changeyourstars8 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
changeyourstars8) wrote2011-11-16 05:16 pm
changeyourstars8) wrote2011-11-16 05:16 pm
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Sneak Preview of Stealing Time!!
First chapter of our new book, available this weekend:
Rohan looked up from his work, just as Ildur passed something to his sister. "Darshana." She sat up straight on her floor pad, expression guilty. "I’ll take that."
Every head turned to follow the girl’s movement to his desk. She reluctantly placed the paper on his palm. He unfolded it, a frown furrowing his brow. He’d intercepted notes between Darshana and her brother many times. Earlier, he might've told them to come back when they were ready to pay attention. But the two of them had been among his first students, and he couldn't afford to lose them to the outside world just yet. Most fringe dwellers their age had children of their own, and that meant only one thing-- time had to be spent providing for the family, not getting an education.
Darshana had shown an aptitude for Technology, a skill that couldn’t be lost. As a Bihlan, she once would’ve had trouble making it into the Niveti-dominated Tech caste. But now that didn’t matter, and while she’d never work in the palace, her knowledge could be put to good use here in The Complex.
A quiet laugh brought him back to the present. “Sit down, Darshana.” He examined the drawing another moment and then stood up. “Who drew this?” he asked, presenting the crude caricature to the class. Several students shrugged; the youngest of them giggled.
Rohan tacked the paper to the wall and stood back, pinching his chin between his thumb and forefinger. “I'll admit the artist is good. Does everyone know who this is supposed to be?”
All the students nodded. Three of them raised their hands. He pointed at one.
“Animal Alataea.”
“Who?”
“Um. Princess Alataea.”
“And what do we think the Princess is doing in this picture?”
Several kids snickered, but no one offered an answer. Rohan ripped the paper from the wall, crumpled it into a ball and threw it at Darshana. It bounced off the girl’s chest and fell to the floor.
“I want you all to write me an essay tonight,” he said, his eyes focused on the Bihlan girl. “500 words on why only the Niveti rule, and another 500 on why we should have free elections.”
“That’s not fair!”
“No?” Rohan asked, finally dragging his gaze from Darshana’s face. “Why not?”
“Because Alataea’s mind-clear!”
“Yeah!” another boy said. “Everyone makes fun of her!”
“Tabor, what are you doing here?” Rohan asked. “You only here because your guardian is making you attend classes? Because if that’s the case, you should leave!” His voice was getting louder as he paced. A few of the younger children began to sniffle. “I’m talking to all of you now. I don’t want to waste your time, or mine. There’s no difference between Bihlan and Niveti here. The fact that some of your parents have Marks doesn’t matter. We don’t need collars to identify ourselves. We need to believe this and teach it to others, and in order to do that we have to respect each other.”
“I’m here because I want to be,” Tabor said. “My father heard you speak and believed what you said. I believe it, too.”
“Good,” Rohan said, letting out a long breath. “At least someone’s been listening. Now, who can tell me what happened to the Princess?”
Ildur shrugged. “She was attacked by a banti. It ripped off her face and now she’s mind-clear. Why do you still refer to her as Princess? Doesn’t that elevate her above you? Why don’t you call her what she is?”
“Animal?” Rohan asked.
“She might as well be.”
“Does your mother believe that?”
Ildur's face flushed. Maia had once been a servant at the palace, had known Alataea. “Exactly,” he said, and then he continued. “She isn’t an animal. She’s a Niveti who happened to be born into the Royal Family. She deserves our pity, not our ridicule.”
All the children had quieted. He passed his gaze over each one and cleared his throat, gathering his thoughts. “Twenty-two years ago, on the night of the Annual Dance, her pet banti went wild. It attacked her in her room. She was there with a Med named Demetrio, a suitor of hers.”
“Did Demetrio help?” asked a little girl in the front row.
“No. He ran. And once he realized that the damage to the Princess’ face couldn’t be fixed, he withdrew his marriage proposal.”
“I say she was better off without him,” Tanadae muttered.
“Zakarri didn’t think so,” Rohan said. “He ordered Demetrio to marry her anyway. She refused him, and everyone else. She's spent the past two decades alone.”
“Really?” a little girl asked. “But she's a Royal. She could’ve married ten people, I bet. She didn’t even choose one?”
“She couldn’t have married ten,” a Niveti boy answered. “We don’t believe in multiple marriages, remember?”
“Oh yeah. I've never heard the story this way.”
“It’s not a story, it’s our history,” Rohan said.
“So that was it, then?” Ildur asked.
“Pretty much, except for the rumors about Demetrio.”
“Oh, I've heard those!” Tabor said. “They say that the King wanted to give a new law that would make it legal for Niveti to kill Bihlan for food, and Demetrio found out and tried to kill the King!”
“This could all be made up,” Darshana said. “Now that the eventspapers aren't being printed there's no way to know anything for sure.”
“I still don’t like the Royals,” Endri protested. “Even with her face all messed up, the Princess thinks she’s better than us.”
“Yeah,” Tabor agreed. “All the Royals think they’re better. And the Techs and the Meds and. . .” The boy glanced at Rohan. “Well, some of the Teachers.”
Rohan had often wondered how different their world would be if his father had succeeded in warning the King about the approaching comet; if he himself could get up the courage to use the time-shifter that he and his father had built. But it had only been completed, never tested. This was the only avenue he had . . . teaching, and hoping that his students truly learned. “The caste system won't disappear overnight. The changes begin with us.”
“If we survive that long!” Endri retorted. “We’ve been safe here but my dad says other parts of the city are wide open. And if there really isn’t food for the Niveti what’s to stop them from hunting us?”
Rohan absently rubbed his thumb over the handle of the knife on his belt. Common decency, he wanted to say, but the boy was still talking.
“And I heard something else--” Endri’s voice had taken on the hint of excitement that often showed up when children spoke of something scary, even now. “Some adults by the fountain the other day said that Royalty’s out hunting.”
“King Zakarri can’t hunt,” one of the littler children protested. “He can’t even walk.”
“Yeah,” Endri said. “Which is why Alataea’s hunting for him. One of my dad’s friends swears he saw her around the fringes the other day.”
“That close? Really?”
The students’ chattering grew louder, and Rohan saw the frightened looks on the smaller ones’ faces. “Endri, that’s a perfect example of a rumor. And I think it’s time for everyone to go home now,” he added. “Don’t forget your essays.”
The children’s groans were cut short by a garbled cry. Several of them hurried farther away from the door; others crowded toward it. Rohan made his way through them and peered into the mall. Light came down through the shattered skylight over the fountain, bathing it in a diffused glow that revealed a scene anything but warm: the body of an old man on the edge of the stone bench surrounding the fountain, the water turning red with blood. Part of the man’s throat was missing.
Behind him the children cried out in terror.
“It was her!”
“Animal Alataea!”
“How do we get out?”
“I want mom!”
Alataea used the shadows to creep closer to the now-open door, her ears throbbing as they took in the screams. She heard chattering, heard her own name. Heard words attached to that name that she never would’ve used herself.
Once upon a time, she would’ve shrieked with rage at hearing herself called an ‘animal’ by Bihlan, of all things. Now she couldn’t call up rage, or even dim anger. Her father was starving and her own stomach was snarling at her. She’d murdered the man at the fountain but hadn’t done anything else, hadn’t partaken of the food he provided. She was determined to somehow get those she killed back to the palace.
Her hand reached up and brushed against the dark mask she wore over the lower half of her face. Iza had ensured that her presence would be forever greeted by whispers. She shouldn't be out here where she had to hear them. Wouldn't be here at all if the Techs had stayed on to do their jobs. But they’d fled after one of their own had tried to murder the King.
Demetrio had received his punishment. But, with the Techs gone, there was no more synthetic food. Finally, her father had sent her out to hunt.
And she would do that, she thought, as she entered the classroom quick and low, her sharp nails latching into the shirt of a small Bihlan that was away from the group. She tore at the neck quickly, making the death fast, and shoved the body away. She would retrieve it later.
Feeling the blood on her fingernails, smeared on her palms, she almost collapsed. A child. Looking up, she saw the group of children-- no, not children. She couldn’t think of them that way.
Food. Either she thought of them as food and did what had to be done, or her father would die. He was the only one who had stayed with her, showed her any kindness at all. She had to keep him safe.
The group wasn’t made entirely of children. There was one adult, a male, near the front of them, his horrified expression shifting quickly to fury. If there was a fight to be had in this room, it would be here. And she couldn’t afford to be wounded.
She stepped to the side of the door, keeping her eyes on his. “Leave, now,” she ordered. “You don’t need to be a part of this.”
In answer, he just brandished a knife, yelling at her to get out. With a quick motion, Alataea pulled her own blade-- the one her father had given her for self-defense-- and threw it at him. Unfortunately, she hadn’t been trained in knife-throwing. The blade missed, and sank into the shoulder of a Bihlan girl standing beside him.
The boy who ran to her was Bihlan as well, but some of the other children were Niveti. She cursed. She didn’t intend harm to her own kind. And what were Niveti doing in the same room as Bihlan? “I can’t leave. We need food.”
“We’re not food!” he cried. The girl stumbled against him, clutching the knife that was embedded in her shoulder. “Don’t take it out! Stay on your feet!” he told her, and then the boy screamed and rushed forward. He was the next to die.
Everything seemed to happen at once after that. The children scattered in all directions-- easy targets-- and then she heard footsteps close behind her and turned, raking her claws across the man's arm and deflecting the blade he’d nearly struck her with. He grabbed for her, his fingers entangling themselves in her necklace, and she saw the shock on his face when he truly saw the beads, realized what color they were. Turquoise. The color of Royalty.
The man pulled away, breaking the chain. She felt an instant of regret at the destruction of the necklace she’d worn for so many years, but then she dismissed it. The man was shouting at the children, telling them to run, and then he slipped on the scattered beads and fell. She scrambled away from him, searching for her knife.
It was still buried in the girl’s shoulder. She seemed to be unaware of everything else happening; she was stooped on the ground, keening over the teenage boy’s body. Alataea yanked the knife out of her flesh, making her scream. Then she turned, expecting to find the man just getting to his feet. Instead, he was almost upon her. He stabbed her in the wrist, making her drop her own weapon, and then they were crashing to the floor.
Cursing, Alataea tried to scratch the man with her good hand. She wanted to pull the knife out of her wrist and stab him with it, but she couldn’t bear to even look at the wound, much less purposefully touch it. She just continued to fight, a part of her knowing that she wasn't going to win, not unless a miracle happened. She was tired and hungry and--
And so was he, she reminded herself, and then she twisted to the side and the knife fell out of her wrist. Ignoring the blood and trying to ignore the pain, she jerked away from him and grabbed for the blade.
She didn’t reach it; he dug his fingers into the back of her dress and yanked hard. She flew backwards, knocking him to the floor. With a scream, she twisted around and sank her teeth into his shoulder. He gasped at the pain and rolled, pinning her beneath him as his arm stretched out, fingers spread, straining to pick up the bloody knife. If he reached it-- she sank her teeth deeper into his flesh.
But then the knife was in his hand anyway.
She felt it go into the soft flesh of her abdomen, felt her hands cover his own as he pressed the knife farther, twisting it.
She hadn’t thought that anything could make her forget her mutilated wrist. And for an instant Alataea couldn’t believe what her body was telling her, but then both points of agony melded into one and spread throughout her body until she could barely breathe.
She found the strength to move one of her hands and clutch at his shoulder, as if somehow she could hang on to her life simply by hanging onto him hard enough.
Alataea still heard voices, heard the panicked tones and the sounds of crying, though they seemed far away now. And she knew she was the cause of it, and suddenly she regretted that. She tried to bring back her motives, but it seemed like all the justifications were flowing out of her as fast as her blood.
When she’d found her first intended victim he’d pleaded for his life, told her that he knew of where a group of easy targets were-- she’d assumed some form of infirmary, a place where people who were already close to death stayed. Her discovery of the older man outside confirmed that. But when she’d found the children, realized what the Bihlan had meant by ‘easy targets’, she hadn’t turned. She’d become something that deserved death.
She wanted to say that, but she couldn’t manage any words and even if she could, the man wouldn’t care. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. She was supposed to be with her father, her mate-- but the first was far away, and the second had never come.
So this was the final part of her story. The Princess of a kingdom, bleeding to death on a dirty classroom floor in the fringes of her city.
She thought of how she’d lived when she’d been younger, the dresses and the dancing and everyone admiring her, and she could almost swear that she could hear her own voice, twenty or thirty years younger, drifting up from some long-forgotten corner of her mind, telling her that this wasn’t fair.
Then both the younger self and the older lost the strength to keep fighting, and Alataea’s hand loosened its desperate grip on the man's shoulder.
Rohan knew the exact moment she realized she was going to die. He’d wanted to look away but couldn’t, could do nothing but drive the knife deeper, their hands locked together in a bloody embrace.
He reached out and lifted the black mask covering her face. He might’ve been shocked to see the scarred, twisted flesh a week before, or even an hour before, but nothing could surprise him now. Nothing could erase the other images in his mind, the sounds of terror still echoing. Sounds and images that this woman had inflected on his students, his friends. Innocent children whom he’d put his hope in.
There was nothing left of that hope now. He pushed himself to his feet, unable to take his eyes from the dead body. Alataea shouldn’t have been able to do so much damage. She looked so frail. Part of the turquoise necklace was still looped about her neck. Beneath the edge of one stone he could see a red mark. It was an Infinite’s Touch, something that few children were born with. It must’ve thrilled her parents to see it; a child born with one was said to be destined for some great deed.
Rohan blinked, clearing his eyes of the water that filled them. He took a step backward, slipping and nearly losing his balance. Behind him he could hear someone crying. Darshana. The other students who had survived had fled. His stomach heaving, Rohan fled, too.
Moments later he found himself outside, stumbling over a jagged array of boulders and sun-baked earth. The comet that had hit Veyrdel more than twenty years before had pockmarked the entire continent. The impact crater in this part of the city was wide and deep. The Complex had once been much larger; the land he was walking on had held part of it. Now he could barely remember what the entire building had looked like. His shoulder throbbed, causing him to gasp with each step. He crawled the last few feet to the makeshift lab that Darshana and Ildur had helped him build around a remnant of what the comet had left behind.
The brother and sister had known the importance of their discovery. A piece of an otherworld vessel, buried deep in the ice and rock of the comet that had nearly destroyed Veyrdel. Now he would use it to save them.
He cranked the gears on the door, until all seven teeth were interlocked in the correct order, deactivating the lock. Then, slowly, he pushed the heavy metal rectangle open.
The machine that he’d helped his father build all those years ago wasn’t large. Not much bigger than his classroom desk. But the power source that it was connected to dwarfed the classroom itself, and it was half-buried in ten tons of rock. Darshana had been the one to help him make the connection, help him make it work. At least he hoped it would work.
He sat down at the chair and began spinning dials. The scratches on his arm burned, making his movements clumsy and slow, and the pain radiating from the bite wound in his shoulder clouded his thoughts and made his vision blur. It took him several attempts to set the time markers and even then, after triple-checking, he wasn’t sure he’d gotten the coordinates right. Would an hour be enough time to warn the children, to get them out? Alataea would arrive all the same, but if she found the classroom empty. . .
No, it wouldn’t be empty. He would be waiting.
A bead of sweat fell from his brow and splashed the console. He wiped it away with one hand as he used the other to activate the dial, unaware of what the careless motion had done.
***
“What do you mean trouble?” Maia asked, taking hold of the small boy’s shoulders. “What happened?”
He was crying too hard to be understood. “Animal . . . Rohan told us to run. . .”
Maia let go of the child and stood up straight. Most banti had been turned loose once their owners didn’t have food to spare. Some had died, but many had turned feral. They were one of the reasons that few in the fringes went unarmed.
“Listen to me! Where’s your sister?”
“She . . . she’s dead.”
Maia cursed, and looked toward The Complex. She knew that the answers waiting there weren’t ones she’d want to hear. The child’s home was in this section, close by. And as much as she wanted to stall the inevitable by walking him home, she couldn't. “You need to go home,” she said. “I have to find my children.”
“I think they’re dead, too.”
“Don’t say that!” Maia snapped, cursing at herself when the child began to sob again. “Just . . . just get home.”
Then she walked away, trying not to listen to the sound of the boy’s footsteps running the other way, trying not to remember when her own son had been that age. I think they’re dead, too.
She ran for The Complex, barely slowing down when she saw the dead man slumped over the fountain's edge. Maia knew she should feel something for him, mourn if only for a moment for the life cut short, but she couldn't. Not until she knew.
She stopped in the classroom doorway, not wanting to take in the sight in front of her. Almost everyone in the room was dead. And though the sight of her daughter, bloody and crying but alive, thrilled her . . . the fact that she was huddled next to a body stopped that joy.
“No,” she whispered.
Hearing her slow footsteps, Darshana looked up. She started to leap to her feet, and then stumbled. Maia hurried forward, helping to support her. “What happened? One of the other students said an animal--”
“Yes, an animal!” Darshana snarled, wincing when Maia carefully pushed the fabric of her shirt away from the wound on her shoulder.
“You need to . . . to go back home. All right? Clean that-- you can’t let it get infected.”
“I’m not leaving him!”
“It’s not safe here. If there was one animal, there might be others. It didn’t have The Disease, did it?”
“Probably,” Darshana said, and then she turned to Ildur’s body and started to cry again.
Maia blinked back her own tears, trying not to look at her oldest child, not yet. “Where’s Rohan?”
“I don’t know. He left after he killed it,” Darshana said, pointing to the other end of the room. Maia looked, and to her surprise, she saw a Niveti woman, not an animal.
Then everything hit her, and she gasped. The black fabric of a mask lying several feet away from the body. The scattered turquoise beads. Auburn hair. Torn clothes, scarred face. Alataea.
She turned away, trying not to think of the knife jutting out of the other woman’s stomach; the havoc she’d caused here; the way they’d once talked and laughed with each other; the students she’d killed, one of them her son. . .
Ildur. She wanted to keep denying it, wanted to banish the knowledge that his body lay at her feet, but she couldn’t distract herself anymore.
Letting out a strangled cry, she dropped to her murdered child and pulled his body closer, hugging him, barely noticing that Darshana had left her side until she heard an enraged shriek.
Looking up, she saw the girl pull the knife out of Alataea’s body, and then stab her again with it, this time in the heart. She jerked the weapon out and brought it down again, and Maia ran to her, grabbing her arms as she raised the knife a third time.
“Darshana!”
“Let me go! I hate her, I--”
“You’re better than this!” Maia yelled. And so was she, once, she thought, looking at the Princess’s mutilated body. “Stop it.”
Darshana glared at her for a few seconds, and then collapsed into her arms. Maia held her, keeping her eyes tightly shut. “Listen to me. I want you to go. It’s going to be a few hours before some of the other parents will . . . will miss their children. Go home, take care of your shoulder. If you still need to cry, do it then.” Her own voice was calm now, strong, and she hoped that the act was fooling her. “Then go to the others’ homes, and tell them.”
“But you’re coming with me.”
“No. I’m going to . . . bury Ildur. And the Princess.”
“Why her?”
“Because I knew her.”
“How can that matter now?”
“I don’t know,” Maia said. “Maybe it shouldn’t. But it does. Now go do what I told you.”
Darshana pulled away from her, looking back at her brother.
“I’ll be with him,” Maia whispered. She’d buried her children’s father alone, on a brutally cold day years ago when the earth hadn’t wanted to yield; she’d buried Nayara, and she would bury Ildur today. “Now please, go.”
Darshana went to the doorway, and then stopped. “You’re not coming back, are you?”
“The food we have will last one person longer than two.” Or three, she added silently, thinking of her son. “This has been coming for a long time. You know it, too.”
“Please,” Darshana said, her voice cracking. “You can’t leave me right now.”
“This is the only time I can.” In the midst of so much pain, what was one more wound? “This city is poison. With the Niveti hunting, we can’t survive.”
Darshana fisted her hands at her sides. “And where do you think I should go?”
“West,” Maia told her. “West to Unity.” Xavierre and Rohan had spoken often of the safehold for radicals. It had been abandoned after the comet had hit, but perhaps her daughter could still find safety there. “You practically memorized Rohan’s every word about it, I’m sure you know--”
“I know the stories he and father told,” Darshana said. “But how am I supposed to get there? Even if the skimmers still worked, they could never make it that far.”
“If anyone can do it, it’s you.”
“I won’t go without you.”
“I’d just slow you down.”
“Mom, you’re fine--”
“I am fifty years old!” Maia yelled. “Your brother and your father are gone; I won’t lose you, too!”
“That’s why, isn’t it?” Darshana asked, smiling bitterly. “You’re just a coward. You know we’re all going to die, and you won’t stay with me when I--”
“Stop it!” Maia said, though a part of her had to wonder if she was right. Even if she was, she thought, the other reasons were still true, too. And she’d already been putting this off for far too long. She’d been thinking about this for over a year now, she’d just never gotten up the courage. Now the Infinite had forced her hand. “My decision is made.”
“I’ll follow you.”
“Then you’ll just be murdering yourself.”
“What do you call what you’re doing?”
“Giving you the only chance I can.”
Darshana glared at her for a moment longer, and then she closed her eyes. “This isn’t fair.”
Maia smiled. She could remember the Princess saying the exact same thing to the King; remembered saying it herself to Kalesta, the servant who’d helped care for her after her parents had been killed in The Riot. Some things never changed.
“I know it’s not,” she said. “But there isn’t anything else to do. Come here.”
Darshana crossed her arms and started to narrow her eyes again, but then she rushed forward. Maia hugged her carefully, trying to mind the wound on her shoulder. To her surprise, Darshana threw her arms around her, squeezing hard, and then she stepped back. “I’m going to find Rohan. Maybe he’ll come with me.”
Maia nodded. Darshana and Ildur had been close to the Teacher-- though Darshana hadn’t been nearly as close as she would’ve liked to be. At home, Ildur often teased her about her crush on the man, and Darshana had tolerated it, with the understanding if he ever mentioned anything in class, she’d hang him from the ceiling fan by his feet.
For a moment, the memory made her smile, and then the thought that she’d never hear her children’s good-natured bickering again brought tears to her eyes. She blinked them back. If she started crying, then Darshana would cry, too, and they both needed to get out of here.
Her daughter moved to the doorway again, staring at her for a long moment. But this time she didn’t say anything. She just turned, and disappeared into the dusty corridor. Once she was gone, Maia finally let her own tears fall.
She tugged her son’s body to a small field near The Complex, and then she went back for the Princess. The knife lay where Darshana had dropped it and she slipped it into the spare scabbard at her waist. While a part of her wanted to just leave the body, let the other parents burn it instead of giving it a proper burial, she couldn’t do that. There had been a time when Alataea had been like a little sister to her.
As she began to dig the graves, she tried to recall the happier days spent in the palace. She’d brought the Princess eventspaper pictures and dropped hints about her own knowledge of the radicals. But just when she thought Alataea might be getting truly curious about all of it, she’d been attacked by her banti.
One of the other servants had turned on her shortly after that, and told the King what she was. She’d been Marked and banished, and she’d thought that Alataea was gone from her life. But now--
Don’t think about it, she thought. Any of it. There’ll be time for it later.
But she couldn’t help it. And after she was finished packing the ground over them, she began to walk.
Her destination wasn’t far from The Complex. She’d brought Darshana and Ildur here sometimes. Not often. Travel wasn’t safe, and she’d preferred to have her children either inside their home or in the classroom with Rohan.
Closing her eyes, she knelt down on the cold earth. No markers were at these graves; those passing by wouldn’t even know they walked over the dead.
Her thoughts drifted to the day when she'd finally seen him again.
She saw the small group of people talking, and at first didn't pay them much mind. The time had long passed when every stranger had to be viewed with immediate hostility; now people mostly left each other alone, lost in their own miseries. Still, there were exceptions, which was why she carried her knife.
Then one of the men laughed, and she paused, some long-dormant part of her awakening at the sound.
He was thinner than he had been the last time she’d seen him, and there was gray in his beard now, but his dark eyes still sparkled and his smile was as bright as ever. And her mind crowded with memories
the snow tumbling down around them snowflakes in his black hair and a smile on his face and it stole her breath
taking her hand and holding it when all she wanted to do was curl it into a fist, steadying her
him flirting with another servant and the sudden intense desire that he'd look at her that way
sitting with their backs to the wall in the furnace room while he was on break
All those and a hundred more, a thousand, collided at once and then everything burst out in a flurry of motion, sending her across to the crowd and into his arms, her mouth pressed to his before she quite realized what she was going to do.
Then she took a step back, abruptly realizing that she might've just embarrassed herself. She hadn't seen him in years, not since he'd been Marked and sent from the palace, they hadn't been lovers then and for all she knew the two women in the group might be his wives and--
“Much as I really like the greeting,” he said, “do I know you?”
Her eyes narrowed into slits. “If you don't remember me I'm going to--” Then he grinned, his arms going around her waist. “That's better,” she said quietly. And it was, suddenly all of it was; she hadn't thought she would ever see him again but he was alive, here.
“Did you really think I could forget?”
For almost eight years, they’d been happy together. Then he’d started talking to people about moving out of the city, to a series of caves he’d discovered in the North. In their search for traveling companions, they’d found Jeryl and his wife, Nayara, and--
No. The ending was something she couldn’t concentrate on now.
She pressed her hands against the ground. She didn’t know how many times she’d wished that she could just join him under the soil, but she’d ignored the grief because of Ildur and Darshana. And now?
She'd been having to range farther and farther away to find any food at all. And sitting here now, thinking about the look on Xavierre's face when he'd held their son for the first time, she didn't have the energy to do anything besides stay here.
“I wish I could've come here with better news,” she said. “I don't-- I don't think I can leave again. No idea where I'd go. I'm afraid I'd go after Darshana and I can't. We only had enough food left to last for about a week; I wasn't sure where I was going to find more. It'll last her longer. I-- I'm stalling,” she said, taking a few deep breaths before going on. “He's gone. Ildur.”
She was sure that Xavierre already knew-- if there was any justice after this life, then he and Ildur were together in the Infinite's Realm now. But she didn't stop the words.
“There was an attack on the classroom. I. . .” She wanted to talk about Alataea, about not being sure where Rohan was, about anything but the sight of their child lying there. Instead she just cried until she was too exhausted to sit up straight. Then she withdrew her knife from its scabbard.
She didn't want to starve. When she'd been a child, one of the other radicals had snuck in a book about the Famine of the Year of the Royals 119. There'd been a picture of a little girl who'd been about the same age as she was, the clothes hanging off her, and she'd almost been able to make out the exact shape of her skull. She'd hated mention of it ever since; would put down a book if it started talking about one of the characters starving. The idea of going through it herself--
“I'm sorry,” she whispered. “I just can't stop thinking. About everything. About Darshana. I don't know if she's okay or if I did the right thing, but either way it's too late.”
She sent a prayer out to the Infinite, asking for Darshana's safety and for forgiveness for what she was about to do. Then she closed her eyes, and brought the knife down.
Rohan looked up from his work, just as Ildur passed something to his sister. "Darshana." She sat up straight on her floor pad, expression guilty. "I’ll take that."
Every head turned to follow the girl’s movement to his desk. She reluctantly placed the paper on his palm. He unfolded it, a frown furrowing his brow. He’d intercepted notes between Darshana and her brother many times. Earlier, he might've told them to come back when they were ready to pay attention. But the two of them had been among his first students, and he couldn't afford to lose them to the outside world just yet. Most fringe dwellers their age had children of their own, and that meant only one thing-- time had to be spent providing for the family, not getting an education.
Darshana had shown an aptitude for Technology, a skill that couldn’t be lost. As a Bihlan, she once would’ve had trouble making it into the Niveti-dominated Tech caste. But now that didn’t matter, and while she’d never work in the palace, her knowledge could be put to good use here in The Complex.
A quiet laugh brought him back to the present. “Sit down, Darshana.” He examined the drawing another moment and then stood up. “Who drew this?” he asked, presenting the crude caricature to the class. Several students shrugged; the youngest of them giggled.
Rohan tacked the paper to the wall and stood back, pinching his chin between his thumb and forefinger. “I'll admit the artist is good. Does everyone know who this is supposed to be?”
All the students nodded. Three of them raised their hands. He pointed at one.
“Animal Alataea.”
“Who?”
“Um. Princess Alataea.”
“And what do we think the Princess is doing in this picture?”
Several kids snickered, but no one offered an answer. Rohan ripped the paper from the wall, crumpled it into a ball and threw it at Darshana. It bounced off the girl’s chest and fell to the floor.
“I want you all to write me an essay tonight,” he said, his eyes focused on the Bihlan girl. “500 words on why only the Niveti rule, and another 500 on why we should have free elections.”
“That’s not fair!”
“No?” Rohan asked, finally dragging his gaze from Darshana’s face. “Why not?”
“Because Alataea’s mind-clear!”
“Yeah!” another boy said. “Everyone makes fun of her!”
“Tabor, what are you doing here?” Rohan asked. “You only here because your guardian is making you attend classes? Because if that’s the case, you should leave!” His voice was getting louder as he paced. A few of the younger children began to sniffle. “I’m talking to all of you now. I don’t want to waste your time, or mine. There’s no difference between Bihlan and Niveti here. The fact that some of your parents have Marks doesn’t matter. We don’t need collars to identify ourselves. We need to believe this and teach it to others, and in order to do that we have to respect each other.”
“I’m here because I want to be,” Tabor said. “My father heard you speak and believed what you said. I believe it, too.”
“Good,” Rohan said, letting out a long breath. “At least someone’s been listening. Now, who can tell me what happened to the Princess?”
Ildur shrugged. “She was attacked by a banti. It ripped off her face and now she’s mind-clear. Why do you still refer to her as Princess? Doesn’t that elevate her above you? Why don’t you call her what she is?”
“Animal?” Rohan asked.
“She might as well be.”
“Does your mother believe that?”
Ildur's face flushed. Maia had once been a servant at the palace, had known Alataea. “Exactly,” he said, and then he continued. “She isn’t an animal. She’s a Niveti who happened to be born into the Royal Family. She deserves our pity, not our ridicule.”
All the children had quieted. He passed his gaze over each one and cleared his throat, gathering his thoughts. “Twenty-two years ago, on the night of the Annual Dance, her pet banti went wild. It attacked her in her room. She was there with a Med named Demetrio, a suitor of hers.”
“Did Demetrio help?” asked a little girl in the front row.
“No. He ran. And once he realized that the damage to the Princess’ face couldn’t be fixed, he withdrew his marriage proposal.”
“I say she was better off without him,” Tanadae muttered.
“Zakarri didn’t think so,” Rohan said. “He ordered Demetrio to marry her anyway. She refused him, and everyone else. She's spent the past two decades alone.”
“Really?” a little girl asked. “But she's a Royal. She could’ve married ten people, I bet. She didn’t even choose one?”
“She couldn’t have married ten,” a Niveti boy answered. “We don’t believe in multiple marriages, remember?”
“Oh yeah. I've never heard the story this way.”
“It’s not a story, it’s our history,” Rohan said.
“So that was it, then?” Ildur asked.
“Pretty much, except for the rumors about Demetrio.”
“Oh, I've heard those!” Tabor said. “They say that the King wanted to give a new law that would make it legal for Niveti to kill Bihlan for food, and Demetrio found out and tried to kill the King!”
“This could all be made up,” Darshana said. “Now that the eventspapers aren't being printed there's no way to know anything for sure.”
“I still don’t like the Royals,” Endri protested. “Even with her face all messed up, the Princess thinks she’s better than us.”
“Yeah,” Tabor agreed. “All the Royals think they’re better. And the Techs and the Meds and. . .” The boy glanced at Rohan. “Well, some of the Teachers.”
Rohan had often wondered how different their world would be if his father had succeeded in warning the King about the approaching comet; if he himself could get up the courage to use the time-shifter that he and his father had built. But it had only been completed, never tested. This was the only avenue he had . . . teaching, and hoping that his students truly learned. “The caste system won't disappear overnight. The changes begin with us.”
“If we survive that long!” Endri retorted. “We’ve been safe here but my dad says other parts of the city are wide open. And if there really isn’t food for the Niveti what’s to stop them from hunting us?”
Rohan absently rubbed his thumb over the handle of the knife on his belt. Common decency, he wanted to say, but the boy was still talking.
“And I heard something else--” Endri’s voice had taken on the hint of excitement that often showed up when children spoke of something scary, even now. “Some adults by the fountain the other day said that Royalty’s out hunting.”
“King Zakarri can’t hunt,” one of the littler children protested. “He can’t even walk.”
“Yeah,” Endri said. “Which is why Alataea’s hunting for him. One of my dad’s friends swears he saw her around the fringes the other day.”
“That close? Really?”
The students’ chattering grew louder, and Rohan saw the frightened looks on the smaller ones’ faces. “Endri, that’s a perfect example of a rumor. And I think it’s time for everyone to go home now,” he added. “Don’t forget your essays.”
The children’s groans were cut short by a garbled cry. Several of them hurried farther away from the door; others crowded toward it. Rohan made his way through them and peered into the mall. Light came down through the shattered skylight over the fountain, bathing it in a diffused glow that revealed a scene anything but warm: the body of an old man on the edge of the stone bench surrounding the fountain, the water turning red with blood. Part of the man’s throat was missing.
Behind him the children cried out in terror.
“It was her!”
“Animal Alataea!”
“How do we get out?”
“I want mom!”
Alataea used the shadows to creep closer to the now-open door, her ears throbbing as they took in the screams. She heard chattering, heard her own name. Heard words attached to that name that she never would’ve used herself.
Once upon a time, she would’ve shrieked with rage at hearing herself called an ‘animal’ by Bihlan, of all things. Now she couldn’t call up rage, or even dim anger. Her father was starving and her own stomach was snarling at her. She’d murdered the man at the fountain but hadn’t done anything else, hadn’t partaken of the food he provided. She was determined to somehow get those she killed back to the palace.
Her hand reached up and brushed against the dark mask she wore over the lower half of her face. Iza had ensured that her presence would be forever greeted by whispers. She shouldn't be out here where she had to hear them. Wouldn't be here at all if the Techs had stayed on to do their jobs. But they’d fled after one of their own had tried to murder the King.
Demetrio had received his punishment. But, with the Techs gone, there was no more synthetic food. Finally, her father had sent her out to hunt.
And she would do that, she thought, as she entered the classroom quick and low, her sharp nails latching into the shirt of a small Bihlan that was away from the group. She tore at the neck quickly, making the death fast, and shoved the body away. She would retrieve it later.
Feeling the blood on her fingernails, smeared on her palms, she almost collapsed. A child. Looking up, she saw the group of children-- no, not children. She couldn’t think of them that way.
Food. Either she thought of them as food and did what had to be done, or her father would die. He was the only one who had stayed with her, showed her any kindness at all. She had to keep him safe.
The group wasn’t made entirely of children. There was one adult, a male, near the front of them, his horrified expression shifting quickly to fury. If there was a fight to be had in this room, it would be here. And she couldn’t afford to be wounded.
She stepped to the side of the door, keeping her eyes on his. “Leave, now,” she ordered. “You don’t need to be a part of this.”
In answer, he just brandished a knife, yelling at her to get out. With a quick motion, Alataea pulled her own blade-- the one her father had given her for self-defense-- and threw it at him. Unfortunately, she hadn’t been trained in knife-throwing. The blade missed, and sank into the shoulder of a Bihlan girl standing beside him.
The boy who ran to her was Bihlan as well, but some of the other children were Niveti. She cursed. She didn’t intend harm to her own kind. And what were Niveti doing in the same room as Bihlan? “I can’t leave. We need food.”
“We’re not food!” he cried. The girl stumbled against him, clutching the knife that was embedded in her shoulder. “Don’t take it out! Stay on your feet!” he told her, and then the boy screamed and rushed forward. He was the next to die.
Everything seemed to happen at once after that. The children scattered in all directions-- easy targets-- and then she heard footsteps close behind her and turned, raking her claws across the man's arm and deflecting the blade he’d nearly struck her with. He grabbed for her, his fingers entangling themselves in her necklace, and she saw the shock on his face when he truly saw the beads, realized what color they were. Turquoise. The color of Royalty.
The man pulled away, breaking the chain. She felt an instant of regret at the destruction of the necklace she’d worn for so many years, but then she dismissed it. The man was shouting at the children, telling them to run, and then he slipped on the scattered beads and fell. She scrambled away from him, searching for her knife.
It was still buried in the girl’s shoulder. She seemed to be unaware of everything else happening; she was stooped on the ground, keening over the teenage boy’s body. Alataea yanked the knife out of her flesh, making her scream. Then she turned, expecting to find the man just getting to his feet. Instead, he was almost upon her. He stabbed her in the wrist, making her drop her own weapon, and then they were crashing to the floor.
Cursing, Alataea tried to scratch the man with her good hand. She wanted to pull the knife out of her wrist and stab him with it, but she couldn’t bear to even look at the wound, much less purposefully touch it. She just continued to fight, a part of her knowing that she wasn't going to win, not unless a miracle happened. She was tired and hungry and--
And so was he, she reminded herself, and then she twisted to the side and the knife fell out of her wrist. Ignoring the blood and trying to ignore the pain, she jerked away from him and grabbed for the blade.
She didn’t reach it; he dug his fingers into the back of her dress and yanked hard. She flew backwards, knocking him to the floor. With a scream, she twisted around and sank her teeth into his shoulder. He gasped at the pain and rolled, pinning her beneath him as his arm stretched out, fingers spread, straining to pick up the bloody knife. If he reached it-- she sank her teeth deeper into his flesh.
But then the knife was in his hand anyway.
She felt it go into the soft flesh of her abdomen, felt her hands cover his own as he pressed the knife farther, twisting it.
She hadn’t thought that anything could make her forget her mutilated wrist. And for an instant Alataea couldn’t believe what her body was telling her, but then both points of agony melded into one and spread throughout her body until she could barely breathe.
She found the strength to move one of her hands and clutch at his shoulder, as if somehow she could hang on to her life simply by hanging onto him hard enough.
Alataea still heard voices, heard the panicked tones and the sounds of crying, though they seemed far away now. And she knew she was the cause of it, and suddenly she regretted that. She tried to bring back her motives, but it seemed like all the justifications were flowing out of her as fast as her blood.
When she’d found her first intended victim he’d pleaded for his life, told her that he knew of where a group of easy targets were-- she’d assumed some form of infirmary, a place where people who were already close to death stayed. Her discovery of the older man outside confirmed that. But when she’d found the children, realized what the Bihlan had meant by ‘easy targets’, she hadn’t turned. She’d become something that deserved death.
She wanted to say that, but she couldn’t manage any words and even if she could, the man wouldn’t care. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. She was supposed to be with her father, her mate-- but the first was far away, and the second had never come.
So this was the final part of her story. The Princess of a kingdom, bleeding to death on a dirty classroom floor in the fringes of her city.
She thought of how she’d lived when she’d been younger, the dresses and the dancing and everyone admiring her, and she could almost swear that she could hear her own voice, twenty or thirty years younger, drifting up from some long-forgotten corner of her mind, telling her that this wasn’t fair.
Then both the younger self and the older lost the strength to keep fighting, and Alataea’s hand loosened its desperate grip on the man's shoulder.
Rohan knew the exact moment she realized she was going to die. He’d wanted to look away but couldn’t, could do nothing but drive the knife deeper, their hands locked together in a bloody embrace.
He reached out and lifted the black mask covering her face. He might’ve been shocked to see the scarred, twisted flesh a week before, or even an hour before, but nothing could surprise him now. Nothing could erase the other images in his mind, the sounds of terror still echoing. Sounds and images that this woman had inflected on his students, his friends. Innocent children whom he’d put his hope in.
There was nothing left of that hope now. He pushed himself to his feet, unable to take his eyes from the dead body. Alataea shouldn’t have been able to do so much damage. She looked so frail. Part of the turquoise necklace was still looped about her neck. Beneath the edge of one stone he could see a red mark. It was an Infinite’s Touch, something that few children were born with. It must’ve thrilled her parents to see it; a child born with one was said to be destined for some great deed.
Rohan blinked, clearing his eyes of the water that filled them. He took a step backward, slipping and nearly losing his balance. Behind him he could hear someone crying. Darshana. The other students who had survived had fled. His stomach heaving, Rohan fled, too.
Moments later he found himself outside, stumbling over a jagged array of boulders and sun-baked earth. The comet that had hit Veyrdel more than twenty years before had pockmarked the entire continent. The impact crater in this part of the city was wide and deep. The Complex had once been much larger; the land he was walking on had held part of it. Now he could barely remember what the entire building had looked like. His shoulder throbbed, causing him to gasp with each step. He crawled the last few feet to the makeshift lab that Darshana and Ildur had helped him build around a remnant of what the comet had left behind.
The brother and sister had known the importance of their discovery. A piece of an otherworld vessel, buried deep in the ice and rock of the comet that had nearly destroyed Veyrdel. Now he would use it to save them.
He cranked the gears on the door, until all seven teeth were interlocked in the correct order, deactivating the lock. Then, slowly, he pushed the heavy metal rectangle open.
The machine that he’d helped his father build all those years ago wasn’t large. Not much bigger than his classroom desk. But the power source that it was connected to dwarfed the classroom itself, and it was half-buried in ten tons of rock. Darshana had been the one to help him make the connection, help him make it work. At least he hoped it would work.
He sat down at the chair and began spinning dials. The scratches on his arm burned, making his movements clumsy and slow, and the pain radiating from the bite wound in his shoulder clouded his thoughts and made his vision blur. It took him several attempts to set the time markers and even then, after triple-checking, he wasn’t sure he’d gotten the coordinates right. Would an hour be enough time to warn the children, to get them out? Alataea would arrive all the same, but if she found the classroom empty. . .
No, it wouldn’t be empty. He would be waiting.
A bead of sweat fell from his brow and splashed the console. He wiped it away with one hand as he used the other to activate the dial, unaware of what the careless motion had done.
***
“What do you mean trouble?” Maia asked, taking hold of the small boy’s shoulders. “What happened?”
He was crying too hard to be understood. “Animal . . . Rohan told us to run. . .”
Maia let go of the child and stood up straight. Most banti had been turned loose once their owners didn’t have food to spare. Some had died, but many had turned feral. They were one of the reasons that few in the fringes went unarmed.
“Listen to me! Where’s your sister?”
“She . . . she’s dead.”
Maia cursed, and looked toward The Complex. She knew that the answers waiting there weren’t ones she’d want to hear. The child’s home was in this section, close by. And as much as she wanted to stall the inevitable by walking him home, she couldn't. “You need to go home,” she said. “I have to find my children.”
“I think they’re dead, too.”
“Don’t say that!” Maia snapped, cursing at herself when the child began to sob again. “Just . . . just get home.”
Then she walked away, trying not to listen to the sound of the boy’s footsteps running the other way, trying not to remember when her own son had been that age. I think they’re dead, too.
She ran for The Complex, barely slowing down when she saw the dead man slumped over the fountain's edge. Maia knew she should feel something for him, mourn if only for a moment for the life cut short, but she couldn't. Not until she knew.
She stopped in the classroom doorway, not wanting to take in the sight in front of her. Almost everyone in the room was dead. And though the sight of her daughter, bloody and crying but alive, thrilled her . . . the fact that she was huddled next to a body stopped that joy.
“No,” she whispered.
Hearing her slow footsteps, Darshana looked up. She started to leap to her feet, and then stumbled. Maia hurried forward, helping to support her. “What happened? One of the other students said an animal--”
“Yes, an animal!” Darshana snarled, wincing when Maia carefully pushed the fabric of her shirt away from the wound on her shoulder.
“You need to . . . to go back home. All right? Clean that-- you can’t let it get infected.”
“I’m not leaving him!”
“It’s not safe here. If there was one animal, there might be others. It didn’t have The Disease, did it?”
“Probably,” Darshana said, and then she turned to Ildur’s body and started to cry again.
Maia blinked back her own tears, trying not to look at her oldest child, not yet. “Where’s Rohan?”
“I don’t know. He left after he killed it,” Darshana said, pointing to the other end of the room. Maia looked, and to her surprise, she saw a Niveti woman, not an animal.
Then everything hit her, and she gasped. The black fabric of a mask lying several feet away from the body. The scattered turquoise beads. Auburn hair. Torn clothes, scarred face. Alataea.
She turned away, trying not to think of the knife jutting out of the other woman’s stomach; the havoc she’d caused here; the way they’d once talked and laughed with each other; the students she’d killed, one of them her son. . .
Ildur. She wanted to keep denying it, wanted to banish the knowledge that his body lay at her feet, but she couldn’t distract herself anymore.
Letting out a strangled cry, she dropped to her murdered child and pulled his body closer, hugging him, barely noticing that Darshana had left her side until she heard an enraged shriek.
Looking up, she saw the girl pull the knife out of Alataea’s body, and then stab her again with it, this time in the heart. She jerked the weapon out and brought it down again, and Maia ran to her, grabbing her arms as she raised the knife a third time.
“Darshana!”
“Let me go! I hate her, I--”
“You’re better than this!” Maia yelled. And so was she, once, she thought, looking at the Princess’s mutilated body. “Stop it.”
Darshana glared at her for a few seconds, and then collapsed into her arms. Maia held her, keeping her eyes tightly shut. “Listen to me. I want you to go. It’s going to be a few hours before some of the other parents will . . . will miss their children. Go home, take care of your shoulder. If you still need to cry, do it then.” Her own voice was calm now, strong, and she hoped that the act was fooling her. “Then go to the others’ homes, and tell them.”
“But you’re coming with me.”
“No. I’m going to . . . bury Ildur. And the Princess.”
“Why her?”
“Because I knew her.”
“How can that matter now?”
“I don’t know,” Maia said. “Maybe it shouldn’t. But it does. Now go do what I told you.”
Darshana pulled away from her, looking back at her brother.
“I’ll be with him,” Maia whispered. She’d buried her children’s father alone, on a brutally cold day years ago when the earth hadn’t wanted to yield; she’d buried Nayara, and she would bury Ildur today. “Now please, go.”
Darshana went to the doorway, and then stopped. “You’re not coming back, are you?”
“The food we have will last one person longer than two.” Or three, she added silently, thinking of her son. “This has been coming for a long time. You know it, too.”
“Please,” Darshana said, her voice cracking. “You can’t leave me right now.”
“This is the only time I can.” In the midst of so much pain, what was one more wound? “This city is poison. With the Niveti hunting, we can’t survive.”
Darshana fisted her hands at her sides. “And where do you think I should go?”
“West,” Maia told her. “West to Unity.” Xavierre and Rohan had spoken often of the safehold for radicals. It had been abandoned after the comet had hit, but perhaps her daughter could still find safety there. “You practically memorized Rohan’s every word about it, I’m sure you know--”
“I know the stories he and father told,” Darshana said. “But how am I supposed to get there? Even if the skimmers still worked, they could never make it that far.”
“If anyone can do it, it’s you.”
“I won’t go without you.”
“I’d just slow you down.”
“Mom, you’re fine--”
“I am fifty years old!” Maia yelled. “Your brother and your father are gone; I won’t lose you, too!”
“That’s why, isn’t it?” Darshana asked, smiling bitterly. “You’re just a coward. You know we’re all going to die, and you won’t stay with me when I--”
“Stop it!” Maia said, though a part of her had to wonder if she was right. Even if she was, she thought, the other reasons were still true, too. And she’d already been putting this off for far too long. She’d been thinking about this for over a year now, she’d just never gotten up the courage. Now the Infinite had forced her hand. “My decision is made.”
“I’ll follow you.”
“Then you’ll just be murdering yourself.”
“What do you call what you’re doing?”
“Giving you the only chance I can.”
Darshana glared at her for a moment longer, and then she closed her eyes. “This isn’t fair.”
Maia smiled. She could remember the Princess saying the exact same thing to the King; remembered saying it herself to Kalesta, the servant who’d helped care for her after her parents had been killed in The Riot. Some things never changed.
“I know it’s not,” she said. “But there isn’t anything else to do. Come here.”
Darshana crossed her arms and started to narrow her eyes again, but then she rushed forward. Maia hugged her carefully, trying to mind the wound on her shoulder. To her surprise, Darshana threw her arms around her, squeezing hard, and then she stepped back. “I’m going to find Rohan. Maybe he’ll come with me.”
Maia nodded. Darshana and Ildur had been close to the Teacher-- though Darshana hadn’t been nearly as close as she would’ve liked to be. At home, Ildur often teased her about her crush on the man, and Darshana had tolerated it, with the understanding if he ever mentioned anything in class, she’d hang him from the ceiling fan by his feet.
For a moment, the memory made her smile, and then the thought that she’d never hear her children’s good-natured bickering again brought tears to her eyes. She blinked them back. If she started crying, then Darshana would cry, too, and they both needed to get out of here.
Her daughter moved to the doorway again, staring at her for a long moment. But this time she didn’t say anything. She just turned, and disappeared into the dusty corridor. Once she was gone, Maia finally let her own tears fall.
She tugged her son’s body to a small field near The Complex, and then she went back for the Princess. The knife lay where Darshana had dropped it and she slipped it into the spare scabbard at her waist. While a part of her wanted to just leave the body, let the other parents burn it instead of giving it a proper burial, she couldn’t do that. There had been a time when Alataea had been like a little sister to her.
As she began to dig the graves, she tried to recall the happier days spent in the palace. She’d brought the Princess eventspaper pictures and dropped hints about her own knowledge of the radicals. But just when she thought Alataea might be getting truly curious about all of it, she’d been attacked by her banti.
One of the other servants had turned on her shortly after that, and told the King what she was. She’d been Marked and banished, and she’d thought that Alataea was gone from her life. But now--
Don’t think about it, she thought. Any of it. There’ll be time for it later.
But she couldn’t help it. And after she was finished packing the ground over them, she began to walk.
Her destination wasn’t far from The Complex. She’d brought Darshana and Ildur here sometimes. Not often. Travel wasn’t safe, and she’d preferred to have her children either inside their home or in the classroom with Rohan.
Closing her eyes, she knelt down on the cold earth. No markers were at these graves; those passing by wouldn’t even know they walked over the dead.
Her thoughts drifted to the day when she'd finally seen him again.
She saw the small group of people talking, and at first didn't pay them much mind. The time had long passed when every stranger had to be viewed with immediate hostility; now people mostly left each other alone, lost in their own miseries. Still, there were exceptions, which was why she carried her knife.
Then one of the men laughed, and she paused, some long-dormant part of her awakening at the sound.
He was thinner than he had been the last time she’d seen him, and there was gray in his beard now, but his dark eyes still sparkled and his smile was as bright as ever. And her mind crowded with memories
the snow tumbling down around them snowflakes in his black hair and a smile on his face and it stole her breath
taking her hand and holding it when all she wanted to do was curl it into a fist, steadying her
him flirting with another servant and the sudden intense desire that he'd look at her that way
sitting with their backs to the wall in the furnace room while he was on break
All those and a hundred more, a thousand, collided at once and then everything burst out in a flurry of motion, sending her across to the crowd and into his arms, her mouth pressed to his before she quite realized what she was going to do.
Then she took a step back, abruptly realizing that she might've just embarrassed herself. She hadn't seen him in years, not since he'd been Marked and sent from the palace, they hadn't been lovers then and for all she knew the two women in the group might be his wives and--
“Much as I really like the greeting,” he said, “do I know you?”
Her eyes narrowed into slits. “If you don't remember me I'm going to--” Then he grinned, his arms going around her waist. “That's better,” she said quietly. And it was, suddenly all of it was; she hadn't thought she would ever see him again but he was alive, here.
“Did you really think I could forget?”
For almost eight years, they’d been happy together. Then he’d started talking to people about moving out of the city, to a series of caves he’d discovered in the North. In their search for traveling companions, they’d found Jeryl and his wife, Nayara, and--
No. The ending was something she couldn’t concentrate on now.
She pressed her hands against the ground. She didn’t know how many times she’d wished that she could just join him under the soil, but she’d ignored the grief because of Ildur and Darshana. And now?
She'd been having to range farther and farther away to find any food at all. And sitting here now, thinking about the look on Xavierre's face when he'd held their son for the first time, she didn't have the energy to do anything besides stay here.
“I wish I could've come here with better news,” she said. “I don't-- I don't think I can leave again. No idea where I'd go. I'm afraid I'd go after Darshana and I can't. We only had enough food left to last for about a week; I wasn't sure where I was going to find more. It'll last her longer. I-- I'm stalling,” she said, taking a few deep breaths before going on. “He's gone. Ildur.”
She was sure that Xavierre already knew-- if there was any justice after this life, then he and Ildur were together in the Infinite's Realm now. But she didn't stop the words.
“There was an attack on the classroom. I. . .” She wanted to talk about Alataea, about not being sure where Rohan was, about anything but the sight of their child lying there. Instead she just cried until she was too exhausted to sit up straight. Then she withdrew her knife from its scabbard.
She didn't want to starve. When she'd been a child, one of the other radicals had snuck in a book about the Famine of the Year of the Royals 119. There'd been a picture of a little girl who'd been about the same age as she was, the clothes hanging off her, and she'd almost been able to make out the exact shape of her skull. She'd hated mention of it ever since; would put down a book if it started talking about one of the characters starving. The idea of going through it herself--
“I'm sorry,” she whispered. “I just can't stop thinking. About everything. About Darshana. I don't know if she's okay or if I did the right thing, but either way it's too late.”
She sent a prayer out to the Infinite, asking for Darshana's safety and for forgiveness for what she was about to do. Then she closed her eyes, and brought the knife down.