Chapter 31: Apparently Two, But One
The stars will be watching us, and we
will show them what it is to be a thin crescent moon.
- Mewlana Jalaluddin Rumi
"Marciana." Demetri moved forward first, looking a little uncertain. Täj moved away from him, circling back towards the archways which led to the spiral staircase, as though he didn't trust the woman before them. "We weren't expecting to see you until the reception tomorrow."
"Klahan promised me he hadn't raised a fool," the austere princess replied. Her eyes, Liara thought, were like shards of green ice – somewhat translucent in their paleness. "You thought I would wait?"
She was deeply, strikingly beautiful – Liara thought she could see where the princely brothers had got their good looks. Trajan had never looked as handsome as people said he was, marred by under-eye shadows that were too deep, stress lines that were too long; Set had always had too grim an expression and too dourly imposing a presence, carved from cold marble rather than whittled from glass. Ulpia had the same brittle, drained-of-colour, ethereal beauty that Mordred had.
She looked so much like Mordred that Liara almost had to look away. It was like staring into the sun.
Demetri smiled ruefully, but Liara could tell that the expression was strained. That surprised her, though maybe it ought not – they were currently at war with one half of his family, mother and brother and uncle. Who could say if his aunt was here in a friendly capacity? Täj, certainly, was holding himself with the tension of one who is expecting disaster. He had stepped back towards the stairs, quite subtly; Liara thought she was probably the only one who had noticed. She was so frequently the only one who noticed the things Täj did. The other girls seemed focused on Demetri, who was saying, "I haven't though of much, I'm afraid. We've had a stressful few days."
They had. The girls may have showered and changed clothes, but Liara was feeling the tiredness settle deep into the marrow of her bones now, and her hunger was gnawing at her veins. She somehow hadn't felt it in all the panic of their flight, but now she was realising it had been some twenty hours since she had last eaten. The picnic in Layeni seemed so very long ago.
"Like father, like son." Ulpia extended her arms. "Trajan was never much of a thinker, either. Well, come. Then your girls can stop gawping at us from the balcony and I can meet them properly. It's been so long since I saw a proper Selection."
Demetri moved forward into her embrace; he did not seem to relax, but Liara could see that Ulpia did, minutely, her hands knotting tightly into her nephew's sweater, her eyes shutting very briefly as she released a breath that seemed to have been some fifteen years in the holding. She said something, under her breath, that Liara could not hear, and Demetri's mouth moved in answer before they separated. Demetri went to step back, but Ulpia caught him by the shoulders and looked him, hard, in the face, like she was studying it.
Liara knew the expression that flitted across the older Angeles woman's face in that moment. It was the same expression Liara wore in every interaction with the King of Dust – the desperation to link past and present, to find some piece of his face which aligned perfectly with your memory of the person he had been, to remind yourself that he is alive and here and real under your gaze and under your hands.
After a moment, Ulpia smiled. "Grew up handsome."
"We're a good-looking family."
"Don't need to tell me twice." She lowered her hands, and cast her eyes around. "Good. They put you someplace nice. I think Jael and Trajan stayed here, when they came to Masr for the wedding. Hopefully you like it as much as they did."
"It's beautiful."
"Speaking of beautiful..." Ulpia folded her hands over her skirt, and looked up at the balcony, where the girls had lined up as though on display. "I would like to greet our guests, before we catch up properly. Good hospitality, and all that. May I?"
Demetri nodded. He didn't need to speak, though; Liz jerked her head, and Yue nodded, and they moved towards the stairs to descend together. Täj must have gone to get Eden; in the time it took them to get from the top of the stairs to the bottom, he was gone. Liara and the others moved into the centre of the foyer, and after a moment, Eden emerged from the downstairs bedrooms to join them. Her face was slightly pale, as though she had been out in the cold, despite the mild warmth of the house.
Liara was grateful that, at least, they had managed to change clothes before they had encountered Ulpia Dunin. It was not the opulence of a proper Selection, but they were no longer in their dirty and patched Layeni clothes. That thought, too, pained her. She wanted to keep those clothes. Raphael had bought them, made them, gifted them, those clothes. They were not the sort of things Liara would wear in Angeles but…
But.
They formed a ragged line of four, and Liara watched as Ulpia's brow furrowed to see them, casting her eyes across them. She wasn't sure if they should be smiling.
Ulpia greeted Liz first. "Lady Elizabeth, isn't it?"
"Yes," Liz said, and then, hesitantly, "your Highness. From –"
"Midston." Ulpia cut her off, as serenely as one could do so. "What did your family do?"
"Farming," Liz replied, looking as confused as the other girls felt at this oddly banal line of questioning. "And… midwifery studies. Part-time."
"I like that." Ulpia nodded. "My father-in-law was a cotton farmer.,, I presume you kept livestock?"
"Yes," Liz said. "Dairy."
Ulpia looked appreciative of this, but said nothing more; she had moved on to Yue, who was looking nervously in Demetri's direction as though for guidance on how to engage with this strange royal who was interviewing them like this was a normal Selection, rather than catching up with the nephew who had been abducted fifteen years earlier. For his part, Demetri just gave the northern girl a slight smile. He seemed unfazed by Ulpia's interrogation of the Selected. Maybe it was buying them time, Liara thought ruefully, for Täj to make tea, or whatever it was that one made for a visiting Federation bodoqan.
"Lady Yue?"
Yue nodded nervously. "Your Highness."
"Sonata wa Xue no musumedesu ka? Atakushi wa senshū kanojo to hanashimashita."
"Hai sōdesu." Yue seemed more comfortable speaking in Japanese, though Liara had no idea what she had said. She thought, from what she knew of Yue's personality, that it was the formality of the language that relaxed her; there was less chance of accidentally offending Ulpia if they were speaking in a more refined register.
"I can see the resemblance." Ulpia tilted her head. It was a very Mordred-esque gesture. "She and Taichi must be very proud of you, making it to the final round of the Elite." She had a note in her voice, as though she expected Yue to argue against this assessment.
Liara saw the way Eden's eyes flicked at that sentence. Final round? If Ulpia had more insight than them…
Liara doubted she did.
"Yes," Yue answered. She looked uncertain again.
"Emiratimedaru omedetōgozaimasu," Ulpia said, as way of closing the conversation, and Yue seemed to relax minutely as the woman moved on to Liara. She had knotted her hands in her skirts, Liara saw, her hands turned inwards as though she was afraid they might shake.
She seemed smaller here than she had in Layeni. Liara wondered what it was about this place that made people seem to fall in on themselves – first Täj, then Eden, then Yue.
No. That wasn't fair. Täj… she wanted to say that she couldn't understand what he was going through, but, perhaps worse, she thought that she did. He had lost the person he had grown up with, at whose side he had always been. Of anything in this strange war-torn world, Liara thought she could relate, however slightly, to that.
"Lady Liara," Ulpia said, with a fond half-smile. "I don't suppose you remember me."
"Of course I do, your Highness." Liara wasn't sure if she should curtsey. If they were in Angeles, the answer should have been, of course, undoubtedly, yes. She still bowed to Mordred, when they were in public. But the other girls had not done so, and Liara was loathe to ever stand out for any reason that was not worthwhile, so she just settled for inclining her head in as respectful a manner as she could, and was gratified when the gesture was returned. "I do hope that stain lifted out of your dress in the end."
Ulpia looked rueful. "I usually cover it with a shawl."
"My most," Liara said, "Sincere apologies."
"You were four. I hold no grudge." And there, the brusque Dunin tone.
"You are as gracious as your brother."
Ulpia paused. The pause was loaded, Liara thought, but she only set her jaw and kept smiling. The trick when one misspoke, she thought, was utter blitheness. Mordred had always been very good at that. "Which one?"
"The gracious one," Liara said, and was rewarded for this quintessentially Täj-esque non-answer with a chuckle from the princess.
"A wonderful answer. My idiot nephew is treating you well?"
"Your nephew is treating us wonderfully. The world, less so."
Ulpia smiled. She seemed to like this answer.
From behind her, Demetri said, "the tea is ready, Marciana, if you want to accompany me out to the patio."
"Of course," Ulpia said. "Lady Liara, how wonderful it was to see you again. Please give my love to your mother if you get the chance."
Liara thought, when the fuck do you expect that will happen?
She turned away and moved back towards her nephew.
Eden, silent, stared into the back of her dress as though she could singe the silk, looking slightly hollow.
The princess extended an arm to the king. "Well," Ulpia said, "shall we talk?"
Demetri replied, "I suppose we shall."
About an hour in, Devery Atiqtalaaq seemed to have realised that Saran was not going to let Iuitl out of her sight, and that Wick was not going to let Saran out of his, and so she seemed to have resigned herself to leaving them in a little unit on the edge of town as her gang of northern rebels moved slowly through the cinders and embers of Layeni, helping the injured as they found them and taking prisoners as they encountered them. Saran wanted to help them, but found that she had no idea how to, and found that her legs gave out the first two times she tried to stand.
She was tired, in a way that she had not known that she could be tired. It went to the very fibre of her sinews, this exhaustion. With a grim expression, Wick had picked up a shovel and gone to dig graves, which was the only job he could do with Saran and Iuitl in his eyeline, and Saran, feeling guilty at taking up space in a car meant for evacuees, had crouched in the bloodied dirt where they had, only ten hours earlier, been having a picnic, and set up a stove pulled from a nearby apartment. She had gone into the apartment, and taken the food from the shelves, and wondered if its inhabitants would ever return to find what was missing, or if they were gone for good.
It felt like the end of the world.
She cooked beans, in the end, beans and meat and anything else that could be cooked flat. Men in bandages and women with guns over their shoulders filed up; she sent Iuitl to find bowls, and served as many as she could, and then went looking for more. This felt good; this felt like helping. Now, with the dusk fading and darkness drawing in tightly, she could tell that things were winding down. The skirmishes had migrated to the edge of town; Devery was moving agitatedly by the river, near the sixth bridge of the Anfractuous Way, whose wooden slats were carpeted with fallen, trampled flowers of dropped ai-kateans as revellers had fled the violence; Wick still worked without slowing, his every movement powerful and smooth, but they were running out of civilians to bury.
As night fell completely, someone lit a fire in the market square. They were burning the bodies of the rebels who had fallen.
Saran almost didn't want to go to the pyre. She was afraid of the bodies she would see there, afraid to see what a corpse looked and smelled like as it burned, afraid of how real it would all seem once she felt the heat and smelled the smoke. But Wick had dropped his shovel, and wiped his brow, and pushed back his hair, and looked towards the thin finger of smoking rising over the terracotta tiling of the riverside houses, and she knew that he wanted to go, and she knew that he would not go without her.
So they went. He did not take her hand, but grasped, very briefly, her wrist, as he had in the library. Then he crouched, took Iuitl, and swung the young boy up onto his shoulders. Saran suspected he might have made the gesture look easy, no matter what, but Iuitl was little more than skin and bone; she was half-afraid he would blow away in the gentle winter wind that was ghosting through the streets of Layeni, whistling through smashed windows like a vagrant. But Wick held him tightly, and they went down to the pyre.
It was not as large as Saran had expected, not as immense or raging as some of the pallet-fires they had passed in the Wastelands on their way down to the safehouse, all those long months ago when the Selection had started. It was not, by any measure, small – about two stories high, and hot, hot enough that her clothes stuck to her some ten yards away – but she had the sense that battle fires like these were always a little weaker than ideal. They were running out of things to burn, cannibalising the Layeni square for more fuel as rebel bodies were hauled down the cobbles and tossed on top of others. The strongest stench was acrid smoke; below that, the tinge of flesh.
She put her face in Wick's jacket, so that she could not taste it on the air. Wick, for his part, did not seem to be able to look away. He was tallying the bodies, Saran thought. How many of the dead were his friends?
Was this something you ever got used to?
"Lady Saran."
Devery's voice was deceptively soft. The fire in the square blazed so brightly that, when Saran looked away from it, everything else around her seemed much darker. The shadows seemed inky black, rather than grey, and it took her a moment to identify Devery's shape at all. She said, as evenly as she could, "Warden."
"My aide-de-camp told me that you were the one who fed our garrison tonight. I am enormously grateful."
Saran said, "I needed to do something, didn't I?"
"It would have been understandable if you had not." Devery indicated with her head. "Is there any chance we could talk more privately?"
"I think anything you say to me you can say to..."
"We have more company than just Mr Harjo," Devery replied, "and trust is in low supply after Ndlovuzaki's… betrayal. Please, Saran."
Saran hesitated. Behind her, very subtly, Wick reached down and touched her sleeve. It's okay. There was a quiet understanding in that gesture, and Saran could not voice how grateful she was for it.
"Okay," she said, and followed Devery a few yards away, to the shadow of the bell-tower, out of earshot of the rest of the assembled rebels, most of whom seemed too distracted by their friend's burning bodies to pay attention to the women's conversations.
She supposed Devery had a point – the Warden and a member of the Inner Circle speaking like this might have seemed like conspiracy. As it was, Devery set a hand on Saran's shoulder, and it rather looked like she was just keeping the Selected girl from falling apart.
"We're compromised, Altai." Devery's voice was grim, when she spoke like this. It was utterly without sweetening or gentleness. She was simply speaking the truth, exactly as it occurred to her. "We're trying to figure out where the fault lines lie in the rebellion – who is still loyal, who turned – who they turned to..." She sighed. "I can't, in good conscience, leave you here."
"Was that ever an option?"
"I thought you would appreciate it. A nice safehouse in the south. Live out the rest of the war, move back to Yukon afterwards. Pray your sister makes it to the end so that the Altais can live happily ever after."
Saran said, "what are the other options?"
Devery shook her head. "My men are going to the frontlines, Altai. This has been a setback, but if we keep the bulk of our men together… we could break the capital before the new year. If you can find someone to bring you north, maybe you can go home. But that would mean travelling through Crown territory with a target on your back."
What if I don't want to go home?
Devery continued. "We can look into getting you a flight to the Federation. You are still, technically, a member of the Selection, and you deserve to be by your king's side. To go to Demetri. But, Saran..." She sighed. "Truthfully, I think you'd be better off – safer – in Illéa."
What if I don't want to go to Demetri?
"And you deserve to know. Three of the eliminated Selected have had attempts on their lives. Even once you get to the north… I'm not sure there's any guarantee that we could keep you safe. Not until the war is over."
What if I want to stay?
Saran nodded. "I understand." She was looking towards the square, towards the pyre, towards the shadow at the edge of the cobbles. "Warden. What do you think I should do? What would you do if you were in my shoes?"
Devery looked surprised at this line of conversation, and took a moment to answer. "Takkikappalik sukkajuk, akukullok sokiak. No matter how fast the moonlight runs, the day will always catch it." She shook her head. "If I were you? I would not leave for the Federation. I would not stay in the Wastes. I would go north."
"Why?"
"Because," Devery said, "when Angeles is taken, there is a good chance the rebellion will split again. I know this, Demetri knows this, and High Command knows this."
"The north will secede?"
"The north will do what the north does. It will survive." Devery looked at her. "You asked me what I would do. I'm telling you. What I would do, what I'm doing. Going north. Holding the pieces together."
"Waiting?"
"Lying in wait."
"But you have a role to play," Saran said. "You have a role to play in this. The Warden. A real role."
"Someday soon," Devery said, "you'll realise that you do too."
As soon as the door had closed behind Demetri and Ulpia, Atiena had turned to the assembled girls and instructed them that she had decided they were not to waste any time in the Federation. They were going to make the most of their time, she had decided. They were going to start acting like a rebel Selection.
Liz and Yue had exchanged uneasy looks at this proclamation, and again when Atiena showed them the guns. Uzokuhlenga had sourced them a set of handguns and rifles, ostensibly for use on patrols, but it became very clear in a very short amount of time that Atiena intended them to be tools of instruction as well as destruction. She distributed them the way that Liz's old maths teacher had distributed spare pencils, back in the day: magnanimously, and generously.
"We'll start with the guns today," Atiena said. They were gathered around the doorway to the little guardhouse on the edge of the property to which they had been assigned, a six-foot wall rising behind her, topped with shards of broken, coloured glass to deter intruders. The Tammins girl was standing like a drill instructor, arms folded. "And combat the next day. And at some point, we should do languages."
"Languages?" Liz was keenly aware that, between the four remaining Selected, she was the only one that was monolingual. Yue had spoken fluent Japanese to the princess earlier; Eden had passed much of the Layeni festival speaking Spanish to the Wasteland citizens, or exchanging Italian conversations with Raphael, who apparently had a Sicilian accent that made her sound like a mobster; and Liara was of the court, where everyone grew up with at least two or three languages under their belt.
"If we're going to be in the Federation for too long, we should learn one of the dialects." Atiena shrugged. "According to the Ndoluvokazis, anyway. Uzohola has said she can teach us the basics. Good for diplomacy. Alright. Everyone have a gun?"
They did. Liz had the handgun; it was heavier than she had expected it to be, tough to hold upright without her wrist shaking. Liara had a rifle, and looked like she knew how to use it. "Hunting," she said, by way of explanation. "Usually I'm aiming one of these on horseback… and not particularly expecting to hit anything."
"Better than nothing," Atiena said brusquely, and pointed at the weapon Liz had in her hand. "You know what this part is?"
She put her hand so close to the mouth of the weapon that Liz baulked. Unbidden, the image of her finger slipping, and Atiena losing her head, rose to the forefront of her mind.
"The muzzle," Liz said. It made her think of a wild animal, dangerous, rabid. "Right?"
"Right. And you know the trigger."
"Yes."
"What you're holding is the grip. The grip safety – the bit that stops you blowing off useful bits while it's in your belt – that's here." She indicated the little switch on the back of the gun, where the bit that fired curved down to meet the bit Liz held. "You leave that on… pretty much always. If you're switching that off, you're in more trouble than a handgun will get you out of."
"You can't fire the gun with that on," Liz said, cautiously, awaiting correction.
"Yeah," Atiena said, "exactly."
Yue giggled. It sounded like a very nervous giggle, and like she was under some exertion; the shotgun she was holding looked even heavier than the handgun in Liz's hands. They still hadn't eaten. Liz was hopeful Atiena wasn't expecting them to shoot at anything today.
"This is your magazine release." She hit it with her thumb; a shiny cartridge dropped out of the grip, and into her waiting hand. "Your magazine is your ammo. This one has fifteen rounds. That means fifteen shots before you have to reload. Right?"
Liz nodded. "Right."
"Wrong. You never want to run empty. You reload around ten, maybe eleven if you're brave or desperate. That way, you never get caught out."
"What if you're caught somewhere you don't have another magazine?"
"Then you want to save a round for yourself, don't you?" Atiena slid the magazine back into place with the smooth flick of her wrist. "These are your sights. You line them up with what you want to shoot. Always shoot for the centre of mass – all those movies, where they're doing headshot after headshot are total bullshit. You get me? You want to shoot them, anywhere at all, and that means you aim for the biggest part of them. Torso."
"Gotcha." Liz thought, almost stupidly, the torso is where the heart is.
Wyatt had died like that. Not the heart – whatever kid rebel had caught him unawares hadn't been such a crackshot as to hit the heart. But Liz was pretty sure that was where they had been aiming, whoever they were, wherever they were now. They had caught Wyatt in the neck, grazing his throat. It had hit his carotid artery, and he had bled out on the battlefield in forty seconds. It had been his very first mission, in his first week of service.
They had brought him home in a bodybag fourteen days after he had left in a uniform.
Her hand shook a little more when she thought of it.
"Gotcha," Liz said again. "The torso."
Atiena seemed almost like she was trying to channel someone else, emulate someone else's style of teaching. It suited her; she was suitably firm and brisk as she pointed out the slide stop. "Don't get your hand caught in this, it hurts like a bitch. It catches when you've run out of rounds. You never want to let it catch. When you load a new magazine, you release it like this..." She demonstrated, the movement again smooth and controlled. "That chambers the first round. Does that make sense?"
Liz nodded.
Atiena pointed behind her, and Liz turned. Targets, she thought ruefully – just some wooden panels set up to hang from the low hanging bough of a tree, about twice the width and length of a man's torso. Making things easy for them, she thought.
"Wanna give it a shot?"
Liz rolled her eyes at the pun. "Already?"
"Practise is the best teacher."
Liz nodded, and raised the gun. Immediately, Atiena kicked one of her feet into a new position, almost knocking her leg out from under her. "There will be some kick. You need to be grounded enough to take it."
"Okay."
"Lower your elbow."
Liz, acutely aware that she was being made an example of, and that Yue and Liara were watching her like she was an instructional video, lowered her elbow. "Like that?"
"Like that. This is the simplest position – isoceles. You want your torso and arms to make an even triangle, got it? Bend your knees slightly."
Feeling rather silly, Liz squatted very slightly.
"You wouldn't want to use this in a combat situation," Atiena was explaining to the others. "Look how much of her chest she's exposing – too much of a target. But you can easily move your body for new targets, and it's fairly intuitive."
She nodded at Liz. Liz pulled the trigger.
It felt like she should have broken her wrists. The gun jerked, very violently, so violently that it almost ripped itself from her hands; she had to hold on with all her might, so intently that her aim was negligible. Her shot went nowhere near the target.
"Could have been worse," Liz said brightly. "I didn't hit anything but I also didn't hit anyone."
"Believe it or not," Atiena said. "I've seen worse."
Liz believed it. From the other girls' expressions, so did they.
"Right," Atiena said, "next we're gonna have a look at Yue's shotgun..."
They hit a seedy motel in Belcourt some six hours after leaving the brothel, and the whole time, Cor did not speak. She did not speak to Khione, and she did not speak to Ekaitza. She did not even breathe, so far as Ekaitza could see, or blink, for that matter. She just stared out the window at the road as it blurred by and then, later, when it grew gloomy, at her own reflection in the dark mirror of the glass.
Khione fiddled with the radio, spinning between music and current affairs, and occasionally commented on landmarks as they passed them. For the most part, the whole car was silent, and Ekaitza just watched the road and watched the miles melt past them. She had pulled off the road, once they were deep in Crown territory, once she had seen a sign for a motel that didn't seem too popular. Cash only kinda place. That was safest.
The whole building was designed like a motel from the movies, with a long line of doors opening out onto a balcony overlooking a parking lot, beside which was a row of payphones and vending machines. Ekaitza had borrowed an old identification card, from a friend that looked nothing like her but who was also brown and female, and had set it on top of a pile of cash at the reception desk; the motel porter had barely glanced at it before throwing her a key for a room with an exterior door. She had left the Rouen sisters in the car, with her gun, and was half-expecting it to be gone when she returned from the office, but no – Khione was still messing with the radio, and Cor was still staring.
Cor went straight into the room when Ekaitza handed them their keys. Khione simply said, "don't take it personally. She's planning."
Planning. That was one word for it.
There was a convenience store across the road; Ekaitza set out for it, with the promise of providing some sort of dinner. It would have to be microwaveable, she thought, or something you could make with a kettle. Pot noodles for all, maybe. But on her way, she paused at the payphone, reached into her pockets to fish out some spare coins – she always carried cash, she was too paranoid not to – and fired in enough little bronze pieces to supply herself with five minutes of conversation.
She punched in the number like the payphone had personally offended her.
On the other end of the line, a sleepy voice. "Kaixo?"
"Atsegina." She kept her voice low; she shouldn't have even said his name. "I didn't wake you up, did I?"
"No, no, darling, of course not. I should have been up anyway." She could hear the doctor shifting in bed, the sheets moving, the coils squeaking, like he was rolling over as he spoke. "Night shift at the hospital… I need to be out of the house in ten minutes."
"Glad to be of assistance, then."
"How goes your mission?"
"It could be going better."
"Coming from you," he said, "that could mean anything. Could it be going worse?"
Ekaitza considered this question. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe if the rebel with the bleach-blonde hair and the missing arm had been a few minutes faster. Maybe if one of the girls had been dead in the cells under the abandoned hotel. Maybe if they had teamed up to kill her in the car, with her own shotgun or her own belt. Maybe if Vida or Kanon's killer had still been lurking in the brothel, with their gun and their brand. She said, "Maybe."
"Okay. I won't ask for specifics..."
"I wouldn't tell you."
"Are you safe?"
"No," she said. "Definitely not."
"Ekaitzerra." He turned her name into an affectionate diminutive the same way her grandfather always had. "Are you sure you're able for this? You were shot in the head two months ago."
"That builds character."
"It also causes brain damage."
"It's me," Ekaitza said. "How on earth could anyone even tell?"
He chuckled. It sounded like he had the phone lying beside him on the bed, like he always did – slightly softer than it would have been if he had to his ear, slightly warmer, like the room and the bed were as much a part of the conversation as he was. "Please. Stay safe."
Ekaitza said, "I'll call you when I can."
She pressed her head against the glass side of the booth. She wondered how she had gone from smuggling to this. How she had gone from petty larceny to this. How she had gone from the Selection to this.
"Maite zaitut." His voice was soft.
"Yeah," Ekaitza said softly. No sign of Lissa, and Cor on the warpath. She was really wishing she was back in Atlins. "I love you too."
Yue could not rest in a strange bed, in a strange country, her muscles aching from new uses, her head still pounding from the sound of gunshots. The bedroom felt oddly empty with only one person in it; Yue had grown accustomed to Vardi's fitful sleeping next to her, and without it the whole place seemed very sterile. They had retreated to bed early, without seeing Demetri again; Atiena had said that they had an early morning ahead of them, to ensure that the reception went smoothly the next day. Yue's nerves thrummed at the thought of it. This felt like the Selection proper, she thought, in a way that Layeni never had – even the Layeni festival, with their new clothes and the new rituals and the prospect of romance, had never held this air of formality and regality.
They were going to the palace tomorrow. Yue's stomach turned at the thought of it. The urge to rush to the bathroom – to assert some sort of tenuous control – to unburden herself – was overwhelming. So overwhelming that she knew there was no prospect of sleep, and so overwhelming that she found herself rising from bed, and pulling on one of the thin cardigans that had been left for her in the wardrobe – pastel blue with little embroidered pink flowers – and moving, out of the door and down the stairs and across the foyer, into the small living room she had glimpsed earlier, during their initial exploration of the chateau. Ordinarily, she thought, she would have drawn – sketched something, sketched Masr or her memory of Ulpia. Asserted some control on the world around her by trapping it in paper and pencil. But she had none of her materials with her, not even a pen to doodle on her hands and legs, all of her accumulated sketches of the rebels and drawings of Layeni left behind at Raphael's…
Raphael.
She had seen a bookshelf in the lounge earlier, so she went there, in the hopes that something would be in English. Her bare feet sank deeply into the rug; the room was warm, despite the late hour, and a chill coming from an open window somewhere. She scanned the shelves very hesitantly, before a familiar title caught her eye. She was just relieving it from its place in the pile when a voice from the window, low and deep, made her almost jump out of her bones.
"What are you reading?"
Täj was on the patio, smoking – that was no surprise – and he had leaned in through the open bay door to address her, his voice without inflection. In the dark light, he was the suggestion of a pale silhouette, the light from some upstairs window catching on the strands of his hair, his jaw lit only by the red illumination of his cigarette.
As soon as Yue had caught her breath again, she said, "I didn't see you." Her heart was still racing; she put her hand flat against her ribs, as though she could by physical exertion force it to slow.
"I know."
She didn't know how to respond to that. He didn't seem to expect an answer, only put his hand to his mouth one more time, exhaled, and then flicked the light in his hand a few times, scattering ashes. Was he waiting for her to speak? "Are you –"
"What are you reading?" He asked the question again, the same way he had asked it the first time, very simply, without inflection.
She moved slightly closer to him."It's a book that… a friend recommended to me."
"Demetri?"
She blushed. "Well. Yes."
"Poetry?"
"Nizar Qabbani." She still wasn't sure if she was pronouncing that right. "Demetri said it was one of his favourites."
"That sounds about right."
Yue hesitated. "Would you like to...?" She held the book out to him.
"I can't read."
Her face fell. "Oh." Yue thought it was very likely that he was lying, making some sly silly joke that no one but him would find funny, but with this strange pale man, she never could tell for certain.
He kept the same conversational tone. "Can you?"
"Yes." She tried not to sound too obvious when she said it.
"Will you?"
She blinked. "I…" Did he mean aloud?
"You don't have to." He wasn't smiling. Did he ever? He inclined his head to exhale smoke out the window, and watched what few stars were visible from between the trees. After a moment or two, Yue realised that they were not stars; the light pollution from Masr was too strong to allow for starlight. Instead, the lights moved slowly, almost languidly, overhead towards the east. A satellite, she thought, or a helicopter. "I saw you skate, you know."
Yue blanched. "I'm sorry?"
"You used to be an iceskater."
"I... yes."
"I saw you skate."
"Where?"
"National Championships in Lakedon. Four years ago."
"Three," Yue said, almost automatically. She had an encyclopaedic memory for these things. "Three years ago."
"You were good."
She had been good. She had won the National Championships, and won silver at the International Championships in the Arab Sultanates the next month. Her mother had pretended to be pleased with that result, but the following three months had been a torturous, gruelling process of correction that had left Yue persistently exhausted and stressed to the point of illness.
"Thank you," she said, "I appreciate that." She paused. "Didn't think rebels would attend ice-skating competitions for fun."
Täj said, "I had some spare time."
"Yes." She paused, and turned the book in her hands. "You remembered me?"
"I recommended you."
"What?" Yue blinked, and tried to quell the questions that rose immediately in her throat. "You… recommended me?"
"When your application came in. I told Demetri he should pick you."
Yue said, almost playfully, "I thought the Selection was random?"
"If you thought that, I have a few more disappointing realities to dish out to you."
"Why?"
He turned his body towards her, so that they were facing each other more properly; she had eased herself down onto the arm of a sofa chair, settling the book into her lap. "Why choose you?"
"Are you that much of a fan?"
She was disappointed to see that this had not earned her a smile, as she had hoped it might. He seemed so sad, despite his neutral tones. It was in the lines of his body, the stillness of his hands, the way he seemed even stiffer than usual, less accustomed to moving. The heartless tinman, Yue thought, all rusted up. "Would you believe me if I said yes?"
"No."
He inclined his head. "That's fair."
"I'm not letting you get away without an answer." Yue wasn't sure why she was sounding so much more bold than usual. Maybe all that time with Cor and Vardi and Atiena was rubbing off on her.
Täj said, "Why did you apply?"
And Yue said, very softly, "can you blame me for some small act of rebellion? An escape?"
"That's why." Täj moved forward; he put his forearms on his lap, like he was making sure no one else could hear them. She wasn't sure anyone was even awake to hear them. "When I saw you skate..." He spoke slowly, like English was his tenth language, like he was searching for the simplest word. "You reminded me of… a friend."
"I'm sorry about Vardi." She meant it.
"Not her."
"But I am."
"So am I."
There seemed to be no more to say about that. He didn't seem to want to discuss it - insofar as Täj ever seemed to want to discuss anything at all.
Yue paused. "Is he going to be okay? Demetri? After everything that happened with Raphael, and Vardi, and Uzokuwa..." She hated even saying their names. Uzokuwa had betrayed them, Raphael had sacrificed herself for them, and Vardi Tayna had…
Täj interrupted her thoughts. "He always is. He's… adaptable."
"He's angry at Uzohola."
"It's… complicated."
"It wasn't her fault."
"He knows that."
"Sometimes," Yue said, and maybe it was the delirium of the past few dizzying days, or the fact that there were only four of them left, or the fact that the dark was like a blanket over her shoulder, making her feel safer than she otherwise would. Or maybe it was simply that she and Täj, though not friends, maybe never friends, had spent the last few months under the same roof, eating the same meals, caring about the same people. "I find him so hard to read. Impossible. I don't know if I irritate him, or if I bore him, or if I…." She shook her head. "And then, other times, it's like..."
Like reading a book. Like sketching a face in front of you. Elemental.
"That never goes away." He sounded rueful.
"Never?"
"I know Demetri Dunin better than anyone." It was not a brag. It was spoken almost reluctantly. "And that never goes away."
"Why?"
"He doesn't let it."
And Yue, at risk of sounding simple or nosy, said, "why?"
That nearly got a smile from him. "Luna dayet nam svet, no ne dayet tepla. The moon gives light, not heat."
Yue nodded, like she understood.
She did not understand.
Täj leaned back, and took another drag on his cigarette. Yue, too, leaned back against the back of the chair, and the two of them sat for a moment in silence. The wind moved slowly through the grove of trees which made up the neatly wild garden at the base of the patio; the house did not creak of its own accord, as Raphael's had, and the walls were thick enough that she could not hear anyone moving upstairs or in the bedrooms further along the hall. A clock in the kitchen, or maybe in the laundry, was ticking steadily; the sound was very soft, but crept up into the lounge, seeming almost to sound in time to the beat of Yue's heart. Täj could have been a sculpture, or the shadow of one, for all that he moved; the only dynamic element was the flicker of his cigarette stub, and the slow movement of his breath, tinged with grey as he exhaled smoke out into the air.
She didn't want this moment to end. It wasn't like being with Demetri, when every moment felt like a thousand and yet time rushed by ceaselessly, so that they could pass almost a whole night talking and still have plenty to say, or say nothing and be utterly at ease. Täj was silent, so Yue was silent too, and it was not comfortable, not really, but it was peaceful.
She had always wanted an older brother. Being an only child had been lonely - she would have accepted nearly any reprieve - but particularly an older brother. The idea of a quiet unconditional protectiveness had always appealed to her, the way that Raphael's sisterly care and nurturing had, in a very primal, instant manner. In Wick, Yue had occasionally caught glimpses of what she had missed, but his attention had usually been turned elsewhere, and Yue only a collateral victim of his kindness and thoughtfulness.
And Täj had recommended her. She still didn't fully understand why, but she felt an undeniable gratitude, deep in her throat and in the tips of her fingers. Were he anyone else, she would have tried to give him a hug. It was a first glimpse at an answer long in the asking, from each of the Selected girls: why? For the first time, she thought she understood why Liara looked at him like that, why Tayna always seemed a little less sharp around him, why Agares had always treated him like a favourite nephew and insisted he eat more, only skin and bones, Demetri wasn't treating him right...
Abruptly, she missed Layeni, so strongly it was like a physical ache. And that missing was a vessel, a vessel for missing Agares, and Layeni, and Saran, and Vardi, and Wick, and Cor, and Ekaitza and…
They had lost so many.
She was loathe to break the silence, but she had not forgotten what Täj had asked of her. And so, as the clock chimed one in the morning, Yue, very hesitantly, started to read from the book of poetry in her lap: "Should another give you a cloud I give you rain; should he give you a lantern, I will give you the moon; and if another gives you a ship, I shall give you the journey..."
