She turns her attention back to her bowl and pretends the answer doesn’t interest her, but she’s stopped eating. So, I tell them the story, the part of it that won’t betray the real reason why I had to retire.
“I was born in Vaara. It’s a harder city, far from here. I trained young, and when I was old enough, I came to Haara and joined the guard. I saved my pay and bought a house near the center of the city, close to the bridges. Then I sold it and bought this one.” I turn my glass on the table. “I needed a change.”
The clicking rises in my throat, and my fingers grip the glass so hard that I’m close to breaking it. I kill it with a cough, harder than I mean to, loud enough that Esme’s head jerks up. She gives me a questioning look, and there’s real concern in it. I drink my water and wave it off. I hope with everything in me that she never connects the sounds I make to her. But the concern stays on her features longer than politeness requires, and it warms me. I hold on to it.
“Tomorrow, then,” Esme says, and looks at Darina. “If you want to.”
“I want to.” Darina smiles. “Are there really bridges? Across the whole valley?”
“You’ll see them,” I say.
They start planning before the plates are cleared. They discuss what to wear against the heat, whether the paths might be steep, what a Scorpii market could possibly sell. I answer when they ask and stay quiet when they don’t. In the kitchen, they’re loud, laughing and clattering as they clean up. Two women talking over each other about a road trip. I realize this is the first time when this house feels like home.
After they’ve gone up to their rooms, I stand on the terrace with the last of my water and take account of the day. They laughed, cooked, claimed the kitchen, made plans, teased each other, and teased me. None of that happened by accident. It happened because I told Esme she’s free to go, and then I got out of her way.
This is the first time she’s ever lived outside her parents’ walls. She grew up rich and owned nothing, not even her own days, and I won’t let my house become the next place she needs to escape. The day was good for her because I removed myself from it. It hurts, but if it makes her happy, then I can endure it
I want her near me, but I want her happy more. If I can’t have both, her happiness wins.
***
In the morning, they’re in the car before I even reach it. Their eagerness puts a smile on my face. Esme returns it.
The whole ride into the valley, the two of them talk in the back, and I listen to them with pleasure. They wonder whether the city has streets or only stairs. They argue about whether Scorpii children play the same games human children do. They try to guess what the markets smell like. Esme laughs at something Darina says, open and unguarded, and it’s hard tokeep my eyes on the road when all I want to do is turn around and drink her in.
The last time I drove them down this road, Esme held Darina’s hand as they were both shaking. It’s definitely an improvement.
I leave the car at the lowest level, in the shadow of the cliff wall, and take them up on foot.
Haara rises in layers, and I know every one of them. Stone paths climb between terraces stacked one above another, carved stairways cut through the rock, and shade cloths stretch against the sun overhead. I used to walk these paths on watch. Every gate, every well, every bridge on this side of the valley was mine to guard, and I still remember every route. It’s strange to be a guide in the city I used to protect. I can’t decide whether it feels good or it hurts.
I show them the city center, where the main stairways meet, and the black stone has been worn smooth. I show them the entrance to the cistern halls and explain that water is the most sacred thing in Haara, guarded better than any treasury. We cross the markets slowly, because they refuse to be hurried. They look at every stall, every hide, every mineral, every piece of desert glass, and Darina asks Esme what half the goods could be. Esme invents answers with complete confidence, then looks up at me and dares me to contradict her. I do, she rolls her eyes and pretends she’s annoyed, but secretly, both women love learning new things.
People stare, the way I knew they would. Scorpii step out of our path and watch the two humans from doorways and terrace rails. No one says a word to me. A few of them nod in my direction – guards I served with, shopkeepers whose streets I once kept safe – and I return every nod. There’s no incident, and Esme and Darina are too fascinated with everything around them to be bothered by all the staring.
We come out onto one of the high bridges. The valley opens below us, terraces stacked down the black cliffs on both sides, bridges strung between them, the whole city carved out of stone that would kill anyone else who tried to live here.
Esme walks to the parapet and stops there.
I stay back and watch her. I expect to see fear in her eyes, and I’ve been waiting for it all day, ready to take them home the moment it showed. It never came, and it doesn’t come now.
She leans against the stone and looks out over my city with her lips parted. Then she pulls Darina to the parapet and points at something in the distance. She’s asking questions I can’t hear. She turns in place to take the whole valley in, and there’s no fear in her. She’s fascinated.
I stand where I am, out of her way, with my tail low and my hands loose at my sides, and finally, I let myself imagine that she might not hate my world, that Haara, the desert, and the life I built at its edge could be more to her than a place she must escape.
Esme laughs at whatever Darina answers, and the sound carries to me. I don’t join them. I let her have the view for as long as she wants it.
Chapter Nine
Esme
We come down from the bridge. I still have hold of Darina’s arm.
Haara stands in layers on both walls of the valley. Terraces of black stone stack above other terraces, joined by carved stairways and narrow bridges, and shade cloth in ochre and rust stretches over the walkways, so the light comes through it colored. Doorways open straight out of the rock.
There are Scorpii everywhere – crossing the bridges above us, bargaining under the awnings, carrying baskets of fruit, their tails curled behind them. Their voices click and hum around us in a language I don’t understand. A covered water channel runs along the wall to our right, sealed under a stone grate, and two armed guards stand over it. Here, water is precious.
What I was taught about this place was that it’s called the Waste for a reason. My tutors drew it as a brown stain on the map, south of Concord, and told me it was dead. Nobody told me about the cities. An entire civilization is hidden inside the place I was taught to fear. It’s either that humans don’t know better, or they do it intentionally. I can’t say which unsettles me more.
