Is there any way to change your fortune? I asked.
I've heard of it.
Well, if it can be done, I'll manage it, I told her. To sound brave was to be brave sometimes. You'll see it with your own eyes.
She was a priestess. I should have kept my head bowed when I addressed her, but I did not.
Deborah laughed at my nerve. I hope I live till then, child, she said to me. I hope that you do, too.
In the Country of
IN THE COUNTRY OF THE QUEEN we did not disobey. We did not even think of it. Except for me. Inside, I had a kernel of something that was made out of fire. Maybe that was where my yellow eyes came from. Maybe I hadn't inherited them from any man; maybe they were from the center of my own being.
I did as I pleased, ignoring my chores. I should have been caring for the horses with Astella, but I did not. I should have been watching over the bees with Cybelle, but I avoided that work as well.
I was spending all of my time riding again. I was the Dream Rider, true enough, and although Sky needed no further training, it was my sister the bear I taught to act like a horse.
If any man had seen me as we practiced, he would have thought I was a demon.
As I might have been.
I was wild, I admit that. I drank mares’ milk and so I believed myself to be part horse. I thought myself to be half-bear as well now, invincible, more ferocious than the warriors who as girls made the decision to sear off one breast, ensuring that when they pulled the bow back it would rest flat against their hearts. They were coated with the paste of red flowers, in a trance when the hot iron was placed against them, in a half-trance for days afterward.
I did not have to make that decision; I was the Queen-to-be and must be good at all things, not only warfare. I knew my place was on the throne of bones we carried back and forth across the steppes.
But now, something had changed.
I didn't trust my people the way I had before my future had been told. As the Queen-to-be, I should have had everything, but my hands seemed empty. I'd never been close to the other girls my age; now I moved away even from Io. When she tried to follow me, I told her I needed time and solitude in order to train Usha. Io left me in the woods with my bear. But I could tell, she didn't believe me.
She could sense the doubt I had about my place in our world even if I didn't speak such things aloud.
One day my mother's sister Cybelle came to see me. She wore golden bracelets along her arms. Bees followed her; they buzzed around her hair, which had been plaited with honey. The bear, which had grown more fierce in the woods and less accustomed to people, made a happy noise to greet Cybelle the way she did when I brought her supper. My aunt was that sweet, smelling of clover and honey.
Cybelle told me that people had begun to talk about me. Why was I by myself so much? Why did I not give more service to the Queen?
What does it matter? The Queen doesn't like to look at me.
The Queen looks into the future, at the next war, Cybelle told me. A Queen needs to lead; that's what is expected of her. Above all else, above her own life and whomever she loves. A Queen has no time for love.
Cybelle was the sort of person who seemed soft, and then the next moment she was hard and fierce. There was nothing that frightened her. She had been stung a thousand times by our neighbors the bees, and had never once cried out. It was her duty to have the dying brought to her after a battle, those who would be better off in the next world than in this one, and to send them on their journey. She had a gold dagger she used at such times; she never once flinched.
Do you think you will ever be ready to lead us? Cybelle asked me. Do you think you're able?
Do you question that? I felt hot with anger. I'd thought Cybelle valued me as something more than sorrow.
You're the one who questions it, my aunt said.
After Cybelle had left I wondered if my mother had sent her. If the words Cybelle had said had been formed in another's mouth. A Queen who didn't trust me to follow or to lead.
Although I had always assumed I was the Queen-to-be, I wasn't so sure others were in agreement. I needed to test myself, make myself stronger. I needed to follow the path of the bear. To stand and fight for what I wanted. But what was that? Maybe because of the fifty cowards I had fifty thoughts in my head. I who was supposed to lead dreamed of the black horse and heard our enemies’ death cries in my sleep.
I didn't know what I wanted, but even then I knew one truth that couldn't be undone. A Queen has but one thought: These are my people.
All through my sixteenth summer I searched for a way to change my fortune, to be a leader, to follow my Queen, to stop doubting myself, to wake up from my dreams. I went past the pasturelands and into the forests in the hopes that the goddess would guide me. Wherever I went, Usha followed. My sister the bear was slower than my sister-horse, so we were slow with her. The ride became a dreamy thing, and that is never good.
Dreams should stay where they belong, inside the spirit, inside the night.
But that's not what happened. One day it was green and I was happy just to be with my horse and my bear. I was foolish enough to do what a warrior must never do. I closed my eyes.
They were upon me the way vultures are upon the dying, the dreaming, the already dead. Four red-haired men who all seemed like one to me. One swarm, one demon, one thing tattooed with red henna, the owner of dozens of arrows and too many axes to count. I could hear someone screaming, and it was me. For the first time I truly understood fear — it was like bees under my skin, stinging, stinging. The enemy fell on me and dragged me from my horse, which was invisible in winter and in spring, but not now. Now my horse was as easy to see as the endless sky.
They grabbed me so hard I heard something break. My heart. My soul. I thought of my mother with the fifty cowards, one of them my father, then blinked that thought away. I was not just anyone. I reached for my scythe and killed one quickly, then another was on top of me; I could feel the heat from him. He started to say something in his language, which sounded like the grunting of wild dogs. He must have thought I was listening to him. He gave me just enough time to reach for my scythe, that beautiful harsh weapon, which I brought down so hard I could hear him shatter inside.
I knew these men could not have gotten past Usha; she would have fought to her death. As she did and was now doing. She stood on her hind legs, her mouth open, showing her huge teeth, fighting for me and for herself. But I'd made a mistake. I'd let Usha believe she was a horse; she had no idea of her own strength. She'd never fought like a bear before.
I could see two men upon Usha with axes until the world looked red. I went after them screaming, the scream like bees in my mouth. One of them grabbed me by the throat. His fingers were hot, burning.
From the corner of my eye, I saw someone else. A boy with dark hair like mine. He came round quietly, like a dream, picked up an axe from one of the fallen, and split open the head of the man who was tearing my clothes from me.
The last red-haired man, the one who'd finished off Usha, we chased down together. Through the tall grass. We didn't speak but we planned it. We looked at each other, nodded, understood each other completely. The boy went to the right, I went to the left, the side of the goddess, the she-bear, the bee.
The old women have said it should never give pleasure to kill an enemy, so I will not tell the truth. I will never say how the war cry sounded in my mouth; it was a joyful thing, such sweetness I nearly choked from the taste.
I whistled to call my mare and she came across the grass. Sky was nervous and danced a bit, but she was used to the scent of blood. She let me grab the bridle and take the blanket from her back to wrap around myself. My shirt had been torn away, and I should have been shivering. I should have felt shame. I felt neither of those things. Only victory.
I didn't understand all that the boy said, but enough to determine that the red-haired men were from the north storm country. They had been murdering anyone they met o
n the steppes, including some from among the boy's people. This boy was taller than me, but the same age. He followed when I walked back to where Usha was. Then I did a terrible thing. I should have cut out my sister-bear's heart to eat so I could honor her. Instead I did what a warrior should never do: I dropped to my knees and wept.
Something was over. Not just the bear's life. Something in mine.
The boy stood there, still, watching me. He had no weapons of his own, only an axe that had belonged to one of the red-haired men. This axe he threw away, as though it were unclean. He did not seem to mind that he was defenseless before me. I could have killed that boy. But I had no wish to do so. This boy's people were a tribe of wanderers who had lost their way long ago and who now traveled endlessly; he had been everywhere and knew bits of most languages. Now he started to sing one of his people's songs. It was a song to Usha's spirit, I understood that much.
I thanked him in the way I could. I gave him my scythe, the one with the bears and the bees engraved. The one the smith had made especially for me. At first, he would not take it, but I insisted. I grabbed his hands and then he stopped waving the scythe away.
He was my enemy as well, I was sure of it. And yet it didn't feel that way.
When I asked his name he said Melek. He didn't have to tell me more. I knew that in his world and among his people, it meant king.
By the time I rode back to our city of tents, I felt I would never cry again. That girl was gone, and I had returned in her place. Covered with blood, my throat turned blue and yellow with bruises from the grasp of the red-haired man, a scar down my back, still bloody, throbbing with pain. I had killed four men. They were nothing. Flies. Buzzards. Beasts.
But they were the thing that made me what I now was. The daughter of the Queen.
The whisper of my return went before me, and by the time I reached my tent my mother was there. She had some of the priestesses bring me water in the ritual buckets that were made of horsehide. She watched as I took off my blanket and poured water over myself to wash the blood away. I could feel my mother's eyes on me; she seemed surprised that I was a woman, as tall as she.
Did they hurt you? Did they do what they wanted with you?
She wanted to know if the priestesses should bring me the bark of the laurel tree, the offering for those who'd been violated. I shook my head.
I had fought the wind and lost Usha. I said, They got nothing.
Io embraced me and took me back to my tent. She brought me milk and stew. I fell asleep as though I had never been to that country before, but I didn't dream. When I awoke, I saw the scythe that the smith had made for Io had been placed across my blanket.
To replace the one you lost, Io said to me. Now I'm your sister the bear.
I could have cried if I'd had any tears.
With you as my sister, Io, I'll never need another, I told her.
Afterward people said that my horse had a fleck of blood between her eyes that wouldn't wash away. They were afraid of her; they whispered that she was marked with death. I think they were also afraid of me. I had defeated men who had killed a bear; in doing so, I had become the bear. I carried Usha with me. I was more silent, and I practiced more with Asteria and the warriors she trained. I was dutiful now, ready to become the Queen. And yet I was still thinking of other things, things I should have closed myself to.
One day when the summer was still hot but slipping away, I rode back to the place where Usha had been killed. My mare almost bolted when we reached the grasslands, but I made her go on. I rode fast and hard; I didn't think of what I was doing. When I stopped, my horse stood on her hind legs and pawed at the air. I whispered to her that this was another time even if it was the same place; when I jumped off I tied her to a low shrub so she wouldn't run away.
I knew I was in the right spot because the ground was red. Nothing grew in this place, not grass, not wheat, not brambles. There were bones outside the circle, picked clean by birds and wild dogs. White as snow.
I looked down to make sure I still had my shadow. There it was, as tall as a tree.
Inside my shadow was a basket, made of reeds. I knelt down. I could smell Usha here, her blood in the yellow dirt. I lifted the cover of the basket.
It was a gift for me.
Melek had made Usha's claws into gloves for me to wear in battle, just as my great-grandmother had worn the claws of a lion, which were then given to my grandmother, and then to Alina, our Queen. It was some time before I found the courage to reach inside the basket. I took my sister's paws and slipped them over my hands. All at once, I felt stronger. I stood and lifted my arms in the air. I screamed my war cry, and I let it echo in my head and shake the grass around me and raise earth into clouds of dust.
What happens when someone gives you a gift? I felt something inside me that I didn't understand. I replaced the claws into the basket, which I tied to my horse blanket. I got back on my horse and went west. I was not a great tracker, but good enough to find his people, the wanderers who had been lost for so long.
It was a small tent village, nothing like our city. But because these people were smiths what little they had shone with light. There were doors made of wood on their tents with brass markings. Their well was made of stones that were pink, carried from some far-off land, perhaps so they would always be reminded of home.
I lay down in the grass and watched his people light their fires, cook their evening meal. Men and women lived together here, and I wished I could see the way they looked at each other, but I was too far away to see their faces. Doves were flushed out of the grass and the beating sound of their wings made me dizzy. I heard something that made my heart race. Some man was playing an instrument I hadn't heard before. It sounded as if his spirit was in the music, rising far above us.
Melek may have been a magician as well. Without being told, he knew I was there. I supposed I was calling to him in some way, and he heard me.
He left his people and came to where I was. He put his hand up and I did as well; somehow our palms came together. He saw the basket I had tied to my mare. He saw the look on my face before I even knew it was there.
We lay down together in the grass, even though he must assuredly be my enemy. We whispered about the demons we had fought together and the way the earth was still red in our meeting place. We didn't really have to speak. We taught each other some words, but they seemed foolish. Melek ran his finger over the line of blue on my wrist.
There was no need for me to cry.
If this was his kingdom, it wasn't much. No horses, no beehives, no thousand warriors all loyal to a single Queen. But as I lay there, listening to the music for so long I had to spend the night, falling asleep beside him in the tall grass, I thought perhaps he had enough. I wasn't the sort of person who said good-bye. I left while it was dark, walking my horse until we were far enough away for me to slip onto her back and ride away.
I left him my horse blanket, made of red horsehair thread that Io had braided.
Now he had two things that were precious to me, this King of Nothing. And I had my sister the bear to wear into battle. A fine trade if you asked me.
So why was it I felt I had taken too much? Why did I feel as though I had given too much away?
Somehow Io sensed a difference in me. She was gentle and she didn't ask questions, but she knew me. I had changed. The wild girl I had once been had been replaced by a woman who wasn't certain of anything, least of all the future. At night, Io stayed in my tent; she knew I still couldn't sleep. She thought I had bad memories of Usha's death. She still believed I was the brave one, fearless in battle. But the truth was, I was too afraid to dream. Afraid of the future that had been foretold.
I went to see Deborah. She was so old she had to be carried to the fire by two of the younger priestesses. I had come to get my second tattoo, another line of blue marking the battle I'd fought for Usha. Because I had not been alone in that battle, I felt like a liar, undeserving of any honor.
; I brought Deborah a headdress made of raven feathers I'd found in the grass, sewn together with black horsehair thread.
Sometimes a gift is meaningless, sometimes it means the world, Deborah said.
I was frightened by how powerful she was, how she had the ability to know a person from the outside in.
After we'd drunk the koumiss, after they'd burned the blue into my face, I begged Deborah to read my fortune one more time. She sent everyone else away. Her daughter, Greeya, begged to stay. She worried that Deborah was too frail to read the future, but Deborah insisted even Greeya must leave us.
She waited until we were alone. She nodded like the ravens do. Her fingers trembled as she shook the augury box. Inside were beads, shells, bones, two green stones.
I hear rain inside, Deborah said. Listen.
The augury box did sound like rain, but then my head was spinning from all I'd had to drink. My face was burning. My tongue was burning, too. Who was I? That's what I wanted to know. The Queen-to-be or the girl in the grass? Who was I now and who would I soon be?
Deborah threw the augury. Two stones hit against each other and Deborah breathed in as though she'd been hurt.
It's the same, isn't it? I said. A bad fortune.
To have any fortune at all is a good thing, Deborah reminded me. Are you still dreaming of the black horse?
I don't dream.
I leaned forward when Deborah threw a handful of earth into the fire even though I was afraid to see what might appear. It was the end of summer and the nights were cooler. We could feel the coming winter, the way we could feel the passage of our own lives. Inevitable. Eternal.
Look, the priestess said to me.
There in the fire was the black horse.
And it was I, no one else, who was running beside it.
It was the time of year when the great bear in the sky's tail was moving to the west. Every night, colder. Soon we'd leave the pastureland for high ground where there would be more to eat and we could spend the winter in caves. I didn't want to leave this place. I didn't want the stars to move. The truth of it was, I didn't want anything to change. But none of that was in my hands.