Chapter 61:

Later that sunstir, inside the Jinkari lodge, Rajani lay on her rubber bedroll and listened to the sleeping sounds of her Table members. Tanush was curled up on his side, snoring lightly. Shib-vyn wheezed in and out. Only Lainla’s even breathing was missing.

“La?” Rajani whispered into the dark.

Lainla sat up, clearly awake. The sisters looked at each other. The flowerlight inside the lodge wasn’t very bright, but Rajani thought she saw a tear running down her sister’s cheek.

“Come here,” Rajani whispered. She gestured Lainla over. To her relief, Lainla didn’t refuse. She crawled over to Rajani’s bedroll while Rajani pulled herself up. They sat facing each other, cross-legged, holding each other’s hands.

“I’m sorry,” Rajani whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

“I told you not to do it. I told you not to mess with Tabus.”

“I know.”

“Why did you do it?”

This time, Rajani paused, for a long time, to think before speaking. Why did I do it? Because the hunters – they needed to be reined in – they were abusing their power – but I don’t think anymore that was all there was to it –

What was behind it?

“I wanted to become a lodge mother,” Rajani whispered, acknowledging it, to herself, for the first time. “I wanted to leave the hunters. But I didn’t want to lose the status that comes with being a hunter. I wanted to take down the hunters, lay them low, get back at Chief Bikash for hurting me – and then I wanted to leave them.”

A soft sob escaped Lainla’s lips. Her shoulders shook. After a minute of silent weeping, she met Rajani’s eyes again. “I guess we’re more similar than everyone says,” she whispered. A faint smile touched her lips. “I didn’t want you to push agriculture because I wanted the hunters to retain their status, because I was a hunter.”

“At least you were honest about it. While me, I lied to everyone and lied to myself.”

“What changed?”

Rajani considered Lainla’s question. Why was she willing to be honest now? For she was willing. She was more than willing. To confess to Lainla the truth of her heart was like shedding a burden. The pressure crushing her on every side was dropping away.

“I wanted it so bad,” Rajani whispered. “I wanted to leave Chief Bikash and the hunters with nothing. I couldn’t admit that to myself. I couldn’t admit that my motives were anything but the purest. How could I keep targeting the hunters if it were for my own purposes? If I were honest, I’d have to stop, and I didn’t want to stop. But the Chronicle verse I quoted to you kept coming back to me. Embrace the Gather’s Child, both the one in your urb and the one in your heart. The one in your heart, Lainla, the one in your heart, what could that possibly mean but to acknowledge your own weaknesses without self-condemnation?

“I think I had to acknowledge that I cared more about hunter status than about hunter behavior, and I had to do that without condemning myself for it. But I couldn’t. So I think I used the latter as cover so I could target the former.”

Lainla bowed her head. “While we’re confessing, I have something to tell you too.”

“What?”

“Pratap never attacked Mayah.”

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It took a moment for the words to register. “What?”

Lainla looked up to meet Rajani’s shocked gaze. “Pratap never attacked Mayah. He tried to, but Sukren stopped him. You know how much that would have bothered Pratap. He’s always been insecure. His Table members would have mocked him to death – what, you can’t even attack a Gather’s Child girl? Sukren could tell Pratap wasn’t going to stop trying, so he told Pratap that he’d tell everyone that it had happened if Pratap would leave them alone. That’s how the rumors got started.”

“When did you find this out?”

“About five weeks ago, when I first found Mayah. I could tell something was off. The way she kept glancing at Sukren before answering my questions… I pressed her for details, and she broke down and told me the truth, and then she translated for Sukren as he begged me not to tell anyone else. I was going to tell you anyway, I swear, but you were scaring me, messing with Tabus, and I thought… I didn’t know what you would do with the information, so I waited, and kept waiting…”

Rajani closed her eyes. This doesn’t change anything, she told herself. This doesn’t change anything.

But it did. Rajani wasn’t sure who she was angry at – herself? Lainla? Pratap? – but it was anger that was in her heart, and also fear. She had believed all this time that the hunters needed to be checked. Maybe her motives had been wrong, but at least, it had seemed, her facts weren’t. Now Rajani had to wonder. Did the hunters really need to be checked? Had Rajani been wrong even about that?

She tried to push back. Pratap had tried to attack Mayah. Chief had beaten Rajani. Jiat’s uncle had too much power over his Table members. Yet try as she might, Rajani couldn’t help but admit that Mayah had been successfully defended by Sukren, that Chief had legitimate authority to discipline his hunters during training, and that Jiat’s uncle’s power over his Table members was the same power Rajani had used to compel Shib-vyn’s obedience.

She took in a shuddering breath. Two stories were playing out in her mind. In the first, Rajani was a traitor rightly condemned by the likes of Urbiya for going against the hunters. How dare she, out of a selfish desire for status, attack the basis upon which Cursed society rested? Ostracism was the least she deserved for trying to violate a Tabu.

But in the second story, Rajani found herself sneering at the hunters. They were abusive, they needed to be checked, and who cared if she went after them with wrong motives? Her suffering was for the sake of righteousness. After all, hadn’t Pratap gone to the Gather’s Children ditch to find a girl to prey on? All this went against the basic values of the Cursed!

Her hands shaking, Rajani went back and forth between the two tales. Who deserved the contempt? Who deserved the blame? Did the hunters? Did she? She felt trapped, caught between a heaving mammole body on one side and a crumbling ravine wall on the other. Was there not a third way? Hunt’s Table, could there not be a way up and out and clear?

As if in response, Rajani heard an echo deep inside her soul. When the gods say you are Cursed, what they mean is this: that you were imprisoned, then freed. That you were outcast, then accepted. That you were a Gather’s Child, then brought into Hunt’s Table.

Relief, like light, flooded through Rajani. Her heart ached with a sweet, sharp pain. That is the story, she thought, tears in her eyes. That is ever the only story. Either way, I am Gather’s child. Cast out by my own people for resisting injustice. Imprisoned by my own selfishness. Then – brought back.

Every time, brought back.

She opened her eyes and looked at Lainla. “The gods command us not to violate Tabus.”

“Yes,” Lainla whispered.

“They command me, as lead hunter, to love my Table members like my own flesh.”

“Yes.”

“And they command us all to embrace the Gather’s Child.”

“Yes.”

Rajani pulled her hands free to wipe her eyes. Gather and Hunt, it was good to be a Cursed citizen. It was good to belong to Hunt’s Table.

“I want to get Sukren and the other Gather’s Children released from the castra-dome to stand a fair trial,” she said. “And I want the lodge mother moot in their next meeting to vote against ostracizing our Table.”

“Me too.”

“How do you think we can do it?”

“I have an idea,” Lainla said slowly. “I’ve been talking to my myxte Cursed friends, the ones who aren’t avoiding me, and they don’t feel happy about the Gather’s Children not getting trials. They’re worried the myxte Cursed are next.”

“Can you arrange a meeting with them before the lodge mother moot convenes next diurnal?”

“Yes.”

Rajani held her arms out to her sister. Lainla leaned into her embrace, but soon pulled back. “Is everything okay?” Rajani asked.

Lainla hesitated. “Yes,” she finally said. She smiled, and the shadow crossing her face disappeared. “Everything will be okay.”