As She Ascends

by Jodi Meadows

  Finally, softer than everything, I heard Aaru. From the cadence of his breathing, he was listening, too.

  I squeezed his hand. ::I hear.::

  ::Feel better?::

  ::Maybe.::

  His hand slipped from mine as he rolled onto his side, facing me.

  I turned, too. When my knees bumped his, I gasped and pulled back.

  Some kind of emotion flickered across his face, gone too quickly for me to read in the dark.

  His lips parted, like he wanted to say something out loud. But no sound came, and he sighed.

  “Aaru.” The floor bit against my shoulder as I moved my hands in front of me, fingers against fingers as though I cupped a ball of light between my palms. He moved, too, and when I slipped my right hand into his, my heart beat like it was on fire. Somehow, our knees bumped again, and this time I didn’t pull away.

  Seven gods, I wanted to tell him how I felt. I wanted to close the tiny space between us and kiss him. But it wouldn’t be fair. He was leaving soon. Within days. And maybe I’d never see him again. In Daminan culture, a kiss might be an appropriate good-bye—an acknowledgment of a relationship that could have been—but for an Idrisi boy, it would be totally inappropriate. Not just rude, but scandalous. Disastrous. It could ruin his entire future if anyone found out, and he’d said before that he wanted to marry someone and have children and give them everything.

  That was his dream.

  I couldn’t be the one to take it from him.

  ::Crying?:: His eyebrows drew inward as he touched my cheek, just above the scar. ::Why?::

  “I’ll miss you.” My voice was so small and tight, it was a wonder the words came out at all.

  His fingertips still rested on my face, as soft as the brush of butterfly wings. His touch was so gentle I almost didn’t feel it as he traveled up my cheekbone and then down my jaw—

  But I did feel it. Every tiny movement. He was so close to the scar.

  I cupped my hand over my cheek and turned my head a little.

  ::Sorry.:: Quickly, he let go of my other hand and tapped on the floor. ::Sorry. Sorry.::

  My throat and face heated with humiliation. The places he’d touched ached with wanting more, and a desperate, deep part of me wanted to ask him to do it again.

  But the scar. It was huge. There was no ignoring it.

  ::Sorry,:: he tapped again.

  ::It’s not you.:: My hands were shaking, making my quiet code more fumbling than usual. ::You did nothing wrong.::

  ::Did I hurt you?::

  I shook my head.

  ::Offend you?::

  ::No.::

  ::I don’t understand.::

  I clenched my jaw as I moved my hand off the scar. “This.”

  He only glanced at it. ::Don’t understand.::

  How could I make him understand what the scar was? What it did to me? How it changed everything?

  He studied me for a moment, and then said, ::You hate it.::

  “Yes.”

  ::Why?::

  “Where do I begin?” The words choked out of me in a strained whisper. “I know I’m not smart or charming or strong. But I was beautiful. My face was the one thing I could count on to make people like me. And now that’s gone. Mother is going to be furious when she sees me. She always said my face was perfect, and now it’s ruined.”

  He tilted his head, a line of thought forming between his eyebrows.

  And now he knew just how vain I was. Fallen Gods, he deserved better.

  ::So you hate the scar.::

  “Yes.” I couldn’t speak anymore, not around the lump forming in my throat. ::Don’t you?::

  I’d asked the question, but suddenly I didn’t want to know the answer. I closed my eyes and ducked my face.

  One heartbeat. Two. Three. Four.

  Cloth shifted as he moved, and he took the hand I’d been using to hide the scar, and he drew my fingers aside. His breath came warm against my skin.

  I didn’t move.

  With such tenderness and care, he pressed his lips against my cheek. Against the scar. The corner of his mouth touched mine. And there, he kissed.

  Desperately, I wanted to enjoy this, to feel every scrap of warmth, but my mind betrayed me, as always.

  He was touching the scar. And he could feel it. Wasn’t he disgusted? How could he stand to look at it, let alone kiss it?

  He was leaving. He was leaving soon, so he was being nice now.

  “Mira.” My name puffed soundless against my cheek, and tapped against my fingers: ::Mira.:: He pushed himself up and leaned on one hand. Noorestone glow limned his features, and again I envied the light the freedom to touch him as it pleased. ::No one is perfect.::

  Especially not me.

  He tilted his head, casting his face into shadow so I couldn’t read his expression anymore. But when he traced his fingers across my eyebrow, around my temple and jaw, and down my neck, I knew he was studying my face. Maybe the scar.

  Then, he took my hand again. ::Imperfections reveal true beauty.::

  My heart skipped. I’d heard those words before, from Krasimir. She was the Mistress of Beauty, responsible for many things, including maintaining my body to my mother’s high standards. Krasimir had been talking about my counting, though, not the remnant of a giant gash down my cheekbone.

  Still. Those words. I hadn’t expected to hear—or feel—them again, and definitely not from Aaru. I stared at him, a response lost on my tongue.

  He ducked his face. ::Should rest more.::

  I nodded.

  When he’d settled on the floor again, his hand found mine and there we were, same as we’d been before: both of us on our backs, our hands clasped somewhere in the middle. Then he squeezed, I tried to smile, and silently, he scooted closer to me.

  ::Good?:: he asked.

  “Yes.” I threaded my fingers with his, trying not to wish for something closer than this. Trying not to wish I could roll over and rest in the crook of his arm. Trying not to wish for a kiss that would never happen.

  ::What are you doing?:: he tapped.

  “Sleeping.”

  ::Terrible liar.::

  I laughed a little, then whispered, “What are you doing?”

  ::Listening.::

  “To what?”

  ::To you.::

  AARU

  Eight Years Ago

  SILENCE COULD TAKE A THOUSAND FORMS, ACCORDing to Idris’s holy book. Reflective and angry and rude and listening were all different sorts of silence, and a proper follower of Idris must choose their application with care. Even someone from another island might learn Idris’s ways, if they desired to be closer to him, but they would never possess Idris’s gift: the ability to be silent.

  That was what Idrisi people were: those of silent language and silent movement and silent being. We all had the gift—some more than others, as on any island.

  And then . . . there was the Voice of Idris.

  His voice was silence. Pure. Overwhelming. Uncompromising.

  True silence was power, Father said, and very few people possessed it. The boys who did were taken to Summerill, where their talents were honed and they were trained in the laws of the land. Idris smiled upon those boys, and their families as well; if I’d been taken, my parents would have received seventy-five chips a decan. If I’d been taken, my family would have been the second wealthiest in all of Grace Community.

  No one knew exactly what happened once the boys finished training and came of age, but there were rumors. Most suggested that when a Silent Brother died, a contest was held among the boys—young men by that point—and the most worthy would take his place as the newest leader in the Idrisi government. But what exactly that contest entailed, no one could say.

  Sometimes, I was angry I hadn’t been taken. Jealous, honestly. My duty as the eldest son was to help provide for my family, and seventy-five chips a decan would change their lives. Still, being passed over meant I was able to grow up with my family, see my siste
rs born, and appreciate hard work.

  I wasn’t silent enough for Idris, but I knew my family needed me, and that alone satisfied my heart.

  But Safa . . .

  Safa hadn’t just been silent, she’d made silence. Like the boys taken from their home could. Like the Silent Brothers. Like someone who’d been given the Voice of Idris.

  It wasn’t supposed to be possible.

  THE NEXT DAY, I mustered the courage to tell Father what Safa had done. In careful quiet code, so that I could not be misunderstood, I explained the dragon, her terror, and the way the silence had expanded from her like a bubble.

  But even as I spoke, he was shaking his head. “It isn’t possible.”

  ::I was there.:: Although if he hadn’t believed me the first time, why did I think he might the second? ::She frightened the dragon away.::

  “Girls cannot possess the Voice of Idris.” Father glared down at me. “Do not speak of it again or I’ll have no choice but to send you to the basement.”

  With a shiver, I nodded and bowed my head.

  But later, against his wishes, I found Mother. When I told her what Safa had done, her eyes grew wide. Round. Frightened.

  “Never repeat that.” She glanced toward her bedroom door; Father was sleeping beyond. ::If you love Safa, you will never speak of it again, and you will make sure she never does that again. Understand?::

  I couldn’t comprehend her fear then, but it infected me nonetheless.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  WHEN THE HATCH SQUEALED OPEN AGAIN, IT WAS One who summoned us above.

  “We’ll reach Val fa Merce in just over an hour,” he said. “The captain said you could all come up and get some fresh air, as long as you stay out of the way.”

  No one wasted time getting out of the compartment. We climbed up as quickly as we could, then waited in a line outside the captain’s quarters; everyone needed to use the facilities.

  I leaned against the wall between the open door and Aaru, just absorbing the salt air that tangled through my hair and caressed my skin, the creak of rigging and chants of crewmen, and the beautiful sense of freedom.

  Aaru touched my elbow to get my attention. ::Captain Pentoba is a woman.::

  “Very observant of you.” I smiled so he’d know I was teasing.

  ::One works for her.::

  The first mate, he meant. I nodded.

  ::Crew is mostly women, too. Is that normal?::

  “Of course it’s normal.”

  He drummed his fingers, the quiet code equivalent of hmm-ing, and finally said, ::Different on Idris.::

  “Does it bother you?” A thread of worry crept through me. I’d known that Idris wasn’t always a good place for women—marriages were arranged, women weren’t permitted to work, and they were only as useful as their ability to bear children—but I hadn’t thought of Aaru in that context. It hadn’t occurred to me that seeing Captain Pentoba, a powerful and authoritative woman, might bother him.

  But he shook his head, and his expression shifted into thoughtfulness. ::Didn’t know it was different. Didn’t know another way.:: He sighed and gazed over the deck. ::Will tell Mother and sisters. They’d like to know.::

  The urge to hug him was overwhelming, but instead, I slipped one hand into his and squeezed. Words pounded in my heart. They balanced on the tip of my tongue. They almost beat out of my fingertips.

  Chenda saved me from humiliating myself. “All yours,” she said, and I hurried to do my business.

  When I stepped back onto the main deck, Chenda hooked her arm through mine. “Let’s get out of the way.” Together, we started toward the bow. It wasn’t easy to keep up; she was taller, and her strides were longer than mine, and the sway of the ship certainly didn’t help. “How are you doing?” She kept her tone easy, but there was another question in there. Worry.

  She was asking about my panic attack without actually asking about it.

  “Better.” Even after sleeping most of the day, I was still groggy. Attacks always left my head a mess of sludge-like emotion.

  But the attacks had been less frequent since escaping the Pit. Maybe Ilina had been right.

  “Good.”

  “And you?” I asked as we climbed the stairs to the foredeck. “You were ill in the Pit, but you seem to have recovered.”

  She gave a single nod. “Shadow sickness, from too much time in the dark. That’s why Hurrok screamed every night. He was in incredible pain.”

  I didn’t want to think about Hurrok. Hristo had returned from the medic saying she’d rebroken the bones in his hand to set them properly, and that it was unlikely he’d ever be able to use the last two fingers again. I glanced up at Chenda. “But you’re better now?”

  “I am. Shadows are resilient things.” When we reached the bow, she released my arm and we rested our hands on the rail while we looked out at the rolling sea. Wood cut water, and foam rushed around us as we sped toward a scrape of land on the horizon. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

  The ocean or her shadow: I couldn’t tell which she meant, but I nodded anyway.

  “I didn’t think I’d ever see it again.”

  Maybe she was talking about both. The sun was falling toward the western horizon, and our shadows extended ahead of us, along with those of lines and sails and crewmen moving about the rigging to slow our approach into the city.

  “It’s important that you and I are united,” she said.

  “Why do you think that?”

  “Individually, we are strong. But together, we are even stronger. The Book of Shadow says, ‘A lone shadow may be dark, but many side by side make midnight.’” She looked at me askance and smiled. “When I was young, that used to scare me. In Bopha, there are noorestones everywhere so that we never face true darkness. I couldn’t imagine why making midnight would be seen as a good thing.”

  “And now?”

  She traced the copper tattoos on her cheek. “Now I understand that we can make midnight on our enemies. When we stand together, our shadows meld and become indistinguishable, leaving no recourse for those who seek to harm us.”

  “The Book of Love says something like that.” I lifted my face to the wind. “It says, ‘Hate cannot abide where many stand in love.’”

  “We’d all do well to remember that.” She gazed forward, watching as the land grew steadily on the horizon. “The actions of our governments pain me, Mira. We’ve both been betrayed. We’ve both been made to believe in these ideals, then been punished for trying to uphold them.”

  “I don’t know how it came to this. The Mira Treaty was meant to make all our islands better places. How did people lose sight of that so quickly?”

  “It wasn’t quick. It was a little at a time. One compromise after another. And if Altan is right about the Mira Treaty, we were never going to truly achieve those goals. The ambition of darkness does not lead to light.”

  “Then we must be uncompromising.”

  “We must.”

  I stared out at the sea, unsure if I really wanted the answer. I asked anyway. “Why you and me specifically?”

  Chenda smiled. “The others follow our lead. Haven’t you noticed?”

  “Hristo and Ilina are my friends, not my followers.” I shook my head. “I’m no leader. I’m not a political mind like you.”

  “You can be,” she said. “If you want to.”

  “I don’t want to. I just want to help dragons.”

  She gazed down at me, her expression cool and composed. “You cannot help dragons by yourself, Mira. Not at the scale needed to forestall the Great Abandonment. You can, however, inspire others to save dragons for you—if you help them first.”

  “I don’t know how.”

  “By investigating the Mira Treaty. By ensuring the Fallen Isles do not become just another territory of the Algotti Empire. By rallying an army to fight, if necessary.” Chenda touched my shoulder. “You are the Hopebearer. That puts you in a unique and powerful position to create change in our wor
ld. But you have to take it.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” I said. “But the dragons don’t have time to wait for that.”

  Chenda shifted away from me. “Well, go to the sanctuary here. See what you need to see. But I hope you will reconsider your approach. Look at all the moving pieces of this puzzle, not only what’s right in front of you.”

  Her words echoed in my thoughts, and after a few minutes, the others found us and we all leaned against the rail to watch the sea. Crystal was perched on Ilina’s shoulder, and LaLa was cradled in Hristo’s right arm—the one still in a sling to protect his bandaged hand. And though she, too, was bandaged together, LaLa had her head thrown back, completely relaxed while Hristo scratched the underside of her chin; her third eyelids were closed, and she chirruped every time he paused.

  When Hristo caught me looking, he flashed a weak smile. “We make a pair, don’t we?”

  “She looks comfortable.” I fished a piece of dried papaya and tore off a small bite for LaLa. She just opened her mouth for me to drop the fruit in, then swallowed it and went back to being adored. “She’s going to get spoiled.”

  “Too late.” Ilina snatched the rest of the papaya and offered a bite to Crystal.

  I leaned my hip against the rail so that I could see everyone. Gerel stood next to Chenda; they shared a smile as they tried to identify something on the water, near the island. And Aaru stood apart, watching them, watching me. His body shifted with the movement of the ship, unconsciously adapting.

  He was leaving soon.

  A flock of seagulls flew overhead, calling and squawking as their shadows passed over the Chance Encounter. The island grew on the horizon, and what had been mere suggestions of buildings grew definitive.

  Val fa Merce was a strange city: a mix of old and new, the product of a nation trying to find itself after centuries of occupation. There were remnants from every other island’s rule, but from here I could only see the pyramid that loomed over the cove where the port resided. Before the Mira Treaty, there’d been maces carved into the ocean-facing side; they’d been chipped away now, but the evidence was still there. The gold that had once shimmered from every facet, however, had been completely removed.