Adri’s earliest memories from boyhood were of a voice and a hand.
His brother’s voice and hand.
He did not recall the specific details of the first time, but he recalled one particular time when he, a little toddler, had stumbled and fallen.
Falling was something he did often early in his life. Skinned knees and bruised elbows were such frequent occurrences that his were always scabbed. But there were falls and there were falls. Some resulted in more than skinned knees and bruised elbows. He suffered a string of injuries, none too serious, but each sufficient to deliver more lasting damage than mere bodily harm alone.
In most cases, it was his self-confidence that was really hurt. To be able to run, to play, to gambol, or even to simply walk without constantly falling or colliding was something even the most ordinary of children enjoyed. Yet he, a prince of Hastinaga, heir to the great Burnt Empire, could not take more than a few dozen paces without injury. Could not play with the other children he heard laughing and squealing and running about with such abandon. Could not do as his growing, energetic little body desired. There was no outlet for his boundless energy. No cure for his problem.
The royal household did everything possible to ensure his safety and comfort. There were wet nurses and maids everywhere. But he was a child, a strong, robust boy with a growing body and eager, questing mind. He wanted to run, play, yell, jump, tumble, to unleash the dog of youth.
These luxuries were denied him.
He had to sit and listen, merely listen, as other children did all those things. When he tried, as he often tried, to join them, it would always end the same way, with him falling or colliding, injuring himself, bleeding and cut, or bruised and battered. And each time, his self-confidence diminished, along with his zest for life.
A bitterness took root in his heart.
Questions arose: Why me? Why deny me this most basic of abilities? Why punish me in this manner—and it is a punishment, is it not? For what crime? What was my karma in past lives that I need suffer so in this one?
Though everyone assured him that it was neither karma nor punishment, simply an accident of nature, he could not believe it. A wet nurse, the very one who had nursed him from birth, always told him that he had been handicapped because otherwise he was too strong, too brave, too intelligent, too powerful. The gods feared your might, she told him as she dressed his injuries and wiped his tears. They feared that you would come to the afterworld one day and challenge them in their own abodes, so they took away your sight that you might never find the way.
I don’t want to challenge the gods, he cried. I don’t want to go to Swarga, I just want to see.
Ember said nothing. She was barely present in his life.
A shadow, a presence, a physical body that offered no warmth, comfort, or affection, she only saw him at bedtime, when he was brought to her after his bath, after he had been cleaned and dressed and made presentable, to bid him a good night. Even then, she did so absently, with strange formality and a sense of distance. Even when he hugged her, she would start by patting him on the back, as if admonishing him for something he had done, then, if he continued holding on too tightly or too long—which was almost every night at first—she would speak to the daiimaa, and the wet nurse would gently untangle his little hands from around her neck and separate mother and son.
Adri could not recall a time his mother had fed him, dressed him, bathed him, washed his cuts, dressed his wounds. Telling her about the day’s accidents only seemed to elicit the same response from her: a stiff silence followed by a curt “I see.” No offer of sympathy, no words of reassurance, no gentle caress or any other show of support. Simply that vaguely disapproving “I see.” Even the choice of phrase seemed designed to belittle him. I see . . . and you don’t, you silly little blind boy.
She never said anything more hurtful than that; she simply never said anything that showed affection, or love.
Adri heard other children with their mothers, the way they spoke and laughed together, played together, ate together. He heard babes suckling at their mothers’ breasts. Heard the female voices cry out with alarm when they saw their children injured or about to come to harm, heard the distress and concern in their maternal voices.
Adri never heard such emotions in his mother’s voice.
And on that day, the day when he fell, and a hand reached out and took hold of him, a voice spoke and strengthened him, it was not his mother’s hand or voice.
It was his brother’s.
“Adri!” Shvate cried.
Adri gasped as he felt his feet swing out over emptiness.
He scrambled backward, trying to find his footing on the edge of the riverbank. The heels of his feet slipped on the loamy mud. He felt himself falling, heard the roar of the water below, and absurdly thought, At least I can’t scrape my knees or elbows on water.
Then his brother’s strong hands were grasping him tightly beneath his armpits, surrounding his chest like a vise. Shvate’s breath was hot on his left ear, grunting and exclaiming as he too seemed to struggle with the wet muddy ground, then he yanked hard on Adri, and both of them fell on their backs.
They both lay there a moment, the mud yielding and cool underneath.
Adri could feel the soft evening sunshine on his face, and on his arms and legs. He knew his special silk anga garment and dhoti must be soiled from falling in the mud, were perhaps even torn. He could hear the voices of the wet nurses and the younger maids from behind him, calling out his name, then came the sound of footfalls slapping the damp riverbank. A moment later, he felt the presence of people all around him, helping him up and fussing.
“He was about to step off the edge!”
“Into the river!”
“He could have drowned!”
“The water flows so strongly here, he would have been taken downriver in a flash.”
“He would have been a mile away before we started after him.”
All this was said and more like it.
Adri was used to it.
He had been the center of many such scares and alarms.
But he knew this was different.
It was the anniversary of his naming day, for one thing.
Then there was the river: he had never fallen into a river before.
And of course, there was Shvate’s voice, right beside him.
“Adri, are you well?”
He turned his head toward the sound of his brother’s voice.
He attempted a smile.
Then, remembering what one of the children had told him—You look like an urrkh when you do that!—he spoke aloud.
“Shvate.”
“Yes, Adri?”
“Brother.”
It was all he could think of to say at that moment.
Gratitude, affection, respect, adoration, all packed into that one word. Brother.
The moment was interrupted by the wet nurses, who then began fussing over Shvate as well. As did, before long, Uncle Vrath and Grandmother Jilana.
“You saved your brother’s life, young Shvate.”
Adri recognized the smooth deep tones of his uncle’s voice. They always reminded him of the roar of the river itself for some reason. Though that was hardly possible: for how could a man’s voice resemble the sound of rushing water?
“Had he fallen into the river, he would have drowned, or been dashed against the rocks downstream,” Grandmother Jilana said, her husky, sonorous tones unmistakable.
Adri heard Shvate snort, a dismissive sound. “That would never happen,” he heard his brother say. “Not as long as I’m nearby.”
There was a brief silence. Adri sensed that the elders were looking at each other in that moment, then at Shvate. He knew this from similar silences during conversations with other adults. People always did that if you said something unusual or unexpected. They looked at one another. He wondered why they did it. What would they see, after all? Each other’s faces? Surely faces did not change from instant to instant. Only voices could convey emotion, as far as he knew. But he also understood that there was much that he did not yet know.
He heard in that silence their pride for his brother, and heard that pride reflected in Shvate’s reply. Not as long as I’m nearby.
Adri felt a surge of emotion rise in his chest, then tears rolled down his cheeks.
That was the first time in his life he had a sense that there was someone in the world who actually cared if he lived or died, and who would risk his own life for him.
Brother.