Daughters of Ruin

by K. D. Castner

They rode in silence after that. Iren seemed as content as an engorged mantis, while Cadis wondered if Iren even noticed that Cadis was no longer putting forth the effort to speak with her.

  With every mile, at every stop to rest, Cadis felt a mounting agitation that perhaps that night Iren would steal upon her in the darkness and kill her in her sleep.

  A full half day later Iren slowed her horse to come alongside Cadis and said, “I can tell you’re mad at me, because you’ve spoken very little, and haven’t sung anything either.”

  “I’m not mad,” said Cadis. She refused to be read like a broadside.

  “I can also tell you’re mad because your tone is . . . curt. You’re not usually curt.”

  “I’m not curt,” said Cadis.

  “You’re also being contrary.”

  “How else would I disagree with you?”

  “You usually avoid confrontation. You charm the situation. You’re not charming, so you must be mad.”

  “You want me to charm you?”

  Iren paused. She looked at the passing countryside. “Yes,” she said finally.

  “Ha! I’d have an easier go of it with a rootsnake.”

  Cadis laughed to herself, but it was the sort of laugh that betrayed—even more—that she was uncomfortable.

  When Cadis looked at Iren a few moments later, she perceived in her silence, in the slight bend of her shoulders, in the way she squinted straight ahead at her horse’s mane, that she was nearly ready to burst into tears.

  Cadis sighed. “Oh, come on. I didn’t mean that you’re a rootsnake.”

  It had the opposite effect. Iren’s eye glimmered. She would hold them back, but barely.

  The road to Findain was beautiful this time of year.

  The birds had no sense of wars or betrayal.

  Iren tightened her composure once again and said, “Do you think I would harm my friend?”

  “I spoke out of anger. You were right. I was angry. I don’t think you’re a rootsnake.”

  “I don’t mind that you called me a rootsnake,” said Iren. She spurred her horse back into a canter. “I mind that your dagger’s unclasped.”

  The Findish playwright Jesiré Jesperdotter—for whom Jesper had been named—would have described the journey thus:

  They rode and rode and rode and rode

  Across the dale and under hill

  The wheel of days and nights unslowed

  Through keep and cloister, farm and mill

  From Meridan to Findain’s shore

  A queen returned as ne’er before

  Riding at her heels a store

  Of rumors, rebels, raids, and war.

  And so they arrived at the land gate of Findain’s capital city, squeezed between the peddlers and returning caravans at noon hour of a sweltering early summer.

  “They’re certainly . . . boisterous,” said Iren, as a swarm of children surrounded their horses to beg and hawk and busk and cajole.

  Cadis found she had forgotten such details as the smell of ripe fruit mixed with sweaty mules. The way in which old women winked to one another and the solicitous nod of the old men, a sort of rocking back and forth—as if the chin was a boat on the water—were distant memories to her. She had forgotten the murmur of the sea.

  As they rode into the harbor and watched the fleets of merchant ships compete with the facing city for an audience, Cadis felt as much an outsider as Iren.

  Jesper had tried to keep her informed of the constant ebb and flow of businesses that swept entire districts in and out of majority. He had mentioned the new amphitheater that towered above Cheapside, where the old fairgrounds used to be. And he had mentioned that the open-air market had been roofed, but he didn’t mention the color—was it orange on purpose?

  On the whole, he had done his best. Cousin Denarius had tried to keep her close by sending her transcripts of the broadside news reports—that told her all the latest market gossip and show times to theater she couldn’t attend.

  But neither could tell her the true happenings in the guildhalls for fear that Magister Hiram would steal the information. And none of it could have prepared her for the shock of returning.

  “It’s so small,” she whispered to herself when they passed the rusted roof of the market. She had remembered it as a massive labyrinth to run through.

  The streets were dirt in places.

  No one made way for their horses.

  The children didn’t fear the guards, and the guards smiled at customers as they held the doors open to the shops.

  Cadis imagined every sight from Iren’s point of view and cringed a little. “Provincial” was the word that leaped to mind. “Provincial” and “frantic.”

  All around, the noise of commerce had a tense undertone that Cadis had never heard before. Hawkers seemed to press their wares with a desperate manner. Shopkeepers stuck to their negotiated sums, even past the usual friendly haggling.

  “Is it really so bad?” said Cadis.

  “What?” said Iren.

  “The market. Commerce. It seems depressed. Jesper said the trade agreements with Meridan were crippling, but I didn’t expect this.”

  “This?” said Iren. “You mean the bustling harbor full of goods?”

  “No, but you don’t understand. When I was a child, the traders were like dukes. You could find an elephant with diamond-studded ears if you wanted, fruits like you’d never seen, and some you did, but never so big or so sweet. I once saw a ship sail into the harbor with so much jade and silk and ambergris in its belly that it dredged the bottom.”

  “You remember with advantages,” said Iren.

  “What does that mean?”

  “You were little.”

  “Just look—the stalls sell basic goods. There’s no joy. People pay in copper.”

  Cadis sighed. The differences were enormous to her but likely indistinct to Iren, who had no use for the great theater of the marketplace. Iren saw only a great hubbub of people and animals, all shouting at once. To Cadis, the chorus was out of tune.

  “Cadis? Oh, dear gods, Cadis! Is that you?”

  They both turned toward the voice. Cadis nearly fell from her horse.

  Iren said, “Whoa.”

  In the fourth cycle of The Bones of Pelgard symphony opera, the famed composer PilanPilan expresses the entrance of the legendary hero Khartik with an odd instrument. Not the lute, as he might have done if Khartik were a knavish flouncer on the stage. And not a dendo drum, as he would if Khartik were a gallant warrior. The genius PilanPilan signals the entrance of Khartik with a deep sultry tremor on the bass harp—a bawdy sound as the infamous rake enters the stage—and does as the liner notes specify in every performance of the symphony: he looks every woman in the audience in the eye with a hungry stare, as if she alone were his beloved Lia.

  The casting for the part of Khartik was news for the broadsides. The role was more symbol than man—heat and youth and desire. Sex, even as it might live in the dreams of a virgin. A young man of endless appetite for Lia—lost Lia, whose witch mother hexed her into a lake flower and whose appearance magically shone onto the face of every woman Khartik met. This was the role that drove the directors of Findish theater companies to drink.

  When Cadis turned and saw Jesper Terzi in the market square, a bass harp seemed to play from somewhere deep inside her, and she thought the directors must have been throwing courtesans through his windows.

  As he approached with a retinue Cadis had not yet even recognized, Iren leaned over and whispered, “Is he the one I met three years ago?”

  “Mmm-hmm,” said Cadis.

  “What wonders grow on Findish soil,” said Iren, quoting from PilanPilan’s opera. Obviously, she saw the connection as well. He had the tawny hue of a sailor long at sea, taut as the rope, tall as the sail. He wore billowing white muslin trousers as thin as cheesecloth, with a matching half-open blouse. Both seemed to sway around him like sailcloth.

  Cadis had no time to inspect him as he cro
ssed the space between them and lifted her off her horse by the waist as if she weighed nothing.

  “Let me look at you. What are you—?”

  He cupped her face. Cadis had nothing—and a thousand things—to say.

  To tell him of the attack.

  To explain why she had snuck into her own city.

  “You’ve changed,” she spat out finally.

  Jesper laughed—how very warm it was—and drew her in for a hug. Cadis felt a fortnight’s worth of constant guarded travel, long nights keeping watch, and terse conversation release from her shoulders. Cadis closed her eyes for a brief moment. When she opened them, she saw the four others accompanying Jesper for the first time.

  All four looked mildly familiar. All four stared at her over Jesper’s shoulder. “Meridan Keep has been attacked,” said Iren, not having bothered to dismount.

  “By whom?” said a girl, roughly their age, from Jesper’s group. Iren barely took notice of her. Cadis braced for the shock impact of Iren’s reply—that the attacks were Findish rebels.

  “We don’t know,” said Iren. “We killed three and twelve”—she nodded at Cadis for the twelve—“and escaped before battle’s end.”

  She spoke in the clipped formal manner of a soldier reporting facts. After a pause, she added, “Your spies should have sent birds by now.”

  Cadis tried to catch Iren’s gaze, to tell her to take it easy, but Iren’s eyes flitted from one of Jesper’s crew to another. Cadis realized she was studying their reactions to see who was surprised by the news and who already knew. How does she know to do that?

  Once again Cadis wondered what inner workings of her sister had been kept hidden. Cadis turned and studied Jesper’s face for clues. She quickly realized three things: She had spent her life under the optimistic delusion that people would simply speak their minds, she had developed no subtlety for reading thoughts, and by all the gods of theater and the spirits of the sails, he was Khartik incarnate.

  Cadis had no category in her mind for him anymore—brotherly friend and playmate of all the years before the Protectorate and diligent messenger during. Now after, in her return to take up the mantle of the Archon Basileus—first among equals of the guildmasters—she had no idea what their relationship would be—though she had a budding notion for it.

  It took a brief moment of introductions to remind Cadis of the identity of the others.

  The imperious girl with short-cropped hair and well-used blade currently staring down Iren with open hatred was none other than Hypatia Terzi, Jesper’s older cousin and daughter of Lieke Terzi, the master of the caravaneers’ guild.

  Cadis shook her hand, making sure to crush it equally. She knew the caravaneers were one of the three prime merchant guilds of Findain, beside the captains and the shipwrights.

  But Lieke—and recently Hypatia—had spent the last ten years consolidating power almost equal to the other two combined.

  Beside Hypatia slumped a whelpish hound of a boy—no more than fifteen, not yet lost of baby fat—who cast glances at Hypatia for approval of every breath. Timor Botros, son of Nicho, master of a lesser artisans’ guild—textiles specifically. He actually waited for Hypatia to nod before shaking Cadis’s hand.

  Iren made an audible snort at the sight. Pentri Muto, scion of the shipwrights’ guild, stood farthest back and gave a slight bow as Jesper introduced him. He seemed wealthiest by clothing and demeanor, a short, thin, fashionable, uninterested young man who seemed like a male Iren to Cadis. Aloof but likely nowhere near as deadly.

  Last, and standing farthest from Hypatia, was Arcadie Kallis, dressed in a sleeveless tunic to show off her captain’s inking all along both arms. She had crossed the Pelgardian line, survived a shipwreck, and completed three cycles of the Grand Tour, by the look of the symbols on her brawny arms. She had a darker coloring than even Jesper, and her hair was a tinted mirror of Cadis’s—black dreads with coral and shells woven throughout. She was the daughter of Genio Kallis, master of the captains’ guild, rival to Lieke and the caravaneers. It seemed the daughters Hypatia and Arcadie continued the tradition.

  Cadis nodded to Arcadie. Already, she liked her best.

  These were the heirs of the first families of Findain. Cadis had vague memories of them all. Since birth, they were destined to sit at the table together. “And this is Iren,” said Cadis, “of Corent.”

  She thought it would be a dramatic departure to offer no titles or histories. And she was right.

  Iren gave a wry smile. The others offered a customary bow.

  “Yes, of course,” said Pentri from the back. “We gathered from the descriptions.”

  “Really?” said Iren, raising an eyebrow. “Have the shipwrights of Findain written plays about us?”

  “Why would shipwrights make plays? We build ships.”

  “Oh, who can tell what all these guilders do?” said Iren.

  She was goading him, of course. And he seemed arrogant and brash enough to take the bait.

  “We will excuse the mountain queen for not knowing the definition of the word ‘shipwright.’ ”

  Jesper looked at Cadis, half enjoying the volleys, half wondering if they should put an end to it. Cadis winked. She knew Iren was good in a fight of any sort.

  “Thank you, sir, but I would no more assume that a shipwright makes ships than a boy named Pantry minds the kitchen.”

  Pentri’s face turned the color of the flower in his collared jacket. “Pentri,” he spat. “My name is Pentri.”

  “Beg your pardon,” said Iren. “I meant a boy who minds the pig pens.”

  Arcadie Kallis laughed aloud, and the battle was won.

  “I like her,” she said, speaking to Cadis.

  “You should see her cross-stitch,” said Cadis.

  They returned to the Odeon—seat of the guildmasters and the archonate castle—with rumors of the Archon Basileus spreading through the city, along with whispers of dead queens and a Meridan invasion.

  Cadis found herself in the center of their party without meaning to, as if they too had been trained all their lives for their roles as guildmasters. They took archonate formation, Arcadie Kallis to her right—captain. Pentri Muto riding before her—shipwright. Hypatia Terzi on her left—caravaneer.

  Cadis noticed that Jesper had no position, and walked at her horse’s flank along with Timor Botros of the textile guild. Iren brought up the rear, certainly by her own design.

  By the time they reached the bridge to the island of the Odeon, it had been filled with Findish citizens. When they saw her, they shouted and began the chorus of “Rise Archana, Rise the Tide.” Every man, woman, and child of Findain seemed to have the performer’s gusto. Cadis turned in her saddle to smile at all of them. She wished she could embrace them. They all felt like family.

  Jesper’s voice was as deep as a jug’s.

  She could hear the smooth bass and turned to catch his eye. He bowed, and kept singing. Only Iren didn’t know the words.

  It was at that moment that Cadis felt—for the first time since she could remember—like she was home.

  Then she saw the masters at the far end of the bridge, on the stairs of the Odeon, standing also in formation, faces as grim and rigid as the gargoyles. And she knew she was not entirely welcome. She wished to see with Iren’s eyes—what insights she must have already gathered, what cynical appraisals had she made already of those they met?

  After what they had been through, perhaps Iren’s pessimism was not so useless as Cadis once believed. Or, better put, perhaps it was a good arrow to have in a quiver, for just the right moments.

  They approached the steps of the Odeon castle, and the guildmasters sang their own chorus. Cadis bowed, waved to the people, and dismounted. An attendant reached for her saddle pack, but she thanked him and took it herself.

  The people erupted.

  It was a sign that the archana was of the people. Cadis blanched. For her, it was simply instinct. She did not think of herself as the gr
eat triumphant queen of a nation. All her life, she was the backwater gold noble for a bunch of oathbreakers. The story was a sad one. And Cadis was used to telling it. She was accustomed to admiration given begrudgingly, but never love, never willingly.

  They were all a blur anyway.

  She took the pack, waited for Iren, waved again, and walked through the giant doors with guildmasters and their scions in direct formation behind her.

  Cadis leaned toward her friend, if only to touch someone, and whispered, “I think I preferred being the traitorous orphan.”

  Iren was helpful in her own way. “You’re still an orphan,” she said.

  Cadis chuckled at the golem she had for a sister.

  “You’re right. Welcome to Findain.”

  “It’s very quaint.”

  “We just walked over a bridge full of choral praise, to an island castle.”

  “Yes.”

  “Not fancy enough? Do they slaughter bulls in Corent?”

  Iren proffered a nigh-imperceptible smile. “They slaughter only in Meridan,” she said. “In Corent we’d just forgive everyone’s library fines.”

  Cadis laughed. “A joke? You’re becoming a regular jester.”

  “The archana returns. Excuse us for being giddy.”

  Cadis was genuinely touched by the effort.

  Of course they both knew the Corentines did not go in for all that group singing. Nor for the mingling of class—though theirs was a system built on academy merits. And more than anything, they didn’t encourage the folksy charm of a queen with a rucksack and a cadre of guildmasters daring to welcome her into her own house.

  For the first time in a long while, Cadis knew what her sister was thinking.

  She ushered Iren to the common room, as she remembered it from her childhood, and said, “That’s just our way. It doesn’t mean anything.”

  “If someone barred entry to the spire, no matter how gently, and waited for me to dismount before stepping aside, I would let my horse do the bowing and would ride over them like toadstools.”

  “Ha!” said Cadis. She had never heard language so florid come from Iren. Perhaps the sea air was making a poet of her. Cadis glanced to make sure no one had heard.