An Accident of Stars (16 page)

“It means,” supplied Sashi, catching her confusion, “that we aren't truly Vekshi, but not Kenan either. We are
neither the right thing nor its opposite
.”

Saffron felt completely out of her depth, and floundered appropriately. “Why?”

Sashi snorted. “A number of things,” she said, raising an eyebrow to demonstrate the breadth of the problem and Saffron's ignorance of it both. When Saffron quailed, she softened her glance with a shrug. “We don't shave our heads, for one. Yasha hates it as an affront to Ashasa, but she's practical too – it means we look Kenan enough to spy for her without actually
being
Kenan. Not that there aren't any dark-skinned Vekshi – our mother, for one – but it's nobody's first thought about us here, even if our hair is still too short for braids.” She ran a demonstrative hand over her own cropped locks. “Yasha says that being darker wouldn't matter in Veksh, but we have to take her word for it, even though she won't tell us why she had to leave in the first place. Instead we live here, which is properly Kena, but not so Kenan at all within these walls.” She waved a hand at the compound, as though disgusted with it.

“We can't keep living with what other people want for us, or don't want for us,” Yena said. “We have to live for what
we
want. But everything that's in your head, the things you've been told to believe and do, you can't just throw it all out like bathwater, even when you know it's hurting you. So instead, we wait.”

“For what?” asked Saffron.

“For Yasha to either die or change,” said Sashi dryly. “Though fire would sooner turn to ice, in either case.”

“For a chance to defy her,” Yena added. “Something that will prove our worth. She dislikes ordinary defiance, but respects extraordinary rebellion.”

“What's the difference?” Saffron asked, fascinated.“Whether it bores or impresses her, mostly,” Sashi said. “But we're working on that.”

“Which is why,” Yena said, “we're so keen to see what Zechalia drags in. Yasha is content for now; that doesn't mean she'll remain so.”

“Ah,” said Saffron. “Right.”

A not-quite-comfortable silence descended – which is to say, Saffron felt vaguely as if she should say something more, but as the sisters didn't share her affliction, it put her in the minority. She found herself looking for signs of their inbetweenness, trying to parse the differences between her still-fledging expectations of Kenan and Vekshi customs, and coming up short. It wasn't just her ignorance of obvious things, like symbols and clothes and permissions; it was the realisation that all of them together constituted a different language, an automatic series of thoughts and associations that no amount of zuymet-bonding could teach. She knew she could learn – she wanted to learn – but where could she start, when she no longer knew if a question was obvious or complex, harmless or sensitive?

“What's the matter?” Sashi asked. “You look like you've stones in your throat.”

“I just realised I don't know anything about anything,” Saffron said, put out.

“Oh, well done!” said Yena, hug-and-tugging her still-captured arm. “That means you're on your own road now.”

And she brushed her palm against the still-raw stumps where Saffron's fingers had been.

Saffron yelped, jumping as the touch shot through her like ice and wine and lightning all at once, even though there was no pain, not really; just a sort of tingling, and the heart-shaking remembrance of what she'd lost. The hand in her lap was a mutilated starfish, and it was hers now, hers forever. Lungs tight with breath, she steeled herself and touched the stumps. Little more than a tap – two whole fingers dancing down against the flesh, then back again – but this time there was no shock; only an icy certainty that this was real, all of it, a slice of ongoing experience as neatly pared away from her old life as her missing fingers had been from her hand.

“Maybe I am then,” Saffron said softly. “On my own road.”

Sashi blinked at her. “Only maybe? Where else would you be?”

Saffron might have answered, but at just that moment, someone behind them let out an angry “Hah!” She turned, startled. Save for Trishka, everyone who'd been in the kitchen was broaching the steps. It was Gwen who'd shouted, and when Saffron looked back to the courtyard, she saw that Zech and Jeiden were slinking in through the gates. Zech came first, leading a white-and-grey roa ridden by a teenaged girl whose whole body boasted of the same, awkward, child-into-woman phase that was currently reshaping Ruby. Even thinking the comparison hurt. Saffron shoved it aside and concentrated on Jeiden, whose eyes were fixed on the rescued girl with an expression wavering midway between contempt and adoration.

“Yasha,” Zech began, handing the roa's reins to Jeiden, “I can explain–”

“I'm sure you can,” said Yasha, stony-faced as she descended the stairs. Reaching Zech, she raised the hand not gripping her staff and cuffed the girl soundly around the ear. Saffron flinched in shock at the casual violence – while Gwen, behind her, made an outraged sound – but Zech only rubbed the side of her head, grinning a tight, rueful grin that said she'd expected as much. “And you!” said Yasha, pointing her staff at Jeiden, “Matu will deal with
you
later.”

“Gods willing I will,” Matu muttered. He was standing to Yena's left, and though he hadn't spoken loudly enough for his words to carry, Jeiden nonetheless reacted by hunching in on himself.

Sashi stood first, followed by Saffron and Yena. All of them were watching Yasha, held silent by a strange, sudden tension that had washed up in the wake of Matu's grumbling.

“And who is this?” the matriarch asked, swinging her staff up to point at the girl. Her roa
kree
d
his anxiety as the wood hissed past his head, but didn't pull at the bridle.

“I am Rixevet idi Naha,” the girl said, straightening her shoulders. Her voice was surprisingly deep, but not warm. To Saffron's eye, she still retained a certain younger-sibling softness about her, but pride gleamed in the planes of her face, as yet only half-distinct from a child's stubbornness – much, in fact, as her cheeks and jaw were yet to emerge from baby fat. Loose black hair curled free from beneath a backwards-slipping scarf, giving her what Saffron instinctively thought of as a hippyish look.

“Are you indeed?” mused Yasha, rocking back on her heels. “And why–”

“That's not who she is.”

It was Pix, taking the stairs two at a time, her gaze locked with that of the girl on the roa. Saffron felt her heart speed up. Even Yasha looked surprised, moving aside as the ex-courtier came and grabbed the beast by the bridle. Jeiden looked startled, but Zech – Saffron did a double-take – actually looked smug, as though she'd been expecting such a reaction. No, not expecting:
hoping for
.

“I know you,” said maybe-Rixevet, frowning imperiously at Pix. “Why do I know you? Tell me!”

Pix tilted her chin and grinned like a hungry leopard. “I am Pixeva ore Pixeva ki Tahun, little moon-girl. Once I braided your hair and declared you married to the wind and earth and sky, for you stamped your foot and swore you'd know no other mahu'kedet than that. Yet times have changed, I see. Your lawful braids are come undone, and now you flee the ones who bound them.”

“Pix? Who is that?” Matu called, a worrisome note in his voice.

But it was the girl who answered, and this time there was steel in the words. “I am your Cuivexa, Iviyat ore Leoden ki Hawy. And if you are truly Pixeva ore Pixeva, then I command you: give me sanctuary!”

G
wen stared
at the girl on the roa, unable to wrap her head around the sudden change in events. The Cuivexa! Even knowing how Zech had found her, she still didn't understand why it had happened. The very idea was incredible, and yet the girl – the queen – was undeniably here, dismounting with a glint in her eye that said she'd noticed Jeiden's slack-jawed reaction to her identity, and was pleased by it. As Pix linked arms with Iviyat, Gwen stepped forward – they needed to talk, this had to be done properly; did they even need Veksh and the Council of Queens, if the Cuivexa joined their camp? – but found herself quite literally rebuffed, Yasha holding her back with the head of her arse-damned staff.

“Not you, Gwen,” she muttered, wavering between anger and excitement as she helped Pix shepherd Iviyat up the stairs. “Not yet.” And then, to rub salt in the wound, she turned and called over her shoulder for Zech – Zech! – to join their conference instead.

It was unbearable, an insult that left her with both fists clenched and a jaw hard-set as concrete. She whipped around to Matu, hoping he'd share her indignation at their (though mostly her) exclusion. Instead, he only shrugged, his silky hair twitching like cat whiskers.“What can you do?” he asked. “My sister is what she is, and Yasha will do what Yasha will do, and Cuivexas and calico girls alike can fall in line behind them.”

“And the rest of us?” Gwen seethed. “What in the name of thorns and godshit do
we
do, Matu?”

His mouth quirked. “Pick up the pieces, perhaps?” Then he sighed, clapping a hand to her shoulder. “Let it go, Gwen. She'll speak to you soon enough. Trickster knows she despises listening to sense, but that doesn't mean she rejects its value entirely.”

With that, he dropped his hand and sauntered over to Jeiden, who was still gawking hopelessly after Iviyat, the roa left loose beside him. Gwen watched them for a moment, the way Matu collected the abandoned reins while putting a gentle arm around Jeiden's neck, leading both of them off to the stables. He really was a better man than anyone gave him credit for, and at times like this, when his kindness matched his beauty, it was hard for Gwen to remember that she was older than his mother, and had no business staring after him as though she were Saffron's age.

“Oh, hell,” she said quietly, and just like that the anger went out of her. She turned back to Sashi and Yena and Saffron – all so young, so unaware it wouldn't last – and plonked herself down at their feet.

“I give up,” she announced, savouring the self-indulgent drama of the proclamation. “I really do.”

As if on cue, both Sashi and Yena sat down with her, one on either side. Saffron alone remained standing, fidgeting in her uncertainty.

“Did that really just happen?” Yena asked.

Sashi rolled her eyes. “Stop wasting breath on answered questions,” she scolded. Then, after a moment's hesitation, “Gwen? Did it?”

“Something's always happening somewhere,” she hedged. But Sashi was still looking at her, stubborn as her mother, and so she said, “Yes, it did. I don't know why, though. Whenever I think I've got a grip on the worlds, they twist out from under me again.” She closed her eyes. “Go and see to lunch, you two. I could do with something to settle my stomach.”

“It's not our turn!” Sashi protested.

But Yena said, “All right.”

Gwen felt the vibrations of their exit through the steps beneath her. Once they were gone, she opened her eyes. There was only Saffron left.

“Is… is there anything I should be doing?” she asked – in English, as the two of them were alone. She looked older with her hair shaved off, Gwen thought; it brought out the shape of her cheekbones, strengthened the line of her neck.

Gwen laughed at the query, a wry, choked sound. “Oh, my girl,” she murmured, shaking her head. “What a mess you've dropped into here. A right royal mess! No, there's nothing you can do for the moment. But later – later, when Zech is free, talk to her. She'll tell you what's going on. And, if you can, talk to Iviyat.”

“Is she really a queen?” Saffron blurted.

“A Cuivexa, not a queen, and yes. She really is,” Gwen said. “But that doesn't mean you can't talk to her.”

Saffron looked sceptical. “Won't I have to, I don't know… bow, or something? Curtsey?”

“Under normal circumstances, yes, but here she's incognito. She only told us the truth because Pix already knew her, and because if Pix is with us, then we must be opposed to Leoden. The rest of the compound, though – there's more people here than you've met so far. Some are Vekshi, some are Kenan, but they've all got different ties to Yasha, and most of them don't keep her confidences.
We
all know who Iviyat is, but no one else here does, and I doubt Yasha will want to change that.”

“What about Sashi and Yena, though?” Saffron persisted. “What if they tell?”

“They won't,” Gwen said simply. “They know their grandmother too well. No. Whatever Yasha's planning, she'll want this secret.”

Viya stared at Yasha, wondering why Ke and Na had seen fit to include the Vekshi crone in their schemes. As soon as she'd recognised Pixeva ore Pixeva, she'd known the gods had made Zech their envoy, guiding her through their holy square and into the hands of allies. Their intervention was self-evident to anyone with sense – but of course, the Vekshi were all sun-worshipping heretics like Kadeja, and couldn't be trusted to understand their proper role in things. Yet Pix, for whatever reason, was bent on including Yasha in their conversation – and worse still, deferring to her. No matter how Viya ignored the old woman or hint-dropped to Pix that their conversation was better had in private, Yasha refused to leave her betters in peace.

And then there was Zech, lingering like a child even after she'd already told her version of events: their meeting, the mob, the journey home. To Viya's deep unease, this had also involved mention of a Shavaktiin who'd followed them; she felt furious not to have noticed it herself. Yasha grilled the girl closely on that point, but according to Zech, whoever it was had vanished a good ten minutes before they reached the compound. A small part of Viya wondered if she should mention Luy's role in her escape. Was it possible, she wondered, that he'd had something to do with the Square of Gods? Might
he
have been their shadow?