Chapter 27 A Courage That Sheds No Blood
A Courage That Sheds No Blood
“What’s wrong?” Nugau asks. “You smell different.”
Sascia looks miserably down at herself, the pillow on her abdomen, her hands plastered on top for maximum warmth.
“It’s a, um, part of the human reproduction cycle.
” (What she means is she got her period, but she isn’t sure Nugau will understand that.
Reproduction among the aesin is not a subject they’ve had reason to broach.) “Perhaps we can stay here tonight?”
“Of course.” Nugau closes the door behind them, their brow grooved by a worry line.
For the past few days, their Darkprint has beamed white and purple.
A multigender identity, Nugau explained, they and he both, in human pronouns.
After weeks with Nugau, with hundreds of aesin and their shifting Darkprints, Sascia has gotten good at recognizing how they identify.
It is a learning process, but it never ceases to fill her with wonder: a world of openness and inclusion, of shaping yourself however you wish.
Nugau slips onto the sofa opposite Sascia’s and looks almost miserably at the various items on the coffee table: the phone with the Darkgriffin video and various newspaper clippings about the Darkdragon attack.
In the past two weeks, they have been collecting their proof and formulating their plan: when the Queen returns, Nugau and Sascia will present their evidence and convince the aesin that attacking the humans will only bring on more destruction.
Sascia will lead a group of delegates through the tunnels (with Mooch’s help) and to Chapter XI, where they can begin to figure out how to separate their worlds forever.
Sealing the doorways is the only thing that will work, Nugau is adamant about that.
No matter the terms, the Queen will not accept promises of peace.
“And the human reproduction makes you sad?” Nugau asks.
“No—well, I mean, yes, generally, it can—but right now, it just makes me hurt.” By some divine miracle, she was able to find a full pack of pads in one of the lockers in the staff room, along with a bottle of ibuprofen only a few months past its expiration date.
“I’m sad because this means I’ve been here for almost a month. ”
Her last period was two days before her parents’ anniversary, three days before she jumped into the Maw, which means she has been down here for four weeks.
Danny, the cohort, her parents, and Ksenya have spent four weeks wondering whether she is alive, and the rest of the world…
Who knows how badly things have escalated since three Darkhumanoids peeked out of the Maw and were promptly shoved back inside by a human girl?
“We don’t have to wait. Mooch can find you a way out now.” Nugau’s voice is quiet. “I can handle the Queen on my own. Even if she doesn’t believe me, the rest of the aesin will not pass up the opportunity to rid Itkalin of your light bombs.”
“We can’t risk it. Without Mooch, it might take you months or years to find a way out of these tunnels.
” Sascia lets her head drop back to the swell of the sofa.
“I have to be the one that leads the delegation out. When they see me, a human, our soldiers will pause long enough for me to explain. If I go now, I’ll be just what the aesin accuse me of: a traitor. ”
“I don’t think they believe that any longer. There have barely been any assassination attempts lately.”
Sascia bolts upright. “What?”
Nugau scrunches his mouth as though caught in a blunder, the most human gesture Sascia has ever seen on him.
“Did you think spending my nights sitting on the floor outside your door is my idea of fun? Ever since you arrived, someone has tried to enter this room while you slept. Ktren, a couple of times, and a few others sent by my mother’s council.
Orran, Thalla, and I have been taking turns standing guard, but in the past few days, there have been no unwelcome visitors. ”
Sascia doesn’t know what to do with this information. Thank Nugau, Orran, and Thalla for their efforts? Pee herself from fear? Dazed, she mutters, “Were you not going to tell me?”
“No.” It comes out firm. “You barely sleep as it is.”
That shuts Sascia right up—it had never occurred to her that the princet would notice.
Between her anxiety-induced insomnia and their late-night explorations, she has been sleeping at most four hours each night.
(Perhaps that’s why she feels like an utter blob of flesh today.
She’s always triply exhausted when she’s on her period.)
She drops back down. She would kill for a snack right now, something sweet to ease her nerves. “When will the Queen return?”
“It is unclear. The passage we first came through has collapsed and the rift Mooch created is long gone, but the Queen has been trying to rip it open with her powers.”
“Do all aesin have powers like hers?”
“Some. Thalla has control over vapors and liquids, and Orran can produce a strike of lightning. Only the most powerful can wield the Dark. That’s how my mother rose in the ranks; her power was devastating on the battlefield.
But what she can do now, as Queen, is a hundred times stronger than any other aesin.
We use the word queen with you because that’s the closest thing your language has.
But leadership is not hereditary in Itkalin.
You have to Claim it and prove it in a Trial that Itkalin itself sets for you: for my mother, it was the capture of one of the strongest Ul’amoon, what you call the Darkdragon.
She subdued it single-handedly. If the aesin thump their chests for you when you complete your Royal Claim, you become our leader, but not just in terms of authority.
The Thistha Ren is old magic, as old as the itka themselves.
It recognizes the courage of making the Claim, the strength of proving it, and it rewards you with a gift.
To those who prove the Royal Claim, it grants an amplification of your power a hundredfold, so that you may protect your subjects and defeat your foes. ”
Nugau blurts all that out in a squeaky outpour, studying their fingers intently, and Sascia gets the very clear idea that they hurried through because they don’t want Sascia to notice what they’ve left out: their own part in it.
Sascia remembers Orran’s whispered revelation, that the Queen believes the princet plots against her to steal the throne.
She remembers Nugau thumping his chest, making the Thistha Ren to save Sascia’s life, and the Queen’s violent punishment.
She remembers Nugau’s hissed confession: a coward through and through.
It all slots into place; Nugau could make the Royal Claim. But he hasn’t.
“Why not…?” Sascia asks, and the rest of the question must be obvious, because Nugau shrinks into the sofa.
In a hushed voice, he whispers, “She is my mother. I admire all that she has achieved. I respect the sacrifices she has made. I love her, for who she used to be, who she can be again. And yet—I have taken so much from her. I won’t take this too.
” The princet casts Sascia a pitiful smile. “See? A coward.”
But Nugau isn’t a coward, and Sascia desperately needs to tell them, to show them, to make them understand, because she is that person too, who refuses to hurt even when hurt is the easiest solution.
“Not all bravery is loud,” she tells them. “Not all defiance is violent. What you’re trying to achieve with words is powerful and courageous because it sheds no blood.”
Nugau ducks his head again, in embarrassment or perhaps in thanks, and lets Sascia’s words linger between them.
Silence follows, but it is not uncomfortable.
Sascia rubs her belly; the princet kicks off their boots and lies on the sofa.
Overhead, glossy Darkvines coil and uncoil, in constant exploration of their surroundings, small, curious Ariadnes.
“Beautiful, aren’t they?” Nugau mutters. “Our world is colder than yours, though not by much. But it is much tougher, less humid. In Itkalin, vines only grow to short, stubby saplings. Here, where there’s more heat and humidity and rich earth, they flourish.”
“My cousin loves your plants,” Sascia whispers. “His dream is to create an entire botanic garden of them, full of greenhouses that people can visit and explore.”
His voice mellows to something wistful. “I’d have liked to see that.”
You could, she thinks, and then she says it out loud. “If you stayed, you could.”
She means the plural you, the aesin race, but Nugau understands the singular. “Don’t ask me that,” they whisper. “I won’t abandon them again.”
At that precise, preciously tender moment, Mooch decides to burst out of the Dark.
A slit of black tears across the ceiling and a flurry of objects rains on the coffee table, bouncing off and scattering on the floor.
They’re snacks from the vending machine at Penn Station, bags of chips and packets of cookies, brightly colored drinks and heaps upon heaps of candy.
Smugly, the moth comes to perch on Sascia’s knee.
“Well, isn’t that a neat new trick? This is exactly what I was craving,” she coos at the moth, “but are these for my benefit or for yours, you ravenous little beast?”
Mooch responds by climbing on her knuckles as she tears one of the bags open, and diving inside before she can even pull the first chip out.
(An ancient god, traveler of time and space, yet susceptible to the worst munchies.) The moth resurfaces dotted all over with paprika powder, then shoots right off into the Dark, no doubt to fetch even more.