Sunshield

by Emily B. Martin

  He doesn’t look at me. His normally distant eyes are wide and bright, his gaze fixed on some unmoving point in the whirling circles of dancers.

  “Good evening,” I croak. “What, um, what an exciting event this is.”

  He doesn’t answer, only jams his fist in his jacket pocket. Across the hall, the caller raises her voice, and with a twirl of skirts, the circles change direction. Laughs and cheers ring out. Iano remains silent, still fixed on the floor below.

  I cough, only partially fake. Earth and sky, I need a glass of water. “Princess Eloise gives her regrets—she’s not feeling well and is unable to attend today.”

  No response. Light be damned, does anything make an impact with him?

  I press on regardless. “I do have something I’d hoped to speak with you about. Princess Eloise and Ambassador Rou are growing concerned at our lack of progress. They had hoped by now we may have at least sketched out the terms of a partnership, if not started planning the funding of the Ferinno Road. They’re concerned we’re running out of time before we return to the Alcoran summit in Tukurmsi.”

  There’s a change in the music, the tempo quickening. The ladies change direction again in a cloud of glitter. My flush now washes from my collar down through the rest of my body, my fingers and toes warm and buzzing. I swallow and look hurriedly back to Iano. He hasn’t moved, hasn’t spoken, and suddenly I’m angry as well as panicked.

  “Iano, listen—we’ve heard about what happened to the former ashoki,” I say. His posture goes, if possible, more rigid than before. “And I understand it’s a significant transition for the court, and that the decision has been difficult. Eloise and I both wish to communicate our condolences. But if you suspect that we had some knowledge of the attack beforehand, or were somehow involved, we weren’t. We had no knowledge of it until this week. So I hope . . . I hope that is not what is stalling our discussions.” I continue despite his persisting silence. “Because the fact remains that your country and ours spent a great deal of time and money to organize this visit. We traveled for weeks to get here. We prepared for years. Perhaps our plans were ambitious, but when you and Eloise and I corresponded, you made it sound like Moquoia was ready, that with your throning we would begin a new alliance—”

  He turns to me so suddenly I’m thrown off-balance. I grab the rail to keep from stumbling. His glassy, inscrutable face has suddenly become a torment of creases and furrows.

  “You don’t know anything,” he snarls.

  And then he bursts into tears.

  With a whirl of glowing silk, he turns and bolts across the balcony, his hands clapped over his face. He rushes past his mother and courtiers without slowing a single step and plows through the two guards at the head of the stairs. Every single head turns to follow his flight.

  And then they pivot toward me.

  The ambient chatter goes deadly silent, leaving only the pulsing music and cheers below. Where there was a hot flush before, now there’s only frozen shock. I clutch the rail, staring at the empty doorway as thirty-some-odd of the most influential people in this whole strange, terrifying country lock onto me like sights on a crossbow. Minister Kobok gives a quizzical glare. Next to the queen, Kimela tilts her head, as if observing an unrecognizable animal.

  I swallow, and with a huge amount of effort, I put my head down and shuffle across the balcony toward the guarded stairs. I place one foot in front of the other, still gripping the bag of adoh.

  I stumble past the guards and down the darkened stairs. At the bottom, I almost run into Rou, his pale silk ascot glowing in the weird light. He’s looking in the direction Iano must have fled, and he turns just as I reach him.

  “Veran—was that the prince? What’s going on?”

  “I need—I need to get out . . .” I push past him, jostling my bag of adoh and sending a luminous cloud into the air. Coughing on the powder, I skirt the edge of the ballroom, squinting against the hazy glare dusting every surface. Dropping my bag in a potted plant, I push into the outer hall, the whirling music chasing me out. I pick up speed until I’m practically running, my soles clopping dangerously against the floor. I worry that Fala will stop me, fretting kindly, but she’s not there anymore, and I race out of the hall without stopping to retrieve my cane. Adoh dusts off me like ash, rendered into unremarkable white powder out of the light of the blue lamps.

  I turn corners, not caring or paying attention to where I’m going, until I’m confronted with a ubiquitous glass wall, its sides smeared with rain. I don’t slow down; in fact, I speed up until I practically collide with it. I press my hands and face against the glass, my breath fogging the surface.

  Trapped, closed in, boxed up in a dome of pretend air. I gasp against the glass. Is the rain even real? Are there real, moving trees out there, waving in a wind? I can’t breathe, can’t see straight. I stagger along the wall, one hand on the cold panes, scrabbling at every seam and bracing. I come to a garden bed at the edge of the path and clamber through it, stomping through trimmed moss and everlasting blooms, my heels sinking into the dirt. I push aside the pruned fronds of a date palm and am confronted by a small door, a service entrance for gardeners, so they might do their secret cultivating out of sight of the rest of the palace, lofting the grand illusion that these plants trim and water themselves, that the dead blooms vanish in the night, that worms and bugs simply don’t exist. I throw myself at the door; it gives easily to my dramatic heave, and I pass through two panels of double-thick glass to stagger drunkenly into the shocking rain.

  It is, indeed, real, pouring from the sky in sheets, spattering against the cold gray paving stones. I’m instantly soaked, my hair falling from its curls to plaster against my forehead. My jacket gains ten pounds in water, and my shoes flood, making the hobnails slick as ice. With a fierce vehemence, I kick them off, setting my bruised feet on the cold stone in shocking relief.

  This courtyard is little more than a platform, surrounded by a low wall. The stinging rain feels delicious against my sensation-starved skin, but I want more. I want wind and soil. To the left is a ladder, extending both up and down—the scaffolds I’d seen the glass cleaner climbing yesterday. Attempting a ladder in my current state is a terrible idea, particularly a narrow metal one clinging vertically to the side of a glass building, at an unknown height, in the rain.

  I am just in the mood.

  Leaving my shoes, I swing onto the rungs, the metal biting my fingers. They’re cut with hatching to provide purchase when wet, and, trusting in that alone, I begin to clamber down them. It was a good idea to take off my shoes—my knees are wobbly, and my panic hasn’t fully subsided. Chances are good I’d have slipped straight off if I was still wearing those wooden soles.

  Fortunately, the ballrooms are on the lower floors of the palace. I reach another platform, and then the greenish glass walls disappear, replaced by the palace’s immense stone foundation, buttressed by dark soil. I hit the landing at the bottom and immediately step off the pavers into the rich, wet earth.

  My breath escapes my chest like a plunging bellows, and I curl my numb toes into the dirt. The ground is covered with thick ferns, except in the two feet or so along the palace foundation, providing a well-maintained service path. I give a passing thought to mosquitoes, but the next moment I realize they won’t fly in the pouring rain—they’ll stay under the thick tree canopy and the overhangs of the palace windows. Keeping one hand on the stones, I follow the service path, heading around the curve of the wall until I reach a place where the ground slopes away, affording a rain-muddled view of the forests beyond.

  I succumb to the weakness in my knees and drop to the ground, tucking my feet under me. I’ve ruined this outfit, but at the moment, I can’t make myself worry about it. I set my head on my knees, drawing in great gulps of chilly, living air, the wind shivering over my wet skin.

  By the Light, what a mess I am. What a joke—a throwaway prince stuffed into foreign clothes, playacting at diplomacy. I should never have agree
d to a political discussion without Eloise. I’m not even sure I should be here at all. Surely someone else has the same grasp on Moquoian that I have. Surely Prince Iano’s handle on Common Eastern could have sufficed otherwise.

  Lightning flashes, and I curl my arms over my head, blocking out the jarring light. A juvenile wave of homesickness compounds my lightheadedness. I wish you were here, Mama. Papa. Viyamae. Mama would make no pretense at tiptoeing around the etiquette and polite society. She’d stand in the middle of the crowd in her tunic and Woodwalker boots and cut straight to the chase—What exactly is going on here? Papa would have the patience of the mountains themselves, and my oldest sister, Viyamae, would know precisely the right words to gain results. Earth and sky, even my other siblings would produce better results than me. Vyncet would puzzle things out in his methodical way, Susimae would charm everyone with her sweetness, Idamae would just fight anyone who looked at her crossways. Any one of them could do a better job than me.

  I shouldn’t have come.

  I wiggle my feet deeper into the rich muddy soil, staining the embroidered hems of my trousers, taking morose pleasure in mirroring my own wallow in self-pity. The air is heavy with the smell of rot and ripe earth, but after weeks in the sanitized forests of the palace, I inhale it like a tonic. The ache for the firefly slopes of Lampyrinae lodges deep in my gut.

  Slowly, the panic and dizziness brought on by the harsh light in the ballroom lessens, leaving my head aching. I massage my temples—I’m going to have a lot to atone for when I go back inside. I let my hands fall to the ground and then pause when I feel something besides mud. I look down.

  Under my fingers, curled on its side, is a small, bright yellow bird—a goldfinch. The black and white bars on its wing are so crisp I’m surprised I didn’t see it when I threw myself into this spot. I pull my fingers away. Its head is bent at an odd angle, its legs curled like twigs in a frost. Dead.

  My gaze is inexplicably drawn past it, along the palace foundation, to another tiny mass on the ground. This one is easy to miss—a dun-colored sparrow—but it, too, is on its side, its head twisted backward.

  Setting my palms against the soaring stone foundation, I get stiffly to my feet. The mud squishes through my toes as I pick my way along the curved wall. Beyond the sparrow is another, and then a bluebird, and then several warblers nearly right on top of each other. When I get to another goldfinch, I stop, staring at its bent head. Goldfinch is a popular epithet in the Silverwood, it’s bright per-chick-o-ree the song of summer.

  I look down the row of dead songbirds I just walked past, and then farther down the curve of the foundation, where I can see more—a flash of red here, a huddle of brown there. Each of them curled in the mud, their heads bent on broken necks.

  I look up.

  The rain stings my face as I stare at the massive expanse of glass soaring into the sky, the greatest feat of modern engineering, the pinnacle of progress.

  The birds hit the glass.

  My embarrassment in the ballroom is overwhelmed suddenly by the sinister reality of this palace, this marvel of shine and gloss and see-through walls. Why had the thought of birds striking the glass never occurred to me? At home we string mirrored pendants from the main windows, and during migration season any windows higher than the tree line have to be slatted. But this place, this city of glass . . . by the Light, how many birds must die in a day? A hundred? A thousand?

  A flare of anger bursts to life inside me, my fists balling at my sides. I’m nearly ready to turn and race up the ladders and staircases to Eloise’s room, full of fury, but in the next moment, I wilt again. Eloise can’t be bothered by this, and neither can Rou. While they’d surely care about the deaths of scores of birds a day, they simply can’t afford to waste effort on it—particularly not now when all our attempts seem to be taking us backward.

  I should have told Eloise the whole truth about my failure with Kobok—between that disaster and today’s, there’s no chance she’ll send me off on my own again. Hopefully she’ll be well enough in another day or so to salvage some of the wreckage I’ve caused. I’ll go up to her room now and confess. It’s going to hurt, detailing my dismal attempts at diplomacy to her, but at least she’ll be able to make informed decisions from here on out. Birds or no birds.

  A gust of wind picks up, sluicing along the palace wall. I shiver violently, my earlier cloak of frustration and self-pity gone. Now I’m just cold and wet, my feet numb and my head muddled. Dejected, I trudge back along the line of dead songbirds to the service ladder. In a fog, I clamber back up and pass back into the palace, leaving a small stream of water over the tiled floors and carpeted staircases.

  Bakkonso isn’t over yet, so the halls are quiet, save for a few soft footsteps here and there as servants slip into service doors or alcoves as I pass by. It makes me uneasy, this rigid protocol between the court and the staff, but I’ve already made enough blunders. I put my soaking head down and don’t try to make any eye contact.

  The climb up to the guest wing leaves me winded, and the atrium flickers with the continued lightning outside. With one hand on my forehead, I reach Eloise’s door and knock. There’s no answer, but I expect it’s because she’s still in bed. I crack the door open.

  “Eloise?” I call.

  The parlor is dim and silent. She must have fallen asleep. I’ll talk to her tomorrow, then.

  There’s a whine by my ear—I jump as a mosquito sails out of the darkness, on its way into the hall. I smush it against the door frame, crushing it. I wipe my hand on my soaked jacket and then ease the door shut. Turning, I tread toward my room, congratulating myself for keeping my shoes quiet.

  No, I’m an idiot. I left my shoes outside the vexing service door. I’ve been so quiet because I’m barefoot. Lightning splashes against the hallway windows. I clamp my hand over my eyes, leaving just a sliver to see through, as much a motion of dismay as discomfort.

  Feeling exceptionally stupid, as well as tired, sore, and cold, I reach my door and turn the knob, desperate for the oblivion of sleep.

  Tamsin

  I found a thumbtack!

  It’s actually always been with me. I’ve just been too dense to appreciate it for what it was. Believe it or not, it was driven through the metal band of my waste bucket. There are four of them, two on each band, to hold them in place. One was loose. After a bit of finagling and a broken fingernail, I worked it out of the wood (my bucket was empty at this point). Now I hold it in my hand, a prize, barely the length of my thumbnail.

  Hello, little friend!

  Poia came back a while ago, and she was extra surly, barking at Beskin about the smoke in the rafters and the scorpion in the rice jar and the pointless reorganization of the coffee cupboard. From the snippets I could hear, I gather she had some kind of run-in with bandits on the trip, though she clearly came out on top—just after she returned, she had unlocked my door and kicked it open, brandishing an inkwell and sheet of parchment.

  “Time for you to sign your name,” she’d said.

  “Is this blood on these sheets?” came Beskin’s voice from around the corner.

  “Not my blood,” Poia shot back, shoving the materials into my hands. “Anyway, it may work in our favor—who’s to say it’s not hers?”

  As I juggled the writing materials she had thrust at me, my gaze had fallen to her feet, planted impatiently before me. One of her trouser legs was rolled up to show a dusty bandage wrapped around her ankle. But it wasn’t the injury that had drawn my attention—it was the edge of a tattoo peeking above the cloth. Two small curved lines, arcing toward each other like parentheses.

  My eyes narrowed.

  She’d snapped impatiently. “Come on, your name, and make it legible this time.”

  I did what she demanded, puckering my lips as I focused on forming the letters. Afterward she whisked the parchment away, grumbling about having to head right back out into the cursed wilderness to deliver the thing on schedule. Her slam of the door to
ppled my empty bucket, which led me to set it upright and discover the loose edge of the thumbtack poking out of the metal band.

  Sitting in my palm, it feels like a weapon.

  I think back to the tattoo peeking above the bandage on Poia’s ankle. It’s a mark I haven’t seen since arriving at court—not something a high-ranking noble would flaunt to their colleagues. But I’m not surprised to find it on Poia’s skin, and I wouldn’t be surprised to find that some of the people on my list of enemies may bear the same ink. I close my fingers on the thumbtack.

  What to do with this new information? I wonder.

  What to do with my friend, as well?

  The bats are flying outside, making the air thick with their chatter and distinct odor. They billow against the deep turquoise sky, a true mokonnsi. Between this and my new prize, my spirits are lighter than they’ve been in weeks. The pain in my body is distant and familiar. Best of all, I have the capability to do something.

  To leave a trace.

  Carefully, I pinch the thumbtack and press it into the adobe wall. But as I attempt to drag it in a line, the adobe only crumbles. Hm. No good.

  I scoot to the cell door. It’s made of wood. I press the point into the grain and drag it. It makes a minuscule scratch. Carefully, I smile. It hurts less now.

  The bats wheel outside. I drag the point over the line again.

  Lark

  Thwack.

  The blunt ax head buries in the thick round of pine. I jerk it out and swing it high again, the muscles bunching in my back. Sweat pours between my shoulder blades, and I can feel the sun crisping my skin bared in the absence of my shirt and vest. But I don’t care. I can’t split wood in my vest, and to be honest I can’t afford the possibility of busting the seams in my shirt sleeves—that’s what happened to my only spare—so I split wood in my breast band, and I brown darker than the wet riverbank in the meantime.