The Second Blind Son by Amy Harmon

9

DAYS

Ghost was always watching, always wakeful, and nine days went by without Ghisla reaching out to Hod again. When she did finally seek him, late at night, he answered immediately, though he warned her not to despair when he didn’t.

“Arwin cannot know. If I do not answer, it is because I cannot, not because I want not.”

But he had not failed to answer her yet.

They grew more accomplished at the connection each time. Hod said he could only see the things she sang about, and even then he did not see them with his eyes but with his thoughts. She became adept at crafting songs to describe her world.

She always called out to him with a song—any song, though the anthems of the Songrs seemed to work best, and he saw those images most clearly. Mayhaps it was the ancient words or the melodies that had been sung so many times they became part of the wind that moved over Saylok, songs soaked up by the clouds and released again in rain, the cycle continuously renewing. Mayhaps it was just Ghisla herself, and the heritage in her blood and bones, the heritage of a people that had sung the songs for centuries and passed them on through life and death.

She and Hod never spoke as long as they wanted to. They were both terrified of discovery. The daughters were, by design, shut off from the men of Saylok. Fraternizing with a boy—even one who lived far away—would not be tolerated. She also knew that the rune on her hand and the gift that made the connection possible would bring devastation down upon both of them.

The keepers had their work and their runes and the companionship of the brotherhood. The daughters were expected to limit their companionship the same way and were kept isolated from everyone but the keepers, the king, and, of course, each other. The chieftains demanded to see them whenever a council was called, and the daughters would be paraded in front of them like cattle so the chieftains could report back to their clans on their welfare.

After one such visit, Ghisla complained to Hod, “Chief Lothgar says I am fattening up nicely. He seemed so proud, like it was his doing.”

“You were the size of a tiny bird. I cannot imagine it. You must show me.”

Ghisla imagined sheep, thick with winter wool, shuffling into the temple enclosures and used a gruff voice, mocking the big Chieftain of Leok. She wasn’t as good at mimicry as Bashti, but she tried.

Liis of Leok,

How you’ve grown,

Since you left your long-lost home.

Let me pinch your puffy cheeks

And watch you waddle like a sheep.

Hod laughed as she expected him to, but he wanted to hear about the council in detail.

“I cannot tell you much more. We are brought in, looked upon—sometimes I sing—and then we are escorted out. We are not privy to the conversations of the men, though Keeper Dagmar tries to answer our questions when we ask. He is the only one who does.”

She sang the lines she’d crafted for Dagmar, his pale eyes, thin face, and patient ways.

“Keeper Dagmar reminds me of you. He is wise and kind. Mayhaps it is his mannerisms more than his appearance.”

“I remember. Keeper Dagmar is of Dolphys. He is the uncle to Bayr, the Temple Boy, who watches the princess,”Hod recited. Hod was fascinated with the Temple Boy, and they talked of him often—his strength, his size, and his stuttering tongue. It seemed to comfort Hod that a boy so gifted had such a weakness.

“Two sides of the same sword. Just like Arwin always says.”

“He is so powerful, yet he can hardly speak. His tongue is cursed. I have thought perhaps . . . if he would learn to sing it would help loosen his words.”

“You must teach him,”Hod pressed. But Ghisla doubted such an opportunity would present itself.

“Tell me more.”

“Dagmar is his uncle, yet no one talks of his mother or father. Juliah says he is the son of Thor, and someday he will kill the king and break the curse upon the land.”

“Juliah of Joran. The daughter with the warring spirit.”

“Yes. She does not want to be a keeper. She does not like being a woman either, I don’t think, though Bayr has taught her how to throw a spear and shoot a bow and wield a sword. He has tried to teach us all, but Dalys is so small she can barely lift one off the ground.”

“Smaller than you?”

“Much smaller. I am growing, remember? And I am mean. Both seem to have helped me in swordplay.”

“You are mean? This is not true. You are simply irritable. Like Arwin. He is quite skilled at swordplay as well, though I have begun to defeat him regularly. He says he will bring me a new teacher to teach me what he cannot.”

“You are skilled with a sword?” Ghisla gasped.

“I am skilled with a sword and a spear and a bow, though I will never be a warrior.”

“You will be a keeper. And someday you will come here, to the mount. Just like we planned.”

He was silent in her head, and she thought for a moment she had lost him.

“Arwin says there will be no more keepers from the clans as long as the daughters are in the temple.”

“What?”

“The king has decreed it. There will be no young male supplicants until the drought is over. I will not . . . be going to the temple any time soon, though I am seventeen now, and I am of age.”

She was too shocked to respond immediately. She did not know all the ways of the keepers or of Saylok. It had not occurred to her that there were no young keepers entering the brotherhood.

“It used to be that one supplicant was selected each year from the clanless and one from each clan. All were not young, but all were willing. Some years, no supplicants were sent because there were no men who wished to be keepers. But since the drought began, more men have become warriors, and the clans have lost their belief in the keepers and the runes. Now the king has forbidden it altogether.”

“But . . . what does Master Ivo think? Can he not override the king on matters of the keepers?” she cried. Hod had to come to the temple.

“You would know better than I.”

“The Highest Keeper does not tell me what he thinks, Hody.”

“Yes . . . but he is your teacher, is he not? Does he think Bayr is a god? The son of Thor? Does he think Bayr will break the curse upon the land?”

“He loves Bayr . . . All the keepers do. He was brought to Temple Hill when he was a babe and he has been raised among them ever since. He is their child, the only child, the only son any of them will ever have. He is beloved. Ghost says that is why he is loathed by the king. The king hates anyone who could challenge his authority or his throne. He wants to dispense with the keepers and continues to blame them for the lack of daughters. He claims they have not lifted the curse or healed the scourge. The people . . . the clans and the chieftains . . . have started to listen to him. Master Ivo fears at some point they will turn on the keepers and the temple will be destroyed.”

“If there are no more keepers, the chieftains and the king will have sole power over Saylok. There will be no balance or ballast. No checks on the authority of the king. And there will be no one to use or protect the runes.”

It was more than Ghisla could comprehend. She was only a girl from Tonlis, after all. The machinations of the king and the keepers made her head spin. But one thing was perfectly clear in that moment, and it filled her with hopelessness.

“If you cannot come to the temple . . . I will never see you again.”

It was not uncommon for the keepers to clasp hands during one particular song at the end of the day, though they did so only with each other and invited the daughters to do the same behind them. Ghisla always resisted the ritual and kept her own hands together so no one would reach for her. She and her family had often clasped hands as they sang; it was common among all Songrs, and she did not want to sing with anyone else. Deep down, she was also afraid Ghost or one of the daughters would feel the scar on her palm. It was a silly fear. The scar was well hidden among the lines of her hand, just as Hod said it would be, but it was a fear nonetheless.

Since the day she’d reduced everyone to tears at worship, the other girls had started jostling each other in order to stand beside her when she sang, even though she’d reverted back to barely singing at all.

“We want to hear you,” Elayne had explained when Ghisla protested the new attention. “If you would sing out, we wouldn’t have to stand so close.”

Ghisla just kept moving away from them until Ghost put an end to the constant repositioning and assigned spots to stand during worship, putting herself at the end of the row. That evening, Ghisla was distracted when the song changed, and when Ghost reached out and took her right hand, Ghisla did not pull away.

The clasping song was not much more than a drone, a collective amen sung with conjoined hands, but it had a way of centering the mind and calming the spirit. The keepers would break off into harmonies above and below the melody line, but the word sung never changed.

“Amen. Ah ah ah men. Ah ah ah men,” Ghisla sang, keeping her voice muted, and her eyes forward. If Ghost sang, Ghisla did not hear her, but she did not release Ghisla’s hand.

“I love him. I love him. And I wish that I didn’t,” Ghost said.

Ghisla looked up at her, confused, but Ghost was mouthing amen, as her eyes drifted over the keepers. Keeper Dagmar stood a full head taller than the old men around him, and her gaze stopped on his face.

It was forbidden to converse during worship, and Ghost was not one to break the rules . . . at least with the girls. Ghisla began singing once more, but she watched Ghost from the corner of her eye.

“Ah ah ah men. Ah ah ah men,” Ghisla sang.

“It hurts to love him.”Ghost’s voice bounced between Ghisla’s ears, but her mouth did not move. “Just as it hurts to love Alba. I loved her from the moment I felt her in my womb, and I will love her until I die. I fear it will be the same with Dagmar. That the pain will continue to grow, and he will never be mine. Just as Alba will never be mine. Some days, I cannot bear it.”

Ghisla jerked again, and Ghost frowned down at her, unaware that she’d just poured her private thoughts into Ghisla’s head.

“Ah, Liis. What a strange, sad girl. She reminds me of myself,”Ghost thought, and Ghisla gasped, dropping Ghost’s hand like it had burned her.

“Liis?” Ghost questioned. Her voice no longer had the hollow effect, and it was muffled by the droning all around them.

“I don’t want to sing anymore,” Liis murmured. Her legs wobbled and she sank down to the steps.

“Are you ill?” Ghost asked. The keepers had started to turn, their faces wreathed in frowns and disapproval.

“Are you unwell?” Ghost pressed, stooping down beside her. Her silvery eyes were concerned, and Ghisla saw herself reflected in the twin mirrors. Her short blond hair stuck up in tufts around her head, and her blue eyes were rimmed in dark circles. She hadn’t slept well for so long. She looked almost mad.

“Yes . . . I am unwell,” she whispered, afraid that she truly was.

She’d heard Ghost’s thoughts, and as alarming as that was, the content of her thoughts was just as disconcerting.

Ghost loved Dagmar, and Ghisla was not greatly surprised. They were careful around each other, but they were always aware, as though they danced without touching and watched without looking.

But the revelation about Alba was shocking.

It occurred to her that perhaps Ghost was using the word the way it was applied to all the girls—Daughters of Freya, daughters of the temple—and they were nothing more than a cast-off assortment of females. But Alba was rarely included in their number. She was the princess, not a daughter, and there was always a distinction.

Alba’s eyes were so different from Ghost’s. Her skin too. But when Ghisla studied Alba through new eyes, the resemblance between them was there to see if one only knew where to look. Moonlight hair and bow-shaped mouths and smiles that dimpled their cheeks. Ghost so rarely smiled . . . but she smiled when Alba was near.

Ghisla did not want to know Ghost’s secrets. She was horrified by the knowledge, and for several days she wouldn’t touch anyone, bristling when someone sat beside her or settled a hand on her sleeve. She refused to hold hands at worship and sang so softly no one could hear. They all thought she was being selfish and silly and whispered about her among themselves. She didn’t need Hod’s superior hearing to know she was being discussed. The whispers made her angry. She was trying to protect them, and they complained about her. That evening at worship she sang a little louder and extended her hand to whomever would take it. If she heard their secrets while she sang, why should she care?

But Elayne’s voice was one of only concern.

“Liis is troubled. We all are troubled. I wish she would sing. I think if she would sing . . . it would soothe us all. We are all so afraid. I miss my mother. I wish I could go home.”

Ghisla was overcome with guilt, and she stopped singing, squeezing her eyes shut and willing the door to close.

Just like Ghost’s, Elayne’s thoughts tumbled in a disjointed stream, one slipping into another, but all were spoken in her voice, and as long as Ghisla kept singing and holding her hand, the stream continued. It was the same with all the girls. And one by one, she heard them too.

During evening meditation, when Ghost left them in their room, she approached Juliah and held out her hands as though she sought her forgiveness. Mayhaps she did, for what she was about to do.

“I will sing to you,” she said stiffly. “Choose a song.”

“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.

For several minutes, it was just her voice. No images. No colors. Just her voice, like she sang with her eyes closed. But it was enough, and he stood, enraptured, listening. Rejoicing. Then the song ended and he heard her speak. He heard her ask a question, but she was not talking to him.

“Why will no one look at me?”she asked.

“Ghisla?” he whispered, afraid Arwin would hear. He scrambled down the path to the beach, needing distance and space and the roar of the water to muffle his voice.

He was almost running, moving too quickly on a path that would never be clear enough for a blind man to run down; he could not hear rocks, after all. He broke out onto the beach without mishap but stumbled in the sand.

“Ghisla?” he said, louder, terrified she was gone again.

“Hod?”the word was so faint, it was hardly there, but he shouted in response.

“Ghisla! I heard you singing. I heard you singing, and it was so beautiful.”

“Hod?”His hand was still burning, and he cried out again, babbling in joy and disbelief.

And then her voice was there, as clear as if she stood beside him, and he fell back on the sand, his face to the sky.

That day, he’d made her promise to use the rune again, to call out to him when she was able, and she had, many times since.

She didn’t tire of his questions, and she never refused him a song.

She gave him so many songs.

With her songs, he saw Elayne of Ebba with her fiery hair and her gentle ways, but he didn’t just see her, he knew her. He knew them all.

He knew Bashti; he saw the brown warmth of her skin and the bright flash of her mind. She was a marvel at mimicry, both mannerisms and voices, and she made Ghisla laugh. That was a wonder too—Ghisla’s laugh. Rare and rippling, it never failed to rob him of breath; he loved Bashti for that, for giving Ghisla laughter.

He knew dark-eyed, little Dalys and experienced all her colors. Ghisla composed songs as Dalys painted, just so he could see them too.

Through Ghisla’s music, Juliah danced in his thoughts with her sword and shield, pouncing and punching, and he delighted in her antics, though she and Ghisla were often at odds.

“She does not understand me,” Ghisla said. “And I don’t know how to make myself understood. We are very different.”

“I think it is more likely that you . . . are the same,” he suggested gently. “You are both warriors. Both fighters. You just fight in different ways.”

“I’m not always certain who I am fighting. Who the enemy is. All I know is that you are my dearest friend, Hody.”

“And you are mine.”

“I could not bear it if I could not talk to you.”

Hod often wondered how he’d borne a single day before she’d washed up on his shore. When Ghisla sang he saw the world. Her sisters and the keepers, the castle and the king. He saw the gardens and the gates and the wall that separated them all from the rest of Saylok. He saw the sea and the sky and the mountains and the trees. He even saw himself.

It was a beautiful world to look at, though he knew, for Ghisla and her sisters, it was not always a beautiful world to live in. Sometimes Ghisla’s songs were washed with grays or infused with shadows. Sometimes her loneliness and despair made the images she drew for him waver like the sands after high tide.

And yet she kept on singing, and he kept on listening, doing his best to shoulder her sorrow and speak relief to her soul.

He did not tell her how he missed her or how he suffered when she could not visit him. He did not tell her how the darkness wore on him, and how he worried there would never be a better day, a better Saylok. He did not tell her that he fought his own hopelessness and could not see his own path. He did not reveal that he feared the reason for his existence and begged each day that the gods would make it clear.

He greeted her with only joy whenever he heard her voice and made her promise to not give up.