The Five Daughters of the Moon

by Leena Likitalo

  I glance up out of reflex. A thicker layer of snow covers the ceiling now. I can’t see out through the windows, and ask my father if it’s really him who has failed our people, or only my family.

  I stumble in my sabots; my toes are solidly frozen. A flicker of concern crosses my love’s proud forehead, and he guides me toward the side of the hall, where the pressure of the crowd isn’t as intense. Once there, he places himself firmly behind me, wraps his arms around me. “This is far enough, I think.”

  I smile despite myself. No matter what will happen in this world, with him I will be safe. I’m privileged in more than one way. I plant a kiss on his clean-shaven chin.

  But his attention is elsewhere. He’s craning over the crowd, looking intently toward the back of the hall. Ah, there, a narrow stairway leads from the ground level to what must be the foreman’s office. Men with shoulders so wide that they must no doubt walk through doors sideways stand guard at the bottom of the stairs and on the platform midway up. They remind me of the railway man I talked with earlier. So full of uncontrolled anger and power. Ready to beat even metal into submission.

  Whatever is going to happen tonight, I realize, is going to take place at the platform. For gradually everyone in the crowd turns to stare in that direction. I chew the inside of my lips as my heart pounds faster, with vigor. This is altogether different from the other places my love has taken me. This is a gathering of unhappy souls, of people who yearn for change. People like me. And people not at all like me. I want to know one thing above everything else. Whom are we waiting to see? Whom are we waiting to hear speak?

  I glance over my shoulder at Janlav. He must have known what I’m about to ask, but he just places his red-gloved hand against my heart. I place my red-mittened hand atop his. He won’t tell me. He wants me to listen to my heart.

  At last, the door of the foreman’s office slowly opens. I rise on my toes to catch the first glimpse of the person all these people have come to hear speak. The sabots press painfully against my toes, and though my ankles threaten to twist, I rise higher. I want to know this person’s name, for he or she is the one to whom I must offer my help if I’m to change this empire for the better.

  A man emerges through the doorway and halts at the first step of the iron staircase. He is tall and his dark hair is braided. He wears the black robes of a gagargi. I know this man, though his presence here is very much impossible. He’s a man of the empire as much as I’m its daughter.

  But I’m not mistaken, for the crowd knows him too.

  “Prataslav! Prataslav!” The rising roar slams breath from my lungs. The crowd punches their right fists in the air, and above their heads red spreads like blood spilled. “Our great Gagargi Prataslav. The gagargi of the people!”

  I can’t say his name, for my tongue has gone numb; not even as I feel my love’s chest expand, hear his voice joining the cheer. I was expecting the leader of the insurgence to be of high position, one of the generals perhaps, or a high-ranking court official. Never even in my darkest dreams did I imagine him to be Gagargi Prataslav.

  Gagargi Prataslav, my mother’s closest advisor, openly placing himself against the empire. This is as pure a treason as can ever be. It’s almost worse than what I’m up to, for I’m only the second daughter!

  A gust of warmth touches my left cheek. I flinch before I realize it’s just my love about to whisper in my ear. “You are surprised?”

  I don’t dare to let him see my expression. For I’m shocked more than surprised. I was ready to offer my help for the insurgence movement. But now that I know that it’s led by Gagargi Prataslav . . . There’s something odd, even frightening about him. Both Alina and Merile openly fear him, and not only because they saw something not meant for their eyes, I suspect. I cautiously study the frenzied crowd. A mere moment earlier, I considered myself a part of it. But now . . . now I want to run away as fast as my feet can carry me.

  Before I can form the words that would surely drive my love away from me, the crowd stills. Even my love stills, forgetting he asked me a question. My gaze is drawn toward the balcony of its own accord. For it’s not possible for this many people to be this quiet, this unrelentingly focused, but I swear, I swear I could hear a feather drift, set against the floor. It’s that quiet.

  “Thank you,” Gagargi Prataslav says as he floats down the steps to the platform, or that’s how it seems. His black robes hide the movement of his legs, and his boots don’t make a sound. Apart from his voice, nothing exists. “Thank you for gathering here to hear what a man has to say to his equals.”

  My jaw slackens as the numbness of my tongue spreads through my body. For him to act so boldly, so openly to step down from his podium . . . Myself, I can imagine living a life much simpler, but he’s supposed to be the sacred messenger of the Moon!

  With an effort that cramps my cold-tensed muscles, I manage to crane my neck and glance at the ceiling. My father can’t see us. Not with the snowfall thickening. Not with all the windows being just dark panes of dirty glass tonight.

  Gagargi Prataslav halts exactly in the middle of the narrow platform and spreads his arms wide. His black sleeves are like the wings of a crow, the bearer of bad news and ill tidings. He leans toward the crowd, toward us, as he always does. Though he’s on the platform, he’s still too close for comfort. His gaze searches the crowd, and he smiles to himself as if he knew the name and lineage of everyone present. “I know why you have come here tonight.”

  And it’s as if he’s speaking to me! My urge to flee strengthens, and I stumble backward, tread on my love’s toes. The gagargi can’t know I’m present. He mustn’t learn that I’m here. For if he did . . .

  “The time of change is upon us. Soon we will all be what we were meant to be, regardless of our birth and origin.”

  The crowd listens to the gagargi’s words in utter silence, with faces carved from stone. No eye blinks. No nostril flares. I have never witnessed such before. Not even in the churches during the holiest of ceremonies devoted to my father. Always, always someone has coughed in his fist or a baby has burst into tears. But now . . . even the unsteady beat of my heart is too loud in the confines of my shrinking ribcage.

  “Very soon,” Gagargi Prataslav says, and lifts his right hand in the air, extends his long, bony forefinger. He, too, wears red gloves. His voice is low and mellow, and everyone in the hall must surely strain their ears to hear the words. “The Great Thinking Machine will make everyone equal.”

  The machine? I have just enough time for that one frightening thought.

  “Aya!” The crowd bursts into a reply so strong that it feels as if the very air were vibrating. My love joins the ear-shattering chorus. People lift their right fists in the air again, and the sea of red spreads over them. I wonder—wherever this thought came from—if eventually we are all going to drown in our own blood. “Aya! Aya, at last!”

  I frown in open puzzlement. The crowd knows more than I do. What does the gagargi’s machine have to do with anything? How can the people know more than I, who have seen the thing with my own eyes? I who know what it requires for fuel!

  “No more starving children.” Gagargi Prataslav’s words ring loud and clear, as though every word was produced by a smith’s hammer against an anvil. “No more soldiers sent to certain death. The machine knows everything. The machine cares for every single one of us. This is the end of injustice.”

  Injustice? I shiver despite the multitude of layers hiding my identity. But, yes. My mother thinks her rule just, but that it is not. She has been so focused on expanding the empire that she has forgotten those she is supposed to shelter. She sends men to faraway countries, while their families slave in the fields. And to fund these excursions, she has increased taxes, so that the families have nothing to show for their hard work but debts.

  But nothing in this world comes without a price. I have seen the Great Thinking Machine. And though I claimed otherwise to Alina and Merile, it runs on human souls. That’s the
reason why Mother rejected it. How is the gagargi planning to solve that blasphemy?

  “Equality is efficiency.” Gagargi Prataslav’s gaze brightens as if he were burning with passion inside. And perhaps he is. “No price is too great for such freedom. No price is too great for a better world.”

  I wonder, do the people know the true price? Perhaps not. How will they react when they find out? Will they ever find out? What is the gagargi’s plan?

  “The Moon has blessed our cause,” the gagargi says, his voice is so enchanting, so mellow. He turns sideways and gestures up the stairs, toward the foreman’s office.

  A woman in a hooded cloak the color of a cherry sliced open stands in the gaping doorway. She’s almost as tall as he is. I can’t yet say anything else about her, but she must be of great importance to the gagargi.

  The crowd holds their breath once more as the woman descends the stairs. Her movements are ethereal, beyond graceful. The edge of her cloak trails behind her, barely touching the floor.

  There’s something familiar about the way she moves, commands the space to accommodate her movements. When she takes her place before the gagargi, I’m sure I have seen her before. When the gagargi whispers in her ear, she nods in reply, a curt, imperial gesture. I know her name then, even before she pushes the hood back and reveals her symmetrical face.

  “Celestia . . .” I whisper before I can stop myself. What is my sister, the heir to the empire, doing up there, with the gagargi? My neck clicks as I turn to meet the man who brought me here. “Did you know about this?”

  The crowd mills about in confusion, and my love’s gaze is wide with wonder. He might have known about the gagargi and hidden that from me until tonight, but . . . “No. I swear to the Moon, I didn’t. None of us did! But this is wonderful!”

  Gagargi Prataslav and Celestia wait as if they had all the time in this world. My sister has a placid, almost dreamy expression on her face. Her silver hair is undecorated, merely curled. She wears a white dress with a high waistline, and white satin gloves envelop her svelte arms. As she places a hand on the railing, Gagargi Prataslav places his on top of hers.

  I gasp, but there’s not enough air in the hall to fill my clenched lungs. I have suspected for some time already that my sister has a lover. But now it’s glaringly obvious. Her first lover is none other than Gagargi Prataslav. And for her to present this man to the common people before announcing her choice in the court . . . I don’t know what to think of it. For that matter, I don’t know what to think of anything anymore.

  The sound is faint, a mere clatter of boots against metal. But it’s real, and it comforts me.

  A guard has climbed up the stairway to the platform and brought with him a wooden tray. On the tray is a simple glass pitcher filled with dark liquid and an equally simple glass bowl. The guard holds it out before the gagargi. The gagargi picks up the pitcher and raises it over the railing. “Our hands have always been red with the blood we have bled for this empire.”

  People cheer once more, and I wonder if they ever tire of shouting. If they have lost their mind in consensus. If I’m the only one really thinking of what lies under the surface.

  For it’s not wine in the pitcher, but thick, clotted blood. I watch as one of the crowd as the gagargi pours the blood into the bowl, for what else can I do? Celestia, she just stares directly ahead of her. As if she really were not present. Or as if she existed only as a shadow in the world beyond this one.

  The gagargi lowers the pitcher onto the tray and then accepts the whole tray from the guard. He turns to my sister. “This has not escaped the Moon. Tonight, next to me, stands his eldest, honored Celestia, the empress-to-be.”

  Celestia turns her head slowly, her whole body. Hers is the most exquisite silhouette; slender, but round at bosom and hips. Her red cloak rests against her white gown, heavier than it should.

  “I am here for you,” she says, and then . . . She sinks her hands into the bowl. “I am one of you.”

  I gape in utter horror as Celestia raises her hands up in the air. Blood dribbles down her wrists, her arms, onto her dress, onto her pale neck, even onto her face. Her expression doesn’t flinch. No, it’s utterly serene as she faces the crowd once more.

  “Celestia!” The crowd bursts into the loudest of shouts yet. “Prataslav! The age of equality!”

  My mouth moves on its own, but no words come out. If I had thought I’d anger my father by wearing peasant clothes in public, Celestia . . . she has gone too far. In her scarlet cloak, in her bloodstained dress . . . I don’t understand the game she is playing. And yet I do. She means to overtake our mother with the help of the gagargi.

  Gagargi Prataslav smiles, a self-satisfied smirk, visible for a moment only then gone so fast that I’m not sure I saw right. A thought occurs to me.

  Perhaps it’s not Celestia who is behind the insurgence. Gagargi Prataslav has already won the heart of the people. With my sister by his side, he will have no trouble gaining the support of the nobles. Dizzy, I seek support from the man I thought I loved.

  For a long time I had known that the time of my kind was coming to an end. Now I know this will happen very, very soon indeed.

  Chapter 5: Celestia

  It is the eve of the winter solstice. The tiny, cobwebbed windows bar the way in for the Moon’s light. The ceiling is low, the thick roof beams deeply grained. I lie on a bed, next to a man who smells of incense and musk, feral. Furs and sheets shelter us from the cold, but neither are white. I am not sure where I am or why I am here. I am sure of only two things.

  In mere hours, when the clock strikes twelve, I will claim my place as the Crescent Empress. And mere moments ago, I let a man touch me for the very first time. And that . . .

  I rise to lean on my elbows, away from the body that presses against mine. A thousand rules bind a Daughter of the Moon, a thousand ceremonies await her. By doing what I have done, I have skipped one of the most important ones. “The ceremony . . .”

  “Ah, Celestia.” His voice is but a quiet growl, a thunder rolling in the distance. “Do you not remember? There is no need for one. No need to announce your lover to the court, for your mother to witness the consummation, for the gathered gagargis and nobles to watch me examine the stains on the sheets and preach prophesies that may or may not come true. In your empire, there is no need for such useless, ancient antics.”

  My empire. Yes, I am the oldest, and it is mine by birthright. Mother, may she live a long life in her exile-to-come, under her guidance the empire has expanded, but at a terrible price. In the coming revolution, hers will not be the winning side. Mine will be.

  “What the Crescent Empire needs is the empress and her sacred gagargis working together for the better of their people. There cannot be a more blessed union than ours.”

  But for a moment, I struggle to even remember his name. He speaks as if I know him. Which must be true, for it isn’t in my nature to lose my virtue to a complete stranger.

  “Come closer.” The bed creaks as he shifts to sit with his back against the headboard. He draws a sheet with him, either to keep him warm or to shelter me from seeing that which has already been inside me. “Lay your head on my lap.”

  I roll over to accommodate to this, for it would be silly indeed of me to refuse this request that is so innocent in the light of what we have just done. It is then that I see his pale, bearded face. My eyes lock with the gaze so dark and intense that I can’t believe that I ever forgot his name.

  “You need not worry.” Gagargi Prataslav smiles at me, and it is as if he knew every thought that has ever crossed my mind. He brushes a lock of hair behind my left ear. He caresses my cheeks with his long, bony fingers.

  Though unfathomable sadness buds in the pit of my stomach, I refuse to cry. An empress never cries. For a ruler’s best weapon is her mind, a machinery that must keep on working even in the most dire of circumstances. Though I am not made of metal, tears may dull the cogs and wheels. I swallow the lump swelling in
my throat, and think and analyze.

  “You wanted it,” the gagargi says, drawing a circle on my forehead. His skin is rough against mine, that of an artisan who works with metal. I try to remember what his touch felt like earlier.

  Lovers do intimate things together. But I can’t remember any that I may or may not have done with the gagargi. When I was with him—this man I must obviously be in love with, though I don’t feel it now—was I passionate? Did I desire his attention? Or did I merely lie limp and unresisting? Awful, awful questions to ask oneself. Why am I thinking of such? I am the oldest Daughter of the Moon. I may choose my lovers as I wish. Why would I be with a man I didn’t want?

  “You were good.” His words, so soft but heavy still, carry the weight of truth. “You liked it a lot.”

  These statements . . . I stare back at him. His gaze is fully focused on me. His pupils dilate, and the whites of his eyes gleam. No one else has ever looked at me as he has, as if they saw straight into my soul . . .

  I feel it then. I wanted it. I was good. What we shared was good. The lump in my throat dissolves. I am in control of myself again.

  He opens his arms, and it is an invitation to an embrace. I crawl up, and rest my head against his chest that rises and falls with his steady breaths. His skin, covered with thick black hair, radiates the warmth I need. He isn’t muscular like a soldier, but wiry akin to a man who takes no pleasure in eating. With no sheet to cover me, I am similarly exposed to his scrutiny. It does frighten me to be like this.

  “Celestia . . .” He draws another circle on my forehead. This calms me more than any words ever could. “You are very important to me.”

  And as if he had pushed thick clouds aside, everything becomes so clear to me. What came to pass wasn’t an accident, a misjudged moment of lust. I have been drawn to this man, the great Gagargi Prataslav, for almost a year now. He was the first to listen to my concerns when I realized that the empire teeters on the edge of change. He spoke only facts when others beautified them. He agreed that drastic measures might need to be taken. And it was he who . . . Or was it me? It doesn’t matter which one of us first mentioned the possibility of a coup.