The Embers of Heaven Read Online Free PDF Page A

women were more alike than they realized. Both had a reverence for the circle of life, for those who went before, and for those who came after. Nika, whatever Elena might have wished, was of Dan’s blood, and Elena could not find it in herself to forbid the child to go and receive the dying blessing of her mother’s mother. She watched the three walk away; Amais running ahead to pluck some flowering weed by the roadside for her grandmother, Vien holding Nika’s still toddler-chubby little hand, and had a sudden vivid premonition that she might not be seeing this for very long, this remnant of family that was hers, this shadow of her lost son.
     
    She almost called them back, ran to snatch little Nika up in her arms, demand that the child renounce her divided blood, that she become her own laughing little boy all over again. But perhaps it was already too late for that.
     
    Vien had brought the toddler into the shadowy room where Dan now lay under the embroidered coverlets on her bed. Sensitive to the solemn mood of the occasion, Nika approached her grandmother’s bed when given a light push by her mother, and Dan lifted a hand over the child’s head, let it flutter down on her silky dark hair for a moment.
     
    “My little Cricket,” she whispered. “You were born in such an hour… I wish your life could have been easier… but you and I will meet in Cahan one day. May you have light and grace all your days.” She allowed her hand to stroke Nika’s hair, and then sighed. “Send me your sister.”
     
    Vien snaked out an arm and whisked an almost hypnotized Nika/Aylun out of the way. Amais stepped into the space so vacated, and this time Dan’s hand was not light, offered no stroking. She reached out and closed her fingers around Amais’s wrist, stared into her eyes with a gaze that was suddenly too full of power and passion to belong to a dying woman.
     
    “Take the journals,” she said. “They are for you. You are the last of Kito-Tai’s line. Take the journals, and don’t let her name be forgotten. Or your own.” Her eyes fluttered, closed, all passion suddenly spent, as though she had been filled by some external spirit which had now left her. “Or your own…” she whispered, releasing Amais’s hand.
     
    Amais turned her head, alarmed, and sought her mother with a gaze that was almost frightened. “Mother…”
     
    “Watch your sister,” Vien said softly. She pulled Amais free of the dying woman’s bedside, planting a swift kiss of reassurance on the top of her daughter’s head. “Wait for me in the sitting room. Go.”
     
    Amais took Aylun into the other room and gave her one of baya -Dan’s shawls to play with—she didn’t think her grandmother would mind. For her own part, she went to the chest where she knew that Tai’s journals were kept, She knelt on the floor beside it for the longest time, her mind curiously blank, and then opened the lid and carefully took out her legacy – the small pile of red notebooks. They sat there in her lap, in apparent innocence—but they had changed for Amais. Before, they had been a fascinating if somewhat distant link to her ancestry and her past. Now they were heavy with portent. Amais had been charged with something by her grandmother on her deathbed, and these journals were the only way to find out just exactly what it was that she had accepted as her life’s work. Her grandmother had not exactly asked Amais to promise anything, and Amais hadn’t exactly given her word, but it had been implicit.
     
    Don’t let her name be forgotten. Or your own…
     
    When Vien came out to gather her children up, her eyes were red and swollen.
     
    “ Baya -Dan…? Amais asked, her voice quavering just a little.
     
    “She is gone, Amais- ban . She is gone.”
     
    Don’t let her name be forgotten. Or your own. Those words, her grandmother had uttered out loud. But now, as Amais remembered them, there had been another phrase, unspoken, ephemeral,