I turned, my feet squashing in the cold mud, to find her fists planted firmly at her hips. The shovel I’d abandoned sank further into the muck nearby. My grandmother knew I hated being called Roselyn. Yes, it was my given name, but I’d told her for years how much I preferred Rahzlyn. She, along with everyone else, never took me seriously.
The sole purpose for my venturing out into the storm had been to secure the herbs and shrubs susceptible to flooding. I’d started digging channels around the sage and yarrow to guide water away, as they were known to rot at the root with too much water, until I heard it again—the music—and everything eddied from my mind.
The kingdom of Gemini was prone to plenty of rainstorms throughout the year, the result of living next to the queendom of Cancer, whose queen wielded the elemental power of water. Our king’s air magic often generated windstorms across the kingdom to better distribute Cancer’s neighboring rains across our own lands.
Or to simply show off his power.
An unusually strong storm emerged this morning that we hadn’t properly prepared for. The preexisting mulch, stone pebbles, and elevated beds were not enough to combat the flooding that followed.
“Why are you standing there?” my grandmother continued. “I told you to secure the beds before the whole stars-damned garden floods!”
“Working on it, Nahn!” I called, unable to hide the bite in my tone.
She yelled something in return, her vexed voice almost entirely drowned out by the storm. Though I was nearly certain it was something to the effect of,Foolish child!
Nahn shut the glass-paned doors tightly with one last disapproving glare. With renewed clarity, I retrieved the shovel. My muddy hands slid down the wooden pole as I searched for the shrubs in need of saving.
Our family relied on this garden to keep our apothecary shop running. With us living on a small skyland so close to the royal city of Dioscuri, we’d become one of the most prominent healing destinations in all of Gemini. Thanks to my brother and grandmother’s efforts, of course.
I peered back at our two-story home, to the bedroom window with a small candlelight on the interior sill, to my grandfather. A sadness took hold of me.
Physically, he was alive, but he was a shadow of the man he used to be. Once a father figure to my brother and me, and a prominent language scholar to others, Pahn had forgotten who he was.
Who we all were to him.
Admittedly, losing myself to distractions was easier than facing that reality. Or the reality that I was a grown woman still living under my grandparents’ roof, still sharing the same room as my brother Basil, and still living with no inherent purpose. Each time I attempted to prove I wasn’t a burden, that I was good forsomething, I seemed to prove the opposite.
I grunted in frustration as I shoved the curved metal into the chunks of mud. Soaked and slippery, the shovel most certainly didnotdig where I wanted it to. With the rain at my back, I thrust forward only for my heels to slide backwards, unable to find any sort of grip. I squealed as I planted onto my belly.
“Oh, for stars’ sake!” Nahn cried out impatiently. “Get in here before you turn into sludge!”
I padded along the cobbled path lined with hyacinths—once my grandfather’s favorite flower—and lingered in the doorway. The first floor of our home belonged to the apothecary, filled with hanging plants, dried flowers, and walls lined with vials of crushed herbs and assorted concoctions. I sought comfort near the roaring hearth, its flames soothing the chill that permeated my mud-coated skin.
Nahn swathed me in a linen cloth like a babe. “You’re lucky it’s stillTempusand we aren’t open today, otherwise the whole town could have seen you like this.”
“And you sayI’mdramatic.” My teeth chattered as she rubbed my sides to ward off the shivers wracking my body. “I don’t care what the town thinks of me.”
“You should.” She scowled up at me. The firelight cast orange hues to her gray hair. She did a much better job at taming her curls than me, using a variety of oils and a bright yellow scarf to secure them in place. “You are a beautiful woman at a ripe age?—”
“Please don’t compare me to a grape in need of plucking, Nahn.” I grimaced. I’d been thoroughlypluckedmore times than she needed to know.
Nahn’s hands slowed. Despite the constant frowning I caused her, her fair skin had aged well. Thanks to the age-defying serum recipes passed down from the women on her side of the family, Nahn could pass as my mother despite nearing the end of her seventh decade.
The wonder of what my mother looked like was fleeting, as was that of my father. Nahn and Pahn rarely talked about either of them, and when they did it was only to warn Basil and me away from the topic. My grandparents were the only family we needed, so there was no point in dwelling on a past that never existed.
Still, they’d been on my mind lately more than usual, accompanied by thoughts of leaving the family business altogether.
“I wouldn’t need to compare you if you did what you were told,” Nahn said exasperatedly, bringing me back to the damp present. “What were you even doing out there?”
“Listening,” I murmured, my gaze shifting to the rivulets of water streaming down the glass-paned doors. To the wind that sang and rattled the windows.
“Listening.” Nahn tsked. “To what, yourself catching pneumonia? The drowning shrubs in the garden? The Geminian king himself using his air magic?”
There was no point in contradicting her. Not when she pretended the wind’s music didn’t exist in our family. Pahn had explained it to be a rare gift from the Astrals to be kept secret for our own safety. If word were to spread about our ability, we’d be shipped off to an Academy as specimens for studying, if not worse.
We didn’t know why or how the gift worked, only that the four of us could hear what others could not. Unlike Nahn, though, the wind was impossible for me to ignore. I sought its sounds wherever I went.
“I ask one simple task of you,” Nahn continued, clucking her tongue. “And you can’t do that without acting ridiculous and making a total fool of yourself. I don’t know why I expect anything different from you.”
