Page 17 of The Ragpicker King
“Mayesh represents what we are,” said Mariam. “You represent what we can be. Our strength.”
Her eyes were shining, and Lin could not help but think of Mariam’s past—of what had happened to her in Malgasi, how her family and community had been destroyed for the crime of being Ashkar. How much it meant for Mari to think of the people of the Sault as protected. As safe.
“All right,” Lin said. “I’ll let you dress me like a doll. I know you want to.”
“Ido,” Mariam agreed.
“But first—” Lin held up a hand. “Before we are sidetracked into talk of frills and furbelows, it’s time again, Mari.”
“Now?” Mariam tugged at the cuffs of her dressing-gown. “The same thing again?”
“I’ll try to do it quickly. It isn’t hurting you, is it?”
Mariam shook her head. “No. And I always feel better afterward. But it is... odd.” She raised her chin as if in defiance of her own illness. “I’m ready.”
“Lie down,” Lin said, and Mariam did, arms straight at her sides. She gazed at Lin trustingly as Lin placed a hand over Mariam’s heart. She was so thin, Lin could feel the bones of her rib cage. Mariam’s heart pulsed under her fingers, a steady beat.
Look within.That was what all the books said: This was the first step. To reach within oneself, to find the power inherent in every soul.
But it was not enough. The sorcerers of old had augmented their abilities with the use of Arkhes, Source-Stones, which wereable to store power, like water in a reservoir. When great magic needed to be done, they could draw on that stored power rather than draining their souls to destruction.
Lin was blessed to have a Source-Stone, the Arkhe in the brooch at her wrist. But despite her access to the books in the Shulamat, despite all her studies, she had been unable to determine how to store power into the stone. It was meant to glow like a lamp, suffused with energy, but it remained dead and blank as a fish’s eye.
Sometimes, when she used her own energy to do the small magic that she could, she could feel the stone reaching out, as if it were searching for something—a source of power, or another stone like itself? Once the world had been full of them; now, as far as she knew, hers was the only one in existence. She felt almost as if she were failing the stone in her brooch, consigning it to a lonely existence without power or companionship.
Do not think about your failures,she told herself.Think about Mariam. Think of the words you would use to describe Mariam. Fall into that sea of words, as the Goddess fell into a sea of stars.
Mariam. Friend. Sister. Loyal. Promise.
Heal.
Slowly, Lin’s vision softened. The shadows in the room thickened, and the points of light—Mariam’s single candle in its silver holder by her bed, the faint illumination that came through the curtained window—grew brighter and more blurred. The talismans—all for health and life—bound to Mariam’s wrists, around her throat, began to glow like points of blue fire.
Lin slowed her own breathing, letting her concentration on Mariam sharpen. She repeated Qasmuna’s words to herself, memorized from her most precious possession: the book the Prince had given her. They made a soft litany:
The Word is the sum of human will. Magic cannot exist without the Word because it cannot exist without will.
Of course, the Word had been lost long ago, wiped from the memory of the world after the Sundering. But will andvolition—those still existed, and Lin focused all of hers on Mariam. Between one blink and another, her vision changed. She saw words written across the scene in front of her, as if they had been scrawled on a painting. Words likesickness, pain,andpoison.
She reached out with her mind, using all her will to erase those words. To replace them with other words:healing,andcure,andremedy.
Mariam’s body arched as smoke poured between Lin’s fingers. It seemed to rise out of Mariam’s body, from her heart, curling upward through the air: a dark, acrid, diffusestuffthat Lin called smoke because she could think of no other word for it. Mariam exhaled as the smoke left her.
And it was over. The world had gone back to what it was, a place of ordinary light and shadow. Lin drew her hand back from Mariam’s chest; her palm was red, as if she had held it over a fire, the result of drawing on her own life energy to heal Mariam. She knew from experience that it would hurt for some hours before subsiding.
“Ugh.” Mariam sat up, her thin brown hair tumbling around her face. Her color was already better, her movements easier. Her expression, though, was resigned. “I hate knowing that stuff wasinsideme.”
“Don’t think of it like that.” Lin had explained before: This was Mariam’s sickness she was drawing out. It did not live inside Mariam in this form; it took on this dark, shadowy aspect when forced into the open. “How do you feel?”
“Better.” Mariam took Lin’s hand. She held it tightly; Lin forced herself not to react to the pain as her palm stung. “I don’t mean to complain. I know that what you are doing for me is— It’s a miracle, Lin. I would have been dead months ago if not for you.”
“It needs to be a better miracle.” Lin could hear the harshness in her own voice; she could not stop it. It was half a miracle at best, she thought, if such a thing was possible. She had to draw the smoke from Mariam’s lungs every fortnight, or she would sicken badly again. She simply did not have enough power within herself to domore, not without extinguishing her own life. “I need to make sure you are entirely better and can manage without my interventions.”
Mariam only smiled. “Well, that’s true. If the Prince is getting married again, my services will be sorely needed to make dresses. Think of the parties and parades! So if you could make the miracle happen in the next, oh, fortnight or so, that would be awfully convenient.”
“I don’t think miracles work quite like that,” said Lin, but she was smiling, because Mariam always made her smile. Mariam believed in her not for the reasons Chana did—because she yearned for the return of the Goddess in her lifetime—but because she had always believed in Lin. If Lin said she was the Goddess, it must be true, because it was Lin saying it. And Mariam’s faith did not weigh Lin down; it was not something for her to carry. Rather, it had always carried her.
Ji-An drove as if Gentleman Death himself were at her heels, and Jerrod, Merren, and Kel, crouched inside the carriage, were flung repeatedly into one another. Kel was fairly positive Merren was praying—though to whom, he wasn’t sure.
