Chapter Twenty-Six Nothing to Sacrifice #2
“Shouldn’t they have given it for free?” Poppy traced her finger on her own half-full water glass. “I thought the gods gave daivyakhi to people so that they could care for others.”
“The daivyakt had a kingdom to run,” Hasan said.
“Everyone had to contribute, daivyakt with their power, and vasudhakt with their labor. It was a fair system in theory, though maybe not in practice. The Welks exploited this inequality. Their first expedition built their own well and gave the vasudhakt water for free, no tithe or tax required. All they had to do was listen to the Welkish missionaries preach about the Founder. They claimed their mission was to create a world where all peoples were equal, and how these wells were part of that mission to ensure that all could drink regardless of caste or color. Vasudhakt began to convert, realizing they had more value as servants of the Founder than as followers of the pantheon.”
As Hasan spoke, Rohini entered the kitchen, accompanied by one of the widows, both of them bearing a sack of produce. They dumped their haul on the counter and began to sort the different fruits and vegetables. Hasan didn’t let that interrupt them, continuing his story.
“At the same time, the maharaja, Zeyar Rai, passed away—yes,” he said, laughing at the look on Poppy’s face, “Zeyar is named for that king. Explains his ego, doesn’t it?”
Poppy thought she heard Rohini smother a snicker in the corner, and fought to restrain a giggle of her own.
“Zeyar’s son, Jagat Rai, ascended the throne. Jagat had the misfortune of being the first king born without magic.”
“How?” Poppy interrupted. “I thought being daivyakt passes from parent to child?”
“Jagat was a bastard,” Rohini cut in, unable to pretend any longer that she wasn’t eavesdropping. She left the task of unpacking groceries to the widow and came to sit at the table. “His mother, the maharani, was sleeping with one of the vasudhakt palace staff.”
“Really?” Poppy asked.
“Zeyar Rai forbid open speculation, and of course the queen denied it, but many believed that Jagat was illegitimate,” Hasan said.
“It doesn’t matter why he was impotent.” Rohini waved a hand impatiently. “His reign was doomed from the start. Who wants a king who has been snubbed by the gods? It would have been better for everyone if Zeyar Rai had named Narayan as his heir.”
“Narayan?” Poppy asked. The name was familiar to her, though she could not place its significance.
“Jagat Rai’s maternal cousin,” Hasan said.
“He was from the noble Sovan family, descended from a long line of water-wielders, and had the strongest affinity for the gift in living memory. His popularity made Jagat paranoid, and was probably one of the things that drove him to meet with the Welkish missionaries. Word of the Welkish missionaries’ growing influence on the vasudhakt had reached the royal court, though no one took it seriously until Jagat met with their leader, none other than Charles Sutherland. ”
This was where Poppy’s Welkish tutors and professors at Thornhaven had always started the story, with Charles Sutherland’s alliance with Jagat Rai. Clearly, the Virians did not consider their union as beneficial as the Welkish did.
“Charles sold Jagat on a vision of Viryana without magic, where he would not be considered lacking simply because he had been born ‘normal.’ Jagat took Charles into his confidence and established a Council of Lords to advise him.”
“A council of Welkish vipers,” Rohini interjected. “He removed everyone who had ever dared to question him from positions that had been held in their families for centuries, and then he replaced them with turncoats and colonizers that his council endorsed.”
“Eventually,” Hasan continued, shooting his mother an exasperated look, “the Welkish missionaries convinced him to convert to the fellowship of the Founder. When Jagat converted, he also ordered the destruction of the temple within the royal compound, demanding that a cathedral to the Founder replace it. This was when Narayan confronted him, along with several other noblemen who were concerned about the direction of the country.”
“Too little, too late,” Rohini said. “Most of the original officials under Zeyar’s rule had already been replaced, the administration of the country pawned off on traitors and strangers.”
“Ma,” Hasan said, “can you let me finish, please? I’m almost done.”
“Fine,” Rohini grumbled. She picked up their empty plates and took them to the sink, where she began washing them.
“To Jagat, the confrontation was proof that Narayan had been trying to usurp him all along. War broke out, during which the Welkish Imperial Army took Jagat’s side.
The Welkish historians call this the Unnatural Coup.
While the daivyakt had immense power, they simply did not have the numbers to fight back against both the Imperial Army and the vasudhakt converts.
Jagat targeted the compounds of his opponents, particularly their temples, which crippled the daivyakt’s ability to fight.
The war finally ended after Jagat found Narayan and his family, and ordered their execution—Narayan, his family, all household servants, and priests. ”
Poppy gasped. “Even the children?”
“Especially the children. Jagat did not want to leave the door open to be challenged again by another member of Narayan’s family ten years later.”
“That’s horrible!” She shuddered.
“With the ‘insurrection’ quelled, Jagat continued to rule with the help of his Council of Lords. His health started failing, and in his final years, he gave more and more authority to the Council. When he finally died, the Council selected Sutherland to continue leadership of the country. Jagat had already handed off most of the workings of the country to the Council of Lords, making the transition of power nearly seamless. The emperor formally annexed Viryana and declared it a new territory claimed in the name of the Founder, with Charles Sutherland the first viceroy. The remaining temples—of which there were few—were destroyed.”
“Did no one dissent?” Poppy asked.
Rohini shut the water off, her dishwashing complete.
“Those who did were taken care of,” she answered, swinging a dish towel over her shoulder as she turned back to face them.
“My grandfather told me stories of those days. Protestors were arrested, interrogated, and, in some cases, publicly executed. Sometimes, even if your only crime was knowing a dissenter, you would be taken in. Neighbors turned their backs on one another, not wanting to be targeted by association. People learned pretty quickly that if they wanted to survive, the best thing to do was keep their heads down.”
Poppy couldn’t disagree with that. After all, wasn’t that what she’d been doing all her life? Keeping her head down, reciting scripture she didn’t necessarily agree with, trying desperately to become a success story so that she didn’t have to return to the streets?
“Thank you,” she said to both Hasan and his mother.
“I’ve never heard that story told like that before.
The way the Welkish tell it, the vasudhakt were being taken advantage of by the daivyakt, and they worked with Jagat to subdue the daivyakt and introduce the Founder to Viryana.
When he died, Viryana joined the empire voluntarily. ”
Hasan snorted. “Voluntarily. That’s a good one.”
“Had me fooled,” Poppy said. “But no more.”
· · ·
The next morning, Poppy sacrificed her breakfast again, and got in three more practice rounds before her daivyakhi sputtered out. She still hadn’t been able to fill the bucket with water.
Hasan sighed. “We’ll have to sacrifice again.”
“I don’t have anything else to sacrifice,” she said. “I already gave up breakfast.” As if to prove her point, her stomach grumbled.
“Cut off a lock of your hair. That might get us a couple more attempts. Or give a little bit of your blood. Blood always gets me a long way.” He offered her his blade.
“Are you mad?” Poppy cradled her long, shiny braid protectively. “I’m not hacking off my hair. Nor am I going to resort to bloodletting.”
“Then you think of something else to sacrifice! You can’t fulfil your end of the bargain if you can’t even fill a single bucket of water. I don’t have much more time to teach you, and if you can’t even practice . . .” He ran a hand through his hair, eyes distant.
“I could make more sacrifices if I had access to more of my things,” she said, thinking back to her possessions at home. “I have a lot of money.”
“Unless it pains you to part with that money, then it doesn’t count as a sacrifice.” Hasan put his knife away, exasperated. “If a rich man gave ten crowns to the gods, but a widow with a single crown to her name sacrificed that lone coin, then the gods would favor the widow.”
“Okay, but I can’t start giving up things I need.”
Hasan rubbed his temples. “Miss Sutherland, I don’t think you know what it means to sacrifice something. Have you ever had to go without in your life? Before I kidnapped you, was there anything you wanted that you didn’t get?”
Poppy balled her fingers into fists. How dare he pretend that he knew her?
She had been separated from her home and family for seven years, consistently reminded of her deficiencies.
She hadn’t been enough for the nobility, and now even in the eyes of criminals, she was falling short.
She hadn’t forgotten Hasan’s lecture over the cutlery.
She tilted her chin up, refusing to let him see the depth of her frustration. “You have no right to reprimand me when you don’t even know the first thing about me.”
“I have every right.” He stepped closer, eyes flashing. “You made a deal with me. You promised me water for my people and an open door once you became vicereine. But now that it’s time to make sacrifices, you’ve gotten cold feet.”
“I didn’t realize the price for this would be my blood!”
“The cost of revolution is always blood.” He spread his arms. “Did you really think you wouldn’t have to give anything up to win? Or were you expecting me and my family to make all the sacrifices?”
What Hasan didn’t seem to understand—and what Poppy would never confess—was that she couldn’t make sacrifices because the few things she had were tainted by loss.
She had been adopted into a rich family at the cost of losing her birth parents.
She had gained an education but had lost her Virian roots and would forever be barred from Welkish culture.
Poppy could claim neither flag. No matter how hard she tried, she’d always be an imposter in both camps.
In the end, she was a nobody with nothing.
A lump formed in her throat, but she swallowed hard. She would not cry in front of Hasan.
“What do I have to sacrifice?” she demanded. “You think just because my family has money and status, my life has been easy?”
“It certainly couldn’t have made life hard.”
“But my life was hard,” Poppy insisted. “You have no clue how challenging things were for me, because you insist on thinking of me as a pompous princess. When I asked if it was rude to eat with my hands, I wasn’t disparaging you.
I spent years in Welkland literally having the habit beaten out of me. ”
She held her hands up to his face, the faint scars visible in the full sun of the morning.
“They hurt you?” Hasan asked, his voice low. A shadow fell across his face, one that looked less like a man and more like the canine his moniker evoked.
Poppy shivered, pulling her hands back. “It’s in the past now,” she said. “But I have a hundred more scars, most of them invisible, which couldn’t have been prevented by all the money or status in the world.”
He pressed his lips together, visibly struggling to formulate a response.
“Perhaps your life was not so idyllic as one would think,” he allowed, choosing his words carefully.
“I won’t take your struggles from you. I haven’t forgotten what those women said at your engagement party.
I can’t imagine the other, insidious ways the nobility’s disdain for you and your race must have played out in your childhood.
But just because you didn’t have it easy doesn’t mean that you didn’t have it easier than the vast majority. ”
Poppy stared at her feet, humiliated and enraged all over again at the reminder of that accursed engagement party.
She didn’t want his judgment, but she didn’t want his pity, either.
Neither acknowledged her for who she was: someone who worked hard, constantly fighting against odds, and always came out on top.
Hasan raked a hand through his hair, the dark circles under his eyes more pronounced than before. “We should stop for today,” he said finally. “We won’t get any further without another sacrifice. Go in and help the other women.”
Poppy balked. Quitting went against her nature, and ending the lesson early felt like giving up. But Hasan was right: Without another sacrifice, this would go nowhere. And she had nothing left to sacrifice.
“Fine.” She set her jaw. “As you wish.”
With that, she turned and strode into the house, head held high.