Games in the Garden
“Alu’s angry about something again,” Orineimu said, and tossed a handful of puffed rice into the fishpond.
After her afternoon lessons had ended, Orineimu had gone over to see if her sister was in her chambers. Alu always had an idea for something fun to do. But she’d stopped just outside at the sound of two voices: Alu’s raised in anger, and their mother’s, crisp and precise the way it only got when she was truly displeased.
So instead Orineimu had turned around and wandered to the residential quarter’s main courtyard, where she’d found Uncle Saiya’s two younger children feeding the fish.
“So?” Cousin Amuri shrugged, then tossed in her own handful of rice. “Your sister gets angry a lot.”
Amuri was thirteen, two years older than Orineimu, but Orineimu thought her comment sounded childish. Everyone knew Alu liked to yell and fight, but what Orineimu had overheard was different. It was serious. Orineimu knew she couldn’t just come out and say that, though. That was a game Mother had taught her a long time ago: when someone said something stupid, you had to find a way to make them feel stupid for saying it, without them catching on that that was what you were doing.
Orineimu tried to think of a way to do it now with Amuri, and couldn’t. That made her feel a little stupid, but as long as she kept it to herself, no one else had to know.
“She said angry, not mad,” said Lua, Amuri’s nine-year-old brother. “So it’s probably something bigger.” While Amuri looked a great deal like her older sister Aitsulilla – save for her eyes, which were too dark to be a proper Ilisaf green – Lua was the picture of their Icarian bridefather, all ink-black hair and blue-violet star marks. He preferred to wear Icarian blue and indigo, too, even though having Uncle Saiya as his father gave him the right to wear House Ilisaf's softly iridescent red-violet. Orineimu didn't understand that at all.
“Did you just psyke me?” Orineimu asked, eyes narrowing slightly. His insight had been a little too good. Lua’s paired spirit let him see things on the surface of the water, and he’d been staring at the fishpond this whole time instead of feeding the fish. She looked for the silver comb that anchored Lua’s partner, but it was pinned securely into Lua’s hair. If he’d been using Moonscatter’s power, he would have been tracing its tines over the surface of the pond.
“No,” said Lua. “I just listen. Can you give me some rice?”
Orineimu took some from Amuri and poured it into Lua’s outstretched hand. Most of the fish she and Amuri had been feeding were sun carp, big fish scaled in whorls of gold and electric blue who crowded the other fish away and sucked down all the rice. Orineimu watched Lua throw his as far across the pond as he could, to the smaller crimson darters and lily snappers.
“So what were they fighting about that was so serious?” asked Amuri.
“They were fighting in private.” Orineimu smoothed out her Ilisaf magenta day dress at the knees, though it didn’t need it. “I don’t know how much I should tell you.”
“What if we guess?” said Amuri.
“Well…” Orineimu pressed her lips together, thinking. “I suppose it’s not really telling, if you guess…”
Amuri and Lua exchanged a glance.
“Orialu wants to marry for love instead of strategy,” said Amuri.
“She wants to pass up the Throne,” said Lua.
“She wants to have that reporter who called out to you killed!”
“Your lady mother tried to make her give up flying again.”
“She – ”
“Stop,” said Orineimu. “It’s about the reporter.”
Amuri looked at her expectantly. She felt rather than saw Lua’s sidelong glance as he resumed feeding the fish.
“Alu doesn’t want her killed, though.”
“Really?” said Amuri. “Father did have us watch the press conference, you know. Lua and I both saw how your sister looked when that Ila woman said something to you. And she had that spear with her.” Amuri draped a hand over her mouth, a gesture Orineimu knew she’d copied from Aitsulilla. “I thought she was going to cut off that woman’s head right there.” She threw some more rice to the fish. "When she had her arrested, I figured it was just because she didn't want to get her hands dirty with someone like that."
“Actually,” said Orineimu, “it wasn’t about killing the reporter at all.” For a moment, her mind went back to the press conference. The thing that had scared her most hadn’t been the moment when she’d heard someone call her by name; it had been the moment when she’d seen Alu’s hand tighten around the shaft of her spear. Orineimu still remembered the fight going on behind her sister’s face as she’d stared down Attari Ila: Alu, her big sister, who'd wanted to kill Ila right then and there just like Amuri had said, versus Orialu, the heir to House Ilisaf, who knew that there were some things even a bloodroyal couldn't get away with.
Sometimes Orineimu was glad when her sister decided to be Orialu instead of Alu.
“I only caught a little of what they said,” Orineimu told her cousins. “I didn’t stay to listen long. But Alu wants to keep being part of Ila’s case, and Mother said she shouldn’t bother.” Orineimu got the feeling she was telling them too much, but she couldn’t seem to help it. Talking about it made her stomach feel less tight and upset.
“Why?” said Amuri and Lua at the same time. They exchanged another glance. “Like – why does she care?” Amuri clarified for both of them. “It’s not like that woman was anybody important. She should just let the legalists handle it.”
“That’s what Mother said, too.” Orineimu slid the gold chain bracelet that anchored her unawakened spirit around and around her wrist. “Alu really didn’t like that.”
Amuri and Lua leaned in slightly, eyes bright with interest. Of course they want to know all about what Alu said, Orineimu thought tiredly. People always seemed so much more interested in Alu than in her…though Orineimu supposed it made sense. Alu was next in line for the throne, and Orineimu wasn’t. More than that, there was something about Alu that made everyone in the room want to give her their attention. Sometimes, Orineimu felt less like a sister and more like a shadow.
But it wasn’t like either of those things were Alu’s fault. Orineimu swallowed down the tension in her throat and faced her cousins. If she couldn’t even do that, she had no business being an Ilisaf at all.
“I’m not going to try to shout like her, I’ll just sound stupid,” she said to Amuri and Lua. “But she was saying things like – a ruler should see the sentence through, and a life is a life, and things like that. Only I know they’re not going to kill Ila, Alu told me that already, so I don’t get why she was so angry. If Ila’s going to live, then it’s all fine, isn’t it?”
“Maybe she did something else,” said Lua, who was now dipping his feet into the pond. When he saw Orineimu looking his way, he looked down, as if pretending he’d just been watching the fish swim between his ankles. “Something bad. And her legalist found out about it.”
“Maybe,” Amuri said thoughtfully. “If she was willing to talk to Orineimu even though it was illegal, who knows what else she might do? Or have done, I guess.”
“But then why would Alu care so much?” Orineimu said. “If it turns out Ila bothered me and did worse before that, Alu would probably take her head.”
“I don’t know,” said Amuri. “Maybe it’s something different. Your sister’s always been sort of…well, weird, hasn’t she? Like, she has a lot of weird ideas. And hobbies. Maybe she’s just weird about justice, too.” Amuri hid a smile behind one hand. “Or maybe she’s just having trouble understanding how it all works. Perhaps she’d understand better if her spear instructor explained it to her.”
Orineimu looked away, into the pond. She actually sort of agreed with what Amuri had said about Alu being weird, but then Amuri just had to go and speak shadewise about her sister. That wasn’t something Orineimu could let stand. She raised her face back to her cousin’s.
“So you think a ruler shouldn’t care about justice?” Orineimu couldn’t shout people down like Alu, or cow them with that brightly smiling aggression Alu liked to use, so instead she tried for Mother’s chilly displeasure. Judging from the look on Amuri’s face, it worked. “I just think it’s funny that you’re making fun of my sister for trying to understand her duties,” Orineimu pressed on. “Maybe you think she should just leave everything she does to an aide, like Uncle Saiya?"
Even though Amuri was two years older than Orineimu, Orineimu could see her face go a little pale. She liked that. Something about it made her feel a little stronger. Like Alu, she thought. And Alu wouldn’t have stopped there, so Orineimu decided not to, either.
“Come on, Lua,” she said, standing up and setting her face in a way she imagined Mother might have. “Let’s go play in my room.”
She knew it was a gamble. But Orineimu, as a direct-line bloodroyal, was of higher status than her cousin, and she saw how Lua usually looked at her more than Amuri when all three of them were together. She liked her chances.
Behind her, she heard Lua get up and follow, and a “But – “ from Amuri that Orineimu chose to ignore. I win! Orineimu allowed herself a little smile, and might have skipped a step or two if nobody had been watching.
“Sorry for what I said about your father,” she said to Lua once the two of them were out of earshot from Amuri. She slowed down a little so that Lua could catch up and walk side by side with her. “But she insulted Alu, so…”
“It’s okay,” said Lua. “It’s not like you were wrong. So what are we playing?”
“I didn’t decide yet,” said Orineimu. “Let’s get something to eat while we think about it, I haven’t eaten since lunchtime. Is there anything you really want to do?”
“Whatever you want to do,” said Lua.
Of course you’d say that. But that would have been too mean of Orineimu to say out loud, so she didn’t. She didn’t let herself roll her eyes, either.
“Well, we’ll figure it out later,” Orineimu said. “Let’s just talk for now. About anything except…you know.” If one more person asked her how she was feeling about Father’s execution, Orineimu was afraid she’d start either crying or shouting, or maybe both. It was the only thing any adult had seemed capable of asking her for weeks, and the other children were just as bad. Worse, even; Orineimu was fairly certain both the adults and children just wanted gossip, but at least the adults were better at hiding it.
“Lilla’s looking for a husband,” Lua offered. Everybody at court knew that already, of course; it was exactly what a noblewoman who’d just turned twenty-one ought to be doing. “When we all go to the Opaline City for – “ He momentarily dropped his gaze. “ – for, you know, she and Father are going to stay behind at the city court afterward. Instead of coming back with us.”
He was talking about the local court that House Ilisaf kept in the Opaline City. Each of the seven houses bloodroyal had one, but Orineimu had only visited House Ilisaf’s city court a handful of times; Alu had been more times than she had. Orineimu tried to picture Alu staying there and arranging a marriage for herself, like Aitsulilla, and couldn’t do it at all. I guess I better get used to the idea, though. It's only two more years until she has to start looking for someone.
“Oh no,” said Orineimu. “Alu’ll miss Aitsulilla so much.” Then she giggled. “What kind of man do you think Aitsulilla’s looking for?”
Lua shrugged. “One who does what she says. I guess she’ll want him to be pretty, too.”
The topic of Aitsulilla’s upcoming marriage carried them from the courtyard to the kitchens, where, between Orineimu’s smile and manners and Lua’s big dark eyes, they won themselves some steaming-fresh rice buns, a dozen fried glassfish, and a container of fruit packed in a sauce of lime, honey, and hot peppers. Orineimu was quite pleased with their yield – it was as good as a proper dinner, and, even better, she wouldn't have to eat it alone. Food never seemed to taste as good when Orineimu ate it by herself; Alu had used to eat with her all the time when they were younger, but ever since she'd stacked her second pyre, it almost never happened anymore. Last week's sleepover in Alu's rooms had been the first time they'd eaten together in over a year.
Orineimu and Lua were halfway to Orineimu’s chambers before they realized that they’d forgotten to ask for silverware.
“We could take it to one of the gardens,” Lua suggested. “Then we don’t have to worry about crumbs, either.”
“Oh, that’s smart,” Orineimu said. “The Sun Gardens are closest, let’s go there. Before this stuff gets cold.”
The Sun Gardens had been created as the Ilisaf court’s antidote against Tei Ura’s rainy skies: a controlled riot of sun- and flame-colored flowers that shone warmly on even the grayest days. Orineimu and Lua wandered down paths of smoothly compacted pink gravel past crimson boat lilies, orange-and-yellow sundial orchids, and fireferns whose dark fronds glowed quietly with lacings of ember-colored light. Orineimu knew the gardens well enough to lead Lua to a clearing with a bench beside a small stream, where they made short work of the food they'd gotten from the cooks. Afterwards, they rinsed their crumby, sticky hands off in the stream, scaring away a handful of waterbirds that had been dabbling for bloodweed and minnows in the process.
They ended up playing pretend, as ruin explorers. Orineimu thought, privately, that she was a little old for games like this…but Lua still loved it, and she had to admit – even if only to herself – that she still found the game fun, too.
“Come on, Second Expeditioner,” Orineimu murmured now to Lua as she led them through a natural tunnel formed by some high-arching dowager palms. There was already mud on her dress, and the hems of Lua’s skirts weren’t looking too much better; both of them had already resigned themselves to being scolded later on. “The vantage point is just up ahead.”
Lua eyed the tree Orineimu was pointing at hesitantly, then looked back at her. Orineimu thought he was going to say something about climbing not being proper for boys. Instead he asked, “Can you help me get up?”
Well, we can’t all have Alu for a big sister. Older sisters were supposed to teach you about how the world worked – at least, that was what Mother always said – but Alu had taught her other things, like how to swim, or how to get to the roofs of certain buildings, or how to dance like commoners did in the city. And how to climb. Orineimu couldn’t be as good at climbing as Alu, not without muscles like hers, but she could still climb higher than anyone else her age.
“Take your shoes off,” she told Lua, and did the same herself. Then she offered Lua her interlaced hands. “Put one foot here, then reach up for that branch above you when I lift. Ready? One, two – ”
After she’d gotten Lua onto the branch, Orineimu shinnied up the trunk after him. “Now just follow me and climb where I climb,” she said. “I’m the lead expeditioner, remember?” She led them both up the tree, deliberately choosing the easiest path she could find and checking behind her every now and then to make sure that Lua was keeping up.
“Quiet now,” she told him after they’d climbed a fair distance. “The ruins are in sight. There’s no telling what might be waiting for us there.” Lua nodded and placed a finger before his own lips to show that he understood.
The “ruins” were actually an old stargazing tower built a couple thousand years ago, during the reign of Oriatsu the Dreamer. It was a crumbling spire of dark blue, black, and violet bricks that had once been carved with eyes, before time had reduced those carvings to faint, shallow lozenge shapes. Orineimu had once asked Mother why no one had ever fixed it; Mother had told her that sometimes ruined things made a place look more romantic. Some people said the tower was haunted. Orineimu wasn't sure if she believed in ghosts or not, but everyone knew ghosts could only move when the moon was out, and it wouldn't be night for a few more hours, so exploring the tower now ought to be safe.
“I’ve never been in there before,” Lua said – quietly, like she’d told him, but Orineimu could hear the excitement in his voice. “Can we go inside?” Then he remembered the game they were playing and tacked on: “First Expeditioner?”
“No, Lua, I led us here so we could look at it and go away,” Orineimu said. She couldn’t help rolling her eyes. “Of course we’re going inside.”
“Sorry,” said Lua, dropping his gaze.
“No, no, don’t be,” said Orineimu. Now she just felt bad. “I’m not mad at you. Just – stop being such a boy about it, okay?”
“An expeditioner,” Lua said, probably just to himself, but Orineimu heard it, too.
“That’s right,” she told him. “Now follow me down. We’re going in.”
“Hey,” said Orineimu, “turn your band off. Or put it on silent, anyway.”
The tower was so old and quiet that something about the idea of a device going off in there just felt wrong. Orineimu silenced her cellband and watched Lua do the same with his own clamshell model. Only then did she lead Lua through the doorless archway into the tower.
“Wow,” Lua breathed.
Orineimu wondered what he’d seen to make him say that. Was it the bricks on the floor, laid in intricate, concentric ring-patterns? The well-like hole cut into the tower roof, or maybe the crumbling spiral sweep of stairs leading up to it? The half-dozen high, shadowed archways, each promising a new room to explore? His eyes were jumping from one thing to the next so fast that she couldn’t tell.
“Keep your wits about you, Second Expeditioner,” Orineimu told him in a low voice. “There’s no telling what could be waiting for us in a place like this.” Lua nodded gravely. “We’d better clear the rooms down here first,” she went on. “Then we can move up. You tell me, Second Expeditioner – do we go clockwise or opposite?”
It would be nice, Orineimu reflected, if Lua didn’t freeze up and look a little scared whenever she handed him a decision. But he did eventually manage to make one. “Clockwise.”
Orineimu led him into the first room on their left. Despite the tall, glassless windows letting in the last of the daylight, not to mention the wide cracks in the wall, the room still felt cool and shadowy. Probably because it’s so gray and cloudy outside, Orineimu thought, and resolutely ignored the momentary ripple of skinbumps along her arms. Being scared was for boys like Lua, not Orisai VII Ilisaf's daughter. She took another step inside, and another, until she'd taken enough that Lua had to stop hanging by the door and catch up with her. Of course it's dark in here, Orineimu told herself. All the bricks are night-colored.
“Look around you, Second Expeditioner,” she said once Lua had reached her side. “What do you think the ancients used this room for?” Then she remembered how he’d looked when she’d asked him to pick what direction to go in. “That table,” she said. It was long, low, and heavy, made of dark stone and broken neatly down the middle. “For example. What do you think they did with that? Or – “ She pointed to the mezzanine that spanned the room's perimeter, except for the parts where it had broken and crumbled away. " – that thing up there?"
“Let’s, um…let’s look at the table closer,” Lua said. “I need to see more – details. Before I can have an idea.”
It was funny, Orineimu thought as they made their way to the table, the way they were both trying to be so quiet, even though no one else was there. But she supposed it made sense. The stone emptiness reflected each noise back at them sevenfold, and apart from those noises, it was so silent in the tower. Every sound she and Lua made felt like an intrusion. It almost made Orineimu want to say a quick prayer in apology. Only she didn't know any prayers, and besides, the gods were all dead, so it wasn't like a prayer would have even meant anything.
Orineimu and Lua turned on their cell lights and held them over the surface of the table. Broken and age-dirtied as the table was, they could still make out the carvings that decorated its surface. The edges bore a pattern of the same seven constellations repeated; Orineimu didn’t know any constellations on sight, but since it was the same seven over and over, she could just about guess that it was the seven signs of the zodiac. Down the center of the table ran another series of carvings of the moon moving through its phases, from empty to full and back again.
“This must be from the time of living gods,” Lua said, voice hushed. Of course the table was nowhere near old enough to be from then, but that didn’t matter; they were only playing pretend. “It’s decorated with the heavens. So they must have used it for sacrifices.” He pointed up to the mezzanine. “That’s what that space there was for. So other people could stand up there and watch the sacrifices happen."
“But it’s indoors,” Orineimu pointed out. Pretending a table was older than it really was was one thing, but getting executions wrong was quite another. “Executions need to be done someplace where you can see the stars, remember?”
“Well…” said Lua. “We know that now. But the ancients did things different, maybe.” He started to look a little more confident. “And that’s part of why their time ended the way it did! Because they did executions wrong, and angered the gods.”
“Interesting theory, Second Expeditioner,” said Orineimu. “Let’s see if we can find any more evidence to support it.”
They wanted to go up and explore the mezzanine, but the stairs leading to it were too broken to climb. Instead they moved on to the next room; it had a series of stained stone bathtubs carved into the floor, which they decided the ancients must have used to give a final bath to sacrifices before bringing them to the room with the table. Time slid by as Orineimu and Lua continued to build a pretend history for the old stargazing tower. Only after they'd explored all six rooms on the first floor did they realize that the sun had nearly set. By then, they'd also concluded that the tower had once belonged to a cult of blood-drinkers who sacrificed their victims' bodies to the gods after they'd had their fill.
“I think we should go,” Lua said, looking around at the shadows that had grown much deeper and darker since the two of them had first stepped inside.
“Why?” said Orineimu. “Are you scared to be here after dark?” Something – pride, or maybe just an idiot’s daring – took hold of her, and she tossed her hair back over her shoulder. “Because I’m not. I’m Venarch Orisai’s daughter, and that means everything here belongs to me.” It sounded like the kind of thing Alu would say, which made her stand a little taller.
“I am scared,” Lua admitted, looking aside. “Sort of.” His hand reached up to touch the silver comb in his hair, as if for reassurance.
Orineimu pressed her lips together. She still wanted to go up and look at the roof of the tower, but she didn’t want to make Lua have nightmares later on or anything, either.
“I really want to go up there,” she told Lua, and pointed up the barrel of the spiral stairs at the circle of sky overhead. “But – “ I don’t really want to go up there alone. She couldn’t say that, though, not after she’d just put on such a show to Lua of not being scared. “ – I don’t want to make you wait down here by yourself while I go look, either,” she said instead. “So you should probably come with me. But we can hold hands while we go up, if it makes you feel less scared."
Lua looked a little too happy about her offer, which sort of made Orineimu want to take it back. But it was too late now, and besides, if it got him to accompany her up to the roof, then it was worth it. Orineimu took Lua’s hand in hers and led him to the staircase.
“What’s got you so scared now, anyway?” she asked Lua as they started up the stairs. “Is it just because it got dark, or what?”
“It’s stupid,” Lua said. He was a little behind her, and she couldn’t see the look on his face. “Lilla told Amuri and me a story about this place once, and I can’t stop thinking about it. That’s all.”
“What kind of story?” Orineimu asked. It was probably a bad idea to ask while they were still in the tower, but she couldn’t help being curious. Besides, they needed something to talk about as they made their way up the tower stairs.
“A ghost story,” said Lua. His voice echoed ever so faintly off the tower stones.
“Tell me,” said Orineimu. She’d heard mutterings about the tower being haunted from servants, and some of the more superstitious elder aunts, but she hadn’t known it had a full story to go with it.
“They probably taught you about Oriatsu the Dreamer in history already,” said Lua. Orineimu got the feeling he was telling it to her exactly the way Aitsulilla had told him and Amuri. “But how much did they teach you about her husband?”
“Not much,” said Orineimu. “I know he was from one of the Seket vessel houses and gave her four daughters…but that’s all I remember.”
“Well, Lilla said – ” Lua stopped himself and started over. “They say Oriatsu and her husband really, really loved each other. Oriatsu got called the Dreamer because she saw visions, but her real passion was astronomy. She would come out to this exact spot in the gardens to look at the moon and the stars, because it was supposed to have the best view. And one night, after she and her husband were married for a year, she went to the gardens to stargaze and found him in her spot. They say that when Oriatsu realized they both loved the stars, she was so moved that she had this tower built. Oriatsu and her husband would go up these stairs and look at the sky together every night."
Orineimu and Lua passed a second floor of rooms. Orineimu wanted to stop and explore those, too, but it was so late. Maybe we can come back on another day, she thought as she listened to Lua continue his story.
“You used to be able to see the whole Ilisaf court from the top of this tower,” Lua went on. “So whenever Oriatsu’s business took her away from the court, her husband would go up these stairs every night on his own. That way he could look at the stars and remind himself that his wife was somewhere out there under the same sky…and if she came home at night, he’d be the first person to see her coming. No matter what hour Oriatsu came home, her husband was always the first person to greet her.
“But one day, Oriatsu didn’t come back. A trip that should have taken her a month turned into two months, then four, then a year. And every night, after their daughters were asleep, Oriatsu’s husband still went to the top of the tower to watch the stars and wait. Eventually he started sleeping there, so that he could feel closer to her, and stay up longer waiting.
“But Oriatsu never came back.”
Orineimu and Lua passed from the still, stony darkness of the stairway to the moon-blued, open-air dark of the tower roof. A light chill swept over Orineimu’s flesh. There’s a wind up here, she thought. One of those cold wet ones that means it’s going to rain soon. That’s all you’re feeling.
The stairway they’d just come up yawned at the center of the roof like some dark empty well. The edge of the roof bore a crown of pointed stone arches, some still standing, others broken down to tines or nubs. Orineimu slipped her hand from Lua’s and went to peer out from one of the arches, where she saw a brickwork ridge that ran around the outside of the rooftop edge, wide enough for a person to stand on. It used to be a stargazing tower. Maybe this is where people put their telescopes?
“Instead of Oriatsu,” Lua said, joining Orineimu at the edge of the towertop, “her family got back a letter.” Orineimu knew enough of her history to be able to guess this part. “She died in the Water Plagues. So they couldn’t send her body back, not even if they cut it apart or tied it up to stop it from reanimating. Oriatsu burned up in a corpse pyramid with a thousand other bodies. When her husband learned about it, he was so upset and missed Oriatsu so much that he moved into the stargazing tower and lived there for the rest of his life.
“Since Oriatsu burned in a plague pyre instead of at a proper funeral, her husband knew her soul wouldn’t move on after she died. He decided he wouldn’t have a proper funeral pyre of his own, either. That way, at least his soul and Oriatsu’s would both stay trapped in this world together.”
As Lua talked, Orineimu led them around the edge of the roof, looking down at a new slice of the Ilisaf court from each archway. Maybe you could see the whole court from up here in Oriatsu’s day, but in the present, it sprawled beyond the limits of Orineimu’s vision.
“When Oriatsu’s husband knew he would die soon,” Lua said as he and Orineimu looked out on the distant black-roofed buildings of the justice block, “he had the stonemasons make an opening in the tower wall, just big enough for him to stand inside. Then he had the masons close it up again. When he died, his reanimated body couldn’t escape the tomb he made for himself. His body decayed until it became part of the tower stones." Now Orineimu and Lua looked out at the Ilisaf family gravehall, standing separate and sacred from the other buildings of the court. "But that meant the soul of Oriatsu's husband was tied to this tower forever. Instead of moving through our world until it found Oriatsu's soul, his soul haunts the tower and waits for Oriatsu's to come back to him, just like when they were both still alive."
Orineimu shivered a little; this time it was half good shiver, half bad. Lua’s story was romantic in the darker way, just the kind of tale she liked…but up here on the roof of Oriatsu’s tower, under the cloud-veiled moon, with the promise of rain on the wind, it all felt just a little too possibly-real.
“By now his soul has been trapped in the tower for thousands of years,” Lua said. His voice had gone low, as if he were afraid to finish the story. “And every year, it gets lonelier. More desperate to reunite with Oriatsu’s.” Just then, the rain Orineimu had smelled coming began to fall, so light and fine that it was half a mist. “Every night, Oriatsu’s husband climbs these stairs again, hoping to find Oriatsu waiting for him on the roof. And if he finds a living person there, he thinks it's her." Lua's hand found Orineimu's again, small and cold. She let it stay. "He goes up to them…and touches their face with his pale hands…and all the warmth leaves your body. You're too cold to move. He's beautiful. That's what Lilla said. So beautiful you stop wanting to run. Beloved, he says. You're finally home. And then he kisses you." Orineimu felt Lua's hand squeeze hers faintly. "He kisses you and takes all the life out of your body. And then you stay with him here in this tower. Forever."
“Lua, oh my gods, why did you let me bring us up here when the story ends like that?” Orineimu could have smacked him. She didn’t, but it was a near thing. “Let’s get out of here – ”
“Wait,” said Lua.
“What?” she said. It was strange; even though they were the only two people in the tower, she still felt the need to speak at a whisper.
“Orineimu,” he said, and something about his voice made her turn to look. His eyes were so big and scared they took up his whole face. “Don’t you hear it? There’s a voice coming up the stairs.”
At once, an image blazed to life in Orineimu’s mind of Oriatsu’s husband, drifting weightlessly up the tower stairs in funeral whites that glowed against the dark. Fear squeezed a cold hand around her heart. But afraid as Orineimu was, she wasn’t too scared to listen. It can’t be him, she realized. There were two voices, not one, and both of them belonged to women.
The fear lessened for a moment. Then it came back in full force, as Orineimu looked around and realized that there was nowhere on the roof to hide. She couldn’t say why she felt like she and Lua needed to hide, except that grown women wouldn’t come to a place like this after dark just to talk unless they were talking about something they didn’t want anyone else to hear.
No place to hide, she thought again, more desperately…until she remembered the ledge that ran about the outside of the tower roof.
“Lua,” she said into his ear as the voices grew slowly clearer. She spoke so quietly that her mouth barely moved. “We don’t want whoever that is to see us. Do what I do, and don’t make a sound no matter what.”
Orineimu led Lua over to a spot on the roof where two of the taller archway remnants still stood side by side. She worried that he’d argue with her, say that it was better to be caught by whoever was coming than to risk doing what she was obviously about to have them do, but instead he just followed, scared and silent. Orineimu didn’t know if it was because he liked her, trusted her, or was just too afraid to do anything but obey.
Orineimu climbed up onto the ledge, told herself not to look down, and promptly looked down anyway. Her heart swooned in her chest, and for a moment the world felt all dizzy and bendy. You’ve been up higher than this before, she reminded herself. On big wide roofs, another part of her replied. On balconies with railings. She’d been leaning against the broken-off arch next to her for balance, but now she clutched it. Orineimu swallowed, closed her eyes, and tipped her face up, then forced her eyes back open. It was a little better if she looked out straight ahead. Not much, but a little.
She turned back to face Lua. Somehow, standing with her back to the empty air was even scarier than looking at the ground. She could feel wind pulling at her hair, at the back of her dress.
Lua’s watching you, and he’s even more scared than you are. Orineimu tried to think of what Alu would do, if it was Alu trying to coax her onto the ledge. Alu would have jumped off the roof and then come floating back up on her spear, told her that a little height was nothing to be afraid of, and promised to catch Orineimu if she fell. Orineimu couldn’t do any of that. So what do I do instead?
“S – ” There was a catch in her throat. She tried again. “See?” she told Lua, still whispering. The voices coming up the stairs were closer than ever. “It’s wide enough to turn around on, even. Take my hand, come on.”
Lua stared at Orineimu’s outstretched hand, then at her, and then behind her, at the open air. His mouth trembled. He reached for her hand, but not far enough. Orineimu pressed her own lips together, gathered up her courage, and then leaned forward and took his hand herself, pulling him the rest of the way over. When he got up onto the ledge beside her, she could feel all the muscles in his body trembling just like his mouth had.
“It’s easy as long as you don’t look down,” said Orineimu. She didn’t know how she was able to make her voice sound so light. “See that part that sticks up over there? All you have to do is walk over to it and stand behind it. Then stay still and be quiet. That’s all. And I’ll be doing the same thing next to you, right over there.” She made herself let go of Lua’s hand. “Look at me, or up at the sky, or straight ahead. Anywhere but down. It'll be over before you know it."
She pressed her back to the column she’d picked for herself, and breathed out a sigh of relief as Lua hesitated for only a moment before doing the same at his own column across the broken archway.
“…and may I suggest that we do not meet here again, no matter how unbugged the place might be,” said the first woman’s voice. It sounded clear, crisp, and distinctly peevish. “My knees are protesting most fiercely, and we’ll still need to climb back down, I hope you realize.”
“Perhaps you should have them replaced instead of complaining to me about it,” said the second woman’s voice, which was lower, and tinged with mingled humor and contempt.
“Ah, yes, I’ll simply schedule it in between the regular council sessions, and the special sessions, and our venarch’s husband’s execution, and Aitsulilla’s wedding, and preparations for Lady Orialu’s twentieth birthday, and the storm season revelries,” the first voice groused. “Well, at least now we can be sure there’s no one else here. May we at last discuss the business at hand?”
“You mean that business with Lady Orialu’s pet reporter?” said the second voice.
“I mean Orialu in general,” the first voice scoffed.
Orineimu’s eyes went wide, and she felt a hot swooping sensation in her stomach. Why are they talking about Alu like that? Her fingers curled into the spaces between the tower bricks, looking for something to grip at to keep her hands from shaking. She’d already been listening carefully, but now she strained with every fiber of herself to hear as much as she could.
“Finally dipping a toe into treason, are we?” said the second voice.
“More like diving into it,” said the first. “Gods. At least I’ve chosen a good high place to do it from.”
“So you would be willing to go as far as having her killed.”
“Did I say that?” the first voice snapped.
“Do you deny it?”
The silence stretched on. Orineimu tried not to break it by retching up a sob; she was so scared and shocked and furious, it was making her feel sick. Kill Alu? Kill Alu?!
“If the gods dream sweetly, it won’t come to that,” the second voice said. It sounded as if she were trying to be soothing…but it also sounded as if the effort were thin at best. “I only need to know that you’ll do whatever is best for the family,” the voice went on. “No matter what it takes. Surely you can agree that, in the end, a ruling dynasty spanning thousands of years is worthier of preservation than a single girl of nineteen? I tell you, Orisai's branch is withering."
It was a phrase Orineimu had read a handful of times in her history lessons. It made all of her blood turn cold.
“Orisai’s done well by the family,” the first voice protested. “You always jump for the most extreme thing first. I say we push for Orialu to abdicate and the little sister to take her place.”
Before Orineimu could think too much about what she’d just heard, a fat raindrop landed right on her nose. It startled her so much that, for one stomach-tilting second, she thought she might slip from the ledge.
“I say that we get off of this gods-forsaken roof already,” said the second voice, as more raindrops started to fall. Yes, thought Orineimu, go, get out of here, please! In the space of a minute or two, the half-mist from earlier had become a proper downpour. The stone ledge was much slicker now than it had been when she and Lua first climbed on, and Orineimu was terrified that one of them would slip and fall if they stayed there much longer.
Blessedly, mercifully, the voices faded away. Orineimu wanted to clamber down from the ledge right then and there. Instead she made herself wait, counting out the seconds in her head, until she was sure neither woman would come back up to the roof.
Then she carefully, carefully inched her way back around the column and hopped down from the ledge.
As soon as both her feet landed on the roof, every muscle in Orineimu’s body started shaking. It was as if her whole body were one big string that had been stretched to the snapping point, then released, and now all she could do was let the vibrations course through her. Her breath was coming out funny, all hitching and shallow. Sitting down and putting her hands to the roof’s surface helped, a little.
Then Lua was down from the ledge, and Orineimu was glad she’d decided to sit, because Lua all but flung himself against her, shaking and sobbing. For once, Orineimu couldn’t blame him. In fact, she would have liked to do the same thing, but girls were supposed to be strong in front of boys, so she didn’t. Instead she put her arms around Lua and let him cry against the front of her dress. While he cried, she sucked in all her breath, held it a moment, and let it out slowly, then did it again. And again. By the time Lua's muffled sobs had tapered off into sniffles, Orineimu's own breathing felt steady enough that she trusted her voice not to break if she talked.
“Lua,” she said, as quiet as she could without the rain drowning her out. “We need to tell my mother what we heard.”
Lua looked up at her miserably. “I want Father,” he said.
“You – ”
You stupid, scared little boy, she nearly said, we just heard two people talk about interfering with the succession. It was something a venarch had to know about right away, and Lua just wanted to run to his father. But Lua was upset enough already, and if Orineimu called him a stupid, scared little boy out loud, he might not want to come along with her at all. And this is the kind of thing Mother needs to hear first. Before anyone, even Alu. If Lua goes off without me, how am I going to be sure he doesn't tell anybody else?
“You can see Uncle Saiya as soon as we’ve talked to Mother,” she told Lua, and tried to smile. “I promise.” Another thought struck her. “Look, we’re all dirty and wet. Won’t Uncle Saiya scold you for that? But if we tell Mother it was because we ran through the rain to tell her about this, she’ll understand. And then you can get cleaned up before you go see your father.”
Lua looked up at her, face wet with rain and tears, before giving a single nod.
Standing between the two guards who flanked the door to her mother’s inner chambers, Orineimu felt awfully small and shabby and out of place. The proper way to greet Mother was dressed, jeweled, and groomed, and Orineimu was coming to her in a rain-soaked day dress, hair in disarray, with mud on her skirts and a little puddle forming around her feet.
She won’t care about that when I tell her, Orineimu reminded herself. She gripped Lua’s hand a little harder. The two of them stared up at the great wooden double doors before them. Both doors were inlaid with matching golden figures of women standing tall and proud, who faced each other and, together, held up the outline of a golden prism that streamed pearlmother rays over them both. As Orineimu watched, the prism split down the middle, the golden women swung away from each other, and a line of light spilled forth. A slender male servant stepped forward into that spilled light, his silhouette splitting it like a sword.
“We need to see my lady mother,” Orineimu told him, before he could say Oh, you poor things or anything to that effect in earshot of the guards. Standing outside Mother’s chambers in this state was embarrassing enough without some man fussing over her on top of that. “At once, please.”
“Of course,” said the servant. To his credit, he responded with barely a blink of hesitation. “If you would be so kind as to follow me.” Orineimu already knew the way to Mother’s bedchamber, but it was no use arguing against tradition; everyone who entered the venarch’s inner chambers needed to be escorted in, even if it was her own daughter and nephew.
Orineimu followed the servant with Lua in tow, and tried not to think about how she was leaving a trail of dirty little wet footprints across her mother’s floors.
“Your Radiance,” the servant said into the comm panel outside Mother’s bedchamber door. “The young Lady Orineimu and young Ladin Lua, here to speak with you.”
“Thank you, Aara,” said Mother’s voice through the comm panel speaker. “I’ll see them both in myself. You may go.”
Aara bowed to the comm panel camera and departed, leaving them alone before Mother’s door. Orineimu and Lua waited there in near-silence for a minute, then two, the quiet broken only by the faint sound of rain falling outside.
Then the door opened, and Mother broke upon them like the dawn, all gleaming dark-magenta hair and tawny-gold skin and pink star marks. She wore a loose, light robe of peach-and-violet silk. Dressed for bed, Orineimu thought. No makeup. But she’s seeing us anyway. It’s like she already knows this is serious. A small, warm smile played about Mother’s lips. When she saw Orineimu and Lua, the smile faded, and her leaf-green eyes with their sideways slitted pupils widened slightly.
“You poor things,” she said, in the soft voice that she only ever used with Orineimu in private. It caused Orineimu no embarrassment. If Mother was calling her and Lua poor things, then they really must have looked upset. “Come in at once, both of you.” She stood aside to let them through. As she moved, Orineimu caught a faint whiff of the smoke-and-spice perfume her mother liked to wear, and the warm familiarity of it was almost enough to undo all her self-control and make her start crying right there in the doorway.
“Sit on the bed, won’t you?” said Mother.
“But – ” Orineimu started, eyes drifting to her muddy feet.
Mother leaned down and placed one finger gently against Orineimu’s lips. “Hush, pet. Bed linens may be washed, and whatever’s happened has clearly upset you both. Sit on the bed while I draw you and your cousin a bath, is that understood?”
“Yes, Mother,” said Orineimu.
“Yes, aulohaama,” said Lua. It was the most formal title you could use for an aunt, about the only way you could address an aunt who was also your venarch.
Mother dropped a kiss on Orineimu’s forehead and ran a fond hand over Lua’s rain-damp hair, then left to run their bath.
Mother’s bed was exactly the sort of bed a royal should have: a great, broad, four-postered affair that looked as if it had been carved from the very stone of the walls and floor. Each poster was carved in the shape of a slender tree, and around the trunk of each tree coiled a carved stone serpent so lifelike that Orineimu was always tempted to feel their scales just to make sure they weren’t real. The stone boughs growing from each of the four tree-posters touched delicately and supported silk curtains with two layers: peach fading to blue on the outside, and a magenta so deep it was nearly black on the inside.
But just now, it was the mattress and blankets that mattered most to Orineimu and Lua. They sank into a wealth of wonderfully soft, smooth linens in magenta and violet, spread over a mattress that cradled their chilled, aching bodies perfectly. Each of them let out a long sigh at the exact same moment. Orineimu couldn’t help but giggle, and was glad to see a little smile on Lua’s face as well.
Soon Mother came back out to tell them that the bath was ready. Orineimu and Lua peeled themselves out of their wet clothes while Mother shrugged out of her robe, and then the three of them stepped into Mother’s private bath. Orineimu rinsed all the mud off her body and soaped herself down while Mother washed Lua’s hair; then they switched, and it was Orineimu’s turn. She closed her eyes and felt her body go almost limp as Mother's fingers gently scrubbed her scalp and then worked the shampoo through the rest of her hair. When was the last time Mother and I bathed together? she wondered. It had happened more often when Orineimu was little, but as she'd gotten older, those occasions had slowly grown further and further apart.
Before they got into the bath, Mother invited Orineimu to choose between three different cakes of bath powder: an indigo fish, a dark pink flower, or a pale green leaf. When Orineimu picked the flower, Mother favored her with a widening of her smile. Instead of putting it into the bathwater herself, Orineimu handed the cake of powder over to Lua and let him do it; when he dropped it in, the bathwater turned into a deep shade of pink, and paler pink foam frothed up and covered the water's surface. Orineimu smelled lunar plum blossoms, amber, and another note she didn't recognize, dark and woody. This was an adult fragrance. Yet the smell also reminded Orineimu of Mother herself. She felt both comforted and indulged as she sank chin-deep into the scented water.
“It’s much better to soak in this than in rainwater, isn’t it?” Mother said after all of them had had a few moments to relax in silence. “My poor waterbirds. Are you ready to tell me what it is that’s ruffled your feathers so? Or should we wait until after the bath?”
To Orineimu’s surprise, it was Lua who answered first. “Can we wait until after?” he said. “Aulohaama? I’m sorry. But right now, I just want to…”
He trailed off and sank a little deeper into the water.
“Don’t be sorry for an honest answer, darling,” Mother said to him. She reached out and tucked a wet lock of hair behind his ear. “Not here. We’ll finish the bath without another word about it. Are either of you hungry? Would you like something to eat afterwards?”
Orineimu realized that it had been several hours since the dinner she and Lua had cajoled from the kitchen workers – several hours filled with exploring, climbing, and an episode of heart-stopping fear. As soon as she realized, hunger hit her all at once, as if it had only been waiting for her to notice. She looked over at Lua, whose face suggested that he’d realized much the same thing.
Mother took her cellband from where it sat by the edge of the tub and, with Orineimu and Lua’s input, sent to the kitchens for food. It was waiting for them in covered dishes by the time they finished with the bath and returned to Mother’s bedchamber: hot fried rice rich with ginger and vegetables and bits of crabmeat, dreamsweet tea with honey and plenty of milk, and bite-sized whole sourburst fruits coated in a glassy sugar glaze. Mother must have rung the servants of the wardrobe, too, Orineimu thought; there were two clean, soft, child-sized nightdresses folded and waiting by the door to the bathroom. Orineimu and Lua shrugged them on, then turned to the food.
The scene on the tower roof had happened scarcely an hour or two ago; but bathed, warmed, fed, and in clean clothes, it seemed somehow further away, and easier to discuss.
“Now,” Mother said, sitting down with both of them on her bed. She had put on a fresh robe, Ilisaf magenta silk embroidered faintly with gold. “I know you’ve both been through something upsetting, but the more I know of what happened, the better I’ll be able to help. Do you feel as if you’re ready to talk about it?”
Orineimu leaned against her mother’s body and felt Mother put an arm around her shoulders. She was overwhelmed by a sudden wave of love; for a moment she was a girl of five again, and Mother was the strongest, smartest, most beautiful woman in the world who would make everything right.
Orineimu took in a breath and began.
“Lua and I were playing in the gardens and started exploring the old stargazing tower. It was my idea,” she said. “We, um…got distracted. And played there until after dark. We were just about to leave, when…”
Orineimu trailed off and rubbed at her eyes with one hand. She wanted to tell the whole thing right, but it was so late, and sleep was beginning to call to her.
“We were up on the roof,” she went on. “We’d explored the whole tower and were just about to go back down and leave…only then we heard voices coming up the stairs. Two of them. I thought we should hide. I don’t know why.” She looked down and played with the ends of her hair with one hand. “It was just a feeling, I guess. A strong one. But I made Lua hide with me, so don’t blame him for any of this next part, okay? Please?"
“You have my solemn vow, darling,” said Mother.
“Thank you,” said Orineimu. “Um. So. There was really nowhere to hide on the roof.”
“…Go on.”
“But there’s this ledge that goes around the outside of the roof…”
Mother’s arm around her shoulders tightened ever so slightly, and Orineimu felt her body go very still.
“Orineimu,” she said. “Pet. That was extremely dangerous.”
“I know,” said Orineimu with a pang of guilt. She wanted to squirm and fidget, but that was something little children did, and if there was one thing she didn’t want to look like in front of Mother right now, it was that. Her hands clenched into fists as she said: “But – but – they were talking about Alu!”
“About your sister?”
“They – they said – ” Orineimu’s fists tightened even further as she tried to sort out what things to tell Mother, in what order. Her mind was boiling with thoughts, all of them fighting to be expressed first. “There were two of them. Two women. Did I say that already? They both sounded sort of…older. One of them complained about her knees – actually, she just complained a lot, period. The other one sounded…I don't know…like she knew a joke the other one didn't. No, that's not quite right – "
“Like the first woman was the joke to her,” Lua said quietly. “A smaller one. The kind you laugh at with a closed mouth.”
“Yeah,” said Orineimu. “I mean, yes. And they were saying – the second one said something about Alu’s pet reporter. That Ila woman who…you know. And then they said something about treason – Mother, they talked about having Alu killed!”
The word fairly exploded out of her, and after it came a hot, burning feeling that filled first her throat, then her eyes. No, thought Orineimu, no, I don’t want to cry in front of Lua, in front of Mother, but part of her knew: these were tears she’d been holding in since she’d come down off the tower ledge, and she couldn’t keep them back any longer. She buried her face into her mother's side, ashamed, and cried into the expensive silk. Mother rubbed her back with one hand and cradled the back of her head with the other, soothing and silent.
“Only one of them said that,” Lua said, as Orineimu’s sobs tapered off. He offered up his words tentatively, as if afraid to contradict Orineimu’s recollection. “The second one. The first one, the one who complained, she said they should try and make it so Orineimu inherits instead of Orialu.”
“That’s true,” Orineimu said as she wiped at her eyes and tried not to sniffle.
“Darling,” said Mother, running a gentle hand over her hair, “darling, darling – do you truly think I’d let anyone kill your sister?”
Orineimu shook her head, pressing her lips together, tears still beading in her eyes.
“Just so,” said Mother. “I can’t protect your sister from herself, but I can protect her from everyone else, you may be certain of that. Thank you for telling me this, pet. Truly. And you too, Lua.” He colored faintly and dipped his head, as if equal parts pleased and embarrassed to be acknowledged. “You did the right thing, coming to me as soon as you heard. And do you know what else?”
Orineimu shook her head again.
“You caught them early,” said Mother. “You heard them disagreeing about how to handle your sister, yes? So they haven’t even decided one of the main pillars of whatever little plan they’re spinning.” Her smile took on an edge. “I shall find whoever these plotters are and crush them before this embryonic plan of theirs can reach infancy.”
Orineimu’s body felt limp with relief. They’d told Mother. They’d told Mother, and now she would set it all right. But…
“There’s…one more thing,” she said.
“And what’s that?” said Mother.
“They said…” Orineimu swallowed. “They said, Orisai’s branch is withering.”
A cold, calculating light flickered in Mother’s eyes for just a moment. Then it left, and Mother gave a soft laugh.
“Is that what they think?” she said. Her voice was quietly, warmly amused. A small smile began to tug at Orineimu’s lips. If Mother was responding like this, then it must not have been as serious as Orineimu had feared. “I wonder what gives them that impression,” Mother went on, her smile turning playful. “Is it my success as House Ilisaf’s youngest venarch in seven hundred years? Is it the lucrative alliance that I've secured us with House Tauhrelil, or the way my marriage has strengthened the unity between all three of the western courts?" She cupped Orineimu's cheek with one hand. "Or perhaps it's my two strong, clever, beautiful daughters?"
Orineimu sagged into her mother’s touch. Girls were supposed to be confident, she knew that, but even so, praise from Mother always made her melt.
Mother put one light arm each around Orineimu’s and Lua’s shoulders, then leaned down, so that her face was nearly on the same level as theirs. Orineimu felt as if she were about to be let in on some delicious secret.
“Shall I tell you both what I truly think of these people?” Mother asked, her green eyes sparkling. “I think they’re a couple of silly little insects looking for an excuse to grasp at a power that isn’t theirs. And what happens to insects when they get too close to a brilliant light?”
It took Orineimu a moment. “Are you talking about bug lanterns?” she said. “The bug turns into a puff of ash.”
“Just so,” said Mother. “And that’s all their plans shall amount to, pet. Now,” she went on. “It’s very late, and the two of you are already bathed, fed, and dressed for bed. Would you like to sleep here tonight?”
Orineimu leaned forward, past her mother’s body, to look over at Lua. He seemed to be nearly asleep already. When she met his eyes, he nodded yes at once.
“Hangings open or closed?” Mother asked once Orineimu and Lua were both nestled under the cool, satiny blankets.
“Closed,” said Orineimu. “Please.” She could already feel herself beginning to drift off to sleep.
“Very good, my lady,” said Mother with a mock bow. Tired as Orineimu was, the sight of her mother pretending to act like a servant still pulled a little giggle from her. “I’ll be up a while longer working,” Mother continued. “But I’ll stay here in this room to do it. If you or your cousin need anything, all you need to do is poke out your head and get my attention, understood?” She reached down and smoothed some hair back from Orineimu's face; Lua was already dead to the world. "Sleep deep and dream sweetly, my dears."
With that, Mother retreated and let the bed hangings fall closed behind her. As Orineimu closed her eyes, she heard her start a call with someone else.
When she’d been little, Orineimu had often fallen asleep at banquets and parties before they were over. As she gradually drifted further off, the voices of the adults around her would grow softer and begin to sound faintly muffled, until their words dissolved into a low murmuring that gently lowered her into sleep. Mother’s voice sounded like that now.
And so Orineimu slid swiftly and softly into sleep.