“Do you think the legend is true?” Soya asked. “About how she was kissed by the Worldmother?”
I didn’t know, but at that moment I was willing to think it might be.
“Sol’s Light,” she said, “look at their armor—!”
“I s-see it.” It was ring mail on boiled leather, all shades of gold and copper and bronze, gleaming in the sunset. I’d never seen anything quite like it.
“That must be her carriage.”
It had just passed under the gates, large and wooden and oblong with gold leaf inlay that gleamed brightly. We were too far to see into the windows, but many of the onlookers were tossing flowers as it rolled past.
“I w-w-w-wonder what she’s l-l-like,” I said, mostly to myself.
“I hear that her eyes are silver-white like the sun,” Soya said. I’d never seen anyone with silver eyes, but it didn’t seem out of the purview of a Godspeaker.
And after such a disastrous day, this was good. I dreaded tomorrow, when I would have to face my family about their subversive attempt at betrothing me, but for now, it was good.
We watched the caravan move through the city and make its way toward the Temple of Sol. We finished off the bag of dates, drank the wine, and speculated about Greatmother Amira until the stars came out.
I fell asleep on that roof long after Soya had left, once again watching the stars, and when I woke up, it was, as always, in my own bed, with a nightlily in my hand.
As soon as I cleaned up and went downstairs for breakfast that next morning, I was met with the stony face of my grandmother, sitting alone at the dining table and leveling me with a dreadful stare.
I’d steeled myself for this moment, of course, but it was so easy to shrink away from her silent fury. As it always did, her anger reduced me to a child, and I faltered in the doorway, seriously considering the possibility of turning right around and leaving. But then, that would only be postponing the inevitable.
“You must have come in quite late last night,” she said, breaking the uneasy silence.
Slowly, I crossed the dining room and took a seat in my usual chair.
“We stayed up waiting for you, but you never showed.”
Her tone was already scolding, and I felt awash in a sense of profound shame – so profound that it took several seconds for me to remind myself that I had nothing to be ashamed of. I hadn’t done anything wrong. I hadn’t done anything wrong.
“I s-s-stayed out to w-watch the Godspeaker’s ar-r-rival.”
Grandmother hummed once, unimpressed.
“Dorran of House Valnon tells me you left the party nearly before it began.”
“After hearing wh-what he had to say,” I answered softly, “I f-f-found myself feeling r-r-rather nauseous. I d-d-d-decided to leave early.”
My grandmother’s eyes narrowed, but I refused to shrink under her glare. I have done nothing wrong, I chanted to myself. I have done nothing wrong.
Our servant, Ferra, was at my side a moment later, filling the empty plate in front of me with the morning’s breakfast – fish, roasted pear, olives, and poached egg. It smelled wonderful, and despite my rapidly waning appetite, I forced myself to pick up my fork and knife.
“Are you really so ungrateful?”
My hands fumbled for a moment; my knife scraped loudly against the rim of my plate.
“Was it g-g-grateful I was m-meant to be?” I returned. “Whatever f-f-for?”
“Dorran of House Valnon is a good match for you,” Grandmother growled. “And finding any match for you at all was no easy feat. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a respectable family with the remotest interest in you? In case no one’s told you, you’re hardly marriageable material.”
“I c-c-could have t-told you that from the outset,” I answered. “B-b-b-but then, to do th-that you w-would have had to tell m-me of your m-machinations, and c-c-clearly that n-never occurred to you—”
“Oh, told you? Is that why you look like a babe plucked from the bottle? Because we didn’t tell you?”
“D-d-don’t try to act as th-though I have n-no right to be involved in m-m-my own b-b-b-b—!”
“We involved you the moment your opinion became relevant,” she said, and my hand tightened around my knife in frustration. I hated it when she wouldn’t wait for me to finish my own cursed sentences. “We involved you when we had straightened out with the family.”
“The v-v-very l-least you could have d-d-done was given me w-w-warning! You kn-kn-know how I am ar-r-round strangers!”
Ferra finished filling my mother’s plate, then went to fetch our tea.
“Yes,” Grandmother answered icily. “I know.”
I hated her at that moment. Would she ever stop punishing me for anxieties, for my stutter? Why was empathy so impossible for her?
“Well, it hardly matters now.” Grandmother speared her fish with undue force, sawed it in half. “You’ve likely ruined one of the few options available to you. I would accuse you of sabotage if I were not already painfully familiar with your complete inability to behave like a rational person in a public setting.”
“If you kn-kn-knew, then the only s-s-sabotage could have b-b-been on your end!”
“You should be so lucky as to marry into House Valnon, Silas!”
I was ready to shout back, but the shout knotted in my throat and choked the sentence out. Ferra returned, filled our cups with steaming golden tea. The only thing I could say to that, the only thing I could think, was, “M-m-m-marry in?”
“Don’t tell me you’re surprised,” Grandmother answered, tearing a bite of fish off the end of her fork. “Do you really think we’d ever have your spouse married in?”
My lips were moving, I could feel them, but no sound came. I stared at her in open-mouthed silence. I was shocked, of course, but beyond the shock, there was a slowly growing pain gnawing at the pit of my stomach.
“You w-w-want to r-r-remove m-m-m-me f-from my house?”
“What can House Olen offer you, Silas?” Grandmother barked. “Nothing! We’re a family of lawmakers and councilors and diplomats – what use does it have of you? You, who can barely speak, let alone orate? Who cares more for the stars than for the state, who becomes useless in a room with more than ten people in it? Of course we want to marry you out of the family!”
The pain in me had sharpened, deepened. I found myself hunched slightly, as though her words had physically struck me. My hands wrung around my fork and knife. They wanted to marry me out of the family? Families on the Queenscourt, families of standing, did not marry the children out – not unless they were a grave embarrassment.
“You r-r-r-raised me on our f-f-f-f-family w-w-words.” My stutter was getting worse. I did not know why at first, until I realized, quite abruptly, that I was on the verge of tears. “B-b-b-b-b-blood ab-b-bove all.”
“Silas—”
“All m-m-m-m-my l-l-life you p-p-preached ab-b-bout the l-l-l-loyalty of b-b-b-b—”
“I don’t have time for this.”
Grandmother threw down her silverware; the clattering sound made me jump in my seat. She rose and said to Ferra, in the corner of the room, “I’ll take my tea in the solarium.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And as for you.”
Grandmother rounded on me. I willed my tears back; I would not cry in front of her.
“Someday, Silas, you may learn that true loyalty often severs as much as it binds,” she said, and I hated her, gods, I hated her, and I hated myself. “But until that day comes, I fear you shall always remain a child, coming-of-age or no.”
She stormed from the dining room, and the deafening silence of her presence was all that remained. I sat still like ice in my chair, staring at my food but nauseated by the sight of it.
So this was why they hid it from me. Because they did not want me anymore, and they could not bear to say so to my face.
Slowly, slowly, I rose from my seat, weak with some combination of heartache a
nd anger and impotent frustration, and I stumbled out of the dining room, and I left the city.
There was a spot not far from the bluff that no one knew of but me.
East along the edge of the cliff, down the path leading to the shore, and through a labyrinth of shale rocks jutting up from the black sand at strange angles, there was a little alcove with a few palms, a cave, and a collection of great, mossy stones. At high tide, the water would snake through the tallgrass and fill the cave with a shallow pool of seawater. At night, it was blanketed with impenetrable darkness.
I went there, sometimes, when even the company of my best friend seemed unpalatable, when the world felt entirely too cruel and too close, when I was drowning in myself, when I needed solitude more than I needed my next breath of air.
After breakfast, I went down to the alcove and stayed all day.
I sharpened a piece of driftwood to a point and used it to catch a fish trapped in the nearby tide pool. I gathered bramble and built a fire. I ate.
I thought a lot – about my family, about my shortcomings, about my comforting hatred for myself – but I did not sleep. I dared not sleep. I did not want to wake up in my bed again, in the throng of that house that so hated me, perhaps not ever again. Perhaps it would be better for everyone if I left and never came back.
When night came, I sat down, legs drawn up to my chest, and I watched the sky.
The flying star was still there, still low on the horizon but higher than last time, its long white tail flickering against the sky. I wished I could go back, if only to get my spyglass, but it wasn’t worth the trip.
Your friend was right.
Even after all this time, I still hesitate to describe what exactly it was like, hearing his voice – and I use the term “hearing” loosely, since it was not an actual sound. It wasn’t even really a voice, as the word implies some sort of physical system of air and muscle movements, and it involved none of that.
If nothing else, I can say that it was startling – so startling that I nearly fell off the rock upon which I was sitting. I spun around to look for the source, even though it had rung directly inside my own head. There was no one and nothing there.
“Wh-wh-wh-wh-wh—”
It is indeed an omen.
And then there he was, standing just across from me. That first image of him has been burned indelibly into my mind.
By all rights he seemed an Andel – that is to say, he had a head, a torso, two arms, two legs – but there was a part of me, deep down and instinctual, that knew he was most decidedly not an Andel. He did not feel like an Andel, though I could not rightly tell what it was he did feel like. But whatever he was, there was no denying the fact that he was striking.
What I noticed first was his skin, luminously and unnaturally pale, pulled taut over thin, fine bones. Then I noticed his face, sharp and handsome, though not in the classical way – he was more angular than that, more severe. His eyes were so dark that they seemed to absorb the light around them, and he was dressed in what looked like raw, undulating twilight – swirls of black and deep blue and green, freckled with glimmering stars.
“Wh-wh-wh—”
He smiled, and it was a strange thing to see, sort of serene and otherworldly.
I put it there myself.
My mind was finally catching up with me. But surely that was impossible. Surely I was mistaken, because the only explanation for all of the facts—
So jittery, he remarked. Like a little bird.
—and then he was moving, smooth and imperceptible as water, toward me. My heart was beating in my throat, and despite a lifetime of fear, I was forced to reassess everything I thought I knew about terror.
You know who I am, don’t you, little bird?
I could not answer. My voice had abandoned me entirely, and my body was frozen from fear. Still, there must have been some answer in my eyes, because it drew his strange and otherworldly smile ever wider.
I did know who he was. He was Umbrion, the Night Father, the eldest child of the Worldmother, the god of night. And he was so close to me that if I reached out my hand, I could touch his robe of twilight. But of course, I did not dare.
Granted, the image that you’re seeing isn’t my genuine physical manifestation, he explained, spreading his arms and looking down at himself appraisingly, causing little twists and ripples in his starry shroud. This is just an avatar. No sense in causing any undue stir with my true form.
I made what must have been an entirely undignified sound, low and strangled in the back of my throat. All at once, his words made me painfully aware of the extreme power disparity between us. He was to me as I was to mayflies: so utterly beyond any hope of comprehension, so tremendous where I was so insignificant, and it would take him no effort at all to swat me—
There’s nothing you need fear from me.
My mind stuttered to a halt. That otherworldly smile of his had tempered with sincerity, and with something like warmth.
I would never bring harm to you. I have been waiting for you for an age, Silas of House Olen.
I understood his words, but within the context of a sentence they might as well have been gibberish. Because what in Sol’s name would a god want with me?
You seem so surprised, he said, and for some reason that seemed to amuse him. Has it not been obvious from the outset? Why were you always drawn to the night while the whole world disparaged you for it? Who do you think brought you back home every time you fell asleep under my stars?
Something twisted tightly in my throat. A strong wind brought a gust of ocean spray, peppering me with tiny droplets of water that made me shiver.
We’re connected, you and I. I felt it at the instant of your conception. I have been with you ever since.
Perhaps the idea of a godly shadow should have been unnerving, but it wasn’t. After all, what was three hundred seasons to a creature whose age put the foundations of the earth to shame?
You don’t yet see it, he said, but you and I are very much alike. You don’t yet know it, but this is the first day of a new age of Andelan. I have many plans for you, my little bird.
He lifted one hand and pressed it to my chest, and before I could react, I could feel it, even through the linen of my tunic: cool and smooth and soft, shivering up and down my spine.
You are my Godspeaker, he said, and I was undone. I felt his dark and strange Craft surging through me like cool water in my veins, growing stronger, stealing my breath and my vision, pulling me apart at the seams. I knew nothing of Craft, but I could tell from the sensation alone that this was a binding.
I could feel his presence inside of me, and it was intrusive to the point of pain, horrible and wonderful. It deadened all sensation while simultaneously making me aware of every nerve and muscle and sinew in my body. I somehow wanted it to stop and once and to never go away.
You are my Godspeaker, he said again, my voice on this plane. You will be the harbinger of a new era. We will change this world together, little bird.
The binding Craft had gone from cool to boiling hot, burning in my blood, and my legs were close to giving out. I couldn’t handle much more of this, whatever it was.
Sleep now, he said. Let my Craft settle in you. When you wake up, let spread the word. Let slip the tides of change.
Sleep, he said, sleep.
The last thing I felt was a steady grip into which I fell, before there was nothing.
I look over everything I’ve written thus far, and all I can feel is dread.
Outside my cell, I hear the clash and clatter and cries of battle. The line is holding, but for how long? Is there nothing to be done? What will become of this city, of our civilization? Will anything I write here even matter when the monsoon ends? Will there be anything left to matter?
Despair is such an easy trap to fall into in these dark times. It takes everything in me to resist the temptation to drown in it.
I must keep writing. If this world ends, nothing will matter. If it do
es not, and the world forgets, then all of this pain and darkness will have been for nothing.
I must keep writing. I must keep writing.
I awoke gradually at first, and then all at once.
Memories battered down the walls of my mind, and I shot upright in my bed – back in my bed, back at home—
—had it been a dream? I found it comforting to think so, but it seemed too vivid, the images too clear. But the alternative – the idea that it had actually happened – seemed too ludicrous to entertain as possible. It couldn’t have – surely I of all people couldn’t—
I turned my head away from the sunlight streaming in through the window and looked down at my lap. Lying tightly-clutched in my hand was a single nightlily, its stalk bent in my vise-like grip.
Somehow the sight of it was both intensely comforting and profoundly terrifying all at once.
A moment later, I noticed a sensation that I was sure hadn’t been there the night before.
Of course, “sensation” isn’t the ideal term, but there’s really no other word for it. Andelish hadn’t evolve to describe it. It was closer to a physical sense like sight or touch, something that was woven into my biology, but instead of interpreting the world around me, it linked me directly to him.
There was no mistaking it. In the same way I knew myself, I knew him. I could feel him, undetectable yet omnipresent, cool and dark like night and still water, calm and thoughtful and vastly, hugely unknowable. It was such a simple and obvious feeling that it would have been an exercise in willful ignorance to deny it:
It had not been a dream. As impossible as it felt, I was Umbrion’s Godspeaker.
This understanding raised a few rather alarming questions, not the last of which was what in Sol’s name am I supposed to do now? What was the proper way of handling this information? Godspeakers were holy people, advisors to the Queen, leaders of the Temple, scholars and diplomats – how could I possibly insert myself into such a role? How would I even begin?
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