The Pearls (26 page)

“Well, Maelite,” Elandra said finally, her tone brittle. “What brings you to me?”

Someone in the room gasped aloud, and everyone stared suspiciously at Bixia, who jerked upright. Her face turned very pink. Her eyes were both wary and indignant. “I'm no Maelite, Majesty. I swear it to you.”

“Swear what you please. Why should I believe you?”

“Majesty, please—”

“Your aunt was a witch who practiced her evil for years undetected. She raised you. Did she not train you well in her ways?”

“No, Majesty. I—”

“My
jinja
just tried to attack you, did it not?”

“No, Majesty!”

Lady Avitria stepped forward. “Your golden went for Bronzidaec, Majesty. I saw it clearly from where I was standing.”

Elandra swept her attendant a look of impatience. “Do not interfere,” she said coldly, and Lady Avitria retreated in chastened silence.

“Well, Bixia?” Elandra asked coldly. “The last time I saw you, you cursed me and swore revenge. Is that why you're here now, to execute it?”

“No, Majesty. I was angry that day. I have repented since then.”

“Have you?” Elandra looked her up and down. “What proof do you bring?”

Bixia touched her robes. “I wear the black of the sisterhood. I have joined them and trained hard.”

“You wear the robes,” Elandra said, still suspicious. “But you bring no Penestricans with you.”

“The Magria sent me alone today. It is part of my penitence before I can achieve the next level of training.” Bixia hesitated, then quoted, “‘The past must be unchained, the future abandoned. The now is all that matters, for now is all the gods provide.'”

Some of Elandra's sharpest suspicions subsided. Sitting down, she looked her half sister over. It remained difficult to think of indolent, vain Bixia willingly embracing the austere rigors of the sisterhood. “So you can now quote Penestrican text. When did you decide to join the order?”

“I never left the sisters,” Bixia said. “I never left the stronghold from the day I entered it.”

“Nonsense! You were taken out.”

“Taken from the sand and snakes. But I remained inside the walls.”

Elandra frowned. The Magria had never mentioned Bixia's presence there, but strangely enough that made sense. The Penestricans were full of secrets and mysteries. They did many inexplicable things for their own purposes and seldom bothered to explain. On the other hand, in the city there had been an occasional rumor of a buxom, blond-haired tavern dancer called Beesia, who always disappeared before any imperial agents could question her.

“Why,” Elandra asked, “have I heard nothing from you before?”

Bixia bowed her head. “I wasn't ready.”

Elandra's frown deepened. That, at least, had the ring of truth.

“Please,” Bixia said. “It hasn't been easy for me. I was angry for a very long time. I thought you robbed me of a glorious future. That reversal of destiny was—was very hard to accept.”

“And have you accepted it?”

“Yes.”

Staring into her eyes, Elandra saw no guile in them. But Bixia had always lied when it suited her purposes. She could exert charm, or tears, at the snap of fingers. She was not to be trusted.

“So you've come, as part of your training,” Elandra said coolly. “Do you bring me a message from the Magria?”

“Oh yes. I am to say for her that she regrets not attending Your Majesty today, as requested. She will come soon.”

“When?”

Bixia blinked. “I don't know. She has seen a—a disturbing vision and I am supposed to escort Your Majesty to the serpent pit for its interpretation.”

“You just said she was coming to me.”

“Soon,” Bixia said, looking confused. “Soon, but not now. It would be better if Your Majesty could go to her.”

The chamberlain puffed up in outrage. “Her Majesty does
not
go forth like a common—”

“Enough,” Elandra said, and he fell silent, breathing hard.

She leaned back in her chair. If what Bixia said was true, she thought, then Caelan's vision of Lea had not been false. Perhaps Lea had also reached out to the Magria for help. Aware that no one save for Caelan and herself as yet knew of his vision, Elandra found herself starting to believe Bixia.

“Tell me more of the Magria's vision.”

“I cannot, Majesty.” Ducking her head, Bixia simpered a little. “You know that no one is permitted to discuss them.”

“No one in this room will gossip,” Elandra said coldly. “Tell me what you know.”

“I'm sorry, Majesty. I witnessed nothing.”

“You were not present? You did not assist in the ritual?”

“No.”

Elandra waved dismissal. “Then you've spoken your message, and wasted too much of my time. You may go.”

The chamberlain bustled forward, but Bixia dodged him to rush to the dais edge. Elandra's protector moved to intercept her, but she was already sinking to her knees in supplication.

“Please, please don't send me away,” she pleaded. “Please don't be cold to me. I have suffered much. You have no idea. And now if you don't come, the Magria will be angry.”

Elandra stiffened.

Lady Avitria stepped forward. “How dare you speak to Her Majesty this way? It's not your place to rebuke the empress!”

Bixia's gaze darted back and forth. She turned pale with alarm. “I beg Your Majesty's pardon. I didn't mean it that way. The Magria will be angry with
me
, Majesty. Not with you. Never with you.”

“Don't grovel,” Elandra said in cold disgust.

But Bixia crept even closer, reaching out as though she would dare touch Elandra's slipper. The protector's sword point stabbed the floor right in front of her fingers, and she pulled back her hand with a gasp.

“Oh.” She stared up at Elandra with big eyes. “Will you please come, as the Magria has requested? It's urgent, Majesty. Very urgent.”

If it was an urgent matter, Elandra thought, still annoyed, then Bixia had shown no hurry to deliver the Magria's message. As usual, Bixia seemed to be centered on her own concerns more than any others'.

“I do not choose to leave the palace today,” Elandra said formally. “I shall communicate with the Magria later. You may tell her that I am disappointed, and you have my permission to—”

“Oh, please, please don't make me go yet!” Bixia cried. “I know I've offended you, but I want your forgiveness! I beg you, Elandra, don't be cold to me now. Hecati was so mean to you, so cruel, and I didn't care. I understand now what you went through. I've been hungry and mistreated. I've been beaten. I understand, truly I do. I'm sorry, very sorry. Please don't send me away.”

As she spoke, she parted her robes slightly to show scars on her shoulders next to a very tiny tattoo of a serpent. “You see?” she whispered. “I do know.”

Elandra's heart was touched by those ugly scars. She saw the memories of hurt and humiliation in Bixia's eyes, and remembered her own ordeals.

The Guards were coming in now, summoned by the chamberlain, but with a frown Elandra gestured for them to wait.

“I pity you those lessons, Bixia,” she said in compassion.

Lifting a tearstained face, Bixia sniffed dolefully. “The Penestricans are not kind,” she whispered.

“No.”

“But—but they've given me a place, a shelter, a—a home of sorts. Else I would have had nothing.”

“Our father would have housed you, married you elsewhere.”

Something—either cynicism or scorn—twisted Bixia's features briefly before it vanished. “You were his favorite. When Hecati's true affiliations were discovered, he abandoned me. He did what you're doing now, judging me by what she was. I had nowhere to go, nothing I could do except stay inside the order.” She wrung her hands together. “It wasn't fair!”

How often had Elandra heard her half sister wail that complaint? But how much of life truly was fair? She wished she could believe Bixia's change of heart. She wanted to, quite intensely. But Elandra remembered the lie Bixia had told their father about how her expensive Mahiran wedding robe came to be torn, and how she'd done nothing when Elandra was blamed for the damage and punished. Every stinging blow of Hecati's stick remained branded on Elandra's memory. The humiliation of Hecati's foot on her neck, grinding her face into the carpet, returned as sharp and vivid as the moment it happened. Elandra's fingers dug hard into the wooden arms of her chair.

“What do you want of me, really?” she asked.

“Can you never forgive me?” Bixia asked softly, tilting her head to one side. “Can we never again be sisters?”

Elandra had sometimes imagined what she would do or say if Bixia were ever found. The idea of Bixia being safe all this time, with never a message sent, never a single attempt at communication made, was disturbing.
I was foolish to worry about her,
Elandra told herself now.
Bixia is the sort who always survives
. Elandra was not a person to hold grudges, but she supposed Bixia wanted a place at court. Elandra would have believed her more readily if Bixia had come begging for money.

“Oh,” Bixia said now as the silence lengthened. Her expression grew bleak with disappointment. “I see. I am too late for reconciliation. You are too great in estate and position, and I am too low.”

“That's absurd,” Elandra said, stung. “You cannot accuse me of such snobbery.”

“I beg Your Majesty's pardon. I do not presume to make any accusation at all.”

Elandra frowned, debating over whether to send for a truth-finder. The Penestricans were the best at it, but her most recent summons to the sisterhood had resulted in this sudden, completely unexpected visit from Bixia.
They are testing me,
Elandra thought with a spurt of resentment.
Just as they did long ago before my marriage to Kostimon. They are trying me in some mysterious way to suit their own purposes
.

Annoying though they were, the Penestricans were staunch allies to the throne, and Elandra did not want to damage that alliance. Furthermore, although she might not like Bixia, she knew she should not appear so cold, so un-sympathetic that people said she'd become a haughty empress, too arrogant to reach out to members of her own family. Bixia, she saw, looked unhealthy. There was strain in her eyes when she wasn't casting all her charm at Elandra, a sort of exhaustion in the droop of her shoulders that said perhaps she was still ill-treated. Whatever lay in the past between them, her half sister was plainly in need.

“We shall see, Bixia,” Elandra said. “I must consider what you've said to me.”

Relief lit Bixia's face, and she looked pretty again. “Thank you!” she cried eagerly. “I know it's hard for you—for Your Majesty to believe that I've changed. I was never good to you before. I was selfish and vain. I know that now.”

“So you've said.”

“Let me do something for you, something to show you the worth of my intentions.”

“That isn't necessary.”

“Oh, but I want to! I have a talent, a very small gift. The Penestricans discovered it during my training.” A shadow flickered in her face, then vanished swiftly. “A little gift of seeing.”

This time, Elandra could not conceal her astonishment. “You? Capable of visions?”

Bixia laughed. “Oh no! Not visions, and I cannot cast truth. I can't even be trained. I just glimpse what the great Magria is seeing in the rituals.” She shrugged helplessly and gave Elandra a small smile. “It causes trouble, so I'm not allowed to participate or even enter the serpent pit.”

Confused, Elandra sat back, not sure she believed such a tale.

Lady Avitria caught her eye. “I have heard of such people, Majesty,” she murmured helpfully. “They are called latents.”

“Oh yes.” Elandra nodded. “The naturals who are sometimes found in villages and brought into the orders for…training?”

“More likely to protect them from ignorant peasants.” Lady Avitria glanced at Bixia and said cautiously, “I have always heard latents are not trainable.”

“I'm not,” Bixia agreed blithely. “I'm of no use to the sisters. I can't even manage to be a dream walker. So I am a service sister. I clean and mend. Sometimes I see what the great Magria sees, and sometimes I don't.”

Distracted by the unwelcome—although just—image of her highborn sister scrubbing and fetching for the sisterhood, Elandra heard a strong hint in Bixia's voice.

She sent Bixia a sharp look. “And you've seen the latest of the Magria's visions?”

Bixia nodded. “She'll be angry with me for telling, but how can it hurt if I show it to you?” Hesitating, she tilted her head and sent Elandra a most beguiling little smile.