Sword and Verse (11 page)

Lanea, goddess of the hearth, slipped among the mortals and taught them to build houses of stone, protection against the winds and rains of Gyotia's wrath. Then Qora gave to them the knowledge of growing things. Soon the land was rich with olive trees, grain, flax, figs, and barley.

And then Lila went to them and gave them war.

WHEN I WOKE
the next morning, I had a few blissful moments of forgetfulness before it all came crashing back. My hand went to my bare neck. I forced myself to go to the basin and splash water on my face, avoiding the mirror with its vision of my red, puffy eyes.

I'd told Mati to leave, and he had, without looking back. What had I done?

The door cracked open, and Laiyonea's face peered at me. She hadn't opened my door without knocking in a long time—because she'd known, of course. Did she know how things were now?

Laiyonea took in my disheveled state. “It's late,” she said. “You must bathe.”

I realized that the sunshine coming in through the window was midmorning light. Why had she let me sleep so long? I turned to ask, but the door had already swung shut behind her.

I dressed and followed Laiyonea to the stairs. I had no idea what I would do if I saw Mati. How could I sit beside him in the Adytum again, knowing that he was no longer mine—that he never really had been? I clutched the railing as tears threatened to blind me.

Two maids were carrying piles of pink linens up the steps. The one in front saw me and shared a look with the other, then both scurried up the stairs. I stared after them, puzzled, as I continued down the stairs. I often saw the Qilarite servants in the hallways, of course, but they usually ignored me.

Laiyonea veered off to the left, taking the corridor through the slave quarters instead of the main hallway. I paused on the threshold of my old rooms, wondering at this, but Laiyonea kept going, so I did too. The slave quarters were deserted. No doubt everyone was preparing for the future queen's arrival.

The passage gave out onto the rear of the palace, and Laiyonea led the way to the baths at the water's edge. She didn't stop until she stood in the cool shadows of the main pool. “The betrothal ceremony begins in less than an hour,” she informed me. “You'd best hurry.”

I forced myself to nod, and removed my clothes. I descended into the warm water and leaned back to wet my hair. The water was cloudier than I was used to; ordinarily Laiyonea and I bathed early, after the Scholars but before the Qilarite servants. By now all the servants and probably even some of the guards had bathed in the pool, and the tide would not bring clearer water until evening.

“Why did you let me sleep so long?” I asked as Laiyonea
handed me a slab of herbed soap.

“I was busy,” she said stiffly. “King Tyno called for me early. Mati was seen leaving your room last night.”

I froze.

She shook her head. “The idiot, to chance such a thing, practically in broad daylight!” She pointed at me. “At least one of you has sense. He told me that you broke it off. You'd have been wiser to do so long ago.”

Broke it off.
The phrase was apt. I felt as if a piece of my body, of my heart, had been broken off.

Then the full impact of her words hit me. King Tyno knew. I shivered despite the warm water. “What will the king do?” I squeaked.

Laiyonea tilted her head. “Nothing, for now. Nothing, if you do your work and keep away from Mati. Mati took the blame. He swore that nothing happened between you, that he went to your room to declare his love, and you told him to stay away from you.”

I flinched. I
had
said that, hadn't I?

And still Mati had protected me. Again.

Had it been easy for him to lie, to say there was nothing between us? The very idea hurt more than turning him away had. I dunked my head under the water, squeezing my eyes shut to keep the soap out and the tears in.

When I surfaced, Laiyonea's low voice came to my ears. “Tyno is committed to making Del Gamo's daughter the future queen. You and Mati must both do as you're told. I know you realize this, but I have less faith in his sense.”

I rinsed my hair and opened my eyes. Laiyonea regarded me
levelly. “It won't be easy for you,” she said, her clipped tone at odds with her sympathetic words. “Especially since half the servants seem to know about you two. The guard who reported it gossiped with the kitchen maids before he was escorted out of the palace.”

“Is that why you let me sleep?” I asked. “So I wouldn't have to face the servants?”

Laiyonea pursed her lips.

“Thank you,” I said softly. I stepped out of the bath, dried off, and drew my dress over my head, then turned to face Laiyonea. “Did you really only keep our secret because Mati was paying you?” I asked. I suspected, from her behavior, that she felt more sympathy for us than I could have imagined.

Laiyonea looked up from the basket of combs she was sorting through. “He told you that?” she said guardedly.

I nodded.

She took a deep breath, nostrils flaring, then turned me around and combed my hair—something she'd never done before.

“I've tried to spare you as much as possible this morning,” she said briskly, “but do not think to escape the betrothal ceremony today or the banquet this evening or the temple visits during the betrothal period. Now that Tyno knows Mati has had feelings for you, now that the servants are gossiping, you must be extra careful not to be like—”

She broke off, but I knew what she had been about to say.
Like Tyasha.
I couldn't show even a hint of disobedience.

The comb hit a snarl in my hair, and I cried out. Laiyonea worked through the tangle mercilessly, and braided my hair so tightly that my scalp hurt.

I ought to have realized on that first night that Mati could never truly love me, and that, even if he did, nothing would come of it. And now that we'd been found out, I couldn't even change my mind. Under the misery lurked an odd satisfaction that the choice had been taken from me. I feared my own weakness, and Mati was certainly that weakness.

When it was time for the betrothal ceremony, I followed Laiyonea to the front of the palace. My heart leaped into my throat at the sight of Mati with his father outside the doors, facing the distant gates.

The court was lined up in order of rank. Laiyonea and I stood below the councilors and Scholars ranged along the steps, but above the servants and slaves.

I knew I would break down if I looked at Mati, so I occupied myself trying to pick out Naka and Linti from the green-clad slave children in the distance by the gates. I spotted a tiny blond girl I thought must be Linti, but the way she stood wasn't quite right.

The gates opened, and I realized that the tall boy helping push them was Naka. He wouldn't be staying on the Library platforms for long. At least he would be safe in one of the temples soon.

A huge open carriage entered the courtyard, pulled by two black mares. People pressed back against the walls, and into the gardens and orchards on either side, to make room. Soraya sat in front with her parents, smiling already like a benevolent queen surveying her subjects. Alshara and Aliana, dressed in identical blue silk, sat behind them.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mati straighten his shoulders. My heart ached.

The carriage stopped at the steps. Two servants helped the family down, and Del Gamo led Soraya up the steps to the king. Soraya wore a peach gown, with a matching scarf over her hair. She would wear her hair covered until First Shining, nearly a year from now, when she and Mati would make the final vows and she would take the full-length veil of a Scholar wife.

Del Gamo solemnly placed Soraya's hand in the king's. I tried to look away, but couldn't. Even I had to admit, Soraya Gamo was beautiful, her cheeks flushed, her smile radiant.

The king smiled and spoke in a low voice to Soraya. She laughed shrilly. King Tyno placed her hand in Mati's.

I had steadily avoided looking at Mati so far, and I didn't mean to look at him then. I couldn't help myself, though, and he flashed me one quick look as he bent to kiss Soraya's hand.

He didn't so much as glance my way during the luncheon that followed, or during the endless rounds of the temples that afternoon, where he and Soraya received blessings from the gods.

The banquet that night was interminable, but Laiyonea let me leave before the dancing began. She informed me that she would work with the prince in the Adytum for two hours each morning; I would spend that time in my room. She didn't say whether this was her idea or the king's—or Mati's—but I was grateful for it.

Time passed in a blur. I rose, I bathed, I studied, I ate . . . but I did not feel. I didn't let myself. I shut my ears to the talk at banquets. I didn't care which side was winning in the conflict with Emtiria
or about the constant clashes with the Resistance. I only knew that I had lost.

But each time I sneaked under the stairs to leave food for Linti, I found tidily wrapped parcels of biscuits, or cakes, or fruit. These reminders of Mati's kindness hurt most of all.

It means nothing,
I told myself each time. I would not let myself be fooled by the warmth in my chest, the false sense of closeness. He was out of my reach and always had been.

I threw myself into my lessons. I penned lists of ministers, rewrote tales of the gods, copied heathen treatises from Emtiria, labeled maps of the peninsula from the City of Kings to the southern coasts of Galasi. Whatever task Laiyonea gave me to practice my writing, I took up eagerly, and watched my hours of work consigned to the flames each afternoon. Odd that the sight should still affect me so after years of watching my work burn, but it did.

Whenever Laiyonea left me alone, I pulled out my heart-verse, but even that did little to stir me. I recognized most of the symbols now, but they didn't have any determinatives, and their order still made no sense.

One overcast afternoon, twenty days after Mati's betrothal, Laiyonea finished introducing the higher order writing. I fought back tears as she wrote the final symbol—a set of curving lines that meant, in the determinative-free form, “dare.” I'd always imagined that it would be Mati showing it to me.

When Laiyonea left me alone to practice, I went directly to the poppies and pulled out my heart-verse. Surely, now that I knew all the higher order script, my father's message would make more sense.

Only it didn't. Some of the symbols were close to what I had learned in the Adytum, but not the same. I let out a long sigh. What if all my efforts had been for nothing?

I traced the last symbol of my heart-verse. It looked a little like
life
—only it was simpler than that complicated monstrosity, as if the various determinatives had been incorporated into the primary symbol.
Koros
, whispered my father's distant voice, and my finger froze over the paper.

Of course. The symbols didn't just have different names in the Arnath writing; the whole
system
—the order of the symbols and the way they were grouped together—was based on sound. Maybe some of the symbols were the same as those I'd learned here in the Adytum, but they weren't
used
the same way. So often my father's voice had whispered sounds to me as I learned a symbol . . . why hadn't I paid more attention?

The Arnathim and Qilarites spoke the same tongue, and had, perhaps, started out with the same writing system. But the Arnath writing had changed over the years—had come to represent sounds instead of concepts; had, it seemed, dropped some symbols and simplified the connectors. The Arnath writing in my heart-verse was far simpler than what I had learned in the Adytum, but also more elegant—exactly what might happen if writing were a shared endeavor, meant to connect people instead of being hoarded as a tool of power and privilege.

I scrambled to the table, so abruptly that the asotis shrieked at the burst of movement, and pulled paper from the pile. I dipped my quill into the ink and let it sit there, thinking hard.

I needed to record those memories, to sort out the differences
between the Qilarite writing and my father's. Only how could I write these things down, when Qilarite symbols had nothing to do with sounds?

I puzzled over this question for more than an hour, wasting page after page as I attempted various ways of recording the sounds. At last I settled on using higher order symbols combined with my own code to show which part of the word the Arnath symbol represented. For the sound “rai,” I drew the traitor symbol, and after it the symbol
pray
. Next I drew two boxes, with the second filled in to show that the second sound in the word
pray
went with the first symbol in the line.

I sat back and smiled. Even if Laiyonea found the page, it would look like nonsense to her.

I allowed myself another quarter of an hour to encode the sounds of as many symbols as I could recall, but I barely filled one page. When I compared it to my heart-verse, I sagged in disappointment; I had only discovered sounds for three of the symbols there. No matter, I told myself—I would go through the language of the gods, symbol by symbol, lower order and higher order alike, and encode every symbol that reminded me of the ones my father had taught me, until I had identified every part of my heart-verse.

I stole drying powder from the chest—we rarely used the stuff, as it mattered little whether our pages dried before they burned—and sprinkled it over the gleaming lines of the page. My heart raced as the utter foolishness of what I was doing hit me, but the feeling was more elation than dread.

Carefully I rolled the page and slid it into the gap in the wall
with my heart-verse. It looked just like a letter in the Library of the Gods, tucked into its slot.

When Laiyonea came back to check on me, I realized that I had gone almost an entire afternoon without thinking of Mati.