Chapter Nine Hanan
chapter nine
hanan
Malostra is sound asleep next to me. I slowly untangle our limbs and crawl out of bed, narrowly avoiding the crack between the twin beds where we have pushed them together.
We always move them to their original spots in the mornings, but over the years we’ve worn grooves in the flagstones.
We’ve gradually added our own touches of personality to the sparsely furnished room.
Dried flowers pressed under the mattress and feathers that have landed on the mantel adorn the simple chest that holds our belongings.
The window casement never fully shuts, always bringing the cold sea air straight to my face while I sleep.
It’s a sacrifice I make for feeling like I could escape out the window at any time.
I check Malostra is fully asleep before I tiptoe across the cold floor and out into the hallway.
The sconces are lit and throw strange shadows on the walls.
The temple is still at this time of night, the other women asleep in their beds.
Who knows how many of them sleep soundly in the arms of other Sisters.
Creeping around the corner, I nearly shout as I bump into someone.
‘Sister Hanan?’ Mother Lin asks, holding a candle up to my face.
‘Beg your pardon, Mother.’
She appraises me, silently waiting for me to give my reason to be out of my room at night. We aren’t locked in our rooms, not expressly forbidden from roaming the halls when we please. However, there is no reasonable explanation for me to be here save one.
‘Night water,’ I say sheepishly.
Mother Lin sighs and waves me away. ‘Be quick. You’ll catch a chill.’
I smile at her concern, rubbing the gooseflesh of my arms under my nightdress. Fire lights our way in wall-mounted sconces, but we only get candles in our rooms and those are rationed. Only the Bastion has the luxury of roaring fireplaces when the mainland’s seasons shift. Suffering strengthens us.
I slip into the bathroom and listen for Mother Lin’s footsteps to retreat.
When I’m certain I’m alone, I heave the stone out of place under the sink.
Within the nook is my collection of papers and assorted materials gathered over the past years while scribing for the library.
These are little treasures I have rescued from the fire, or mildewing where they have been stuck down the backs of bookshelves, forgotten and faded from time.
My studies have intensified since I learned of the king’s death and the appointment of a new priestess; there isn’t any time to waste.
Our abilities are the only things that set us apart from one another, and the queen must have the best. I still haven’t fully decoded the language on my latest acquisition, the swirling symbols with tiny serifs and images that look to me like hearts or diamonds, but who can say.
Alongside my stash is a small kitchen knife, stolen and hidden away in my cloak during a herb-lore lesson.
I take the knife now and hold it against my skin, where hours earlier the flower had burst forth.
I cut slowly and precisely, biting my lip from the pain.
I’d hoped I’d get used to it by now. My palm tears, the blood welling quickly to the surface.
I look at my dictated symbols and then close my eyes, picturing the cut in my hand with an invisible thread knitting the skin back together.
I go over the movements several times and open my eyes, studying at my hand.
The skin is puckered, and I watch, a smile quirking my lips, as the skin closes up.
It’s not as neat as last time, but to anyone else it would look like a lifeline on my palm.
I place a finger over the line and rub, as though buffing a jewel.
I keep watching intently, my eyes straining in the dim light.
Until, eventually, the line is thin, barely visible.
I clench my jaw. I must be able to protect and heal a queen, not simply myself.
No one sees me return to the room. Malostra stirs a little as I clamber back into bed and pull her warm body close to mine. She lets out an involuntary snuffle in her sleep at my cold feet.
‘Are you sneaking around again?’ she asks, her words slurring together sleepily.
You can’t share a room with someone for years and not expect them to notice your strange ways.
Malostra likes to burn her skin. I don’t comment on it, and she ignores the cuts on my hands and arms. We all have our ways of trying to feel something, little war badges of our dedication to the craft.
If you’re not suffering, you’re not succeeding.
‘Some experiments,’ I say, stroking her hair.
She rolls over and kisses me. ‘You’ve been studying so hard recently. I wish you’d spend half as much time here as in the library.’
I say nothing for a moment and then ask: ‘Do you want to practise an exchange?’
Malostra and I have been exchanging for years.
At first, we were novices simply trying to hone our skills.
We sat on the stone floor, palms touching, transferring energy back and forth.
Then we held flowers and passed the life around.
Girls make up strange games when cloistered together.
We saw each other’s bodies through the awkward years of growing pains, first bloods, everything.
Then something shifted as we grew. Our experiments became less playful, more earnest, and suddenly there was a desire we couldn’t name but recognised as mutual.
Malostra kisses me and it’s delicious. I want to crawl under her skin as I feel her body under mine.
Her dark hair falls away and I watch the pulse jump in her neck.
I kiss her, warm her, make her burn bright.
When she’s hot enough to burst, I look at her pulse again.
I imagine it stopping, her neck cold and still.
I reach into her mind, soothing the desperate fluttering thing inside.
My fingers are cool, a soothing balm, a healing poultice.
I place my hands on the supple skin of her neck and think of the symbols on my tattered pieces of paper under the flagstones in the bathroom.
I make the skin dance under my touch, sucking the heat of her into my flesh.
I press down and she cries out, shuddering beneath me.
‘Stop! Hanan, you’re choking me.’
When I look at her face she’s crying, her baby hairs slick against her hairline, damp with sweat. There are scratches on my hands, her fingernails bloody as if she had tried to claw me off. I barely felt a thing.
Her hands leap to her throat, to the imprints of my fingers and the broken blood vessels. ‘Holy Aistra, what did you do?’ she chokes.
‘A little death,’ I whisper, rolling off her. She lies there, prone, breathing hard.
I know what I should say but I can’t; there’s a beast stopping my voice. Malostra looks at me like I’m a stranger or a feral animal on the attack, eyes wide and terrified like a bushaella. Her breathing is shallow, and an unholy wheezing pours out of her throat.
‘That was intense,’ I say quietly, turning to face her.
‘Intense?’ she repeats, her voice a croak.
I reach for her, and she shrinks away. We both say nothing for a moment.
Eventually her breathing slows, and I hear her swallow hard. ‘I wasn’t sure you would stop.’
‘I’m sorry, Malostra. I got carried away.’
‘Carried away?’ She sits up and gets off the bed. ‘There’s something wrong with you, Hanan. I want you to stay away from now on.’