Chapter Nine – Esme
Chapter Nine
Esme
We come down from the bridge. I still have hold of Darina’s arm.
Haara stands in layers on both walls of the valley. Terraces of black stone stack above other terraces, joined by carved stairways and narrow bridges, and shade cloth in ochre and rust stretches over the walkways, so the light comes through it colored. Doorways open straight out of the rock.
There are Scorpii everywhere – crossing the bridges above us, bargaining under the awnings, carrying baskets of fruit, their tails curled behind them.
Their voices click and hum around us in a language I don’t understand.
A covered water channel runs along the wall to our right, sealed under a stone grate, and two armed guards stand over it. Here, water is precious.
What I was taught about this place was that it’s called the Waste for a reason.
My tutors drew it as a brown stain on the map, south of Concord, and told me it was dead.
Nobody told me about the cities. An entire civilization is hidden inside the place I was taught to fear.
It’s either that humans don’t know better, or they do it intentionally. I can’t say which unsettles me more.
“I keep thinking I’ll blink, and it will be gone,” Darina says.
“I know,” I say. “So do I.”
It’s the most magnificent place I’ve ever seen.
Osric stays a step behind us. He never crowds us, but every time the walkway narrows, or a group of Scorpii walks toward us, he’s at my shoulder.
People part to let us through. He guides us with few words – “Left here,” “Mind the step,” “This terrace has the best stalls” – and Darina and I go wherever he points.
We pass jewelry laid out on dark cloth, hammered silver, combs and rings carved from pale bone, beads of venom-glass in green and amber that shine where the light crosses them.
Sacks of spice stand open in rows, red, gold, and rust brown.
Dried desert fruit hangs strung on cords.
There are knives with bone handles, jars of oil, bolts of rough cloth, and stall after stall of things I can’t name and can’t look away from.
We reach a corner stall under a double layer of shade cloth, and I stop in my track when I see the silks on its racks.
The fabric here is finer than anything I’ve seen in Concord, and my family always bought the best. An older Scorpii woman keeps the stall.
She watches Darina and me with open interest while we look but says nothing.
I linger at one bolt of silk. It’s deep green, dark in the folds and brighter along the roll, and it changes shade whenever the light moves across it. I touch one corner, and it slides under my fingers with almost no weight. I make myself move along the rack, but I still come back to it twice.
“You keep returning to that one,” Osric says behind me.
“It’s the finest silk I’ve ever touched,” I say. “I’m only looking.”
“Let me buy it for you.”
I turn and look up at him.
“You don’t have to buy me anything.”
“I know I don’t have to,” he says. “It’s nothing. I’d like to give you this small pleasure.”
“It isn’t nothing. It’s costly, and I already owe you…”
“You owe me nothing,” he says. “It would please me. That’s all it is.”
I was taught the script for this: decline once, decline twice, and when the giver insists again, accept with grace, because refusing past that point becomes an insult. They’re my mother’s rules, and for once, I’m glad to follow them.
“Thank you,” I say. “That’s very kind.”
I’m stroking the silk absentmindedly. Osric looks along the stall for the vendor and reaches for the bolt to show her which one he means. His hand comes down over mine.
I freeze. His hand covers mine completely, fingers and half my wrist under his palm.
I always assumed his shell would feel cold.
It doesn’t. It’s warm, smooth, and the warmth of it seeps into my skin.
Neither of us pulls back. I don’t know why he doesn’t.
I know even less why I don’t. Heat rises in my face, and I blame the sun.
Then he removes his hand.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers.
I open my mouth to say something, but no words come out. The vendor approaches, and it’s too late.
“This one,” Osric tells her.
“Good choice,” she says. “How much of it?”
“Enough for a dress.”
Darina comes around the end of the racks.
“Enough for a dress,” she repeats, smiling wide. “I’ll sew it for you myself.”
If she saw what just happened between Osric and me, she doesn’t show it. She had her head down among the fabrics the whole time.
I feel an unexpected pang, because a dress means staying long enough to wear it. It means being here when it’s cut, fitted, and finished. It means making myself comfortable in Osric’s home. I accept the gift anyway, because I want it.
“I’d love that,” I tell her.
The vendor measures the silk out and cuts it, folds it into paper, and ties the package with cord. When she passes it to me, she looks into my eyes. Hers are dark and glossy, without pupils, and I make myself look back at her.
“Green is your color,” she says.
My face warms up again.
“Thank you.”
We walk on through the terraces, and I begin to watch the Scorpii who watch us. Plenty of them stare at Darina and me. Two human women in a hidden city. We’re the strangest sight at the market.
But the ones who look at Osric aren’t staring for the same reasons.
Some soften with pity and turn away. Others track him with narrow suspicion until we’ve passed.
A few step out of his path entirely, and they aren’t stepping aside out of respect, I can feel it.
A handful of men nod to him from their stalls, and he returns each nod, but not one person speaks to him if it’s not necessary.
He warned us that the Scorpii would be wary of us, and he was right. He never said they’d be weird to him. Born in Vaara, trained young, a career as a city guard, then retirement because he needed a change. There’s a piece missing, and everyone here knows what it is, except Darina and me.
Osric drives us home, and Darina talks the whole drive about the dress. I answer in the right places, but I spend the ride watching the back of Osric’s head.
At the house, Darina gathers our packages and carries them to our rooms, already listing what she’ll need. Osric crosses the main room toward the back.
“Osric.”
He stops and turns.
“Do you need something?”
“An answer,” I say as I cross the room to him. “Why do your people look at you like that?”
“Like what?”
“You know… I watched them the whole time. The ones who stared at Darina and me, those I expected. We’re human, and we’re strange to them. But the ones who looked at you… There was pity? Fear? Both? Some of them wouldn’t look at you at all.”
“Scorpii stare at everyone,” he says. “We’re terrible gossips. Worse than humans, whatever you’ve been told.”
“Humans gossip plenty,” I say. “I grew up in Concord. I’ve been stared at and whispered about my entire life. I know what gossip looks like. That wasn’t gossip. That was different, and it was pointed at you.”
“It doesn’t concern you.”
He turns to go.
I step around him and into his path.
“Don’t do that,” I say. “Don’t manage me. My parents managed me. Every time I asked a question, they changed the subject or left the room. I let them because I knew I wouldn’t get anything out of them. But you’re different.”
He looks down at me. We’re close enough that I can see the blue marks on his forehead and the dark shine of his eyes. Close enough that I have to tip my head back to hold his stare.
That’s when I hear it: a sound starting low in his throat, quick and even, click after click, after click, vibrating out of him even with his mouth closed.
A gasp escapes me. I find that I’m frozen in place.
Heat spreads under my skin, and my knees go weak. There’s a pull in my core to run and hide, but my soles are glued to the floor. My face goes hot, and between my legs, there’s a sudden, slick warmth. The shock of it takes me by surprise. A thrill rushes up my spine.
I want to run. I don’t. I’m not sure why. Maybe because running from him would make me look weak? The sound he’s making is dangerous. But underneath the danger, there’s an invitation.
His whole body tenses, and the sound cuts off. He steps back from me. He looks at my face, and whatever fear is showing in my eyes, he notices it, because he turns his head, and his mouth twists in a grimace. I’d swear the disgust is for himself and not for me.
“You don’t want to know,” he says. His voice is low and not quite even.
“I do.”
“You wouldn’t be able to take it.”
He walks past me and up the stairs. After a while, I hear the door to his room open and close.
I stand there, trying to sift through my feelings. I think I’m angry. He walked away from me. He decided what I could and couldn’t take, and didn’t even give me a chance.
However, there’s something under the anger that I can’t reason away. When that sound came out of him, part of me wanted to run, and part of me wanted him to come closer. I don’t understand how one strange sound could make me feel so many confusing things at once.
I shake my head and try to snap out of it. I fan myself. The heat is unbearable. That must be it.