Page 22 of The Seeker
There are mysteries and peculiarities everywhere,she mused.Not only in the Irin world.
Mysteries like a scholar who moved like a warrior, or a singer who was friendly with an angel.
She turned off the main road and back into the twisting tracks leading to the back of the haven. Dense foliage grew thicker. Cypress and pine gave way to rolling lowlands filled with sugarcane where the air hung heavy and sweet. She turned left at the first live oak.
An alley of trees guarded the front of Havre Hélène, the great Creole house that past singers had saved from ruin, but the entrance Meera used came in from the farm. The property stretched south from the river, guarded by high fences and thick foliage cultivated by labor and strong earth magic. Sugar was what had run the plantation when it had belonged to humans. Sugar kept their new farm running still.
Meera felt the wards welcome her as she crossed the threshold of the haven. The old overseer’s home had been ripped out when the land was bought, and a new guardhouse had been built in a style matching the house. A mated couple, both of her father’s clan, lived in it now with their young child. When Meera had decided to leave India, her father, Maarut, had called them and they’d followed without question.
Because everything must be done without question.
“Meera Bai, you will be called. Abha is gone. Meera is your new name.”
“Yes, Auntie.”
“Anamitra is my name. Meera Bai is yours. Names are important, so we must use them.”
“Yes, Anamitra.”
“You have been chosen as my heir. Do you understand what that means? Your life is no longer your own. You belong to all the daughters of heaven.”
“Yes, Auntie.”
“I am not Auntie.”
“Yes, Anamitra.”
Meera drove slowly down the dirt road leading to the second largest home on the property. It had once belonged to the matriarch of the family, but that human was long dead and the rambling home had been turned into rooms for unmated singers.
When the plantation had been taken over nearly one hundred years before, it had been near ruin and the shacks that had been the slave quarters were crumbling and rotting.
The singers who first came had burned the remnants of the cottages, singing laments and prayers of healing for the human souls who had suffered, while digging deep to find the roots of family, strength, and survival they had sowed in the land.
The ruins became places for meditation and teaching, with gardens growing around them. The plantation that had once been a place of horrible pain became a farm where the vulnerable could find refuge and survivors could grow. New cottages were built for mated singers and the scribes who had fled with them from the Rending. Everyone worked together.
It was a self-sustained ecosystem now guarded by Patiala and Maarut, her own parents, who had taken over from the previous guardian and her mate.
When Meera had told her parents she wanted to leave the great library at Udaipur after Anamitra’s death, they had thought she was joking. She was not.
“Anamitra had no life outside this place. Her world was this compound.”
“Your world is here as well. This is a center of learning. A safe place where singers can seek wisdom and healing. You know what happened when Anamitra left.”
“I refuse to be bound by rules set in stone before I was born. If I carry this burden, I will decide how and where I carry it.”
“The world needs Anamitra’s heir.”
“And they will have me. Eventually. But I have lived over two hundred years confined to this place. There are other wise singers in the Irin world. They can survive without me for a few years.”
Meera had moved without asking her parents—her first act of rebellion but not her last—and she’d chosen a place that had fascinated her for personal and academic reasons. As a child, she’d been enthralled by the legends and stories of the powerful singers across the sea. She’d listened to the songs that told about great battles, vast landscapes, prosperity, and centuries of peace.
When the opportunity had arisen to break free from the boundaries of her childhood, she grabbed it.
She parked the car behind the main house where her parents made their home. Her father oversaw the farm and organization of the compound. Her mother oversaw the security of the haven and communication with other guardians around the world.
In the history of unbreakable bonds, theirs was one of the most ironclad, all the more amazing to Meera because their mating had been strictly arranged by their families.
“Meera!” Patiala waved from the back porch and jogged down the steps. “I didn’t know you’d be here so early.” She hugged her daughter in a tight embrace. “Nanette is making lunch for us right now.”
