Chapter 12 #3
As I stride into the tent, I am lost in thought. While Ana undresses me from my armour and Essen prepares my bed, time slips away. I can offer the people fruit, honey, and my presence, but as long as I remain a statue, I’ll never be a good mother to them.
Maybe the convention of the queen is outdated?
Perhaps I can be real with my people. I wanted to demand that River be given short hours and gentle work until she turns fifteen, but I held back, fearful that would mean breaking her vows.
Our vows become cellular. She would have made vows for her Meaningful Purpose.
Master Cairo would see my concern as hysteria, empathy, and dramatics. He might break more—more bones, more flesh, more of my heart, allowing scar tissue to heal over the flaws, turning them into sinuous, unfeeling matter.
“You said something about Meaningful Purpose, my queen?”
Ana’s voice pulls me back to reality. I find myself lying on the lush bed, covered in silk and encased in delicate netting.
Somewhere between thoughts, I’ve undressed and curled up on the mattress.
Turning to my side, tucking my hand under my head, I see three single beds in the corner. Simple and without the netting, pillows, and drapes that I have.
Brook, Ana, and Essen are fussing around, preparing for the night and eating from a plate of bread and cold game meats.
“I was thinking out loud,” I say.
They continue their tasks in silence, folding clothes, brushing their hair, and picking at the platter of food.
Normally, they wouldn’t share a space with me at night, but it’s the safest way for the Guard to protect us all at once.
“Please,” I urge, “speak freely while we are alone. I do not wish for awkward silence.”
“Well, I was just thinking about my Meaningful Purpose,” Brook says, her voice easy and soft.
“An Army girl doesn’t go to The Crust after death.
She is reborn as the daughter of a lord and given another chance to be queen.
I will have the fancy bed in my next life.
” She pales and looks at me. “I mean, I am grateful for the bed I have now, though.”
I stifle a small chuckle; she is a terrible Army Girl. “How did you come to be in my Army, Brook?”
“Um…” She chews her lower lip. “I don’t really know. I was going to be a House Girl, and then one day, Master Cairo came and collected me.”
“And you wish to be Queen in your next life, Brook? I suppose serving a queen would make being a queen look quite wonderful. It’s what you desire most,” I respond, glancing at Essen, who was once the yearning daughter of a lord. I saved her from this… emotionless and splintered reality.
“What about you, Ana?” Brook asks, crawling into her bed. “You weren’t born to be an Army girl, either, were you? What—"
“I was born for silk,” Ana replies, pulling back her sheet and settling in. “A Silk Girl, Brook. Like Aster. We bear the lord's children, but they are taken from us at birth. If I achieve Meaningful Purpose, I can care for the babies of The Cradle until I die.”
“Which is what you want most?” Essen whispers, more of a sad realisation than a question. “To be mothers.”
Meaningful Purpose offers us the very thing our Trade takes away, yet both concepts are constructs of the regime.
It is control, and I am part of it. Kick the animal and then offer to fix its wound as long as it serves you.
“Yes.” Ana’s gaze is fixed on the canvas roof above, the soft light of lamps bleeding through the fabric.
“I guess the birthing isn’t enough. We need to prove we deserve motherhood, but I was never worthy.
” Her voice tightens, pain clear. “My lord died, and I’ll never have two boys and a girl. I’ll never achieve Meaningful Purpose.”
The silence that envelops us is heavy with anguish.
Ana struggled with the death of her lord, left with a babe in her belly that was taken by Master Cairo the moment it left her body.
She knew it would happen… It is clear in the Silk Girl vows; the babies belong to The Trade.
Sometimes, what we desire most has the worst consequences.
I hear my own words in my head.
‘One day, I will be queen.
There will be brownies and strawberry custard at my Rite. Everyone will gather. Hundreds of smiling faces. I will take my vows. Will sleep beneath the same fancy drapes made from the same velvety fabric as Sire’s cape. It will be wonderful.’
We see the fantasy of the flame, the brilliance and beauty, until it is too close and the reality of it burns us.
Poor, sweet, beautiful Ana. So, I gave her a new Purpose after her lord died; I couldn’t bear to see her sent away like a discarded byproduct.
“What about you, my queen?” Brook asks, her voice piercing through the weight of the moment. I’m not accustomed to such direct questions, but I find a strange comfort in being treated Common.
“You have everything you need,” Brook continues when I don’t answer. Her words are na?ve, yet adamant. She doesn’t know; my surgeries are private. “What could Meaningful Purpose offer you?”
Defeat washes over me, settling in the place between my hips that is hollow and cold.
“Nothing,” I whisper, rolling to face the other direction. “As you say, I have everything. I am just offered peace.”
And my womb will give life.
If I achieve Meaningful Purpose, The Crust will allow my womb to give life. I never understood what that meant, but that is the reward for living my Meaningful Purpose.