Mourning Cloak Read Online Free Page B

that one.
    Toro bows his head, right hand splayed on Flutter’s chest, the index finger of his left hand against his lips and the palm facing to his right. He hums, softly, and the
itauri
take up the healing chant, without question, without complaint.
    They are good at following, the Taurin-worshippers.
    Who did you follow, Toro? Which
eilendi
turned you against us at the moment of our victory, so that you saw from your perch and did nothing? Did the Dark Masters reach out their long arms and blind your eyes as we laid siege to their city?
My throat and tongue is thick with the words of the healing chant, words in an old, half-known language, words that I had learned at my mother’s knee. Curse them, but they are branded deep into my memory. But I cannot, will not, say them. They gather in my throat and crowd behind my lips, and for a while, I cannot say anything at all.
    Does the prayer magic work? It has always been uncertain, but Flutter sighs, moves. She no longer sprawls, but curls on her side, in a more natural position. The chant falters, grows ragged, as the
itauri
turn away and leave, one by one. Finally, only Toro is left, his humming threading the space between him and the cloak.
    And then he lifts his hand from Flutter’s chest, and looks up at me. His eyes are shadowed, weary.
    “She has been hurt much,” he says, quietly, “but life moves in her still.”
    “She says she’s one of you. An
eilendi.
What do you make of that?”
    The firelight catches in Toro’s eyes. He smiles, sadly. “I think she’s probably right.”
     
    I wake to the Five Lesser Rakayas, the prelude to the Dawn Prayers. I wake to tears on my cheeks and praises on my lips. I rise from my pallet and join the center circle of
eilendi.
It seems only right that I should.
    They don’t like it, these unknown
eilendi
—I see the astonishment and disapproval on their faces—but they shuffle aside, give me a place, and let me be.
    I ignore them. It doesn’t matter who they are or what they think. Together they—we—are the circle of worshippers. I lift up my arms and turn my face toward the ceiling, imagining the lightening dawn sky of the desert rather than the damp, drab stone above. My voice remembers the words, my body the dance. Never mind the unnatural fluidity of my limbs, or the drag on my shoulders and arms, the extra twirl of my movements. I am part of worship again, I am with my people, I am
eilendi.
    I am me, if only for a little while.
    Those who changed me took my will, but not memory. The memory that lurks beneath conscious thought, drilled from years of chant and dance, memory that brings me back to myself. Amidst all the turmoil in my head, I occupy a small, clear space and
breathe
again.
    The darkness is not gone, though. It nibbles away at the edges of myself, but I focus on this moment, this prayer.
    Please, Taurin, just this one prayer.
    I chant and gesture and step, weaving prayers with my voice and my body, that highest magic of all. I strain to see a hint of gold lattice-work, a shimmer of silvery mist droplets, that evidence of Taurin’s gift, Taurin’s grace.
    Prayer magic, they call it, but it is only Taurin lifting away the veil that blinds us all and shows us the world at its deepest level, stripped naked. And with the seeing comes the ability to—if we dare—reach out and pluck the very strings thus laid bare. To change the world.
    Lalita vey lalita vey lalita vey
    It does not come. I have lost the sight.
    Last refrain, last spin—
nonononokeepgoing!
—last stretch up to great outspread skies not seen in this mountain-pierced land.
    All things come to an end. As the circle disperses, I hold out my hand—
don’t look at the nails the length the paleness of it—
beseechingly toward the Prayer Leader. He gives me a hard, glinting glance, then deposits a rosary into it.
    I retreat to the pallet—no matter how grudgingly given or how exposed to the stares of the
itauri
—and bend over the beads. I