Rain cannot soak dry ground. When met with arid soil, it runs off and races onward, becoming destruction, pulling land and root and creature with it. For rain to penetrate the earth, that earth must already be damp. Rain must find its likeness on its plunge from the sky—it must find its own blood reaching for it. A sibling to a sibling, a friend to a friend. Only then can it seep gently downward, fueling life and yes, change, without destruction.
So, too, is the manner of people, and of the perils Moquoia faces. We find this country at a breaking point, when there exists not so much a spectrum of humanity, but a gulf between two extremes. Those with means stand on the backs of those without. Climbing out of the grips of the bond system is not only barely possible—it is purposefully kept that way by generations of ashokis, ministers, and monarchs within the comforts of Tolukum Palace.
For too long has the cry for change been met like rain on dry ground—rolling off unwilling ears, channeling instead through exploitive practices that continue to wash away the scaffold of our society. For too long has the self-interest of politics hardened itself to this country’s dark storm of slavery and bond servitude . . .
I look up as Iano sits down across the table.
“How’s it coming?” he asks.
Done, I sign. I turn the pamphlet around so he can read it. By this point he’s seen enough drafts to know the gist from start to finish, but he reads it all the way through anyway. Observing it upside down, I take the time to appreciate the precise, even lines of text turned out by the stamp press. I’ve switched over to using Soe’s medium-size press, which I thought might not give me the same quality given its shorter screw, but I found that printing was much easier with the fewer turns required to clamp the plates. I admire, too, the title font, which Lark carved a little bigger and bolder, in all capitals:
THE PATH OF THE FLOOD
Iano reaches the end of the three pages. He takes a breath, nods, and slides it back to me.
“It’s a good essay, Tamsin. Kimela’s got to see the truth in it.”
I pull my slate toward me, because while Soe has caught on to many of my signs, Iano still struggles to interpret them. I PLAN TO PRINT MORE TO HAND OUT IN COURT
He chews his lip. “Well . . . perhaps, once we’ve set things straight. Small steps, you know?”
There’s that word again—small.
There’s thumping on the porch, and through the door come Lark and Veran, both looking stiff and exhausted. Sawdust flecks their clothes and hair, and they bring the smell of green wood and sweat with them. Neither of them sit at the table—Lark eases onto the potato bin, groaning, while Veran sinks to the floor in the corner, resting his head on the wall and closing his eyes. Rat comes in after them—Soe’s gotten more lenient about letting him in the house—and trails around the kitchen, sniffing hopefully at the stove. Soe flicks him a bit of venison from her skillet.
“Hey.” I rap the table. Lark opens her eyes. How did it go?
“Hard,” she says, rubbing her face. “I am never wanting to fall a tree so big again.”
“Did you bring it down?” Iano asks.
“Not yet. We have the—uh, things, lu’tuw—”
“Wedges,” Veran says, his eyes still closed.
“Uah, wedges, we have them inside the cut, holding.” She makes a shallow v with her palms. “So tomorrow it is not too hard to finish.”
“We hope,” Veran says. My gaze darts between the two of them—is it just me, or are they acting a bit stiffer toward each other than usual? Only yesterday Veran was making doe eyes any time Lark’s back was turned.
Maybe they’re just tired.
Nobody else seems to notice. Iano picks up my pamphlet. “Tamsin finished the essay.”
“Oh, can I see?” Lark stretches her hand out and takes it. She studies it, holding it close and furrowing her brow as she concentrates on each word. She slowly turns the fold and similarly scans the interior. After a moment, she turns it around.
“What is this word, economy?” she asks, pointing.
Iano translates for her. “That section goes into the practical implications for Moquoian infrastructure.” He scoots his chair forward—Rat is still circling the kitchen, his claws clicking on the wood floor.
Important for people in court, I say when I see Lark frown. I reach for my slate nearby. WE HAVE TO MAKE IT AS EASY AS POSSIBLE FOR PEOPLE TO CHANGE THEIR MINDS
Lark opens her mouth to say something, but she’s cut off by Rat, who barks. She looks at him and clips a few words in Eastern, scolding his bad manners. She goes to the door and opens it for him. He stands on the threshold, looking not outside, but up at her, his head cocked to the side. After a moment, she curses him and closes the door again. He goes back to pacing, treading over Veran’s splayed feet.
Lark sets the pamphlet back down on the table. “As long as the money isn’t becoming more important than the people.”
I shake my head. No. But if people—important people—I need to learn the sign for lawmakers. I turn to my slate again. IF THEY DON’T SEE STRATEGY, THEY’LL THINK IT’S ALL TALK
That it can’t be done, I finish.
“I understand. Rat, durst,” she says, grabbing his ruff and trying to get him to sit. He flops his rump down on her foot, panting agitatedly. She scratches his ears, but as soon as she takes her hands away, he’s back up again, this time going to Veran and thrusting his nose in his ear. Veran turns his face away without opening his eyes.
Soe taps her spoon on her skillet and looks over her shoulder at me. “Do you think the ashoki’s maid will give us any trouble?”
I shrug. This had been a troublesome point a day or two ago, when I described how my maid, Simea, had jumped to my defense when my coach was attacked. She’d thrown herself across me, shielding me from the loaded crossbows, and had died as a result of it. The terrible thing is, I may have been able to escape through the opposite door had her body not pinned me to the seat, but I can hardly grudge her brave action. Once I had the space to think about it, her sacrifice had surprised me. Simea had been recently assigned to me, and I wouldn’t have thought she’d be so loyal. My throat closes up. I owe her my life.
If Kimela’s maid is just as protective, we could have trouble. But I’d like to think that Lark could keep such a person in check.
Rat stops in front of Lark, his ears and tail up, and barks at her again. She swears at him and tosses up her hands.
From the corner comes a short, sharp groan.
Veran slides sideways and hits the floor with a dull thud. His body stiffens and starts to shudder, rigid.
We all move at once—Iano and I jump from our seats and Soe leaps back from the stove. Lark vaults from the potato bin and hauls him from his stomach to his side. She waves toward us, and despite my own heart having sprung to my throat, her voice is pointed and calm.
“It’sko—a shirt, a cloth, or something,” she says.
I shrug off the shawl from my shoulders and pass it to her. She folds it a few times and settles it under Veran’s knocking head. While she’s situating it, Rat paces around behind her and flops down on the floor behind Veran’s bowing back, still panting heavily.
Iano grips the back of his chair. “What do we do?”
“Wait for it to stop,” Lark says. “Get some water.”
Soe obediently skirts the pair of them and heads out the door for the water barrel. Iano bends over and scoots a pot sitting on the hearth just a few inches from Veran’s feet, the fringe on his boots swinging. I stand at the table, watching all three of them—Veran, Lark, and her dog.
“Hey,” I say, and when Lark looks up, I point to Rat. How did he know?
“Know what?”
I gesture to Veran, whose seizing is starting to slow. Lark looks at me, puzzled, and then at Rat. “I have made him lie down behind Veran before—maybe he thinks he is supposed to now?”
I shake my head and reach for my slate. BUT HOW DID RAT KNOW HE WOULD COLLAPSE?
Lark studies my words, frowning. “What?”
HE BARKED AT YOU. HE POKED AT VERAN
Lark stares at the slate again, and then turns back to Rat.
“I don’t think the dog knew,” Iano says. “How could he? Veran wasn’t doing anything except resting.”
I throw my hands up. I don’t know. But the dog was upset—about what?
Veran’s final tremors slow, and his body loosens. He retches deeply a few times but doesn’t come around. Lark checks him over, from his lap up to his neck and head. She arranges one of his wrists into a less awkward angle.
I rap on the table and sign with conviction. The dog knew something was wrong.
“It must have been something else,” Iano says, just as Soe comes back in with a full water pitcher. “Soe, is there anything outside? A creature? Are the horses acting up?”
“What?” Soe says breathlessly. “No—why? It’s raining now. Has he stopped?”
Lark looks back to me, consternated. I go for my slate again.
HAS RAT BEEN UPSET THE LAST FEW TIMES VERAN’S COLLAPSED?
Lark’s eyes go distant as she searches her memory. Her gaze drifts down to Veran, lying partway in her lap, breathing shallowly through pale lips. After a pause, her head jerks up sharply.
I raise my eyebrows at her.
“The first time,” she says slowly, “Rat was whining. He was under me, pressing under my legs. I did not think of it until now.”
Any other times? I ask.
“Outside Tellman’s Ditch . . .” She scrunches her eyebrows. “He stayed far away from us, in the sun, outside the shade. And he whined again. I was thinking he is only tired.”
We all stare at each other around the kitchen.
“But there was nothing to see,” Iano insists. “Nothing to indicate . . .”
My hands jump up. To you. Dogs smell things, hear things we don’t.
“But I’ve never heard of a dog . . .” Iano’s words die on his lips as he stares at me. I can feel my face contorted at him, and I hope he’s realizing that his own limited experience isn’t the truth of the world over. I thought I’d shown him that when I first walked onstage as his parents’ ashoki.
Lark shifts, adjusting Veran’s head. “I am going to bring him into the workroom. He is going to be confused when he wakes up.” She nods at Soe. “You can get his feet, and bring the water?”
Soe nods and crouches down, linking her arms under Veran’s knees. Lark lifts his torso, steadies his head, and together they move him toward the workroom. Rat, in the absence of Veran or his oncoming seizure, rolls onto his side and sprawls leisurely on the hearth, at ease.
The door to the workroom closes, and for a moment the only sound is muffled murmuring and the shifting of presses. We’re still standing on either end of the table. Iano looks at his chair, then at the fire, and then back at me.
“Tamsin,” he says slowly. “I get the feeling that you’re angry with me, but I don’t know what for. Ever since Pasul, it seems like . . . like I just keep doing and saying the wrong things.”
I drag my slate toward me. I don’t want to have this conversation like this, but thanks to everything, I don’t have a choice.
WHY ARE YOU TURNING DOWN ALL MY IDEAS? I write.
“I’m not,” he insists.
YES YOU ARE
“I just haven’t ever heard of a dog . . .”
I smack the table. NOT THE DOG. THE PRESS. KIMELA. OUR PLAN
“I just want you to be careful,” he says. “You’re still healing. We don’t have many answers. I don’t want you to get hurt again. I just think it’s better to stay small.”
My next words are huge and uneven. THERE IS NO SMALL
“Yes, Tamsin, there is,” he says. “I know you’ve always thought big, aimed big, but look at what’s come of that.”
I stare at him, gripping the chalk in my fingers, repeating his phrase in my head. Look at what’s come of that? Of what?
I’m struck by a sudden, staggering realization.
Iano never believed in what we were doing.
Slowly, I scratch the chalk over my powdery slate again.
WHY DID YOU AGREE TO END SLAVERY? I write.
He stares at my slate. Whatever he expected me to write, it wasn’t that. He looks back up at me.
“You helped me see it was wrong,” he says.
WHY THOUGH?
“What does this have to do with the dog?” he asks almost pleadingly, gesturing to Rat lounging by the fire.
I point at the question on my slate.
“Do you want reasons?” he asks. His fingers twitch almost imperceptibly toward the pamphlet with my essay, still folded on the table. “Do you want me to recite your words back to you?”
I shake my head. That’s exactly what I don’t want. Was it just because you loved me?
Confusion flares on his face as he tries and fails to interpret my signing. “What?”
The words burst from my mouth, perfect in my head and nearly unintelligible on my tongue. “Was it just because you loved me?”
He jumps at the startling sound of my voice. “Just because I loved you?”
WERE YOU SO DESPERATE TO IMPRESS ME THAT YOU JUST AGREED TO WHATEVER I SAID? I palm the slate, smearing the chalk. IF I HAD SUGGESTED WARRING WITH THE EAST, WOULD YOU HAVE GONE ALONG WITH THAT TOO?
He has to squint to read this last tirade—by the end my words are a tiny scrawl.
“Tamsin . . . ,” he says.
Think, I demand, jabbing at my head. Think before you speak.
He bristles, angry. “Tamsin, none of it was a walk in the park. None of it was without consequence. If I’d just been out to impress you, do you think I’d have stood by our policy once the blackmail started?”
DID YOU STAND BY IT? I scrawl. WHEN I DISAPPEARED, YOU LET ALL DIPLOMACY FALL. YOU DIDN’T GET A THING DONE WITH THE EASTERN DELEGATION
He lifts his hands. “Because I was trying to keep you from being murdered!”
AT THE EXPENSE OF THIS! I slap my pamphlet, which flutters feebly.
“Yes!” he shouts. “Yes, I admit it. At the time, I cared more about getting you back alive than our policy. Would you rather me have left you to die?”
I WOULD RATHER YOU HAD SOME BELIEF IN SOMETHING OTHER THAN ME
I toss the slate down with the words facing him, and he stares at them as if they’re incomprehensible. I take a long breath, clenching and unclenching my hands at my side, and then I lift my fingers.
I’m not your ashoki anymore, I say, using the sign Lark and I made up for my old title. Kimela is. You can’t make your decisions based on me. You have to make them because you actually believe in them.
“I do believe in them,” he says. “I just want them done carefully.”
I push back from the table, the chair screeching on the floor. I stand for a moment, glaring at him, a flood of words piling up behind my lips. In the workroom, things are quiet—I’m not sure if Soe and Lark are still tending to Veran, or if they’re waiting for us to finish.
I turn on my heel and pick up my cloak from the back of the chair.
“Tamsin,” Iano says heavily. “We talked about Kimela. I can argue to reinstate you.”
I swing the cloak around my shoulders angrily, wondering what exactly his vision of my future as ashoki looks like—just me onstage, silently strumming a dulcimer? I wrench the door open to the falling rain. I want to say something cutting, something poignant over my shoulder, but I can’t, so I merely pass through and slam the door behind me.
I head down the cabin steps, keeping one hand on the porch rail until I round the corner and have to manage on my own. Slowly, I head toward the path Lark and I walked a few days past, the damp redwood duff swallowing the sound of the rain. The drizzle mists down, diffused by the distant canopy, beading on the fibers of my cloak. I plod through the vibrant shocks of ferns and splashes of moss, breathing in the darkness of the forest.
After I pass the outhouse, my steps slow, my breath catching in my chest. I have more strength than I did a week ago, but I still feel unsteady, like a bad footing would send me flying. I place my feet more carefully, my head bowed against the damp. As the trees swell and close in, the patter of rain stops, no longer able to reach the ground. I sink into the feeling of being swallowed by the forest.
Mist gathers in the crevices and hollows of the roots. A gray fox darts across the path, casting one glance at me with its sharp black eyes before plunging into the bracken. Ahead, Cloudyhead looms among the other trees, its rippled bark stained deep red.
I settle into the wings of its roots, the same place I wrote the audition song that won me the position of ashoki. I was no one then—no title, no job, no prospects. Bold enough to dream big, and naive enough to think my life could only get better.
I stare into dark space, my thoughts a jumble, my knees drawn up to my chest. After a few minutes, a figure melts through the gloom, and I turn over what I’m going to do if it’s Iano. I’m surprised by how much I don’t want to see him right now. He doesn’t know about Cloudyhead—not because it’s a secret, but because it never occurred to me to tell him.
But it’s not Iano. It’s Soe. She shuffles forward with a thick woolen blanket clamped under her arms.
She doesn’t say anything. Not I knew I’d find you here or You’ll catch your death or You shouldn’t wander off. She silently settles down beside me, unfolds the blanket, and tucks it around our knees. Then we just sit.
We sit long enough that the forest forgets we’re here. An owl swoops by on pale wings. A pine marten lollops across the duff. Songbirds—ones with names Veran could recite but that I don’t know—call through the growing evening.
The mature part of me should find a silver lining in having a better appreciation for silence, something I was never adept at before.
But I don’t want silence.
I want to talk to my friend.
I pull my fingers out from beneath the blanket. If I knew more signs, if I thought she could follow them, I would dive into an explanation on how Iano and I fell in love in secret, how it thrived on the stolen moments, the thrill of discovery.
How I’m not sure that was as strong as I thought it was.
Soe’s watching my fingers where they’re frozen in the air. I twitch.
I don’t understand what I feel for him anymore, I finally say.
She leans against me, her shoulder warm.
“Feelings change,” she says.