The Pattern Scars by Caitlin Sweet

me hope, for the space of time it took for me to step into the room—but then I saw.
    I had seen blood before. I had imagined, before this, that I had seen a great deal of blood. This, though: dark pools, livid sprays on walls and even ceiling, every surface patterned wet.
Too much for one person—perhaps some animals'?
I thought dizzily, but when I looked at the dripping mess of Chenn’s bed I knew this was not true.
    I left, while the others stood and gawked. Ran again, as Bardrem and Yigranzi called out behind me. Bardrem had finally been getting taller this past winter, but even his newly lengthened legs could not keep pace with mine. I ran around corners and down the rickety flight of stairs by the kitchen and out into the daylight that had turned to gold.
    It was the gold that made me stop, at the walkway. The hue of my vision—the one with Chenn sitting on the throne—and Chenn
was
sitting, but with her back against the tree.
    “Chenn?” Just a whisper, so I was not surprised when Chenn did not look up. I walked. The wood was cold and smooth against my bare feet. The light was thick; I peered through it, saw only clean, graceful lines—the slope of Chenn’s shoulders and her crossed legs and the fall of her long, dark hair. Her head was bent forward, a little. Sleeping, I thought, because I had made myself forget the room behind me in the glow of what was in front. I heard Yigranzi call my name again but did not pause. There was only Chenn.
    I knelt beside her. “Chenn,” I said. “Chenn, Chenn,” and reached for her shoulder. The cloth of her sleeping shift was soft and white. Her skin was shining, damp, and I thought of dew. I gave a gentle shake, and another, and Chenn’s head lolled slowly, slowly.
    At first I saw only her eyes, which were open wide. They were light green with black centres. Green without gold. Normal eyes—and this was so shocking that I looked away from them, and down.
    The wound was as it had been in my vision: the lips of a lycus blossom, curled outward. This was no Otherseeing, though, not a thing glimpsed swiftly, which would fade to nothing as I blinked. I stared at the pale, glistening hole of Chenn’s throat. There was a sudden sound in my ears, like the wings of hundreds of birds all trying to fly at once. When it passed I heard my own blood, pulsing
alive, alive
within me.
    “He washed her,” Bardrem said. He was crouching on Chenn’s other side, clutching her hand in both of his. “He cut her and let her bleed dry and then he washed her.”
    I could hardly see him through the haze of gold; I could hardly hear him through the clamour of my heartbeat.
    Yigranzi’s shadow fell across Chenn’s lap and up over her face. I looked at Yigranzi’s fingers, which were swollen and gnarled and grasping the rounded top of her walking stick. “The mirror,” Yigranzi said. Only now did I notice it, lying on the ground near Bardrem’s knees. It was shining as I had never seen it shine before, copper fire on the dull, black earth. Its wrapping cloth was spread smooth and flat beneath.
    “We must look,” Yigranzi said.
    I tried to find words. I felt my voice stir in my throat; felt how whole my throat was, closed and filled with breath—so unlike Chenn’s. “But,” I began, “she is dead—she can’t ask us to Othersee, so—”
    “Sometimes,” Yigranzi said, “fresh blood is enough. Blood and flesh.”
    “But her Pattern is done—there is nothing to see.”
    “Except how it was set. If we are quick enough, we might catch a trace. But we must be quick, and Bardrem must speak the words.”
    “We’ll look together?” Yigranzi finally turned her eyes to me. “We shouldn’t,” I said, “you told me that two seers looking at a single Pattern at the same time could hurt—could be confusing and strange. . . .”
    Yigranzi leaned down and picked the mirror up in her twisted hand.
    She’s becoming a tree
, I thought; a stray, fleeting idea that I remembered only