Ch. 203 What the Weather Holds

Chapter 203: What the Weather Holds

The next morning arrived like many have recently, with a goddess seeking entry.

She arrived carrying a box that rattled when she walked.

Eliza heard it before she saw her.

From the western wall, the woman appeared to have no weapon and no traveling pack. She held the box against her coat with both arms, as though she feared dropping it more than she feared the guards.

The new shelter kept the rain off her while Eliza asked her name.

“Veyra,” she said. “I kept the high court’s weather records.”

Nathaniel, standing beside me, looked sharply toward the gate.

“You’re far from your records.”

“I brought what I could.”

She lifted the box a little.

Something inside knocked against its lid.

Veyra agreed to the same examination as the others.

The Castellan found no working attached to her. Aurelia found no summons waiting within the box.

Only then did Eliza let her through.

Veyra set it down in the council chamber and kept one hand on the lid.

“Are the children here?” she asked.

I had not given her their names.

“They’re safe,” I said.

“That wasn’t what I asked.”

“It’s the answer I have.”

She studied me.

Then she looked at Aurelia.

“I need to tell you why Othellos keeps calling him.”

The room went quiet.

Mary opened her book.

Veyra began with a record of a winter thirty years ago.

It had brought snow to the southern fields, where the ground seldom froze. The roads closed. Animals died.

“Othellos asked the court what it would take to govern such a season,” she said.

“Govern it?” I asked.

“Choose where it fell. How long it stayed.”

She opened the box.

Inside lay narrow tablets wrapped in cloth. Their edges had struck one another during her walk.

“He asked again after he learned you could hear him.”

I looked at the tablets.

“How did he connect me to a winter thirty years ago?”

“He didn’t. He asked me to compare what the court had recorded of your power with older accounts.”

“And?”

Veyra took out a tablet.

“Storms,” she said. “And winter.”

I waited for her to explain.

Rain moved against the window.

“You’ve seen me make shields, lift stone. I created a storm once when Greykeep was being attacked, but I thought it was the sword that made it happen.”

“No, it was not the instrument but the hand wielding it. Creating shields and lifting stone are things you can do now before your power has fully formed.”

Aurelia leaned over the tablet.

“What evidence did you use?”

Veyra pointed to three entries. One described the events when Harwick’s army attacked Greykeep. Another recorded a change in wind when I had held the castle wards under strain.

The third was a report from the night the twins were born.

Evelyn came to stand beside me.

“Who sent that to the court?”

“I don’t know,” Veyra said. “It was entered without a name.”

Mary wrote that down.

“I remember that night,” Evelyn said.

“So do I,” I told her.

I remembered the room. The children. Her hand gripping mine.

I did not remember the wind.

“The western watch reported a sudden fall in temperature,” Veyra said. “The clouds gathered over Greykeep and moved away before dawn.”

“It was winter,” I said.

“Yes. It might have been weather.”

She met my eyes.

“I would not have come here with that report alone.”

“What else?”

She touched the first tablet.

“When you answered Othellos without entering his court, the weather changed around the place where you stood. He felt it. So did I.”

I thought of the rain on the observation room windows.

It had seemed ordinary.

Maelin read the entries over Aurelia’s shoulder.

“He cannot command a domain because he names it,” she said.

“I know,” Veyra replied.

“Then tell us what he intends.”

Veyra’s hand tightened on the cloth around the remaining tablets.

“He wants Uriah to accept authority from the high court before he ascends. A command made binding while his power is still changing.”

“He offered me a chair,” I said.

“Yes.”

“A place at his table.”

“A place beneath his direction,” Veyra answered.

I thought of the white room. How easy it would have been to sit down merely to hear what he wanted.

“What would he ask me to do?”

Veyra looked at the rain.

“He has not written an order. He has discussed what kings fear when winter comes early. What towns will surrender if their roads remain buried.”

Eliza stood near the door.

“Can Uriah do that now?”

“I don’t think so,” Veyra said.

“Could he later?”

“I think so. I also think that is why Othellos wants the right to tell him when to try.”

My mouth had gone dry.

There were fields beyond the castle, and people building homes on the rise. Farther away were villages whose names Mary had written down so we could send them accurate accounts of the healers’ lessons.

I knew what a hard winter did to a village.

I had lived through winters in which keeping one room warm took most of a family’s work.

“I haven’t chosen any of this,” I said.

Aurelia turned to me.

“Nor has a storm occurred because you were told what your power may become.”

Veyra nodded.

“I came because Othellos is making plans as though your choice has already been given.”

Evelyn asked the question I had not wanted to ask.

“Why did you ask about our children?”

Veyra unwrapped two more tablets.

Aurelia put a hand over the nearest one.

“What do you know?”

“Less than Othellos believes he knows.”

“Tell us that first,” Evelyn said.

Veyra withdrew her hand from the box.

“He has ordered accounts of every unusual thing the twins have done. Some are guesses. Some were reported by people who never met them.”

I felt my power stir.

Evelyn’s fingers closed around mine.

Veyra saw.

“I didn’t bring those accounts. I brought the comparison he asked me to make.”

She turned the tablets toward us.

Carol’s name appeared beside an old sign for space.

Garrick’s stood beside one for shelter.

I looked from one to the other.

“What does that mean?”

“It is too early to know precisely,” Veyra said. “Your daughter has already moved things across space without touching them. Your son’s power has answered when someone near him needed protection.”

“He moves his toys,” I said.

“Yes. That may be all you can see now.”

“Space and shelter sound harmless.”

Nathaniel looked at me.

“Space can let people escape,” he said. “It can also let an army through.”

Nara, standing by the hearth, added, “A shelter can preserve a life through winter. It can decide who survives one.”

Garrick was upstairs with Helena. He had spent breakfast insisting that a spoon was a boat.

I wanted him to remain a child who could be wrong about spoons.

“Othellos wants them too,” Evelyn said.

Veyra nodded.

“Has he tried to reach them?” I asked.

“I have seen no order to do so.”

“That isn’t what I asked.”

“No,” she said. “I don’t know.”

The Castellan’s eyes dimmed briefly as he examined the wards.

“No unfamiliar working has crossed into the nursery.”

I breathed out.

Mary copied the words on the tablets exactly.

Then she asked Veyra who else had seen them.

“Othellos. Two clerks. One of them left his service last month.”

“Do you know where?”

“No.”

Mary wrote that down too.

We did not send for the children.

Evelyn wanted to be with them, and I did too, but she stopped me before I reached the door.

“Listen to the rest,” she said.

“You should go.”

“I will. After I know what we’re carrying upstairs.”

Veyra looked down.

“I’m sorry.”

“Then help us understand it,” Evelyn said.

Aurelia asked whether Veyra’s comparisons had ever been wrong.

“Many times. Particularly with children.”

“And Uriah?”

“His has grown clearer as his power has grown.”

I had spent months learning to bring strength back into myself.

Now I wondered whether cold had followed any of those workings without my noticing.

Aurelia read my face.

“We can examine that,” she said. “We don’t have to guess.”

Caldris came to the lower chamber with us after midday.

Maelin brought the records. Veyra brought only the tablet concerning me.

Aurelia set a basin on the floor.

I looked at it.

“If you pour that over my boots, I may produce winter out of spite.”

“I’ve considered the possibility,” she said.

Evelyn checked the basin’s temperature.

“Cold water.”

“Ordinary cold water,” Aurelia replied.

“That distinction worries me.”

She asked me to lift it.

I did.

Caldris stood near the wall with his hand against the stone.

“The room is as warm as it was,” he said.

I lowered the basin.

Nothing had changed.

We tried a shield.

Then the stone from my birthday.

Then a small contribution to a working Aurelia held between her hands.

At first, Veyra felt nothing unusual.

I began to wonder whether she had come all this way for a set of mistaken records.

Then Caldris pressed against the working without warning.

I caught it.

The air moved past my face.

Aurelia looked up.

“Did you feel that?”

“Yes.”

“Where did you reach for strength?”

“Outside myself.”

She asked me to release the working slowly.

When I did, a pale line of frost remained on the edge of the basin.

I touched it.

It melted beneath my finger.

Veyra knelt beside me.

“That is what I felt when you answered Othellos.”

“It’s a little frost.”

“Today.”

I looked at the window.

The courtyard beyond it was wet with rain. A few people were moving timber across the yard. Nobody had felt a change.

“Can I stop it?”

“You already did,” Aurelia said.

“I didn’t know I was making it.”

“Now you do.”

She put a dry cloth in my hand.

I wiped the basin’s rim.

Then we practiced the working again.

On the second attempt, wind touched my cheek.

On the third, I kept the room still.

Aurelia made me rest before a fourth.

Veyra remained with Caldris to discuss what she had felt.

Evelyn and I went to the nursery.

Carol was asleep. Garrick sat in Helena’s lap, looking intently at a piece of bread he had divided into small parts.

“Has he done anything?” I asked.

Helena looked at me.

“He’s eaten half a loaf.”

“I meant with his power.”

“No. What happened?”

Evelyn told her what Veyra had said.

Helena held Garrick a little closer, then adjusted her grip when he protested.

“They still need their supper,” she said.

“Yes,” Evelyn answered.

“And sleep.”

“Yes.”

“Then we know what to do tonight.”

She offered Garrick another piece of bread.

He accepted it.

Mary called the council together before supper.

She had made copies of Veyra’s account and marked what Veyra knew, what she inferred, and what came from unnamed reports.

“That third part is long,” Melody said.

“It is,” Mary replied.

Eliza looked at the page concerning the twins.

“Who has access to the nursery?”

“The same people as yesterday,” the Castellan said.

“Who watches the approach roads?”

“The same guards as yesterday.”

“We should tell them what might be coming.”

“Tell them Othellos is interested in the children,” I said. “They know enough to take that seriously. I don’t want guesses about their powers passed through the watch.”

Eliza nodded.

“We can do that.”

Nathaniel unfolded the old petition Ivara had brought.

“This changes how I read the passage beneath the eastern wall,” he said.

“How?” Mary asked.

“It recognized an office seal. If Othellos could put a person under that office’s authority, the passage would open for whoever carried the seal.”

“The passage is severed,” the Castellan said.

“Yes. I want to know whether there are others beyond Greykeep.”

Maelin looked at him.

“There are.”

Nathaniel turned.

“How many?”

“I don’t know. I can help you find out.”

Ivara, seated at the end of the table, pulled Mary’s copy of the petition toward her.

“And I can look for the names of people who were told they had made a choice they never spoke aloud.”

There was more work than a single council meeting could hold.

Mary began assigning pages.

Afterward, I found Veyra in the yard.

She stood where she could see the western sky.

“Are you staying?” I asked.

“If you’ll have me.”

“You walked here with records Othellos wanted kept.”

“I did.”

“Will he come after you?”

“Perhaps.”

Eliza would want to hear that answer.

I made a note to tell her.

Veyra watched a bank of dark clouds move over the fields.

“I studied weather because I liked understanding what farmers watched for,” she said. “The first frost. Rain that came too late. A clear day when grain needed cutting.”

“And Othellos asked how to use it.”

“Yes.”

She turned to me.

“I don’t want my work to help him do that.”

The next morning, Mary and the Castellan showed me the revised plan for the larger chapel.

Evelyn had added rooms for patients to rest. Liora had moved the washing area closer to the treatment room. Nara had marked two hearths.

Veyra studied the roof.

“If you expect people to come through winter, give them a place to leave wet coats before they enter.”

Mary handed her the pen.

“Show me.”

Veyra drew a small room beside the entrance.

The building grew wider.

“Eleanor will have opinions,” I said.

“She always does,” Mary replied. “That is why I will show it to her before asking the families to sign.”

The plan still left room for the daughter’s house and the bean field.

I checked.

Mary noticed.

“So did I.”

Aurelia joined me at the training chamber that afternoon.

There was no basin waiting.

“I thought we were continuing,” I said.

“We are.”

She opened the window.

Cool air entered.

“Listen to the wind.”

I did.

It moved around the lower wall and through the yard. I could feel how readily my power might reach into it.

The ease frightened me.

Aurelia remained beside me.

“Do I have to become what Veyra described?” I asked.

“You may become capable of it.”

“That isn’t the same answer.”

“No.”

She let the window stand open.

“A domain tells you what you can touch. It does not tell you what to do with your hands.”

We worked until I could feel the moving air without asking it to change.

When I closed the window, no frost marked its frame.

Aurelia checked it anyway.

“So did I,” I said.

“I know.”

She smiled faintly.

“Tomorrow, Caldris would like to help you find the edge of a storm farther from the castle.”

“An actual storm?”

“One already moving across the hills.”

“Will I have to stand in it?”

“Not tomorrow.”

I looked at her.

“That answer leaves too much room.”

“You are learning to ask better questions.”

At supper, Garrick pushed his empty bowl toward me.

“Boat,” he said.

“It’s a bowl.”

“Boat.”

Carol lifted her spoon. It hovered for a moment before she put it down again.

Evelyn passed her a piece of bread.

Across the table, Veyra listened while Nara told her where to find a warmer cloak. Nathaniel and Ivara argued quietly over the date of an old petition. Mary asked them both to wait until she had finished writing the first answer.

The room was full.

I felt the wind against the shutters and left it outside.

Garrick tried to float his bowl in my cup.

I caught it before he succeeded.

“That,” I told him, “would be a boat.”

He considered the cup.

Then smiled.