“Do you know the fishing songs of Joran?”
She knew the fishing songs of the Songr, and she sang her one of those instead. And she cast her net, collecting Juliah’s inner musings.
Juliah wished for escape and dreamed of having Bayr all to herself. “We will go to Joran. We will fish with my grandfather. Bayr will teach me to fight, and we will leave this temple and this hill and live wherever we want. Everyone will be afraid of us.” But almost immediately she despaired because she knew Bayr would never leave Alba behind.
“I will go to Joran myself. Soon. Soon I will go. When I am bigger and stronger, and I can wield a sword.”
Bashti wanted a dancing song, though she frowned at Liis throughout. Bashti was competitive, and she did not like the attention Liis received.
“I can sing, and I can dance, and I make everyone laugh. Liis only makes people cry.” But almost immediately, those words were replaced by awe, and she began to sway to Liis’s song, her little brown feet shuffling and her hands clasped in Liis’s.
“Don’t stop, Liis. Don’t stop yet, please. I want you to sing all day.”
Dalys was the only one whose thoughts were not communicated in words. She saw color, spilling and moving, and shapes emerging from the paint, as if she were creating as she listened. She let go of Ghisla’s hands and went in search of parchment so she could draw, begging Ghisla not to stop.
That night, in the darkness of the cellar, she called out to Hody to confess what she had done.
“I can hear them, Hody. I can hear them all.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was holding Ghost’s hand during worship as the day ended. I was singing . . . and for a moment, singing at her side, our hands together, I heard her thoughts . . . as if she were speaking to me. But she wasn’t.”
“You heard her?” Even in her head, his voice rang with shock.
“I immediately stopped singing and released her hand, and I could not hear her anymore.”
“Does she too have the power of song?”
“No. Though I think she has rune blood. She has an affinity for the animals. Wild things do her bidding. I’ve seen birds eat from her hands and deer walk alongside her.”
“Did she hear you too . . . the way I do?”
“No. I think I would have . . . heard her . . . hear me.” It was confusing, but Hod seemed to follow her reasoning.
“And Ghost is not the only one. The same thing happened with Elayne, Juliah, Bashti, and Dalys,” she confessed in a rush. “I had to know if it was only Ghost. It isn’t. When I sang and clasped their hands . . . I could hear them all.”
“Ghisla . . .”
“Is it the rune?” she asked. She had linked hands with her family in song many times, and never heard anything but music ringing from their lips.
“Perhaps. But I think it is more likely . . . you. One who does not have your talent would not be able to use the rune in such a way. Do you have to trace the rune to hear their thoughts?”
“No. I just have to be touching them while I sing.”
“The runes unlock different things in all of us. It is why we study them. Why they must never be misused or abused. Why they must be protected. In the wrong hands . . . they can be very destructive.”
“What if my hands are the wrong hands?” she moaned. “What if I am destructive? I do not want to know the things I heard.”
“What did you hear?”
“Ghost loves Dagmar.”
“That is not so bad. Is it?”
“No. No. That is not so bad.” Her stomach roiled. “But that is not all.”
“Ghisla?”
“The late queen was not Alba’s mother. And I am not at all convinced that King Banruud is her father.”
Ghisla had never sought Dagmar out for conversation before. She did her best to observe and listen and let the questions others asked answer her own. But she was troubled. More troubled than she’d ever been, and she had questions that needed answering.
“Dagmar?” she asked, approaching him as he bent over his scrolls. He raised his head, surprised by her voice.
“Can I speak to you for a moment?” she asked.
“Of course. What is it you need, Liis?” He extended his hand to her, but she did not take it. She was afraid to touch anyone right now.
“You say we—the daughters—are the salvation of Saylok,” she blurted out.
“Yes,” he said, eyes searching, hand still extended.
“How . . . exactly . . . are we the salvation of Saylok?”
“Without women, Saylok will eventually . . . die,” Dagmar said softly.
“But . . . if we are kept in the temple, none of us will ever become mothers.”
Dagmar’s eyes cleared and his mouth twitched as though someone so young should not be contemplating such things. He folded his hands together and sat back in his chair.
“Is that why you are worried? There is time enough for that, Liis, in the years to come. You are a child yet.”
“I am fifteen!” she snapped. “Soon I will be sixteen.”
He frowned in disbelief. She’d never told anyone how old she really was, but the words spilled out, angry and hot. She was not a child anymore. She had not been a child for a very long time.
“Will Chief Lothgar or King Banruud decide what happens to me? Or will the Highest Keeper?” she demanded.
Dagmar seemed shocked by her questions, and his surprise made her even angrier. Did the keepers understand nothing?
She stared at him coldly, waiting for an answer.
“I don’t know,” he whispered. “I don’t know who will decide.”
It was as she thought, but at least he did not lie.
“And what will happen to our children?”
“What do you mean?”
“Will they be taken from us, the way we were taken?” The way Alba was taken from Ghost? She did not say the words. They were not her words to say. But she thought them.
“Daughter . . . ,” he said, stunned. “Where is this coming from?”
She turned to leave, but he called out to her as she neared the door.
“Liis.” His voice was sharp.
She stopped.
“My sister, Desdemona, Bayr’s mother, felt as you do. As if she had no choice. I did not protect her as I should have. But I will do everything in my power to protect you.”
She believed him. But there was no real safety within the walls of the temple, and no safety without. There was only waiting. Waiting for time to pass and for the powerful to determine what happened next. Gods, kings, and keepers would decide their fate. And there was little she could do about it.
Hod had given up hope of ever hearing Ghisla sing again.
And then one day, she was simply there, her voice ringing in his head.
“Give me a home in hope, give me a place to go, give me a faith that will never grow old.”
The rune on his right hand, the rune he’d drawn to mirror hers, began to burn, and he’d walked from the cave and out into the waning day, feeling the light on his skin, and lifted his face to better hear.
Arwin had followed him, but when Hod had waved him away—“’Tis just a new bird, Master”—he’d grown bored and returned to his supper.