Naamah's Kiss (Moirin's Trilogy #1)

He was gone.

"Take it back!" Bao's eyes were wild and staring-wide, white around the irises. "Moirin, undo it! Take it back!"

"I can't!" I said in agony. "He did it! I didn't know, Bao! I didn't know!"

Baring his teeth in fury, he lunged at me, shaking my shoulders. "Take it back!"

"I can't!"

The dragon roared a deafening warning. Hands pulled Bao away, more hands helped me to my feet, helped me to stand. I wavered, Dai's hand beneath my elbow keeping me upright. Bao glared at me, breathing hard, his chest heaving. He had the two halves of his staff clutched in his hands once more, and he looked ready to fight. Either my vision was not wholly clear or a faint, dark shimmer hung around him. The princess positioned herself between us, keeping a wary eye on Bao.

Emperor Zhu cleared his throat. "Stand down, young hero," he said quietly. He was the ruler of the Celestial Empire of Ch'in, and the Son of Heaven. Bao lowered his gaze a fraction. Everyone else stood gazing in fascination at the unfolding drama. The Emperor stroked his chin, choosing his words with care. "I have known your master since before you were born, and he was old when I was a child. Today I heard Lo Feng Tzu say that he had lived too long, to see the son of his heart slain by the son of his blood."

Bao glanced at him, his brow furrowed in pain.

"He never told you, did he?" The Emperor smiled sadly. "Perhaps sometimes even the wisest among us become too caught up in duty and honor to say the words that matter most. Your master chose his end. I, too, am a doting father. I knew what Lo Feng Tzu intended when he spoke those words. No one else did. Do not blame them. I chose to respect your master's sacrifice. I suggest you do the same."

"It's not….." Bao's voice broke. "It's not that easy, Celestial Majesty. You see, I was dead, and—"

"And now you are not."

"No." Bao touched his chest, where half of my diadh-anam burned bright as a flame inside him, calling to me. His eyes met mine. "Now I am not."

He bowed three times to the Emperor, bowed three times to his daughter. He bowed to me, low and lingering, and there was a farewell in it.

My heart constricted. "Where are you going?"

"I don't know."

CHAPTER EIGHTY-SIX

It was the glimpse of the stone doorway that made me remember. I awoke from a deep sleep, gasping. The memory was clear, so clear, even if the jumble of remembered voices that accompanied it wasn't.

You would do well to remember the wise-woman when the time comes.

Mayhap the gift will pass to her one day. After all, it has to pass to someone.

Old Nemed, chewing her lips.

I had a scar on my right hand, a tiny scar on the web of skin between my thumb and forefinger. I didn't remember how I'd gotten it. That was important.

Memories.

After I had passed through the stone doorway, I had begun to see vivid glimpses of others' memories. Raphael's memory of his parents' death. The blood-drenched horror of Snow Tiger's wedding night. Bao's memory of the naked, shivering boy who had grown up to become Ten Tigers Dai. Master Lo's poignant memory of a happy toddler playing with the dragon's pearl.

Those memories had not been offered freely, and I had done nothing more than bear witness to them. But if they had been offered for the taking…..

A profound, wordless sense of understanding blossomed within me. I thought mayhap I knew how Old Nemed wielded her gift.

Across the room, the princess stirred in her berth. "Moirin?" Her voice was drowsy. "What is it?"

I shook myself more fully alert, remembering where I was, and why. We were in a very pleasant home vacated for Imperial usage by the governor of the village nearest the battlefield. It was three days since Bao's death and rebirth, and he had not yet returned. I knew where he was—or at least the direction he'd gone. I could point it out unerringly, anchored by the lodestone of my diadh-anam.

He had not gone far.

But that was not important to anyone in the Celestial Empire of Ch'in but me. What was important was that on the morrow, every soldier in Lord Jiang Quan's army with any knowledge of the workings of the Divine Thunder was sentenced to be executed.

Unless…..

I rose from my bed, pacing restlessly. "There may be a way, my lady. A better way, a way the people would embrace. If I can do it." I shivered. "I am not sure. I am not sure I have the gift, or the strength and courage to wield it."

Snow Tiger sat upright. "Tell me."

I slipped a silk outer robe over my sleeping clothes. "I need to walk. I need to think, and I can't think indoors."

She rose without comment to accompany me, shaking her head in silent refusal at a sleepy maidservant who came in to see if we needed aught.

Outside, it was quiet and still. I breathed in the night air and the scent of trees, trying to focus my thoughts as we strolled along the garden path that bordered the decorative lake. There was a full moon high overhead, bright enough that both the moon and the distant peak of White Jade Mountain were reflected in the still water. We crossed a bridge that led to a tiny little pavilion in the center of the lake, built just for the purpose of contemplating the moon and the mountain's reflection.

I told Snow Tiger about Old Nemed and what she had done, and what the dragon had said to me.

She was silent for a long moment. "That seems a dangerous gift."

"I know."

"And yet if they were given the chance to offer up their memories freely, to be rewarded instead of punished….. yes. It would be better, much better." The princess looked at the bright silvery disc of the moon's reflection wavering on the water. "Those who seek to flee and hide would come forward willingly, especially the alchemists and engineers who possess the most dangerous knowledge." She glanced at me. "You truly think you can do this thing?"

"I don't know," I murmured. "I see the possibility of it in a way I never did before."

She turned to face me. "Then let us try."

"Now?" I felt anxious and unready.

"There is very little time, Moirin," she said gently. "We must know if it is possible and can be proved. Tell me what to do."

I rubbed the tiny scar on my hand. "You need to choose a memory, hold it in your thoughts, and offer it to me. And….. I do not know how to prove it, my lady. If it works, you will have no memory of it, and no way of knowing I speak the truth."

"True." Snow Tiger thought a moment. "I do not believe you would lie, but there should be proof. Let us send for paper and ink. I will write down the memory I have chosen. You cannot read, can you?"

"Not Ch'in characters, no," I admitted, adding, "I can read perfectly well in my own language."

She smiled a little. "I did not mean to offend you. But if you are able to tell me what I have written, a memory I cannot recall recorded in my own hand, I will know beyond doubt that it is true."

We returned to wake the drowsy maid and send her for paper and ink. Snow Tiger sat at the writing table, wetted her brush on the ink-stone, and gazed at the blank scroll, hesitating. I had a good idea what she was thinking.

"It can be any memory you choose, my lady," I said softly. "One you would be glad to be rid of."

"It is tempting." Her voice was wistful. "But to deny such memories is to dishonor the dead. I will not do it." She dipped her brush again and wrote on the scroll, characters flowing with strong, graceful lines. "There."

I glanced around the room. "Can we go back outside? It will be easier for me."

"Yes, of course."

Watched by the curious maid, we returned to the edge of the lake. I breathed the Breath of Trees Growing, centering my thoughts. Snow Tiger waited with a calm patience that reminded me of Master Lo, waiting for me to prepare myself. I pushed the thought away, concentrating. "I will need to touch you."

"At least you are warning me this time," she said wryly.

It made me laugh, and eased my tension, which I daresay she intended. I cupped her face in my hands. She raised it trustingly to me, the silver moon reflected in her eyes, a reminder of the dragon's coils. I leaned close, so close our noses almost touched. "Hold the memory in your thoughts, and offer it freely."

She did.

I sensed the memory unfurl in her thoughts, a happy memory of her sword tutor praising her for disarming him for the first time, and the warm glow she felt at the first kind words he had spoken to her.

"Oh, my lady!" I said in dismay. "Why did you choose such a nice memory?"

"So that I would know there was no part of me that willed it gone," she said in a steady tone.

I wanted to shake her for her relentless nobility, to tell her to go back and write down a different memory, some trivial childhood mishap. But it was late, I was ready, and unlikely to convince her anyway.

So instead I called the magic and made myself a gateway. I took the memory she offered, inhaling it into myself in one deep breath. It slithered like an eel through my thoughts; and then I swallowed, and it was gone, gone into the spirit world.

I breathed a cool mist into the place it had been, closed the gateway, and released the princess' face.

She blinked, frowning, and touched her temples. "It felt….. strange. As though something moved inside my head. Then there was a sense of loss. But you didn't do anything."

"No?" I asked. "What is the memory you chose?"

Snow Tiger gave me a blank look, then unrolled the scroll she carried, reading the bold characters to herself by moonlight. "Do you know what is written here?"

I nodded. "Yes, my lady. You wrote of the first time you disarmed your tutor, the first time he praised you. It made you happy and proud."

"You." She took a sharp breath. "You are a bit frightening at times, Moirin of the Maghuin Dhonn."

It didn't comfort me. "I don't mean to be. I'm just….. me. And it only works if you give your consent," I added. "Old Nemed was very, very clear on that point."

"So you said." Sensing my discomfort, the princess touched my arm gently. "Forgive me. I misspoke. It is your gifts that are unnerving, Moirin. Not you. You, I have come to trust wholly."

"Thank you." It made me feel better.

"You are welcome." She studied the scroll in her hands a second time, then gave herself a shake. "Come. We'll have to wake my father."

CHAPTER EIGHTY-SEVEN

I repeated the demonstration on the Emperor himself. It was profoundly unnerving. I hadn't expected it, although I should have. This was a matter of the utmost gravity. As much as he respected his daughter, the Son of Heaven would not place his trust in my gift on her word alone.

Like her, he chose a memory and committed it to paper. Generals and counselors watched with somber, doubting eyes. The Emperor was careful not to let me see what he wrote, not trusting in my alleged illiteracy.

I felt very young, very foreign, and very out of place.

"I will need….." My voice cracked with nerves. I cleared my throat. "Celestial Majesty, I will need to lay my hands on you."

"Then do so."

Reminding myself that I was a child of the Maghuin Dhonn, a rulerless folk awed by no one, I took his face in my hands and bade him to hold the memory in his thoughts and offer it freely.

I leaned close, close enough to feel his breath against my face.

Like his daughter, the Emperor had chosen a joyous memory, one of climbing the palace wall to steal peaches from a garden in the women's quarters. The happy sense of mischief in it made me smile ruefully. He offered it without hesitation, his gaze steady and unwavering, eyes only inches from mine.

I called the magic, breathed in his memory, and took it away.

I blew mist in the place where it had been.

Emperor Zhu shuddered slightly when I released him. He turned to one of his counselors, reaching out his hand for the scroll, then read what was written on it. His face was expressionless.

"Peaches," I said. "A memory of stealing peaches as a boy."

He tapped the scroll against his palm. "I chose a memory no one else could possibly know. That I remember. Committing it to paper, I remember. And yet….." His brows knit in perplexity. "I have no memory of stealing peaches."

I was silent.

"What is the purpose of this gift among your people?" the Emperor asked. "It is a dire weapon."

I took a deep breath. "When we come of age, we are taken to a sacred place, Celestial Majesty. A place with a doorway onto the spirit world. Beyond the doorway, the Maghuin Dhonn Herself accepts or rejects us as Her own."

A muscle in his face twitched. "Your bear-goddess."

"Yes," I said simply. "Those whom She rejects have their memories of it taken. It is done that the place might stay hidden. And they offer it freely because it is a memory too painful to endure."

He tapped the scroll again, deep in thought. "And you believe this is what you were sent to do?"

"I don't—" I halted. My diadh-anam flared inside me, casting out doubt. Somewhere, Bao felt it, too. I remembered the Maghuin Dhonn's deep, sorrowful gaze on me. "Yes, Celestial Majesty. I do. It is not a weapon. It is a gift intended to protect the sacred places of the earth. And I know it is strange, so very strange, that a foreign deity would send Her child so very far to do this thing, but…. if you saw Her, you would understand. You would not find it strange after all. All the strength and glory of the oldest places on earth are in Her."