by Pia Morrow
“You knew,” Myra said. “Before I did, you knew. You were holding on to me so tightly, you were afraid before I was.”
There was quiet.
“It’ll be dawn soon,” Kiana said finally. “We should try to get some rest before we set off again. It’s a long way to Ketania.”
Ketania was the nearest port city, the capital of this district. From there they might get a ferry to anywhere. Though she had travelled the land her entire life, the possibilities were suddenly dizzying. She didn’t press Kiana any further for questions and they curled up to sleep in the damp tree hollow, just a sliver of space between them.
Myra was so exhausted she might have slept anywhere, and so she did and did not wake again until Kiana roused her. The sun was already the strong gold of a day in full flow.
“We slept so long,” Kiana was saying. “We probably won’t make it to the city by nightfall.” She was looking off into the middle distance, her thoughts seemed far away.
“You seem so sure like you’ve planned this all out perfectly,” Myra marvelled.
Kiana gave a half-smile. “Because I have. I’ve thought about this for years and years.” She crawled out of the tree hollow, and Myra followed.
“What do you mean?”
They dusted themselves off and walked. How strange to have nothing to hold you to any place on earth. To simply walk and know you only had yourself.
“The day my parents left me…” She trailed off, then took a breath before continuing. “Well, it was like an earthquake. A world-changing event. Nothing was ever the same, could ever be the same. I had to imagine a whole new life for myself.”
“Including running away?”
“Yes, if necessary. Once you know how suddenly and irrevocably life can transform - and I learnt that lesson young - you know that any eventuality is possible. And so you plan. Half-formed imaginings at first, but then that develops until you know exactly what you’ll do in a given situation. It’s a kind of insurance against the world. Deep down, I knew I’d have to leave someday, I just didn’t know when or how or why.” She smiled then. “But I’m glad it’s with you.”
Myra wanted to hug her friend. So practical and smart, turning her trauma into pragmatism. “You saved my life,” she said, truthfully. “Then and now.”
They continued to walk for several hours, the forest looking so much the same that Myra was afraid they were just going in circles. Eventually, though, they came to a wide road, which she knew led to the city.
Almost as soon as they came to the road, they heard a loud rumbling behind them. It was a train of military caravans. Myra felt sick as they passed, and saw that the caravans were full of people. Not one held a single prisoner, as hers had, but had at least ten cramped into the tiny space. The smell of excrement and human misery was thick as they passed, and they stared with wide glassy eyes into space. A soldier eyed the two of them as he passed.
“Come on,” Kiana was saying. “We need to get off the road.”
And so they went off the straight path that would take them directly to the city and continued to wind through the forest, not straying too far from the road which could at least act as a kind of guiding compass. Nearly every time they came near, they would hear the rumbling of a caravan and Myra’s stomach would roil with dread and fear. This way would take longer, but she couldn’t stand to be back in their eyesight. She wondered if the word had gotten out that she’d escaped. The likelihood was no one would care except the soldiers who lost her, but she couldn’t be too safe.
Far too soon, it seemed, night fell. Beside her, Kiana was quiet, and Myra knew she was exhausted. Her shoes were thin leather, and though she had pilfered a cloak from one of the other performers, it didn’t warm her enough. She had been travelling for two days with only a skin of water and next to no food - at least Myra had had her sleep and her stale bread rolls. So when they came across an inn by the road, Myra decided to put her foot down.
“We need shelter tonight.”
Kiana opened her mouth to argue but Myra stopped her. “Proper shelter, not just a tree. And hot food and drink, or we won’t even make it to the city. Or we’ll perish from hunger and thirst the moment we cross the threshold.”
She took out the two gold coins she had on her, courtesy of tips she’d received on their last performance night. “It’s enough to see us through tonight, then we’ll get to the city tomorrow and figure out the rest from there.”
Kiana looked like she might argue for a moment, then seemed to lose all fight. “Okay, boss, whatever you say,” she mumbled instead, and Myra gave her a poke (but not too hard because she looked like she might keel over).
Fortunately, there were no soldiers in occupancy at the inn except a small group of young conscripts in the corner who seemed too in their cups to pose any significant threat. They paid the innkeeper with gold and gratefully sat together on a bench with their mead and a hot bowl of stew accompanied by warm crusty bread. Myra had never appreciated sustenance more than she did now, and she finished her food impressively quickly.
For several minutes, as they ate and drank, there was silence between them as they sat in warm contentment. They had so rarely been away from the rest of the circus like this, just a moment here and there when they were between towns or had a rare few days break where they were neither travelling nor performing. Myra had never known a true home, but she imagined it might feel something like this, sitting beside her closest friend with good food and warmth.
Then she remembered the whole reason they were there, and her heart sank a little.
“How did you know?” she said. “About the mage blood. I never…I never would have even…I’m the last person…” She laughed at the absurdity of it. In a circus full of strange talents, big personalities, and heaps of secret, she had always been dreadfully, painfully unremarkable. Except when that had been the only thing saving her from imprisonment and forced labour, of course.
Kiana sipped her drink thoughtfully. “I didn’t know know. I suspected I suppose.”
“But how?”
“The seeds.”
Myra was utterly confused. “The what?”
“Remember that magic packet of seeds you showed me when we were kids?”
“Vaguely…it was the only present Aunt Elba ever gave me. Magic was less dangerous, then.”
“Well, it wasn’t the seeds that were magic, Myra. It was you.”
She frowned. “No, they were magical. Sprouts in less than a minute. That’s what she said.”
“Well, she lied.” Kiana sighed and looked right into her eyes. “I stole them.”
“You…oh.”
“Even then, something seemed strange about it and I wanted to try for myself. So I went into your things one day and tried for myself. I planted seed after seed, just like you had, and nothing happened. I thought…I thought maybe there was something wrong with me, but when I showed them to Bhatik, he said they were just your normal old flower seeds. And that there were no such things as magic seeds, though once there had been mages that would bring in the harvests. They were the most prized of all because they could save whole villages from starvation and they brought prosperity wherever they went. I didn’t know whether to believe him, but it stuck in my mind from then, and I always wondered…”
Myra said nothing for a moment. Had her aunt given her the seeds as a kind of magical litmus test? Had she known more of her father than she had pretended and thought he might have passed on his powers all this time? But in the end, none of it really mattered. Aunt Elba had never cared for her, not deeply, and part of her wondered if she had simply made sure not to get attached.
“Why did you never talk about it with me?” They had shared everything, she thought.
Kiana looked down into her lap determinedly and said nothing.
“Ki?”
When she looked up, her eyes were shining. “I was afraid if I said it out loud, I’d lose you too.”
She reached across the
table and grasped her friend’s hands. “Never,” she said fiercely, and she had never believed anything more in her life.
As they proceeded upstairs to their shared room, the mood was strange between them, a kind of rhythmic thrumming in the air around them. They danced around each other in the room, not saying much as if afraid to break something precious which had been birthed, fragile and new, in this shared space away from everything they knew.
When they had prepared for bed, they lay on the lumpy mat on the inn’s floor and the space seemed impossibly small. How had they slept curled together in a tree hollow just the night before and not felt this incessant humming between their bodies?
They had both been lying on their backs, staring at the ceiling when Kiana turned to face her, silent. Myra watched as the moonlight through the window limned her face in silver and suddenly touch was not a choice anymore. She reached out and cupped her face in her hand, softly, as if she were a dream that might dissipate if touched too hard. For a moment, they stayed like that. Still and lost in the depths of each other’s eyes. Then, before Myra had a moment to react, Kiana leaned forward and brought their lips together. Soft at first, like she had brought the finest gossamer to her lips, then harder, deeper. Kissing her back felt as natural as breathing as if she’d been drowning all this time and her mouth was air, sustenance, life. Their hands explored each other’s bodies, places they had seen and known before suddenly became new, mysterious terrains. Her exhaustion forgotten, she let herself go to Kiana and thought she finally knew what magic was.
Afterwards, they lay heavy in the rising dawn.
“I can’t believe…” Kiana began.
“That we did that?” Myra was suddenly afraid that she might regret it, that the stress and excitement of the past few days had simply warped Kiana’s mind.
She turned to her. “I can’t believe that we didn’t do that.” She ran a hand through her short, tightly curled hair and smiled like the sunrise. “All those years we’ve spent together as adults, shared a bed, and we might have been doing that instead of sleeping.”
Myra laughed in relief. “We wouldn’t have slept a wink for years then, I think.”
“True. But that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.”
Myra didn’t ask her what it had meant, what it would mean, what they might do. Always a worrier, she found herself uncannily calm. For the first time in her life, she felt things would be okay. As long as they were together, little that mattered could go wrong, it seemed. Even the question of her mage blood, the emperor’s persecution, and their escape plan seemed mere trifles. They would make it through, together.
Chapter 4
After a lazy morning at the inn, they continued to make their way to the city. Nearer now, they began to encounter more and more people who were also travelling. While Myra kept a wary eye out for circus folk and soldiers, Kiana seemed happier and more at ease than Myra had seen her in a long while. She smiled as she watched her chat with strangers, always the more sociable and charming of the two of them.
After talking with a farmer on his way to the city market, she bounded over to Myra.
“So, I think I might have got us jobs?”
“Jobs?” said Myra blankly. “Ki, we can’t stay in the city.”
Something flitted across Kiana’s face then, so briefly that in the next moment Myra was sure she had imagined it. “Yes, but we’ll need to pay for the ferry fair, they don’t come cheap, you know.”
“Of course.” Myra felt a little sick. Usually she was the practical one, had thought everything out. But outside the circus, she had no idea, really, of life and its simple necessities. Number one being money.
“Denny over there says the orchard, just inside the city walls, is always looking for extra pickers at harvest season. It’s back-breaking work, but I doubt there’s much more work available for a tight-rope walker and a circus manager.”
“You don’t have to work,” Myra said, suddenly horrified. “You’ve already done so much…too much for me. This is all because of me, so I should do it alone.”
Kiana linked an arm through hers and rested her head on Myra’s shoulders. They could just about see the city gates now. “You’re so silly, sometimes.”
“I am many things, but silly is not one!”
“You are,” she said. “All those years I was trying to tell you I liked you and you never once cottoned on.”
Myra reeled in the enormity of this revelation.
“All those longing gazes and gentle touches, just so. And you think I’d leave you to pick apples alone? If I wasn’t horribly in love, I’d be offended.”
Myra stopped walking, much to the grumbles of the family laden with sacks of rice who had to maneuver around them. “Horribly in what now?”
Kiana took her hand and traced out the words softly on her skin. L-o-v-e. “And don’t you forget it.”
It was all she could do not to grab her and kiss her right there in the middle of everyone. Instead, still shy, she simply blushed and clasped her hand, all thoughts of bravely and nobly toiling alone forgotten in the earthquake of those four letters.
It was in that glow which they entered Ketania, and though the streets were full of the usual city detritus, the sandstone buildings characteristically dirty and square, it might have been the most marvellously beautiful place for all that it represented to Myra. Suddenly she couldn’t be sad or angry at her cursed blood, for she was here with her best friend on the brink of a new adventure. People liked to say you don’t how good something is until it’s gone - with Myra and the circus it was the opposite. Only now she was free of it could she appreciate the wealth of opportunity that lay beyond. No more tidying sweaty costumes or sleeping on lumpy grass in a leaking tent. Now she might do whatever pleased her.
With little money, there was not much they could do but gape at the displays of exotic foods and animals and people on display at the market. After being shuffled through the crowd round the covered, labyrinthine parts of the market, they finally extricated themselves and went to the orchards, a little out of the center where, as they had been promised they weren’t at all fussy about who they employed. The head picker merely grunted at them and tossed them a couple of baskets so they might get a few hours in before sunset. They learned that there were small huts on the orchard where the workers could sleep crowded on the floors at the end of the day for a small cut of their salaries, significantly less than renting a room might cost, and since they didn’t plan to spend long there, they agreed. It would be just like home, wherever that might currently be.
Myra was almost suspicious that things had gone so smoothly. Kiana had asked around for the prices of ferry tickets and told her they might be able to leave in a week. She had no idea what lay beyond that, but for once she didn’t mind. It would be an adventure.
Apple-picking, it turned out, was far harder than anticipated. After a mere half-hour her arms were ready to drop off and her only blouse was soaked with sweat and her first basket was less than half full. Kiana, with all her carefully honed tight rope muscles, fared slightly better, but even she was starting to flag.
“Maybe walking across a rope every day wasn’t so bad after all,” she grumbled, and moved away to a tree which seemed to have more apples on the lower branches. Myra took a moment to lean against the rough, shaded bark of the tree and catch her breath. It was then that she heard them.
“We could go to the circus tomorrow?” one worker was saying. “I’ve heard the lion show is really something.”
“Nah, too many soldiers at those things now. I fancy a trip to Miss Lora’s.”
“You always fancy a trip to Miss Lora’s,” the first voice grumbled in reply.
But Myra was no longer listening. A circus performing here. Tomorrow. And she only knew one that had been in the vicinity. Could it be their circus? Imagine escaping it only to end up right back in the arms of the woman who had sold her out with no regrets. The thought made her nauseous. She thought o
ver their planned itinerary and she was sure Ketania hadn’t been one of their upcoming stops, but with so much happening, who knew what could have changed? They had just lost one of their headline acts as well. The thought struck her cold. No one would look for her, cursed blood burden that she was, but what if they wanted Kiana back? She had been indentured to the circus, still working off the debt incurred by not leaving her out to the elements to die after her parents left her with Aunt Elba, and the crowds loved her. Yes, she thought. Aunt Elba would certainly try to get her back by whatever means necessary if she could.