The Hidden Queen, page 52
Used to think no one could beat Wonda Cutter at wrestling, but Selen’s older now, larger and more experienced. Wonda still has a few tricks, but I can sense her mounting worry, and her pride. Some teachers don’t like being shown up by a student, but Wonda’s the sort to want nothing more than for her students to reach higher than she did.
Arick leans in, watching every move. It would have my attention, too, but mostly I’m focused to the back room.
Rojvah and Kendall have retreated there for privacy as my promised collects Kendall’s tears over Micha’s death, but my senses have a way of takin’ me places I ent invited.
It’s Rojvah’s place to do it. Collecting tears is women’s business in Krasia, and Kendall was the apprentice of Rojer Halfgrip, Rojvah’s father. That’s good as family, and of course, Kendall Demonsong’s a famed Jongleur in her own right—something Rojvah has always aspired to be.
I try to ignore it at first, but I can’t help but hear every sob and sniffle. The scrape of the tear bottle’s sharp lip against Kendall’s skin. The way Kendall’s heart races, how each sob racks her body like the crack of a whip.
She’s breathing hard when it’s done. Even her skin is activated. She takes a moment to recover, and then it’s Rojvah’s turn.
She doesn’t need to fake it. We all cried over Nanny Micha, and the wound’s still fresh. Even I had to go find a secret spot to fall apart, and I hate cryin’. Always have.
Their grief is a miasma that fills my senses. I feel the shock wave of every sob and shudder like it was my own body. The high-pitched cries stab my eardrums. Anguish fills my nostrils. If pain has a taste, I taste it now.
I hate cryin’, but I’m jealous how Krasian women help each other through it. How they find a harmony in shared sorrow, and that eases it for both. When the bottles are full, they hold each other as their hearts and breath return to normal.
But I ent got anyone to hold me, or share the pain. Don’t always like to be touched, but right now I feel like I might explode without someone to put their arms around me. My whole body hurts and I need it crushed out of me, but instead I got to set here and pretend to care about a wrestlin’ match.
Arick’s in on it now, attempting a move from Wonda’s personal sharusahk style. All three of them got plenty of hurts, but fighting types don’t like to talk about ’em when they can wrassle instead.
“This belongs to you.” A click as Rojvah unfastens Micha’s earring.
“Keep it.” Kendall’s fingers slide over Rojvah’s, closing them around the jewel. “If your da hadn’t died, I’d have married him, too. Your mother had already blessed it. Now that we’ve found each other, I don’t want to risk losing you, too.”
“Thank you.” The ring clicks back into place, flicking against her earlobe, and they embrace again. There is no more sobbing, but I can taste their tears.
* * *
—
I excuse myself when I can, going out of the house and across the step to set on the wall, legs dangling over the side of the caldera. Come sunup there’ll be plenty of traffic, but this late it’s all peace.
I’d play my pipes, but the music that hides me from demons will only draw unwanted attention here. Instead I do Mam’s breathing exercises, sucking in fresh air and trying to regulate my body.
Still, I know Rojvah’s come up behind me before she speaks. “Even you need to rest, Intended.”
“Time for that come sunup.” I don’t turn around. Don’t want her to see my face right now. “Better we keep out of sight during the day until we’ve got a plan.”
Rojvah isn’t convinced, coming up and sliding a warm hand up my back to rest on my shoulder, ostensibly to steady her as she sets on the wall beside me. She snuggles in close, warm and soft, and lays her head into the hollow at the base of my neck.
I can smell the invitation, but I’m too scared to move until her left arm snakes behind her back and finds mine, pulling it around her. “I am sorry you had to bear that, Intended.”
“ ’Sall right.” The words threaten to make me cry again. I swallow hard to keep it down. “Bear both our pain, if I could.”
“Oh, Intended,” Rojvah says. “Pain is not meant to be hoarded deep. We share to make it too shallow to drown in.”
Her hand slides up my neck to my face, feeling the wetness on my cheek. She turns to me, taking my face in her hands and kissing the tears off my cheeks as easily as if they were scraped with a bottle. Then she moves lower, pressing her soft lips to mine and stealing my breath away.
“I…” I need a moment to collect myself when we finally part. “Thought we weren’t meant to do that on this trip.”
Rojvah spits over the side of the mountain. It’s an act so unlike her it takes me by surprise.
“I spent the night collecting the tears of a woman whose love is lost forever,” she says. “I will kiss who I wish, when I wish, and propriety be damned.”
Her hand closes over mine, squeezing. “I love you, Intended. I did not truly understand what that meant when we made our vow, but I understand it now.”
I turn to her in surprise. Rojvah, perfect, beautiful, brilliant, talented, royal Rojvah, loves me? My mouth falls open uselessly as I search for a response, but only one comes to mind.
“Why?”
* * *
—
“Everam’s beard, I don’t even like women, and I understand them better than you!” Arick laughs, after Rojvah storms off to the back room where the other women have already settled in to get some sleep. “She wanted you to say it back.”
“Say what back?” I ask.
“That you love her, you camel’s backside!” Arick swats at me, and for once I’m not quick enough to slip aside. I take the thump to the head, knowing I deserve it.
“Say it back?” I can’t believe it. “Can’t she tell? Can’t everyone tell?”
“Perhaps,” Arick says, “but women need to hear it.”
I shake my head. “You think she thinks I don’t?” The idea is ludicrous. “How could anyone not be in love with Rojvah?”
Arick snorts. “More easily than you think. You see a side of my sister few others do. When she’s protecting you, she’s hissing at the rest of us.”
“Night.” I feel like I’m going to be sick, but I get to my feet. “I need to apologize.”
“You need to grovel.” Arick smells of amusement. “But it will need to wait until tomorrow, unless you want the other women judging your performance.”
I sit back down. “Think I’d rather sneak into the demon’s gate alone than have Captain Wonda, Selen Cutter, and Kendall Demonsong staring at me over crossed arms while I fumble through an apology I barely understand.”
“Perhaps there is hope for you, then.” All amusement left Arick’s scent at the mention of the gate. Now it’s fear, anxiety, and self-loathing.
“Don’t have to go in, you don’t want to,” I say.
Arick looks down his nose at me. “Do you want to go in?”
When I don’t answer, Arick nods as if I have. “Don’t do that.”
Arick can say what he likes about women, but men can be just as confusing. “Don’t do what?”
“Read me.” Arick flicks a hand my way. “Sniff my backside and listen to my heart and use it to get inside my head.”
“Can’t help it, Arick,” I say.
“You can help by keeping your guesses about what I’m thinking to yourself,” Arick says. “You’re no better than Alagai Ka.”
“Oh, ay?” I ask. “I ever make you shove someone off a ledge?”
I immediately know I’ve pushed it too far. There’s deep anger in Arick. Always was. Seen it come out when he’s fightin’, making him lose track of everythin’ but the next kill. I feel it rise up across a dozen indicators on his body, and in the flare of his aura.
Arick gets to his feet, striding my way, and it’s an effort to keep from turnin’ slippery and running for my life. But he ent comin’ for me. He heads for the door and across the step, puttin’ a foot up on the wall and pushing down till he stands atop it, looking out at the valley floor far below.
Arick is agile for someone his size, and I wouldn’t think twice about standing on that wall, but something in his scent frightens me.
“Push me, cousin,” he says. “Then my debt to you will be paid.”
“Night, are you crazy?” I grab at Arick’s belt, but he swats my hand away.
“It will be better this way,” Arick says. “I cannot betray you again, if I am dead.”
He means it, and I feel a chill in the warm night air. I don’t know what to say when a girl says she loves me, but I’m supposed to know what to say now? I want to shout for the others, but if he wants to, Arick can jump long before they come.
“Nothin’s better without you, Arick.” I say. “You din’t betray anyone. Demon got in your head.”
“And if he’s still in there?” Arick asks. “I’ve read the Deliverer’s accounts. The Father of Lies broke the will of better men than me, and made them his agents in the day.”
Arick’s bigger and stronger than me, but he’s slow. I could run up and grab him if he tries to jump. Trip his legs and throw my weight back, knock us onto the step.
But that won’t stop him later, when I’m sleepin’ away the sun. Or tomorrow.
I jump up on the wall beside him, but out of reach. “You’re downwind.” I keep my eyes on the far side of the valley, and take a bit of wax from my belt pouch, softening it with my fingers and sticking it in my ears and nostrils. “This is about the best I can do to stay out of your head.”
Arick sighs. “It’s not you I’m angry with, cousin.”
Angry at yourself. I bite my lip to keep from sayin’ it. “Who are you angry with?”
Arick shrugs, but my feet can feel the vibration in the stone. He’s shaking. “My mother died before I was born, did you know?”
Takes a moment for that to sink in. “How’s that?”
“Her wounds from defending Docktown against the alagai were so great, her spirit fled on the lonely path. Her body would have followed, but the Damajah used her spells to keep her heart and lungs pumping for months afterward.”
“Because of you,” I whisper, as the horror of it washes over me.
“Perhaps she would have carried me on the lonely path, had the Damajah let me die as well.” There’s a crack in Arick’s deep voice at that. “Fallen in battle together, Everam would not have denied us Heaven.”
“Ay, maybe,” I say. “But your life would have been over before it began.”
“Life?!” Arick demands. “What life? A disappointment to my stepmother and a dishonor to my father’s memory. Denied the right to love as I wish. Denied the spear. And when I lifted the spear in spite of them, the Father of Lies took it from me and turned it on my friends.”
I hear him choke, feel the change in pressure as he lifts a foot off the wall. “Better to have died unborn, than continue this ‘life.’ ”
Arick doesn’t cry like his sister. She’s free with her sobs and wails, unashamed of her grief. Not a lie, but a performance to honor her pain to others, and anyone watchin’ from above.
Arick’s face scrunches and the tears flow, but he chokes back most of it, tensing his muscles to stand fast against it like a test of manhood.
Wish I could just take a bottle to his cheek and scrape away the tears. Hold him and cry together. Somethin’, anythin’, to lessen the pain just a little. But I’m scared anythin’ I do will make him take that last step.
But I can’t just do nothin’.
Slowly, deliberately, I sidestep without turning his way, sliding closer. Close enough to touch. I don’t try to wrap him in my arms, just move my arm a little at a time, like a mouse poking its nose out of a hole, until our littlest fingers touch.
I freeze, waiting, but when Arick doesn’t react, I move a little more. And more still, sliding my fingers over his and giving him all the time in the world to pull away. I gently close my hand over his, and for a moment he still doesn’t react.
“My da died before I was born, too,” I say quietly. “I’d come out five minutes sooner, I’d have met him.” A knot forms in my throat, and I squeeze my eyes shut as I swallow it down. “Don’t reckon he’s got a lot to be proud of, either.”
Arick doesn’t respond with words, but his fingers close over mine and begin to squeeze so hard it hurts. This time I don’t have the urge to go slippery. Instead I squeeze back with everything I’ve got, holding on to my cousin for his life, as he holds on for mine. The pain just makes it real, and I welcome it.
* * *
—
I wake up with a jump, casting about with my senses for Arick. I don’t smell him in the domicile at all.
I sniff again. Don’t smell anyone.
I go to the front, but the setting sun is so bright it blinds me. I throw up a hand and stumble back. Must have slept later than I thought. On this side of the caldera, morning comes late. I kept watch until the women woke up and I could find a dark spot in the back.
Tried talkin’ to Rojvah then, but she put her nose up and pretended she couldn’t hear me. Selen took notice, and I made a quick retreat.
Still got flashes in my eyes, so I shut them tight and focus on my hearing. Selen’s voice ent hard to pick out. They must have gone out when I was asleep. She’s two tiers down, tellin’ someone that she’s Kendall’s sister.
Selen speaks better Ruskan than me, but she’s got the Jechi Hosta accent all wrong. It’s painful to listen to, and I worry she’s givin’ us away. Folk sound real friendly, but nosy, too. Kendall speaks up then, and her accent is flawless.
Everyone looks the part when they get back. “Got a job,” Selen says.
“Ay?” I ask.
“We found a stablemaster to put up the horses in exchange for us cutting him a new back room,” Arick explains.
“You speak Ruskan?” I ask.
Arick laughs. “Not even a little. Selen tells them I am her husband who doesn’t speak.”
“Strong as an ox, dim as a doorknob!” Selen punches him on the shoulder.
“Better the silent one than the one stumbling through a conversation like a braying camel,” Arick says.
“Didn’t you learn to read Ruskan at Gatherers’ University?” I ask Selen.
“Read?” she asks. “Ay. Speak? I can ask where the library is, or the privy. Count to a hundred, maybe chat about the weather, but it ent like I blend in.”
“We fixing to be around so long we need to find work?” I ask.
“New moon’s a week and a half away,” Wonda says. “Best we lay low till then.”
“And then what?” I ask. It’s nice to have grown-ups around for once. To not have to be the one making decisions and taking all the responsibility.
“Then the gate opens,” Wonda says, “and you sneak inside and…” She waggles her fingers at me.
Not havin’ all the responsibility was nice while it lasted.
* * *
—
“I need a bit of air,” Rojvah announces after supper, stepping out of the domicile to stare at the lights flickering in windows across the caldera. I watch her glumly, wondering how I can fix things, or if it’s too late.
Arick raises his eyebrows at me, nodding for the door. “Go, fool.”
“I was beginning to think you were not coming,” Rojvah says as I come up behind her.
“I love you,” I blurt, unable to hold it back anymore.
Rojvah does not seem impressed. She turns to regard me, arms crossed in front of her. “Took the day to think about it, did you?”
“Din’t need to think,” I say. “Din’t think it needed sayin’ it at all, ’cause ’course I do. How could I not? What is there about Rojvah vah Rojer am’Inn am’Kaji that ent perfect? Your voice, your mind, your heart. Pretty as a sunset and with all the knacks I ent got.”
Rojvah’s expression softens at that. She opens her mouth to reply, but now that I’m talkin’ I can’t seem to stop. “Asked why you loved me, ’cause why would you? How could someone so amazing ever settle for…for…”
Hurts too much to even finish the thought. My eyes fill with tears and I choke on the words. Night, what is it with me and cryin’ these days?
But then Rojvah is holding me, and kissing me, and tellin’ me everythin’s gonna be all right.
I scratch the match along the wall, watching it spark and sizzle and flare to life in the darkness.
Not supposed to waste matches. Ent got many left, and each one is precious, but just this once, I reckon I can spare one. I hold it up before my eye, getting lost in the flames as I try to think of a wish.
I hear Selen come outside and blow it out quick, not sure if she saw.
“Think we all forgot your born day?” Selen asks quietly.
“Ent much to celebrate,” I say.
“Core with that,” Selen says. “We found Safehold. Found Wonda and Kendall, and maybe in a couple days, we’ll find Leesha and your mum.”
“Maybe,” I agree. Every time I try to think that far ahead, I get so scared I can’t see straight.
“Don’t tell Rojvah I told you,” Selen warns, “but she’s been collecting ingredients to make you a cake.”
My mouth waters at the thought of Krasian yellow cake, though Creator only knows what Rojvah will be able to make with Jechi Hosta flour.
Selen comes to lean on the wall beside me. “Don’t like Wonda’s plan. You shouldn’t be going in there alone.”
I put my hands in my pockets before she can notice them shaking. “Ay, how’s it any different than you sending me down to sneak around Safehold?”
