NADYA

I feel as though I’m about to be smited with the necklace in my pocket. A heavy weight that causes me to nearly trip over the stairs as I carry a basket of Kaki’s clean laundry. In it, I leave a piece of bone I stole from the kitchen with a sloppily carved smiley face.

I open up the door to his chamber. I’m not really supposed to be here by myself, but Kaki doesn’t care and his room is the only in this entire wing, as he is the only person who is completely Pure, but not Enlightened–the Gerasim class. However, he often says that Enlightened Everleigh wants to isolate him on purpose, but he has no foundation for such an accusation.

I place the basket against the side of his bed and look around, wondering where he must have gone after the Feast.

His room is extremely neat–and not because of my cleaning. He makes his own bed, keeps his clothes tidy and folded, dusts his windows and mops the floors when I’m not around. he still requests I clean his room on occasion if we haven’t found time to hang out in a while–a gesture that is both sweet and causes Missus Yarna to raise her brow and tell me, “Nadya.”

There is nothing personal about this room. He does not keep his study materials here. Has not ever requested a special quilt to be made or any sort of clothes tailored to him that weren’t required of Enlightened Everleigh. Whatever gifts he receives on certain holidays and milestones from the Enlightened or other nobles, he’s hidden them away. It’s customary for noble children to have murals painted in their chambers, either designed by themselves or a close friend. His walls are completely barren. The only personal item that hangs is a gold-encrusted mirror, a gift from Enlightened Alranath.

I approach the mirror, trying desperately to ignore the burn marks on my face.

I glance over my shoulder, wondering if someone either than Kaki is about to appear without warning, but that is ridiculous. No one visits Kaki. Then I pull out the necklace and gently drape it over my neck.

I trace the burn along my cheek with my index figure.

Maybe if the mark were laced with gold, outlined like a special map, I would be beautiful.

I am content with the life of servitude. But… it’s hard not to imagine, sometimes, what life would be like if I were not born of the Ospry class. If my Soul were not Purer. And these are ridiculous thoughts because, through hard work and dedication to what blessings I have been given, I can become Purer. But I see the noble girls my age and they get to learn to sing, to drink tea properly, to read. They girls older than me get to go to parties, go to poetry shows. They will not grow old and fussy like Missus Yarna. Sometimes they get married. They have kids.

It’s not a life I’m sure I would enjoy, but I keep tracing the burn marks, over and over. Nearly thoughtless. More-so that I cannot put words against the warmth that hums in my chest. I can’t make sense of my own feelings.

I’ve never known who my parents are. They died in whatever fire caused this facial defect. I wonder if their Souls were Ospry too, or if the fire fundamentally damaged mine. I wonder how soon they would have died of the plague if the fire hadn’t gotten to them first. I wonder if I’d have met Kaki if they were still alive.

I close my eyes and whisper a quick prayer.

There are three types of prayers. Prayers of Redemption, Prayers of Purity, and Prayers of Gratitude. Depending on which Sun or Moon one is praying to, the words will vary, but most pray to Kirill or Gerasim, the Suns, and then whichever Moon that is the representative of their class, like Ospry. Each Sun and Moon have their preferred rituals and demonstrations of Devotion. My prayer is sharp and quick, as the Ospry is quick–that was His greatest sin. Taking life too fast. Not being appreciative. So I suppose it is a bit ironic.

In this case, most would utter a Prayer of Redemption, for not appreciating what life they had been gifted. I utter a Prayer of Gratitude for, in a twisted way, if not for the fire I am not sure what sort of life I would have lived, and thinking of the possibilities snaps me back into reality–that I would not trade what I have for a book.

But how lovely it is to imagine.

The door creaks open. I whip around.

“Nadya?” Kaki says.

I let out a relieved sigh.

“Kaki,” I say. Then, realizing I’m wearing the necklace of a noble girl, I quickly blush. I wonder if he’s mad at me for dismissing him at the dinner. “Uh–”

“What were you doing?” He glances at the mirror peculiarly. “Are you vain, Nadya? Really, staring at yourself like that? How surprising.”

“I’m not vain,” I snap, even though I know it’s not true.

“Really? It seems like–”

“You’re such a boy,” I interrupt.

“And you’re such a girl.”

“What does that mean?”

“Whatever the opposite of what being a boy is, I suppose,” he says with a shrug. “Or maybe they’re not opposites. Who knows? What’s that necklace from?”

Quickly, I take it off and slide it back into my pocket. “Nothing. Nowhere. Your laundry is right there.”

He raises a brow. I sigh. We tell each other everything. We don’t have to–he won’t press like he did with Miss Gennadi–but we do. “It was left behind at the Feast. I just–I’ll return it, I promise you, but… I don’t know. I don’t have any good reason for taking it.”

“You could keep it.” I gape at him. “No one will know.”

“Kaki, no. This isn’t mine.”

“You found it, so it’s yours now.”

“Kaki–“

“It’s not like I return the books I find in Mecraentos City after I’ve collected them,” he says.

“Collected,” I snort. “Illegally buying.”

He smiles. “Some of them are not bought. They’re borrowed from friends.”

Friends. “That’s worse. The Enlightened knows you’re sneaking out, by the way,” I say, recalling our earlier conversation. “She will wonder what you’re doing.”

He shrugs nonchalantly. “Yeah. We talked about it.”

That takes my by surprise. “You talked about it?”

He takes a seat on the edge of his bed, running a hand through his hair. “Yeah. She tells me, I know you’re sneaking around the City, Kaki. It’s dangerous out there, you know. I say, Are you going to stop me? She shakes her head. No. If you are killed, it is not blood on my hands.” He laughs, a bitterness in his eyes.

“Ah,” I say. I’m not sure what he wants. An I’m sorry? I cannot relate to having a loving aunt any more than he can. He taps his knee, glancing around, mind churning.

After a few moments of silence, I ask because I know he must decompress, “How was your walk with the Father and that noble woman?”

“Horrible,” he laments. “The Father, he asked me about the storm, about my Purity, about my life as someone who’s Pure but not–you know, the usual. He’s from Sal Gasve and someone there has started a rumor that I see visions of the past and the future. On top of the normal rumors, like bringing upon drought and storm, but mostly the past and the future–he was really insistent on that. The woman is from Sal Gasve too. They wanted me to consent to something called a Cleansing which some guy over in Sal Gasve made up and has been telling everyone I am capable of and that I did for him, making him some sort of special prophet or something? I don’t know. I said no. They kept on insisted. They pulled out needles, Nadya. They wanted to stick them in my eyes to get rid of my ‘visions of unnatural times.’ They thought that if they did this great act of Cleansing for me then I would grant them the gift of Prophecy. I tried to convince them I truly am nothing special and they said, well our Leader deems otherwise. I had to physically run away from them.”

“Suns,” I whisper.

“Yeah,” he says. “But it is alright now. As long as I don’t see them again.”

He has dozens of stories like this.

Throughout the different cities, there are different prophecies and interpretations of the Yevanian teachings. None agree on the purpose of someone like Kaki, so they seek him. Week after week. Common peoples, Fathers, Mothers, nobles, scholars, and historians of the Industry. When he was smaller and less aware, Kaki had been subjected to various meetings, various rituals. Sometimes he gets gifts. Sometimes he gets threats, deemed as unnatural by those who think they know better than our Suns. If Gerasim and Kirill did not want Kaki to exist, he would not have been born.

“I do not want to do the Sen-Fair,” he says. “I asked Enlightened Everleigh a few questions about it and she was as vague as the cloudy skies. It seems mandatory, though. All the noble families are forcing their kids to do it. Many are eager to get a break before the Trials but–I have a feeling it is going to be exactly like what happened on that walk. I do not even need to Purify my Soul anymore, right?”

“Right.”

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“Having the Fortress to myself, sort of, would be nice too.”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t suppose Enlightened Everleigh would let me skip out. She seems to barely register anything involving me, anyways.”

“I don’t know, Kaki,” I venture. “It could be fun.”

He scoffs. “Hardly, is that a joke?”

“Not all the nobles are too bad, are they?” I say. I am unfortunately thinking of Lightened Roe and the necklace. “You have to learn to work with these people. They are future Court and Industry members. Even if you never join the Court or finish your Trials, they are important to know.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t need more friends. I have you, right?”

It bothers me when he speaks like this, as though affirming all of Missus Yarna’s ridiculous worries.

“You really should keep the necklace.” He points at the mirror. I resist the urge to turn towards it. “Or if you don’t, I can have one made for you.”

“They would never allow an Ospry girl to have–”

“I can say it is for me and give it to you as a gift. No one can look down on me for kindness.”

“They can, actually. So no.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Fine.”

I would be confirming stereotypes of the Ospry class, using Kaki for vain pleasures like that. As though I could not wait until I was Purer to be worthy of something gold.

I suppose that simply by palming the necklace I have confirmed such stereotypes. My cheeks blush in shame.

“I’m sorry about dismissing you earlier,” I say.

“What?”

“When I told you go away at the Feast.”

“Nadya, that is how you talk to me everyday.”

“No, I’m very kind to you.”

“Right.”

“Right. I mean, who else would be kind enough to deal with all you disgusting laundry? And to clean your horrendous washroom? Suns, anyone else wouldn’t last a day in the stink. Even now you smell like brine bone and blood and sweat.”

He laughs and leans back. “Yeah, sure, but you like it.”

“You are disgusting.”

A silence falls over us. I give him thirty seconds before he decides to spew about whatever great discovery he was so eager to make a fool of himself for at the Feast.

He doesn’t. Instead, he says, “You should come with me to Mecraentos City.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m going to meet someone tonight. The man who sold me the last book. I have questions about what I read and–”

“Kaki, that’s dangerous. The City is no place for someone like you.”

“It’s not like anyone will miss me too much if something happens.”

I blanch. “You are so stupid. Suns!”

“Is that a yes or a no?”

“No,” I say. “I don’t even understand what the point is, reading wordless books about places that don’t exist anymore written by people who are dead.”

“I tried to explain it to you at the Feast.”

My heart races a bit faster. “I told you, I am dearly sorry about that.”

“No, it’s okay.” He shrugs and glances out the window. “You know, it’s nice in the City. Well, not nice. It’s… do you want to know about the City, at least? I won’t tell you if you don’t want to, but don’t you think it’s weird that just because we’re blessed by a different Moon or Sun we don’t even know what the world beyond these walls looks like?”

“No,” I say. “I think you and I have been blessed to have such a safe home wtih walls we know won’t crumble and that we shouldn’t take that for granted.”

“You make me sound like a spoiled prince.”

“I think, if you live here, with a room like this one, you’re at least a little bit spoiled. Gerasim loves you.”

“I think you should see the City, Nadya,” he says. “Breathe a completely different air. It’s… shocking, to say the least. And the man I am going to meet, he’s a kind man, I can promise you. He cares little for Souls and my lack of Enlightenedment. I suppose it’s a little tragic that he cares so little.”

“Yeah, tragic.” I wait for him to elaborate, but he doesn’t. If this is his strategy to get me interested in leaving with him, it’s working. But to run off with an Enlightened’s nephew, a boy of the Gerasim class, to leave the Fortress which I was so blessed to be a part of, when I could easily have been burnt alive as a child or left on the streets to starve as an orphan–I do not want to put any of that in jeopardy for the sole indulging of books.

Kaki can see the answer in my eyes.

“Okay,” he says, not caring to hide his disappointment. “I am leaving tonight, if you change your mind, when Tyn is at His highest peak. You can come to my room.”

“I am not sneaking into a boy’s room.”

“Nadya, is not boring repeating every day in a forever monotonous cycle?”

“Monotonous,” I say. “You say big words when you want to confuse me.”

“Don’t you get tired of behind told what to do all the time?”

“Hardly.”

“Yes, well, having it good doesn’t mean you can’t want better.”

“I think maybe you are a spoiled prince.”

This isn’t a fight but I can’t help but feel something a little frustrating bubbling up within me that I cannot explain. Why can he just not understand? I am no young girl in distress that needs a huge adventure to change her life. I do not need romantic fantasies of something more to come true.

I want to ask him what it was he wanted to tell me at the Feast, but it feels inappropriate now. I know he is actively thinking about it, if he’s thinking about the book in Mecraentos, but if he hasn’t told me yet, he clearly does not want to.

“I should go,” I say. “Missus Yarna is probably looking for me. I have to mop the ballroom for some meeting.”

“I’ll come help.”

“Kaki–”

“Oh, Nadya. You know you can’t stop me from being good.”

***

I find myself standing in front of the chambers of Lightened Roe, the necklace dangling from my fingertips. She is in the Iya wing. This is the wing for the near perfects, the about-to-be completely pure and, hopefully, cured of the plague, ready to ascend into Enlightenedhood. The one percent. Her chamber door is similar to Kaki’s, but it has been commissioned to have a few elaborate carvings of a wind pipe and a lyre and music notes engraved to the top. I study it. I’ve seen the door many times before, but I have never had the courage to examine it, to wonder what music may hide behind it.

I raise my fist, lower it, then raise it again.

Closing my eyes as though that will change the outcome, I knock. Three times.

The sound reverberates through the hallway, traveling up the stone poles and through the soles of my feet. I shiver.

I give Lightened Roe a total of twenty counts to answer before I run off and leave the necklace at her doorstep, hoping she thinks this is a prank. I’m at fifteen when the door swings open.

It seems I have woken her up from a nap. She wears a thin nightgown, her hair tied up messily, her eyes wary and drowsy. I register the fact that she is at a third of a leg taller than me. As if I couldn’t feel any smaller.

“Lightened,” I say. “I… hello.”

I curtsy.

“Hello,” she says, an easy smile coming over her face.

“Um.” I fish the necklace out of my pocket. “You left this at the Feast, Lightened. On the table. The right one. I wanted to return it to you so that it wouldn’t get lost or anything.”

I hand out the necklace as though it is plague-ridden.

“Thank you,” Lightened Roe says. “You’re Lightened Yoria’s personal servant, aren’t you?”

I flush. “Yes. I am.” Will my name forever be attached to his?

“Well, thank you,” she says, not asking for my name the way Kaki did when we were first inroduced. “Good evening.”

“Good evening.”

I linger. Her smile wavers. “Is there anything else?”

“Yes. No. Yes,” I say. What are you doing, Nadya? Shut up. “I just wanted to say that you are an amazing musician, Lightened. I hear you play at the Feast or in the courtyard sometimes and… it’s wonderful. That’s all.”

Her laugh is musical too. “Thank you. What was your name again?”

“Nadya,” I respond.

“Nadya,” she says. “Well, Lightened Yoria is lucky to have someone as sweet as you at his beckoning.”

“I doubt he would agree.” But I smile to let her know I’m joking.

“Well, have a nice evening, Nadya,” she says. “Ask Lightened Yoria to let you listen in on my recitals some time. It would be nice to have an appreciating audience.”

“Your audience doesn’t?”

“They do. But that audience is mostly made of my tutors and the other girls who believe they have a better ear than they do.” She winks. “But do not tell them that.”

“I won’t,” I say. “And I’ll ask K—Lightened Bakiyoria. That would be lovely.”

She closes the door without a proper pardon.

I twiddle with the edge of my dress the rest of the walk down the esteemed hallway, trying to get my heart to slow.

The hallway breaks out into small enclaves that open out as balconies on this wing, unlike the thin windows of the Tyn wing. For people living in such prestige, you want it to feel as open as possible. The enclaves serve to protect the halls against harsh bouts of rain and wind.

I stumble into the nearest one. Below me is the main courtyard, where I see barrels rolling and carts being pulled and high-class men and women wandering with scholarly books or fancy dresses. To the left of it all, I see the Kirill and Gerasim Temples, where I pray in the mornings before starting my duties for the day. The reddish sky makes the green turrets stand out even brighter, a light to guide and illuminate us all. I watch the people below me for a few seconds before my eyes are drawn upwards, along the Fortress walls.

Missus Yarna says that the Fortress was the first building to ever be built in Mecraentos after a vision was sent to our founder, Mecraen, telling her that we needed a safe haven against raging storms that would soon come about. Kaki says this is impossible, that there’s no way we could have gone from scavengers to beautiful architects in the span of a single night. I try to tell him that these stories are paraphrased and that he should not be so insulting of other’s beliefs. Sometimes he listens and shuts his mouth, sometimes he laughs.

The Fortress is impenetrable. It is the capital of arts. It served as the best military barracks any kingdom has ever seen. It is an epitome of the best education. It is a place worthy only for the most Pure, the highest of classes.

My eyes follow the stone walls, perfectly imperfect, aged and weathered yet still as strong as they had been on day one, growing higher and higher and higher… it has always seemed limitless to me.

I channel my gift of speed, let the plague run through my veins, as I run up the stairs of the turret, climbing floor after floor without tiring. Hundreds and hundreds of stairs without even breaking a sweat.

I hope to see something beautiful over the wall. Perhaps mountains. I have always liked the idea of mountains.

But then my knee gives out on a random step. I gasp and hold back a scream as I topple forward, waves of pain coursing through me. I tumble, nearly breaking my nose, and lay there in a shameful heap. I squeeze my eyes shut and try not to envision the day that the plague takes my leg entirely, and I am rendered physically useless, like Missus Yarna and her legs.

I rest for a few moments, letting my knee settle. Then I start the climb again, albeit much slower.

When I venture onto one of the highest balconies in the wing, taking tentative steps, the stones walls covered in webs and dust and dirt blown in from the storm, it takes a second for my brain to process what I see.

I am probably thousands of legs above the ground, at the very top floor of the Iya wing. I have never been so high up before, never dared to venture far from the comfortable courtyard without Kaki at my side. I don’t know why I dare do so now, only that staring down at a courtyard three times smaller than it usually is sends a pit rocking through my stomach. I gulp, trying to locate the familiar people that indicate signs of life. They are hardly specs.

I let my gaze travel up, above the wall, searching for those mountains.

They are not there.

Instead, I see a City of gray.

The red sky hums above, the suns being gradually covered by dark clouds rolling in. The clouds are almost a veil, trying to hide the dilapidated buildings stacked onto each other, over and over and without much precision, tilting in different directions, plague-ridden trees and roots and thorny vines climbing atop them, keeping them both sturdy and dangerously veinish. Even from afar, I can see blankets and rugs nailed to the front of the homes, flying freely. Or maybe they are just barely hanging on.

There is almost no light shining from within, as there are with our shroom lamps. I cannot hear anything over the wind, but I imagine with each gust that comes about, a creakkk comes through the city as the rotting wood and wilting homes oscillate left and right. It is a City that was forced to be impacted, nothing like the great sprawling Fortress. It is a City that makes my nose scrunch up in disgust.

The clouds are Kirill’s way of warning us to take shelter, that He is hiding. They are often accompanied by a storm, but not always. Often, the clouds come about when a Father dies a non-plague related death. Or it can mean a factory is just collapsed due to a mass suicide of its workers, indicating to the nobles to hold an emergency meeting to fix the issue.

Kaki always says to never stop asking why, or how. I look out and I wonder how those mangled homes could ever survive the coming storm without enclaves or stone roofs to protect them. I wonder if they have musicians like Lightened Roe to battle against the roar of Gerasim’s clapping, striking lights.

How far does Kaki trek past these walls? How could he ever think a City like that is fit for him?