In the darkness of the temple dormitory, when she was trying to cry herself to sleep with the least amount of noise, Trisana Chandler heard voices. It wasn't the first time that she'd done so, but these voices were different. This time she could identify the speakers. They sounded exactly like the girls who shared the dormitory with her.
“...heard her very own parents brought her here, and dropped her off, and said they never wanted to see her again.”
Tris was sure about that one: it was the girl in the bed on her right, the one who had tried to shove ahead of her in the line for the dining hall. Tris had raised a fuss, and a dedicate had sent the girl to the back of the line.
“I heard they passed her from relative to relative, until there weren't any who wanted her anymore.”
Tris yanked at one of the coppery curls that had jumped out of her nighttime braid. She was fairly certain about this speaker, too: the girl whose bed was across the room and two more beds to her left. She had tried to copy Tris's answers to a mathematics question just that morning. The moment Tris had realised what was going on, she had covered her slate. She despised people who copied.
“Have you seen her clothes? Those ugly dresses! That black wool's so old it's turning brown!”
“And they strain at the seams. Fat as she is, you'd think she'd eat more at table!”
She wasn't completely sure about the last speakers, but did it matter? The voices seemed to come from every bed in the dormitory, to cut at her like razors. Why did they do this, the ones she'd never even spoken to? Because it felt good to be mean with no one to see and blame them? Because it felt good to sneer as the group did, go after the targets that their leaders pointed out? Her cousins were the same; they followed those who loved to make fun of the outcast among them like ducklings chasing their mother.
When her parents had given her to the Dedicate Superior of Stone Circle, she had thought she'd run out of hurt feelings. It seemed that she hadn't, after all.
Tris clenched her hands in her sheets. Leave me alone, she thought, speechless with fury and shame. I never did anything to most of you, don't even know most of you...
No one noticed that the wind had picked up, jerking at the shutters on the windows, making them clack against their fittings.
“I bet her parents tried to sell her to Traders.”
“Maybe, but even Traders wouldn't take her. They wouldn't think she has value.”
Everyone found this hilarious.
One of the shutters hadn't been securely locked. It burst open, letting in a swirl of cold wind. The girls nearest to it screamed and jumped to close it. A gust of wind bowled them onto their rumps before it whipped around the room, pulling covers off beds, scouring belongings off the small shelves. By the time it roared out of the room, all of the girls but Tris were screaming.
Two dedicates, their habits thrown on over their nightgowns, rushed into the room carrying lamps. Everywhere they looked, there was a chaos of girls, bedding, and knickknacks - except at Tris's bed. It was untouched. The girl in it stared at them with tear-reddened, defiant eyes behind the brass-rimmed spectacles that she had just finished jamming onto her long nose.
Edited 2019-09-29 05:15 (UTC)
"Do you see a monster, like everyone else does? Am I someone who ought to be locked away?"
He poured fresh pomegranate juice for her, then said, “Would you like to be a mage yourself?”
How could he keep taunting her this way, suggesting she could have the one thing she knew that she didn't? “No! I hate mages! They confuse people!” Jumping up, Tris ran out of the cabin.
Alone on deck, she heard thunder growl in the distance. The storm that had threatened all day was breaking. Darting over to the rail, she turned up her face just as a tall wave slapped the ship. She was immediately soaked, and her anger washed away. Shaking water from her spectacles, she wondered how it was that she felt queasy in her cabin, but perfectly fine now, with the deck jumping under her feet. It must be the smell, she decided. The cabin smells like all the cargoes these people have ever carried, and maybe some extra. Here she felt wonderful. Nature roared and thrashed around her, making her rages and tears alike seem meaningless. It was grand to let them go, if only for the time spent out in the weather.
Looking at the choppy seas before her, she noticed dim shadows cast on the white-capped water. Where did the light come from? Even the torches wouldn't burn in this. Turning, she saw nothing at eye level, but something bright drew her attention up the length of the main mast. There, at the top, dim light balanced on the wood. It had to be Runog's Fire, the ghostly flame that seamen believed was the lamp of the water-god, leading Runog to bless good ships or to sink bad ones.
Shimmering, the light reached an arm along the topmost yard, until she could see a glowing cross high overhead. A globe of fire leaped to another mast, clinging to its top. Tris laughed gleefully at the wonder before her. As if it were a living thing drawn to the sound, the light trickled down both masts in glowing streaks, abandoning the upper reaches of the masts. Once it was close to the deck, it turned into balls the size of her head and jumped free. Unthinkingly Tris held out both hands, palms up, and caught the globes.
Her skin prickled. Each hair on her head rose. Her wool shawl gave off sparks. Then Runog's Fire went out, leaving her to be just plain Tris again, with hair that frizzed even worse now, standing on end. She pawed at it in vain, trying to brush it flat before anyone came and saw.
A hand thrust a comb in front of her nose. Turning, she glared at Niko. “I suppose you were watching.”
“You told me yourself that's what I always do,” he reminded her. “And in a sense you are right - I am always watching - though not for the reasons that you appear to expect.”
“Do you see a monster, like everyone else does?” she demanded, struggling to yank the comb through her bristling hair. “Am I someone who ought to be locked away?”
Coming over, he put a hand on her shoulder. “I see a young girl who has been very badly treated.” Try as she might, Tris could hear no pity in his voice. If she had, she might have struck him. “Anything that Winding Circle has to offer will be an improvement on what you've had so far.”
"There is definitely something wrong with you. Go away."
She gasped, and nearly fell out of the window. Small hands gripped her skirt and hauled her back into the room. Her feet on the floor again, she whirled to glare at the invader: Sandry. “Don't you knock?” she demanded, straightening her spectacles.
“I did knock,” replied the other girl. “And I called. You just didn't hear me.”
Tris shook out her dress with trembling hands. “What do you want?”
Sandry hesitated, taking in the other girl's scowl. In for a copper, in for a gold, she thought. “This winter, I... went a little crazy. With embroidery, and needlepoint. I have these hangings, more than I'll ever need... I thought you might like one.” She retrieved a plump, neat roll of cloth from the bed, where she had dropped it, and held it out.
Tris looked at it, then glared. “Is something wrong with you?”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
“Just because we all have to live here together doesn't mean you can forget your rank! Look at you, hobnobbing with a Trader, and now me. You can't do that! I'm merchant blood, understand? It's in my last name - Chan-d-ler.” Tris spoke the word very slowly, as if Sandry were not quite bright. “You're probably an ei or a fa something.”
“That doesn't make any difference.” Sandry said, her mouth set in a mulish line.
“Only a noble would say something so idiotic.”
“Here I'm the same as you!”
Tris's laugh was as harsh as a crow's. “You wear slippers at four silver astrels the pair, cotton broadcloth at six silver creses the yard, and - and silk chiffon that's a gold astrel the yard, and tell me you're the same?” She tugged hard at her own ugly dress. “There is definitely something wrong with you. Go away.”
“I was trying to be nice.” Sandry placed the hanging on the desk. “If you don't want it, then give it to someone else - I don't care.” Chin high, she walked out.
Tris slammed the door and glared at it. She couldn't see a latch that would stop anyone else from barging in. A nice thing with a thief in the house, she thought. Not that I have anything worth stealing.
The roll of cloth sat on her desk, a temptation on cream-colored linen.
She thinks I'm stupid enough to believe her, thought Tris. She thinks people never pretended to be my friend before!
Curious, she spread the hanging out. It showed a six-spoked wheel, with a different, brightly colored bird at the end of each spoke. Flat, the hanging was good-sized, two feet by one foot. It was easy to see how the sticks at the center of the roll would fit to make a frame, and how the cloth would attach to it. For a long moment Tris stared at it, thinking about how beautiful it was. Did she say she did this work? the girl wondered. That can't be right - probably it was servants, only she claims what they did for her own. Nobles do things like that.
Gently she traced an embroidered toucan's over-large, gaudy beak. She loved birds - they coasted so beautifully on the wind, or mastered the air with darting turns. Looking around, she found a blank space on the wall that needed to be filled. The hanging could go there, where she could see it from the bed.
If she wants it back, I can tell her she gave it, and I'm keeping it, Tris thought fiercely. That will teach - what had Honored Moonstream called her? - Lady Sandrilene.
Daja, carrying her staff, followed Sandry downstairs. No one else was in the main room by that time. “I take it you heard,” Sandry remarked with a crooked smile. Plumping herself on the bottom riser, she put her chin on her hands. “Not all nine-fingered girls have hatchets,” she said in Tradertalk. “Some of us just tried to have a conversation with a snapping turtle.”
Edited 2019-09-29 05:26 (UTC)
“Now you know why only one in ten Trader windmages lives to adulthood.”
The rock shelves on both sides of the cove were bare of water, showing seaweed, mussel beds, and tide pools. Now at its lowest point, the tide had just begun to turn. By noon all but the tiniest sliver of beach would be covered in seawater.
“Let's see how good I am,” the girl told Little Bear, sitting on a rock at the foot of the trail. The pup sat down as well and yawned.
Closing her eyes, Tris started her meditation breathing, listening for the voice of her magic. In the weeks since beginning her studies, she had learned how to take strength from currents in the air or sea, if she were tired. She thought she could use that same magic to keep the tide from coming in, by pulling its strength into herself, or through herself, at least. The rock she chose as a seat looked like a good place to store the rest of it until she chose to set that power free.
As a wave came in, she called to its strength, taking it in. Without letting it go, she reached for the power of the next wave, and the next, draining the tide of force as it tried to cover the shore. With her eyes closed, she couldn't see that the water now lurked around the far ends of the rock shelves, bubbling and churning like a pot on the boil. She grasped as much power as she could stand - to her surprise, she couldn't hold nearly as much of it as she had expected to. Like a sailor trying to empty out a sinking boat, she hurried to dump the strength from other waves into the rock beneath her. The sea fought hard, surging and pulling on her magic, trying to shake her loose.
Just a little longer, she thought. Just a bit more, so I know I really did it...
When Tris opened her eyes, the first thing she saw was Niko's face. “Uh-oh,” she whispered, and closed them again.
“Now you know why only one in ten Trader windmages lives to adulthood,” that clipped voice said.
She tried to sit up. The rock under her felt strange - hardly like stone at all. For one thing, she'd had to crawl onto it; now she could just step off, once she had the strength. For another, it gave, more like a sack of grain than a proper boulder.
When she tried to lever herself off the stone with both hands, it collapsed, dropping her amid a shower of gravel, shattered into a thousand small pieces. Tris rolled onto her back, staring up at Niko. Little Bear came over and licked her face.
“What happened to my rock?” she demanded lazily. “It's all to pieces.”
“It's where you placed what you took from the tides, isn't it?”
She nodded.
“You put in more than the stone could hold. It's dissolving. Now, let me ask - have you had a lesson today?” inquired the mage.
“You look very tall from down here,” Tris remarked. His eyebrows came together in a scowl. Hurriedly she said, “When my teacher tells me it's a bad idea to try and fight the power of nature, I should listen.”
He grasped her hands. “I don't know that I can walk,” she admitted as Niko helped her to rise.
“I know very well that you can't,” he said. “Your luck is in. The moment I knew you were in trouble, I enlisted a friend.”
“Hullo,” Kirel said. Tris hadn't seen him waiting on the path. “You must be Daja's friend - the crotchety one.” Grinning, he knelt, folded her over his shoulder, and stood.
“This is so humiliating,” grumbled Tris. She was too weak even to struggle.
"If your pointing is a weapon, then don’t you point ‘less you’re ready to kill with it."
Three more boom-stones exploded overhead. Tris flinched at each one; her hair began to rise and crackle. She tucked her hand into her pocket, and rubbed Aymery’s earring.
They had to distract Tris, before something else happened, thought Daja. “What if you tried your lightning on that?” She pointed to the heap of black powder that lay forgotten in the path.
Tris stared at it. “I - I don’t know,” she said, her voice trembling.
“Well?” Sandry nudged.
“What lightning?” Briar demanded, sarcastic. “She’s just got the worst case of Runog’s Fire I’ve ever seen, is all.”
Daja knew the pale fire that played on ship masts and tower roofs in storms as well as he did. “What she’s got is seed lightning,” she returned. “It’s not the same. Show him, Tris.” Another boom-stone exploded over the Hub. “I c-c-can’t,” Tris replied, shivering with fright. What did they want from her? Couldn’t they see that each explosion felt like a sharp blow to her? Her muscles were clenched, awaiting the next strike, and her neck and back were aching.
“Don’t you have to learn control?” Sandry asked. “No matter what else is going on? Maybe this is a good time to practise.”
Tris glared at the other three, hating them for bothering her. She just wanted to run inside and hide under a bed.
“Ahhh, I knew it,” Briar remarked scornfully. “It’s just Runog’s Fire.”
Furious, Tris pointed to the heap of powder a foot away. Lightning jumped from her finger. There was a clap: dirt and smoke sprayed everywhere, blackening them and turning the observing Little Bear grey. The dog yipped, and fled into Discipline. The four looked at each other, eyes wide in soot-streaked faces. There was now a hole in the path.
“You see?” Briar said at last. “You just have to know what to say to her.”
“You—” Tris snapped, and pointed at him without thinking what might result.
Briar grabbed her arms, hard, shaking her as lightning-sparks raced over his hands.
“Don’t you ever do that,” he whispered, his eyes burning into hers. “Don’t you ever. If your pointing is a weapon, then don’t you point ‘less you’re ready to kill with it. You understand, you witless bleater?” He was so frightened he didn’t know where his trembling ended and hers began. “Niko’s right.” He let her go and pushed her away from him. “We got to learn control, and you most of all.”
“I’m sorry.” Tris’s eyes were spilling over, but she made herself look Briar in the face.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t -I wouldn’t ever—”
Sandry put her arm around Tris’s shoulders. “We can’t just act without thinking any more, Tris. They’ve been trying to teach us that all along. I guess if we’re mages, we can’t exactly be kids, can we?” she asked the other two. They shook their heads. “Briar knows you would have been sorry after.”
“After I was a nice crispy roast just off the spit,” the boy said cruelly.
Tris hid her face in her hands.
“Enough,” Daja said. “She got the point. Don’t bully her.”
I’m a scared bully, thought Briar, stuffing his hands into his pockets. And I want to be sure she’s scared, scared enough to think next time.
Tris yanked out of Sandry’s hold and ran up to her room.
"You know, we may be kaqs, but at least our manners are good."
They all turned at the sound of clumsy steps. It was the Trader, Polyam, coming through the arch that opened onto the main courtyard. Everyone's jaw dropped. The parting in her hair, down the center of her scalp, was traced in bright yellow paint of some kind; it ended in a dripping mark on her forehead. Her one good eye was lined in the same color; so too were her mouth, nostrils, and both ears, scarred and unscarred alike. Her neck, wrists, and ankles all sported chains decorated with small wooden charms. Each charm was painted with an odd design, in bright yellow. Yellow thread was wrapped around the top of her staff; more yellow thread bound one legging to her wooden limb. Even her toe and finger nails had been tinted yellow. The color almost seemed to glow, even on the bumps and dents of her scarred face and in the shadow of her ruined eye.
"What happened to you?" asked Briar.
"Trader Koma protect me," whispered Daja, "You're qunsuanen." She had heard of the qunsua ceremony, its use and intent. Never before had she seen it done - though she knew it when she laid eyes on the results.
"What do you call that shade of yellow?" Sandry inquired. "It's so vivid."
Polyam stared at her for a moment, as if she didn't believe what the girl had asked, then made a face. "I call it yellow." She looked straight at Daja. "Are you happy?" she demanded. "I can now talk to you. I can deal with you. I can even bargain with you. And I will never, ever, acquire enough zokin to erase this from the books of the caravan."
"I don't get it," said Briar. "What's koo-soo— What's zokin? And the other thing?"
Polyam looked away. Obviously she wasn't about to explain.
"I never heard of the koon-soo thing," remarked Sandry, "but zokin is the credit listed against your name in the ledgers of your people. Pirisi - my old nurse - was a Trader," she explained to Polyam. "Pirisi said there are two kinds of zokin, the kind that's your actual savings in coin, your part of the ship's—"
"Or caravan's," Daja added.
Sandry grinned at her. "Or caravan's profits. The other kind of zokin is, well, honor, or personal standing. Is that the kind you mean?"
Polyam stared at her. "It's not right, a kaq knowing so much of our ways."
"She's not a kaq," Daja said flatly, staring at the woman. "She is my saati." The word meant a friend who was as dear as family. "So are Briar, and Tris - and our teachers."
"As for qunsuanen— koon-soo-ah-nen," Daja repeated slowly, for her friends, "it's, I don't know, she's been cleansed." She felt a little sorry for Polyam. The Traders might as well have named her a plague carrier, to say she was specially privileged to deal with trangshi. "All the paint, all the runes on the charms, are to keep my trangshi luck from sticking to her. When they go, she has to follow the caravan for ten days, washing in every stream and pond and river they find. The mimanders will pray over her and do ritual purifications—"
"As they did all last night," snapped Polyam. She hopped over to the iron vine to take a better look at it. "So let's deal and get it over with. A gold maja and two gold astrels, take it or leave it, trangshi."
The word was like a slap in the face. You'd think being qunsuanen would sweeten her, thought Daja, breathless with anger. No such luck!
Flame roared out of the forge, shaping a column nearly ten feet high.
"Tris!" yelled Briar, Sandry, and Daja. Shriek, grooming his feathers, let out several ear-smarting whistles.
Tris closed her eyes and took a deep breath. The fire sank to its earlier level. Daja went to see how her iron rods had fared in the extra heat. They were useless - if she made these into nails, once they were cold they would break at the first blow of a hammer.
"You know, we may be kaqs, but at least our manners are good," snapped Tris, glaring at Polyam. "Yours could stand a polishing."
"I'm a wirok," Polyam replied, returning the glare with her one good eye. "All I do is spend money—among lugsha— that's artisans—"
"I know what that one means," retorted Tris.
"And kaqs," finished Polyam. "I don't need manners, only authority."
Daja stared at Polyam, thinking she had been stupid to believe it would matter, to speak face to face with a Trader again. It was stupid to think her banishment from the world she had lived in most of her life would pinch less if she could pretend she was a Trader just for an hour or two.
She was about to tell Polyam to take the iron vine and keep her money when Sandry rose, smiling her loftiest young-noble smile, and shook out her skirts. "Along with the manners you should use to another Trader—"
"Trangshi," Polyam hissed.
Sandry ignored the interruption. "You appear to have forgotten custom," she continued. "I see none of the those things which make it possible to bargain for such a priceless item. Where is the food, and the tea? I'm sure Daja will understand if there are no musicians, given our surroundings. If we were in Summersea, of course, you'd need at least a flutist and a gittern player."
"Cushions," Briar put in, interested. "You need proper cushions to sit on. And one of those little wood table things."
Even Tris was smiling now. "A gift of some kind, as a mark of respect," she added. "Back home in Capchen, the bigger the sale, the more important the token."
Polyam looked at Daja. The black girl was just as surprised as the Trader, but she quickly hid it with a casual shrug. At that moment, Daja thought, she would cheerfully die for any of her three friends, who had defended her without being asked.
"Sorry you got all done up in yellow for nothing," commented Briar as Tris put more iron rods in the fire to heat.
"Come back when you are ready to do business," Sandry told Polyam, looking down her small nose at the woman.
If she remembered correctly, she'd just gone over three thousand kilometers to find those storms.
Keth had to overcome his fear, and not just of the little bolts she had conjured in front of him. He would never master his power until he mastered that. She would need big proof, final proof, that his magic now shielded him from the dangers of lightning.
There was a storm out there, one that would teach him a lesson he desperately needed to learn. Ignoring the snippets of conversation the city's winds brought to her—bits of gossip, legal proceedings, speeches in the Assembly and the temples of the All-Seeing—Tris made herself comfortable on the platform and spread her spirit on the winds.
She was forced to go further afield than she'd expected. It made her cross as well as exhausted as she plodded down those many steps, past the first sightseers of the day. It shouldn't have happened, she thought as she rested on a bench near the door. Quietly she gathered the magic that had kept her cyclone from ripping up floor tiles. It was monsoon season in Tharios and the lands far south of the Pebbled Sea. Storms should have rolled steadily across that open stretch of water between here and Aliput, to die over the waves or to build up their strength for an assault on this coast. If she remembered the maps correctly, she'd just gone over three thousand kilometers to find those storms, locked in place around Aliput, piled up like so many logs behind one storm that would not move.
It was even more maddening to realize she would never know who had done it. She wanted to give a piece of her mind and a few other tokens of her esteem to the mage who had pulled this costly stunt. Tris knew this was mage-made. No one else could halt a storm in its track. But it was a stupid mage who had cursed all of Aliput with floods while here in the west the fields withered for lack of rain. She'd given herself an earache, straining to hear a name or any information on the tired winds that reached her. If his name was known, no one had spoken it. If he had spoken, it had got lost on the way east.
Well, at least the storms were moving once more. Just to ensure he couldn't do this again for awhile, Tris had traveled along the line of weather, tying each storm to the one ahead of it with a mage-knot she had learned from Sandry. He'd never break the string. She hoped he drained himself trying.
She barely made it back to Phakomathen. She must have looked terrible; when she opened her eyes, Chime sat on her chest, giving voice to small tinkling sounds that seemed to mean dismay. She'd had to reassure the dragon while forcing her weary arms to undo one of her tidal braids. It had taken a third of the strength from that braid before Tris could get to her feet, and another third from the opposite tidal braid to get her and Chime down the steps. In the end she drew off all the power of both braids to feel like her old self. Normally she wouldn't have used so much, not when she would pay the price later, but she and Keth had work to do before he could try another lightning globe. The sooner they got to it, the fewer yaskedasi would meet their end at the Ghost's hands.
Edited 2019-10-01 04:20 (UTC)
"Tris, you'll never be a diplomat. You may as well put that right out of your mind."
"She's working magic," Ishabal said. "I cannot tell what kind, but she is cloaked in power."
"Then stop her," ordered Berenene.
Tris looked up, gray eyes glinting through her loose tresses. "I wouldn't do that."
"Tris, you'll never be a diplomat," announced Briar. "You may as well put that right out of your mind." He turned his own bright green eyes on Ishabal and Berenene. "We all swear on our medallions, this isn't something that would affect Your Imperial Majesty in any way," he said, his voice bland as cream. "In fact, Tris here is actually doing you and your devoted servants a favor."
"And if they stop me now, I can't promise the cliff under the palace wall won't drop into the Syth," muttered Tris.
"Pay her no mind," Briar continued as Sandry glared at Tris. "It's not a threat she's making, just a warning. You know how it is with mages and interruptions. Anyway, I suppose you didn't know it, or you'd have seen for yourself, but your palace has rats. Big ones. Doesn't it, Clehame fa Landreg?"
"Big ones," Sandry replied. "I don't know how she missed them, but anything is possible."
"She's an empress," Briar told her, his tone pure conciliation. "You can't expect her to know every rathole that opens up." To the empress and her mages, he explained: "This one is a real beauty. It opens in a northeast wing of the palace—I don't think anyone's dusted in there in months. And it tunnels all the way down through the cliff. Through solid stone, even under the curtain wall, can you believe it? Down at the bottom, it opens onto a cove of the Syth."
Berenene's veins filled with ice. The Julih Tunnel, she realized, horrified. How in Vrohain's name did Fin—his uncle. Notalos dung-grubbing fer Hurich. The Mages' society is said to have the plans of the palace from its first construction—and I shall have his skin.
Briar continued. "Energetic little nalizes, rats, aren't they? To dig all that way. We stumbled on their hole purely by chance. Well, Sandry didn't stumble entirely by chance. So Tris here got all alarmed, because she hates rats, so she's stopping up that hole at the foot of the cliff. She's getting the lake to help. Some of the stones she's using are pretty big."
Tris looked up, her face relaxed and at ease. "It really is in your interest, Your Imperial Majesty. Who could sleep, knowing rats could get in at will? With that rathole closed, Your Imperial Majesty may sleep easily."
Berenene clenched her hands against her skirts. If the wench is doing what she claimed to do, she is trying to close the secret exit that saved my life in that assassination attempt years ago. Of course, it's no good to me now if Viynain fer Hurich has decided he need not obey his vow to keep those plans secret. "Can she do it?" she asked Ishabal. There were magical wards on the tunnel.
Ishabal watched Tris for a long moment. Finally, she nodded. "She is doing it." She asked Tris, "What if anyone is in the chamber at the base of the cliff?"
"I won't weep a tear if they drown," Sandry snapped, her voice rough. "But they could always climb. Tris is just stopping up the exit. You ought to put maids with brooms at the other end of the hole, to beat the rats when they come out."
The skin at the back of Berenene's neck crawled. She sighed lightly, as if she'd asked for a glass of wine only to be told there was no more. One of the hardest parts of being imperial was learning when to back off from a fight. "Quen, be a dear and send a message to the captain of my guard. Harm no one who comes out, please. I wish to have anyone who appears questioned." Quen bowed and went to give the message to the guard at the door. As he did so, the empress said, "Please continue, Trisana. Ishabal will watch all that you do." Berenene looked at Sandry once more. "So, Briar found you in a way he does not remember."
"Tris joined us," said Briar, his eyes cold. "We got Sandry out of the crate."
Berenene shook her head as Quen returned to them. "Cousin, what can I say?" she asked helplessly. "Finlach has committed a serious offense against you, without my knowledge or approval." Her voice hardened despite her struggle for an appearance of calm. "He forgot his duty to me. I assure you, he will be arrested and punished. You will see how quickly justice is done here."
"Cousin, justice should be done very quickly," Sandry replied, her face hard. "We are returning to Emelan as soon as we can pack."
Isha flinched despite her years at court. Quen halted rather than come closer. Slowly, Berenene replied, "But the summer is only half done."
"I don't want to see how I will feel after an entire summer," Sandry retorted. "That a custom that permits such things against the women in this realm continues under a monarch who is female herself—"
"I am not the empress of weaklings," said Berenene. "A strong woman would find a way to escape, as I did. As you have. They have families to help them, if their families are strong."
Sandry shook her head. Her hands trembled as they lay folded in her lap. "Not all women or families are strong in the same way. They are entitled to your protection. I will not remain in a country that withholds that protection. And it's been made clear to me that I cannot even count myself safe in your own palace, Cousin."
Berenene felt as if the chit had slapped her. "You dare..." she began to say, furious, then met Sandry's eyes. Of course she dares, thought Berenene. And she is right. I was so secure in my power that I did not realize spirited young animals, like my courtiers, are forever testing the leash and the rein. I relaxed my vigilance and she was offered an intolerable insult. The custom is supposed to apply only to women taken in the open, not when they are under the protection of their liege lords. In shattering my protection, Fin destroyed my credit with every parent who entrusts an unmarried daughter to my care.
She smoothed her skirts. "You are hurt and recovering from a bad fright," she said in her most soothing voice. "In the morning, you will feel differently. Would you really turn your back on all Namorn has to offer?" She met Briar's eyes when she said this.
It was Briar who answered. "If this is what Namorn offers, yes. It is only as a courtesy to you that I don't address Fin myself. It's my sister he tried to kidnap, and our magic is plenty thicker than blood. Or maybe I should just give him to Sandry when he doesn't have drugs and spells to make him the big man." His voice was heavy with contempt. "You think a strong woman can always beat this? I call it rape, in any country."
Edited 2019-10-01 04:36 (UTC)
"Right now they seem to think I'm the biggest threat. They have no idea how dangerous you all are."
Sandry firmed her lips, which tried to tremble and make her look like a pouting child. "As my sister, she will have the finest care money can buy," she informed the healer.
"Hmph," replied the woman. "Not much family resemblance. But it is as I have told you. She asks to see the three of you. She will not take the sleeping medicine until she sees you, so please, attend to her immediately, so she will sleep."
Chastened, the three young mages filed into Tris's room, Chime riding on Daja's shoulder. Once inside, they all stopped to stare. One of Tris's arms and one of her legs were bound to slats and covered in tightly wrapped bandages. Splintered fingers and toes had their own wooden supports secured with white linen. All of her braids hung loose. The lingering tracks of the healer's magic were evident on Tris's skull and body. None of them had ever seen anyone so badly hurt that they weren't on their feet in a few days, given a good healer.
Tris looked naked without her spectacles, which had been smashed in her fall. Sandry went to Tris's writing box and took out one of the spare pairs of spectacles that lay with the pens and ink sticks. Carefully she settled them on Tris's nose, taking care to touch none of the bruises on Tris's face. "At least your nose wasn't broken," she whispered.
Tris raised the unbroken arm and laid her splinted hand on Sandry's. Her magical voice, while exhausted, was not as faint as her battered form might lead them to expect. Don't put off leaving for me, she told them, her magical voice reaching Briar and Daja as well. You meant to go day after tomorrow—go. Don't risk getting stuck here.
We're not leaving you, Sandry retorted, her chin sticking out. Don't be ridiculous.
Don't you be ridiculous! Tris snapped in reply, her thought-voice as stern and forceful as pain and drugs would allow. I can catch up once I'm able to ride. I move faster alone than you will in a group. And when I go, I'll have cooked up a shield that will return any ill wishes and curses to the sender, whether I see them coming or not. But the longer you put off going, the more they'll be able to put in your way. Right now they seem to think I'm the biggest threat. They have no idea how dangerous you all are. That will help you. Take Zhegorz and Gudruny and the children and go, now.
"I don't want to say it," Briar said aloud, "but she makes sense."
"I hate it when she does that," added Daja.
Sandry glared at them. Apparently Daja and Briar had yet to reopen their connection to each other, though obviously they had renewed their ties to Tris and Sandry.
This is no time for jokes! she shouted.
"Oh, there's always time for jokes," Briar replied with his sweetest smile.
The healer's male assistant opened the door. "She says to come out." He walked over to the bed and picked up a cup of dark liquid. "And she says you will drink this."
"Go home," croaked Tris. "I'll catch up as soon as I can."
"We'll do it," Briar assured Tris. He leaned down and kissed her unbruised forehead. "You've got a good plan there. Get better."
"I'll be happy to leave as soon as possible, Rizu or no," Daja added, kissing the top of Tris's head carefully. "Don't mind Sandry. She only goes on Her Nobleness when she's frightened." She followed Briar out of the room.
Tris looked at Sandry. The healer cleared his throat.
"I feel like I'm deserting you," Sandry explained, looking at the floor.
"Try feeling like you're using common sense," Tris suggested quietly. "That's what I do when I'm doing what I think is right."
“Being attended to. Being heard. Being useful. I was never any of those things before, only crazy.
When she limped out to their garden table, Chime on her shoulder, Zhegorz rushed to help.
“I did as you said,” he told her. “Did I tell you last night?” He helped her sit on the bench next to Briar. “They know you see things on the wind now. I don’t think they believe you are conceited.”
Tris sighed. “No doubt you’re right. Zhegorz, thank you for helping them. I knew you could do it. Now, please, I would like to eat, if it’s all right. I’m starved.” She looked at Briar’s plate. “Is that cabbage rolls? I don’t care if I never see another cabbage roll in my life.”
A girl who had waited on them came to tell Tris the day’s selections. Once Tris had chosen, a brief silence fell. It was broken by Zhegorz, who said, “I liked it.”
Tris and the others turned to look at him. He had chosen a bench at the table next to theirs. From the tilt of his brass-lensed spectacles, he was staring into the distance. “Liked what, Zhegorz?” Sandry asked gently.
“Being attended to. Being heard. Being useful.” There was wistfulness in his voice. “I was never any of those things before, only crazy. I don’t want to go back to being the crazy man who hears all manner of things and sometimes sees them. I like being attended to.” He got up and wandered off, his hands in his pockets.
“Zhegorz,” called Tris. He stopped, though he didn’t look back at her. “It is nice. I know,” she told him.
He nodded, and left them alone in the garden.
Once he was gone, Ambros looked at Briar, Daja, and Sandry. “Your friend over there is very determined,” he said with respect, nodding to Tris.
“Oh, all three girls are like that,” Briar said carelessly. “Sometimes you need to hit them with a brick to get their attention. They get it from our mothers, I think.”
"I will always be a little shaky. But I can be useful."
“And now the rest of us can go home. Back to Summersea, and back to Winding Circle.”
Zhegorz cleared his throat. When they all looked at him, he said, “Do you know, Viymese Daja tells me it never snows in Emelan. Never. It seems unnatural to me. And they have no beet soup, or bacon and millet soup. I’m quite fond of that. Please understand, I’m certain that Winding Circle is a splendid place.”
“Well, it produced us,” Briar said with a grin. “Zhegorz, it’s all right. Go ahead. Whatever it is, you can tell us.”
Zhegorz smiled shyly. “I know, I know. Except that I want to tell him.” He pointed a bony finger at Ambros, who blinked in confusion.
“Me? You hardly know me,” he said. “I mean, we’ve seen each other, but…”
“I know you’re a good man,” Zhegorz said firmly. “A good Namornese man.” He looked at Briar, at Daja, and at Tris. “Don’t you think a Cleham who is not a favorite of Her Imperial Majesty could use someone in his service who can hear conversations on the winds? Who can see things on the winds?” He looked at Ambros. “I get better every day. I breathe, and I sort through what I hear and see. I practice every day. I will always be a little shaky. But I can be useful.” He looked at the mages.
Briar nodded. “He could be useful, Ambros.”
“He’s wobbly, but I would trust him,” said Daja.
“As would I,” confirmed Sandry.
Tris glared at Ambros. “You’d be a fool not to take his service. Just treat him with kindness” — Briar snorted, and she ignored him — “treat him with kindness, and he’ll help you navigate that snakepit Her Imperial Majesty calls a court,” Tris continued.
Ambros looked at Zhegorz and took a deep breath. “Then we’ll discuss salary and where you’ll be living, your duties and so on, on the way home,” he said. “Welcome to my household, Zhegorz.”
Edited 2019-10-01 04:50 (UTC)
"Not being able to forgive ourselves isn’t the same as understanding each other."
Listening to them, she felt a tug in her magic, in a part of her that had not been active in far too long. She followed that magical tie and found herself emerging into the direct sunlight of a summer afternoon at Winding Circle. She stood on a familiar straw-thatched roof. It gave off the rich scent of sun-bleached hay as she sat down on it. When she looked around she saw Tris. Unlike their last time on the roof, this was not the child Tris, but Tris the adult, who wore her many braids tucked into a silk net. She lay flat on the straw close by, hands clasped behind her neck, staring dreamily at the clouds that moved overhead. Briar straddled the peak of the roof, a piece of straw sticking from his mouth. Daja, too, straddled the roof, leaning back against the stone chimney of Discipline cottage.
“How did you do this — create this so it actually feels real?” asked Sandry, delighted. “I can smell, I can hear… which of you did it?” Below, she could see Rosethorn’s garden in full summer extravagance. Around them spread the temple. The spiral road was empty: Very few people cared to venture along its unshaded length during the postmidday rest period during the blast of Mead and Wort Moons. Yet the long hand on the Hub clock moved as it ticked off the minutes. The wind brushed Sandry’s face as it carried the scents of lavender and herbs into her nostrils.
“I did,” Briar admitted. “I was locked up for a while in Gyongxe. It was either go mad imagining what might happen to me, or… retreat, inside me. I made it, inside my power.” He lay back on the peak, balancing easily. “After that — I did things I’m not proud of when I got out. It was a bloody mess. Thousands died who should have lived. I don’t know why I’m here, and they aren’t. I didn’t want any of you knowing that. I didn’t want you knowing I thought I should be dead. That’s why I shut you out.”
Silence stretched. It was all he could tell them for now.
“Mine is just silly,” admitted Tris. “So many of the mages I met with Niko took it so personally that I learned to scry the winds that I forgot who you all were. Niko acted like it was something you had to expect — that when you learn a strange kind of magic, one that so many fail at, you have to expect jealousy. I don’t want people to be jealous, I don’t want them to be anything. I was afraid to find out you’d be like them.” She hung her head. “I’m just too gaudy. That’s why I want to go to Lightsbridge. So I can just do what I want and people won’t stare at me.”
Daja and Sandry exchanged shrugs, as if to say, That’s Tris for you.
“I made something that helped Ben Ladradun kill a lot of people,” Daja told them somberly. “So many. I thought catching him and seeing him get an arsonist’s sentence would fix it in my heart, make it right, but it never did. I still liked him. So I helped kill him fast, so he wouldn’t be in pain. I didn’t want you to know something of mine — something of ours, because it was living metal, and we were all part of that — caused so many deaths. I can’t forgive myself, some days. I didn’t think you could.” She closed her eyes, her full mouth quivering.
Sandry looked down at her knees. She wore pink, as she had that same day in the advocate’s office. “I tore three people to pieces to save the life of my student,” she said flatly. She heard Tris draw a deep breath. “Did you think I would be safe at home? They were murderers, they were being eaten alive by unmagic, with little humanity left in them. There was no other way, and yet.” She put her face on her knees.
“So now we know the things we hid from each other,” Tris said drily after a while. “Does it change anything?”
“How could it?” Briar wanted to know. “Fighting off those pirates didn’t make us hate each other. We knew why we did it. Not being able to forgive ourselves isn’t the same as understanding each other. We’re a lot easier on each other than we are on ourselves. As for you, Coppercurls, you’ve always been fooling around with the weird magics.”
“That’s just you, Tris,” said Daja.
Sandry lifted her head. “I wouldn’t be you for a thousand gold majas, Tris. I see the way people twitch around you. But that doesn’t change how I feel about you.”
Tris looked at her. “So we’re a circle again.”
“Suits me,” Briar said. “I never knew how much I missed it till we came back.”
“Till we remade us,” said Daja. “Till Berenene reforged us.”
“You’ll forgive me if I don’t thank her,” Sandry told them as she lay back on the thatch. “She may be related to me by blood, but I much prefer the family I chose.”
“Briar, can we come back here?” Daja asked. “Will this be here?”
“I made it for us,” he replied, surprised she hadn’t realized it. Here, in this place, they could feel what he felt. “All right, I made it for me first, but it was us. It is us.”
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stormandwind) wrote2019-09-29 12:57 am
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lastvoyages
“...heard her very own parents brought her here, and said they never wanted to see her again."
In the darkness of the temple dormitory, when she was trying to cry herself to sleep with the least amount of noise, Trisana Chandler heard voices. It wasn't the first time that she'd done so, but these voices were different. This time she could identify the speakers. They sounded exactly like the girls who shared the dormitory with her.
“...heard her very own parents brought her here, and dropped her off, and said they never wanted to see her again.”
Tris was sure about that one: it was the girl in the bed on her right, the one who had tried to shove ahead of her in the line for the dining hall. Tris had raised a fuss, and a dedicate had sent the girl to the back of the line.
“I heard they passed her from relative to relative, until there weren't any who wanted her anymore.”
Tris yanked at one of the coppery curls that had jumped out of her nighttime braid. She was fairly certain about this speaker, too: the girl whose bed was across the room and two more beds to her left. She had tried to copy Tris's answers to a mathematics question just that morning. The moment Tris had realised what was going on, she had covered her slate. She despised people who copied.
“Have you seen her clothes? Those ugly dresses! That black wool's so old it's turning brown!”
“And they strain at the seams. Fat as she is, you'd think she'd eat more at table!”
She wasn't completely sure about the last speakers, but did it matter? The voices seemed to come from every bed in the dormitory, to cut at her like razors. Why did they do this, the ones she'd never even spoken to? Because it felt good to be mean with no one to see and blame them? Because it felt good to sneer as the group did, go after the targets that their leaders pointed out? Her cousins were the same; they followed those who loved to make fun of the outcast among them like ducklings chasing their mother.
When her parents had given her to the Dedicate Superior of Stone Circle, she had thought she'd run out of hurt feelings. It seemed that she hadn't, after all.
Tris clenched her hands in her sheets. Leave me alone, she thought, speechless with fury and shame. I never did anything to most of you, don't even know most of you...
No one noticed that the wind had picked up, jerking at the shutters on the windows, making them clack against their fittings.
“I bet her parents tried to sell her to Traders.”
“Maybe, but even Traders wouldn't take her. They wouldn't think she has value.”
Everyone found this hilarious.
One of the shutters hadn't been securely locked. It burst open, letting in a swirl of cold wind. The girls nearest to it screamed and jumped to close it. A gust of wind bowled them onto their rumps before it whipped around the room, pulling covers off beds, scouring belongings off the small shelves. By the time it roared out of the room, all of the girls but Tris were screaming.
Two dedicates, their habits thrown on over their nightgowns, rushed into the room carrying lamps. Everywhere they looked, there was a chaos of girls, bedding, and knickknacks - except at Tris's bed. It was untouched. The girl in it stared at them with tear-reddened, defiant eyes behind the brass-rimmed spectacles that she had just finished jamming onto her long nose.
"Do you see a monster, like everyone else does? Am I someone who ought to be locked away?"
How could he keep taunting her this way, suggesting she could have the one thing she knew that she didn't? “No! I hate mages! They confuse people!” Jumping up, Tris ran out of the cabin.
Alone on deck, she heard thunder growl in the distance. The storm that had threatened all day was breaking. Darting over to the rail, she turned up her face just as a tall wave slapped the ship. She was immediately soaked, and her anger washed away. Shaking water from her spectacles, she wondered how it was that she felt queasy in her cabin, but perfectly fine now, with the deck jumping under her feet. It must be the smell, she decided. The cabin smells like all the cargoes these people have ever carried, and maybe some extra.
Here she felt wonderful. Nature roared and thrashed around her, making her rages and tears alike seem meaningless. It was grand to let them go, if only for the time spent out in the weather.
Looking at the choppy seas before her, she noticed dim shadows cast on the white-capped water. Where did the light come from? Even the torches wouldn't burn in this. Turning, she saw nothing at eye level, but something bright drew her attention up the length of the main mast. There, at the top, dim light balanced on the wood. It had to be Runog's Fire, the ghostly flame that seamen believed was the lamp of the water-god, leading Runog to bless good ships or to sink bad ones.
Shimmering, the light reached an arm along the topmost yard, until she could see a glowing cross high overhead. A globe of fire leaped to another mast, clinging to its top. Tris laughed gleefully at the wonder before her.
As if it were a living thing drawn to the sound, the light trickled down both masts in glowing streaks, abandoning the upper reaches of the masts. Once it was close to the deck, it turned into balls the size of her head and jumped free. Unthinkingly Tris held out both hands, palms up, and caught the globes.
Her skin prickled. Each hair on her head rose. Her wool shawl gave off sparks. Then Runog's Fire went out, leaving her to be just plain Tris again, with hair that frizzed even worse now, standing on end. She pawed at it in vain, trying to brush it flat before anyone came and saw.
A hand thrust a comb in front of her nose. Turning, she glared at Niko. “I suppose you were watching.”
“You told me yourself that's what I always do,” he reminded her. “And in a sense you are right - I am always watching - though not for the reasons that you appear to expect.”
“Do you see a monster, like everyone else does?” she demanded, struggling to yank the comb through her bristling hair. “Am I someone who ought to be locked away?”
Coming over, he put a hand on her shoulder. “I see a young girl who has been very badly treated.” Try as she might, Tris could hear no pity in his voice. If she had, she might have struck him. “Anything that Winding Circle has to offer will be an improvement on what you've had so far.”
"There is definitely something wrong with you. Go away."
She gasped, and nearly fell out of the window. Small hands gripped her skirt and hauled her back into the room. Her feet on the floor again, she whirled to glare at the invader: Sandry. “Don't you knock?” she demanded, straightening her spectacles.
“I did knock,” replied the other girl. “And I called. You just didn't hear me.”
Tris shook out her dress with trembling hands. “What do you want?”
Sandry hesitated, taking in the other girl's scowl. In for a copper, in for a gold, she thought. “This winter, I... went a little crazy. With embroidery, and needlepoint. I have these hangings, more than I'll ever need... I thought you might like one.” She retrieved a plump, neat roll of cloth from the bed, where she had dropped it, and held it out.
Tris looked at it, then glared. “Is something wrong with you?”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
“Just because we all have to live here together doesn't mean you can forget your rank! Look at you, hobnobbing with a Trader, and now me. You can't do that! I'm merchant blood, understand? It's in my last name - Chan-d-ler.” Tris spoke the word very slowly, as if Sandry were not quite bright. “You're probably an ei or a fa something.”
“That doesn't make any difference.” Sandry said, her mouth set in a mulish line.
“Only a noble would say something so idiotic.”
“Here I'm the same as you!”
Tris's laugh was as harsh as a crow's. “You wear slippers at four silver astrels the pair, cotton broadcloth at six silver creses the yard, and - and silk chiffon that's a gold astrel the yard, and tell me you're the same?” She tugged hard at her own ugly dress. “There is definitely something wrong with you. Go away.”
“I was trying to be nice.” Sandry placed the hanging on the desk. “If you don't want it, then give it to someone else - I don't care.” Chin high, she walked out.
Tris slammed the door and glared at it. She couldn't see a latch that would stop anyone else from barging in. A nice thing with a thief in the house, she thought. Not that I have anything worth stealing.
The roll of cloth sat on her desk, a temptation on cream-colored linen.
She thinks I'm stupid enough to believe her, thought Tris. She thinks people never pretended to be my friend before!
Curious, she spread the hanging out. It showed a six-spoked wheel, with a different, brightly colored bird at the end of each spoke. Flat, the hanging was good-sized, two feet by one foot. It was easy to see how the sticks at the center of the roll would fit to make a frame, and how the cloth would attach to it. For a long moment Tris stared at it, thinking about how beautiful it was. Did she say she did this work? the girl wondered. That can't be right - probably it was servants, only she claims what they did for her own. Nobles do things like that.
Gently she traced an embroidered toucan's over-large, gaudy beak. She loved birds - they coasted so beautifully on the wind, or mastered the air with darting turns. Looking around, she found a blank space on the wall that needed to be filled. The hanging could go there, where she could see it from the bed.
If she wants it back, I can tell her she gave it, and I'm keeping it, Tris thought fiercely. That will teach - what had Honored Moonstream called her? - Lady Sandrilene.
Daja, carrying her staff, followed Sandry downstairs. No one else was in the main room by that time. “I take it you heard,” Sandry remarked with a crooked smile. Plumping herself on the bottom riser, she put her chin on her hands. “Not all nine-fingered girls have hatchets,” she said in Tradertalk. “Some of us just tried to have a conversation with a snapping turtle.”
“Now you know why only one in ten Trader windmages lives to adulthood.”
“Let's see how good I am,” the girl told Little Bear, sitting on a rock at the foot of the trail. The pup sat down as well and yawned.
Closing her eyes, Tris started her meditation breathing, listening for the voice of her magic. In the weeks since beginning her studies, she had learned how to take strength from currents in the air or sea, if she were tired. She thought she could use that same magic to keep the tide from coming in, by pulling its strength into herself, or through herself, at least. The rock she chose as a seat looked like a good place to store the rest of it until she chose to set that power free.
As a wave came in, she called to its strength, taking it in. Without letting it go, she reached for the power of the next wave, and the next, draining the tide of force as it tried to cover the shore. With her eyes closed, she couldn't see that the water now lurked around the far ends of the rock shelves, bubbling and churning like a pot on the boil.
She grasped as much power as she could stand - to her surprise, she couldn't hold nearly as much of it as she had expected to. Like a sailor trying to empty out a sinking boat, she hurried to dump the strength from other waves into the rock beneath her. The sea fought hard, surging and pulling on her magic, trying to shake her loose.
Just a little longer, she thought. Just a bit more, so I know I really did it...
When Tris opened her eyes, the first thing she saw was Niko's face. “Uh-oh,” she whispered, and closed them again.
“Now you know why only one in ten Trader windmages lives to adulthood,” that clipped voice said.
She tried to sit up. The rock under her felt strange - hardly like stone at all. For one thing, she'd had to crawl onto it; now she could just step off, once she had the strength. For another, it gave, more like a sack of grain than a proper boulder.
When she tried to lever herself off the stone with both hands, it collapsed, dropping her amid a shower of gravel, shattered into a thousand small pieces. Tris rolled onto her back, staring up at Niko. Little Bear came over and licked her face.
“What happened to my rock?” she demanded lazily. “It's all to pieces.”
“It's where you placed what you took from the tides, isn't it?”
She nodded.
“You put in more than the stone could hold. It's dissolving. Now, let me ask - have you had a lesson today?” inquired the mage.
“You look very tall from down here,” Tris remarked. His eyebrows came together in a scowl. Hurriedly she said, “When my teacher tells me it's a bad idea to try and fight the power of nature, I should listen.”
He grasped her hands. “I don't know that I can walk,” she admitted as Niko helped her to rise.
“I know very well that you can't,” he said. “Your luck is in. The moment I knew you were in trouble, I enlisted a friend.”
“Hullo,” Kirel said. Tris hadn't seen him waiting on the path. “You must be Daja's friend - the crotchety one.” Grinning, he knelt, folded her over his shoulder, and stood.
“This is so humiliating,” grumbled Tris. She was too weak even to struggle.
"If your pointing is a weapon, then don’t you point ‘less you’re ready to kill with it."
They had to distract Tris, before something else happened, thought Daja. “What if you tried your lightning on that?” She pointed to the heap of black powder that lay forgotten in the path.
Tris stared at it. “I - I don’t know,” she said, her voice trembling.
“Well?” Sandry nudged.
“What lightning?” Briar demanded, sarcastic. “She’s just got the worst case of Runog’s Fire I’ve ever seen, is all.”
Daja knew the pale fire that played on ship masts and tower roofs in storms as well as he did. “What she’s got is seed lightning,” she returned. “It’s not the same. Show him, Tris.”
Another boom-stone exploded over the Hub. “I c-c-can’t,” Tris replied, shivering with fright. What did they want from her? Couldn’t they see that each explosion felt like a sharp blow to her? Her muscles were clenched, awaiting the next strike, and her neck and back were aching.
“Don’t you have to learn control?” Sandry asked. “No matter what else is going on?
Maybe this is a good time to practise.”
Tris glared at the other three, hating them for bothering her. She just wanted to run inside and hide under a bed.
“Ahhh, I knew it,” Briar remarked scornfully. “It’s just Runog’s Fire.”
Furious, Tris pointed to the heap of powder a foot away. Lightning jumped from her finger. There was a clap: dirt and smoke sprayed everywhere, blackening them and turning the observing Little Bear grey. The dog yipped, and fled into Discipline. The four looked at each other, eyes wide in soot-streaked faces. There was now a hole in the path.
“You see?” Briar said at last. “You just have to know what to say to her.”
“You—” Tris snapped, and pointed at him without thinking what might result.
Briar grabbed her arms, hard, shaking her as lightning-sparks raced over his hands.
“Don’t you ever do that,” he whispered, his eyes burning into hers. “Don’t you ever. If your pointing is a weapon, then don’t you point ‘less you’re ready to kill with it. You understand, you witless bleater?” He was so frightened he didn’t know where his trembling ended and hers began. “Niko’s right.” He let her go and pushed her away from him. “We got to learn control, and you most of all.”
“I’m sorry.” Tris’s eyes were spilling over, but she made herself look Briar in the face.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t -I wouldn’t ever—”
Sandry put her arm around Tris’s shoulders. “We can’t just act without thinking any more, Tris. They’ve been trying to teach us that all along. I guess if we’re mages, we can’t exactly be kids, can we?” she asked the other two. They shook their heads. “Briar knows you would have been sorry after.”
“After I was a nice crispy roast just off the spit,” the boy said cruelly.
Tris hid her face in her hands.
“Enough,” Daja said. “She got the point. Don’t bully her.”
I’m a scared bully, thought Briar, stuffing his hands into his pockets. And I want to be sure she’s scared, scared enough to think next time.
Tris yanked out of Sandry’s hold and ran up to her room.
"You know, we may be kaqs, but at least our manners are good."
"What happened to you?" asked Briar.
"Trader Koma protect me," whispered Daja, "You're qunsuanen." She had heard of the qunsua ceremony, its use and intent. Never before had she seen it done - though she knew it when she laid eyes on the results.
"What do you call that shade of yellow?" Sandry inquired. "It's so vivid."
Polyam stared at her for a moment, as if she didn't believe what the girl had asked, then made a face. "I call it yellow." She looked straight at Daja. "Are you happy?" she demanded. "I can now talk to you. I can deal with you. I can even bargain with you. And I will never, ever, acquire enough zokin to erase this from the books of the caravan."
"I don't get it," said Briar. "What's koo-soo— What's zokin? And the other thing?"
Polyam looked away. Obviously she wasn't about to explain.
"I never heard of the koon-soo thing," remarked Sandry, "but zokin is the credit listed against your name in the ledgers of your people. Pirisi - my old nurse - was a Trader," she explained to Polyam. "Pirisi said there are two kinds of zokin, the kind that's your actual savings in coin, your part of the ship's—"
"Or caravan's," Daja added.
Sandry grinned at her. "Or caravan's profits. The other kind of zokin is, well, honor, or personal standing. Is that the kind you mean?"
Polyam stared at her. "It's not right, a kaq knowing so much of our ways."
"She's not a kaq," Daja said flatly, staring at the woman. "She is my saati." The word meant a friend who was as dear as family. "So are Briar, and Tris - and our teachers."
"As for qunsuanen— koon-soo-ah-nen," Daja repeated slowly, for her friends, "it's, I don't know, she's been cleansed." She felt a little sorry for Polyam. The Traders might as well have named her a plague carrier, to say she was specially privileged to deal with trangshi. "All the paint, all the runes on the charms, are to keep my trangshi luck from sticking to her. When they go, she has to follow the caravan for ten days, washing in every stream and pond and river they find. The mimanders will pray over her and do ritual purifications—"
"As they did all last night," snapped Polyam. She hopped over to the iron vine to take a better look at it. "So let's deal and get it over with. A gold maja and two gold astrels, take it or leave it, trangshi."
The word was like a slap in the face. You'd think being qunsuanen would sweeten her, thought Daja, breathless with anger. No such luck!
Flame roared out of the forge, shaping a column nearly ten feet high.
"Tris!" yelled Briar, Sandry, and Daja. Shriek, grooming his feathers, let out several ear-smarting whistles.
Tris closed her eyes and took a deep breath. The fire sank to its earlier level. Daja went to see how her iron rods had fared in the extra heat. They were useless - if she made these into nails, once they were cold they would break at the first blow of a hammer.
"You know, we may be kaqs, but at least our manners are good," snapped Tris, glaring at Polyam. "Yours could stand a polishing."
"I'm a wirok," Polyam replied, returning the glare with her one good eye. "All I do is spend money—among lugsha— that's artisans—"
"I know what that one means," retorted Tris.
"And kaqs," finished Polyam. "I don't need manners, only authority."
Daja stared at Polyam, thinking she had been stupid to believe it would matter, to speak face to face with a Trader again. It was stupid to think her banishment from the world she had lived in most of her life would pinch less if she could pretend she was a Trader just for an hour or two.
She was about to tell Polyam to take the iron vine and keep her money when Sandry rose, smiling her loftiest young-noble smile, and shook out her skirts. "Along with the manners you should use to another Trader—"
"Trangshi," Polyam hissed.
Sandry ignored the interruption. "You appear to have forgotten custom," she continued. "I see none of the those things which make it possible to bargain for such a priceless item. Where is the food, and the tea? I'm sure Daja will understand if there are no musicians, given our surroundings. If we were in Summersea, of course, you'd need at least a flutist and a gittern player."
"Cushions," Briar put in, interested. "You need proper cushions to sit on. And one of those little wood table things."
Even Tris was smiling now. "A gift of some kind, as a mark of respect," she added. "Back home in Capchen, the bigger the sale, the more important the token."
Polyam looked at Daja. The black girl was just as surprised as the Trader, but she quickly hid it with a casual shrug. At that moment, Daja thought, she would cheerfully die for any of her three friends, who had defended her without being asked.
"Sorry you got all done up in yellow for nothing," commented Briar as Tris put more iron rods in the fire to heat.
"Come back when you are ready to do business," Sandry told Polyam, looking down her small nose at the woman.
If she remembered correctly, she'd just gone over three thousand kilometers to find those storms.
There was a storm out there, one that would teach him a lesson he desperately needed to learn. Ignoring the snippets of conversation the city's winds brought to her—bits of gossip, legal proceedings, speeches in the Assembly and the temples of the All-Seeing—Tris made herself comfortable on the platform and spread her spirit on the winds.
She was forced to go further afield than she'd expected. It made her cross as well as exhausted as she plodded down those many steps, past the first sightseers of the day. It shouldn't have happened, she thought as she rested on a bench near the door. Quietly she gathered the magic that had kept her cyclone from ripping up floor tiles. It was monsoon season in Tharios and the lands far south of the Pebbled Sea. Storms should have rolled steadily across that open stretch of water between here and Aliput, to die over the waves or to build up their strength for an assault on this coast. If she remembered the maps correctly, she'd just gone over three thousand kilometers to find those storms, locked in place around Aliput, piled up like so many logs behind one storm that would not move.
It was even more maddening to realize she would never know who had done it. She wanted to give a piece of her mind and a few other tokens of her esteem to the mage who had pulled this costly stunt. Tris knew this was mage-made. No one else could halt a storm in its track. But it was a stupid mage who had cursed all of Aliput with floods while here in the west the fields withered for lack of rain. She'd given herself an earache, straining to hear a name or any information on the tired winds that reached her. If his name was known, no one had spoken it. If he had spoken, it had got lost on the way east.
Well, at least the storms were moving once more. Just to ensure he couldn't do this again for awhile, Tris had traveled along the line of weather, tying each storm to the one ahead of it with a mage-knot she had learned from Sandry. He'd never break the string. She hoped he drained himself trying.
She barely made it back to Phakomathen. She must have looked terrible; when she opened her eyes, Chime sat on her chest, giving voice to small tinkling sounds that seemed to mean dismay. She'd had to reassure the dragon while forcing her weary arms to undo one of her tidal braids. It had taken a third of the strength from that braid before Tris could get to her feet, and another third from the opposite tidal braid to get her and Chime down the steps. In the end she drew off all the power of both braids to feel like her old self. Normally she wouldn't have used so much, not when she would pay the price later, but she and Keth had work to do before he could try another lightning globe. The sooner they got to it, the fewer yaskedasi would meet their end at the Ghost's hands.
"Tris, you'll never be a diplomat. You may as well put that right out of your mind."
"Then stop her," ordered Berenene.
Tris looked up, gray eyes glinting through her loose tresses. "I wouldn't do that."
"Tris, you'll never be a diplomat," announced Briar. "You may as well put that right out of your mind." He turned his own bright green eyes on Ishabal and Berenene. "We all swear on our medallions, this isn't something that would affect Your Imperial Majesty in any way," he said, his voice bland as cream. "In fact, Tris here is actually doing you and your devoted servants a favor."
"And if they stop me now, I can't promise the cliff under the palace wall won't drop into the Syth," muttered Tris.
"Pay her no mind," Briar continued as Sandry glared at Tris. "It's not a threat she's making, just a warning. You know how it is with mages and interruptions. Anyway, I suppose you didn't know it, or you'd have seen for yourself, but your palace has rats. Big ones. Doesn't it, Clehame fa Landreg?"
"Big ones," Sandry replied. "I don't know how she missed them, but anything is possible."
"She's an empress," Briar told her, his tone pure conciliation. "You can't expect her to know every rathole that opens up." To the empress and her mages, he explained: "This one is a real beauty. It opens in a northeast wing of the palace—I don't think anyone's dusted in there in months. And it tunnels all the way down through the cliff. Through solid stone, even under the curtain wall, can you believe it? Down at the bottom, it opens onto a cove of the Syth."
Berenene's veins filled with ice. The Julih Tunnel, she realized, horrified. How in Vrohain's name did Fin—his uncle. Notalos dung-grubbing fer Hurich. The Mages' society is said to have the plans of the palace from its first construction—and I shall have his skin.
Briar continued. "Energetic little nalizes, rats, aren't they? To dig all that way. We stumbled on their hole purely by chance. Well, Sandry didn't stumble entirely by chance. So Tris here got all alarmed, because she hates rats, so she's stopping up that hole at the foot of the cliff. She's getting the lake to help. Some of the stones she's using are pretty big."
Tris looked up, her face relaxed and at ease. "It really is in your interest, Your Imperial Majesty. Who could sleep, knowing rats could get in at will? With that rathole closed, Your Imperial Majesty may sleep easily."
Berenene clenched her hands against her skirts. If the wench is doing what she claimed to do, she is trying to close the secret exit that saved my life in that assassination attempt years ago. Of course, it's no good to me now if Viynain fer Hurich has decided he need not obey his vow to keep those plans secret. "Can she do it?" she asked Ishabal. There were magical wards on the tunnel.
Ishabal watched Tris for a long moment. Finally, she nodded. "She is doing it." She asked Tris, "What if anyone is in the chamber at the base of the cliff?"
"I won't weep a tear if they drown," Sandry snapped, her voice rough. "But they could always climb. Tris is just stopping up the exit. You ought to put maids with brooms at the other end of the hole, to beat the rats when they come out."
The skin at the back of Berenene's neck crawled. She sighed lightly, as if she'd asked for a glass of wine only to be told there was no more. One of the hardest parts of being imperial was learning when to back off from a fight. "Quen, be a dear and send a message to the captain of my guard. Harm no one who comes out, please. I wish to have anyone who appears questioned." Quen bowed and went to give the message to the guard at the door. As he did so, the empress said, "Please continue, Trisana. Ishabal will watch all that you do." Berenene looked at Sandry once more. "So, Briar found you in a way he does not remember."
"Tris joined us," said Briar, his eyes cold. "We got Sandry out of the crate."
Berenene shook her head as Quen returned to them. "Cousin, what can I say?" she asked helplessly. "Finlach has committed a serious offense against you, without my knowledge or approval." Her voice hardened despite her struggle for an appearance of calm. "He forgot his duty to me. I assure you, he will be arrested and punished. You will see how quickly justice is done here."
"Cousin, justice should be done very quickly," Sandry replied, her face hard. "We are returning to Emelan as soon as we can pack."
Isha flinched despite her years at court. Quen halted rather than come closer. Slowly, Berenene replied, "But the summer is only half done."
"I don't want to see how I will feel after an entire summer," Sandry retorted. "That a custom that permits such things against the women in this realm continues under a monarch who is female herself—"
"I am not the empress of weaklings," said Berenene. "A strong woman would find a way to escape, as I did. As you have. They have families to help them, if their families are strong."
Sandry shook her head. Her hands trembled as they lay folded in her lap. "Not all women or families are strong in the same way. They are entitled to your protection. I will not remain in a country that withholds that protection. And it's been made clear to me that I cannot even count myself safe in your own palace, Cousin."
Berenene felt as if the chit had slapped her. "You dare..." she began to say, furious, then met Sandry's eyes. Of course she dares, thought Berenene. And she is right. I was so secure in my power that I did not realize spirited young animals, like my courtiers, are forever testing the leash and the rein. I relaxed my vigilance and she was offered an intolerable insult. The custom is supposed to apply only to women taken in the open, not when they are under the protection of their liege lords. In shattering my protection, Fin destroyed my credit with every parent who entrusts an unmarried daughter to my care.
She smoothed her skirts. "You are hurt and recovering from a bad fright," she said in her most soothing voice. "In the morning, you will feel differently. Would you really turn your back on all Namorn has to offer?" She met Briar's eyes when she said this.
It was Briar who answered. "If this is what Namorn offers, yes. It is only as a courtesy to you that I don't address Fin myself. It's my sister he tried to kidnap, and our magic is plenty thicker than blood. Or maybe I should just give him to Sandry when he doesn't have drugs and spells to make him the big man." His voice was heavy with contempt. "You think a strong woman can always beat this? I call it rape, in any country."
"Right now they seem to think I'm the biggest threat. They have no idea how dangerous you all are."
"Hmph," replied the woman. "Not much family resemblance. But it is as I have told you. She asks to see the three of you. She will not take the sleeping medicine until she sees you, so please, attend to her immediately, so she will sleep."
Chastened, the three young mages filed into Tris's room, Chime riding on Daja's shoulder. Once inside, they all stopped to stare. One of Tris's arms and one of her legs were bound to slats and covered in tightly wrapped bandages. Splintered fingers and toes had their own wooden supports secured with white linen. All of her braids hung loose. The lingering tracks of the healer's magic were evident on Tris's skull and body. None of them had ever seen anyone so badly hurt that they weren't on their feet in a few days, given a good healer.
Tris looked naked without her spectacles, which had been smashed in her fall. Sandry went to Tris's writing box and took out one of the spare pairs of spectacles that lay with the pens and ink sticks. Carefully she settled them on Tris's nose, taking care to touch none of the bruises on Tris's face. "At least your nose wasn't broken," she whispered.
Tris raised the unbroken arm and laid her splinted hand on Sandry's. Her magical voice, while exhausted, was not as faint as her battered form might lead them to expect. Don't put off leaving for me, she told them, her magical voice reaching Briar and Daja as well. You meant to go day after tomorrow—go. Don't risk getting stuck here.
We're not leaving you, Sandry retorted, her chin sticking out. Don't be ridiculous.
Don't you be ridiculous! Tris snapped in reply, her thought-voice as stern and forceful as pain and drugs would allow. I can catch up once I'm able to ride. I move faster alone than you will in a group. And when I go, I'll have cooked up a shield that will return any ill wishes and curses to the sender, whether I see them coming or not. But the longer you put off going, the more they'll be able to put in your way. Right now they seem to think I'm the biggest threat. They have no idea how dangerous you all are. That will help you. Take Zhegorz and Gudruny and the children and go, now.
"I don't want to say it," Briar said aloud, "but she makes sense."
"I hate it when she does that," added Daja.
Sandry glared at them. Apparently Daja and Briar had yet to reopen their connection to each other, though obviously they had renewed their ties to Tris and Sandry.
This is no time for jokes! she shouted.
"Oh, there's always time for jokes," Briar replied with his sweetest smile.
The healer's male assistant opened the door. "She says to come out." He walked over to the bed and picked up a cup of dark liquid. "And she says you will drink this."
"Go home," croaked Tris. "I'll catch up as soon as I can."
"We'll do it," Briar assured Tris. He leaned down and kissed her unbruised forehead. "You've got a good plan there. Get better."
"I'll be happy to leave as soon as possible, Rizu or no," Daja added, kissing the top of Tris's head carefully. "Don't mind Sandry. She only goes on Her Nobleness when she's frightened." She followed Briar out of the room.
Tris looked at Sandry. The healer cleared his throat.
"I feel like I'm deserting you," Sandry explained, looking at the floor.
"Try feeling like you're using common sense," Tris suggested quietly. "That's what I do when I'm doing what I think is right."
“Being attended to. Being heard. Being useful. I was never any of those things before, only crazy.
“I did as you said,” he told her. “Did I tell you last night?” He helped her sit on the bench next to Briar. “They know you see things on the wind now. I don’t think they believe you are conceited.”
Tris sighed. “No doubt you’re right. Zhegorz, thank you for helping them. I knew you could do it. Now, please, I would like to eat, if it’s all right. I’m starved.” She looked at Briar’s plate. “Is that cabbage rolls? I don’t care if I never see another cabbage roll in my life.”
A girl who had waited on them came to tell Tris the day’s selections. Once Tris had chosen, a brief silence fell. It was broken by Zhegorz, who said, “I liked it.”
Tris and the others turned to look at him. He had chosen a bench at the table next to theirs. From the tilt of his brass-lensed spectacles, he was staring into the distance. “Liked what, Zhegorz?” Sandry asked gently.
“Being attended to. Being heard. Being useful.” There was wistfulness in his voice. “I was never any of those things before, only crazy. I don’t want to go back to being the crazy man who hears all manner of things and sometimes sees them. I like being attended to.” He got up and wandered off, his hands in his pockets.
“Zhegorz,” called Tris. He stopped, though he didn’t look back at her. “It is nice. I know,” she told him.
He nodded, and left them alone in the garden.
Once he was gone, Ambros looked at Briar, Daja, and Sandry. “Your friend over there is very determined,” he said with respect, nodding to Tris.
“Oh, all three girls are like that,” Briar said carelessly. “Sometimes you need to hit them with a brick to get their attention. They get it from our mothers, I think.”
"I will always be a little shaky. But I can be useful."
Zhegorz cleared his throat. When they all looked at him, he said, “Do you know, Viymese Daja tells me it never snows in Emelan. Never. It seems unnatural to me. And they have no beet soup, or bacon and millet soup. I’m quite fond of that. Please understand, I’m certain that Winding Circle is a splendid place.”
“Well, it produced us,” Briar said with a grin. “Zhegorz, it’s all right. Go ahead. Whatever it is, you can tell us.”
Zhegorz smiled shyly. “I know, I know. Except that I want to tell him.” He pointed a bony finger at Ambros, who blinked in confusion.
“Me? You hardly know me,” he said. “I mean, we’ve seen each other, but…”
“I know you’re a good man,” Zhegorz said firmly. “A good Namornese man.” He looked at Briar, at Daja, and at Tris. “Don’t you think a Cleham who is not a favorite of Her Imperial Majesty could use someone in his service who can hear conversations on the winds? Who can see things on the winds?” He looked at Ambros. “I get better every day. I breathe, and I sort through what I hear and see. I practice every day. I will always be a little shaky. But I can be useful.” He looked at the mages.
Briar nodded. “He could be useful, Ambros.”
“He’s wobbly, but I would trust him,” said Daja.
“As would I,” confirmed Sandry.
Tris glared at Ambros. “You’d be a fool not to take his service. Just treat him with kindness” — Briar snorted, and she ignored him — “treat him with kindness, and he’ll help you navigate that snakepit Her Imperial Majesty calls a court,” Tris continued.
Ambros looked at Zhegorz and took a deep breath. “Then we’ll discuss salary and where you’ll be living, your duties and so on, on the way home,” he said. “Welcome to my household, Zhegorz.”
"Not being able to forgive ourselves isn’t the same as understanding each other."
“How did you do this — create this so it actually feels real?” asked Sandry, delighted. “I can smell, I can hear… which of you did it?” Below, she could see Rosethorn’s garden in full summer extravagance. Around them spread the temple. The spiral road was empty: Very few people cared to venture along its unshaded length during the postmidday rest period during the blast of Mead and Wort Moons. Yet the long hand on the Hub clock moved as it ticked off the minutes. The wind brushed Sandry’s face as it carried the scents of lavender and herbs into her nostrils.
“I did,” Briar admitted. “I was locked up for a while in Gyongxe. It was either go mad imagining what might happen to me, or… retreat, inside me. I made it, inside my power.” He lay back on the peak, balancing easily. “After that — I did things I’m not proud of when I got out. It was a bloody mess. Thousands died who should have lived. I don’t know why I’m here, and they aren’t. I didn’t want any of you knowing that. I didn’t want you knowing I thought I should be dead. That’s why I shut you out.”
Silence stretched. It was all he could tell them for now.
“Mine is just silly,” admitted Tris. “So many of the mages I met with Niko took it so personally that I learned to scry the winds that I forgot who you all were. Niko acted like it was something you had to expect — that when you learn a strange kind of magic, one that so many fail at, you have to expect jealousy. I don’t want people to be jealous, I don’t want them to be anything. I was afraid to find out you’d be like them.” She hung her head. “I’m just too gaudy. That’s why I want to go to Lightsbridge. So I can just do what I want and people won’t stare at me.”
Daja and Sandry exchanged shrugs, as if to say, That’s Tris for you.
“I made something that helped Ben Ladradun kill a lot of people,” Daja told them somberly. “So many. I thought catching him and seeing him get an arsonist’s sentence would fix it in my heart, make it right, but it never did. I still liked him. So I helped kill him fast, so he wouldn’t be in pain. I didn’t want you to know something of mine — something of ours, because it was living metal, and we were all part of that — caused so many deaths. I can’t forgive myself, some days. I didn’t think you could.” She closed her eyes, her full mouth quivering.
Sandry looked down at her knees. She wore pink, as she had that same day in the advocate’s office. “I tore three people to pieces to save the life of my student,” she said flatly. She heard Tris draw a deep breath. “Did you think I would be safe at home? They were murderers, they were being eaten alive by unmagic, with little humanity left in them. There was no other way, and yet.” She put her face on her knees.
“So now we know the things we hid from each other,” Tris said drily after a while. “Does it change anything?”
“How could it?” Briar wanted to know. “Fighting off those pirates didn’t make us hate each other. We knew why we did it. Not being able to forgive ourselves isn’t the same as understanding each other. We’re a lot easier on each other than we are on ourselves. As for you, Coppercurls, you’ve always been fooling around with the weird magics.”
“That’s just you, Tris,” said Daja.
Sandry lifted her head. “I wouldn’t be you for a thousand gold majas, Tris. I see the way people twitch around you. But that doesn’t change how I feel about you.”
Tris looked at her. “So we’re a circle again.”
“Suits me,” Briar said. “I never knew how much I missed it till we came back.”
“Till we remade us,” said Daja. “Till Berenene reforged us.”
“You’ll forgive me if I don’t thank her,” Sandry told them as she lay back on the thatch. “She may be related to me by blood, but I much prefer the family I chose.”
“Briar, can we come back here?” Daja asked. “Will this be here?”
“I made it for us,” he replied, surprised she hadn’t realized it. Here, in this place, they could feel what he felt. “All right, I made it for me first, but it was us. It is us.”