“Where are my brothers?” she said.
“Our magistrate has sent a message to the Magistry in Torla’s Neck, asking that question on your behalf,” said Saiet. “We should know sometime today.”
“Oh.”
“Lovisa,” said Saiet gently, studying her face. “Can I offer you something to eat?”
Lovisa didn’t think her stomach could accept any food. Then Davvi bustled out of the other bedroom, Bitterblue came in from outside, and the room was far too crowded with people who had questions in their eyes.
“Is there somewhere I could go?” she said. “And sit, and be alone?”
“Yes, certainly,” said Saiet. “I have cows to visit to the north. Would you like to come along? I’ll deposit you in a nice, quiet place with a pretty view. Then I’ll pick you up again on the way back.”
So Lovisa set out with Saiet, wondering what had become of her life that she was a person setting out to sit and stare at nothing, while her companion, an old, creaky man who made no sense to her, visited cows.
She was terrified he would ask her questions as they walked. Or start talking about something ridiculous she didn’t want to think about, like jealousy, or his wife’s many lovers. Or Nev. Lovisa wouldn’t be able to bear it if Saiet started talking about Nev, who had a life Lovisa could never have.
But he walked beside her quietly, then showed her to a hill with a rock shaped like a bench. Hidden from the path, she could see across rolling hills to the wrinkles of a glacier tucked between rises of land. Far, far away, so far it might be Kamassar, she saw mountains with white peaks. It was freezing on her bench. She pulled her fur coat more tightly against her neck.
“Now,” he said. “I won’t be long, but if you get too cold, do you remember the way home?”
“I’ll wait for you,” she said. She watched his tall, narrow form wind its way back to the path until he disappeared, then gazed across the hills to the glacier, the mountains. Nev had said once that in Ledra, everything was stuck, spinning in place. That in the north, she could breathe.
Lovisa stood, walking to a place where she could see the water. Where do I belong? she asked the ocean. What do I do now? Go back to school? How do I do that? She waited for the answers to come, but nothing came.
A movement out at sea caught her eye. Though they were very far away, she recognized the round, sleek, purplish forms of silbercows. With a small, unhappy thud, she remembered a part of the story she’d pushed aside. Her parents had hurt silbercows too. Hadn’t they? Nev had talked of injured silbercows, coming to shore with cuts and burns.
She watched the silbercows turning in the sun. She’d never succeeded in talking to a silbercow before, and she knew she was too far away. But she cried out anyway, because it was part of the reckoning. I’m sorry, she cried to them. I’m sorry.
* * *
—
Later that day, Nev found her, curled up in Nev’s bed.
“Lovisa?” she said gently.
“Yes?” said Lovisa, not moving.
“Your brothers are safe,” said Nev. “They’re with the Devrets. The Devrets want to give them a home and take care of them. Even adopt them, if it comes to that.”
So they can grow up like Mari, thought Lovisa, instantly, unexpectedly bereft.
“Lovisa?” said Nev. “Are you okay?”
Lovisa felt her brothers stretching away from her, to a place where she couldn’t follow. “I’m fine,” she said. She was the sister who’d burned their house down and left them. She’d ruined their family. They didn’t need her and probably wouldn’t want her.
Nola bustled into the tiny, cramped room. “Lovisa?” she said. “I finally have some time. How are your muscles?”
Lovisa didn’t deserve a massage from Nola. She began to cry again, tears seeping quietly down her face.
“Let me help,” Nola said.
“You’re just pitying me,” Lovisa said, trying to sound harsh and unfeeling, but knowing she only sounded pitiable.
“Pitying is definitely the wrong word,” said Nola, sitting on the bed beside Lovisa, shooing Nev away, then finding the sore place where Lovisa’s shoulders met her neck. “You don’t have the sort of spirit that lends itself to pity.”
Because I’m hard, like my mother, Lovisa thought. “Everyone is leaving,” she said.
“Yes, everyone is leaving,” said Nola, in a smooth, measured tone, fitting words into the rhythms of her strokes, reaching deep, to the places where Lovisa’s sore muscles met bone. Had Nev grown up with this blessing too? Being touched, healed, by a mother? “Not right away,” Nola said. “But everyone seems to have places to go. You may stay as long as you like, Lovisa,” she added, “if you’re not ready.”
Lovisa swallowed. “Is Nev leaving?”
“Yes. Nev needs to get back to school.”
Lovisa grieved those words. School had used to be her kingdom. The chair in the dorm foyer was her throne. Nev and Mari were her neighbors. They were her friends, weren’t they? Could Lovisa have friends?
“What is your scholarly discipline, Lovisa?” asked Nola.
“Politics and government.”
“What a great deal you could do with that,” she said, “given everything you know and all you’ve seen.”
“No one can do anything with politics and government,” Lovisa said scornfully. “It’s just two bickering sides who’re exactly the same, pretending to fight about good sense and ideals when really it’s all about money.”
“Hm,” said Nola. “Imagine if someone came along with intelligence, and passion, and experience. And deep insight into how our government works, and how it affects the land. Someone who actually did have good sense and ideals.”
Lovisa didn’t know what Nola was talking about, and saw no point in imagining it. No one would ever want to work that hard, while standing in opposition to such a force.
“Someone who was good at taking old power structures down,” said Nola. “I wonder what someone like that could achieve.”
* * *
—
The next day, she walked with Saiet again as he went on another farm visit.
“Have you ever visited a pig, Lovisa?” he asked.
“What do you think?” said Lovisa snappishly. “When would I ever have had occasion to visit a pig?”
“Exactly,” he said. “This could be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”