Sigquaya Read online

  It was almost like they actually believed in them. Like it meant something special. Something personal. But even so, those stories were supposed to be about other children. Not me.

  When the guards came to the door, my mother was shaking so badly, holding me so tightly, I could hardly breathe. Clutched to her chest as I was, the back of my neck got soaked with all of her crying.

  When they came inside our house, Arteura and Marcus ran and hid, even though they knew the guards weren’t there for them. Then, when the guards opened a small scroll and read my name, my mom cried even harder, if that was even possible.

  But my dad? You should have seen his smile. His eyes were looking from them to me almost like he wished he could take my place (yet probably just as glad he wasn’t). He had never looked at me like that before. It wasn’t like I ever really disappointed him. It was more like most times he didn’t see me at all. He always seemed to have something better to do. Something more important.

  But this? This was different. This was important. Important to him. And so it was important to me. He was either proud of me, or proud that the Cyneþrymm had chosen me. That’s why I broke free of my mother and went with the guard, even though she continued to scream and cry and reach out for me. Father was holding her back, all the time giving me that look. Or maybe he was looking at the Þrymm guards. The Temple had finally paid notice to our family—to me, to him. It was the recognition he’d wanted all along. He was able to do something no other Empirical judge was able to do: offer up his son for the good of the community. The sacrifice. The honor. What I remember most was the look. Is that what honor is supposed to look like? Pride?

  I knew what was about to happen, where I’d go in a few hours, what they would do with me. At that moment, it was all I could do to make my legs work, and I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from crying right in front of everyone.

  The stories that my grandparents told kept coming back to me.

  “. . . And that little girl was so brave and so strong—she put on the armor of faith and trust, and fought the dragons of fear . . .”

  I didn’t feel any of that. I didn’t feel brave or strong. I didn’t have any armor. I didn’t want to fight anything, let alone a dragon. How could the girl in that story feel the way she did? Maybe her father looked at her the way mine looked at me. Maybe she didn’t really feel it, but felt like it was the right thing to do. I wish I would have thought to ask my grandfather.

  They took me to the Temple, to a room with a high window way out of reach. It was the middle of the night, and dark, with only one torch for light. Despite that, there was no way I was sleeping. Not now. The guards never did take off the ropes they tied my hands with, or the chains that made my feet feel heavy and bruised. This wasn’t anything like the bedtime stories I’d been told. There was nothing like this in the Legend scriptures I’d heard. I was alone, the thoughts and pictures in my head the only thing keeping me company. There was my father, with that look. There were my sister and brother, peeking out from the shadows of their room, watching me leave. There was my mother . . .

  Remembering her was the first time I really cried.

  After a long time, someone finally came in, a Rector in a plain white robe, with a close-cropped beard and thinning, white hair. It was the Elder. I knew this because he was always the one reciting scripture from the big lectern of the Temple hall. But I had never seen him up-close. It was a little weird, honestly. I could tell he was trying to be nice, but there was something about his eyes that didn’t quite match the soft words and wrinkled smile. He spent some time with me, all the while patting my knee and reciting scripture that I guessed was supposed to make me feel better. It didn’t.

  Then, with a few final pats and a forced smile, he left, and I was alone again. I watched the walls go from black to gray to pink to orange with the sunrise. It was weirdly quiet. My thoughts wandered, and my eyes grew heavy. That’s when the door latch finally opened, like the crack of a whip, and I jumped. The guards came in and told me to stand up. They didn’t look at me like I should be brave and strong. They didn’t look at me like I was destined for anything with pride or honor. In fact, they didn’t look at me at all.

  Instead, they turned me around and blindfolded me. All wandering thoughts and weariness fled. I could feel my heart pounding out of my chest, and I closed my eyes and tried to remember the way my father looked at me last night. I don’t know. Maybe if I couldn’t feel any of my own pride, at least I could feel some of his.

  We went down what seemed like the same stairs and through the same corridors of the same way we had come in. As we reached the open air, a breeze washed over me, cold and dry. I’d been in bed the night before when the guards came, and all I really had on were my night breeches and underpants. I never did get a shirt on, and now it hit me that I still didn’t have one. So here I was, tied up and half naked, shivering in the cold morning as the guards, one on each side of me, led me forward.

  The sun lit up the fabric of my blindfold. Instead of making me feel warmer, it made me feel sick. I knew where we were going, and I didn’t want to go. I still tried to picture my father, but the picture kept getting dimmer and dimmer; even though I was walking forward, his face kept moving farther and farther away from me. Then, for some reason, all I could see was my mother’s face, screwed up in pain and crying. And that’s when I started to cry again. I hated that, but for some reason, I couldn’t help it.

  We went up a small rise. There was dirt under my feet, and I knew we weren’t in Brynslæd anymore. We were on the pathway toward the Gildrom. They led me around several corners, up a grade, and then the sun went away. The air got even colder and damp. I knew two things: I was in the Gildrom, and I had to pee.

  I heard voices next, a crowd, far away but growing closer, echoing like voices always do in tunnels. I knew that because my sister and I used to play in some of the deep caverns dug into the hillside above Brynslæd—the ones nobody talked about, but everyone knows are there. The Þrymm guards’ grip on my shoulders got rough then, like a bronze clamp, and they began to bark orders as we got closer to the voices.

  “Make way.”

  “Stand aside.”

  “Move!”

  It didn’t help.

  I began to feel all these strange hands all over my back and my hair, and tugging at my blindfold. That’s when I started to talk to myself, mostly because I knew no one else would.

  Gods how I wish they could rip this thing off.

  Or, maybe not.

  STOP TOUCHING ME!!

  I wish I wasn’t crying.

  Damn it, why am I crying again?

  For some reason, one of the guards lost his balance and pulled me with him. More hands were on me then, some steadying us, some still trying to tear at my pants, my blindfold, my skin. Before I could control it any longer, my bladder let go. That’s when the hands stopped touching me.

  The guard who fell, barked, “Keep going!”

  He pushed me upright again as the other one tugged me along. My nose was running from all the damn crying; my cheeks were wet and so were my legs. That’s when I started hearing whispered words like “coward” and “filthy” and “wretched thing,” and I couldn’t stand it anymore.

  Yeah, I’m crying.

  Yeah, I peed my pants.

  What the hell would you do?

  I just wanted everyone to leave me alone. I knew everyone was looking at me because I was honored, and because I was ashamed all at once. I hated it. I hated it all. This was no bedtime story. This wasn’t a fairy tale. There was no armor. I was helpless. I was half naked. What no one would ever know was that I wasn’t really sad or scared. Not anymore. I was confused. And, I was mad.

  I didn’t want this. I never wanted this.

  I knew how I probably looked. I could hear the whispers. I could hear the disgust. The condescension. I could picture my father. No more pride. Sadness, maybe. Or worse, pity.

  I didn’t care. All I k
new was that I wanted the guards to let me go. I wanted to run away. I didn’t care where. I could run into Brynewielm himself and feel better than I felt right here, right now, in this crowd, in this godsforsaken cave, with my father watching all of it.

  They led me to the edge of the pool. I could tell because my toes were kicking loose little rocks into the water. All the people had stopped talking by that point. The splashing of those little rocks seemed loud and echoey. One guy started singing and then the rest joined in, weird words that I couldn’t understand. All I could think was, Get it over with, get it over with, get it over with . . .

  Then, after a while, they stopped singing, and . . . nothing . . .

  Nothing . . .

  Nothing . . .

  Nothing . . .

  That’s when I was pushed. Then it became real. Really real. And that scared me. That was also when I remembered my hands and feet were still tied up.

  Holy sh—

  That’s when I hit the water.

  It’s cold! Oh, it’s cold, it’s cold, it’s cold—

  Wait! No, it’s not. Why isn’t it cold??

  Oh crap. I should have taken a breath. I should have fought back. I should have been braver. I should have—

  Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap!

  This wasn’t in the bedtime stories . . .

  I knew I was going down because the weight of the chains at my feet were dragging me. I reached out and felt the sides of the pool scrape against my hands as I fell. I flinched, and the back of my head banged against the rock wall on the other side.

  Oww!

  I bucked my knees to try and straighten my fall, and I think I cursed out loud because that’s when I gagged.

  Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap, oh crap! Shut your mouth!

  Wait!

  I’m not sinking anymore.

  My freefall slowed, and I felt my legs slowly drifting to one side, like I was being pulled. My knees scraped along what must have been an edge, then my thighs, then my . . .

  I reached out and pushed away, just in time. That’s when the rest of me went sideways.

  I couldn’t see anything. It was a weird sensation: the silence, the darkness, and the moving. I couldn’t hear anything besides the little bubbles and the water movement caused by my arms and legs thrashing about.

  But wait . . .

  That wasn’t true. I was hearing something else now. A distant, low rumble that I could feel in my gut as much as hear. And it sounded like I was moving toward it.

  My lungs were aching by this point. I desperately wanted, needed, to breathe. I clawed at the walls and ceiling with my bound hands, trying to find air. A hole. A gap. Anything that would fill my panicked lungs. The sound I was hearing, that low rumble, was getting louder, vibrating both my eardrums and my chest. Growing to a dull roar. Louder and stronger. I could feel the current picking up, too. I was definitely moving toward whatever that sound was, and moving faster. I was still scraping the walls with my arms and my back, but everything was rushing by me now, under me, around me. Faster and faster I was going. And the sound! Loud. Booming. Like a—

  Suddenly I was falling. I wasn’t moving sideways anymore. And I wasn’t underwater.

  My mind didn’t even have time to register whatever was going on. I felt the cold rush of air in my face, and I instinctively sucked in. The sound was thunderous here. I was totally out of control—no longer submerged, but spit out into thin air. Surrounded by icy spray, pitch black, and a deafening roar. Rolling and tumbling.

  I hit water feetfirst at an angle or so it felt, plunging below the surface into some kind of pool. Again. This time my feet struck stone, hard. Then my butt and my back. Jagged rocks cut into my flesh as I slid along, carried once more by the river’s flow. I was so disoriented, even more so now after whatever the hell that was. I struggled to get any sense of direction or bearings. All I could tell was I was moving sideways again, along the current. Slower now but still moving.

  I couldn’t help but think it felt like the Sadrean River just outside the city’s gates where my brother and sister and I used to play. There were little creeks jutting off here and there, places where you could lay down in the water and just keep your face above, letting the current rush all around your arms and legs. It felt weird and fun, and we’d laugh and try to kick water in each other’s faces just because we could. It’s what you do with siblings.

  Then I realized that’s what I was feeling now. The water was rushing all around me, but my face was above the water. I could breathe. With my head above the waves, the sound was still loud and I was still being carried along by the current, but I could breathe.

  That’s when the river made a bend and I slammed into the side of the wall, scraping along its sharp edges again and again. My arms, my back, my legs. It hurt like hell, but I didn’t cry out. I knew better this time.

  I could tell on the next straight stretch that the water made the chains a little lighter, so I tried to pull my feet up like I was in a ball to protect against the next bend. All the time I was still trying to keep my head above the water. Somewhere along the way, the blindfold had come off, but it didn’t matter. I couldn’t see ahead or behind me. Where I was going or where I had been. Nothing. I just kept going down and up and down and up, and breathing when I could.

  The next bend slammed me into the rocky wall on my shoulder and head. The little ball I was in wasn’t working. I tried to hold my arms in front of me—my legs, anything—but that didn’t seem to help, either.

  Wham! My back.

  Wham! My shoulder.

  Wham! My hipbone.

  That’s when I went under again. My hands and head were now in front and my legs stretched behind as the current carried me on. I tried to swim like that. Like a tadpole. Like a fish. Finally that seemed to be working, but I had no idea where I was going. Up? Down? Sideways?

  I raised my hands and broke the surface. There! That must be up!

  I got half a breath in before I was underwater again. I banged around two more bends, and then there was a straight stretch and I surfaced once more.

  And that’s when I hit my head. Hard! It hurt like hell and knocked me back. I saw stars.

  It wasn’t a wall this time. It was something that must have been jutting down from the ceiling, right in front of me. Maybe a stalactite like a lot of caves had, I don’t know. All I know was that it hurt, I was bleeding, and it sent me tumbling below the surface again.

  Through the stars and fog that clouded my brain, I reached for what I thought was “up,” but there was nothing. Only more water and stone. I tried another direction. Nothing.

  Everywhere I grabbed, lunged, kicked, tumbled—nothing. Just water. Just stone. I should have panicked, but I didn’t. The water was getting warmer. Softer. Gentler. Or so it seemed. So warm now. And for some reason, after a while I didn’t care that I couldn’t reach anything else. I wasn’t scared anymore. Or sad. Or mad.

  I opened my eyes. There was still nothing, but the nothing was . . . beautiful.

  I didn’t feel the walls. I didn’t feel my scrapes and cuts. I didn’t feel the ropes and chains. I just felt . . . warm. Enveloped. Comforted. Is this what pride and honor felt like?

  There was no “up.” There was no air. There was nothing. And there was beauty. I was warm and weightless. I was carried along by the hands of the gods. I was clad in armor. I was the slayer of dragons. I was the hero of scriptures and bedtime stories.

  I was Tristan.

  The firstborn.

  I was the honored dead.

  3

  The Reaping Place

  No! I want to sleep. I want you to stop touching me. I am warm and weightless. I am the honored dead. Why are you—

  Wait!

  Someone was touching me!

  The bronze, clamp-like grip, like that of the Þrymm guards just before they threw me in, was back. Then every sensation came flooding back. The water. The rocks. The pain. The drowning. And yet, I hadn’t drowned. I hadn’t
died. I was alive.

  Wasn’t I?

  Maybe I wasn’t and it was the gods grabbing hold of me, grabbing their sacrifice, taking their offering. If I wasn’t dead, I wondered if I would be alive long enough to feel Brynewielm’s teeth in my flesh.

  Gods how I wanted to sleep. Just to float away. Forever. But despite what I wanted, I opened my eyes. I could see light!

  I could see!

  I could see the surface of the water rushing toward me. I could see a flicker of flame glowing and shimmering brighter and brighter as I drifted upward, and then I broke the surface.

  Air!

  A torch!

  A face!

  Everything was a rush of sights and sounds now. The clamp-like grip was still on my arm, and now on my back, too. There was a slosh of water as I was pulled free. As I was hoisted up, I smelled the sharp scents of dampness and moss and earth. I could feel the water dripping off my body, ticklish and cold. And I felt every pain, every cut, every bruise.

  Everything shivered. Everything hurt.

  I felt sick. I was gulping in air even though it didn’t seem to help. I squirmed against whatever was holding me, finally facing back into the water as I let loose whatever was left in my lungs and stomach. All I could see was down. There was the water. There were the last ribbons of bile. Then I was moving, and I saw a smooth stone ledge.

  I landed on hands and knees, coughing and shivering—whether from cold or nerves, I wasn’t quite sure. I lowered my forehead to the cool, damp stone thinking, Blessed be all the gods who made dry land.

  “He lives,” said a booming voice from behind, startling me. I tried to raise my head, but even that hurt.

  Before I could look up, a pair of bare feet stepped in front of my hands, dusty despite the water and small, like my mother’s. Then there was a knee next to my face, also bare though the leg above the knee was clothed in what looked like an animal skin of some kind. I felt a hand caressing my back, just like my mother used to do.