“It was smaller,” Unar shouted back. Streams from Canopy pounded the pool in five places, feeding the surge that fell from the lowest edge. The patter of fresh droplets, small sticks, dead leaves, fruit, and insects was relentless.
Three and a half months of the monsoon were past. There were one-and-a-half still to come. Ehkis was at the height of her power. The tributes and prayers to her this year must have been mighty. Last year’s monsoon had been feeble in comparison.
“What makes you think he’ll come? Won’t he have heard you’re dead? Your own people confirmed your fall.”
Kirrik had shown Unar a note she hadn’t been able to read. Apparently it was news that Servant Eilif had announced Unar’s demise, along with the deaths of Oos, Ylly, and Hasbabsah. Eilif had raised a new Gardener, a new Servant, and had purchased four new slaves in the face of Wife-of-Epatut’s refusal to return Sawas and baby Ylly to the Garden.
If not for the pronouncement of names that Kirrik couldn’t otherwise have known, Unar might not have believed her. Who was sending messages to Kirrik from inside Audblayinland? Sawas had mentioned birds, and the slaves were taught to read and write so they could tally the produce of the Garden, keep track of the tributes, and maintain calendars for planning and planting, but Unar didn’t think it could be Sawas.
“It’s just a feeling I have,” she told Core Sikakis, looking up at him. Here, Edax and Unar had broken the rules together, and she also had a feeling Sikakis knew much more than she about breaking rules. By Frog’s account, the former prince had found out about his family’s rise to power in a carelessly shelved volume of secret histories. He’d gone to the Temple of the lightning god and demanded that Airak open up his section of the barrier to allow Understorians to come into the sun.
Then he’d been forced to flee for his life before his father’s soldiers could murder him; he’d fled into Kirrik’s cold embrace. Unar made a face at the thought.
“The barrier is close here,” Sikakis said. Unar knew, but said nothing. “Core Kirrik asked me to stay out of sight. This friend of yours may be skittish if he sees you’re not alone. You know what to do, but know this also. If you try to run, we will bring you down.”
Unar kept her face blank. You’ll bring me down? The three brothers could not bring me down, and they’ve brought down demons.
Core Kirrik had given her the ear bone to augment her strength. After they’d reached the myrtle tree that held the pool, the pool where Edax had taught her to love both the water and the feeling of male and female parts together, Core Sikakis had confiscated the piece of Old God that Unar had used to grow the pathways.
Nobody had noticed, yet, that the tooth was missing.
“How can I run?” Unar’s shrug, palms upwards, encompassed their surroundings. “Even if my spines were fully healed, there’s nowhere for me to go but straight upwards. Nobody can glide from tree to tree in the monsoon.”
Hold on, Marram. I will find a way to free you.
Her promises to herself had never felt so empty. She’d never felt so alone.
Sikakis nodded. He put his larger spines, gleaming magically clean and eternally razor-sharp, into the trunk of the myrtle tree and began to lower himself to the bracket-fungus platform that Unar had grown for him and the others.
Unar waited from midday until midnight.
Edax didn’t come.
*
ON THE fifth day, at sunset, Unar hummed to pass the time.
She sat cross-legged by the pool in her dangling sleeves and long black skirts, wet and bored. They’d warned her not to use magic. It would arouse suspicion, and besides, she might need her full strength to capture Edax. In the meantime, despite the warning, she’d found a way to make fish come to the surface of the pool by making sprouted seeds wriggle on the edge of the pool’s bank. She was so sick of porridge, even the taste of fish would have been welcome.
She thought of Esse handing her roasted fish portions on a stick. His long limbs. His grey eyes. He’d follow her, she knew. Punish her if he could. She remembered Aoun, passing her the fish with the spines on its back, and how hard she’d slapped it away.
“Who are you?” a man’s voice exclaimed, not Edax’s, and Unar sprang to her feet. The Canopian who stood there, dressed in only a short, silver-coloured skirt and sandals, was shorter than she, but muscular, wiry, and covered in scars that looked like burns. His skin was as velvet black as the depths of Floor, but the left half of his parted, braided hair was white, and he had one white eye.
A Servant of Airak.
“What are you doing in Ehkisland?” she demanded, but she knew. Oh, she knew. What else was the Servant doing here, below the barrier, but meeting a lover? One who couldn’t be trusted not to take advantage of his powers?
She realised, quick as lightning, that Core Kirrik would be as pleased, perhaps more pleased, by the power of the lightning god in her hands.
“We were meant to meet,” she said, taking a step towards him. Some providence has spared me the pain of betraying Edax. Whatever god or goddess has done this, I thank you, from the bottom of my heart. “What is your name?”
“Aforis,” the man said warily, taking a step back. “But I’ve no intention of sharing him with a woman. Tell him—”
“Tell me what?” Edax said, all dexterity and strength, upside down with his owl feet gripping a rope. He was as she remembered him. The tear-shaped scars on his cheeks. The smile-lines around his eyes. Only, it was strange seeing the long sleeves of his robe. Men in Understorey didn’t cover their forearms.
Unar lost her breath in an exhale like the aftermath of a punch. She was not to be spared, after all. She felt glad of the ridiculous long sleeves of her shirt. Her spines couldn’t be seen.
“Little Gardener,” Edax said, his brows raised, only he was upside down, so they were lowered. “You’re alive.”
“Devastated by my death, were you?” Unar said crossly, forgetting her traitor’s errand for a moment.
“Your heart wasn’t set on me. I knew it as I took you. You wanted me for teaching, as I recall.”
“Come here,” she shouted. Come here so I can drag you down. “Come and talk to me properly, the right way up.”
He dropped lightly to his taloned feet. But he didn’t go to her. He went to Aforis, kissed him, and murmured, “I’m sorry.”
Unar went to them, looked each of them in the eyes in turn, and said, “I’m sorry, too.”
But the words made no sound. Vines leaped up around the three of them. Twisting. Binding. Edax might have torn free, in the first instant, if he hadn’t seemed entranced by her sorrow and regret. While he hesitated, trying to read the emotion in her eyes, the trap closed. His puzzled expression turned to alarm.
“What—”