“Listen here, girl. I don’t need to know your name. I don’t want to know your name. So many girls flutter in and out of this house, running away and getting married and dying and leaving us in the red. You will begin work here as one of our maids. If you last long enough to begin your formal lessons, then I will finance your training to be asha. Until then, you will work at the scullery and clean the rooms and do everything I say if you know what’s good for you.”
This was how Mistress Parmina welcomed me into House Valerian. This was how she welcomed every asha they took in, but I felt that the old woman was more abrupt with me than she might have been with the others. Lady Mykaela had brought half a dozen other girls to Kion before she found me. The old woman refused to accept any of them, certain they would fail their test with the oracle, and was smug when proven right. That I was the exception annoyed her.
It took me several days to get used to the Valerian, and I was amazed at how big it truly was. The asha-ka was three houses joined together by a strip of corridor, with only the main house visible from the outside. The largest room was where Mistress Parmina received visitors, and the smaller rooms along the back were used for sleeping. Mistress Parmina had her own room, and Lady Mykaela and Lady Shadi had theirs as well, despite the long periods of time my mentor spent outside of Kion. A separate path led to the dining area and the scullery, where I and the two maids the asha-ka employed slept. Lady Mykaela also gave me permission to make use of her library whenever she was away, and what little personal time I had was spent reading my way through her impressive collection of books, returning frequently for second and third and seventeenth helpings.
The next was a guesthouse where visitors could spend the night, and that was composed of one large room with multiple screen partitions that could be added to or removed according to the resident’s fancy. The smallest was a bathhouse made of wood. I learned much later that the water piped into the baths did so through a series of underground springs that traveled through the heart of the Willows and that supplied many of the asha-ka in this manner.
There was a courtyard garden within the house’s walls, which contained a vegetable and herb garden. There was even a tiny pond filled with guppies and a few large turtles.
As the newest member of House Valerian, I was given many chores to do. I was one of the first to wake and spent most of my mornings watering the plants and tending to the vegetable garden, sweeping the floors and the street outside of the house, and cleaning the rooms. I was also given the task of cleaning the outhouses, which I hated most of all, though fortunately the maids and I took turns. Their names were Kana and Farhi, and both were seventeen years old.
Kana was amiable with a blushing, demure prettiness. Her family came from the small village of Belaryu in Southeast Kion, where her grandfather’s ancestors had lived since Empress Undra’s reign over a century ago. Her father sold pomegranates at the city market, and her mother looked after Kana’s siblings, all three younger than she was. She was fond of pretty things and hoped to one day purchase a sivar, like those asha wore, from one of the many hairdressing establishments in the Willows. Mistress Parmina frowned on the maids wearing anything elaborate but allowed her a plain hairpin with a tiny faux ruby set on it, which she wore at all times.
Farhi came from different stock altogether. Her family moved to Kion from Adra-al when she was seven years old, but they continued to cling to their Drychta roots, wearing their traditional dress and veil, though her face was uncovered. To work in the Willows had not been her choice, but the job paid well. She looked on the asha’s fancy hua and its ornaments with disapproval but otherwise kept to herself.
Both girls’ families lived near Ankyo’s market district, and whenever I heard them talk about visiting their parents or buying small toys from nearby shops to bring home to their siblings, I could not help feeling a small pang of homesickness. I would have to travel a longer way to see my family.
One other woman worked at the Valerian, named Ula. She served as Mistress Parmina’s assistant and made an account of every transaction that went on inside the asha-ka—the household expenses, tabs incurred from shops, and all the fees asha earned from their parties and contracts. She also booked new engagements for them and kept track of all money changing hands, including any gifts and tips patrons may have presented to the asha.
I was surprised to learn that Lady Mykaela still went to the parties and dinner gatherings Ula arranged for her. I assumed that she had earned her independence and was free of such petty details. The asha herself explained to me that while she could take time off if she desired, these social meetings were her means of keeping track of the local politics of the day and to cement her influence with the powerful nobles who frequented such celebrations.
It took me awhile to learn more about the rest of the members of our little household, and they were fewer than I imagined. Mistress Parmina ran the asha-ka. Lady Mykaela was her adopted daughter and also her successor. Lady Shadi was the only apprentice asha, having arrived two years before I did, and was about to make her debut. She was nice, but she was always rushing out to attend lessons. With my chores taking up most of my days, we never had much time to talk. Like Mistress Parmina, she could not draw the Dark. While House Valerian was known for taking in Dark asha, it was not a requirement.
Lady Shadi was not expected to contribute to the household chores because she was busy enough with attending classes during the day and going out to entertain at night. These parties were the bread and butter of many Houses, where nobles and others who could afford it pay asha to bring life to what might otherwise be boring functions. Apprentices make their debut as young as fourteen or fifteen years old, and these parties were integral to their development as asha. While problems did come up—an asha apprentice had caused a scandal the year before when she ran away with a nobleman’s son—most asha knew better than to jeopardize their chances of a good life.