Chapter 355: 355: The Mountain While They Mate part 2
---
Vel covered her face with both hands and groaned from behind her fingers. "There is no such thing."
"I can invent it," Azhara said. "I am a visionary."
"Do not melt another pot," Vel said.
Azhara lifted the carrot like a dagger and whispered to it. "Be delicious."
Sha reached in from the hall and plucked the carrot out of Azhara’s hand. She bit it in half and chewed in four calm bites. Then she handed the other half back. "It is already delicious," she said. "Do not put it in the coffee beans."
Azhara held the half in her hand and looked offended and then resigned. "Very well," she said. "The world is not ready for my genius."
They laughed without teeth and went on working. The kitchen smelled like warm spice and soft bread. The smell moved down the hall into the common room where pallets had been laid out for anyone who was off shift and wanted to sleep near a friend.
Naaro finished the broth. She listened to the chamber and let the warmth gather behind her eyes. She felt the tired in her bones the way a bell feels a last note. She set the empty bowl on the step and pulled the blanket higher.
"Sleep," Lirien said.
"I will watch for one more hour," Naaro answered.
"You need rest," Lirien said and tucked the blanket under Naaro’s arm. "You can pick it up again when you wake."
Naaro smiled at that and did not argue further. She slid to the floor and made a bed on the threshold. She slept there with her back to the jamb and her face toward the light.
Silvershadow made another round. He checked the rope lines along the north teeth. He checked the low level beasts foot marks. He counted heads without counting faces because he knew their steps already. He met Needle coming down from the water cistern.
"Nothing but drip and darkness," Needle said. "And the feeling that someone is learning to fly on the roof."
"Someone is," Silvershadow said. "Leave them to it."
He turned toward the inner hall that led past the private chambers. He did not walk right up to Kai’s door. He did not need to. A guard who respects a door will stand where the door can trust him without feeling watched. He stood in the bend where the corridor framed a slice of light. It was a very small light, the size of a coin.
Azhara came and stood beside him with a tray. On the tray were two cups of tea and a small plate of sweet roots cut into thin coins. She looked at the coin of light and then at Silvershadow.
"I am not here," she whispered.
"You are not here," he said.
They stood still and listened to the sound of a house that takes care of itself. The tap of a ladle in the kitchen. The scrape of a shoe on stone. The hush of sleeping breath from the common room. The slight change in air when the wind turned on the cliff. The very faint echo of a laugh that came from a room that was none of their business.
Azhara exhaled through her nose. "Good," she said. "That sounds like safety."
"It does," Silvershadow said.
She left the tray on a ledge and slipped away. He stayed until the coin of light went dim, then took one slow breath and made his next round.
On the roof Skyweaver woke Miryam near midnight. The girl blinked and sat up and rubbed her eyes with her forearm. The slit of the sky above them had turned the color of a deep lake.
"Now it’s night winds training time," Skyweaver said.
Miryam stood on the stone with her feet apart. She closed her eyes and lifted her chin. She put both hands out as if holding a bowl that no one else could see. The air near her palms rippled. She rose three finger widths above the stone and held there. She set her teeth and kept her breath steady. She looked like a small lantern tied to a hook by a thin cord.
"Good," Skyweaver said. "Now a slow circle with the wind wave."
Miryam moved her hands an inch to the right. Her body turned like a leaf that refuses to fall. She made a circle the size of a plate. She landed without a sound. She grinned and jumped in place with delight.
"Again," she said.
"Three more," Skyweaver said. "Then sleep."
They worked. On the third circle Miryam overreached and tilted. Skyweaver stepped in and caught her by the elbows. Miryam breathed out and sagged against her for a moment.
Skyweaver smoothed her hair. She said, "Good job princess. Sleep now."
They slept. The wind put its hand on the rock and held it gently until the next hour.
On the east ridge Shadeclaw felt another faint tremor. He drew a second ring and another mark.
"We will speak of this at dawn," he said to the cliff. "For now, do not worry the house."
Alka spread her wings once and sent a low cry into the dark, just enough to tell anything hunting on the air that the sky was not free. Then she folded herself small and settled with one eye half closed. The roost fit her like a palm made for her back.
In the common room Vel and Sha lay side by side on their pallets. Vel had her hands under her cheek. Sha had her arms folded and her tail wrapped around both their ankles like a sash. Vel stared up at the ceiling and then rolled to face Sha.
"Do you think we will be good mothers," Vel whispered.
Sha opened one eye. "We are not good at fighting," she said.
"That is not the same as good," Vel said.
Sha closed her eyes again. "We will try," she said. "We will fail some mornings. We will try again in the next hour."
Vel smiled in the dark. "That sounds like us."