“I went without a bed for seven years,” I remind her. “A hammock’s fine.” I take off my pallacoat, but I’m not sure where to put it. It’s so new and pristine, setting it down anywhere in Outer’s Cove might ruin it. After a few moments of uncertainty, I drape it across my trunk.
“My poor daughter.” Mother’s voice quavers. “You’ve faced so many challenges.”
I don’t like the way she’s looking at me—it’s as if she wants something from me. Forgiveness maybe? Love? Whatever she’s searching for, I don’t think I’m capable of offering it.
When Osren arrives, he says, “Take a look at this,” instead of offering a conventional greeting, and he thrusts a battered shockgun into my hands. “It’s over twenty years old and holds only one-point-four paraunits of cagic, and Father still killed a nocturne with it. Could Kaverlee’s precious Shimmerlings do that?”
The correct answer is “no,” for Shimmerlings don’t need to shoot nocturnes. With cagic barriers and a star net protecting the city, we don’t even have to use Dark Month shelters.
Besides, no one can kill a nocturne with a single shockgun blast. If my father killed a nocturne with such an antique weapon, the creature was either already injured or very old. But I don’t want to get into an argument with Osren, so instead I say, “It’s nice to see you again.”
Osren, though, doesn’t seem to be listening, and as Mother ladles soup into tin cups, he keeps badgering me. “The thing is, cagic energy isn’t distributed fairly. Everyone knows Kaverlee gets more than its share, and it isn’t right. Periphery towns are more vulnerable.”
I know I shouldn’t get drawn into his rant, but I can’t resist. “Look, the city needs more energy because more people live there. Besides, Drae Devorla thinks of Kaverlee City as the beating heart of our cityland. If Kaverlee is healthy and stable, it can support smaller settlements like this one.”
Osren exhales noisily. “But that’s not what happens, is it? The Great Drae keeps making Kaverlee grander and gaudier, while the rest of us in the Periphery suffer.” Osren folds his arms. With his dark hair and brown eyes, he looks like a male version of Fifsa, which I suppose means he also looks like me. I wish he didn’t.
“You’re not being fair,” I say, “I traveled here on a subtrain that Drae Devorla built for you.” Another memory comes to me. “Besides, before I was shipwrecked, she planned to construct cagic barriers and star nets in the Periphery to protect settlements like yours.”
“We don’t want barrier walls. I know how ‘safe’ those are.” Osren stands so he can loom over the rest of us. “Besides, the Great Drae only lavishes attention on rich settlements with big ports.”
I also stand. “I assure you, Drae Devorla is a wise and fair leader. No one knows her better than me.”
Osren looks smug. “The new Predrae does.”
“Osren!” Fifsa exclaims. “That’s going too far.”
And I’m so offended, I’m speechless. I feel like I’ve gulped in too much air and now it’s trapped painfully near my heart.
“Both of you, please sit down,” Mother begs.
Neither of us do, and Osren keeps staring intensely at me. “So why aren’t you the Predrae anymore, huh? I think it’s because Drae Devorla knows us Selvantezes are smart. We notice things, and she was worried you’d soon see how flawed she is, how corrupt.”
“You’re wrong,” I say, pressing my hand against my chest. The cagic always simmering inside me feels hotter than usual.
“Be nice, Osren,” Fifsa hisses.
He ignores her and stays fixated on me. “Admit it, Drae Devorla got rid of you on purpose.”
“She would never do that,” I insist. “She loves me.” Or at least she once did. I’m sure of it. Maybe that’s why being replaced hurts so much. I was once Drae Devorla’s surrogate daughter, and now… I’m nothing.
Osren finally doesn’t have a retort, but now everyone’s watching me, and they look frightened.
It’s only then that I realize cagic sparks are zipping around my arms like angry wasps.
I take a deep breath and will the energy to fade. But how unusual. I’ve never had a shimmerlight manifestation while angry—it’s only ever happened when I’m happy. Is this a sign that I’m winking out early?
“Eat, darling.” Mother nudges my bowl closer to me. “We’re all just hungry—anxious and hungry.”
I sip the soup. It’s salty and citrusy, and although it has an odd gritty texture, it tastes good.
At least there are only two more lunar days until the Bright Month dawns. I wouldn’t be able to survive here any longer.
5
Family
Ihave trouble sleeping that night, for the Outer’s Cove shelter is no quiet, peaceful Courtyard of Youth. Hundreds of people surround me, many of them snoring, whispering, soothing crying babies, or simply clanging around their rickety compartments.
I get up once to use the communal lavatory, which to my disgust consists of smelly, partitioned pits at the bottom of the giant steps—I almost miss our trench on the Grimshore. And when I finally do drift into a peaceful dream, Mother’s clock interrupts it with a jangling ting-ting-ting-ting!
I keep my eyes closed and pretend to sleep as Mother and Osren climb out of their hammocks and groggily follow their morning routine. Both of them have work shifts today.
Someone, Mother probably, clatters a kettle onto their small cagic stove, and I soon hear the steady whine of steam.
“I haven’t seen my youngest child in seven years,” Mother whispers. “Now I must spend hours shelling peas in the deep cellars? It’s unbearable. I wonder if Gressa would give me the day off.”
“She won’t and don’t ask,” Osren says. “If you get on Gressa’s bad side, she might transfer you to a different village or put you in a traveling labor camp.”
“That won’t happen,” Mother whispers. “Gressa likes my tin bakes.”
Osren scoffs. “It could easily happen. You’ve sold too many of your hours.”
Mother sighs.
Once they’re gone, I swing down from my hammock and pull on stockings, a black wool skirt, and a cloudy blue blouse with frilly sleeves. After that, I eat the breakfast Mother left out for me—berry jam on a slice of chewy seed cake with a strong, floral-smelling tea.
Since I hardly know my family—it feels wrong to be alone in their home eating their food. It also makes me feel obligated to them, so to get rid of that uncomfortable feeling, I meticulously wash all the breakfast dishes. I also roll up the hammocks, fold the blankets, and sweep the floor.
Then, at last, I’m free to practice transference.
I start by creating a small shimmerlight disc about the size of a dinner plate, which I then try to stand on. I make it hover just above the concrete floor, gingerly place a foot on the cagic, and then gently ease my weight onto the shaped energy. It feels a bit like stepping on a firm, warm sponge. When I feel stable enough, I slowly, ever so slowly, lift my back foot. My vision darkens and blurs, and I hang onto Mother’s table to keep my balance, but I soon have both feet on the shimmerlight disc. Progress!
I spend another hour carefully stepping on and off different, simple shimmerlight shapes: a cube, a flat square, a flat diamond. Eventually, I try to will the energy platform upward and because sometimes thoughts aren’t enough, I also gently wave my hand. The cagic shape rises faster than I expect, and alarmed, I lose control. The energy shatters into bright, snapping sparks, and I crash to the floor, cracking my elbow. Sitting up, I tentatively probe the joint with my fingers and find a tender spot that will surely become an ugly bruise.
After a few more painful falls, I take a break from practicing. I’m not sure when Mother and Osren will return, and because I don’t want to be a burden, I decide to make dinner. Maybe a nice meal will convince Osren I’m no spoiled Shimmerling.
Mother stores food in covered baskets, and most of her stash is unfamiliar, but if I can roast fish and boil crab over an open flame, I’m su
re I can cobble something together. Another challenge is that most of Mother’s food is in tins, and I don’t know how to open those. I pick up one of the shiny canisters and hold it up to the feeble shelter light. Maybe it has a latch somewhere that I can twist or lift or…
“Knock, knock!” someone says.
I turn and see Fifsa pulling aside the empty grain bag door. She’s not alone either; a curly-haired young man with round cheeks and a pronounced neck follows her into the hut. He must be her husband Gefro, and realms, he also looks too young to be married.
“Good moonlight,” I say, surprised. “I thought everyone was at work.”
“Geffy’s on his way to the deep cellars,” Fifsa tells me. “But I switched my shift to a mid-lunar one so we can visit.”
“Mid-lunar?” I say. “Won’t you be tired tomorrow?”
“That’s what I said.” Gefro sits down on a chair, and Fifsa settles onto his lap even though there’s a perfectly good bench nearby. “Fifsy’s so stubborn, though.” He gives her braid a playful tug.
Fifsy—Fifsa, I mean—giggles. “It’s no big deal. I can always find time to sleep. I can’t always see my little sister.”
“So Xylia,” Gefro says. “How did you survive all those Dark Months?”
I look at the floor, wishing he wasn’t massaging my sister’s back. “We lingerslept, but—”
“Wait, wait, what’s lingersleeping again?” Gefro asks.
Fifsa pipes up. “It’s when you sleep for the entire Dark Month and stay awake during the Bright Month—like animals do.” She flushes. “Not that I’m comparing you to an animal, Xylia.”
I cringe.
Gefro stares at me, amazed. “You really did that? I can’t imagine staying awake for that long.”
“You get used to it,” I say, although the truth is, I never really did. I often woke up during the freezing, pitch-black Dark Month, and my dreams were always the wild, vivid sort that only happen when I’m not sleeping deeply. “We survived much like you do here; we sheltered in a cave when the sun went down.”
“That sounds so scary.” Gefro pulls Fifsa close, and she sneaks him a smile. “Did anyone die?”
“One man, but… it was right after we were shipwrecked, so I don’t remember it well.” And thank the realms. I’ve always suspected Kary remembers more about that tragedy than I do. He had a lot of nightmares during our first year on the Grimshore.
“How’d he die?” Gefro leans forward.
“He thought a different cave would be a better shelter,” I say. “He was wrong.”
Fifsa pales.
I manage to politely answer or dodge Gefro’s other inane questions, such as: “Have you ever driven a cagic chariot? What are King Macreolar and Queen Naradara like? Is Parade Day fun?” Finally, he gives my sister a lengthy, far too intimate kiss and heads off to work.
“Oh hurray, now it’s just us!” Fifsa says cheerfully.
“You don’t have to stay for long,” I say, feeling strangely trapped.
Fifsa gives me an exasperated-yet-friendly smile. “Of course I do! You’re my sister, and now we can finally spend time together. I wish it wasn’t such a short visit, though. And why are you holding a can of smelties? Were you going to cook Mother dinner? That’s so sweet! I’ll help of course. Mother will cry when she discovers her daughters have made her a meal—just you wait.”
Mercy and light, Fifsa’s talkative. I hand her the tin. “Do you know how to open this? We have… a different type of tin in Kaverlee.”
“Really!” Fifsa says with interest as she rummages through the storage baskets, selects two different cans, and then pulls out a winding gadget. She hooks it on the edge of the tin, cranks it several times, and slices off the top.
So that’s how you open them.
As we stir, chop, and boil, Fifsa chatters about how sweet Gefro is and how they hope to have five children.
“Or six—as long as none are like Osren,” she laughs.
I laugh too, and for a brief moment, it doesn’t seem so bad to have a sister.
Thanks to Fifsa’s expertise, we soon have a stew pot bubbling away full of dried tartberries, tinned fish, yellow rice, and soft white beans. It doesn’t look good, but it smells delicious.
Fifsa sets the lid at an angle so steam can escape. Then before I can stop her, she opens my traveling chest. “I just adore Kaverlee fashions. I bet you have some gems in here.”
“Please don’t go through my things,” I say. My family’s habit of handling me whenever they please apparently extends to my belongings too.
“Don’t worry, I’ll put everything back.” Fifsa shakes the ruffles out of an orange and fuchsia palace stola. She then holds the gown against her chest and twirls, making the bright fabric flare outward. “You know, I’ve always wondered what things would be like if I’d been the Shimmerling and you’d been the Quench. Can’t you see me in a gown like this? I suppose that would make you the married sister.”
I’ve never dreamed of being someone’s wife—probably because I always knew I was going to be the Great Drae and Cityland Conduits can’t marry. Refilling the huge cagic reservoirs, tending to the barriers, and caring for the Shimmerlings are all-consuming tasks.
Fifsa eyes me sideways, grinning slyly. “Have you ever kissed anyone?”
My thoughts rush to Kary, and what I refuse to say out loud burns a blush into my cheeks. I can feel it.
Fifsa laughs in the same airy way she did when Gefro was here. “Oh, I see! I don’t think we’re all that different, you and I.”
Perhaps a part of me is like Fifsa—a buried, stifled part—and perhaps that version of me would love to marry and live in a Periphery village. I wanted to kiss Kary, after all. That longing was there—is there. But since I’ve spent most of my life expecting to eventually become the Great Drae, I suspect any other future would always feel like a consolation prize.
After admiring a few other outfits and trying on my hats, Fifsa offers to give me a tour of the Outer’s Cove shelter. Since that will get her out of my trunk, I accept. We ask Mother’s neighbor to check on the stew, and then we head off into the underground passages. Fifsa first shows me the massive shelter’s entrance doors, which are made of iron and covered with charged, cagic wires. Then she shows me the spring-fed, freshwater reservoir, the baths, and the modest forum. Finally, we walk through the cramped work caverns where villagers toil for various labor agencies. Fifsa tells me that most of the contracts in Outer’s Cove are for tinned food that’s then sold to other shelters.
“It’s hard work,” Fifsa tells me over a cacophony of canning machines and meat grinders.
Just as Fifsa predicted, Mother weeps when she discovers we made dinner. Since the recipe was Fifsa’s doing, I give each serving some city flair by arranging seeds and dried tartberries into a dragonfly shape on the stew’s surface.
“It’s supper, not art,” Osren says, immediately stirring his food. The dragonfly in his bowl vanishes.
But Mother carefully eats around her dragonfly and doesn’t disturb it until she absolutely has too.
At the end of the meal, Fifsa scoops up Osren’s shockgun. “Time for my shift!”
“You’re on nocturne patrol?” I ask, stunned. I assumed she’d head down to the work caverns. “You’re so…” Small, I think, and fragile. “Er, it just seems like an unusual job for you,” I conclude rather lamely.
“A shockgun is deadly no matter who pulls the trigger.” Fifsa smiles brightly. “Do you want to join me?”
“Yes,” I say, surprising myself. I am curious to see Outer’s Cove’s defenses, though.
“Wonderful!” Fifsa says. “Mother, Xylia will need to borrow some warm clothes.”
“I have a pallacoat,” I say.
Osren snorts. “You’ll turn to ice in that flimsy thing. Might as well wear a spiderweb.”
“The Dark Month is just as cold in Kaverlee City.” I give him a sharp look. “And because we don’t hide underground, I’m used
to it.”
I pull on my silver-spattered pallacoat, fuzzy scarf, wool cap, and gloves. Then we head to Gefro’s family compartment, and there Fifsa puts on grubby outerwear that seems decades old. After that, with the antique shockgun slung over her shoulder, my sister leads me through several tunnels and up a wet, spiral staircase. The air becomes icy, stiffening my lungs as we reach a small chamber carved into the rock. Inside it, sitting on a bench beneath a small window, is a boy holding a shockgun.
“Thanks for switching shifts with me,” Fifsa says.
The boy stands and stretches. “No problem. This your kid sister? The lost Shimmerling?”
Both Fifsa and I nod.
The boy, who’s surely only about ten or twelve years old, looks me over skeptically. “There’s no way you survived in the wild. Your clothes are too nice.”
Fifsa sighs. “She’s changed clothes since, you dummy.”
“’Spose she could have,” the boy says, not sounding convinced.
As he saunters away, I look out the window. I mostly see flat, snowy spreadfarms and a silvery patch of the Silkord Sea, but there is a group of buildings off to the left. That must be where most of the village lives during the Bright Month. The shelter entrance is directly below, Fifsa tells me, and there are two other watch-windows, one on either side of us.
“The nocturnes’ll start vanishing soon,” she says, sitting on the lone bench. She rests Father’s shockgun against her knee and doesn’t even bother to turn on the charger. “Usually a group of sharecks lurks around down there, but we probably won’t see any today.”
The sun isn’t visible yet, but the horizon’s glowing misty pink. By tomorrow, it will be light, and in two days, it will be safe to leave the shelter. Even better, my authentication mentors—the mysterious Golly and Theandra Shalvo—will be able to travel.
Warmer weather will be nice too. Right now, Fifsa and I are exhaling tiny clouds of vapor, and although I certainly won’t tell Osren, I’m jealous of her ugly, padded palliumcoat. My pallacoat, although lovely, is definitely only intended for short trips from heated houses to heated chariots, not for sitting in frigid caverns for hours.
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