Even at that age I did not assume that other planets were like ours. I knew we were unique in our pursuit of the current across the galaxy, that our detachment from places and possessions was singular. Of course the other planets were curious about us. Maybe even envious.
The Shotet had been going on the sojourn once a season for as long as our people had existed. Otega had told me once that the sojourn was about tradition, and the scavenge, which came afterward, was about renewal—the past and the future, all in one ritual. But I had heard my father say, bitterly, that we “survived on other planets’ garbage.” My father had a way of stripping things of their beauty.
My father, Lazmet Noavek, walked ahead of us. He was the first to pass through the great gates that separated Noavek manor from the streets of Voa, his hand lifted in greeting. Cheers erupted at the sight of him from the huge, pulsing crowd that had gathered outside our house, so dense I couldn’t see light between the shoulders of the people before us, or hear my own thoughts through the cacophony of cheers. Here in the center of the city of Voa, just streets away from the amphitheater where the arena challenges were held, the streets were clean, the stones under my feet intact. The buildings here were a patchwork of old and new, plain stonework and tall, narrow doors mixed with intricate metalwork and glass. It was an eclectic mixture that was as natural to me as my own body. We knew how to hold the beauty of old things against the beauty of the new, losing nothing from either.
It was my mother, not my father, who drew the loudest cry from the sea of her subjects. She extended her hands to the people who reached for her, brushing their fingertips with her own and smiling. I watched, confused, as eyes teared up at the sight of her alone, as crooning voices sang her name. Ylira, Ylira, Ylira. She plucked a feathergrass stalk from the bottom of her skirt and tucked it behind a little girl’s ear. Ylira, Ylira, Ylira.
I ran ahead to catch up to my brother, Ryzek, who was a full ten seasons older than I was. He wore mock armor—he had not yet earned the armor made from the skin of a slain Armored One, which was a status symbol among our people—and it made him look bulkier than usual, which I suspected was on purpose. My brother was tall, but lean as a ladder.
“Why do they say her name?” I asked Ryzek, stumbling to keep up with him.
“Because they love her,” Ryz said. “Just as we do.”
“But they don’t know her,” I said.
“True,” he acknowledged. “But they believe they do, and sometimes that’s enough.”
My mother’s fingers were stained with paint from touching so many outstretched, decorated hands. I didn’t think I would like to touch so many people at once.
We were flanked by armored soldiers who carved a narrow path for us in the bodies. But really, I didn’t think we needed them—the crowd parted for my father like he was a knife slicing through them. They may not have shouted his name, but they bent their heads to him, guided their eyes away from him. I saw, for the first time, how thin the line was between fear and love, between reverence and adoration. It was drawn between my parents.
“Cyra,” my father said, and I stiffened, almost going still as he turned toward me. He reached for my hand, and I gave it to him, though I didn’t want to. My father was the sort of man a person just obeyed.
Then he swung me into his arms, quick and strong, startling a laugh from me. He held me against his armored side with one arm, like I was weightless. His face was close to mine, smelling of herbs and burnt things, his cheek rough with a beard. My father, Lazmet Noavek, sovereign of Shotet. My mother called him “Laz” when she didn’t think anyone could hear her, and spoke to him in Shotet poetry.
“I thought you might want to see your people,” my father said to me, bouncing me a little as he shifted my weight to the crook of his elbow. His other arm, returning to his side, was marked from shoulder to wrist with scars, stained dark to stand out. He had told me, once, that they were a record of lives, but I didn’t know what that meant. My mother had a few, too, though not half as many as my father.
“These people long for strength,” my father said. “And your mother, brother, and I are going to give it to them. Someday, so shall you. Yes?”
“Yes,” I said quietly, though I had no idea how I would do that.
“Good,” he said. “Now wave.”
Trembling a little, I extended my hand, mimicking my father. I stared, stunned, as the crowd responded in kind.
“Ryzek,” my father said.
“Come on, little Noavek,” Ryzek said. He didn’t need to be asked to take me from my father’s arms; he saw it in the man’s posture, as surely as I felt it in the restless shift of his weight. I put my arms around Ryzek’s neck, and climbed onto his back, hitching my legs on the straps of his armor.
I looked down at his pimple-spotted cheek, dimpled with a smile.
“Ready to run?” he said to me, raising his voice so I could hear him over the crowd.