Jay Lake - Green

“Thank you.” I bowed, but did not try to make the sign of the lily. Not with these hands, not in this state.

“When I took my first life,” Mother Vishtha said, “I did not return to the temple for three days. I was hiding in the banyans of Prince Kittathang Park the whole time, suckling eggs and chewing on leaves to banish my hunger.”

“I was finally bringing her home,” Mother Meiko added with a smile. “She was being my student, and time had come for her to return.”

Mother Vajpai spoke up. “When I took my first life, I came back and tried to assault my teaching Mother. She was eating at table in the refectory. I nearly caught her between the shoulders with a knife, when one of my sister Aspirants of the Blade stopped me.”

“Hah!” Mother Meiko glared at her. “You would never have been catching me. I watched the reflection of my wineglass as you were to be approaching.”

“And you-?” I asked her, the oldest. I saw clearly enough what they were doing.

“Me? I took a boat from the docks and rowed out to sea, until I was losing sight of the city.” Her eyes looked at something far away. “There I wanted to be in the world without a scrap of our land. The Goddess spoke to me from the water, and sent me home again.”

Mother Vajpai looked at me carefully and nodded slightly.

“The Goddess spoke to me yesterday,” I told them slowly. “Though I am not sure what she said. Once She used the voice of a child, and once Her words came from my mouth to a fireseller, though I could not hear them.”

“Now your hands are bandaged,” Mother Meiko said, “because you were being so diligent to scrub the blood away. You cannot walk well because you were having the sense beaten back into your body.”

“I needed to feel something.”

“Not all of us turn to the lash, Green,” said Mother Vishtha in that quiet voice. “But it is still being an honored road among the Mothers of this temple. The Blades especially. If you are moved to bend yourself over again, or to bend another girl to your will, please to be speaking to me first. I will show you what can be safely done without undue harm.” She smiled shyly. “Also how to find the most pleasure in what you do, at whichever end of the lash calls you the strongest.”

“All of that is between you and your heart,” said Mother Vajpai. “We will be aiding where we can, or when you ask. Something else is being between you and us, however.”

“She knows,” Mother Meiko added. The old woman laughed. “Her road has been harder than any of yours. I will be most surprised if it does not turn hard again along the way.”

“You want to know if I will be able to k-k-kill again. When asked

… told.” Beneath my bandages, I flexed my fingers.

Mother Vajpai fixed me with her smoldering eyes. “Will you follow the will of the Goddess in this? Or do you need to turn to another path?”

I wondered what would happen if I declined now. Quite possibly I would not leave this room alive. They could hardly turn me to the street once they’d made me a killer. But I was yet unsworn. This must be a dangerous time for them.

With that, the fog that had wrapped my mind since stumbling home yesterday lifted. I was clear-eyed and clearheaded once more. A most welcome feeling.

There was time between the last Petal and taking vows. As much as a year for some girls. I could not yet swear to the Lily Goddess and her temple, did not know if I would. That meant I was not forced to tell a lie today in order to remain here a bit longer.

“Yes,” I said. “At need, when called. I have killed three times. As Mother Meiko said to me, it becomes a habit.”

“You are excused from all lessons and obligations until the next Monday,” said Mother Vajpai. “Rest, think, pray. You may wish to spend that time at services, but no one will look to count you in the sanctuary.”

It was not credible that I would be anything but closely watched. I would do the same in their place, after all. This was like the Pomegranate Court, without the walls. Except that I could choose what came next, which had never been in the way of things within the Factor’s house.

Whatever the Goddess wanted of our uneasy relationship, I would remain here awhile and listen. I might yet choose not to be used, but I would be here until then.

For a time there was no more killing. It did not take me long to realize that my unique circumstances were why Mother Vajpai had sent me for Michael Curry. Any sworn Blade would have found a shipboard killing on a northern vessel difficult. Whatever machinations had been upset within the Bittern Court did not flow back to me. Nor did I hear of the Temple of the Silver Lily suffering consequences.

I gathered some copper paisas and a beautiful flower from the altar and went to find my poor, frightened fireseller. Her cart was not where it had been. I searched every day for a week, but while finding people in Kalimpura was like finding birds in the sky, finding one person in Kalimpura was like finding a single, particular bird in the sky.

That was a disappointment.

Samma and I fought far more than before. I came to realize how much of a child she still was. She in turn was frightened by my flirtations with the lash. She soon kicked me out of bed. I took a pallet down by the end, sleeping by myself. Even the little ones began to avoid me.

I told myself I did not care.

I told myself I was a grown woman now, fourteen summers behind me and a fifteenth coming. I’d traveled the world and killed people, while these arrogant daughters of privilege knew nothing.

I told myself I was happy. Sometimes I even believed that. Killing Michael Curry had changed something else within me, though. His death had once more torn the cap off my well of rage. I took offense too easily, and used my prodigious strength to bully the other girls, to swagger in the streets and brush into the sort of boys who would fight a stranger without question. I kept my hair short and choppy. No one took me for a girl of the temple unless I walked pale-robed with the Mothers or some of the other aspirants. When I went out, I resumed binding my breasts, though they were never so large to begin with.

Once more, I was the tiger in the invisible cage that Little Kareen had seen around me. I lost the trick of being with people, of being one of them and one with them. In time, even the hard, old women such as Mother Argai liked me less, for I was more trouble to them than my lithe body and violently explosive passion were worth.

I still sparred with Mother Argai even after she stopped playing at sex with me. The same hardness that she disliked in me as a lover made me a good one to fight with, she claimed. “You’re not afraid for your face,” she’d growled. “Most young ones are. Ain’t been being roughed up enough yet.”

“I am what I am, Mother,” I told her with a leaping swing that touched the top of her head. This did little for me, as she scored on my ribs in the same pass.

“Who was it cut you so?”

“Me.” I grinned at the lift of her eyebrows. “I did it to myself .” As I spoke, I drove a hammerstrike with closed fist into her thigh.

We went to the baths after. Even though we no longer played at the flogging frame together, Mother Argai still liked to watch me wash. After all, we’d worked up the sweat side by side.

I lay stretched in the warm water, wondering if my breasts would ever be large enough to bob as Jappa’s did. Mother Argai’s had never grown so. She sat next to me with her eyes closed. I resisted the temptation to touch her on her certain spot along the hip. Instead I asked her about how best to get about in the city on my own.

“There’s something I’d like to do,” I started.