I have something stuck in my head.
This happens a lot, especially in the dead of night—like now. These deep, secret hours were frequently some of my most productive times as ashoki, when I would jolt out of sleep with a phrase or melody drifting at the very edge of my brain. In Tolukum Palace, I broke more than one bedside candlestick in my rush to throw off my covers and stagger to my writing desk before the thought could pass.
I haven’t been woken by an idea since my capture outside Vittenta. The time in my cell was so grim, so thick with pain, that the creative well inside me seemed to have vanished. The times I did lie awake at night, it was because I hurt too much to sleep, and those times were filled with the squeaking and leathery swooping of bats swarming in the darkness.
But now an idea has woken me up again. I lie on the floor of Soe’s workshop, tucked between Iano and the small press. The bags of walnuts and baskets of salal they collected earlier today sit just a few inches above my head, filling the room with the scent of tart berries.
Rain cannot soak dry ground.
I don’t know where this line came from, but it’s hanging right there in my head like a ripe fruit. I prod it, the shape of it, the feel of its syllables. I repeat it a few times. I taste its cadence.
Rain cannot soak dry ground.
Unlike those times in Tolukum Palace, though, I don’t rush to write it down. Why should I? What am I going to do with it? There is no court waiting to hear it. There is no song waiting to be written.
I shift on the floor. Soe’s scratchy winter rugs tickle my skin. I reach up until my fingers bump the nearest basket of salal berries. I sneak a few and pop them in my mouth. They burst over my sore tongue, their tart sweetness hinting at the deeper flavor they’ll carry as wine. It’ll be weeks before they’re ready—Soe plans to mash and cook them tomorrow, but then they’ll have to sit and ferment, transforming from sweet summer fruit to something with a bite.
I grimace. My transformation, on the other hand, has done the reverse—a journey from someone with a weapon to someone both harmless and useless. The salal will ferment. I am just rotting.
I wriggle back down next to Iano. He shifts, sliding his arm around my waist. He smells like berries, too—Soe roped him into picking with her along the road. He came back with stained fingers and a flush of sunburn over his cheeks. I set my head down beside his.
The string of words nudges my brain again.
Rain cannot soak dry ground.
I shut my eyes, turn my head into Iano’s shoulder, and try with all my might to ignore them.