An Accident of Stars (28 page)

“It would be my honour then.”

“My thanks.” Impishly, Viya nodded towards the end of the bath, where an ornate pitcher sat beside the taps: the idea was for a servant to pour a final, clean bucket of water over the bather, rinsing away any lingering residue of oil and soap. “Do you mind?”

“I've done this much,” Pix said wryly, moving to fill the pitcher. “Why stop now?”

Viya smiled. “Exactly.”

“
T
hat's it
,” said Zech slowly. “That's… that's what happened.”

As she finished, she kept her eyes on Safi. The older girl sat cross-legged at the opposite end of the bed, unconsciously mimicking Zech's storytelling posture, so that her open palms rested face up on her knees. They were alone, and had been for some time – as soon as she'd accepted their petition, Mesthani herself had taken them into her custody, away from the jurisdiction of Ashasa's Knives and into the temple proper. Zech could only assume the others were being housed elsewhere as guests; in the aftermath of her bravery, she'd been too shaken to think of asking after their welfare, as had Safi. Only once they'd been brought to their current location, an underground priestess's cell cut into the honeycombed heart of Yevekshasa's mesa-stone, had she thought to raise the question, but Mesthani had been disinclined to answer, saying only that the preparations for the Trial would begin as soon as the core Council had been informed, and that in the meantime, they would wait where they were, under guard. Should they need anything – food, water, bloodmoss – they need only ask; but otherwise, it was better they saved their strength.

And so they waited: sitting apart at first, as each one surrendered to the enormity of what they'd chosen, and then in a kindred silence, as they remembered they weren't alone. Eventually, Zech had spoken, words of explanation and apology welling up from her heart like water: the story – forgotten by Safi, but remembered by her – of how they'd first met in the dreamscape, witnessing Kadeja's prayers and plans; of Luy's interruption, and her realisation, guided by her knowledge of the ilumet, that only a blood-connection with either the Vex or Vex'Mara could have accounted for the ease with which she'd slipped through the palace wards. The shock had been enough to force her into the waking world, where she'd remembered everything. From then on, she'd gone about proving her suspicions, but delicately, neither able to confide in Safi nor wanting the adults to know her plans. Instead, she'd asked the Shavaktiin, and been rewarded with more information about both her own history and Yasha's than the matriarch had ever so much as hinted at.

Her search had continued in the dreamscape too, aided and abetted by the mysterious Luy, who'd spoken to her more than once, and who, most recently, had brokered a sleeping conference between Zech and Safi. Though her composure had remained steady throughout these revelations, Safi's eyes had widened – she'd even gaped a bit – on being told that she'd already agreed in dreaming to participate in the Trial of Queens, and yet had no memory of it. The plan had been for Zech, following Luy's instructions, to help Safi remember her dreams in waking before they reached Yevekshasa, but the unexpected arrival of Mesthani and the other queens, to say nothing of their acceleration through the portal, had forced her hand. What ought to have been the end result of a steady, well-planned revelation, at least for Safi, had become a sudden, unknown risk to be taken on faith. So here they were, on the precipice of it; and Zech was sorry, so sorry to have done it this way, but she'd had no other choice.

Only then did she fall silent; and now it was her turn to wait in ignorance, heart juddering fiercely, to see what Safi's response would be.

For several long moments, the older girl simply stared. She looked so wholly Vekshi now – on the surface, at least – that Zech was sometimes hard-pressed to remember her first appearance: the blasphemous hair and strange clothes, those first few crossed conversations before the zuymet had properly taken hold, when they'd been forced to speak in the fragments of two different languages. Now, though, Zech had delivered her explanation in Vekshi, and neither of them had thought it strange – or perhaps, she supposed, so much was now strange to Safi that it no longer registered.

As though sensing her thoughts, Safi chose that moment to respond. “All right,” she said, in careful Vekshi. “I… All right.” She paused – cheeks hollowed, eyes feverish, lips trembling with doubt – and spoke again. “I just don't understand how we're able to do this,” she said. “I don't know much about Veksh, but the Council is essentially a parliament. It should take time and study and effort to join, not just a single trial – I'm not saying it was easy to get the queens to let us stand, but it still feels like it should've been harder, or impossible. Otherwise, everyone would be doing it. Wouldn't they?”

“It's because I'm Kadeja's daughter,” Zech said quietly. “Not hers specifically, but because of what she used to be. The daughters of queens and priestesses are meant to be temple-taught, educated, bred to politics – it's assumed we already know the proper rites and rituals necessary for queenship, that we understand the risks and wouldn't dare shame our motherlines by standing on a whim, or against the advice of those to whom we owed our first loyalty. What we're doing is rare to begin with, but I don't think anyone's stood by proxy for a hundred years or more.”

“And proxies don't have to be temple-taught?”

“Why would they?” Zech said, surprised. “If we succeed, you're not the one who'll be queen. You're a body in this, that's all.” At the look on Safi's face, she winced. “Sorry, that wasn't fair or right. Your mind matters too. What I meant to say is, who you are and what you know beforehand isn't important, so long as you've been claimed by Ashasa's law. According to the Mother Sun's word, our inner selves – our spirits, our hearts, whatever you want to call it – are divine sparks, perfect and inviolate; but our physical flesh is mortal, prone to weakness and decay. We may alter that flesh however we choose, but we may not knowingly risk its death until we've reached the age of majority; to do otherwise is an affront to Ashasa's will.”

Zech flushed. She'd never felt embarrassed by her youth before; now, the ignominy of it burned her. What she'd done – what she'd dragged Safi into – was dangerous, and though she'd agreed to help of her own volition, the promise had been given in ignorance, which meant that the consequences were wholly on Zech's head. Swallowing, she forced herself to continue.

“That's why I need a proxy; until I've either reached sixteen years or had my first bleeding, whichever comes first, my body is counted as a child's body, and the law won't let me risk dying. But my inner self is as strong as Ashasa made it, and so can stand the trial through a physical proxy.”

And there, her courage failed her. She couldn't bring herself to speak the full truth: that though the trial still posed physical risks to both of them, only Safi risked death, and did so on Zech's behalf. She held her breath, waiting for the other girl to realise the implications; but to her shame and relief, Safi simply nodded, gulped and asked another question.

“Why me, though?” she asked. “Why not Trishka, or Yasha, or Yena? I know you all had reasons; I just don't really understand them.”

Zech nodded, shifting her weight from hip to hip as she strove to sit more comfortably. The mattress was softer than she was used to, putting an unaccustomed strain on her joints as she sat cross-legged.

“It had to be you,” she said – in English this time, as much in case the guards were listening as to be sure Safi understood. “Obedience to Ashasa defines Vekshi rights and kinship more than anything; more than blood, more than birth – but those things still matter, too. It's complicated. When Yasha left, they declared her a traitor and never revoked it, which stands against Trishka's status. If she'd ever come back of her own accord and sat the proper rites, it would be different, but she didn't, and so it clouds her too. And as for Yena… well, for one thing, her hair's uncut, and though it might be a small thing to you, it matters. I mean, you know it does.” She winced at her own clumsiness, her gaze falling on Safi's missing fingers. Forcibly, she looked away. “That's not everything though.”

She hesitated. What came next wasn't hers to tell; it was Yena's truth, and Zech felt deeply uncomfortable discussing such a thing without her consent or presence. The fact that Ruyun had done so openly was an almost incomprehensible rudeness, bordering on taboo – not because of any stigma associated with being alikrevaya, but because it was impolite to speak so personally about another without invitation. And yet how could Zech do otherwise if Safi was to understand why she, and not Yena, was chosen to stand as proxy?

“Yena is alikrevaya,” Zech said, finally. “It means she was born with her body and spirit in conflict, so the priests of Kara used the sevikmet to reshape her. The Kenans call it
Kara na kore,
the trickster-god's choice. In English, you'd call it–” she hesitated, sorting through the various terms she'd gleaned from Safi's vocabulary, “–sex affirmation surgery? Or sex affirmation magic, here.”

Safi looked surprised, then thoughtful. “Back at the compound, I asked Gwen about magic – about whether or not there was some way to regrow my fingers. She said there was always a price for doing more than what a body could manage alone, and that there was only one transformation the temples performed regularly. She didn't tell me about Yena, though.”“Because it wasn't her place,” Zech said firmly, switching back to Kenan. “Ruyun shouldn't have done it either – nor me, really. But you need to know what's going on.”

Safi hesitated. “But it's not… I mean, if nobody thinks it's bad to be alikrevaya, then why couldn't Yena petition the Council?”

“Because she's been marked by blasphemy,” said Zech. “Not literally, she doesn't have a scar or a tattoo or anything. But the transformation she underwent – it's holy, powerful. It ought to have been done in Ashasa's sight. But instead she went to Kara's Kin, sat rites and ceremonies in honour of a different god – a false god, by Vekshi reckoning. Even then, if she'd come to Veksh and been cleansed, offered penance and contrition for the blasphemy, it wouldn't have mattered. Instead, she arrived still tainted, with her hair uncut, in the company of traitors. And so her rights under Vekshi law are forfeit.”

“All right,” said Safi, after a moment. “I can understand that, I suppose. And… and why they accepted me instead.”

Penance. Magic. Battle. Blood.
The four words hung unspoken between them. In dreaming, Zech had explained their significance to Safi, laying out the ways in which she'd been bound by Ashasa's law – and when it had counted, despite not knowing how she knew, Safi had remembered.

The older girl ran a hand over her head. “But what does a proxy actually
do
?”

You might die,
Zech thought, but still couldn't bring herself to say the words aloud. Instead, she chose to interpret the question literally.

“As proxy, you'll be bound to me. What you experience, I experience. You'll walk where I can't, but I'll be guiding your steps.”

Safi frowned. “How?”

And there was the crux of it. Zech steeled herself. “I… I don't really know,” she admitted. “Believe me, Safi, I asked the Shavaktiin everything they could tell me, but the rules of the trial – what actually happens, how the proxy magic works – it's sacred, and Ashasa likes her secrets kept. Yasha might've told me, if she'd wanted to, if she'd approved of what I was doing, but I knew she wouldn't, and so I couldn't ask.”

A blank look stole over Safi's face. “You mean…” she began, then stopped when her voice trembled. After a moment, she went on more calmly, “You mean we're doing this blind?”

“We are.” It took all Zech's courage to meet her gaze and hold it. “All I know is, we'll be judged by Ashasa'a scions and marked according to whether we succeed or fail.”

“Marked? How marked?” The trace of fear in Safi's voice, like the twitching of her three-fingered hand, was unmistakable.

“I don't know,” Zech said helplessly. “Safi, I'm sorry. I–”

The door to their cell clicked open, cutting off whatever she'd been about to say. Mesthani stepped in, her lined face grave and calm.

“The Mother Sun wanes. From sunset to sunrise, you'll sit the Trial of Queens; unless, of course, you've changed your mind?” Mesthani paused hopefully, but when neither Zech nor Safi answered, she sighed and shook her head. “I thought not. Come, then.” She held out a hand. “The preparations are begun.”

G
wen breathed steadily
, head tipped back to the wall of the cell, her crossed arms resting on her stomach. After Zech and Saffron's departure and despite Yasha's furious protestations, they'd been led out of the courtyard and into a sprawling temple complex separated from the city proper by a pair of towering white gates. Passing by stables, gardens and myriad smaller structures, they'd finally reached a single-storey building whose nominal purpose, their guards informed them, was as temporary housing for supplicants, would-be acolytes and the visiting relatives of priestesses. Made of blocky gold stone, it consisted of two common rooms separated by a hallway lined with single bedroom cells, all of which had been given over to their use. Crucially, they were no longer in the care of Ashasa's Knives, for which Gwen was duly grateful. Though most of their seventeen-strong party had long since retired – as Halaya rightly pointed out, sleep was a far more effective use of their time than worry – three of them still remained in the larger common room: Yasha, Matu and Gwen herself.

Their surrounds were sparsely furnished and austerely beautiful. Three walls boasted tapestries, woven knottily into a series of colourful, abstract designs. Two circular rugs covered the floor, while a stone ledge ran the whole way round the room, broken only by the door and, on the one tapestry-free wall, a window. Square, unclassed and unshuttered, it was this latter feature that drew Gwen's attention; despite the fact that they were clearly on the ground floor, the view it showed was nothing but sky. Yevekshasa was situated on a soaring, flat-topped mesa, with this particular building pushed right up against the cliff edge. Had they not been brought into the city by magic, Trishka had informed her, they would have been forced to ride up a perilous switchback trail that crisscrossed the mesa's sloping south face. Though the height and size of the window dizzied Gwen – falling out would've been the work of a moment – she'd nonetheless positioned herself beside it, watching as the sky slowly faded from afternoon blue to salmon-streaked dusk and now, finally, into the inky blue-black of night.

With the sunlight faded, several glass globes in the ceiling lit up of their own volition, casting a warm, gold light over everything. At any other time, Gwen would have been fascinated, pressing Yasha with questions as to the blend of magic that powered them and the manner of their creation, but even had she been inclined to ask the matriarch wouldn't have answered. Ever since their internment, Yasha had alternated angry muttering at Zech's presumption with furious silence, and after Gwen lost patience and snapped at her over the former, she'd been blessedly mired in the latter. Matu, for his part, was wrapped in a much more thoughtful quiet, an expression that was half smile, half frown etched on his handsome features. Except for his occasional sighs, he might have been a statue.

And so Gwen made her own third silence, closed her eyes, and thought. In the preceding days, Jeiden alone had noticed Zech's change in mood, and Gwen cursed herself for having ignored his warning. But how could any of them have predicted Zech's actions, the revelation of her parentage? And how had Yasha not known of the link to Kadeja? Gwen had seen her face when Zech declared herself the Vex'Mara's daughter: not even the matriarch was that good an actress. In the hours since then, more than one person, Gwen included, had asked her about Zech's origins, how the girl had come to be in her care from such a young age, and whether she'd suspected anything, but Yasha had resolutely refused to provide anything that even vaguely resembled a satisfactory answer, which Gwen took as confirmation of the fact that she didn't have one.

She inhaled deeply, savouring the crisp, chill taste of Yevekshasa's high air. That was another thing, she thought, opening her eyes; given the height of the mesa, the open window should have left them all shivering, and yet the room was barely cool enough to raise goosebumps.
More new magic,
Gwen decided, and for the first time wondered whether she'd been right to shun Veksh all these years. With difficulty she suppressed a sigh. Not that it would've made a difference now, of course – and what had Saffron been thinking, to go along with it! Did she even understand what she'd got herself into?
Godshit, thorns and arsegullet all,
preserve me from the impetuousness of children
!

But despite herself – despite every frustration and inconvenience of the last few hours, up to and including being stuck in a confined space with Yasha – she was grudgingly impressed by the pair of them. Unwillingly, she recalled her fight with the matriarch by the side of the Envas road, and the hard words Yasha had flung at her:
Those
children
saved all our lives, and ensured we were free to fulfil our purpose. You demean them; you belittle their competence.
And maybe she did, but if so, it was only because she feared for them.

Abruptly, Matu spoke, his voice eerily conversational given the silence that preceded it. “I know what it means to sit the trial. The question is, do they?”

Yasha snorted angrily; the sound was not quite laughter. “Are you any less ignorant, Matuhasa idi Naha? Belonging to no one, beloved of no one – what do you know of the Council of Queens?”

“I know why the Shavaktiin call you the Queen Who Walked,” he said softly.

For an instant, Yasha tensed. Then her lips twisted – a small smile, bitter with resignation – and some of the rage went out of her.“You know nothing,” she repeated. As though in unconscious mimicry of Gwen, she tipped her head back to the wall. “Let me tell you a story, Matu, as you esteem them so. Over star and under ocean, far away yet not so far – that's how you Kenans begin your moon-tales, isn't it?”

“Yes,” said Matu, when it became clear that she really did want an answer. “That's how a story ought to begin.”

“Consider it begun, then,” said Yasha, and closed her piercing eyes. “Over star and under ocean, far away yet not so far, in the sparse, unpeopled plains of Veksh, a girl was born who longed to sit the Council of Queens. Her life, she felt, was simple and dull, with no promise or prospect in it to compare with the glory of power wielded in Ashasa's name, and no city within a two-day walk whose sights could equal her dreams of Yevekshasa. Of course, older and wiser women told her that the Council was beyond her means. As her mother's only child, they said, she ought to learn a useful trade instead – which politics was not – and take over the family finances, raising her daughters in turn to serve Ashasa with humility and strength. But the girl was determined, and where others said no, her own mother said yes.

“
Child
, she counselled,
the strength of the mother is known by the strength of her daughter. Do not stint your ambitions for the sake of my heart, but embrace them, so that your strength might become our strength
.

“And so the girl listened, and so she grew. And in due season, she came to Yevekshasa, sought audience with the Council, and undertook the necessary tests and rituals for one who was not a priestess's daughter to sit the Trial of Queens – which, eventually, she did. By then, of course, the girl fancied herself a woman, and so set about proving it through her queenship.”

“Yasha–” Matu attempted.

“Bored already?” Yasha shot back. “And here I thought moon-tales were meant to soothe fractious children. But then you claim to already know the ending. The truth of my life is no surprise to you.”

“Yasha–”

“They would've seen Trishka dead, her magic spent in Ashasa's service no matter the cost to her body. I refused to let them take her. My strength was her strength, I said, and there is no strength in death. But Ashasa's Knives were pressuring the Council; they wanted it bound in law that any child with magic was theirs to claim. The queens were split, with only a few key votes undecided. Then Tavma a Ruyun showed the gift too. But the jahudemet is dangerous. In courting the Knives, Ruyun pushed her daughter to excel, to garner the power that comes with acclaim – and in so doing, Tavma's reach exceeded her grasp. She lost control of a portal, taking others with her as she died.

“She was twelve years old; Trishka was only eight. And still the Knives claimed I owed them my child on the Council's behalf, in penance for my pride. Had Tavma had an agemate with which to train, they said, she never would have been lost. Ashasa had clearly intended their magic to work in tandem – why else would two queens have been blessed with such gifted daughters? Bad enough I'd let a Kenan man father my child; I'd refused Ashasa's will, and ought to be ashamed of myself. The Council sided with Ruyun and the Knives – in sympathy for the former's grief, in fear of the latter's strength – and I was given a choice: my daughter or my status.

“I chose Trishka and exile. In retaliation, the Council confiscated all my lands and chattels, including my horses. They thought that if we couldn't ride, we couldn't leave at all, because of Trishka's frailties; that the ignominy would shame me into surrender. Instead, I took my girl from Veksh on foot; I carried her from Yevekshasa right to the heart of Karavos. And the Shavaktiin called me the Queen Who Walked.”

For a long moment, Yasha fell silent. In the strange glow of the Vekshi lights, the matriarch looked as nakedly human as Gwen had ever seen her. Her shaved, bowed head, the age-mottled white of her skin, the flaccid line of her jaw all made her look soft, as though the iron in her spine had melted. And then she straightened, her hawk's stare fixed on Matu, and she was Yasha once more: irascible, canny and wholly impervious.

“Suppose you were telling the truth, Matuhasa. Suppose I've told you nothing you hadn't already learned elsewhere.? Repeat any part of the tale while I yet live, and I swear by the Mother Sun's blood, there will be consequences. Do we have an understanding?”

Slowly, Matu nodded. “We do.”

“Good,” she replied, and as though a switch had been flipped, she turned fiercely to Gwen. “And you, Gwen Vere – will you swear to me you knew nothing of Zechalia's plans?”

Gwen bristled. “If I had done, I'd have stopped her.”

Yasha snorted. “You'd have tried. The girl is stubborn as a fox, and near as wily, but he Trial of Queens would be beyond her even with the aid of a competent proxy, which hers is not. Your Safi might walk and talk like a Vekshi woman, but underneath she's an alien. She knows nothing of what she's about to face. They need help.”

“And what do you want me to do about it? Unless you've conjured up some brilliant plan for sprouting wings and escaping out that window, there's precious little we can do to help from here.”

The matriarch stared flatly at her. “All these years spent among us, and still you've barely more sense than the girl. Have you forgotten the strength of the ilumet?”

“If I thought for a minute you'd trust Kikra–” the Shavaktiin dreamseer, “–with your secrets, then maybe–”

“Not
these
Shavaktiin, no. But you and I both know there's a more trustworthy option available.” Yasha raised a brow in pointed invitation.

Gwen's mouth went dry.
Surely not.
“I… I don't know what you mean.”Yasha's expression softened, albeit while retaining her trademark exasperation. “Motherhood changes more of us than our bodies, Gwen. After so many years, did you honestly think me oblivious?”

Now it was Matu's turn to stare. “You have children?”

“Child,” Gwen rasped. “Just the one. My son.” She forced herself to swallow. “Louis. He's a Shavaktiin, a dreamseer.” She turned her disbelieving gaze back to Yasha. “Though how you knew that…” She broke off, belatedly realising the absurdity of asking such a question of a woman she knew to be a spy.

With a certain slow dignity, Yasha said, “Matuhasa is not the only one of us with a knack for discovering hidden things. You clearly wished it kept a secret, and so I said nothing. But given our current circumstances–” and here her eyes flashed, sharp and hard, “–I judged our immediate needs to outweigh your privacy. Do you disagree?”

Almost, Gwen did so on principle. It rankled to think that Yasha knew of Louis at all – and did that mean she likewise knew of Jhesa and Naku? Gwen was afraid to ask, lest the question itself tell Yasha what she didn't already know, but that was a problem for another time. Right now, she squared herself to helping Zech and Saffron and said, “No. I do not.”

Yasha gave a short, pleased nod. “Just so. Here, then, is my suggestion: sleep. Walk the dreamscape. Your Luy has a gift for the ilumet: call him to me, and I'll use him to reach Zechalia.”

“And if I can't?” Gwen asked, her mouth abruptly dry. “If my… If I can't find Louis, or if he can't find you?”

Yasha's eyes glittered. “Then Safi a Ellen will surely be dead by morning.”

T
hough Mesthani led
Saffron and Zech from their cell, she didn't stay with them long. Barely a minute later, she handed them over to a trio of priestesses and disappeared without a word, leaving the nameless women to lead them further into the mesa, down and down through endless stone-hewn halls. Before long, Zech began to slow; her injured leg was clearly causing her pain, but even when Saffron took her arm, concerned, she shook her head and carried on, determined. Abruptly, they emerged into a natural cavern, its round shape made maw-like by a profusion of stalactites and stalagmites. The only illumination came from a type of iridescent slime that covered the stone in places, letting off an electric blue light that mimicked the burning core of a fire. At the cavern's heart was a pool of water, almost perfectly circular and overhung by two immense, parallel stalactites that resembled nothing so much as fangs. From time to time, their tips wept droplets of fluid into the water –
like venom,
Saffron thought – and their tiny splashes were magnified as eerie, discordant echoes.In this strange, sunless place, the priestesses stripped them both naked – not ungently, but with a calm, detached reverence that was wholly unsettling – blessed them in Ashasa's name, and told them to enter the water. Real fear blossomed in Saffron then. Being undressed by strangers was one thing, but after everything that had happened, standing bare before a trio of matriarchal women felt vastly less threatening than submerging herself in water whose uniform darkness betrayed its depth, and which might contain any number of dangerous things. Almost, she baulked – but then she looked across at Zech, her eyes drawn of their own accord to the terrible scar on her leg, and somehow managed to find her courage.