Shadow Scale (41 page)

“Did you say someone was with you?” said Glisselda, suddenly self-conscious.

“Phina’s here,” said Kiggs.

“Hello,” I said, absurdly waving as if she could see me.

“Phina!” cried Glisselda. “Now isn’t that lucky? It does put my heart at ease, the pair of you there together, just knowing you’re both well and whole and … and alive. You’ll be home soon and then everything will be right again, or close enough.”

Kiggs did not answer, but closed his eyes and lowered his head onto his hands. I cleared my throat and said, “I’m ready to come home, Your Majesty. I’m homesick—”

“Me too!” cried the young Queen. “Isn’t that silly, since I
am
home? But it hasn’t felt like home since Mamma died, and it’s even grimmer with you and Lucian gone. Lucian, have you told her about Fort Oversea?”

Kiggs raised his head, as if to answer, but Glisselda cut him off, saying, “Fetch the knights with Lucian, Seraphina, and then come straight home.” Background mumbling interrupted her momentarily. “I’m being summoned. I have to sit with St. Eustace for Grandmamma.” Her voice caught again. “But thank you. You called at the right moment, making the unbearable somewhat more bearable. I’m so grateful for you both.”

She disconnected. Kiggs put the thnik away and sat holding his head, elbows on his knees. His shoulders shook. I folded my hands in my lap, wishing I could draw him close and comfort him, thinking maybe I should do it anyway, even though we’d promised
each other not to. He was so adamant about being fair to Glisselda—and I agreed, in principle—but sometimes surely it was better to err on the side of kindness?

Alas, I couldn’t be sure it wasn’t the side of selfishness. I clamped my hands between my knees.

Kiggs ran his fingers through his curling hair. “Forgive me, Phina. I thought we could wish her a happy birthday and then have a nice talk, or …” He gestured bleakly toward the full moon, now risen above the rooftop.

“There will be time,” I said. “We’ll talk all the way to Fort Oversea.”

“Yes, we will,” he said, an unexpected bitterness in his voice. “That’s what I wanted. I didn’t have to come along with Comonot, you realize. He can handle himself. You could’ve made your own way home; the knights can find Goredd on a map.”

“You wanted to see me,” I said quietly, my heart sinking.

“And for my selfishness, Selda has to bear our grandmother’s death alone.” Kiggs stood and paced restlessly. “Even when I’m with her, I’m not. I know it was my idea to … to lie, but even a lie of omission builds a wall between people. I’m trapped behind it, unable to give Selda the unconditional support she needs.”

“You don’t need to explain it to me,” I said, folding my arms. “I’ve lived it. I’d half expected you to break and tell her the truth by now.”

He laughed mirthlessly. “Oh, I’ve considered it. Would that tear down the wall, though, or build it higher?” He trailed off, wiping his eyes. “How did you stand lying about yourself for years? You must have felt cut off from the whole world.”

I fought down the lump in my throat. “I did indeed. And then I met this prince who seemed able to see through me, to the truth behind the lies. He was terrifying and fascinating, but to my amazement, it was an immeasurable relief to be seen.”

Kiggs’s dark eyes softened. “What you’d hidden was not so awful. What I’ve hidden will hurt Selda, whom I love like my own sister.”

There was a wall between Kiggs and me, too, built of propriety and promises. I could not reach out to him, could not kiss his sorrowing brow. Holding back was misery, but he’d surely use any lapse as a stick to beat himself with later.

I said, “Yes, it will hurt her. But—” I hesitated; the idea was forming, looking for words to clothe itself in. “Letting her bear her own pain can be a gesture of respect.”

He sat down again, his eyes locked on my face. “What?”

“I mean,” I said, still struggling for the right way to say it, “you’re carrying all the weight of it yourself to protect her. You’ve decided she’s too fragile to bear the truth, but is she? What if you let her be strong on her own behalf? It would honor her, in a way.”

He snorted, but I could tell he was thinking now. That was what I loved most of all: Kiggs thinking. His eyes lit up. I clasped my hands between my knees again.

“That is the most convoluted piece of sophistry I’ve ever heard,” he said, wagging a finger at me. “Shall I slap her across the face, if pain is such an honor?”

“Who’s a sophist?” I said. “You know that’s a specious argument.”

He smiled mournfully. “I’m going to refute you, because you’re
wrong, but I don’t have it in me now.” He rubbed his eyes. “Tomorrow will be a long day of negotiations.” He yawned.

I took the hint, although I didn’t like to. “I should let you get some sleep,” I said.

I rose to go, but Kiggs reached for my hand. In that moment the entire world bent toward that focal point; all we felt or understood, all matter and emptiness, compressed between two hands, one warm, one cold. I didn’t know which was which.

He took a shaky breath and let me go. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said. “And I will refute you.”

I bowed. “Good night, Prince,” I said, fully believing he would hear the words behind my words, the things I couldn’t say.

I was not invited to Comonot’s meeting with the heads of the Agogoi, nor did I expect to be. Surely Kiggs and I would be leaving Porphyry soon—how long could negotiations possibly take?—and I’d already decided not to spend my last few days trying to persuade the ityasaari to come south with me. They were happy here; let them remain so. I would return and see them in more peaceful times.

Instead, I spent the next morning with Abdo and his family. Abdo had been less feverish and more tranquil the last two days, but he slept all the time. I hoped this might mean Jannoula was relenting and that Naia could take him back to Paulos Pende whenever he opened his eyes. Around midday I wandered to the harbor market and played flute in the sunshine. Children skipped circles around me. I’d hoped Brasidas would find me, but he wasn’t around.

When I returned to Naia’s in the late afternoon, a note had arrived from Ardmagar Comonot:
Meet the prince and me at the Metasaari public garden at sunset
. That was it; no hint of how his meeting had gone.

I went early and ate at the little caupona where I’d met Saar Lalo. I’d come to love octopus balls in gravy; I would miss Porphyrian food in Goredd. I loitered at a table, nursing my mint tea and watching the sun go down.

Kiggs and Comonot appeared at last, two lengthening shadows in the descending dusk; I met them by the public fountain where water spewed from a mer-dog’s snout. “This way,” said the Ardmagar, in lieu of a greeting, and we set off toward a long, low colonnaded house on the north side of the square.

“How did the negotiations go?” I whispered to Kiggs.

The prince shook his head. “We’re sworn to secrecy. These may not be my gods, but I don’t relish meeting Dread Necessity down a dark alley,” he said. “However, I believe I may hint obliquely that the jewel of our purpose is to be ransomed at a high price, and that the Ardmagar is a miserly villain.”

“I can hear you,” said Comonot over his shoulder as he knocked on the door.

I pinched my lips shut around a laugh, but found Kiggs’s hint perplexing. Comonot was prepared to pay to end his war. What price had Porphyry demanded?

A middle-aged woman with short hair and a serious expression opened the door. “Ardmagar,” she said, saluting the sky and revealing herself to be a saarantras.

“Lucian, Seraphina,” said Comonot, “I introduce Ikat, civic
leader of the dragons in exile and—I’m given to understand—an excellent physician.”

Ikat, in good saar fashion, didn’t acknowledge the introduction, but she did hold the door for us. She was dressed in a plain tunic and trousers of undyed cotton, no ornaments, her brown feet bare. She led us silently through her atrium toward a central square garden. Chairs and benches had been set in a circle, and ten saarantrai sat under globular lanterns. I assumed they were all saarantrai; I recognized Lalo. Ikat snapped thrice and a slender serving girl fetched another wooden bench for Kiggs and me. We sat, and Comonot went around the circle, introducing himself to everyone.

“More exiles than this are willing to help, I hope,” I whispered to Kiggs.

“That’s part of what we’re here to find out,” he whispered back. “This is the ‘Futile Council,’ as Eskar calls it. Saarantrai have no voice in the Assembly, so they’ve created their own impotent ruling body, which occasionally sends petitions for the Agogoi to ignore.”

“Has the Ardmagar located Eskar yet?” I asked, and the prince shook his head.

The serving girl offered us honeyed almond cakes. Kiggs took one, muttering under his breath, “I’ll need you to translate if this meeting is held in Mootya.”

“Soft-mouth Mootya, you mean,” said the serving girl in Goreddi. Kiggs looked up at her. She had a pointy face reminiscent of a rat’s, and her twig-like brown arms were bare to the shoulder. She was full grown in height, but her stance suggested a
petulant ten-year-old. She sneered down at the prince and said, “If you expect us to roar at each other, you’ll be disappointed. We’ve transposed Mootya into sounds our soft mouths can make, but it’s the same language.”

Kiggs was enough of a scholar to know this already, but he bowed his head politely. The girl stared at him, her eyes bulging. “That’s why you know our names for things, like
Tanamoot
or
ard
,” she continued unnecessarily, “whereas in hard-mouth Mootya,
ard
sounds like this.” She threw her head back and screamed.

The circle of saarantrai, who’d been chatting together, went silent. “You’re screaming at a prince of Goredd,” said Ikat, crossing the lawn and taking the girl by the shoulders as if to lead her away.

“It’s all right,” said Kiggs, trying to smile. “We were discussing linguistics.”

Ikat frowned slightly. “Prince, this is my daughter, Colibris.”

“Brisi,” the girl corrected, lifting her pointy chin defiantly.

It was a Porphyrian name, and she was dressed very differently from the other saarantrai. The adults wore plain tunics and trousers in noncommittal colors; they kept their hair short and practical, except for Lalo, with his long hair tied Ninysh-style.

Brisi, however, wore a diaphanous dress splashed with gaudy butterflies and birds; her hair was piled precariously on her head, in imitation of the towering coiffures fine ladies such as Camba wore. It wobbled when she moved. In fact, her screaming had sent a lock tumbling, but she seemed not to notice. It dangled, limp and forlorn, at her shoulder.

She finished serving the guests and disappeared into the shadows of the house.

Ikat began the meeting, saying (in soft-mouth Mootya), “Eskar hasn’t returned. Am I correct that no one knows where she’s gone?”

Around the circle, no one moved.

“You owe much to her indefatigable perseverance, Ardmagar,” said Ikat. “When she arrived last winter, only Lalo would even consider leaving. We’ve built lives here, and we were reluctant to trust you. Your administration was harder on deviants than the three that came before.”

“I regret it,” said Comonot, who sat on the bench beside Ikat. “Too much time has been wasted chasing the elusive ideal of incorruptible draconic purity. The Old Ard take it to extremes, but it was always untenable. Progress—or, more prosaically, our continued survival—will require a shift in the opposite direction, toward a broader definition of dragonhood.” One corner of his mouth dimpled, a strangely self-deprecating expression. “Of course, my previous attempt at dragging our people toward reform has resulted in civil war. I may not be the one to follow.”

When I translated that for Kiggs, he gave a low whistle and whispered back, “Don’t tell me he’s learned humility!” Around us, the saarantrai muttered solemnly together; Comonot, thick hands folded in his lap, watched them with a falcon’s eye.

“You’ve shown yourself remarkably flexible of mind, for a non-deviant,” said Ikat, and Comonot bowed his head. “So many of us had given up any hope of a return that we had hardened our hearts against the desire to see our homeland again, or dismissed
it as impossible. We told ourselves we fit seamlessly into Porphyrian society, that the Porphyrians accepted us fully and without reservation—”

“They certainly don’t want you to leave,” Comonot interjected. “It’s not the Omiga Valley that’s the sticking point. They’re demanding near-impossible compensation for agreeing to let you go.”

Ikat sat up a little straighter and her eyes narrowed. “They’re not our jailers.”

“No,” said Comonot, “but they have an agreement with the Tanamoot, and a great reluctance to lose so many doctors, merchants, scholars—”

“To say nothing of our elevated non-citizen taxes,” muttered someone.

“Many of our merchants don’t wish to leave,” said Ikat. “They’ve found a new way to accumulate a hoard, and that’s enough for them, but the rest of us chafe against the restrictions. We can only transform four times a year, during the games. Bearing children is complicated, and raising them more difficult still.”