by Kate Elliott
“In the first week of training I got into a few fights to prove I have the right to be here, because I’m Saroese. Sometimes a fistfight is the only way to settle things.”
I study him. Like the sea-phoenix, he rose as if out of his own ashes from the waters, but I wonder how much of the boy I love was burned away and how much remains. “That bruise on your face is recent. Is that from a training accident or are you still having to prove you belong here?”
He looks away, deciding whether to keep something from me.
“You’d better tell me, or I’m going to give you a second black eye.”
“This fight was different. It was over my spider.”
“Your spider?”
“One of the recruits insulted the memory of General Esladas.”
I press a hand to my chest, feeling my heart pound. “You have my father’s spider, don’t you?”
“If that seems strange to you, so be it, but I just feel it helps me be a better soldier.”
At first I’m too choked to speak as I realize that I’m here with Father’s spider at last. “Can I… can we…?”
“Of course.”
He picks up the lamp and, as if it is the most ordinary act in the world, takes my hand. It is so remarkably easy and comfortable to walk beside him back out through the barracks and the courtyard to the gate. In the inner courtyard spiders sit motionless and inert but for the restless lightning that gives them a form of life.
I’m drawn to Father’s spider as to his presence, even though it is a creature of brass and courage and not a man. I rest my forehead against the curve of its metal carapace and imagine I feel his ambitious heart and his solid strength that he passed on to me.
“I miss you,” I whisper. Out of the depths of its spark-lit metal I think I hear his voice as down a vast distance, and even though it can never be a substitute for him, I know he will always be with me in my five souls. That has to be good enough.
I wipe my eyes and look at Kal. He’s watching me with a wary expression, poised like he will retreat if he must but is otherwise determined to stick it out.
“So you chose to live.” It comes out more harshly than I intend.
His gaze dips to the ground, then comes back to me. “No. I chose to die. I was too exhausted to fight. I wanted to be the good goat in truth, because I betrayed them. I think I did die. That’s what betrayal is, isn’t it? A kind of death.”
“Kal!” I take a step toward him but he raises a hand to forestall me.
“Let me tell it. I wanted to have the courage to die, so I kicked out the lid and let the water rush in. I drowned. It was so peaceful just to give in to how much I hated myself.”
I shut my eyes because it’s so distressing to hear him speak calmly of what I feared most. His hand touches mine and I clutch it like I can drag him out of drowning in despair, out of death, out of the end of the world he knew.
He says, “I think I died. But I wasn’t dead. I can’t explain it, but it’s as if I was given a second chance at life.”
At first I just hold on to him because I don’t know what to say to him or how to describe the churning confusion inside me: a bone-deep relief that he’s alive and an embarrassing amount of anger that he made the choice to die when he knew I was waiting for him. I have to let that go, to let him be who he is… and even as I think it, a months-old memory wells up.
“I can explain it,” I say, my voice rough with all the emotion I’m trying to hold in. “Do you remember that day in the desert when you were commanding the spider scouts, when you were knocked to the ground by an enemy soldier? Everyone thought you’d been killed.”
“Yes.” His gaze grows distant. “It’s when I saw you again for the first time. I thought I was dreaming that you’d kissed me.”
“I did kiss you, in a manner of speaking. You weren’t breathing, so I breathed air back into you. It’s something my mother taught us girls. But the crow priest thought you were dead so he poured the spark of the dying enemy into you too. Which means you’ve had a second spark all this time.”
“That would explain it.” He presses a hand against his spider, like he’s listening to a whisper of a voice, then flashes a wry grin. “But I guess that means I’m back to just one spark now.”
“How can you joke about it? And why didn’t you meet me at Garon Palace afterward? Why did you let me wonder for all this time? I was so miserable. First my father died and then you, and I didn’t see any reason to ever get out of my bed again.”
He removes his hand from the spider and rests it against my cheek. We stare at each other as he considers his words.
“You rescued me when I thought I couldn’t fight, you forced me to look at what I didn’t want to see, and I cherish you for it. But I had to do this on my own terms, with no expectation of success or reward. I have to make my own way, when for all my life the path was smoothed for me. In the desert I’ll have no one to rely on but myself and my comrades.”
I clasp his hand in mine. “Is this what you truly want? To be a soldier?”
“For always? I don’t know. It’s what I can do right now. Meanwhile you’ll keep climbing the Fives ladder until it kills you, or you’ll get so injured that you can’t continue, or you won’t reach as far as you hope, or you’ll retire in glory as an Illustrious. I don’t know. When one of those things happens you’ll have to decide what comes next, and that will be your desert to walk when you get there. I guess what I’m asking is, do you think you might want to be here when I get back?”
When I get back.
I’m not sure I’ve ever heard a sweeter promise.
“Yes! I have no idea why you would think otherwise!”
He exhales in relief, and his gaze sharpens intensely as he leans forward. “I’m counting on parading around the Lantern District with you when I’m on leave, and having all of Saryenia be jealous that you chose a humble spider scout to wear your victor’s ribbons.”
“Are you?”
“Oh, I am.”
“Well, then.” I put my arms around him, but just before our lips touch I stiffen.
“Jes?”
“I can’t do it, Kal. I can’t kiss you right here next to my father’s spider.”
He laughs, and it’s like a fragment of the shadow of the old, genial, carefree Kal has found its way back to him. Tucking an arm tightly around me, he draws me toward the gate.
“If we’re very quiet, I have that tiny little room where we can be alone.” To my surprise he switches to speaking in Efean with a heavy Saroese accent. “Is that good enough for you, Honored Lady?”
I bump my shoulder against his. “I guess I’ll have to let you know afterward.”
At dawn I stand at the gate as the spiders clank out on the first stage of a long journey to their desert posting. To watch them go feels familiar in so many bittersweet ways. Their discipline of march is no different from memories of my father’s time in the spider scouts except these soldiers call out to one another in Efean instead of Saroese.
Six months is a long time to be apart, I reflect as I walk back to the palace amid the early-morning traffic of wagons heaped with baskets of produce, cut flowers, and fish still glistening from the water. The promise of reunion makes it bearable.
My escorts are rubbing their eyes and stretching.
“I feel I should apologize to you for having to stand guard all night outside the boardinghouse.” My face heats as I speak, thinking of how narrow Kal’s bed was and how it didn’t matter, but it seems rude to ignore the situation.
They laugh. They’re both older men, the age of Inarsis, and probably they served with him back in the day. “Never apologize for that, Honored Niece. We all deserve joy.”
When we reach the palace, they’re dismissed to get much-needed rest.
I am delighted to discover Inarsis and Mother in an early-morning conference over hot bread and cool hibiscus juice in Mother’s private garden. As I approach, Safarenwe toddles over to me with arms o
utstretched and a smile on her face, tipping toward a fall just as I catch her and swing her into my arms. Her chortling laughter brightens the world. Wenru is seated on a mat where he is reading in the most unbabylike way imaginable. He glances up, sees me, sighs as if he hoped to see someone better, and goes back to his book.
I pause at a polite distance, not wanting to interrupt them without permission, but Mother waves me forward. She wears a sling at her side in which Maraya and Polodos’s adorable tiny newborn child sleeps, her first grandchild, the next link in the chain that pulls us ever onward down the river of life.
“How surprising to find you here, Honored Protector,” I say, settling Safarenwe comfortably on my hip. “This couldn’t have anything to do with where I spent last night, could it?”
They look at each other, sharing a thought, and I wonder how I could ever have thought there was anything romantic between them. Their bond reminds me of the one I have with my sisters, with Mis, with other adversaries: the solidarity of people with the same obstacles to face down.
I don’t attempt to hide my anger. “You both knew where he was, and you didn’t tell me.”
Safarenwe frowns, lower lip trembling.
“Don’t frighten your sister.” Mother offers me a cup of juice and a place beside her on her couch. As I sit, shifting Safarenwe to my lap, Mother goes on. “Kalliarkos turned his back on things most people would not have the courage, strength, or will to let go of. For one thing, we weren’t sure he could manage it. For another, he had to make a place under the same conditions everyone else did, so we respected his request that he be left to manage it alone.”
“Except for Mis and Dusty. Did you arrange with them to join the scouts so they could keep an eye on him?”
“No, but it worked out well to have them there,” says Inarsis. “By the way, I have a proposition for you, Spider.”
“It wouldn’t have anything to do with this new stable being set up, would it? Run by Thynos?”
“It’s nothing to do with me, of course,” says Inarsis, and Mother snorts indelicately. He smiles wryly. “With all the palace and clan stables dissolved, people will be forming up new consortiums. Thynos intends to be among the most competitive and lucrative.”
“My thanks, Honored Protector. But I already have a stable I call home.”
After I’ve eaten I change into my Fives gear and walk back across town, to the Warrens. The path to Scorpion Fountain is so familiar that my feet walk themselves there as I daydream about Kal. The moment I come in the gate Anise spots me.
“There you are, Spider. I thought you might be late after too much celebrating last night. You missed the morning menageries. Don’t do it again.”
“Yes, Honored Lady. I won’t.” Not for the next six months, anyway.
“As it happens, after yesterday’s trials we have a flock of new fledglings eager to test their wings. Since you need to warm up anyway, you can lead them in their first menageries. Afterward I’ll push you through some strengthening exercises. Your Trees was awful yesterday. You only won because the competition wasn’t up to standard.”
“Yes, Honored Lady.” But I feel good. Anise is gentle only with the ones she doesn’t think will amount to much.
I saunter out onto the exercise yard and place myself in front of the fledglings, none of whom can stand at attention, much less in proper columns and rows. There are a few young people of Saroese ancestry including, to my amazement, a girl, since before now Saroese women have never been allowed by their families to compete. She’s fidgeting with anxious expectation beside a bored-looking youth, who I’m guessing is a brother she strong-armed into accompanying her.
“You’re Spider,” says a brawny young Efean woman at the front, trying not to grin with excitement. “They say you’re going to become an Illustrious.”
“That’s right. I am.”
Their eyes open wide.
“One of you might too. If you want it, if you work hard enough. There’s no secret to winning. Act boldly when you need to, and be cautious when you must.”
I gesture toward the Fives court, which is the land of Efea, the temple of the Mother of All. Yet it is also simply a Fives court, a creation grown from the circumstances in which we have lived. With a smile I turn back to them, who are all squirming with enthusiasm for this new endeavor they’ve undertaken, not knowing where it will lead or how it will end. I flash them the kiss-off sign, and they practically jump out of their skins with eagerness to go, to try, to succeed.
“Above all else, do not fear to climb the victory tower.”
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Special thanks to Aliette de Bodard for pulling me back from the brink. As always I am unutterably grateful for my ace crop of beta readers: Nafiza Azad, Andrea Chandler, Justina Ireland, Malinda Lo, and Dani McKenzie. My journey into YA began with early encouragement from Matt de la Peña, Gene Yuen Lang, and Faye Bi, who told me I could and should try writing a YA novel.
The fantastic team at Little, Brown Books for Young Readers has guided me through this, my first YA trilogy, with expertise, patience, and professionalism: Kheryn Callender, Jenny Choy, Saraceia Fennell, Elisabeth Ferrari, Karina Granda, Allegra Green, Jane Lee, Annie McDonnell, Liza Patinkin, Jessica Shoffel, Erika Schwartz, Victoria Stapleton, and Danielle Yadao. Many other people at LBYR worked on the books without directly interacting with me, and I want to offer an extra thanks to them. Finally, warmest thanks to the most excellent Andrea Spooner, who took a chance on me because she believed I could figure out how to write YA, and to my entirely fabulous editor Deirdre Jones, who has been through every line of this trilogy possibly more times than I have—and believe me, I’ve been through it many, many, many times as she cracked that whip and kept us all on schedule.
For more information on Buried Heart and the Fives or Kate’s other series, or to sign up for her newsletter, the author invites you to visit her website at KateElliott.com or her Facebook page, or you can follow her on Twitter @KateElliottSFF.