Steam soaked into Riss’s pores. She dragged in one thick breath after another, feeling like a sponge on the verge of bursting. A door opened in front of her, flooding the tent with icy air, and a lean form—the Callen of Comos, whose name she hadn’t ever quite caught—beckoned her to come out.
She complied gratefully, shivering at the sharp change in temperature, then submitted meekly to being patted dry, wrapped in a thick robe, and led into the next room. This would be a bath, if she remembered the sequence right, and a massage. Then there would be body painting and sacred oils and meditation.
It all seemed to use an enormous amount of water, considering the recent strict rationing and worries over the well level. Apparently, the water had come back to sufficient extent to allow this extravagance. Riss wondered, idly, what would have happened if the water hadn’t come back—would they have had to alter or completely forego parts of the ritual?
She supposed they probably had alternate versions for times of drought. The Fortress was in the middle of a desert, after all. The situation must have arisen in the past. But like so much else, it seemed best not to ask about it. She knew so little—all her studying and Lord Darden’s direction had only shown her how much she still had to learn.
And I’m unlikely to get the chance to learn more, she thought glumly. For all the talk of walking beside gods and multiple lives, it seemed plain that she wouldn’t be returning to this life, with these companions. Whatever knowledge Scratha ha’rethe imparted would have little if anything to do with day to day human life. While it was occasionally exciting to think of walking beside an immensely powerful creature and learning secrets given to only a select few, mostly Riss still felt a vague, anxious dread.
Being companion to a near-god wasn’t where she’d expected to wind up, to say the least. She’d only wanted a new start, away from the black glares of townsfolk who’d decided that she was a worthless whore. Idisio and his master had been the best option to present itself in a moment of crisis, and then she’d started liking Idisio, and forming a strange respect for his master, and now... well.
It’s an honor. That phrase set her hands shaking and bitter bile in the back of her throat every time. Eventually, she’d sought Gria out for some more of the aesa paste. Gria had been remarkably matter of fact: “I figured you’d want some eventually,” she’d said, handing over a small jar for Riss to keep. Riss had done her best not to skulk as she went back to her rooms.
With panic muted, over the last few days fear had turned into a morose acceptance and from there to interest in the process unfolding around her. She’d been provided with anything she asked for, and to her own surprise, she’d mostly asked for books—the volumes on the top shelves that she hadn’t been able to reach before, and two from the locked case in the library.
The latter turned out to be much less interesting than she’d expected—not terrible secrets held under lock and key, but volumes of past genealogies altered by some event or another so thoroughly as to require the construction of an entirely new book.
Mei turned the pages of the ancient tomes with delicate care and gloved hands as she explained. “When someone is so disgraced that the loremasters decide that their name is to be stricken from the official record, their descendants must also be removed. Depending on the situation, it could extend to their siblings and perhaps even out to their cousins. In a rare instance or two, parents have been removed as well. It’s not a thing done lightly. The entire book must be rewritten, in the most complex cases. These are the books from before each major alteration.” She set two books side by side, opened to the same page, and pointed out the differences with the pedantic joy of a scholar.
“Why not just destroy the old books?” Riss asked, bewildered.
Mei looked shocked. “That would be wrong,” she said vehemently. “These people deserve better than to be utterly erased, even for the vilest of deeds. This is one of the most important jobs the loremasters have: to remember those removed from the official books. Every Family loremaster has a locked cabinet like this one, from which the books are never removed except at dire need—or at the special request of a particularly important person.”
Her accompanying scowl made Riss feel ashamed of her selfishness, and she’d had the kathain put the books safely back into their secure home.
Riss shook her head, remembering that day. She was still bemused at the convoluted and contradictory concepts that the people here seemed to regard as wholly normal. Then again, they lived in a world in which a man could sleep for days on end without rising, not even to piss, not once—and they considered that perfectly normal.
Lord Scratha had woken only that morning, with a cry of Send me my Given, send me my Given—Riss had heard the words, despite being in the Temple, busy meditating under the instruction of the Callen of Ishrai. She’d found herself standing without volition, took two trembling steps, then collapsed and vomited all over the pristine temple floor.
Both Callen had soothed Riss back to sense, cleaned up the mess without fuss, and settled her down in time to meet Lord Scratha and the daimaina for a mid-morning meal. She’d made herself eat, nausea still souring the back of her throat, for the sake of propriety.
Lord Scratha’s skin hung loose along arms and face, and dark shadows lingered under his eyes. He moved with the exaggerated care of a man relearning how his muscles worked, and seemed to regard each mouthful of food as a new experience.
Nissa delivered a dry recitation of household matters, of which the most startling was the information that the wells had begun to clear. “The water level is no longer sinking,” she said. “It has even risen slightly. The improvement began shortly after you went to sleep. There is sufficient in reserve for the ceremony today.”
“So it improved after Azni left,” Lord Scratha observed quietly, glancing up at his s’e-kath, who was standing by the door. Seg returned his gaze, expressionless as ever, but Lord Scratha nodded as though he’d seen something Riss had missed.
Riss hesitated, wanting to ask why that would be connected, but decided to let it be. Politics didn’t matter to her at this point, after all. She stayed quiet, ate the light meal, drank the surprisingly pungent tea, tried not to look at anyone, and answered direct questions with as few words as possible.
At the end of the meal, she’d felt a strong desire to say... something, to ask an inappropriate question, to provoke any reaction other than the bland respect she’d been drowning in ever since Gano had declared her a Chosen One. Why isn’t Gria at this breakfast? That would be a good question to start off with. She opened her mouth, looked up, and found Cafad staring straight at her. It wasn’t—quite—his old black, brooding expression, but it held a clear enough warning that she looked down at her hands and stayed silent.
Meditation followed the meal, then a series of stretches, and more meditation, and the steam tent, and—yes, she’d guessed right—now they were taking her to a bath.
She let them scrub her down, relaxed as they kneaded her muscles, obediently climbed from the tub and watched in abstracted interest as they shaved her from head to toe. She didn’t ask questions. Even without a dose of the aesa paste, the fear was gone. There wasn’t any point in having emotions. She’d done her studying, over the past days, and whatever she hadn’t learned or couldn’t remember was now beyond reach, that was all.
Mei, face blank with concentration, painted an intricate series of colorful lines across Riss’s body: Swirls and circular designs around her breasts, looping lines down her arms.
The feel of the paint—harsh, gritty, slightly acidic—broke through her abstracted mood. She tried not to wince or fidget, but her calm was comprehensively gone as her body lit up with a tingling discomfort.
Mei paused, glancing up at Riss assessingly, then went back to work. She painted harsher zig-zags down Riss’s inner thighs, concentric circles on each ankle, and a great thick circle that enclosed the space between pubic bone and ribcage.
The symbolism on that was clear enough, at least, and Riss was fairly sure she understood the lines on her upper torso, but the severe lines were unexpected. “What do those mean?” she asked, looking down at herself as Mei stepped back to survey her handiwork. “This is called—bakthaa, right?”
The acidic itch faded into a less distracting warmth as she spoke, and a momentary flush of arousal swept across her. She set her teeth together, deeply embarrassed, and did her best to ignore the sensation.
Mei didn’t answer right away. She gathered her brushes together, handed them off to a servant with instructions on how to clean them, tapped the lids back onto the paint pots, then said, “Stay still for a time, please. The paint will stain your skin once it sets properly, but that will take a little longer yet. Once it sets, you can move as you like. The excess will harden into a crust and will be removed before the sacred oils are applied tonight.”
Arousal faded. Riss’s skin felt vaguely numb now, which came as a relief.
“Thank you,” Riss said, deciding to try a different approach. “They’re—beautiful.” She surprised herself by being entirely sincere about that statement. The lines were barbaric and strange, but they had an eerie appeal.
“I should hope so.” Mei’s tone lay somewhere between tart and rueful. “I’ve been studying bk’taa for nearly my entire life at this point. It’s something of a dying art. I didn’t think I’d ever get a chance to use what I’ve learned properly.”
“Baktah,” Riss said, doing her best to copy Mei’s accent.
Mei’s eyes tightened in a tiny wince. “Perhaps you should not attempt that particular word.”
“Sorry.” Renewed embarrassment burned her face.
“Don’t apologize,” Mei said, her brisk manner returning. “You are called, you are Chosen. You have no remaining obligation to defer to anyone at all, not even to Lord Scratha. Your concern now is with presenting the dignity and honor due Scratha Family, not with the triviality of human emotions or offenses.”
“I know,” Riss said. “I did my reading. It’s—a hard habit to break. But that means I could have said whatever I wanted during breakfast, couldn’t I? I didn’t need to be so quiet.”
It seemed as though the breakfast had been years ago, not hours. Even the aesa paste never made her feel this numb emotionally. A shiver worked across the skin of her left shoulder blade, like a horse shifting under flies.
Mei’s expression remained closed off. “Your silence was appropriate,” she said. “It was more dignified. The ink should be dry soon. I’ll send another kathain to tend you from this point on. I’m not properly purified. I can’t stay with you now that you’re consecrated. Gods hold you gently. We will walk together again one day.”
She bowed low, more agile than Riss had expected, then backed away three steps, straightened without looking at Riss, turned, and left the room.
Riss sighed, looking up at the ceiling. She ran a hand over her newly shaven scalp—one of the few places without decoration—distantly intrigued by the tiny prickling rasp. Holding out her arms, turning them slowly, she studied the designs, marveling at the sharp precision of each mark. She looked at her legs, thinking about southern symbolism, trying to sort out why those lines were so jagged. They reminded her of stylized lightning bolts, and lightning in southern thought was typically associated with fire, not with water as in the north.
Fire meant the Sun-Lord, who was always depicted as male, and who was always connected directly with dire things like death—
She shut her eyes and focused on her breathing.
A soft scuff sounded nearby, a foot pushing against stone deliberately hard. Must be my new kathain. Riss drew in a long breath, another, then opened her eyes and almost choked, detachment once more shattering into a range of jagged emotions.
“Retiae?”
The girl knelt smoothly, bending to touch her forehead to the ground, impossibly limber and graceful. “Lord,” she said. “I was granted permission to purify myself for this ceremony. I thought you might find my company... suitable.”
“Yes,” Riss said. “Yes. I do. Thank you. You look fantastic.”
Retiae smiled as she came to her feet. Her garments were of a shimmering white fabric, so thin as to be nearly translucent. The sleeves of her shirt flared out past her hands, the hem almost to her knees, with a sharp tuck at the waist that kept it from looking like a sack. Her pants, similarly fitted, were intricately embroidered with silver thread. Looking more closely, Riss saw the same pattern embroidered in white on her shirt.
“Thank you, lord,” Retiae said. “I’m honored by your kindness.”
“Did you make that outfit yourself? How long did that take?” Ordinary questions felt deeply reassuring just now.
Retiae made a deprecating gesture. “They’re very simple pieces, lord. I’ve worked on them to amuse myself over the past days. And my s’e-kenath assisted me on occasion. I couldn’t have completed the work so quickly by myself.”
“Seg knows how to embroider?”
Retiae’s forehead creased in apparent puzzlement. “Why is that surprising, lord?”
“He—doesn’t seem the type to go in for... decorating,” Riss said, stumbling over multiple inadvisable statements that wanted to force their way out of her mouth.
“He is s’e-kath,” Retiae replied. “He must know many skills to serve effectively.”
“Retiae—” Riss blurted. “I don’t want to be rude, but I don’t understand the... arrangement. Why did you—I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t ask, I’ve managed not to ask all this time. But why?”
The girl tilted her head to one side in grave contemplation, her eyes half-closed. “If I may ask for clarity, lord—what is it, exactly, that seems odd about the arrangement to you?”
“It was—unexpected,” Riss said. “It just—all of a sudden, no preliminary courting, no formal ceremony... I woke up and it was done. And everyone seemed to consider that normal.”
“Ah,” Retiae said. “I see the misunderstanding, I think, lord. This is not what you would call a romantic match, nor even a marriage as northerns think of it. This is an honorable partnership, a commitment to work together to support the bound Lord—I support s’e-kath Segnilious so that he may support the bound lord with less strain. My s’e-kenath has proven himself capable of this duty several times in the past, and so has considerably greater thio than you may realize. I am—I was—a disgraced kathain. My options for honorable employment were sharply limited and growing thinner by the day. S’e-kath Segnilious was extremely generous to extend me the option of becoming his s’a-kenath.”
Something in the way she looked away made Riss ask, “Is he good to you? He doesn’t—he doesn’t hit you, does he?”
A faint flush crossed Retiae’s face. “I will not speak of the details of my relationship with my s’e-kenath,” she said with surprising acerbity. “That is beyond what you have the right to hear, lord.” She hesitated, then added, “You are also beyond such concerns. You are the Chosen. You should be tranquil, lord. If my personal situation rouses such emotion in you, I will have to withdraw and ask for another to serve you instead.”
Riss began to apologize, caught herself, and let out a frustrated sigh. “Very well.”
“I believe the ink is dry, lord,” Retiae said, her tone dry and emotionless now. “May I remove the crust and apply the sacred oils?”
“Yes, please do,” Riss said, still rattled by Retiae’s flash of temper, and tried to think of something neutral to talk about. “Can you tell me what the designs mean?”
Retiae crossed to the table and picked through the supplies Mei had left behind, then drew on a pair of dark gloves and selected a long shard of white stone, tapered along one edge, chunky on the other. She said, “The symbols are not for you to read. They are for the ha’rethe, so that it knows what honors to give you when you arrive.”
Riss looked at the lines on her forearms, frowning.
“Honors?”
“You are no longer merely a northern stable hand, lord,” Retiae said, and began scraping the tapered edge against Riss’s skin. Riss felt only the slightest sensation of pressure. Dark flecks of crusted ink fell away to the floor. Retiae kept her pale skirts clear as she worked, shifting position often, working around Riss in a descending spiral, pausing every so often to sweep shavings out from underfoot.
During one such pause, Retiae added, “You are an honored member of Scratha Family and mate to a ha’ra’ha.”
“I’m what?” Riss stared down at Retiae as the girl began working on her right hip. “I’m not his mate!”
The girl paused, looking up at Riss with a sober expression. “You were more than simple amusement to ha’inn Idisio.”
“He left.” Riss heard a surprising amount of bitterness emerge in those two words and tried to moderate her tone as she went on, “He left me behind. That’s not—”
“—At all unusual,” Retiae interrupted. “Ha’ra’hain do not stay near humans for long, if they can avoid it. They generally find human company distasteful. But ha’inn Idisio cared for you, lord, and that was unusual. You may never see him again in this lifetime. He may not even think of you as the years go by, but you tie him closer to the human side of his heritage simply by having existed.”
Retiae dipped her head, looking down at the ground as though gathering herself together. Her shoulders moved in a deep sigh. When she looked up again, her gaze held a shadowed pain.
“You are not the first to become affectionate with a ha’ra’ha,” Retiae said. “It never ends well, lord. What you see as his emotions is an illusion born of misunderstanding.” She shook her head, visibly shifting her attitude from bleak to a rueful. “The concept of temporary relationships doesn’t apply when ha’ra’hain are involved. You were with ha’inn Idisio for a time, therefore you will always be with him. He will always have a primary claim upon you, whether it be now or twenty years from now, whatever he may ask of you. It is simpler that way. He will never love you, lord. He will only find you useful.”
“You make him sound so cold,” Riss said, shaken. “He isn’t like that at all. He’s warm, and funny, and silly, and a little—I don’t know, lost sometimes. He cares about a lot of things!”
“That may be true,” Retiae said. “But he is ha’ra’hain. He will outlive us all and not even notice our absence until our grandchildren are grown. I would rather he not care, lord, to be honest—because the less he cares, the less the passing of the years will hurt him. And the less he is hurt, the more likely he is to retain some fragment of consideration for us lesser creatures.” She ducked her head and went back to scraping dried ink from Riss’s skin.
Riss stood silently, blinking against a fierce burning sensation in her eyes, and made no more effort at conversation.