The Floating Islands (13 page)

A slow flush rose up Ceirfei’s neck and face. “It doesn’t really.”

“Oh, yes, it does. Gods, no wonder the wingmaster wouldn’t let Novice-master Anerii whip you. One doesn’t trifle with princes.”

“I know he had to punish us both! Does he think I don’t understand that? He should know I would never complain to my uncle!”

“Ceirfei! How could he be sure? Of course the wingmaster should protect his people. What would you have done in his place?”

Ceirfei stopped, looking startled. And, after a moment, embarrassed. “Well. The same, I suppose.”

“Of course you would.” Trei hesitated. “I see why you knew they wouldn’t expel you. But you knew … as you say, you knew they’d have to punish us both, if we were caught. So … thank you for coming after me.”

Ceirfei shrugged. He didn’t say,
That’s what friends do,
because that would be trite, nor did he say,
That’s what princes do,
because that would be pretentious. But Trei knew he meant that shrug to stand for both statements. Just knowing that made some of the sick feeling finally die away.

Trei, feeling suddenly embarrassed, turned away abruptly, walked forward, and opened the door to the novitiate’s dining hall … then met the stares of the other boys with as much composure as he could manage.

Rekei sprang up and hurried over, then hovered, looking anxious. Genrai got more slowly to his feet and told Ceirfei apologetically, “Somebody came by to tell us there would be examinations tomorrow and found us scattered all over the novitiate, and, well …”

“It’s well enough,” Ceirfei assured him. He moved slowly toward a chair by the long table. “We got nothing worse than grounding.”

“They said you’d be whipped!” Tokabii exclaimed. “Even though—” Genrai caught the younger boy’s arm and gave him a shake, but Tokabii pulled away, looking stubborn. “Oh, stop it, Genrai, I’m not a baby!”

“You’re a brat!” snapped Rekei, pulling out a chair for Trei. “Everyone knows grounding’s worse than whipping!”

Kojran began, “You only say that because you’ve never—”

“Enough!” said Genrai, so forcefully that all three of the younger boys stared at him and fell silent after all.

Ceirfei settled gingerly into the chair, but he gave Genrai a little nod. “If you kept everyone else out of trouble, then that was well done, and all you could do. Thank you.”

Genrai visibly resisted responding with a deferential nod in return. Instead, he said, “Several of the second-ranked kajuraihi brought these.” He indicated the little pots of salve on the table. “For the, um, welts. Rei Kensenè said it’s a rare novice who never needs it, but usually just for flying without leave. He said, well, never mind. You can probably imagine.”

Trei could. But the salve did help wonderfully: it went on cold, stung like fire—tears came to Trei’s eyes, forcing him to duck his head and blink rapidly—but then both the sting and much of the hot ache faded together.

“Rei said—” Genrai began. But then he looked up, startled, as the door opened once more.

“Novice Trei.” Wingmaster Taimenai stood in the doorway. Where his expression was usually dispassionate and sometimes stern, now he looked truly grim. His tone was flat, unreadable. “I must ask you to attend me at once.”

For a long moment, Trei found himself unable to move. The wingmaster’s grimness terrified him. He was going to be dismissed—someone had decided a half-Tolounnese novice shouldn’t be tolerated after all, especially if he was going to break important rules
—
or else—or else—Trei couldn’t think of anything else that seemed likely. He felt numb. He was aware, dimly, of somebody putting a hand under his elbow to help him to his feet. The wingmaster himself took Trei by the shoulder and guided him through the door, along a short hallway, up a long stair, and at last into a plainly furnished office with a balcony that looked out over the sea.

Wingmaster Taimenai gestured Trei toward a plain chair that stood before the large desk, but he did not sit himself. He knelt in front of Trei, gripped Trei by the arms, and looked searchingly into his face. “Trei—” he began, and stopped.

Trei stared into the wingmaster’s face, so close to his own, and waited. His mouth had gone dry, his hands cold. He could feel his own heartbeat, thready and rapid, in his throat, but he couldn’t feel the arms of the chair under his own hands. In a moment the wingmaster would say—he would say—

What he said, with a terrible gentleness, was: “Trei, I fear I must give you difficult news about your family.”

6

G
rief had turned Araenè to stone by the time Trei found her. She didn’t notice his arrival. She was tucked away in the shadows behind her largest wardrobe. Her room’s shutters were closed; Araenè had refused to let Cimè open them. She felt that it was wrong of the sun to blaze with light and warmth when everything should be dark and cold; it seemed impossible that the whole world should not echo with her loss. So she sat in the shadows, her arms wrapped around her drawn-up knees, her back against the wall, and ignored the light.

Cimè found her there. “Your cousin’s come,” she told Araenè, speaking gently. “You should get up. Brush your hair, wash your face, put on a clean dress.… Araenè? Can you hear me? Your cousin’s here.…”

Araenè heard her as she heard the sound of monkeys calling or birds singing or the wind rattling the shutters: as sound without meaning. She did not respond. She did not even remember that she might respond. She was only faintly aware of Cimè’s retreat.

There were voices in the hall … meaningless, but Araenè dimly wished the sounds would go away. She shut her eyes firmly and pressed her forehead against her knees, trying to listen only to the silence within her own heart.

She was aware, dimly, of someone coming to stand in front of her. She knew, dimly, that this was Trei. He moved to sit next to her, his back against the wall, his shoulder touching hers. He didn’t say anything. Araenè was grateful for his silence.

After a while, Trei went away. But then he came back. He sat next to Araenè again, took her hand firmly, and put a cup of steaming chocolate into it. The smell was rich and dark. She hadn’t been aware that she was hungry. She had forgotten that she wasn’t actually stone. The scent of the chocolate made her remember. She sipped it slowly.

Trei took the cup out of her hand when it was empty, replacing it with a soft roll. The roll was filled with cheese and onions, not at all the right thing to follow a cup of chocolate. The cheese wasn’t salty enough, and the onions weren’t properly caramelized, but Araenè ate the roll anyway. Then she ate another one, this one filled with spicy lamb. It was much better than the first. It seemed so wrong to even notice anything as trivial as the mix of spices in a lamb-stuffed roll, but she couldn’t help it. Then she sat and stared at her hands and tried not to think about anything.

“The grief doesn’t go away,” Trei said after a while. “But you … get used to it, you know? It’s like carrying a heavy stone, one that’s really too heavy for you: you learn to settle the weight properly, and then you get used to it, and then sometimes you can forget you’re carrying it.”

“Does it get lighter? Do you ever put it down?” Araenè asked him.

“I don’t know.” Trei put an arm around her shoulders.

Araenè leaned her head against his shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t understand.”

“I’d never have wanted you to.”

“It was just a summer cough.…”

“They said it started that way.”

“It didn’t … If we’d only known … The fever came on so
fast,
Trei! I sent for a physician, but he didn’t come
fast
enough—”

“Shh. I know. It’s not your fault.” Trei’s grip tightened around her shoulders. “Nobody knew at first how hard the fever would take hold. How could anybody know?”

No one had known how serious the illness was until the fever’s first victims died. After that, the physicians understood how fast they’d need to move, how aggressively they’d need to treat the illness. Every physician in the city had exhausted himself in that effort. Eventually, after losing a lot of people, they’d begun saving more victims than they lost. Cimè had told her that. Araenè didn’t care. She would have traded all the lives saved for just two that were gone. She bowed her face against her knees, shuddering.

“You need to act like you’re still alive yourself,” Trei advised. “It’s a pretense at first. If you pretend as hard as you can, you’ll come to half believe it yourself.”

“I know,” Araenè whispered. “I did pretend. When people came. The physician, and then the magistrate. Then the death handler, and then the king’s tax collector …”

“I know,” Trei said. “You did everything perfectly. Then you let go. Now you need to pick up some of the pieces again.”

This sounded impossible to Araenè.

“You don’t need to hold them all,” Trei added. “Just start with one.” He got to his feet and reached down for Araenè’s hands, pulling her up as well. She staggered, and he gave her a close look, adding, “The
very
first thing is for you to fix me something to eat.”

It was the best thing he could have asked for. And he knew it, too, as Araenè realized perfectly well. But she was glad to lose herself in preparing a complicated pastry she’d invented. Each round of dough had to be rolled out thin, then fried in hot oil, then brushed with clarified butter infused with lavender, then dusted with fine sugar mixed with ground vanilla, and finally assembled in layers with a compote of walnuts and lavender honey. Araenè set the finished confection on the table, scattered dried lavender flowers across the platter, sat down at her customary place, and burst into tears.

She hadn’t wept after Father died; there hadn’t been time because by then Mother was slipping into the final desperate fever herself. The physician was there at last. He had come too late to save Father. Astonished at what he found, the physician had worked anxiously over Mother. But Araenè had known even then, from the physician’s hard-set mouth and hooded eyes, that he had not expected to save her, either. Nor had he.

But Araenè hadn’t cried then, either. She’d known there would be a parade of city officials, of neighbors and friends bringing the customary round cakes, the oranges and melons and tiny spherical pastries glittering with pastel sugars … everything sweet, to remind mourners that life was still sweet; everything round, to show that life did not end.… The smells of sugar and citrus had nauseated Araenè, but she hadn’t cried. She had set aside thought and feeling, and smiled stiffly at everyone, and said all the right things, until she could not bear it and fled to the dimness of her room and just waited for everything to go away.

Trei let her cry. He didn’t say anything at all. He just let her cry until she was exhausted. Then he led her back to her room, made her lie down on her bed, and left her alone.

When she woke, Araenè felt better. And instantly guilty, because how could she possibly feel
better
? She lay for a while with her eyes shut, but light poured across her bed.… Someone had opened her shutters. Even with her eyes closed, she could tell the light was brilliant, and hot.… She’d slept through both afternoon and night, she guessed, and well into the next morning, and just what had Trei put in that chocolate? Araenè surrendered at last to the inevitable and opened her eyes. She needed a bath, and proper clothing … and to find Trei.

Trei, when she eventually found him, was in Father’s office, looking at papers. He held a quill in one hand. He was frowning. He looked tired and … sad, Araenè realized, and felt a sudden, sharp grief that was only for Trei, separate from everything else. What must it be like, to lose your family and travel a thousand miles to kin you’d never met, and be welcomed by them, and then lose that family as well?

Then Trei looked up and saw her. He gave her a little nod. “Cousin. I sent Cimè to her mother—her mother has the illness.”

“Oh!” Araenè had barely realized Cimè had a mother. She fought down an impulse so appalling she couldn’t believe she felt it: a wish for Cimè’s mother to die—if Araenè lost
her
mother, why shouldn’t Cimè?

From some faint change in Trei’s expression, Araenè thought he’d recognized and understood her brief, terrible wish. That he thought it was normal. Somehow that made her feel it might be all right to suffer such a horrible wish; that it was an impulse she might feel and yet recover from.

Trei said, his tone neutral, “I understand you have to have a guardian, Araenè. It’s all right. I’m writing a letter to Wingmaster Taimenai, explaining that family matters compel me to quit the kajuraihi. I know sometimes kajuraihi do leave the kajurai precincts. And I’ve written another letter to the high minister of shipping asking for a position in his ministry—Cimè tells me that’s the custom, that he’ll give me a place there ‘on the books’ until I’m sixteen and can really start at the ministry.”

“Trei, you can’t!”

“It’s all right. Cimè says I’ll be an assistant minister by the time I’m twenty, probably. Then our position will be good enough for you to marry properly.”

“It isn’t
all right
!” Araenè was appalled. “You can’t go into the ministry, Trei! And give up the sky? Tear up that letter, Trei, and let me write my mother’s sisters; I can go to one of my aunts’ families—”

“No!”

She stopped, her mouth still open.

Trei said, “You can’t leave Canpra!” He sounded really upset. “Araenè, you’d hate it, shut up on some sheep farm in the country!” And when she tried again to protest, he added, his tone strained, “Araenè, I don’t want you to go away. Don’t you see? I don’t want to lose you, too. I’d rather—I’d rather give up the sky. Truly, Araenè.”

Araenè stared at her cousin for a long moment. Then she turned, went back into her bedroom, and stared at herself in her mirror. It was like a window, showing her herself: she thought she looked much older, as though she was looking at her future self. The future stretched out and out in front of her, measureless. But was it something to endure, or something to seize hold of?

Araenè changed into her best boys’ things. Then she took her sharpest pair of scissors, sat down in front of her mirror, and cut off her hair. It was harder to cut evenly than she’d expected, and much harder to watch the mass of it collect in discarded swaths on the floor and table. Araenè bit her lip and went on: even if she changed her mind—she told herself fiercely she would
never
change her mind—it was too late to stop now. The top was still ragged when she finished, and she was afraid the back was worse. But it was short. When she looked at herself … she saw a boy with a bad haircut, not a girl.

So did Trei when she went to show him.

“Araenè!” he exclaimed, eyes going wide.

“Arei,” she said sharply. Pretending she had no doubts. She couldn’t have doubts now. Or Trei would quit the kajuraihi, and she—well, she would have to explain the shorn hair. She was fierce to hide any trace of doubt from either of them. “You tear up those letters, Trei. Tear them up! You can tell the kajurai masters I’ve gone to my mother’s sister. I’ll write to my aunts and tell them you’re taking care of me. Then you can go back to the kajuraihi and I can go—
Arei
can go—to the mages’ school. Araenè can just disappear. Who will ever know?”

“Araenè—”

“Arei.”

“Arei, then,” Trei conceded. “The
mages’
school?”

Araenè had forgotten he did not know. She got the Dannè sphere from the back of her drawer and showed it to Trei. It was opaque, featureless. It tasted mainly of cumin, though the other tastes were still faintly perceptible.

“Cumin?” Trei said doubtfully. He touched the sphere with the tip of one finger, cautiously.

“That’s just how it seems to me. I don’t think other—” Araenè shied off from the presumption of applying the title “mage” to herself. She finished instead, “People taste magic this way.”

“Well, if somebody was going to
taste
magic, it would be you, cousin.” Trei sat back in his chair and looked at her, still doubtful, as though she had changed shape under his gaze—not just from girl to boy, but from known to unknown. Araenè waited for him to say,
Girls can’t be mages,
but he said instead, “There might be a war coming—did you know?”

Father had worried about that. Araenè nodded.

“And you want to go pretend to be a boy at the mages’ school—the
mages’
school. I don’t think that’s very wise, Ar—Arei. You might have fooled other people, but mages? Anyway, I thought … You’re family, Araenè, you’re my only family, and I thought we would live here and”—he gestured vaguely— “manage somehow. I don’t think …” His voice trailed off. He looked at her doubtfully.

Araenè said fiercely, “The mages didn’t see I was a girl before! They say magic—they say it’s like a tide rising in your blood. That’s what they said: magic rising like a tide. I think … I think maybe it is like that. They said you can smother it. I don’t want to do that! I don’t even know why, but I don’t! I didn’t want to be a mage—why would I ever think of being a mage? But now …” She stopped.

“You want to?” Trei asked her. “
Do
you?”

“I think … maybe I want to. Oh, I can’t tell anymore!” Araenè cried, and burst into tears. She hadn’t expected to. She hadn’t even realized tears were threatening. She certainly didn’t want to cry, a
boy
wouldn’t cry.… She turned her back and hid her face in her hands.

But Trei leaped up to take her hands and make her sit in a chair. He said earnestly, “It takes you that way sometimes. Don’t worry. Don’t worry about it, cousin. Cry if you want. Let me get you a cloth. You don’t have to decide right now.”

“I’ve decided,” choked Araenè. “I
have
—”

“You
don’t
have to decide now. You really don’t. Araenè—”

“I can’t live here, Trei! I can’t live in this house!” It seemed to Araenè that all the rooms were filled with grief and memories, thick as bitter syrup.

“We can move—we could find a smaller house—we could move near the University, we could even move to Third City, wouldn’t you like that? And we—”

“I can’t ever be a chef,” Araenè said, muffled.

Trei didn’t say anything.

“I can’t! I know that! But maybe—I think I might—I don’t know! But, Trei, I
can’t
stay closed up in any house and just wait for everything to just happen! War, or
life,
or, or anything! I can’t!” Araenè lifted her head and glared at Trei, her eyes hot. “I might be a mage; maybe I
can
do
this.
Anyway, if I get the training, then I
will
be a mage and what can anybody do then? I can make everybody think I’m a boy, I can do it for a long time, years if I have to, I know I can! And you—
you
need to be in the air. You
are
kajurai, you know you are! You have to let me do this!”