Ariah (25 page)

“
I know.”

I stared at him for a long time. I looked down at my hands and swallowed. “I am terrified.”

“
I was, too.”

“
What do I tell my parents?”

“
I will write them.”

“
I should see them before I go.”

Very gently, Dirva rested a hand on my shoulder. “There isn’t time. You won’t get detained again.”

“
I might.” My voice was a harsh croak. My eyes screwed tight of their own accord.

He went into the next room and rifled through a cabinet. He returned a second later and handed me a leather-wrapped sheaf of documents. “These will make that less likely.”

The forgeries were more or less identical to my real papers with two exceptions: I was no longer a shaper, and I had never been detained at the western border. “Where did you get these?”

“
Cadlah knows a man.”

“
You got these from Cadlah?”

His walls were already up. “She did it for you, Ariah, not for me. Da trained this forger. This is quality work.”

“
Thank you.” I tried to say more, but more would not come. “Thank you.”

He smiled. “It’s not just the border.”

“
No.” I sighed. “No, it’s everything. All of it. I don’t know him. I don’t know Vilahna. I don’t know…I don’t know what it means to get this training. Or what to do after. Or what it will take. I don’t…Dirva, I don’t know who I’ll be when I come back. I barely fit now. Vilahna? I won’t fit after.”

Dirva laughed. It was a gentle, deeply kind laugh. “Ariah, for some of us, the places we come from are not the places we belong, and never were, and never will be.”

* * *

Three hours before curfew there was a knock at the door of Dirva’s apartment. He answered it, but I had a clear view of the door. It was a Qin agent, dressed in dark blue robes with brocade panels. I panicked. I was certain he was there for me, possibly about the books I’d stolen, or maybe about the forgeries. As silently and unobtrusively as I could, I slipped out of my chair and snuck into Dirva’s bedroom. I leaned against the door as if to keep the agent out.

A few seconds later, Dirva whispered my name through the door. “Ariah. It’s all right. We are needed at the train station.”

“
For what?”

“
For Vathorem.”

I stuck my head through the door. “Why is an agent here?”

“
Vathorem is a diplomat. It’s for his protection.” He switched from Qin to Vahnan. “They’re keeping an eye on him. The agent is going to escort us there, and then we’ll bring him back. You don’t have to go.”

“
No, I’ll go,” I said. I smoothed out the front of my shirt. I took a breath. “I’ll go.”

The agent took us to the station house. The walk there was tense, and my heart scrabbled against my ribs like a trapped mouse. It was getting towards summer, and I sweated straight through my shirt. The agent led us into the upper reaches of the station house—a building a full four stories tall—into the office of the stationmaster. She was an old, hard-edged Qin woman. Her office was all polished wood and framed maps. An Eye was nailed above the west-facing window, and it glowed red in the failing light.

Across the desk from her sat two red elves. Vathorem was ancient, hardened and weathered like petrified wood. The other was as young as myself. They were both dressed plainly, in City-style clothes tailored less well than those I wore and constructed of wools and linens Parvi never would have touched. Vathorem cradled a teacup, peering into the Semadran black like he was looking for answers. As far as I could tell, he had no intention of drinking it. The young elf beside him watched everything around him. His black eyes drank in the furniture, the weave of Dirva’s shirt, the movement of the breeze through the window.

The agent held the door for Dirva and me as we walked in. The politeness of the gesture set me on edge. “They’ve come to collect the envoy, Stationmaster.”

Vathorem smiled into his teacup. The young one leaned forward in his chair, half-upright, waiting uncertainly for some sign of what to do next. The stationmaster waved her hand at us. “Blessings with you,” she said.

Vathorem stood, placed the still-full teacup on the stationmaster’s desk, right on a stack of papers she was reaching for. She scowled. He grinned. “Thank you for the hospitality,” he said. His High Qin was absolutely, startlingly perfect, but the way he spoke was purely Athenorkos. His voice had an underlying music to it that the Qin lack. “Come, Dor,” he said to the younger elf. “One last walk and we can rest our weary legs.”

He led the way out. The young elf trailed after him, then Dirva, then myself. I could not help but peek over my shoulder two, three times. Deep in the pit of my stomach I expected the agent to come back and arrest me. But he didn’t, and soon enough the four of us were in the station. The rank-and-file policemen patrolling the station had been briefed; they gave Vathorem respectful nods and let us pass without incident. The younger elf carried two very full packs, neither of which looked like they’d been ransacked.

Dirva and Vathorem walked in perfect rhythm through the Qin streets. There was a current between them, a conversation they seemed to have without speaking. The young elf and I eyed each other, both curious, both a little wary. When the streets narrowed and the houses began to cluster tight together, Vathorem looped his arm through Dirva’s. “Ah,” he said. “Ah, you’re all grown, now.”

Dirva grinned. “And you! You just keep refusing to die, eh?”

Dor stared at Dirva. Vathorem patted his arm. “Marriage,” Vathorem said.

“
Yes.”

“
A nice Semadran girl, I take it?”

“
Yes.”

“
Look at that. My lad. My lad a grown man.”

“
I was grown when you got to me, Vathorem.”

“
The hell you were.”

Dirva laughed.

There was a pause, and then: “Oh, I’m fine. I’m fine. Battle wounds, you know.”

“
Vathorem.”

“
I’m fine.” Vathorem glanced over at me. “So, this is your boy?”

“
He is, yes.”

Vathorem held out his hand to me. When I took it, he looked right in my eyes. He read me through and through. I felt like I’d been turned inside out. Dirva laughed gently on Vathorem’s other side. “Well met, Ariah Lirat’Mochai. Well met.”

“
A pleasure.”

“
A pleasure?” Vathorem’s eyebrows jumped up. He glanced at Dirva over his shoulder. “He’s polite.”

“
He is losing that particular virtue.”

Vathorem turned back to me. “We’ll talk later, you and I, feel each other out.” He reached for Dor. Vathorem caught his hand and pulled him close, grinning, affectionate, parental. “Dor, do you remember that one at all?” he asked, pointing to Dirva. The boy shook his head. His face was carefully composed, a mask as silver as my own. It made me curious. “You fawned over him when you were little. You did. Followed him from room to room.”

“
I’m sure I did.” Dor spoke very good Semadran, and he glanced at me while he did it. “It’s a pleasure to see you again, Dirva da Alama.” Dirva nodded at him, a smile half-hid behind a hand. He and Vathorem laughed the same laugh at the same time.

When we reached Dirva’s apartment, Vathorem kicked Dor and I out. He cited privacy, questions for Dirva, a desire to catch up. I am sure that’s the case, but I think he also wanted to discuss me without me there to eavesdrop. In any case, Vathorem took the packs from the young elf and shut the door behind him. We stood awkwardly on the other side of it. The young man held out his hand to me. “Shaliondor da Alama. Call me Dor.”

“
Ariah Lirat’Mochai.”

“
Vath says you’re a shaper?”

I jerked my hand back. I let out a strangled laugh and glanced around at the street below. No one was there, but that didn’t mean no one had heard him.

“
Are you all right?”

“
Have you spent much time with Semadrans?” I asked him. I switched to Athenorkos.

He shook his head.

“
But you speak Semadran?”

“
Vath taught me.” He pulled his long red hair over one shoulder and looked out at the street. “It’s a long story. You were saying?”

“
We don’t ask that about each other.”

“
Ask what?”

“
About the gifts. About magic. We don’t. And I…those here don’t know that I am a shaper.”

His eyes widened. “Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.”

“
It’s all right.” We stared at each other for a moment. He had an intensity, a burning curiosity in him. “Are you a shaper?”

He laughed. It was a bright, unfettered laugh. “I guess it’s not rude to ask me, eh? No. No, I’m no shaper. Red ones are rare.” I glanced at the closed door. I heard laughter inside. “Falo has been so excited for this trip,” he said. “He missed him, your man. They write, but it’s not the same.”

“
Falo?”

“
It means godfather,” said Dor.

“
I know. Vathorem is your godfather?” I asked. Dor grinned; he beamed with pride. He nodded. It struck me as odd, a shaper serving as a parent. Parenting seemed a much more forbidding task for the most sensitive among us. “Would you mind terribly, and I honestly do not mean to be rude, but would you mind terribly if I asked why you were here? Vathorem came for the wedding…”

“
And for you.”

“
And for me. Would you mind if I asked why he brought you with him?”

Shaliondor da Alama leaned against the railing. His auburn hair blew around him. He had a sharp face, neither handsome nor pretty, but striking. His skin was so freckled it looked a shade too dark. He grinned. “Ah, me. I’m an excuse, that’s all, a reason to make the trip. He’s valuable, Vathorem is, and my ma had to have a reason to send him on a long trip, a dangerous trip, into country that don’t like us all that much. He told her my Semadran needs work, that I need to see the Empire firsthand to deal with it proper when the time comes.” He watched me as the words sunk in and grinned a hair wider when they did.

“
You’re a prince.”

“
One of several. Though having her as a mother don’t really mean much. We’re not like your Exalted. Or the Lothic kings. She picks an heir; blood don’t mean nothing.” He shot me a sly smile. “You know what they say about us, though. All us reds are related to each other one way or another.”

The light was beginning to turn. I was late. I had more questions for him, but I was late. “You said your Semadran needs work?”

“
That’s what Vath says.”

“
I know someone whose Athenorkos and Lothic need work. Would you like to meet a friend of mine?”

He pulled himself off the railing. “Would be a pleasure.”

Dor took stock of the neighborhood as we walked through it. He noticed everything, things I myself had never noticed. “No fruit sellers?”

“
Not here, no.”

“
They were all over the Tahrqin streets.”

“
We go to market for them.”

“
Why?”

“
I’m not sure. They are expensive.”

He whistled. “Expensive to you. Not so expensive to the Tahrqin, eh?”

Things like that. Why were the streets narrower in the borough? When did curfew get established? When we passed the schoolhouse, he had a thousand questions about it—who built it and when, how was it funded, had there been raids, that sort of thing. He asked me insightful, informed questions about Semadran history. As we walked, conversation drifted into Semadran. “Your Semadran is very good,” I said. “It’s really just slang you’re missing.”