The Bone Witch Page 7

  Both girls’ families lived near Ankyo’s market district, and whenever I heard them talk about visiting their parents or buying small toys from nearby shops to bring home to their siblings, I could not help feeling a small pang of homesickness. I would have to travel a longer way to see my family.

  One other woman worked at the Valerian, named Ula. She served as Mistress Parmina’s assistant and made an account of every transaction that went on inside the asha-ka—the household expenses, tabs incurred from shops, and all the fees asha earned from their parties and contracts. She also booked new engagements for them and kept track of all money changing hands, including any gifts and tips patrons may have presented to the asha.

  I was surprised to learn that Lady Mykaela still went to the parties and dinner gatherings Ula arranged for her. I assumed that she had earned her independence and was free of such petty details. The asha herself explained to me that while she could take time off if she desired, these social meetings were her means of keeping track of the local politics of the day and to cement her influence with the powerful nobles who frequented such celebrations.

  It took me awhile to learn more about the rest of the members of our little household, and they were fewer than I imagined. Mistress Parmina ran the asha-ka. Lady Mykaela was her adopted daughter and also her successor. Lady Shadi was the only apprentice asha, having arrived two years before I did, and was about to make her debut. She was nice, but she was always rushing out to attend lessons. With my chores taking up most of my days, we never had much time to talk. Like Mistress Parmina, she could not draw the Dark. While House Valerian was known for taking in Dark asha, it was not a requirement.

  Lady Shadi was not expected to contribute to the household chores because she was busy enough with attending classes during the day and going out to entertain at night. These parties were the bread and butter of many Houses, where nobles and others who could afford it pay asha to bring life to what might otherwise be boring functions. Apprentices make their debut as young as fourteen or fifteen years old, and these parties were integral to their development as asha. While problems did come up—an asha apprentice had caused a scandal the year before when she ran away with a nobleman’s son—most asha knew better than to jeopardize their chances of a good life.

  I had always thought hua were made the same way: long, trailing sleeves, a waist wrap as thick as one’s torso, a tunic-like front to display the detailed under robe underneath. That wasn’t always the case. I saw asha wearing different variations of this wardrobe to mimic the fashion style popular in the kingdom they were born in or to put their own personal spin to the design. But asha policy required that they all wear the traditional hua when attending functions at an official capacity, including entertaining guests within Ankyo.

  Lady Shadi often departed from the Valerian when I was waiting on Mistress Parmina, so I rarely saw her leave. But I caught a glimpse of her as she was stepping out of the house one evening. She wore a beautiful hua of a deep coral that made an elegant contrast against her dark skin. Blue-green bamboo swayed against swirling, silver cloud patterns on the rich cloth, and she had on a gray waist wrap with embroidered sparrows set in gold. Heads turned to look at her as she made her way leisurely down the street, but Shadi must have been used to those admiring stares, for she never turned her head.

  There were three other asha under Mistress Parmina, but they were contracted out to several nobles in other kingdoms at the time. Two of them were serving as bodyguards in the kingdoms of Istera and Arhen-Kosho, while one was at the Yadosha city-states. I must confess that despite the books I had about asha, I knew very little about the workings of the Willows until Lady Mykaela took me aside one day to explain it all to me.

  The first asha-ka to come into existence was the House Imperial. It was founded by the legendary asha Vernasha of the Roses, also known as one of the Five Great Heroes, who made her home in Ankyo, in the then-newly-established kingdom of Kion. She was a noblewoman of the Tresean court and taught her novices the arts of dancing, singing, and etiquette. The most skilled of these she sent to work as entertainers at royal assemblies and by keeping an ear out for court intrigues was able to extend her influence into the other kingdoms.

  Only a few asha proved to be skilled at the fighting arts. Of these, she offered the best to kings and nobles to serve as personal bodyguards. Once in these positions of power, they were able to affect kingdom policy, helping to cement a longer-lasting peace among the rulers. She was quite adamant, however, that all who wished to be asha be strong in the Runic magic, a law still enforced today.

  “But why must I have to learn how to sing and dance?” I asked her, bewildered. “Isn’t being a Dark asha enough?” It was true that the asha in many books I’d read were skilled musicians and dancers, but I had not known this was required of them.

  “Being the most powerful asha there does not always mean you are the most influential or the most popular,” Lady Mykaela explained. “In war, asha influence outcomes with their prowess in fighting, with their skills. But sometimes a beautiful voice can change a kingdom better than a sword ever could. Asha gifted in the arts are highly sought after in royal courts; quite a few go on to marry royalty. Defeat them in war and beguile them in peacetime—Vernasha believed both to be the way to stability.”

  She shrugged and added drily. “Over the years, however, asha-ka themselves have become quite political, more concerned with bringing prestige to their houses. Nevertheless, most follow the letter of the law that Vernasha has laid down, even if not always in spirit.”

  Word of the Willows spread, and women not just from Kion but from all over the lands flocked to Ankyo, wanting to be trained. Many did not possess the innate sense of magic Vernasha demanded in order to become asha, so she gave them other jobs—banquet masters and tearoom owners to cater to an asha-ka and their wealthy guests, ateliers to create the hua, hairdressers to fashion the hair ornaments important to an asha’s wardrobe, and instructors to specialize in singing, in dancing, and in other softer arts.

  The Willows attracted women from all kingdoms. There were dark-haired and dark-eyed Kion asha; blond-haired, blue-eyed asha from Tresea; and golden-skinned, angular-eyed asha from Daanoris. There were even asha as far away as the Drycht bluffs, fleeing from that kingdom to avoid persecution and finding refuge in Ankyo. A few still veiled themselves, though many forsook their traditions and embraced the customary Kion hua.

  The thorn of my life was Mistress Parmina. The old woman frequently sent me out with a list of errands for special items—her medicines or the red bean cakes she was fond of or two dozen heavy hua to be laundered all at once—and punished me with double duty at the outhouses if I did not return within the hour. Because I had trouble finding my way around the city and because she wouldn’t allow any of the other maids to accompany me, I was almost always saddled with these unwanted duties upon my return.

  The old woman loved to bathe and insisted that I attend to her in the bathhouses in place of either Kana or Farhi. I spent many a night crouched on the cold, earthen floor, my knees numb and my hands gnarled from the moisture in the air, washing and soaping the old woman’s back. Perhaps the most terrifying aspect of this for me was the mistress’s naked body. It was hard for me to imagine her as having been a beautiful asha in her youth like Lady Mykaela claimed, because while she was as thin as a broomstick, her skin sagged and folded in the worst of ways, like yards of ungainly, sickly-yellow cloth that moved and breathed when she did.

  She belched and passed gas whenever she felt like it, which was often. She demanded that I massage her feet every day, which were caked in old sores and pockmarks. I was commanded to prepare many of her favorite dishes, only for her to claim she had ordered no such thing when brought before her and then demand that the cost of these meals be deducted from the Valerian’s investment of me. Because she was the head, everyone obeyed her, no matter how ridiculous or irrational h
er orders were.

  I felt that Mistress Parmina acted like an overindulgent brat, as if her advanced age had regressed her to a spoiled child. Once, she ordered me to sit down on a chair propped up in one corner of the room. I obeyed, only to leap to my feet with a loud shriek that sent Lady Shadi and Kana running into the room. Mistress Parmina, on the other hand, was cackling. Half-hidden underneath the cushions was a small cactus.

  I was not ashamed that I spent many a night coming up with different ways to kill that woman.

  You would think that Lady Mykaela would rush to my defense, but she was strangely silent on the matter, content to look the other way every time the old woman would abuse her authority. Lady Shadi was kind but did the same. Kana and Farhi were powerless to do anything—the former was sympathetic, and since the latter looked at magic as a kind of sin, the mistress’s actions were redundant. I felt like I had no one looking out for me at the Valerian, and I even began to resent Lady Mykaela for it.

  Fox remained the one bright spot of my days. He would stand patiently in front of the Valerian for hours, if only to let me know he was close by. Sometimes he would explore the city, preferring this over staying at the lodgings Lady Mykaela had arranged for him. Whenever I was sent on another one of Mistress Parmina’s errands, he would accompany me without anyone else knowing. He learned the lay of the city quicker than I had, taking time to roam the streets and commit many of the shops’ locations to memory, so that we were never lost on our way to the same shop twice. After my initial frustration over the old asha’s demands had faded, I realized I actually began looking forward to each trip. It was the only time I could spend with Fox.

  “Are you mad at me?” I asked after one such errand to the sweetshop to pick up sugar cake. Sometimes when the list of things to do was overwhelming, Fox and I would divide up the tasks so we could return to the asha-ka with more than enough time to spare. Mistress Parmina had taken to falling asleep while she waited, and I knew from experience that to wake her was tantamount to suicide. I loitered outside the house with my brother instead, watching passersby. At this time of the afternoon, there were always people around, and I learned to distinguish between the maids doing errands for their own houses and the apprentice asha that bustled back and forth between lessons.

  “Why would I be angry, Tea?” Fox sounded genuinely puzzled.

  “Because I was afraid of you for a little bit.” His death had always felt like a barrier between us, like it prevented the closeness we had once shared.

  “I think that, given our situation, that’s rather understandable, don’t you think?”

  “Not if this was all my fault to start with.”

  “I don’t want you saying that ever again.” Fox was firm. “You are not to blame here. And if you’re staying in Kion solely for my sake—”

  “No!” I said it more forcefully than I wanted to, and he looked startled. “No, I don’t want to leave Ankyo. I…I want to do this. I really do.”

  Fox eyed the entrance leading into the Valerian. “Even with the old prune inside?”

  “Fox!”

  “Isn’t she? She looks like an old fruit left to dry out in the sun for so long that it grew hungry and tried eating its own face.”

  “Fox!” I was giggling. A novice hurrying past paused long enough to shoot us dirty looks, and I reeled in my laughter. “It’s you I’m worried about, Fox. It must be so tiresome for you, having to follow me around—”

  “I don’t mind. I haven’t been as idle as you think. If you want to stay, then I’ll stay with you for as long as you want. And I’m sorry for making you afraid. This is new to me too.”

  “Are you trying to apologize for my apology?” I demanded. It was Fox’s turn to laugh, and it was infectious. We stood there giggling until Mistress Parmina stuck her head out a window and yelled down at us to shut up.

  “You must think me too fastidious, listing an asha’s hua in such detail every time I talk about one,” she said. “Some people assume that asha care only about their appearances, when that is the furthest thing from the truth. A hua collection is as personal and as private as toiletries or underclothes and as distinctive as a face or a voice. We can identify a particular asha simply by looking at her dress, for no one would think of wearing the same hua. To put on someone else’s would be an invasion of her privacy, like stealing into her house or secretly assuming her identity. Lady Mykaela was born near the Swiftsea, and so she wears water motifs on her hua to remind her of home. Lady Shadi is fond of peach and coral, and her father raised birds for a living, hence her preference for doves and the like. Mistress Parmina wears fortune runes on hers for luck. And as for me—”

  The cauldron before us belched foul smoke. I stood downwind, but it did little to ease the fumes. She stoked the flames underneath it and added more wood to encourage the fires.

  She ran a hand down her own dress, fingers stroking at the head of the dragon embroidered on her waist like it was a favored pet. Its body was still concealed underneath her waist wrap, but I fancied I could see the head of another dragon there.

  She dipped a wooden ladle into the black concoction and spooned out the topaz-colored bezoar.

  When she spoke again, her voice sounded far away.

  “And that is why what I did was such a violation of Lady Shadi’s trust.”

  8

  Over a year after I first arrived at the Valerian in Ankyo, nothing about my situation had changed, save that Lady Mykaela’s visits to the asha-ka decreased over time, Mistress Parmina’s petty indignities increased, and I was nearly fourteen. I was still an indentured servant, and the old woman made it clear I was to be that for some time. Lady Mykaela stayed only infrequently at the house, constantly rushing off to different parts of the kingdom. I suspected she was struggling with something important, but she never made mention of her troubles. I was at that time of my life where I felt both overworked and foolish, and I was too caught up in my own misery to inquire further.

  The first inkling I had of her situation was a conversation I overheard by accident between her and Mistress Parmina. I was scrubbing furiously at the floors beside the old woman’s room because she was fond of smoking shisha wherever she went. The soot and ashes left in her wake clung stubbornly to the ground, and it took several spongings for the black stains to disappear.

  “Sakmeet died last week,” Lady Mykaela said. “She had been ill for a number of months and could not attend to her duties. I had to put down the zarich in her stead. The Deathseekers still hunt for the savul.”

  “Losing Sakmeet is a heavy blow,” Mistress Parmina agreed. “The Dark asha’s numbers dwindle daily with little to replenish them. There is only you and the girl left. You are not strong enough to keep up this charade, and I do not like that you have very little time in between to heal.”

  “I will be strong enough, Mother.”

  “I would much rather you be weak and safe than strong and dead. There are reports that the people of the lie breed in Kion, and so we must be ever watchful. The King of Istera has sent me word; he has rooted out a sect of Faceless in his kingdom. But their leader, Aenah, is missing. His spies tell him that she may be in Ankyo.”

  “And what of the other two Faceless leaders?”

  “Druj is rumored to be stirring up trouble in the Yadosha city-states; for the moment, he is their problem. Usij has declared war on Daanoris but remains holed up somewhere in their mountains, prepared to defend his stronghold there. I am thankful that none of them harbor much affection for the other; it would be much more difficult to stave them off should they pose a united front. Are you sure about the wretchling?”

  “I have faith in her abilities, Mother.”

  “I dearly hope so, daraem. I have found her of little use so far: slovenly with the housework, slow to learn, but quite skilled at eavesdropping in matters that do not concern her.” The old woman raised her
voice. “I expect the outhouses to be clean by the end of the day, Tea. You’d best start immediately if you expect any dinner tonight.”

  I scrambled away as fast as I could, lugging my water bucket behind me. At the very least, I thought sourly, she had learned my name.

  “Why can’t you just resurrect her?” I asked Lady Mykaela sometime afterward. “Wouldn’t it solve the problem?”

  But the woman shook her head. “You forget, Tea, that Dark asha cannot raise those who share the same silver heartsglass as theirs. Whatever the advantages our abilities give, we cannot enjoy them in death.”

  “That doesn’t seem fair.”

  “Neither is life, girl.”

  Already, I was restless. There seemed to be no end in sight as far as my servitude was concerned, and Lady Mykaela’s library, extensive as it was, had no books about asha and Runic magic. Where was the training I was promised, the lessons I would learn to become asha? Sweeping floors and washing dishes may have taught me patience and determination, but unless I could defeat a daeva armed with a mop and bucket, Mistress Parmina was no more teaching me lessons than taking advantage of a free servant.

  I wreaked my revenge in a hundred different, albeit petty, ways. Whenever I was sent to buy a box of sweetmeats for Mistress Parmina, I took a piece for myself, and she never knew. On days when she was being particularly nasty, I would wipe the privy with her facecloth. I realize, looking back, how immature I was being, but it was the closest thing I had to rebellion at a time when I felt powerless.

  Whenever I was at my lowest, I would pretend that I had a better future. I pictured myself as a powerful asha, slaying daeva and slowly earning the people’s admiration. I imagined I was as Lilac had predicted, with jewels and gowns and a prince by my side, who resembled Prince Kance more and more with each passing day. From there my thoughts often drifted, and I wondered if I would see him again—or if he would even remember me.