The Long List Anthology Volume 5

by David Steffen

  When she speaks next, however, it’s with her usual nonchalance. “Will you teach me something new tonight?”

  You feel your body unspooling from lost tension. “You mean the last verse of the Twenty-two Laments of Matang-ayon?”

  “No! You know what I mean.”

  She should really be practicing her dancing and singing—she always forgets that last verse, no matter what you do. But ever since you made the mistake of teaching her the sword arts years ago, she has been preoccupied with learning nothing else. As with everything, you cannot say no. That first time, she plucked the dagger from your scabbard, and held it aloft in her fingers, like it was just another offering of fruit. Her eyes grew bright with the possibility of acquiring something that opposed tenderness. Something that let her be powerful rather than delicate. Respected, rather than revered.

  You’re skilled at this, aren’t you? You had never shown her, not til then. But you are the blacksmith’s daughter, and even after your mother’s passing, you continued to train with the village warriors. Someday, when you are no longer in the service of Anyag, you plan to join them. And there perhaps find another girl with bright eyes, who can sing silly songs with you, who can actually be yours, if only in secret.

  This, at least, is familiar territory. “Of course,” you say. But not out here, where someone might see. She keeps her blade in her fruit bowl, under the mangoes and bananas, the one sweetness you alone can offer: self-protection, even with the hope that she never has to use it.

  • • • •

  Anyag has a talent for the blade. It might be her quick steps from years of dancing, or the creativity born of being a captive. Tonight she gets in close enough that you strike her on the hip without thinking. She claps her hand to her mouth instantly, muffling a cry. You grip your weapon and crouch next to her, cursing yourself and the tight confines in which you spar. Her skin is hot to the touch. She makes a sound like “Tsst!” through her teeth, then immediately says, “Don’t. Apologize.”

  “But it will bruise…”

  “No one will see.” She touches your cheek, unaware how you melt. “I’m glad you’re taking me seriously.”

  “I always do,” you answer, mock offended. She meets your gaze. Look away, you plead silently, but she does not. In the end, you’re the one that drops your head; she removes her fingers from your face.

  The next day you blunt the blades you use to spar. A bruise you can cover; a gash would be too much.

  • • • •

  There is only one other binukot in your village, and she was married two summers ago—three days after her presentation—thus rescinding her status. Since then the village has hummed with anticipation for Anyag’s own coming-out. It is strange that the person you know best in the world is spoken of with such wonder.

  I’ve heard that her hair is darker than black, for it has never seen the sun…

  Her skin pale as the sand on the shores of Aman Puli…

  When she dances it must be like a diwata gracing our earth…

  They look to you, hungry for a tale, some inclination that they are right. You could spin so many threads for them from memory; you wouldn’t even need embellishments. But part of your duty is silence, keeping her a desirable mystery. “She is learning her epics well,” you say. You don’t add: her smile is like cool water after a burning day; her touch a suffering the skin yearns for anyway. You will love her from the moment you lay eyes on her, but even then, not half as much as I do.

  You have never spoken to the apid of the other girl. Freed, now, from her bonds, she tends to her family’s farm of root crops. You have sometimes thought of things you would like to ask her: did it hurt, when you said goodbye? Do you ever see her, now that she lives in the home of Seryong Baniig? Do you miss those days of servitude, teaching her poems and brushing her hair, or are you glad they are over? Does your existence now bring you peace?

  You fear that her answers will hurt. Not knowing, you are sure, hurts less.

  • • • •

  A week before Anyag’s presentation, a nobleman sails into town, his ornate boat calmly docked on the beach. He proceeds to your master’s house, standing by the gate with a cool-eyed confidence that hushes the world around him. He has no attendants, which is odd despite your village’s current peacekeeping policies. His robe is a deep blue threaded with silver, large sequins all down the sleeves and back, glinting fiercely in the sunlight. His chin is sharp as cut glass, and his thin lips curl in a resting smirk. There is no doubt what he has come for.

  His name is Lisoryo, and he has traveled from far away to make his intentions known.

  It’s a hot day when he arrives, and everyone melts in his presence. The other servants preen while they bring him chilled calamansi juice and boiled corn, shaved into a bowl and topped with grated coconut. Before dining, he rolls back his sleeves; your eyes trace the delicate pattern of his tattoos, finely-drawn scales from his elbows to his wrists. He looks up and catches your gaze, and your throat tightens. The lady of the house smiles with her mouth slightly open, so that he can see the gold in her teeth. The master of the house refuses to speak directly with him, as he does every other suitor, but studies the dowry the man has brought in a large wooden chest: six globes the color of no gem you have ever seen, a pearlescent white with shades of gray, beautiful enough to make the heart ache.

  “What are they?” Anyag’s mother asks.

  “Crystals,” he answers. His voice matches his face: quiet, smooth, with a resonance that gets into your bones. “They were bespelled by a witch in the southern sea, whom I traveled a great distance to barter with. I assure you that it would be impossible to find others like them. During the day they are merely beautiful, but at night, they give off enough light to brighten the whole village. Of course, I would need your daughter’s hand to prove this.” He shuts the chest, with a meaningful snap.

  You are called to introduce yourself, and to receive his letter for Anyag. There is not a trace of sweat on him despite the blistering sunlight filtering everywhere. You kneel, your head bent, until he asks you to show your face. A bead of sweat crawls from your hairline to your chin, and his eyes follow it languidly.

  “What is your name?”

  “Amira, sir.”

  “Amira. But you are only a child yourself. Can you polish a jewel and make her sparkle, being so young?” His eyes are the midnight black of the ocean when there is no starlight. Anyag would find them very poetic.

  “I descended from a family of smiths and priestesses. We were poor, but I learned to sing the epics before I could speak, and I have sought to enrich my jewel by being her dearest friend.”

  “Her dearest friend.” He seems to savor the sound of his own tongue. “How well does your jewel recite her epics, Amira?”

  You should lie. Terribly. Her voice breaks above a certain note, and she always forgets her last verse.

  “Very well, sir.”

  “I look forward to hearing her, then.” He holds out a letter, which you take. His nails are very long, filed nearly to a knifepoint. It must be a foreign custom. This close, you can sense strong magic on him, but not like that of your village, the soil and storms you carry in your blood. His magic is deeper, scavenged from the depths of places you’ve never trespassed, with edges of salt. You tuck the letter into your belt, assure him that Anyag shall read it tonight, and withdraw to a corner of the room, where you wait for the visit to end. It lasts forever, while he describes his realm, his great conquests there, how Anyag will live like a princess beside him, and have her every dream fulfilled. He will stay until her presentation, and he will not back down.

  When he finally stands to leave, his eyes find yours again. He smiles, briefly, holding your gaze. For a moment, it feels like you are drowning, as you choke on air, on the knowledge that you’ve lost.

  • • • •

  Not that she is a prize to be won. The trouble is, you can’t help thinking of her as yours—and yourself as hers. I
f only you could erase all your memories together. She calls you her best friend, months after you start looking after her. Her last maid, a soft and simple older woman, was let go after she was found with child. Someone your age might be a better companion, so long as you can keep her out of trouble. You are nine and she is seven. Your hands are rough and calloused, and hers are soft as a newborn’s. Your hair is short and curly like your mother’s, while hers comes down to her waist in one shimmering sheet, which she constantly twists into knots.

  You are an orphan and have no home, but you come from good blood—despite the disease, of course, but at least it is not transmittable. Your last living great-aunt has you stand before the lord and lady and recite the Twenty-two Laments of Matang-ayon, and then display the first six movements of Soaring Eagle, Claws Outstretched. Afterward they speak to her in quiet tones and hand her a cloth bag that tinkles. They take you in, for your knowledge of blades and epics both; you are promised freedom after Anyag’s presentation, with enough gold to reopen your mother’s forge if you wish. She is a binukot and has no other friends; until her partner is chosen she is to remain in her tower, never to see the sun. She may as well be an orphan: even her parents do not visit her unless necessary. You are lonely and she is lonely, mirrors to each other, as you walk the same black pool of wondering why you exist.

  You do not like her then, but you understand duty. Looking after Anyag is a distraction you can direct all your efforts to, numbing enough that you don’t have to think about loss.

  “Amira? Why do you call me your jewel?” In the candlelight her eyes are luminous. She is missing one of her front teeth. You are writing out an epic poem together, and she is already bored.

  “Because that’s what you are.” Stories are easy, and they give life order, a piece of driftwood to cling to in the storm of grief. But even stories must be accurate. “Because that’s what you must be, for you are a binukot.”

  “So what are you?”

  You blink in surprise. No one has shown this much interest in you, not since mother.

  “Me? I’m your… hmm. I teach you what I know. I stay with you, and protect you from bad things.”

  She pokes her tongue through the gap in her teeth. “Hmm. Sword,” she says.

  “What?”

  “You’re my sword, then. I am your jewel, and you are my sword.” It is so simple and easy; it must be true. “Amira, my sword,” she repeats, sing-song, while reaching for your hand. Twining her fingers in yours, you have a feeling of finding purchase on land at last. Belonging, if not to this fine house, than at least to this room, this girl.

  In the years that follow those words become your guide. The promise you will keep until you can keep it no longer. The ache you carry every time you are near her and not.

  • • • •

  “What’s wrong?” she asks, seconds after opening the door. You curse how easily she can read you.

  “It was very hot today. I couldn’t train like I wanted.” To distract her, you take the letter from your basket and hold it up. “A new suitor came, from far away. This is for you.”

  “Did you not like him?”

  What you think doesn’t matter. You did not miss the long look your lord and lady exchanged, after he left; how your master touched his wife’s arm, while she bent and murmured how this suitor lived so far away. He embraced her, and said perhaps that was for the best. “He brought a beautiful dowry—magic crystals the like of which I’d never seen. And he had fine robes, and the most intricate tattoos, like fish scales on his forearms.” You start laying out dinner: rice porridge with two teaspoons of salted fish, a lighter meal for this final week that the lady insists on, so that Anyag may appear irresistibly slim at the time of her presentation. Anyag used to complain, but does no longer. She understands inevitability.

  You try not to watch her reading the letter, as you pour out mint tea, then slice a mango lengthwise and crosswise.

  She folds it, frowning. The moon tonight is faint; in the faded candlelight you can’t tell if she is blushing or not.

  Silence gnaws holes into the air until you ask: “What did you think?”

  She glances at you, and you are chilled by her look—piercingly remote, as haughty as she must be on her presentation day. Already not yours. But she was never yours.

  “What does it matter to you, what I think?”

  You could say nothing, but she has asked you a question, and in delivering that look it’s as if Anyag has reminded you of your place, which she has not done except in the rarest of moments. Suddenly you are seized with a desire to end everything, tonight. If you break your own heart, at least no one else has that option: not the gorgeous Lisoryo, or the lord and lady, or Anyag herself. You tip your head in apology. “I shouldn’t have asked. It does not concern me.”

  “Right.” Anyag exhales, then puts the letter away and takes her seat for dinner, not looking at you. You eat together in stony silence. This is safer. If she is angry the next week will be easier—saying goodbye, parting ways. You are thinking so hard about what you’ll do once the presentation is over that you almost don’t hear her saying: “I’m your shackle. I keep you bound here, and it makes you suffer. You think I haven’t noticed, how you drag your feet around me, how your eyes are always blank and faraway? How you don’t talk to me anymore?” She scrapes her spoon around her bowl, voice thin. “I know you can’t wait for this to be over. But I wish you could still pretend to care about me, at least until then.”

  Your lips part, through your shock. “I do care—”

  “Because you’re my sword.” Her eyes are ablaze. She isn’t sad; she’s angry. “Because it’s your duty. Well, it won’t be for much longer.” She smiles then, a different smile than every other night. You realize that for all her lighthearted banter and dreaminess and passion for practicing with a dagger, Anyag is brittle; she’s been crumbling away in the furnace of what’s about to happen, and you were too wrapped up in misery, too busy protecting yourself, to notice. Anyag drops her spoon into the bowl. She has not touched her food. “Amira. I am going to be wed to a stranger. I am moving from this cage to another, more elaborate prison. You will be freed, at last, but not me. Not me.”

  Her eyes brim with tears. She turns her head, because your jewel—your best friend, princess, home—has always been proud. At once your choices, safety—your wreck of a heart don’t matter. You skirt the table and fall to your knees beside her. You wrap your arms around her. She pushes you away.

  “Don’t act,” she says.

  “I’m not acting.”

  She keeps shoving you back, her hand on your collarbone. “Then answer: What does it matter to you?”

  It matters because I love you. Because I can’t bear to let anything hurt you. Because I have no choice, because it won’t make a difference, and I am weak. I could only ever teach you weakness.

  Words escape you. In the end, the answer is in your swiftly pounding heart, your fingers threading through her hair til they rest at the top of her skull to turn her face towards you, ignoring how she pushes her elbows against your chest. You look into her burning eyes, lean in close. You press your lips to hers, still distantly hoping she’ll hate you afterward, so that you can take the years of falling for her and coil them into a ball in your chest and say goodbye to them forever. At the same time you are hoping she understands what you’re trying to tell her: you never wanted this; she is the most precious thing to you and you are a coward; your only hope is that somehow you can still make things right.

  Anyag freezes. She stops pushing, and the lack of force makes you fall against her. Your hands splay on either side of her, clutching the table for balance; your heart thuds against hers. You pull away, ready to slice yourself open with your dagger if she asks—maybe even if she doesn’t.

  “Amira,” she says, quietly. “Do you mean that?”

  You nod. Tears crowd your eyes, but you don’t let them fall; you’ve shown enough weakness, tonight.

 
Anyag sighs. She places her thumb on your mouth, feels your lips tremble beneath her touch. When she smiles, it’s different than before—weary and gentle, like she knows how easily she can break you.

  “Then let’s fight for our freedom,” she whispers. “Yours and mine.”

  • • • •

  Did you ever hope for it before?

  No—it’s not like you. You stick to what you know. The stories you shared, the songs your great aunts burned into your memory, the poems you and Anyag made up together. Not once did you speak of freedom. The word carries with it so much weight, even as it edges tantalizingly close to betrayal—and misery, even, for if things go wrong you could lose everything.

  Why had you never dreamt of it? Why did you never think you could possess it, too?

  Of course Anyag has dreamed of freedom; has been thinking of this since forever.

  She has never seen the blue sky or the sun, yet her visions for the horizon extend much farther than you could ever fathom. She sees a world that has no limits, a world even you could own.

  • • • •

  It will only work, Anyag says, once they believe she has left with her new husband. The best time to escape is following the marriage feast, just before they set sail; to save face, he will not dare to let anyone know that his bride has left him, and her parents will not have to bear the burden of shame. By then the other suitors will have departed and the town will be muzzy from three days of drinking.

  “And how do you know who you’ll leave with?”

  She smiles. “Isn’t it obvious? He must be the one my parents admired best, for his dowry and conquests and confidence. You must choose.”