The Glass Girl

by Kim Alexander

  “How about this?” She blushed and looked at him through lowered lashes. “Perhaps His Grace might allow me an audience? I find myself between assignments, and Light and Wind hate an empty hand. It is my only desire to serve you. In any way you wish.” She allowed her tunic to slip from her shoulder.

  He laughed, reaching for her. “How could he refuse?” Then he paused, his hand in mid-air. “Why don’t you put it back on, after all?”

  Calaa seemed to want to speak, but wisely kept her thoughts in her mouth. Then his Hellne was back, and between the dream of dead humans and the flame of his queen, the Zaal wasted no time in seeking his pleasure. The weather would just have to wait.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Eriis

  Three days, as promised, and Rhuun was back from the Edge. The excitement he felt about being reunited with Maaya was edged with something else. As much as he wanted to see her, he found he was a bit nervous. She’d seemed unhappy with his decision to leave her in the city.

  He hoped she wasn’t angry.

  He knew she understood his position, but knowing a thing and acting accordingly sometimes drifted apart. As he was welcomed home by his staff at the Arch and they all made their way to the Great Hall, Maaya was conspicuous in her absence. Where had she gone? Where in Eriis would she even want to go, without him? If she wasn’t at the High Seat to greet him formally, and she wasn’t in their quarters to greet him properly, where was she?

  He had a strand of beads for her in his pocket, she’d like that. They had color—glossy red, along with the jet. The folk at the Edge, long overlooked, had started taking it upon themselves to push the boundaries of what was considered acceptable. He’d noticed a woman sitting in her little stone house, in the doorway. She’d had bowls of different colored glass beads on the stoop all around herself and was so engrossed in her work of stringing them she hadn’t spotted the prince and the party from the city practically on top of her. Upon looking up, she’d scrambled to hide her work, but instead of admonishing her, he’d complimented her, and accepted a gift; red and black, his family colors. Once it was clear this ugly young man was a different sort than his mother (or the Counselor, for that matter) he’d been approached by others; at first with deference, then with enthusiasm. It was a colony, it appeared, of artists.

  He had the pleasure of talking with them about a new school, about sending some of the young artisans to the city, about a louder voice in their own futures. He even got to tell them Coll’s dirt idea, and how they might be able to grow real, untransformed food one day. He didn’t think they believed him, but they would, once they saw the rich black soil of Mistra with their own eyes. No one mentioned the human woman waiting for him back home. No one whispered behind their hands about his looks. They seemed happy for the attention, finally, from the palace. He found he almost wanted to extend his stay.

  All in all, it was a success. He pulled the beads out and laid them on the bureau, near her box of hairpins and her comb, and oddly enough, the fat man’s knife. He knew she’d kept it, but he couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen it. He’d assumed it was in the old leather bag she brought with her, along with human-sized clothing and shoes. She has so little here, he thought, and his mind again went back to the Edge, and the couple who displayed their colored cloth; nothing too vibrant (although he suspected bolts of bright color were tucked under their bed) but rich and satisfying to the eye. He would send word, bring them to the city. She should have nice things to wear.

  Where was she?

  He took a walk around the grounds, nodding at acquaintances. Someone said they’d seen her two days gone. One of his household guard thought he’d spotted her the night before, on her way back to the palace. No one had seen her that day. He began to worry. Was she ill? Had someone—had the Zaal come for her? Or had she decided to go off and search for Thayree herself? He knew the little girl’s disappearance weighed heavily on Lelet’s mind, as it did his, but he doubted sincerely the child would ever be found.

  Back in their room, he picked up her comb, and idly set it back down. It caught on something, and he looked more closely at the wooden surface. It was scratched. Were those words?

  ‘Bring me home.’

  That didn’t make any sense. Why would she write that? Then he picked up the knife and held it to the brighter light at the window. In the grooves, in the cracks; blood. His blood. Words and blood. She’d called to Scilla and opened The Door.

  He slowly lowered himself to the floor. A good thing, he would think later, because otherwise he wouldn’t have spotted the candle there where it had rolled against the wall. If he hadn’t found the candle, he would never have known why. But there it was, Scilla’s candle, and he remembered how the Masters at the Guardhouse were keen on preserving it. Seeing as it was a record, almost like a diary of everything he saw from the time Scilla gave it to him, that day in the woods, and told him he was hers to use. A person could eavesdrop on your memories, if they lit that candle and said a few words. Who had that candle last? Wasn’t it Ilaan? Ilaan, the scholar, who knew just which words to say? And now the candle was here, and Lelet was gone.

  Everything I never told her. Everything I watched her do. Weeks of peering in her window, and then months and months of lies. Well, I hope it was worth it, because now all I’ve got left are those pictures in my head. I wondered what she’d do, if she ever found out. Now I know. No reason to wonder why she left me the knife.

  He left the room, he had to be outside, he couldn’t think. He was walking, he was actually smiling and speaking to people on his way past the Arch. The market and the crowded-together homes of the Quarter fell behind, and soon he was outside the city wall itself. It seemed right. He kept walking. He’d forgotten his traveling veil, and his eyes streamed.

  This is my fault. This is Ilaan’s fault. This is her fault, for not waiting to at least say it to my face. Tell me I am a coward. A thief. A cripple. Somehow a bottle of sarave had made its way into the pocket of his coat. And the rest of it. He drank. I wouldn’t have stayed with me, either. She’s better off. I’m better off. She didn’t want to be here. I didn’t love her enough to make her stay.

  This is my fault.

  He didn’t know how long he’d walked, but he did know the bottle was nearly empty and the sky was rapidly losing color. The clouds were particularly low this evening, and that was good for him, because it would hide his flight back to the city.

  Flying was the only thing he could imagine getting pleasure from, and so it felt like a cheat. But instead of landing, unseen at the back of the palace on the window ledge of their room (his room, now. Not theirs) he went higher and perched on the top of one arm of the Y-shaped atrium. He straddled the narrow, flat-topped stone surface, and looked down on the High Seat. Through a veil of ash, he could see the courtyard grounds inside the Arch, and the now-quiet streets beyond the wall. He could see people here and there, late night strollers, or revelers, or workers. No one was in the air, the dust was too thick. He knew if anyone looked up, he’d be just a dark blot against a darker sky.

  Falling backwards, forever.

  If he fell now, if he just leaned back and let it happen, certainly there’d be no saving him. He allowed himself a moment to consider it, and then let it go.

  So, alive. And alone. He had no idea what to do next. He looked at the bottle, still in his hand. It was empty. He knew where there was more. That was a decent place to start.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Mistra

  So, it was a lie, it was all just a lie.

  All the time they’d spent together, all that joining Ha! What a stupid name! Every kiss, all his dumb jokes, every time he told her the moons would fall in the sand. None of it meant much to him. Nothing meant anything at all. In fact, he was just like his mother, and worse, just like Yuenne. The only thing that mattered was the High Seat. Well, he had it now, without the distraction of having a human hanging around. She’d done her job, time to put the tool ba
ck in the shed.

  The bathwater had gone cool, the bubbles long dispersed, but she had no thought of getting out of the tub. She knew Scilla would be waiting for her, probably pacing back and forth near the cot in her little borrowed stone room, and Scilla would want to Talk About It.

  She lit another cigarette, made limp by her damp fingers, and closed her eyes.

  Nothing meant anything. It was all a lie.

  She’d been in the bath for over an hour, and she’d been back on Mistra for barely a day. Scilla, with Olly’s assistance, had caught her as she came stumbling through The Door into the Guardhouse. Back to Mistra, where she belonged. Where she never should have left, and certainly where she would stay for the rest of her life. The questions began at once; why had she returned so suddenly? Had she taken care of the Counselor? And what about that little girl?

  Oh, she’d taken care of them all right. She’d taken care of them right into the Crosswinds. She could still feel the cold blue-white flame in her hands. The desire to use it on anyone who threatened Moth, she could feel that, too. That was Eriis’ gift to her, dormant now, but it had roared to life at the High Seat. She would have died for him, when Hollen laid hands on him. She would have killed for him, when Yuenne tried to use the little girl against him. Not ‘would have.’ Yuenne and Thay hadn’t reappeared in another room somewhere, despite what Moth tried to tell her.

  I killed Thayree.

  She pushed that one back down, because if she allowed it room to live and breathe in her mind, she’d simply sink beneath the dingy, tepid water, and never come up.

  He is so fond of you.

  Now, that was more like it. She knew she’d be going over that remark for a good, long while. Picking at it, reminding herself of how she’d fallen for his…what? Indifference? Did he only pretend to love her? Or (and this, she decided, was more likely) did he only love the woman he’d left behind on Mistra? Maaya, after all, would never have caught his eye, much less his heart, not with her plain Eriisai face, not with hands that left burns behind their pleasure. Maaya, the sdhaach, the tool, the killer. Maaya, her True Face. Not that it mattered, in the end. He’d acted the part, and now she had the luxury of reliving it, how she’d so willingly given him her own heart, to say nothing of her missing finger. She’d followed him back to that desert hellscape, and she’d saved his life, and Eriis itself had appointed her his watchdog, and he was just so fond of her.

  I am so stupid.

  She couldn’t decide what was worse; the look of pity on the queen’s face, or the fact that Moth couldn’t be bothered to tell her himself. Or maybe he was afraid to tell her, afraid she’d hit him with a blast of fire he himself couldn’t create. Maybe that was it. It seemed a long way to go, to engineer that trip of his all the way to the Edge, just to avoid a fight. After all, a blast of flame wouldn’t kill him, even one from her. He’d just have another scar.

  Well, at least you won’t have to tell him you made a deal with Light and Wind. No children for you! I guess we both like to avoid uncomfortable conversations.

  She thought about his skin, and his scars, and his beautiful eyes, and the tears started again. Because even if he was simply fond of her, she knew no matter what she told herself, and what story she would eventually have to tell her family, she would love him until she died.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Eriis

  As much as she enjoyed the society of her friends over a nice dinner, Aelle lately found it impossible, from time to time, to keep her face composed. She sought out solitude and a place for quiet reflection. Her thoughts were sometimes grey with sorrow, or white with rage. It was best, she felt, to entertain such thoughts away from her companions.

  The subject of some of her whitest thoughts found Aelle about an hour's walk from the city wall at the site of an old viewing arena. It had once been used to welcome the rain. Now it was a shattered bowl-shaped depression looking out over a valley. The only thing to view were low clouds and the ever present, always distant firewhirls.

  She heard Rhuun approach. One week. She’d have thought he would have lasted longer, but it took him only a week to reemerge after locking himself in his quarters with only his sarave for company. It had been many more weeks, after all, since Niico, and her brother had still not come back. Did Ilaan love Niico more completely than Rhuun loved Maaya? Or was Rhuun just used to disappointment?

  He sat next to her, hanging his legs over the edge. Even facing away, she could smell the cloud of sarave that hung over him. Disappointing, but not unexpected.

  “Aelle. I'm glad I found you here.” Only a little slurred. Well, the day was young. “We have to talk. It's time for us to wed. We've dawdled and wasted too much time already. I think it's best we just get it over with and get married.” He paused. Was he waiting for her reply? “Right away.”

  Without turning, she said “Oh my, Rhuun. This is like a dream. That's the sort of declaration of passion a girl can wait her whole life to hear. I'm . . . I feel as if I might faint.”

  “Sorry. Right. But what do you think?” She could feel his expectant gaze on the back of her head.

  Now she did turn. “What did you do?”

  He drew back. “What makes you think . . .?”

  “You obviously did something foolish or you wouldn't be saying these words to me. Words, I remind you, you’ve never said to me before.” He scowled at her. “That's a nice face for a suitor. So, what did you do?”

  “Please. I didn't—”

  “Clues!” She clapped her hands. “I know how to do clues. All right. Let me see. Clue the first—you are here without Maaya—I mean Lelet—and she is in Mistra without you. Am I right?” She knew she was right—it was the tale in every mouth. He nodded glumly and she did the same, mimicking his expression. “That's a big clue. I rather thought she would get bored watching you fill out paperwork and take you back home to become a gentleman farmer or something.”

  He frowned. “How do you even know what—”

  “As you will recall, I spent some time over there and even though I was locked in a freezing cold room half the time, I didn't pretend I was a daaeva. I was productive, or had you forgotten?” She looked at him expectantly. “Teaching? Talking to humans? Eating toast?”

  He nodded. “Apologies. You made much of your time in Mistra, and I wandered the countryside.”

  “You have a habit of misplacing people who aren't you. But we're doing clues! So, the second. You look like you've been left out over night for the wind to pick at. And I feel certain you’ve retrieved that shirt from the bottom of a bin.”

  He touched the frayed collar of his faded black tunic. “I like this shirt,” he said.

  “And,” and here she leaned forward and peered at him more closely. “You’ve been drinking.” She pointed at the sun, its outline visible through the clouds. “And I know for a fact you quit doing that before moonrise. For her. Until a week ago. So, what did you do?”

  “It's what Ilaan did,” he said, and she stiffened. “He's angry, he blames me. But what happened to . . . what happened had nothing to do with me.”

  “Yes,” she said blandly. “He's a nasty, vindictive character. Irrational. So, what did Ilaan do?”

  “He gave Lelet the candle. He didn't have to do that, he never even gave me a chance to tell her myself.” He got up to pace. She turned to watch him.

  “He gave her a candle? That does sound serious.”

  “The candle, the one that Scilla gave me while I was under her binding spell. He had it last, and he gave it to Lelet because he's so angry with me.”

  He sighed and sat back down and told her how it had been, returning from a successful trip to the Edge. He'd spent three days and two nights away to thank the workers who'd helped him, gifts for the little ones, promises of more work and better compensation for the elders. Of course, Maaya wanted to go with him, staying alone in the palace made her nervous, but he reminded her that everyone knew what she was, under her new face. There were
those who still mourned their losses and considered her the enemy, despite the way she'd protected the prince. And there were those who wondered what sort of creature might bring down the Raasth, even if they had little regard for the Mages. He reminded her that he held their confidence and the High Seat by a very fragile thread. He reassured her he’d be back to her soon. And she'd agreed. Well, she’d consented.

  “And,” he concluded, “four days ago—no, five— I walked back into our chambers and found her gone. Nothing, no note, her things all gone. Just the blackened candle stub. And the fat man's knife. She left me that as well. Maybe the two of them wanted me to fall on it, I don't know. But it was the candle, he gave it to her.”

  She was tapping her forefinger against her cheek in a way he would recognize as amusement. “Yes, I'm certain it was exactly as simple as that. The dread candle.”

  “I'm glad you find this entertaining.” He pulled on his hair, tied into a horsetail, as he called it. “How was she at dinner? Did you upset her?”

  She drew herself up. “You know perfectly well I wouldn't dream of insulting a guest. I think she had a lovely time. Yes, I'm certain of it.” She still wasn’t sure whether Maaya was friend or foe, but she’d held her own, and that was worth something. Maybe respect. She leaned forward and patted the back of his hand. “You might as well tell me what about the candle would make her leave. It would be difficult for me to think less of you.” Scilla had shown her the little book, she knew Rhuun had done a certain amount of creeping about, but surely he'd told Maaya. If he hadn't, well, he was sweeping his sand now.

  “The candle is an instrument of power. It was charmed to see everything I saw. When I first got to Mistra, I had to hide. I hid in her house. I watched her. I was curious about the humans, it wasn't like I knew we would meet. So I would . . . watch her.”