Now I understand. It’s his name, and he wants to know mine.
“Rose.” My lids fall shut, too heavy to lift.
“Rohhhhzzzzz.” He drags out my name and says it again and again, stroking my hair as I fall asleep.
Chapter 6
Oljin
My Alara’s name is Rose, and her teeth are like a row of petals, with rounded blunt edges in the front and grinding surfaces in the back. One set even has points like ours.
“Omnivore,” Saana says smugly. “Like us. The goddess wouldn’t send you a queen you couldn’t feed.”
“I think she wants to eatme,” I say ruefully, shaking my hand where the deep impression of her teeth remain. She even broke the skin, my fierce little queen.
“Well, what did you expect?” Saana asks archly. “If you woke up with some strange male’s fingers in your mouth, you’d bite him, too.”
“I’d do more than that.”
“She did what she could.” Saana looks at Rose, her expression pitying. “See? Just that took everything out of her. I worry she will not be able to eat enough to save herself. I’d better start cooking. Let her rest until the food is ready, Oljin,” she adds, as though she can see inside my thoughts.
“I want her to understand who I am. Who she is to me.”
Saana’s skin turns the pinky-brown of maternal love. “No one can blame you for wanting to know your queen. But she needs to heal first.”
My impatience is searing me from the inside. “How long do you think it will it take?”
She shrugs. “Alioth knows. Some wounds take a day. Some a season. Some longer.”
I watch my Alara sleep, her eyes moving under the thin skin of her lids, dark circles drawn under her eyes. She is beautiful, fragile, vulnerable. I want to fix her, and I can’t. I can’t even speak to her.
“I can’t wait forever.” The priests certainly won’t wait forever. Nor will Irra’s enemies. Our weakness without a Jara on the throne is already drawing them like flies. Some even say the Frathik delegation is not here to broker trade but to plan their future conquest.
Saana snorts as she begins pounding tili to separate the grains from the fluffy seed-heads, the muted sound of the stone adding a rhythmic quality to her words. “You have the power of a warrior and the quick mind of a scholar, but now you must learn the patience of a farmer. Wait until the time is right to harvest the fields, or all your efforts will be wasted, Jara.”
I jolt in surprise when she calls me Jara. Though I’ve yearned for the title, the reminder that I will have to rule this planet still comes as a shock. The goddess has chosenme. It is a heavier weight than I expected.
“Perhaps you should be my advisor alongside Pravil.”
Saana laughs as though I’m joking, pausing her work to shake the loosened grain into a cookpot. “I’m too set in my ways to live in the cliffs. I need grass under my feet. You will have to make do with my son if you’re foolish enough to choose him.”
“I’ll be a lucky Jara if he has half your wisdom.”
“Don’t distract me with your flattery, greenling. Stay out of my way so I can cook for my queen,” she scolds, but her skin lights up blue and green. She shoos me away to resume her pounding.
She’s happy and grateful. I should feel the same, having found my Alara. But Rose is a sveli that doesn’t quite fit. A mysterious species and so sick, barely able to speak and swallow. Unable to walk on her own. Is this what a queen looks like? How can she possibly rule a planet?
“Don’t question the goddess’s gift,” Saana says from the cooking area. “You insult her with your doubts.”
“How do you read my thoughts?”
“It’s all over your skin.”
Saana’s right. My Alara is the goddess’s gift. Who am I to question it or fear the consequences? My only mandate is to follow my heart and its commands.
It says the place for me is at Rose’s side. In fact, that is not enough. I need her in my arms.
She doesn’t wake when I gather her up, take her place on the pallet, and rearrange her slight form on top of me. Now, the ugly doubt in my chest dissolves. The sveli fits like this. I am strong and she is weak, so I’ll carry her.
