Page 17 of The Gilded Ones

I look down, considering her extended hand. Friends… What if she betrays me like everyone else did? Like Father, Ionas, the elders… But no, Britta isn’t one of the people who cast me out and tortured me, she’s an alaki – the first and only one I’ve ever met.

And she needs me just as much as I need her.

“Friends,” I agree, taking her hand.

Britta beams, eagerly moving closer. “I’ve been so afraid of going to Hemaira, of becoming a soldier,” she confesses, a river of words rushing out of her. It’s as if she’s been saving them up this entire week – a dam just waiting to burst. “Now that we have each other, mebbe it won’t be that bad. Mebbe ye can even come with me back to me village when it’s all over! I know yers wasn’t the best…

“An’ anyway, everyone’s friendly in Golma, an’ we have lots of handsome boys too. ’Course they won’t be the same ones I left behind, but there’ll be all sorts of lovely ones to pick from.” She peers at me speculatively. “Ye ever kissed a boy, Deka?”

“What – me? No, never!” Where did the question even come from? I’ve never spoken to anyone about such a thing before, but Britta, it seems, has no such reservations now that the gates have opened.

“I did once, during one of the village festivals. It was bad, very bad. His mouth tasted like sour milk.” She wrinkles her nose, turns to me. “So why didn’t ye – kiss a boy, I mean?”

I look down, that awful feeling rising inside me again. “No one ever wanted me,” I whisper. Besides, Elder Durkas always told us kissing led to impurity, and I tried so desperately to be pure, for all the good it did me.

Britta frowns. “Why? Yer so pretty.” She actually sounds perplexed.

“I’m not.” I shake my head, awful memories of Ionas, smile on his face, sword in his hand, flashing across my mind. Girls as pretty as you… What awful lies he told.

Britta’s snort cuts through the awful memory. “Ye are pretty, Deka,” she says. “Yer hair curls around yer face all pretty-like, and yer skin is nice an’ brown even in this deep winter.” Then she adds, as if it’s an afterthought, “An’ yer shapely. Men like shapely women. And plump ones.” She grins. “They’ve always liked me.”

“But they don’t like Southerners – at least, not in Irfut.”

“Then maybe it’s a good thing we’re headed south,” Britta says, patting my arm as the ship creaks into motion.

I nod, sending a silent prayer up to Oyomo that this proves true.

“Deka, Deka, wake up. Please wake up! We’re here, we’re here!”

Britta’s voice comes as if from far away when I wake, the heat around me so overwhelming it feels like a boulder pressing down on my chest. The remnant of a dream teases at my thoughts, heavy and insistent. I try to grab onto it, but it disappears when a large, warm weight insistently shakes my shoulder.

“I’m getting up,” I say, blinking open my eyes.

To my surprise, the light around me has changed. It’s not the cool blue of winter but the warm yellow of deep summer. Even stranger, the smells of the sea now are mixed with a new, exotic fragrance. Flowers. But I’ve never smelled flowers like these. These are subtle and elegantly scented, their fragrance shimmering around me on delicate waves.

Where’s the smell of ice and snow? Where’s the cold?

I turn to Britta, whose eyes are wide with relief. “Why is it so warm?” I rasp, confused. My tongue is as dry as our haystacks in midsummer, and sweat slicks my hair and clothes so they stick to my skin.

Britta hugs me tightly. “I thought ye would never wake! It’s been four weeks! White Hands told me ye would, but four whole weeks—”

“Four weeks?” I frown, pulling away from her. When my muscles protest this simple movement, I wince, startled. Why do they feel so tight? “What do you mean, four weeks?”

“You’ve been asleep for almost a month.” This explanation comes from White Hands, who’s watching me calmly from against the wall.

Sunlight filters bright and warm through the door at the top of the stairs behind her. It shimmers over Braima and Masaima, whose heavy fur coats and boots are long gone. They’re bare-chested in the heat, talons flexing against the wooden floor. Flies buzz around them, and they whip them away with their tails.

“A month?” I echo, flabbergasted.

“Naughty alaki, to make her friends worry.” Masaima tsks, shaking his head.

“But the quiet one needed her rest, Masaima,” Braima says, tossing his black-striped hair. “You would too if you knew you’d be travelling for weeks in a nasty, nasty ship’s hold after being trapped by priests in a nasty, nasty temple cellar.”

“But I’d at least tell you I was sleeping a long time, Braima,” Masaima sniffs.

White Hands gets annoyed by their back-and-forth. She points to the stairs, where the other passengers are now filing out towards the door. “Upstairs with you both,” she commands. “Prepare the wagon.”

“Yes, my lady,” they chime, their talons clacking up the wooden steps.

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