2: Bashed

I spend my meditation period chopping vegetables. We do chores for the same reason we spar, to prove we can hold concentration in the middle of action. The trainers come on you randomly, punishing you if you’ve dropped your blind, but they rarely bother me. I’ve been holding mine day and night for years now, because my very thoughts are heresy. Because I think I, a woman, have a place here. And that my father didn’t deserve to die for it. Heresy—but so long as they never hear my thoughts, they can’t punish me.

At least, they couldn’t while my father was alive.

I chose kitchen work for my meditation because this was something dad and I did together, before mom died of the swooning plague and I was just a child here, not an acolyte. I remember him showing me the different fruits and vegetables, the way the onion had its own natural divisions, the ways I could use that to make different shapes, this one better for curries, this one for pastries. When I stand here in the quiet basement kitchens, I can almost imagine he’s standing next to me, smiling at the quick work I make of the eggplants, yams and ginger.

After he put me in training things were different. Parents aren’t allowed much contact with acolyte children, and on top of the heresy of putting a girl into the male order of Ujeism, I guess he didn’t want to push it by talking to me too often either. That was when I started to resent him, even as I wanted to make him proud. That he would put me here and then ignore me, ignore the fact that mom died.

Then just as popular opinion was starting to shift against him, he was found floating in the tide pools. I still remember the way his thick beard was matted to his face with saltwater when they laid him on a table down here. A suicide, everyone said. Atonement for his sins, according to the traditionalists.

Yeah, right. My father was nothing but driven, and anything but sorry for the way he was trying to change our faith. And the timing was too convenient. But until I become a full seer, until I can show them I’m too perfectly Ujeian to be a heresy, I have to stay strong.

That’s what Urte doesn’t understand. I’ll get into a House. I just have to force my way in.

“Think they’re small enough yet?”

I spin, raising the knife. “Dashan! You can’t sneak up on me like that.”

He sidesteps, grinning, and holds up a hand in our old greeting. “I can actually, down here with no water. It’s the only time. A man’s got to take what advantages he can get.”

I punch his palm, like I did the day in third-year we fought each other bloody, then decided to be friends.

Wish that worked with the other acolytes.

“Seriously, though,” he says, handsome with wide cheekbones and pale skin that speak to Bamani heritage, “think those mushrooms are good?”

I look down: I’ve bashed the mushrooms to tiny pieces. I blush, despite myself. I hate that Dashan can do this to me. “Yeah. Ah, guess I got distracted.”

His face gets serious. “Nerimes?”

I sigh. “Nerimes, Erjuna, the Houses, take your pick.”

“You were amazing today. I didn’t think any of us could fight like that. You’ll make a great overseer.”

The feeling comes off him again. I don’t know why, but sometimes I swear I can feel what Dashan’s feeling. And right now, he’s emitting that warm-glowy-lovey thing that always makes me uncomfortable. I appreciate that he wants it—relationships with girls are frowned on in the temple—but I don’t have time for emotions like that.

“It was stupid. There’s no way I’m getting into a House now.”

He works his jaw. “That’s—why I’m here, actually. I talked to Erjuna. He said we could maybe still take you.”

The words take a second to register. “Still take me?” Hope soars in my belly like a seagull riding drafts. Getting into a House would get me so much closer to full seer—then I think for a second, and the seagull plummets.

“Let me guess. I just have to let him beat me?”

Dashan winces. “All of us, actually.”

All of them? And he thinks I’m going to want to do this? I see red for a second, then concentrate on making the emotion a block of ice, then setting it aside for later. I let out a long breath. “I can’t do that, Dashan. You know that.”

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He huffs air out his nose, a sign he’s frustrated. “Why not? Aletheia it’s just this one time! You’d be safe in our House. I’d be there, and—”

“And you’d what, protect me?” My knuckles turn white on the hilt of the knife. “Did I look like I needed protection today?”

“I’m not talking about fighting, Theia. Yes, obviously you’re good at that.” He purses his lips and looks back to me. I can feel his concern. “Look, I didn’t want to tell you this, but have you heard about the violet eyes in the city?”

“What about them?” Eyes like mine are rare in Serei, descendants of a group of north shore refugees who arrived two generations ago. My grandfather married one, and during his and my father’s rule the eyes were a mark of prestige in the city. Probably not anymore.

“They’re disappearing, Theia. No one knows why, but suddenly you don’t see them on the street, or in the markets. People are saying they’re being shipped off or killed.”

My hands go cold. “You think it’s the traditionalists? Like they’ve been doing to the violet eyes here?” I had sixteen cousins in the temple, children of my dad’s brothers. I’m the only one left now, the rest kicked out of training or shipped off to work as messengers on remote river stations the rest of their lives.

Dashan glances around. There’s no one in the room and the floors are dry, but it’s still dangerous talk. “Look, I respect that you want to do it on your own. But nobody gets raised to full seer alone. And having a House to support you might be a good thing right now.”

Or throwing a bunch of fights might just show that I don’t belong here after all.

“I can’t do it, Dashan.” I sigh, trying to feel grateful. I know he’s just trying to help. “Thank you, though.”

He takes my hand, his grip firm and warm. The lovey feeling floods back. “Theia. Please. I’m worried about you.”

I struggle for a second. It’s tempting to say yes. To just give in to it, to trust Dashan. I’m tired of doing this alone. Dead tired, if I let myself admit it. Having allies sounds amazing. But compromise once and you never stop compromising.

I pull my hand away. “I can’t.”

“But we’d be together. You and me.”

I miss the warmth of his hand already, the solidity of his grip. I ice the emotion, stacking it next to the other one to be dealt with later. I don’t need another kind of weakness, not right now.

“I’ll think about it, okay?”

“Do that,” he says, eyes falling.

I frown. “Aren’t you supposed to be scrubbing waterways?”

“I—yes. I should go. I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?”

I nod. “Bye Dashan.”

I hold up a palm and he punches it. I bash some more mushrooms. It’s not a bad offer. It’s probably a good one, actually. Maybe I’m just being arrogant, or proud, not to want to take a fall for everyone in his House. Being ice instead of water, Urte would say. And maybe I would do it, if I was another guy. But I’m not, and the only reason I’ve made it this far is because I’ve always been better, always been stronger. Too good to possibly kick out. Without that, I’m nothing.

A shout from the next room interrupts my thoughts. I stick my foot in the wastewater channel that runs across the floor instinctively. Not much comes through it, but that’s no surprise—only the upper-level floors stay covered in water, so the trainers can monitor the students, and since Nerimes came into power, they don’t even do that much.

Down here, with no trainers and dry floors, bullies can get away with a lot.

A dish shatters, and there’s another shout. I recognize the voice: Melden, one of the lower-ranked students in our class, shouting like he does when he gets angry. Come down to the caves to blow off a little steam when he should be meditating. On a laborer who’ll lose their job if they fight back. I put down my knife and start walking.

There’s another reason I meditate down in the kitchens. To keep slopholes like Melden in check.

“—flooding lackwater!” he’s yelling. “If you can’t even clean a plate, what are you doing here? Do you even speak Ujei?”

The boy is on the floor, arms covering his head, doing exactly what he has to—not resist the student. I hate it, but we get a privileged spot in the temple. We’re below the full seers and trainers, of course, but they still turn a blind eye to what we do to the maintenance staff.

The others do, anyway. It’s always infuriated me.

I kick a mop bucket over, water gushing onto the floor. Floods do you think you’re doing, Melden? I ask through it, bringing him up cold.

His eyes meet mine, hate and fear mixing there. He doesn’t answer, but his sloppy excuse for a blind lets enough through: he’s having fun where he can. Intimidating the kitchen staff because he can’t intimidate anyone in our class, because he’s low pick in a low House and can’t do anything about it. I flash all that back to him, so he knows I’ve read it. And this is how you make yourself feel better? Picking on people who will lose their job if they fight back?

Flood you, witch, he spits back. Chosen’s got his eye on you, anyway. Do your worst.

I hate the spike of fear he puts in me. And when I hate something, I fight back.

I swing a fist at him. Maybe not the wisest move in the crowded kitchen, or against a member of the only House likely to take me in, but I’ve got bigger problems than getting into a flooding House.

He knocks it away, sending a pan flying. Without staffs, his bigger size and strength matter more here, but not enough. I dodge the punch he telegraphs through the water and deliver a hard series of fists to his kidneys and liver with ice hands. He doubles over, gasping, maybe about to puke. I kick him the rest of the way down and put a foot on his chest.

This is what happens when you mess with little people, Melden. I meet his eyes, lock onto them. They mess back. Got it?

“Flood you,” he spits, not bothering to speak in the water. “You’ll be gone in a week, anyway.”

I know it’s just talk, just him trying to hit me any way he can, but it stays with me as I help the kid up, finish my meditations, and go to my room. I don’t bother reporting him—that much commotion in the waters, one of the trainers heard. Melden’ll get his, though likely not very much because it was only a kitchen worker. If I ever get to the top—when I get to the top—that’s all going to change.