work his leg, the better it remembers what it felt like to be whole and uninjured. In time, I guess his leg will heal itself entirely.
And he won't need me.
Maybe that thought was what itched me to look deeper for another pain. I placed my hands on his belly, then his chest. His eyes opened. I could feel a heat inside him, a sharp heat, a yellow heat that comes from two broken bits of something rubbing against each other. Not an injury of flesh, but a hurt he refused to let go. This surprised me because in all my life, I've only been able to feel the heat pain like this with my own mama and with my lady, and once with a lamb I loved like a baby. And yet I could feel it so clearly in her khan.
'May I... may I sing to you again, my lord?' I asked.
'My leg feels fine. That will be all.'
That will be all, he'd said, and that meant I should've left as quick as a fish. But how could I sense such a wound and not try to heal it? A bit of my mama awakened in me, a bit of the stubborn mucker soul, the stuff that keeps you alive when all the world is frozen and the food sacks empty. Any fool would be happy to die then and go to the Realm of the Ancestors, but only a mucker is stubborn enough to keep living.
'Sit down,' I said.
I squeeze my eyes shut even as I write these words, though they're true. I did tell my lady's khan, the lord of Song for Evela, an honored gentry, to sit down. Forgive me, Nibus, god of order.
I kept my hands on his chest, and I could feel how strong he was. It reminded me of touching the neck of a horse as it runs, all those muscles under skin. Khan Tegus was a warrior, he could've knocked me to the roof and back down again. Instead he leaned back.
And I sang. 'Berries in summer, red, purple, green.' And I sang, 'Digging and scratching, the earth bears a kin.'
He leaned back more, he tensed and relaxed, the muscles of his forehead tightened. Then all of a sudden he gasped, not in pain but surprise, and his arm flailed, scattering papers.
'Are you all right?' I asked. My hands took to shaking, and I patted him all over his chest and belly, making sure I hadn't hurt him.
His eyes were wide, but he nodded. 'You pricked me just then. I can't explain it.'
'Was it...' I hesitated. I didn't want to tell him his own feelings, but I thought I understood. 'Was it as though you had a splinter inside, deep in your chest, that had been there so long you'd forgotten to notice the pain, and the song reminded you so you could pluck it out?'
I think he really saw me then for the first time, if that makes sense. He looked in my eyes, and he smiled and said, 'Thank you, Dashti.'
I hadn't known that he remembered my name. I can't say why, but his words made me want to cry, so I turned my head away and started gathering up the papers that had scattered. I felt him kneel beside me, heard the rustle of parchment as he picked up others.
'Where's that food storage account?' he mumbled after a time.
'Here, my lord,' I said, handing him a paper.
'You read?'
'Yes, my lord, and write.'
'And where do you work when you're not attending to me?'
'In the kitchens. I'm a scrubber.'
'You read and write, you have the voice of the goddess Evela, and you scrub in the kitchens.'
I laughed. 'Evela's voice! I'm no pretty singer, no sit-and-listen singer. My mama used to say my singing voice is as rough as a cat's tongue and that's why my healing songs work. They dig at you, get inside, clean you up.'
'Where's your mother now?'
'In the Realm of the Ancestors.' And just like that I started to cry. Five years she's been gone. I should think I'd be used to it, but just saying those words to Khan Tegus was like being swatted in the face with the sadness all over again--maybe because for the first time I was telling him some of my own truth. I handed him the papers right quick and begged dismissal, walking out his door before he'd even given me leave.
When I think on all the times I sinned against her khan's nobility, I'm shocked I haven't been struck dead.
Perhaps in the morning I'll wake as a pile of ash.
Day 104
Not ash yet.
Day 105
I'm writing this from a clean room with its own hearth, a horsehair blanket, and a wood table and chair. There's a window that looks over the dairy. The room's half the size of a gher and for now it's my own. How mama would laugh! Privacy's a strange notion to a mucker, where five in a tent is a roomy place.
Yesterday Shria told Cook, 'Dashti will be living upstairs so she can copy notes for the chiefs and attend to Khan Tegus with the healing songs.'
Saren didn't like it, but what could I do? I begged Qacha to look out for her and help her keep up with her scrubbing, said good-bye, and that quickly, here I am. Perhaps I should've found a way to stay with my lady, but she's improved very little since the tower, and my daily singing doesn't heal her a bit. Maybe it won't hurt either of us to be apart.
I've spent the past two days brushing ink on paper, making copies of lists about supplies and weapons, and
