The Dark Remains Read Free Page B

of rags, and turned her large eyes on the visitors.
    “You are marked with power,” the old woman rasped, thrusting a long finger toward Aryn.
    Aryn started. “What … what do you mean?”
    “Your arm,” the woman said.
    Aryn lifted her hand to clutch her withered right arm, but the appendage rested as always in a linen sling, hidden beneath a fold of her gown.
    “Always the balance seeks something in return when a great gift is given,” the crone said in her harsh voice. “Beautiful I was, until I discovered my
shes’thar.
”
    Durge frowned at Sareth. “Her
shes’thar
?”
    “She means her magic.”
    Now Durge cast his somber gaze on Aryn, but what he thought he did not say.
    “My cards, Sareth,” the old woman barked.
    “They are next to you, al-Mama,” he said gently.
    “Well of course they are.” The old woman snatched up a deck of cards from a small shelf. Another birdlike hand appeared from the rags, and she shuffled the cards with deft motions. “Each of you must draw a card from the
T’hot
deck.”
    She fanned the cards out before her. The backs of the cards were faded, their corners worn, but silver symbols still gleamed against midnight-blue ink. Lirith exchanged looks with Aryn and Durge, then reached. Her fingertips seemed to tingle as she brushed one of the cards; she drew it. The others followed suit.
    “You,” the old woman said with a nod to Durge. “Show me what you have drawn.”
    Durge turned over his card, revealing a drawing that was at once dusky and radiant. It depicted a man with dark hair and eyes, standing by a pool of water that reflected the moon hanging in the slate-blue sky.
    No, not just a man, Lirith. Look at the sword in his hand, and his armor. He’s a knight—a knight with a moon emblazoned on his shield
.
    The old woman took the card, running a yellowed fingernail over its surface. “The Knight of Moons. A man of war you are—trustworthy and strong. Yet you are ruled by the heart. And so full of sorrow! You believe you fight alone, but that is not so. For see? She smiles upon you always, although you know it not.”
    The crone pointed to the drawing of the moon. Painted in the circle was the face of a woman, her lips curved in a soft smile.
    “But who is she?” the old woman muttered. “Someone gone, or someone yet to come? My magic cannot say.”
    Durge grunted. “I do not believe in magic, madam.”
    The crone looked up. “And yet magic shall be the death of you,” she said flatly, burying the card back in the deck.
    “Al-Mama!” Sareth said in a chiding voice.
    The old woman shrugged. “I do not make their fates, Sareth. I but speak them. Now you.” She pointed to Aryn.
    Trembling slightly, Aryn held out her card.
    “Hah!” the old woman said, as if something she guessed had now been confirmed. “The Eight of Blades.”
    On the card, a beautiful but solemn woman in a bluedress rode on a white horse across sun-dappled fields, a sword in her left hand. In the distance behind her rose a castle with seven towers, each crowned by a sword.
    Aryn gasped. “But I’ve seen this before!”
    Lirith glanced at the baroness. What did she mean?
    The old woman nodded as she took the card. “As I said before, you have great power. See how the woman rides so proudly? All love her beauty even as they fear her sword. Yet there is always a price to wielding power. For see? She does not notice the poor man in the grass who is trampled beneath the hooves of her horse.”
    Lirith stiffened. There—she could just make out the face in the long grass beneath the horse, eyes shut as if sleeping.
    Aryn shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
    “You have forgotten about one who bore pain for you.”
    “But who is it?”
    The old woman slipped the card back into the deck. “That is for you to remember, child.”
    Even before the crone gazed at her, Lirith knew it was her turn. After Durge’s and Aryn’s tellings, she was not so certain she wanted to see the card