S. Farrell - A Magic of Twilight

“IT’s so good to see you, Vaji… I mean, O’Teni Ana.” Sala

blushed, her head down. “After we heard about what you did for

the Archigos, and how he rewarded you. . well, we were so happy for you. You look very good in the green, I must say.”

“Thank you, Sala,” Ana said. She glanced around the entrance-way. The walls of the house had been freshly painted; she could smell the oils. A cabinet of carved wood with blue glass stood in what had been an empty corner, two huge ceramic pots frothed with greenery and flowers on either side of the doors, and she glimpsed a woman she didn’t recognize in servant’s drab clothing in the kitchen hallway. “How is Matarh? Is she still. .?”

“Oh, she’s nearly recovered, though still a bit weak. She’s in the garden out back. Would you like me to run and fetch her for you?”

“No, I’ll go back there myself in a moment. I just wanted to retrieve a few things from my rooms.” She took a few more steps into the house.

The stairs had been carpeted with a runner that looked Magyarian, with diagonal patterns of orange and green. The air was aromatic with a spicy incense.

“I’ll go tell her to expect you, then. Wait until you see the garden.

Vajiki cu’Seranta has brought in all sorts of workers in the last several days, though sometimes they seem to be everywhere underfoot…”

Sala bowed, and gestured at the stairs. “We have three new servants for the house, including a woman who’s taken over the cooking duties from Tari. But your rooms have been left just as they were. I wouldn’t let anyone in there. I told them they weren’t to be touched until you’d been here.”

“Thank you, Sala. I appreciate that.”

Again, a shy blush and a duck of the head. “I’ll go tell your matarh now.” She rushed away. Ana went up the stairs, marveling at the touch of the banisters, which seemed freshly varnished and polished. The house had been so drab and shabby for the last several years, and now …

“I thought I heard your voice.”

Ana’s hand tightened on the railing at the top of the stairs. “Vatarh.

I thought you’d be. . gone at this time of day.” She turned. He was standing at the bottom of the flight, a smile on his face: the forced smile he always wore around her. He bounded swiftly up the steps, the smile fixed, the fine bashta he wore flowing around him. Ana found herself backing away, looking from side to side. Everything was different-the hallway that had once been bare was crowded with furniture. Her shin collided with the side of a plush chair. “We all have demons in the night. .”

She heard the Archigos’ voice, and she took in a breath, drawing herself up as her vatarh reached the top of the stairs, his hands extended toward her as if he expected her to come to him.

“I’ve quit my job, since I expect to be offered a better one by the Kraljica soon,” he was saying to her. “You see all I’ve done here already?

For you, Ana. So you could be proud of our family again. So you and I-”

“I’ve been paid for, Vatarh,” she said, interrupting him. “You don’t own me anymore. I owe you nothing.”

“Ana!” He recoiled as if in horror. “You make me sound like a monster. You know how much you mean to me. I. . I love you, my little bird. You know that. All this. .” He was walking toward her again, the smile returning tentatively. “They’re just things . I would rather have you here still with us, Ana. With me.”

“I came to get my belongings from my rooms, Vatarh. That’s all.”

“Then let me help you.”

“I don’t need your help.” She turned away, rushing to her room and closing the door behind her. She stood there, letting her heartbeat slow and her breath sink back into her lungs. Finally, she pushed away from the door, moving from the antechamber into her old bedroom.

She went to a chest at the foot of the bed, pulling out a few clothes and a wooden box that held a few mementos.

She heard the click of the outer door. “Sala?” she called out, but she knew who it was, knew from the sound of the breathing and the heaviness of the tread on the carpets. “Get out of here, Vatarh,” she told him, rising. He was standing in the door of her bedroom, filling it.

His expression was at once sad and eager.

She realized that she’d dropped the clothes and the box and clasped her hands together before her. She’d prayed in this room before, after the other times he’d come to her, masked in night and shielded by a daughter’s respect for her vatarh, when he’d held her and told her how frightened he was for Matarh and how much he missed her and how difficult times were for their family, how all they had was each other and how they had to help each other and how she could help him now.

And the embraces changed with his breathing, and then, finally one night, when even her tears didn’t stop him, his hands slipping under her nightclothes. .

And afterward, after her vatarh’s tears and apologies and explanations, after he’d left her in the darkness, and she’d allowed her own tears to come while she’d prayed. She had prayed as she shaped Cenzi’s Gift and used it inside herself even though she knew that to be wrong-if Cenzi desired more punishment for her, then she should have allowed the possible consequences to happen.

But she couldn’t, not when she had the power to prevent them.

As she had the power now. .

She prayed now, chanting the words of Ilmodo-speech, and as she spoke she felt the Second World open with her plea to Cenzi. She stopped the chant long enough to reply. “I gave you Matarh back, Vatarh, and the Archigos has paid you handsomely-far more than any dowry you could have received for me. Stay away from me.”

“Ana. .” He took a step toward her, his lips twitching with a faint smile under his mustache. “You don’t understand. What we did, you and I. . It was your fault as much as mine.”

His words sent white-hot fury surging through her. “ My fault?” she shouted at him. “It wasn’t me who came into my room at night. It wasn’t me who touched. .”

Her vatarh’s eyes widened at her vehemence. “Ana, listen. I’m sorry.

You need to understand-”

She was chanting, not listening to him at all. The Ilmodo opened to her, and she took it. Light shimmered between her clasped hands, so intense that it passed through and illuminated her skin, the shadows of bones dark against orange-red flesh. Knife-edged shadows surged and flowed around the room. She could see him looking at her hands, could see his throat pulse as he did so. Holding the Ilmodo, fully formed, she could speak again. “I do understand, Vatarh. I’m the only one who can.

And I’m telling you to stay away. For your own good, stay away from me.”

“You’re my daughter. You’ll always be my daughter,” he answered.

“What we did. . I did. . well, we shouldn’t have. I was wrong, terribly wrong, and I’ve already asked you to forgive me. To forget it.” Each sentence was another step. He was close enough that he could touch her now. He was watching her face, only her face. Her prayers were already answered; she held Cenzi’s power in her hands and it ached to be released, screaming so loudly in her blood that its pounding rhythm nearly drowned out her vatarh’s words. If he touched her, if his hands moved toward her. .

They did. His fingers stroked her cheek, touched the tears that she hadn’t realized were there.

“No,” she said, very quietly. “You don’t touch me. You don’t ever touch me again.” She opened her hands.

The concussion hammered at her chest, the roar deafened her, the burst of light sent her vision tumbling away. Faintly, she thought she heard her vatarh scream.