Freedom s Sisters

by Naomi Kritzer

  Karenite was not normally all that sturdy. I’d smashed dozens of pieces of it just the day before, between a pair of rocks. Why is this holding so firm? I tried to still my own churning thoughts for a moment to really look at the gate, and suddenly I saw them; the faint gleam of djinni. The gate itself is a binding spell.

  But the Sisterhood of Weavers didn’t make this.

  The Weavers hadn’t made it—it was a different sort of magic—but the center remained the same. Djinni. I fixed my eyes on the keystone of the arch, and with the same sight that let me see the djinni, I saw the burning light within that stone. The heart of the spell.

  “Get behind the boat,” I said. “I think the djinn is going to have to shield me while I do this.”

  I stepped up to the very edge of the gate and laid my hands flat against the sides of it. I could feel the pull, but I could fight against it; I would not be forced through. Arrows rattled against the djinn, and I knew the Sisterhood Guard would close in on me in moments. I closed my eyes, trying to still myself. “Return to the Silent Lands,” I said, my voice sounding rough and hoarse in my ears. “Lost ones of your kind. Return.”

  I could hear a rumble under my ear like distant thunder. Behind my eyelids, the world went suddenly white. I could feel the djinni passing through me like a river through a broken dam. There are more here than I realized. A lot more. I had freed multiple djinni at once before, but not like this. This was a flood, a torrent, and as it went on, and on, and on, I feared that it would overwhelm me.

  Then I heard Tamar scream. I looked over my shoulder.

  Kyros was coming toward me. He had freed his hands somehow, and I realized as I stood with my hands against the keystone that he meant to shove me through. No, I thought, but no sound came out. I couldn’t move any more than I could flee from the falling temple. Alibek and Tamar had tried to grab him as he left the boat but he had evaded Alibek and kicked Tamar aside. “Lauria, look out,” Tamar shouted, scrambling back to her feet. I could see the wildness in Kyros’s eyes and feel the heat of his breath; he is their tool, I knew.

  Then something yanked me up and out of the way. Kyros, unable to stop, plunged through the gate and disappeared. Around my neck, the binding stone of the black spell-chain exploded, burning my chest.

  And now home, a voice whispered, and dropped me to the ground.

  The djinni were still coming. The dam was breaking; the water was coming. I looked up to see the water breaking forth over me like spit from a world-eating dragon, like the end of the world…

  The river of spirits was going to carry me away like a stick in the flood—I would be lost, taken to the other side of the gate never to return. Then I felt hands clasp mine. Tamar. Our bond holds me here. I tightened my grip and felt the pounding ease as the last of the djinni passed through and away. It’s done.

  I opened my eyes. Above me, the archstone cracked, and the stone doorway began to collapse. Tamar knelt beside me, clutching my hand. Alibek stood over both of us, his sword drawn. Facing us was what looked like an entire phalanx of women from the Sisterhood Guard. Beyond them were palanquins of sorceresses.

  Shielding us still was the djinn from Kyros’s spell-chain, even though the binding stone had broken when Kyros passed through the gate. It wavered in the air as I watched; it was fighting the pull of the gate to continue to protect us, but I knew looking at it that it had fought that pull as long as it could. It was slipping away before my eyes.

  Good-bye, it whispered, and was gone. In another moment, the Sisterhood Guard would realize we no longer had our shield.

  But with the finality of embers finally quenched with water, I felt the gate close behind me. It’s gone. It’s gone. We’ve done it, we’ve remade the world, even if we die here, we’ve remade the world…

  A guard bent back her bow.

  But I felt something snatch me up off the ground—me, Tamar, and Alibek together. We were held side by side like three pebbles in an enormous fist. A djinn—a djinn had us. The Weavers must want us for questioning, I thought, but we were leaving—flying absurdly fast into the growing darkness, leaving behind the wagon, the palanquin, the ruined gate, and whatever remained of Kyros.

  And whatever the djinni took with them when they passed into their own world.

  Something felt as if it were missing, but I realized as I prodded it that it was the borderland. Of late it had been so close to me that I could touch it almost as easily as breathing. Now…when I reached, there was only darkness.

  The world is made anew.

  I closed my eyes and surrendered to the dark.

  The djinn set us down carefully next to a palanquin at the edge of the steppe. Zivar was waiting, a faint smile on her face. “Did my aerika serve you well? One doesn’t seem to have returned.”

  Of course, I realized. The one that pulled me away from Kyros had been sent by Zivar. She’d sent both her djinni to help us.

  “Your djinni saved our lives,” I said. “What did you tell them to do? Surely you didn’t know Kyros would try to push me through the gate before it closed?”

  “I told them to go, and serve you as well as they could. I’m pleased to hear that was sufficient. Kyros tried to push you through? Why?”

  “Someone must have been whispering in his ear. That djinn that helped us find Kyros, back in the Koryphe—it was probably her.”

  I had been burned by Kyros’s spell-chain, and Zivar gave me cold water to soothe it. She’d bought food somewhere, and so we had dinner, then lay in the grass.

  “Where now?” Tamar asked.

  “Home,” I said.

  “That doesn’t really answer my question,” she said.

  “Home is where my sister is,” I said. “And the Alashi are her people.”

  Alibek was silent. Tamar sat up and looked at him. “Alibek?” she asked.

  He gave her a very faint smile. “Home is where your feet are,” he said. I wasn’t sure why, but this made her blush, and also seemed to please her.

  “Zivar?” I asked. “Do you still want to join the Alashi?”

  “Do you think they’ll have me?” she said.

  “Yes,” I said, though in all honesty I wasn’t sure.

  “I might as well go back with you,” she said. “The Sisterhood of Weavers would be delighted to see me, but not for any reasons that would be good for my health.”

  Zivar used the palanquin to take us very close to where the Alashi were camped, though not all the way, for obvious reasons. We were a few hours’ walk from the camp of an Alashi clan when she had the djinn put us down; I saw her glance at me when she tucked the spell-chain under her clothes.

  When we reached the clan, the elder present remembered Tamar and Alibek from the spring. He heard Zivar’s story, and the rest of ours, and ceremonially presented Zivar with a blue bead. This clan had heard stories of the river’s return, but they hadn’t seen the river yet themselves. The elder sent riders to escort us to the eldress of all the clans, since she needed to hear our story and Tamar and Alibek’s report.

  Zivar was uncomfortable on horseback, and I walked beside her to keep her company. “Lauria,” she said. “The elder saw my spell-chain—I know he did. So the Alashi are willing to take me with my spell-chain?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Are you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  She took my hand, and spun me to face her. “I think you know what I mean.”

  “Zivar…I guess I’d have to think about it. It’s a slave. I don’t like to keep slaves—though I have to admit that I kept Kyros’s for a bit because I knew I would need it. I’m not going to tell you what to do. It’s not as if you can make another spell-chain if you destroy this one.”

  “All I wanted, once, was to be free,” she said. “But I lived a long way from the steppe. I couldn’t imagine getting that far on my own…”

  “You’re free now,” I said.

  “Yes,” she said. But I wasn’t sure she believed it.


  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  T AMAR

  The world was made new, but it wasn’t exactly the world I had imagined.

  When Lauria, Alibek, Zivar, and I arrived on the steppe, we were the first of a flood of refugees—former slaves who’d heard of the river’s return and had simply walked away and headed for the Alashi. The river did not free all the slaves. The slaves who made it to the steppe brought stories of slaves brought back and beaten or killed. Other slaves were too sick, old, or beaten down to run away.

  But the Greeks had more urgent problems than the loss of their slaves. The army and the Weavers turned on each other, scrambling for control of the remaining spell-chains. Rumors traveled slowly now that hardly anyone could get to the borderland, but the refugees brought plenty: riots over food, assassinations of sorceresses to get their spell-chains, an uprising of slaves in one city that left every soldier dead.

  With a great deal of effort, I could still find my way to the borderland at night. Lauria could not, and neither could Zhanna or Jaran. I did meet another shaman who could—one of the old men. We seemed to have found other gates to reach it. I wondered sometimes if I used the one in Lauria’s heart.

  Zivar was sent out to a sword sisterhood for the rest of the summer. The world shook around us, but the eldress was bent on doing things the way she always had. Lauria was still weak from her time as a prisoner of the Greeks, so she stayed with one of the clans. I wanted to stay with Lauria, and Alibek wanted to stay with me.

  They set up a yurt for the three of us.

  It was less awkward than I’d feared. Alibek and Lauria got along very well when they didn’t think too much about the past. Lauria was sad and distracted, grieving for her mother and thinking about the destruction she’d brought. Alibek treated both of us like sisters.

  The clan was busy getting ready for winter and dealing with all the new arrivals. Our yurt had space for more people, but the elder of the clan didn’t trust us not to give the blossoms tips on passing the tests, so he didn’t put anyone in with us. The elder knew that we had freed the river, but he didn’t tell anyone else, so neither did we.

  Despite the war and the flood, it was a very peaceful couple of weeks.

  Having Alibek treat me like a sister was a relief at first. Thinking about the kiss we’d shared still made me blush. But as the days passed, I began to think again about how nice it would be not to feel terrified. Late at night, in the dark of the yurt, I ran my palms over my skin and imagined someone else’s hands touching me. Back in the harem, Meruert and Aislan sometimes felt pleasure. I had wondered if part of me was broken and that was why I always hated it. I decided in those nights that I was not broken. At least not anymore.

  But did I want to share Alibek’s company? That evening in Penelopeia, it had seemed so reasonable. We were both former concubines. We were comfortable together because of all we’d been through. But now that I was back with a clan, surrounded by families, I remembered that Alashi couples were supposed to marry if they were going to have a child together. They were supposed to stay together at least until the child was old enough to go off and join a sisterhood or brotherhood. I knew ways to avoid pregnancy, but they weren’t foolproof. Did I like Alibek enough to have a family with him? Of course, right now I was living with him, and it wasn’t too bad. He was even courteous to Lauria. That was a good sign.

  A week before we were to ride out for the fall gathering, Lauria invited me to go riding with her. We borrowed horses, packed food and water, and headed out in the early morning. We rode for an hour or two, then stopped to rest. I saw a rockslide and Lauria picked up a piece of karenite. “They say merchants still buy it,” she said.

  “For how much longer?”

  “Who knows?”

  “What do you think the Alashi will do once everyone realizes it’s not valuable anymore?”

  Lauria looked up at the sky. “I think we’ll see a lot more overland merchant caravans, like the one the sisterhood met last summer. Even if no one wants karenite, people will still want silk and the other stuff you can buy beyond the edge of the Empire.”

  “Are you thinking the Alashi will turn to banditry?”

  “No, I’m thinking they could offer to guard the caravans from bandits, for a fee, and sell them water and other supplies that they’ll need as they pass.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Anyway, that’s not why I dragged you out here. I wanted to talk.” She swatted a bug. “Do you and Alibek need me to move out?”

  “What?”

  “I’ve seen the way you look at each other. But you never touch. I was just wondering if maybe you needed some privacy.”

  I blinked. “I—uh—you don’t have to move out.”

  “Are you sure? Because if that’s not it, what’s the problem?”

  “It just seems so complicated,” I said, finally.

  “Life is short,” Lauria said. “Don’t waste too much time thinking about how complicated things are.”

  I looked up at Lauria. Alibek had thought I might desire Lauria, and I wondered suddenly if she desired me. But I saw no hint of that in her face. “You’re a good sister,” I said. “Did you ever want to be, you know—” My voice failed me.

  Lauria took my hand and looked into my eyes. “Where I came from, blood sisterhood didn’t mean that you were sisters in a way that would make it wrong to desire each other. But when we first met, you seemed very young to me. While I was in Penelopeia, I longed to be with you, but what I wanted was your company. If we had taken a different path together, maybe…but I can tell that you love Alibek. And you know, between us, we could really use a larger family, don’t you agree? Some kin-by-marriage for each of us.”

  I felt a sudden relief, though I hadn’t thought I was worried.

  “You love Alibek. I don’t know what’s holding you back, but—try not to let it chain you any longer.”

  When we returned to the camp, I sought Alibek out. He was whittling a whistle for one of the children, and I waited until he had finished before I spoke.

  “I’m ready,” I said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  L AURIA

  When fall gathering came, Ruan invited Tamar and me to stay with the sisterhood, for old times’ sake. Alibek had been invited to stay with his old brotherhood, and wanted to see the men from the brotherhood again, so the two agreed to separate at least for a few nights. They had a whole winter ahead to spend together.

  Ruan was tanned and confident; leadership was good for her, and she hadn’t made nearly as much of a mess of things as I would have predicted. They’d had three blossoms spend the summer with them—a woman from the mine, and two from Sophos’s household. Zhanna seemed to be keeping company with the former mine slave; they had the casual, affectionate air of summer friends who’d greatly enjoyed their summer. There were many others I recognized from last summer, including Maydan, the healer who’d been badly wounded in the final bandit attack. Maydan had spent the summer with one of the clans, but came to spend fall gathering with the sisterhood. She was looking good; she carried a walking stick but rarely used it.

  On the second night of fall gathering, we were sitting around the fire when we heard the rustle of someone approaching; I looked up to see a lantern growing nearer. “Who’s coming?” Ruan called.

  “A former sister. May I approach?”

  “Former sisters are always welcome,” Ruan said, a little cautiously.

  I shaded my eyes against the lantern glare, and saw three figures. Then Janiya strode into the circle of firelight. She grabbed Tamar in a hug, then clasped hands with Ruan and with me. The other two women followed behind—Xanthe, and then an old woman I didn’t know. Xanthe had gotten rid of her guard uniform, though she still had her sword.

  “I heard from Xanthe that you escaped after your arrest,” Janiya said to Tamar.

  Tamar nodded, then glanced at me with a faint smile; she was wondering how much more Xanthe had told her. I craned my neck a bit to
look at Xanthe. She was staring at the ground, but raised her head after a moment to meet my eyes squarely. No djinn looked back at me; only Xanthe, nervous and a bit shy. I nodded, since I knew Tamar was looking at me. Xanthe shrugged slightly and dropped her head again, letting her mother speak for her.

  Janiya introduced Xanthe as her daughter. The old lady was named Damira, and she seemed to be a long-ago friend of Janiya’s. Everyone made them welcome, even Ruan, who seemed to have learned how to be kind to newcomers during her months as the leader.

  Late that night, when most of the sisterhood had gone to sleep, I asked Janiya what was happening in Penelopeia.

  “Well, we left quite some time ago,” Janiya said. “The news about the river reached the city right away. Within a couple of days, we heard rumors that the sorceresses couldn’t bind djinni anymore. The Sisterhood mostly withdrew to the Koryphe with their families—they’re using djinni to bring in supplies, and shutting out the army.”

  “What about the rest of the city?”

  “There were riots. The homes of the Weavers had been left empty, and some people broke in to steal what was left behind. The city guard started out trying to stop them, but then joined in.”

  “Did you run into the army on your travels?”

  “We tried not to. You’d think they’d realize their opportunity to seize power, with the Sisterhood’s power so sharply limited, but right now most of the soldiers are frightened and just trying to get home, wherever home is.” Janiya cocked her head and looked at me. “The Empire is on its knees, Lauria. If a great leader steps in who can bring together what’s left of the Sisterhood and the army, it might lurch to its feet once again, but I saw no sign of that happening on my travels. The remains of the Empire will not fall overnight, but it will fracture into a thousand little clans, I think, each with a leader who possesses a spell-chain.”

  “Do you think the Alashi are safe?”