Chapter 14
Oljin
“ M y valith is not a pleasure lounge,” Saana grumbles as she gathers the furs to air them out in the morning starlight.
I can’t quite bring myself to apologize for the best night of my life, but I take the bundle from her. “I’ll do it.”
“A Jara cannot hang the furs.” She tries to snatch the furs back, but I hold them out of reach.
“A Jara can do what he likes.”
Her grim expression breaks, her sharp teeth flashing in a fleeting smile. “Alioth save me, I can’t have the scrolls remember my hospitality this way. They’ll be telling the story of the outlander who made a king wash his own furs.”
“I think most people would think more highly of you if you did. But in this case, they will only hear how you healed a queen who was about to greet the goddess, unless you tell the tale yourself.”
Saana flushes brown with satisfaction at the idea, even as she complains, “Alioth save me, all the grasslands will be pestering me for a cure.”
“Her teeth are sharp.” We share a rueful grin until the clatter of a stool falling over pulls both our attention. I drop the furs and rush to where Rose has tipped over. A bruise is already spreading ominously across one cheekbone.
“I’m safe!” Rose protests, sounding flustered as she gathers the bowl and cup from the spilled firstmeal tray. She struggles to set the stool upright herself, only accepting my assistance to lift her onto her seat again. “Sorry. Thank you. I want—” She breaks off, motioning to her legs, her obvious frustration at not being able to express herself fully finishing the sentence for her.
Sanna sighs. “She tried to walk by herself.”
“I want to help you.” Rose sets her jaw stubbornly as she picks up the breakfast tray and clutches it in her lap, hands shaking, as Saana applies an herbal paste to her bruise. My little warrior queen, stronger every day but still not strong enough.
Saana pats her shoulder before taking the tray from her and replacing it with her overflowing basket of scrolls. “Help yourself, and you help all of us. Eat, heal, learn words, rest. Then you can be a good Alara. Understand?”
“Understand.” It’s like a weight lifts from her. Rose selects a scroll and reaches for her quill, the worried lines in her forehead smoothing even as Saana’s and mine deepen.
Saana jerks her head at me, indicating I should follow her to the kitchen. There, she sets down the empty dishes. In a low voice, she murmurs, “How long until you must return to Ol’Irra?”
“Days. A week at most.” A knot forms in my stomach. I know what she’s getting at. I try to make light of it. “Don’t worry, you won’t have us cluttering your pleasure lounge too much longer.”
She ignores my joke. “The bruise won’t heal by then. And she won’t be walking yet.”
“I know. I’ll carry her up the cliffs. She’ll only have to stand for the joining.” The knot tightens at my half-truth. She will be expected to kneel at the altar in Alioth’s temple and rise again. Even that might prove too much. And if the priests think she’s weak.. .
I shake my head, pushing away the image of Rose being exiled, driven into the outlands to fend for herself. I will never let it happen.
Saana hums thoughtfully. “Do you remember the stories I used to tell you and Pravil? You both insisted you were too old for such things, so I’m not sure you were listening. There was one from the old times about an Alara who mistook a saidal for her mate and dropped her camouflage.”
A vague memory swims up to the surface. “It bit her.”
She nods. “That’s the one. Her Jara found her bleeding in the grass. He had to decide: stay with her or pursue the dangerous beast who threatened their village?”
“He chose her,” I recall. When we were apprentices, Pravil and I had scoffed at the choice and spent time boasting that we’d have fought the beast with our bare hands.
“Yes. He bit her over the beast’s mark and braided a crown of tili stems so they could join before she died. But when he put that crown on his Alara and spoke the words of joining, the goddess healed her and made her whole again.”
I understand that Jara’s choice now. I would never abandon Rose in the grass for any reason. I would stay with her until her last breath, and then I’d track the beast down and avenge her.
Saana stares at me, waiting for my response, until I realize why she told me this story. She thinks maybe the same thing will work for Rose. Doubt surges under my skin because hope feels too dangerous. “Surely, it’s just a story for greenlings.”
Saana shrugs. “Every harvest began as a seed. Most stories come from something true. Weave her a crown and see. It can’t hurt. ”
I watch Rose across the room, where a column of starlight from outside is making the edges of her hair glow. She rests the scroll in her lap and turns her face toward the window to bathe in the goddess’s smile. Seeing her illuminated like that, it’s not so hard to believe Alioth would heal her.
“Even if it’s doesn’t work, braiding it will keep you busy so the poor female can rest. You kept her up too long last night,” she adds pointedly.
“You heard us? We tried to be—”
She holds up a finger, her claw extending toward the door. “I heard nothing but the wind. Go hang the furs.”
“They’ll write this in the scrolls,” I tease over my shoulder as I carry them out, hope quickening my feet.
When I finish spreading the soft hides over the top of the wicker braxa fence, I plunge into the grass to gather materials. An armful of tili stalks and efala vines later, I have what I need to weave my Alara a crown.
On the valith’s stone steps, I plait the stems carefully, unwilling to let a single flaw mar the design. Every stem is straight, every bloom perfect. It has to be. If it works, Rose will wear this crown forever.
“You’ve finished already?” Saana asks when I bring it inside. I hand it to her, and she examines it closely, turning the golden circlet around inch by inch, examining the weave. She gives it back with a silent nod of approval. “Do you think she can speak the words?”
Finally, I let hope win. “If I know my Alara, she will make herself understood.”
“What is that?” Rose asks from her seat by the window. She cranes her neck to see what’s in my hands, her quill poised to write down a new word.
“A gift for you.” I cross to her and kneel in the pool of starlight at her feet, replacing the scroll in her lap with the blossom-studded crown. I wish she knew I offered it as the ruler of this planet and not a lovesick male in the grass, but from the look on her face, she would not treasure it more if it were wrought from the purest epylium.
“Mine?” she asks, voice hoarse with emotion as she traces its circumference, as though I’ve offered her something she doesn’t deserve rather than her goddess-given due.
“Yours, for all the days. The most beautiful crown for the most beautiful Alara. Accepting it will be a burden as much as a gift, one you cannot possibly understand right now. But I swear to you in Alioth’s sight, if you take my crown, I will do everything in my power to give you the life you want, no matter what it costs me. If you hate living in the palace, I will build you a valith out here in the grass. I will remake all of Irra for you.”
“Understand,” she says, even though she doesn’t, and touches my face with her fingertips. I lean into her palm, and she strokes my cheekbone with her thumb. “Jara and Alara, together, beautiful. Yes.”
She understands what’s important. This is our true joining, these broken sentences and crown of grass. Even if we have another ceremony with priests in their finery and a priceless epylium circlet, this is the one I’ll remember.
I lift the crown and settle it on her brow, where it blooms, still living, like it’s part of her .
“Oh!” Her back arches and eyes slam shut. Reflexively, I catch her before she tumbles off her stool again. Lips peeled back from her teeth, she hisses, every muscle tensed. Panic sizzles through me as I lift her in my arms, unsure what to do except hold her close.
“Praise Alioth, it’s working,” Saana says as she draws nearer, sounding awed.
A growl tears out of me. “Give her something! She’s in pain! It’s killing her!”
“No, look. Look at her face, Oljin. It hurts, but she’s healing.”
My heart still beating a frantic rhythm, skin purpling with fear and love, I look down at my Alara, dreading what I’ll find there. Every fear is realized when I see the pain and tension in her expression, the way her hands have curled into claws.
But as I watch, the ugly bruise on her fades away. I can only imagine the same thing is happening inside her. Her crown of braided grass and efala vines slowly changes from green to gold and sinks into her forehead. The delicate blossoms etch themselves into Rose’s skin. Little by little, her muscles relax until she’s heavy and soft in my arms. And when she finally opens her eyes to gaze up at me, she’s smiling.