Chapter 4
Labyrinth
"I still don't understand why exercises twelve and thirteen are wrong.
" I was sitting in a private corner of a tiny juice shop in Verdant Ward, and Inmadra's face was hovering in front of me as I flicked through the corrected worksheet.
The skin around her eyes tightened as something in the background of her video made an awful metallic shriek.
We'd planned on a quick call before she'd written to say she needed to work, but would fit me in between her shifts – which meant that I was fitting her in while waiting to pick the kids up from school.
"I have noted the genders of everyone in the story for you," said Inmadra, her mouth caught in a grimace. "I do not follow what you do not understand."
"It's just a lot, to remember eleven genders," I tried, frustrated for more reasons than I could count.
"And then there's the creche hierarchy and –" I stopped and looked again at the story she'd given me in Standard that I had to retell from three different perspectives in abayan.
"Wait, is it because of declaration status?
That impacts how you conjugate verbs for the future, but not the past? "
Her expression, fuzzy at the edges from the shit quality of her wristband, sharpened with exasperation. "We have discussed this," said Inmadra.
"But –" I was going to have to admit that I, declared virra, still didn't understand anything about what declaration meant. "Can anyone declare for anyone? Could you just explain it again, but culturally?"
She blinked once, very slowly, and let out a long breath.
"I have only a few additional minutes before my next shift begins, so listen carefully.
" I straightened in my seat and set the tart juice I'd been nursing aside, grabbing my datapad to make notes.
"Declarations are made to arkathi. Offers are made to ishik.
Some genders can be either arkathi or ishik, depending. Do you understand these two classes?"
"I think so," I said. "That's about who's in charge, or who can be. So someone in a leadership position can… offer, but only ishik can declare. But – wait, can't two arkathi get together, or two ishik – or more, I guess?"
"Yes," said Inmadra, reaching one raw and chapped hand up to rub absently at the bridge of her nose, wincing as if in pain.
I didn't know if it was my questions that were causing her pain or the clamour of machine sounds I could hear in the background.
"Two arkathi might have a romantic relationship, but it would not include a declaration. There are other oaths one might take."
"But declarations are always romantic?"
"A personal declaration is, yes. A petitioner who joins a creche makes a declaration for that creche. Even an arkathi who joins a new creche will make a declaration."
"And that affects conjugating verbs because…" I looked over the exercises again and how she'd corrected them. "Because – I mean, if I wanted to say that I'm going to go to the theatre with Araxis next month, I'd say –" I tried it in abayan.
"Yes," stressed Inmadra. "As if it has already happened. Because you are a declared virra and you go with your sinnenthi, it will have happened in the future. The path is determined."
I tried to sit with that – anything I might do was already set in stone because I was at Araxis's beck and call? How the fuck did that make sense? – and thought again about what she'd explained. "Is that why someone higher in the power structure uses imperative sentences?"
"I have told you, higher does not make sense within abayan creche dynamics." She really did sound irritated. "But… you are not incorrect."
I'd grabbed onto that tidbit when she'd first explained.
It seemed like the kind of thing you really ought to know and be aware of.
If I wanted to make someone tea, any way I offered had implications: could I offer you some tea, put me in a subordinate position (Inmadra had stressed that subordinate also didn't apply, but it absolutely did); I'll make you some tea would indicate that we were equals, although I was leading in that interaction; and drink your tea wasn't just bossy, it was the way that a head of house would speak to those beneath them.
I guess if someone who was in charge said something was going to happen – whether that was going out to the theatre with the entire creche except for one glaring absence or pouring hot drinks that no one seemed to ever actually drink – it was considered final.
It was hard to grasp as a concept, and then remember in the middle of trying to have a conversation.
And I knew there was still so much I was missing; I could feel it like movement in the dark, just out of sight as the air rippled around me.
And if there was one thing I knew particularly well, it was how complicated social dynamics could show up in other places too.
"So if arkathi are in charge," I said slowly, "does that mean just in terms of creche leadership structure, or are we talking about, you know, in bed too? "
Her eyes narrowed, but she didn't silver, which was a good sign.
"In charge does not make sense with in bed without additional information.
In charge of what? In any case, that would not come up in conversation.
You do not need to understand the specifics in order to speak the language well enough to –"
"I don't want to speak the language well enough," I interrupted.
"I want to understand. There's no point learning another language if I don't understand the framework behind it.
I don't care about following the basics of what we're discussing at a meeting.
I want to follow as much of the subtext as I can. "
That brought her up short. Inmadra's head tilted, and some of the glazed weariness she'd had the whole call fell away, her stare evaluating even through video.
"You are asking for me to be not just a language tutor, but a cultural tutor as well, Sashen of Creche Thiel.
Speak with your sinnenthi about this, and if he assents, I will consider offering my support in this way as well.
But you must speak with him first. Do you understand? "
I didn't, but then the bell sounded and Inmadra had to get back to work – or start her next shift, I guess – so we ended the call and I drifted out of the shop with my head full of verbs and gender and power hierarchies and all of the hidden facets of abayan culture that I could sense but couldn't see.
It was, I think, because I was still so off-balance from yesterday – that strange speaker, who'd made my skin crawl a little; Rodil's scolding about how I was healing, or not healing, myself; the whole creche going to the theatre without even thinking of me; Araxis and the caldathess and that stupid, impulsive kiss that had absolutely set me on fire in a way I was having a hard time ignoring – that I didn't notice, as I made my way towards the kids' school, that I'd picked up a shadow until they drew near while I tipped my empty cup into a waste bin.
"Sashen of Creche Thiel," said an abaya standing too close to my elbow.
I jerked, startled, and pulled up straight.
"I am Crozani of Creche Naival. Would you care for some company on your walk?
" She was as tall as I was, her shoulders broad, her arms well muscled beneath the gauzy volume of her sleeves, and she carried a gleaming sword by her side, her gray crest braided into a high and tight cascade.
My skin prickled with some animal sense, like I'd been spotted by a predator, and my immediate instinct was to smile and play nice and see if I might, through my usual charm and flattery, bleed some of the sense of danger out of the situation.
Then again, Tam had said my instincts were shit and needed rewriting, and I knew the name Creche Naival, even if we hadn't met with them yet.
"No, I wouldn't," I said, flat. I shifted, slipping past her and heading toward the kids' school. My heart stuttered as I turned my back on her sharp stare, every instinct screaming that she was dangerous, but I refused to let myself look back.
I didn't need to look back, though, because Crozani jogged up behind me, pulling near to my side again, although she kept a careful arm's span of distance between us.
"I am surprised to see you alone, untended and unguarded," she said pleasantly, although it certainly wasn't pleasant to keep talking to someone who didn't want to speak with you.
"Then again, I have heard that your Araxis is often without you by his side. "
I had nothing to say to that, so instead, I cut her a look – what would a good virra do in this case?
I didn't have the faintest fucking clue – and said, "It's not polite to approach me without an introduction.
" Because I'd learned at least that much in my language lessons when we'd reviewed greetings: as declared virra, I could approach others, but it was considered rude to come to me first without someone else from Creche Thiel around.
Which seemed stupid, but who was I to judge?
If we were making a contest out of weird social conventions, Seraphim would still take the cake.
"Hm." Crozani's smile sharpened as she looked at me, eyes gleaming.
"But you are not bound by tradition, are you?
Araxis of Creche Thiel has said as much, and you are certainly proving that on Sozamia.
" Her eyes dragged down my body as she walked next to me.
The school wasn't far away, so I drew up short.
I wasn't going to lead a Naival sinnenthi anywhere near the kids, not even with the intermediary approval of their status.
As far as I was concerned, Creche Naival – who Vivith had stolen the eggs from and because of whose complaint the children had been threatened with death if ever captured – could get fucked, just like all of the Concord houses.