The Core

‘Of course not,’ Leesha said.

‘No point laying blame when you’ve a fever to fight, Bruna used to say,’ Darsy said. ‘Everyone’s got perfect vision—’

‘—when they’re looking back,’ Leesha finished.

‘I read the same books you did,’ Darsy went on. ‘There’s notes on how to treat this.’

‘Treat it, how?’ Elona asked. ‘Some herb is going to close its slit or make its pecker dry up and fall off?’

‘Course not.’ Darsy shrugged as she stared at the child. ‘We just … pick one. A girl that handsome could easily pass for a boy.’

‘And a boy that pretty could pass for a girl,’ Elona countered. ‘That don’t treat anything.’

‘Ay,’ Darsy nodded to the operating table where Amanvah still worked, ‘but that combined with a few snips and stitches …’

‘Wonda,’ Leesha said.

‘Ay, mistress?’ Wonda said.

‘If anyone other than me ever tries to perform surgery on this child, you are to shoot them,’ Leesha said.

Wonda crossed her arms. ‘Ay, mistress.’

Darsy held up her hands. ‘I only …!’

Leesha whisked her fingers. ‘I know you mean no harm, Darsy, but that practice was barbaric. We will not be pursuing surgical options any further unless the child’s health is in danger. Am I clear?’

‘Ay, mistress,’ Darsy said. ‘But folk are going to ask if it’s a boy or girl. What do we tell them?’

Leesha looked to Elona. ‘Don’t look at me,’ her mother said. ‘I know better than any that we don’t get a say in these things. Creator wills as the Creator will.’

‘Well said, wife of Erny,’ Amanvah said. She had come last from the operating table, hands still red with birthing blood. She raised them to Leesha. ‘Now is the time, mistress. There is no casting stronger than the moment of birth.’

Leesha considered. Letting Amanvah cast her alagai hora in the mixed blood and fluid of the birth would open her vision to the futures of Leesha and the child both. Even if she was fully forthcoming – something dama’ting were not known for – there would be too much for her to convey in words. She would always have secrets, secrets that Leesha might desperately need.

But Amanvah’s concern for the child, her half sibling, was written in gold through her aura. She was desperate to throw for the child’s protection.

‘There are conditions,’ Leesha said. ‘And they are not negotiable.’

Amanvah bowed. ‘Anything.’

Leesha raised an eyebrow. ‘You will speak your prayers in Thesan.’

‘Of course,’ Amanvah said.

‘You will share everything you see with me, and me alone,’ Leesha went on.

‘Ay, I want to see!’ Elona said, but Leesha kept her eyes on Amanvah.

‘Yes, mistress,’ Amanvah said.

‘Forever,’ Leesha said. ‘If I have a question twenty years from now about what you saw, you will reply fully and without hesitation.’

‘I swear it by Everam,’ Amanvah said.

‘You will leave the dice in place until we can make a copy of the throw for me to keep.’

Amanvah paused at this. No outsider was allowed to study the dama’ting alagai hora, lest they attempt to carve their own. Inevera would have Amanvah’s head if she acquiesced to this request.

But after a moment, the priestess nodded. ‘I have dice of clay we can cement in place.’

‘And you will teach me to read them,’ Leesha said.

The room fell silent. Even the other women, unschooled in Krasian custom, could sense the audacity of the request.

Amanvah’s eyes narrowed. ‘Yes.’

‘What did you see, when you cast the bones for the child in Angiers?’ Leesha asked.

‘The first thing my mother ever taught me to look for,’ Amanvah said.

Leesha set warded klats around the antique royal heirloom that had been used as an operating table. The wards activated, barring sound from both directions as she and Amanvah bent over the operating table, studying the glowing dice.

Amanvah pointed one of her long, painted nails at a prominent symbol. ‘Ka.’ The Krasian word for ‘one’ or ‘first.’

She pointed to another. ‘Dama.’ Priest.

A third. ‘Sharum.’ Warrior.

‘First … priest … warrior …’ Leesha blinked as her breath caught. ‘Shar’Dama Ka?’

Amanvah nodded.

‘Dama means “priest”,’ Leesha said. ‘Does that mean the child is male?’

Amanvah shook her head. ‘Not necessarily. “First Warrior Cleric” is a better translation. The words are neutral, that they might call either gender in Hannu Pash.’

‘So my child is the Deliverer?’ Leesha asked incredulously.

‘It isn’t that simple,’ Amanvah said. ‘You must understand this, mistress. The dice tell us our potentials, but most are never reached.’ She pointed to another symbol. ‘Irrajesh.’

‘Death,’ Leesha said.

Amanvah nodded. ‘See how the tip of the die points northeast. An early death is the most common of the child’s futures.’

Leesha’s jaw tightened. ‘Not if I have a say in it.’

‘Or I,’ Amanvah agreed. ‘By Everam and my hope of Heaven. There could be no greater crime in all Ala than to harm one who might save us all.