Chapter 2 Sullha
SULLHA
"Tomek is a good kid." Burda pulled out a stubborn root and tossed it onto the weed pile.
"He is."
"And that's all that matters."
Sullha let out a breath.
Burda could see through people. She just had a gift for that. It was almost as if she could read people's minds. Perhaps it came from decades of watching everyone in a place where the range of available experiences was narrow enough that the subtleties became magnified.
"I was just thinking about how glad I am that he looks like me."
Burda's expression softened, which was a rare occurrence. "He's your boy through and through. He's also going to be a handful when he's older."
"He's already a handful."
"A bigger one. He's smart, and smart boys in this place..." Burda trailed off, but the sentence didn't need finishing.
Smart boys had a harder time because the available schooling was too basic, and there was nothing to challenge them. Besides, in the training camp he would need more than smarts to survive.
"I need to teach him to fight," Sullha said.
"He's five."
"And he'll be six, and then seven, and then the years will accelerate the way they always do, and suddenly he'll be twelve, and I'll have one year left with him, and I'll wish I had started sooner."
Burda was quiet for a moment. "You have a point. But you could teach him to be smart about fighting. When to duck, when to run, when to pick a fight, and when to walk away. That's more useful than knowing how to throw a punch."
"He needs to know how to do both."
"Indeed." Burda yanked out another weed. "The world is unkind to gentle souls."
The world. As if the enclosure and the island beyond it constituted a world. As if there weren't an entire planet out there that none of them had ever seen, with cities and oceans and mountains and all the things that existed only in the few books that had been allowed into the enclosure.
To Sullha, the outside world was a fantasy she rarely allowed herself to even think about. It was better to focus on what was real and immediate—the soil, the plants, the children, the daily rhythm of meals, chores, and sleep.
"I wonder why they came," Burda murmured under her breath. "The inspection excuse was thin."
Sullha had been turning that question over for days, but she couldn't come up with anything that made sense. "Maybe it's a new protocol. We've heard rumors about changes on the island. All the renovations that are going on."
Burda nodded. "The best part is that men no longer come here. Supposedly, it will stay this way until the renovations are completed."
That was the best part, and Sullha hoped the renovations would take a long, long time. Forever.
"Immortal warriors have never set foot in the enclosure," Burda said.
"Not in my lifetime, and I'm old." She lifted her head and looked at Sullha.
"Something is happening. I don't know what, but I've lived long enough to know when the pattern breaks, and when to brace for changes. Something is brewing."
"Maybe it has to do with Lord Navuh going to the harem." Sullha kept her voice low. "The rumors say he hasn't been seen in months. Things have been different since he disappeared."
"You think he's dead?" Burda whispered.
Since rumors of Lord Navuh's strange move to the harem had started infiltrating the enclosure, a slew of theories had been floating around, and one of them was that he was dead, probably assassinated by his sons.
"I think it's possible," Sullha said. "Everything on this island is connected because one man controlled all of it, and with him gone, the threads start unraveling."
Burda regarded her with approval. "You're smarter than you let on, girl."
"I let on plenty. People just don't listen because I'm nineteen and look fifteen."
"Being underestimated is not always a disadvantage."
No. It wasn't.
Sullha had figured that out early, back when she was a child, and the bigger kids had assumed she was too small to be worth noticing.
Being overlooked meant being left alone, and being left alone meant being free to observe, to think, and to figure out how to best survive in this place.
Her own mother was worthless, having lost her will to live a long time ago.
She hadn't loved Sullha. She'd never had the capacity to love anyone.
The rules were simple and brutal.
Don't resist when summoned.
Don't ask questions.
Don't form attachments to your sons because they will be taken from you.
Don't dream of a different life because there isn't one.
Sullha obeyed the first two, but she'd broken the third and fourth so completely that she no longer pretended otherwise.
"He looked at me," she said, circling back because she couldn't help it. "The one in front. The one I thought was Yaaf. When I stood up and put Tomek behind me, he looked right at me, and for a split second, there was something behind the blankness."
"You saw what you wanted to see."
"Maybe. But I don't think so."
Burda sighed. "Let's say you're right. Let's say that was your childhood friend inside that big soldier's body, and let's say he recognized you, too. So what? What does it change? He walked out. He left. He went back to where he and the others belonged. Nothing is different."
"He said he wasn't here to take anyone. Just to observe."
"And you believed him?"
"My gut believed him, and my gut is rarely wrong."
Burda's mouth curved into a mockery of a smile. "Your gut is five years old and thinks plants don't breathe."
Sullha laughed, and the sound startled Nessa, who looked up from her supervisory duties and scowled at them as if laughter in the vegetable garden was a violation of protocol.
"He came back," Sullha said. "Two days later. With just one other soldier, which was less terrifying but not by much."
"I know. I was there. I told them I didn't know anything, and they left.
Again." Burda sat back and wiped her forehead with the back of her wrist, leaving a smudge of dirt.
"What concerns me is not the visits themselves.
It's that they came twice. Once could be curiosity.
A patrol that wandered off course and decided to pay us a visit because Lord Navuh is not around, and the rats feel brave. Twice implies intent."
Intent.
Intent to do what?
Should she be even more afraid than usual, or hopeful?
She had no capacity for either. Hope was a dangerous thing in this place, and she had so much fear festering inside of her that adding to it could be detrimental to her health, despite her youth. Most women in the enclosure died early.
Burda was a tough cookie who'd survived by sheer determination.
Sullha had Tomek, and she needed to be there for him, not as an empty vessel with vacant eyes but as a mother who was present, who felt things, who laughed at jokes, got angry at injustice, cried when crying was warranted, and told him stories about a world she had never seen.
"Mama!" Tomek ran toward her, holding up his dirt-caked hands like trophies. "I finished!"
"Show me."
She stood and let him lead her to his section, where eight sweet potato slips stood in a reasonably straight line, each one planted at approximately the right depth, the soil around them loosened just enough.
"Pol helped me," Tomek said.
Pol, sitting at the end of the row, looked up with mild surprise at being credited for assistance he had not provided.
"You did a wonderful job." Sullha knelt to adjust one slip that was leaning sideways. "These are going to grow into big, strong plants, and in a few months, we'll dig up the sweet potatoes they produce and bring them to the kitchen. They'll be delicious."
Tomek beamed. His smile was the thing that kept the blankness away. It was the torch that burned in the corridor of her mind when the darkness crept in, and she protected it as fiercely as she protected him.
She wished she could raise him to be good. Gentle. Kind. The sort of boy who let his friends win races and made them laugh with absurdities delivered with a straight face.
The sort of boy Yaaf had been.
But she couldn't do that. She needed to raise him to be strong. Quick. Resilient. Smart enough to know when gentleness was safe and when it was a liability. She needed to give him armor that looked like skin, so the commanders would see a tough exterior and not realize that he still had a soul.
It was an impossible task.
Every mother in the enclosure who still cared about her son faced the same heartbreaking contradiction. How was it possible to prepare a child for a world designed to destroy everything decent ever taught to him?
Yaaf had been barely recognizable, taller, broader, harder. Every last shred of softness had been beaten out of him. He looked like a weapon wearing skin. But there had been something in his eyes.
A recognition. A hint of familiarity.