“My favorite was the men teaching their daughters how to fight.”
“I heard, ‘Just punch her in the nose,’ a dozen times.”
Aradella listened to it all, smiling deeply. “I heard that the women are wearing very little clothing.”
“Well...” they said hesitantly. “They’re trying to entice the men away from working on the houses.”
“But they’ve failed.” Aradella’s eyes were sparkling.
None of the women had ever viewed Aradella as one of them, someone they could share with, but when she laughed, they loosened.
“Today, my friend couldn’t lift a basket of carded wool, so one of the men carried it for her,” said one woman. “Yesterday, I saw her go up a two-story ladder with a barrel strapped to her back. That woman has thighs like that dragon we saw, but around the men, she is helpless!”
“Ferms!” one of the women said and her eyes nearly rolled back into her head. “Fertile men. Has there ever been a more grand sight on this planet?”
“No,” the other women—including Aradella—agreed.
All day had been like that. At one point, Aradella realized the women were coming to say goodbye to her—and she knew why. It was the day before she was to be married to a slime like Nessa. There were many subtle remarks made that showed they knew him. She asked a few questions, and yes, he’d visited the island several times.
“Let’s just say that he’s not the Reaver,” one said.
“I thought the Reaver was a woman,” Aradella said innocently.
At that, the women laughed, then they enlarged the rare sightings of a person running across rooftops into stories of the Reaver leaping from one crater to another. There were hints that he could fly.Soar, not fly, Aradella thought.
The women brought food and drink and as much laughter as they could create. And best of all, her beautiful cousins were nowhere to be seen. It was wonderful not to be looked on withpity, then see their sad eyes.PoorAradellaseemed to be written across their foreheads.
The rare treat of being with the happy women made Aradella think about how life could change in an instant. For years, she’d been the treasured only child of a king and queen. She’d freely gone places, talked to people. When she went to the craters on her pony, people ran forward to give her gifts of food and handmade objects. Of course they were hoping to sell them to the palace, but still, it was nice.
In one day, Aradella’s life changed. On the day that her parents died, Aradella had been put into insolation and fed sugary cakes. Her only “companions” were her two cousins, who she despised.
Now, years later, everything had again abruptly changed. Tanek had brought Mekos and eventually, he had given her love.
Aradella came out of her reverie. Morning light was coming into the room, and when she heard a sound in the next room, fear seemed to engulf her. If they didn’t succeed today, she didn’t want to think of the consequences.
She knew Mekos had the mask, and he had Prince Nessa’s beloved dragon. The plan was for Mekos to use the animal to entice Nessa away from the ceremony, then Mekos would...
Aradella closed her eyes in prayer. Then Mekos would stand beside her for the marriage ceremony—and they’d leave the big hall as one, united forever.
She didn’t want to think about what could happen after that. Olina might declare war. But with the men on the island, she wouldn’t win it. But then, what did the men care about who the princess of another island married? It wasn’t any of their business.
Like all the women on Pithan, Aradella had had a lifetime of hearing how “evil” men were. All of them. No exceptions. It was said that men cared about only one thing and once they got that, they discarded the women.
These complaints were what had originally separated the men and women. The Empyreans had decreed that the sexes would be happier if they lived apart. So a separation was ordered.Women stayed on Pithan in their pretty, well-kept houses, while the men, and boys over seven, were sent to the sparsely populated island of Selkan. Over the years, as their homes deteriorated, the women began to learn how to restore them, but there was too much too fast. The women made themselves feel better by spreading rumors that the men were building fortresses and violently attacking each other. The women’s roofs may be leaking but at least they weresafe!
As Aradella grew up, she remembered her fear that her beloved father would be sent away to live with the men.
“I am fortunate that I’m the king,” he’d said, but he didn’t sound “fortunate.”
She remembered the talk of rebellion that went on after the separation was first enforced. There was a hero, a man named Haver Beyhan, who’d fought to take the islands out from under the control of the Empyreans. Aradella remembered her father crying over Haver’s “disappearance.”
“He didn’t ‘vanish,’” her father shouted. “He waskilled. Murdered!” He’d broken down into tears, holding on to his wife as she too cried. “Haver was our last hope.”
It wasn’t until years later that Aradella found out Tanek was the grandson of that glorious man.
“And Mekos is his great-grandson,” Aradella said aloud. That knowledge made her wonder if she and Mekos were about to start another revolution. She hadn’t yet come to terms with having killed a person. Yes, Valona had been evil, but she was still human. So far, there didn’t seem to be public knowledge of her death. What would happen when people did know? Would it become part of what Mekos’s great-grandfather started?
And look what happened to him, she thought. He had “disappeared” and later it was found that he’d been killed. Would the Empyreans be so enraged at what she and Mekos did that they’d do what they’d done to Haver’s big Homestead? They dropped bombs from machines that no one on the islands had ever seen. In a matter of hours, the once thriving business of the people ofthe Order of Swans had been destroyed. Afterward, Haver had gone undercover. He’d led the revolution in secret.
