Ashlords

by Scott Reintgen

  “So tell us about the Alchemist. Is she the real deal, or was this video a fluke?”

  Martial grins, and for a second it’s like he’s looking directly through the camera at me.

  “Fluke? Only fluke is how long it took the world to notice her,” he says. “There’s no one with her arsenal of rebirths. She knows more mixes than I ever did when I won the Races. And that video shows she can ride. If she’d grown up with her own phoenix, she’d be the favorite to win this year. But now she’s gotta hope she gets picked out of thousands just to get a shot? You want to talk about flukes, that’s the fluke.”

  The reporter signs off, smiling one of those classic Ashlord smiles, and I’m left shifting uncomfortably in my chair. Farian glances over, but he knows better than to say what’s on his mind. He and Martial want to build me up, tell me I’ve got a chance. The views are a good thing, the money even better. But I’m not going to jump off a cliff just because they say I can fly.

  “Let’s take another look at the auction,” I suggest quietly.

  For the next few hours, it’s all business. I read through comments and articles, trying to ignore the growing dread I have over being so centered in the spotlight. Farian’s wrong. This video isn’t going away. Our auction adds another three thousand legions to our account, and now we’re looking at enough money to cover a year at a tech university for Farian, not to mention new saddles for me. It’s more money than we’ve seen in our entire lives.

  The sky is almost dark as we pack up to leave. Farian stops me at the back door.

  “Amaya wanted us to lock it,” he says. “Go out the front.”

  I nod absently. “She did?”

  He bolts the back door, shoulders his bag, and leads me past the hubs. I’m still caught up in thoughts of fame, in the words of Martial’s interview, when Farian shoulders our way into the bar area. The lights are all on and overly bright, but it’s the explosion of sound that ends me.

  Farian’s quick to move aside, and quick to laugh obnoxiously, as my entire family shouts “Surprise!” at me. Uncles are crowding the back walls and cousins are darting between legs. My mother’s smiling at the center of the group like she’s done something wonderful. I consider running, but Farian’s planted himself across my escape route, and he laughs again when he realizes my first instinct was to bolt.

  “They planned this for you,” he says, nudging me forward.

  “You’re a dead man,” I whisper back.

  But I turn a blushing smile on my family so they know their surprise worked. The chaos spins back to life as half the uncles take my entrance as a sign the drinking can commence. I watch them race across the room to Amaya, elbowing each other out of the way, ordering their favorite whiskies. Dividian music dances from the far end of the room. I grin wildly at the sight of my cousin Luca, strumming his guitar and nodding along with the notes. His family lives all the way out in the Gravitas Mountains. It probably took them a few days to get here.

  The first person to come vaulting in my direction is my little brother, Prosper. He barrels into my legs, wrapping his arms around me and smiling up. We’ve got the same round face, the same slight brows, but Prosper’s eyes are a deeper, darker shade of green. He’s only eight, but it seems like he shoots up an inch or two every few weeks. I sweep the hair from his forehead and lean down, planting a little kiss there.

  “Prosper, did you get another haircut?”

  He’s glad I noticed. “It’s the new style, Imelda! I used my money for it.”

  “Such a fashion icon,” I reply. “Come on, let’s thank Mother for this lovely surprise.”

  He grins even wider. “You’re totally mad, aren’t you? I told her you would be. You hate surprises, and birthdays, and parties. But wait until you see the three-fires cake she made for you. And someone from the mountains brought actual dreamnots, Imelda! Oh, and you’ll get presents, too, you know? So it can’t be that bad!”

  “I know, I know,” I say, messing with his hair. “Come on.”

  Mother and Father are waiting for us. He sits, wearing the day on his shoulders, both elbows planted on the table like they’ve been hammered down for good. She stands unbent at his side. As we cross the room, and as I kiss their cheeks, I realize this is the only image I’ve ever known of them. My mother like the moon, bright and beautiful. My father like the stars, scattered in the dark backdrop of her radiance. Always so different, always inseparable.

  “I know,” my mother starts in. “You hate birthdays, but not having a party wasn’t an option, Imelda. Look how happy everyone is. Look how loved you are. Why not try some cake?”

  Smiling, my father offers me a plate. I wink at him before taking a bite. My mother has her faults, but cooking isn’t one of them. Her rendition of the traditional three-fires cake has my feet lifting off the ground. The smoked caramel, the roasted chocolate, the burned creams. She powders her version with enough fire dust to have me sweating.

  “Why is it so good?” I say, taking an even bigger bite.

  “Glad you like it,” she says. “And I’m glad you’re alive to taste it. I’m still having nightmares about that horrendous video. I’m not sure how many more birthdays I’ll get to celebrate with you. Makes me glad we’ve thrown a proper party to celebrate you before you go off and try another stunt like that.”

  Father sees an opening. “Can’t believe you stuck the landing.”

  We share a grin before Mother can swat away the fun.

  “Don’t encourage her.” She uses her glass to gesture at the swirl of bodies all around. “Say hello to everyone, please. Especially the mountain Berus. Their crew traveled through the night to get here. Poor Ismay. And don’t forget to give your great-aunt a kiss.”

  Father glances in my aunt’s direction. “Just remember to check a mirror if she decides to kiss back. What shade of lipstick is that anyway? Turquoise?”

  “Just thank her,” Mother repeats. “Go on. And do make sure you say hello to the gentlemen at that last table, in the corner. We saw them on our way over and couldn’t resist inviting them. You know them from school, don’t you?”

  My eyes skip that way. I let out a groan. The Shor brothers are sitting at the corner table. Farian’s made his way over to them, but the conversation looks like it’s going nowhere fast.

  “Very subtle, Mother.”

  “What?” she asks, all innocence. “They’re nice boys.”

  I give her a scathing look, take a final bite of cake, and start making my way around the room. Like most Dividian birthdays, it’s a great smash of bodies and sound. I’m toasted by some and trapped by others. At one point my little cousin Elna finds her way into my arms. I set her against a hip, spinning her with me to each new conversation. She’s a warm little thing, and she keeps asking me when the dreamnots will be released. Uncle Briel toasts my video, and his two gangly sons launch a hundred questions in my direction. I’m thankful when Aunt Ismay pulls me to a new conversation.

  By the time everyone’s seated and eating, I’m starving. One of the Shor brothers tries to say hello, but I answer him with a mouthful of roasted quail. He smiles his way politely back to the corner table, which has Mother fuming. Father sits back, though, sipping his drink and laughing at me. Some of the girls my age already have matches lined up. They’ll be married in a few years, making babies in a few more. I’m not them. At least Father understands that truth.

  When most of the plates have been picked clean, my uncles start clearing out tables in the main room of Amaya’s bar. They leave behind a great sprawling space for the dreamnots.

  Prosper rushes over to join a handful of my younger cousins. All the girls wait in colorful dresses. The boys adjust their little neck scarves. Catching dreamnots is an old Dividian tradition. They’re one of the few creatures our ancestors brought to this land on that first voyage, and the only breed that didn’t die
out in the brutal wilds of the Empire. So much of our culture—our dances and our songs—died the same way.

  The Ashlords even took our names from us. The joke goes that—after the war—the Ashlord census takers were too lazy to write down our full names. Our braver history teachers whisper the truth, though. Reducing all of our surnames to four letters—Beru and Rahm and Shor—was a reminder of who was in power and of how much we still had to lose.

  So I smile wide as my father stands to begin one of the few traditions they couldn’t destroy. The whole room falls quiet. He’s not particularly big, but he’s still the kind of man everyone notices. He walks across the room, and all the children take up eager stances. It’s not hard to remember when I was that little, how much I looked forward to trying to catch the dreamnot with my friends and cousins.

  The children see the twinkle in Father’s eye as he stops before the door to Amaya’s supply closet. He smiles back at them and sets his hand on the knob. The door rattles loudly and I laugh, knowing Father’s just making noise to rile them up. The children in the front row take a cautious step back, eyes wild and excited. He opens the door and a herd of gray-blue creatures comes stampeding forward, each of them about the size of a teacup.

  Farian always called them baby wolves with wings, and it’s not a bad description. The children scream with delight. One of the creatures takes flight, scrambling to get clear of swatting hands. Another set sprint off to the right, the fur along their backs bristling. Prosper’s the first to catch one and the first to draw out the true nature of dreamnots.

  When he snatches it by the leg, the creature vanishes instantly into mist.

  Laughing, he chases after the next.

  One by one, the little creatures start to disappear. But this is the fun. Only one of the dreamnots in the room is actually the real one. Tradition says that the child who catches it gets to make a wish. I laugh as little Elna pins one, tickling its belly until it laughs into nonexistence. The other cousins start teaming up, eliminating the illusions until there are only a handful of dreamnots left in the room. It’s my favorite kind of chaos.

  Prosper ends the game with a lunging grab. He rolls onto his back, clutching the creature to his chest, and lets out a scream when it doesn’t disappear. The dreamnot squirms at first before resigning itself to being captured. After all, the creature knows what Prosper does: His wish will not come true unless he sets it free again. The uncles begin chanting for him to make his wish and the other children shout out their own ideas.

  The scene is so loud and bright and perfect, that it takes a long minute for anyone to notice the figure standing at the door. A portion of the room quiets, until silence has dug its cold claws through all of us. The laughing children back away uncertainly.

  I’m one of the last to see the Ashlord standing at Amaya’s front entrance.

  Oxanos is a tall man, absurdly slender. His skin is characteristically polished, his eyes lightless pools. Like most of our overlords, he seems genetically predisposed to pride. It’s in his chin, his shoulders, his hands. This is a man who is certain he is superior to everyone else in the room. Unlike most of his kind, Oxanos has little reason to be proud.

  The Ashlords assigned him as an overseer of our village. They wrapped the whole thing with a neat bow, but it wasn’t hard to figure out that sending Oxanos here was meant to be a punishment. He knows that and we know that. It makes him a cruel man, and even if some of our cousins don’t know him personally, none are foolish enough to think he’s welcome here.

  Nor are any foolish enough to stop him from entering.

  “A birthday?” he asks in his rich, city-born accent. “That’s the cause of all this noise?”

  Amaya steps forward. “We’ll keep it quiet.”

  “Too late for that,” Oxanos replies. “I’ve already been woken up twice by it.”

  Amaya’s mouth opens again, but Oxanos cuts her off with a raised hand.

  “Don’t bother arguing. You’ve broken rules here tonight. Noise ordinances. Crowd ordinances. I see alcoholic beverages in the hands of underage drinkers.” He pretends to scan the crowd, but his eyes inevitably fix on me. We are not strangers, nor are we friends. Like most of the girls in our town, I’ve had to suffer the leering attention that Oxanos considers a part of his charm. “Exotic creatures, too? Do we have permits for the use of these?”

  No one answers, because no one in the room’s ever needed a permit for dreamnots, or to throw a party, or to make noise in a bar. I realize the idea of us waking up Oxanos is just as laughable. Amaya’s bar is on the west end of town, almost a mile away from his cozy quarters above town hall. I’d bet ten legions he was passing by and was bored enough to try feeling important.

  The rule of the Ashlords is unquestioned. We know better than to complain about our lives to them. They’ve never looked on us with mercy, but to see Oxanos trying to take these small joys builds fury in me like fire. I’m not alone. Half the room looks ready to breathe smoke.

  “No permits,” he says, shaking his head. “Illegal activities. Arrests will have to be made.”

  My mother stands. “Ashlord, please, it’s my daughter’s birthday.”

  He ignores her. His eyes find me like Mother’s pronouncement has given him a right to stare. The entire room holds its breath. There’s not a man or woman in the bar who wouldn’t enjoy taking a swing at him, but striking an Ashlord isn’t an option. Defiance leads to death.

  “Imelda Beru.” He tastes the name. “You’re to blame for all this, then?”

  Father rises. The sight makes Oxanos smile, like he’s finally struck a chord of music he enjoys. Oxanos has probably heard stories of Ashlords inciting riots among the Dividian and getting killed for acting like fools. Those stories are rare, but every now and again it happens. Rare because rebellion has a cost. Battalions come, villages burn. The Ashlords always offer retribution, even for the lives of their most unlikeable exiles.

  “A special occasion, but no excuse for illegalities.” Oxanos smiles. “I’ll pardon them, however, in exchange for a dance. Consider it a gift to you, Imelda.”

  Murder is written on my father’s face. Uncles are sobering toward dark possibilities. Oxanos knows what he asks. A woman’s first dance belongs to her father, or her intended. I am old enough now to have a man who could ask that of my father, but it should never be someone like him. Oxanos is greedy and petty and undeserving.

  I will not risk my father’s life on a man like him.

  “I agree. One dance.”

  Oxanos stares. “Of my choosing?”

  “Of mine.”

  He’s surprised by that little defiance, but it just brings out a nastier smirk. My eyes drift back to my father. He knows what I’m doing and why, but it doesn’t make the burden of his anger any lighter. It’s unfair that he has to shoulder this shame just to keep us alive. He looks away. It’s the closest I’ll get to approval. The room is silent as I cross to the center. The Ashlord’s eyes flick around the room before settling on me. He looks delighted by it all.

  My cousin Luca watches with clenched fists. His guitar’s been abandoned to a corner. I call over to him and smile. “The Contested, Luca. Play the Contested.”

  Oxanos looks surprised again, but he crosses over and takes his position diagonal from me. It’s a dance he should know, if he’s had any formal training at all. The Ashlords have their traditional dances, but the Contested is something they created just for us.

  Our people sailed to their land centuries ago, intending to conquer. Only, we failed. With the help of their gods, the Ashlords defeated our ancestors. We were stranded on foreign soil, and the Ashlords forced us to bow to them. Most Ashlord dances tell a story. The Contested is a dance that’s meant to show our role in the Empire, not as rulers, but as subjects. The longer strides and gliding turns are intended to favor them. Each year the dance is per
formed to remind every Dividian that our ancestors came and failed. It is a reminder that we live at their mercy.

  But I will dance a new dance.

  The music begins fast, but it’s the Contested, which means it will only get faster. When Oxanos reaches for my hand, I give it to him freely. His skin is nearly burning, each palm furious with heat as he turns me twice. The steps of the dance have us circling, darting forward only to dart back again. Oxanos is a fine dancer, a graceful thing. He matches my rhythm easily as we reach the first chorus. Then I spin away, and clap twice.

  The signal surprises Oxanos. The Contested is a competition, a battle of wills. Traditionally, the Ashlord will clap to the players, asking for a feverish pace the Dividian dancer struggles to match. My cousin sees the signal and the speed of his strumming doubles. I spin back into the Ashlord’s arms as the rhythm of our steps and hips races to match the music.

  Oxanos is nearing the edge of his comfort now. He doesn’t sweat, because his kind never sweat, but he’s gritting his teeth in concentration. As we reach the second chorus, I spin away, and clap twice more. Oxanos’s eyes go wide. I hear the gasping echo around the room. My cousin answers. The pace doubles again. I spin back to the Ashlord, but he’s far from ready.

  I move my hips faster than he can match. My steps are lightning, his a flawed and broken thunder. He loses me on a turn and I dance a cruel circle around him, eyes fixed with fury. This is not how the Contested goes. When they televise their galas, it’s always the Ashlord leaving the Dividian dizzy by the end. But Oxanos is not my king. I am not his slave.

  He loses me, again and again, and suffers red-faced through the embarrassment of trying to catch back up with my steps. I answer without mercy. I punish him through perfection. I stomp my feet and swing my hips and toss my hair until he knows, at least tonight, he is nothing but a sideshow. When the music ends, I’m sweating and breathless.