by Rin Chupeco
Any good days I had were because I had spent them with Fox. He smuggled me small gifts when no one else was looking. Hair ribbons and new clothes Mistress Parmina was quick to notice, and they would have found their way into garbage bins. I was only allowed Lady Mykaela’s crescent pin to wear in my hair, the amethyst ornament I would have rather consigned to the oracle’s flames instead of my blue sapphires. Instead, Fox gave me things I could hide more easily: an occasional book he’d bought at the marketplace or some of my favorite snacks, like sweet, sticky mochi pastries, meat cutlets, and fried bread, to make up for the thin, watery soup, pickled radishes, rice, and runeberry fruit I was fed, offset only by grilled sardines twice a week.
At my suggestion, he gave these to Kana and Farhi as well. Kana received these “can’ts,” as she called them—probably because these were things she wasn’t allowed to have as a servant in the asha-ka—with unfettered joy. Farhi was a little less welcoming, but the bland meals we were given soon wore down her resolve, though she would only accept the gifts if they came from my hand rather than from my brother’s.
I had more chores than either girl, but soon both began pitching in when they could—Kana because she was grateful, and Farhi because she did not want to feel beholden to me. Often, they gave me early warning when Mistress Parmina woke, and we hid in the kitchens before she could find any one of us to scold. Kana giggled and cast shy, admiring glances at Fox when he visited, and I hadn’t the heart to tell her he was already dead. Drychta custom dictated that Farhi couldn’t associate with men who were not family, and so she kept a respectful, if aloof, distance whenever he was around.
I didn’t know how Fox found the money to buy me food and books, but every time I badgered him about it, he refused to answer. He showed up one day with a slight limp, and my suspicions grew. “You’re going to be an asha soon, Tea,” he reminded me, “and that means you’re expected to be truthful, so it would be for the best if you didn’t know. I am not involved in anything illegal, if that eases your mind.”
“If you aren’t a part of anything illegal, then why won’t you tell me?” I demanded. “And isn’t this hypocritical of you to say that I be truthful when you’ve been smuggling foodstuffs to me for the better part of three months?”
“Technically not illegal,” he amended. “And I said you had to be truthful, not starving.” He never did answer my question.
One spring evening, when the leaves turned as green as the fresh morning dew, I sat on the small veranda, watching the night sky. Mistress Parmina had just recently added one more chore to my already-busy schedule. Kana and Farhi took turns waiting up for Lady Shadi to return to the asha-ka after her functions, and the old woman had decreed that I share in this duty.
Oftentimes, the asha-in-training would return late, arriving only a few hours before dawn broke. We were responsible for letting her in and storing away the things she had brought with her to entertain, like her setar or her tonbak, two musical instruments she was particularly skilled at. Lady Shadi was still an apprentice, but she went to many functions like most regular asha in preparation for her upcoming debut. She had a sweet, finespun disposition and was a favorite among the guests. Mistress Parmina was very pleased with her progress.
The air was crisp and cool, and I must have dozed off for several minutes before I became aware of a knocking at our door. Thinking that Lady Shadi had come home earlier than expected, I stumbled to my feet, drawing back the bolt securing the door in place and tugging it open.
I didn’t recognize the pretty girl standing before me, but I did recognize the simple brown robe she wore. Asha-ka were not the only buildings in the Willows. There were many shops there that catered specifically to them, such as the ateliers, the schools of the arts, and the apothecaries. Asha-ka were found nearer to the oracle’s temple, while these shops were located closer to the entrances leading into the Willows. Some of them were the cha-khana, the “tea places,” small teahouses where asha entertained their patrons. Women who served in the cha-khana wore brown robes much like the one the girl wore.
“Is this the Valerian?” she asked.
“That’s what the sign on the walls say,” I said, grumpy from being woken so suddenly. “What is it?”
“Are you Miss Tea? The one with that brother named Fox?”
My drowsiness disappeared. Save for the people living in the Valerian, I hadn’t expected anyone else to know my name. “Who told you about me?” I blurted out, forgetting to be polite. I rarely talked to servants from the other houses, for we were often scolded when caught gossiping instead of working. I didn’t know what punishment the others were given, but Mistress Parmina’s was to withhold my twice-a-week grilled fish, and I was determined not to lose what little flavor I was afforded in my meals, Fox’s smuggled treats notwithstanding. Lady Mykaela wasn’t the kind of person to gossip, but I didn’t think Lady Shadi was the type either. Kana was my best guess.
The girl only shrugged. She stank of magic and beauty. I guess even cha-khana assistants had their vanities. “Please bring a change of clothes for Lady Shadi—and her setar. And you’d better get to it too, or she’ll be mad as hops!”
The Falling Leaf was one of the more well-known teahouses in the district, and it was not uncommon for some of their staff to call on houses. Asha normally visited two or three cha-khana a night, sometimes more if she was popular. Occasionally they would send word to their asha-ka and ask for a fresh set of hua or an instrument they could play if their guests wanted a performance. Asha usually select what to wear based on how appropriate the design is for the season and often laid them out in their rooms before heading out in case a change of clothes was required in the course of the night. I had gone on similar errands in the past. But no one from any of the tearooms had ever called for me by name before.
Because it was springtime, Lady Shadi had left for the night wearing a beautiful olive-green hua with doves embroidered along her voluminous sleeves and a waist wrap of deep plum with silver-stitched outlines of chrysanthemums. The hua she had laid out before leaving was golden in color, with white puffs of dandelions billowing out along its edges, paired with a light-gray waist wrap with turquoise leaves. Her setar lay across her bed, slightly worn and scuffed from age and constant use. I wrapped both up carefully with delicate paper and followed the girl outside.
Like most tearooms, the Falling Leaf looks deceptively simple from the outside. One entered it by walking up through a domed doorway, with a large folding screen made of carved wood and embossed in intricate metal designs preventing anyone from looking in on the festivities within. Past this screen lay a large garden common in every cha-khana in Ankyo. Fishes swam in small ponds, with trellises serving as shade. A large fountain statue in the likeness of the Great Hero Anahita stood at the center, water flowing down a jar she was pouring into one of the many streams below. A series of rooms on a raised platform surrounded this garden, separated by wooden dividers and drawing screens, ensuring that anyone who might want to leave the party for a few minutes to wander among the trees and flowers can do so easily and with all the privacy they desired.
The girl bade me to wait at the entrance but was back in less than a minute, gesturing for me to follow. Soft strains of laughter reached our ears as we approached one of the rooms. The girl tapped lightly against the screen, and it was pulled back almost immediately. A moon-faced asha stared back at us before turning back and announcing to the party inside, “The bone witchling is here!”
A long, slim hand shot out and grabbed me by the sleeve, tugging me into the room before the door slammed shut before the startled attendant’s face.
There were no guests inside, only asha. They circled me, giggling, and their silver heartsglass glinted in the candlelight. I sat on the floor, confused and suddenly dizzy, still hugging Lady Shadi’s clothes and setar to my chest.
“Why, she’s smaller than I expected!” said the asha wh
o’d dragged me inside. She was easily one of the most beautiful girls I had ever seen, with flowing, brown hair artfully arranged in complicated coils at the nape of her neck. Strands of multicolored gemstones hung from her hair and dangled on either side of her face, accentuating her light-brown skin. Her hua was a buttercup yellow, with blue-tinged butterflies fluttering at her lengthy sleeves. “I thought Dark asha would be more imposing, like Mykaela of the Hollows or like the Pincher.”
The rest of the girls collapsed into laughter. “If Lady Parmina hears you call her that, Zoya, she would have your hide!” one of them proclaimed. She wore a gray veil covering her head and chest and a salmon-colored hua of a wisteria design.
“Then let her, Tami,” Zoya retorted. “I’m not afraid of an old crone who spends her days picking her nose more often than she picks hua!” The laughter grew in volume because that was, in fact, one of Mistress Parmina’s unfortunate habits.
“Where is Lady Shadi?” I asked, my voice quavering, trying to quell the pounding on the side of my head.
“If Lady Shadi were here, then that would take the fun out of everything, wouldn’t it?” Zoya’s blue eyes were bright with glee, “but she did happen to mention that your name was Tea. How unusual! Shadi must be feeling so left out, being the only asha in a sea of darklings!”
I turned toward the door, but a couple of asha blocked my exit.
“You came here to explore the cha-khana, didn’t you? It would be a shame to let you leave so early,” said another asha. Her long braids were coiled around her head, and the long pins in her hair made tinkling sounds every time she moved.
“Don’t worry, Brijette. The fun’s only beginning. Open the package! Let’s see what’s inside!” Zoya’s fingers danced, and I saw the telltale glow of an unfamiliar rune in the air before the hua I carried was snatched out of my hands, floating toward her. Another flick of her hand, and the setar followed, one of the other asha catching it in midair.
“Why, look! It’s Shadi’s! Naughty little servling!”
“Hurry!” Tami urged. “The boys are waiting!”
The girls converged on me, and any screams I made were cut off as the Wind rune’s spells wove themselves around the room, preventing anyone outside from hearing me. I remembered a tangle of arms and faces, felt myself being physically disrobed and forced to lie on the floor while the asha began to dress me in Lady Shadi’s hua.
“Let’s see how she looks!”
I was tugged back into a sitting position, my head spinning. Zoya assessed me carefully. “I suppose she will do nicely, given such short notice to prepare. Place the setar on her lap, Brijette.”
The girl with the braids complied.
Zoya pursed her lips. “Something’s missing.” She reached down and plucked the crescent amethyst clasp from my hair. “Sveta, lend me your opal pin.”
A yellow-haired asha lifted her hand up to her hair in horror. “Why take mine? Take one of Tami’s. She’s got more than any of us here.”
“Hand it over, Sveta.”
Grumbling, Sveta took the exquisite, purple-jeweled pin from her hair and tossed it at the other girl.
Zoya gathered up one side of my hair and pushed the pin through it. I winced when the sharp point jabbed at my scalp. “There you go. She looks rather like an impoverished asha with only two zivars to her name”—she poked at my crescent pin with disdain—“but with this she can pass as one of us, if barely! We’re giving you a promotion, little Tea. Imagine—from lowly maid to full-fledged asha in the space of an hour!”
The others found this especially funny.
“What do you want?” Now that I was sure they had no real intentions of harming me, I was growing angrier by the second despite the strange buzzing in my head. “Why are you doing this to me?”
“Consider this a small life lesson. Your Lady Shadi took the role I wanted in the darashi oyun, and I’ve been meaning to find some way to return the favor.” She smiled at me. “I didn’t ask you to come here, little girl. But you played the truant, so you’re in trouble anyway, regardless of what you do. You’d best play along to make things easier on your house. You’re wearing Lady Shadi’s hua, and you have her setar. I’m sure you know what that means.”
I froze. She was right. I may not be an asha yet, but Lady Shadi and I were members of House Valerian. Everything I did in her clothes would be done in her name, on Mistress Parmina and Lady Mykaela’s names, and on the Valerian’s name, and it did not matter one whit that I had been forced into it.
“I have to go,” I burst out, struggling, but more hands held me in place. My headache refused to go away, and I wasn’t even sure I could stand on my own even if I had wanted to.
“And how can I let you leave,” the pretty asha said, “after you’ve stolen my good friend Shadi’s hua and her favorite instrument? I ought to alert the mistress of the Falling Leaf and have you thrown out in full view of all the other paying guests.”
I knew what she was telling me. If I tried to leave, she would make sure that the Valerian’s reputation would suffer. And while I didn’t care about how Mistress Parmina would react, the last thing I wanted to do was disappoint Lady Mykaela.
“That’s better.” Zoya grinned when I relaxed. “Don’t worry. Keep a smile on your face and do everything I instruct you to, and you’ll be free to leave once the party is over.”
The party? But the other girls were already forcing me to my feet, and I was still too dazed to put up much of a struggle.
They led me across the garden to another room, where the murmur of voices within told me that guests were already in attendance. Grinning, the braided asha named Brijette drew the door open.
And I found myself staring into the eyes of Prince Kance.
“Have you ever been in love?” the asha asked.
She was up before dawn. I found her by the grave again, looking up at the jaws of yet another skeletal horror. Salt water and sand swooped into the open, gaping mouth, egged on by the rising tides, to bleach its lower mandible a brittle white. Her fingers weaved through the air beside the beast, sampling at the breeze. She carried a small vial in her other hand, filled with the nauseating potion she had boiled the day before.
I did not expect the question. I stammered, “Well, there was this girl I’ve known all my life. We grew up together—our parents hoped we would marry when we came of age—”
“And did your banishment from Drycht put an end to that engagement?”
“There was no engagement to speak of. She valued my friendship, but that was all. She—she liked someone else.”
“Did her parents approve of that match?”
“No. She was in love with a young bricklayer her father hired. But I’m not important. I want to know more about you and the prince.”
“My relationship with the prince had always been very complicated.” She smiled, amused, and looked up at the bones. “They say monsters like these were common during the First Days, before the Five Great Heroes slew the daeva. But as imposing as they are, it is futile to raise them from the dead; they have no limbs to walk out of water onto shallow shores. Daeva are a different story.” She tapped at her heartsglass. “You stare at this when you think I do not see. Speak your mind.”
“Our heartsglass, Mistress Tea. Heartforgers bear silver hearts. So do asha and Deathseekers. The lesser of them have purple, while the common folk have red. I have never seen black heartsglass before.”
“It is because few do what I have done. Not since the False Prince. Not since his followers. Black heartsglass is a punishment meted out to those who commit certain atrocities that asha find repugnant. No one with a black heartsglass should be able to sense the Runes, much less wield them. It is why they gave me exile instead of death.” She smiled grimly. “They were wrong, of course. I have found black heartsglass to be useful in ways they never could have imagined.”
“But, Mistress Tea, if your Lady Mykaela harvested the bezoar when you were only twelve, and if it rises every ten years—”
“Then it would not have been potent for many more years, yes. But I could not wait that long.”
I waited for her to explain further. Instead, she changed the subject.
“You wanted to ask me about my loves and my romances? Prince Kance started out as a simple infatuation. Back then, I had no inkling how much of my life he would change. But when you are younger and know no better, an infatuation can lead all the world to burn.” She lifted the vial to her lips and, without pause, drank down the potion.
9
He had grown a few more inches since I’d last seen him, and his hair was longer now, curled at the nape of his neck. But his eyes were still the same bright emeralds, and his face still maintained that solemn bearing even as he stood, smiling, to greet us. His heartsglass was just as I remembered, its encasing engraved with his royal seal and still that pristine, flawless rose red.
He was not alone. Another boy lounged at the end of the table, and three girls sat around him, settled among the cushions. One of them had a hand on Prince Kance’s arm, which she relinquished with some reluctance when he stood. She was tall and willowy, fair where the other two girls were dark. She wore a lovely chiffon gown that highlighted her heartsglass, which looked to be made from inlaid gold and pink alexandrite. Her eyes were a vivid blue, though the look she sent our way was as hard as diamonds.