by HM Waugh
The next morning I’m stiff and hungry and the heat ball has vanished. The blanket, however, is surprisingly thick and I’m not cold, even though the tiny barred window high on one side of my cell lets freezing air in to pool around my makeshift bed. The water gourd is frozen solid. I get up and walk back and forth, working out the stiffness in my muscles as the light slowly strengthens.
If I jump and clutch the burningly cold bars with my hands, I can see outside. My cell is below ground, so my viewpoint is from the level of the cobblestones, looking out over a sizable courtyard. Guards are training there now, leather boots beating in time.
I don’t recognise any of them. How many must they have?
I’m dangling from the window when the door opens. I drop in fright, spinning to see Praseep standing outside, dressed in simple white pants and a short white tunic patterned with golden thread. His two guards wear pale gold. Like they coordinated wardrobes this morning.
They probably did.
He quirks one eyebrow at me. ‘I hope you slept well enough?’
I’m not in the mood for niceties. ‘It’s as cold as a tomb in here. Your Highness.’ I make sure he knows I only added on his title because I don’t want to be bopped on the head by one of his boofy guards.
He grimaces. ‘I am sorry about that. Vilpur likes to do things by the procedures. At least you got a good meal.’
I look away sourly. I don’t need his cruel jokes. ‘Are we going somewhere?’ That does earn me a threatening grunt from the guard on Praseep’s right, the one who isn’t a Protector, and who looks like his mother was a snow bear and his father a leopard. I mumble ‘Your Highness’ to the ground.
Praseep waves a hand lightly at the guard then looks at me. ‘Yes, we are going to an audience with the Queen.’
‘The Queen?’
‘Yes.’
‘As in, your mother?’
‘That is how it usually works.’
‘An audience?’
‘Would you like me to say it all again slowly?’
I gulp. ‘I mean, an audience or a trial?’
‘Ah.’ He nods. ‘Well, more a trial. The Queen is hard but fair, I am pretty sure she will see this as I do.’ He frowns at me. ‘I should have thought of a change of clothes, considering … too late now. It’s superstitious nonsense anyway.’
I shrug, heart galloping like the brumbies the traders ride. I’ve learnt a bit about ‘superstitious nonsense’ myself these past few days. I stand, and Praseep apologises.
I look at him in confusion, instantly solved as the smaller guard steps forward to remove my cloak and bind my wrists with snow he magics in from the courtyard outside. I wish I’d had time to run my fingers through my hair. If Praseep and the Princess acted as they did when they first saw me, I fear their mother will be even worse. Thank goodness for the bath I had. I can hear Mera in my head, telling me to straighten my belt and brush my hair, like she used to when villagers came to our door. Too late now.
I follow Praseep out the door. ‘Where are my father’s gotals?’
The burly guard flicks me on the arm with a whippy stick he carries, and the sting makes me suck in a breath.
‘Your Highness,’ I mutter. Damn this boy and his stuck-up titles and his pretentious guards and his scary mother. I wish I were freezing in the dark hold of our shepherd’s hut, rather than walking through these magnificent halls.
But they are magnificent.
The rising sun makes the entire corridor glow green. I’ve never seen anything like it before. It’s breathtaking and I desperately despise how impressed I am.
‘You need to understand, Sunaya, they are not your father’s gotals anymore. They are ours. They came onto our land, and we have rightly claimed them.’
I grit my teeth. ‘You’ve stolen them, you mean. Your Highness. Like you’ve stolen Danam and me.’
‘Firstly, let me say that calling me by my title is meant as a gesture of respect. It defeats the purpose if you ice it with such rudeness. If you don’t mean it, don’t say it.’ He nods at both his guards and they nod back, and I figure I’m not going to get whipped for leaving it off again.
That sounds like a win to me.
So why do I feel worse?
Praseep continues. ‘Secondly, Danam chose to come with us, and you pleaded with us to take you. Neither of you were stolen. That is not what we do with trespassers.’
‘What do you do then?’
‘Usually? We used to execute them. But we haven’t had a trespasser for decades. I don’t think we would anymore.’
‘You don’t think? You’re pretty sure your Queen will be fair?’ I clap my lips shut. This is so not good. My head’s whirling, my hands are shaking. I’ve got to get myself together.
I need to get out of here alive. I need to get Danam out of here alive, too, before he sits these mysterious Tests. And I need to get the gotals back, or I’ll truly wish I were dead when Father finds out I’ve lost them.
How long until Father sends someone up the mountain, only to find us all gone?
The hall we’re walking down is far richer than any I’ve seen so far. Wide enough that five yakans could walk down it side by side. The greenstone is intricately carved in repeating patterns of snowflakes, and sunlight sparkles off gold inlay. The floor is covered with a gloriously thick golden-yellow rug so long it must’ve been woven right here because there’s no way any trader could’ve carried it in.
We must be close to the Queen now.
Within moments we enter an antechamber facing two broad golden doors, completely bare of adornment and more imposing because of that. I take a deep breath and curse Praseep’s calm demeanour. It’s alright for him. No one’s likely to chop his head off on the other side of these doors.
Is that even how they’d do it?
I waste precious moments imagining increasingly terrifying ways to be executed, and only the glare of white wakes me to the knowledge I’m now in the room on the other side of the doors. The floors are white marble, blinding in the sunshine that spills from the clear dome above us. It must all be glass. I’ve never seen that much glass in my entire life. The air is alive with rustled murmurs of surprise. The walls spin around in a semicircle. They look like polished sandstone but it’s hard to tell because they’re hung with an enormous tapestry containing the only colours I’ve seen in this palace that aren’t green or gold or white. The tapestry is old, the colours faded, but I can tell it would’ve rivalled my tunic when it was first made.
Strangely, I feel less alone.
I notice the people next, once my eyes are accustomed to the bright light. A small crowd stands around the edges of the room. Some, I know. I spot Vilpur looking as calm as ever, Aji standing to attention. And Danam. My soul leaps, but he’s not looking at me. Nor are the others. They glance at me, quickly, like I’m something to fear, then back to the front of the room.
Belatedly I notice the Queen.
Princess Rishala sits to one side of her and a tired-looking man stands on the other. I know she’s the Queen, because she sits on a golden throne. She is dressed totally in white. Princess Rishala and the man complement her in gold and white garb.
She is pale. Frail. Tiny. But she’s watching me with eyes so clearly intelligent I’m terrified all over again. Instinct takes over and I curtsey as deep as I would if Father came in with the leaders of our neighbouring villages. And the mother of the boy from the lowlands I must marry when I’m of age.
And then I deepen that curtsey.
This is beyond anything I’ve ever known. I’ve been playing a dangerous game, showing contempt to the Prince. I’ve been poking a snow bear cub, and I’ve managed somehow to get away with it. But I can’t provoke his mother, I know that like I know my own name.
I’ve broken the laws of these people, but I didn’t mean to. I breathe in. I’m the daughter of an Elder of our village. I’m smart. I can do this. I breathe out and rise. ‘Your Highness,’ I say respectfully.
; There’s a hissing intake of breath from the onlookers. Curse it. I’ve done something wrong already. I feel the air move beside me, I can tell it’s Praseep.
‘Do not speak until you are spoken to,’ he murmurs.
Hot anger surges like a summer sunrise inside me. He could’ve told me that a little earlier. He’s bowing low now, and the Queen finally speaks.
‘Rise, my son.’
‘Thank you, my Queen. May I present the girl of the Dirt, Your Highness. Her name is Sunaya.’
I swallow, unsure if I should look her in the eye again or if that will be yet another grave etiquette mistake. I decide I should. Shifty animals and people with things to hide are the only ones who avoid eye contact.
She seems carved of stone. ‘Sunaya of the Dirt, you have come onto our lands unlawfully. Have you anything to say for yourself?’
‘Yes, Your Highness. I’m sorry I trespassed, I didn’t do it willingly …’
The Queen interrupts me. ‘Did you, however, do it knowingly?’
I bite my lip. Open my mouth to pretend innocence.
‘He will know if you lie.’ Praseep barely breathes the words from next to me.
I startle a look at him, but he’s looking ahead. Who is the ‘he’ he’s talking about? I look forwards again, at the tired man in gold, who stares at me like I’m the entirety of the universe. And I notice what I didn’t before, a necklace around his neck that mimics Praseep’s. Except the man’s pendant is a glimmering opal and the gold surrounding the stone is studded with tiny blue jewels.
And his eyes are white.
Mountain save me. I gulp, change what I was going to say. ‘Yes, Your Highness. I knew the boundary and I knew the agreement, and I knew we were too early to cross.’
‘You knew all this, and yet you still did it?’
‘Forgive me, Your Highness, if I say your people have been reduced to a superstition in our land. I believed in your border like I believe drinking the first milk of the season will bring bad luck.’ Her face is still hard, and I know I’m taking the wrong angle. ‘Regardless of what I believed, as the youngest child of my father, when he said I must take the gotals to summer pasture, I could not decline.’
‘An option is never closed. You chose to cross our border and face the consequences.’
I nod. ‘I did, Your Highness. I chose to face the chance of fairytale, rather than the certainty of … family.’
‘And what would your father think if he knew your uncle was now dead and you were a prisoner of this “fairytale”?’
I smile. ‘He would want to know how to get his gotals back.’
‘Not his daughter?’
‘Not without his gotals.’
The Queen raises her eyebrows slightly. ‘Do you know the punishment for trespassers here?’
My heart falls. ‘I understand it was once death.’
‘It has never stopped being death. We would suffer the same punishment in your lands.’
I shake my head. ‘We don’t believe you exist, Your Highness. We can’t kill people who don’t exist.’
‘Deny then that you knew of our city of green and gold.’
My stomach plummets. ‘Your Highness, it is true I’ve heard stories of your land. As fairytales, though. It is … we are … different to you in as many ways as we are similar. There is nothing like this palace, nothing even close, in our village. As a child, I would dream of a place without dirt for a floor, where the walls shone and the animals didn’t sleep in the room next door. I didn’t believe such a place could exist. But if you gave me the choice, I would choose my own village over this palace, for all it shines.’
‘And yet you were initially given that choice, and you did not take it.’
‘I could not take it. With First Uncle’s death I became responsible for Third Nephew, and Father’s cherished gotals. I couldn’t walk away.’
She stares at me a long time. The man with the opal pendant and the magical white eyes has never stopped staring. Next to me, I think Praseep’s stopped breathing. Then the Queen looks at the man, who nods, and she nods, and Praseep lets out a long breath, and I think maybe I’ve done something right finally. There are murmurs all around the chamber, and Vilpur’s usually calm face is studying me like I’m a riddle with a twist.
I chance a look out through the vast glass dome to the blue sky and mountain tops beyond. One mountain beckons me, not the biggest but the strongest of those I can see. It calls me like a friend, it fills me with comfort.
It’s our mountain. Dragon Mountain. Only I’ve never seen this side before.
Across the room, Aji coughs once, then again. It sounds like she’s choking, and everyone turns to stare, including me. Her eyes capture mine, brilliant as a hawk, widen then shut deliberately.
I close my eyes and look away, heart beating. Aji’s coughing fit passes as quickly as it came, but it takes time to settle the room down again. I keep my eyes closed, breathing deeply. Imagining calm. Tuning out from the mountains.
Because I know what Aji was trying to say to me. Looking at the mountains must’ve turned my eyes white, and now is not the time to throw that problem into the mix. I hope no one noticed.
‘Sunaya of the Dirt?’ The Queen’s words tell me my time is up. She sounds exhausted.
I flash a look at Aji, who nods slightly. Relief. My eyes must be brown again. Which is just as well, because everyone is looking at me.
I breathe out and look at the Queen. ‘Your Highness.’
Her lips relax into an almost smile. ‘You are a very composed person, Sunaya. It is commendable in one so young.’ At least I must look calm, which is nothing like how I feel inside. ‘Thank you, Your Highness.’
‘Are you not afraid to die?’
I swallow. No lies. No bravado. Who knows what the tired man can feel. ‘I don’t want to die, Your Highness. Yes – I fear, but I also hope.’
‘Hope is a powerful thing. So, Sunaya of the Dirt. You are devoted to your family, yet show respect to my people. You speak of fairness and honour. It is in my power to reject your punishment, and that is what I will do. Your execution is waived. Instead you must serve one night in our cells, backdated to when you arrived.’
I can hardly believe what I’ve heard.
She smiles sadly. ‘That means you are free, Sunaya. If you wish to return home, you may. If you wish to stay for a time, we can organise appropriate rooms, but you may not stay permanently.’
‘Thank you, Your Highness.’ I swallow, dizzy with relief. ‘Please, may I ask? About the gotals? And Danam?’
‘The gotals we claim for ours, as we do Danam. What will you choose?’
‘If they stay, then I beg your leave to stay too, Your Highness.’
‘So be it. Praseep, will you please ensure Sunaya is housed appropriately until she leaves us?’
I’m free. I can’t believe I’m free! I look at Danam and he’s grinning as he gives me a quick thumbs up. Aji nods her head at me, but she’s not smiling.
I shouldn’t be either.
Sure, I’m not about to be executed … but we’re nowhere near safe yet. I want to ask about the Tests. I want to ask what it means to be a Protector, what the different necklaces signify. But I dare not.
Praseep releases the ties at my wrists and together we bow to the Queen. I’m not imagining it now, she definitely looks deathly tired. She barely waves us out.
Praseep leads me out the door. I follow him down corridors in a daze. When he stops, I bump into him, making one of his guards mutter.
I blink. ‘Sorry.’
He raises an eyebrow at me. Maybe he thinks he deserves a ‘Your Highness’ or two.
I take a step back. ‘Thanks for your help back there. Though you could’ve warned me about some of that stuff earlier …’
He rolls his eyes and opens the door beside him. ‘Maybe I hadn’t thought you’d try to lie to the Queen.’
‘Who was that scary guy anyway?’
Now both of Praseep’s e
yebrows are up. Makes me remember that even though he was helpful back there, we’re nowhere near being friends. ‘You mean my father?’
‘No. I mean the lie-catcher man with the big nose.’
A guard coughs. Praseep sighs. ‘That is my father. He is the Queen’s Royal Protector. Her Cloud Dragon.’
‘Oh.’ The last tiny bit of happy not-getting-executed buzz fizzles out. I can’t believe I just said that. ‘Sorry, I … um. And your mother? The Queen? Is she …’
Praseep gestures through the door. ‘I don’t have time for this. Babysitting a Dirt-Girl. Unbelievable. Stay here until I come back for you.’
I look in at a room barely furnished with two chairs and a small table. A large window looks across the rooftops of the city to the far mountains, mountains I don’t recognise, whose names I don’t know, whose souls I’ve never felt. ‘Where are you going?’ I ask Praseep.
‘To find you a room like I was told to. You’re not the only one who has to follow orders, even when they don’t like them one bit. Now inside.’
I inch into the room, my face burning. Once I’m past him, Praseep makes a gesture with his hand, and a ball of heat launches into a brass bowl on one side of the room. Praseep makes another gesture, and then walks out. The door shuts with a force that makes the window rattle, and I hear the lock turn.
I sit in a chair, tuck my feet up under me, and sigh. It’s a nicer cell, sure, but a cell nonetheless.
Chapter 11
The sun is dipping to the horizon, so that it beams directly at me through the window, before I hear the lock on the door working.
I know it’s Praseep, and I’m so embarrassed I can’t look up as he enters. An entire day with only mountains as company is the perfect way to analyse actions, and hours ago I decided mine were terrible. No wonder Praseep was upset with me.
‘What on the Stone … ?’ He sounds incredulous.
I spin to face him. He is frowning at me, at the room. ‘What is it?’ I ask.
‘Who has been in here?’
I shake my head. ‘No one. Just me. The food came through the hatch.’
‘It was Danam, wasn’t it? The others were all ordered to keep away.’