scabbard, not one spear be leveled, not one foot touched the ground, before they died. I swept the line, from left to right, one man at a time, everything I had, into each in turn, quick as a thought. Thump thump thump. Every one, except the commander. He sat still and stone-faced upon his white horse as men in armor crashed to the ground to each side of him.