Naamah's Blessing

the firepit, tending to the coals. She glanced up at my approach.
    “Machasu,” I said in greeting. “You do not sleep?”
    She shook her head. “I was thinking of Cusi. I, too, wanted to spend the night in prayer.” In a graceful, reverent gesture, she stirred the coals. Low flames flickered. “I did not think you were coming here tonight, lady.”
    I knelt beside her. “Nor did I.”
    “Is all well?” she asked.
    My
diadh-anam
burned steadily in my breast, calling to Bao’s in the distance, no longer in danger of being extinguished on the morrow. Jehanne had kept her promise. She had found a way to free me from my conflicting oaths. Whatever else happened come dawn, I would not be cast out of the presence of the Maghuin Dhonn Herself for eternity because I honored one oath, and broke another. Bao would not die because there was no way out of the oaths that bound me.
    For that, I was grateful.
    And yet it did not remove the burden of choice from me. It only altered it. Now I could obey Raphael without losing my
diadh-anam
.
    But I could still refuse him and be forsworn if it were the only way to keep him from attaining his goal.
    “Lady?” Machasu prompted me.
    “I do not know,” I said honestly. “But before I went to see Lord Pachacuti, Cusi told me all was well. She is closer to the matter than anyone. If anyone would know, it is her.”
    “I think so, too.” Machasu stirred the coals again, then fed them a few sticks of firewood. “Do you think she is frightened?”
    “A little, maybe,” I said. “But she has great faith.”
    “Do you think it will hurt?” she asked.
    I clenched my hand on the newly reopened wound. It hurt, but it had hurt a great deal more when Cusi had cut me with the dull-edged bronze dagger. And although I wanted to utter a soothing lie, it felt like blasphemy in this holy place. “Yes,” I said quietly. “I think it will hurt.”
    “I think so, too,” Machasu repeated. “But it will be swift. And then the ancestors will welcome her into the highest heaven.”
    I nodded. “So we pray.”
    “Yes.”
    My handmaiden fell silent, tending the fire. I gazed into the shifting embers and breathed the Five Styles, praying to the Maghuin Dhonn Herself to guide me. The great magician Berlik had broken his oath and been forgiven in the end, finding atonement in the distant Vralian wilderness.
    But in the end, Berlik had given his life in penance. It was part of the bargain. What penance had I to give if I broke my oath? It was not the same, not at all. There would be no one to claim my life as a right of justice.
    Trust me
.
    The words echoed throughout the temple, spoken in a voice as deep as oceans and as vast as mountains. I jerked my head upright, my chin having sunk to my chest. The sacred fire flared and crackled as Machasu fed it an especially dry branch, throwing a massive shadow on the wall—a shadow with an imposing silhouette filled with bulk andgrace that I’d seen but once in my life, but would never forget. A bear, but a bear far, far greater than any mortal bear. As the flames danced it appeared to move, pacing with profound and solemn grandeur, and then shrank and dwindled as the fire subsided from its first eager blaze.
    “Did you hear that?” I asked, my voice trembling. I pointed at the wall. “Did you
see
it?”
    Machasu gave me an odd look. “Lady, you slept for a time. I did not wake you, for I thought you must need it.”
    My ears still rang with the words.
Trust me
. Jehanne had spoken the same words to me.
    Mayhap it was why I had dreamed of them.
    Or mayhap I had not dreamed. The scent that lingered in my nostrils was not Jehanne’s perfume, but somewhat older and more savage—earthen and musky, tinged with the scent of wild berries.
    Trust me
.
    I pressed the heels of my hands to my eyes. “I don’t know what that means!” I cried aloud. “Trust, and keep my oath? Or break it, and trust to Your forgiveness?”
    There was no answer.
    My
diadh-anam
gave no guidance.
    “Lady?” Sounding worried, Machasu tugged at my arms. “I am sorry your dreams were troubled, but dawn is near. I should have awakened you sooner. It is time to go and make ready.”
    I lowered my hands, summoning a reassuring smile. “You’re right. Forgive me. It is as you said, I am short on sleep. Let us go.”
    A short time later, we assembled in the Temple of the Ancestors.
    The first light of dawn gilded the snow-capped peaks of the mountains that lay west of