This has indirectly contributed to the culture of polygamy deeply set within Surikh royalty. The more wives a Maha Rama claims, the more children he begets, and thus the more offspring of high-ranking theurgy to protect the kingdom.

—Tides and Times of Surikhand, an histoire by Setja Asmaradan

12

↝ A SHADE OF BLOOD ↜

You don't know poverty until you need to shit in a swamp and bathe in a river.

After two long weeks of sharing their condition, Isla had an entirely new level of respect for Bartol and his family.

That was why she was especially glad that day. Bartol had returned ashore not an hour after he left for his catch, an erne following him out from the sea. Whitebill had found him that morning, which could only mean one thing.

Bartol had told Isla to prepare. She avoided visiting the washing river except early in the mornings when no one was about, but today she was happy to oblige.

The boys who would come hiding in the reeds every time she washed only made it worse. Isla would spot them and yell out some choice words; they would giggle and run off as fast as their little legs could carry them, only to return a few minutes later. Kusuma would laugh, telling her anger only fuelled their mischief.

Harassment, more like. The oldest of Bartol's daughters was far too good-natured for her own good.

The sun was at its zenith, the sky starting to drizzle. Isla towelled herself quickly. Eppi tossed her a length of brightly coloured cotton and Isla wrapped it around her body. Eppi had taught her many ways the wrap-dress could be worn, but Isla only remembered the simplest fashions and settled for a double twist tied behind her neck. The cloth was smooth and thin; cool enough to wear in the Eastern Isle humidity.

'Ready?'

Isla nodded. She stepped into her sandals and handed her dirty cloths to the younger girl's outstretched hands.

'I assume this isn't your first time.'

'I've had it three times, once every four months, when I was a little girl.' Isla twisted the water out of her hair before fixing it into a knot over her head.

'They're harder on early-bloomers.'

'They say it's because we're younger; our theurgy more volatile at that age. It grows faster than others'.'

Kusuma joined them on the bank, dressed in a similar – albeit more intricately tied – syarong. 'No matter, Eldest. You're not an early-bloomer any more,' she said with a wink.

They waved goodbye to Eppi, and Kusuma took her further along the river until the water veered off and the weeds shrank into a trimmed carpet of grass. This new field was gated, locking a plantation of frangipani trees behind a knee-high convex of bricks.

'A shortcut,' explained Kusuma. 'Well, I also want you to meet someone before your big cut.'

'In a cemetery?' Isla had not forgotten the tradition. It was customary to plant a frangipani tree over one's grave. In fact, it was the only time the tree was grown. Anywhere else was an ill portent.

'She's not actually buried here, and no one knows we keep it, but Papa planted a tree for Eldest Lilja when we first moved here.'

The scent was intoxicating. Isla clambered between trees, careful not to stumble upon any roots or catch a low hanging branch. Each trunk bore a name and dates, scratched deep while the wood was young, and the highest branches held ribboned windhowls, now sun-faded and torn with age. Isla shuddered with the twinkle of their chimes and the low hum as the breeze caught their webs.

'Here.' Kusuma stopped before a niche in the wall, where a lone tree twisted over and out of the fence, as though reaching for liberty.

Its trunk boasted no name; only dates. Lilja's birth year and death. Her windhowl was a sea-green net with feathered ribbons and three teardrop chimes.

'It was her favourite colour. Reminded her of the sea, and freedom.'

'Is that why your father chose to be a fisherman?'

'You know, I never thought of that.'

Likely neither did he. 'Do you come here often?'

'Papa forbids it. It would cause suspicion.'

'Her tree's growing strong.'

'And tries to get away from everyone else. Just like Eldest always did.' Kusuma chuckled. 'With four younger sisters, I don't blame her. We must've been a pain.'

'What sister isn't?' Tam Mai certainly was. 'I had one. Have. Maybe. I don't know.'

'Is that what you're trying to find out?'

'One of the things. She, too, was a pain. But me ... I was cruel. I loved her ... I just didn't know it.'

'We're all cruel, when we're young.'

'Some of us stay that way.'

'I don't think that's something you need to worry about.' Kusuma smiled. 'I took you here hoping to change your mind about leaving ... but I think ... if there was a sliver of a chance Eldest was still alive, I'd also go out there and find out.'

'I'm sure she would have done the same.' Isla rubbed the etching on Lilja's trunk. 'Thank you for letting me borrow your name.'

Kusuma laughed and dragged Isla away. 'You two would've gotten along perfectly. I know it.'

Before long, they were out of the cemetery and into another part of Biripor where the road was flat and wide; much cleaner than the markets, and easier to walk on. It curled around proper shops and diners, eventually stretching into a semi-circular courtyard accommodating several offices, each structure covered by boat-shaped saddle roofs.

Kusuma stopped before one of such buildings. 'Papa's waiting in there. Good luck, Eldest.'

Isla stepped inside. Bartol rose from the wooden seats aligning the wall to greet her. 'Just in time.'

She followed him down the room. They passed a counter; the lady running it nodded them through, and Bartol took her to one of the two doors beyond. 'Ready?'

Do I look so frightened? It was the second time someone asked her within the hour. They had rehearsed everything so frequently, she had even started dreaming of their lines.

'I scheduled it so you'd get Mistress Hanopol,' Bartol continued in as low a whisper as he could manage. 'She's one tough nail, like all testers. But fair. Hanopol, that is – not the other testers. Them I can't speak for.'

He opened the door, but Isla was first to enter. Only a stone plinth adorned the centre of the room. Her heart raced as her eyes fell upon the silver basin atop it. Its many petals reflected tiny lights from the ceiling, its glare momentarily hiding the severe woman that waited behind the pedestal.

Mistress Hanopol stepped out of the light and shook Bartol's hand, her bespectacled gaze on Isla the entire time. Silver peeked out of her otherwise black hair, but for that finer detail, there was no trace of age on the woman.

'This is the daughter you declared in your appointment submission.' It was not a question. Mistress Hanopol waved Isla over to the other side of the basin. 'Bartol Shapor. Have you any other theurgists in your family?'

'Uh. Not in my direct family, no. Lilja must be the first after my great-grandmother. A cognitist of some sort. My great-grandmother, that is, not Lilja. A telepath, I think.'

Mistress Hanopol had returned to her place behind the plinth. Now that she was closer, Isla could see a large tome perched just beside the basin, in which the tester was recording Bartol's answer.

The woman looked up at Isla from her book. 'You're twenty years?'

'One and twenty come season of harvest.' Isla remembered just in time that Lilja was born in the summer.

'Even for a late-bloomer you're remarkably delayed. The oldest I've had before today was an eighteen year-old. And he came from a long-running lineage of late-bloomers.'

Isla bit her lips and fought down a shudder under the woman's stare. Despite what Bartol had told her, Mistress Hanopol still made Isla think of the testers who had treated her as a child. Her recollection of those days were blurred, but the fear those testers left her with was something that would always stay with her.

'Recount to me your first hiccup.'

'I ... I don't know when exactly it started. I'd been having headaches for several turns of the month. I thought they were normal, something triggered by my long hours of work.' Isla knew the story, but still had to fight the urge to look at Bartol for confirmation. 'Then I started noticing that people around me would also develop small headaches every time I grew angry or upset.'

That part of the story was true enough. After she and Noi escaped to Elingar, Isla had suffered a long, dark period. And every time she found herself in the peak of her melancholia, Noi would always find herself with a splitting, inexplicable headache.

'So in fact your theurgy may have started to manifest much sooner.'

'Well – that is – I suppose it could have?'

'Yet only now you've decided to declare.'

'I didn't think it was theurgy. The possibility hadn't even occurred to me. As you said, I was already far too old.'

Mistress Hanopol fixed the spectacles on her nose. The room fell into an uncomfortable silence, marred only by the sound of her quill scraping against paper. Later, she said, 'I'm willing to look past the dilatoriness of your admission. Though I'm not so certain my associates would concur.'

'I didn't know there had to be some sort of ... agreement ... between you.' Bartol cleared his throat.

'There doesn't. However, we do like to run things through each other here. It helps us maintain a consistent quality of service.'

'I assure you, neither my daughter nor I meant any harm by it.' There was a quiver in Bartol's voice that made Isla worry.

Perhaps the mistress needed a little convincing ...

Isla tempered her core and reduced herself into a wisp. As Bartol and Mistress Hanopol debated, Isla drifted into the tester as gently as she could.

'I'm sure you didn't,' said Mistress Hanopol. If she noticed Isla's exploration of the tight mind-shield she had in place, she gave no indication of it. 'But such negligence cannot go without repercussion, lest we encourage them.'

Her wall's faultless. Impenetrable.

There was no way Isla could slip through without detection. At least not any time soon. Even if she could, she was beginning to suspect a subtle manipulation here would not work. Mistress Hanopol seemed a much more principled individual than Gorlem had been; and even that brute had managed to rebuff Isla's compulsion.

Gorlem.

Had it truly been but a fortnight ago? What would she have done were it not for Pepper? The creature had scampered off to find Bartol, taking him to Isla before first light.

She reached out for the bruise on her forehead. A memorabilia from when she kissed the street. Just when the scratch on my neck's completely faded ... She must stop collecting scars like this.

'... punishment would not be as severe as an arrest.'

Isla snapped to attention at the word.

'It would be more along the lines of a fine ...' Mistress Hanopol continued.

They were talking about her overdue enlistment. Isla sighed. No one's taking me away for murder yet.

She had not told Bartol what she had done, but there had been no need. He had left for the markets every night for the next week following Isla's mystery trip. On the seventh night, she waited for his return, and he had found her by the door. 'He isn't there.' He had told her then. He did not need to say whom he had been talking about. 'I haven't seen him, and I doubt anyone else has, either.'

Nagendra was gone, and in more ways than Bartol would ever know.

Isla should be repulsed by what she had done. Indeed there were times she would wake in a sweat from night terrors; dreams where she found herself wearing the skin of everyone she knew, blood streaming from their eyes ...

But deep inside, she was glad. There was one less poison in the world. Of course others would soon come to replace the seat Nagendra had left behind, but to her, it had been a victory nonetheless.

'Lilja.' Bartol cleared his throat.

Isla startled. Mistress Hanopol was holding out a phial towards her. The tester nodded at her and said, 'It's to dull the pain.'

Isla uncorked the phial, sniffed at the dark blue liquid inside, and poured it down her throat. Was it a recent development? She had nothing to dull her pain during the bloodings as a child.

'Shapor. I will ask that you restrain your daughter.'

Bartol put one hand on Isla's shoulder and another gripped her right hand. Her fingers started to tingle, her senses dulling, yet still her body shook. Her heart raced. The anticipation of the blade was enough to start her blood pumping. Isla wanted to turn and flee.

Mistress Hanopol placed an ashen bloodrune into the basin, and not quite as gently pulled Isla's arm above the bowl. Isla did not see the tester's knife, but felt the scratch on her left wrist; a sensation that had her arm prickling with a swarm of bees.

Red poured out of her. The same red that had spurted out of Gorlem's neck.

'It's all right ... it will be over soon ...' Bartol was whispering to her, his eyes just as wide as her own. Isla had not realised she'd been crying. The pain was dull, but it was there, surfacing. An ember coming to life.

'I can't ... please ... no more ...' Isla pulled her arm away, but Mistress Hanopol's grip was as firm as her mental walls.

'Keep her still.'

'That's already a lot of blood –'

'Not nearly enough!' Mistress Hanopol snapped and Bartol fell silent.

Isla bit her lips to keep from screaming. Her vein was pulsing, dancing to the tune of her heartbeat.

Nagendra begged the same way.

She should be imprisoned. Chained; kept away for the safety of anyone with an active mind. A cut on the wrist was nothing compared to what she had done to Nagendra.

'You must not tense your arm so. Relax.'

Relax? My vein has literally been cut open!

'Listen. Do you know how the blooding works?' Mistress Hanopol's voice sounded far to Isla's ears. 'The bloodrune drinks your essence ...'

If this is her idea of a distraction, it isn't working.

'... and slowly it will take colour.' The tester was relentless, unaffected by Isla's pitiful struggle against her iron grip. 'It may take days, it may take weeks ...'

'Please ...'

'... but it's not the colour we measure. It is its final shade that tells us your rank of theurgy. Do you know the children's rhyme?'

Of course I do. My mother taught theurgy to unblooded children.

Mistress Hanopol started the recital, Isla soon reluctantly following. 'Grey as ash, not a dash; black as night, filled with might ... grey as ash ... not a dash ...'

'There.'

Something cold dripped down the length of Isla's arm. Mistress Hanopol was lathering a salve on her wound before binding it with linen.

'It is done,' continued the tester. 'We have acquired enough.'

Isla braved a glimpse into the basin. So much blood. Did that all really come from me? Like a sponge, the bloodrune took it into its pores, slowly seeping it back out ... over and over in a motion that had Isla's stomach lurching.

Before she could start retching, Bartol and Mistress Hanopol took her to the therapeut's office in the next room over. They helped her onto a bed, the therapeut promptly unwrapped her bandages and started closing the wound with a bright blue glow.

'It's a fresh wound, and Mistress Hanopol doesn't cut too deep,' he was saying to Isla.

'More scars.' She had not meant to say it aloud. Isla laughed.

'It will disappear in time.'

In the background, Mistress Hanopol was telling Bartol the results should be coming within a week. '... and I'll schedule her next blooding much earlier, considering how incredibly late you declared her. Same time in two turns of the month. If the results are uniform, it will be her last.'

Isla threw herself over the side of the bed and heaved her breakfast out onto the tiled floor.    

    
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