Chapter 21: Fearing a Feather to the Earth
But love travels like a rumor here,
A skeleton of something more.
- Ryan O'Neal
On his way through the bunker that had once housed four of the Selected but now felt more like some sort of military ghost town, the last thing Demetri was expecting to see was a member of his Selected that he had half-expected might have been eliminated without his being told – certainly he had not heard much about this girl for the past few weeks, though truth be told, for the past few weeks he had not heard from many of them.
He paused, about a foot away from where Marjorie was sitting on a hard chair outside the room. "Ah. Lady Velmudez."
"Your Highness."
She moved as though to stand and courtesy, but Demetri quickly waved away such efforts and, with only a moment's pause, moved to take the seat next to her, kicking up one foot to rest on his knee and relaxing back into the chair like a man who had not rested for several days. "Dare I ask what you're doing here?"
"If I knew," Marjorie said, shutting the notebook on her lap. "I'd tell you."
"You know, we never did get that date," Demetri said with a fond smile.
"You're a busy man. I understand entirely."
He tapped the cover of her notebook. "Thiago has put you to work?"
Her voice was wry. "I volunteered." She shrugged. "Doing my part for the rebellion."
"And the rebellion thanks you."
Marjorie flipped the pen in her hand and looked on the verge of saying something – of asking something – of asking something about Cor – when Thiago pushed open the door to the conference room, what had once been the personal office of some Crown general or other, and said, "we're ready for you, your Majesty." He glanced at Marjorie and said, "quédate ahí y grita si ves a alguien."
"Lo tengo," the girl replied and added, "it was a delight to see you again, your Majesty."
"And you, Lady Velmudez. Let it not be so long again between our meetings."
Thiago was quite sharp with the way he closed the door between them, softening only slightly as he gestured for Demetri to join the majority of High Command at the table in the centre of the room. Only a few unfamiliar faces – the war was going well, for once, and High Command rarely got involved on the frontlines anyway. Devery was there in image only, her picture flickering uncertainly on the small screen set at the tail of the table, and Bernard Givre looked as though he wanted to be anywhere other than here. Uzokuwa was casting inauspicious looks at the General's successor, a man whose name Demetri had yet to learn in the last two weeks that he had held that position. Nonetheless, they exchanged brief greetings and Demetri took his seat at the head of the table, between Thiago and the man in the grey suit who represented the colonies in the east.
In recent weeks, the meetings had included fewer and fewer of the Inner Circle, in favour of a greater presence of High Command. He wasn't entirely sure if that spoke more to their increased trust in Demetri, or their decreased trust in the Circle. Whatever it was, Demetri missed the scratch of Täj's handwriting in the corner, he missed Uzohola's focus on the humanistic perspective, he missed Wick's ability to parse through all the bullshit Givre and Devery would throw at them at the meeting's preamble.
He missed when the General would have walked him through all of this with simple terms.
"Wait," Demetri said, shaking his head. "Can you use small words?"
"We have hacked into the Crown's missile system on the edge of Fennley," Thiago said. "Courtesy of information from our own lovely Vardi Tayna and some brave conduct from boots on the ground."
"Malone," Uzokuwa said softly. "Smith. Weston."
"So what are we blowing up?" Bernard Givre bit out his words, sharp and curt.
"It needs to be symbolic," Devery said thoughtfully. "We won't get anywhere near anything that's actually strategically important, so making an impact is what matters."
"They'll retaliate."
Uzokuwa said, "the Saharan ambassador has extended an invitation to the one true king of Illeá to go to Maṣr on a state visit. It'll add legitimacy, and make sure Demetri is out of range for any response."
"And the Selection?"
Uzokuwa shrugged. "Mansa Inkosi Enhle has four wives. I'm sure he would be fine with Demetri bringing a few girls with him, to ensure their safety and to ensure we don't lose more time."
"What are we down to," Bernard said, and Demetri winced to hear the word we. "There's the Yukimura girl, Lee's daughter, that woman from the Axiom, Bataar Altai's girl..."
"Saran," Devery corrected him. "The farmer, the spy, the rebel." She ticked them off on her hands.
Bernard nodded. "My count is seven, oui? Too many to bring into another nation's hospitality, especially if we're trying to make a good impression.
The General's successor was curt. "Right. Cut the farmer, cut the Mongolian, cut the Gildas girl..."
Demetri said, "I haven't spoken to Elizabeth Tucker once. I know you tire of these petty issues, Bernard, but the integrity of the Selection has suffered enough."
Devery said, "lose the Altai connection? Just as Mordred brings the other twin into his Selection? How would that look?"
Thiago said, his voice soft, "don't call her the Gildas girl."
The rest of High Command shifted uncomfortably around the table.
"Alright." Bernard steepled his fingers. Demetri knew if he had truly been set on any of those decisions, he would not have been so easily deterred. He had thrown out those names on purpose, to measure their reactions to them. "The rebel, then. Atiena Morris. We can retain her as a footsoldier - Uzokuwa, are you happy to accept her into your command?"
When he smiled, Uzohola's twin stretched his scar wide, like a mouth mimicking his smile precisely. "I've been waiting since the day she arrived."
"Excellent. That's six. We need to keep Vardi Tayna." Demetri threw Bernard a piercing look that went unnoticed. "We need to keep Liara Lee." He looked at Demetri. "Any personal favourites?"
Demetri thought fast about the girls who would not be retained in the Selection for strategic reasons. Did he have any favourites? Could he, knowing them so little? It was more a question of those who would not otherwise get a chance. "Yue," he said immediately. "Eden."
"The Lahela girl is doing good work," Bernard agreed. "And the Yukimura girl is trending very positively amongst the civilians. And then Saran, while Naran is in the Crown Selection."
"Elizabeth Tucker?"
Bernard flicked his fingers at Demetri. "Have a quick chat with her at the Layeni festival, give her something to tell the folks at home about how wonderful our prince is, and we'll book five tickets for five girls to the Federation."
Demetri set his jaw, but did not argue. "Anything else?"
Uzokuwa leaned forward in his seat and said, "I need you to extend my powers. To root out this rat of ours. Whoever killed this girl."
Bernard narrowed his eyes. "What are you suggesting?"
"He's suggesting a witch hunt," Devery said derisively.
"A young girl was murdered," Demetri said, his voice cold and sharp. "After we brought her into our protection. After we promised her we would keep her safe." He thought of the night they had lain on the roof of his car and watched the safehouse vanish into so much light and dust and debris, and wondered if caring for her even a tiny bit had been the cause of her death. If, in being vulnerable, he had made her vulnerable as well. "Uzokuwa. Do whatever you need to do."
Bernard, his eyes fixed on Demetri with a laser focus, said, "and the missile?"
Thiago said, "there's a military museum in Waverly dedicated to Set Dunin."
Uzokuwa said, "Ysabel's got a spare house out in Clermont."
Devery said, "the Axiom's headquarters isn't going to have an missile defence system."
The General's successor said, "we'll hit the Axiom, hit the Maxon Bridge in Carolina, hit one of the military installations near our border in the north." He smiled grimly. "Let's put the fear of God into them."
"Please," Demetri said, his voice sounding brittle even to his own ears. "Call me Demetri."
The main thoroughfare of Layeni was known as the Anfractuous Way, and in her time living with Raphael, Yue had come to know it well. All roads in Layeni led to the clocktower eventually, but the Anfractuous Way wove its way there languidly, over a set of humpback brick bridges which hung above the rushing river slicing through the heart of the town. At least, it usually rushed – the river had been stilled by frost, the bare bones of the sakura trees on either side reaching over its frozen surface as though to throw its shadow to the other bank.
Yue had come to know it well, but this evening, it had been utterly transformed into a processional route. The trees and the street lamps had been laced and overlaced with lights, many of them just the cheap plastic o ones with bleach-white light imported from New Asia, so that from a distance when you looked over the zig-zagging bridges of the Way, it was for the briefest moment believable that the whole village had been hoisted into the air and left to settle down amongst the stars. Overhead, the white stars seemed as bright as they had ever been in the Wastelands, the constellations laced and overlaced with the softest shadows of opalescent clouds.
And the whole place was filled with people, more people than Yue could ever remember seeing in Layeni at one time, seeming as it always did to be a placid place with an almost sleepy heart. Raphael had said that this was the most anticipated occasion in Layeni, and indeed beyond, for many of the Kingdom's citizens and the Wasteland inhabitants would arrive in town for some amount of time during the following days, be it to enjoy the festivities themselves or to make as much money as they could out of it. To look at the little bunches of people moving about the bridges and the cobbelled paths, Yue thought that, tonight at least, it was mostly people here to celebrate. In fact, she thought, as Raphael shut the door behind her and took Agares' hand, though they were arranged in tight groups, it was apparent that most of the people in the town were divided again into pairs, lovers with their arms looped around one another's waists quite lazily, spouses with their fingers intertwined, paramours pressing lips against forehead and hair and lips. Yue couldn't deny that it all made her heart ache, just a little bit.
She had stayed up all night reading her latest book – Мастер и Маргарита, a small red-covered tome that had arrived to Raphael's house bound in brown paper and twined with butcher's string, with the now-expected little white note attached to its face:
my dearest, Yue,
Klahan once said to me that he dreamed we would create a world in which we never had need nor cause for a visit from our very own Professor Woland, but to tell you the truth I'm not sure he ever read the whole book in full, for having read it myself some many years ago in the back of some munitions truck with only my own thoughts for company – well, and Täj, but that amounts to the same thing as my own thoughts I feel – I was more struck by the purity of the love Bulgakov portrayed, and wondered for many years if this was a flight of fancy on his part… I still believe it to be so, but it makes for a nice story, and a nice dream, and Margarita an excellent heroine for a story of this sort – even if I know you will have many thoughts about the ending!
I still disagree with you about the themes in Tiyiyu Tarīki, by the way (and no, this isn't about the chapter about the eye surgery and I'd thank you not to mention it) and it really is starting to look like you won't be able to change my mind because I have spent quite some time turning it all over… if you think Masiteri was saying that personal happiness is a hollow pursuit then I wonder what you made of the conclusion of Jegina's storyline. Is it not fairer to conclude the author was saying that some things are simply more important and virtuous than self-centred goals, no matter how deserved – like, say, the preservation of one's culture or caring for one's ailing parents in the middle of a civil war?
Enjoy the Layeni Festival as best you can, darling. It was always my favourite time of year as a child – though of course a young boy was probably utterly ignorant of the best parts of such an occasion.
お体を大切に。
ディミトリ
She had expected, at some point, over these past few weeks, that it would ease – the tightness in her chest that persisted from first sight of the parcel until she had read to the very last stroke of his pen, and sometimes for long moments afterwards, if he had phrased something in such a way that it left some ambiguity, some question over how he felt, some insinuation that he had tired of their correspondence and yet every time she sent a book and a note, she received a book and a reply and it was becoming clear that, some time in between setting up a new nation and fighting a war, he was finding the time to read at her suggestion, to consider her thoughts, to finagle some inside jokes almost without her realising.
Without him laying eyes upon her for many, many weeks, she felt quite seen.
And folded between the notes had been a pressed, dried flower – Yue had recognised from the bright pink of its petals that it was what her mother would have called an ume blossom, or, that is, six of them strung together like a shortened necklace, a short chain of flowers about the length of her hand. She had shown it, quite shyly, to Vardi Tayna later that evening, and not mentioned its origin, for fear the other girl might tease. Without looking at it, Vardi Tayna had said, "it's an ai-katean. Men give them to their women during the festival – or, the women they favour."
"Like a corsage?"
"Sort of like a corsage, but worn in the hair." Vardi Tayna had glanced at Yue with something approaching pity turning down the corners of her mouth, making the pretty girl appear quite plain. "Yours is beautiful, though."
Yue had heard the meaning behind her words, but had pushed for an explanation as she had learned to do with the strange girl from the wastes. "...is yours beautiful as well?"
Vardi Tayna's gift from Demetri had been a similar chain, formed of tiny yellow hydrangeas, no larger than Yue's thumbnail, and bound at its ends by nettles, as Yue's had been bound by ivy. "Yours is prettier," the spy girl had said, seeing the look on Vardi Tayna's face. "I think he felt obligated – we've known each other so long."
"It's something you give to friends, then?"
The one thing that Yue was grateful for was that Vardi Tayna did not usually spare her feelings with regards to questions such as these. "No," the other girl said, "it's not something you give to friends." She shrugged. "But, you know. It's the Selection. He doesn't see any of us as friends, really."
And, Yue had thought, Vardi Tayna was right. The ai-katean that Demetri had given her was much prettier than the one he'd given Tayna. The afternoon that followed, while they were getting ready for the festival, Vardi Tayna had shown her how she should wear it in her hair, setting it like a crown over the elegant knot of hair the other girl had woven at the nape of Yue's neck, and Yue had been quietly delighted to see that the colour matched perfectly the pink yukata that Agares had presented her with at breakfast that morning.
"I hope you like it," the watchmaker had said shyly, "I had Mrs Watanabe down the road help me with it, and you mentioned at the market you liked this fabric..." and Yue had been unable to hold back the tiny tears that had welled up along the line of her eye to think that a woman who had once been an utter stranger had gone to such effort and bother for her when her own parents had never treated her as anything other than a doll to dress up and pose this way and that.
"I love it," she had told Agares, and had honestly meant it, but in the quiet crampedness of the little cozy room she now shared with Tayna, the garment had begun to look smaller and tighter and narrower until Yue had to run to the bathroom and waste all of Liara's good cooking from earlier in the morning.
They'd been sharing a room long enough now that Tayna knew not to ask, only helped her with her belt – an obi, she had told Tayna, delighted she could recall the word, while she sensed more than saw the other girl roll her dark eyes at this pronouncement – and fixed the chain in her hair and disappeared into the bathroom to put on her own finery. As close to finery as Tayna ever got, that was to say, although Yue suspected the Wasteland style hewed closer to this: a knit sweater in shades of apricot and a black a-line skirt that came to mid-thigh. In Whites, Yue thought, she would have epitomised casual chic. Here in Layeni, she was beginning to suspect that Tayna would look in place, with her slightly dishevelled hair and her ragged bangs, while Yue would look rather overwrought in her yukata.
Tayna could clearly tell some sorts of thoughts were stirring in her, because she threw the yellow hydrangea ai-katean at her and said, "fair is fair", and that meant Yue had something entirely new to worry about, namely, where to place the chain. She settled for weaving it along the side, so that it looked as though it were almost dripping from her head, and was gratified when Tayna glanced in the mirror and pronounced it good enough.
Saran and Liz had been told to come to the house to walk down to the Anfractuous Way together, so the girls from Raphael's house stood together while they waited, and looked out over the town. Agares had made new dresses for Liara and Atiena as well, and it was startlingly apparent that both of them had been just as touched by this gesture as Yue had been. She supposed there wasn't usually occasion for new clothes for a girl who ran with a militia in war-torn Tammins, but the way Liara had reacted – tightening her jaw, and looking away, like she wasn't sure if she would cry or scream – had surprised Yue a little. She wasn't sure she understood; she wasn't sure she was meant to.
Atiena had disassembled her chain of blue borage flowers into their individual blossoms, and studded her afro with them. She wasn't wearing a dress, like the other girls, but a jumpsuit that left her strong arms – and much of her cleavage – bare. It was brighter than anything Yue had ever seen the rebel girl wear, in vibrant shades of yellow and maroon that made her dark skin appear even richer, that made the tiny gold flecks in her eyes appear to glow luminscent.
The dress that Agares had made for Liara had long lace sleeves and a short skirt and, Yue only noticed once they were out in the air, a delicately formed lace hood that, worn over her inky dark hair, made her look at once ethereal and exotic, like she might go to join the stars or drown you with her kiss and hadn't quite decided which one would suit her better. She had, Yue saw, a chain of zinnia wound tightly around her wrist.
Well, that was to be expected. This was a Selected – Demetri had to treat the other girls fairly as well. Still, it stung ever so slightly to see Liz and Saran coming up the path with flowers in their hair as well, because Atiena had enjoyed that day-long date with the king and Vardi Tayna was his friend and Liara Lee had known him before he was taken, but Yue wasn't sure he had ever even spoken to Liz or Saran before.
But that was, she told herself, petty jealousy, and so she quelled it even as it threatened to rise in her chest. Besides, she thought, gazing at the two girls from the orphanage, truth be told Demetri would have been an idiot if he didn't favour one of them over Yue herself. They were gorgeous, no more so tonight than ever and yet the gentle caress of dusk seemed to make Saran's face appear even more delicate, her eyes even brighter. She was wearing what Yue was sure must have been a very plain deel, made of navy fabric with strands of gold running through it, bound at the waist and wrists by similar gold cord, and had a gold pin in her hair keeping the pin-curls to one side. She had laced her chain – a dark green orchids, Yue noted – around the pin, and maybe split in two, because she had a simple chain of ox-eye daisies wrapped around her ankle as well, like a flower-child might. Or maybe that was something the children in the orphanage had made her, Yue thought, and wondered if the festival was for lovers, specifically, or for love, more generally.
Saran came up the path to hug Yue tightly, not seeming to care if she mussed her hair or her dress, and enthused, "you look amazing."
"Me? Saran, you -"
"Oh, don't be silly, Devery brought me this from up north." Saran brushed at it dismissively, but Yue could see in her eyes how much the gesture had meant to hear. It must have been made of real Mongolian silk. "Does everyone know Elizabeth Tucker? Liz, do you know everyone?"
Yue had seen the girl around the safehouse in the wastes, where she mainly hung around quite quietly with Lissa and tended to the plants in the sparse garden in front of the house, but until this moment she had not really met her. The girl from Midston had a softer face than a lot of the girls in the Selection, with something gentle about the curve of her cheeks and the way she smiled, particularly the way that she half-closed her aquamarine eyes when she did so. She was in a floral sundress, with her long vibrant red hair cascading over both shoulders, and had arranged her ai-katean along the crown of her head, like a tiara, so that it almost looked as though the blossoms were sprouting wild from her skull. Purple mallow, Yue thought. She mainly knew the flowers because of her painting, but this was one that her mother had grown in the garden when she was a young girl. It had always struck Yue as looking like a hopeful kind of flower, if flowers could be anthropomorphised in such a manner.
Yue found herself touching her own flower chain with a certain degree of insecurity and uncertainty as Raphael said, "I hope you girls enjoy the festival." She was not wearing any flower chain – that was for courting, she had explained to the girls over breakfast that morning – but Agares had made her a new watch to celebrate the event, and she glanced at it now as she said, "Demetri has lifted the curfew for tonight so that you can enjoy yourselves, but please stay safe. Uzokuwa and Wick have men patrolling, but if you're in any doubt, come back here or come find Agares or myself."
"And have fun." Agares was beaming. "Remember – what happens in Layeni stays in Layeni..."
Raphael feigned horror with her wife, and feinted as though to cover her mouth. "Alright, don't get them into too much trouble… girls, get out of here before she puts ideas in your head."
Atiena laughed and fell back to walk alongside Liz and ask how life was these days at the orphanage, with Liara trailing beside them, rather lost in her own world; Saran linked arms with Yue, and then, with some trepidation, Yue linked arms with Vardi Tayna and the latter girl said, with some amusement, "it's like you want to lose your arm."
"Oh," Saran said, "it's a festival, VT. Lighten up for one night?"
VT said, "only one person calls me VT, you know that?" and Yue had to swallow back the giggle that rose in her throat to see the way that this provoked the other northern girl to blush dark and red.
"Three now, VT," Yue said, feeling quite daring, and felt rather rewarded by the exhalation of air that meant either that Tayna found it vaguely amusing or realised there was no points in prolonging such an inane conversation.
"Alright, Yukimura." She sounded amused, anyway.
As they drew down towards the centre of the town, Yue began to catch snippets of the delicate string music floating above the spires and tiles of the village. There was something bittersweet about it, something as hopeful as the flowers in Liz's chain. Bittersweet, and yet as they came closer to the square, the sweet began to overpower the bitter, and she began to see how the crowds were arranged, so that they could move along the Way in a sinuously smooth manner, never passing the same person twice except by pure luck – or, she supposed, by fate. As they drew closer to the clocktower, she noticed that there was a dark silhouette waiting for them on the wall, and her heart skipped a beat automatically at the thought that the King of Dust might have come all this way just to spend an evening with her – well, with them.
She was disabused of this notion quickly when Vardi Tayna ripped her arm from Yue's grip, pushed through the crowd of Selected girls and took off running. She sprinted a few dozen feet and then threw herself into a flip, catching herself on her hands and somersaulting once, twice, three times, her movements as elegant and contained as anything Yue could do on the ice, before Wickanninish Harjo, who had been waiting for them on the low wall by the clocktower, jumped forward and caught her in his arms, and spun her, making it look choreographed. Maybe it had been.
"There's a dance competition starting in three minutes." he said. "Are you in or out?"
"Baby," Vardi Tayna said. "You do me a dishonour by even asking."
Wick shouted at the figure moving down the path after them, "I'm stealing your girl!"
"Not my girl," Täj replied, quite wryly, and Yue could not help but notice how Liara glanced to him at that pronouncement. She could not help but notice, furthermore, that he seemed to have gotten into Demetri's closet while the other man was gone – a pale green sweater than matched his eyes, and dark pants that looked cleaner and more well-kept than absolutely anything Yue had glimpsed the pale man in for all of these long weeks under the same roof.
Wick took Vardi Tayna's hand, and the two disappeared into the crowd of colours. Yue squeezed Saran's hand, and Saran smiled at the other girl's obvious sympathy.
"I can't dance," she confessed shyly, and then, dropping her voice very soft so that only Yue could hear her. "Wick asked me to be his partner four days ago. I had to turn him down if he wanted to win."
"You're an absolute minx," Yue said softly, and was rewarded with one of Saran's bright smiles, almost bright and white enough to absolutely eclipse the stars themselves. "Are you two..."
"I don't even know," Saran said. "Are we two."
"He'd be an idiot," Yue said.
"He'd be a traitor," Saran reminded her.
"He'd be an idiot if he didn't realise you were worth it," Yue said, and laughed as Atiena glanced over her shoulder and said, "she's absolutely right, you know."
"You always gang up on me," Saran complained. "I miss Cor."
"Just because you and Cor used to gang up against Yue," Atiena said, amusedly.
"A valid pastime," Saran insisted and looked to Liz for some support – the farmer girl had her hands up as though pleading ignorance, shaking her head to tell Saran not to drag her into it.
Liara was still watching in the direction that Tayna and Wick had gone. "Should we go watch that trainwreck, or…?"
She turned to look at Täj, and Yue watched the realisation flicker across her face that the pale man had meandered off, in that way that he had; Yue had never seen the king's executioner move quickly, and yet he was always either there or gone, never arriving and never leaving. It was mildly fascinating, Yue thought, when she allowed herself to think about it.
Liara, never one to be caught off-guard, flicked her eyes over to Yue in the second that she realised Täj was gone, and continued quite smoothly as though she had been talking to the northern girl all along. "Or should we do some dancing ourselves?"
Yue paused, and was glad that she did not have to answer before Liz, looking relieved to have an excuse not to take a side between the mock-argument going on between Atiena and Saran, said, "Let's do some dancing. I've barely seen the town."
"Dancing," Yue agreed, and Liara said, "dancing it is."
Surprising no one, Wick and Vardi Tayna did not win the dance competition. They probably could have, Wick said to no-one in particular, but the music hadn't suited them and the tempo had been off and, anyway, they had wanted to seem humble. They had remained on the cobbles, where Wick was pirouetting the dark Selected girl with the ease of one who has danced a thousand thousand steps with his partner. She was small enough that Wick could put an arm around her waist and pull her into the air, and she could spin, as though the material world had no claim upon her. She wrapped her legs around Wick's waist and he dipped her dramatically, left and then right, so enthusiastically that Uzohola thought he was going to crack her head off the pavement. There was laughter, and as Vardi Tayna somersaulted back to stand on her own two feet, there was a clamour by the young girls of the orphanage to be Wick's next partner. He pulled a little five-year-old with gapped teeth to dance with him next, and Tayna clearly turned to scan the crowd, but before her eyes could fall on the tables at the side where Uzohola was sitting with Xïta and some of the other soldiers, she was spun by one of the villagers and swept back into the heave-and-hum of the crowd, lost like a leaf in a spinning gust of wind.
The chair beside her scraped loudly as it was pulled back, and Uzohola grinned to see Demetri hastily sliding into the seat, looking as though he had sprinted there from Angeles. "Your Highness," she murmured, and the murmur was echoed by all around the table, much to Demetri's obvious irritation.
"Yes, yes." He looked at Uzohola and poked at the bright blue mark on her cheek, in the shape of lips. "Couldn't even wait for me to get the party started, huh?"
Uzohola didn't need to look to know that Xïta was shrinking into his seat on the other side of the group, with the air that he would rather the earth would swallow him than to have Demetri look over at him in that moment. But, quite thankfully, the king was more focused on the dancers in the square in front of him, where men and women spun and met and separated and met again. "You're late," she said. "You can't expect us to wait for you."
"I'm the king. I can expect exactly that." Uzohola laughed and patted his cheek and he said, "where are they?" and darted his eyes about, rather as a hunted animal might. He and Täj were dressed like mirror images of each other, she noted with some amusement, but for the fact that Demetri was wearing a much richer moss-green colour, that better suited his eyes; he ran his hands through his hair as he looked about, and more out of habit than any true urge to correct, Uzohola knocked his hand out of the way and carefully rearranged the loose strands of hair that had fallen forward to cover his eyes.
"Out and about," Uzohola replied, "Here and there and everywhere."
"You're doomed," Xïta said helpfully.
"Oh, that's been apparent for a while." Demetri made an obvious gesture of looking at Uzohola's ring-finger to get back at Xïta for this comment, and was rewarded with another groan from the man as he put his head in his hands, and Uzohola smacked her king very gently on his shoulder. "Ow."
"It's a lover's festival," she said. "Go… love."
He pulled a face.
"It's the Elite," Uzohola said. "Whether you get a say in it or not, you're going to end up with one of these girls. Might as well get to know them."
"I could just go find Täj," Demetri said, thoughtfully. "Whatever rooftop he's moping about on."
"I'm seriously concerned," Uzohola said, "that this whole… charade could have been avoided if you two would just marry each other already."
"Wouldn't work," Demetri said, quite casually. "Tayna would get too jealous."
"Of you or Täj?"
"You know there's no good answer to that question." Demetri clapped Uzohola on her shoulder. "There's a beautiful fireworks show on at midnight. Very romantic. Raphael and Agares got engaged during it, a few years back."
Xïta said, through gritted teeth, "I've got the hint."
"I guess we'll see you there," Uzohola said sweetly. "You and…?"
Demetri sighed. "In the good old days we'd have been by the river at midnight." The General would have arrived only to rebuke them for being insular, but for those moments they would be complete and together – Wick knee-deep in water saying something obscure about something esoteric, Vardi Tayna and Täj sitting on a rock nearby, smoking like the world was about to end, Uzohola and Thiago and Demetri drinking on the banks, passing a vodka bottle back and forth between them and saying nothing about nothing at all, just words, just idle chatter, almost a stream-of-consciousness.
"There are good days to come," Uzohola said. "You only get so many festivals before you're tied down." She threw Xïta a wink. "Enjoy them."
"Wise girl."
He paused. His eyes traced over a pretty red-haired girl in a floral sundress who was moving from one side of the square to the other. Elizabeth, her name was, Uzohola thought, Elizabeth Taylor. Or was it Tucker?
Demetri said, "you know we've got an invitation to go to the Saharan Federation for some state visit?" She could feel him watching her carefully for her reaction; after all, Uzohola had been born and raised in the Federation, not in its capital of al-Qāhirah but in its largest city of Bàmako, whose name her twin brother had tattooed on his bicep: ߓߊߡߊߞߐ . Well, not entirely, for the twins had come to Illéa when they were no older than eight years old, accompanying their father, who had been bodyguard to the ambassador. The ambassador had been funnelling money and arms to the rebels in the south; Uzanikela Ndlovukazi had died when Illéan forces stormed the Saharan embassy in search of incriminating documents. After that, Uzohola and Uzokuwa had been essentially raised by the rebellion - it was the regional leader in Panama, a fellow Saharan immigrant, that had given Uzohola her new name when she began to publicly transition into female in her adolescence. She still dreamed of her homeland, sometimes, when she wasn't too tired to dream. "What do you think?"
Uzohola paused. She had been promised the role of Administer for Overseas once the Kingdom in Exile had been established, and considered this question something of a test for her talents. "Ehle is not without his controversies."
"Neither am I," Demetri pointed out.
"But he's definitely not the worst of the mansas..." Uzohola nodded. "I think it would be good. Drum up some foreign support, show us making a stand, put it in the Crown's face." She paused. Xïta looked at her like he knew what she was thinking. "I'll reach out to Mansa Ehle, see if he will invite some foreign dignitaries. Get some New Asian contacts." It would be nice to go home, she thought. She wondered if Atiena had ever seen the land of their ancestors. She wondered if Atiena even knew where the land of her ancestors was. "Connect with some money and some industry..."
"We're not looking to run guns," Demetri reminded her. "Just to… make some friends."
"You need to go make friends," Uzohola said fondly. "And stop hiding over here beside me."
"And leave the gun running to you?"
"I thought that wasn't what we were doing."
"That's what we're saying we're not doing."
"But it's not what we're not doing?"
"If we find some guns," Demetri said softly, "we can run them. Just a little."
Uzohola clasped her hands over her heart. "Nkosana yami, you know how to make a girl swoon."
"What are these?"
Eden and Pa had just been standing on the very edge of town, at the end of the Anfractuous Way, where young people either took the opportunity to dart off into the darkness with their newfound love or turned and disappeared back into the rattle-and-hum of the procession leading back to the clocktower, which had been lit up for the evening, all golden, like an ancient spire in some European city. Eden had been prevaricating on the edge of the procession, wishing without daring to wish that some familiar face might appear from the crowd and haul her in, so that she did not need to arrange her features into her usual practiced smile and did not need to watch her every action and word for the hours that would ensue.
A bowl had been thrust into her hands by nearby revellers, Anchorites that she vaguely recognised from the market, and as she looked about she could see that similar silver bowls were being passed hand-to-hand by the crowd, and here and there she could see one person reach to hand the bowl to the next and then pause, charmed, and search for some excuse to speak to them again, now that the bowl had passed on and disappeared into the throng. It was cute, Eden thought. She was beginning to see the charm of this little event.
When she looked within the bowl, she found that it was filled with small, slightly wizened, berries, like dried sultanas or goji, coloured in every shade imagined under the sun – silvers and blues, reds and golds, greens and purples and every colour in between. Pa said, "they're to mark," and when Eden looked at her in some confusion, the older woman gestured broadly and Eden realised that those who had taken them were chewing them – like tobacco – and those who were chewing them had stained their lips in the bright colours of the berries, and those who had stained their lips, more often than not, had stained the skins of others, and Eden almost smiled to realise that it was the small-town, Wasteland equivalent of a gossip column. She could almost imagine how the young people of Layeni would talk about it – so, who's the silver? Red and green, someone's been busy… I thought Zëx was wearing blue tonight?
"I understand," she said, and, feeling almost daring, reached into the bowl delicately to pick out her favourite colour, a warm sunburst orange. It was oddly flavourful – not orange-flavoured, as she had rather intuitively expected, but something sweet, like a peach, mixed with something almost spicy, like the touch of cinnamon and ginger. It was nice
She offered it to Pa, almost teasingly, and the old woman passed it on to the next group that were passing them. "Raphael has said that you can stay at her house tonight," Pa said. "I will feed the cat."
Eden almost laughed at how blunt the widow always was. "Thank you, pa."
"And I will come to pick you up tomorrow."
"Thank you, pa."
"Tell Demetri I love him."
Eden hadn't expected such a sudden moment of vulnerability from the grizzled, grey-haired farmer. "I'll share the sentiment," she said. "I…. don't know if it will mean as much coming from me."
Pa clasped her shoulder briefly and said, "enjoy yourself," and Eden said, "travel safe," and the two of them nodded at one another and Eden watched as Pa departed. Was it sad, she wondered, to attend a festival devoted to lovers when you could not even bury your own husband? Or maybe it was nostalgic. She could not imagine Huhyn and Klahan as a young, handsome couple, courting in public, holding hands and going on dates. She could only picture them as they appeared in the photos in Pa's house – severe and strait-laced, staring straight ahead at the camera, only their hands touching, or maybe his hand resting on her shoulder, or her hand on his leg, like they were afraid to show too much sentiment even in front of the probing eye of the lens.
Speaking of lenses, after four weeks practically attached to her camera, Eden was beginning to feel more than a little bit naked. Pa had gone to lengths to find her a nice dress for the festival, much plainer than the fare to which Eden had become accustomed as scion of the Axiom, just a simple purple bandage dress – but as she walked across the first bridge, and noticed that several other girls in the crowd were wearing the same dress, and not in different colours either, she began to relax a little. There was nothing worse than standing out, she had learned, here or in Angeles, there was little worse than drawing the eyes of others when you did not intend or need to. She felt quite invisible moving across the first bridge, and watching how the local girls spun from one partner to the next, utterly sinuous, as though it required no more effort than the river needed to flow. If the river had been flowing, she thought, because in fact it had frozen under the bridge, frozen utterly still.
And yet, it did not feel cold. Maybe that was just the press of humanity around her, the feeling of other people all around her and yet there was no crush or press, no rush, for people parted in front of her almost instinctively. She was beginning to note some of the traditions that Pa had told her about – many of the girls had flower chains in their hair, and some had more than one, one particularly pretty girl wearing six strands across her braid, her lips stained a crimson cherry-red. There were a few with none, but they didn't seem to be letting that fact hold them back as they danced and laughed and called across the frozen water to one another. In the past, Eden would have set out determined not to remain such a girl, flowerless, but a combination of two months with Pa on the farm and Demetri's ai-katean of tiny orange tulips bound tightly around the ends of her Dutch braids felt like some kind of a shield against the world this evening.
She scanned the crowds for people she might recognise and found no one for a long moment until she caught sight of the familiar hot-pink colour of a certain director's waistcoat. Enyakatho had, against Eden and Wren's advice, buzzed his hair short earlier that week; she still wasn't accustomed to seeing him without his dreadlocks. He had his camera on his shoulder, but was leaning on the rail of the fourth bridge over, chatting to a group of locals with an expression that suggested he was, for once, relaxed and not entirely over-caffeinated. That was nice, Eden thought, for so often, sequestered as she was at the farm as she was, she only ever saw the rebels when they were working, and it often appeared that they got no chance for a rest, for some time of their own, to let their hair down – so to speak, Eden thought ruefully, looking at the hackjob Wren had executed on Enyakatho the previous Monday.
He caught her eye, and grinned, and waved, and Eden bit back a laugh to see the green marks trailing down his throat at so early a point in the night. His own lips were a hot pink, which suggested he had purposefully picked it out to match his waistcoat. It was nice to see that some people in the Wasteland were as vain as anyone in Angeles ever was.
She blew him a kiss, almost ironically, and he pretended to swoon, which made Eden laugh; she kept walking along the path, noting as she did that the distant clocktower had become eclipsed by the buildings which rose up on either side of the street which linked two of the bridges. She was about to check her watch when she was abruptly struck on the shoulder, as someone passing checked her sharply; she turned, out of instinct, to check that they were okay and cursed herself for having done so, because she found herself facing two rebels in plainclothes, broad-shouldered and glowering, the neon yellow paint on their sleeves doing little to dispel the menace that seemed to emanate from them.
"Lahela," one said, and Eden resisted the urge to swear. "Isn't it?"
Uno, due, tre.
"Axiom," said the other. "Aren't you?"
Quattro, cinque, sei.
"What," she said, curiosity filtering through her voice, "is an axiom?"
That gave them pause, enough that she took the opportunity to turn on her heel and stride away, moving with enough confidence that she hoped it would appear as though she was merely baffled at the whole interaction, rather than resist the urge to throttle something – or someone. However, she made it only two or three metres away before she felt a hand on her shoulder, like a vice, cracking tighter again, so tightly she had to swallow back a sound of pain, and one of the rebels said, "nah. I know a Quisling when I see one."
Sette, otto.
Immediately, every single message that had been painted on every single Axiom paper flashed through her mind, like some sort of manic slideshow: COLABORACIONISTAS SERÁN AHORCADOS, TRAIDORES SERÁN DEVORADOS, RATAS SERÁN EXTERMINADAS. Collaborationist, traitor, rat, hanged, devoured, exterminated….
They were drunk, she thought tersely, they must have been, because there was no way one of the rebels was here, in this dark alley, and now, during the Layeni festival, threatening one of King Demetri's Selected, not if they had any loyalty at all, not if they wanted to keep their head on their shoulders, not if she mattered at all –
Well, she thought, there's the rub.
Nove, dieci, undi.
She set her back, and said, "listen..." but was cut off by another voice coming down the alley behind her.
"There you are, Eden." She may have only met him once, but Demetri's voice was one of those unmistakeable sounds in the world – rich and smooth and, in this moment, wonderfully soothing, one of the finest sounds she could have even dreamed of hearing. "I've been looking for you."
She felt more than saw him stand behind her and, making sure her hands did not shake as she did so, she reached back to take his hand as confidently as she could. She flashed the rebels a smile as warm she could make it, keenly aware that the bitter edge of her fear, and irritation, and relief, was curling it at the edges. "Well," she said. "Clearly I wasn't too hard to find."
"Clearly." Demetri stepped forward. "Qäv, Mikhail, I'd avoid the seventh district, if I were you. Uzokuwa won't be happy to see you in the state you're in."
Eden took a grim type of glee in the way the rebels' mouths tightened and their eyebrows furrowed at this pronouncement, their unhappiness at the sight of their king apparent in the lines of their bodies. "Thank you for the warning," Mikhail said, his voice low. "Your Highness."
Demetri smiled. "Please. You've done the same for me, Mik. Have a good night." He turned that smile on Eden, and she was reminded again just how good he was at this as he tugged on her hand. "Shall we?"
"Yes," she said, automatically. "Sounds good."
She only became acutely aware of how sweaty her hands were once they were out onto the next bridge and the locals were throwing them looks. Eden told herself that it was because of who she was with, rather than on her own merits, and to be honest, that was familiar to her – she'd been set up as the girlfriend of several prominent Angeles celebrities in her adolescence, and she had always enjoyed the feeling of invisibility that had come along with standing next to someone whose star shone so much brighter than her own. And there was, she had to admit, something unkindly enjoyable about watching how the girls around her threw Demetri admiring looks, and the way he seemed utterly oblivious to the same as he looked at Eden.
"Are you okay?"
"Oh, absolutely. They wouldn't have tried anything. Just wanted to give me a rattle."
"Yeah," Demetri said, and looked as though he did not entirely believe her, but was diplomatic enough not to say as much aloud, not when they were so surrounded by others, not when she looked so determined not to say anything to the contrary. "Well."
They looked out across the frozen water.
"I didn't think you were going to be here tonight," Demetri said, "at least, not on this side of the screen."
"Pa and Enyakatho bullied me into it."
"Good men. I approve." Demetri glanced at her. "I like the colour."
It did not escape her notice that Demetri had not appear to have picked any such coloured berry. Predictable, perhaps, but disappointing – Eden thought it would have helped, at least a little, at the end of the night, to discern where his affections might lie. Maybe that was the idea. Maybe it would have been seen as gauche, even for this strange and unusual Rebellion, for the king to be seen to have marked a half-dozen girls by the time the night was out.
"You look lovely, by the way."
"Left that a little late."
He chuckled. "Oh?"
"You should have told me I looked lovely about… a minute and a half ago." Eden was trying to hide her smile. "Just… you know. It's the little things."
"If I'd said it at the top of the conversation," Demetri said, thoughtfully. "It would have seemed like an obligation. Saying it now makes it seem like I mean it."
"Seem?" Eden said.
"Well," Demetri said, "I can't commit to anything too soon."
Liz's lips had stained a deep, dark green, at an early point in the night, just as Liara's had stained black, and Atiena had left a large dark blue mark on their cheeks just before disappearing off in the company of some soldiers that she had become friendly with during their time at the safehouse, cheerfully telling them that if Raphael asked them where she had been, the answer was definitely not smoking metzliaxitia out by the woollen mill with Uzokuwa and some of his comrades. Liara wasn't entirely sure how to tell Atiena that hanging out with your crush's brother was not the sure route to their heart that it might seem – and oh, how it put her heart in a vice when she wondered how she might have come to that understanding – but truth be told, Atiena always seemed a little more comfortable with the rebels than with the Selected girls, no matter how thoughtful she could be with them. Liara supposed the girl from Tammins could be a little more herself around these creatures of war. It must be some comfort, to find traces of home out here in the wastes, some familiarity amongst the alien landscape of the Kingdom in Exile.
Atiena had disappeared off to the mill, and Yue had been approached shyly by the fishmonger from the market, Kün, who had sheepishly handed her a flower chain, one of the ai-kateans, just like the one Demetri had sent to each girl. Liara still wasn't entirely sure what the etiquette was around these situations, for Kün had barely given Yue the chance to thank him before he was back with his Anchorite brothers in the square, clearly undergoing the usual teasing which might follow such a bold move.
Saran said, her mouth a rich gold, "don't they know she's in the Selection?"
Liz said, "why should they care?"
Liara said, "there would be worse places to settle if you were eliminated, don't you think?"
And Tayna, appearing at Liz's shoulder as though summoned by the vague prospect of bullying Yue, said, through silvered lips, "he's not ugly, Yukimura... and Anchorite guys are great in bed."
Saran said, a smile clearly leaking in her voice, "isn't Täj an Anchorite?"
Liara said, more to change the subject than out of actual curiosity, "what kind of flowers did he give you, Yue?"
The chain was woven out of lily-of-the-valley, a pale white blossom that complimented her pink ai-katean marvellously. Saran helped her to pin it into place as Yue said, quite shyly, "this isn't… you know, against the rules?"
The daisy chain around Saran's ankle seemed to suggest this was not the case. "They're just gifts. It would look really bad if you were to turn it down."
Tayna said, "you've done nothing wrong." She snapped her head at some sound that was apparently audible only to her. She had the chain from Demetri still woven where Yue had placed it, over one ear, and a new chain of forget-me-nots in the same place on the other side, so that they linked at the back, forming a colourful circlet. "Ah, fuck," she said, and disappeared into the crowd again. Liz looked at Liara, and raised an eyebrow.
"Vardi Tayna doesn't really play by the same rules as we do," Liara said.
"Ah," Liz said, looking a little put out at this news. Or maybe what was producing this expression on her face was the proposal occurring just a few dozen feet away, a rebel in plainclothes on one knee and his overjoyed boyfriend – now fiancé, she supposed – barely able to contain the joy reverberating through every line in his body as he pulled his lover up into a tight embrace.
Liara nudged Liz, and raised an eyebrow. The other girl nodded, but still looked rather… Liara couldn't put her finger on it. It was the expression Ysabel had worn for years after Demetri's disappearance, when she had interacted with the young children of the ambassadors or courtiers of the palace, like she was gazing at a ghost given flesh, the fragment of some idea or feeling she had lost long ago.
It occurred to Liara that she knew very little about Liz, and that it would be a very bad idea to go prying now.
"So," Saran was saying. "Do we just mill about all night?" The local girls seemed too preoccupied with their paramours, or too intimidated by the status of the Selected, to chat to them for long; the clocktower above marked that it was only just past eleven, leaving the better part of an hour until the fireworks began. That, Raphael had explained, would be the real start of the festivities – music and performances and competitions. The lead-up, as now, was a warm-up, and something for the families with younger children to participate in.
"At least for another hour." Liara glanced about. "Anyone for a drink?"
Liz smiled. "I could go for one," she said, but Yue and Saran looked less inclined.
"After last time?" Saran laughed and Yue smiled along. "I'll wait a little longer, thanks."
Liz and Liara headed back along the bridges to the bazaar in the minor courtyard, outside the town's little chapel, where they had noted earlier in the evening the presence of large barrels, apparently doling out ladlefuls of liquor for free. As they drew closer, Liara could see that the liquid contained within was as brightly and variedly coloured as the bowls of berries being passed about the crowd – some distillation of the same? She selected the black, and Liz selected the green, for there was no point in mixing shades at this early point in the night, and swapped after the first sip to confirm that both kinds tasted pretty good, all things considered.
As they were turning to go back to the northern girls, Liara paused, catching sight of the pale man over by the sixteenth bridge, the one that was only half-visible from the rest of the Anfractuous Way, smoking, and wondered, not for the first place, why the dawn of a new day had apparently shattered any camaraderie between them – for though she would not precisely call them friends, she had certainly thought their discussion by the river three nights ago had meant something more, something that meant he would act as though she were a stranger in the days that followed.
The same instinct that had guided her onto the rooftop the night of the shared dinner, the same instinct that had guided her to his bedroom door three nights ago, guided her now to say to Liz, "I'll catch up."
The Midston girl said, something like a full understanding in her eyes, "behave yourself."
"Don't I always?"
Liz handed her the cup of green liquor – "I can grab another" – and Liara moved over towards the pale man, setting her jaw as she did so, determined that, whether he liked it or not, they would at least feign civility with one another. He was her one connection to Demetri, who was her one connection to Mordred. That, at least, was worth defending.
So she opened, as she always did, in a friendly manner.
"You're always a miserable bastard, huh?"
"Wow," he deadpanned. "You pick things up quickly."
She handed him the drink, much as he had handed her the whiskey on the rooftop, and he looked only mildly suspicious at this opening volley of generosity, but quenched his cigarette against the wooden rail of the bridge and crunched it underfoot, turning so that he had his back to the river and was facing Liara; she mirrored him, and for a moment they were silent.
"I'm pretty sure," Täj said finally. "That you should be out enjoying yourself."
"I could say the same thing," Liara replied, and she thought she might have seen some trace of amusement on his lips at how she had adapted to his method of giving half-answers.
"Our positions aren't exactly… synonymous." He was turning something over in his fingers, but, given the dark, she could not quite see what it was.
"Selected and Inner Circle?"
Täj said, looking into the cup she had handed him, "what exactly do you think I do?"
She knew what he did. She didn't need to think, though the rebels sometimes, when they didn't think Demetri or Tayna were around to hear them, called him Dunin's dog, Demetri's favourite killer, the executioner in exile.
In Angeles, they called him the false king's hangman.
She supposed most people in Layeni knew these things, just as they knew to cheer when they saw Wick arriving, or to celebrate the sight of Demetri. She supposed there weren't many girls in Layeni looking for a guy like that on a night like tonight. She supposed there were a lot of idiots in Layeni.
"I mean," she said, and then didn't really have anything to say after those words had left her black lips, so that the syllables were just left hanging in the air between them, empty and hollow.
Täj seemed to understand, for he just reached forward – they tapped their cups against one another – and Liara drained hers, mostly because she expected Täj to, at least partially because she wanted to loosen her nerves and sinews, at least some small amount, enough to make these silences a little easier to fill. He laughed, and gestured that she should step closer so that he could refill her cup from the flask he kept under his jacket, and she wondered how long you would have to know this man to learn everything about him.
Those eyes... she could have sworn she was looking right at Mordred, so unreadable was this pale man. She would have opened a vein, right then and there, if she thought it would have made him speak a little more openly, as he had that night by the river, when they had achieved that pale facsimile of trust and openness.
He had a silver mark, Liara saw, just under his jaw, a little crescent moon where the skin was thinnest, very light and yet glowing minutely like stardust in the pale light of the little bulbs strung up throughout the enclosure of the bridge. And, quite without knowing why, Liara said, "isn't it miserable? To love someone who can't even pretend to love you back?"
He said, "you tell me." She thought he must have borrowed his sweater from Demetri, because he was lacking his usual sagebrush scent, that touch of wildfire which had always characterised her closest interactions with him. She wondered if this was what Demetri smelled like, and then wondered why she had wondered that, and then wondered why she had to wonder.
He handed her the thing he had been turning in his hands – a flower chain, she saw, little stars of Bethlehem knotted together– and said, "does that make it any less valuable? That it is not returned?"
"Love doesn't have… a value." She was abruptly aware of how closely they were standing together, just outside the pale white halo of light accorded by the nearby fairy-lights, just as they had been three nights ago, by the river – though of course, the stars in here were not so brilliant. Täj's eyes outshone them all.
"Of course it does." His voice was soft; when he spoke, she could feel it. "It must." She could have just tilted her head upwards and leaned a little and… "Anything people go to war over has some sort of value."