by Anya Josephs
“So, men are allowed to use their True Names all the time, then,” Sisi continues.
Karili defers politely. “I suppose you could look at it that way, yes.”
“Then why aren’t we women afforded the same freedom?”
Karili tries not to let any expression at all show on her bland and pretty face. It’s almost working, too. “Women also wear skirts, and men do not. Some things just are the way that they are, for no good reason, or indeed for no reason at all. Even if the meaning of it is not obvious, it is still worth following traditions, in order to get along with others. That is why we have a system of etiquette—so those of us who live in close proximity to one another know how to be most respectful of the thoughts and ideals of others. It is this that I have been instructed to teach you, my lady.”
“You may consider me wildly selfish, then, but I prefer to go by the name my mother gave me before she died. Even if it is the tradition to do otherwise.”
I groan under my breath. Once Sisi has brought her dead parents into an argument, there’s no coming back from it, not for anyone. And as I expected, Karili just stammers an apology and takes a step toward the door.
“I’m so sorry to remind you of a painful subject, milady. Perhaps we can reconsider the topic tomorrow.”
“That suits me fine.”
When Karili has left the room, Sisi turns and grins at me. “That went better than expected.”
“You didn’t have to chase her off like that.”
“I know, but now I’ve the afternoon free. See you at suppertime—or when the next idiot comes in to drag us out for another pointless lesson.”
Before I can protest any more—and before Aunt Mae, whose eyes are gleaming murderously, can intervene—Sisi has disappeared into her room. I hear the sound of a lock hitching shut behind her.
I wonder what she could possibly be doing in there. Other than the luxurious furniture, my room was empty of anything entertaining. Perhaps she’s lain down on the feather bed for a nap. After the dreadful sleep I got last night, it’s not an unappealing idea.
Still, we have duties, and I want to do well here, even if Sisi seems determined to make an enemy of everyone we meet. I sleepwalk through the meeting with the hairdressers, and barely taste the luxurious dinner that is served to us, but at least I show up.
Aunt Mae suggests a round of cards while we digest, and I accept gratefully. Anything to have a break from more rules, more lessons, more strangers.
I hear one of the maids whisper that card playing, too, is apparently unladylike, but on that subject, I’m arriving at Sisi’s level of complete disdain for the word and all that it signifies. I just want to pretend things are a little bit normal, and maybe have some fun along the way. And playing cards with Aunt Mae, who is—tonight as always—wickedly good at it, certainly qualifies.
“Any notion what your cousin is up to?” she asks me, after she’s trounced me at the first hand. We’re playing with our after-supper chocolates as forfeits, and she pops two in her mouth, grinning as she asks.
“No.”
“She didn’t even come out for supper tonight.”
“I noticed.”
“Well.” She sets her cards down and looks me in the eye. “You’d tell me, wouldn’t you? If you had any idea of what she‘s been doing in there for all these hours? Or why she’s acting so…mysterious?”
Mysterious is one way of describing Sisi’s behavior today. I might call it disgraceful, myself. She might not like the sort of people that her third cousins or Karili are, but they haven’t done anything to wrong her either, and she seems to be trying to upset them on purpose. Sisi can be difficult, but cruelty is not like her.
“Of course I’d tell you, Auntie,” I promise, although I’m not sure it’s the truth. Sisi is obviously trying to keep something secret. If I could—if she were to trust me with it—I would try to protect it for her.
Aunt Mae probably knows me well enough to recognize the deception, but she doesn’t say anything. She just wins another half dozen chocolates off me in two more rounds of cards and sends me to bed.
Exhausted from a long day of tripping over my own feet and being shamed for using a napkin incorrectly, I fall into my bed. This time, I’m asleep at once in the unfamiliar room. I don’t even miss Sisi’s presence beside me as I slide easily into unconsciousness.
It’s a deep sleep indeed that I’m awoken from by the touch of a hand on my shoulder. I start to scream, but another hand clamps down over my mouth hard. I have just begun to resign myself to my imminent murder when I recognize Sisi in the near blackness of a room lit only by the embers of a dying fire. “Quiet, you idiot,” she hisses, and takes her hand away so I can speak.
I whisper, “What are you doing sneaking in here? I thought you were going to kill me in my bed. There’s a door. You could have knocked on it.”
“I didn’t want anyone to know I was here. Had to wait until everyone was asleep. And didn’t want to risk making any noise. Scoot over.”
I do as she tells me, sliding all the way over to one side of the bed so she can climb in next to me. The enormous, feather-soft bed is rather lonely for just one girl. It is draped with silken sheets and damask coverlets stuffed with goose down, and the bed itself is carved from the purest ebony.
Yet as Sisi settles in next to me, I start to feel at peace, even though everything is different now—the luxurious bed has replaced our tattered, old mattress; the delicate glow of the fire illuminates my room; and there’s the fear, not of being scolded by family members, but of being overheard by the spying maids. Still, it’s a relief to be back together, as Sisi draws the thick damask coverlet over both of us so we can whisper together in the safety of the dark, quiet night.
“I didn’t want to tell you where anyone might hear, but I think we’re safe in your room.”
“I should hope so,” I retort. If my bed isn’t safe, I don’t know what is.
“Don’t forget, the maids all work for Lord Ricard. They could be listening in. They’re probably required to,” Sisi cautions, and then draws in a deep breath. I feel the mattress rise and fall with the pressure of her inhalation, and I shift a little closer to her, so I get the warmth of her skin almost touching mine, too. “I’ve been reading,” she says.
That is not the Earth-shattering secret I was expecting. I tell her as much, and she laughs at me.
“Hoping for more excitement than the contents of a book?”
“Aye.”
“Things here on Earth are very rarely like a tale, Jena. You would do well to remember that.”
I hate when Sisi acts like she’s so much smarter than me just because she’s a little bit older, so I ignore that comment. I want to find out what on Earth she’s up to, not quarrel with her. “Why reading?”
“It’s part of why I agreed to come. For Merri’s sake, and the family’s, yes, but also because the greatest library in the entire Kingdom is here, in the palace. As the Prince’s honored guests, we have access to any volume we like. I’ve been having the maids bring me dozens of different books, all sorts, to disguise my true purpose. Hopefully, they won’t be able to find any pattern to what I’ve asked them for.”
“What is your purpose, then? I assume you aren’t just reading for pleasure.” I’ve never known her to do so. Admittedly, it’s not like there were books hanging around on the farm, but, knowing Sisi, if she’d had a passion for reading, she’d have already found a way to make it happen.
“Indeed, I am not.” She hesitates, her voice becoming even quieter, so that, even pressed close as we are, I can barely hear her. “What do you know of magic, cousin?”
“Um…” Once again, I feel like I am at my lessons, and not as the star pupil. “There are two sorts. Good magic, governed by the konim in the Capital, who use their power to learn about the Earth, never to interfere. And the other kind.”
“Surely you know what it is called.”
She must be goading me. Any fool can nam
e blood magic, wielded by the villain of every childhood story, playing the central role in every nightmare. It seems too perilous to speak the words aloud here though, in the dark, with listening ears and danger all around. “I do know it,” is what I settle for.
“And you know what’s become of magic, since Lord Ricard took his place so close to his brother’s throne? Jena, do you know what became of my parents?”
I don’t see what the one question has to do with the other. “Sisi, you’re not making any sense.”
“I do wish you wouldn’t call me that, you know.”
I scowl at her in the darkness. As if she ever respects my wish to be called by my by-name so we don’t get into trouble. “Sigranna, then. It doesn’t exactly trip off the tongue, though.”
“It’s my name. It doesn’t need to be easy to say.”
I get the sense that I’m annoying her—it must be her biting sarcasm that clues me in—and I don’t want to drive her back to her own room. “Start with the last question. What do your parents have to do with this?”
“Well, it’s complicated, and it would take quite a family tree to explain it to you in full, but my mother could claim descent just like the King and his brother can, from the First King and Queen directly, and so she would have been called to Test her right if anything ever happened to His Majesty. You know how everyone here is always saying what Number they are in the Kingdom?”
“Yes.”
“That’s how closely related they are to the First King and Queen. And so, how close they are to the throne. And it’s the order they are Tested in.”
“I thought the throne went to the next person in line, the King’s brother or son or what have you.”
“They have to pass the Test first. That’s one of the things I’ve been reading to try to find out about—what exactly this Test is. All I can find is that it’s some sort of magic, just like in Aunt Mae’s story, and that it was put in place back in the days of the First King and Queen to determine who is worthy to have the throne. And of course, that Ricard failed it.”
“What?” I exclaim.
“Keep your voice down!” she reminds me in a harsh whisper, and I bite my lip as she continues. “Ricard is King Balion’s older brother. So, when his father was King, he was Second in the Kingdom. He would have been the very first to take the Test, to get the chance to become First in the Kingdom, and so the King of All the Earth. He failed, and his brother took the throne.”
“But what’s this got to do with you and your family?”
“My mother was only Twelfth in the Kingdom at the time. Eastsea was never wealthy or politically important, but with the way the marriages and everything worked out, that was her number. It means that, if anything happened to King Balion, she’d be tested. Strong ruak apparently ran in the Eastsea line. Maybe Ricard thought it would give my mother an advantage in the Test. Maybe he was just afraid of magic, or that he’d fail again and be humiliated. So, he had our mages accused of doing blood magic, and put to death. Then when my mother and father got sick, there was no one to heal them. The people were afraid, and someone—maybe one of the Golden Soldiers, maybe Ricard himself—spread a rumor that fire could stop the spread of the pox, so they set the manor ablaze. There was no one to protect Jorj and I, and neither of us had my mother’s ruak. The smartest thing to do was run.”
“That’s terrible. Sisi, I never knew.” Sisi has never spoken much of the days before she came to live with our family, though I know she and Jorj talk of it from time to time in private. She must not remember much, and the story is so very sad. I’ve never wanted to push her to discuss it.
“I didn’t either. Jorj told me, warned me really, when I agreed to come here. He wanted me to know what I’d be facing. What Ricard really is.”
“And that’s why you’re here. You want revenge?” I ask. Finally, it starts to make sense, why Sisi is here, why she’s acting so strangely, why she has such a hatred for Lord Ricard, a man she’s never even met. If she blames him for the death of her parents, of course she would hate him.
“Not revenge. Answers. It’s not just my parents. He’s done so much harm, Jena. You remember.” From the hard tone in her voice, I can perfectly picture the very scene she’s speaking of, the burned and ruined cabin, the overrun fields.
“I know about what happened to Kariana, but he didn’t do that, did he? It was the soldiers—”
“His soldiers, acting on his orders.” She moves even closer to me, her breath tickling warmth against the shell of my ear. “And Kariana can't be the only one. My parents, and how many other nobles that stood in his way? Kariana, and how many other mages whose power was a threat to him?”
“What are you going to do about it?”
“Watch. Learn. Plan.” Her teeth glint white in the dark as she grins. “I’m going to find out what that Test is if I have to read every Goddess-cursed book in the entire royal library. I’m going to find out why he failed. I’m going to find out what he wants, and I’m going to make sure he never, ever gets it.”
The thing no one ever remembers about Sisi is that she is markedly terrifying when she gets an idea in her head. She is beautiful, which people tend to use as a shorthand for empty-headed, often to their own misfortune. No one ever looks at me, which is why I slip right beneath people’s notice, but no one ever stops looking at her for long enough to think about her. I know she hates this state of affairs with every fiber of her being. I also know that she intends to make every use of it that she can.
“Let me help,” I blurt.
“There’s nothing you can do.”
Those words, delivered so calmly, spark something in me. I’m rarely angry, but suddenly a hot fury bubbles up to my throat. “You don’t know that. You don’t know everything.”
Sisi hesitates. When she speaks again, her voice is gentle. “I need to go through these books without being noticed. You can’t help me with that.”
She’s not wrong. I can’t even read my own name. “But maybe I can learn.”
I can barely see her face in the near darkness, so maybe I imagine that she looks impressed. “Maybe you can,” she says, and kisses the top of my head, her lips as light as a feather. My heart pounds in my chest at the gentle touch.
It’s nice that for once she’s not telling me I’m too stupid to help or that I don’t know enough or can’t understand things. It’s nice for us to be back on the same side.
“We’ll start tomorrow, okay?”
“Okay.”
She shuffles a little closer, curling an arm around me. “Is it all right if…”
“What?”
“If I stay here, just for tonight?”
“Of course.”
I think about asking why, but I decide it’s better not to. Soon, her breathing evens into the steady rhythm of sleep. I try to mirror her—tomorrow will be a long day, and I should try to rest too.
The audacity of it, her absolute confidence in herself, shakes me and impresses me. I’m not like that. I never have been. Having heard Sisi’s plan, I’m not sure if I should wish I were a hero like her or be glad that I am the way I am. A little bird, quick and always unseen—but I may be able to fly out of danger, and Sisi never will. She shines too brightly, not only with her remarkable beauty, but also because of her brilliant mind and her unrestrained anger. She’ll never be able to turn herself off, turn herself down, fit in, be safe.
And I certainly can’t change her; unlike Sisi, I’m not mad enough to imagine I can reshape the Earth to my will simply because it doesn’t suit me as it is.
Yet, if there’s anything I can do, if there’s some way I can help Sisi on her quest for answers or revenge or a better Earth, mad though it may be, I’ll do it.
I’ll always be at her side. Though I might rather she wanted to stay out of trouble, I’ve never been able to change her mind on that, and I’ll never leave her to face her battles alone, even if she willingly gets herself into them.
No, unlike Sisi,
I don’t believe that one foolish girl can change the fate of the Kingdom.
But for her sake, at her side—believing it is possible or not—I will try to make sure one can.
Chapter Eleven
In the light of morning, my cousin and aunt go about their routines. It feels as though I’m watching them from behind a heavy pane of glass. I can see, but I cannot touch. I have been doing this all my life, I realize, watching and listening and perhaps even learning, but doing nothing with that knowledge.
No longer.
I’m going to be a part of things now. Even if that means I have to change everything. At lunchtime, Sisi makes the announcement. “I have made arrangements for Jena to receive one additional set of lessons.”
“And what is that to be?” Aunt Mae replies, sounding a bit incredulous.
“As a lady, Jena ought to know how to read and write. I have spoken to Elan, and he knows the perfect young man for the task.”
“A young man?” Now her skepticism is outright distaste, although I should think she knows better than to fear for my virtue, especially with Sisi around to keep any admirers’ attention firmly away from me. At least she isn’t harping on the idea that I have no need to be messing with books when there’s important work to be done. Maybe now that we’re in the palace, all of that has changed. It’s not like there are apples to be picked, after all, or dishes to be scrubbed, or mending to be done.
“He was studying to be one of the konim, before the Prince, apparently…well, he is a very knowledgeable young man. Not to mention a member of the Kingdom’s highest religious order. Jehan is his name. Eight hundred and somethingth in the Kingdom, I can’t remember. He’ll be here after we survive our etiquette class—with your permission, Auntie, of course.”
“A priest?”
“Aye,” Sisi explains, “One of the last. He was chosen as a boy by Garem, the Chief of the Konim, to replace him one day. Jehan has never set foot outside palace grounds. Elan tells me he is a most scholarly and respectful young man.”