“You like Kal.”
A wry smile softens his face with a rare sweetness. “I do rather like Kal, don’t I? He’s so hard to dislike. So good-looking. So sure of his place in the world. So pleasant to people, because he can’t imagine what it’s like to be treated as rubbish. He listens, and he tries to do better, and people praise him for it. It infuriates me. And yet I still like him. How annoying is that?”
His words pry a smile out of me. “I like you better when you’re not so sure of yourself.”
“How much better do you like me?” His seductive poet’s voice shivers through me. “You want to be with me, Jessamy. Admit it.”
“I can imagine being with you, yes. Then I remember your one hundred other girlfriends and I think I’m not so enamored of being one hundred and one.”
“Ouch.”
“Am I the only one who hasn’t immediately succumbed to your charm? Is that what this is about? Because you did win the trial between you and Kal. I chose Efea.”
“That’s not what this is about.”
“Then what am I compared to all the other girls you flirt with and kiss?”
He puffs out a breath of air, momentarily stymied, then puts on one of those dazzling smiles that draw people to him as we are all drawn to heat when it is coldest.
“When the threads that bind a heart to the past are severed and the old ways scattered to the four winds, how do you raise a new world, a new land, a new life? You gather the bones and from them weave a new garment: its warp is the words and memories passed down from the last of the elders, and its weft is the courage and determination of those raised in the wilderness. From this fusion a spark kindles to become the light that will guide you home. You can be that light, Jessamy. You’re the fiercest self I have ever met, as bold as lightning. How can my poet’s heart resist?”
At dusk Mother takes us girls to the island.
“You were out with the honored poet for some time today,” says Mother as we cross the square, dressed like any humble family, unremarkable except for the fact that we have escorts on every side and people dropping to one knee as they recognize her.
“That probing question wasn’t very subtle, Mother.” Amaya elbows me with a violent dig into my ribs that makes me jump. “Did you K-I-S-S him, Jes? Are you going to get married? How many children do you hope to have?”
“Ow! Stop it, you beast!”
“Ha ha. You’re so funny when you’re flustered.”
“I am not flustered! Just getting ready to grind your pretty face into the dirt.”
“Could you two stop arguing like children?” Maraya glares with her best eldest-sister superiority. “It’s so embarrassing.”
“Girls. Hush. We are entering a sacred place.”
In respectful silence we walk across the rocking pontoon bridge.
“There is so much we will never be able to recover,” Mother says as we climb newly cleared stairs. The lamp she holds is unlit because there is just enough light to see. The entire hill is covered with structures, concealed beneath vegetation that has grown here untouched for five generations. “We’ll clear away what we can. And rebuild with what is still here.”
At the top she leads us up a final set of stairs to a platform carved with the signs used to identify the obstacles of the Fives court. Lanterns wink along the river, bobbing on boats, shining amid the lanes of Ibua. Stark bluffs mark the edge of the desert lying beyond the floodplain.
Mother gathers us close: me, Maraya, Amaya, and little Safarenwe tucked in a sling against her hip. Our escort has remained at the base of the stairs, allowing us to climb alone, just she and her four girls pretending to be an ordinary family even though nothing will ever be the same for us again.
“Ibua the heart,” Mother says. “This is where we begin.”
“Ba ba ba,” says Safarenwe, clapping her hands.
“Where Efea began?” Amaya asks. “Right here? On this island?”
Maraya says, “I just today read in the Archival material that scholars claim—”
“Maraya!” Amaya and I interrupt her at the same time, in the same voice.
Mother pats us each on the arm, but she is smiling. “This is where we begin. We can’t remake the past that is lost. But with the threads of that past we can weave the cloth of our future.”
“Do you still love him, Mother?” I ask, because I can’t help but ask.
“Of course a part of me still loves him. But I can no longer trust him. We tried so hard, yet the well was already poisoned. Isn’t that the cruelest thing of all?”
“Like Kal and me.” Although I think I’ve whispered the words so only I can hear, Mother puts a comforting arm around my shoulders.
We stand for a long time as the stars come out and the wind curls around our bodies. The river streams below like years and memories pouring away toward the sea in an unstoppable rush.
“What will happen to Efea if we lose?” Amaya says. “Father is the best general in the world and, as Jes has reminded us more than once, the army he commands is better trained and better armed. The king and queen have all Efea’s wealth at their disposal while we have to keep count of each chicken and jar of olive oil to feed thousands of people who have fled their homes. And besides all that, there are foreign invaders here too.”
I grasp her hand. “This trial isn’t over yet. We have the advantage of knowing how many spinning rings are in place, whereas they don’t know we’re in the game.”
“Do you really think we can win?” She asks not because she’s frail and frightened but because she’s clear-eyed and brave.
“What matters is that we fight for Efea,” says Mother. “That we have taken our stand at long last. Here. Now.”
24
The fast-moving Falcon Guard is assigned to be the strike force sent ahead to support General Thynos while the rest of the army lumbers several days behind. The plan is that after the Saroese armies fight, the Efean rebellion must be in position to mop up the weakened winners. It’s all a matter of timing.
I convince Inarsis to allow the spiders to lead the way as the Falcon Guard marches out of Ibua on streets lined by a crowd eager to cheer us on. As our heavy brass bodies pound down the great avenue that leads out of the city, people step back in fear, as they always had to do before. The spiders once used to keep the population in order; mere months ago they stomped through the Ribbon Market to arrest Ro and sweep up whatever Commoners the Patrons wished to arrest. But this time when people see our faces they step forward with courage and excitement because now the spiders march for Efea.
The other scouts don’t have the hang of smooth walking yet so I am at the front, setting a pace they can follow.