A Bloom in the North Read online

  Several of them looked at me, including one I thought with more shame than was necessary. So I said, "You've all done well. Thank you."

  Once they'd left, I exhaled and turned back to the attendant. "Take me back."

  I did not return home after the residence released me in the late afternoon. Instead, I went riding.

  For a long time.

  I had no destination in mind, other than "away from other people." I skirted the city, riding along the cropfields watered by the empire's cisterns and aqueducts, past a riverbed reduced to a trickle over barely moistened soil. I wanted no part of civilization—wanted nothing to remind me of the cost of that civilization—and continued on until I put the road to het Kabbanil behind me. Het Narel's lack of ruins made the eastern view an uninterrupted canvas for the falling sun, and I picked a place well away from town to dismount and walk a ways, leading the rikka. It helped to move. My entire body felt stiff. Not from exertion, but from a negation of all that it had performed in the previous hours.

  I was exhausted and empty, and eventually I let the rikka graze and walked on until I could sit in the short grasses and watch the color drain from the sky. The wind off the plains was cold enough to cut through my thin shirt and I let it. I looped my arms around my knees and rested my brow against them and... I lost some time there, unable to put thoughts together, unable to make sense of anything.

  Duty drove me to my feet, though by then I was cold enough to be clumsy. I pulled myself onto the rikka's back and rode home.

  The two eperu opened the gate with alacrity and flattened ears; the fire licking their faces showed me their worried expressions, which I ignored since I had no desire to discuss my tardiness. I gave them the beast to lead away and looked up at the House, steeling myself against what I would face on entry. And then I walked inside... to quiet. I had misjudged the hour: supper must have concluded some time ago and most of the Jokka would have scattered to their beds, or to late-night talks with companions. I stopped in the entry hall, ears straining in the warm silence, and had to conclude it was better to be here than out on the plains alone. These were my people and... gods help me, their problems were my problems. I would not find their solutions alone. And if I couldn't bear their company tonight, well, that would pass. I went up the ramp to my rooms and opened the door, wanting only my bed.

  I almost tripped over Darsi, who was sitting with his back to the bedchamber door.

  He was lucky, at that. Had I been more myself I would have put a fist in his stomach and shoved him face-first into the ground before he could speak. As it was, I was lucky not to fall.

  "What are you doing here?" I asked, too tired to be angry. Surprised, perhaps, but not angry.

  Scrabbling to his feet, Darsi faced me. I could just see the gleam of his eye in the dark; it reminded me of that night in the wagon when we'd first spoken after our escape from het Kabbanil.

  He drew in a breath and said, quiet, "Ke emodo. I had a thought, that we are supposed to be lovers so there is a reason for me to be out of my bed."

  Strangely, given this incredible beginning, I felt no desire to interrupt him. There was something in his voice, something... broken but resolved.

  "And Hesa has a bed," he continued. "So perhaps I might go and sleep in its bed. And if people come to find me, and I'm not there, well. I am in bed with you, aren't I? And if they come seeking Hesa, they will find someone sleeping there, as they expect."

  For a long moment neither of us said anything as I stared at him. I was now very much awake. Every numbed nerve in my body was achingly, utterly awake.

  "Darsi," I said. "You're not suggesting—"

  "No," he said, firm. "I'm offering. Shall I do this thing?"

  I said, "Not until I understand why."

  "Because," Darsi said, and faltered. Then he gathered himself and said, "Because... some things... if.... People should touch because they want to, because they care about one another. You can lie with someone who cares about you tonight, Pathen. That's why. Because someone should."

  For once, Darsi had struck me speechless. I expected that to please him, but he remained somber.

  "Shall I?" he asked at last.

  "Darsi," I said, and then cleared my throat. Quieter, I finished, "Thank you."

  A sad smile touched his mouth and he left. I watched him go, still stunned, and then walked into my bedchamber and began slowly to undress, all my joints aching. I heard the outer door ease open and closed again, and then a silhouette separated from the arch leading into the antechamber.

  "Pathen?" Hesa whispered.

  "Here," I said, and had to clear my throat again. The eperu stepped closer, then kneeled in front of me, resting its hands on my knees. I wanted very much to gather it in and take the willing love that Darsi had risked so much to give me, but I couldn't move. At last, I said, "Hesa.... the anadi..." And then grief closed my throat around the words and the eperu sat up, wrapping its arms around me. Crushed against its dyed mane and hard shoulder, I finished, "I left them there."

  And then I wept, hands digging into its back, and it did not flinch beneath my weight, not of my body, not of my grief and guilt.

  "Pathen," Hesa said when my crying eased. Its voice was gods-breath soft against my ear. "You left them there... for now."

  I grew still.

  "For now," the eperu finished. "But you'll find a way to free them."

  I sat back to look at it, at the calm in its eyes, and the certitude.

  "What if I can't think of a way?" I asked, hoarse.

  It rested a hand on my chest below my throat, one finger hooked on the collarbone. "You will," it said. "And then we'll help you to do it."

  I set my trembling hand on its.

  "Do you doubt?" Hesa asked.

  I thought of the anadi, saw the glimmer of light on metal buckles, saw the sluggish blink of their eyes. All my skin grew taut with revulsion. With rejection. "No," I said, because while I lived I could not let such a thing stand. Hesa was right. I had left... but I would be back. And I would take them with me.

  "Start with the anadi prizes," Hesa said. "Claim ours. From that beginning, then, grow. If you will it, Pathen... it will happen."

  I let my head drop until I could rest my brow against its, and it set its free hand on the side of my neck.

  "They didn't even tell me their names," I whispered.

  "Of course not," it said. And sighed out, a breath I felt warm against my throat and chest. "It makes it easier not to know."

  "They do it to you, too," I said, and from the tension that leaped up its shoulders it hadn't expected me to see that truth. "It's not as noticeable as with the anadi. But slowly and surely we are setting the eperu at a remove. They abet it because they already think of themselves as something apart... but we didn't... the emodo. But now that we agree, there is nothing to stop us from sundering all the relationships that make us what we are. That let us thrive. No more a single species, but three that see one another, now and then, for vulgar necessities."

  Slowly, Hesa sat back on its heels and looked up at me, hands sliding onto my knees again. I gathered them into mine and held them, chafing my thumb over its knuckles. "Tell me I'm wrong."

  "You're not," it said after a long pause.

  "And yet we came to where we are for a reason. We fell here," I said.

  "Perhaps we need wings," Hesa said with a tired smile.

  I brought its hands to my mouth and kissed them, feeling all the weariness of the day I'd passed through and all the weariness of the days before me, and all that needed to be done in them.

  "You need rest," Hesa said, turning one hand in mine to cup my chin.

  "Stay with me," I said. "I need... I need one night with someone who made a choice. Who could make a choice."

  "Of course," it said, voice softening.

  I moved back and it shed its clothes, sinuous in the dim light. I held the blanket up for it as it slid into bed alongside me and then filled all the hollow spaces aga
inst my side. Setting a hand on my chest, it said, "Pathen."

  "Hesa," I said.

  "I was able to make the choice," it said, "because you made it safe for me to do so."

  That made my breath catch, and I didn't know why it was fear and not affection or gratitude. When I could speak again, I said, "And having made the choice, will you touch a male who has sullied himself with this day's injustice?"

  It pulled itself over me and lapped at my jaw. Whispered, "Given the choice, I will choose the same again. And I always will."

  "Hesa," I said, drawing it close, needing it.

  "Setasha," it whispered, and kissed the ugliness away.

  An hour before dawn, the door to my chambers scraped open and both Hesa and I woke, abrupt and tense, listening. And then we heard Darsi's whisper.

  "Hesa? Pathen?"

  Hesa was already rolling out of bed, reaching for its clothes.

  "We're awake," I said for it, keeping my voice low.

  Darsi remained in the antechamber; I could hear him fidgeting, the flex of his toes on the floor, the hiss of his tail on the ground as he shifted from foot to foot. Hesa took my attention back with a kiss, quick but deep; I met its eyes and we smiled at one another, and then it was gone, fleet and silent. Darsi opened the door for the eperu and waited there, looking down the hall with such quivering intensity that he didn't hear me rise and pull my pants on, nor walk into the room behind him. When I spoke he strangled a yelp and jumped a step back.

  "Don't worry. If someone happens on it in the hall now it'll have a ready answer for why."

  "Yes," Darsi said, relaxing. "Hesa's quick that way. I can go now—"

  "It'll have an easier time with that ready answer if someone doesn't find both of you in the halls," I said. "Give it a few moments to return to its room."

  "Right," Darsi said and touched a quivering hand to his brow. "Gods, you startled me out of my skin."

  "I didn't mean to," I said, studying him with fresh eyes. Without the lens of the worries that had afflicted me when we'd first met and without the cynicism with which I'd regarded his attempts to look distracting afterward, I saw... another emodo. Not lean but thin, as if a nervous disposition made him prone to forgetting his meals. With the hollows of sleepless nights and worries in his throat and cheeks, and with sensitive fingers that never stopped fluttering. I wondered suddenly what it would be like to live in the empire without knowing how to fight it, or feeling incapable of the battle.

  He looked up at me and flushed white. I gentled my expression and let him look at me until he started to relax. Then I said, "Thank you."

  He glanced at the ground and said, "You're welcome."

  I considered what I'd seen of him, what I knew of him. And said, "Let me guess. The dark-haired truedark male. Barit, wasn't it?"

  The blush grew positively fevered. "Ah... no," Darsi said, and then he finished sheepishly, "At least, not yet."

  I thought of their relief on seeing one another on the hill when the strangers had been fleeing the ruins of Thenet's settlement. They'd been awkward around one another in safety, but in that moment of meeting after long parting.... "I don't think it'll be long."

  Darsi's eyes brightened. "Do you really—" And then he shook himself. "Well, it hardly matters right now."

  "I can send you back," I said.

  "No," Darsi said, though I saw the wistfulness he entertained briefly and then set aside. "I'm needed here. Hesa and I have always worked well together, and this... we need to do this."

  "It's not your fault," I said, quieter. "House Laisira."

  "No," Darsi said after a moment. "No, I know. I'm not like Hesa, I... what I feel is grief, not guilt. I know the Stone Moon killed them, not me. But it still... I still have to do something about it. I have to fix it. Do you understand?"

  "Yes," I said. "Yes, I do." And then, to see him smile, "Barit? Really?"

  "He makes me laugh," Darsi said without thinking. And then realizing what he'd said, added, "I... I don't have those kind of feelings for you—"

  "I know," I said, chuckling. "I only make you laugh because you have sensitive ribs."

  He snorted and opened the door. "I'll see you at breakfast."

  "All right," I said, and when he started to turn I looped an arm around him and drew him to me. He made a single noise of protest and then consented to the embrace. After a moment he even pressed his face against my neck. I rested my fingers in his mane and let him take the shelter he wanted and couldn't have, and was honored that he felt safe enough to do so. A few weeks ago I would have assumed it was because he now had a secret he felt he could hold against me. I knew better now. I had misjudged Darsi. He was contrary and petulant and anxious and fearful... and loyal and hard-working and tender-hearted under the crust.

  And his trust made him mine, and my trust made me his.

  I let him go and he drew in another breath, but a calmer one. And then I held the door open for him and shut it behind him, and closed the door forever on our quarrel.

  I woke several hours later alone... but there was a dimple in the mattress on the side by the wall, for Hesa had slept where I could shield it from view with my body. The sheets still smelled faintly of the eperu: hair dye and sweat and honey. So did my hands. I rested them on my mouth with the tips just touching my nose so I could inhale the scent, slow breaths, easing a tension in my body I hadn't realized was there. None of the dangers, the injustices, the cruelties of our situation had changed in the past hours; if anything I was more exquisitely aware of them, as if my skin had grown more sensitive, my hands, my eyes. But I felt more capable of motion. Not because I had spent a night in willing company, though I had needed it and been fulfilled by it, but because of all that night implied: that I loved an eperu in society's despite. That an eperu loved me, though its own fellowship would have it hold itself apart. That we trusted one another with the secret of our feelings. That we had inspired another's loyalty. That we knew we could trust that emodo.

  We were building something stronger than fear. Our only task now was to spread it through Ke Bakil.

  I pushed myself from my bed and went to the day.

  The early morning I spent in Transactions, finalizing the burdensome contracts that separated twelve eperu from the Stone Moon's labor pool and sent them to House Asara to report for their new duties. This was time-consuming work but I didn't feel the hours passing until I exited the building and found it near lunch. I bought my meal from a food stall, finger food that I regretted not being able to share. Afterward I had a cup of tea at a place too small to have become a cheldzan, but I did not particularly want company then. I was steeling myself for my next errand.

  It took me to House Rabeil, where I was admitted to the garden where Thesenet had introduced us to het Narel's society. I sat on a bench to wait, enjoying the briskness in the occasional breeze that ruffled the drying vines trained up the wall behind me. Autumn was still new but many of the more tender plants had already died during some of the chillier nights.

  "Ke emodo," said the Head of House Rabeil as he approached with a kettle. A servant followed him with a tray, setting it on the facing bench and then departing. "You honor my House with your visit."

  I looked up at him. "Rather strongly worded, perhaps, ke Rozen."

  "Not from the reports I have had," Rozen said. He sat across from me, pouring a steaming tisane into the cups before handing me one. When he noticed my gaze, he said, "You did not think I would not be given report of House Asara's first visit to the residence?"

  Put that way—no, of course not. "I didn't think it was such a notable event," I said instead. "We came and served the anadi and left."

  "Indeed. You came when you said you would, brought enough people to do the duty, and made no trouble over your reception. With the anadi you were all gentle. There were no... incidents, other than the one emodo who could not perform but apologized with every courtesy not just to us but to the anadi. And when House Asara left, it had discharge
d its duty in every particular, something most Houses don't manage."

  "We were only fifteen," I murmured.

  "Perhaps," Rozen said. "But I am grateful all the same. Tell me then the reason for your visit, that I might in some way show that gratitude."

  I searched his expression. His words seemed too effusive to me, particularly when contrasted against the calm of his body, the deliberation of his movements and the mask of his face. It was only his eyes that convinced me to fear no hidden trap: there was too much resignation there, sorrows much older than House Asara. His focus was more there in the past than it was here with me.

  "I came about the anadi prizes the empire has permitted House Asara," I said. "I wanted to arrange for a time to select them."

  "Ah!" Rozen said. "Eduñil is in the House now. Let me find him and we can have that discussion now. He will have the schedule, as it is his duty to arrange the disposition of the anadi prizes."

  "Thank you," I said, and he left me with the tea and the tray and the whisper of the autumn breeze. Rozen had not been gone long before I felt the pressure of someone's gaze. Without lifting my head, I said, "You can come out."

  The anadi—for I knew her from the suggestion of the light from the edge of my vision—didn't move. But a moment later, she spoke, and her voice was a purity that stippled my skin from the base of my tail to the nape of my neck.

  "The Stone Moon hero comes to House Rabeil for anadi to warm his bed."

  "The Head of House Asara comes to House Rabeil to request an anadi to join his Household," I said.

  I had given her pause. I waited, hoping Rozen would be delayed.

  "Anadi have not joined Households since before the Stone Moon," she said at last.

  "Anadi have not warmed beds for the pleasure of their lovers since before the Stone Moon either," I said. "But you were quick enough to accuse me of that."

  "Accuse you," she said, slowly. "Because to take pleasure with an anadi, mutual pleasure, is perverse."

  "Accuse me," I said, "because to take an anadi as lover rather than as breeding partner is against Roika's law and would see us both executed. I have too much to do to die."