Nisha left quickly before Matron could see her shaking. Once in the hallway, she leaned against the wall to steady herself and closed her eyes.
Sell her. They wanted to sell her. The idea filled her chest and paralyzed her muscles.
No. Oh no.
Free servants—like her, like the assistants who served other House Mistresses and worked all over the City—could theoretically come and go as they liked, hire with different masters, and keep all that they earned. Free servants belonged to Wind caste, the lowest in the Empire. But at least they were treated like people.
Bond slaves like Zann were criminals or people with so much debt that they couldn’t repay it. Until they paid the price set on them, bond slaves were property.
Even if she somehow had the luck of a good master, Nisha would not be able to walk where she wished, wear what she wished, or say what she wished. And if the price set on her was high enough, Nisha might never be able to pay it back.
She’d never be free again.
I won’t let that happen, Nisha vowed to herself. I’ll run away again if I have to. The idea made her feel sick inside. The woods were full of wild animals, outlaws, and slave traders—slave traders who could claim her as property to sell anyway. Until Nisha took a caste mark, and not a mysterious mark that no one recognized, she was fair game to anyone who claimed her. And if she waited too long, and her bond was sold, she would be considered a runaway slave. She could be sent to the copper mines, a death sentence in itself. Or they could execute her. She would be dead either way.
What was she going to do?
The cats were waiting when Nisha staggered out of the Council House.
What’s happened? Esmer asked. You look like you’re about to faint.
Nisha knelt and pulled both cats close to her for comfort. She couldn’t make the words come, so she just let the memory of Matron’s news flow from her mind to Esmer’s, along with the rapid images of her own fears, and hoped the cats could make sense of her cascading thoughts. Her breathing eased as she let go of the memories, and by the time she finished and stood up, Nisha felt almost calm.
I have to find a House Mistress who’s willing to endorse me before tomorrow afternoon, Nisha sent, as she started walking. Her rooms were back inside the Council House, of course, but she didn’t feel like going anywhere near there right now. Instead she instinctively walked to the large, winding hedge maze. Nisha often walked through it when she couldn’t sort out her thoughts.
If I don’t find someone— The fear rose in her throat again, sharp as a knife. I don’t know what will happen.
Esmer, running along beside her, pulled her ears back. I can’t believe they would do this. This place is changing. She was silent for a moment. But it’s getting close to Darkfall, and you can’t do anything tonight. Go to the greenhouse and make yourself some lemongrass tea. Then come back, eat your dinner, and try to get some sleep.
It sounded like a suggestion, but Nisha knew it wasn’t. Esmer was the closest thing Nisha had to a mother, and when the gray cat spoke firmly like that, she expected to be obeyed.
All right, Esmer, Nisha sent. I’ll try— Just as she was about to say more, she heard raised voices from deeper inside the maze. She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but it sounded like an argument.
Nisha looked down at the cats and laid a finger on her lips. Then she crept forward, trying to follow the sound.
It wasn’t easy; the twisting passages tangled like threads, taking you one way just when you thought you were going in another. But Nisha had spent hours in this maze as a child and now, and it took only a few turns before she could hear the words more clearly.
One of the voices was Zann’s, raised in protest. “I’m telling you, it won’t matter! Vinian won’t let me near her House. They’ll never let me in there again, not after what I did.”
Nisha slid farther down the passageway. The voices were on the other side of the hedge now. If she peered around the corner, she would be able to see who Zann was talking to.
There was a thin, rustling sound, and Nisha realized that the second person was whispering. She couldn’t make out the words, but from the way Zann was sniffling, whatever she was being told wasn’t good. She sounded near tears.
The girl drew a ragged breath. “All right, I’ll do it. But you’d better keep your promise.”
Nisha edged around the stiff branches and peered out just in time to see … nothing. Whoever Zann had been talking to had disappeared, leaving only a rustling hedge behind.
Zann herself was sitting on the hard dirt, knees drawn up, head buried in her arms. She was crying. Nisha felt a burst of sympathy, and without thinking, she took a step toward her. A twig broke under her foot, and Zann looked up.
“You,” the girl spit, her face contorting with fury. “This is all your fault.” She pushed herself up and ran deeper into the maze.
Nisha, Esmer, and Jerrit looked at one another.
What was that about? Jerrit sent.
A headache pounded at Nisha’s temples, and she rubbed her forehead. Who knows? She clearly doesn’t want to tell me.
She turned her steps toward the House of Jade and the greenhouse. Esmer was right. She needed tea and sleep.
While she could get tea in the Council House kitchens, Nisha didn’t care for the strong black mixture the other servants drank. She preferred to make her own herbal teas. Besides, she thought, rubbing her arms against the chilly air, at least the greenhouse will be warm.
The greenhouse was nestled next to the House of Jade, a beacon lit in the dimming light. It was almost Darkfall. Nisha pushed open the door, and the heavy warmth enfolded her like a cashmere blanket.
She felt some of the tension leave her shoulders. She wasn’t good at growing things, but something about being surrounded by the plants made her happy. It was better than being within brick walls any day.
When she was younger, Nisha had tried meditating in the greenhouse to achieve the calm detachment of the House of Jade novices. Sometimes Sashi, one of the Jade girls, would sit with her and offer advice on how to focus on breathing, giggling at Nisha’s grunts of frustration.
When Sashi meditated, her face radiated peace. Nisha had never been able to figure out how she did it. Sitting still made Nisha twitchy, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t seem to find the same kind of detachment. Next to Sashi, Nisha felt like her emotions were leaking out of her skin.
She plucked a few slender stalks of lemongrass for her tea and made her way to the long back workbench. Sashi was sitting there, as Nisha had suspected she would be. The girl’s dark-green Jade asar was wrapped simply, and her dark hair slipped down over her graceful golden neck as she bent over the herbs on her workspace. Her calm expression never changed as she sorted the herbs by touch.
Nisha liked being around Sashi. She had been born blind, but never showed any hint of bitterness about it. If Sashi had been born a noble, a Flower caste girl, she would have been an embarrassment and tossed away. No noble could possess a physical defect so obvious. Had Sashi been born in one of the villages, she would probably have been seen as a burden. But in the House of Jade, the discipline of the mind was more important than the weaknesses of the body.
Nisha took a deep breath and tried to slow her anxious heartbeat.
Sashi straightened up and turned her unseeing eyes toward Nisha. “Who’s there?” she called.
“It’s just me, Sashi,” Nisha said quickly. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Sashi relaxed. “Oh, hello, Nisha. Just let me finish up with this lavender. I have to take a new batch of perfumed sachets to the House of Beauty soon.” She shook her dark head. “Those girls always ask us for the silliest things. Do they really need every piece of clothing to smell like lavender?”
Nisha found herself smiling. “Well, you know what the Beauty girls would say to that.”
“Beauty is serious business,” Sashi finished, then laughed, a sweet sound, like the ech
o of a sitt-harp. “I’ll be glad to become an official healer’s apprentice so I can spend more of my time making medicines.” She picked up another slender stem of lavender, stripping off the tiny flowers and adding them to her pile. “Lavender smells pretty, but smelling nice isn’t the most important thing in the world.”
A hint of sadness strained her words, and Nisha looked more carefully at her friend. “Sashi?”
Sashi’s fine, silky hair was coming loose from its tie. It fell over her eyes as she turned away. “It’s this last year of healer training,” she said. “The master healer tells me that I excel in every area except one. My emotions are not completely under control yet.”
“What?” Nisha was too surprised to hide her reaction. “That’s crazy. You’re the calmest person I know.”
Sashi gave an almost imperceptible shrug. “You know what the canon of Jade caste says: ‘Two things cause unrest: the accumulation of wealth and the accumulation of affections.’ I’m too attached to people.”
“You care,” Nisha said. “How can that be a bad thing?”
“Because it clouds judgment,” Sashi said, with complete conviction. “Just as the infatuation of romantic love makes it hard to see the person you love clearly, too much compassion can get in the way of helping others.” She shook herself, and her calm smile returned. “Enough about me. Your step is so tense that I can feel it through the floor.”
Nisha fought the urge to tell Sashi about Matron’s news. There was nothing Sashi could do about it anyway.
“I am upset,” she said instead. “Something awful happened today.” In a few quick words, she told Sashi what she’d seen outside the House of Pleasure.
Sashi listened in silence. Her hands played with the lavender stem, breaking it into pieces. “What an unfortunate thing,” she said with forced detachment. “The loss of a life is magnified when it’s by the person’s own hand.”
Nisha stared at her. “Unfortunate? Sashi, you don’t have to be a healer with me.”
“I have to be a healer with everyone. And it’s true. Everybody dies. Young and old, rich and poor, we all face the same end. And you can’t help if you’re paralyzed by the sadness of it.”
“But doesn’t it matter?” Nisha asked. “She was alive and she was important, to Camini, even if to no one else. Just because it’s something that happens to everyone doesn’t mean we should accept how it happened.”
“Nisha …” Sashi sighed. “Never mind. I’m sorry. I’m making it worse. It just … hasn’t been an easy day for me, either.” A small, rueful smile flickered across her face, and for a moment, Nisha saw the young girl Sashi used to be. “Forgive me?”
“Of course,” Nisha said. “I thought I’d slice up lemongrass for tea. That usually helps.”
“That’s a wonderful idea.” This time Sashi’s smile warmed the room. “If you prepare the lemongrass, I’ll warm the water for you. I’ll add my special ingredient. It’s guaranteed to calm the nerves.”
Nisha slid her hands into the pockets of her House of Combat tunic, and a piece of paper fluttered to the floor. It was the poem she’d picked up in Tanaya’s room. Nisha unfolded the thin rice paper and scanned Tanaya’s precise, perfect handwriting.
A frost flower blooms
Beauty is irrelevant
To eyes unseeing
The imagery of the poem tugged at Nisha. Frost flowers were white flowers with red centers that grew during Earthsleep. They were rarely seen, because they grew in out-of-the-way places, alone.
Nisha tucked the poem away. She knew how lonely the frost flowers felt. The words the Council wants to sell you still pounded in her brain. And there was no one who could protect her.
No one.
7
THE NEXT MORNING Nisha began her quest for an endorsement at the House of Music. Wrapped in her saffron-yellow Music asar, Nisha made her way down the thin path that connected the Council House to the House of Music. Despite the seriousness of her mission, she found herself practicing dance steps as she walked. She loved the way her Music asar flowed and swirled around her.
Nisha’s steps slowed when she reached the open area where the men were setting up the Redeeming pavilions. The large eight-sided tents consisted of panels of embroidered silk and brocade and were put up early so the House Mistresses and novices could spend days decorating them in the manner they wished. The decorations varied each year, sometimes following rumored fashions from the court, sometimes in entirely unexpected ways to highlight how unusual, how special each House’s novices were.
Usually Pavilion Field was just a large swath of grass dotted with nodding white, purple, and yellow flowers. But now the field rang with shouts and mallet blows as builders from the capital city of Kamal erected the thin, strong frames of wood that held up the tents. The flowers and thick grass were hidden by stacks of wooden poles and heaps of colored fabrics. Nisha saw a pile of deep-green brocade with a pattern of swans that she knew would transform into the Jade pavilion. Next to it was a heap of shimmering ruby silk embroidered with parrots that belonged to the House of Pleasure.
On the day of the Redeeming, this field would be even more crowded. House of Music novices would dance and sing stories, Beauty girls would paint delicate ceramics and pour tea, and Combat novices would spar next to their pavilion, all watched by strangers. The chatter and laughter, the swirling crowd—it was the closest thing to a festival that Nisha had ever known.
The only House that would be missing from the fun was the House of Flowers. The House of Flowers alone conducted its demonstrations at the Redeeming masquerade. Over the course of the evening, every Flower novice would demonstrate a full formal Imperial Court bow before the wooden throne. The throne was reserved for whichever noble was overseeing the Redeeming that year. The girl would touch the noble’s feet with her fan, bring the fan to her chest, and then give the formal bow with hands pressed together. Everything about it had to be perfect: the message of the novice’s asar, her fan movements, the precise angle of her head. There could be no flaws.
The House of Flowers always strove for perfection, since the noble Flower caste it serviced valued flawlessness above all other things. There could be no scars, no permanent injuries among the girls. Nisha had even known girls who were transferred out of the House of Flowers after an accident left them unsuitable in some way.
This year Tanaya would be presented to the High Prince in a ceremony at the height of the masquerade. Nisha imagined it: everyone—nobles, servants, and Mistresses—lining the hall, eyes watching Tanaya’s long, slow walk to the base of the throne, waiting as the prince passed his judgment.
It was enough to terrify anyone.
You’re deep in thought, Jerrit sent, trotting up next to Nisha. A few bits of bird feathers clung to his whiskers.
“Have a nice hunt?” Nisha asked.
Jerrit sat and began to wash his face with one tawny paw. An excellent one. And you’re dodging.
Nisha waved her hand at the Pavilion Field. “That,” she said. “All that. A place for everyone, and everyone exactly where they belong.”
Except you.
“Except me.”
Well, I know where you belong, Jerrit sent. You belong with us.
Nisha laughed. “Of course I do. But where do we belong?”
That’s a different question. And I wish I had the answer, Jerrit sent, unusually serious.
“I was afraid you’d say that,” Nisha said. “Can you at least help me figure out what to say when I meet Devan? I need to practice.”
I suppose, Jerrit sent. If it will help.
“It might,” Nisha said. “It can’t make me more nervous.” She sat down on the grass, put Jerrit on her outstretched legs, and looked into his golden-brown eyes.
“Devan,” she said, “I want to ask you about the Redeeming.”
What about it?
For a moment, fear closed Nisha’s throat, the words too heavy to say. But Jerrit’s gaze calmed her. If she could say
this to anyone, it would be Jerrit.
“I care about you,” she said in a rush. “I love the time we spend together. I love how kind and funny you are. I want you to come to the Redeeming and speak for me. If you want to.”
Jerrit’s oblong pupils were wide and dark. He blinked, breaking eye contact. That sounds good, he sent. Then, If I were Devan, I’d never say no.
“Unfortunately for me, you’re not Devan,” Nisha said. “I know he likes me, and that he cares about me, but it takes more than that to want to marry someone.”
Jerrit made a low and unhappy sound and jumped out of her lap. He’s not the one risking his life to … If he doesn’t realize how special you are, he doesn’t deserve you. Not that he deserves you anyway.
Nisha felt her face grow warm and coughed. “We’d better hurry,” she said. “Today of all days, I can’t be late for my lesson.”
She ran the rest of the way to the House of Music, Jerrit running easily beside her. The front entry of the House led straight into the concert hall. It was propped open, allowing the sounds of rhythmic percussion to flow through the half-open door. Under the drums, Nisha heard the faint jingle of ankle bells.
Sounds like they’re in the middle of something, Nisha sent to Jerrit. Let’s go around back.
Through one of the House’s long, wide windows, Nisha saw a girl in a yellow tunic and trousers practicing a dance that made her sway like a young birch. Through another, an older girl showed a younger novice how to mend her sitt-harp.
Nisha felt some of her worry ease. This was her favorite House, ever since she had discovered the way music wrapped around her while she danced, keeping out the world, making her feel graceful and free. She would never be as good as Zann had been at playing, but the House of Music—and its Mistress, Vinian—made her feel safe. Maybe she could get an endorsement here.
“Nisha!” House Mistress Vinian appeared in the back entryway in a flutter of saffron. Tiny and intense, the Music Mistress always reminded Nisha of a vibrating harp string. Vinian’s dark-gray eyes glowed with affection as she reached out to hug Nisha. “Are you here for your lesson?”
City of a Thousand Dolls Page 5
