“She is—” Teldaru began, but Haldrin stopped him with a glance and a, “She will tell me herself.”
Teldaru’s scowl was enough; I took a deep breath and said, “I am much better.” Sweetly, lightly, as if there were no darkness, no bucket in the corner, no Teldaru standing against the closed door.
The king smiled. “I am glad to hear it.”
“Yes,” I said. It was difficult to think quickly and speak slowly. “And because I feel so much better, I am wondering when I will be permitted to go outside.”
Haldrin looked over his shoulder at Teldaru again. “She has not been out?”
Teldaru shook his head. “She is not ready. The reason she has improved at all is that she’s been inside, protected from upheaval and excitement.”
“I’m fine now.” My voice was climbing. “I am. I would like to go out, please. My king.”
“She really should not.” Teldaru was still speaking evenly. That regretful expression—but his black eyes were on me, and I felt them like weight, like cold. “She is right: she has improved. And when I am certain that she is strong enough, she will leave this room. But not before then.” He lowered his voice, murmured, “And Hal, you cannot want to risk her standing in the courtyard screaming about . . . well. You cannot want this.”
No, I thought as Haldrin turned back to me. Please.
“Also,” Teldaru continued, “I have selfish reasons for wishing her truly well. I believe she is a strong Otherseer, and I will have much to teach her, when she is ready. And isn’t this what you want, Nola?” He smiled; the wolf with jewelled teeth. “Isn’t this really what you’ve always wanted?”
I sat. I was squeezing the sheets so tightly that I could not feel my fingers.
“Very well.” The king rose. The chair scraped along the flagstones. “But only a little longer, Daru, yes? We don’t want to weaken her in a different way by keeping her from sunlight, and from other people.”
They left together. The bolt slammed home.
Teldaru returned alone not long after.
I pressed my back against the wall and wrapped my arms around my pulled-up legs. I prepared to watch him watch me from across the room as he usually did—but he took three long strides and was there with me, kneeling on the edge of my pallet.
“I couldn’t do this before,” he said, softly. “Couldn’t come near you, speak to you. I knew that if I did, I would kill you.” He took a strand of my hair, rubbed it between his fingers. Hooked it gently behind my ear. “And I did want to kill you, Nola. Especially when I first saw you in Haldrin’s study and realized what you had done. But I commanded myself to wait. To be calm. Because you will serve me even better, now, than you would have before.”
“I will not,” I said, my voice low and steady.
He seemed not to have heard me. “How did you do it? How did you get out of the house?”
I smiled at him; showed him my teeth and my narrowed, gleaming eyes. I said nothing.
He shrugged. “It does not matter. You are mine.”
“I am not,” I said, and he threw his head back and shouted a laugh.
“Oh, Nola! Mistress Defiant Seer. It will be such a pleasure to break you.”
He leaned forward. There was nowhere for me to go; I twisted my upper body, ground my cheek against the wall. He grasped my chin and pulled it slowly around. I was facing him and he was closer, the dark water of his eyes moving, moving. Closer yet—and his mouth was on mine, warm and sweet. I felt a brush of teeth and tongue against my own closed lips. I thought of Bardrem kissing me beneath the courtyard tree. Carrots, I thought desperately, and porridge; he tasted like that. He, Bardrem, so thin and bony—but it was just a memory, weak and slippery and gone.
“Nola.” Teldaru’s lips slid along mine, and down to the hollow of my throat. He must have been able to feel my blood throbbing there, beneath, giving me away as my rigid arms and neck did not. “Dearest girl.” I felt his teeth and his breath and they tickled and I had to squirm, had to moan a little, as if I were some other girl without will. I felt him smile. He drew back slowly, traced my mouth with his thumbs. My mouth was wet and my skin was hot—probably glowing with heat, though my insides were so cold.
He rose and looked down at me. He was not smiling any more. “It begins tomorrow,” he said, and turned away.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
He brought a mirror and a knife. So much gold: the mirror and its filigree rim; the knife’s hilt; the sleeves and hem of his tunic. His hair.
“So will I be playing Laedon, and you me?” I spoke lightly (I’d been practising) and held out my arm, turned so that its pale, smooth inside was toward him. My veins branched, green and swollen-looking; I could almost feel them, aching as my chest was.
He was silent for a long time—so long that my arm began to tremble. I lowered it. Idiot girl, I thought. Idiot, idiot; be quiet now, and wait like he does.
“I have stories to tell you.” His voice was gentle. My flesh rose in goosebumps, as if he had touched me. “Like our lessons at the house—only these will be far more diverting for both of us.” He ran his finger over the filigree and gazed at me. I said nothing, this time, though I wanted to. “I won’t listen!” I wanted to cry, and I swore to myself that this was true, that I would somehow have the strength to deafen myself to his words. “Just do whatever you intend to do!”—another shout that never left my throat. “Just hurt me and be done with it. . . .”
“The first story is about girls.” He grinned. I wondered, wildly, if I would be able to use the even, glinting surfaces of his teeth to Othersee. “All stories are, I suppose. But these girls . . . Sisters. A princess and a seer.” He turned the knife over and it made a quiet clinking sound against the mirror. “Zemiya and Neluja. Strange, savage names, no? Like your Yigranzi’s. Dark-skinned island girls, like your Yigranzi.” Another smile, this one slower. “I left just a little of her; did you like that? Just enough for lingering and pain. But those others, now. Those sisters from Belakao.”
Zemiya was bold and Neluja was shy; you could see this right away.
Teldaru was fourteen and Haldrin was nine and they had been waiting all morning for the Belakaoan delegation to arrive. Which it finally did, around noon. The Belakaoans must have planned it for this time because they wanted the sun to be at its brightest, to catch all the colours. Haldrin was far too obvious about his excitement, as always—jumping from foot to foot, leaning halfway over the tower wall, waving at the procession as if he knew them all. When his nurse scolded him he pouted, but a few minutes later he was leaning out into the air again, babbling back at Teldaru. “Daru, look at that—the big man must be the king, but he’s wearing a sleeping shift! And those fans—they’re so shiny—are they made of shells? Their clothes are so green—and I’ve never seen that kind of green before; it’s more like yellow, but not exactly. Their skin is even darker than I thought it would be. Daru, Daru—look at those drums! How have they carried them so far? Why didn’t they sink the boats? I’m so glad they’re not our enemies any more!”
Teldaru noticed the sisters then, even before the delegation arrived in the Great Hall. He did not know they were sisters, nor did he know their names, as he stood at the tower’s top, but forever after he remembered: Neluja was tall and slim and staring straight ahead of her. The cloth over her hair was dark orange, tied in a knot at the back of her neck. Zemiya, beside her, looked as if she was dancing. She was shorter than her sister, but was more like a woman: high, full, firm breasts, high, full, firm buttocks; her legs all curves over muscle. There was a wind, so it was easy to see these details: the cloth of her long, shapeless dress kept blowing and clinging. Her hair was tied with jewelled ribbons into what seemed like hundreds of little knots. She was looking everywhere—even up, at the Sarsenayans who were waiting. Her teeth gleamed, far too white, surrounded by her skin that was far too brown.
There was much talking, in the Great Hall. The Belakaoan king (moabu, as they called him) spoke Sarsena
yan with an accent that sounded like poured honey, which made the familiar words difficult to understand. Teldaru hardly listened, anyway (first official visit . . . years of hostility followed by years of friendship . . . trade, trade, trade . . .)—until the moabu introduced the girls.
“Moabe Zemiya,” he said, and the knot-haired one stepped forward, smiling her too-white smile. “My youngest child. And ispa Neluja, my second youngest.” The tall one also stepped forward, but she did not smile. “My son is at home. He is sixteen, old enough to play at ruling for awhile.” The big man turned his eyes to Teldaru and Haldrin, who were standing together, as they always did, at the foot of King Lorandel’s throne. “And these,” the moabu said, “must be the sons of the king of Sarsenay.”
King Lorandel shook his head. “No, brother king. Not both—just this one—Haldrin. He is my only child. I lost two others to fever, years ago, before the death of my queen. No, this”—gesturing at Teldaru, who was glad he was standing beside Haldrin, so short and slight even with his riot of white-gold curls—“is Teldaru. He is an Otherseer—a student—and a great favourite of his teacher, and of my son.”
Teldaru’s teacher, old man Werwick, glowered. He was mean-spirited, and probably hated Teldaru nearly as much as he hated Belakaoans.
“Otherseer,” said the moabu, and frowned into his bushy black beard.
“Visions,” Werwick snapped. “Of future time, or past time.”
The moabu smiled and set one enormous hand on his daughter Neluja’s shoulder (he had to reach up to do this). “Ah! Ispu. And she is ispa. Visions, yes.”
“Well, then!” Lorandel said as Werwick, beside him, turned an unhealthy shade of red. “Two royal children and two seers! They must go off together and share these things—perhaps to the seers’ courtyard. Haldrin, Teldaru: show the girls the way.”
The seers’ courtyard: so lovely, with its trees, its pool, its snaking pathways.
“Are these your biggest trees?” Zemiya, her hands on her hips (cloth pulling taut over curves).
“Yes,” said Haldrin. He was staring up at her—such a child, so innocent and protected—he had never seen any of the horrors Teldaru had, in the lower city.
“Hmph.” Zemiya was walking now. Neluja was behind them all, her face raised to the sky. “And this,” Zemiya went on, pointing to the pool, “is it your only water?”
“We have wells too,” Haldrin said, “and fountains, and there’s a river just outside the city, and—”
Zemiya laughed. The first of her many laughs—low and throaty and scornful.
“You speak Sarsenayan very well,” Teldaru said, as Haldrin scuffed at the path with his toe.
“Of course. Our father has us learn the languages of all the countries we’ll conquer.”
“Zemiya.” Neluja sounded tired.
“Really?” Teldaru said. “And how will you conquer them? With sharpened shells and fierce warrior fish?”
The whites of her eyes were like her teeth: unnaturally white, as if some artist had made them out of polished marble. The centres of her eyes were dark brown and black. Her lashes were very thick, and she batted them at him. “Come to Belakao,” she said with cloying sweetness, “and I will command our minstrel fish to sing for you.”
He tried to smile back at her, casually, but the smile felt more like a grimace. He was angry—had been angry since he saw her dancing up to the castle gate as if she had always known Sarsenay. A spoiled Belakaoan girl—what had she ever known but island savagery? “There are fish here,” he said, gesturing to the pool. He was speaking to Neluja now. “You can only see them at night.”
“Then perhaps I will come tonight to see them,” Zemiya said. When she looked down—with false coyness, as she was doing now—her eyelashes were invisible against her skin.
He waited for her until long after the moon had set. He waited and felt like a fool—for the longer he sat by the pool, the more it might seem that he wanted her to come. At last he stood, disgusted with himself and furious at her—for she had never intended to come; had only wanted him to—
“Ispu Teldaru.”
She was next to him and he had not heard her. Her feet were bare, and her arms too, even though the air was cool and she must be accustomed to hot nights. Her dress was long and dark, but so thin and tight that when she turned to face him he could see her puckered nipples and the hollow of her navel.
“Don’t call me that.” His voice was too loud, but it did not matter; no one ever came here so late.
“Why not? It’s what you are, no? You see time”—she was so close; he smelled the fragrance of a flower he did not know—“you see the currents that drive the great tide, just like Neluja. . . .”
“Currents,” he scoffed. “Great tide—you must mean the Pattern.”
“Words,” she said, leaning even closer. Her breasts were brushing the front of his tunic. Her breath was sweet, or maybe it was her skin—whatever it was, he wanted to take a gulp of pure air that was not there.
But then it was. She stepped away from him. “So where are these fish?” A normal tone, without mystery—though the lilt of her words made him feel dizzy.
“There. Wait; you’ll see them.”
They were tiny, hard to see at first—but once you’d glimpsed one you saw all the rest, darting, glowing faintly green. When Teldaru had been brought to the castle as a boy, he had sat here for hours, entranced (and he had always fallen asleep at his lessons, afterward).
“Those? Those are your wondrous night fish?” She looked at him. The whites of her eyes were greenish, too. He imagined her flashing teeth in the mouth of a much larger fish—something sleek and ugly. “In my country we have crabs that are red under the moon and come up onto the beach in thousands for one night in the storm season. We have—I don’t know how you say it—things with long arms and bodies that change colour every time you blink. But,” she said, glancing back at the pool, “I suppose your tiny fish are fine. For this sad place, anyway.”
“You . . . you can’t . . .” he sputtered, clenching his fists, and she laughed. Again that laugh, rich and mocking—and her dark flesh, her woman’s hips and breasts that would be dark too, maybe even the nipples, and her strange, dizzying smell—
Her body was soft and hard at the same time. He ran his hands down her back until they were at her hips and then he pulled her up against him. She yielded. She was the one who opened her mouth on his. It was her tongue that forced his lips open. He tasted her and wanted not to; he thrust her dress up until he felt only the muscled smoothness of her thighs, and no Sarsenayan girl had felt like this—none of the many who had yielded to him before, in the lower city or in the beds of the castle. She made a low, growling noise that he felt in his own mouth and through his chest. He pushed her dress higher and one of his hands found her breast, and he did not want to, but he had to taste it too—had to move his head away and down—
Pain. Her fingers raking his cheek; her teeth tearing at his neck. He shouted and stumbled backward. For a moment she was before him, standing tall, taking up all his vision—some terrible night beast, glinting and dark. Then she spun and ran.
“She ran from me. She knew, even then, that she should fear me.”
“I don’t believe you,” I said. “I don’t believe anything you tell me.”
Teldaru pouted, though his eyes were grinning. “You don’t? Truly? Well, this pains me terribly—for is it not important and comforting to be believed?”
He seemed to be expecting an answer. I stayed silent.
“As a seer, Nola, would you not say that others’ belief in your words is vital?”
Still silent. I thought I was managing to keep the confusion from my face.
“You will understand,” he said—for he saw it, of course. My confusion, and probably also my fear. “Soon. When you are transformed, and after I have told you more stories.”
He set mirror and knife on the floor and rose. There was a length of rope in his hand. Perhaps he
had had it in the pouch at his belt, or perhaps it had been under the mirror—but it was the first I had seen of it, and its appearance seemed like some kind of enchantment.
When he sat beside me on the pallet I saw that it was, in fact, two lengths of rope, one longer than the other. “Do not struggle,” he said, “and do not scream. No one will come.”
He bound my ankles. I did not move while he knelt by me, doing this, but when he lifted the shorter rope to my hands I lunged at him, snapping my teeth. He drew swiftly back and I laughed, giddy, terrified, trying not to care. “I would like Zemiya,” I said, and then he slapped me so hard that I could not say anything else.
He knotted the rope around my wrists very tightly, but I did not wince. He bound them behind my back, which hurt my shoulders and neck terribly, right away. I stared at him, when he was done. A trussed animal awaiting the knife—which he lifted, along with the mirror, and brought back to me.
“Now then, Nola,” he said, and sliced my dress from neck to waist.
My shoulders, my belly, the tender place beneath my breasts. He touched them lightly, tracing lines and circles with the knife’s point, his eyes and hand steady. When he finally cut, he did it so gently that I thought there should be no pain, somehow—but it was vast and red. I screamed, because the pain made me forget my defiance, but no one came. “The girl is mad,” he had probably said to whoever might have passed by the door. “All my efforts with her will be in vain if we are interrupted. Do not come near, no matter what you hear from within.”
I stopped screaming and panted, instead. I gazed down at my blood, which looked darker than any shade of red, in the dimness. Snakes and ribbons; paths on my skin. I wondered briefly whether he would see my Paths in the same way as I had seen Laedon’s. Whether they would look like roads, or like things I’d never seen. Then I wondered nothing, for he was bending over the mirror, angling it so that I was in its gold, and his black eyes were fixed and Other.
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