by CJ Brightley
Rage filled me, and my hands clenched into fists. Everything seemed so stupid and shallow. I wanted to stand up on my chair and scream, “Everyone! Magic is dying! How can you just sit here like this?!”
Grandmother reached over and squeezed my right hand. Startled, I looked over at her. She smiled and patted my hand.
Strangely, that pulled me out of my terror. I breathed slowly, recovering from hyperventilating.
Who cared if Yaika was about to gain status? Well, I cared. I loved my sister, and she’d been waiting for this for ages. How could I be so selfish to think that my worries about some hypothetical future mattered more than that?
Yaika’s voice rang out, sharp and true, and I looked up just in time to see the empty space around her fill in, in, in, in with Father’s status.
Mother stood up from two seats down, right beside Grandfather. She squeezed toward the edge of our left row, and I hurriedly squeezed to the center aisle. We converged from opposite directions up to the front, where our status merged together and split evenly between the four of us.
The rest of the crowd rose up and sent status toward Yaika. Father drew Mother and me behind her, far enough back that her status would no longer merge into us. She glowed like the sun as status accumulated all around her, brighter and brighter in a dazzling burst.
I caught my breath as a massive glob of status went flying to Yaika from a tiny old lady who looked like she could barely afford it. She was sobbing into a handkerchief, and I heard her shout to an apparently-hard-of-hearing friend, “Just like my granddaughter, before she married that no-good vassal and moved away!”
I swallowed a lump in my throat. She wasn’t the only one who appeared to have been touched by the ceremony. Mother’s parents both had tears in their eyes, despite their generally stoic exterior, and I saw a woman in a middle row sobbing (though that may have just been because her three small children did not appear to be behaving).
“Thank you,” Yaika said, her voice trembling with passion and vulnerability. I wondered if it was real, or if she had practiced it. “Thank you all for coming to my oath ceremony. If you’d like to stay, there will be games and dancing, and refreshments are near the back. I also —” She paused bashfully. “I also promise to dance with any young man who asks me.”
Whoops came from several boys Yaika’s age, and even more adults got sudden glints in their eyes. I suspected they were thinking, Only two more years, and she’ll be marriageable age! How do I get my son engaged to such a prize?
The crowd rose from their seats and drifted back towards the open area and refreshments. Hurik raced there, and got there first. The musicians who’d been seated near the back pulled out their instruments and moved back nearer to the house to play. A few people came forward to offer Yaika well-wishes.
“Don’t you marry a vassal, honey,” the teary-eyed old woman said, clutching Yaika’s hands. “Don’t waste yourself on such a life when you can do so much better than that.”
“I’ve no intention of it,” Yaika assured her kindly, patting the old woman’s arm.
“You are truly like your mother,” Grandmother Rella said, enfolding Yaika in a hug.
“Spectacular job,” Grandfather Doss said gruffly. “Couldn’t be prouder.” He didn’t try to hug her, but he did bow stiffly. From him, that was downright affectionate.
“Can I get a dance?” a boy Yaika’s age blurted out, running up next. He wasn’t very handsome, all covered in pimples, but he had a decent amount of status, and he looked like he might turn out well eventually.
“You’re the first to ask me,” Yaika said, her voice high and flirty. “Of course you may. Just wait till I’m down at the dance space.”
The boy hurried off, looking excited and terrified.
Grandfather and Grandmother smiled from their seats at Yaika, nodded to the rest of us, then headed back to the house unobtrusively. They always made a point of staying in the background whenever Mother’s parents visited, perhaps to keep from reminding them that they could see us every day, while Mother’s parents lived almost a day’s journey away.
A few more people came up, mostly friends of our parents or neighbors, such as Jontan’s family. The fuss his mother made about my sister was downright embarrassing.
At last, there was nobody left in the seats except the mysterious woman who had arrived early. My heart pounded in my neck as the woman got up and moved towards us, gracefully. In the midday sun, her dress shimmered like a rainbow, and the signature around her waist was unmistakable.
Mother gasped. “Is that —?”
I stole a glance at Yaika, but she didn’t seem the least tense. I wished I could see her face, instead of watching her from the back. But I didn’t want to move forward, so I waited, sweating, as the Ruler’s heir came near us.
“Congratulations,” the woman said, inclining her head slightly to Yaika. “That was a lovely oath ceremony. One of the best I’ve seen.”
“Thank you,” Yaika said gracefully, bowing deeply. “You are a Ruler’s heir, are you not? It is an honor to meet you.”
“It is indeed,” the woman said, smiling slightly. “More than you think. For I am not a Ruler’s heir.
“I’m the Ruler.”
13
Even Yaika’s back looked shaken.
“What?” she squeaked.
“The Ruler,” the woman said calmly. “Leader of all humanity, Keeper of status, head of the Central family . . .”
“What are you doing here?!” Yaika yelped.
The woman looked amused. “You invited me.”
I glanced over at Mother. She looked like she was about to faint.
“But . . . but I thought you stayed in Central all the time, making rules and things!” Yaika cried.
“Of course I take turns traveling the Roads, just like my heirs,” the Ruler said sharply. “Did you think I leave all the responsibilities to them?”
I swallowed. There could be no good answer to that question.
“O-of course not, Ruler,” Yaika stammered. “I just — the honor is such — I never would have anticipated — this is beyond the glory of even my wildest dreams!”
The Ruler relaxed. The hint of iron beneath her placid surface vanished. “What a sweet child,” she cooed. “Even with the garish manner of your invitation . . .”
I looked over at Father. He was mouthing the word “garish” and rubbing his forehead.
“Yaika, what did you do?” Mother asked, horrified.
My sister looked back at us and raised her chin. “I coated an entire length of the Ruler’s Road with yellow.”
Father groaned, putting his head in his hands.
“A whole length?” Mother said in a strangled voice. “That’s as long as our property! Ruler, our most severe apologies —”
“Oh, no problem,” the Ruler said, waving her hand graciously. “I admit I came to punish whoever was responsible, but I’ve been impressed by this charming young lady. I believe I will visit you again. Are you free next week?”
She said this as if bestowing a marvelous gift. Both my parents looked wild-eyed.
“Of . . . of course, Ruler,” my mother stammered.
“Of course you would be most welcome to come whenever you wish,” my father gasped out.
The Ruler beamed and nodded her head. Then she turned with a swish of skirts that dazzled us with rainbows as she walked down the aisle, through a startled and murmuring crowd, and straight down our road until she was out of sight.
I don’t think any of us three breathed until she was gone. Then Father, Mother, and I all collapsed and clutched each others’ arms for support.
Yaika spun around, a huge smile beaming on her face. “Well, that went well!” she said brightly. “The Ruler likes me!”
“YAIKA!” Mother and Father and I all screamed together.
Yaika flinched back from the onslaught. “What? She didn’t get upset with me. She said I charmed her. That has to be worth a lot of status,
don’t you think?”
“The Ruler,” Mother mumbled, clutching her forehead. “The Ruler.”
“Yaika,” Father said through clenched teeth, “we do not go out of our way to attract the attention of the most capricious person in the entire Rulership.”
“Oh, come on,” Yaika said. “She likes me. This is an incredible win for our family.”
“It would be an incredible win if she had gifted you with status,” I snarled. “Did she?”
Yaika paused, looking nonplussed. “Well . . . no . . . but . . .”
“Because you made her angry!” I exploded.
“Okay,” Mother said, placing her hands on my and Father’s shoulders. “Okay. The Ruler’s gone. The chance to offend her is gone. We’re safe. She hasn’t destroyed our status, and she’s likely to forget all about us.”
Father’s shoulders were shaking. “I’ve worked my whole life to get where I am,” he said, his voice high-pitched. “I agreed to be adopted by my parents’ landowners. I spent years of my life pretending that my parents and I weren’t even related. And she — and she — she could take it all away on a whim. Everything.”
“I know,” Mother said. “I know. It’s okay. It’s okay.”
I staggered to a front row chair and collapsed onto it. “Did she . . . did she really say she was going to come back?”
“You guys are all a bunch of cowards!” Yaika burst out. “Don’t you see anything? This is the greatest opportunity we’ve ever had as a family!”
“This is not an opportunity!” Father shouted. “The Ruler is a gamble! And a dangerous one, at that!”
“The Ruler is the Ruler!” Yaika screamed. “She’s the Keeper of all status and the most important person in the whole world and she likes me and I’m glad she’s coming!”
Yaika whirled around and stormed down the aisle towards the open space where everybody else was waiting. The filias flowers on each side of her hair bounced and fell off, and she didn’t even seem to notice.
Awkward silence lingered behind.
“Were we too hard on Yaika?” I asked.
Mother and Father exchanged looks. They reached out and took each other’s hands.
“Maybe,” Mother said softly. “After all, she didn’t mean . . .”
“Oh no!” Father burst out.
“What?” Mother asked, looking alarmed.
Father rubbed his forehead with his free hand. “Hurik.”
Huh? I thought. I craned my neck to see my brother helping himself to only one pastry, not even blocking the table.
“Oh, no,” Mother breathed. “The Ruler’s going to meet Hurik.”
“When she comes back,” Father said grimly. “The only reason why she didn’t meet him today was because he wasn’t statused.”
Right, I thought. The younger members of the family always stayed in the seats. Hurik was older than Yaika, but he wasn’t statused yet, which was the relevant thing. So what?
“Hurik will ruin us,” Mother whispered, her arms shaking. “One sarcastic comment, and she might be . . .”
“Oh, come on!” I broke him. “Hurik has better sense than to make sarcastic comments to the Ruler’s face!”
“Really?” Father asked sarcastically. “You really want to risk our entire future on that? You’re so certain of it?”
“He’s not an idiot!” I said hotly. “If you tell him how important it is that he act well-behaved, he’ll act well-behaved!”
“Even Yaika can’t manage to behave!” Father shouted. “How in the world can we trust Hurik to?”
“Both of you,” Mother hissed, looking over her shoulder at the crowd milling around the open space, “there are people right over there. Do you really want them to see us arguing?”
Father and I subsided. Nobody seemed to be looking our way, but if we stayed here talking, someone was bound to notice eventually. I traced my feet in the torron grass, ashamed of raising my voice, even though Father had started it.
“And as for your completely valid concerns,” Mother said, running her fingers along Father’s cheeks, “I’m sure there’s something we can do that won’t result in disaster for everybody. We’ll talk about it later. Okay?”
Father nodded jerkily.
“All right!” Mother said, clapping her hands. “Then let us go enjoy the celebration for our daughter’s oath ceremony.”
“I could use a good dance,” Father said, offering his elbow.
I watched them walk away, arm in arm, feeling a little wistful. Hopefully I’d have that kind of relationship with Genn someday. Grandfather and Grandmother’s marriage had been based on friendship, not romance, and they were adorable now. So surely it was possible for that to work for me, too.
I tried not to think too much about Grandmother Rella and Grandfather Doss, who still acted stiff and formal around each other, even after all those years of marriage and two children.
I followed them down the aisle through the empty seats, catching a faint whiff of crushed grass underfoot. My parents had had this whole area planted with torron in order to have an open space for Yaika’s ceremony, and the stalks were tiny, hardy, and flexible, perfect for walking on or smushing under chair legs.
An unusually tall stalk tickled my ankle as I passed by the empty back row, and I stopped to pull my stockings back up. Then I looked around, breathing in the air for a minute. It wouldn’t be long before the torron stalks were higher than me, and vassal children would be chasing each other, playing tag or hide and seek.
When the first frost finally came, the torron stalks would bend over, turn mushy, and be ready to pull threads from. The food crops would be mostly harvested by then, except bulge tubers, which could stay in the ground through cold season. So there’d be a huge party, my family and all our vassals, as we played tug-of-war to strip the threads, then held races to see who could gather the most bundles.
Finally, we would all collapse in an empty field, littered with hollowed-out husks of torron stalks, and drink hot limbas juice that Grandmother made while laughing about how tired we all were from pulling torron all day.
A lump of nostalgia rose in my throat. Would I still be here for the torron-pulling? Or would I be already married by the end of harvest season?
“If you marry Genn,” I told myself quietly, trying to be strong, “you can always come back to visit. You’ll never be that far away.”
But I knew it would never be the same. Once I became a landowner in my own right, I would only ever be a visitor here. And once Yaika and Hurik were married, my parents would adopt some vassal child to be their new heir.
I blinked away the beginnings of tears — this is stupid, don’t cry — and squared my shoulders. Where was Genn, anyway?
He wasn’t in the crowd of people milling nearest the chairs, some of them carrying treats on napkins from the table near the house. He wasn’t in the clumps of gossipers watching the dancers and throwing status at or taking status from them. He wasn’t in the open space between the refreshment table and the musicians, where the least-shy people had started dancing.
Yaika was there. She giggled, red-faced, as a tall boy who was close to my age swung her around. He was light on his feet, and she floated like a leaf on the wind, gathering wisps of further status from the side gossipers.
I saw Grandfather deep in discussion with Hurik, both of them standing by the refreshment table and snacking, and I found Grandmother off to the side, chatting with several vassal women from neighbors’ lands. My parents were both making polite conversation with neighbors on the other side of the crowd, both sneaking glances at the dance area with not-very-disguised impatience.
I couldn’t find Genn anywhere, though. He’d better not have gone home already, I thought indignantly.
“Want to dance?” a voice said behind me. I turned to see Jontan smiling at me.
Uh . . . My mouth went dry. I wasn’t engaged to Genn. Jontan was my friend, and it would be rude to snub him. Also, he was a much better dancer
than Genn, and I was going to miss that if I wound up marrying him.
“Sure,” I said, bowing back.
“So,” Jontan said casually, as he put his arm around my waist and we stepped in a square to the beat of the music, “I hear one of our neighbors is courting you.”
My heart skipped a beat. So he had heard about Genn. “Yessss,” I said hesitantly. “He has to get married by the end of the season, so I’m . . . sort of considering it.”
“Are you really in such a rush to get married?” Jontan asked.
“I’m not in a rush!” I said, stung. “It’s just that . . . Genn is. And so if I want to consider him a possibility, I have to factor that in.”
“Raneh,” Jontan said. “I’ve been courting you for years. You still haven’t made your mind up about me. What makes you think you can decide about a stranger in a few weeks?”
Ouch.
I took a deep breath. “The truth is . . . I have made up my mind about you, Jontan.”
He stopped. “Oh?” he asked.
I let out the breath. “I don’t want to marry you. I’m sorry.”
“I see.” Jontan’s face was hidden by a mask of placidity, but I was sure that hurt more than he was showing. “May I ask why?”
“It’s just . . .” I fumbled for an explanation. “Do you remember when we were working in my garden a few weeks ago?”
“Sure,” he said.
“Do you remember what we talked about then?”
“Not really.”
I bit my lip. “Well . . . I asked what you would do if you found out somebody you loved was breaking the law. Do you remember that?”
“Vaguely,” he said.
“You said you would inform the Ruler immediately.” I hesitated. “Did you really mean that, Jontan?”
“Of course.” Jontan looked puzzled. “And I know you feel the same way.”
That threw me for a loop. “I . . . do?”
“Your loyalty to the Rulership is admirable,” Jontan said. “The way you grow all those filias, not to wear, not to show off, just to grow them . . . shows how much you truly love the Ruler. That’s one of the things I’ve always loved about you. It’s why I’ve always hidden filias in your bouquets. Because that’s something special we have in common.”