“I did not even know you were the High Seer,” Maia said, shaking her head. “It has been a great secret. I knew very little of my mother’s Family in Pry-Ree except for a few cousins I met when I was younger. And I heard you were an Aldermaston.”
Sabine smiled. “There is a great deal of resentment because the High Seership has remained in Pry-Ree. It was held in Avinion during Lia’s time. Hautland aspires for it. They are building a grand city, as you know. But as you also know, coin corrupts the heart. Riches are an illusion. I do not tarry in one kingdom for very long, so the petitions must follow me where I roam. I was lured to Naess recently . . . This is grim news, but I must share it with you.” She took Maia’s hands and stroked them. “Our brothers and sisters in Assinica grew worried since our long absence. They were expecting that the Apse Veils would be opened by now, that our kingdoms would rejoin. They feared we were enslaved to the Naestors, so they sent a ship to seek after us.” She shook her head. “That ship was blown by a storm and discovered by the Naestors, who abducted and murdered them when they learned who they were. There was a tome on board the vessel, which they brought back. They could not read it, for the language was written in a cipher—a code. Only someone with the right Gift could read it. They invited me, as the High Seer, to come to Naess and read a curious tome they said they had discovered. Their intent, as you know, was to get me to read and translate it before using you to murder me.” She smiled sadly. “What they did not know was that Lia had forewarned me about your condition. And Lia knew, as I did, that you would not succumb to their offer of power, just as Lia did not succumb when they tried to win her favor.”
There was a firm pounding on the door of the cabin. Sabine Demont rose from the bedside and walked to the door. When she opened it, Argus squeezed through and padded up to Maia for his ears to be scratched. His tongue wagged faithfully.
“By Cheshu, lass,” Jon Tayt muttered, “get your own hound!”
“What is it, Jon?” Sabine asked.
“Yesterday you wanted to know when we sailed past Pry-Ree. It was glorious seeing the Myniths again, even from the ship. I long to hunt in those woods again. But you asked this morning that I tell you when we reached the coast of Comoros and the Belgeneck River leading to Muirwood. And so we have.”
“Thank you. Well done. Come, Maia. Come see your new home.”
Maia rose from the bed, wearing her wretched’s dress, and joined Jon Tayt and Sabine on the deck of the Holk. The huge ship lumbered up the thick chasm of the river. The air was brackish and musty, but the aching chill of the dark lands of the Naestors lay far behind them. The forest on each side of the river reminded her of the cursed lands of Dahomey. It was not what she had expected, and it conflicted with her memories of her kingdom. The trees were a maze of twisting, black oaks, thick with lichen and moss and overhung by creeping mist. The ship creaked and yawned, and she could hear the waves lapping against the hull as it advanced into the river’s mouth.
“Now where is there a more sick and twisted wood, I ask you?” Jon Tayt said with a scowl. “And this is where I am to be banished next, my lady?” He coughed in his fist. “Ach, this is not a forest, but a swamp.”
Maia could hear the buzz of mosquitoes and the clack of insects. A heron swept overhead, gliding on the breeze. She rested her arms on the railing, feeling the breeze ruffle her hair as she watched the river expectantly.
“It is the Bearden Muir,” Sabine said, her mouth pursed in a dream-like smile. “It rains a great deal in this Hundred. And the rivers swell and flood. It has its own beauty.”
Jon Tayt sniffed. “Well, I hope there is wild boar in these woods. With all those oak trees, there are bound to be acorns.”
“Plenty of wild pig,” Sabine said. Maia could see she was lost in a vision, her eyes seeing something the others could not.
Maia touched her grandmother’s shoulder. “What do you see?”
Sabine sighed, her voice soft and thick with tears. “I can see them in my mind’s eye, child. Lia and Colvin. Marciana and Kieran Ven. I see them leaving these shores on a ship like this one.” She swallowed thickly. “There she is on the deck. So young. Like you. She has wild hair, like my mother’s. There she is, Maia.” Tears flicked down from Sabine’s lashes. “She is looking right at us. Oh, by the Medium! I see her waving. She is waving to us.”
Maia felt tears sting her eyes. She put her arm around her grandmother’s shoulders and hugged her close. She wanted to kiss her, as a child to a mother. She wanted it so badly that the desire began to burn inside of her. There was a tingle of heat on her shoulder and a sizzle of pain. A feeling of anger and rage and blackness churned inside her heart.
Maia wondered if that feeling would ever abandon her fully. “I feel her again,” she whispered in her grandmother’s ear.