After Isika woke up from the dream about Ben, she paced her room. Who had Ben found? She wanted to know. Maybe it should be enough for Isika to know that he had found someone, but it was just enough information to tease her, not enough to satisfy. How were things going with the search party? She wanted to get news from them. These were the kinds of things that queens needed to be aware of, Isika thought.
She put on a robe and went to the kitchen to make spice tea. As she warmed the spices, the scent rose up and reminded her of Teru and Dawit and of the life they'd had together in this house. She missed them all—her foster parents, Ben, Ibba. Aria, too, though Aria had never lived in this house with her. It was so strange to have only Kital for company. Isika did her best to keep the home feeling warm and safe for her brother, but he obviously felt the difference.
Kital came out of his bedroom, rubbing at his eyes, and Isika told him the tea was ready. He seemed only half awake, but he helped her carry the cups to the table in the courtyard by the back garden, where they liked to sit in the morning. It was better than sitting in the big room where the emptiness of the house was so apparent.
She sat back in her chair with a sigh. "Enough spice?" she asked her little brother as she took her first sip.
He nodded enthusiastically. "Perfect. Just like Auntie's."
"Not exactly," she said, frowning into her cup, "but thanks for saying so."
She looked out at the garden, noticing that the birds were eating from one of the fruit trees. Without Auntie to shoo them away or Ibba to pick the fruit, it was like a feast was simply laid out for them. Isika sighed. There wasn't enough time in the day for all she needed to do. But the birds gave her an idea.
Keethior, come to me, she called in animal speech. I need you.
He didn't come right away. Isika hadn't really expected that he would; he was not that kind of bird. She and Kital had made morning flatcakes, peeled some oranges, and were back at the table outside, discussing the day ahead, when the bird arrived. There was a familiar rush of wings and the feeling of well-being that accompanied the Othra wherever they went. Then Keethior landed in the courtyard. Isika smiled at him. Her old friend.
"Can you help me?" she asked.
Keethior cocked his head to one side, looking at her out of one eye. "Is this a trick question?"
Not a trick question," she said, laughing, "but I know that you like to be asked nicely."
"You know I am your servant, bound to serve the World Whisperer from the beginning of time."
"And yet I still like to ask," she said lightly.
"What is it that you need?" he asked.
Isika could tell that Keethior was being more gentle with her than usual, and she thought it might be because he knew she missed her foster parents. She swallowed around a lump in her throat. When Keethior was being gentle with her, it meant that she really was in a bad place.
"I have no way of knowing what is going on with the search party," she told him. "Will you please go and gather news from them? If you can find them, that is."
Keethior puffed his feathers up until he looked twice as big, which was saying a lot because he was already taller than Isika's waist. She knew he was thinking about just how long the journey would be to find Benayeem, but finally, he made a few twittering noises and said, "Of course."
Isika didn't make a big deal about it. It was a strange thing, actually, for an ancient one to be bound to serve a human. Keethior had lived many more lifetimes than her. However, this was something that the Shaper had put in place, and Nenyi trusted that the whisperers would not abuse this honor. So Isika simply said, "Thank you," and went on eating her breakfast. Keethior flapped his wings a couple of times and flew off.
Now Isika felt that at least something was being done. Hopefully, she would learn something soon. In the meantime, she kept on with the work of a queen, sorting out disputes and trying to decide what defensive forces their lands still needed. There were disagreements about whether the Desert King was really gone for good. Nat thought he wasn't. Bara, the keeper of the horses, thought he was.
"But, even if we assume he is gone," Bara said, "there are still his alliances. The sea people, the Workers. Our relationships with our neighbors are still tenuous."
"With what you know, Nat," Isika said, "do you think some of them could shift their loyalty to us?"
"I think they could…" Nat said hesitantly.
"…but it's their ties with the Emperor that we need to worry about," Jabari finished. Nat shot him a look, but she nodded.
"They were never acting only on the Desert King's orders," she said. "He was only one link in the chain of command."
Isika growled, and Jabari laughed. "It's just so annoying," she complained. "How many tyrants do we have to fight?"
"Besides," Jabari said after a moment. "I don't know if I want an alliance with the sea people. They capture people to sell them as slaves."
Isika nodded. "I know. It's not a small thing. But we at least need to try. Maybe without Ikajo's foot on their neck, they will leave all of it behind."
"But what do we do about the past harm?" Nat asked softly.
Isika shook her head. She didn't know. It was wisdom that was beyond her. She wished, once again, for the elders.
Then, of course, there was Petitions, the afternoon of listening to requests and questions of her people. If Isika were ever tempted to feel bored on these long afternoons, she tried to really look at each person, to imagine them as the hero of their own story. She heard from farmers about crops that were doing better and reports from seekers and rangers. The good news was that the poison walls were growing incredibly slowly now that the Desert King was defeated, if they were growing at all.
"Maybe it means that him stealing the elders is more of a fluke and less a sign of his continuing power," Isika suggested to Jabari late one evening as they sat in the courtyard. Kital had fallen asleep in a hammock, so they talked quietly.
"Maybe," Jabari said. He looked at her. "You still always have your embroidery with you in Petitions."
"It helps me to focus," she said. "But I try to really look at people before and after I hear them."
"It's not a criticism."
"Sometimes, when my hands are moving, things come to me that I don't think I would think of on my own. I'm working on an embroidered story now.”
It was a picture of being at sea, of recovering Aria, and of Herrith's death. It was hard to do, and stitching Herrith on the beach that day opened up a flood of grief. But Isika thought that the story needed to be captured in a thousand different ways, and this was only one of them.
"Jabari?" she asked. She was leaning on his shoulder and growing increasingly sleepy. "Do you remember the prophecy about the two sisters?"
"Of course I do," he said, taking her hand in his.
"It never happened," she said. "One of us didn't die."
"I know," he said. "I've thought about that."
"I think I know why. I think that when Herrith adopted Aria, he stepped into the prophecy, and when he died, its power ended. Because the prophecy was meant to be about us, two girls who had a father who didn't care about us, but Herrith became something new, some kind of star-crowned father who broke it all apart."
Jabari was silent for a long time. Then, "I think you're probably right," he whispered. "I wish I could thank him."
One day, after Petitions, one of the palace stewards came to Isika while she sat at the short table on the dais, looking over her notes from the day.
"Yes?" Isika asked, as he stood before her, waiting to be acknowledged. She was surprised by his visit. They didn't talk to her very often. This one was young, in his late twenties, she would guess, with locks that were tied back and startling amber eyes.
"We—the other stewards and I—feel it is time to show you the queen's quarters."
Isika blinked. "The queen's quarters?" It was the first time she had heard someone say these words.
"Is that not where the elders stay?" she asked.
The steward was already shaking his head. "No, the queen's quarters have been closed since the year your grandmother was abducted. After the king died, the doors were closed, and entering was forbidden.
Isika was shocked. How could she not know about a whole section of the palace? But she still didn't live here, and they had never talked about every corner, every wing. Isika knew that was partly because she was prone to panic about it all. Whenever they spoke of her living here, she had these feelings of being unable to be in the conversation, so she would end it or simply leave.
Now she took a deep breath and answered the steward.
"Of course, just tell me a time and we can go and see. I suppose I will live there someday, so it would be good to see the rooms first."
"That is for you to decide," the steward said, looking mildly shocked.
"What do you mean?"
"It is up to you to decide whether you want to live in these quarters or somewhere else in the palace."
That, at least, was comforting, Isika thought. Though a part of her wanted to live with Teru and Dawit forever. When they returned. If they returned.
When she finally went to see the rooms, about a week later, she took Jabari with her.
"I've never been allowed to go to the queen's quarters," he said. "I feel like I'm getting away with something."
Isika's hands were clammy as they walked to a wing of the palace she had never noticed. Looking out the corridor's windows, she saw this wing overlooked the valley on one side and the mountains on the other. The steward walked ahead and opened the door to a suite of rooms.
Isika stood in the doorway with her hands over her mouth, looking around. The rooms were cozy and light, airy and colorful all at once. For the first time, she really took in the fact of her ancestry. Her grandmother had lived here, and her grandmother's parents before her. Isika was part of a lineage of royalty, and these rooms felt like a portal into their history. She wondered, suddenly, what it was like for Aria in her palace and whether she had anything like this. She hoped there was something. She couldn't imagine being happy about the Desert King's quarters. She brushed thoughts of Ikajo from her mind as she walked further into the first room.
She walked from wall hanging to wall hanging, touching things of beauty that her grandmother had collected. There was a balcony off one of the rooms, and she stepped onto it, standing with her face to the sun, eyes closed, soaking in the morning light. Jabari followed her out and stood beside her. The balcony was built to face the sunrise behind the hills in the morning, and Isika imagined sitting here drinking spice tea each day. With Jabari. She swallowed hard, meeting Jabari's eyes and then looking around for the amber-eyed steward.
"I will not move here until my foster parents have been found," she said. "But I do want to move here, to these rooms, when I move into the palace."
He nodded gravely, but she caught a glimmer of a smile.
Keethior still had not returned. Isika kept herself occupied with Petitions, visiting Tomas in the pottery workshop, and journeying into the forests and fields around the city. She rode her horse, Wind, at sunrise, watching the way the light illuminated the grasses in the plains, the mountains and valleys. Nat accompanied her on these journeys, sometimes yawning as Isika stopped to examine tiny flowers in a patch of ditch weeds.
Isika reminded herself as she rode, "I take care of this land; I am the World Whisperer." She wondered if it would ever come to her naturally, if she would ever wake up already feeling like a queen instead of having to remind herself. "Shaper, be with me."
Sometimes Nat sang while they rode, and Isika joined in. She had grown closer to her guard since Ben and Ibba left. She had fewer people to talk to, so she teased Nat until Nat smiled at her. The older woman was quiet. She had seen a lot in her life. But the longer Isika persisted, the more Nat warmed to her, until they had an easy friendship where few words needed to be exchanged, but many words often were exchanged. Nat loved to sing the songs of devotion in the morning, so if Isika left early and Nat had not yet completed her morning devotion, she sang on horseback. Isika knew some of the songs, and Nat taught her more.
"Did I ever tell you why I became a guard?" Nat asked one day as they were walking on a path through a stand of hoona trees, leading the horses.
Isika looked up at the older woman. She was even taller than Isika, with short natural hair that was streaked with gray. She had a strong jaw line and arms that would make even the most foolhardy attacker think twice.
"No," Isika replied. "You haven't."
"I was on the ranger mission when Dawit and Teru's son died," Nat said. "He was my friend. I don't know if Dawit or Teru remember that I was there. But it was terrible. One minute he was there; the next, he was gone, and we knew the poison had taken him. Teru held out hope for a long time, but even she had to admit that he was dead. I felt so responsible. So I put all my energy into learning how to protect the elders and the people around me. And I became very good at being a guard. Eventually, they asked me to do it all the time, rather than only when I was between ranger journeys."
"That's terrible," Isika said.
Nat looked over at her and nodded. "It is."
They both stopped walking to look at a pair of butterflies resting on the trunk of a hoona tree. How could such things exist in the same world? Isika wondered.
"I volunteered to be your guard," Nat said. "It's been an honor."
"I'm the honored one," Isika said, and they walked back to the road so they could ride home.
Isika tried to live as she imagined the future would need her to be. When she made decisions, she thought about whether it would be possible to continue the actions resulting from the decisions for a long time. She felt her power strengthening as her land began to shift, responding to her presence. She felt herself growing up.
The Palipa had been scarce in the months since the elders disappeared, but one evening they came to her as she sat on the palace rooftop with Jabari and Kital. She felt them before she saw them, of course, and then there they were, always startlingly large and silver, padding with soft feet onto the stone floor of the rooftop. They wandered over to her, and she welcomed them in her mind, but they did not respond in words. Instead, they arranged themselves at Isika's feet. The two younger cats lay down, and Hera, the mother cat, sat so close that her head was on Isika's knee. Isika touched the big cat gently, and Hera began to purr. Isika exchanged glances with Jabari and Kital. The Palipa seemed to be waiting for something, but Isika sensed no alertness to danger in them. They sat close, and they ignored her.
Then Keethior landed on the roof, and Isika understood. This was what the cats were waiting for.
Isika waited for the Othra to speak. He glared at the cats but did not say anything about them. By the look of his drooping posture, Isika thought he must have flown a very long distance. All of her muscles were tense as she waited to hear the Othra's news, and vaguely, she felt Jabari moving closer to her, taking her hand.
Keethior appeared to be gathering strength. He fluffed his feathers and flapped his wings, then spoke. "It was Dawit. They found Dawit." Isika gasped, and Jabari put a hand over his mouth. Kital jumped to his feet. Isika realized that until that very moment, she had not believed an elder had been found.
"He had been dropped in Dhahara," the bird went on. "If this is any indication of what happened to the others, they simply blinked out of our space and into another. Dawit woke up in the queen's garden and was fortunately discovered by Enfa and Mara. At first, he couldn't speak, but he regained his speech after they arrived at the Circle headquarters. He's completely fine."
Isika burst into tears then, and Kital ran over to give her a tight hug. After a few moments of stormy sobs, she forced herself to stop.
"I'm sorry," she said, wiping her eyes and hiccuping. "What else?"
"Brigid has seen a vision of Andar in the northern mountains, so they are going there next. Also, Benayeem is increasingly certain that Teru is impossibly far away. Ibba had a vision of her with the Efraimu."
Hera sat up suddenly, her ears pricked.
These are ancient beings, Isika, she said.
I was going to tell her that, cat, Keethior replied. Then, out loud, he said, "You may think of the Efraimu as stories, young Andar's son, but they are very real. And they have Teru."
"Where do they live?" Isika asked, turning to Jabari to see that his face was stunned and drawn.
"On the Emperor's continent," Jabari replied. "Maybe months away, by ship. No one of our time has gone there. They say the Emperor is worse than the Desert King, that Ikajo was only his puppet."
"Because Teru is so far away," the bird continued, "Dawit is not hurrying home. Instead, he is going to the northern mountains with Ben and the party of searchers."
Isika frowned, looking over at Kital to see how he would react to this, but Kital was smiling.
"It will be good for him," he said simply. "He likes to climb mountains, and he has climbed this one a hundred times."
"Is there anything else? My mother?" Jabari asked.
"Ben can hear Laylit's song, but it also seems far off, and he has no idea where she is. And he believes that Ivram and Karah have found each other and that they are not too far away. They will be traveling back here soon, he thinks."
It was a lot to take in. "Thank you, Keethior," Isika said with a shaky voice. "You said Ibba had this vision?"
Keethior opened and closed his wings once, twice. Isika felt peace wash over her. "She said they called to her from across the ocean. They told her that Auntie is well."