by Sharon Hinck
The voice gentled, a mere echo of what I’d first heard. My people have forgotten Me.
The sorrow in the voice pierced my heart and made me want to weep and tear my tunic. Rocking side to side, rolling through my heels, I projected my thoughts toward the earth, but found little to say.
“I’m sorry, sorry, sorry,” I said silently. “Don’t speak again, please, please, please.”
Perhaps the earth had mercy. Perhaps I’d been overwrought and only thought I’d heard words in the thrumming of the drums. At any rate, no more voices interrupted the pattern.
We completed current and grabbed a few breaths before the drums began the next rhythm. We paced through the slower furrow pattern to urge crops to grow, followed by pine and willow to nourish the trees. Even though I imagined the forests throughout our world strengthened and heartened by our dance, I couldn’t return to my original feelings of joy and satisfaction. I couldn’t be sure when the voice would speak again, and how I could cope if it did.
Much later, when we finished yet another series, I was surprised to see the torches alight. I stood poised, alert, ready for the next cue, but the drummers stood, stretched, and left the ground.
“We’re done.” Iris touched my shoulder.
I blinked a few times, struggling to return to reality. We lined up and filed inside. In the jostling of dancers exiting and entering, Iris was able to grab my elbow and pull me aside. “Whatever you do, don’t tell the High Saltar what happened to you out there.”
“But she said . . .”
“Calara, I’ve seen what happens.” Her warning tone was almost as adamant as the words I’d heard in the dance. “If she saw your mistakes, blame it on nerves.”
A cold breeze crept through the doorway from the center ground, and I shivered. Iris hurried away before I could ask her to explain. The experience had already terrified me. Why did Iris have to stir even more fear in me? If I couldn’t trust the High Saltar, then I couldn’t trust the very ground I walked on.
My lips coaxed into a wry smile. And apparently the ground I walked on was unpredictable.
As the energy of exertion and surprise wore off, my whole body slumped with fatigue. I longed to steal away to my room. I trudged across the large rehearsal room.
When I reached the door, High Saltar Tiarel waited, posture more rigid than usual, face implacable.
How much had she noticed? What should I tell her?
I kept my gaze down, finding the reliable stitches on her hem once again.
For years I’d depended on the instructions of others. Routines, schedules, precise orders. I had little practice relying on my own instinct. Yet in that moment, the very fiber of my being sensed danger.
She grasped my chin in a painful grip and tilted my face to meet her gaze. Deep eyes probed my soul and stripped me bare. “Well?”
The walls of the rehearsal hall glared down as I struggled to think of an answer for High Saltar Tiarel. “It was an honor to dance in the center ground,” I said in a carefully neutral tone.
The High Saltar’s impatient hiss reverberated in the room that had rapidly emptied of the other dancers. She tightened her bruising grip on my lower jaw. “What did you hear?”
A tremor ran up my spine at the memory of the deep voice, but I met her gaze with all the childlike naivety I could muster. “I heard the drums. I heard our feet against the ground. And once I thought I heard the howl of a forest hound in the distance.”
Her eyebrows lowered, suspicion and threat sliding across her brow. She pushed my chin aside and allowed me to step back. “Report to my office in the morning.”
After an obedient bow, I slipped away and ran all the way to my room. How had my lifelong dream become such a nightmare? A part of me wanted to keep running—into the outer gardens, down to Middlemost. Perhaps Starfire could find me work tending the ponies.
How could I fulfill my purpose when I didn’t know whom to trust?
My door stood open, and I rushed in and tumbled onto my bed, gasping for breath and fighting back tears. The scent of clean, pressed linen reminded me that there had to be a way to put things right, to regain the smooth order of my life. But how?
Ginerva was lighting candles on the shelf. “So dearie, how was your first . . .” When she saw how distraught I was, her lips formed a worried circle. She sat beside me, opening her arms. I let her enfold me while a few frightened sobs quivered from my lungs.
“There, there.” She patted my back. “You’ll be fine. Mayhap a bit overwhelming, but you’ll get used to it. Of course it’s a huge adjustment. You’ve worked your whole life for the experience. Trust me. I’ve seen many women serve here, and I knew right away you had the strength for the work. You’ll be fine.”
I pulled back. Tender hazel eyes welcomed my confidences. She’d cared for dancers for years. She would know what I should do.
“I heard something. A voice. I—”
Alarm squeezed Ginerva’s features and she placed a finger over my lips. “Hush. Don’t ever speak of it.”
“That’s what Iri—what another dancer told me. But why? The High Saltar wants me to tell her—”
“No!” She pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and mopped my tears.
I stilled her hands. “Please, tell me why.”
She rose and peered out into the hall before closing the door and returning. Even though we were alone, she whispered, heightening my sense of danger. “Tiarel has been trying for years to find women who can hear the voice—and more importantly can help her command it with more power. She sends them out again and again. Some go mad. Some disappear. There are rumors of a well in a room beyond her office, cut down to the ocean, and it’s not used for drawing water.”
Horror tightened the muscles of my face.
She sank beside me again. “There, there child. I’ve gone and upset you more. I’m sorry. Don’t be worrying about those tales. Only you must understand why you can’t tell her.”
“But how can I hide it? I’ll have to tell her. She’s the High Saltar. Besides, I’ll be on another shift soon. What if the world talks to me again? I can’t . . .”
“That’s just it, dear one. You didn’t hear the voice of the earth or the sea.”
She wasn’t listening, or perhaps she couldn’t believe me. I eased away and confronted her. “I’m telling you, I heard it. So strong that I nearly fell. So compelling I almost couldn’t finish the pattern.”
She patted my hand and pressed her lips together, seeming to struggle with a decision. “If you heard Someone speak to you, it wasn’t our natural world. You heard the Maker.”
Poor dear woman, still steeped in the myths of the rim villages. Now I was the one to pat her hand. “Ginerva, I won’t tell anyone what you said. But you know that to speak of these lies is heresy.”
She cupped my face in her palms, her touch so gentle and different from Tiarel’s. “Little one, I’ve trod this earth for three of your lifetimes. I’ve served here for decades, and have tried to help the dancers when I can. I’ve seen the world beyond the Order, and more importantly, I’ve had glimpses into the true nature of the Order. Tiarel is growing desperate. That’s why she’s been sending out regiments to wrest girls from their homes.”
My hands clenched. Nolana had claimed she was stolen away. But that couldn’t be true. “Families vie to have their girls accepted—”
“She’s always searching for the ones who might grant her more control over the world.” With a flutter of fingers she waved away my interruption and spoke rapidly. “And it’s why more villages are rebelling. They’ve been bled dry by her taxes and now have lost lives trying to protect their families.”
“Then why would she send any dancers away? If she needs more, why wasn’t Starfire accepted? Or Alcea, Furrow, and Dawn?”
Ginerva shook her head. “She thinks only the most perfect and skilled dancers can master the voice. She culls those who she believes to be weak of spirit, but allows most into the Order—at least u
ntil she can test them in the center ground. And many girls don’t come willingly. Think back. Think about the days before you were brought here.”
I stepped back. “We aren’t allowed. There is no life before the Order.”
Through tiny cracks around the door of memory, a sensation emerged, one revived by the current pattern I’d just performed. The sheltered warmth of being rocked in loving arms. The faint melody of a lullaby. Then a later moment, the image of my mother’s arms reaching for me, horrified tears streaming down as I was wrested away, the copper taste as a soldier struck me, silencing my desperate scream.
I gasped. How had I forgotten? “Th-th-they took me?”
Tears watered Ginerva’s eyes. “It takes years of control to plant the lie so deep.”
She waited quietly while everything I knew and believed crumbled like sunbaked clay, leaving me grappling in the dust for something to grasp.
“But our work here? Maintaining the world.”
She shrugged plump shoulders. “Perhaps a part of what the saltars believe is true. And part is a lie.”
“A lie,” I whispered. All the years of reverence to the very people who had torn me from my family. All the longing to earn approval. Something inside me shriveled and died, even as I tried to hold on. “Maybe they had to. Maybe the suffering is worth it for the greater good.” But the words were dry grit on my tongue.
“All I know is that if Tiarel learns the voice spoke to you, you’ll suffer a terrible fate. Can you hide it from her?”
“I don’t know.”
“You must. Or you must flee.”
My experience in the center ground and the onslaught of new memories kept me awake all night. I had been taught to despise the peasants of the rim, but as memories unfurled, I remembered the sensation of diving into sweet water and riding the waves as they carried me back to the tangled fringes of vegetation that lined the shore. I remembered riding the shoulders of my father, laughing and grasping for persea from a branch overhead.
As I tossed in my bed, I stopped resisting all the doubts about the Order that had gathered recently like lead weights on a scale. Brantley’s accusations about how castoffs were treated no longer seemed so farfetched, nor Nolana’s plaintive testimony of being stolen from her family. I couldn’t countenance Ginerva’s belief in a Maker, but I did trust that she’d seen more of the inner workings of the Order than I had, and her fear for me was palpable. Perhaps there was truth to even the dark rumors of a hole into the ocean where unworthy dancers were cast. I couldn’t deny I’d witnessed harshness and cruelty, all in the name of the Order.
None of this helped me make a plan, however. When the first sun sent the faint glow of predawn light through my shutters, I still didn’t know what to say when I met with Tiarel. Even if I hid my experiences, I’d soon face another assignment out on the central ground. I couldn’t endure another encounter with that powerful voice. Couldn’t hide its impact on me forever.
I grabbed a cloak and tiptoed down the empty hall and out to the dancers’ courtyard. Not even the servants were awake yet. The night dancers would be finishing their lonely shift soon, but for now, the Order seemed almost deserted. Overhead, stars faded as deep violet softened the dark sky. I wished I could fade from sight as easily or find my old village and make a new life. But how? I didn’t know how to navigate Meriel. I wouldn’t even be able to find Salis, the town where Alcea sought refuge. Should I just run until my legs gave out?
A thump interrupted my thoughts. It came from beyond the wall of the school’s gardens. I tiptoed to the wall and climbed enough to peer over. A rope dangled from the first-form sleeping quarters several stories above, and beneath, a man untangled a bundle from his back. My eyes adjusted to the dim light and I squinted.
Brantley was holding Nolana.
He wasn’t checking on her welfare. He was stealing her back.
I gasped.
At the sound, he pushed Nolana behind him, facing the threat with his knife at the ready. He clearly wasn’t expecting the danger to be my disheveled head peeping over the wall. His alert defensiveness shifted to an expression of exasperation. “You again? Whatever you do, don’t raise an alarm. Please.”
A kernel of hope flared in my heart. He’d helped Alcea when she was cast out. He’d known the nearest villages. I climbed the wall and jumped lightly to the cobblestones before him. “I won’t. On one condition. Take me with you.”
Brantley hefted a pack over one shoulder and tucked his knife back into his belt. “Don’t be ridiculous. Go back to your precious Order. Just give us time to get away.” He grabbed Nolana’s hand and strode toward the arched trellis where wisps of morning fog hovered over the grass beyond.
The little girl tugged him to a halt. “Uncle Brant, she was my nice teacher. We have to help her.”
He swept Nolana into his arms and jogged out of the gardens, ducking sideways into the relative shelter of the outer wall.
I followed, running lightly. “I can’t stay here.”
He scanned the windows of the Order, then measured the distance to Middlemost. “Got yourself into some trouble, did you? All the more reason we don’t want you along. Besides, once I deliver the girl to her mother, I’ll be traveling fast.”
“I can keep up. I’m stronger than I look.”
He sized me up. White tunic and leggings, pristine cloak, light leather slippers, no supplies. The planes of his face were as hard-edged as the stone that formed the Order’s walls. “No.”
Nolana whispered something in his ear.
He rolled his eyes. “Where are you heading?” he asked me.
I swallowed. Good question. Where could I go? “I . . . I’m not sure.”
“Glad you have a plan.” His sarcasm burned through me, but the longer I kept him arguing, the more chance I had to convince him.
“Just bring me along until I’m safely away from the Order. I don’t care where you’re going.”
Nolana leaned her face against his bristly cheek. “Please, Uncle Brant?”
His steely gaze met mine in an angry challenge. “If we’re caught, it will be on your head.”
“Understood.” Brave words, but if Nolana was captured because of me, the guilt would be unbearable. “Don’t worry. I won’t slow you down.”
His only response was a snort. Then he adjusted his hold on Nolana, scanned the surroundings once more, and ran toward town.
My cloak fluttered behind me as I tore after him, determined to stick like a pale shadow. We reached the first row of houses and shops, and he wove past a bakery where puffs of smoke from the chimney indicated early-morning work. We passed an empty fruit stand and the smelly barrels of tallow behind the chandler. He continued rapidly down a narrow street of taverns and into the alley behind a row of stone cottages with thatched roofs.
The uneven cobblestones bruised my feet, but I stayed close. He was breathing hard from the run, and I took a bit of smug satisfaction that I wasn’t winded at all. Of course I wasn’t carrying a little girl and a pack, either.
He glanced back once to be sure I still followed, but whether he was relieved or disappointed to see me was hard to say.
Finally, he opened the side door of an inn and slipped inside. I was close enough to sidle in behind him.
A heavyset cook stood before a massive hearth, stirring a pot that exuded a burnt and sour odor. She raised her eyebrows at our hasty entrance into her kitchen, but merely held out her hand. Brantley gave her a few tokens from his pocket, and she nodded and turned back to her cooking. Kettles caked with residue stacked along the side of the room, and a rodent scurried from the corner and glared at our intrusion. I bit my lip, hoping we wouldn’t be staying long enough to eat anything here.
Brantley lowered Nolana and led us from the kitchen into a dining hall. Rows of empty tables canted at awkward angles with rough benches and chairs shoved underneath.
A woman in a coarse brown dress stood staring into the dead ashes of a cold fireplace.
The woman turned, a joyous sob wrenching from her when she saw Nolana. She fell to her knees, opening her arms as Nolana ran to her, their movements a beautiful dance of reunion and love. Brianna stroked her daughter’s hair, kissed every inch of her face, and they murmured reassurances to each other. An empty place in my heart throbbed with longing. Would I ever belong to someone with that sort of love? My only place of belonging had been the Order, and now I was adrift even from them.
Brantley cleared his throat and stepped closer to Brianna. “We have to get both of you on your way.”
Brianna lifted teary eyes, her blonde hair a tangled frame around her face. “Of course.” Her gaze shifted to me and my dancer garb. Her jaw hardened. I wore the uniform of the Order who had stolen her child, no wonder she instantly despised me. “Who is this?” she asked.
Not an easy question to answer, as even offering a name was a quandary. In fleeing the Order, I could no longer call myself Dancer Calara.
“Call me Calara.” The name felt odd on my tongue without the designated color or rank, but at least it held some familiarity. “I’ve left the Order,” I added to reassure her.
Brianna’s expression didn’t soften. She rose and hefted her daughter to her hip, ready to fend me off as if I were a ravening forest hound.
Brantley pulled out a chair and waved me toward it. “You stay here. You’ll draw too much attention. I need to get them out of Middlemost.”
Panic made my eyes flare. “You said you’d bring me with you.”
His ocean-blue eyes met mine, but I couldn’t read what I saw in their depths. Betrayal or honesty? “Trust me,” he said. “I’ll come back for you once they’re on their way.”
The cook poked her head in from the kitchen. “Just heard some soldiers pounding on a door up the street. Get hid or get out. Can’t have them finding you here. Didn’t pay me enough for that.”