by NS Dolkart
Kvati interrupted her thoughts. “You’re worried,” she said. “You know more about this trouble with the sky than you’ve let on, and it worries you.”
“Lots of things worry me.”
“Tell me.”
Phaedra shook her head. “Your teachers in Ksado are wise and capable. Look to them, and I’ll look to mine.”
The older woman regarded her sternly. “You trust him more than you trust me.”
“My teacher is a woman.”
Kvati erupted in that great belly laugh of hers, and Phaedra couldn’t help but smile.
“A wise choice, I’m sure,” Kvati said. “Better than mine, I suspect.”
Phaedra shrugged and said nothing. She barely had words to describe Psander in her own language, let alone Estic.
She also found it hard to convey just how deeply she respected Ksado’s “teachers.” They were the closest thing the Ksadans had to priests, but there were no hierarchies in the Essishan religions she had come across – only collegial study and endless, endless debate. Even their various rivalries were couched within a collaborative framework.
But most impressively, the teachers had turned their people entirely away from animal sacrifice, replacing it with language-offerings that were little more than rote, if effusive, praise. It was a jarring difference from western religion, and an impressive one. The eastern Gods must appreciate mere words better than the western ones did.
Phaedra wondered if God Most High would be amenable to such a change. She had high hopes. If the Essishan Gods were happy enough without ritualized slaughter, shouldn’t the Creator God be equally willing to see the practice ended? The trouble was working up the courage to find out.
The substitution of prayer for sacrifice was hardly the only difference between east and west. Even nations out here were arranged differently, with giant bureaucratic empires that spanned multiple cities and huge swaths of territory. The bureaucracy in Ksado had impressed her no end. The formulae involved in calculating the nation’s taxes were a true technical marvel. Kvati and her brother had been much amused by Phaedra’s interest in such things, which had only encouraged her to further pursue the details.
The vastness of the eastern empires encouraged large navies and a substantial shipping trade, but the voyage from Essishan shores to the western archipelago was long and tumultuous enough, even with Karassa’s favor, that trade with the west remained limited. Phaedra was gratified that Kvati had found her a merchant ship on such short notice to take her to Antaka, the archipelago’s easternmost island. But there it was, waiting for her.
“I’m sorry to say goodbye,” Phaedra said. “I… ah… want you farewell.”
Kvati nodded, and her hair-branches danced with the motion. “I wish you farewell also, but listen to me: do not stay away for too long. I have grown fond of you, Phaedra, and I would see you again.”
“I hope so.”
Phaedra embarked on the ship and gave her friend and benefactor a wave. She did hope she would see Kvati again someday, though a part of her worried that there would be no solution to the skyquakes awaiting her at Silent Hall, that there would be no time to come back here before the end. But all she could do on that front was to hope. Whatever the future held, for her and for the world, it was time to go home.
7
Goodweather
By the time Father came to take Goodweather home, she was seething. She had overheard Grandma’s whispered news and spotted the worried, sympathetic looks cast her way. Criton had married Delika. First Goodweather’s feast had been replaced by a fast, and now her father had stolen her best friend.
It wasn’t fair. He had three wives already; what did he need Delika for? On previous visits, she and Goodweather had shared a bed and spent whole nights giggling over nonsense, pretending to snore, poking each other awake just because they could. Now all that was over, for the worst and most grown-up of reasons. Whatever anyone said, growing up was awful.
Take this fast. Last year, Goodweather would have been too young to participate, and she would have been allowed to partake of her intended feast. Now she envied her younger half-siblings, who were encouraged to eat double portions of her welcome meal so that less of the food would go to waste. Watching them eat was depressing. So was helping Horda scrape all the remaining lamb, sticky-sweet with carob and honey, into the fire.
Delika tried to make it easier on her, but there was an unwelcome distance between them now. They had been the two eldest daughters, once – or at least, that had been the way Goodweather thought of them. Now they were daughter and wife, stepdaughter and wife, and their relationship could never be the same again. Goodweather hated it; she hated it. Sometimes anger overwhelmed her sadness and sometimes sadness overwhelmed her anger.
She did her best to act normal. She helped her father’s other wives with chores, she watched over her half-siblings and played with the younger ones, but she avoided Delika because every time she saw her, standing there and struggling with that awkward new distance that had grown between them, it made her want to scream.
The fast made it that much harder to control the tears. Goodweather had never fasted a full day before, let alone three, and it made her head feel light. Midway through the second day, Grandpa announced that pregnant and nursing mothers must begin eating and drinking once more, but everyone else was only newly permitted to drink. So naturally Goodweather drank too much water at once and ended up heaving it all out again. She thought that God Most High might be personally invested in making her miserable.
Goodweather never quite knew where she stood with God Most High, or for that matter, where He stood with her. Her mother Vella, whom she had called Myma since her toddling days, always spoke of Him much the same way she did of Grandpa: as a powerful, loving figure who lived too far away. Myma’s prayers were personal and yearning, like she wished God would visit more often, and that was how Goodweather prayed too, but she didn’t have the same certainty that her messages would be heard. That was probably Ma’s fault.
Goodweather’s Ma, Bandu, did not pray. She rarely spoke of the Gods, but when she did it was almost always in the plural. Goodweather got the sense that her Ma thought the Gods were all the same, or at least all equally indifferent to her desires and needs. She sometimes scoffed when Myma prayed, though less now than when Goodweather was younger. Myma had scolded her about it many times, and she was trying.
When Goodweather was younger, she had worried that God Most High would notice Ma’s defiance and smite her for it, but He never had. Did that mean He really was indifferent? Myma said He heard but forgave, knowing all that Ma had done for Him and His people. That made sense, but it was hard to live with Ma’s casual scorn for long without starting to wonder if their God was really paying that much attention.
Had He noticed that His people were fasting and praying to Him? That they were begging Him to save them, to turn away from whatever judgment had caused Him to shake the sky?
Would He notice if Goodweather secretly broke the fast?
By the third day, Goodweather was incapable of doing chores or even playing with her little half-siblings. She spent most of the day lying down, feeling faint. Many of the grown-ups were doing the same, so at least nobody expected better of her. When she did try to stand, the blood drained from her head and she fell back down on the pillow-bed that Papira had prepared for her in the Children’s Room. The odd thing was that by then, she almost didn’t mind the dizziness. The fast had done strange things to her.
They broke the fast together, with bread, soft sheep’s cheese, and dates. It tasted good, but by that time the taste was irrelevant: it was the sustenance she craved, not the flavor. Just to chew her food and swallow it seemed like the most satisfying thing she had done in years. She burped loudly, and automatically glanced toward Delika to share a conspiratorial smile – they had once competed over who could burp the loudest. Her new stepmother was right there, grinning back at her. She did not burp out a response
– she had to keep up her new, dignified façade – but that was all right because Goodweather could tell that she was considering it. Delika had won the competition last time; it was enough to know that she was tempted to defend her victory. Whatever their new circumstances, Father hadn’t actually swallowed Delika up – she could still be Goodweather’s friend. She had changed, but not that much.
The younger children picked at their meal. Having not fasted, they met the grown-ups’ hunger with boredom and frustration. They were not allowed to leave the long table until everyone was finished; it was their job to clean up afterwards. So the half-siblings sat glumly staring as the adults, Goodweather newly among them, ate nearly without end. At another time, their stares might have put Goodweather off her food. Not this time.
The one benefit of being old enough to fast was that Goodweather wasn’t expected to help the younger ones clean. Instead, when the meal had concluded, Delika offered to take her for a walk out to the fields. Pa nodded and told them to be home before dark, so they set off without another word, abandoning the envious littler ones.
Goodweather didn’t know what to say, and neither did Delika. It wasn’t the same as before. They walked in silence until Delika pointed and said, “I’ll race you to the gate.”
“What?” Goodweather responded, and then bolted away before Delika could repeat herself. She was fast for her age, with her father’s long legs and Ma’s endless stamina, but she still needed every advantage she could steal against the older girl. Delika won in the end, though it was very close and Goodweather was able to take pride in how heavily Delika panted afterward. As they collapsed against the gate, their eyes met and they both began to laugh – or, rather, to wheeze with the intention of laughing.
“It’s all right, isn’t it?” Delika asked when they could breathe again. “You’re not angry at me anymore?”
Goodweather shook her head. “Why did you do it?”
“Because I love him, Goodweather. I always have.”
“Not always.”
“Always,” Delika insisted. “Since I was a little girl. You know how I found him; everyone knows. People used to call me his blood-daughter. I’ll bet they call me his blood-wife now. Everyone thinks they know what happened, but all they know are the stupid, obvious things. I didn’t save myself from burning, the way they think I did. God Most High saved me. He’s the one who showed me the vat and kept the smoke out of my lungs even when the air above me was full of it, and He only did it because I was looking for Criton. That’s what people don’t realize. I was meant to find Criton, so his God saved me. It was loving him that kept me alive.”
Goodweather couldn’t help but recoil from Delika’s weird, passionate speech. There was fire in her eyes, a fire Goodweather didn’t understand. Maybe she was too young – that was something Myma said fairly often – but the passion behind Delika’s outburst was so foreign that she found it downright unsettling.
Her contention was bizarre too, even by Myma’s standards of personal worship. Sure, people prayed for God Most High to intervene on their behalf, and of course thanked Him when things went well, but it was outrageous to assume that He had stepped in just for you. God Most High had sat back and watched His dragons get exterminated. He had watched silently when the Ardismen nearly wiped out the Dragon Touched. How could anyone, even Delika, believe that this same God would intervene just so that she could become Pa’s fourth wife? That took a special kind of delusion, and it was frightening to see such madness in her eyes.
She would have liked to be diplomatic anyway, but she was her Ma’s girl. The most she could manage was to answer, “If you say so.”
They continued their walk, the conversation turning to safer territory. They spoke about the fast and how relieved they were at its end. They speculated about the quake, what had caused it and whether there would be another one. Goodweather hoped not; Delika oddly disagreed.
“Sometimes I feel like this world needs shaking up,” she claimed, probably just for the sake of conversation. “It’s too settled.”
“You live here,” Goodweather said. “And anyway, I thought your life was perfect now that you’re married to my Pa.”
“Oh, it is,” Delika answered airily. But her eyes changed their focus and she went quiet.
Goodweather studied her friend. Delika was definitely happy now, probably happier than Goodweather had ever seen her, but she wasn’t carefree anymore the way Goodweather remembered her. That was the real barrier between them. More than the fact that she had married Pa, it was that new grown-up worry that separated her from Goodweather’s world.
What were these mysterious worries? Why was Delika so restless now, when she had what she’d supposedly wanted forever? Goodweather often felt like she was cut off from grown-up logic. Myma always said that she’d understand when she was older, but Goodweather had her doubts. Myma had been saying that for years, and she still didn’t understand.
They finished their stroll outside the gates and walked back home as the sun set. Pa’s house was enormous, one room for each of his wives and one for all the children, a hall with a separate kitchen, and a latrine out back just for the family. It was built out of Ardisian stone with a roof of sturdy wood, and it stood impressively against the other houses nearby. It was as close as Salemica came to having a palace, because Pa was as close as the Dragon Touched came to having a king.
The Dragon Touched had no king but their God, officially speaking. People called Pa “Criton,” and in theory his word was advice and not law, but at some point this distinction stopped mattering. God Most High had decreed once, when Goodweather was just a baby, that Criton should be the leader of the Dragon Touched in matters of war and peace. With a broad enough interpretation, practically everything fell under his purview except for the interpretation of God’s will, which was left to the High Priest. It was Pa who met with messengers from Ardis and other cities, who decided which merchants to welcome and which to exclude, and who levied taxes and oversaw the construction of everything from the city walls to the irrigation ditches. In theory, he was just another citizen of Salemica. In reality, everyone knew that was nonsense.
It was no wonder, then, that everyone treated Goodweather like a princess. A descendant in one way or another of both the city’s ruler and its high priest, and of a famous witch besides, she was able to go wherever she pleased in the city without fear of harm. Merchants and citizens gave her gifts sometimes, which would have been much more effective for gaining Criton’s attention if Goodweather had had a good memory for names. Her father’s wives never ordered her to do anything, as they did often enough with each other’s children, but actually thanked her when she played with her half-siblings or helped with chores. Goodweather knew she got special treatment in Salemica, and she reveled in it. It might have grown tiring if she had ever stayed for long, but as it was, it was a nice break from home.
At home there was always work to be done. Either Goodweather had to help Myma with the weaving or the cooking or the cleaning or any number of other indoor chores, or else she was helping Ma tend the garden, or forage for mushrooms and berries, or train dogs or hunt with them. Ma refused to keep dogs of her own – there was a history there that Goodweather did not quite understand – but she trained them for others in exchange for a share of the hunt. Goodweather loved working with them, and wished she could keep one for herself, but she knew she would have to wait until she was old enough to leave her parents’ house. It was a happy life anyhow. She loved it. But it certainly wasn’t easy like her visits to Salemica.
She stood outside the house with Delika as the world grew darker, entering only when they were sure there could be no chores left. Her mothers would have been horrified at how lazy Goodweather was here, but she felt only faintly guilty as she and Delika slipped through the door and made for their respective beds. Surely it was no crime to enjoy every moment she could with her friend, especially now that Pa would be making more demands on Delika’s time. Even he
r mothers couldn’t have objected, not that they’d ever find out.
She spent the next day at the temple. Her grandparents were at least as doting as Pa, even though she wasn’t technically of their flesh and blood. They gave her sweet wine and carob candies, and asked her about her life at home. Grandma asked again whether she was meeting any other youths her age, which Myma tried to answer for her, since the answer was essentially no. It was a familiar conversation: Grandma asked this question every time they visited Salemica, and Myma always got defensive. They were doing their best, Mother! Plenty of good people lived in remote areas! It wasn’t like the Dragon Touched had to marry their daughters off early anymore, so what was the problem? And so on.
Goodweather didn’t think their house was so remote. It was only a few miles to the nearest village, a perfectly walkable distance even with a wheelbarrow. Myma was right that Grandma had no cause for concern. Goodweather was plenty friendly with her peers there, even if it was only to play a few games of Rock Harvest before she left again.
Rock Harvest was a one-handed game of gathering stones off the ground while a tossed one was still in the air, and all the children of the plains played some version of it. There was much controversy among Dragon Touched children as to whether claws were an advantage in this game or should be turned into fleshy hands instead. Goodweather had tried both ways plenty of times, but it didn’t seem to make much difference: either way, she was about average at the game.
It was easy for Goodweather to let her mind wander while Myma and Grandma kept up their low-level argument, following the same old ruts left by previous ones. Myma loved her mother, but she took every little comment about Goodweather’s upbringing as an attack, which turned her every response into a counterattack. Grandma, in the meantime, did her best to soften the blow by always prefacing her critiques with phrases like, “Of course, you know best,” but everyone knew these words weren’t meant to be taken literally. That was why she so obviously found it dismaying when Myma would turn those phrases back on her and say, “Of course you’re right, I know what’s best for my daughter.”
