A Promise Broken

by Lynn E. O'Connacht

  But when the doors opened Eiryn forgot all about it. There were so many bright flowers on the tables. Eiryn had never seen the banquet hall like this. Normally the tables just had lamps on them, small glowing orbs that dotted between the seated people and that weren’t always visible. Today, though, the tables were ribbons of colour, like a rainbow, and the lamps were all different colours. The hall smelled like… Eiryn wasn’t sure. Sweet and fresh and crisp. Sweeter than the sea.

  Eiryn wanted to ask her uncle why everything was different, but she didn’t know how to get his attention. She was holding Radèn’s gift in one hand and Keilan-minnai had clasped the other in hers.

  After a moment’s hesitation, Eiryn squeezed in the woman’s hand to get her attention. “Why are there so many flowers?”

  “Because we’re saying goodbye to the past year.”

  “Why?”

  “Because…” Keilan-minnai hesitated. “Because we are.”

  It wasn’t much of an answer, but by now Eiryn could see Radèn sitting beside his father at the table. She wanted to bounce on her toes and wave at Radèn, but he was talking to someone else and she knew he wouldn’t notice her.

  Instead, she pulled free of Keilan-minnai’s grip and rushed forward to her own seat. The sooner everyone had eaten, the sooner she could give Radèn her present. She ignored Arèn-minnoi when he called for her to slow down and she didn’t even mind getting told off. Arèn-minnoi didn’t sound as grumpy about it as usual and she’d found a nice spot under the flowers to put her present. It kept the shell safe and it meant she didn’t have to think about how awful it was for the whole dinner because the flowers hid it. Radèn was going to hate it. She knew he was.

  Eiryn even startled when she noticed the boy wave at her, but she waved back. He wasn’t sitting in his usual seat today, and he wasn’t looking very happy. Eiryn huddled in her chair until her uncle told her to sit straight. Throughout the meal, she fidgeted. Anou-minnoi wasn’t there and all the adults were ignoring her. Eiryn kicked her feet against the table, toyed with her food. She got snapped at by her uncle once for tossing a lemon slice onto Keilan-minnai’s plate, but when she tried to build a tower with her crab legs he either didn’t notice or didn’t care.

  It was the worst meal she’d ever had, and the dessert course didn’t make it much better. It wasn’t even a proper dessert, all nuts and loose dried fruit. Not a biscuit in sight, never mind anything better. Eiryn wanted a big fruit pie, but there was none.

  Finally, Radèn ghosted past her seat and tapped her on her shoulder with the words ‘let’s go’. Eiryn slipped off her chair and got two steps before returning for her present. Radèn had already moved on to another child, but she caught up easily anyway. The boy directed her and the other children to the doors and told them to wait there. There were only four them walking to the great, translucent doors, but Radèn had vanished into another row. Eiryn tried to follow his progress as he sent more children to where they were.

  Mery-minnai poked Eiryn’s shoulder. “What’s he planning?”

  Eiryn startled and pulled away a little, which only made Mery-minnai repeat her question. When Eiryn didn’t answer some of the other children echoed it and she backed away.

  “You’re scaring her.” That was Illyneis-minnai, and she put herself between Eiryn and Mery-minnai. It helped a little. In a couple of moments, Illyneis turned to Eiryn and asked the same thing. That didn’t help, but it was still better than having everyone asking questions of her. Illyneis’ voice was gentler than Mery’s had been and the taller girl didn’t poke her arm when asking.

  Eiryn frowned, then said, “I don’t know.” Some of the other children started to whisper to one another at that, guessing at what Radèn-minnoi had planned. Eiryn just waited for Radèn to be done and come to them, and she looked around to see if Janyn-minnoi or Bunren-minnaoi joined them. The latter did, though ao looked a little uncomfortable and scared, but Janyn was nowhere to be seen. Not even when Radèn came to them and announced they were going to go outside to play. Radèn sounded enthusiastic enough, but something about his voice didn’t feel right to Eiryn and the boy was silent as the group walked through the corridors. The other children all kept talking about where they might have been going, and Illyneis and Mery walked beside Eiryn, happily chattering at one another.

  It really did not help her heart stop skittering in her chest. Radèn wasn’t angry because she hadn’t given him his present yet, was he? Maybe he’d seen what it was already and knew it wasn’t any good. Eiryn tugged on her hair with her free hand. Keilan-minnai had done it up in a high ponytail that night. Eiryn had to pull hard for the ribbon to come loose. She combed her hair over her ears with her free hand. If she’d been walking near the end of the small procession of children, she could have slipped away from them and hid, but she was right behind Radèn.

  The doors leading to the courtyard were open. Eiryn could hear the fountain clattering loudly and, underneath it, very softly she could hear… something else. There were voices, certainly, but she didn’t recognise the rest. Some of it sounded reedy or twangy, and some of it sounded like someone’d stumbled against a bucket. A couple of the older children made faces. Radèn asked one of the guards outside to make light for them. It took Eiryn a few moments to realise that this guard wasn’t wearing a three-way sash and, instead, just wore one tied around the waist. The man laughed as he used a farakaoina to summon several orbs of light for the children. Eiryn got the biggest one, which she held carefully. It was a little warm to hold, but it didn’t burn. It wasn’t very bright either, though, and the orbs gave off just enough light to see where they were heading.

  “What’ve you got there?” Radèn asked. Eiryn hadn’t noticed him appear beside her and Mery was quick to take the orb from her so she had her hands free.

  Reluctantly, Eiryn answered her friend, “A present.” She was torn between trying to hide the shell with the poem behind her back or to hand it over. Either way she wanted to tug her hair back into place and hide. It wasn’t a very good poem and Radèn would hate it. Eiryn’d read other poems and she didn’t quite understand them, but she knew that they were pretty and that they meant pretty things. Orryn-minnaoi had shown her how some of the poems weren’t about what they said they were. Ao’d read her one that was about a frog in the moonlight, only it was really about a person who seemed to be a frog and it was supposed to be funny.

  “For me?” Radèn asked.

  Eiryn held the shell more tightly. “For you.”

  “Can I see?”

  Wanting to say ‘no’ so badly it made her bones ache, Eiryn hesitated. But she couldn’t. Not to him and so she handed over the shell. Her arms trembled, but Radèn didn’t seem to notice. He was focused on the shell. It took a few moments for him to find the paper she’d put inside it. Eiryn combed as much of her hair over her face as she could. She didn’t dare look up. She knew Radèn. He’d be far too sweet to tell her the poem was awful and he was a terrible liar. He always licked his lips right before he was about to tell a lie. She’d seen him do it, though she wasn’t always sure how she knew. The rest of the children had gathered around now. They’d passed the orbs around so that their small circle was flooded with light.

  “Who wrote this?”

  Eiryn had nowhere to go. Radèn didn’t seem upset. “I did.” Her voice wavered so much she had to say it four times before anyone’d heard her say it. Some of the children had become restless. But Radèn didn’t move.

  “Thank you, Ryn-dai. I appreciate the effort you put into it.” Eiryn hadn’t looked up in time to see him lick his lips, but she knew that he had. She was certain. It hurt. She’d tried so hard. Arèn-minnoi was wrong.

  “I think you were very sweet and brave, Eiryn. No one’s ever given me something they made themselves for my birthday.”

  Eiryn sniffled. Radèn had never lied to her before. Never. And she couldn’t bear that he w
as doing it now.

  “Eiryn.” Radèn was close enough to brush the hair from her face, though only her face. The other children had gathered behind him, but she couldn’t seem to move. They were gawking and shuffling their feet until Illyneis started to shoo them away. “I want you to listen to me, all right? I would rather have your poem, even if you hate it, than anything else people gave me today.”

  “Wh-why?” She almost choked on the word, but Radèn had a hold of her arm now and she didn’t dare bolt. He was much stronger than she was, and bigger too. He wasn’t threatening the way Janyn was and he wasn’t hurting her, but she still wanted to be anywhere but where she was.

  “Because you went through a lot of trouble to make it, and it took you a lot of courage to give it to me.” Radèn ruffled her hair with his free hand and she could just about make out a smile on his moon-pale face.

  “But it’s not good,” she said.

  “So? You made it. I think it’s lovely. If you keep up like that I’m going to smack you with the shell.” Eiryn could hear the edge of laugher to his voice, the one that told her he wasn’t at all serious and that usually made her giggle for no reason she could understand, but not this time. Tonight it just made her feel heavy. It wasn’t a good poem and Radèn was just too polite and too nice to say so. Janyn was right. She was a useless, little thing and the only reason Radèn liked her present at all was because she’d made it herself. Not because it was pretty or good. She wasn’t good at anything. She’d never be good at anything.

  So Eiryn bolted. Radèn wasn’t holding her tightly, so it was easy to pull free and since everyone had moved to stand in a half-circle behind her only Radèn was near enough to stop her and he was too slow. The orbs were much brighter all put together and Eiryn could see even less in the dark than she’d been able to before the guard had made them. She could barely see anything at all.

  Eiryn ran and she didn’t really know or care where she was headed as long as it was away from everyone. She could make out big, dark shapes and she could tell that the strange noises she’d heard drifting in were getting louder, but it didn’t seem very long at all before her legs and lungs hurt from running.

  Stumbling to a halt, Eiryn made for the nearest dark corner and hid there, putting her fist in her mouth to stifle her sobs. She didn’t want to be found. Not ever. She wanted to go away and vanish and never do something bad again.

  She was all out of tears by the time she heard someone singing. It was a gruff, off-key voice and it wasn’t weaving together any farakaoina that Eiryn could recognise. That was stupid, and the way the voice mingled notes and tones like they didn’t even exist jolted her. Whoever was singing there was even worse than she was. At least she could manage to sing farakaoina right. She began to correct the singer softly under her breath, convinced that it couldn’t be right the way it was. But it didn’t sound anything like any of the farakaoina she’d ever heard and she couldn’t quite make sense of how everything was supposed to hang together.

  It made Eiryn want to see who was even more sifanou than she was, but she didn’t quite dare. She just kept singing softly along with the voice, trying to make the whole thing make sense. When a word she didn’t know jolted her, the whole farakaoina came tumbling down around her. It wasn’t a farakaoina. The person wasn’t kerisaoina but gaodansaoina. Eiryn knew from Mayry-minnoi that gaodansaoina sang songs that weren’t farakaoina. Kerisaoina never did because it was too dangerous. They only ever sang farakaoina. Orryn-minnaoi and Arèn-minnoi and even dai had explained that to Eiryn. She’d just been singing a song

  Running one hand over an ear, Eiryn burst into sobs again and she didn’t care who heard her. She was sifanou. She was. And she wanted dai. She hadn’t heard her mother in so long, and she should never ever have made that promise to Keilan-minnai. Never ever. Now even her mother had left her because she was sifanou. I want dai. I want dai.

  “What do we have here?” the gruff, though not unfriendly, bass that had been singing asked. Eiryn wrapped her arms around her legs and sniffled, huddling against the stone. She wanted her mother. “I won’t hurt you, child.” The figure was still speaking gaodansaoina. They were holding out a big and callused hand to her. Eiryn stared at it warily. The stranger was holding a big lamp above their head, so if she squinted she could make out their face. It looked craggly like the cliffs around Lir, but it was hard to tell for sure.

  The stranger was holding their hand very still and steady. Hesitantly, Eiryn reached out for it. It was even rougher than she’d imagined, but the gaodansaoina pulled her to her feet even more gently than her uncle ever did. “What are you doing here?” they asked. Eiryn didn’t answer and frowned. She couldn’t see if the stranger was wearing a sash. The lantern above their heads flickered. “Let’s get you into a proper light.”

  Still frowning, Eiryn let herself be led into the bright spot of a street lamp. It wasn’t very far away, but it was far enough that she hadn’t noticed it when she’d stopped running. Looking around, all she could see were dark, flat-roofed buildings crowding her. She couldn’t see her home at all; she didn’t even know which way to go.

  “You’re lost, aren’t you?”

  Eiryn only nodded. In a proper light, she could see that the stranger had a scar running along half their face and it made their smile look all lopsided. Their clothes were almost as dark as they were, but there was no sash to help Eiryn figure out how to address them. So she didn’t.

  “Well, you’re clearly not from around here. Can you speak?”

  Eiryn nodded, wishing that Mayry-minnoi was near, or at least Arèn-minnoi or Keilan-minnai. They’d know what to say, what to do. Eiryn didn’t. She’d never been outside of the palace gates before. The stranger had knelt down to look into her eyes, though, the lantern set down on the ground beside them. It was made out of blossom-coloured paper and had a big candle in it. How it didn’t catch fire when the candle still flickered with each gust of wind, Eiryn didn’t know.

  “Hey. Did you hear me? I’m sure your parents are very worried about you. What’s your name?”

  “E-Eiryn.” And she didn’t have any parents to be worried about her. She only had Arèn-minnoi and he wouldn’t want a sifanou like her. Not even dai would’ve wanted her. Was that why dai’d left? Eiryn didn’t think that made sense, but what if it was?

  “Hey, now. It’s all right,” the stranger said, wiping her cheeks with a finger. Eiryn hadn’t even noticed that she’d started crying again. Her head hurt and her nose was all stuffy. “It’s all right. We’ll get you home.”

  But Eiryn only cried more. She didn’t have a home. She didn’t want to go home. She didn’t want to be found; she didn’t like this stranger with their soft voice and their gentle touch. She wanted to be alone, hidden and gone. So she ran again. Out of the light and down the street. This time, she tried to pay more attention to where she was going, to whether someone was following her, but she couldn’t see for the tears and the alternating light and dark kept making it even harder for her to see.

  Eventually, Eiryn stumbled onto a big courtyard flooded with light. Someone had built a big circle with a lot of crates and wood. They’d put up tall poles that had lamps that looked like the stranger’s lantern dangling above them, flickering in the breeze, but there were so many all strung along and across the circle that it almost looked as bright as daylight. In the centre, people were making weird movements with one another. Then touching, then not. They spun circles around one another and even Eiryn could see that they were moving so similarly that it had to be a pattern. She’d never seen so many people make a pattern before. It was fascinating.

  Several of them were singing too and others were making strange, shrill noises with things held to their mouth or with things they were holding, so they had to be gaodansaoina. There was laughter as well. Most of the gaodansaoina gathered there were even darker than Keilan-minnai, but there were a few that reminded Ei
ryn of her uncle.

  She hid against a crate that offered her enough darkness to feel safe and peeked out from behind it as often and as long as she dared. Kerisaoina never behaved like that and a tiny part of Eiryn wanted to join. It seemed like fun, but she also wanted desperately to make all the noise stop because it was wrong. If she were a teacher like Orryn-minnaoi then she’d go down there and make them stop and do it again and again until they got it right.

  “Looks like fun?”

  Eiryn jumped and screamed in fright, but no one seemed to have heard her. In front of her stood the same person she’d ran from, lantern dangling high about their head again. Eiryn pressed herself against her hiding-crate. Its roughness made itself felt even through her clothes and she was cornered and trapped when the stranger knelt down again, put the lantern on the ground and stopped looming over her. She didn’t like them at all, but she didn’t quite manage to glare at them.

  “I’m Lanneri. Hi.” They smiled, gap-toothed, which made Eiryn lean away from the crate just a little. “Let’s go meet everyone.” The stranger held out their hand to her and wriggled their fingers.

  Eiryn hesitated.

  “It’s safe. Look how many people there are.”

  Gaodansaoina people who were messing up farakaoina almost every time they spoke and Eiryn wanted to go home. She wanted her mother. She didn’t want to be with gaodansaoina and learn how to be sifanou. She didn’t want Janyn to be right and she didn’t want to hurt anyone and she just started to cry all over again. Eiryn didn’t care. Lanneri would just follow her again if she ran and she was tired and she wanted to go home to her uncle. Even if he said she was sifanou too then at least she’d know someone.

  Eiryn could feel Lanneri scoop her up with one arm and she didn’t know what to do except hug them and bury her face against their warm neck. For a few moments there was only laughter and talking, but then another horrible horrible farakaoina started and Eiryn dug her hands into Lanneri’s shirt as tightly as she could because she didn’t want to be around other sifanou. She didn’t understand how the gaodansaoina could laugh and have fun whilst they were all the while almost destroying the world. No wonder Janyn said they were sifanou. Though then he should’ve been sifanou too and not Eiryn because she was much better at farakaoina than he was.