The Shadowed Sun (Dreamblood) (66 page)

“I have no other wives.”

Hanani frowned. It had been a year since Gujaareh’s liberation, and any prince had enemies. “Isn’t it… well, irresponsible, for the Prince of the Sunset to have no wives? No heirs?”

“I have a son of my flesh already, and I have a woman who loves me and wants me, but they’re both half-wild. They flee into the desert whenever I try to love them back. If I were a less confident man, I might become concerned.”

Hanani ducked her head to cover her smile. Wanahomen at last unfolded somewhat. He touched her hand where it rested on her thigh, then ran his fingers down her leg, tugging up her skirts. She blushed when she realized what he was looking for: the amber anklet, which she still wore. At the sight of it he looked pleased, then closed his eyes in a heavy sigh.

“Don’t run from me again, Hanani,” he said, his voice almost a whisper.

She put her hand over his. “I won’t.”

“And you’ll be my firstwife?”

“I—” That made her start; the implications of his having no other wives had bypassed her. “
First
wife? But I’m not highcaste. I have no important connections, my wealth among the Banbarra is a pittance by Gujaareen reckoning—”

“I don’t care.”

“But—”

“Woman, I
do not care
. But if it will satisfy you, the common folk should be pleased that I’ve taken a lowcaste firstwife. That will make it clear I haven’t forgotten who helped me back to power. And our marriage can symbolize reconciliation between the Hetawa and the Sunset, or something.” He made an impatient gesture. “Now: your answer?”

She could not make herself speak. There was a tightness in her throat, but this was not caused by sorrow, so instead she nodded. He let out a long, heavy sigh, the last tension easing visibly from his body.

“I’ll arrange a ceremony, then. Something quick, lest you change your mind, and with plenty of wine, since I know the Banbarra will make a madhouse of it. Perhaps two ceremonies: one in the city so that the templefolk can attend, and one here…” He trailed off, thinking. “Would you rather live in Yanya-iyan or Kite-iyan, after?”

It surprised Hanani how easy that decision was. Or perhaps it
was only easy by comparison. “Put your other wives in your palaces. I’ll stay here and be healer for the Banbarra.”

“Stay and be—” He stared at her, incredulous. “A Prince’s firstwife should not sully her hands with labor.”

“A Prince’s firstwife who was born farmcaste, and has been reared by the Hetawa, and is an ally to the Banbarra, would naturally find fulfillment in labor that serves the Goddess and others. Will that not please the common folk too?”

“But what if I want to
see
you, for nightmares’ sake?”

She shrugged. “Then come here. It’s no longer a journey than to Kite-iyan, is it? Though here, you may have to forego servants: this ledge isn’t wide enough for another tent—”

He groaned loud enough for his voice to echo off the far canyon wall. “Demons and shadows, you truly are the strangest woman I’ve ever met! It makes no sense at all that I want you.”

“I’m glad that you do,” she said, very softly. He looked at her, and the anger faded from his face. Then he took her hand again, and she did not pull away.

They watched the shadows lengthen down the red walls of Merik-ren-aferu, in silence. A suitably peaceful transition for the start of a new life. Then Hanani got to her feet, offering Wanahomen a hand up. He glowered at it in mild annoyance at first, then finally took it and let her help him.

As the last light faded from the sky, she led him into her tent, where he pulled her close and there was more silence. This was pleasing to Hananja, for even the smallest act of peace is a blessing upon the world.

As with
The Killing Moon
, my thanks here are more for resources than people—but in this case people provided the resources, so they deserve a special shout-out.

In 2004 I won the Gulliver’s Travel Research Grant, offered by the Speculative Literature Foundation (SLF). The grant was small, only six hundred dollars at the time, but it allowed me to travel to Canyon de Chelly in Chinle, Arizona, within the Navajo Nation. I’d done some research that suggested that the civilization of the Anasazi, the ancient pueblo people who were the first to dwell within the canyon (the Navajo occupy it now, but pay respects to its previous tenants), may have collapsed due to a sudden and drastic religious upheaval—either a foreign religion migrating up from the south, or some internally developed new revelation, striking at the same time as a terrible long drought. At the time I’d had a vague idea of writing a fantasy set in a culture wrestling with such an upheaval. Those ideas sort of dissolved and distributed themselves among many novels and short stories in my head, but the part that stuck to this book was the canyon itself, to which I’ve attempted to pay homage in the form of Merik-ren-aferu. The Yusir-Banbarra’s
cliff-village is based on the Anasazi villages I saw, which were routinely positioned a thousand feet or more above the canyon floor. So thanks, SLF, for giving me the chance to see that.

(For more on the Anasazi, the Navajo, and the other American nations that did cool stuff back in the day, I highly recommend Charles C. Mann’s
1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
. Blew my mind. Also, Robert Lister and Florence Lister’s
Those Who Came Before
; lovely photographs of the ruins themselves.)

Please note that the SLF is a nonprofit organization to whom donations are tax-deductible. If you want to help other writers see cool stuff, you should donate at
www.speculativeliterature.org
!

Also thanks to the folks at the Totsonii Ranch in Chinle, from whom I
almost
got a fantastic horseback tour—but alas, the canyon was flooded with spring melt, so it was too dangerous to go. They told me lots about the canyon, though, free of charge. And bigger thanks to Tim of Canyon de Chelly Jeep Tours, who took me on a truly harrowing high-speed ride through the (yes, flooded) canyon, and who informed me when I openly worried about, well, violent watery death, that at least I would die doing something interesting.

N. K. Jemisin

N. K. J
EMISIN
is a career counselor, political blogger, and would-be gourmand living in New York City. She’s been writing since the age of ten, although her early works will never see the light of day. Find out more about the author at
www.nkjemisin.com
.

If you enjoyed
THE SHADOWED SUN,
look out for

COLD MAGIC

by Kate Elliott

The Wild Hunt is stirring—and the dragons are finally waking from their long sleep…

Cat Barahal was the only survivor of the flood that took her parents. Raised by her extended family, she and her cousin, Bee, are unaware of the dangers that threaten them both. Though they are in the beginning of the Industrial Age, magic—and the power of the cold mages—still holds sway.

Now, betrayed by her family and forced to marry a powerful cold mage, Cat will be drawn into a labyrinth of politics. There she will learn the full ruthlessness of the rule of the cold mages. What do the cold mages want from her? And who will help Cat in her struggle against them?

The history of the world begins in ice, and it will end in ice.

Or at least, that’s how the dawn chill felt in the bedchamber as I shrugged out from beneath the cozy feather comforter under which my cousin and I slept. I winced as I set my feet on the brutally cold wood floor. Any warmth from last evening’s fire was long gone. At this early hour, Cook would just be getting the kitchen’s stove going again, two floors below. But last night I had slipped a book out of my uncle’s parlor and brought it to read in my bedchamber by candlelight, even though we were expressly forbidden from doing so. He had even made us sign a little contract stating that we had permission to read my father’s journals and the other books in the parlor as long as we stayed in the parlor and did not waste expensive candlelight to do so. I had to put the book back before he noticed it was gone, or the cold would be the least of my troubles.

After all the years sharing a bed with my cousin Beatrice, I knew Bee was such a heavy sleeper that I could have jumped up and down on the bed without waking her. I had tried it more than once. So I left her behind and picked out suitable clothing from the wardrobe: fresh drawers, two layers of stockings, and a knee-length chemise over which I bound a fitted wool bodice. I fumblingly laced on two petticoats and a cutaway overskirt, blowing on my fingers to warm them, and over it buttoned a tight-fitting, hip-length jacket cut in last year’s fashionable style.

With my walking boots and the purloined book in hand, I cracked the door and ventured out onto the second-floor landing to listen. No noise came from my aunt and uncle’s chamber, and the
little girls, in the nursery on the third floor above, were almost certainly still asleep. But the governess who slept upstairs with them would be rousing soon, and my uncle and his factotum were usually up before dawn. They were the ones I absolutely had to avoid.

I crept down to the first-floor landing and paused there, peering over the railing to survey the empty foyer on the ground floor below. Next to me, a rack of swords, the badge of the Hassi Barahal family tradition, lined the wall. Alongside the rack stood our house mirror, in whose reflection I could see both myself and the threads of magic knit through the house. Uncle and Aunt were important people in their own way. As local representatives of the far-flung Hassi Barahal clan, they discreetly bought and sold information, and in return might receive such luxuries as a cawl—a protective spell bound over the house by a drua—or door and window locks sealed by a blacksmith to keep out unwanted visitors.

I closed my eyes and listened down those threads of magic to trace the stirring of activity in the house: our man-of-all-work, Pompey, priming the pump in the garden; Cook and Aunt Tilly in the kitchen cracking eggs and wielding spoons as they began the day’s baking. A whiff of smoke tickled my nose. The tread of feet marked the approach of the maidservant, Callie, from the back. By the front door, she began sweeping the foyer. I stood perfectly still, as if I were part of the railing, and she did not look up as she swept back the way she had come until she was out of my sight.

Abruptly, my uncle coughed behind me.

I whirled, but there was no one there, just the empty passage and the stairs leading up to the bedchambers and attic beyond. Two closed doors led off the first-floor landing: one to the parlor and one to my uncle’s private office, where we girls were never allowed to set foot. I pressed my ear against the office door to make sure he was in his office and not in the parlor. My hand was beginning to ache from clutching my boots and the book so tightly.

“You have no appointment,” he said in his gruff voice, pitched low because of the early hour. “My factotum says he did not let you in by the back door.”

“I came in through the window, maester.” The voice was husky, as if scraped raw from illness. “My apologies for the intrusion, but my business is a delicate one. I am come from overseas. Indeed, I just arrived, on the airship from Expedition.”