Waterborn

'Well?'

'He asked me to talk to you.'

'About?' Hezhi was impatient with this conversation. What was Tsem going on about?

'He would like for you to… meet him. In the Onyx Courtyard, perhaps, or wherever you choose.'

'Meet him for what… oh. Oh.'

'He asked me to tell you something else,' Tsem murmured, almost inaudibly. His face was flushed dark, as dark as the time Hezhi had discovered him and the water maid who came around now and then to clean the cistern, poking and prodding one another in an old storage room.

'Something else?'

Tsem cleared his throat, his eyebrows drooping mournfully in embarrassment.

'Ah,' he said. 'Whither goes her brilliant beauty/My tongue cannot hold her name/More elusive than…'

'No! Stop right there,' Hezhi hissed.

'I'm not very good at reciting…'

'It matters not. I don't want to hear that. This boy is courting me?'

'He would like to.'

'No! I won't have that. No.'

Tsem tightened his jaw, but then his coarse face softened. 'Princess, what could it hurt?'

'I have no time for it,' Hezhi answered. Nor will I prove Ghan right about me, she added silently.

'What shall I tell him, then?' Tsem sighed.

'Tell him whatever you like. This is no concern of mine, Tsem.'

'As you say, Princess.'

'Exactly so,' Hezhi shot back. She strode off quickly, more than ready to be in her bed, alone, forgetting as much of the day as possible.

 

 

The rest did Hezhi good; she slept more than in any two recent nights. But as refreshed as she felt, she also had the nagging sensation of being behind, of having lost time. She ate a hurried breakfast of red rice and sausage, and with barely a word to Qey, she darted off toward the library. She did not stop to get Tsem, but he followed her anyway, catching up to her before she departed the royal wing. He reached her, in fact, near the foot of the Hall of Moments, a marbled corridor scintillating in the shifting colors that glowed through its stained-glass skylights. Hezhi paused there, both to allow the Giant to join her, and also to peer down the beautiful hall. Down there were her father and mother, aunts and uncles, older siblings.

'Beautiful, isn't it, Tsem?'

'It's very nice, Princess,' he answered.

'When do you think I will move down that hall, live with Father and Mother?'

'When the time comes, Princess.'

'Yes, when the time comes. My sister Lanah moved down there last fall. She was thirteen, just about my age.'

'Perhaps soon, then, Princess.'

'Tsem, you know, don't you? Why we all live out here, in the royal wing, but not with the family. Why we move in there sometime after our tenth years. And if not that, get taken away into the dark, below the city?'

Tsem didn't answer. Instead, he seemed to be concentrating on the colors in the hall.

'It used to be that I wanted to find D'en. I still want that, Tsem, but I wonder about myself now. Will I go down the corridor to live with Father and Mother, or will I go below the city, to wherever they took D'en? If you love me, Tsem, you should tell me.'

Tsem nodded. 'We have had this conversation, Princess, and I cannot answer you. I would if I could. I do love you.'

Hezhi turned toward him, startled. His face was folded in pain, his eyes glittering like something glass and jagged.

'You can't tell me?' Hezhi asked. Tsem nodded. He opened his mouth to speak, but his lips worked soundlessly. He shuddered, and his eyes trembled up beneath his thick lids. He began to shake.

'No! Tsem!' Hezhi ran to him and threw her arms about his waist. She could not reach all the way around. His huge body was convulsing, shaking. As she held him, though, the shuddering quieted and finally subsided. She hugged him tighter, until two platter-sized hands reached down and gently disengaged her.

'I didn't know, Tsem. I'm sorry.'

'It is something they do to us, when we are very young,' Tsem said. His voice sounded tired, strained. 'The priests—when we are chosen to work and live in the royal rooms. Me, Qey, everyone. So we can't talk about it. Do you understand?'

'I understand. I know what a Forbidding is.'

Tsem acknowledged that. 'I would talk to you if I could, Princess.'

'I know. Come on, let us go to the library.'

Her concern for Tsem ebbed as they strode on; not because she did not care for the half Giant, but because her anger began to wax. What was being hidden from her, from her siblings, her cousins? She knew no more than D'en had, and D'en was gone.

Light burst upon them again as they crossed the Ibex Courtyard, and with the real illumination came a sudden, hidden one. Hezhi grinned fiercely, her anger fitted neatly into place with purpose.

'It isn't architecture I should be studying,' she whispered, not to Tsem but to herself. 'It's us. The Blood Royal. This has to do with us.' So simple, so obvious. Find the missing royalty, find D'en. Find herself. 'That's what I should be studying,' she whispered.

But how? She had no idea where to begin. In her meandering so far, she had encountered nothing like what she sought. Ghan was right, absolutely right. One could wander in the library for a generation and not know what one searched for; not with her limited skills and knowledge.

She was still sorting through that when she reached the library. As always, Tsem made his way to the hallway left of the door and sat down to wait for her. Hezhi entered, uncertain where to begin, but eager enough.

She entered and knew something was wrong. Ghan glanced up immediately from his work, met her gaze with his for the first time since that day she had entered the library. He frowned slightly and stood, holding a book with a burgundy binding. Her heart stood cold in her chest as the old man beckoned her over to him.

She went, her face burning fiercely.

'You remember what I said?' Ghan said, his voice a faint sound, a dry page turning.

'It was already torn,' Hezhi said, hoping to sound confident and failing utterly.

'I told you also I would teach you not to lie,' Ghan said, mildly. 'How did you know what I would accuse you of?'

How had Ghan even known she had that book? It was impossible. Impossible, unless… It seemed to Hezhi that there was some way it was possible, but she was too frightened to think, and Ghan was still standing there, demanding something.

'Well?' he asked.

'I… I fell asleep. It tore then.'

Ghan nodded. 'I warned you.'

'Please…' she began, not knowing exactly how to plead with him, what she could offer. The expression on Ghan's face stopped her, however.

'There is no bargaining with me, Princess. I am the master in this room, subject only to the word of your father. And your father will not speak for you.'

'I may come here no longer?' I will not cry, Hezhi thought, and suddenly felt confident that she would not, not until later.

'Oh, no, Princess. You will come here. You will come here every day, and you will do