The Hidden Queen, page 38
Olive’s old bed is a four-poster like mine, but…frillier, with lacy curtains that don’t hide anythin’ or hold back the light. They haven’t been let down for the night, and Rojvah is facedown on the silk sheets.
Ent ever been this close to Rojvah’s bed, and I feel my heart beating faster as I approach. Dunno if it’s from her sobbing, or the way her scent clings to the bedding. “Rojvah?”
She dun’t answer, and I hope it ent too bold as I sit on the bed next to her and try somethin’ new. “Intended?”
The word feels awkward on my lips, but Rojvah pauses at it, and turns, eyeing me through her hair.
“Turn away,” she croaks at last. “Do not look at me like this.”
“Seen you cry at the funeral,” I say. “Still prettier than any other girl at her Seventhday best.”
Nevertheless, I turn away and Rojvah sits up, drying her eyes and fixing her robes, scarves, and hair. “All right.”
I look back, and my breath catches. There’s little sign of tears now, and she’s carefully arranged herself, curled up in a way that makes me all too aware I’m on her bed.
I stand, taking a step back. Leavin’ room for Everam, as the Krasians say. I wait for her to say something, but the quiet stretches. “Somethin’ upset you?”
There is fear, doubt, and worry in Rojvah’s scent. Not things I’m used to smellin’ from her. “I cannot put off meeting with Favah any longer.”
“That’s supposed to help me make sense of things?”
“My dice,” she says, and that’s enough for me to get the gist.
Rippin’ dice. They’ve got real power, but my experience is they hurt folk a lot more than they help. Ent much in the world that scares me more than prophecies.
“Mam says when you’re afraid of something, better to run right at it than hide and wait for it to corner you.” I laugh a little. “Easier said than done.”
I put a hand over hers, feeling her rapid pulse. “Maybe we can do it together.”
There’s a jump in Rojvah’s pulse. “Would you…?”
“ ’Course,” I say. “Go just about anywhere, long as it’s with you.”
Her pulse slows, and some of the fear leaves her scent, replaced by that smell she has when we’re sayin’ our good nights.
* * *
—
It’s full dark by the time we get to the university, but no one’s off to bed. Like my own powers, dama’ting magic is strongest at night.
You’d think we were expected, the way Favah’s Kaji attendants receive their princess and her intended. Maybe we were.
Ent long before we’re seen to Favah’s office. There ent any chairs, just pillows on the floor to kneel on. The old crone kneels at the center of the room, acting like she don’t know we’re here.
Favah’s interesting. Probably the oldest person I’ve ever met who looks their age. Folk say Jeorje Watch has six score winters, but he killed so many demons during the war, it doesn’t show.
Favah’s body is withered by comparison. Just wiry sinew and bone, with thin skin sagging around it. She has that smell graybeards get when their bodies start to sour.
But her aura is strong. Usually old folk’s auras dim with age, but Favah’s is bright, probably from a lifetime of casting the dice. She’s got the power under tight control, like winter freeze on a pond. No tellin’ what’s beneath.
“Princess.” Favah does not open her eyes as she gestures to the pillow across from her. The only one on the floor. “The son of Arlen may wait outside.”
Rojvah’s scent is full of fear and deference, but she shakes her head. “He is my intended, Honored Dama’ting. My questions will affect his life as well as mine.”
Don’t much like the sound of that, but I ent here for me. Here for Rojvah, and nothing else.
“Very well,” Favah concedes, though her scent is less than pleased. She doesn’t offer a pillow as I kneel next to Rojvah. “The dice said you would not speak until you came to me, but I did not expect it to take all winter.”
Rojvah puts her hands on the floor, bowing until her head nearly touches the floor. “Apologies, Honored Dama’ting. I…was afraid.”
“And what could make the crown princess of Kaji fear me?” Favah wonders.
There’s panic in Rojvah’s scent. I don’t look at her, but I lay my hand on the floor, touching hers just a little.
“I do not wish to be dama’ting!” Rojvah blurts. She pauses and pulls in a fresh breath, her words growing stronger. “I will not do it. I cannot. If put before the oath, my words will ring false in my aura, and even the Damajah would have no choice but to cast me out.”
Like someone who just sicked up, Rojvah seems both relieved and exhausted by the effort. She sets back on her folded legs and breathes as her heart tries to find its rhythm.
“Then why come at all?” Favah smells irritated, and Rojvah flinches at the lash of the words. “To approve your blasphemy? To forgive your rejection of duty and your betrayal of Everam?”
Each accusation hits Rojvah, rippling pain across her aura like stones skipped on a pond. You’d think Favah was coming at her with a knife from the way she smells. Rojvah opens her mouth, but nothing comes out.
She asked me not to speak. To respect the venerable dama’ting. Olive, too, talks about Favah like she’s some kind of livin’ legend.
But I’ve had people sayin’ I was worthless and a disappointment all my life, and no matter what mask I put on to hide my feelings, it hurt every time. Sometimes it hurt so much I didn’t think I could take it.
Corespawn me if I’m gonna let someone make my promised feel like that.
“Ay!” I snap, drawing all the attention in the room. Favah’s glare is sharp, her scent stunned at my audacity, but that just makes me angrier.
“Ent betrayal when folk try to force you to do something you don’t wanna,” I growl. “Ent betrayal to not be everything your parents wanted. And it ent blasphemy to not want to put on white robes and pretend you’re better’n folk.”
Favah ent stunned anymore. My words hit her aura like a hammer on ice, each one cracking away at the pond to reveal red lines of anger pulsing beneath.
Rojvah’s holdin’ her breath, even more scared than before. Thinks I’m makin’ things worse—and maybe I am—but I’m too steamed to care.
“My promised went into the undercity to hunt Alagai rippin’ Ka,” I say. “While the dama’ting schemed and judged from the safety of the Holy City, Rojvah was singin’ pain right into his knobby skull.”
I lean forward. “You may not ‘approve’ of Rojvah’s choices, but you got no call for disrespect.”
Favah stares at me a long moment. When’s the last time anyone spoke to her like that? Night, has anyone ever? Her aura is unreadable, the ice melted into a cloud that could be a cooling fog, or steam fit to scald my skin off.
Favah flicks her sleeves back, and I wonder if she’s fixin’ to cast a spell. But then she puts her hands on the floor, bowing without lowering her eyes.
Now it’s my turn to be stunned. To Krasians, this is the sincerest form of apology short of submission.
“You are correct, son of Arlen.” Favah’s voice is flat, but for the first time I smell real emotion on her. Humility. “Everam is watching always, and will weigh my words against me in Heaven.” She looks to Rojvah. “I apologize, Honored Rojvah. Indeed, your glory is boundless, and it was wrong of me to speak to you so.”
She sits back up, sleeves wafting gently down to cover her gnarled hands. Still, she holds Rojvah’s gaze. “Why have you come, if not about the white?”
Even with Favah putting her teeth away, Rojvah smells more scared than ever. Her hand drifts down to the hora pouch at her waist, beside a hanzhar carved of hero’s bone. She reaches into the thick velvet bag, bones rattling as she lifts her hand to Favah.
“Because white robes or no, if we are to survive the trials to come, I must know if these speak true.” Rojvah’s fingers open, revealing a set of seven dice, carved from polished demonbone and glowin’ bright with magic.
“Tsst!” Favah hisses. “How long, girl?”
Rojvah’s eyes flick to the floor. “I finished them in the desert.”
“Before your return to New Krasia.” Favah sounds like a schoolmam at the end of her patience. “But you did not tell your mother. Or the Damajah.”
Rojvah keeps her eyes down. “No.”
“Because you feared they would press the white on you,” Favah says, “and keep you from your chosen path.”
Rojvah’s yes is barely a squeak.
“Better to sneak off like a gwil in the night,” Favah says, “than face your destiny.”
Now Rojvah looks up. “I am here, now, Dama’ting.” She raises the dice again. “Test them. If they are not true, I will show them the sun and walk away, my heart the lighter for it.”
“And if they are?” Favah says. “It is forbidden to See without the white.”
“Everything is forbidden, until it is not,” Rojvah says. “Did you yourself not teach Leesha Paper to See? I do not recall her taking the white.”
“I did not approve of that,” Favah says.
“Ay, but you did it,” I say.
“On the Damajah’s command.” Favah’s scent is dismissive. Like I got no business sticking my head in. And maybe I don’t, but that’s when it’s the most fun.
“What do you think is inevera, right now?” I ask.
* * *
—
Even at night, Favah takes us down to her underground Chamber of Shadows, so not even moonlight can reach us.
“No man has witnessed this rite in three thousand years,” Favah advises me, but I can tell from her scent she wants me to turn my back, like when someone’s changing clothes.
“Lucky me,” I say, and stay right where I am.
For all the solemnity of this “rite,” it’s a little boring, if I’m to tell honest word. Favah starts with cards, dealing hidden hands and making Rojvah guess them with the dice. She asks things Rojvah could not possibly know the answer to, and notes her responses.
Finally, she flicks her hand for Rojvah to put away her dice. “I will meditate on this.”
Just like that, Favah closes her eyes, and I hear her heartbeat slow as her breath falls into a deep, steady rhythm. The emotions in her scent fade, still as a statue.
Rojvah’s hand finds mine as we kneel in wait. She squeezes tighter’n I’d like, but I just squeeze back a nice, even pressure.
Here in the darkness, the touch of our skin makes a link between our auras, like a straw I could suck on, Drawing a bit of her aura through mine and Reading it.
Readin’ someone’s aura ent the same as looking at it. It’s about the most intimate, personal thing you can do. You can see hopes and dreams, live memories like they happened to you, learn things they don’t even know about themselves. I could do it as easily as takin’ a breath.
And I want to. I want to know everything about Rojvah. Want to know if I mean to her even a tiny fraction of what she’s come to mean to me. To know if our promise is real, or just a means to an end.
To know if she really likes me for me.
Only, it ent my business, how she feels. Read Selen Cutter once by accident, and I felt…dirty after, like I’d been thumbin’ through her diary, only a thousand times worse.
Won’t do that to Rojvah. All she needs right now is someone to hold her hand, so I cap the link, like using my tongue to cover the tip of the straw.
At last Favah’s eyes snap open. “Your dice speak with Everam’s voice, Rojvah, daughter of Amanvah.”
Rojvah squeezes so hard her nails dig into my skin.
“The Damajah will ask after you,” Favah says. “I will not bear her false witness.”
“Then do not,” Rojvah says. “Tell her I passed the test, but did not take the oath. That I will not take it. But I will go into the demon king’s lair once more, for Everam, and all Ala.
“That, I will do.”
Favah puts her hands on the floor again as she bows. “May your glory be as boundless as your spirit, Princess. Everam loses a powerful Bride, this day. It will be on you to exceed that fate.”
* * *
—
Rojvah’s back to her old self after that. Almost giddy, even knowin’ where we’re headed. When we finally kiss good night, it makes my head spin.
For once I go to bed, pulling the curtains tight and sleeping as much as I can with the night whispering to me. Ent much, before the Equinox Festival starts causing a ruckus.
Worst of winter’s freeze has receded. Snow lines the roads and some of the tracks are muddy, but Hollow’s paved streets are clear.
Still chilly, but folk are getting psyched up for planting season, so a lot of people have cause to come to town for supplies, or just to poke their heads out after the cold months. Equinox ent usually as big a holiday as Solstice, but Olive wants the excuse to move soldiers and horses around, and opens the coffers to throw a barn burner that folk will be sleepin’ off for a week.
Another day of seeing and being seen, waving at crowds even as their press and irregular bouts of cheering feel crushing. It gets louder and louder as the day goes on into night.
And then it’s time. Try not to listen in as Olive and Selen say their goodbyes with tears and a crushing embrace. Selen’s got work to do while the rest of us are onstage.
Selen’s eyes are puffy as she emerges from the private tent. “Your turn, Dar. See you soon.”
Olive has composed herself better, but folk can’t hide their smell the way they can fix their face. This ent easy on her. “You got this, Dar?”
Even Olive, who all but told me I couldn’t keep it together enough to be a Jongleur, is acting like I’m in charge on this trip. “Core if I know. But I ent comin’ back without Mam and Leesha, or proof they been et.”
“Spoken like a true Sharum,” Olive says, but I ent that, and she knows it.
“What about you?” I ask. “You ent shared your plans. You got this?”
Olive shrugs. “As much as you. I have a direction, and a task. I’ll figure out the rest as I go.”
“Ay.”
Olive lifts her arms for a hug. Don’t usually like hugs, but Olive Paper ent just anyone. I’m in her arms before she’s fully extended, squeezing tight. “Don’t get et.”
Olive gives a little chuckle, as I feel her tears wet my hair. “Good advice for us all.”
We’re all fake smiles as we emerge, Jongleur’s masks for the cheering crowd as Arick and Rojvah take their places and I tumble onto center stage, practicing Jongleur’s tricks to warm the crowd.
The acrobatics have always come easy, and at night my hands move so fast the random assortment of items I juggle crawl through the air, giving me all the time I need to catch and hurl them back up into the pattern.
Some folk cast nervous looks skyward, but looking out from the stage I can see scorpion teams lining the rooftops, alongside senior Warders with their electrum pens. No demon’s going to sneak up on us tonight.
Hary gave me a Jongleur’s bag o’ marvels, full of toss bangs and wingseeds, colored balls and scarves, magic tricks and musical instruments. I pull out a set of shackles, and Arick and Rojvah make a great show of chaining me up. Rojvah sashays across the stage with confidence, calling folk from the audience to test the bindings before they toss me in a box. It’s effortless to turn slippery and free myself, leaping out with a flourish. It isn’t the polished act of a Master Jongleur, but Hary Roller says it dun’t take much to impress the bumpkins.
By then, Arick’s sitting with his kamanj, and Rojvah is dancing in a dress strung with scarves of colored silk that tinkles with webs of warded coins. My pipes are resting on a stool behind her, and as I take my place, she touches her choker and begins to sing.
We’ve practiced this set dozens of times, syncing it with Selen’s movements out in the dark while everyone is watching us in the sound shell. Even the encores are planned and scheduled. Toward the end of the final song, Olive holds up a hand to me, and I wonder if I’ll ever see her again.
Then I take a carefully prepared pouch from my bag o’ marvels, holding my breath as I cast it down with a bang and a flash, filling the stage with smoke as the crowd shrieks and cheers.
All the noise should be too much for me, but I knew it was coming, orchestrated it, and the noise rolls over me with little effect.
For now.
Behind the screen of smoke, our trio drops through a hidden trap in the stage, appearing to vanish as Hary Roller himself appears out of the smoke, seamlessly keeping the party going.
Beneath the stage are rough disguises, and I turn my back as Rojvah trades her bright performance dress for something less likely to draw the eye. Arick and I change, too, putting on plain clothes, hats, and scarves that will draw little attention in the chill night as we slip out into the throng.
No one, not even the other performers onstage, sees us go, and the crowd is the last place anyone will expect us. They’ll assume we’ve gone someplace backstage, or been spirited back to the royal section.
This is the worst part of the plan for me, enveloped by the crowd. Smells and sounds and sights and tastes press at me from all sides, cheering and shouting and conversations, the stink of alcohol and vomit, the smell of the temporary privies that fills the air.
It’s the worst part, but it’s my plan. Hary knows he’s creating a distraction, and gives a performance that puts mine to shame. He opens with The Battle of Cutter’s Hollow, a favorite that always pulls in the crowd. I focus on its rhythm and familiar cadence, blocking out the other input as best I can as the three of us filter out of the crowd and flee Corelings’ Graveyard.
