Free Threshold by Sara Douglass

and if I hurry Tirzah outside now I can send Zeldon or Orteas up to oversee the placement of the glass.”
    Kofte’s face twitched, and I could see the power rippling beneath his skin. Terrified he was about to unleash the fury of the One upon me, I groaned, and closed my eyes.
    “Excellency!” Yaqob pleaded. “She is too valuable to lose, too skilled at the caging!”
    Now I could hear the fear in his voice, and that terrified me even more. I screwed my eyes shut, and prepared to die.
    But Yaqob had managed to deflect Kofte’s anger. “Then take her!” the Magus snapped. “And send Zeldon. But fast ! I have not the entire day to waste.”
    Muttering profuse thanks, Yaqob gathered me into his arms and hurried me away from those dreadful screams.
    He held me close, trotting as fast as he dared down the incline, and with every step he took I could feel and hear the screams wane. I relaxed, my horror fading with that of the glass, and let Yaqob’s closeness warm and comfort me.
    He stopped eventually, and cradled me closer as he spoke. “Tirzah. We approach the busier sections of Threshold. It would be better if you walked by yourself now. Can you do it?”
    I nodded, reluctantly, and he saw the reason for my reluctance and a grin tugged the corners of his mouth. “You are feeling better. Come now, stand.” And his arms loosened about me.
    I stood, straightened my wrap, and pushed my hair into some kind of order. Yaqob nodded, then walked forward, making sure I managed to follow.
    We reached the mouth of Threshold without incident. Guards watched us curiously, but we hung our heads andshuffled past, and eventually their eyes wandered beyond us, looking for slaves more likely to be in the midst of subversive activities.
    At its foot we met two of the craftsmen from our workshop. Yaqob took one of them aside, spoke quickly, and the man hurried back the way he’d come.
    “I’ve sent him for Zeldon,” Yaqob said quietly. “We dare not cross Kofte more than we have already.”
    “Yaqob, I’m sorry. I –”
    “No. Don’t speak now. Not here.”
    I knew he meant not only where so many guards huddled watchful, but also where Threshold’s shadow lay at its thickest. I shivered.
    “I know a place where we can have a few quiet minutes without suspicion. We need to talk, you and I.”
    We walked back through the gates of Threshold’s enclosure, then down the main thoroughfare leading from Gesholme. As we walked past an overhang Yaqob took my elbow and pulled me into a dark, shaded alcove. Thick canvas hung above us and dropped to the dirt at our feet; Threshold’s shadow was as trapped outside as was the sun.
    We stood close, but not touching.
    “Well?”
    “I…the glass…”
    “Tirzah, what happened when you touched the glass?”
    I took a deep breath, sick of the secrets, and then the words came out in a flood. “It screamed to me, Yaqob. It was trapped, weeping, pleading. Its soul is sick, tarnished, but unable to die. It wants to die. It wants to escape.”
    He stared at me, his eyes unreadable in this dim light. “You hear glass speak? Is that what you’re saying?”
    “I…” I had mentioned this only once to my father, when I was about eight. He had smiled indulgently and dismissed my words as the imagination of a young girl. “The glass has spoken to me for a very long time, and I to it. This is the only way I know how to work it.”
    “And what else speaks to you, Tirzah?”
    “Pottery, sometimes, but not like the glass. Not wood. Not cloth.” I fingered the material of my own wrap, using it as an excuse to drop my eyes from his.
    “And?”
    “And metals, especially worked precious metals – a gold bracelet,” that had been Hadone’s bracelet, and it had made my time with him bearable, “and the silver, copper or jade rings on the hands of those I have held.”
    I paused again, but not through any wish to dissemble. I needed the moment to try to put what I had felt throughout my life