Crossroads of Canopy (Titan's Forest #1)(47)

While she wore it, she could pretend she was still somewhat part of what she’d left behind.

“Oos,” she whispered, not wanting to wake the baby. Nor Ylly, snoring softly on the other side of the cradle, who hadn’t spoken a word to either one of them all day. She blamed them for Hasbabsah’s state, and Unar couldn’t fault her for doing it. “Oos, are you awake?”

Oos’s back was turned to Unar, but her fingers tightened on a corner of her blanket.

“No.”

Unar smiled. It was like old times in the hammocks in the loquat grove, like their early years in the Garden before Oos was made a Servant and Unar was left behind. Unar had wanted to sneak a look at the goddess, and at her Bodyguard, too, until Oos had reminded her about the moat. About the fish. Do you think she can fly? Unar had asked, and Oos had snorted and said, No.

“Oos, won’t you please tell me everything you learned about healing so we can both find a way to make the magic work and heal Hasbabsah?”

“Are you stupid?” She rolled over angrily. “The magic won’t work for you, for me, for anyone, Unar! Maybe not ever!”

“You don’t know that.”

“And why should one who walks in the grace of Audblayin want to heal Hasbabsah?” Oos’s tone had turned haughty. “Why should I care if she dies? She’s supposed to die, for betraying the Garden. You and me, too. If there’s justice, we’ll all die.”

“You don’t really want to die,” Unar said calmly, “or you’d have jumped into the river already.”

“I want you to die. You ruin everything you touch.”

Unar seized Oos’s wrist, keeping a hold on it despite Oos’s attempt to pull away.

“Did we betray the Garden?” Unar demanded. “We saved it from becoming stained with slaves’ blood. The Garden is still pure. Did we somehow admit murderers, rapists, or thieves?”

“You stole two slaves. You are a thief.”

Unar fought to keep from laughing in her face.

“I am a thief if a person is a thing to steal.”

“Yes, you are.”

“Oos,” Unar said urgently, “tell me what you know. Hasbabsah doesn’t have much time. Please.”

Oos freed herself with a sharp twist. “Never,” she said, turning her back again.

Unar listened, but she couldn’t even hear any coughing now. Nor harsh breathing. If Hasbabsah died, all her efforts were wasted. The extra chores, which had left Unar unsuitable for selection. The nights and nights of washing clothes by moonlight with Ylly and the lunatic leap from the lip of the Garden.

“If it was your grandmother dying, I’d want to help her,” Unar said. “She stood outside the Gates and cried that you were killing her, remember? She said you were the birdsong in her heart and that, without you, her heart would turn black and silent. Like Hasbabsah’s tongue, Oos. It’s wrong to mark slaves in such a way, can’t you see?”

“I remember your mother came to the Garden,” Oos said. Her voice was muffled. “I remember her at the Gates. She said she could have sold you for one thousand weights of silver but that you’d run away. She demanded that Audblayin pay for you and cursed us all when the Servants told her it was too late. I wish she had sold you. I wish it was you with a black and silent tongue. Be quiet now. I want to sleep.”

Unar sighed.

She gave up the conversation, rolling flat onto her back. Staring at the ceiling again, she imagined the patterns of sap were the shapes of herself and Aoun on that first morning, when they had waited outside the dew-covered Gates for the dawn.

We’re so high up, Unar had said, staring at the sky. And so exposed.

Look, Aoun had marvelled, nudging her. The sun.

It had risen over the endless forest’s distant horizon, first making the trees black and stark, then burnishing their many shades of green. Both children had been astonished by the unfiltered heat of it, even so soon after dawn.

If they let us stay, Unar said, we’ll be warm all the time.

We’ll be Warmed Ones, Aoun had said, grinning.

The Gatekeeper, the woman with the lantern, had been an indistinct shape in the shadow of the half-open Gate.

Applicants, she had muttered. When we haven’t even announced the deaths of the old Gardeners. How did you know to come, fledglings?

Unar and Aoun had looked at one another. They hadn’t known that old Gardeners must die before new Gardeners could be admitted.

We just…, Unar began uncertainly.

Came, Aoun finished awkwardly.

Has the plague been through your houses? demanded the Gatekeeper. Are you in good health?

Yes, they both said at once. The Gatekeeper put her cupped palm through the gap in the Gate. She held a handful of soil.

How many seeds do I hold? she’d wanted to know.

Three, Aoun said.

Three, Unar said, wide-eyed with astonishment that she should be able to answer such a question, having expected a lengthy, labouring trial period before any testing took place. That way, if she failed to gain entry, at least she would have time to formulate another plan to stay free. Three, she said again, and they are passionflower seeds, and there are fern spores in the soil, but you did ask about seeds and not spores.

Yes, the Gatekeeper agreed. I did ask about seeds. The pair of you may enter the Garden. Give thanks to Audblayin.