With these words she fixed my meditations, my knees pressed to the stone and my forehead almost as close. There was no unwillingness that I could perceive. I felt instead an inability to part with the past, bitterness in the unfolding of our lives that we should become further and further removed from it. It was foolish to long for greatness, for majesty, with even the smallest of daily pleasures beyond the reach of so many. My skin burned with our luxuries, but it would never do to leave our people without some symbol, a scant few icons to which they could look for something better. Could I honestly attest to our power? We managed only to keep things from getting too noticeably worse.

As I often did in prayer alongside my mother, I made no utterances myself, listening only to her fevered and intent words. Their meaning was unimportant to me. I was interested most in their steadiness, the current that ran beneath her tongue as she spoke, the moisture pearling on the stone. Piety or spittle, I cared not; it existed, it could be predicted, this was what I wanted.

It was important for me to hear my mother this way; her faith was a rope from which I hung, my temperament the only thing that separated the gesture from one of death to one of a child contented at play. I did not like to think of the times when her needs felt more like a tightening around my throat, a preventing of laughter as opposed to an encouragement of it. I loved my mother. I believed her to understand me, to empathize with the wandering of my mind, the all too often frightening reaches of it. She never spoke to me directly of my troubles, or how very different I could often be from my brother and sisters, but there had always been small ways she had let me know that I was special to her, that I was, simply, special. I had taken to learning far more quickly than my siblings, and though our common language was not written down, my mother took the time to teach me the higher language. It was spoken only by the most dedicated of historians and those, like my mother, who wished to speak more intimately with our gods. Linat Ranir, simply, ‘the old words’, was a delicate and complicated tongue, but I took to it quickly, reading everything I could, and later, writing. This was easily the only element of our ancient culture I wished to preserve, and I did not flatter myself in thinking my motives were anything but selfish. I enjoyed sharing it with my mother, true, but I enjoyed better the freedoms it gave me to put down all of my secrets, my fears, the strange sparks in my mind which seemed to demand ink and surface. Written, they were purged and safe, as though I had found a separate vessel for my consciousness.

There was a shallow scraping of sandal upon the floor, my father’s light foot, easily identified, and I knew our time together was through. Mother raised her head beside me, silhouetted for a moment in the slanting light, her face frightening in the glare. She had been elsewhere in those moments, though far more secret and dangerous places than I.

“It could be two sisters there in meditation.” My father said in a low voice, smiling. He was a gentle man in every way, his speaking and his motions, his carriage. One did not need brutishness to lead a docile people, and I was thankful for my father’s softness of character.

“Silly man.” My mother bantered, rising to his outstretched hand. With a half-muttered excuse of preparing for the day that was all but upon us, I scurried away, the murmurs of my parents whipping down the hall after me. My mouth buzzed with things left unsaid, as though a jumble of insects crowded in my throat, or a gather of women all speaking at once. I often wondered if my desires were mine, or some rustling of others in my blood and mind. I was a young woman, but sometimes I felt like several very old women, reflected in the eyes of yet older women, and mirrored back and back to the oldest, who was also me.

It was not the day for these strange things.

My clothes were tumbled in the folds of my bed covers, crumpled there in my haste to be with my mother. I carefully smoothed the cropped and beaded sleeves, the sheer, slim waist. The fabric was light, yet elaborate, and I was sure it would be uncomfortable. A servant had brought water to wash with, the basin coupled with several bottles of oils and powders. I was liberal with all, eager to distract myself, pinching scent behind my ears and between my breasts, the hollows of my arms and knees. My hairline was polished with ochre, tawny, blending strangely with my tanned skin. I wrinkled my nose and pursued my lips. I dressed.

We had been fasting in hopes of a felicitous meeting with the Ambarians, and I was not surprised to share yet another weak pot of tea with my family in the full light of the morning. They were more subdued than I was used.

Lista was impeccable in blue, grimacing, the corners of her mouth turned further and further down the closer she was forced to bring her cup. She was a beautiful girl at fifteen, but all too often this sourness of spirit robbed her features of their grace. Beside her sat my next youngest sister, Esbat, reserved and serious for her years, her dark hair pulled back from her face and revealing eyes warm with welcome at my arrival. Her tea sat untouched before her; her even temper affording her a stronger countenance in the face of our fasting. She remained the most composed at this last and most anticipatory of breakfasts.

I took my seat then, the most middle of children at the very center grouped. I did not feel, however, to be the core of my family, my eyes rolling smoothly at the thought to settle on my eldest sister and brother.

Jurnus was a year and some months my senior, though his face flashed with a youth that betrayed him. His was a common soul and kindness, pleased best by a pretty girl, an afternoon working in the sun, the three wild-looking hounds collapsed at his feet beneath the table. I loved him dearly, and we had often been playmates in our youth. There were times still when we would be overcome with laughter and a child’s desire, chasing each other first up and then down the halls, wrestling with the dogs in the courtyard until we were utterly without breath.

As thought sensing my thoughts, Jurnus pinched a liberal amount of cinnamon into his tea and winked at me.

Beside Jurnus, and most distant in feeling from me, my sister Anise composed herself. At six-and-twenty she was a formidable creature, fierce in her politics and manner, as clearly suited to succeed my parents as the rest of us were not. I both admired and respected me sister, but she was first always to hush me, to insist upon silence on the subject of my anxieties, to inform me, time and again, that I was responsible for more than myself. I swallowed me resentment because she was nearly always right.

The smallest of Jurnus’ hounds, a mere pup, nipped at my bare toes, eager for scraps. I scratched him behind the ear.

“Shouldn’t you be sharing with me?” I asked, hoping affection would serve in the stead of sweets. Lista shuffled uncomfortably in her chair.

“Must those dogs crowd under the table?” She whined, wrinkling her nose. “They smell terrible.”
Jurnus yawned.

“Covers the stench of your perfume, Lista, and that’s a luxury I refuse to do without.”
Lista opened her mouth in hot defense, but her words were caught and stuck by a cautionary raising of my father’s hand.

“I won’t have it. This is not the time for squabbling, but to compose our spirits, to reflect upon how we must welcome our neighbors and friends from the north.”

I felt my muscles tighten, but there was no welcome relax. I could not overcome the trouble of my dreams the night before, though felt certain that I should keep them to myself. The tension in the room betrayed others in my family, and I wondered that the cups and empty lanterns did not shake with the potency of the feeling.