Beyond the Black Door

by A. M. Strickland

  “Maybe.” I still couldn’t form the right words. My tongue was heavy, incapable.

  “Ah, of course, you’re still a maiden. But that’s why you now have a tutor.” Zeniri spread his arms, presenting himself. His chest, fully revealed under his open vest and undershirt, was well shaped with muscle—but, as usual, that didn’t have the same effect upon me that it might upon others. His eyes narrowed. “Wait, what is that face? Don’t you find me pleasing?”

  Aesthetically, he was quite pleasing. “Yes, but…”

  “Of course you do. Most everyone does.” He took a sudden step closer to me and grazed my cheek with his fingers. “All you need is practice.”

  He bent his face toward mine. My hand twitched involuntarily, and I shoved him away—almost wondering if it was Vehyn who had done it. But no, it was me. Nikha tensed as if she were about to shove Zeniri herself, but she didn’t need to. He stumbled back, his eyes wide.

  To my surprise, he didn’t look angry. “Lenara, dear, what is the matter with her? Is she only interested in women?”

  My eyes shot to Lenara in mortification.

  “You don’t have to answer, Kamai,” Nikha muttered.

  I could have hugged her.

  Zeniri snorted. “Well, I’m certainly not how she takes her coffee, if you catch my meaning.”

  “It’s nothing to be ashamed of, if you are only interested in women,” Lenara said, regarding me curiously from the couch.

  The two Keepers stared at me expectantly. I heard Nikha shift in awkwardness. I couldn’t bring myself to respond. I didn’t even know what to say. I wanted to shout I don’t like coffee at all!

  Instead, I threw a hand at Lenara. “What, are you going to try to kiss me now to find out?”

  Lenara laughed. “Hardly. That’s not how I take my coffee. And besides, you’re young enough to be my daughter.”

  Something in her and Zeniri’s faces suddenly snagged my attention, details that I’d been too distracted to notice before. I blinked at the both of them. “Are you two related?”

  “Brother and sister, a generation apart,” Zeniri explained. “Same father, different mothers, different names, raised separately so no one suspected the connection.” At my confused look, he added, “The clergy knows better than anyone that our gift runs in the blood, so they test family members of their initiates, as well. But that wouldn’t have done for me. I mean, can you imagine me, a priest?” He made a face of distaste.

  “Besides, both of us working together under the watchful eyes of the clergy would have left too much evidence that we were up to something other than their business,” Lenara said. “This way, the Keepers could place me in the royal temple and Zeniri where they needed him. Our blood relation is a carefully guarded secret.” She shot him a glare before settling back to look at me. “This room has especially thick walls that are hard to hear through for a reason. The high priest a few hundred years ago had a favorite courtesan, or so I’ve been told. The passageway between here and the temple was once used for their clandestine affair, but the Keepers have kept it as our secret since, using it only for our business. Speaking of which…”

  I’d hoped everyone would forget what we’d been talking about before, but no such luck.

  Lenara watched me in that considering, sharp way she had, like a paring knife peeling away the skin of a fruit. “I didn’t say there was anything wrong with a difference in age either, among adults, but that’s another way I don’t take my coffee.”

  She abruptly stood and moved to a writing desk in the corner. She gathered a pen, inkwell, and a piece of paper. “Zeniri may have asked my opinion for a reason. He’s not always a blunt, tactless instrument.” She spoke with her back turned, bent over the desk, while the pen scratched on the paper.

  Zeniri sputtered. “I assure you, my patrons would argue that I’m never—”

  “Before you go any further, I don’t believe any of us wish to hear about that instrument … and this will prove it.”

  Nikha shifted again, but I made no show of noticing. Lenara had included her in those not interested in Zeniri’s instrument. Nikha didn’t confirm or deny it. And she didn’t have to, because everyone’s attention was on me and my inclinations. Or lack thereof.

  It took another painfully stretched moment for Lenara to return to the coffee table with her piece of paper. We gathered around, leaning over a sketched diagram.

  I realized I’d seen it before: the repeating, shortened cycle of the moon, one ink-filled circle symbolizing the new moon at the center, with a cross built around it. Each of the four points ended in the full moon, with the lunar phases between new and full stretching out from the center along each arm—crescent, quarter, and gibbous—waxing or waning in opposite directions.

  “That’s the pattern on the dome’s ceiling, in the temple. I was wondering about it.”

  “You’re about to find out one of Heshara’s sacred mysteries. This is what’s known as a soul chart. We study them as priests and priestesses to better understand souls. Believe it or not, we don’t just riffle through everyone’s darkest secrets in order to absolve them of sins or accuse them of crimes. Sometimes we actually help people sort out their confusion. To come to know themselves better. Find peace with the truth.”

  She tapped each arm of the diagram. “These are the four branches of your deepest self. For two of them, imagine that the new moon signifies female, and the full moon male—odd, I realize, since we consider Heshara female in all her forms, but that’s why this is one of her mysteries. For the other two, imagine that the new moon indicates an absence, and the full moon a presence. Simple enough.”

  “Uh, okay.” Perhaps it was simple, but I wasn’t sure I liked where this was headed.

  “So for the first branch”—her finger traced one of the moon’s half-cycles—“this is how you see yourself. Female to male, with everything (or even neither) in between. Where would you say you fall?”

  This was an easy question, but now I knew where this was headed, and it definitely wasn’t good. “Wouldn’t this be Ranta’s domain? I mean…” I glanced down at myself.

  “No. Forget your physical form entirely right now. This”—Lenara waved at my body, as if sweeping something away—“has nothing to do with who you are and how you feel inside. Only this.” She touched between her eyes, the gesture for the soul, for Heshara, and looked back down at the chart.

  “Okay.” I pointed at the center, directly at the new moon. “Female.”

  Her finger traced another line. “This is whom you are drawn to. It doesn’t have to be in a sexual or even sensual manner, but it can be.” She waited.

  I was still safe then, if aesthetic attraction counted. This time, I planted my finger halfway, on the quarter moon. “Men and women, equally.”

  Zeniri made a noise of doubt.

  Lenara ignored him, tracing a third line. “Remember, these last two are an absence or presence, and the scale in between. The first is how much you feel romantic attraction.”

  “What do you mean, romantic?” I asked, trying to stall. “Isn’t desire … desire?” Everyone but me seemed to think it was. But maybe Lenara was saying something different.

  “As your mother should have taught you, there is a difference between sex and love, sex and affection, even sex and sensuality. Just as there is a difference between sexual and romantic attraction.”

  “Okay … so … it’s how much I want to kiss and hug and fall in love, that sort of thing.”

  “‘That sort of thing’? Oh boy,” Zeniri muttered.

  “Put simply, yes,” Lenara said.

  I first set my finger on the gibbous moon … and then reluctantly slid it two phases closer to the center of the chart, toward the new moon—toward absence—to rest on the crescent. There had been something there, in Vehyn’s kiss, even if it had been small. The sliver of moon looked like a grin etched into the page. Vehyn’s.

  “Only with certain people,” I muttered. One person.

>   “Yes,” Lenara said, “people can form various attractions for different reasons, sometimes only after a significant bond has formed. And your position can always change. It’s a gray area, not always black and white.”

  That sounded about right. But that didn’t change anything. I couldn’t let myself fall in love; it was too dangerous. My mother had taught me that much, although maybe not intentionally …

  Zeniri scratched the stubble on his chin. “Now this is starting to make sense.”

  Lenara raised her eyebrows at me, ignoring him. “I think you know what the last branch indicates, Kamai.”

  “Maybe I don’t feel like saying,” I snapped, mostly to cover the blush already spreading from my cheeks down into my neck. Then again, part of me wanted to shout it to the world and just be done with it.

  “You don’t have to say, but let me assure you, it’s normal to not feel sexually drawn to anyone,” Lenara said calmly, even gently. “In that case”—she pointed at the new moon, which I was unwilling to do—“it’s called being a ‘new soul.’”

  “A nice name doesn’t make me feel less embarrassed,” I said. “But now you all know I am one, so feel free to mock—”

  Nikha’s finger slammed down on the center, on the new moon, cutting me off. “There. That’s where I am too.” She looked up at me through her spikes of hair, her gaze as bright and sharp as bared steel. “I’m not embarrassed. And I will let no one mock us.”

  My mouth fell open as I stared. Us. Suddenly, Nikha wavered in my vision, and I had to blink a lot. My throat was too tight to speak. Nikha was a new soul like me. All this time … it was yet another thing I could have shared with her.

  “I see,” Lenara said, without the slightest bit of judgment. “Anything else, Nikha?”

  Now it was Nikha’s turn to look uncomfortable, but Lenara continued before she had the chance to pull away from the chart.

  “We’ll go in reverse this time. Romantic attraction?”

  Why Lenara was interested, I couldn’t imagine. Nor could I imagine that Nikha would deign to respond. And yet … her finger twitched, as if some force was compelling her from the inside, against her will, but only as far as the crescent.

  Again, like me.

  “And who are you drawn to, in whatever capacity: male or female?”

  This time, her finger slid in the other direction, back to the new moon. Female only. Not like me.

  “And how do you feel yourself, Nikha?”

  For a long time, her finger didn’t budge. But I got the sense—we all must have—that Nikha wasn’t finished. And then her finger gradually began to drag, so slowly, so effortfully, like a dagger drawn across a tabletop, past the crescent, the quarter, the gibbous … toward the full moon. And then she jerked her hand away as if burned. Her eyes, this time, when she looked at me, were wild and afraid.

  She’d had more to hide, more judgment and misunderstanding to fear, than even me. Nikha didn’t just dress and seem more like a man at times. Nikha was a man.

  “This doesn’t leave this room,” Nikha ground out. “No one call me … don’t…”

  “It’s okay,” I blurted. “I don’t care. I mean, I think it’s fitting. It’s … wonderful.”

  I wasn’t sure if my awkward flood of words convinced her, but she took a deep breath and looked at the other two, her jaw hard.

  “So you’re a man, then,” Zeniri said brightly. Nikha tensed as if ready to attack, but before she could lunge for him, he added, “Like me.”

  It was difficult to tell if he was mocking her. Nikha’s eyes flicked down, in the direction of her chest and maybe lower. “Not quite like you.”

  “Well, a body is easily seen beyond. I do it all the time, with female patrons.”

  Nikha gritted her teeth. “I don’t want to be seen, either beyond or directly, by anyone.”

  “And remember,” Lenara said, adding a voice of reason, “outward appearances don’t always reflect matters of the soul. Such a thing is called being ‘soul-crossed,’ and I assure you, it’s also normal.”

  “Whatever,” Nikha snapped. “And whatever you do, don’t start calling me a man. No one else can know.” Her tone was insistent.

  She wouldn’t meet my eyes. I wanted to reach out, comfort her, but I wasn’t sure how. And then I remembered what she’d done for me, and I put a hand on her back. I felt her jump under my touch and she didn’t turn, but she might have leaned into me the slightest bit.

  “Are you sure that’s what you want?” Lenara asked.

  I blinked in surprise while Nikha spat, “Of course I’m sure. I’ve had a long time—my entire life—to consider the matter.”

  “But is that what’s best for you … or for the Keepers?”

  Nikha’s eyes narrowed even farther. “Why in Ranta’s name would admitting that I’m soul-crossed be good for the Keepers?”

  “I dug up any information on you that I could after discovering you and Kamai were close, of course. I already knew you passed the test to become a royal bodyguard.”

  “Then you already know I was disqualified because of this.” Nikha gestured down at herself. “They couldn’t see my body because of my armor and helmet during the test, but they found out afterward. I don’t know why I hoped my results would speak for themselves. It didn’t work for my mother.”

  Lenara shrugged. “As a priestess, I could help argue your case.”

  Now it was Nikha’s turn to blink. “What?”

  “I have the legal means to see and proclaim the truth in your soul. The law is bound to acknowledge those proven to be soul-crossed. With a signed declaration from me, you could be formally recognized as a man and take your place as a royal bodyguard.”

  Nikha’s mouth had fallen open. “But why would you…? Ah.”

  Understanding hit me at the same time.

  Lenara half smiled, almost apologetically. “Yes. If you became a royal bodyguard, you could try to enter the king’s service. You would become the only Keeper in such an invaluable position—the only one protecting his person who knows exactly what to guard against.”

  Nikha began to shake her head. “But then I would have to leave Kamai.”

  “I wouldn’t let her remain unprotected. Besides, she is a Keeper herself, and it is both your highest duties now to protect the earth, which regretfully or not means keeping the king alive.”

  I tried not to flinch at that, but Nikha held everyone’s attention anyway. Her words came faster with each shake of her head, her voice rising. “I can’t tell everyone what I am. They would think it strange, whatever you insist. I’m not ready. I—”

  Surprisingly, it was Zeniri who made a calming motion. “No one will rush you. Right?” He shot a look at Lenara, who grudgingly nodded. “The thought of revealing the truth takes some getting used to. I understand, because I’ve had to do the same. Despite my particular preference for men being rather accepted—even desired—in my line of work, it was still hard to admit, because of this supposed duty to produce heirs.” He snorted and waved the thought away as if it were nothing. “Some of my better-paying female patrons still don’t know my tastes, though that’s more for the sake of their feelings than my own. Anyway, everyone has their secrets, hidden inside.” He grinned. “And I mean everyone. I make it my business to discover them. Even the king himself, spiritually wed to the earth goddess, Ranta, and physically wed to a queen consort, prefers men as well, which goes far to explain his lack of an heir.”

  “Executing the queen consort didn’t help with that, either,” Lenara murmured.

  Razim’s mother. It was still hard to wrap my mind around it. But this new bit of information on the king made more sense of why the queen consort’s sole child had been fathered by Hallan.

  Zeniri said, “Yes, well, now that we’ve all gotten to know each other better, can we get back to the task at hand? Kamai still needs to get close enough to Razim and other people to soulwalk, and she’s just nixed the easiest method.”

  L
enara sighed. “I need a seductress and Heshara sends me a new soul.” She glanced at me. “Sorry, dear, I mean no offense, but it is rather inconvenient.”

  I looked down at my hands, which I realized were clenched around each other. “I know. I—”

  “Don’t apologize,” Lenara said, before I could do exactly that. “Never apologize for who you are. You are a complete soul, in Heshara’s eyes.” She gestured at the chart before her. “Now we just need to figure out what to do with you.”

  Indeed. If they didn’t have a use for me, there was no real place for me in the Keepers. Some other apprenticeship would be difficult to arrange at this point, if not impossible, without Jidras’s help and with the ruined reputation his disowning me would cause me. So then my last resort would be to keep Jidras’s favor and marry, unless I wanted to go penniless and destitute. Both were about equally appealing.

  Despite that, I somehow felt lighter than I had in months. Years. Maybe ever. For the first time in my life, the people closest to me knew the truth about who I was, and it was okay.

  Zeniri folded his arms and drummed his fingers on his elbows as he regarded me. “I could still teach you all the techniques. I mean, in a lot of ways, it’s like acting. It would just be entirely like acting for you.”

  Lenara raised a brow. “Some new souls can and do and even want to have sex for various reasons, it’s true.”

  I wondered, would that be better or worse than marriage? Either way, I would be stuck filling a repulsive role I didn’t want, but at least with the Keepers I would have a purpose. Answers. Revenge.

  No. It could have been my own horror-tinged thought at the idea, but it was Vehyn’s voice, speaking in my mind: There is another way. Come. I will show you.

  At his words, giddy relief hit me like a beam of sunlight after endless clouds. I needed to lie down, take a sleeping tonic if I had to, and discover what this other path was. But everyone was looking at me, waiting for a response. “I think I have an idea. But I need to consider it some more, and I’ll get back to you.”

  I started for the door. They all blinked in surprise at the abruptness of my departure, and Nikha had to hurry to follow me.