The Hollow Heart Page 13

  “How gorgeous!” exclaimed another black-haired young woman who had appeared at the door. She resembled my girl yet was clearly a little older, more elegant, her manner constrained, her gestures imitative of someone wealthier than her clothes suggested. Her hair was as glossy as lacquer, brushed with five hundred strokes per night and scented with indi oil, her face finely cut. She might have even appealed to a god, were this before the time of our flight from the mortal realm. “Does it have a perfume?” She pressed her nose and mouth into me. “Heavenly!”

  “Would you like it?” my girl said, and her older sister’s cool eyes glinted even though her mouth flattened into a somber line. “Oh no,” the sister said, “I couldn’t possibly.”

  I shrank on my stem. Not her, I willed my girl. Give me to a child if you must, or someone lonely, or elderly, not this vivacious, acquisitive human. I yearned to be free, to find my form again, to retake my power and punish the god of games, that troublemaker.

  This older sister was someone who would take what she could, and pin it to her forever. She would pity no one.

  My girl lifted the earthenware cup. My leaves trembled. She set me in her sister’s waiting palms. “It is a gift, Raven,” my girl said. “I knew it was meant for you, the moment that I saw it.”

  NIRRIM

  THE HALF-KITH CHILDREN RESCUED from the Keepers Hall follow behind me, all twenty-two of them, carrying my long train. How their parents blessed me when I brought them home! They listened, rapt, as I told them of their children’s talents. They will help us remake the world, I said. Will you help me?

  Anything, they said.

  I smiled and said humbly, I ask for only two things.

  The parents of the lost ones, in answer to my first request, oversaw the reconstruction of the Keepers Hall. They employed Middlings and forced the remaining High-Kith prisoners to shift rubble out of the way and restore broken glass to re-create the hall into my palace. A queen needs more than a small house on a hill. I have been too attached to Sid’s house, too eager to slip into my perfect memory of her, as though into a warm, scented bath.

  And so today, after a month of my subjects’ labor, I process through the streets of Ethin, my Elysium soaring overhead, my dress a river of silk as green as the bird’s eyes, my starry earrings and mended crescent moon necklace as bright as a galaxy. I love the sumptuous feel of silk on my skin. I never let myself feel this way before. Even when Sid gave me beautiful dresses, I felt like an impostor. Now I want to crow with delight. The whisper of my skirts. The admiration of the crowd. My people throng the streets, and they are my mirror, showing my lovely face, my jewel-green eyes. I am angry that, before, I never believed I was pretty.

  I wish Sid could see me now.

  She loved you without all these trappings, Other Nirrim says.

  Stupid Other Nirrim! Sid would love me more like this. In fact, any woman could be mine. Who would not desire me: a divine, ravishing queen?

  As soon as the pleasure of this thought fills me—I could snap my fingers and make anyone mine!—the pleasure fades into frustration. I don’t want anyone else. I want Sid. I want her hand pinning my wrists above my head against the bed. I want her mouth on me. I want her to see me, and know what she gave up, and regret it. I want her to make it up to me.

  Irritated, I sweep past the crowd, their admiration of me now stale.

  I see Morah, her face as prim as stitched linen, lean to whisper in Annin’s ear. Fools, both! They could glow in the reflection of my glory. They are no godlings, but I would be good to them, as I will be good to all my people, and they would be fine examples of how even ordinary mortals can contribute to our new world. But no, they frown, and judge, and disapprove, as though I am not enchanting. More than enchanting: I am a hero! The Children’s Queen, they call me, and my rescued little ones trail behind me: the painfully plain girl who can bestow beauty upon others, the boy who can manipulate water, and more. Then there is the sweaty baby that I carry in my arms, whose gift we cannot yet know. It twists and mewls. I can’t wait to thrust it from me, but I smile down upon the infant for the crowd’s sake. Mere, my handmaiden, nods from the sidelines. It was her idea for me to carry the baby. Mere has done well, and whether her horror at the discovery in the bowels of the Keepers Hall was real or performed, I care little, so long as she continues to honor me.

  A throne stands in front of my new palace, hewn from pink marble plundered from a High-Kith home. Aden, tall and luminous beside it, resplendent in finery stolen from High-Kith wardrobes, offers a hand to help me onto the throne, a planned pageantry that makes the crowd sigh. They expect me to marry him, and no doubt he expects it, too, given the confidence of his smile, but I have no intention of sharing Herrath. Aden is a conveniently handsome ally … and boring, his hunger for me and for my power obvious. His hope amuses me, and it is good for him that I am amused, or I would surrender to my anger at how he used to shame me for wanting a woman. He berated me for not wanting to marry him. What do I need, from men? From him? He can offer me nothing. He never could, and I am astonished that he—indeed, the entire Ward—made me believe for any length of time that it was expected and right that a girl belonged with a boy. It is nonsense … but nonsense that I will use, for now, for a good show. I imagine telling Sid. I imagine lying naked beside her, and laughing.

  I pass the baby to Mere and lean to brush a kiss on Aden’s cheek. His hand on mine tightens. The crowd loves it. How easily people swallow lies!

  As I settle into my throne and the lost children kneel at my feet, I survey my people, wondering again what the god of thieves took from me. Not pride; it burns in my chest. Not longing. I uncap the vial of Sid’s perfume every morning, almost shyly, as though she might see me do it, as though she knows the desire that wells up within me. The god of thieves did not steal my ambition, oh no, not when I have plans to solidify and extend my rule. And not resentment, or my throat would not tighten as it does to see that Morah and Annin do not cheer with the rest of the crowd, nor Sirah, that one-eyed crone, wrinkled as a naked mole rat.

  “My people,” I call. “Look to the sea.”

  Today the sea is a purple haze, almost as still as the heat-misted sky, like twins clothed in different colors.

  “Look to the harbor.”

  Anchored ships float sleepily in the bay.

  It is time to wake them up.

  “There is a world beyond this one,” I say. “The councilman who held our innocent children captive has revealed that beyond the island of Herrath, there are more countries than we could count. The ships in the harbor were not merely for Middling fishermen, but also for High-Kith merchants who secretly sailed to islands called the Cayn Saratu, trading goods made by our immortal hands, infused with our godly blood. We have overthrown those who would use us and keep us from exercising our gifts. Surely there are other lands where people suffer as we suffered, where the wealthy take their advantage to grind the poor into dust.” My heart beats loudly in my chest, my ears. Whatever the god of thieves took, it was not my passion, for I believe wholeheartedly in what I say, and in the dream I am about to share. “Let us strike out across the sea to drag down the mighty, and lift the humble high.”

  “You want war,” someone calls. It is Morah, damn her.

  “Liberation,” I correct with a smile. “Justice.”

  “You have no army.” Sirah folds her twiggy arms across her chest. “And little in the way of weapons.” Annin, like a frightened puppy, looks between the two women. Morah must secretly poke her, because Annin startles, then says, “How would we even go to war? We can’t sail the ships in the harbor. None of the Half Kith know how.”

  She will come nowhere near a ship. She will stay safe at home.

  The vehemence of that thought surprises me, and as I wonder where it came from—what do I care if Annin places herself in harm’s way?—I realize that it is not my thought, but Other Nirrim’s. Such a pathetically loyal big sister Nirrim was! Irritated, I say, “We do not ne
ed weapons. We are gods.” I sweep a hand at the kneeling children, whose skills were inscribed in a ledger I forced the quivering councilman to show me. My second request of the children’s parents was that the lost ones offer their powers to my cause. I would never force your choice, I told the parents and children. No one will force you again. What I want, I said sweetly, is your love.

  And they, filled with joy and gratitude at their reunion, agreed, even down to the lisping four-year-old who can make a twin of herself—not an obviously useful skill, but I am sure I can think of a way to use her to my advantage. The godling children were taken by the council, clearly, because divinity ran stronger in their blood, their gifts greater than what could be harvested through the imprisonment of older Half Kith. There was a genealogy, the councilman explained, that recorded Half-Kith families going back generations. The Council monitored adults whose blood, obtained through the frequent imprisonments, had promising results. When they were released, and married others like them, the council sometimes stole their children, hoping for undiscovered gifts that ran rich in their veins.

  Where is this genealogy? I demanded. The man shook his head, terrified, claiming he did not know. I wondered if he was lying, and whether I could pull a memory from someone’s mind and make it mine. I tried to do just that to him, but couldn’t. Finally, disgusted, I ordered Aden to have the man imprisoned, and although I would like to see his head struck from his neck for his crimes, I have insisted he be kept alive, for the information he might give on the inner workings of the Council.

  The baby squalls in Mere’s arms. So far its only talent seems to be making noise and soiling itself. I suppose I will have to wait a few years to get anything good out of it.

  “We do not need to sail when we can control the water.” I wave an elegant hand toward the young boy—tall, with a soft face and kind eyes—who possesses that gift. “Who can stand against us? No one else in the world has our magic.” So Sid said, and although she was a liar, I believe her in this, since she seemed to need magic so badly, as a way to escape marriage and secure her country’s future.

  “Then tell us, my queen,” says Aden, a halo of light lingering on his skin, his smile dazzling. “Which country will fall to us first?”

  Herran looms in my mind as Sid described it: rocky coasts, slender cypress trees, the mountains of the north, the greenery that fills its capital city, the blond lands of its hot south. If you wish to rule alone, the tree’s fortune said, you must destroy her.

  “No,” I say, and Aden frowns, confused. I want to clap my hand over my mouth. I did not say that. It was Other Nirrim, that meddling memory, seeking to control me as though she were something more than a ghost. She is the past, jealous of my present. I recover quickly. “No one shall know just yet. Plans must be laid.” I smile benevolently upon him, and know how we must look: like the sun and the moon, a natural pair. Well, let Aden live in hope, and the crowd along with him. Hope will occupy the people, who always enjoy gossip, and make Aden seek to please me.

  Aden turns to the crowd. “For Herrath,” he calls, “and the new gods!”

  My people—except a silent few—cheer.

  * * *

  “Hey, Nirrim!” someone calls through the dark.

  I halt, despite myself, immediately giving myself away, though I have changed my finery for simple Middling clothes and covered my hair with a modest scarf. Although I now have a palace fit for my stature, I could not sleep, and wanted to walk alone, unseen and unbothered.

  One last time, I thought. I will visit Sid’s house one last time.

  Now I am doubly angry: at being so rudely hailed, and thwarted in my wish. A queen can have everything she wants except, it seems, privacy. I turn around to find the culprit.

  It is Sid’s Middling boy, her young informant, the one who spied for her. “The art of spying requires constant replication,” she once explained. “The spymaster has her spies, and those spies have yet more spies. The boy who works for me probably has a little brother working for him.” I remember—of course I do—that he kept my secrets, and that he, too, yearned for more than life gave him: the fate to be a soldier, or some High Kith’s servant, the only occupations allowed to Middlings. I soften a little as he runs up to me, breathless, but arrange my face into a stern expression. He stops, scanning my eyes, and then says, tentatively, “I mean … ‘Hey, Queen’?”

  “My queen will do,” I say, very nicely. He tips his head, studying me in a puzzled way, with a half smile, his black hair sticking up all over like spiders’ legs, his eyes lively. He will grow into a young man soon, but still has the face of a child. Like Mere, he recognized something valuable in me even when I was Other Nirrim, and for that wisdom he shall be rewarded. “Tell me your name,” I say, deciding to forgive him for intruding upon my evening. Queens must inspire awe, but it is good if they are also beloved, the stories of their generosity trickling among the common people so that they hope to one day be blessed by the queen’s grace.

  He does not, however, look either properly awed or grateful. “Killian,” he says, still examining me.

  “And who are your parents?” Do all Middlings raise their children to be this unimpressed by authority?

  “Who says I have parents?”

  I lose my patience with his stare. “What is so interesting?”

  “You’re just so different.”

  “Thank you,” I say, pleased.

  “How do you know you’re a god?”

  “Because I met a god, and he told me I was one.” Well, he said that god-blood ran in my veins, which is surely close enough, and I am obviously more powerful than any Half Kith of my acquaintance. “And because of my gift.”

  “Are you faking it?”

  “Would you like me to try it on you, so you may see for yourself?”

  “No, thanks!”

  “I thought so.”

  “Did you plot all this—overthrowing the High Kith and becoming queen—with Sid?”

  “Killian,” I say, making sure my smile is just right—friendly, easy, and not too interested, “I would like for you to pay me a call at the palace tomorrow, and tell me all you know about Sidarine of Herran.”

  “Uh, you know her better than me.”

  “I think you must know some items of interest.”

  “Well, sure.” His eyes get sly, which somehow makes him look sweeter. “For a reward.”

  “Yes, of course. For a reward. Now, my young subject, I have business to attend to.”

  He lifts his black brows. “Royal business?”

  “Yes,” I say, pleased that he is catching on quickly, and turn to walk away.

  “Hey, Queen?”

  I sigh, but his irrepressible impudence is preferable to Morah’s disdain and Annin’s fear. At least Killian acknowledges my right to rule.

  “How do you know you’re immortal?” he says. “You’ve been calling yourself god this, immortal that. Immortal means you can’t die, right? How do you know you can’t die?”

  I don’t know, and have assumed, most of my life, that I would die. I will not say this, of course, but he seems to guess my thoughts anyway. My worry. “Be careful,” he says. “People always want to eat the biggest fish, and you’ve made yourself into a real catch: pretty scales and a long tail and plenty of meat.” Then he is off, whistling into the night.

  * * *

  At Sid’s house, I stand upon her balcony, a vial of her perfume resting on the table. She prepared breakfast for me on this table, once. The sea is black glass, the moon as bright as the bowl of a spoon. My mother’s jewelry glows of its own accord, creating a soft light around me. I want the Council’s genealogy. Who was my father, that my power runs so strong, stronger than anyone else’s, even Aden’s?

  I slip my hands into my pockets, where I carry sugar cubes. I enjoy their rigid shapes, the way they crumble slightly along their lines.

  Bring me the past, I think, and show me who I am. Bring me the future. I will be a queen such as
the world has never seen. Why should Herrath be my only territory? My palace library, which once served the Council, has many maps. Before the procession today, I unfolded several, studying the formidable country of Dacra, Herran’s peninsula to the north of us, and the sprinkle of islands to the west: the Cayn Saratu.

  Which country will next be blessed by my rule, my mandate to honor the poor and downtrodden? Who is to say that Herran, for example, would not welcome me with open arms? The Herrani king and queen were entirely selfish, putting their political agenda before the happiness of their only child. And Sid hated being a princess anyway—or so she said.

  Then again, she was a liar.

  Other Nirrim murmurs, She might have told you untruths that she herself believed.

  I push that voice away. What would Sid think, if she saw me now?

  I must become someone she would never dare abandon.

  I remember her hand slipping up my thigh and stopping short. Tell me what you want, she said.

  You know, I answered.

  I like to hear you say it.

  I want you, I whispered, and then she did touch me, and I buried my face in her neck.

  The small table rocks beneath my touch, the legs uneven, as I reach for her perfume. I drip some onto my wrists. I rub it against my neck, where my pulse beats. A jacket she loved to wear hangs in her wardrobe. I take it and a pair of trousers to lay on the bed in the shape of a person. My fingers are slow to unbutton my dress, because I pretend that they are Sid’s fingers, making me wait for what I want. My skin glows in the moonlight, revealed little by little. The dress drops to the floor. I slide into Sid’s clothes, liking the friction of the fabric against my skin, fasten everything, and lie on the bed to wait. When I feel that I have waited enough, too long, that I deserve it now, I begin to undress again. My eyes close. It is not I who reaches to fold the jacket open, but Sid. Not my hands that skim over my flesh, but hers. Not my fingers that undo the trousers and slide inside, but hers.