Nadya glanced down at her upper arm, where her seal of the Protectress was hidden beneath her shirt. “Why have gods you don’t believe in?”
“I don’t try to fathom what goes on in Erevan minds.”
Finally, the railbox made its stop on the second tier, and all of the Erevans exited. Only Nadya and Drina remained. The beaten wooden benches that lined the sides of the box were now open, but Drina, in her stubbornness, did not sit down. She stood stiffly, leaning against the side, until the railbox came to a stop in the Nomori tier.
The whistle sounded. Nadya helped Drina off. The rail stopped at the bottom of the great staircase, just in front of the Nomori public square. Behind the crowds of Nomori people running errands, their children tumbling through the street, a great marble fountain gurgled and splashed. Unlike the rest of the city, it was built of a dark gray marble, nearly black. The water arched up in a smooth curve, raining down with a sound like a hundred stone pigeons. Since Nadya had come into her abilities, she always thought it smelled faintly of peppermint. Dozens of one-story shops bordered the square. It was toward one of these that Nadya began walking.
“I need to stop for a moment,” she said. Their larder was growing empty, and it was always good to begin stocking up early for the season of storms, when food became scarce very quickly. Ration lines could not always be relied on. Perhaps bringing home a few groceries with her pay would placate Mirela a bit.
Drina huffed but followed her into the corner shop. It stood next to Brishen’s bakery, a friend of their family and the most masterful baker on this tier. The scent of his boysenberry scones penetrated this shop’s walls and made Nadya’s mouth water. Then she remembered that he was Duren’s father, and the scent turned to brine.
“Good morn,” the shopkeeper called.
Nadya gave her a quick nod. She looked over the clay shelves of dried foods and selected a pack of dried corn and another of flour. She was reaching for a bundle of greens when her grandmother asked, “Have you considered which Nomori boy you’ll take to be your husband?”
“What?” Nadya almost dropped the food she carried.
“You turn eighteen next dry season, my dear. You’ll be a woman under Nomori custom, and you’ll need to take a husband in order to carry on the Gabori name.”
Nadya swallowed. She avoided her grandmother’s eager expression and continued to pick food off the shelves. There was no guarantee this selection would be here much longer, so she wanted to buy as much as she could. It was dried; it would keep.
“Do we have to talk about it here?” she asked, looking through the bin of carrots and picking a handful.
Drina put a hand on her shoulder, forcing her to turn around. Nadya swallowed. That look in her grandmother’s eye meant she was analyzing Nadya’s emotions. Drina sighed.
“Your mother hasn’t been feeling well lately, you know.”
“I know,” Nadya whispered. She detached herself and busied herself in the far corner of the shop.
“And I may be loath to admit it, but I am no spring chicken. We must look to the future. You will be the heir to the Gabori family, perhaps sooner than you would like.”
“There’s nothing wrong with Mama, nothing more than a cough,” Nadya said a bit too loudly, causing the shopkeeper to glance at them. She lowered her voice. “It doesn’t do to dwell on maybes, not with more than enough of the present to keep up with.”
“No need to lecture me, Nadezhda. But, pray tell me, what have you been keeping yourself so occupied with?”
She couldn’t reply, and when she did not even turn around to face her grandmother, Drina sighed. “I thought as much. You must start thinking beyond your nose, and soon. The head of the Gabori family can’t walk around with her mind in the clouds.”
Nadya put a hand against the cool stone wall of the shop. In this back corner, there were used clothes, gaudy fake jewelry, and anything else the shopkeeper thought he could make a coin selling. She looked down at the ground. What kind of leader of her family would she make, a Nomori woman with no psychic gift?
“You need to carry on our bloodline. Picking a husband from the sons of another good family is your duty.”
Her shoulders tensed. She hated that word.
“Nadezhda, are you listening to me?”
Nadya turned around. “Yes, Grandmother, I am. I just don’t want to think about it now, not with the season of storms so close…”
“Well, you need to. Storms are a way of life in this cursed city, and so we must continue through them.”
Nadya turned back to the shelf of odds and ends. Drina ceased her questioning, for the moment at least, and she was able to breathe. Her eye caught a piece of gray sticking out of the barrel of cloth. Drawing it out, she gasped.
The cloth was old and worn, but sturdy. A hood melted into a floor-length cloak. What brought a little buzz to Nadya’s chest, however, was the scarf attached to the hood. It was fastened on either side of the hood with metal clips. An old fire cloak, she realized, as its thick scent of resin hit her senses, made sturdy and flame resistant for those who fought against the rare fire outbreak in the tiers.
Old and used it might be, but it was perfect.
If I’m to go out at night again, she thought, glancing over her shoulder to where Drina chatted with the shopkeeper in rapid Nomori, I’ll need a disguise. I can’t risk getting recognized when I use my abilities.
With her grandmother distracted, Nadya slipped the cloak in with the packages she carried. She hurried up to the sales counter. “Just these.”
“Stocking up for the storms? Better fill your pantries while you can,” the shopkeeper said. “I don’t expect another shipment for at least a week. Food is already tight, and it’ll only get tighter.”
Nadya thanked her and paid from the pouch of palace coins the clerk at the Guardhouse had given her. The round bits of copper, stamped with the Duke’s seal of a shining sun, clattered on the stone as the shopkeeper counted them.
Nadya grabbed her parcels and left the shop.
But Drina wasn’t done. She followed her granddaughter through the busy streets, embarking on her usual rant of the mistake the Nomori people had made when they permanently moved into Storm’s Quarry. Nadya wisely kept silent. She had never known a life outside the city, and though she valued her Nomori heritage greatly, she couldn’t see the utter evil her grandmother did in every facet of Erevan life.
Suddenly, Drina changed the subject. “Now, you’ve avoided my question. Why do you resist marriage?”
Nadya had hoped she had forgotten about it. She opened her mouth to lie when her grandmother nodded.
“You’re in love.”
“No!” She faced her grandmother, heart racing. She was not in love. She had never been in love. She didn’t want to marry, but that didn’t mean she—
“I won’t ask you who the lucky Nomori boy is, because you won’t tell me anyway. I hope to meet him one day.” Drina continued down the street.
Nadya stayed where she was. A lie that blatant could not fool her grandmother. The lucky Nomori boy, however, was a tall girl with eyes like deep wells. It was the woman with whom she had grown up, who could make her laugh like no other, and who made her feel as safe as if she was in the arms of the Protectress herself. For all that, it was a child’s dream that anything could ever come of such love. She didn’t know what the Erevans thought of such a relationship, but for the Nomori, it was forbidden.
Nadya pushed the image of Kesali from her mind and hurried after her grandmother.
Chapter Four
A few days had passed since the interrogation, and Nadya’s father barely spent more than a moment at home. The trial was to be expedited, by order of the Duke. Apparently, he had taken Jurek’s death very badly, and he wanted his killer to see justice before the storms came. When Shadar came home for a brief sleep or a meal that wasn’t hard ration bread, he and Mirela spoke about the murder, and so Nadya took to spending even more time out of the hous
e. Whenever she heard Duren’s name, her stomach began churning. She knew she should say something, that her testimony might completely change the trial. Of course, she kept quiet and excused her silence by telling herself it was too late anyway to speak up.
Tonight, she would not be leaping over rooftops. It was Arane Sveltura, the Festival of Crossing Stars. Nadya remembered tales she’d heard told by the Elders as a child, of two Nomori who fell in love and killed themselves rather than be pulled apart by their warring tribes. Their deaths many centuries ago inspired all Nomori to come together for one night then, and now on the night where the two brightest stars in the night crossed paths, a celebration was held every year. All the Nomori in Storm’s Quarry would gather in the public square for music, food, and communion with the stars and their beloved Protectress.
It wasn’t just the festival that made Nadya’s chest buzz with crickets. It was that Kesali had asked to spend the evening together.
Nadya shut the door to her house behind her. She’d spent all day running around the fourth tier with packages of the jewelry orders her mother had fulfilled.
“Finished?” Mirela asked. She sat at her workbench. Her deft fingers strung mounted emeralds, smaller than mustard seeds, onto a wire.
Nadya set the delivery notices on the workbench. “Every one of them into the hands of a trustworthy butler or house mistress. Worry not, those poor courtiers will soon get their jewels.”
“Someone already has the Arane Sveltura spirit.” Mirela turned to look at her, eyebrows knitted. “Either that, or you stopped by a tavern in one of the Erevan tiers. If it’s the latter, I’m afraid I cannot keep you from your inevitable fate. Drina will have you roasted along with the boar.”
Nadya giggled. “I’m just excited for tonight.” She hesitated, and made her voice as neutral as possible. “I am planning on spending the festival with Kesali.”
“Good, good.” Mirela turned back to her work. She twisted off the end of the wire, creating a perfect loop of tiny, sparkling emeralds. Laying it carefully on the table, she then pulled out an opal as big as an eye from a velvet pouch. “Ever since she took that apprenticeship, you hardly see her except a quick stroll some mornings.”
Trying not to blush and failing, feeling the heat in her cheeks, Nadya was very glad her mother wasn’t looking at her. “Yes, I am looking forward to it.”
“And, of course, you will pass the light with your parents.”
“Of course,” Nadya said quickly.
“Good.” Mirela was focused intently now, looping wire around the opal in order to create an intricate silver basket to hold it in, with a clasp to attach it to the body of the neck piece. “Now, make yourself busy. I have work to complete.” She coughed, her steady hands wavering just a touch.
Nadya remained still, watching her mother. “Is it telling you anything?”
“It belonged to a courtier’s wife. On the day her first child, a beautiful daughter, was born, she died. It is his day of greatest joy and deepest sorrow. He intends to give this to his daughter when she comes of age. She looks like her mother and has her kindness.” Mirela smiled softly as she worked.
“Amazing,” Nadya whispered. Her mother could read gemstones, their past, their owners. It gave her unsurpassed skills as a jeweler. She never said anything, but Nadya couldn’t help but believe she could actually speak to the stones, coaxing them to her will.
“He’ll be pleased with the piece. Now, let me work and take your thousand questions elsewhere.” Mirela reached over and gave her an affectionate squeeze on the shoulder.
As she retreated through the curtain and into the house, Nadya wished it was always like this, light and cheerful between her and her mother. No secrets. No frustration. Perhaps, she thought, digging through her bunk for her best vest, she could be a better daughter. If not a more truthful one, a better one. She resolved to try.
The vest she chose had been a gift from her grandmother. Whatever she might say about Drina and her backward thinking, she was kind in her own way, and her skill with a needle outshone anyone else in the Gabori family. The vest was deep blue, the night sky just before the sun reached the horizon. Brought alive in silver stitching, a great winged horse flew over the tiny umber mountains at the hem. Every muscle was detailed and seemed to move when Nadya did. She ran her fingers over the horse’s wing. Tonight, she would forget about what made her different, pretend to have no more worries than the season of storms and the colors of her faraway wedding.
*
For perhaps the only time all year, the public square was silent. Thousands of Nomori gathered, spilling over into the surrounding streets. Everyone stood. Nadya closed her eyes. Her sensitive ears picked up only the breathing of those around her and, in the distance, the fountain’s gurgling.
A nudge in her shoulder, and her eyes flew open. Her father beside her now held a lit candle. He nodded to her candle. Nadya quickly held it up to his, tipping it so its wick dipped into the flame and lit. On her other side, Mirela silently did the same thing with her own candle.
Slowly, the entire square lit up with candlelight. Every person held one. The eldest of the Elders, a frail woman of nearly ninety named Aishe, had lit the first candle by sparking two shards of rock together, one said to be a shard from a meteor that fell the day the two lovers died, the other a piece of stone from the original Nomori homeland. The passing of the light had begun, and Nadya was just glad she hadn’t accidentally broken her candle yet.
The light was slowly passed throughout the ranks of standing Nomori until the entire western side of the tier looked as if it was on fire. The Elders began chanting in unison in an ancient form of the language only they still understood. Nadya looked up and her breath left her as the night sky, filled with stars not an hour ago, was completely black. Around her, everyone stared toward the heavens with the same awed expression. Shadar reached down and grabbed her free hand, squeezing lightly.
In common Nomori, the Elders said, “Now we give back the light which the Protectress has bestowed upon us. May she hold our people close to heart until we return home to the stars. Arane Sveltura!”
“Arane Sveltura!” the crowds rumbled in response and, as one, blew out the candles.
In an instant, the stars reappeared. The light had been passed.
Mirela embraced her. Shadar planted a kiss on the top of her head. “Go,” he said. “Your mother told me you have plans. Be blessed, and have a good time. We will see you at home before dawn, yes?”
“Yes,” Nadya said, grinning. She skipped off, heading to the meeting place she and Kesali had picked.
Now that the passing of the lights was over, the celebration part of the festival could begin. On every corner, people handed out sweets, hot bread, and brewed cider to all who passed. Despite the upcoming storms, Arane Sveltura was a time for sharing, to reflect the generosity of the Protectress. Many of the shops were open, giving away their wares. In turn, those on the receiving end did not take more than they could eat or drink tonight.
Nadya grabbed a cranberry tart from a tray held out by a smiling woman, mumbling, “Thank you,” before she stuffed half of the oozing, butter-covered treat into her mouth. Flavors exploded in her mouth.
“Don’t worry, it’s not going to disappear,” a teasing voice behind her said.
She whirled around and held out the other half of the tart in front of Kesali’s nose. “Taste this.”
Instead of using her hands, Kesali opened her mouth and took a bite. Her eyes went wide. “Amazing,” she said, mouth full. She took the rest of the tart in a more ladylike fashion using her fingers and quickly finished it. Before she could wipe the butter residue on her vest, Nadya grabbed her hand.
“Family heirlooms are not handkerchiefs,” she chided. “Come. Let’s go to the fountain.” Kesali’s vest was as richly embroidered as her own. It was the light pink of cherry blossoms, embroidered with a purple firedrake twining around a dead serpent. Kesali had once told her that it belong
ed to her mother.
“I wouldn’t think you’d want to be anywhere near your grandmother,” Kesali said, looping her arm with Nadya’s, who felt a sudden burst of warmth in her side.
“She’ll be too busy making sure none of the young ones are acting too Erevan. She’s been on a one-woman crusade to keep our culture pure ever since she set foot in Storm’s Quarry, and if you speak to her, the situation is getting more and more desperate.”
They reached the main square. Around one side of the fountain, the Elders sat in a circle, singing songs in ancient Nomori, some so old that even they did not know the meaning of the words. Texts and scrolls were not things a nomadic people could afford to carry, so the history of their people was sung down through the generations. Though most of the festivalgoers had left the square, off to celebrate with good food and drink, a few stayed, eyes closed, to listen to the words of their ancestors. The crooning voices of the Elders always raised chills on Nadya’s arms. It was as if the stars themselves sang of times past.
Quietly going to the other side of the fountain, Nadya splashed some water on Kesali, who retaliated. It was only a glare from Drina, seated among the Elders, that stopped all-out war.
“I have a favor to ask of you,” Kesali said as they walked off to the edge of the square where people sat on benches, sharing food and warmth. She sat and pulled Nadya down beside her. “Tomorrow evening, the new ballet opens in the grand theater on the fourth tier. Will you go with me? I don’t want to go alone.”
Nadya frowned. “The theater?” Nomori rarely went to the fourth tier, and they certainly never went to the theater or art galleries or museums. “But a ticket must have cost a month’s pay. And when did you become so interested in such things?” Her tone took on an accusatory edge near the end, much as she tried to hide it. The two of them often made fun of the fancy diversions of the wealthiest in Storm’s Quarry. It didn’t sit well in Nadya’s chest that Kesali now sought out those same activities. She had only been going to the palace for her apprenticeship for three months. Had it changed her in ways Nadya hadn’t realized?
The Iron Phoenix Page 4
