19. Stings of memories past
19
STINGS OF MEMORIES PAST
“This is a bad idea,” Ris said.
“No, it isn’t,” Claw corrected. “Walking out of the Black Ice Corner Club in Grayshroud without paying your tab? That’s a bad idea. This is a fucking avalanche rolling downhill.”
Anahrod ignored them both and continued watching her father work.
Leaving Tiendremos’s cave had proved hilariously simple: Anahrod had walked. There was indeed even a path that Tiendremos’s servants used, since they all preferred to live in Duskcloud.
She’d expected Ris to insist on accompanying her. Anahrod had been surprised, however, when Ris had grabbed Claw as well. Neither woman gave any indication that they’d been screaming at each other like surly laundrywomen not more than an hour earlier.
Claw had rummaged through her bag until she’d found a pair of black silk veils, the sort that started just below the eyes and covered the lower face: Blackglass veils.
“I thought you didn’t practice any Blackglass customs,” Anahrod said, less an accusation than a point of confusion.
“I do when it’s useful,” Claw said. “And right now, it’s useful.” Claw shoved a veil in Anahrod’s hands. “Anyway, wear the damn veil. We can’t have your own father recognizing you, now can we?”
Then it had only been a matter of tracking down the corner where he worked. If she were being entirely truthful, Anahrod had thought Ris was lying. That she must have been lying about this, because who could ever think her first mother—the mayor of Crystalspire!—would not only be late-sprouting but working as a street vendor?
But there he stood; head bent over steaming trays. She wasn’t sure she’d have recognized him if she hadn’t been explicitly told. He was taller and broader, and his face seemed harder. He needed to shave.
She assumed inscriptions were responsible somehow.
“What did you say his new name was? Dradigh?”
“Yes,” Ris said. “You must realize that what happened was a tremendous scandal,” Ris said as they continued to watch the man. To the uninitiated, the three women just looked like three students from the university sitting down next to a fountain to talk about philosophy or history or the latest inscription theories. People from all over Seven Crests came to Duskcloud to attend university, so it wasn’t even odd to see someone with red hair or Blackglass veils.
Ris continued: “That scandal didn’t reflect well on him. At best, his only child was a heretic and a traitor he’d sheltered until the dragons demanded justice.
“At worst, well. What kind of person sends his own child to death without question, without investigation? People wondered if perhaps he moved so quickly because he covered for his own sins. Everyone started paying attention. It wasn’t too long before certain, well, let’s just call them accounting irregularities, came to light. His wife divorced him. He didn’t win the next election. His family disowned him. His division kicked him out. His whole life fell apart. No one wanted to work with him or hire him. Apparently, all the important patents had been owned by your birth mother, and she kept them. He was suddenly penniless…”
“So, he ended up in Duskcloud?”
“Exactly,” Ris said. “And at some point, experienced an epiphany about his place in the universe, with the result you see now.”
Anahrod stared at the food cart. Her father laughed at something a student said as he handed over a sausage roll. He wore an easy, friendly grin, one Anahrod rarely remembered seeing while growing up.
He looked happy.
Anahrod launched herself upright. “Anyone else hungry?”
Ris sat straighter. “That’s not a good idea.”
Anahrod pretended not to hear her. “I believe I’m in the mood for a sausage roll.”
“Anahrod, no.” Ris kept her voice down, glancing around herself to make sure no one else heard.
“I’ll take one spicy,” Claw said. “With pepper relish.” She tilted her head in Ris’s direction. “She likes hers with sweet pickles and cheese.”
Ris gave the woman a betrayed glare. “You’re not helping.”
“Not trying to, boss.”
“Great. Three sausage rolls coming right up.” Anahrod half expected Ris to try to stop her, but the dragonrider merely glared her disapproval instead. Which meant her temper was largely performative; she’d seen Ris when the woman was genuinely angry.
Anahrod wiped her palms on her trousers as she reached the back of the line. His cart was popular. A long line of students waited their turn before it was time to return to classes. Anahrod watched as he laughed with the students. He knew a shocking number of them by name and favorite order.
The numbness was fading, pushed out by a tangle of emotions not so easy to identify. She’d balled her hands into fists by the time she reached the front of the line, to hide their shaking.
“What can I—” Dradigh Amnead looked up, and for just a moment, Anahrod thought he recognized her. “Oh, you’re new here. Just starting classes?”
She hesitated. “Yes.”
“You’ll love it here, no worries about that,” her father said, smiling. “Now what can I get you?”
She forced herself to answer. “Three rolls. One extra spicy with pepper relish, one with sweet pickles and cheese, and one—” She felt her throat closing on her. “One house special.”
“All that food can’t just be for you. Ordering for friends?” As he spoke, he never ceased working, his hands gracefully dancing over the ingredients.
She stared at his hands. Normally, that was rude, but watching him fix the food was the perfect excuse.
He wore a ring of sleep ivy. Exactly as one would expect of a late-sprouting man.
“Miss? Are you all right?” Her father’s voice cut through her fugue. She focused on him, to see his brow creased with concern. He set the sausage rolls on the edge of the prep area. “You have any problems with those, you come back and see me, understood? I take care of all my kids. Ask anyone.”
She had no idea if the sound she made was a laugh or a sob.
“I’m sorry.” Anahrod set money down on the counter, some distant part of her aware she was overpaying. She grabbed the sausage rolls and retreated before he saw her crying. She couldn’t stand it if he tried to comfort her.
It would be more than she could bear.
Dradigh shouted something, but she couldn’t hear it over the blood rushing through her ears.
Her father wore other rings, too. He was a member of one of the local divisions, something associated with food. He was in an exclusive relationship circle, masculine only.
Somehow, she found her way back to the other two women. She shoved the sausage rolls into Claw’s hands and continued walking.
Anahrod ducked into an alley. She didn’t want to be anywhere out in the open when she broke down. She ended up in a tiny, dingy street sandwiched between two bookstores. It smelled of old food, piss, and, weirdly, leather.
She set her hands against the brick wall. Of course it was brick. Everything in Duskcloud was brick. She wanted to scream. Instead, she dug her fingers into the mortar so hard one of her nails bent backward. When her vision grew too blurry to see, she ripped the veil off her face and used it to sop up her tears.
“At least he’s not your real father—”
Anahrod whipped her head up to glare at Claw, who stood at the mouth of the alley eating half a sausage roll.
“What is wrong with you?” Anahrod demanded.
How dare she. Of course he was her real parent. He was her real father. So what if he wasn’t related by blood? She’d always known that. No inscription existed to allow two women—or a late-sprouting man and a woman—to conceive a child together. That had never been important, when he’d taught her math, law, rhetoric, and how to navigate Crystalspire’s important treaties. He used to take her to fly kites at the park and had been the one to cave to her begging and gift her a vel hound puppy.
He was also the person who’d ordered her thrown to her death.
That’s why it hurt so much.
“What’s wrong with me?” Claw cackled. “We don’t have that kind of time, Jungle.”
“Fuck off,” Anahrod spat.
Claw wrinkled her nose. “Nah. Ris was gonna come over, but the way she tells it, her old man never did a damn thing wrong his whole life and all the stars winked out of the skies in grief the night her parents died. She can’t relate to this. She doesn’t know what it’s like.”
Anahrod raised her head. “What it’s like?”
“Yeah. You know. To love your daddy while also hating him so much you could put a sword through his gut.” Claw set her back against the brick wall and continued eating. “Mine sold me to pay off his gambling debts when I was ten.” She said it matter-of-factly, like she was describing the color of his favorite coat.
Anahrod stared in shock. “Slavery’s not—”
“Not legal? Tell it to the mountains, Jungle.” Claw traced a finger down her face. “Gave me my first scars, too, to make sure I was too ugly for ring-house work. He was fine handing over his little girl to murderers and thieves, but Eannis forbid she end up a whore.” Claw shrugged. “Could’ve been worse. You don’t want to know the shit Kaibren’s daddy did to him. Gives me nightmares.”
Anahrod’s tongue felt thick enough to block all the air from her throat. “When the dragons came from Yagra’hai with their orders for my death, do you know what my mo—my father did?”
Claw talked around the last piece of roll. “Everything they asked?”
“Without question! Without a second’s hesitation! He never even came to talk to me. Never asked whether I’d really done it. Neither of my mothers bothered to say goodbye.” She glanced back toward the open courtyard where her father worked his stand. “He seems happy. I don’t know how I feel about that.”
“I’d be howling mad,” Claw admitted. “Although I promise you this, Jungle: if he’s happy, it’s only cause nobody’s around to remind him of his sins.”
“I don’t know. My first mother would’ve deemed working a food cart to be a humiliation worse than death,” Anahrod murmured.
There was no shame in earning a wage by keeping people fed. Yet, her first mother wouldn’t have seen it that way. She was a daughter of privilege, raised in one of the richest divisions in Crystalspire. That woman thought this work beneath her.
Which meant Anahrod didn’t know this man at all.
“No,” she whispered. “I think he might really be happy.” She turned back to Claw. “He doesn’t have to lie about who he is here. He doesn’t have to pretend.”
Anahrod felt an ugly wrenching sensation in her chest as she realized it was worse than sympathy; she understood him . Understood the appeal of living so the only demand the universe placed on a person was to be themselves. For her, that something had been surviving in the Deep; for him, selling lunch to college kids. In either case, it meant freedom from the expectations of people who had only ever made an endless series of demands.
She was so very much his daughter.
Silence spread out along the edges of the garbage and dirt of the alleyway.
“I’ll still gut him for you, if you asked,” Claw finally said. “As a professional courtesy.”
“Kind of you, but no thanks.” Anahrod swallowed back her grief. “We should return.”
“Oh no. Wouldn’t want Ris to fret.” Claw’s voice dripped sarcasm. “Don’t let sweet cheeks fool you; she’s worse than a thousand grandmas. Anyway, you go. Kaibren and I have tickets to a performance of Sweet Mountain Snowfalls over at the Players’ House. In the morning we’ll stop by bright and early to figure out what supplies we’re gonna need for our next Deep expedition.” She grimaced at the last part, clearly not looking forward to a return to sea level.
That made two of them.