by Sarah Ahiers
I blinked, trying to imagine Lea’s rage and what it had meant for the Da Vias, the other Families. She would have never guessed I’d been taken by travelers. The Da Vias would be her first, logical assumption.
“It couldn’t have been the Addamos,” Claudia continued. “They couldn’t have reached you in Lilyan, through all those noble Caffarellis.” She said this with a sneer.
“And it wasn’t us, the Da Vias, regardless of Lea’s wrath and her accusations. I’d seen a small group of travelers leave the menagerie and head into the dead plains before Susten had ended. At the time I’d thought nothing of it. But I knew you’d spent time with the travelers. Had met a boy.” She snorted.
“And so I knew you had gone with them. Or been taken. I wasn’t sure which, and it didn’t matter. When the menagerie left Lovero, I made sure to hide myself in their midst, and they brought me here.”
“Allegra!” Someone shouted, the voice drifting through the animal pens and cages. Metta, looking for me.
“You have to hide.” I grabbed her arm and pulled her back into the shadows.
“What? From some simple traveler? I’ll drop her before she realizes we’re here.”
She reached for a knife on her belt and I snatched her hand, stopping her from pulling it free.
Claudia’s eyebrows drew together in a V.
“Don’t,” I said. “If you kill her, it will alert the others. And you cannot take all the travelers.”
Claudia loosened her grip on the knife.
“You have to hide, to stay hidden from them. If they discover you here, they’ll know I’m trying to escape. They’ll kill us both.” I thought of Nev’s little wagon, where we had stored it when we’d snuck back into Mornia. “There’s a wagon,” I said, and described its location. “It’s not much, but no one should search it.”
“And then what?” she asked. “Just hide forever?”
“Allegra!” came Metta’s voice, closer.
“Just until I figure some things out. If I can undo their god-magic, then we can leave. But until then, stay hidden.”
I released her hand and dashed from the alcove, leaving her behind.
I turned the corner and found Metta, searching for me.
Metta stopped and stared at me in the way that she had that made me feel she was seeing all of me, all my secrets, bare and spread out before her.
“I thought I saw something,” I offered as explanation for my disappearance. “A loose horse. But it was nothing. Just the sun, playing tricks on my eyes.”
Metta blinked and I knew she didn’t believe my lie, but after a moment she turned around. “Come, there are still more snakes.”
I followed Metta, glancing over my shoulder at the alcove.
Hidden in the shadows I caught a glimpse of white bone mask, decorated with red diamonds.
twenty-nine
WE FINISHED UNLOADING THE SNAKES WHILE THE REST of the travelers attended to their own animals and returning family.
I thought the animal pens had been loud before, but they were nothing compared to how they were now they were full once more.
Animals shrieked and screamed and sang and called to one another, much the same way the travelers responded to their own returning members. It must have been hard, to be separated from your loved ones for so long. I’d been gone from my family for weeks and I felt like scratching at my skin to relieve the itch of missing them.
But the travelers were probably used to it. They were travelers, after all.
I silently prayed, hoping that Claudia was taking the opportunity to hide while all the travelers were here with the menagerie. As the time passed and there was no exclamation of surprise, no sign she had been discovered, the tension in my body began to fade.
Nev and the others led the cart mule pulling the tiger deeper into the pens and paddock, heading more south than we had for the snakes. There were only six travelers, not counting Isha and Metta, who trailed behind along with me. I glanced at Metta’s forearms. They were smooth, empty of the scars showing she cared for the tigers. She must have been more in charge of the snakes.
“How many tigers are there?” I asked.
“Three,” Metta said. “But that one”—she pointed at the covered cage on the wagon—“is ours. He is the oldest. The other two are females and belong to other families. One is expecting cubs. If it is a litter, we will get one. We need another male soon, or the line will die out.”
“What happens if all the tigers die?” I asked. “Will you have to capture more?”
She shrugged. “No one has traveled to capture a tiger in many years. No one remembers how.”
That comforted me, somehow, that they couldn’t steal any more tigers from the wild, force them to live in pits, in a cage for all their lives. If they could not get another breeding pair, then these were the last tigers they would cage.
The finality of it all felt right. Nothing should remain caged forever.
Finally, we broke through the maze of pens and paddocks and found ourselves on the southeast side of the animals before the crop fields began.
A pit stood before us.
I wasn’t sure what I had expected, but it wasn’t this.
The pit was huge. Easily fifty feet across in all directions and twenty feet deep. Inside were two tigers. They looked up at me and pulled their lips back, pinning their ears against their skulls. At the base of the walls of the pit were three holes, each with a metal barred gate suspended above them. Ropes attached the gates to the top of the pit where they were secured. At the east end of the pit stood a large pond, water dripping from what looked to be a trough above.
Metta said, “The water comes from the lake. Tigers like to swim.”
“And the gates?” I pointed to the holes.
“Watch.”
Travelers walked to the edge of the pit and stopped. Someone unhooked the mule and led him away. A man and a woman went to the edge of the pit and began to shout at the tigers below.
The tigers pinned their ears even tighter and roared.
A man waved a white flag at them and the angry tigers slinked away from the pond, heading toward the holes. They slipped inside and two other travelers loosened the ropes above.
The gates slid in place over the holes with a thunk, trapping the tigers inside.
“Look.” Metta pointed to the men who’d loosened the rope. There were grates in the ground, which I hadn’t seen before now. The travelers opened the grates, and each of them dropped raw meat inside.
“They feel safe in their holes,” Metta said. “They are always given meat. It makes them happy.”
Then everyone rushed to the wagon and the waiting tiger there. A wide plank was lowered into the pit, the top resting at the base of the wagon. Someone had fetched a canvas and they draped it over the top of the wagon, and travelers stood at both ends, stretching it out and holding it taut, creating a sort of cover for the end of the wagon and the pit.
Metta ushered me away from the edge and we stood to the right of the wagon.
Everyone fell quiet.
Nev walked to the wagon and slipped beneath the canvas. And though we weren’t near, I could hear him speaking softly in Mornian to the tiger.
“What is he doing?” I asked Metta, reading the scene well enough to know that I should at least whisper.
“He is about to release the tiger,” she whispered back. “The canvas stops the tiger from seeing the edge of the pit. And from seeing us, so he does not attack someone.”
“Won’t he see Nev, though? Under the canvas?”
One of her maddening shrugs. “Tigers are dangerous,” was all she said as an explanation.
I watched the canvas and Nev hidden underneath, listened to his quiet words as he spoke to the tiger. I couldn’t help the lump of fear in my chest, the twist of my stomach.
There was a sound of metal grating against metal. I held my breath.
A thump and a blur of orange as the tiger burst from the wagon and d
own the plank into the pit.
As soon as it reached the bottom, the travelers yanked the canvas away and Nev and another jerked the plank up, trapping the tiger in the pit.
But the tiger paid them no mind. He waded into the pool, letting the water lap at his belly before he began to drink.
The travelers cheered then, slapping one another on their backs at a job well done.
Nev joined us, a smile on his face. I exhaled a breath I didn’t even realize I’d still been holding.
“Now,” he said to me, “it is time to celebrate.”
The travelers knew how to celebrate. It was like Susten Day all over again, but in Mornia instead of Lovero.
There were no stilt walkers and fire breathers, but there was singing everywhere, and music, and dancing and drink and good food.
Children ran together in packs, hands filled with sweets as they tried to steal them from one another, not caring who they crashed into. It made me ache for Lovero, my new home.
But like Lovero, the celebrations meandered and migrated wherever people gathered, though it seemed the heart of it rested in the New Mornia quarters, which was where Nev led me.
He had also borrowed some clothes from Isha for me. I changed out of my ratty dress and instead wore trousers and a sleeveless vest that helped the summer breeze keep me cool. Nev wore a deep red vest that flattered his olive skin.
“Why is this part of Mornia so different?” I gestured to the smooth-walled buildings surrounding us. Many of them appeared to be houses and homes, though some seemed to be businesses.
Night had risen, but there were torches and lamps to light the festival. And the travelers had sung the song of Culda, to keep the ghosts at bay once again.
“Much of the good underground has been used,” he said. “New homes collapsed too easily. The clay was not strong. So now they build on top of the land.”
I looked at the homes with their colorful curtains for doors and windows. It must have been hard for the first inhabitants to make the change from living below ground to living above.
Nev fetched us some meat, presumably goat, cooked over a fire and wrapped in leaves coated in a sticky, sweet sauce. They were almost too hot to eat, and yet they were too delicious to take our time. I licked every last sticky bit from my fingers.
And everywhere the travelers sang. Mostly it was small groups of people singing, and when they met up, their songs competed or blurred together in a raucous harmony.
But sometimes there would be one loud, chorused song with many people singing together. Nev would frequently join in on those songs, smiling at me. And I couldn’t help but smile back, even though I didn’t know what he sang of, what the song was about. But the festivities filled me with something, a sort of ache that made me want to laugh and sing, too, and also made me want to weep, to find a corner and cry until all my tears were spent.
Every time I smiled, I felt like a traitor. Claudia was hiding in a wagon, waiting to take me back to Lovero. Lea was on a rampage, trying to discover what had happened to me. I was smiling with the people who had taken me.
“We need to make a plan,” I said to him.
He turned my way, glancing at the singura around my neck. “Yes.”
“Do you have any books or scrolls we might look through, see if there’s some forgotten lore somewhere?”
If the singura belonged to Safraella, we would go to a church and ask the priests what they knew, what their books could tell them.
Nev shook his head. “No books. Nothing like that. Everything is passed down from samar to samar. Nothing is written.”
That complicated things. “Well, who is the oldest samar?”
“Bedna.”
“The one who is also the leader?”
“Yes.”
I tapped the table. “We should speak with her. She might know things you don’t.”
“Yes, that is true,” Nev said.
Something tugged at my waist.
I looked down to find small fingers, trying to untie my belt.
I snatched the hand and turned to find a girl in my grip, eyes wide, struggling to be free.
I released her and watched as she fled to a pack of children. They jeered at her return and she shoved a few of them before they scurried away.
“They steal as a game,” Nev said in my ear, and I turned to find him beside me, shoulder pressed against mine. In his hand he held two glasses of liquid, one of which he passed to me.
The liquid was dark red and I sipped it, expecting wine but instead finding a sweet yet tangy fruit juice.
“She needs more practice, then,” I said.
“You caught her, so you have become their new challenge and they will not rest until they beat you.”
I sipped at the juice again. “I don’t have anything worth stealing.” Unless . . .
I clutched the singura.
“No. They would not, even in play. It is forbidden.”
“But I’m not one of you. Would they not think me below your laws?”
He chewed his cheek, before shaking his head. “Not the children. They would not understand the difference between you and the other samars.”
The children weren’t privy to the more complicated politics at play. That didn’t mean the other travelers weren’t, though.
I turned to better face Nev. “Which god is the singura for?” I asked. “Is it just One? Or all of Them?”
He pointed at the flat disc and the circles with their radiating colors. “Three circles,” he said, “for the Three. The outer circle is Boamos.”
“Thievery and wealth,” I supplied.
He nodded. “The middle circle”—he tapped the middle ring on the stone—“is for Culda. We worship Her proudly tonight.” He gestured to a group of travelers as they stumbled past, their singing slightly slurred from liquor.
“The inside circle is Meska.”
“She’s where you find your status. From the animals and your women.”
“Without Her, there is no Three.”
Of course, without any of Them there would be no Three, but I understood his sentiment. “How did travelers come to worship three gods instead of one? I mean, in many cities there are more than one god, but people tend to pick a single god.”
He leaned closer so he could be heard over the sound of drunken singing. Our shoulders touched, our heads tipped close together.
“A long time ago,” he began, “we were three peoples. Farmers and animal keepers, traveling musicians, kings and thieves. Until one day when the longest, biggest bol blew across the land, and all the people were forced to shelter together. They were not many, these people, yes?” he asked, and I nodded to show I was following along.
“And they told tales of their lives, and it was not long before the farmers spoke of a longing for their children to see the world, and the traveling musicians spoke of a desire for more wealth, and the thieves and kings spoke of wanting families to care for them no matter the weight of their money pouches.
“And these three peoples knew if they lived together as one people, they could have all their wants and dreams. They could travel through the lands with the animals and bring in much wealth while their families stayed home, waiting for their return.
“So the gods of three people turned into the gods of one people.”
The tale had the sound of a fable, something recited often to children. But Nev had told it with flourishes, with smiles and winks that stabbed me in the chest and the heart, until it seemed I was bleeding here and now, and could do nothing to stop it.
Nev’s smile faded and he looked at me, his eyes so dark in the night even though the lamp on the table was warm and bright.
“Allegra,” he said, his voice no more than a murmur. And yet it rang through me like a bass bell, all echoes and reverberations bouncing off my bones, my flesh, my skin.
A whisper of a touch at the back of my neck. I closed my eyes, remembering how he had loved to run his fingers through the leng
th of my hair. He grabbed my hands now, cupping them in his, the skin of his palms rough against mine.
A tug at my neck.
I snapped my eyes open.
I jerked my hands from Nev and yanked the knife from my belt. I twisted and slashed. Blood sprayed across the top of the table.
Perrin gasped and pulled her arm to her chest, pressing her hand against the slice in her flesh.
Nev jumped to his feet, and when he saw Perrin, hidden in dark corner of the seating area, his eyes narrowed and he snapped at her in Mornian.
She stood, blood seeping between her fingers.
I climbed to my feet as well, and pointed my knife at her. “You’ll have to try harder than that.”
She ignored me and spat at Nev, responding to whatever he’d said to her.
“It belongs to her,” he said so I could understand.
“No,” she said. “It is a mistake. She is a ghoshka. She should not wear it.”
A crowd began to form, their singing fading away as they took in the argument between Nev and Perrin, the blood dripping from Perrin’s arm, from my knife.
Metta and Isha appeared so suddenly they had to have been close by. They stood beside Nev, the three of them a concerted front against Perrin, who stood alone. Even timid Isha seemed strong alongside her family.
“The Three choose who is a samar,” Metta said to Perrin. She rubbed her belly, and though I had seen her do it before, I got the feeling she did it now to draw attention to her status. That she was about to be a mother and Perrin was not.
“The gods did not choose her!” Perrin spoke so I could understand. She pointed at me with her good hand, her fingers coated in her own blood. “It was stolen from us and now she wears it with no understanding of the gods! She steals our heritage!”
Murmurs from the watching crowd.
Beside me Nev shifted uncomfortably. If Perrin gained support, what would stop them from taking the singura from me? From killing me?
Even fully armed, I couldn’t hope to stop a mob of such size.
“I am a disciple of Safraella,” I said to Perrin, and she looked at me now, returning pressure to her injured arm.