“Why is that?” Maia asked, dabbing away the moisture from her eyes.
“I do not know,” Sabine said, her voice fading. “When you read the tomes, you will discern that some generations are more flush with the Medium than others. There are individuals, like Lia Demont, who rise up to do great things. Then several generations pass with little notice. Occasionally a generation comes that burdens the world with evil. History is like a river, I think. There are seasons that occur over and over. Sometimes the waters are swollen and violent. Sometimes placid.” She smiled at Maia and hugged her. “We live in turbulent waters, Maia. When your father abandoned his oaths, he issued a new season. We must all endure the rapids now.”
Maia looked down at her hands. “Are you . . . disappointed in me, Grandmother?”
There was silence, and Maia felt her cheeks begin to burn with shame.
“Do not mistake my quiet, Maia,” Sabine said, her voice choked with emotion. Tenderly, she traced her fingers through Maia’s long hair. “You have never had children, so you cannot understand. Someday you will. There is nothing you could do that would make me stop loving you. I wish with all my heart that every parent felt this way. Unfortunately, you had a father whose love was conditional on obedience. I think he inherited that from his father. So many choose to bind themselves to the traditions of their fathers. Even if those traditions are wrong and harmful. But I know . . .” Her voice broke with emotion. “I know how your mother felt about you. There is no stronger love than a mother’s love. Except perhaps a grandmother’s.” She smiled and hugged Maia again, who hugged her fiercely in return. Tears spilled down both their cheeks.
Maia swallowed, feeling the anxious churn of her emotions. She knew her mother was dead, that they had parted until the second life was over. She wept with that knowledge, wishing she could have at least said good-bye. Thanked her for sending her a message through the wanderer Maderos. She let herself feel the emotions, even though they were painful. She let herself cry.
“Do you know what will happen next, Grandmother?” Maia asked. “Lia’s tome is blank after that last part.”
Sabine wiped her own eyes and gave Maia a thoughtful look. “No, I do not know. As you said, the rest of her tome is empty. My Gift of Seering is focused on the past. That is what I can see most clearly, the time that happened just prior to the Scourging. I know what the abbeys used to look like, so I have visited the various kingdoms to help with the rebuilding. But I am blind as to the future.”
Maia closed the tome and set it on the table. “The tome was not as long as I thought it would be. How long did she live?”
“We know she was a grandmother,” Sabine said in a small voice. “She mentions her granddaughter in her tome. This was the granddaughter who sailed back to Comoros and began to rebuild Muirwood. It was when her granddaughter was born that she began having visions of us specifically, I think. There is something about the birth of children that makes the whispers of the Medium particularly powerful. She saw our future and began to scribe that tome for us. She gave the tome to her granddaughter to take with her when she sailed across the sea. It was then given to me. That was my mother.” She sighed. “Lia foresaw that if the mastons did not return, the Naestors would completely overrun the land and make returning impossible. Lia saw something else in the future she only hints at. She foresaw that because of the hetaera, women would be forbidden to read.”
“Yes, yet you learned to read,” Maia said. “You mentioned the Ciphers.”
“Yes. As you saw in the tome, Lia was the Aldermaston of Muirwood before she left. She instructed that anyone would always be permitted to read and engrave at Muirwood Abbey. Even the wretcheds. To keep this hidden from the Dochte Mandar, the girls’ lessons are given in the cloisters at night, after all the male students are abed. During the day, they are taught languages and other skills. But their instruction in the Medium and the tomes is done in secret. In the past, all the children of the rulers were sent to Dochte Abbey to study. Now that instruction happens at the chief abbey in every realm. For Comoros, it is Muirwood. You were meant to study there, Maia. You were supposed to go there when you were twelve, but your father refused to send you after your mother took sanctuary there. You have missed the opportunity to learn there in your youth, but you were tutored by Walraven to read. Now you must learn the art of engraving. It will not be difficult for you.”