I should have told Aphra, when I saw them. She would have known what to do.
‘Don’t want that? I’ll finish it for you,’ Vald said, eyeing up her plate while mopping up the last of his gravy with a thick slice of black bread. The wooden plate looked so clean, as if it hadn’t been eaten from.
‘Have it,’ Riv said, pushing her unfinished food towards Vald.
‘I’d have had that!’ Jost exclaimed, eyes bulging in his gaunt face. He ate almost as much as Vald, not that you’d know it to look at him, the two of them often arguing over food.
‘Too slow.’ Vald winked at Jost.
How can they joke at a time like this?
She spied her mam sitting in a shadowed corner of the feast-hall and stood.
‘Going to see my mam,’ she said to Jost and Vald, scooping up a skin of wine and two cups, and left them bickering over her half-eaten plate of food.
Riv had felt deeply moved by the judgement upon Adonai and Estel, still did, her feelings swinging from judgemental to pity every few heartbeats.
As her mam looked up at Riv she thought how much she looked like an older version of Aphra, creases around her eyes and mouth, the streaks of grey in her hair spreading – there was more than black, now. It struck her that she herself looked very little like them, her hair fair where theirs was dark, her features finer where her mam’s and Aphra’s were stronger.
Aphra is so like Mam. I must resemble our father, instead. I wish he were here, that I had known him. Is my temper his legacy, as well? Because I see none of it in Aphra or Mam.
Dalmae gave Riv a wan smile that shifted partway through into resolute, but couldn’t quite conceal the worry that lurked behind her eyes.
‘What is it, Mam? Upset about Adonai and Estel?’ Riv said as she sat, pulling the stopper from the wine skin with her teeth and pouring wine glugging into the two cups.
‘Aye,’ her mam said, ‘a terrible thing.’ She sighed. ‘And I am worried about Aphra,’ she added.
‘Worried about Aphra?’ Her sister was always so capable, the perfect disciple of Elyon’s Lore. Disciplined, calm, a consummate warrior and leader, and devout, embodying Riv’s idea of what Faith, Strength and Purity were in reality. And yet now she agreed with her mam. Aphra had been acting out of character, ever since the night Riv had seen her with Fia. ‘I was going to ask you about her. She’s been . . . strange, lately.’
‘You think so, too?’ Dalmae asked. ‘How so?’
‘Bad-tempered, not interested in anything I have to say to her.’
‘Leading is hard, sometimes,’ her mam said, squeezing Riv’s hand. ‘All the time,’ she corrected herself. ‘And these are dark days – the beacons, rumours of the Kadoshim moving. Estel.’
‘Aye,’ Riv said as she took a long sip from her cup.
Truth be told, Riv didn’t spend much time thinking about the difficulties and stresses of leading the hundred. Only the glory of it. The pride and respect she felt for her sister, and for her mam, who had accomplished the same task before Aphra. And an ever-growing pressure upon her own shoulders, made all the worse by the thought that she might not actually ever become a White-Wing, let alone rising through their ranks into a position of leadership.
‘What do you think Israfil’s meeting’s all about? It’s late to call it, eh?’ she asked her mam, wanting to steer herself away from that uncomfortable thought.
‘It is,’ Dalmae said with a slow, deliberate nod. ‘Whatever it is, it must be important.’
Riv’s mam had led the hundred for many years, only stepping down when the combined effect of age and cumulative injuries made the decision for her. If anyone understood the pressures and politics of leadership within the hundred, it was her.
‘Maybe these beacons,’ Riv said.
‘Maybe.’ Her mam leaned close to her. ‘Don’t let Aphra’s moods trouble you. She has her own pressures, and sometimes we take them out on those that we are closest to.’
‘So it’s a compliment, then.’ Riv snorted, smiling.
‘Aye, you could say that.’ Her mam laughed.
‘Doesn’t much feel like one.’
‘No, I’m sure it doesn’t, but Aphra will deal with her concerns, sooner or later. And then you’ll enjoy her apology, no doubt.’
‘Aye, that I will,’ Riv agreed. ‘I’d just like it to be sooner, not later.’
‘What about you?’ her mam said. ‘How are you doing?’
‘Me? I feel a bit, heavy-hearted,’ Riv said, a whisper, as if even speaking of it was wrong, a betrayal to the Ben-Elim and the hundred. ‘This afternoon,’ she said with a wave of her hand as explanation. Every time she closed her eyes she saw Adonai’s wings tumbling to the dirt, heard his screams. She almost had sympathy pains for him, her back aching between her shoulder blades.
If these pains had only just started, I’d have believed that.
‘Part of me understands. The Lore says what they did was wrong, so it is wrong.’
Though I am not really sure what they did. Improper relations? What does that even mean?
‘There is only one path to Elyon, and that is Faith, Strength and Purity,’ Dalmae intoned from the Book of the Faithful. ‘The Lore cannot be broken, and if it is, those who broke it must be punished, else the Lore is made to appear meaningless,’ her mam said.
‘I know. But part of me . . .’ Riv shook her head. ‘They have lost so much. Their lives, almost.’
‘Sometimes the heart leads us down a path that the head would avoid,’ her mam said. ‘That is why a warrior must learn to master their emotions. Self-control can save your life, whereas lack of control . . . It can make it feel as if nothing exists except the now. And that the future –’ she shrugged – ‘fades in the mind.’
Riv could understand that, remembering how Israfil’s goading during her warrior trial had led her anger to explode. It had controlled her, no, consumed her. One moment she’d been aware of the consequences, the next, she had not cared.
I gave no thought to the future at all.
‘But we are not beasts,’ her mam said, ‘which is why we train so hard. Discipline, of body and mind, regimentation, endurance, it all teaches control, which leads to purity.’ She gave a self-deprecating smile. ‘But that’s all very well for me to say, sitting in the safety and calm of our feast-hall, a cup of wine in my hand, my beautiful daughter by my side. I’m glad you feel compassion for Estel and Adonai. You have a big heart, Riv. And an . . . emotional one.’
Riv smiled ruefully.
My temper. Always, my temper.
‘Am I ever going to become a White-Wing, Mam?’
‘Of course you are,’ Dalmae said firmly, cupping Riv’s cheek with her palm. It was cool to the touch, hard-skinned from decades of weapons-work. ‘Next time, just refrain from punching the Lord Protector in the face.’
‘Good advice,’ Riv muttered. Her mam smiled and poured her another cup of wine.