The early-autumn air was in constant motion, gusts of cold, bursts of warmth. The entire world felt ready to happen. With less than a week remaining, Megina thought they had little to lose and declared it was time for the Bayern to celebrate a Tiran festival.
“It’s Tira’s most important feast day. Look sharp, act humble, don’t be quick to draw your weapons. Perhaps the sight of Bayern celebrating among them will hearten the citizens.”
At dusk, Razo wandered to the Bayern stable, watching tree shadows, peering through barracks and palace windows, thrumming to the beat of
five days left, five days
left.
Enna and Finn were waiting at the stable, and she seized upon Razo at once for his version of what had happened the day before. He gave it gladly, emphasizing his clever deductions—how the fellow’s haircut had reminded him of other Manifest Tira assassins and his astounding observance of the telltale copper ring.
“Wish I’d been in Megina’s room. I mean, I wouldn’t’ve burned him,” Enna said, though no one accused, “but I could’ve burned the sword out of his hand, and then he’d still be alive for questioning.”
Razo thought this was a good moment to describe the curious scene that had occurred after the swordplay.
“No,” said Enna, pleased.
“Yes,” said Razo, also pleased.
“I can’t believe it.”
“Believe it. Talone and Megina were
looking
at each other in
that way.
”
Enna leaned back against the stable wall, laughing, and sighed at the sky. “Who’d ever’ve guessed? That’s lovely, that is.”
Finn smiled but took himself a bit apart, his body half-turned away from Enna. Something felt wrong to Razo, distance and tension buzzing between those two. He did not know what it meant.
Megina and Talone arrived, striding quickly from the palace. Razo, Enna, and Finn spied on them from behind the stable, waiting for their captain to do something ridiculous like throw her over his shoulder. But he was all business, counting men and assigning duties. Megina did not meet his eyes.
“Are you sure, Razo?” Enna whispered.
“Look, he’s blushing,” Finn said in jest.
“He’ll lose her for sure, acting distant and untouchable like that,” said Enna. “He’s got to speak up now, make sure she knows how he feels.”
Finn snorted. Enna turned slowly, giving Finn a glare she usually reserved for everyone else. He shook his head, meaning,
Never mind.
“What, you think I’m being hypocritical?” she asked.
“I’ve told you my mind, asked you dozens of times—”
“So stop asking or I’m never going to say yes.”
“Why not?” Finn’s voice was strong as a rope, pulling for an answer.
“You can’t just assume, Finn. Look at you, the strong man, the warrior, all muscles and sword, always knowing exactly what I’m going to want, standing ready whenever I need water or an arm or a kiss.”
“What’s wrong with that?” said Razo, his stare blank.
“Stay out of this, Razo.”
“Enna, why’re you doing this?” asked Finn.
“What, you don’t like the way I am anymore? Is that it? You want me to be as perfect as you all the time?” Enna slapped his chest. “Why
do
you have to be so perfect, huh? I’m waiting for you to lose your cool, Finn, just once. So go on! Why don’t you make a fool of yourself for me?”
Enna stared up, Finn stared down. Razo scratched his neck and started to back away. “I… uh, I’ll just…”
“Don’t bother,” said Finn. He punched a tree trunk as he left.
Razo gave Enna a thump on the shoulder. “That was Finn you were berating, not some nasty Tiran body burner. What’s the matter with you?”
“I don’t know.” She swatted his hand away, her voice still angry. “Maybe I’m scared, or…I’m just…I don’t know.”
“You better know. You’d better know something before you start talking to Finn like—”
“Look,” said Enna, “saying I’ll love someone forever isn’t as easy as … as pulling yarn from a ball. It’s all knotted and kinked inside me. And if I let someone tug on me again…” She winced to keep herself from crying. “Ugh! Do you know what I’m saying? I let someone before, and I was wrong and he was bad, and then Finn came and he was perfect, and I thought I was easy with it, and I am easy with him. He makes me feel like Enna. He makes me feel…” Enna sat on the ground, Razo dropping down beside her.
“I don’t understand you, Enna. If you love him…”
“I do, but it’s not that easy. I hate how he just assumes everything’s fine. Why can’t he ever do something… something big, something dramatic, something frightening, woo me, show me that he loves me that much?”
“Finn’s just not that way. He’s the quiet kind.”
“Is he? Or does he just not care as much as he used to?” She halted. Her voice frowned. “And I can’t keep the disquiet away, the whispers that say he could betray me, too.”
Razo blew out his lips. “Aw, Enna-girl. Not Finn, never Finn.”
“You’re right.” She said it lightly, as though she did not have the energy to argue. “So, you over Bettin?”
The question was so unexpected, it made him choke on his own spit. “No, and I won’t ever be, so save your voice telling me it’s done. I know it’s done, but I decided to love her always, and that’s not something a boy can just undo because she’s gone and everyone says to get over it already.”
From the direction of the gardens, Razo could just make out Finn shuffling toward them, one long, yellow flower clutched in his hand.
“He’s bringing me a flower,” Enna whispered, her tone flat, edged with disappointment.
Finn seemed to hesitate, then tossed the flower to one side and turned back around.
“Finn, wait!” Enna jumped up and ran after him.
Great crows,
Razo thought,
we’re every one of us a tangle too
thick to pick.
As the Bayern moved out, Razo glimpsed Enna and Finn talking as they walked. Finn’s head was lowered so she could hear his quiet voice. She took his arm, they moved closer, but neither smiled, and Razo widened his eyes with the realization that Enna and Finn might not always be Enna and Finn. Suddenly the stones beneath his sandals did not feel so solid.
The group took no horses or carriages—the celebration of the grape harvest began everywhere at midnight and paraded down the avenues, converging in the heart. With Enna on her left, Talone on her right, and Bayern’s Own encircling her, Megina held aloft an oil lamp and offered a hearty greeting to anyone she passed.
All along the streets, artists gave of their talents freely— theater groups strutted their rehearsed stories on the plazas, painters scratched at the pavement with charcoal, and poets wrapped their words around passersby. In Bayern, drums drove festival music like a heartbeat, but the Tiran lap harps and flutes lacked that pulse, sliding down the streets and into Razo’s ears, ghostly.
The Bayern crossed paths with others they knew from the palace. Even Ledel was there, though Razo recalled Vic-tar saying that Ledel often disappeared on feast days. Razo checked that his sling was at hand.
Victar and his friends were holding their oil lamps aloft and singing a grape walker’s song: “Let it gush through your toes till it pleases the nose. What I crush with my feet will be bitter and sweet.” Dasha pranced from the head of the group back to Megina, then out to skip beside Victar and his friends, full of song, her hands sticky with grape juice. Razo realized he was aware of her even when she disappeared from view. It was a pleasant, subtle sensation, like being in a noisy tavern but through the clatter and roar still being able to recognize the intonations of a familiar song.
The festivities massed along the banks of Ingridan’s three central rivers—the Autumn, the Heart’s Finger, and the Tumult—and the romp of the crowds pulled the company to the shores of the latter. The tiled banks were full-moon white under the eerie light of the oil lamps. Hundreds of tiny candles floated in hollowed apples, darting through the water’s ripples.
Razo stood well back from the edge, remembering his last encounter with a river, the blinding impact that had seemed to yank his body from his soul, and the peculiar noise of deep water—
“Hello, tree rat!”
Razo leaped back, terrified of plummeting into another river. His legs slammed into something solid, his balance surrendered, and he found himself sitting in a fountain with a soaking bum.
Dasha applauded. “You seem to do that a lot, falling backward.”
“Just around you, apparently.” He squeezed some water out of his leggings and sat on the fountain rim, Dasha beside him. She wore the front part of her hair knotted on top of her head and stuck with a silver pin. He was tempted to pull the pin and let her hair fall. “Did you make me stumble into the fountain?”
She laughed. “I might be able to coax some water over the side, but I can’t force a person to throw himself in. Besides, with you I wouldn’t need to.”
Her tone was so happy, he wondered why he had been avoiding her, then recalled that she was a royal bride-to-be. Not that it changed anything for him.
“I see the whole lot is out tonight,” she said. “I am surprised you came, actually. Aren’t you worried about Lady Megina?”
“She’s as safe as a bunny in a box.” Razo squeezed water from his tunic and nodded in Megina’s direction. Finn stood to her side, his gaze wary. Enna loafed on her other side, laughing at a three-woman theater troupe’s farcical reenactment of childbirth.
“Finn may be the best swordsman in the Own,” said Razo, “and that Enna-girl … well, if I were a tick, I wouldn’t bite her ankle.”
“Are you jealous of Finn?”
The question was quick and flat, and it made Razo blink.
“Because he’s a swordsman? No, he works hard—”
“Not that, because of Enna.”
Razo barked a laugh. “Enna? Hardly.”
“But you seem so fond of her. You give her a nickname, and nicknames are always a sign of affection.”
“What, Enna-girl? That’s just because of my sister. I’m the youngest of six boys, and when Rin was born, the family and neighbors were so elated not to have another boy, everyone took to calling her Rinna-girl. When I first met Enna in Bayern’s capital, she reminded me of my sister—a bothersome, nasty little thing you can’t help liking.”
“So why don’t you call me Dasha-girl?” she asked.
“Because you don’t remind me of my sister.”
For some reason, that made Dasha blush. She flicked water in his face, though she had not dipped her hand into the fountain. “You’re gaping at me again, tree rat.”
“Wait, wait,” he said, wiping his face. “You just said that nicknames are a sign of affection. Well, you call me tree rat….”
Dasha stood, pulling off Razo’s green lummas and wrapping it around her own neck. “Aren’t you hungry? I think you should buy me some toasted cheese.”
Razo dashed over to Finn and Enna first to see if they wanted anything, as they could not leave Megina’s side. Enna looked to where Dasha was hopping on her toes by a group of musicians.
“I don’t trust her, Razo,” she said.
“So you told me.” That Enna did not like Dasha, that Dasha might not be what she seemed, made him feel black and crumbly inside. He’d already decided to trust her, and that was that. “Do you want toasted cheese? Or anything else?”
“No, thanks, I’m not—”
Razo felt heat. It surged past him like a livid wind, singeing the sleeve of his tunic. He gasped at its bite and stumbled back. The barrel beside him exploded into flame.
The music yelped and ceased as though stopped by a hand around the throat. Hundreds of Tiran turned to the fire and stared.
“Enna, that must’ve been a fire-speaker.”
“I know,” she whispered back.
Razo dropped on his belly as another scorching gust
swoosh
ed overhead. Had he been the target? Behind him was a wooden stand spilling fruit. For a frozen moment, he saw the round woman who kept watch at the stand, a little boy reaching for a bunch of blue grapes, and he shut his eyes, afraid to see them seared.
Then, wind. From beside him. He opened his eyes. The fruit stand did not burn.
More heat followed, more wind chased it away. Nothing was visible to the eye, but Razo knew what Enna could do. She was anticipating each barrage of heat; she was winnowing it from the air, scattering it before it reached its target and became fire. He watched her, the way her gaze sought the sky as though counting stars, her fists clenched and unclenched, her breath held each time she sensed new fire on the air.
Razo wondered what it must feel like, to know the voice of fire and wind, to sit inside them, feel them coming, heave them into motion, stamp them out again. It was a power that he knew he would never share. No voices of wind or fire or water reached for him. Watching Enna, he thought it must be a marvelous thing to be able to do so much, to feel so powerful.
The flows of heat stopped. Enna wiped her brow, blinked long, holding still as if listening with all her skin. Finn was beside her, holding her arm in case she was weak, but Razo thought she glowed with contentment.
“Good work, Enna-girl,” he whispered. No one was burned, and no one knew who she was. Slyly done.
“I think he’s out,” she whispered. “The fire-speaker. He’s probably new at this. You can burn for only so long before you can’t hold any more heat and need a rest. I think he’s done for the night.”
The fruit merchant dumped a bucket of water over the barrel fire, but no one else moved. Razo felt the eyes of the crowd on them, a new and unpleasant touch of heat. A horde of Bayern standing in front of a mysteriously charred barrel had to look bad.
“I am so sorry!” Dasha addressed the food vendor, gesturing grandly as though to draw attention. “I am so sorry. I tripped and my lamp dropped. The wine had saturated that barrel, and it just took to flame. Did you see that?” She looked at Razo, tilting her head, her expression innocent.
Razo jumped to his feet. “Oh yes, that was a thing. That wood must’ve been soaked clean through. You’re a clumsy bit, aren’t you, dropping your lamp like that?”
The corner of her mouth twitched. “I tripped.”