As She Ascends

by Jodi Meadows

  The other furnishings were things I’d chosen:

  1.My display case, which held ninety-eight dragon figurines made of glass and stone and metal. Some were worth hundreds of lumes, while others were but trinkets for tourists. Nevertheless, they were all precious to me.

  2.My bookcase: six shelves filled with histories of dragons, texts discussing aspects of The Book of Love, and the latest popular novels. The last section was regularly cleared and restocked, unless I was quick enough to pull a book aside to save forever. Right now, there were thirty books in total, but that number fluctuated.

  3.My reading chair, positioned near the cliff-facing window (at the head of my bed), with a palm-green blanket thrown over the back in casual disarray.

  4.My writing desk, which was clear right now. The pens and inks and papers were tucked inside the drawer, always stocked so that I could write thank-you notes and letters of encouragement.

  5.My framed map of the Fallen Isles, beautifully drawn and detailed, with delicate pen strokes I’d always tried (and failed) to imitate.

  6.A copy of the Mira Treaty, bordered by chains of lala flowers.

  Ilina took the reading chair immediately, wrapping herself in the blanket, but Aaru lingered in the doorway, looking uncertain. He cut a striking figure standing there, dressed in the clothes Chenda had chosen for him back in Val fa Merce. The wrap shirt was deep blue, trimmed with a subtle pattern embroidered in black thread.

  But even wearing clothes in the style of my island, there was no mistaking him for anything but Idrisi. His posture said everything; rather than thrown-back shoulders and a lifted chin, he stood straight but not proud, and watchful rather than watched.

  Ilina cleared her throat. “I think he’s standing there because he’d like you to invite him in. He’s not rude like me.”

  Aaru’s cheeks darkened with embarrassment.

  I ducked my face. “Sorry. Please come in, Aaru.” I motioned to the chair at the writing desk.

  Though he probably viewed entering my room as enormously improper, he padded in and took the chair I’d indicated, and gazed around the room to take in every detail.

  “Can you understand what they’re saying?” I leaned on the dressing room doorway. The hum of muffled voices came from below, but they were too indistinct for me to catch more than angry tones.

  Aaru nodded, then stopped, his eyes widening in alarm. ::Your mother is threatening to gut your father.::

  Hence Aaru’s shock. “It’s an empty threat. Probably.”

  He looked uncertain. ::She thinks your father made a mistake.::

  “In what?”

  He lifted one shoulder in a faint shrug. ::Just now, I think. Or maybe with the treaty. It’s hard to tell.::

  That was definitely an accurate description of my mother’s anger.

  A door slammed down the hall—Zara’s door—and Aaru cringed. ::You and your sister don’t get along.::

  “No,” I muttered. “We haven’t in a while.”

  He nodded, thoughtful, but there was a look in his eyes that said he’d give anything to see his sisters again.

  “I’m going to pack a few things.” I opened the door to my dressing room, letting the morning light fall golden across the hardwood.

  “Pack your hunting dresses,” Ilina said. “And boots. Don’t bring anything that requires its own attendants.”

  I smirked at her. “You realize I’ve been managing without silk gowns since Sarai, right? I’ve more or less figured out what I need to bring in order to survive our new lives as fugitives.”

  “Thank Damina.” She leaned toward Aaru. “Grab some paper. I’m dying to know what you think now that you’ve seen all this.” She swept her hand around the room, but she meant the whole house and everything that had just happened inside it. “One day I’ll be good enough at your quiet code, but today is not that day.”

  I slipped into the dressing room and pulled open the drawer at the bottom of the first wardrobe, where I kept my luggage.

  There wasn’t much appropriate for this journey—I didn’t have backpacks like Ilina—but I did have one large bag with a thick strap I could sling across my body. It was easy to carry and could fit a lot without being bulky.

  Just as I unclipped the flap and opened the bag, Mother screamed downstairs, “You didn’t bother to ask!”

  A door slammed.

  Footfalls slammed.

  Aaru used a pencil to tap on the desk, ::She’s coming.::

  Determined to ignore her, I flung open the main doors of the first wardrobe. My clothes were organized by color, rather than use, so I would have to go through all three wardrobes to find what I needed.

  There, I discovered what had changed. Or, rather, what was missing. Empty spaces where there should be gowns.

  Not all my clothes were missing. The hunting dresses were still here, and several day dresses, but all the silk gowns Ilina had made fun of were gone.

  Before I could tell the others, my bedroom door clicked open and Mother walked in; I knew the cadence of her footsteps as well as I knew my own.

  “Where is she?” Mother asked.

  Through the dressing room door, I saw Ilina point from her perch on my chair. Aaru silently tracked her as she moved through the room and strode into the dressing room with me.

  “May I speak with you?”

  I didn’t want to talk to her any more, but she didn’t wait for an answer, just shut the door behind her.

  Not wanting to give her the satisfaction of seeing my annoyance, I turned back to the wardrobes, looking at what should be a rainbow of clothes. Twelve dresses in all. That was how many were missing. “What did you do with my gowns?”

  “I—” She sat at the vanity, crossing one leg over the other. “We, that is. Your father and I. We got word that the speech in the Shadowed City had gone well. That you’d done exactly as Elbena asked of you, and you’d been restored to your position.”

  “It must be shocking that they lied to you.” I pulled a blue and green hunting dress from the wardrobe and began folding.

  “The council said our punishment wasn’t over yet, and that you’d be traveling for the foreseeable future. They said we weren’t allowed to see you, not for a long time. But they did ask us to send some of your clothes—the gowns you’d wear for speeches.” Her voice caught, and for a moment I thought she might cry. But when I glanced at her, she wore a sharp but distant expression.

  “They wouldn’t let you see me because they’d chosen someone to replace me.” I dropped the folded dress into my bag, then rummaged through a drawer for a matching pair of leggings. “There was another girl in the Pit. We became friends, I thought, but she was actually there to study me. To learn me. The Luminary Council had her placed there as a contingency.”

  “Is she the girl who spoke in Val fa Merce?”

  I nodded. “Her name is Tirta. She looks enough like me to confuse people who’ve only seen me from far away. And now she moves like me. Speaks like me.”

  And knew my noorestone secret.

  “I heard there was some kind of explosion at that speech, and the theater was evacuated.”

  That was certainly not something I wanted to discuss with Mother. “Do you know what the speeches say?” I asked.

  She leaned back in her chair. “By your tone, I expect they say something you don’t like.”

  “It’s how I got this, Mother.” I touched just beneath the scar. “Elbena carved it after the speech in the Shadowed City. After I refused to support a decree that would send all Hartans back to Harta, regardless that such action would separate families and friends, destroy careers, and cause financial chaos. The decree chips away at the freedom and independence granted by the Mira Treaty, yet Elbena—and the Luminary Council—wanted me to support it.”

  Mother pressed her lips together, as though to hide a frown. She didn’t succeed. “Your job isn’t to judge how governments work. It never has been. If you want to influence—”

  “I
know. Campaign for a position.” I rolled my eyes. “I’m not going to do that, Mother. I’ve never wanted to. And I never wanted to be the Hopebearer, either, but in that I was given no choice. For years, you and the council used my voice in support or disapproval, never asking my opinions on matters. But I’m seventeen now, and I’ve lived through events you can’t even imagine.”

  She just stared at me.

  “You and the council gave me a voice,” I whispered. “When I found the shipping order for the dragons stolen from our sanctuary, I tried to use that voice to help those dragons. But the council imprisoned me. And in the Shadowed City, when I tried to use my voice to help people being treated unjustly, Elbena cut me.”

  Mother shifted her weight and dropped her eyes. Discomfort radiated from her.

  Good.

  “The council that you love so much has harmed me twice. When my friends and I go public with the information that the Mira Treaty sold us to our enemies, the council will attempt to silence me again. This time permanently. So I suppose the question is this: will you let them harm me again? Or will you, for once, choose me?”

  “Mira . . .”

  “Will you choose me, Mother?” My voice caught, but I didn’t cry. I wouldn’t. There’d been enough tears to last, and Mother didn’t deserve them anymore. Not after her part in all this.

  She opened her mouth, but before she could form a word—either yes or no—the floor shuddered.

  “What was that?”

  “I’m not sure,” Mother said. “A small tremor?”

  I hadn’t been asking her; I’d been asking Aaru. Still, I answered her. “It didn’t feel like a tremor.”

  At least, the jolt we’d gotten after the quake on Idris had been different. And it wasn’t like the earthquake and aftershocks on Khulan, either.

  ::Explosion.:: Aaru’s taps came as wood against wood: the pencil on my desk. ::In the city.::

  I opened the dressing room door and found Ilina already on her way to me. “Get Hristo,” I said. “We’re leaving now.”

  She nodded and rerouted herself out of the bedroom.

  I looked at Aaru. “Will you help me?”

  He nodded and began working as soon as I dropped leggings next to the bag. I tucked in underclothes and socks and boots, then dumped random items from my vanity and other drawers into a smaller pouch. When Aaru put the last of my dresses in the bag, his fingers lingered on the fabric for just a moment. They were just hunting dresses, the sturdiest of my clothes, but they were Idrisi cotton.

  “What can I help with?” Mother hadn’t moved from the vanity seat.

  “We’re finished.” I pulled the flap over the bag and fastened the clips. “We just need to get out of here.”

  “Why?” She still hadn’t moved. Still wasn’t helping. “There was an explosion. The Luminary Guards will tell us if there’s any danger to the prominences. We’ll be safe here.”

  “You might be, but my friends and I are not.” I hefted my bag over my shoulder and headed out of the room. We had to get back to the ship immediately.

  “Mira, wait!” Mother hurried out after me.

  I’d already stopped, though. Sunlight glittered off the glass and crystal inside my dragon display case. “I need money, Mother.”

  She started nodding. “All right. How much?”

  “A thousand lumes. More if you can.”

  Aaru’s eyes widened at the thought of so much money, but Mother just nodded and said, “I’ll get it for you.” She left the room without looking back, happy to have something to do.

  I turned to my silent friend. “Will you grab one or two of those?” I pointed to a set of seven ebony boxes, each the size of a loaf of bread. They’d been hand-carved by a renowned woodworker from Anahera, and they all had a different species of dragon etched into the lids.

  He nodded.

  Hands shaking, I opened the display case of dragons.

  “What are you doing?” Ilina’s voice came from the doorway. “Mira, you can’t.”

  “We need to pay the captain. And it’s hard to say how much money we’ll need after this.” I removed a midnight-blue dragon whose wings were sprinkled with diamond dust, and another with real sapphires for eyes. When Aaru brought the boxes to me, I lifted the lids and wrapped the dragons in the silk scarves that were folded inside.

  Three dragons. Four. Five. Six.

  I picked out the most expensive dragons, hands trembling as I wound the lengths of silk to protect their outstretched wings and elegant necks. Then, Aaru nestled them into the boxes, adjusting scarves to pad the delicate creatures.

  Ilina looked torn as she tucked them into my bag between the clothes. “You don’t have to give them to the captain,” she said. “I know they’re important to you.”

  “To get our real dragons back, I’d give up every single one of these.”

  “What about jewelry? There’s that necklace—”

  I shook my head. “Gone. Anything of mine that would be worth bringing is with Tirta now. Everything else is in the vault, and we don’t have time to wait for that. We have to go now. Did you find Hristo?”

  “He’s downstairs.”

  “Good.” I pulled the bag’s strap across my chest and motioned everyone out.

  We moved as quickly as we could, finding Hristo already in the parlor with his backpack on and a sword hanging off his hip.

  Mother emerged from her room across the house, a heavy sack in hand. Zara was close on her heels, dispensing questions like birds chirped at morning. “Where are they going?” and “What’s the money for?” and “What was that noise earlier?”

  Ilina grabbed both of her packs off the sofa where she’d left them. “Let’s go.”

  “Mother,” I said. “We need a carriage to the harbor, and we can’t be seen.”

  “I’ll call for one.” She shoved the sack of coins at me and headed for the front door.

  A Luminary Guard was already there, her hand raised to knock.

  I scrambled out of sight, but I needn’t have worried. She wasn’t there for us.

  “Stay indoors,” said the guard. “The prominence is under lockdown. If you hear the signal, use the cliff stairs.”

  “What happened?” Mother asked. “What was that sound earlier?”

  “The council house.” The Luminary Guard’s voice shook a little. “It exploded.”

  “Is—”

  “They’re all dead.” The guard heaved a breath. “Every aide, every cleaner, every guard. And every Luminary Councilor who was inside. They’re all dead.”

  AARU

  One Day Before Arrest

  MY WORKERS’ GRUMBLES CLATTERED ALL AROUND Grace Community. The men were angry. On my behalf. On the behalf of their wives and daughters and sisters and neighbors. On behalf of women they’d never met.

  For days, tapped questions spread like sickness as my workers brought up the subject to their loved ones.

  Streams of families found their way to my house, and while wives offered Mother packets of rice and seeds and other items to help, husbands asked to speak with me in private.

  We met in the basement, ten of us, blasphemously close to Idris with our rebellious whispers.

  “It is unfair,” said one man.

  “Where does The Book of Silence say Aaru’s family must suffer not just loss, but also hunger because of that loss?”

  “It doesn’t.”

  “We will help,” said another. “Perhaps between all of us . . .”

  Their families were just as poor as mine. They had so little to give; how could we take?

  “We must think bigger,” I said. “Not just my family, but yours as well.”

  “What do you propose?”

  I lifted my copy of The Book of Silence to my chest. “This says, ‘Silence which brings harm is unholy.’ If we are to be faithful followers of Idris’s word, then by his book we are bound to speak.”

  “Speak?” said one. “To who?”

  “I don’t know,
” I admitted.

  Quiet rippled throughout the basement as the assembled men bowed their heads in contemplation or prayer.

  “Tomorrow,” I said, “I will go to the square. If I am alone, then I am alone. If you are with me, we will be stronger.”

  A man nodded, slowly. “As long as we are respectful,” he said. “We all have families to feed and none of us want to anger the leaders.”

  I gazed around the basement, meeting the other men’s eyes. “Strength through silence, brothers. Our presence will be our voice.”

  AT NOON THE following day, I arrived at the square to find at least five hundred men gathered in silence.

  They made a path for me to approach the High House, already rebuilt after the tremor, and as I stood ahead of them, I caught a glimpse of Dema in one of the windows. She turned away from me, but Kader emerged from within. He stared at us, waiting.

  We stood tall and did not make a sound.

  “What do you want?” As the community leader, he was permitted to speak aloud to anyone he liked.

  Custom dictated that I answer in quiet code, because Kader was my superior, and—perhaps—one day my father-in-law. ::Freedom.::

  Kader turned and went back through the new door. Because he was the leader, and he did not have to listen to me.

  Because he was the leader, and silence was a weapon he wielded against us.

  Because he was the leader, and our silence now benefitted him.

  Holy are the silent. But that creed had been written by men.

  Silence which brings harm is unholy. Those were Idris’s words.

  If I did not use my voice when it was truly necessary, why have a voice at all? I could be respectful. I could request consideration.

  But I would be heard.

  “Freedom,” I said.