An Accident of Stars (7 page)

All of a sudden, Zech was gripped by horrible, crippling guilt. What if she'd told a different lie to Kadeja, one that hadn't made Saffron out to be Vekshi? Would the Vex'Mara still have taken her fingers?

Gwen, who had been in the middle of thanking the priest for his services, broke off mid-sentence and looked at her.

“Zech? What is it?”

“My fault.” She could barely force the words out, tears slipping down her cheeks. “I told the Vex'Mara that Saffron was Vekshi. I called her cousin. If I hadn't done that, she wouldn't have held her to Ashasa's law. It's my fault!”

“She's not Vekshi?” the priest asked, but that only made Zech cry harder.
I should have waited until he was gone!

Gwen didn't answer him. Instead, she crouched down in front of Zech and pulled the girl into a hug.

“Hush,” she murmured, stroking her hair. “None of this was your fault. Kadeja is what she is, we both know that. Nothing would have changed if you'd told her the truth, except that she might have questioned you about where Saffron came from. And who would that have helped, hmm?”

As quickly as they'd come, Zech felt her tears dry up. Nodding into Gwen's shoulder, she took one last shaky breath and calmed herself.

“Apologies,” she said, though the guilt still rattled inside her. “I was overset.”

“We're all overset tonight,” Gwen said, straightening once more. Even the priest smiled, and of course Saffron's secret was safe with him. Didn't Teket's Kin take vows to keep the confidence of those they healed?

Cupping his hands respectfully to Gwen – and then repeating the gesture for Zech's benefit, such a cheeky deference that she giggled despite herself – the priest signalled his intent to leave.

“Send for me if anything else happens,” he said, “but Teket willing, it shouldn't be necessary.”“Gods watch over us,” Gwen answered graciously.

But no sooner had he left the room than Gwen sagged, as though her strength had suddenly run out, and when Zech offered her the chair, she took it wordlessly. When she spoke, her eyes never left Saffron.

“Tomorrow, you'll need to tell us all what happened in the Square of Gods. Everything you can remember. Try not to talk about it until then – the more often you tell a story like that, the more likely you are to exaggerate the details.” She paused. “It would be best if you slept tonight in your own room. I'll need to speak to Saffron when she wakes. Alone.”

“Of course,” said Zech, though in truth she felt a little deflated.

“Good girl. Don't worry, though. I'm sure you'll have time enough to meet her when she's recovered.” Finally, she looked up. “Tell Pix and Yasha I'm sleeping here, would you? And if either one wants to hash this out now, you keep quiet and send them straight to me.”

Zech was torn. She wanted to stay with Saffron – it was one of the consequences of using the zuymet – but when Gwen yawned, she forced herself to nod and exit, shutting the door behind her.

S
affron squirmed
through a sea of uncomfortable dreams, each one more disquieting than the last. Long-haired velociraptors chased her down a series of unfamiliar hallways, getting closer and closer until she tumbled into a fountain. Gasping, she swam through a portal at the bottom of the sea, but when she hauled herself out on the other side, her mother was there, saying that she'd ruined her academic career and needed to be declawed. Saffron tried to explain that there'd been a mistake – it was Beastie the kitten they wanted to declaw, she didn't even
have
claws, but her mother just smiled and took her into the garage. The rest of her family was lined up and waiting for her, their faces solemn. Saffron began to beg and plead. She tried to run away, but then her father grabbed her, pinning her hand to the hood of the car, murmuring to
be a good girl, Saff, hold still,
and all while her mother advanced on them with a pair of pliers. The cold metal clamped down on the two smallest fingers of her left hand. Her mother started to pull – “They've got to come out!” – and even though Saffron tried to scream, instead she was choking, unable to say a word. With a sickening wrench, her fingers popped free like deciduous lizard tails, twitching and writhing on the car bonnet. Still gagging, Saffron turned around to confront her parents, only to find that both had vanished; instead, there was only Gwen, watching her with sad, apologetic eyes.

She'd woken up. Gwen really was present, sitting opposite Saffron in a cushioned wicker chair. Still foggy, she didn't immediately understand what had happened or where she was. She was in an unfamiliar room, the walls and floor both painted stucco white, though the latter was covered by a faded red carpet patterned with geometric designs. A low, square window covered with wooden shutters let in glimmers of daylight. Seeing that, Saffron felt a lurch of panic. How long had she been asleep? Had a whole night passed? In a wash of fear and pain, her memory came flooding back, bringing with it a new, strange tingling in her left hand.

“No,” she whispered, not wanting to look, knowing she had to. Sitting upright, she pulled her hands out from underneath the rough blanket and laid them in front of her, unwilling to believe the evidence of her eyes. The two smallest fingers on her left hand were gone, the skin healed over as pink and seamless as if they'd never existed. And yet she could still feel them there, a phantom twitching so strong that when she closed her eyes, it was as though nothing had changed. But it had; she'd seen her fingers sink in the fountain, remembered the blinding agony as the smiling woman had severed them with her knife, a series of quick cuts to the joint, efficient as a butcher. Then she raised her right hand to her head, and felt what else she'd lost: her hair, reduced now to nothing more than stubble. That, too, was bizarre, though in a different way. Her whole head felt naked, each turn of her neck too quick and light without the familiar weight. She kept on reaching up to reflexively brush the strands away, startling when her fingers hit flesh instead.

Her uniform was covered with blood. She was sore – though surprisingly not too sore – and covered with yesterday's sweat. Only her shoes had been removed, the black Clarks eerily normal where they'd been placed by the bedside. A strangled noise that was neither a sob nor laughter lodged in her throat. Saffron stared at her hands, at her missing fingers, and remembered dimly the feeling of magic flowing through her: a foreign, fizzing sensation, not quite unpleasant, yet certainly not comfortable, that had knitted her skin together. She found herself wondering how long a wound like hers would take to heal on Earth, in the care of doctors.
Weeks at the very least
–

The implications hit her like rough surf.

Saffron turned and looked at Gwen, not trusting herself to speak. The older woman's face was lined with exhaustion, her hair in disarray.

“How long…” She gulped back the question, shying away from the hardest question. “How long have I been asleep?”

“Just one night,” said Gwen, unable to disguise the heaviness in her voice. “Do you remember Zech bringing you back here?”

Saffron thought of a skinny boy with gentle eyes and strong arms. “Yes. I remember him.”

Almost, Gwen managed a smile. “Not him. Her. Zechalia's a girl.”

“Oh.” For some reason, this simple fact made her want to laugh. Instead, she found herself saying, “My parents will be worried. I told my sister I'd catch her up, but that was hours ago. They'll think that something's happened to me.”

“Hasn't it?” Gwen asked, softly.

Saffron felt her throat constrict.
Don't cry,
she told herself, but it was easier said than done. She knew what was coming. She stared at her hands, wanting to knot them together for comfort's sake, but was too repulsed by the sight of her missing fingers. Sooner or later, she'd find the courage to touch the stumps, the impossibly well-healed skin, but not now. Not yet.

“I can't go home, can I.”

It wasn't a question. Across the room, Gwen sighed.

“No,” she said, after a moment. “Not for a while yet, anyway. There'd be too many questions about how your hand had managed to heal so fast, let alone how it even happened.”

“Couldn't the magic just grow my fingers back?” She hated the desperation in her voice. “I mean, it's
magic
, right? Why only heal the stumps?”

“Healing magic – sevikmet – is miraculous in many ways, but it still has its limits. Most of the time, it does nothing more than what your body would do on its own, only faster – and bodies don't regrow fingers.”

“Most of the time?”

“There are some few exceptions,” Gwen admitted, “but they don't apply to you. And even if you could somehow convince the temple to try, you don't get something like that for nothing, and not without risk. When the priest healed you, he used your strength, your physical reserves, to speed a process your body would've undertaken on its own – he didn't try to undo what was done.”

Saffron frowned, confused. “The magic came from me?”

“No, no. The magic was his. Think of it…” Gwen paused, chewing her lip. “Think of it like this: if the priest was a woodworker, his magic would be the blade he used, and your body the wood he carved. No matter how sharp the knife, he can only use it to cut what's there, not make more of it. The wood is finite. The crafter must work with what he has.” She paused. “Most of the time, anyway. It's a tricky business. The point being, unless you sacrifice something else – and unless we could find a temple willing to heal what would, in their eyes, be a minor hurt – your fingers aren't coming back.”

“Oh,” she said again. Silence fell, and in the space between heartbeats, Saffron realised she was crying.

“Forgive me,” Gwen said, softly. “This is my fault. I was… At your school, I intervened. Incautiously so. I should have just left you alone.”

“It's not your fault,” said Saffron, rubbing her eyes with her good hand. “You didn't bring me here. I'm the one who came after you, who jumped through a random portal.” But what did it matter? Her fingers were
gone
, they weren't coming back even by magic, and her parents must be worried and there were multiple worlds and she didn't know what to feel anymore, and so she just cried and sat there while Gwen rested a hand on her shoulder and said, “It's all right, girl. It's all right.”

“Would it have made a difference?” Saffron asked, when the tears had finally stopped. “If that woman hadn't… if I hadn't lost the fingers, I mean, if I never fell, and we'd come straight here instead, could I have just gone back home?”

“Not right away,” said Gwen. “I told you before that Trishka, who makes the portals, isn't physically strong. Opening one drains her for days, sometimes weeks afterwards, and even if it didn't, we'd have to find a new portal point, somewhere outside the city walls.”

Oddly, Saffron wasn't upset to hear it. But then, she supposed, it would have been a thousand times worse if the only reason she'd lost her fingers and couldn't go home was because she didn't know how to ride an alien animal. That thought really did make her laugh, the sound bubbling out beyond her ability to control it. Her family would be worried sick. Mum, dad, Ruby – they'd all be terrified that something horrific had happened to her, and the very worst thing was, it had.

But so had something wonderful: she was in a different world. And even now, with her phantom fingers aching against the blanket, she couldn't quite make herself believe that the horror of it outweighed the marvels.

“There's nothing I can do.” She'd spoken aloud without meaning to, and yet the words had a calming effect. She turned to Gwen. “There really isn't, is there?”

The older woman relaxed a little. “No, there's not.” She paused. “So. Do you want to know what it is I'm doing here?”

Saffron straightened. “Tell me.”

G
wen folded
her hands in her lap, resisting the urge to fidget. “For the sake of clarity,” she said, meaning,
I don't know how to tell this story, so one beginning's as good as another,
“you ought to know, this isn't the only other world besides Earth. It's a multiverse out there. I call it the Many, from manifold, and over the years, I've seen a little of it–” Saffron's eyes widened pleasingly at that, “–but Kena is where I came first, and Kena is where I live. It's flawed, like I told you yesterday, but I love it here.

“Now, maybe there's a world out there with no magic at all, and that magic can't touch, though if there is, I've never seen it. So far as I can tell, all worlds have at least a little magic, even if it's a secret thing, diminished or misunderstood.”

“Like Earth, you mean?”

“Exactly so. But big or little, magic is different everywhere, and here… I told you that I'm a worldwalker?” She made it a question, only continuing when Saffron nodded. “Well, that's an English translation. In Kenan, I'm a
vekenai-asahuda
, which more literally means all-worlds pilgrim. We show up in stories and history, and that gives us a sort of cachet, a novelty, when we appear in real life. Assuming, of course, that whoever you're talking to believes you.”

Saffron smiled at that, which was the desired effect. Heartened, Gwen went on. “I mention this, not just because it's something you ought to know – you're a worldwalker now, after all – but because it's a shorthand way of explaining how an outsider came to have any influence at Kena's court. Pix is a noblewoman, a courtier, and once we met, she introduced me around. Not everyone knew where I was from, or believed it if they were told, but enough did that my knowing her gave Pix status, which gave me power in turn. Not much, at first, but after four years moving in those sorts of circles, it accrued.”

“How did you meet Pix?” Saffron asked.

“It was Zechalia, actually – the girl who found you last night. She's Vekshi – most of the women in this compound are, though you'll hear more about the why of that later – and when her magic came in… Ah!” Gwen made a frustrated noise and muttered, “I should write you a bloody pamphlet. I'm bound to miss out something important, the rate we're going.” And then, in a normal voice, “Right. Well. The Vekshi, among other things, are monotheists. They've got one goddess to Kena's pantheon, but in both cultures, those with magic usually learn from their priests and priestesses, a sort of religious devotion. The thing is, there aren't any Vekshi temples in Karavos, and Yasha – she's our resident matriarch, who runs this place – she didn't want Zech to learn from a Kenan temple, because it would've been heresy. Not,” she added, irony shading her tone, “that she's above hypocrisy or even occasional pragmatism in such matters; mostly, she just likes to get her way.”

Saffron snorted. “I have an aunt like that.”

“So do I,” said Gwen. They grinned at each other, sharing a moment of unity, until Gwen waved a hand, determined to get things back on track. “Anyway. There are trained mages outside the temples – kemeta, they're called – though being freelance, they're usually considered a bit disreputable. So Yasha, who wanted the best for Zech, hunted around for one with a bit of a pedigree, and finally stumbled on Matu, who's Pix's brother. Pix decided to vet us on his behalf – because we're not exactly reputable, either – and, well. There you go. Following?”

“Just about,” Saffron said, wryly.

Gwen snorted. “Fair enough. At any rate, that's how I came to be at court. How Pix and I ended up involved in the succession debate, though… Well. Partly, it was just proximity. Mostly, I suspect, it's because the whole thing was a nightmare, and we were both, for various reasons, seen as objective parties. We weren't the only ones to throw our hats in the ring, but we're the ones who fucked it all up, so here we are.” She paused again, considering what to say next, and steeled herself for the inevitable segue. “Changing the topic not as wildly as you might think, what do you know about polyamory?”

“Um,” said Saffron, with a deer-in-headlights look. “That it, um… exists?” And then, frowning slightly, “Wait, do you mean polygamy, or is that something different?”

“Polygamy means one man, many women, and that's not what we're talking about. Polyamory is when multiple people are all in a relationship together, regardless of gender. And Kenan marriage, the mahu'kedet, is fundamentally polyamorous. Usually, you start with a core couple or trio, and then other partners are brought in later, though it works in a lot of different ways. Maybe everyone sleeps together, and maybe only some people do, but any children are raised communally, and every household takes its name from the most prominent member.”