Page 33 of The Gilded Ones

There have to be answers here somewhere.

As the assistants place plates of herbed chicken and rice in front of us, Britta’s eyes narrow. “Ye have a funny look on yer face,” she says, eating a piece of chicken using her hands, as is the tradition of the Southern provinces.

Mother used to do the same, even though Father wanted her to use utensils. She always said hands were good enough. The thought sends a twinge of sadness through me. It chases away the uncomfortable smell of chicken, which has sent my stomach twisting in on itself. Ever since I was burned, I can’t stomach the smell of roasted meat.

I look into Britta’s eyes. “I think my mother was a Shadow,” I whisper.

“Wha?”

“There’s this necklace she always wore – never went anywhere without it. It had the umbra on it.” It sounds so strange saying this out loud, silly even, but voicing my thoughts solidifies them. I know I’m right, I can just feel it.

“An’ that awful matron said ye looked familiar…” Excitement lights up Britta’s face and she gasps. “Wha if she knew yer mother? Wha if they trained together or something?”

“That’s what I’m thinking.”

Britta’s voice lowers to a whisper. “Does this explain how ye knew the deathshrieks were down there?” She huddles over her plate of food so the others won’t hear us talking.

Does it? I turn the question over and over in my mind. “I don’t know,” I admit. “I just get feelings sometimes. And she did too…”

I glance at Britta, steeling myself for her reaction – horror, fear? But she just nods. “We have to get that book, then – the Heraldry the karmoko talked about. If all the Shadows are listed there, perhaps yer mother is as well. Perhaps we can learn more about her.”

She looks so determined, so eager, something loosens in my chest. Here I was frightened she’d laugh at me or turn me away. I nod. “And if she’s not, at least I’ll know for sure.”

“Either way, it’ll get our minds off things. All that talk about going on raids and being warriors. How can I be a warrior? Me, Britta of Golma, a cabbage farmer’s daughter. I can’t imagine it.”

“None of us can,” Belcalis says beside her, startling me. I’ve been so absorbed in discussing Mother, I’d almost forgotten that she was sitting there. That all the other girls were as well.

To my surprise, they haven’t separated themselves by province, the way visitors to Irfut so often do – Northerners and Southerners particularly. Instead, they all lean closer, nodding in agreement with her words.

“I want to go home.” This fearful whisper comes from Katya. “‘Conquer’? ‘Warriors’? Dying?” She turns to us, bald eyebrows drawing together like pale caterpillars. “I never asked for that. All I wanted to do was get married, have children. I just want to go home, go back to Rian.”

“Rian?” I blink. “You had a betrothed?”

Katya nods. “When they came to take me, he ran after the wagon. He told me he’d wait, no matter how long it took.” She looks down at her newly gilded hands, her voice low with tears. “He’s waiting for me. He’s still wait—” She stops abruptly, hiccupping back sobs, and Britta puts her arm around her.

I just watch, unsure of what to do. The moment my blood ran gold, everyone I knew abandoned me: Father left, the villagers turned against me – even Elfriede fled. Sixteen years of friendship gone, just like that.

But Katya’s betrothed stayed with her. Tried to fight for her. Even though he went against his village elders, the priests. I’m unable to fathom the idea of such loyalty from a man – from any person, actually.

Are there truly people in the world like that? Could there be someone like that for me?

I don’t even know if it’s possible, if someone, somewhere in this vast world, will ever love someone like me – the unageing, unchanging offspring of a demon – but I want to find them. Want to survive long enough to experience that kind of love: loyal, unflinching, steadfast. The kind of love that Mother gave me before she died. The kind of love that Katya and Britta seem to command so easily.

And I don’t have to do it alone.

I glance at the other girls, Katya’s eyes wild with fear, Britta’s with uncertainty. If this was anywhere else, we wouldn’t even speak to each other, but we’re all in the same boat now, all of us faced with years of pain, suffering, blood… Bloodsisters – that’s what Karmoko Thandiwe called us, a word that gives me courage.

I send a little prayer to Oyomo before I turn to the others. “I don’t know about you,” I say, “but I intend to survive long enough to leave this place. I’ve already had enough of dying.”

Katya’s eyebrows knit together. “Already had enough? Wait, do you mean you’ve actually already died—”

“Nine times,” I whisper, the words like thorns in my mouth.

Her eyes widen nearly past their sockets. “Nine times?”

As incredulity mottles her face, and the others turn to me with identical expressions of shock, I explain: “I was subjected to the Death Mandate before I came. Only they couldn’t find my final death, so they tried again and again—” I cut myself off. “I don’t want to experience that again. I don’t want more deaths, more pain – I want to have a life, a real one this time. A happy one… But to do so, I have to survive. We all do.”

I glance from one girl to the other, take a deep breath to summon my courage. “Karmoko Thandiwe said that we were bloodsisters, so let’s help each other. If we’re to survive the next twenty years, we have to do so together, not just as allies but as friends – family…”

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