…and.
…and this had been her father’s backup plan all along. If she never returned from Kavera, if they lost her to the Academy’s corrupting influence — always saving the world, those silly kids! — then he could still line up his game pieces the way he wanted them. She’d just outlined his plan. She’d only mislabeled the pawns. It wasn’t about Letta, in the end. It was about her.
She deliberately loosened her jaw. “No.”
“Agna…” The sigh came along with her name, part of the same love, the same exasperation.
“No.”
“Why not? You see how it would solve our problems.”
“Because it’s ugly and fake and crass.” And it would solve so much. It would solve so much, and it would only break three people. Her life and Letta’s and Marco’s were such a small price to pay. Agna flung herself out of the chair, running her hands in claws through heir hair. “What’s wrong with you people? He’s in love with Letta. I’m not stupid.”
“Ultimately, it’s your choice. But the law does not require love. Only free choice.”
“You call this free choice?” The ceiling spun over her as she whirled through space. “And what about Letta, damn it?”
“Agna.”
“Rrrgh. I’m not going to — She’s important too.”
“No decisions have been made, mind you. But she would be involved in any discussions.”
“Sure. Hey, Let, mind if I steal your boyfriend. For business purposes. I’ll put him right back when I’m done. Oh wait, it would be for the rest of our lives. So you don’t get him back. Whoops. Too bad about that life you were going to have.”
“The statute on merging spousal property is five years,” her father said. “Just so you’re aware. After that, the contract can be dissolved without penalty. And you would not be required to stay in Murio in the meantime.”
“That makes it so much better.”
“There’s no need for sarcasm.”
Agna scrubbed her fingers through her hair. Agna and Lina and Letta had played tag in Agna’s parents’ garden and hide-and-seek in the downtown townhouse where Letta had grown up. Agna’s cousins on her mother’s side had been teenagers when she was small; they had been babysitters, not friends. Letta was the closest thing she and Lina had to a third sister. Backstabbing Letta would be no better than leaving her father’s legacy to die. It would simply change which people she hurt.
The memory of Marco’s quiet voice made her shiver. It’s not that bad an idea, ultimately. He knew about this scheme. Did Letta know, too?
“I can’t believe you would all do this to Letta. She’s family, Papa. This is wrong. I care about the agency, but this is wrong. There has to be a limit to what you’d do.”
“I’ve told you she would be involved in any decisions that might be made. No one has ever said that she would be cut out of the discussion. All involved would have to be on board to proceed.”
“Why would she ever agree to…” She collapsed into the couch where she’d once cocooned herself with her book, snug and happy in a corner of her father’s world.
Her father leaned back. “You might ask her. Both of them.”
She gripped her elbows. “I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“…I just can’t.” She couldn’t look Letta in the face and ask her to do this horrible thing. She wasn’t sure she could look Marco in the face at all, after this.
She tried to think of it as a business discussion, nothing personal. It was how her father and aunt saw it, after all. They had no trouble wagering their children’s lives to make the wheels keep turning. If, if, if Letta were on board — if she saw it as a lark, as a rebellion against the idea of following the usual path in life, instead of acquiescing to her mother’s and her lover’s ambitions — then what? Marco knew about the plan and had no protests. What would Agna lose, other than self-respect? Its loss would buy her freedom. Wasn’t that worth it?
When her father said her name again, she realized that tears were running down her cheeks. She grabbed a handkerchief from her pocket and buried her face in it. Some negotiator she’d turned out to be.
She would be free. She would sign some paperwork and gather her things from storage and go. She could learn how to look herself in the mirror again, someday. But she did not have to stay in Murio; she could open her gallery and build her own legacy. Five years wasn’t her whole life.
They were excuses. She dried her face and crumpled the handkerchief in her palm. Nothing about it was right. It merely achieved what everyone had set out to do. Dedication to one’s cause necessitated sacrifices, sometimes.
“Please send for them,” she said. “Marco and Letta and Naire-ceisi. We can settle this.”
Keifon: The Rise
Keifon balled his hands deep in the pockets of the coat Agna had once given him as a gift. The sun had not yet crested the mountains. Keifon’s breath fogged in the air, and dew clung to the plants and the stones. Yawning, Bargi walked beside him and spoke little. She’d insisted that the couch was comfortable enough, and recommended he stop his apologizing before she knocked his teeth back into his head. He’d stopped, and, leaving his guilt aside, finished cooking a quick breakfast out of the remaining eggs and some bread.
The earthbreakers scattered across Wildern had not begun to work — either the University-trained Kaverans at the Tufarian church site, or the primarily Yanweian Eytran priests at the pass — so the ground was still, disturbed only by the clop and rattle of horses and carriages over the cobblestones. Keifon felt as though he should say something, though his head was cloudy. They had just spent half the night talking over cards with Nelle, and he felt as though he’d said everything he was ready to say. Perhaps she was happy to absorb the morning calm with him. They climbed Wildern’s hills toward the pass in silence that he allowed himself to feel was companionable.
The work camp under the pine trees was quiet. Zan’s lines of torches snaked along the path toward the work site, flickering against the canopy of branches above them. There were no cooking fires this time, Keifon realized, just before Bargi muttered, “Damn, we’re late.” She strode up through the camp, a lone figure outlined by torchlight. Turning in the path, Keifon took in their surroundings as uneasiness drenched his morning fog.
No guards on patrol. No one cooking breakfast. No one stumbling to the outhouses. No priests chanting their morning prayers among the trees. They were alone.
Bargi turned, her boots loud on the new stones. The distant hum of a crowd filtered through the screen of trees ahead. “It’s starting,” she said. “You should see.”
“What’s starting?” his rusty voice said, too quiet in the press of pine needles and empty tents, framing a question to which his heart knew the answer.
She waved him on with a bright smile. His feet carried him forward on the path, toward the voices in the distance.
Side by side with his friend, Keifon turned the last bend in the path to reach the spot where he’d caught up with her yesterday. The bridge over the ravine was half-finished, and the old wooden bridge was crutched with scaffolding and unfinished stone pylons.
Facing the edge of the ravine, the Kaveran laborers formed the largest circle, a loose crowd of men and women in work clothes and coats and cloaks. Beyond them stood a triple row of backs in a familiar buff-colored uniform, standing perfectly still. Facing them was a group of hooded earthbreakers, their eyes glinting in the torchlight, behind the dais that they had thrust up out of the rock.
On the dais stood another earthbreaker, a woman cloaked in green; and another member of Unit 279 — Bai, who excelled in speed drills and kept a candle burning for her dead family next to her bunk through every holiday.
Between them stood a lone figure in red, head up, watching the crowd that waited for him to speak. Keifon’s mouth went dry as his body went to war with itself — cold and warm, weak and tense, repelled and longing. Bargi chucked him on the arm, as though they were
cousins waiting for the bonfire to be lit at New Year’s.
The sun broke over the mountain, and a shaft of orange light bathed the man in red. He had to have planned this, taking measurements of the angles of light.
Every voice in the crowd went silent as Kazi spoke. “Brothers and sisters.” The earthbreaker behind him repeated his words in Kaveran, laced with a southern Yanweian accent. Keifon’s brain repeated them in Yanweian, echoes upon echoes.
“We have worked together to improve this passage between our homelands. We have learned so much about one another as we worked. We have learned what is different about us — our languages, our cultures. Our views of the world, in many cases. We have also learned what we have in common. We are together at this moment, living our lives and making the best of what we have, by the grace of the gods in whom nearly all of us believe.”
An uneasy shifting of weight rippled through the crowd.
“We have learned that many of us come here to put one more day, one more coin, between ourselves and starvation. Many of us support families with the work we do here — our children, our aging parents. Some of us have been fortunate enough to choose the path that led here from a multitude of paths. We studied or we prayed to find enlightenment and the ways of channeling the Wanderer’s power.” He turned to spread a hand toward the line of earthbreakers at the edge of the ravine. The scaffolding around the old bridge pylons rose behind them, tipped in light.
“But many of us are here because we do not have other choices. In our homeland, the laws of mortals forbid us from studying a trade, from seeking a different life for ourselves and our families, unless we have what they deem to be the correct name, the correct blood. Here, we’re told, no such barriers exist. Anyone can become a scholar, a politician, a doctor, an earthbreaker. And yet. And yet we see the same names, the same blood, generation after generation, securing for themselves what they claim is available to all.”
He paced on the dais, slowly, and the crowd watched. “Our work went into the road you stand upon today. And trade between our homelands stands to benefit all parties. But if you travel this new road to sell your grain, your wood, your skill as a craftsman — your profits will be taken on both sides. Vertal wants its cut. Nijin wants its cut. From our work, those of the right blood benefit, by accident of birth that they claim is their right. Now…” He raised his hands to calm the grumble from the crowd. Some of the soldiers turned, their awareness shifting. Keifon could not see the knives and swords at their hips through the wall of bodies between himself and them, but he knew they were there.
“The gods place each of us where we are meant to be. We know this to be true. And yet the laws of mortals seek to deny the gifts and the passions the gods have also given us. Have they granted literary talent, mathematical aptitude, an unquenchable desire to improve the world, to someone whom they intended to leave digging ditches all their lives?” He rode the tide rising from his listeners. Keifon thought of Agna drawing her plants in charcoal and paint, of himself adjusting a bandage. Neither had been born to the lives they loved.
Everyone was born to their place. That was what gave order to the world, what kept chaos from starving them all and sending those with the least conscience from taking everything there was to take. It was what protected the livelihoods of every craftsman and doctor and scholar in Yanwei, so that their destinies would not be stolen by the undeserving.
Follow the gods and know where you belong. It beat in his heart and kept him breathing, even when half of that creed had become tangled and uncertain. The gods still led him. They would not steer him wrong.
He could not practice medicine in Yanwei because he was nameless, because he was not of the right blood. And he was nameless because he deserved to be, because he had slammed the door on Eri and drained his family’s coffers down his throat and run from the fanged emptiness inside him, instead of finding the path of order and light. He did not deserve to have everything he’d ever wanted. He’d lost the chance the gods had given him.
“We say… let those who want to learn, learn. Let those who want to become artists, politicians, scholars, healers, become what the gods gave them the gifts to become. Not because of names or blood, but by striving to improve their lives and our world.”
The soldiers cheered first. The laborers took up the wave of joy and anger as it swept out from its source. Only the earthbreakers were silent, their hands cupped in Eytra’s sign. The interpreter on the earthen stage watched Kazi as he drank in what he’d sought so long to reap.
As their shouts faded from their peak, Kazi and his interpreter spoke again. “We have drafted demands for the governments of Yanwei and Kavera. They are on their way to the capitals as we speak. For Kavera, which honors the potential of the individual in word but not in deed, we require that they invest the taxes and tariffs they’re so fond of collecting in the communities who worked to earn them. For Yanwei, my beloved homeland, under the yoke of selfish mortal leaders — we require that the chance to advance one’s lot in life, to follow one’s calling, be unchained from the limitations of name and blood. That any person, be they common-born or noble or nameless or foreign, be allowed to study and apprentice if their abilities and dedication allow. That Kaveran people, no less educated and talented than Yanweians, be allowed to independently conduct business on Yanweian soil. That all of us may be free to use our gods-given talents to create a better life and a better world.”
The howl from the crowd raised gooseflesh over Keifon’s skin. In Kazi’s world, he could study with Dr. Rushu and then open a practice in Ceien, where he could see his daughter every day. Agna could travel to buy art without being questioned at the border like a thief. His daughter would grow up to become anything she wanted, bound only by her dreams.
Kazi paced, unleashed at last. Every rant he’d delivered in a shadowy inn room, every argument he’d tested and honed on Keifon’s impatient, numbed mind, had been polished for this day. “And until our demands are met, until Yanwei and Kavera agree to work with us to create this better world, the road between them will close. Our efforts no longer benefit those who would control and exploit us.”
He raised a fist. The earthbreakers knelt, pressing their hands to the stone. A rumble under their feet rose and shifted toward the ravine, and the scaffolding trembled. The old wooden bridge shivered and clattered. A support rope shot loose on the far end, sending the span into a drunken slump. The other ropes lashed loose into the air one by one. The bridge collapsed into the ravine, raising a plume of dust that dimmed the morning sunlight. The earthbreakers stood as one. The mob cheered. A few ran off, eager to spread the news in town. Using them as cover, Keifon turned and walked and did not stop.
Agna: Adrift
After booking passage on the General Geale, Agna counted days. There were mazes of bureaucracy to cover, like clearing out her old bank account. She took out enough for her passage and shipping costs, a fund for procuring art, and a little extra for a three-day trip through the shopping districts. The rest was transferred to her account in the Wildern Bank. For a little while, she let herself feel wretched about the money that had been fed into it from her parents’ accounts, then reminded herself that it would help her open the gallery.
When she ventured out into the shopping districts, fewer things than she would have expected caught her eye. From her parents’ storage facility, she had recovered several unopened crates of clothes and books and childhood oddments, ready to ship out. It seemed redundant to buy more. She bought three new healers’ robes in a specialty store in the shadow of Blackhall Hospital, since one of hers was wearing through at the elbows, and there was no telling when she’d be back to replenish her stock.
She then splurged on two new dresses: a sensible green linen-and-wool for running errands, and a deep violet silk gown with a square neckline and long sleeves. As the dressmaker fitted it on her, she avoided her own eyes in the mirror. The body in it looked strange and elegant, nothing like her. She knew what th
e dress was for, but did not inform herself of this fact. It hung in its wrapper in the closet in her parents’ guest room.
At least book shopping still held her interest. The news from Blackhall about the energy-magnifying device had expanded from pamphlets to books, shouting one another down from opposite corners of the booksellers’ tables. She bought two that disagreed stringently with one another, then returned for a second copy of each, for the hospital’s library.
Fliers in the bookshop’s windows led her to a debate one evening, where two of the authors argued about the meaning of the shapes the new device had revealed. After the devices had been rebuilt by several craftsmen, selling by the dozens to every laboratory in the Academy and in Blackhall — as well as to cranks and dilettantes with money to spare — the early cries of fraud had gone silent. Everyone could see for themselves what the inventor had seen, and everyone who could peer through the eyepiece and hold a pen was busy sketching their discoveries. Every week Blackhall and the Academy published its findings, charts and sketches of every substance they could shove under a bright light: water, honey, minerals, blood. Much of the research narrowed on living things, since the devices seemed unable to detect energy in nonliving substances, revealing only static crystal structure. The Earthbreakers’ Guild had released a few statements, but since their influence was stronger in the south, few paid them much heed. This was an hour for the biological sciences.
It was too bad she’d have to miss the rest of the controversy, Agna admitted to herself, filing out of the debate hall as the other attendees chatted and gesticulated in the warm night air. She’d bring back as much information as she could, and try to stay current. With the greater Tufarian presence in Wildern, the discussion might merit a bit more diplomacy than it did in a city that was half owned by the Church of the Divine Balance. But she suspected a lively discussion could go on among the diverse viewpoints in the hospital. It was one of the few things she anticipated about going back.
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