“And our family?” Father despises his fortuneless family. Except when trying to claim a distant ancestor who saved the life of a god in disguise by sharing wood for a fire. “My blood?”
“Your blood will go on. You said yourself just now that she’s almost old enough to breed. They’ll feed her. They’ll let her lie with whom she pleases. She’ll be happier a slave, Uranun. Happier than stricken and starving.”
Unar has never heard a crueller lie. She half expects the tattered blue curtain that curls around the cot to be thrown back, for her mother to seize her and insist that her father take her to the market at once.
She thinks, I can’t be a slave. That’s not what I’m for.
This conviction shines in her mind; she turns it like a coal on a fire. What is she for? Cutting dead branches for others to burn? Digging grubs?
Unar shivers on the broken cot in the dark behind the flimsy curtain and thinks of the proud poise of the sun goddess.
I wasn’t born a goddess or a god, and there’s nothing I can do about that.
She raises her callused hands to cover her mouth, to keep the sobs inside. But then her eyes open, and she stares at her hands.
Maybe they are the hands of a goddess.
How would anyone know if they are or not? Mighty souls don’t always choose wealthy bodies, so Teacher Eann says.
The soul enters the body at first breath. Anybody can be chosen. Usually a baby that takes its first breath close to the place where the old body died, but not always.
More than one goddess is missing from her Temple. Ilan, goddess of justice and kings. Irof, goddess of flowers. I could be one of them, not yet discovered.
That would teach her mother a lesson for wanting to sell her. If Unar had the mighty magic powers of a goddess, oh, how her mother would regret her careless selfishness!
The monsoon is over. The paths are open. Unar resolves to go to the closest Temple. How do they test for goddess souls? Does it hurt? It can’t hurt more than having a mother who hates her. The Temple lies in the crown of the biggest tallowwood tree, one of the emergent trees that rise even higher than the canopy and are always bathed in strong, full sun. Unar’s never dared dig for grubs there, because the biggest tallowwood is the sacred emergent of the goddess of birth and life, Audblayin, Waker of Senses.
At the Temple, they’ll know how to tell.
When her parents try to sell her as a slave in the morning, to have the sigil of obedience burned into her tongue forever, she’ll already be gone. Goddess or no, she won’t come back to the hovel.
As soon as she makes the decision, Unar’s heart races. The smell of quince blossom and wood fern fills her nostrils. Something inside her chest, like a seed sending out a tiny root, begins to grow there. No idea she’s ever had has felt so right, yet the sensation is distressing; she clutches at her rib cage. Had she eaten a grub that somehow survived and is squirming around in there? The seed-feeling stops.
Unar thinks the thought again, deliberately: I will go to Audblayin’s Garden.
Her whole body thrills with it. She hasn’t swallowed a live grub; it feels more like she’s swallowed a thousand candles. Hugging herself only makes it pulse harder. A second heart she didn’t know she could have. She almost cries out to ask her parents what’s happening, but stops herself in time.
This isn’t a thing of axe makers or woodcutters. It’s a thing whispered about in the school or the square.
A thing of Temple Servants and gods.
I’ll wait until they’re sleeping, and I’ll go.
Until now, the Garden seemed a place of dread. Life-sized carvings on the Gates show soldiers and spell-casters, victorious, defending the Temple in a hundred battles. They say there’s an invisible wall around it that keeps out wrongdoers, and in Unar’s world, wrongdoers means have-nothings, so that she, a have-nothing, can’t help but be a wrongdoer.
Yet when Unar sets out, the humming seed inside her seems to put out an added leaf whenever she takes the correct turn. The lower branch roads aren’t lit. Bats scream about their fruit-feasts, and Unar startles an owl. She carries only her bore-knife, heavy at her waist, and the night is cold and damp through the holes in her knee-length, knotted tunic. She sleeps in her father’s castoffs, too shameful to be seen by daylight.
When she finds the Great Gates, takes a deep breath, and approaches them, she stares up at the flickering strings of lanterns for so long that she almost trips over a skinny boy, about her age, sitting with his arms around his knees on the abandoned platform before the Temple.
“Too late,” he says softly. “The Gatekeeper’s already locked it for the night. We have to wait until morning.”
“We?” Unar’s shoulders stiffen about her ears. Why are they being quiet? Do sleeping monsters guard those tall wooden walls with the Garden’s pointed pavilion roofs and curling passionfruit tendrils showing over the tops? “Why are you waiting here?”
“Why do you think? I’m not trying to get pregnant, am I?”
Disappointment drops Unar’s shoulders. Is that what the Garden is for?
“I think you’re mean, and you look hungry. Are you going to rob the first Servant who comes out with a night soil bucket?”
The boy’s face falls. His bare arms are brown as bear hide in the lamp light. He’s lanky and long-faced with short, sun-bleached hair, and he carries nothing. Under the loose tunic and short waist-wrap that barely covers his loincloth, it’s easy to see he hasn’t so much as a knife or a coil of rope on him.
Wrongdoers. Have-nothings.
“I didn’t mean to be rude to you.” He holds his knees tighter. “Forgive me. I misspoke. My brother died in the monsoon. He drowned only three days ago.”
“I’m sorry.” Unar takes a deep breath. She kneels next to him. It’s easier to whisper. “I’m sorry I was rude to you, too.”
His smile is hesitant.
“They keep their night soil in the Garden. It’s good for the plants.”
“Oh.”
“My brother died because my parents defied the goddess. The rain goddess, I mean. I’m from Ehkisland. My parents died, too. I’ve come to serve Audblayin, the goddess of life, not just because I want to live, but because it’s the right thing to do.” He rubs his temple with his left hand. “Submit to them. Serve them. Why else are we here? What else are we for?”
I can’t be a slave. That’s not what I’m for.
“How do you know?” Unar asks. “Whether you can serve the goddess or not, I mean?”