“That’s why we are here,” Nicci said, then finally admitted, “to save the world.”
The orphan girl added with deep longing in her voice, “I want to see the valley the way it’s supposed to be. I want to see the fertile land, the green fields, the tall forests.”
Nicci looked at Thistle. “You will.”
CHAPTER 43
Though Nicci wanted to begin her research in how to combat the Lifedrinker, she knew they were all exhausted from their long journey. Deep night had set in outside.
“Let us show you to your rooms,” Victoria said. “You must rest.” She glanced down at Thistle. “The girl needs her sleep.”
“I’m still awake. I’ll help.” She looked at Nicci, determined. “And tomorrow I can study alongside you.”
“Are you able to read?” Nicci asked.
“I know my letters, and I can read a lot of words. I will be much better after you teach me. I learn fast.”
Nathan gave a good-natured chuckle. “Dear girl, I appreciate someone so willing to learn, but that is quite an ambitious goal. Some of these languages and alphabets are unknown even to me.”
Nicci fixed her gaze on Thistle’s dust-smeared skin, her bright and intelligent eyes. “When the Sisters trained me in the Palace of the Prophets, I spent more than forty-five years as an acolyte learning the basics.”
The girl looked amazed. “I don’t want to wait forty-five years!”
“No one does, but you’re an intelligent girl. Since you learn quickly, it might take only forty years.” Thistle did not at first realize Nicci was teasing her. Then Nicci continued in a more serious tone, “We need to defeat the Lifedrinker long before that, or there won’t be any world left.”
Victoria shooed them along. “Rest now, time for a fresh start tomorrow. We have separate quarters for each of you. They are austere, but spacious. We will let you unpack and rest.”
“Not much to unpack, since we lost almost everything when the dust people attacked,” Bannon said. “We’ve been living with little more than the clothes on our backs.”
With a warm smile, Victoria promised, “We will provide clean clothing from the Cliffwall stores, and we will launder and mend your own garments.”
The matronly woman showed them to private chambers deep within the plateau, where the temperature was cool and the air dry. Beeswax candles burned inside small hollows in the stone walls, adding a warm yellow glow and a faint sweet scent. Each room’s furnishings consisted of a reading desk, an open floor with a sheepskin to cover the stone, a chamber pot, an urn of water, a washbasin, and a narrow pallet for sleeping. In each room, fresh, loose scholars’ clothes had been laid out for them.
Victoria offered the spunky orphan girl a place of her own, but Thistle followed Nicci into her chamber. She bounced up and down on the pallet’s straw-filled bedding. “This is soft, but it may be prickly. I’d rather sleep on the floor. You can have the pallet. That sheepskin looks warm enough for me. I’ll stay close if you need me.”
Even though the girl seemed perfectly satisfied with the arrangement, Nicci asked, “Why don’t you want your own room? You can sleep as long as you like.”
Thistle blinked her honey-brown eyes at Nicci. “I should stay nearby. What if you need protection?”
“I do not need protection. I am a sorceress.”
But the girl sat cross-legged on the sheepskin and responded with a bright grin. “It never hurts to have an extra set of eyes. I will keep you safe.”
Although she would not admit it, Thistle obviously did not wish to be alone. “Very well, you can guard me if you like,” Nicci said, remembering all the girl had been through. “But if you are to be effective in protecting me, I’ll need you rested as well.”
After they had changed into the borrowed clothes, one of the Cliffwall stewards arrived at their door to gather the bundled-up garments to be laundered and mended. The waifish girl’s rags needed a great deal of repair, as did Nicci’s black traveling dress. After handing over the old clothes, Nicci sorted through the scanty possessions she had managed to save from Verdun Springs.
Eager to help, Thistle laid out the items on the writing desk—the long sharp knife, some rope, near-empty packets of food. Although exhausted, the young girl kept up a chatter. “I never had any brothers and sisters. Do you have a family?” Her elfin face was filled with questions. “Did you ever have a daughter of your own?”
Nicci arranged the bedding on her pallet, keeping her face turned away so that she could ponder the proper answer. A daughter of her own? Someone, perhaps, like Thistle? The idea had not occurred to her, not for a long time at least. She touched her lower lip, where she had once worn a gold ring.
“No, I never had a daughter.” It should have been a simple answer, and Nicci was puzzled as to why she had hesitated. “That was never meant to be part of my life.”
After all those times Jagang had sentenced her to serve as a whore, or when he himself had forced himself upon her, Nicci surely had the opportunity to become pregnant, but thanks to her skills as a sorceress, she had never needed to worry about a child. She had always prevented herself from conceiving. Early on, Nicci had learned how not to feel anything—no passion, no love of any kind.
The girl examined the items Nicci had removed from the pockets of her old travel dress, her belt, and her side pouch. She unrolled a cloth-wrapped packet among the paraphernalia. “Oh, a flower!” Thistle said, looking at the violet-and-crimson petals. “You carried a flower all this way?”
Nicci instantly swept up the cloth packet, whisking the dried blossom away from the startled girl. “Don’t touch that!” Her pulse raced.
Thistle flinched. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to do anything wrong. I…” She cleared her throat. “It must be very special to you. Is it a pretty keeepsake from a suitor?”
Nicci narrowed her blue eyes, amused by the idea. Bannon had indeed offered the flower as a romantic gesture—a notion she had thoroughly quashed. “No, not that at all. The deathrise flower is deadly poison—one of the most potent toxins ever found, very dangerous.” She wrapped it carefully in the cloth again, then placed it in the highest alcove above her sleeping pallet. “It would lead to a long and horrible death. Maybe the most horrible death ever known.”
Thistle looked relieved. “So you’re protecting me! And I’ll be safe, too. Because we protect each other.” The girl rearranged the sheepskin on the empty space on the stone floor, ready to curl up and go to sleep.
Nicci blew out one of the candles, but before she could extinguish the other, Thistle asked, “If that poison is so deadly, couldn’t you use it to kill the Lifedrinker?”
“No, I don’t think it is potent enough for that.”
Thistle nodded, then wrapped the sheepskin around her and lay down on the hard stone floor, which she insisted was perfectly comfortable. “Then we’ll have to find a different way.”
Nicci used magic to snuff out the candle on the opposite wall, plunging the room into darkness.