Chapter 17:

For three whole diurnals, Mayah didn’t talk to anyone or do anything but sit on her hands. Be like Rihani, she told herself, be quiet and floaty and – oh Sarana, she couldn’t take this anymore! If the Golden Castle didn’t matter, why did she have to be here? Why couldn’t she go back to the village? Why did Sukren say no every single time she asked?

One thing for sure, Mayah was never going to ask Sukren about the village again. He was just going to say no. No, no, no, that was all Sukren ever said to her nowadays, no, don’t go to the cafeteria for snacks by yourself, no, don’t volunteer to be part of the Queen Rathi Day parade, no, don’t come inside the doctor-priest dorm right now, no, no, no, no, no! Why bother asking, when Mayah already knew the answer? Why bother even going to Sukren when it was always no?

Why bother telling him anything at all?

The thought came out of nowhere, but once it was in Mayah’s head, she couldn’t get it out. Sukren wouldn’t know anything about her life if she didn’t tell him about it. So maybe she should just stop telling him things. Then Mayah could go sneak into the cafeteria and not hear no, don’t do that, and she could talk to Shanti and make friends with her and not hear Sukren say no, you need to stop caring about friends, why does it matter if they like you just as long as they don’t dislike you? which had to be the stupidest question Mayah had ever heard because of course it mattered if the other Rajas liked her!

And besides, making friends with the other princesses in her dorm didn’t mean Mayah had to do any nasty stuff. Senior Rajas did that stuff. Mayah wasn’t a senior princess yet. So what did it matter?

I just won’t think about it. That’s kind of what Sukren told me to do anyway, right? Stop thinking, just live and all that. It’s not like I’m not listening to him. I am, I wouldn’t stop listening to Sukren. I just won’t tell him everything.

“Shanti,” Mayah said out loud. “Do you want to practice for the Queen Rathi Day dance during breaktime together?”

Shanti seemed surprised. Which made sense. Mayah hadn’t really said anything for three diurnals straight. “Um, sure, I guess,” Shanti replied. Mayah watched her glance at the other princesses around the table. “But why?”

“Because you’re good at it and I’m not.”

Shanti smiled a little. She seemed happy with Mayah’s compliment, which was good, because that had been the point of it. “Sure,” she replied. “I can help you.”

“I want to help too!” Priva said.

Oops. Priva really was a good dancer, so if Mayah was actually trying to learn how to dance better, it wouldn’t make sense to say no to Priva. But Mayah wanted to be alone with Shanti; it was easier to make friends that way. “Your part is different,” Mayah told Priva. “You’re playing the Eternal Queen Sarana, Shanti and I are part of the chorus.”

“That’s true,” Priva said. She smiled. “Oh, I can’t wait until Queen Rathi Day, I’ll dance and dance and dance!”

“Why are you talking now all of a sudden?” Qat leaned forward. “You were so quiet, I thought you were turning into Rihani.”

For some reason, the question made Mayah nervous. “I was just tired.”

“Tired for three diurnals?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Shanti broke in. “Mayah was normal.”

Thank Sarana for Shanti. Mayah flashed her a quick smile. She thought Shanti would smile back, but Shanti instead gave her a look of confusion. Mayah immediately turned her gaze to her tray of food. Her chest felt tight. She had thought Shanti was covering for her to be nice. Wink, nod, just get Qat off Mayah’s back, because everyone knew the truth, right? Everyone was aware that Mayah hadn’t said anything for three diurnals straight, right?

Mayah couldn’t help it. She glanced up at Qat. Qat was staring at Mayah; for a second she looked angry, but then it was gone. “Yeah, of course,” she said, easily, normally, like she meant it. “Mayah was normal.”

“I’m done eating,” Shanti announced. “Want to go practice now?”

“Absolutely!” Mayah said. She jumped to her feet, a huge smile on her face. “Let’s go now, I’m so excited!”

***

Rihani was next on Mayah’s friend-list, but Mayah didn’t really know how to befriend her. She decided to smile at her a lot and count it as friendship if Rihani smiled back. Thankfully after Queen Rathi Day was over Mayah and Rihani were paired to work on the same potter’s wheel, so Mayah had lots of chances to smile at Rihani. It took almost four whole diurnals, the entire pottery unit, but by the end of it Mayah was pretty sure Rihani had smiled at her at least once.

Or maybe it had been a grimace? It was hard to tell. The workshop didn’t have big windows like the studio, and Rihani had spent most of her time on the other side of the table ducked behind the potter’s wheel. Mayah was pretty sure she had smiled, though. And at any rate, Mayah was getting tired of smiling all day, so, yeah, she would count Rihani as her friend now too.

That left Qat as the last person on her friend-list. Mayah made a face. Qat was mean. She seemed different from the other princesses, too. It was like the princesses were all reading a book together, all at the same time, except for Qat who was on a different page. But maybe that would be the way Mayah made friends with her? Because Mayah had to make friends with her. She was the only one left on Mayah’s list.

“Qat, wake up,” Mayah whispered.

Qat’s eyes opened. “What do you want?”

“It’s off day today.”

“So?”

“Do you want to come to the library with me? And find out which Houseparty I went to? Maybe we can sneak into another one together.”

Qat sat up. “So you actually went to a Houseparty?”

“Yeah.”

“Oshta said you had, but I didn’t believe her.”

Mayah had no idea how to respond to that. “I’ll show you which one I went to. If you show me where they store all the Houseparty records.”

“Okay, fine.”

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Mayah waited quietly for Qat to get dressed. She was already not looking forward to the day. Why did Qat have to act so grumpy? If she didn’t want to go to the library, she could just say so, instead of saying yes then acting upset about it.

When they finally got to the library, Qat was even worse. Mayah didn’t want to hang around the tea-nook so she led the way through the shelves. Unfortunately, she didn’t know where she was going, so pretty soon she and Qat were lost.

“I don’t get it,” Qat said. “Why did you act like you knew where you were going if you didn’t? I could’ve shown you the way.”

Ooh, Mayah was so tired of Qat’s sniping!

“Well?”

Mayah whirled back around to face Qat. “Go ahead of me, then.”

“I can’t now, you’ve already gotten us lost. I mean, did you think I had the entire library memorized or something? I just know how to get to the sections I always go to.”

“Well, how was I supposed to know that?”

“Because you’re a princess!”

Mayah swallowed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just what I said. Princesses know routes, we know how to get to the places we usually go to, but we aren’t regents.”

“I knew that,” Mayah replied, her heart hammering.

“No, you didn’t.”

Mayah met Qat’s eyes. Yes, I did! she wanted to shout. Or maybe, let’s shut up about it. But she couldn’t do it. She was no Shanti, who could lie and believe her own lies. Neither was she Priva, who could endlessly distract herself from the truth. No, she was Mayah, and there was no way she was going to be able to cover up all that anger in Qat’s face with a lie.

“Fine,” Mayah snapped. “I didn’t know that. I don’t know anything, in fact, because the first time I even saw a castle was the night I came to live here.”

She thought Qat would give her a smug, victorious smile. Or maybe roll her eyes and say, of course, anyone could tell that. To Mayah’s surprise, however, all the anger dropped away from Qat’s face. Her mouth opened in a gasp. Her eyes, a moment ago narrowed in fury, softened, widened, until she looked terrified.

“What’s wrong?” Mayah asked uneasily.

Qat didn’t move. She kept staring at Mayah.

“Qat?”

Qat still didn’t respond. Just to be on the safe side, Mayah poked her head around the bookshelf corner to make sure they were alone. There was nobody there. Of course, someone could be hidden a few aisles down, so it was probably better to get to a lounge where they could see everyone nearby. Mayah gestured to Qat. “Come on, this way.”

Qat followed Mayah only after Mayah tugged on her arm. Mayah retraced their steps until she got to a lounge she and Qat had come across earlier, a round place encircled by curved bookshelves, with a round fountain in the middle. Or maybe it wasn’t a fountain. It wasn’t spouting any water, and its plaque read Ring’s Home, which didn’t sound like a fountain’s name to Mayah, but then again, what did she know?

She pushed Qat to sit down on the not-fountain’s edge. “What’s wrong with you?”

“I don’t – I don’t –” Qat stammered.

“I told you the truth,” Mayah snapped. She still felt resentful. Qat had been so mean to her! “So you can stop sniping at me all the time.”

Qat looked like she was having trouble breathing. “You… you don’t… you’re not going to tell me I’m crazy?”

“Huh?”

“That’s what everyone always says,” Qat whispered. “Whenever I say anything, whenever I ask anything, they say I’m wrong, that I’m crazy, that everything is normal.”

Mayah was beginning to wonder if she’d made a mistake. Maybe she should have tried a little harder to lie to Qat? Of course I know the routes, I’m a princess, all princesses know their routes. But Qat had seemed so angry! And it was kind of too late now. Besides, it felt good to finally be able to say things that made sense instead of things that were correct. It felt really good, actually. Like she’d put down a weight, a weight she’d been carrying around without even realizing it.

“You’re not wrong,” Mayah said to Qat. “I don’t know my way around because I’ve never been here before.”

“Oh Sarana,” Qat was whispering. “Oh Sarana, oh Sarana.”

Mayah jumped a little when Qat lunged for her. Before she knew it, Qat had grabbed both of her hands. “What happened to Ca?”

“Who?”

“No, no,” Qat moaned. Tears were streaming down her face. “Don’t do this to me. Please.”

“You’re scaring me,” Mayah whispered. But Qat kept moaning, kept crying, kept clinging so tight to Mayah that Mayah started wondering if she should worry about the blood circulation in her hands. She wanted Qat to let go of her, but it didn’t look like she would until Mayah answered her question. But Mayah couldn’t remember. Who was Ca? Ca, Ca, oh, wait, yes, Mayah did remember that name! “Oh, you mean the princess you asked me about on my very first day? You said I took her bunk.”

“Yes, yes, her!”

“I don’t know what happened to her,” Mayah replied. “The bunk was empty when I got there. A magistrate told me to use it.”

“You didn’t see her?”

Mayah shook her head.

“She was my friend,” Qat whispered.

“What… what happened to her?”

Qat looked wildly around them. Still holding onto Mayah’s hands, she ducked her head. “She was disappeared,” she whispered.

Mayah felt a chill run down her back. “What do you mean?”

“That’s what they do. They take you.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know.”

This didn’t make any sense. The Rajas were at the very top of the bio-dome. Who would be taking them? And what did it even mean to take someone?

“Who do they take?”

“Everyone.”

Mayah suddenly felt very cold. “What do you mean, everyone?”

“Every single Rajas.”

“What? What do you mean? There are thousands of Rajas!”

“Have you seen an old princess since you’ve come here?”

The question struck Mayah hard. “No,” she whispered.

“I’ve never seen one.”

Mayah swallowed. “Ever?”

“Never,” Qat whispered.

“But – but why?”

“I don’t know. All I know is that it happens, it happens to everyone, eventually, but no one will talk about it.”

Mayah was suddenly very glad that Qat was holding her hands so tightly. She scooted closer to the other princess. “I’ll talk about it with you,” she blurted out. “We can talk about it together.”

A look of wild fear passed through Qat’s eyes. “But what if they take us then?”

“Well,” Mayah said. She forced herself to smile. “They’re going to take us someday, anyway, right?” Qat nodded. “So we might as well figure out who they are and what’s going on, right?”

“Oh,” Qat whispered. “Could we really?”

Say yes, Mayah told herself silently. Keep it together. “Sure, of course.”

Qat began to sob. She let go of Mayah’s hands and covered her face. Mayah pulled Qat into a hug right away. That was what Sukren always did to make Mayah feel better. “It’s okay,” Mayah said. “It’s okay.”

Then she shivered. She was saying it was okay, but was it? How could it be, if someone were waiting for them, waiting to take them into the dark?