by J L Forrest
But this one, she thought, looking at yw Sabi, this woman I desire.
“If you want my help,” Nyahri said, “you cannot hide from me the way you hide from everyone else.”
The Atreiani remained silent.
Nyahri kicked a chair over, shoved the table, and closed the distance to her mistress. She studied yw Sabi’s face, the opalescence of her skin, the fullness of her lips, the angle of her cheekbones. Nyahri breathed in the scent of her, the softest spice.
“Would you end the Atreianii?” Nyahri asked. “Down to the last individual?”
“If necessary.”
“For the sake of humans?”
“Yes.”
Yet that is not quite true, mistress, is it?
“I will try to understand,” Nyahri said, “to help you, to do whatever I can, but you have to tell me why, all of it. Tell me about Ekaterina.”
The Atreiani regarded her still, no smile, no frown, though her eyes trembled. In all other ways she sat frozen.
“I have accepted all you have told me,” Nyahri said, “have I not? I have given you no reason to distrust me and yet have you told me everything?”
Yw Sabi shook her head slowly, the barest motion.
“Tell me!” Nyahri screamed.
Silence.
Nyahri wondered later what snapped her temper. The remains of her anger at Kepler? The suffocation of living indoors, somewhere so unnatural, for so long? Bound-up desires? Her guilt at feeling them on the wake of so much loss? Mayhap Dhaos was right, and she was an animal herself? The same brashness which made her blurt fatal challenges for her cousin, the same which nearly cost Uhlo his knee, the same she had felt many times on the hunt or in battle or when she plunged her longknife through her uncle’s heart.
She boiled over with it now, and Nyahri lashed out for the second time in an hour, slapping yw Sabi across the cheek. At once Nyahri regretted the blow, covered her own mouth in shock, tears of surprise clouding her vision—One does not strike a goddess. The trembling of the Areiani’s eyes became a hurt, the viper now at the surface.
Then that viper struck.
{21}
Yw Sabi’s fingers closed around Nyahri’s serape, drawing her down. The Atreiani’s hand grasped the back of Nyahri’s neck, bending her, bringing Nyahri’s ear to her mouth. Her strength broke Nyahri’s resistance, beyond anything she ever before felt, like iron given life.
“I would kill the Atreianii,” yw Sabi said, her voice feather soft, her fangs bared, “because we existed to create paradise at great cost, more than you can imagine, and we did unconscionable things for our creation. We did not merely enslave, we committed overwhelming atrocities, telling ourself our utopia was worth that price. That I thought I could live with but, instead of paradise, we made hell.”
Yw Sabi’s grip tightened. Only men had ever held Nyahri so roughly, so violently, the first when she was twelve years old. All those men had died. Now, in reflex, Nyahri drew her longknife, not knowing what else to do.
Will she kill me? Can I kill her? Nay, Atreiani, this is not what I wanted—
Yw Sabi’s hand closed around Nyahri’s, warm and strong, keeping the blade between them. “I’m no omniscient goddess,” she said. “I’m a drooling infant. From the moment of my unlikely awakening, forces I cannot discern play me like a pipe and I can’t so much as guess their intentions—Citadels yet sleeping, a silent Hive. I am frightened.”
Nyahri strained, focused on the blade. She wedged her feet against the table, trying to leverage herself, knocking over her chair. The table—a handspan thick of solid hardwood on stout legs and covered in heavy books—squealed as it slid across the flagstones. Nyahri remained impotent in yw Sabi’s grasp.
“You?” the E’cwni asked. “Frightened?”
“I am outsmarted and alone,” yw Sabi said, gritting her teeth, biting back some agony hidden deep, now rising to the surface for—
For me, Nyahri realized.
“A great game is being played,” said yw Sabi, “and here, by myself, I have already lost.”
“You are not by yourself,” she said.
“I should be. Better to send you back than have you die.”
“I am not easy to kill.”
“Neither was Ekaterina,” yw Sabi said, quavering like a bowstring.
“Tell me.”
“Her death is still close, no matter the time I slept, not more than a couple of years for me.”
“Loss hurts.” Nyahri’s mother and brother, then Suhto. “Gods, how I know, yw Sabi! I understand how it feels—”
“I cannot suffer it again—” Yw Sabi’s voice trailed and died.
“Tell me,” Nyahri said, her breath sharp.
“Neither can I be alone, not for the long task ahead.”
“Tell me. Tell me about Ekaterina.” Nyahri stumbled over the pronunciation, the hardness of the sounds foreign on an E’cwn tongue.
“Ekaterina et Sultah, daughter of the Old Griffon, sweet Light of Rosia.” Tears rolled down yw Sabi’s cheeks, her eyes flashing with a thousand memories, all conjured by a name. “She was my claimèd.”
Nyahri ceased her fighting, though her hand remained on the knife’s handle. With no chair to sit in, she knelt before yw Sabi. Her heart beat like war drums.
“Your enemies took her from you?”
“Yes,” yw Sabi said, letting Nyahri’s hand go.
Nyahri tightened her grip upon the longknife, not yielding it, wondering yet if she must defend herself. “They murdered her?”
Yw Sabi nodded ever so little.
Defend myself from what? Nyahri thought.
She dropped the blade. It struck the edge of the fallen chair, clattering to the floor. Nyahri stood and passed her hand behind yw Sabi’s head. Without a moment’s pause, she kissed her—a hard, hungry kiss, her own tears welling as she did—and brought her other hand to yw Sabi’s hair. The Atreiani’s fingers became gentle on the back of her neck, yw Sabi’s other hand falling to Nyahri’s waist. Nyahri arced over yw Sabi’s lap, kissing her again, again.
Their foreheads touched and Nyahri said, “They will not take me.”
◆◆◆
From afternoon until late in the night they rollicked together in the bed of their tower chamber. Behind them, they left a trail of discarded clothes. After their revelry, Nyahri collapsed in yw Sabi’s arms, still savoring the Atreiani on her lips, a peculiar and delicious sweetness.
Staring at the timbered ceiling, Nyahri smiled. Her world shone clearer.
Nyahri listened to the whole of the Atreiani’s story, as much could be told in such a brief time: for more than five hundred years she lived before the Eventide, centuries brilliant and bleak. Yw Sabi told only fragments, but Nyahri raised few questions, knowing details would emerge in time.
When the Atreiani finished, Nyahri said, “You were gods, no matter that you deny it.”
“There are no divinities—everything is simply something up or down the food chain. For better or worse we did what we thought right.”
A candle provided their only light. Nyahri curled against yw Sabi’s side, kissing her shoulder, tasting her skin. They embraced one another, hands in each other’s hair or trailing along their spines, not speaking for many minutes.
Yw Sabi said in realization, “Safi.”
“Eh, mistress?”
“That word—I thought maybe witch, rooted in Circê, like your sister’s name, but that made no sense.” She smiled. “Now I understand. The E’cwnii dropped lesbian and kept sapphist. Sappho—safi.”
“I did not know how the word came to us. I was always teased with it.”
Yw Sabi lowered her eyebrows. “Safii are shunned among the E’cwnii?”
“Nay, not shunned, but a would-be Ahtras is expected to bear children, something two women cannot do.”
Yw Sabi smiled as if she knew better.
“There was a story,” Nyahri said, “generations ago, of an Ahtros who served with two Ahtrasi who, it
seemed, loved each other as much as their Ahtros, but there have been none like that I ever saw.”
“You have any experiences, any young women you loved?”
“One of my cousins, her name was Itrwra. We had our time together, but she became the tent wife of an Inwn man and I never saw her again. I kissed others, but they decided it was a game and grew bored with me. You must have realized I desired you, yw Sabi?”
“I second-guessed myself.” Yw Sabi shook her head. “You must’ve known I wanted you?”
“You are difficult to read. I thought sometimes the way you looked at me or the way you spoke, but nay. Sleeping with you in the cold of the mountains, it only confused me.”
Yw Sabi kissed Nyahri’s forehead.
“I used my desire,” the Atreiani said, “as an excuse to get you into the fortress.”
“How?”
“Claime. You remember?”
“Of course. What does it mean?”
“Atreianii sometimes took Atreian lovers—but the laws preventing the accumulation of our political power also prevented the union or division of our demesnes. Extended cohabitation was literally illegal, so we frequently kept human lovers.”
“Was it thought strange?”
“No. In our frame, our proportions, our sexuality, we’re similar. Humans were sometimes beautiful to us—we, sometimes beautiful to humans. When an Atreiani took a woman or man as both Exemplari and as beloved, it was said they were claimèd. Almost half the Exemplarii were.”
Nyahri smiled. “You had guessed my feelings.”
“I had my guesses.” Yw Sabi winked. “I also figured Kepler would think it plausible enough to let you in.”
Nyahri scooted up onto the pillow, meeting yw Sabi’s eye. “I am not your Exemplari.”
“No.”
“When?”
“In another era, you would be by my side for years before we considered it.” Yw Sabi studied Nyahri for long moments, searching for words which ran ahead of her.
“We do not have years, do we?”
“No.”
“Ekaterina,” Nyahri said again, this time pronouncing the name closer to correct. She spread her fingers through the Atreiani’s hair, drawing her thumb along the edge of her ear. “She must have been a goddess herself for you to think so much of her.”
Yw Sabi sighed, offering half a smile.
“I am sorry, mistress.”
“It’s all right, lovely one.” Yw Sabi kissed Nyahri’s hair.
“I should not call you mistress. I know you dislike it.”
“Hadn’t you noticed? When is the last time I complained of it?”
Nyahri smiled.
Yw Sabi took a deep breath. “Ekaterina exquisitely represented me and her family, to the end. Lover. Right hand. Counselor.” Her voice became heavy and flat. “My enemies took some pleasure in telling me how she suffered, how terrible it was. Kat believed, more than I, we could broker a new agreement which worked for the Atreianii and for humankind, and she never gave up hope we might avert disaster. So much for hope.”
“There should always be some hope, nay?”
“Optimism eternal. In the years before everything went wrong, she was one of few humans who regularly requested, and earned, hearings before our Congress. She envisioned a freer future for Homo sapiens. Given enough time she might’ve succeeded.”
Yw Sabi returned to the silence of some memory.
“She sounds remarkable,” Nyahri said.
“She was.”
“She was your claimèd—I would be your claimèd now, if you will have me.”
“I’ll be lucky to have you.” Then, “It’s also complicated.”
Nyahri kissed yw Sabi’s cheek, then her mouth. They kissed again, warm and unhurried.
“Complicated? How?”
“A little problem of continuity of consciousness,” yw Sabi said quietly, as if explaining everything.
Nyahri lowered her brow, frowning as she tried to understand. Life with the Atreiani was, as much as anything else, a life of schooling.
Yw Sabi continued, “The artifact of an Atreiani is our scepter, the tool by which we command but also by which we were beholden to the whole. The artifact of an Exemplari is her collar—” The Atreiani turned on her side, looking into Nyahri’s eyes. “—and its influence continues even beyond the death of the wearer’s flesh. There is no escape for an Atreiani from her bargain with her Exemplari, and none for an Exemplari from her Atreiani.”
Nyahri sat, pulling the bed sheets around her. “What does that mean?” she asked, guessing the gravity of the answer.
“It means,” yw Sabi sighed, “Ekaterina never truly died. She lives within that artifact, a ghost in a machine.”
Nyahri remember the length of golden-hued fabric she had seen in yw Sabi’s hands during those first days. “Her soul is bound in it?”
The Atreiani tilted her head. “Not precisely but, in your terms, I suppose that’s a close approximation.”
“Does she suffer?”
“She sleeps, perhaps dreams on occasion, and in many ways she will never again awaken except—”
“Except?”
“—through whoever next holds my claime.”
“As I might?”
Yw Sabi nodded.
“How?” Nyahri asked.
“The collar you would wear will have been hers. The continuity passes from Ekaterina, through it, to you. A contiguous life from one age to another.”
“The magic is that strong?” Nyahri asked, leaning back. “An Exemplari’s burden is so great?”
Gods, mayhap Dhaos was right? Do I risk my soul? What a thing it is!
“Burden? It could be, yes.”
“What happens? Would I stop being me?” A gallop of fear moved through her. “Would I die?”
“Oh, lovely one,” yw Sabi said, caressing Nyahri’s shoulder, “not at all, but in time you would be changed. Who she was—is—would be added to who you are.”
Nyahri’s brows furrowed. “Like I would be two people?”
“Not at all. It is like this—one remembers being someone else entirely. The two resolve into one.”
“Gods!”
“There is still time to think on it.” Yw Sabi rolled onto her back, placing her hands behind her head, gazing at the rafters. “If, after you’ve considered, you still imagine it a burden—you’ll go whichever way you choose. Either way, you’ll always be Nyahri,” said yw Sabi, “horsewoman, daughter of the Ahtros, sister of Cirje. That will never change.”
Nyahri lay in thought.
“We’ve had a full day,” yw Sabi said, “and we’ve both much to consider. We should sleep.”
A sigh escaped Nyahri’s lips. “Not yet.”
“Oh?” The Atreiani smiled. “I should have you again?”
Nyahri arched over her mistress, knees to either side of her chest, hands planted next to her shoulders. Smiling, the E’cwni tripped her tongue across the back of her teeth. “Do.”
Yw Sabi grinned—the first true grin Nyahri had ever seen from her, all bright teeth and wide, generous lips—and once more she pulled Nyahri down. Afterwards, they slept each in the other’s arms.
{Interim: Divine Transmissions}
72130617:194502:EA39.7392N+104.9842W:
AUTUMN01::
LORAHDI: I will do as you will, goddess, always and forever.
AUTUMN01: You will bear a child. With her birth, we will restart the turning of many wheels, bring to fruition our long plans.
LORAHDI: Thank you for your blessings, goddess!
AUTUMN01: This is our command—of this moment you will never speak a word. You will die with this meeting never again upon your tongue, nor will you write it in any script.
LORAHDI: I will be faithful, goddess.
AUTUMN01: We know you will.
Transcript Archive, Exhibit B
Vo Misa Station
{22}
The next morning, Nyahri awoke still in yw Sabi’s e
mbrace. Early sunlight streamed from the cedar -screened windows, nearer the ceiling, and painted bright geometries against the western wall. Yw Sabi sat, scooting to the edge of the bed, and she rubbed her face like any sleepy human might. She smiled down at Nyahri.
“Do you feel as smitten this morning,” she said, “as you did last night?”
“More, mistress.” Nyahri blinked and rolled onto her side, took yw Sabi by the hand, and tried to drag her back into the bed.
“Time for other things.” The Atreiani leaned across Nyahri, kissing her on the forehead, then stood. “Where are my clothes?”
“Everywhere, yw Sabi,” Nyahri said, her smile reaching all the way through her words.
“Find yours too. Get dressed. We’ve tasks.”
Nyahri swung her feet to the floor and brushed her hair back from her face. “What do you wish?”
“I’m locking myself in the library,” the Atreiani said. “Your task is to leave for a few hours. You’ve been shut in this place far too long. No lessons today. By dark, be back here and—” Yw Sabi flashed a fanged smile. “—in our bed.”
Nyahri tilted her head, her own smile unfaded. “Where should I go?”
“Out into the city, into the valleys, if your fancy takes you.” Fancy takes you failed in translation, and Nyahri imagined herself braided and beaded like a prized mare, paraded for some reason she could not imagine. “Should be safe enough,” yw Sabi said,” given our guest status. Get a sense of Cohltos, a feel for the people, and report.”
“I will.”
“You’ll be taking the horses, I imagine?”
“Of course.”
“Good. Now go.”
Nyahri groaned, unhappy to leave.
Unhappy to leave! I have wanted nothing, she thought, but to leave these walls since we arrived!
After they emerged from their room and descended the stairs, the Atreiani’s smile vanished, her face set as stone. Nyahri understood how it would always be: Yw Sabi would keep one face for their private moments and another for the rest of the world.
“Be wary out there,” yw Sabi said. “Safe enough does not mean anyone is our friend.”