An Accident of Stars (11 page)

“Safi?”

She turned. Zech stood a few metres away, her features tight with concern.

Saffron bowed her head, the anger gone as quickly as it had come.
I don't have a choice. Not there, not here. No good choices, anyway.

“It's all right,” she said softly. “I just… needed some air, that's all.”

Courteously, Zech pretended this to be true. “That's understandable. It gets pretty stuffy inside.” She licked her lips, not quite meeting Saffron's gaze. “Actually, I was just thinking – I know Matu said I should talk to Jeiden, but it's not like he's going anywhere, and you haven't met Trishka yet. And I thought it might be a good idea. But if you want to do it, we should go there now, before she goes to sleep.”

“Right,” said Saffron. “Right.” Shyly, Zech held out a hand. Saffron took it, exhaling as Zech led her back inside. Trishka, she recalled, was Gwen's friend, the woman who made the portals – which meant she was indirectly responsible for Saffron being in Kena. She shied away from the thought, not liking the implications. Seeking distraction, she glanced at Zech and blurted out the first question that came to mind.

“Why isn't your head shaved?”

“What? Oh!” Zech gave a relieved laugh, running a hand through her short grey hair. “Only grown women cut their hair to honour Ashasa, and I haven't had my first bleeding or turned sixteen yet. Whichever one happens first, that's when you start.”

“Oh,” said Saffron. “That makes sense, I guess.” She opened her mouth to ask the other obvious question, but paused, uncertain if it was something she ought to mention at all, or how to do so politely if it was. Zech, however, was clearly well-versed in that particular brand of awkwardness, and took pity on her.

“My skin isn't common, if that's what you're wondering.” She shrugged, indicating her calico markings – here white, here black, there brown, there gold – with an unconcerned flick of her fingers. “My hair went grey when I was about three, I think. It was brown before. Who knows? Maybe it'll change back one day. But I was born mottled.”

Saffron digested this. “So neither of your parents look like you?”

Zech shrugged. “It's possible, I suppose, though not very likely. I don't know who my father is – which isn't uncommon, in Veksh – but my mother gave me away as a baby, which is.”

Saffron blinked in surprise. “She gave you away?”

For the first time, Zech looked discomfited. “In Veksh, to have my skin, it's called being
shasuyakesani
– ‘one on whom the sun smiles and frowns'. It means I could be good luck or bad luck, depending on whether Ashasa has marked me as servant or traitor, but not even the temples can agree on which it is, so instead they say it varies from person to person. Either way, it's still meant to make me special, but my mother must've thought I was bad luck, after all.”

“Oh,” said Saffron. Her cheeks burned with mortified sympathy. “Zech, I'm sorry, I didn't realise–”

“Why would you?” She shrugged. “Don't feel too sorry for me. I like my life. That doesn't mean I can't wonder how it might've turned out otherwise.”

A brief silence fell. They turned a corner, entering a part of the compound Saffron didn't recognise.

“Matu isn't usually like that,” Zech said, suddenly. She came to a halt, though slowly enough to suggest that it wasn't a conscious decision. Saffron blinked, stopping beside her. “Like what?”

“Drunk. Sad. Falling off his horse.” She looked at Saffron sidelong. “It's because Amenet is still alive. He loved her, you see, back before all this happened, but he could never join with her in the mahu'kedet – Pix was a brilliant courtier, but Matu was useless at it, and even though Amenet loved him too, she was practical enough to see it wouldn't work, even if they belonged to the same rank, which they didn't. Don't.” She tilted her head thoughtfully. “If she were Vexa, though, she could just make him her Vexa'Halat, and then it wouldn't matter.”

As English lacked an equivalent concept, Saffron ventured her own translation, switching languages in the process. “The, um… vitality husband?”

Zech giggled. “
Vitality husband?
No! It makes him the pretty one, that's all. I mean, it's
meant
to be strength, you know, liveliness, someone who's good breeding stock, but really it just means beautiful. Nobody expects a halat partner to do anything but look nice, so they can be as tactless and dull or lowborn and wild as they please, and nobody cares. Or maybe they
do
care a bit, but they don't expect better.”

“Like arm candy?”

“I have no idea what that means.” Zech looked at her suspiciously. “Is this like those
rock stars
you were talking about before?”

Despite herself, Saffron managed a smile. “Sort of.”

Zech snorted. “Your language is ridiculous.”

“I could say the same to you.” And then, in Kenan, because she was curious and lacking an answer, “So, how does the royal mahu'kedet actually work? Gwen said it was a hierarchy with different roles, but she didn't say what they were.”

“Oh! Well, all right.” Zech looked oddly pleased by the question. “The Vex, or the Vexa, rules absolutely. Their primary consort is the Cuivexa or the Cuivex, and while they're fairly powerful, they can still be overruled. Usually, it's a practical match: someone with good connections, but who'll make a good administrator. Does that make sense?”

“So far, yes.”

“Good. So, say we've got a Vex and Cuivexa, just like we do now. They're the main pair of the mahu'kedet, and each of them is expected to pick another three partners, bound to them in particular. But it's not like a regular Kenan marriage, where everyone has to agree to it and everyone does what they're best at – it's more like special government posts that decide who you get to sleep with. And each partner, on each side, is meant to represent one of three qualities: mara–”
blood
, “– sehet–”
soul
, or perhaps
wisdom
; the zuymet translation was suggestive of both, “– and halat, like we just talked about.”
Vitality
, or
beauty
. “And then you put cui or vex in front, to say which partner is whose. And because the Vex is more powerful, his partners are more powerful – or at least, that's the theory. It's stupidly complicated in practice, but Kenans are like that.” She grinned, shrugging as if to say,
What can you do?

Saffron thought this through, repressing a shiver at the thought of Kadeja. “So the, uh, the Vex'Mara… that's meant to be an alliance match?”

Zech nodded gravely. “It's meant to be
the
alliance match, even more important than who you choose as Cuivex or Cuivexa. There's a sort of unwritten rule, Pix says, that the Cui'Mara is for foreign alliances, Vex'Mara for Kenan. But Leoden broke it, and the only reason more people aren't still angry about it is that he killed the ones who were.” And then, as if realising for the first time that they'd stopped walking, “Come on. It's not far now.”

Sure enough, another two turnings brought them to an unremarkable door. Zech raised a hand to knock, then hesitated. “Trishka's not very strong,” she said. “I mean,
she's
strong enough, in her mind and magic – her body just has a hard time keeping up. The priest said she'd be better today, but if she gets sleepy or starts twitching too much, we have to go. All right?”

“All right,” said Saffron, though the disclaimer brought on a tingle of apprehension as to how she should behave. Zech knocked, and after a moment, someone called out, “Come in!”

The room was dominated by a massive bed, occupied by a middle-aged woman whose smile, though genuine, was also tired. Her grey-streaked hair was otherwise black, her eyes a beautiful dark amber. Her brown skin was neither as dark as Gwen's nor as golden as Matu's, but somewhere between their shades. Saffron was surprised to find that her face was familiar, until she realised with a jolt that Trishka's features – her chin, her nose, the shape of her cheeks – were all reminiscent of Yasha. “I'm her daughter,” Trishka said. Saffron jumped. The older woman chuckled, patting the edge of the bed. “It's all right. Come sit down. Everyone who meets her first gets that look on their face when they see me.”

Obediently, Saffron came and perched on the edge of the bed. Zech followed, keeping one small hand close about Saffron's wrist but otherwise standing quietly by; a translator, nothing more, though she and Trishka nonetheless exchanged a brief, warm smile. Up close, Saffron could see that there were dark circles under Trishka's eyes, and that her hands, where they rested on top of the blankets, trembled slightly. “Well, now,” she said. “You have, I think, good reason to resent me for bringing you here.”

The word choice wasn't an accident. Saffron swallowed, staring. Trishka was offering herself as a scapegoat for Saffron being stranded, and to her shame, there was a moment where she felt genuinely tempted to accept it. How much easier would everything be if she were guiltless – if her decision to jump through the portal was really Trishka's fault for putting it there in the first place? But the choice had been hers alone, and as ugly as the consequences were, she couldn't shift the blame.

“You didn't bring me here.” Saffron didn't look away. “I chose to come.”

Trishka's smile deepened, her exhaustion ebbing away. “And so you did. It's a brave thing to admit, Saffron. That's your name, isn't it?”

“Yes.”

“Does it mean something in your language?” Trishka sounded genuinely curious. “Or is it just a sound?”

“It's an expensive spice, made from a type of flower. It's very yellow, like–” she raised a hand to indicate her hair, realising only belatedly that it, too, was gone, “–like the sun,” she finished, gulping. “Well, like the sun I'm used to. Yours is much whiter.”

“I see.” Turning slightly, Trishka looked fondly at Zech. “Thank you for bringing her here. I think we might keep each other company for a little while – she speaks well enough now to talk alone, I think. Is there something you can be getting on with, my girl?”

“Matu told me I have to find Jeiden and be nice to him.” Zech scowled theatrically. “I
suppose
that counts.”

“I'm sure it does,” said Trishka.

Zech swung her shoulders and slipped out the door. The latch clicked shut behind her. Trishka gave a maternal sigh. “Honestly, those two – they're like oil and water now, but give it a couple of years, and they'll be inseparable.” A not-quite-comfortable silence settled between them. Saffron felt oddly disquieted, as though she were being studied, while Trishka emanated a gentle calm. At last, the older woman spoke.

“I saw what happened to you, in the Square of Gods. My magic is good for more than making portals. It shows me things, too – different people, different places – and when you came through with Gwen, I watched. I've even seen into your world at times.”

Saffron felt her heart begin to pound. Somehow, she already understood what Trishka was going to say next. “My family,” she whispered. “Are they all right?”

Trishka shuddered. Her eyes didn't close, but they rolled backwards, lids flickering as she gazed through worlds. “Two men in blue are at your house. Your mother sits listening, as your father paces. Your sister refuses to come downstairs. She's in her room, weeping. They think you've been stolen away.”

Saffron felt like she'd been punched. Tears wormed their way down her cheeks, as hot as acid. “Why would you tell me that?”

“Because you needed to know. It's what you feared, isn't it? That your absence hurts them. That it hurts you, too. Worlds away, and worrying for each other. That's what family is.”

And suddenly Saffron was crying in earnest – not the furious, grief-maddened bafflement of the morning, when she'd refused Gwen's offer of comfort, but a sodden wrenching of tears, the way she used to cry in childhood. Nose running, body heaving, she threw her arms around Trishka and sobbed on her shoulder like a toddler with a skinned knee, feeling only relief and comfort when the Vekshi woman hugged her in return, rocking her, murmuring, “Shh now, shh, it's all right, it's all right.”

“I left them,” Saffron whispered. Her face was wet, but the tears were slowly drying up, receding like a tide. “I left them there, and I don't know how to get back.”

“It's all right,” Trishka repeated. “Let it out. That's a girl.”

Slowly, Saffron recovered. Leaning back, she disentangled herself from Trishka and sheepishly wiped her face on her sleeve. “Is it wrong to say I needed that?”

“Not at all. If anything, it's the opposite.” Gently, Trishka brushed the stumps of Saffron's fingers. Electricity shot down her arm, but though it fizzed and tingled, it didn't hurt. “In Veksh,” said Trishka, “our mothers teach us that there's a type of story called
zejhasa
, the braided path: a new tale that starts before the old tale has ended, and which could not exist alone. Every life is zejhasa. Before we are born, our mothers live their own stories, and when we are young, our existence is twined with theirs – small threads in a wider pattern. But as we grow, these threads begin to separate, forming new strands, new lives, new purposes. Our mothers' stories go on, enriched; but ours will always begin before theirs have ended. You are not Vekshi, but some truths are bigger than kinship. Letting go hurts. Growing up hurts. Sooner or later, we all leave home. By choice and magic, you've wrenched yourself out of everything you know, and all those many worlds away, your mother grieves your loss. But you are
not lost
, child; you never were. Your story has begun; you're on the braided path. What we do here, the things we fight for… perhaps you'll come to share those goals. Perhaps not. Only remember: you will go home in the end, and see your mother again.”