Chapter 25. Still Mind

“Nana… let me sleep please, nana…”

I heard a small chuckle somewhere above my head.

I really was not ready to open my eyes, so I supposed Nana could wait another minute.

“Young Lord.”

… Something about this voice was not Nana.

My eyes came open in pieces, as consciousness resurfaced and I remembered where I was. There was a flagstone about three inches from my face, a pale grey robe at the edge of my vision, and the faint pink of suren petals on the ground a little further out.

“Young Lord, please wake u—”

The voice ended in a gasp as I jolted upright, and immediately found who it belonged to.

“Oh. Oh, I— Mireth, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

She had startled back half a step when I moved, her hands coming up slightly, and now she was smoothing the front of her robes and trying to recover the composure I had knocked out of her by sitting up too fast.

“Young Lord, I apologise. I did not mean to wake you so suddenly. I would have let you sleep longer, but—”

“No, please, it’s me who should— I shouldn’t have— I fell asleep on the flagstones, that’s not—”

“Young Lord—”

“Sorry. Sorry. Yes.”

I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes. My head was full of the slow warm cotton of a sleep interrupted too fast. The last thing I remembered clearly was Master Saoren telling me to breathe and circulate and close my eyes, and after that there was a long quiet stretch of something I was not sure had been meditation or a nap, and then nothing at all until I had heard a voice calling me.

Mireth, in the meantime, had regained her composure.

“Young Lord. There are guards at the shrine gates. They arrived a short while ago. They are here to escort you back to the estate.”

“…What?”

“They are waiting.”

I looked around me. The sun was not yet over the eastern ridge but the sky above the ridge was already pale, and the air had the clean mountain edge of a morning that had started without me.

My grandfather had not told me how long I was allowed to stay here, I realized. I had assumed I had a week.

“Where are they?”

“At the main gates, Young Lord. They said they would wait for as long as was needed, but—”

“No. Of course. I’ll go to them.”

I pushed myself up off the flagstones while my knees protested, and my back even more as I brushed the petal off my sleeve, looking once at the suren with no trace of the small blue spirit anywhere in the branches.

But I was sure, in a way I could not have explained, that he was still there, somewhere in the branches or near them.

“Is something the matter, Young Lord?”

Mireth was watching me.

“No. Nothing.”

Somewhere in the long hours of the night, Saoren had made me promise not to speak of our meeting to anyone without his permission. Obviously, I had agreed without arguing but standing here now, with Mireth waiting for an answer and the suren still in bloom above us, I felt the small sharp ache of wanting to tell her.

She had tended this shrine her whole life and so did the other two keepers. All three of them had spent their lives believing that the spirit they revered so deeply had gone, so I would have given a great deal to see their faces when I told them.

But I could not, so I did not. Instead, I started for the gate.

“I will deal with the guards.”

I stepped out into the short path that led to the main gates as a strong wind hit me. I had to raise my voice a little for the first few words.

Four guards stood on the other side of the gates in full Aridis colours. They saw me and went to one knee together, fists pressed to their chests in the martial salute.

“Young Lord.”

“Captain. Please, stand.”

They rose in the same motion they had knelt.

“The council has summoned you back to the estate, Young Lord. We have been instructed to escort you at your earliest convenience. We will wait for as long as you need to ready yourself.”

I took a breath and pulled the front my robe a little closer against the wind.

“I thank the council for sending you. However, I would ask that I be permitted to remain at the shrine until the day I depart for the academy. I am not yet ready to return to the estate.”

The four of them had a small exchange of glances at that, and it did not take a prodigy to realize the sort of situation in which I was putting them. For that, I was sorry.

“Young Lord. Our orders—”

“I understand your orders. I am not asking you to disobey them. I am asking you to carry a message back to the council on my behalf, and to let the council decide.”

The captain’s mouth worked for half a second.

“And the message, Young Lord?”

I had time to think about this on my way to the gates. I knew how the elders valued my attachment to the house above almost everything else, so a reason that fit inside that line would likely get me the days.

“Please tell the council that since arriving at the shrine, I have felt a certain connection to the Axioms who came before me. I would like to use the remaining days to learn more about the history of the house from the keepers here, and to meditate on what that history means for my time at the academy. The elders will understand.”

The captain seemed to be holding the words in his head for a second, as if checking them against some internal register of things that could be safely repeated to the Council of Aridis, and, fortunately for me, seemed to conclude they would pass.

“…As you say, Young Lord. We will carry the message.”

“Thank you.”

They bowed again, more briefly this time, turned, then started back down the rock-cut stairs into the wind, and I watched them until the first bend in the path took them out of sight then I came back through the gates and found Mireth waiting for me in the inner courtyard.

“Is everything well, Young Lord?”

“Yes. The guards will carry a message back to the council. I’ve asked to remain here until the day I leave for the academy, if that is not an imposition on the shrine or on any of you.”

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“An imposition?” The small smile came back to the corner of her mouth. “Young Lord, this shrine was built for the Axioms of the line, and no Axiom has walked through those gates in over a thousand years. So your presence here is not an imposition but the very reason the shrine exists. You are welcome for the rest of the week, and for longer than the week if the council ever permits it.”

“Thank you, Mireth.”

“Is there anything you will need for your stay? The library is open to you, of course, though some of the older texts require care in handling and I would be happy to bring them to you myself. We also have a small training hall on the eastern side of the complex that has been used by keepers for light practice over the years. It is nothing compared to what you are accustomed to at the estate, but if you require equipment, a weapon rack, a training dummy, we can prepare the space within the hour.”

“None of that will be necessary, thank you. I won’t be needing books or equipment. I will be meditating.”

She did not quite manage to hide the small flicker of perplexity that crossed her face at that.

“…Meditating, Young Lord?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“For… the whole of the week?”

“For as much of the week as I am able to, yes. I read last night, after you retired, the oldest texts in the garden shrine, and something in what I saw has stayed with me. I would like to sit with it properly before I leave for the academy. I would also ask, if it is not too much, to not be disturbed while I am in the inner garden. Meals can be left at the gate and I will come out for tea at sunset if the keepers still take it on the bench outside.”

She did not seem to be any less curious despite my excuse, but to my relief, she did not press further, and instead inclined her head.