Page 145 of The Seeker
“Please.” Ata bowed her head. “Do not let their memories die.”
“She’s too tired,” Rhys said. “Look at her.”
Sari stepped toward Meera, visibly shaking and wrapped in Damien’s linen robe. “She may be tired, but she’s near-bursting with power.” She put her hand on Meera’s shoulder. “I can feel you. Do this now. Taking her memories will purge some of this magic, correct?”
Meera could only nod.
“Then do it. Or you’ll be useless tomorrow.”
Meera knew Sari was right. Even though she wanted to beg Ata for another day or two, they didn’t have time. “Sit in front of me,” she said. “Give me your hands.”
Ata’s shoulders slumped in relief. She sat on the cushion across from Meera, held out her hands, and closed her eyes.
Meera dragged herself from the edge of exhaustion and began chanting the spell she would need to take Ata’s memory.
This time when she fell, the sea stretched into eternity.
“What’s happening?”Rhys asked in a panic.
Meera had taken Ata’s hands and started to sing the keeping spell, then her spine arched, her eyes rolled back, and the audible chant turned into inaudible whispers Rhys couldn’t understand. Her lips were moving too fast for him to keep track. He reached for her, only to have Damien tug him away.
“Don’t,” he warned. “I know this seems strange, but she’s entered the mind of a very old singer. She’s accessing not only Ata’s memory, but the ancestral memory passed from elder to child.”
Sari put a hand on Rhys’s arm. “The Uwachi Toma have spent thousands and thousands of years on this continent. The memories she’s sharing—”
“I know.” Rhys pulled up a low stool and positioned himself behind Meera. He shouldn’t touch her, but he wanted to remain close. “I’ve walked with her through other memories.”
“And when it’s time, you’ll walk through some of these with her too,” Damien said. “But thesomasikaraare vessels. None of this will make sense until Meera needs it to. That’s just the way her magic works.”
And tomorrow she fights an angel.
His mate might have seemed playful and delicate, but she had to be the strongest woman Rhys had ever met.
He glanced at Sari and Damien. “Do you understand what has to happen tomorrow?”
“Yes,” Damien said. “Do we have any idea what form this angel will take?”
“You’ll be surprised and you won’t.” Vasu appeared, sitting next to Meera. For the first time since the angel had appeared to Rhys, he didn’t feel like stabbing the creature. Vasu’s eyes were intent on the two singers. “This is never easy,” he murmured.
“How many times has she done this?”
“Five.” Vasu glanced at him. “Two before Anamitra died, the transfer between them when Anamitra was fading—that was the worst—then two since. This makes six.”
“And she just… takes all Ata’s memories?”
“She doesn’t take them away. Ata’s memories will remain hers. But the knowledge she holds… To put it in terms you might understand, this is a download. She’s adding the memories of the Uwachi Toma to the library that is her mind. You’re mated now. You’ve seen it.”
“It doesn’t make sense to me,” Rhys said softly. “I still don’t understand.”
Vasu’s voice was the closest he’d ever heard an angel to awestruck. “Her mind is a sea that is only a tiny facet of the Creator’s mind. Yet a glimpse of it might drive an angel mad because we long for it so much.”
“You long for it?”
Vasu met his eyes. “We are creatures of service. Our truest nature longs only for the Creator’s presence, even if we are exiled.”
“And Meera’s mind is a facet of that,” Rhys said. “That is why you follow her. That is why you were Anamitra’s friend.”
Vasu said, “I don’t have friends.”
