“More witch’s potions perhaps,” Ilior said sourly. “You should have let me stand watch over you.”
Another stab of irritation knifed through her. The peace of her deep sleep bled away. “I must defeat Bacchus,” she said tightly. “She will show me how.”
“You believe her? A Bazira?”
“I don’t know that she is still Bazira—”
“You don’t know anything about her!” Ilior’s voice rumbled around hallway like an avalanche. “You trust too quickly.”
Selena clutched her elbows, her fingers digging in hard enough to cause pain. “Perhaps you’re right,” she said tightly. “But I learned much about Accora on Isle Nanokar. I learned many things there.”
I learned you lied to me…
Ilior crossed his arms, his lone wing twitching. “So. You go to meet her now?”
“Yes. She says I must train with her. Alone.”
“Already it begins. She is driving a wedge between us.”
She could scarcely see her friend in the dim light but she heard the pain in his voice. It is not Accora who is driving the wedge, she thought and her heart grew heavier when she thought of what more Accora might have learned about the Vai’Ensai. Things that Ilior knew as well, but that he kept silent about. Secrets he kept from her.
She drew herself up. “I need her to defeat Bacchus. That is what matters now.”
“What does she get from it? When Bacchus is dead, she will sacrifice herself to your sword? You believe that?”
“That is her promise.”
“A promise from a Bazira.”
“I’ll be cautious.”
“And I will stay beside you—”
“Not today!”
Ilior recoiled as if slapped and Selena felt as horrible as if she had struck him. But her voice was cold and stony in her own ears. “Nothing can interfere, Ilior. Nothing.”
She turned, leaving him in alone in the dark.
Accora met her at the kitchen door. The old woman studied the younger narrowly.
“You’re dressed for battle, but is it only a costume? Your eyes are heavy. If I had to guess, I’d say guilt haunts you. A wasted emotion that saps focus from your goal.”
“All I care about is closing the wound.” Selena said. “Everything else is trivial.”
Accora sniffed. “We shall see.”
She opened the door and led them into the outer bailey. Selena felt the heat of the jungle as a thickness in the air. The lightening sky was orange and purple with the dawn and smelled of rain. Accora wore gray silken robes that whispered as she walked, with blood-red embroidery about the neck and wrists. Gone was the paint she had worn to disguise herself as a native, and her long silver hair was plaited down her back. Her youthful beauty, refined and tested by age, was still very evident.
Their path wound behind the main house and was strewn with fallen rocks and weeds. Here and there, bright patches of green where the jungle sought to claim the castle seeped from under the outer bailey wall and crept up over the sagging stones.
“What is this place?” Selena asked. “Not one brick of it looks as though it belongs here.”
“That is true enough,” Accora said, “which is why I like it. This is Castle Penderlake. It was built during the Age of Horizons. That illustrious Age in which every lord from the Western Watch felt he had the right to plant a flag on every island in the Eastern Edge. Never mind if there were already people landed and settled on those islands since the Breaking. The rich merchants and lordlings from the four big islands claimed more than a hundred islands in the Eastern Edge as colonies of their own alone. Many were overthrown during the Age of Turbulence, of course. Many failed. Castle Penderlake—named for his lordship of the same—is the testament to one such failure. A perfect example of a man overstepping his bounds and so perishing for the hubris.”
“Perished how?”
“The Yu’kri are a peaceful people. Their ‘savage’ naked appearance is the result of living in such heat, the mud they wear to protect them from the bite of a thousand different insects. But when threatened, they show their teeth. Penderlake learned that. I learned that, when I washed ashore five years ago, half-dead of thirst and soaked to the bone with water I couldn’t drink.”
“Why did they spare you?” Selena asked.
Accora regarded her a moment with her sharp, bird-like eyes, and then waved a hand. “That is a long story and one that has no bearing on our present task. I came to show you this.”
They had traversed the entire circumference of the inner bailey and arrived at a structure Selena was certain had not been a part of Lord Penderlake’s original plans. Built into the space where part of the bailey wall had crumbled away was a little cottage made of glass.
Selena had visited the greenhouses on Isle Parish that the Guild kept to cultivate and study different flora from around Lunos. Those greenhouses were uniform in style—long rectangular structures with panes of clear glass supported by plain iron frames. Accora’s greenhouse gleamed like a multi-colored gem in the dawn’s light. The panes of glass were comprised of every color and were not uniform, but cobbled from different sources and patched together. Selena saw shards, large and small, melded like puzzle pieces with lead, and some smaller mosaics of multi-colored sea glass. Selena was awed at its inelegant beauty.
“What is it?”
Accora smiled thinly. “My collection.”
Selena followed her into the glass house through a door made of pale wood. Plants, flowers and small trees lined the walls and covered the tops of three tables that were laid end to end, and had likely once served in Penderlake’s kitchen. The foliage grew from pots made of glazed pottery Selena was sure the natives of Saliz had provided, and the air was perfumed with the scents of soil and flower. At the far end of the greenhouse, the shelves held jars and bottles, pots of unknown substances, and small animals that floated in thick liquids.
“This is my greenhouse,” Accora said, “but it is also laboratory and shrine: a shrine to learning and a place to give fealty to not the Shining nor the Shadow face of the god, but to the realm in between where balance lies. Where most life lives.”
“It reminds me a little bit of the library on Isle Nanokar,” Selena said, watching Accora’s reaction. “I think Byric would approve of your greenhouse.”
Accora smirked. “Don’t try to be sly, dear, it doesn’t suit you.” She sat on long wooden bench among the vials and bottles, and slapped her hands to her knees. “So Byric has spilled my secrets, eh?”
“Not all.” Selena remained standing, her hand resting lightly on her sword. “He couldn’t answer the one question I need answered more than any other.”
“And what might that be?” Accora asked. “No, no, let me guess. Byric told you that I arrived on that frigid island full of blasphemous questions and theories, and you left his cave worried that you’d been sent to kill an apostate.”