Janel’s Turn. The Ice Demesne, Yor, Quur.
“Bikeinoh, I have a question for you.” I leaned over toward the woman while we waited for our turn at the practice yards.
Not all the women had been eager to take up weapons training, but a surprising number had. Even more were eager to learn to read and write and to explore the possibility they might have an aptitude for magic. The D’Lorus Lord Heir had been shocked to discover every single Yoran woman tested displayed a high magical aptitude. He muttered about it being unprecedented. The women laughed and reminded him that they were Yoran.
Bikeinoh turned to me. “Yes?”
“Who taught Veixizhau?”
She blinked at me. “What?”
I stared out at the two women who were sparring under Xivan’s critical eye. “It’s been a hundred years since it was legal to worship Suless. Did Veixizhau learn it from her family? From her mother? Seems like the sort of thing a clan leader wouldn’t want to encourage in his own family.”
“That must have been what happened.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Do you really think that?”
The older woman swallowed and looked to the side. “No, I don’t.”
I followed her line of sight. She stared at Wyrga, who’d started coming to the training yard to watch the women practice. The old woman had her polar bear cub carried in the crook of one arm while she watched.
“I’ve been here for almost fifteen years,” Bikeinoh said quietly. “She’s always had that damn cub. It’s never grown a day older than it is right now. Kind of like her.”
Wyrga must have felt us staring. She looked back, grinned, and laughed. She was too far away to hear, but I knew her terrible cackle well enough to imagine.
I stood up from the bench. “Thanks. Tell Xivan I wasn’t feeling well, okay? I’ll be back later.”
The woman shrugged. “Sure.”
I left to see if I could find a special someone to answer a question.
* * *
Senera kept an irregular schedule, but I was in luck. She’d returned.
She answered her door red-eyed with tears streaking her face. Her gray eyes turned flint hard as she regarded me, as if I’d committed an unforgivable sin by witnessing her vulnerability. She walked back to her chair without saying a word, leaving the door open behind her.
Well. I took it as permission to enter.
She sat back down by the fireplace and refilled her tea. Then she watched the fire, her expression blank.
Senera’s room turned out to be the same room I’d woken in on that first day. And it contained no more traces of personality than when I’d first seen it.
Senera spent her time and energy in the field.2
Then I saw I’d been mistaken about the traces of personality. Senera had left papers and charcoal pencils on a table, alongside a small doll made from white linen and bleached yarn. The doll appeared colorless except for two silver beads that had been used for the eyes. And the paper …
The top paper had been ripped in half, but still showed a young Joratese youth’s face. I couldn’t say whether she’d captured his likeness, but the boy’s eyes shone brilliant and joyful. And I had no reason to think this sinister, except …
Except. I remembered the tears on Senera’s face when she opened the door, her red eyes. If there had been a tragedy, likely as not Senera had caused it. I tore my gaze away, shuddering.3
“Is there something you want?” Her voice cracked the air.
“Senera, what happened?” I crossed the room to her, but she wouldn’t look at me.
“Are you going to make me repeat myself?” she countered.
“I came to ask you a favor, but you seem upset. Do you want to talk?”
Senera turned to me then, and her nostrils flared.
“No, I do not. Now tell me what you want and leave. Or better yet, just leave.”
I didn’t answer her immediately. I sat there and enjoyed the flames crackling in the fireplace, the scent of hot tea and burning pine needles in the air.
I heard her intake of breath, knew she was about to start yelling at me.
“When is the price too much?” I asked her, looking up.
“That doesn’t sound like a favor,” she snapped.
“It isn’t,” I admitted. “But I’m curious when it all becomes too high a price to pay. What marks the line?”
She closed her eyes and muttered a curse under her breath. I’m certain it involved unpleasantries involving my genealogy.
I leaned forward. “How many lives are too many? How many have to die before it’s enough?”
She scoffed. “Death is a meaningless term. They go to the Afterlife. They’re reborn from the Afterlife and start over. Who cares?”
“Oh no. Did no one tell you? Demons and magic both changed the rules. Souls are only immortal to a point, and past that point, oblivion is real. When Xivan kills someone, they don’t go to the Afterlife. When demons eat their victim’s souls or, worse, transform those souls into more demons, they don’t go to the Land of Peace. The trauma those souls experience is real and, assuming Thaena can rescue them, carries on from one lifetime to the next. Who cares? You do. You just don’t want to admit it, because that would mean admitting you’re wrong.”
She stood up, her face a mask of righteous fury.
“How dare you. Do you have any idea what I went through when I was a slave? What every slave goes through? And you people give no thought—”
“Any sympathy I might have had for your past vanished when you started wiping out villages and you were willing to gaesh Qown. Willing to gaesh me too, even if that attempt failed.”
She closed her mouth mid-protest, eyes bright and angry. Oh, that had cut too close, I suspected, hitting at nerves still raw through guilt.
I dropped my head, turned away. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t come here to pick a fight.”
“And yet, here you are.”
“Here I am. I just…” I shook my head. “I’m sorry,” I repeated. “These months haven’t gone smoothly for me.”
“I heard about what happened to Oreth. I’d say I’m sorry, but…”
I smiled, looked back at her. “He was an ass.”
She nodded. “He was.”
“Unfortunately, I also think he was innocent.”
Senera sat down again. “You think it was Darzin D’Mon who plotted to kill you? I understand the Hon has forbidden him to come back here.”
“No, not him either. I’m sure Darzin is as terrible as they come, but I don’t think we should make the same mistake that the duke and his courtiers are making—they’re assuming a man must have been involved. I think this crime was women only. After all, if Veixizhau meant to sacrifice me to Suless, the men had nothing to gain by helping her.”
She studied me. “That’s plausible. But may I ask why it matters now? It’s over.”
“Is it? This wasn’t Veixizhau’s plan. Someone else was manipulating her. Think how it could’ve gone: with forty-eight chieftains receiving the heads of their daughters in boxes—accompanied by a note saying they’d been executed for being worshippers of Suless. How well do you think that would have really gone over?”