by J. S. Fields
Silly thoughts wound around Emn’s head as Atalant’s hands moved to her shoulders and then slid down to her arms. Emn was careful to keep these to herself. They seemed too precious to share in this moment. The flares and I are stuck in this cycle of misunderstanding. The flares have Arik, who will eventually make things right. Arik has Ardulum, because the planet believes in him. And me? I have Atalant, and that’s just about perfect.
There was a sound of crashing, of wood against metal, somewhere on the other side of the hill. Atalant started at the sound and took a step back. Emn frowned, upset at the loss of lips and hands, but the look on Atalant’s face, of startled frustration, made her laugh. And that release of emotion…it was enough to unlock her knees and slow her breathing. She caught an image of herself from Atalant when the pilot looked back at her—an image of a tall, dark-haired woman in a flight suit, her lips and cheeks flushed.
Emn unfastened the collar of her flight suit. Not all the way, because sex in a grassy field was not her idea of romantic, but enough to show Atalant the effect of her words.
Atalant stroked the skin of Emn’s throat and the thin, black lines that intersected there. Emn’s skin goose bumped.
“You’re beautiful.”
Emn grinned. “The marks—they take some getting used to, but I don’t regret them.” She took Atalant’s hand and clasped it in her own.
“To the palace?” Atalant asked.
Emn nodded and squeezed Atalant’s hand. “Yes. Like this.”
“You know you’re going to be living there with me, right? When the thing is all done with?” Atalant smirked as they resumed walking, hand in hand, and crested the hill. Here, there was much more activity than Emn had expected. She counted five distinct work stations that she could see: two for wood, one for glass, one for metal, and one that consisted of stretched canvases. Ardulans of every don swarmed the stations while a few bustled back and forth from the palace to a storage shed several meters away.
“Is that allowed?” Emn asked, trying her best to keep the new idea from overwhelming her. Living together at the inn in Sorin was one thing, but at the Eld Palace? Maybe she could convince Atalant to keep an apartment somewhere in the city. Something that would be small and unobtrusive and—
The palace, finally, came into view as they angled around a tall pile of logs. Emn caught Atalant’s surprise across their link. The pilot hadn’t seen the structure since the very early stages of framing. Now, with the flares’ help, the building was very nearly done. A lot had been accomplished during the last day, as well, after Emn had left to meet Atalant at the inn. The walls were all up, and it looked like the last of the roof had been placed in the course of the morning. The decorative work on the four spires had begun, and Emn could make out panes of glass tensioned between live andal roots that formed the points. The architects had listened, it seemed, to Atalant’s request to leave more of the roots exposed instead of sheathing them all in plywood. Even from this distance, Emn could tell the walls had been set with plaster between the roots, likely held together by tension joints. She supposed that if they were going to live in the palace, it was best not to forget what formed the skeleton, nor have anyone else forget either.
As they walked closer to the construction site, Atalant’s hand firmly clasping Emn’s, more and more heads turned. Even with a cloud over the sun, Atalant’s gold robes were unmistakable. Emn kept her eyes forward, ignoring the niggling voice inside her head reminding her that she, a flare, was walking with an eld.
The first group of workers they approached—four men and a woman cutting logs into boards—stopped their machine and brushed themselves clean as best they could manage as Atalant approached. Emn tensed, and Atalant loosened her grip.
Your choice, Emn, but I am proud to have you at my side.
I’m not going anywhere.
“My Eld.” The shortest of the men looked up just long enough to glance at Emn and register what he was seeing before looking back down. “We were not informed that you were inspecting today.”
Atalant’s hand tightened back around hers. “Nicholas called me to ask about new plans. Do you know where I might find him?”
“He is inside, my Eld,” the female responded without raising her head. “He and Corccinth are planning the tapestries.”
“Thank you.” Why do we need tapestries? Atalant asked Emn as they resumed walking. More workers paused and stood at attention, staring at the eld, staring at Emn, staring at them together, and Atalant, noticing it all, did her best to wave them back to work.
It’s a palace, Atalant. Besides, some of the tapestries I saw in the old palace told the story of Ardulum’s seeding events. It was a poignant visual history.
That just means they have to keep making them, Atalant muttered as she pushed open the heavy andal double door to the receiving hall. Immediately, they were greeted with the smell of fresh sap.
Atalant bent down and ran a finger over the wide-paneled flooring. Emn knew it would still be damp to the touch. She’d heard the carpenters talking about the months it would take for the boards to dry fully, which meant the smell would linger for years. The walls were still bare inside, but the plaster between the roots was painted a deep green and the crown molding was already in place. It wasn’t a bad smell, really—just a little spicy. Emn decided she could get used to it, maybe. Definitely, if Atalant were there with her.
“It’d be going a lot faster if they didn’t gawk so much,” Corccinth remarked, appearing from the west hall. The old woman’s long, white hair was braided down her back, and no hint of makeup remained on her face. Even her shoulders were bare save for the straps of a short shirt, the length of which barely met the top of her pants. Emn appreciated her confidence and wished, not for the first time, that she could feel as comfortable in such clothing.
Corccinth nodded approvingly at Emn’s bare hands, humphed at Atalant, and sat cross-legged on the floor. The thick blue pants she wore pooled around her as she glared up at Atalant. “You need to be here more often. This isn’t my problem. If you want this castle interior to be identical to the last, then you need to figure out how to talk to your people.” She looked pointedly towards the doorway that led to the hallway connecting to the kitchens. A team of workers was hanging the left half of a wooden double door. Emn could see Nicholas’s dark curls near the top as he steadied the curved board for the carpenters.
“I don’t recall saying it had to be identical,” Atalant said wryly. “Was that Arik maybe? He’s more for tradition.”
“It was me!” Nicholas shouted from the door. Sweat lined his thin, white shirt and blue pants, both of which clung to his wiry frame. He’d grown in these past few months, Emn noted, which seemed unusual for where he was at in his growth cycle, but then again, what did she know about Terran physiology? He was Atalant’s height now, though with much narrower hips. Construction work had filled out his torso so much so that he barely resembled the eighteen-year-old Journey youth she’d first met on the Pledge.
“No, more to the left. We’re going to slip— Argh!”
The woman on the other side of the door dropped her end, and the wood slipped from Nicholas’s grip and slammed to the floor. Although it didn’t crack, Emn and Atalant still winced at the sound. The pyrography on the doors had taken over a week to complete. Emn had done part of it herself alongside a “normal” Ardulan artist and really, really didn’t want to revisit that collaboration.
“Forgiveness, Eld,” the carpenter murmured, gaze stuck to the floor. “I’ll get another person to help. I did not mean to be so disrespectful.” She managed a half bow and then fled the receiving hall. Atalant began to call out to the woman, but then snapped her mouth shut.
“She’ll be fine,” Emn said, giving Atalant’s hand a squeeze. “They like you—they just don’t know how to talk to you.”
Atalant snorted. “Sometimes, I think these robes are more terrifying than I could ever be.”
Nicholas stalked in from the
doorway, his coarse, sweaty curls stuck to his forehead. He had a reproachful look on his face. “Smooth, Atalant,” he said. “You could have told her not to worry about it.” Corccinth chuckled as he approached, and Nicholas saluted in return. “Just because you have a lot going on doesn’t mean you have to scare the locals. Also, you could get your hands dirty.” Nicholas held up his own. “An eld working alongside the people could go a long way to building relationships. Besides, building is a life skill. If the Eld gig doesn’t work out, construction is always hiring.”
“I’d say her hands are doing all right for once.” Corccinth winked at Emn, who felt herself redden. Their moment near the landing pad might not have been as discrete as she’d thought.
Atalant looked like she had bit back a retort. “Wasn’t there something you wanted me to look at?”
Corccinth stood and walked to the new dais. Nicholas hopped onto the wood platform and crouched, eyeing the floorboards critically. “Yeah,” he said. “A few things. “First one is the height on this thing. The main form is here, but we haven’t set the final base for height. The thrones came in today.” He smirked at Atalant. “How high do you want to tower over your minions?”
“Could we not just put the thrones on the floor?” Atalant asked wearily.
Nicholas’s tone became more serious when Atalant didn’t rise to the bait. “Sure, Eld. We can do whatever you want.” His eyes flicked to Emn, who shrugged. He knew how much the Eld stuff bugged Atalant. Hopefully, he’d called her down here for more than just thrones.
“There are just a few things that need to be approved either by you or Eld Arik before we can proceed. Do you want to take a look at the rest now?” A bit of lightness crept back into his tone. “I’m still going to need an answer on the height thing though.”
Atalant closed her eyes and took a calming breath. “Sorry, Nick. I’m trying—really, I am. Make the dais as short as you can, or as short as the Ardulans will let you. What else?”
Nicholas looked warily from Atalant to Emn. “Well, the marketplace, for one. The ground is cleared, but we need to know what you want rebuilt. You want a carbon copy or something new and stylish? A few vendors already started rebuilding, but I asked them to wait in case you had a vision.”
Atalant rubbed her temple with her free hand. “I don’t know anything about placement and markets and whatever. They set up a temporary market on the outskirts of Thannon that’s been functioning well, from what I’ve heard. Don’t the shopkeepers want to take their time and decide how they want the market here laid out? They could customize it or change it.”
Corccinth smacked Atalant on the hip. “No, they want you to decide. This is your capital. Your palace. You’re their leader, Eld Atalant, so lead them.”
“I’m trying. We haven’t been overrun by sentient fungi. Don’t I get applause for that, at least?”
“We’re all just tired, Atalant.” Nicholas hopped from the dais and approached her. “Things will ease up, once the market is back. That’s just a few days away. We’ll put it in as close as we can to the original layout, unless you’d prefer a different design?”
Atalant shook her head, and Emn felt her try to rein in her temper. “No, just original is fine, Nicholas. Was there anything else?”
“Naw. Rest of it can wait a bit. I’ve got questions for you on a biofilm somewhere around here. Make sure I give it to you before you go. Right now, I’ve got a meeting with a few of the Eieans who want to travel with you. I got interview duty. Hoorah.” His tone dropped. “How long do you think it is going to take to convince Ardulum that you need to leave, anyway?” His eyes narrowed. “You are taking us with you, right? In the Lucidity?”
Emn let her mind wander to that possibility for one blissful moment. Just the three of them in the Lucidity, with no other flares and no sentient fungi and no Eld politics. Nothing to distract Atalant, and no more stupid barriers between them.
“I’m going to try again tonight. If that doesn’t work, I…we may just go.” She clenched her teeth and looked at Corccinth. “What’s the worst Ardulum can do to me? I already have andal screaming in my head. It can’t just…terminate me, right?”
“That would be a terrible waste of resources,” Corccinth responded flatly. “But angry andal isn’t going to do this planet much good.” She scowled. “You need to figure out what the andal wants from you.”
My sanity, likely, Atalant muttered to Emn across their bond.
“If Nicholas is done with you, I have a request.” The older woman’s voice turned sweeter. Atalant instinctively took a step back, bringing Emn with her.
“It’s not like that. It’s just not a very pleasant task, and you are trying to kill time, are you not?” She pointed at a rough-looking wooden toolbox lying on a stack of plywood near the west wall and then at the hallway just beyond. “That hallway is where the first tapestries will be displayed. The Eld hang them. Tradition. You’ll want to mark the areas out first. The tapestries are heavy, so you’ll have to anchor them to the andal roots themselves. I assume you won’t need a stud finder to figure out where those are.”
Menial labor. It didn’t actually sound that unappealing all of a sudden, especially if she got to do it with Atalant and no one else.
“I’m allowed to have an assistant for this, right?” Atalant asked, looking at Emn. “Not that marking tapestries doesn’t sound like a delightful use of time, but it might go faster and straighter with another pair of eyes.”
“As long as you do the hanging,” Corccinth returned. She raised an eyebrow. “And if you two are going together, lock the door behind you.”
WITH EMN’S HAND in hers and a surprisingly heavy toolbox in the other, Atalant took careful steps down the curving hallway that led from the throne room to the unroofed Talent Chamber. The ceiling above them was still a network of bare joists spanning roots, but the walls were sheathed in plywood covered in a satin finish.
“Where should we start?” Atalant asked, eyeing the bare walls with distaste. “I suppose this counts as spending time together, though really, this could have waited until we returned.” Atalant sighed and released Emn’s hand. Surely the Eld had time for personal lives, right? Maybe Asth’s social calendar could be unearthed, and Atalant could discover the secret to liaisons. Maybe she just needed to schedule a vacation. “You saw the old tapestries. How long are they?” She set the box down and pulled out a piece of charcoal from inside. “Think just a line will do?”
Atalant expected a similar wave of disappointment from Emn, but the younger woman had clamped down on her emotions and merely pointed down the hall. “Before we begin, did you want to take a look at the Talent Chamber? The andal just finished growing the framework. It’s lovely to look at.”
The door was just beyond Emn, a thick glue-up of black heartwood held to the frame by iron hinges. “Talent Chamber” was carved into the front in lettering Atalant recognized as High Uklam, the traditional language of the Ardulan people—she’d been kind of studying it in the free time she didn’t have. Atalant wanted to go in the chamber and potentially relive the moment of her metamorphosis about as much as she wanted to eat raw andal. Admitting that seemed silly, since a change in don, or whatever it was called when it happened to a subspecies, was supposed to be a time for celebration. So, Atalant made up an excuse.
“I’d rather not. The silence of the hallway is already trying. The andal is so loud that, without background noise, it can be really hard to ignore it. I have a feeling that the Talent Chamber, if the andal is all in place, would be absolutely overwhelming.” Which wasn’t entirely false. The andal was a really irritating distraction, but it was constant. Atalant’s location didn’t much matter.
“I could block it for a while, if you’d like.”
The words startled Atalant. “Block what? The andal? You can do that?”
Emn nodded. “It wouldn’t be like turning off your telepathy, like Corccinth did. The andal could work its way through that. This is more�
� I can erect a sort of mental barrier in your mind to keep the sensorial information to the periphery.”
Atalant considered. The last time an Ardulan had tinkered with her mind, she’d ended up dangerously off-balance, both mentally and physically. On the other hand, having her thoughts to herself again—well, to herself and Emn—would be near blissful.
I’ll be careful, Emn reassured her. It’s only if you want. Some time to relax might be nice, for both of us. Emn straightened and looked Atalant in the eyes. Of course, a distraction might be equally effective. We do have time. Finally.
Emn took a step closer, a smile threatening the corners of her mouth. The somber aura surrounding her started to lift, both across their link and in the hall. The lingering feeling from their kiss on the hill returned, and Atalant’s cheeks grew warm.
“Emn?” Atalant asked, amused. “The tapestries—”
Emn’s eyebrow rose, and Atalant forgot what she was saying.
In the hallway? Atalant sent, incredulous. It’s the antithesis of romantic. Don’t you want…a bed? A finished roof?
Emn moved towards her, each step deliberately broadcasted. The melancholy melted from Emn’s mind, replaced by much more tangible images. One step. Another. It was as if she were giving Atalant every chance to run, to stall. As if she were expecting Nicholas to barge in and interrupt them or Atalant’s communicator to beep an emergency, demanding she return to the throne room.
None of that happened. Not this time. Atalant could feel the amorphous question teasing across their link, and all Atalant could do was focus on her breathing. On not passing out. She’d been ready for this after their arrival on Eie, but politics and a sentient planet had kept them perpetually distanced. The tapestries could wait. The planet could wait. Emn was here. Everyone else could go to hell.