Fragile Chaos

by Amber R. Duell

  Her eye twitches. “Goran already told me, but if I had jumped out the window…?”

  “Are you considering it?”

  She grunts and crosses the room without turning her back to me. The breeze catches strands of hair that escaped a loose braid as she leans out the open window. “I was airing the comforter out. It must have fallen,” she says, looking down at the courtyard. “I’ll bring it back in once I figure out where it went.”

  “The men took it,” I say. The room is uncomfortably warm now. Stifling. “I’ll have them wash it before they bring it back.”

  “Thanks.” She takes a deep breath before leaning back inside. “So, are we expecting an attack?”

  I blink at the change of subject. “Who would attack us?”

  “Why else would you carry a sword around all the time?”

  Her expression says she knows another reason—to finish what I started in the temple—but she doesn’t suggest it. “I always have it nearby.” It’s next to useless in this day and age but it’s an old friend. The only sword I’ve ever carried. “I’m not here to hurt you,” I add.

  Cassia fiddles with the tie on her dress. “Why are you here?”

  Good question. She’s alive and that’s all I wanted to know. She’s on solid ground again, so whatever duty I have to keep her safe is fulfilled. I should leave but my knees seem locked in place. I want to want to leave but my heart thuds, heavy, at the thought.

  “When I’m gone, are you going to climb back up there?” I ask.

  She scowls at her crooked perch. “It’s not safe.”

  “It wasn’t safe the first time you did it.” I roll the sleeves of my dress shirt past the elbows. “What were you planning on doing with it all?”

  She shifts. “Dragging it into the hallway for now.”

  I lift an eyebrow.

  “What?” she asks defensively. “It’s not like anyone else uses this floor. The rest of the rooms make this one look bare.”

  True but irrelevant. “Fine. I’ll have the men take it from the hall this afternoon. They’ll probably be able to put some of it to use.”

  “Are you offering to help?” Her voice rises and she stands straighter. She’s…I could be wrong but I think she’s irritated.

  “Some of this weighs more than you do.” And I have nothing better to do now that I’m ignoring the war.

  I grab the legs of the table she was standing on and pull it from atop the pile. I guide it through the door and push it up against the wall at the end of the hall, near the back stairs. When I return to the room, she stares at me with heavy skepticism. Heat rises into my cheeks, and I twist away so I don’t have to see her expression. It’s too skeptical, too curious. Too seeing.

  “What?” I ask when I can’t take the silence anymore.

  “Nothing.” She pauses. “There’s no chance you could, I don’t know, poof it away?”

  My body jerks and I latch onto the door frame. “I’m a god, not a magician.”

  She maneuvers around the bed and yanks at the back of a slatted chair. It’s caught on something further under the pile. “Worth asking,” she mumbles. She rocks the chair back and forth until the aged wood snaps. “Whoops.”

  I sigh and grab an oval frame from the heap.

  We work in silence. Pushing, pulling, lifting, dropping. I could have done it alone but, for a mortal, she carries her weight without complaint. A sheen of sweat coats her face, pieces of hair clinging to the moisture, and her breaths are heavy. I wait for her to ask for a break, but the question never comes. By the time we reach the final piece, we’ve found an easy rhythm.

  Together we turn the desk upside down and set it on top of two nightstands outside the door. The hall is nearly impassable, but when we turn back to the now-empty room it’s doubled in size.

  A smile flits over Cassia’s lips. “Finally.” She flops face-first on the bare mattress and sighs. Shifting, she reaches beneath her stomach and pulls out a crowbar. It drops to the floor with a hard thunk. “Sorry about the shutters, by the way.” Her voice is muffled by the bed. “It was Goran’s idea.”

  I hadn’t noticed the chips of wood scattered beneath the sill before. Some of the pieces are still big enough to tell they were once slats. Holes mar the window frame where nails held the hinges in place and the latch that seals the diamond-paned glass together is missing.

  Cassia sits up and brushes the hair from her face. She glances at me, then turns to look out at the blue sky. “Hey, Theo?”

  I slip my hands into my pockets. “What?”

  Her hands ball into fists on her lap but she quickly straightens her fingers and sits up straighter. “Why didn’t you kill me in the temple?” she whispers. “I know you regret it.”

  A sharp pain lances through me. Not because she’s wrong—I do regret it. All of it. I never should have stopped to play Fate with her in Kisk, let alone looked at her in the temple as I went in for the kill. But I did. Why? It’s better to keep the faces of each sacrifice blank. Not to see them as girls, but nameless problems to be dealt with.

  “I don’t know.” I bend down and grab my sword from the floor. The hilt is familiar against my palm as I hold it in front of me. This is what I know. War. Not women. “I don’t know,” I say again, quieter.

  “I’m glad you didn’t,” she says.

  I meet her gaze, nerves prickling. “You haven’t changed your mind about Kisk?”

  “No.” She blinks slowly. “They don’t deserve it. Besides, it wasn’t really home anymore. Not since…not since we were brought into the war.”

  Not since her brother brought them into the war, she means. Not since he was convicted and her parents were lost in the bombings. She doesn’t say any of that. Whether it’s because she doesn’t want me to know or it’s too painful to talk about, I can’t be sure. I strap the scabbard back in place. “I’ll have the men come up later for the furniture. Don’t try to help.”

  She gives me a two-fingered Kisken salute, placing her index and middle finger vertically by her eye and moving them straight out. I see you, it says. I’ll cover you. I respect you. But the sloppy way she moves her hand, the eye roll she tries to stop in time, tells me how much she doesn’t mean it. Not that I would have thought she did if it were done in perfect form. She isn’t one of my men. She isn’t a soldier meant to follow my orders—she’s a bride. I should be saluting her.

  “Goran’s gone for the day.” I shift my weight between my feet. I’m stalling. “I’ll be around if you need anything else.”

  She gives me the smallest of smiles. “Thanks.”

  I back out of her room and hurry to the safety of the war room. To where things make sense. Weapons and strategies and armor surround me. Armor. I need to find mine. To build it around me like I built a wall to block out the high priest. I can’t let Cassia get to me. She’s here because someone wants her here. Because she’ll force me to listen to Ebris if I accept her sacrifice. The sacrifice she didn’t want to make.

  I lean over my desk and stifle the frustrated scream building in my gut.

  Pull yourself together.

  Focus.

  She’s a pawn. A new piece in a game she doesn’t know exists. I can’t forget that no matter how much I may want to. I’ve come too far to fall into this trap.

  For a place where eating is optional, there’s enough food in the kitchen to feed a small army. Unfortunately, most of it is prepackaged junk I don’t recognize in languages I can’t read, but there’s a bag of apples and honey in the refrigerator. I flip the squeeze bottle over. The golden goop is crystallized at the bottom. I sigh and turn back to the cupboards as my stomach gurgles.

  Shifting through boxes of crackers, I gasp. A lone bag of sage flavored chips are hidden behind a box of pasta. This flavor went out of circulation a few years before the war. But they can’t be that bad; the bag is still sealed.

  I rip it open and plop down on the floor, my back against the white wood of the island, with a book I hijacked und
er my arm. Book might not be the right word. It looks like a book—leather binding, golden edged pages, a deep red ribbon running down the middle. The entire library was full of identical spines. Scratchy handwriting fills the pages. Numbers of soldiers, lists of weaponry, terrain. Names of generals and countries and battles. It seems Theo has kept a thorough record of every war since the beginning of time.

  But somewhere in all those volumes there could be a notation of something else: a sacrifice. Specifically, one that got out of here without dying. It sounds impossible. I can’t un-die but I can’t stop the voice in the back of my mind asking is it? I wouldn’t have said any of this was possible eleven days ago. If there’s even the slightest chance Theo can put me back somewhere far away from Kisk and the war, I need to find out.

  The thin pages crinkle as I turn them. “So many numbers,” I mumble around a mouthful of chips.

  “Numbers are important,” Goran says above me.

  I jump, slamming the book closed. A blond head hovers over the edge of the marble counter top. I force the half chewed food down and exhale through my mouth. At least it’s not Theo. I haven’t seen him since he helped me move things last week, and I’m not sure where things stand with us. I can only assume he’s over wanting to kill me. Unless he’s trying to lull me into a false sense of security. A semi-lit kitchen without a clear path to an exit doesn’t seem like the best place to find out. “Hi, Goran.”

  He rounds the island with a cocked eyebrow. “Did you take that from the archives?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I smile as I slide the tome under my thighs.

  He leans forward with his hands behind his back. “You’re welcome to read them, but I don’t imagine you’ll be very entertained.”

  Lucky for me, I’m not looking for entertainment. I’ll plod through as much algebra as I need to until I find mention of the other girls who came before me. I rattle the bag of chips at him. “Want some?”

  “No.” He wrinkles his nose and steps back. “They smell like death.”

  I put another in my mouth and chew slowly while I stare up at him.

  “There’s someone here to meet you,” he says. “I thought you’d like advanced warning.”

  “What?” Bits of food fly from my mouth and I slap a hand over my lips. Who could possibly want to meet me? Me.

  Goran laughs. “I think you’ll like them.”

  “Them?” He said someone. Singular. And coming from the same man to tell me Theo wasn’t that bad, I don’t know if I believe him.

  “Really, Theodric.” A feminine voice floats in from the hallway. “I don’t see why you’re making such a big deal out of this. It’s not like I haven’t seen her before. You had to know this day was coming.”

  My blood pressure spikes. I wipe greasy fingers on my dress and stuff the book into a bottom cupboard before scrambling to my feet. I shoot Goran a scowl and he winks. “Who is that?” I ask in a hushed whisper.

  Before he can answer, a woman in a short, green tulle dress practically skips into the kitchen. A sheet of long honey-brown hair slips over her shoulder as she turns toward me. The chips churn in my stomach. With the same long, sculpted nose as Theo and matching blue eyes, I don’t have to ask who she is. A goddess. It doesn’t matter which one because all three would strike equal terror in me.

  “My goodness.” Her smile is like coming home. “Look at you. I never thought I’d see the day.”

  I fidget while she looks me up and down. She’s appraising me, I think, but not unkindly. It still makes my skin crawl. The counter feels like a barrier, offering a small bit of protection. A variety of snarky comments rush to my tongue but I swallow them. While I may not be able to stop myself around Theo, I can’t piss off all the gods and expect any kind of support in the future. So, instead, I let heat rush to my cheeks as I stand there, fuming in silence.

  Theo leans against the doorframe behind her with his arms crossed. “See?” he says. “She’s fine.”

  “Fine?” The goddess casts a glance over her shoulder. “No wonder Goran contacted me. It’s been almost a fortnight and she’s still in the sacrificial gown. I know you’ve never kept a bride before but at least—”

  “Whoa. Bride?” Panic seizes me, squeezing tight. The blood that was pooling in my face seconds ago drains to my feet. “No, no, no. You must be confusing me with someone else.”

  She blinks, her lashes almost brushing her high cheekbones. “I’m not sure I understand. Is she not…?”

  “Leave it alone,” Theo growls.

  “But what—” She cuts herself off as understanding creeps across her face. “She doesn’t know?”

  “I said leave it alone, Astra.” Theo straightens, the veins in his neck visible from across the room.

  I snap my mouth shut, unease tightening my throat, and lay my palms on the counter. Astra. As the Goddess of Love, she should know nothing exists between Theo and I. I look to Goran for backup but he’s studying a knob on the oven. “There must be a mistake,” I squeeze out. Mythology lessons trickle through the cracks in my resolve. Bigger rewards are expected when women are sacrificed to the men, and men to the women, because they were meant to mean more to the god. “I’m not a…” I can’t finish the statement. Partly because my mouth is suddenly parched and partly because it would be a lie. That’s exactly why the zealots sent me here. I can’t believe it hadn’t dawned on me earlier.

  Before I realize she’s moved, Astra has her arms around me. My body prickles against her intense heat as one hand smoothes over my hair. The scent of roses envelopes me. This can’t be right. Theo tried to kill me, not marry me. Not that I want him to. I really, really don’t.

  “There, there,” Astra whispers in a soft voice. “Forgive me. I wasn’t aware of the circumstances of your,” she pulls back enough to glance at Theo, “visit.”

  Visit. It sounds so temporary.

  “Are you finished?” Theo snaps.

  Astra brushes the hair from my face before stepping back. “Don’t start with me, Theodric. I’ll leave when I’m good and ready.”

  His chest puffs. Our eyes meet for a brief moment and I shudder. “Things are fine the way they are. Don’t mess up my household the way you’re trying to mess up my war,” he says.

  “You don’t need my help to do either. You’re quite capable on your own.” She snaps her fingers and a young girl steps around Theo with a black dress bag. “I heard Goran promised you something new to wear.”

  I nod. Goran keeps his head down, looking in every direction except Theo’s.

  “I brought you this,” Astra says. The girl, no older than fourteen with a mass of red curls, places the bag in my arms. “I wasn’t sure what you’d like so I took your clothing in Kisk into consideration. Not that it was your usual wardrobe, of course, but, well…”

  “In Kisk?” I ask in a shaky voice.

  She smiles, apples forming in her tan cheeks. “I was with Theodric the night you met.”

  “Funny.” I grip the bag. “I don’t remember seeing you.” And I would. She gives off the same vibrations Theo does. Maybe more.

  She clasps her hands in front of her. “I need to have a few private words with my brother, but I’m so glad we officially met.”

  She hugs me again, a light embrace, then breezes out of the kitchen with the young girl at her heels. She takes her heat with her and a small part of me wants to follow. Theo stays in place, watching me with a hard expression. I clutch the clothes Astra gave me so hard my fingers threaten to cramp.

  “That wasn’t so bad,” Goran pipes.

  Theo flares his nostrils. “She isn’t gone yet,” he says before fleeing. Goran rushes after him and I’m left alone, my head spinning.

  And I thought servitude was a bad deal.

  No wonder Goran looked at me like I was crazy when I asked him about scrubbing floors. Theo certainly isn’t treating me like a wife, though. He isn’t treating me like anything at all, which is exactly what I want. It giv
es me more freedom to snoop around for answers. Theo wasn’t terrible the other day, but marriage is out of the question. Absolutely.

  On the way back to my room, I stop in the second-floor bathroom to take a quick shower. Chucking the horrible white dress in the trash, I pull on a pair of jeans, a pink T-shirt, and a gray knit sweater, followed by a pair of matching flats. It’s the best I’ve felt in ages. When I step into the hall again, there’s a bounce in my step.

  I hug the book tight to my chest as I make for the staircase. It was stupid to read it in the kitchen—I was bound to run into someone. I’ll have to be more discrete if I don’t want Theo or Goran to catch on. Goran’s smart; he might already know. Why else would I be reading this thing? I don’t know anything about nautical miles or ammunition. It’s not that I’m doing anything wrong, but I can’t honestly say I trust either of them. Not really. It’s better to keep things close to the chest.

  A man in a white T-shirt rounds the corner, and I jerk back a second before we collide. The book falls to the floor with a thud. “Sorry.” I scramble to grab it before he sees. “I didn’t see you there.”

  “Cassia, right?” he asks.

  Black tattoos cover his bronze skin, circling his arms in ancient bands. Kisken bands. One identifies where he’s from, another which family he’s part of. Skills he earned, battles he fought. Some may be for family members lost or children born. I don’t recognize most of them. Once Asgya planted roots on our island, the tradition was repressed under foreign rule. The only two I can identify are for reaching his fifteenth birthday and marriage. He must be one of the men from the Wall but he’s the first one I’ve seen up close. They’re like ghosts, swooping in unnoticed before disappearing again.

  “Who are you?” I ask.

  “Cy.” He blinks once before snatching my wrist and yanking me through the nearest door. I open my mouth to scream, but he slams a calloused hand over it before I can make a sound. He scans the small parlor with hooded eyes. “I’m not going to hurt you. When I take my hand away, don’t scream.”