by L M R Clarke
Her eyes rose to the moons, which were little more than slivers, and their light glinted on Rel’s face.
Emmy swallowed and nodded.
“I can understand why you did,” she said. “Zecha encouraged me to run away, to leave Bellim and Metakala and go find somewhere I could belong.” Her tone turned cold. “I never thought such a place existed.”
Rel nodded. “Zecha sounds like a good friend,” she said. “Now I understand why you worry for him so much.”
Emmy’s mouth was dry, but her eyes were wet. “He is a good friend,” she said, “the best I’ve ever had.”
Rel reached out to pat one of her hands. The cold surged again. “Good friends are like gemstones,” she said. “They are rare, and to be cherished.”
Blinking against her tears, Emmy brought her sleeve up to her eyes. “What did you do after you left?” she asked, welcoming the diversion from her thoughts about Zecha.
“I did many things,” Rel said. “I travelled to many places. I went south to the Great Forests, and then out to the coasts, smelling the salt air of the Easterlies and Westerlies. I went north to the Kingdom of Khin, and lived with the Khinish in their mountains for a time. They’re not as unwelcoming as is said of them. But my feet always wanted to move, so I never stayed in one place. I even passed through the Great Northern Range.” She paused. Her eyes unfocused, like she was peering into her own memory. “That was where I met the best of all my friends.”
Emmy blinked. “Who?”
Rel closed her eyes, and breathed as if she could still smell the clear air of the mountains. She ignored Emmy’s question and continued.
“I walked through the Range. I climbed sheer ice faces. I lived.” She opened her eyes again, and turned to Emmy. “The best thing that happened was the day I met my friend and the Uloni.”
Eyeridges pulling, Emmy tilted her head to the side. There was that word again. Uloni. It was strange on the tongue, entirely unfamiliar. “That’s what you said to me before,” she said. “How had I survived the attack on the Uloni—what does it mean?”
Rel fell silent for a moment and simply looked at Emmy. Emmy shifted. It was as if Rel was peering beyond her flesh, right to her bones.
“Emmy, your parents were Uloni,” Rel said, gesturing at her skin and armor. “Your colors are only found in them.”
Emmy slumped back, hands pressing into the crisp grass.
“My parents?” she asked. “I never knew my parents. I lived with my mistress, Madame Krodge. I didn’t think anyone looked like me. I thought...” She broke off. “I thought I was a freak. Krodge said so, that I was deformed.”
“You are no freak, nor are you deformed,” Rel said. “You are Uloni.”
The word twisted in her mind. Uloni. Emmy’s heart pumped. A cold sweat broke on her brow.
“There are others like me?” she asked. “I’m not the only one like this?” She sat forward, pressing her claws to her knees. “Tell me about them, Rel,” she said. “Please.”
Rel plucked another nightshroom from the ring and deposited it into the basket. She did it again and again, the movement methodical.
“When I went to Uloni and met my friend, it was the middle of Vhaun, nearly two cycles ago. Vhaun is cold enough in the lowlands, but in the mountains it’s unbearable.” She suppressed a shiver. “The higher I climbed, the worse the snow became. As I was driven further and further into the barren wasteland, I thought I was going mad.”
She paused, her claws poised to pluck another shroom.
“But what pressed me onward was the rumour of a village full of strange folk. They hid themselves from the outside world, admitting few to their realm. It was said they lived by an ancient religion, and that they loved and tolerated all folk. I so desperately wanted to find someone who would look past my differences and see me for...me.”
There was silence as Emmy hung on her every word. What Rel said spoke to her core, and put into words the longing Emmy too possessed.
“What did you find?” Emmy asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
“I found that it was real.” Rel’s voice fell, as if speaking in the presence of a priestess or even a goddess. “They saw me and allowed me past their gates. And inside was a beauty unrivalled anywhere else. Everything was white and sparkling. They carved such beautiful things from the ice—huge sculptures, perfect orbs that caught the sun’s meager light and lit up the whole village. And the folk... The folk looked so different. Strange. They looked like...” Rel ducked her head for a moment, as if catching on a careless word. “They looked like you.”
A shiver rattled down Emmy’s spine. She pressed her claws into the crisp grass. “The Uloni,” she said. “I’m one of them.”
Rel nodded and reached for Emmy’s hand. After a moment, Emmy cautiously unfurled her claws, allowing Rel to take them.
“You are,” Rel said, “and you are rare. There could only have been twenty-score Uloni, and they were devout. In the center of the village was a temple, painted white, with a roof open at the top. Every Uloni went there daily to praise their god. They worshipped an ancient goddess named Meia, whom they called the Grandmother of the World.”
Emmy’s brow furrowed again. “Not Nunako?” she asked. “Not Ethay and Apago? Not even Dorai?”
“No,” Rel said. “Meia was something else. Something pure and wondrous.” A wry grin crossed her face, highlighted by the silver of the moons. “Just like my friend.” She sighed, patting Emmy’s claws. “I loved that place. There was something special there, something more than I’d ever experienced before. When I went to their temple, it was like my mind’s eye was opened to the truth. I...” She faltered. “I never wanted to leave.”
“Then why did you?” Emmy asked. “Why didn’t you stay?”
For a moment Rel said nothing. Beyond the play of shadows on her face, Emmy could see something more. There was something so closed about her expression it made Emmy’s guts tighten. “What happened?” she asked, her voice low.
For another moment Rel wouldn’t meet Emmy’s eyes. But eventually she met her gaze.
“The prayer bell sounded for morning worship. My friend and I went to the temple. It was full, as everyone attended every service. We raised our arms to the sky so our prayers could reach Meia. But...” Rel paused, as if overwhelmed by memory. “I smelled smoke. That was odd, for they were careful not to bring flame into the temple. The smell grew stronger and stronger, and then I saw the smoke begin to rise. The temple was aflame.”
Emmy’s gut twisted with fear as Rel went on.
“We tried to get out, but the doors were barred. Unwelcome outsiders had entered the village. They locked us in and intended to burn us alive.” Rel took a shuddering breath. “You could taste the panic. The smoke was so acrid I could hardly breathe. The flames licked over the edge of the roof, ringing us in flames. There was so much screaming... Then the walls collapsed. I was pinned beneath a beam, sure that I was dead. I started to pray. I swore I would do anything if Meia would let me live. There was a terrible shudder when I uttered those words. Then there was silence, just silence, and everything around me fell away.”
The pause that followed was heavy.
“And then?” Emmy asked.
Rel looked away. When she looked back, her eyes were dark.
“They were all dead,” she said. “All of them. I only survived because my friend saved me. She managed to free us, but we were the only ones. There were bodies everywhere, burned and charred. Every last Uloni was gone. And the outsiders looted everything. All that was left were the smoking corpses of folk I had come to know as friends.”
Emmy’s throat was dry, and her eyes brimmed with sorrow for a people she had never known. “I’m so sorry for your loss, Rel,” she said.
Shaking her head, Rel placed a palm to Emmy’s cheek. Once more there was a flash of cold. A sudden wind whipped up.
“All is not lost,” Rel said, “because you are here.”
Emmy tried to
pull back, but couldn’t. “I don’t understand—” she began.
Rel cut across her, just as she had when she’d closed off conversation several days before. “You were brought to me not just because you were an apothecary, but because of how you look,” she said. “You must have been there, a youngling not long hatched. But how did you survive?”
Emmy’s whole body froze under Rel’s touch.
“I don’t know,” she said. Her chest tightened, as if the pressure to recall past events choked her. “I don’t remember it at all. I didn’t know anything about the Uloni—or me—until you, and—” She stopped, her throat closed.
“No matter,” Rel said. “Tonight is a night for me to give knowledge, not to receive it.” She paused for a moment. When she spoke again, her voice was quiet but unwavering. “There’s more to this story. I didn’t tell you why I was welcomed by the Uloni. I didn’t tell you who my friend was.”
“You didn’t,” Emmy said. Her voice trembled, but she carried on. “You didn’t tell me why the strange wind blew when your eyes glowed blue, or what the coldness of your touch means. But I want to know, Rel. Tell me. Who is your friend?”
“She’s everything,” Rel breathed. “She saved me from the fire. She saved me from myself. I pledged my life to her. I’m here because of her—not just that I’m still alive, but that I’m waiting in this Althemerian encampment. She asked me to wait here.”
“To wait for what?” Emmy asked.
Rel favored her with a benevolent smile. The crescent moons sparkled in her eyes. “To wait for you.”
Emmy tried to shake her head, but it was held firmly in place by Rel’s hand. “But why?” she asked. “Why me? Why in the camp?”
Rel released Emmy’s face and planted both hands on her shoulders.
“My friend knows things and does things I cannot understand,” she said, “but I trust her. She saved my life. The Althemerians talk of debts and bonds. For me, it isn’t like that. Duty binds me to her, my duty to help her find what she needs. And what she needs is you.”
Emmy, her head released, was able to shake it this time. “I still don’t understand,” she said. “What’s so special about me? Other than being...Uloni. It just means I have different colors.”
“It’s much more than that,” Rel said. “You’re a full-blood Uloni. You’re a rare gem. There is power within you, power that my friend will unlock. That’s why you feel the coldness. That’s why you were able to save your friend’s life when he should have perished on that boat. You’re not of this world, Emmy. Uloni are special creatures with a strong connection to the world of the goddesses.”
A question burned on Emmy’s tongue, even amid the avalanche of information Rel had given her. “If the Uloni were so elusive and didn’t like outsiders, why did they let you in?” she asked. “It doesn’t make sense.”
Rel released Emmy’s shoulders and sat back on her haunches. She looked at Emmy and offered a sheepish smile. “I didn’t seem strange to my folk just because I wanted different things.”
Closing her eyes, Rel schooled her face with the hardest concentration. She crossed her claws and arms in front of her face. There was silence for a moment. Then came the freezing wind.
Rel opened her eyes once more. The more Emmy stared, the more Rel’s eyes began to shine. What began as a deep green, almost invisible in the darkness, grew to a fierce and icy glow.
Emmy’s mouth fell open as the wind whipped, and Rel morphed and changed. The dark green tinge of her scales drained away, leaving behind a purple wash. It was paler than Emmy’s, grayer, yet still as strange. Her pinkish skin blanched to a sickly blue. Emmy’s jaw hung loose.
“Rel!” she squeaked. “You’re like me!
Rel gave a small sigh as her fronds turned from green to black, as if her head had been dipped in ink.
“I didn’t fit in with my folk because I wasn’t one of them,” she said. “My father was Belfoni, but my mother was Uloni—that’s why I can change my colors. The Uloni are powerful, Emmy. That means you are powerful.”
Emmy blinked and blinked again. She reached out, hands trembling. When her talons settled on Rel’s face, she felt flesh beneath them. It wasn’t a phantom.
It was real.
“My friend didn’t welcome me simply because I was lost,” Rel said. “She welcomed me because I was one of her folk. She’s a powerful and strange creature who’s not entirely of this world. She wanted me to be a Heart, but I couldn’t do it.”
Rel dropped her gaze. Emmy narrowed her eyes. A heart? What did that mean?
“I couldn’t do what my friend needed,” Rel continued, “but I knew her needs were great. She said she was running out of time, so I stayed to help her. In return, my friend looked after me and taught me some of what she knew, including how to change my colors. It has been helpful, as I’m sure you can understand.”
Emmy nodded, thoughts of hearts disappearing as desire overtook her. “If I could change my colors forever, I would,” she said. “I would have changed a long time ago and never gone back, so folk wouldn’t hate me just for how I look.”
Rel patted Emmy’s shoulder once more. “Before long, you’ll understand why you are the way you are,” she said. “And before long, folk will appreciate you for you.”
“But why me?” Emmy pressed. “Why am I this way? Why will folk accept me?”
Rel let her arm fall away. “Because, Emmy,” she said, “my friend needs you to be a Heart. You will guide the Hand of the Goddess.”
There was that word again. Heart. Emmy furrowed her brow. “You can change your colors,” she said. “Why can’t you do the rest, whatever the rest might be?”
Rel looked at her hands, willing her skin and armor to change from faded blue and purple to green and pink, then back again.
“As I said, my father was Belfoni. Thus, I’m only a half-blood. I can do some things, such as change my colors. But I can’t twist into the depths of the spirits like full-blood Uloni can. Like you can.”
Emmy shook her head, her lifelong self-deprecation bubbling to the surface. “I can’t do any of that,” she said. “I won’t be able to. I’m not special. I’m just...me. Nothing.”
“Give it time,” Rel said. “You’ll know much more when you meet my friend.”
She plucked up one last shroom and grasped the basket. When she stood, she clicked her tongue. Sharptooth yawned, showing the sharp teeth that gave him his name, before rising and padding back to them.
“We’ll return now,” Rel said as she secured the basket to Sharptooth’s saddle, “and we will prepare.”
“For what?” Emmy asked.
She accepted Rel’s hand, allowing herself to be pulled onto the vaemar’s muscular back. She settled behind Rel again. Rel took Sharptooth’s reins and urged him into action.
“We must leave Hutukeshu,” Rel said. “Now that I have you, I don’t need to stay.”
Emmy’s neck scales fluttered, and she scowled. “Have me?” she asked. “You don’t own me. If anyone does, the Althemerians do.”
Rel flicked the reins to bring Sharptooth to a jog. She chuckled.
“My friend will take care of everything,” she said. She glanced over her shoulder, her mouth pulled in a half-grin. “I thought you would want to leave the encampment and your servitude.”
Still rankled, Emmy shook her head. “Of course I do,” she replied. “But I can’t just leave. I owe them a life-debt. And in any case, I’m not leaving Charo and Zecha behind.”
“Then they’ll come with us,” Rel said.
She urged Sharptooth into a run, and Emmy squeezed her arms more tightly around Rel’s waist. They travelled from the glade in the darkness, the bark and leaves of trees painted silver by the moons’ light. Lifelong fear and suspicion squeezed Emmy’s throat. She shouted over the thunderous pad of Sharptooth’s stride.
“Why should I trust you? This could all be lies!”
The cold wasn’t a lie, a voice in her head reminded her
. The wind Rel whipped up wasn’t a lie. And neither was the fact Rel had morphed and changed before her.
“This could be lies,” Rel replied, her voice echoing into the darkness of the forest, “but it isn’t. And I’m offering you and your friends release from the Althemerians, not to mention the privilege of finding out who you are, and meeting my friend.”
Emmy’s chest was as tight as a bow string. Her breathing was shallow with excitement and fear. “You keep calling her ‘my friend’,” she said, “but she must have a name. What is it?”
Rel looked over her shoulder again. She grinned as she spoke the name. “Bomsoi.”
Emmy held onto Rel with a death grip as they rode through the darkness, back to the Hutukeshu encampment. She rolled the night’s information around in her head, the thoughts dizzying with their content and speed.
She wasn’t a freak. She was an Uloni. Not only that, but there were more like her.
Like Rel.
Like Rel’s friend.
Bomsoi.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Mantos
Once more, Mantos sat in the council chamber. The queen drummed her claws on the lacquered table. Her ever-present serpent stared with its blue eyes. This time the seats around the table were filled with not just the queen’s offspring, but with her High Council as well. Mantos knew them all. Nuko Otu, Master of Armies. Chucho Nu, Master of Messages. Dex Darajib, Master of Coin. Juhihas Oturul, Master of Diplomats. They are many heads together, with little idea of what is to come, Mantos thought. And that’s why I’m here. They want me to spill our military secrets. What choice do I have?
The assembled council sat reverently, waiting for the queen to speak. Only Bomsoi, clad in black, stood lingering on the margin. While the council showed Valentia unwavering respect, they sent Mantos scathing glares in equal measure. It was no secret that Mantos was a Masvam, though he suspected they didn’t know his significance. And all the better it stays that way, he thought, for if they knew, they’d tear me limb from limb. This time not even Fonbir’s presence was a comfort. The prince sought Mantos’ gaze, but Mantos wouldn’t return it. If he caught Fonbir’s sympathetic gaze, it might undo him.
