“Why didn’t you tell me?” It was almost a wail. “Why didn’t you give me the chance? Do you think I ever wanted this for you?”
“I did tell you! I told you what I wanted, I’ve been telling you since I was thirteen! You never listened! You pulled my work permit. What did you think was going to happen?”
Her mother shook her head, crying too hard to speak. Then she lurched off the bed and wrapped Rahel in a fierce warmron.
“Never again,” she managed in a voice thick with tears. “Never again. I’m so sorry I didn’t listen. I thought we were doing the right thing. Oh, Fahla, I’m so sorry.”
Rahel had always sensed her mother more easily than anyone else. This close, and with this much skin contact, the heartbreak was so potent that it pulled apart the tough shell she had built around her own hurts. She sobbed in her mother’s arms as both of them mourned the missed chances and the terrible truth that love had not been enough.
Yet somehow, this shared anguish soothed the raw places inside her. Such pain could not exist without a commensurate love, and in this moment, the parental love enfolding her was greater than anything she had known.
They wept together until the sobs turned to heaving gasps and then to harsh, rasping breaths. Still they held each other, letting their bodies settle and their breathing return to normal. When Rahel finally pulled back, she swayed with exhaustion. She had loaded cargo for ten-hantick days and not been this tired.
They took turns in her little bathroom, splashing cold water on their faces, and sat side by side on the bed.
“It’s not as bad as you think,” Rahel said. “I only did that for about half a moon. Then I found a better way.”
Her mother stared at the wall. “I don’t want to know this. But I need to. What do you mean, a better way?”
“Um. Have you ever heard of priming?”
“Shek,” her mother said succinctly. “Shekking Mother, shekking me, shek everything. How did you even learn about that?”
Rahel was through with half-truths and lies of omission. Her mother was listening to her truth, just as Sharro had said might happen, so she was not going to hold it back.
“It was an accident the first time. This might be hard for you to hear—”
“Just tell me.”
“A client tried to get a little rough with me. I’d been training for two cycles by then. It was just instinct to take her down. And . . . she liked it.”
Her mother closed her eyes and clenched her jaw. With a visible effort, she said, “Go on.”
“Then Mouse introduced me to a professional prime.”
“In a pleasure house?”
“Yes.”
“A professional was helping you do this?”
“She said it was safer for me to control my clients than to have them control me.”
Her mother’s spike of anger subsided almost as quickly as it had come. “She was right about that.” A frown crinkled her forehead ridges. “Mouse introduced you? He doesn’t work on the docks either, does he?”
“If you ever met Mouse, you’d know he wouldn’t last a hantick on the docks. He’s been selling himself since he was fourteen. To the worst kind of clients.”
Her mother brought up a hand to rub the bridge of her nose. “Is he an orphan?”
“No. He’s . . . he has a physical deformation. His parents were, um, not kind.”
The rubbing stopped. “What do you know. There are parents out there worse than us.”
“Mother—”
“No, go on. I’m following. Your best friend and roommate for the past two cycles is a young man who has been selling his body from an age when most children are thinking about the toys they want for the Feast of the Wandering King. He introduced you to a professional prime at a pleasure house after one of your . . . clients . . . got rough with you and got a surprise.” She let out a slightly hysterical bark of laughter. “A client you were servicing because your parents took away your right to legitimate work. Because we thought . . . we thought . . .”
She broke down in tears again, and Rahel turned to wrap her shaking shoulders in a warmron. As they rested their heads together, she said, “It’s all right.”
“It’s not all right. This should never have happened. I came here almost every moon. How did I never see it?”
“Because I didn’t let you.” For the first time, Rahel began to realize that she bore some responsibility for the situation. She had never told her mother how awful dock work was, or about the murder attempt. She hadn’t breathed a word about servicing or priming clients.
“Why? Rahel, why? I know I didn’t listen, I accept that, but this . . . can’t you see I would have listened to this? Did you think you had to do it to prove how serious you were about being a warrior?”
“What else would have proved it?”
Her mother stiffened.
Rahel withdrew but still held her hand. “If I had told you I would sell my body to buy my future, you would have said I was being dramatic.”
It was hard to maintain that grip when she felt so much pain through it, but she needed the contact. They both did.
After a very long silence, her mother said, “Then we did trap you, didn’t we?” She took a shuddering breath. “Listen to me. I can’t change what happened. But I wish you had told me earlier. A cycle, Rahel. It has been one cycle. Maybe I needed proof, but I can assure you that I didn’t need this much of it.”
“It really wasn’t bad after the first three moons. No, don’t—it wasn’t, Mother. The dock work, the first few clients—those were horrible. But then I met Sharro, and I was seeing Deme Isanelle again, and training with Hasil, and . . . it’s been a good cycle. I don’t mind the work. Actually, I like it. It’s on my terms, and I’m good at it.”
Her mother covered her face. “The things you don’t want to hear from your daughter,” she muttered before dropping her hands. “Sharro is your professional prime?”
“She’s not my prime. We don’t have that kind of relationship. But yes, she’s training me.”
“I want to meet her.”
“You—what?”
“I want to meet her. And Mouse, and Deme Isanelle, and . . . Hysil?”
“Hasil.”
“Yes. Him, too. You’re not hiding your life from me any longer.”
“Um. I’m in a holding cell—”
“That stolen goods report was cancelled five ticks after I arrived. The only reason we’re still in this cell is because we needed privacy to talk.”
She sagged with relief. “Thank Fahla.”
“And after I meet your friends, you and I are going to the warrior caste house.”
Rahel stared at her, too stunned to form words.
“I can’t change what happened. I wanted you to be safe, to have a future, and I thought you were too young to think that far ahead. But if you’re old enough to be making impossible decisions and accepting impossible consequences, then you’re old enough to choose your caste.”
Rahel had thought she was done crying, but now her body simply collapsed.
Her mother pulled her into a warmron, rubbing her back as Rahel sobbed. This was comfort she didn’t pay for, comfort that came from love. Comfort she thought she had lost.
“Thank you,” she choked out.
With a sigh, her mother pressed a kiss into her hair. “It’s a little late,” she said softly. “But we got there, didn’t we?”
“It’s not late.” Rahel could not understand why she was crying when she was so happy. “It’s a cycle early, Mother. A whole cycle.”
24
MERGING LIVES
Rahel didn’t see her Guard when they checked out of the detention center. She was a little disappointed, having wanted to thank him. On the other hand, it was probably for the best. She might have cried in front of the entire lobby.
All of her possessions were returned to her, including her stave. In her tossing and turning the night before, she had thought the worst o
f the Guard who had taken it. How easy would it have been to just leave it in her pocket?
Now she was ashamed of the thought. The City Guards were warriors, just like her. Warrior honor was not simply the inconvenience that Mouse liked to pretend it was.
When they exited the lobby, she stopped on the wide stone landing. She had seen this building in passing but never climbed the steps. Now she stood still, gazing up at the broad columns that supported the overhanging roof, then down the steps to the busy street below. Her senses were overloaded with humming skimmer engines and boot heels on bricks, the painfully blue sky with clouds that looked innocent of all stormy intent, and the tangy scent of Wildwind Bay. She closed her eyes and inhaled, listening to the activity around her. After the silence and filtered air of the detention center, this wonderful, organic, pungent blend of sounds and odors felt like freedom and life all rolled into one.
When she opened her eyes, her mother was holding out the waterproof envelope.
“These are yours.”
Rahel looked at it, unmoving.
“They’re a gift. You wanted to pay for your training? Do what you planned. Consider them part of my investment in your future.”
The singular pronoun did not escape her notice. “Father isn’t investing?” she asked, accepting the envelope.
“Your father and I haven’t always agreed on what was best for you. Right now I’m so angry with him that I can’t even think about speaking to him. I didn’t know he filed that report.”
“I knew that wasn’t you.”
“At least you had that much faith. Fahla knows I haven’t given you reason for more.” As they started down the steps, she added, “He wanted to file it the day you ran away. We had a discussion about it.” The slight hesitation before discussion told Rahel that it was nothing so calm as that. “I thought that issue was dead. To find out this way . . .” She shook her head.
“I’m not selling them,” Rahel said. “I don’t want anyone else to have them. They brought you back to me.”
The smile on her mother’s face was worth the price of ten daggers.
They went to her apartment first. She needed a shower and a change of clothes, and if she was going to let her mother into her real life, they had to start here.
Mouse was delighted to see her come through the door, then shocked into uncharacteristic shyness when her mother stepped in. Rahel made the introductions and was gratified to see her mother treat Mouse with the courtesy one adult would give another. Though she had warned her ahead of time that he was nineteen but looked twelve, past experience had shown that even well-meaning adults tended to treat him like a child. Except high empaths, he once told her. They could sense him without proximity or contact, and his emotions did not match his physical appearance.
Since Sharro had no openings until later that afternoon, they went to the Moonbird Training Center next. Hasil offered his usual calm greeting, showing no surprise whatsoever. Rahel thought he would not be surprised if aliens dropped out of the skies. He would probably walk up to the first one and offer a palm touch—with his stave held firmly in his other hand.
“I know you’ve been training Rahel,” her mother said at one point, but Hasil shook his head.
“I did not have authorization to do that. But Rahel has many intelligent questions. It has been my pleasure to answer them for her.”
Her mother glanced down with a smile. “Yes, of course. Thank you for giving her the answers she needed to stay safe. As for the authorization, you have that now. We’re inscribing her in the warrior caste today. I’d like to enroll her in whichever of your classes she belongs in.”
Rahel thought rainbows should appear over Wildwind Bay while a parade marched down the bayfront road. Hasil merely nodded and pulled out his reader card.
The meeting at the library did not go as smoothly. Though Deme Isanelle met her mother’s palm in the standard greeting, she was stiff and official and bore no resemblance to the mentor Rahel had known for the past two cycles. Her courtesy was so clipped as to border on hostility.
After five uncomfortable ticks of this, her mother said, “Rahel, would you give us a few moments in private?”
She hesitated, looking between them, but they were both walled off and waiting silently. With a nod, she left the office and closed the door.
Unsure what a few moments meant in practice, she went upstairs in search of the latest book in a fantasy series she was reading. Two chapters and fifteen ticks later, she returned to Deme Isanelle’s office and found the door still shut. She settled into a nearby chair and continued to read.
Ten more ticks passed before the door opened and they emerged, looking like two war leaders who had hammered out a treaty. Their farewell palm touch was far more friendly, however, and Deme Isanelle gave Rahel a warm smile.
“I’m so glad it has finally worked out for you,” she said. “If Fahla’s favor can be earned by hard work, you’re more than due.”
Later, as they walked toward the restaurant Rahel had suggested, her mother said, “She’s a good person. You seem to have a knack for choosing them.”
“She’s taught me a lot. And she gave me her personal com code. She said I should call her day or night if I didn’t feel safe.”
Her mother nodded but said no more until they were almost at the restaurant door.
“If you ever need help and I’m not close enough, I want you to call her.” With a short laugh, she added, “That woman would probably fight a vallcat for you.”
Over the next hantick, Rahel discovered the difference that not hiding made in their relationship. She had spent two cycles being careful about what she said, always practicing some kind of deceit, whether it was a lie of omission, a half-truth, or a misdirection. Simply speaking what came to mind was a breathtaking freedom. It changed how she felt, it changed how her mother saw her—it changed everything.
They traded stories of Whitesun and Brasalara, and for the first time since she had run away, she was able to hear about her siblings’ activities without feeling jealous. She even surprised herself by asking to see images of their latest work. Her younger sister had decided to craft jewelry, and Rahel could see the creativity in those delicate rings and earcuffs. Her brother’s boring wooden boxes had gotten much less boring now that he was mastering wood inlay and adding odd-shaped drawers and secret hinged openings. She wondered if he would ever make wooden swords or daggers.
They did not speak of her father.
After midmeal, they boarded the magtran. As it slipped through its tube above the city, heading to the hills on the west side of the bay, Rahel brought her mother’s attention to the clouds that were piling up over the water. “See the dark bottoms?” she asked. “They don’t look like much now. Give them a hantick and they’ll be pouring rain like someone turned the bay upside down.”
“Will I regret not bringing a rain cloak?”
“Don’t worry. I know all the overhangs and doors to duck into. I’ve been caught a few times myself.”
When their capsule arrived at its station, she led the way to the south exit and pointed across the street.
“Oh, you’re joking. That’s your pleasure house? It looks like a converted palace. I may have to give up mine and start coming here.”
“I didn’t know you went to a pleasure house.”
“I go for the massages. Handling heavy tools and shoving around frames and blocks of whichever alloy I’m working with—my shoulder and back muscles turn into knots.”
Her mother was even more impressed when they passed through the main entrance and into the landscaped courtyard, with the building rising around them on all four sides while graceful arches marked off the protected ground-level walkways. Having arrived early, they waited on Rahel’s favorite bench, beneath a cinnoralis tree.
Her mother picked up a leaf, crushed it, and lifted it to her nose. “Mm, wonderful. I’m surprised to see one of these growing here. The courtyard must keep it protected.”
“Cinnoralis trees don’t like high winds.”
“Huh. All these cycles I’ve been filling cinnoralis burners and smelling it in centering rooms, and I never knew where they grew.”
“Not in Whitesun. You have to get back behind the coastal mountains before you find them.”
Rahel watched her sniff the leaf and felt an inexplicable warmth in her chest. Why did she ever believe her mother had nothing left to teach?
She watched her again when they met Sharro in the usual room, and marveled at the differences between the two women. Where Sharro was all softness and grace, her mother was solidity and power. In that moment, Rahel realized she had her mother’s build. They shared the same dark red hair as well, and . . . She looked more closely. Yes, the same slant to their eyes. But her mother’s eyes were a darker shade of brown.
Sharro confirmed her thoughts a few pipticks later. “I wouldn’t have needed an introduction. You’re clearly Rahel’s mother. Birthparent, too?”
“Yes, her father birthed her siblings. She didn’t tell you that?”
“Rahel doesn’t tell me everything. Only the things she needs me to know.” Sharro drifted toward the sideboard. “Can I get you a summer cider?”
“Please. And one for Rahel. Don’t tell me you’ve never had it before,” she added at Rahel’s look of surprise.
“Um . . . yes, but not here. Sharro never does anything illegal.”
“It’s legal now. You have your mother’s permission.” Sharro brought back three glasses of summer cider, and they settled themselves in the comfortable armchairs around the low table.
It was odd to be in this room and not be on the couch, nor touching Sharro in any way. Rahel clasped her hands in her lap to keep them out of trouble.
At her mother’s opening statement, she clasped them even tighter.
“I understand you’ve been teaching my daughter to be a prime.”
“Yes, I have.”
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