by Sharon Shinn
“But I don’t understand what the aliora do all day,” I said to Jaxon once we had completed the tour. There had been no shops, no restaurants, no blacksmithing forges, no weavers or millers or soldiers. None of the common occupations I would have considered essential for civilization.
He found this amusing. “And what do you do all day, might I ask? You’re not spinning wool or baking bread, either.”
I lifted my chin. “I’m a princess, learning to be a queen,” I said.
“You dress, you talk, you eat, perhaps you sew,” he said, counting off the activities on his fingers. “You flirt, you dance. Aliora do all those things.”
“But—” Explaining trade and interconnected commerce was hardly one of my skills, but I felt certain something crucial was missing. “People must be productive in some fashion. I mean, someone has to grow the food. And make the clothes. And build the houses. Or they would go around naked and hungry with no place to sleep.”
“The necessary work gets done,” he said. “But so little is necessary. Aliora, unlike humans, are content to exist. They are peaceful and serene, restful and joyous. There is none of that drive to compete, to dominate, to achieve, to improve. Merely, they are. It can be a blissful way of life.”
“It sounds boring,” I muttered.
“I’ll wager you change your mind within a week,” he said. “Perhaps within a day.”
I had not changed my mind by the end of that day. All the walking—combined with the excitement of finding Alora to begin with, combined with the sleeplessness that had marked my previous night—made me tired. I yawned through an early dinner with Rowena and Jaxon, then sought my room.
The moss-covered bed was sinfully comfortable, and I snuggled into the soft pillows with a sigh of sheer contentment. One wall of my bedroom was completely open to the elements, except for the loose weave of thin branches that formed a green-and-brown grillwork. I could smell summer drifting in; I could taste starlight. The light breeze was scented with mysterious perfumes.
Before I closed my eyes, the last thing I did was pull out one of the vials my mother had given me. Uncorking it, I took a sniff. Just as she had said, cinnamon and clove, and perhaps a touch of orange peel. I tilted the bottle back and downed the concoction in one swallow. It was sweeter than I had thought it would be, so good I almost opened a second bottle just to recapture the taste on my tongue. For a moment, my memory conjured up detailed images of my mother, my father, my brother. I had one sharp, swift impression of the silhouette of Castle Auburn as viewed from the courtyard right at sunset. I remembered my maid’s south-country accent, the sleek feel of my horse’s withers beneath my hand, the smell of a wax candle in the instant the flame had been snuffed out.
I thought of Orlain and the look on his face when he carried me out of the river.
I closed my eyes and fell asleep before the moon had even risen. Otherwise, I’m sure I would have seen it peeking into my room through those half-formed walls.
Three
In the morning, I bathed myself in water that was scarcely more civilized than a woodland pool, and barely more sheltered, either. Rowena assured me that I would have complete privacy if I wanted it—which I did—but nonetheless, I washed and dressed as quickly as I could just in case any aliora stumbled through the circular hedge that was meant to shelter me from the sight of strangers. I was not sure how well I would like such an arrangement in the dead of winter; I was far from sure I liked it even in summer.
I put on a dress Rowena had given me, since my own wardrobe was limited. Green and sleeveless, it might have been stitched together from broadleaves and gossamer; it felt airy and peculiar against my skin, particularly where the hem swirled about my ankles. But I liked it. I felt like I was clothed in the forest itself.
Breakfast consisted of more foods I couldn’t identify, except for an exceptionally sweet red fruit called dayig. “I love this,” I exclaimed, helping myself to more than my fair portion. “This is my mother’s favorite fruit, though it is rare to get it at the castle. We spent a week at Faelyn Market once, and I ate it every day.”
Jaxon chuckled. “Well, you asked yesterday how aliora spend their time. A few of them harvest dayig and sell it to farmers who live near the forest. Not for money, of course—the aliora have no need for coins. But sometimes they trade for products they cannot make themselves.”
“Just let me know what kinds of products those might be,” I said, cutting up my third piece of fruit. I was careful to pry out all the white seeds inside, for they’re a very mild poison that will make you throw up if you eat enough of them. “I’ll come back to the forest myself and make some of those trades.”
“We hope you will come back to the forest anyway, whether or not you have something to barter,” Rowena said in her musical voice. “We would love to have you visit often.”
“What shall we do today?” I asked Jaxon, a hint of challenge in my voice. He had practically told me that I would fall under Alora’s spell so quickly that I would be content to lounge around under the interlaced branches, moonstruck and misty-eyed. But back at the castle, I was used to keeping busy. I didn’t think I had it in me to merely sit and dream.
“Do you like to sew?” Rowena inquired. “Cressida and some of her girls have finished dyeing a new lot of cloth and they’re about to start making dresses. Would you like to sew one of your own?”
I was an adequate seamstress, though usually too restless to sit still long enough to set a dainty stitch. But I was intrigued by the idea of working with that delicate, cobwebby Aloran cloth and making something I could bring back home with me.
“Oh, may I? I would love that! Who’s Cressida?” I exclaimed in quick succession.
Rowena smiled at my enthusiasm. “An aliora who was fond of your mother,” she said. “I think she is curious to get to know you.”
That’s never good—to meet someone who knew your mother—because how can you ever compare to a memory? You won’t look as pretty or be as charming or offer such witty and insightful comments. I sighed, and Jaxon laughed.
“Yes, you’ve quite a legacy to live up to,” he said. “Your mother and your aunt. Both quite remarkable, each in her own way.” He stood up and held his hand out to me. “Come along. I think you’ll like Cressida.”
I did, of course. Cressida was tall and thin, even by aliora standards, and even more ethereal looking. Her hair was short and untended, and her face, while tranquil, showed evidence of suffering. I wasn’t sure how to explain it. She was the first aliora I’d met whom I would describe as familiar with the concept of sadness.
“Princess,” she greeted me, coming forward with her hands outstretched. The smile routed the sadness, or mostly.
“Watch out for her gold,” Jaxon said sharply, but Cressida didn’t pause. She merely showed care as she placed her palms against my cheeks and bent down to kiss the top of my head.
I felt a moment’s blissful serenity. I was whole and cleansed, at peace, home from long wanderings.
She pulled away and for an instant I was as bereft as an orphaned infant.
“Princess,” she repeated, smiling down at me while I tried to adjust my thinking. You have no idea how seductive the aliora are, my mother had said. I was beginning to get an inkling. “How delightful to welcome you to Alora.”
“How delightful to be here,” I managed. I was still feeling as if she had abandoned me merely by dropping her hands.
“Zara has expressed an interest in being productive while we harbor her in Alora,” Jaxon said. “Rowena offered you as a diversion. Can you accommodate another worker?”
“Of course,” Cressida said. “Come with me, Princess. We shall make you a beautiful gown out of the bounty of the forest.”
Soon enough I was cutting and basting a dress from the strangest cloth I had ever seen. It was red as ripe raspberries, thin as lace, a light, rippling fabric that spilled like rainwater over my hands. I couldn’t detect the weave at all; it was more lik
e fine paper, pressed from a slurry of raw materials. When I held it up to determine where to cut, it draped across my body like dampened silk.
It might actually be indecent to wear a dress like this, but, oh, I was going to make it anyway.
Cressida had taken me to a work site that was little more than a clearing along the side of the road. Planks were set up as tables under a broad canopy, and near them sat trunks of fabric, baskets of thread and needles, and boxes of accessories like ribbons and buttons. Three other aliora were already in place, stitching at their billows of fabric, giggling with each other as they worked, eyeing me with curiosity that was nicely tempered by welcome. Not one of them, as far as I could tell, spoke a language I could understand.
The needles, I quickly learned, were shaped from bone and not nearly as easy to ply as the metal ones I used back home. In fact, I snapped two of them in half before I got the trick of holding them. The red fabric was oddly forgiving, not only hiding my uneven stitches but seeming to heal any holes I made by pushing the needle through with too much vigor.
In about an hour of sewing, I hadn’t quite gotten bored yet, when the girls around me started fluttering and giggling. I looked up to see a cohort of young men striding by in the direction of Rowena’s house, laughing together over some unexplained joke. Most of them were helping carry an assortment of logs and branches—items scavenged from the forest floor, I was guessing, since none of them was carrying an axe.
Well, of course not. None of them could abide the touch of metal.
When they spotted the girls, of one accord they tossed down their burdens and came splashing through the grass to join us under our canopy. I suppose Cressida introduced me—at any rate, she pointed in my direction and uttered some incomprehensible syllables—for everyone turned to appraise me and offer some version of a smile.
One of the young men broke off from the others and came to kneel beside me. “So you’re Princess Zara!” he exclaimed. “Jaxon said we should be expecting you.”
I stared down at him. He was slim and white-haired and gave an impression of springiness; I had the fanciful notion that he had just transmogrified from a birch. His eyes were black as soil and his smile was bright as noon. “You speak my language,” I said stupidly.
He laughed. “I do. I learned it from Jaxon Halsing and some of the other humans who have come to live among us. I have a great curiosity about the world of men, even though I know the land beyond our borders is dangerous to folk like me.”
“I would like to think aliora could travel through the region and encounter no harm,” I said. “But it has only been twenty years since they were captured in the forest and sold in Faelyn Market. You are better off to stay where you are.”
“Particularly if the best of the eight provinces comes here to visit me,” he replied.
I smiled. “You mean me? I’m not sure I would say I am even the best of Auburn.”
“Then Auburn and the other seven provinces must be magnificent indeed,” he said. “And I will be tempted to set out and see them all.”
This was flirting; this was the first thing in Alora that actually seemed familiar to me. I pressed my hand to my heart. “Oh, you mustn’t be so rash,” I said. “I take back what I said before. I am the very crown jewel that Auburn has to offer. You would never meet another young lady as attractive or as accomplished as I am.”
He laughed and, shaking back his white-blond hair, he settled more comfortably on his heels. “I am Royven,” he said. “Rowena is my mother.”
I could feel my eyes grow huge. “And Jaxon is your father? Are we cousins?” Or relatives in some complicated fashion that I could not quite determine at the moment.
“No, no, my father died before my mother married your uncle.”
I inspected him more closely. His face was baby-smooth; I couldn’t remember if aliora ever needed to shave, but this one certainly never had. “I would have guessed you were my age or younger,” I said. “But I know they were married before I was born.”
“Aliora age differently from humans,” Royven replied. “I have been alive for twenty-seven years, but I might live to be two hundred. I am a man, but I am still considered young.”
“Two hundred years!” I exclaimed. “It’s rare for a human to live past seventy-five.”
Royven raised his eyebrows. They were as pale as his hair, expressive and nicely shaped. “A human who resides in Alora might live twice as long. There are tales of men and women who wandered across the borders and chose to stay, and whose lives extended to a hundred and fifty years.”
I couldn’t decide if such an idea was abhorrent or attractive. “I wouldn’t mind living so long,” I said cautiously, “if I was healthy and strong. But if I were as old and bent over and crabby as the apothecary’s mother, who is always complaining about her aches and pains, I don’t believe I would enjoy those extra years.”
Royven smiled again. “Ah, but there is no pain and sickness in Alora, didn’t you know? Age comes like a faithful friend and guides you a little farther along a familiar trail. You grow thinner, perhaps—you lose a little strength. You sleep longer in the mornings and nap in the afternoons. Then one day your afternoon nap comes only a few minutes after you rise from your nighttime slumbers, and after that you do not bother to wake again. In Alora, neither death nor old age is a thing to fear.”
Until Dirkson of Tregonia started displaying hostility, death had pretty much never crossed my mind, and I certainly hadn’t wasted much energy thinking about what kind of horrors old age might hold. “Well, that sounds very peaceful,” I said.
“Wouldn’t that be a reason to want to live in Alora for the rest of your life?” he asked.
Cressida spoke sharply. “Royven,” she said. “No more of such talk.”
I looked blankly between them. I was still trying to come to grips with the notion that I might someday age and die. It hadn’t occurred to me that Royven might be deliberately trying to paint a picture of Alora that was so alluring I wouldn’t want to leave.
Maybe the aliora were seductive in ways that I hadn’t considered yet. Maybe it wasn’t just their touch, their serenity, that was so beguiling. Maybe they were not just hoping I would be bewitched by the peaceful beauty of the kingdom. Maybe they would actively try to convince me to stay.
Not Cressida, however. She stood over Royven, her arms crossed, her sad face drawn into a frown. “Zara has no intention of lingering in Alora one minute longer than she must,” Cressida said. “We should not hope she wishes to.”
Royven came to his feet and placed a hand on Cressida’s arm as if to reassure her. Among humans, such casual affection was rare, unless you were with a blood relation. But I had noticed that the aliora touched each other all the time. “I only said what I was thinking,” Royven said.
“You should not think such things around Zara,” she replied.
He smiled at her winningly. “How can I not?” he said. “Wouldn’t it be delightful if she chose to stay here the rest of her life?”
“Don’t be alarmed,” I said to Cressida. “My heart is back at Castle Auburn. I couldn’t live here without my heart.”
“I lived in Auburn a long time without mine,” she replied.
Royven gave her a warm hug. “Be at peace,” he said against her cheek. “Everything will unfold as it should.”
It occurred to me to wonder if Royven’s idea of what should be matched my own. But then he turned and smiled at me, and I forgot to worry about it. “Maybe I’ll see you at dinner tonight,” he said, then skipped off to join his companions.
I looked after him for a while before resuming work on my new gown. I have to say, sewing had lost its appeal somehow. I made only a few more stitches before I laid aside the cloth and went to look for other entertainment.
Royven indeed joined us for dinner that night, as did the former hunter Jed Cortay. In some respects, Jed was a physical match for Jaxon, because they were both burly men with full beards and the hearty se
lf-sufficiency of the born outdoorsman. Jed was rougher-edged than Jaxon, though, not a nobleman as Jaxon had been. I imagined him growing up in some small cottage with six or seven siblings underfoot, fighting for attention and extra scraps of food. But none of that showed in his face now. He was smiling and gentle; his speech was unfailingly courteous. He showed Rowena a painting he had completed on the curved inner surface of an eggshell. The egg was so huge I could hardly conceive of what kind of bird had produced it, and I spent more time fretting over that mystery than admiring the delicacy that had been required to produce such a fine work of art on such a fragile surface.
Then I spent a little time wondering about the potency of the magic that could turn an uncouth, unlettered country man into a quiet, compliant artist whose smile was so perpetual that, at times, I expected him to drool.
“You look like someone with weighty issues on her mind,” Royven said to me at one point late in the meal.
I managed a smile—a much less fatuous one than Jed’s, may I say. “I am thinking about my family and wondering if they are well,” I said. It was only partially a lie; thoughts of Keesen and my parents were always just at the back of my mind. “I wish I knew how the war was progressing.”