The Diminished

by Kaitlyn Sage Patterson

  “Apologies, Your Majesty.” I bowed.

  The Queen adjusted the golden cuff bracelet on her wrist and made a face.

  “You’d think that after all these years, I would have grown used to the ceaseless gossip and small talk these kinds of functions require. Yet every time I come to stand outside this room and wait to be announced, I find myself desperately wishing for a quiet night in the peace and comfort of my rooms.”

  I nodded, grateful that I wasn’t alone in that feeling. Before I could respond, she went on.

  “It’s the meaningless, petty gossip that I find intolerable. Most of the people in that room have no idea that the seemingly scandalous behavior of a wealthy member of the nobility will have mind-bogglingly little effect on the struggles and triumphs of the greater population. Sometimes I wish that the first queens of the empire had quashed the ambitions of the noble class in the very beginning. It’s those most innocuous and seemingly necessary things that will do the most damage in the long run.” She paused and looked at me wearily. “There’s a lesson in there somewhere, Bo.”

  Queen Runa took a deep breath, and before I could reply, she asked that I be announced. The butler called out my name and titles, and as I entered, I realized this was the last time I would hear the titles I’d been given at birth spoken into a room in just that way. In a couple of days, I would turn sixteen, the Queen would declare me her true and rightful heir, and all of my titles would change. When the room quieted, the butler blew a triplicate call on the long, twisting horn, a relic of some long-extinct animal, and announced the Queen.

  Runa swept into the room, all smiles and cheerful greetings for the courtiers who approached her, the irritation of moments before washed from her face. It didn’t seem to matter at all that she loathed these kinds of events—she played along beautifully. Waiters swept through the crowd, offering the guests flutes of sparkling wine, snifters of ouzel and appetizers as complex and intricate as they were small. The long table was laid with gilt-edged dishes and gold-plated flatware. Exotic hothouse flowers overflowed from tall vases, and each place setting had no less than five matching crystal glasses.

  I snagged a glass of sparkling wine from a passing waiter and searched the room for the brilliant blue of Claes’s jacket. Before I spotted him, Patrise and Lisette descended on me. They wore matching looks of predatory delight, and with them came a cloud of rich perfume. Patrise’s dark brown eyes were crinkled in amusement, his sepia skin bore almost no wrinkles and his black hair was perfectly arranged, as usual—I’d never seen a single lock out of place on his head. But where he was all languid grace, lithe muscle and smoldering looks through suggestively lowered lashes, even I could appreciate that Lisette’s beauty was sumptuous: all elegance and not a hint of the deceptive and brilliant political maneuvering that came so easily to her. Her tawny skin and auburn hair glowed like amber in the soft light of the sunlamps. Claes had often made a great point of reminding me that there wasn’t a man or woman at court who wasn’t entirely under Lisette’s sway.

  “Darling Ambrose,” Lisette trilled. “How are you? We heard about the unfortunate incident at the park this afternoon. You must be terribly unsettled.”

  Patrise laced an arm through mine and leaned in conspiratorially. “You don’t believe it was a coincidence, do you?”

  “Isn’t it odd that Rylain hasn’t yet arrived for your party?” Lisette asked, sending me a look full of meaning. “We’ve always suspected that she was up to no good, haven’t we, Patrise?”

  Spotting Claes, I squirmed out of their grasp, only barely managing to keep a civil tongue in the process. Of all the singleborn, Rylain was far and away my favorite, the one with whom I felt comfortable enough to be myself. She was a historian who’d devoted her life to researching the cataclysm and its fallout. She had visited our estates often when my father was still alive, and always brought with her huge numbers of books for my father and me. After my father’s death, Rylain had been a great comfort, always ready to lend a sympathetic ear.

  I refused to give weight to Patrise and Lisette’s ridiculous accusations against her.

  Well-meaning members of the gentry stopped me over and over as I tried to make my way across the crowded room. The questions on all of their lips were about the incident in the park that afternoon, and I had no answers for them. None at all. By the time I reached Claes, the butler had just announced that dinner was to be served. I laced a hand through his and leaned in close to whisper in his ear, my false smile beginning to make my cheeks and jaw ache.

  “How is it that every soul in this room has heard about what happened this afternoon?”

  Claes squeezed my hand. “It did take place in Esser Park, darling.”

  “Do you know anything else? Was it an assassination attempt?”

  “Bo, honestly. How often is there an incident with the diminished in Penby? Once a month? Twice? The Shriven wouldn’t have taken action had the violence been committed by anyone not diminished. It had to be a coincidence.”

  The assumption didn’t sit right with me, but I wasn’t about to argue with Claes in the middle of a dinner in my honor. The guests were beginning to find their ways to their seats. I glanced over at the Queen, flanked by the singleborn of her generation—Zurienne, Olivar and Turshaw, all wearing matching expressions of mild annoyance. Runa eyed the seat to her right, the place of honor I was meant to occupy. I took a step in that direction, but Claes kept hold of my hand and leaned in once more.

  “An attempt on the heir apparent’s life, so close to the ceremony? Think of the scandal such a thing might cause. It would look as though one of the other singleborn was so desperate to usurp your place that they would try anything. No one is that stupid.”

  Claes dropped my hand, and I sat down to my last state dinner before I became the heir. But his words sat like lead in my belly, and for the first time in my life, I wasn’t quite sure if I trusted him or not.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  VI

  The tide was low and the fishing boats not yet in the water as I walked, shivering, into the sea. Though the weight of the whole ocean pushed me back toward the shore, I slogged through the icy water as fast as my legs would propel me. The wind whipped black curls loose from my braid and into my eyes, but I kept my focus on the red marker bobbing in the water and the salty musk of the ocean. Five more strides before I could dive.

  I checked my knives, my nets, my ballasts. I tried to breathe deeply, to get ready. Focus, Vi, I thought. This cold summer morning would be the last time I dove for the temple, and glad as I was, I wanted the ocean to myself to say goodbye. I knew the memory of this last dive would stick to me like a barnacle I’d carry with me forever.

  I wondered what Anchorite Lugine would say when I left. She’d be glad, more than likely. I certainly wouldn’t get the tearful goodbye that Sawny and Lily had been given.

  Four more steps.

  My feet slicked around smooth rocks and sank into the sand. The seawater was as gray as the clouds. Gray as my eyes. Scummy foam laced the tops of the tiny waves and lapped at my shoulders. The chill would cling beneath the waves for months yet, turning lips and fingertips blue after a few minutes. But not mine. Not anymore. Not after today.

  Three more steps.

  Something sleek and scaled slipped past my calf in the cold water, breaking my reverie. I shuddered. It didn’t matter that I’d spent most of my nearly sixteen years in this same harbor—until I got underwater, the unseen creatures that swam past my legs still set my teeth on edge. My oil-slicked body had grown almost used to the cold.

  Two more steps.

  One last time, I checked that my tools were securely tied to my belt. As I pulled my goggles into place, I started taking deep breaths. Today’s dive would be easier than usual, with the water low and the tide nearly imperceptible.

  One more step.

  I took a last, long
breath and sank beneath the waves.

  The sea was never silent. The hushing crush of the water, the clicks and squeals of the few hardy sea creatures and the soft thud of my heart finally drowned out my racing thoughts. My goggles were older than me, issued by the temple when I first began to dive. The leather was cracked, and tiny bubbles in the glass left my vision hazy at best, but they kept the seawater from stinging my eyes and made it a little easier to see below the surface. I found the red rope net that surrounded the underwater bed of oysters the temple’s divers were harvesting this month and swam toward it. I had to focus.

  When I reached the marker, I swam back to the surface and treaded water for a few minutes, breathing in the pattern I’d learned many years ago. A deep breath in followed by many little gulps of air.

  Good luck would go a long way today, Pru. See if you can’t manage a bit for me? I thought.

  Finally, on the third breath, I dove toward the ocean floor. I couldn’t hold my breath for as long as some of the older divers—only about seven minutes—but I was faster than most and a strong swimmer. I dug my fingers into the sea floor and yanked the rough shells of startled oysters from their sandy beds, my mind settling into the rhythm of the work. By the time my chest began to burn, my net bag was half-full. I ascended slowly, like I’d been taught, and as I caught my breath, I pulled my ballasts back up by the long lines that attached them to my belt.

  I went down three more times, and when both my bags were full, I swam back toward the wharf, where I’d hidden my clothes. I had one last thing to do before I steeled myself to get out of the water. I tied the net bags, heavy with oysters, to a rusted iron ring that had long ago been sunk into the wood of one of the pilings halfway between the end of the dock and the shore. I swam back out toward the bay, keeping myself hidden under the dock.

  I turned sixteen the next day, and I could finally bid farewell to the city, the temple and the anchorites. It was time to harvest the last of the pearls I’d been so carefully cultivating beneath the docks all these years. Since I wouldn’t be returning to the harbor again, I cut the ropes, after pulling the oysters from my lines, and watched them drift to the ocean floor.

  When I got back to shore, I set my bag of oysters apart from the others before I dried off and dressed with numbed fingers gone blue and wrinkly in the cold water. The cool air was a shock after having gotten used to the water’s chill. Even in the summer, Alskad was never hot, especially early in the morning before the sun had baked away the mist and fog.

  I stuffed my braid under my wool cap, kneeled on one of my folded sweaters and set to work. I needed to move fast. The others would be making their way to the shoreline soon, and they’d have questions if they saw me shucking oysters on the beach rather than under Anchorite Lugine’s watchful eyes. I could already hear the news hawkers on the docks, calling headlines about the declaration of the heir and rebel groups disrupting trade in Ilor. I thought of Sawny, hoping that he and Lily had arrived and settled safely as I slipped my knife into an oyster shell and twisted, popping it open.

  After I pulled the pearl from each of my oysters, I tossed its meat to the seagulls gathered around me. My stomach was talking at me, but even that wasn’t enough to make me eat the pearl oysters. Unlike the oysters we gathered to sell to the nobility for pricey appetizers, pearl oysters were tough and tasted of seaweed and slime. I wished I’d had the foresight to steal a couple of scallops from their seabeds.

  I worked fast, leaving a heap of shells in the sand next to me. By the time I finished, I’d harvested sixty-three pearls, my biggest haul yet—and of them, twenty were some of the biggest I’d ever seen, oysters I’d left undisturbed since I put them on the lines nearly ten years before. I dug a quick hole in the wet sand and buried the shells that had housed my small fortune. By the time the ocean pulled them back up, I’d be long gone.

  Pearls tucked safe in a pouch beneath my shirt and sweater, I hauled the bags of the anchorites’ oysters up and over my shoulder. If I could get back to the temple before the end of the morning’s adulations, I might be able to sneak a sugar-dotted cloud bun from the anchorites’ tray before it went up to their buffet. I didn’t just miss Sawny for the treats he’d pocketed for me, but I would’ve been lying if I said I didn’t wake up thinking about cloud buns and sweet, milky tea on mornings like this.

  I picked my way across the gray puddles that littered Penby’s streets. The merchants and street vendors had just started stirring as I stepped into the market square. Bene’s bakery windows were misted over with the fragrant steam of rising dough. My mouth watered at the thought of her spiced pigeon pies, which I’d tasted a few times but could rarely afford to buy on my own. Shopkeepers leaned against doors just opened and sipped their tea as their assistants chalked specials and sales onto display boards. Early risers bustled down the streets, shopping baskets hooked over their arms. A farmer set bowls heaped with the first salmonberries of the season onto his cart next to jars of bright pickled onions and the cabbages and potatoes we’d seen through the winter. I nodded to Jemima Twillerson as she flipped the sign to open her apothecary shop, but her eyes—no great shock—slid away from mine.

  No one wanted to be seen associating with a dimmy. Worse still, a dimmy like me—penniless and a temple ward. In all my life, Sawny’d been the only twin willing to call me friend. Others, like Jemima, might do me a kindness from time to time, but not where they might be seen—and worse yet, judged—.

  I pushed away the familiar sting and adjusted the sack of oysters balanced on my shoulder. A bright slash of red caught my eye, and I turned on a heel to see a girl I recognized streaking through the market square. She clutched a long, curving Samirian knife in each white-knuckled hand, and her feet were bare on the stone road.

  Her name was Skalla. I’d only met her the once. She was some Denorian merchant’s daughter, and he had enough drott to dress his girls in imported silks and brocades. Her twin sister had died a couple weeks back, and when the girl didn’t seem to be succumbing to death herself, Anchorite Lugine dragged me on a visit.

  “Vi,” Anchorite Lugine had said, “it’s important that she sees the glorious contentment that your faith has sustained, even after all these years of being diminished.”

  The implication—that the grief would inevitably catch up with me—had lingered in the air unsaid all through the painfully silent visit with Skalla and her family. What could I say to her? That I was sorry for her; for what she’d become? What we’d both become?

  I hated those visits. They were such a lie. I had no faith, and I certainly hadn’t kept myself from violence all these years through prayer and piety. I was a fluke: I would eventually lose the tight hold that kept my anger from turning to violence. Just because I’d lasted this long didn’t mean I would be able to avoid the grief forever.

  Skalla’s silks were damp with sweat, and her arms prickled with gooseflesh. Her eyes were blank with rage. She was gone; lost to the grief she felt for her twin.

  Before Skalla, it had been at least a month since another dimmy was lost in Penby. There’d been rumors of an incident in Esser Park, but I’d overheard a group of the Shriven saying that it’d been a ruse. Folks did that from time to time. Used dimmys as an excuse, as an explanation for their bad behavior.

  I clenched my jaw and sidled toward an alleyway. I didn’t want to see what happened next. Sometimes it seemed like I always managed to find myself nearby when a dimmy lost their grip. When I was younger, I’d tried to stop one of the temple brats, a dimmy, when she attacked Lily in a dark corridor in the middle of the night. I got between them right before the Shriven arrived and threw me off the other girl. That was the first time I’d broken my nose.

  Skalla’s bare feet smacked slush from potholes, and, in a moment, she was across the square, dragging the baker from her doorway before the woman had a moment to think. Still frail from a bout with the whispering cough, Bene never stood
a chance.

  Blood spattered across the bakery’s steam-covered window.

  I froze in horror. Skalla smeared Bene’s blood over her porcelain pale face, screaming. The sack of oysters was an anchor, tethering me to the walk outside the apothecary’s shop. No one moved. We sank into the shadows, took shallow breaths, willed ourselves to become invisible. The Shriven’d appear soon, all tattoos and white robes and swift, deadly action. We’d be safe once they arrived. As much as I hated them, they were good for that much, at least.

  A high, keening wail poured from deep inside Skalla’s body, and then she screamed. In a language that had to be Denorian, her voice filled the square. She’d be cursing the gods and goddesses. They always did. Even the Denorians, who placed an irreverent amount of value on science over religion, spent their last, raging breaths cursing the gods for condemning us with grief.

  The names of the Alskader goddesses spurted from her rant as the Shriven slipped silently into the square. Magritte the Educator. Rayleane the Builder. Dzallie the Warrior. I couldn’t parse all her words, but I knew that feeling of vitriol. It rose in my chest, the anger, and I bit down hard on my cheek. I couldn’t afford to feed the slow burn always smoldering next to my heart.

  Not a day went by when I didn’t bite back fury. Every moment was a fight against the close heat of rage when I caught someone’s eyes staring, and I knew from that one look that all they saw was a dimmy. I stopped being a person and was reduced to danger wearing the skin of a teenaged girl in a hand-me-down sweater. But the anchorites’ chorus of voices in my head reminded me that anger loosened my grip, and I couldn’t let that happen. I wouldn’t be like Skalla.

  The Shriven descended on her like a shroud. Their long staves whipped through the air, fast and dangerous as eels. I lost sight of her for a moment, then dark crimson spurted over one of the Shriven’s white-clad shoulders. He collapsed in a heap with Skalla on top of him, and I gagged as I caught a glimpse of her face. Blood streamed out of her mouth and down her neck—she’d torn the man’s tattooed throat open with her teeth.