CHAPTER 7 : CRACKED SHELL

"No human, in their imperfection, can teach the divine. Advisors shall have their imperfections removed. Delay the rotting of the flesh and cut out the weakness of the human spirit. Make them like the moon with faces unchanging." ~ Endless King of the 4th Cycle, Decree No. 30,908

EGG

I spent the entire afternoon hauling burnt wooden planks and dust bins full of ash down the tower, piling it all behind the farmhouse to mix with the crop’s fertilizer. It took hours to scrub the cinder stains from the floor and walls, and by the time I was done my skin was shiny and black up to my elbows and knees.

Avaris, Yendy and Tirma, dutifully called Warden, Cook and Scholar by the girls, took turns supervising my task while Bavetna was away.

The only one I refer to by title is the Warden, and I’m not completely sure why. Something about her just commands authority, even though she rarely raises her voice. In fact, with the students, she’s surprisingly gentle—if a little firm.

Maybe ‘commands’ is the wrong word.

She exudes authority, like a scent, or the alpha of a wolf pack. She never asks for it, she receives it automatically.

Sort of like a King.

But the comparison feels wrong. I’m not sure I ever exuded authority. It was just...given to me. Assigned to me. But the Warden appears to have earned it from every witch in Little Abbey.

I wonder what she did to achieve that?

Stars, cleaning has given me too much time to think, hasn’t it?

I’m fairly certain the Warden wants nothing to do with me. I bet she wouldn’t be bothered in the slightest if I were to throw myself off the tower today and end my misery. She’d probably be more upset about my dead body staining the grass than anything else.

It strangely makes me want to stay, if only to prove her wrong.

So I clean faster.

During her shift, the Warden tucked herself into a corner on a wooden stool, legs propped up on a crate, and read a small book without saying a word to me.

Tirma relieved her next, and criticized my cleaning techniques the entire time.

Yendy, who I’ve placed on the same favorites list as Bavetna, made me a small potato pot pie for dinner.

I love Yendy.

I told her that her food was better than anything the palace cooks made me, which is true, and garnered a beam of pride on her face. She patted me on the head and told me to stop my lies and get back to work.

The sun had nearly set by the time I finished. When I leave, there’s a line of girls holding fluffy white towels and bars of soap all the way up and down the stairs. They stare at me as I hurry past.

Unwilling to risk the baths again, I go back to the small pond to wash the soot off my skin. This time I notice it bubbles in the middle, and wonder if it’s fed by the same spring as the well.

Flickerflies blink in the tall grass, and a chorus of crickets chirp all around me.

The insects are the most unusual and delightful aspects of being on the ground. Except the honey weevils. I shudder at the thought. I had to ask Tirma for ointment for the burn on my...well, let’s just say it was properly mortifying.

But the small ones are fascinating.

We had very few insects in the palace. The cold air didn’t suit them. I remember I found a spider once in the corner of my four-post bed. It hung there, night after night. I named him Mazaruth, because his web reminded me of the constellation.

Mazaruth was a rain dancer. He danced so beautifully that the clouds cried whenever they saw him, and crops, flowers and forests would grow wherever he stepped.

My Mazaruth danced too, except across his web. Or her web. I suppose.

I miss my spider.

I miss my servants, Lyara specifically. She always knew how to calm me down.

The pond’s ripples fade, but I remain standing knee-deep in the water, pants rolled up, and stare at my reflection. I’m tanner, I think, and there’s dirt on my chin. My hair is messy and pointed every which way, instead of smoothed back like it used to be.

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I look...I look ordinary.

Lyara would fuss over my hair. She combed it every morning. Said it was like ‘rays of sunshine.’ She loved the sun. As a tree sprite I suppose it was only natural for her to enjoy it. We’d have breakfast on my balcony once a month instead of the formal dining hall. I remember her basking in the warm glow as the sun lifted over the clouds’ horizon, sipping a small cup of tea.

I remember her smiling at me.

She was the one who looked after me from the day I was collected by the Silk Sisters. She handled my tantrums, escorted me to my lessons, and listened to my complaints.

I wonder what she’s doing right now? Probably fussing over the new King, if they’ve found him already.

I try smoothing my hair back with my wet fingers, but it isn’t the same.

An anger rises like a geyser in my chest. I strike my reflection, shattering it with a thousand displaced water droplets. I hit it again, and again and again and—

“The only ones who play in water are children and dogs.”

I look up at the bridge, back heaving as I gasp for air.

Nilah is leaning against the wall, relaxed as a cat. Her chin is braced on one palm, and she’s lazily swirling her fingers in the air. The gestures look deliberate, like a series of spells, but nothing manifests. Or if it does, it’s invisible. “So which are you? A child...or a dog?” Her eyes flick down to me.

I’m vaguely reminded of when she looked down at me in the well, and it does little to quench my frustration. Why is she here? Why is it always her? Is she following me?

“Go away.” I yank my feet from the mud and sit down on the pond’s bank, knees pulled up to my chest. The night air is cold against my wet skin, but I barely notice. In fact, I prefer it. The Clouds were far colder than the ground. It’s too muggy down here and the air is too thick—it makes my mind sluggish.

Somewhere in the reeds, a frog croaks.

“Bavetna hasn’t come back yet,” she says.

“So?” But after a moment, I look over my shoulder at the broad wall of forest that borders the grounds. It encircles us, just like the mountains encircle it, with Little Abbey at the center.

Previously I had thought of those things like a series of walls that keeps the world out.

But maybe it’s just keeping us in.

Is Bavetna somewhere out there, fighting undershadows and stars know what else? Or is she already dead? Are monsters about to descend on us like the honey weevils did to me? Swarm the abbey and burn everything inside?

I preferred the tower when it was boring and all I had to worry about were potatoes, murderous chickens and annoying girls.

“Well, if she doesn’t come back we’d be stuck with you, for starters. Bavetna handled all the maintenance for the grounds.”

“Maybe you witches should do your own dirty work,” I mumble, “like Tirma says ‘it builds character’ or whatever.”

“Harnessing the chaos in the world is tiring.” She continues waving her fingers in loops and swoops mid-air. “Usually.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

I regret asking the moment the words fall out of my mouth. I don’t want her anywhere near me right now. My body aches from all the cleaning, and if Bavetna isn’t back yet that means I still have a long climb up the tower to the Warden’s bedroom to look forward to before I can sleep.

Nilah is staring at me again.

Her eyes unnerve me. They’re dark but they’re shiny, like a bird’s. An intelligent bird. A crow maybe, or a raven. It’s like she can see things I can’t, and it bothers me, like I’m sitting on the edge of a knife. Every time she looks at me that way I want to spin around, half-expecting an evil spirit to be looming over my back.

“Nothing,” she finally says, and eases herself off the bridge’s wall, “we should get back, it’s getting dark. They’ll want to pull the stairs up soon.”

I follow her, but continue to study the night, trying to spot Bavetna’s blueness in the black of the forest’s shadow.

She will come back. I think.

I hope.

SILK SISTER - DART

I rest underneath the oak tree. Its leaves rustle as the wind sprays it with specks of golden sand. The Burning Lands are unforgiving. Nothing grows here, expect spindly black trees with bare branches and poisonous thorns.

Yet, at the peak of this dune, inside a small crater, an oak grows. No water. No fertile soil in sight. The sun should have wilted its leaves, and the greedy sand should have taken all the moisture it needed to survive.

When I first spotted it, before risking venturing closer, I hid myself and watched it for almost an entire day.

It could have been a trap set by marauders, if a very beautiful one. I’m used to cruder tactics, but perhaps they’ve recruited a witch. This could be an illusion to tempt a weary traveler. Whoever sits beneath the tree might only savor its shade for a moment before men with sharp hooks pop out of the sand to gut them.

But there was no movement. No sign of people anywhere. Just the tree.

My next thought was that it was like an angler fish. A monster that lies waiting below the dunes, jaws open, with only a small tree-shaped horn sticking out of the sand’s surface to lure in prey.

But birds, mostly vultures, found their way to the tree. No monster emerged to swallow them. Then the lizards came to sleep in the shade, and not a single tooth revealed itself.

So I made camp.

Who am I to question good luck? There is so little of it going around these days.

I remove my porcelain mask, carefully setting it in my lap, and lay my head against the bark, legs extended, gazing at the beautiful ceiling of verdant leaves that filter the sunlight like bits of stained glass. Golden rays, tinted green, create a pattern on the sand.

It resembles the face of a smiling woman.

And the face seems familiar...

But ah, I am imagining things.

Somewhere above those leaves, so high it would look like a tiny star, is the palace I and ten of my sisters descended from yesterday morning. Our task is great, and we must not fail.

I will rest here for a day or two and gather my strength.

I have a King to find.