Rose sighs. She heaves herself off the rock and gives a little hop on her good leg so she can settle down behind me. She threads her fingers through my locks and rolls one in her palms, twisting more gently than me.
“I know you’re not scared,” she says. “The Sunshield Bandit isn’t scared of anything. But you are worried. You’d be stupid not to be. I’m just trying to consider all our options. We owe it to the little ones.”
I blow out my breath. “I know. And I’m going to make it better for them, starting with Andras. I’ll figure out a way to get him back to Cyprien. But don’t run off and turn yourself in to the Alcorans yet. Give me some time. I’ll figure it out.”
She snorts softly. “I’m sure you will.”
“I’m serious.”
“I am, too. Your life is one long I’ll figure it out. And you usually do.” She smooths a few of my locks down my back. “Just . . . remember that all that figuring doesn’t have to happen by yourself.”
I sigh and close my eyes. She’s probably right, but I can’t help but want to keep us all tucked up in the relatively safe haven of Three Lines Canyon.
The fewer of us actively battling against the Ferinno, the fewer it can claim.
Tamsin
Still not dead.
And able to chew again, hurrah!
I’ve tried to request a notebook and writing utensil from Poia and Beskin, but they’ve refused.
“We’re out of parchment,” Beskin says pragmatically.
“But you wouldn’t get any anyway,” snaps Poia.
“No, you wouldn’t, but especially because we’re out of parchment,” Beskin adds.
Poia’s uncovered eye twitches in vexation, rumpling the pox scars that dot her skin. I hold back a broken laugh from where I’m sitting slouched in the corner (I’m choosing to view this as a silver lining of endless prison: the freedom to slouch). Honestly, these two could perform a marvelous comedy routine—oblivious, orderly Beskin, grinding unconsciously on Poia’s singular remaining nerve. Apparently Poia was an armed guard for the Moquoian stage line, possibly with a few black marks in her ledger. I’m sure the only thing that keeps her from wringing Beskin’s neck is the necessity to leave one person here in the compound while the other resupplies. Oh, it’s fun to watch her boil, though.
To think I get all this entertainment for free.
I would very much like a notebook, however. I’m never without one—I had no less than four in my satchel when the coach was attacked, but I suppose they’re all ash now. Months of work gone, verses and notes and turns of phrase. Destroyed. Plus my sheet music, with the nearly complete chord progression I’ve been wrestling with since Akasansi.
What does it matter, I suppose—it’s not like I’ll be plucking any dulcimer strings for rapt ears anytime soon. Or ever again, likely. My fingers press imaginary frets into the packed dirt floor, wilting petals sinking toward a still-frosted earth.
That’s not a bad fragment, actually. I wish I could write it down.
Great Light, I am beyond bored.
That’s okay, though. Being actively, aggressively bored distracts me from everything else. It distracts me from the fact that I’ve lost weight. Not much—I still have an appreciable swell to my hips and stomach, but weeks of bad food have left my skin loose and wrinkled, not smooth and taut as before. That’s another thing that’s worrying me. My skin, once a mellow golden brown, has turned dingy and dry, thanks in part to the stale, thirsty air and the lack of accessible daylight. The tiny window near the ceiling is about a hand square, but the bright patch of light it casts never hits the ground—it just travels across the opposite wall like a lighthouse beacon. Wherever I am, my room must face north.
My hair is the tiniest bit longer now, mossy and tufted. The razor cuts have all healed over. I ignore the pang of indignity in my stomach and instead imagine what I’d look like with all my favorite ornaments stuck on my shorn head—the jeweled combs, carved pins, and glittering baubles all sticking out of my black hair. Back before leaving Tolukum Palace, I had sat for a preliminary sketch for the portrait artists, strategizing different hairstyles and accessories. We’d decided on a string of amber marigolds connected with cascades of superfine gold chain. With my long hair piled high on my head, I thought they looked like sunlight glancing off dew. Now I expect it would look like I got my head stuck in a cobweb. I smile at the thought.
That hurts. It turns into a grimace instead.
Lest I be accused of laziness, I have already worked my little cell over multiple times a day. But there are only three things of interest I’ve found besides my own body, my own waste, and, twice a day, food. One is the bucket that holds my waste. I’ve gotten to know it well, but I doubt it will serve me beyond its implied function. It’s a wooden bucket with two metal rings holding the thing together, and it’s too short to give me any leverage up to the little window. Even if it wasn’t, I couldn’t turn it over without spilling the contents, and my conditions are already bad enough.
The second feature is my bed, which consists of a woven reed mat and a woolen blanket. The reed mat is scratchy and only marginally better than sleeping directly on the dirt floor—I know, I tested it. The woolen blanket is too short—my feet stick out the far end. Me, short and stubby, and they couldn’t get a blanket long enough to cover my whole body? I imagine it must have been a conscious effort on their part.
The third feature is the window, which I suspect is actually a vent for this repurposed storage room. There’s nothing to grab to haul my face up to the hole. Even if there was, I doubt I’d be strong enough in my current state. The most I can do is stick my hand up into the little square of sunlight as it moves across the far wall. I can see no trees or foliage through the window, no matter where I stand. This tells me for certain I’m not in Moquoia any longer, along with the dry air and adobe walls. I’m in the Ferinno Desert for sure, probably in the no-man’s-land east of Pasul.
It has not slipped my notice that this tiny patch of sky provides the only spot of color in my cell. My wardrobe is colorless as well as shapeless, as are my mat and blanket. The waste bucket is only a darker shade of nothing than the packed dirt floor. Even my sickly skin is slowly turning the same faded, dirty dun of the adobe walls. Sometimes I wonder if my eyes are still their same dark brown, or if they’ve drained of color, too, leaving me washed out in a washed-out world. No Kualni An-Orra here, no Prayer of the Colors or rush to catch a glimpse of the sky—even if there was enough moisture to generate a rainbow, it would have to appear in just the right place for me to see it through my tiny window.
But even if it’s not Kualni An-Orra, there is one thing that happens here, wherever I am—one wild, beautiful thing. It terrified me the first time, entrenched in pain and panic and wondering what scaffold of sanity had finally given way. But now that I’ve convinced myself I’m not hallucinating, it’s become the highlight of every passing day.
Bats.
Thousands of them, millions. Every night, as dusk turns blush to blues outside my window, they stream into the air, a living storm cloud. I don’t know where they come from—caves, I assume, though I can’t recall any caves in my little knowledge of the Ferinno. But it must be a huge space. They wheel past my window in rivers so thick the sky turns black, chattering and squeaking. After those first surreal days, when the pain in my head became more bearable, I stood under the window, watching, listening, smelling—by the colors, they stink of guano and ammonia. But so do I in my fashion, so we’re siblings in that way. Now they’ve become a fixture for me, a timepiece. It’s bat-time. Their return is more dispersed and happens after I’ve drifted into sleep, so it’s their first mass flight that has become the most treasured tangible thing in my life. My lifeline.