by Nhys Glover
"Why did you side with me against Ratch?" I asked suddenly, wanting to sidetrack his continued thoughts on pissing. It made me want to find a privy.
Immediately, a wave of distress came off him. He didn't like to be questioned about his actions. He hadn't meant to do it. Over the suns he'd learned the hard way to mind his own business. Flea was a capable lad. It wasn't like he needed his help. But it was unfair, and he hated anything that was unfair. It bordered on chaos. Keeping things balanced, and even and fair, kept chaos at bay. If Ratch had his way, it was like the Clifflings having theirs.
Suddenly, I knew what happened to Zem's family. It all flooded out of him in a torrent of tortured images and words. His father had been a magical son who took to wife a Godslunder woman he met when he was a youth-in-training. Zem's grandfather was the Godling. This was important information I needed to think long and seriously about sharing.
When Zem's father was returned to his mother's people, he'd taken his young wife with him. Of course his people had been furious when he'd refused to start a harem, but he'd stayed resolute. He loved only one woman, wanted to be with only one woman. If Highlund wanted his magical skills, then they'd just have to accept his choice of wife.
And life had been good for Zem and his family for suns. Better than mine. He helped his father as he used his fire magic with metals. He learned about temperatures and measurements from watching his father at work. Then, when he was ten, he and his family − his parents and two younger sisters − had gone to visit his mother's family in Godslund. On the way back, Clifflings had attacked their transport and killed nearly everybody. He was taken captive, but he'd lost his wits. So the Clifflings decided to leave him to die.
A passing wagoner found him on the road and carried him to Godslund. Once there he'd lived with his mother's family, though they found him too broken to deal with, even for his mother's sake. He ended up in an asylum until he managed to escape. He'd been living on the streets by the time he was twelve. But he didn't have the skills I did to survive, though he'd developed the ability to protect himself at least.
All this came flooding through his mind and into me, whether I liked it or not. And I didn't. I'd had enough of other people's sob stories. They all blended into one after a while. People were always thinking about how life had treated them badly. Bemoaning their losses as if they were the only ones who'd ever suffered.
Not that that was how Zem was. He didn't cry over the loss of his family. He just hid away from the pain of it by counting and keeping to his strict pattern of behaviours. It amazed me that he had been able to get away from his obsessions long enough to find out about the airling army.
Zem stood up suddenly, his mind filled with what he should be doing. What the right way to spend his leisure-time should be. He was helping build a privy on the back of the dormitory. That was more right than what he was doing now. He had to make sure there was just the right number of clay bricks for the job. He'd counted them once, or was it twice, but maybe he needed to do it again.
I knew his need to be counting was directly related to the memories I'd accidently drawn up. The mind did that. Just one thought, seemingly unrelated, could start a string of other memories. Especially when they were painful memories someone tried to forget.
If I was honest, I did that with memories of Dah. I might be thinking about the stars at night, and suddenly I'd be reliving his lessons on navigation using the stars. Or a certain colour would remind me of his favourite shirt.
I'd had more time lately to explore those memories because my brain wasn't overloaded with other people's crud. After spending so much time in other people's thoughts, it was actually a relief to be around Airsha and the Airluds, I suddenly realised. Huh! I'd seen it as rejection, or intentionally thwarting me, but maybe it was more about giving me space to just be in my own thoughts.
Zem had unsettled me, and even Spot's calm presence couldn't bring me peace now. I knew another secret. Would it make a difference? I wasn't even sure if it changed Zem's allegiances. He was the Godling's grandson, but Airsha was the Godling's daughter. He'd lived many suns on the streets of Godslund. But that hardly made him a loyal citizen. What had made him join the rebels? Nothing in what I'd heard had given me that part of his story. What if he wasn't with the rebels? How would that affect my plans?
Too much to think about. I was turning into Zem!
Sniggering at the idea, I said goodbye to Spot and headed back to the homestead.
Chapter Fourteen
AIRSHA
My job with the airlings had been shrinking a little more each day as my belly grew rounder. And though I had replaced some of that time with fighting lessons with the lads, I still felt aimlessly inactive at times. And an odd sense of Knowing had been pushing at me for a while now. But I'd fought it, as I did anything I didn't want to be true. But my fast blossoming size was making my fight a useless one. I knew how big a woman should be at each moon when she was with child. I wasn't that.
I was waddling back from the paddock after practicing rock bombardment with the new airlings, my mind occupied with my newest worry, when Rama suddenly caught up and fell into step with me. He seemed overheated in his thick winter tunic. Although others had started donning heavier tunics because of winter, I still wore my summer gowns. I didn't seem to feel the cold.
"Are you well?" Rama asked in concern, bending his head down so he could peer into my face as we walked.
"Of course. I just weigh as much as a baby airling right now," I huffed out, trying not to meet his gaze. "Everything seems to take twice the effort it used to."
"I'm not talking about what we were doing with the airlings just now. It's more than your weight. Speak up, Goddess. If my child is causing you strife then we'll fix it." He gritted his teeth as he said the last words, as if he'd kill the babe before he'd let it hurt me.
It was as if he thought his bad seed could do me harm from the womb. Had he intentionally waylaid me today to check on just this thought? How long had it been eating at him? As long as my unusual size had been eating at me?
Of course women did die in childbirth all the time. But as the Goddess' Chosen One, I doubted it would happen to me. Or that any child of mine would die during childbirth.
"I hate it when you speak like that. Your childlings a... childling isn't the enemy, Rama."
He caught my mistake and dragged me to a halt by the arm. "My childlings? What do you mean childlings?" His voice had taken on a dangerous growl that always sent goose bumps over my skin. In moments like this he was all warrior.
I threw up my hands in defeat. "Look, I didn't know. I didn't want to know. The boy is the dominant one. That's why I only picked him up in the beginning. But as they grew, and I started to look like this..." I gestured at my huge girth. It looked worse because I was so small. I couldn't even see my feet anymore. "... so early in the pregnancy, there was no denying it. There is also a girl growing inside me."
"Twins? You're having twins?" Rama said, clearly overwhelmed by the news.
I shrugged. "Yes. I'm afraid so. The good news is that I will likely have them early. Airshin and I were a full mooncycle early and quite small. Mother used to laugh and say I was in a hurry to be born and dragged Airshin along with me, ahead of time. I was delivered a good half turn earlier than he was."
"Twins? A boy and a girl?" Rama said again. "How did your Knowing get it so wrong?"
I shrugged again. "It didn't. Not really. I Knew I was having a magical son. I just wasn't aware of our daughter until she grew a bit."
"Will she be magical?"
I nodded. "Different magic to his. Probably a healer or someone who has an affinity to beastlings or sealings. He's more... dynamic. He'll wield elemental power like wind or fire. Or that's what it feels like. He's like me. She's like Airshin. It's like this is the way he and I should have been. The only difference is that both our babes will have magic, where Airshin missed out. Which would have been better because he wouldn't have face
d castration like I did."
Rama ran his hands through his lengthening hair. I knew what that hair felt like and wanted to be the one touching it. But his mood was volatile and I couldn't risk any kind of display of tenderness right now. He would think I saw him as weak and needy. Though my heart cried out for him, I saw him as neither weak nor needy, just terribly wounded.
"So he'll potentially be bad and she'll be good? What if he kills her in the womb? I've heard of that happening. One child is born big and strong and the other dead, all its sustenance stolen from it by the greedy one."
"Rama, stop it! Your son is powerful but not evil. Your daughter is less overtly powerful but not necessarily good. You keep assigning qualities to unformed souls. They will be like... like a lump of clay. Have you ever seen a potter at work? I saw one once. She came to the harem to show us what she did and to sell us her wares."
Rama nodded impatiently, urging me to get on with it.
"So our babes are like clay. He is made of the denser clay used for big vessels. She is the more refined porcelain used to make smaller, finer objects. The clay itself determines some of its fate but the potter determines the rest. Your childlings will have the finest potters alive for their clay. They will have you and your brothers. You will love them and mould them into good people, whatever their powers."
Rama shook his head, as if to shake the news out of his head. "When were you planning on sharing this little gem with me? Or was it to be a surprise. If I didn't know about her, I wouldn't grieve her death as much, is that it?"
"No, of course not. I... I was still trying to come to terms with it myself. I have been fighting the Knowing for a while now."
"Why, because you Know the boy will harm the girl or you?" he demanded fiercely, totally ignoring what I had just told him about them being formless clay. Stubborn, opinionated bastard! Once he got an idea in his head he wouldn't let it go.
"No! Because of Airshin and me!" I finally admitted. I really didn't want to think about this. Not now. Not with Rama harping at me, blaming our son for crimes he was yet to commit. Because he was like me. Because my son was strong like me.
But Rama wouldn't let me keep my fears to myself anymore. He'd turn them into something else if I didn't set him on the right path.
"I'm afraid they might end up like Airshin and me, all right?" I admitted furiously. "Like two halves of the same whole. Yet one half rejecting the other because it's too dominant.
"You have no idea how painful it was to be rejected by my brother. My twin!" I cried, feeling the full force of that rejection for the first time. "I thought he was the same as me, and I made him do things he didn't want to do. I didn't mean to. I just didn't know any better."
"I know, Goddess. You've told me before. He was a weedy little coward not fit to lick your boots. My son won't be like him."
"No, but he might be like me. And she might reject him, like Airshin rejected me. Can you imagine what being rejected by Darkin would have felt like when you... Well, when you killed your mother's murderer, for instance. You already felt like a monster. Just imagine how much worse you would have felt if Dark had looked at you with loathing instead of understanding, back then."
He visibly shuddered, hunching his shoulders as if I'd hit him. I desperately wanted to reach out and comfort him. To tell him that Dark would never have done such a thing, because he wasn't a monster. But I needed him to understand what it felt like for me to be rejected by my brother, who was even closer to me than Dark was to him. And my fear that something like that might happen between these twins. The bond was too tight. It couldn't hold. And when it broke, one or both would be hurt.
It was a stupid fear, I knew that. My childlings wouldn't be separated while still young, so one could be trained to believe the other was inferior. I wouldn't let that happen, ever. And neither would my husbands.
If we all survived this war, that was.
It was my turn to shudder.
News of the war had been leaking in from several sources, including the new recruits, in the last month. There had been pitched battles on the borders of Eastsealund and Sousealund. Westsealund was still ostensibly the Godling's territory, but only in name. The fact that the Godling had sent back one of their own, after twenty suns of marriage, and expected the king to put her to death, had the people up in arms. The king, thanks to my uncle's influence, was equally incensed to have been placed in such a position, as if he was no better than a pawn. So he kept his mouth shut but secretly built an army of rebel sympathisers.
Mother and Beyen were now working with that army. Although the King was unaware of her presence. No one wanted to risk him having a change of heart and seeking the Godling's favour by offering Mother up as proof of his fidelity.
I was ready to send for her. My fears around this twin birth made me yearn for Mother as never before. But I didn't want to take her from her lover. She had spent too many suns doing her duty. Surely she should be allowed some time to enjoy being loved. I let that thought go and focused back on my husband and my confession.
"Rama, do you understand? I was afraid of repeating the pattern of my own birth. But it was just a fear. Like your fear that our son will be a monster is just a fear. There is no Knowing attached to either of those fears. In fact, I would say the very opposite.
"Your brother was a bastard," Rama said quietly. He straightened his spine and looked at me. "Do you hear me, Airsha? Your brother was a weak bastard who turned against the person who loved him most. He's pathetic. He threw away the gold in his hands to try to capture stars in the sky."
It was such an about-face. One minute he was torturing himself with his own fears; the next he was comforting me about mine. He was a man of such complexity and depth it was hard to fathom. But what I did know, and he proved over and over again in moments like this, was that he loved me.
I leaned into him then, resting my head on his hard shoulder, still hot and sweaty from the work he'd been doing. He smelled of man and airling. Intoxicating!
His arm came around me and he pressed me to his chest. His voice was low and mellow, the way he spoke to the airlings. The way I loved it most. "I'm always causing you pain, aren't I, love? I never mean to. You're more precious to me than anything in my misbegotten life.
"But I can't go against my nature, and that's what I'm afraid will happen with my son. His nature will be mine. Your fear of one twin hurting the other, like Airshin hurt you, is a real fear. I feel it in my gut. I'm afraid for you. I'm afraid for her... that little girl you didn't even know was there for five mooncycles of her existence. What kind of harm will he do, and what can I do to stop him? I'll be helpless, Airsha. Helpless. Not only because he'll have magic, but because... because I won't be able to find it in me to end him, even if he's the abomination I fear he'll be. Who'll stop him if I don't?"
I cried then. For all his fears and self-doubts. He and I were so alike in that way. Sometimes it felt like we were the only ones who truly understood this shadow side of each other.
"Dear heart," I whispered. "We both need to stop torturing ourselves about the future. Nobody knows what will become of any of us. All we can do is live in this moment, love in this moment, and trust that our shadows do not harm those we love."
I placed his hand on my belly where one or other of our babes was kicking boisterously. Rama had felt it before, but now he observed it with a different eye. I could see him trying to work out if it was his son or daughter doing the kicking.
Taking advantage of the odd, vulnerable moment, I shared more of my pain with him. "When Calun was returned to us, I hurt him very badly because of my own feelings of insecurity. I started thinking I was being unfair to him, bonding him to me, a woman he had to share with three others."
Rama gave an amused little chuckle as he rubbed my gigantic bulge. "Aye, I think I've heard that refrain before. How many times have you been told by one or the other of us that we're more than happy with our arrangement."
I nodded. "I kno
w, I know. I'm like you that way. A stubborn idiot. I blocked Calun from my mind the whole time he lay broken on his bed because I didn't want him to see my fears. And I hurt him so badly, Rama. I didn't even know how deeply until I took down the barriers. And it was all me. All my fault.
"You are like me that way. So I know what I'm talking about. Unless you start to see yourself differently you're going to keep hurting me, your brothers, and your childlings. Just like I will, if I don't stop doubting the power of the Goddess inside me, and my worthiness to be her Chosen One. Every day I struggle with how immense that is. How little I am and how much is expected of me. I couldn't do it without you all. Each of you gives me something. In fact, I've started to see all of us as the Chosen One, not just my little part. But even then, it's hard. So hard."
Rama rested his forehead against mine, leaning right over my belly to do so. "I know you're right. I know we're the same in this. And I can see how groundless your fears are, as you tell me mine are. But knowing it and feeling it is different. And it's easier to give in to the voice in my head that tells me I'm a monster. That I'd be doing you all a favour if I left. Some days that voice is so loud I can barely hear anything else."
That shocked me, though it shouldn't have. On some level, I had to have known he was thinking of leaving. But having him voice it sent my fears overflowing.
"Do you remember how you felt when you thought I was dying?" I asked in a little voice. I was so afraid in that moment. So helpless.
He nodded, hunching his big shoulders again, even as he held me tighter.
"If you left I would feel like that. Every day, every hour, I would feel like that. Your brothers would try to make it better for me, and feel bad because they couldn't. The damage you would leave behind you would be... too great to contemplate. Please remember that when that bastard in your head starts up at you. Remember what it felt like to think me dying, and know you would be consigning me to that kind of hell if you listen to him."
