Beloved Night

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Isika blinked, and the world slowly began to come back into focus. Beside her, Jabari shifted so that his hands were on her shoulders. What had happened? Ah, yes, the elders had told her she would be queen next week, and she had fainted. Wonderful. Could Isika pretend that she had simply decided to sit down fast? She looked into the many concerned faces around her. Too late.

Had she heard correctly? Did the elders really mean they thought Isika should be crowned queen next week? She stifled a laugh. The thought was making her woozy.

Beside her, Jabari shifted and spoke.

"She's not ready. Whatever you think is happening to the country is not going to be solved by making Isika queen if she's not up for it!"

Isika frowned. Wait, why was Jabari speaking for her? She held out a hand.

"Slow down, please," she said. "I haven't even heard the full idea. Let me take a breath or two and hear for myself."

A servant drew near with a glass of water, and Isika accepted it gratefully, smiling into the man's worried eyes. She took a long swallow and felt better immediately, sitting up and shrugging Jabari's hands off her shoulders.

"We've always planned that I would become queen—" she started.

Jabari interrupted. "Yes. When you're at least eighteen."

There were murmurs of disapproval. Jabari had spoken over her, and the elders didn't like it. If Isika wasn't mistaken, even a couple of the servants had made annoyed growls. Isika stared at Jabari, her friend, and dearest love.

"It's unlike you to be so attached to the rules, my love."

He gazed back at her, his face set and angry.

Ivram broke in. "She's right, young one, it's unlike you. You can't change your essence just because you love Isika. Your strength, your gifts, lie in your ability to take risks. You'll cut your feet off if you allow worry to stifle this gift."

Isika glanced at the older man in surprise. It was an odd thing to say, but she sensed the truth in his words. The other elders looked tense and unhappy, watching Ivram and Jabari. Isika let out a long breath. She could see the weight of years sitting on the elders—their hopes for Isika, their yearning for their true lost queen, their sorrow over Gavi.

I lost them all too! she wanted to shout. I lost my grandmother and mother, my sister.

Where were the Othra? Their calming presence was needed at this meeting.

Keethior! she called.

What? the Ancient One responded.

Isika closed her eyes briefly, hiding a smile. Keethior was the servant of the World Whisperer, bound to her, but this fact didn't mean he was controllable or even polite.

I need you. Will you come, please?

Jabari threw Isika a glance, and she knew that he had heard her. She hadn't bothered to shield her animal speech from him. He sat with his arms crossed, silent and upset. Isika smiled at him. He was so beautiful to her—everything about him—from his scowl to his long, dark brown hands. Now that they were really together, really in love, she often let herself look at him for as long as she wanted. She liked the flare of his nostrils and the line of his jaw. Even now, when she was genuinely annoyed with him.

"Please don't speak for me," she said in a low voice.

The angry look disappeared, and Jabari looked startled, but Isika was not about to discuss her request. She turned to speak to the others, not waiting for Keethior to arrive because there was no question, really, about her answer. She looked around at all of them, sitting tall, or reclining against cushions—Ivram, with his kind eyes, Laylit, frowning slightly. Andar, impassive but with a clenched jaw, and Karah leaning forward, calm as always. Karah's expression flickered as her daughter, Ivy, burst into the room. Isika glanced once at Ivy, then said what she needed to say.

"Of course, we can hold the coronation next week if you think it is necessary."

The ensuing clamor swirled around Isika almost without involving her, so she simply observed. No less than four Othra flew into the room in a flurry of feathers. Ivy stood with her hands on her hips, shouting that no one ever told her anything, and did anyone remember she had a place in this palace too? Uncle Dawit, on guard at the door, had choked and sat down on a chair amid a coughing fit. Isika nearly went to him but saw he was all right when he held up a hand, imploring her silently to stay where she was. Jabari didn't do or say anything. He sat gazing at Isika, while the elders remonstrated with Ivy.

This was alarming in itself. Isika stared back at him.

We knew this would happen, she told him in the inner speech they shared.

Yes, but not yet, he said. You don't know what it means to be queen.

You weren't alive during my grandmother's reign, either. I know as much as you do.

My parents are elders. I know that they never run off for swims in the waterfall or climb trees with their best friends.

She smiled into his worried eyes. Oh, but I'm World Whisperer, she said. I have to do those things, or my power will wither. Don't worry, Yab. It won't be terrible. It could even be good.

But you'll still be in too much danger. We haven't figured out what to do about Aria or the deep betrayal poison.

But, Jabari, friend of my heart, she said, holding his gaze, we're all in danger. The sun is burning holes into the ground. Something has to change. You can't keep trying to protect me, no, listen. She put up a hand. I will be queen. I will always be in danger.

It dawned gradually on Isika that the hubbub in the room had quieted. The room was silent. Every bird and human watched while Isika and Jabari stared at each other, communicating silently.

"It's creepy when you do that," Ivy said. She was seated now, leaning back, one elbow on a cushion.

"Do what?" Jabari asked, his face pure innocence. They had never actually told anyone that they could communicate in their minds, but more than one pair of eyes narrowed at his response.

"Do we look stupid to you?" Laylit asked.

This started a back-and-forth argument between mother and son. Ivy jumped in as soon as there was space to speak, and Isika tuned it out, going somewhere far away in her mind, thinking about what being crowned would actually mean. She felt a lot more afraid than she acted. Worse, she suspected Jabari knew.

Isika told her family about the decision as they gathered around the table at home for the evening meal. Abbas and Jerutha had come over as well, bringing little Mesu with them. They came over often, keeping the connection between their homes full of life. Jerutha and Abbas had married after Abbas came home from the Karee camp, bringing his father and mother to witness the ceremony.

Abbas was a prince, and Jerutha had grown up in a poor Worker home, but they loved each other fiercely. Jerutha's belly was beginning to grow round with her second child, and Isika sometimes wondered if Abbas could love another new baby any more than Mesu. Abbas doted on the little boy. Both Auntie and Isika loved to see Jerutha's face rounding out with her pregnancy, now that she was away from the Worker village and ate enough to feed herself and the baby she carried.

Ibba was also at the table, her attitude letting them all know that it was torture for her to be there. She hated to be away from her apprenticeship at the palace gardens. She had changed a lot over the last year, gaining confidence, growing assertive—a bit too assertive, Isika sometimes thought—and spending almost all her time with plants and animals. She didn't have nearly as much interest in people as she did in the dozens of varieties of mushrooms the gatherers grew in great caves in the mountains.

Kital was at the table, too. He was still sweet, still the boy of Isika's heart, but he was getting long-limbed, and he was more serious, often deep in thought. He liked to spend evenings talking about the why of everything with Uncle Dawit. Isika would sometimes try to join in, but she lost focus quickly. She cared more about what than why, she realized.

"I have something to tell you all," she said, taking a deep breath and placing her hands on either side of her bowl.

"I wondered when you would say something," Benayeem said.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Isika demanded, turning to look at him.

He shrugged. "Your music is out of control, so I figured you must have something you were planning to say."

"Is this something appropriate for everyone at the table?" Auntie Teru asked. She looked pointedly at Mesu and Kital, one eyebrow raised.

Isika stared at her, widening her eyes. "What do you think I'm about to say? Of course, it's appropriate."

"Okay, honey, just checking."

Dawit cleared his throat. "Now, just before Isika says anything, let me say that what she has to tell us will change things for us, in good ways and…not so good ways."

Now, Auntie had her arms crossed, and Jerutha was frowning. "You know?" Auntie said. "How do you know? I'm practically her mother, and I don't know what she's about to tell us, but you know?"

"I'm also practically her mother," Jerutha inserted, sitting forward in her chair, and when Auntie turned as though to argue with Jerutha, Isika took another breath and rushed to speak.

"I'm going to be crowned queen next week," she said.

There was a sudden hush. No one said a word, which suited Isika, because she had been wondering whether they had all lost their minds.

The silence went on and on. Isika began to wish that she had invited Jabari to dinner. She would have liked to squeeze his hand under the table.

Finally, Auntie spoke. "I don't know what I thought you were going to say, but that wasn't it."

"Guard duty," Dawit said, his voice defensive. "No need to get mad at me."

"Sorry, honey," Auntie said, patting his hand.

There was another silence. Jerutha dipped a piece of flatbread in the curry and took a bite. Abbas wiped Mesu's mouth. Auntie looked at the ceiling. Isika's siblings were all staring at her.

"Well," Auntie said. Isika saw that she was blinking back tears. Isika realized she was holding her breath, that she had been waiting all day to hear what Auntie would say. "I think making you queen is the smartest idea those elders ever had, Isika, because if anyone can save us, it's you."

Isika's chair clattered to the floor as she leaped up and ran around the table, throwing her arms around her foster mother, the woman who had taken her and all her complications into her home so many years ago. Soon others joined in on the hug, and Isika felt the warmth of their confidence seeping into her as they murmured and patted her arms and hair. There were tears in Isika's eyes, but they weren't tears of desperation or loneliness. More than almost anything else, this, right here, made her believe she could be what the Maweel needed her to be.

On the morning of the coronation, Isika was still thinking about that moment and Auntie’s words. She left the house at first light, running to the forest to walk in the shelter of the trees. It was dark and calm in the woods, and Isika felt her racing heart slow into a steady beat, echoing the pulse of life in the trees.

Isika didn’t know if she believed Auntie’s words: that she was the one who could save Maween. She did know that ever since the day she met Gavi and Jabari on that beach, back when she was still a scared girl with no idea of her true identity, she had been taking one step after another, each one leading her inexorably to this moment. She walked slowly, gently laying a palm on the trees she passed. Some were heavy with bloom, others covered in vines. They offered her nourishment as she went, humming with life song. She was the Whisperer, and she was a friend of the trees. She knew them, with their individual life songs that they offered up with openness, not guarded, the way people were. Isika felt honored by the trees that morning as she walked in their shade—hoona and silverwood, flowering burda. As she walked, she saw visions, ghost pictures behind her eyes: dancing light on her crown; Aria curled on the floor, crying; Herrith looking at something with desperate eyes: the Hadem dancing in lines; a tall ship. Isika blinked. What was that? But it was gone. It had lasted only a breath.

Then she heard the pounding rhythm of the drums. It was time.

“Thank you, friends,” she whispered.

For a moment, Isika caught sight of a tall man, striding along between the trees, his skin like the night full of stars, and smiled. Nenyi.

The coronation was more spectacular than any event Isika had ever seen in Azariyah, which was saying a lot. The Maweel loved to celebrate—to dress up, dance, and sing until the valley rang with the sound of thousands of voices. And the food! The people of Maween loved food and life, and Isika could barely believe she was going to be their queen. She felt undeserving and small, and very, very honored.

A coronation was a rare event, and it held all of the profound sacredness of Maweel customs, as well as an excellent reason to celebrate.

The ceremony began with the choir singing the song of loss for Queen Azariyah.

Black as beloved night, eyes like stars,

Her smile the sudden glimpse of

a crescent moon.

A line to the Uncreated One,

a thread into heaven’s heart,

Tied to the whirling sky,

the planets, the stars, the mountain peaks.

Protected by her love

The Shaper’s hand among us

Light all around us

we were brought in and encircled

Loved and surrounded

From her belly sprung

A child of light and promise

A child strong from the first

Their love the sun rising

The sight of them love itself

But hearts break and the Great Waste

Moved against us

Thieves, they wanted her,

They took our queen

she was gone and her baby with her

we wailed to the heavens,

but the grasp of the cruel was strong,

the Great Waste didn’t give her up to us.

Still, we search,

Still, we search

Still, we search.

Isika saw many people wiping away tears, and found that she was crying as well, hit with fresh grief for the mother she had known and the grandmother she had never met, whose place she was stepping into now. She decided, standing there, that she would ask the singers to write a song for Amani. Their mother should have a song—without her protection, Isika wouldn’t be here at all.

The grove was filled with floating lights and flowers as the ceremony went on into the evening. Colored cloth had been woven between the trees. The branches met overhead. Isika had her circlet on as she stepped closer to the elders for the ceremony. She felt apprehensive about giving it up for a new crown, as though she knew it, and it knew her. She felt the circlet grow warm on her forehead as solemn words were spoken. She walked to stand beneath the tallest tree at the far end of the meadow.

The people roared as Ivram bent down to kiss her forehead. They sang and ululated, leaping in pure joy. Isika grinned and waved, singing back to them, and they shouted louder. The sound filled the air, ringing from the nearby hills. It continued in that way as the ceremony went on. The choir did its best to sing the ancient coronation songs, but at times the people were so overwhelmed with joy that their shouts and ululations drowned out the sounds of the singing.

Isika’s face ached from smiling at her people, but she found tears on her twice during the ceremony. Once was when a long list of missing people was sung out to be recorded, and she wept when she heard Aria and Gavi’s names. “Herrith and Mara,” she whispered under her breath, wiping away tears.

And she cried when the elders gathered around her and sang to her, each touching her forehead in blessing. She could feel the gift of each person in their gentle hands on her head, each of them esteemed and formed by the Shaper. Her senses seemed raw and heightened, it was almost too much, and tears streamed down her cheeks.

But Isika was dry-eyed when she looked out at the sea of people—overflowing from the meadow, hanging off the palace roof, perching in the trees, on the roofs of nearby homes. Ivram stood before her. His eyes were wise and kind as he held her staff out and touched her circlet with it. The staff flashed so brightly Isika was blinded for a moment, and heat flared in the circlet, followed by intense cold. She shuddered.

She reached up and found that her circlet had changed, growing branches and loops until it swooped up, taller and broader, away from her head. It was the crown of a queen. The Palipa pressed close on every side, and Isika could hear Keerza hooves thundering in the distance, while Keethior, Eemia, Nirral, and Efir flew in high circles overhead. Peel after peel of thunder roared, and every leaf on every tree shook, though there was only a slight breeze. There was a long silence from the people until as one they roared, and the sound of their voices was like the ocean waves breaking. They began to ululate and jump, and the noise they made was like nothing ever heard in Azariyah. The Maweel had a queen again. They had suffered and waited for so long, and their love for Queen Isika could not be contained.