by Sulivan, Tricia; Nevill, Adam; Tchaikovsky, Adrian; McDougall, Sophia; Tidhar, Lavie
“But –” She wanted it so much: to have her meekness washed away by his blood, or Mother’s blood; to become a blood-empath like them; to tear the minds of evil men apart with a thought, instead of being frail and weepy and useless.
“No buts, little fish.”
Sarisha shook her head. “You treat me like –”
“You are a child,” Uncle Jarun said, coldly. She hated it when he did that: when he grew cutting and uncaring, showing her a true blood-empath’s face.
Sarisha pouted. It was childish, but she didn’t care. “Who’s the bleeding man?”
“Bleeding man –” Uncle Jarun turned to look around, and then understanding dawned. “Oh. Just a prisoner, Sarisha.”
“For Mother?”
“Yes,” Uncle Jarun said.
They always brought the difficult ones to Mother – and she never ever failed to break them. Why wouldn’t Uncle Jarun allow Sarisha to be trained? She’d be as good as Mother. She’d be sharp and hard when it mattered and she’d protect the Pahate dynasty like everyone else. “Mother isn’t here,” she said.
“I gathered that,” Jarun said. “When is she coming back?”
“She didn’t say,” Sarisha told him. “She’s in Pembai – there’s been a murder there.”
Jarun nodded. “She won’t be back until tomorrow at the earliest. No matter. This is not pressing. We’ll wait for her.”
“I can show you my letters? I can draw fifty of them now.”
“If you want,” Jarun said.
She led him into her room and showed him her latest efforts at writing the noblemen’s script, which he praised in his cool, aloof way. Afterwards, they went down to the dining room and had spiced rice and tea. By the time they walked back through the courtyard, the blood had been cleaned away – the servants knew how to keep a clean house.
But Sarisha kept hearing the bleeding man’s rattling breath – an endless struggle against encroaching death. And, no matter how she fought it, it wouldn’t go away.
That night, after Uncle Jarun had retired to his room, Sarisha crept through the corridors to the interrogation room. She’d taken Mother’s keys from the secret compartment in the drawer, and the guards were used to her roaming the castle. No one asked her where she was going.
She didn’t go straight to the interrogation room, but instead stopped by her secret place: the room just above it, its parquet floor covered in dust. She’d worked out long ago that the floorboards were a little loose, and if she knelt just the right way, and bent her head to just the right angle, she’d see into the room.
Sarisha had never witnessed a blood-reading – Mother had emphatically forbidden her to do so when she was younger, and the memory of that ban was still strong enough. But Mother had never said anything about the room above or the floorboards.
The trouble, though, was that you didn’t choose what you saw: in this case, all Sarisha could make out was moonlight flooding the room, and the cage with the bleeding man, just on the edge of her field of vision. She could hear his halting breath, but not make out any details.
She rose, and went downstairs. The door to the interrogation room towered over her, its dark panels smelling of varnish and wood shavings. She’d never entered it: only Mother, Uncle Jarun and the Pahate guards were allowed in there.
Mother hadn’t specifically forbidden Sarisha to enter the interrogation room – but Sarisha could guess what she would say.
Yet the memory of the bleeding man slumped in the courtyard, and of the strange, fluttering feeling in her chest, was too strong. Sarisha fumbled for the smallest of the keys, and put it in the lock.
The key didn’t turn. For a moment she thought she’d got things wrong, and then she realised that the room wasn’t locked at all.
The door didn’t creak, or groan – everything had been well-oiled.
Inside, the moonlight showed her a large, airy room with comfortable furniture – in some ways scarier than the damp cells. Slowly, Sarisha crept closer to the metal cage and the bleeding man.
He hadn’t been cleaned up; and the sharp smell of blood and filth wafted to Sarisha’s nostrils, filling her throat with bile.
She was alone: no guards, no Uncle Jarun to protect her if anything went wrong. In the silence of the room she heard the bleeding man’s breath – slow, faltering. He must have something in his lungs – something really bad, if the guards hadn’t bothered to treat it.
She wasn’t scared – she was morbidly fascinated by that sound. And that was frightening. Mother and Uncle Jarun had warned her enough about the blood-empaths who took pleasure in inflicting pain – they were the lowest of the low, barely fit to wear the copper bracelets and the purple. True blood-empaths served the Pahate dynasty by keeping order on the Islands. They did not take power into their own hands.
But she wasn’t a blood-empath. She’d never be one – Mother and Uncle Jarun had made it clear they wouldn’t share blood with her, not ever.
The bleeding man stirred when she got closer. Crooked hands reached for the bars of the cage, and gripped the metal convulsively. “Who’s – there?”
His voice was low, raspy. She didn’t answer. The bleeding man lifted his head to stare at her. Blood had congealed on his cheeks and forehead.
He made a rumbling sound – and only after a while did she realise it was laughter. “The mother’s little pup, come to gloat. Don’t be afraid, child. I can’t bite.”
Sarisha tried to imagine that she’d shared blood with Mother; that it was within her like a dark tide, crushing her weaknesses and her frailty; that nothing could make her hesitate, or draw back. But she still felt sorry for him – alone and wounded, with nothing to look forward to. “Why are you here?”
“To die.” His voice caught on the last word, and he coughed – a wet, awful sound like something tearing up. “Which will be soon enough, no doubt.”
Not sure of what to answer, Sarisha knelt by the cage to look at him. He stared back at her, and for the first time something lit his eyes – a naked, unhealthy hunger that chilled her heart. “You look just like her,” he whispered.
Her heart twisted in her chest. “You don’t know Mother.”
He laughed again. “Everyone knows her. The Ice Lady. Twenty-three years of service and never one prisoner she couldn’t break open like a nut.”
Sarisha frowned. “That’s not what you meant. About knowing her.”
His eyes glinted in the moonlight – with the same feral hunger as a tiger. “Didn’t I? You must have misheard.”
Sarisha knew she hadn’t. But no matter how she pressed him, he wouldn’t provide answers – and she couldn’t get them out of him, she wasn’t Mother, she didn’t have a blood-empath’s powers.
In the end, Sarisha walked away from him back to the safety of her room; but the weary, sarcastic eyes in their mask of blood kept laughing at her. She fell asleep hearing his halting breath, and woke up still hearing it.
It didn’t matter. Mother would soon be back; she’d question the man, and the guards would toss his body into a pyre like those of all the other prisoners. He’d be gone. He wouldn’t matter.
Deep, deep down, she knew she was lying to herself.
Mother came back with the first of the monsoon storms. From Sarisha’s vantage point at the window, she saw Mother and her escort thunder through the gates of the fortress, muddy and bedraggled – everyone except Mother, who sat unfazed on her rowan charger, as if the rain didn’t matter.
“Sarisha?” Uncle Jarun said behind her. “Pay attention.”
They’d been having a self-defence lesson – Uncle Jarun showing her a man’s and a woman’s weak points, and the angle of the thrust if you wanted to pin the heart on the point of your dagger.
“Mother’s back,” Sarisha protested.
“I know. I heard.” Uncle Jarun, too, seemed unfazed. “Show me how you do it.”
A cloth manikin, reproducing a human torso, was standing on the table. Sarisha approached it, feeling sillier a
nd sillier with every passing moment.
“It’s not real,” she said.
Uncle Jarun’s face did not move. “The point of this isn’t to be real. It’s to show me you have learnt your lesson. Practise will come later – one of the prisoners, maybe.”
Sarisha tried to shut out the image of the dagger sinking into real flesh – and to quell the flutter of fear in her stomach.
The manikin, unmoving on its table, taunted her nevertheless, whispering that she was human – that she was weak. But it was just a thing.
Sarisha raised the dagger, and drove it up to the hilt in the torso. Nothing happened – just a trickle of dried hay.
“The angle was a little off,” Uncle Jarun started to say, but he was cut off when the door opened to let Mother in.
“I see you’ve returned,” Uncle Jarun said, turning to face her. They didn’t embrace, or even greet. Sarisha – whose first instinct had been to run to Mother – didn’t move either.
“And I see you’re giving her lessons again.” Mother’s voice was hard to read – but Sarisha thought she was upset.
“You know my thoughts.” Uncle Jarun didn’t elaborate – and they all knew what he was talking about.
Mother didn’t reply. She turned to Sarisha, and stared at her. She could stare for ages and Sarisha wouldn’t be able to guess her thoughts. Mother was like that – even better at it than Uncle Jarun.
“Hello, Mother,” Sarisha said, to break the silence.
“Is that how you greet me?” This time, there was no doubt about the emotion – Mother’s eyes glittered with an inhuman anger.
Sarisha, paralysed, managed, “Uncle Jarun –”
“Uncle Jarun is a blood-empath. You’re not,” Mother said, squatting down. “Come give me a hug, child.”
Sarisha walked closer, trying to dispel the hollow in her stomach. She wasn’t afraid of Mother – wasn’t afraid of anything…
Mother’s skin was smooth and cold: it was always the same, like hugging a drowned body – it always brought back memories of being a much younger child, and of Mother’s hugging her a last time before going to bed. This was – home, in a way that nothing else could be.
“That’s better,” Mother said, and rose – and Sarisha could see the way Mother’s thoughts immediately moved beyond her daughter, to her duty. “We have a prisoner?”
“Waiting for you,” Uncle Jarun said. “In the interrogation room.”
“I see,” Mother said. “What has he done?”
“He killed a blood-empath,” Uncle Jarun said, each word clipped, precise, like a dagger thrust.
Sarisha held her breath: it was the gravest of crimes. Mother’s face did not waver – but her eyes glinted, dangerously. “Then he’ll get what he deserves,” she said, and swept out of the room.
Uncle Jarun started to follow her, and then, apparently changing his mind, went back into the room. With the precision of a healer dissecting flesh, he opened up the manikin, and studied the dagger’s position. “You’d have missed the heart by a handspan at least,” he said, withdrawing the blade from the wound. “Keep practising, little fish.”
And then he too was gone.
Of course, the last thing Sarisha wanted was practise. The bleeding man had known her – he’d known Mother. And Sarisha wanted to find out why – part of her, too, wanted to see how Mother would react.
She crept out of the room and into the corridors.
There was another way to her secret place: a dusty, unused staircase that twisted at the back of the tower. Sarisha climbed the steps two by two, pausing on the second landing to catch her breath.
The secret place was empty – but there would be people below: she had to tread carefully.
She could barely see the cage through the floorboards. She tried twisting her neck to make out the rest of the room, but Mother wasn’t there – and there wasn’t any noise but the bleeding man’s breath.
That was weird. Mother had looked determined to see the bleeding man as soon as possible. Why wasn’t she there?
As if in answer, the door to the interrogation room slid open – and footsteps echoed on the parquet.
Mother and Uncle Jarun: both in full blood-empath regalia, with the deep purple robes and the copper bracelets on their wrists. They must have changed; that was why Sarisha had got there before them.
Mother stood just under Sarisha, but Uncle Jarun had moved out of her field of vision. No matter. It was Mother Sarisha wanted to see.
Mother glanced at the bleeding man. “You have been brought here on charges of murder,” she said.
A liquid, bitter sound came from the cage – the same sickening sound Sarisha had heard in the night. “I won’t deny them,” the man said. “But you should know that, Chandni.”
Mother paused. Sarisha wished she could see her face.
Mother asked, “What’s his name?”
A rustle of papers; then Uncle Jarun’s voice: “Pundarik of the community of Lai.”
“I see.” Mother’s voice was – changed, somehow. Hollow, Sarisha thought, and it was frightening. Nothing ever touched Mother. “Leave us alone.”
“You’re sure of this?” Uncle Jarun asked.
Mother shook her head, as if trying to rid herself of a fly. “Yes.”
Footsteps went out of the room. Mother remained alone, facing the bleeding man in his cage. “Pundarik,” she said, rolling the name in her mouth as if unsure whether to spit it out.
On the edge of Sarisha’s vision, the bleeding man rose in his cage. “Chandni.” He sounded amused. “It’s been some time.”
“Thirty-three years,” Mother said. “And you have killed a blood-empath.”
“I’d kill them all if I could.”
“Us all.” Mother paused, and then said, “I’ll refer your case to another blood-empath of equal rank.”
“Frightened?” Pundarik laughed again. “Of a dying man?”
“You’re not dying,” Mother said. But her voice didn’t have the same edge – as if Pundarik had reached inside and torn out everything that made her frightening. She shook her head, again. “But I can be allowed no personal stakes –”
Pundarik gripped the frame of the cage. “So there is something left of my sister in you.”
“I am your sister,” Mother said. “And also a blood-empath.”
His sister? Mother had never mentioned any family – for as long as Sarisha could remember, there had been Uncle Jarun – who wasn’t really her uncle, but who helped raise her – and the guards and the servants. And that was – had been – it.
“And you’re also a mother,” Pundarik said. “I saw your daughter earlier.” For a moment Sarisha was afraid he’d mention seeing her in the interrogation room, but he didn’t go further.
“Leave my daughter out of this,” Mother said.
“A beautiful child,” Pundarik said, gravely – as if they were both guests at a party, talking of small things. “Who was the father? Some man you paid for one night of – dare I call it pleasure?”
“That doesn’t concern you.”
Father – Sarisha, crouching over the floorboards, tried to think of a father – of a man who would be like Mother. She’d never thought about it: home was Mother and Uncle Jarun. There was no place for a father.
Pundarik was speaking again. “The daughter of a blood-empath, raised by two blood-empaths. She’d be perfect for the House of Learning.”
“She would not!” Mother snapped. Even Sarisha knew what was going on: Mother wanted a normal daughter. Mother didn’t want Sarisha to be a blood-empath: she’d speak of a burden too heavy to bear, muttering that Sarisha would be glad to be spared the darkness – and when Sarisha raised the subject, Mother would become cutting steel.
Pundarik – brother or not – couldn’t know that. But he had to know he’d gone too far.
“Don’t make my decisions for me.” Mother’s voice was burning with inhuman fury. “You lost the right to judge me thirty-three year
s ago.”
Pundarik was taken aback – but he soon rallied. “And who will judge you?”
“Not a criminal in a cage,” Mother said. “You obviously don’t realise the seriousness of your situation.”
“On the contrary. I have already incurred the worst punishment the law can mete out. Nothing really matters after that.”
“Don’t be overconfident,” Mother said – and some of the old steel was back in her voice. “There are worse things.”
“And you know them all.” His voice was disabused. “What a good servant you turned out to be.”
“And what a good citizen you turned out to be.” Mother walked closer to the cage. “Arrested for a murder and waiting for death in your own filth. Do you honestly believe yourself better than me?”
Pundarik made a wheezing sound. “I have two grown sons. Married men and proud members of their communities. You – you raise a daughter in a house of pain. You have her stand in the courtyard, watching every beaten man your guards drag in. Does she see the broken ones staggering out? Does she watch the corpses flung on the pyres?”
“Enough.” Mother’s voice had the edge of a drawn sword.
“Don’t judge me.” Mother turned away from him – and in that brief moment Sarisha saw the glimmer in her eyes. Surely…
No. It couldn’t be.
“I’ll leave you to ponder your fate,” Mother said.
Sarisha scrambled up, heedless of the noise she would make. She ran down the stairs three steps at a time, and slid to a halt on the landing just as Mother walked out of the interrogation room.
“Mother?”
“What are you doing here?” Mother asked.
Sarisha just stood there, staring at Mother, willing herself not to see. Even in the dim light there was no doubt. Mother was crying – small tears running down her cheeks like beads of glass.
“He made you unhappy,” Sarisha whispered, trying to bridge the enormous gap in her mind. Mother never cried. Mother was hard inside, as hard as she needed to be, to serve the Pahate King.
Mother –
Mother was looking right through Sarisha. “It’s nothing. Nothing.”