A Day of Fallen Night (The Roots of Chaos)

The incense burner was shaped like a bird. Smoke curled from the openwork across its breast and folded wings. Taking in its scent, Tunuva closed her eyes as Esbar pleasured her.

Red light needled through a lattice, patterning their limbs. Tunuva steadied herself on her elbows. In a haze, she looked down at Esbar, drinking in the sight of her, the sun catching in her cascade of black hair. It made Tunuva tighter still, her body like a drawn arrow.

Since her blood had started to come less, her fires burned low on some days. The path to release was longer and steeper. Esbar knew it. They were of an age, Esbar half a year older – her body was changing, too. Her blood came heavier of late, soaking right through her cloths.

But on nights like this, when they were both sleek with desire, Esbar rose to the occasion as she did to all things, with tireless resolve. Tunuva tilted her head back as sweetness flared between her legs, tended by a tongue like fire and hands that knew exactly where and how to touch.

She gripped the sheet, her breaths fraying. Just as she reached the horizon of release, Esbar slid on top of her in one smooth movement so their hearts were aligned.

‘Not yet,’ she whispered. ‘Stay with me, lover.’

Tunuva embraced her with all her limbs, smiling into their kiss. Esbar was quick in many things, but in this, she had always taken her time.

They drifted to the cool side of the bed, and now it was Esbar who reclined, and Tunuva who took the lead. Esbar reached up to hold her by the waist, fingertips pressed into skin. Tunuva held still, gazing down at her.

Esbar raised an eyebrow. ‘What?’

Tunuva brushed their lips together, then their foreheads.

‘You,’ she said, leaning her hips forward, feeling Esbar firm her grasp. ‘Always you.’

She made her slow way downward, caressing as she went. Esbar watched, each surge of breath coming a little sooner than the last. On the wall, their shadows were seamless, the candlelight melting them into one.

By the time they were sated, sweat bathed them both. Tunuva lay beside Esbar and rested her head against her breastbone, so she could feel the solid drumbeat of her heart.

‘Exhilarated though I am,’ Esbar said, ‘I wonder what brought on such a surge of lust.’

Tunuva placed a kiss on the dark tip of her breast. ‘Saghul asked me if I had ever questioned our purpose,’ she said, her voice low. ‘I told her that I had, and I told her when.’

‘Ah, that day.’ Esbar shifted to face her, hooking a warm thigh across her waist. ‘It was not so long after that,’ she said softly, ‘that I knew what it was to miss you for the first time.’

Tunuva pressed close and kissed her. Even now, she never liked to relive that brief parting.

It had been two months after the Crimson Desert. In her memory, those days were a burning dream, as if she had spent the whole time with a fever. She would wake at dawn with an ache in her body, and it had been all she could do to pray and train before she could fling herself at Esbar. Desire had been a madness in her, grounded by a love that had filled her like breath – as if it had always been meant, written on her soul when it was just a seed.

The day the Prioress had found them, they had been laughing and entwined in the spicery, sprawled among sacks of rose petals and nutmeg and cloves.

At twenty, Esbar had already been the boldest of the sisters, outspoken even to her elders. Tunuva had never broken a rule. It had stunned her when Saghul banished them to separate ends of the Priory with no explanation.

Conception was one thing. In a closed society, bloodlines had to be carefully watched, but Saghul had never stopped unions that posed no risk of a child. At last, when Tunuva had thought she would lose her mind, Saghul had summoned them both to her sunroom.

Is this an affair of the body, she had asked them, or of the heart?

Tunuva had hesitated to answer, afraid that whatever she said could see her torn from Esbar. I could never speak for Tuva, Esbar had finally said, but, Prioress, must one preclude the other?

Saghul had been elected for a reason. From one glimpse, she had known theirs was not a passing attraction, one that would erode with time. It was two hearts meeting at a crossway, and deciding to go on together.

You are my daughters. I trust your judgement – but know this, both of you, she had warned. You cannot allow any love to overpower your love of the Mother. Nothing comes above our calling. If duty takes you from each other, as I did these past few days, then you must bear the separation. Whatever comes, you must endure. Be together, if you wish, but remember you are a bride of the tree.

‘No wonder she was so vexed,’ Tunuva murmured when their lips parted. ‘All those cloves.’

‘That was you, as I recall,’ Esbar said, giving her a light slap on the hip. ‘Always the quiet ones.’

‘Not so quiet,’ Tunuva said drily.

They both chuckled. Thirty years later, when either of them smelled cloves, they would still exchange a look.

Esbar kissed her once more before she sat up and raked back her hair, which tumbled to her waist in loose black curls. Tunuva folded her arm behind her head.

‘Tell me,’ she said, ‘how long did it take you to disobey Saghul?’

‘I resent your accusation. As munguna, I did precisely as the Prioress asked. Calmed and comforted our sisters.’ Esbar reached for the wine jar. ‘And then I went to Siyu and told her just what I thought of her reckless stupidity.’

Tunuva shook her head and smiled.

‘Shake your head and smile all you like, Tunuva Melim. Saghul may not like it, but I grew Siyu. I laboured for a day and a night to give her life, and I will tell her outright when she shames me. Or you.’ Esbar poured two cups of straw wine. ‘It’s your name she carries.’

‘Has Saghul decided on a punishment?’

‘Confinement for a week. For a month after that, she will not be allowed to go into the forest.’

Tunuva was silent, accepting the wine.

‘You’re too soft on her, Tuva,’ Esbar said, unyielding. ‘You know she has done wrong.’

‘We were young and foolish once.’

‘You and I spilled a few cloves. We would never have climbed the tree.’

It was true. Even at seventeen, Tunuva would sooner have cut off her own foot than place it on the sacred branches.

Esbar set a dish of fruit between them and chose a honeyed date. Tunuva took a butter plum.

‘Hidat retrieved the rope. She has been at prayer all day, asking forgiveness of the Mother,’ Esbar said. ‘I doubt Siyu has been so devout.’

‘Siyu hates to be confined. This will be a hard punishment for her.’

Esbar made a sound that could have been an agreement or a dismissal.

‘I asked Saghul to send her out into the world. To let her taste it,’ Tunuva said. ‘I thought she might do well as a handmaiden to Princess Jenyedi. Saghul did not seem to agree.’ She glanced at Esbar. ‘Am I such a fool?’

‘No.’ Esbar took her hand. ‘I do understand your outlook, Tuva. I also understand what Saghul fears. I am not persuaded that Siyu would behave at court.’ She breathed out. ‘Imsurin must have been the wrong choice. I am steel, he is stone, and together, we made a spark. No matter where she lands, she will burn something to the ground.’

‘A spark can be coaxed into a bright flame, if given the chance.’

‘And who would chance a spark in their own house?’

Tunuva bit into her butter plum. Esbar picked another date.

The matter had no end. Siyu was trapped in quicksand – unable to grow without the world, not trusted in the world until she grew. Whatever she did, Esbar would feel it reflected on her, so she would err on the side of caution. Tunuva resolved to go back to Saghul.

The air was as mild as if it were summer. They shared a flatbread with pounded fig and goat cheese, listening to the familiar sounds that drifted into the chamber. A red-throated wryneck called as it flew. Elsewhere, one of the men played a calming tune on a harp. When Esbar had eaten her fill, she relaxed into the bolsters and swirled her straw wine.

She was as striking at rest as when she fought. Candlelight feathered across her dark golden skin, limning the thick muscle in her thigh. Except for the lines around her eyes and mouth and the grey strands in her hair, she looked almost the same as she had at twenty.

When Tunuva was young, she had never dreamed that she would know a love as passionate as this. She had thought her life would be devoted above all to the tree, and her ichneumon, and the Mother. Esbar had come as a surprise. The fourth string to her lute.

No, she had not expected Esbar uq-Nāra. Or the fifth string. The one that had come later. The thought drew her gaze downward, to the scars where her body had stretched – like ripples in sand down her belly and sides, dark on the warm brown of her skin.

‘When did you last think of him?’

Esbar was looking at her face. Tunuva drank.

‘When Siyu leapt from the tree.’ The wine had no taste. ‘I never thought his name or pictured his face, but . . . he was with me, in that moment. I would have hurled myself in after her.’

‘I know.’ Esbar laid a hand on her knee. ‘I know you love her. But as munguna, you know what I must say.’

‘She is not my daughter, nor yours. She belongs to the Mother.’

‘As we all do,’ Esbar confirmed. When Tunuva gazed at the ceiling, Esbar heaved a sigh. ‘Comfort her this once if it will ease you, after you see the Mother. Imin will let you in.’ When they kissed, Tunuva tasted dates. ‘And then come back and love me one more time before we sleep.’

****

There were few titles in the Priory. Two loose ranks – postulants and initiates – but few titles, for the Priory was not a court or an army. Prioress was one title; munguna was another.

Then there was a third, the tomb keeper. On her fortieth birthday, Tunuva had received that title, and with it, the honour of guarding the remains of Cleolind Onjenyu, the Mother, slayer of the Nameless One and founder of the Priory, who had once been Princess of Lasia.

Few are more faithful than you, Tunuva. You will make her a fine warden, Saghul had said. Guard her well.

Tunuva had not failed. Each night, while the Priory quietened, she descended to the burial chamber to perform the final rites of the day. As usual, Ninuru prowled at her side, a white shadow.

Ninuru had been the smallest in her litter. Now she was near as tall as Tunuva and loyal to a fault, as ichneumons always were to the first person who fed them meat. They imprinted on that person for life.

They had also imprinted on the Priory. Centuries ago, a pack had come to the Lasian Basin to serve the Mother, whose handmaidens had taught them to speak. They had smelled the Nameless One in Lasia, marking him as their enemy, and ever since, there had been an alliance. They resembled mongooses in the way that a lion resembled a cat.

At the door, Tunuva set her lamp beside the chest and used one of her three keys to unlock it. Inside lay a mantle. Five centuries after Cleolind had worn it, the dye was still rich, a deep fig purple. Tunuva unfolded it with care and draped it around her shoulders. For years she had feared it might unravel between her fingers, this remnant of the Mother.

Her second key opened the door to the burial chamber. She walked its edge, using her own flame to light one hundred and twenty lamps, each a life the Nameless One had ended when he came to Yikala. Once the chamber was aglow, she turned to the stone coffin and illuminated the final lamp, held by a sculpture of Washtu, high divinity of fire.

Tunuva poured from a jar of precious wine, made with resin from the tree. Only the titled were permitted to taste of it. She knelt before the coffin, drank half of the wine, and observed a silence for the hundred and twenty.

Once she had recited their names, she sang out a long prayer in Selinyi, her throat warmed by the sound of worship. The language was that of the lost city of Old Selinun, from whence had come the prophet Suttu, and from her line, the House of Onjenyu.

Finishing the wine in one swallow, she stood. These days, the floor was hard on her knees – she would have to bring a mat next time. She placed a hand on the tomb.

‘Mother, be still. We are your daughters,’ she said softly. ‘We remember. We remain.’

****

Outside the burial chamber, she locked the mantle back into its chest, leaving the oil lamps to burn through the night. At sunrise, she would return to replenish them and say the morning prayer.

The third key was cool under her drape. It was made of bronze, its bow shaped like an orange blossom, each petal enamelled in white. In ten years, Tunuva had never used it. All you need do is carry and guard this, Saghul had told her. As to what it opens, that is not for you to know.

At the top of the stairs, Tunuva turned to her ichneumon. ‘Did you find it?’

Ninuru sloped into a hollow in the wall. Tunuva heard a scuffling before she returned with a woven bag in her mouth.

‘Thank you.’ Tunuva took it, then gave her a rub between the ears. ‘Shall we ride soon?’

‘Yes.’ Shiny black eyes fixed on hers. ‘Siyu is in disgrace. You should not give her gifts.’

‘Oh, not you as well.’ Tunuva tapped her pink nose. ‘Esbar has already upbraided me.’

‘Esbar is clever.’

‘Perhaps you would sooner ride with clever Esbar tomorrow, then.’ Tunuva scratched her under the chin. ‘Hm?’

‘No,’ the ichneumon said. ‘You are often stupid. But you fed me.’

She licked Tunuva clean across the face before she prowled away, tail brushing the floor behind her. Tunuva smiled and went in the opposite direction.

She found Imsurin sitting at his bench, embroidering the collar of an ivory tunic. When she approached, he looked up, eyebrows raised. They had turned grey over the past year.

‘I want to see her,’ Tunuva said. His mouth pressed into a line. ‘Please, Imin.’

‘You should not comfort her this time. Esbar would agree.’

‘It is my name Siyu carries.’ She came to stand in front of his bench. ‘Let her have a little comfort tonight. After that, I will give her time to reflect.’

‘And if the Prioress learns of this?’

‘I will answer for it.’

Imsurin pinched the bridge of his broad, freckled nose. His eyesight had been failing him for years, giving him headaches. ‘Go,’ he said, ‘but be quick, for both our sakes.’

Tunuva pressed his hand before she passed. He shook his head and returned to his needlework.

Siyu lay on top of the covers, one arm tucked under her head, hair swept over her face. Tunuva sat beside her and brushed a few dark strands behind her ear. She had slept this way since she was a child. Stirring, she opened her eyes and blinked up at Tunuva.

‘Oh, Tuva.’ She sat up and embraced her at once. ‘Tuva, Imin says I must stay in here for a week. And that I may not go beyond the valley at all, for a whole month. Is it true?’

‘Yes,’ Tunuva said, feeling her back heave with sobs. ‘Hush, sunray, hush. Imin will make sure the men keep you busy. It will feel as if no time is passing.’

‘But I can’t stay here,’ Siyu said, frantic. ‘Please. Will you ask the Prioress to forgive me?’

‘She will, in time.’ Tunuva drew back and frowned at her tearstained face. Her skin was a deeper brown, her hair still black all the way through, but otherwise she was the picture of Esbar. ‘Siyu, you must know this punishment is lighter than it could have been. The men do good work, important work. Is it so bad to help them for a few weeks?’

Siyu met her gaze. Something flickered in those thick-lashed eyes.

‘No,’ she said. ‘I just hate to be trapped inside. And I’m ashamed.’ She drew a scuffed knee to her chest. ‘I suppose Esbar didn’t want you to see me. She told me I disgraced you both.’

‘Esbar loves you with her soul, as we all do.’

‘She loves the Mother more.’

‘As we all must – but Siyu, I was there when Esbar gave birth to you. You have made her so proud over the years. This mistake is a small part of your life. It does not define it.’

Swallowing, Siyu managed a nod. Tunuva reached into her overskirt and took out the pouch.

‘For you. So you can smell the forest, at least.’

Siyu undid the tie. When she saw the delicate blue petals in the pouch, she drew out the bloom and held it to her cheek, tears running again. She had always loved dayflowers.

‘Thank you.’ She sank against Tunuva. ‘You’re always so good to me, Tuva. Even when I’m a fool.’

Tunuva kissed the top of her head. Even as she did, she remembered that Esbar could never be so tender with Siyu. She and Imsurin did not have that freedom.

‘I would like something in exchange,’ Tunuva said. ‘I would like you to tell me a story.’

‘What story?’

‘The one that matters most.’ Tunuva stroked her hair. ‘Come. The way Imin used to tell it to you.’

With a tiny smile, Siyu shifted across the bed, so Tunuva could lean into the bolsters. ‘Will you do the fire?’ Siyu asked her.

‘Of course.’

Siyu wiped her face once more, nestling close.

‘There is a Womb of Fire that roils beneath the world,’ she began. ‘Centuries ago, the molten flame within it rushed together, taking solid form. And that form was terrible indeed.’

With a twist of her fingers and a flick of her wrist, Tunuva conjured a bright flame and tossed it into the stove. It ignited the dry wood and tinder in a rush. Siyu shivered, toes curling.

‘Lava was its milk, and stone its flesh, and iron were its teeth.’ Her eyes collected the flickering light. ‘It drank until even its breath caught fire. This creature was the Nameless One, and in his ever-burning heart blazed one eternal need. The need for chaos.’

Tunuva remembered Balag telling her this story. How she had delighted in the chilling voices he would use, the shadows the men would make on the walls with their fingers.

‘Though the Womb of Fire is deeper and wider than any sea, it was not enough for the Nameless One,’ Siyu said, her voice strengthening. ‘He thirsted for the world above. He swam up through the molten fire and broke the very mantle of the earth, and his terrible form emerged from the Dreadmount. Fire streamed in a river down its slopes, consuming the city of Gulthaga, and smoke blackened the morning sky. Red lightning struck and struck again, and as the sun disappeared, the Nameless One took wing.’

In the stove, the flame burned hotter.

‘He sought the warmer climes to the south,’ Siyu said, ‘and so his dread shadow fell upon Yikala, where the House of Onjenyu ruled over the great domain of Lasia. He settled beside Lake Jakpa, and with his breath and the wind of his wings came a plague that poisoned all before him. The people sickened. Their blood ran hot, so hot they screamed and brawled and perished in the streets. The Nameless One beheld humankind, and he detested what he saw. He resolved to turn their world – this world – into a second Womb of Fire.’

‘As below, so above,’ Tunuva said.

Siyu nodded.

‘Selinu Onjenyu ruled Lasia in those days,’ she said. ‘He watched as Yikala descended into chaos. Its water reeked and boiled. First, he sent warriors to kill the beast, but the Nameless One melted their flesh and scattered the shore of the lake with their bones. Next, the farmers surrendered their sheep and goats and oxen. And when there was no livestock left, Selinu saw no other choice. He stepped from his palace and gave the command that every day, the people must cast lots, and one would be the sacrifice.’

One hundred and twenty names.

‘Selinu made a great oath,’ Siyu said. ‘He could not risk his own life, but the names of his children would be among the lots. When it came to the hundred and twenty-first day, it was his daughter – Princess Cleolind – whose name was plucked from the crock.

‘Cleolind had spent her days in torment. She had seen the people suffering, seen even children go to their deaths, and swore to fight the beast herself, for she was a skilled warrior. Selinu had forbidden it. Yet when Cleolind was chosen, he had no choice but to send her to her doom. For this, they would for ever call him Selinu the Oathkeeper.

‘On the day Cleolind was to die, a man of the West rode into Yikala, seeking glory and a crown. With him he carried a sword of rare splendour, the sword named Ascalun. He claimed it was enchanted, that he alone could slay the creature – but it was not kindness that moved him. In exchange for his blade, the knight of Inysca had two conditions. First, he would see the people of Lasia convert to his new religion of Six Virtues. And second, when he returned to his own country, he would have Cleolind as his bride.’

Siyu stopped to clear her throat. Tunuva passed her a goblet of walnut milk, which she drank.

‘And what then?’ Tunuva asked her. ‘What did Cleolind say?’

When Siyu lay back down, she rested her head against Tunuva.

‘She told her father to banish the knight,’ Siyu said. ‘Desperate though their city was, she would not see her people on their knees for a foreign king – but when she went to meet her death, the knight followed. And when Cleolind was bound to a stone, and the Nameless One emerged from the foul water to claim his payment, the knight faced him.

‘But Galian Berethnet – that was his name – was a coward and a fool. The fumes and fire overcame him. Cleolind took up his sword. From the acrid shore of Lake Jakpa, deep into the Lasian Basin, she fought the Beast of the Mountain, tracking him to his lair. There, Cleolind was astonished, for in the valley grew a befruited tree, taller than any she had ever seen.’

That image appeared on many walls in the Priory. The tree, its golden oranges, the red beast twined around its trunk.

‘They fought,’ Siyu said, ‘for a day and a night. At last, the Nameless One set Cleolind afire. She cast herself beneath the tree – and though the beast was drawn to it, his fire could not burn anything that lay within the shadow of its branches.

‘As Cleolind began to die, the orange tree yielded its fruit. With the last of her strength, she ate, and all about her, the world brightened. She could hear the earth, feel its heat in her blood, and suddenly, fire was at her command, too. This time, when she confronted the beast, she drove the sword between its scales, and at last, the Nameless One was vanquished.’

Tunuva released her breath. No matter how many times she heard the story, it moved her.

‘Cleolind returned the sword to Galian the Deceiver, so he would never come back for it,’ Siyu said, ‘before she banished him from Lasia.’ Her voice was slowing. ‘She renounced her claim to the throne, and with her loyal handmaidens, she withdrew from the world to guard the orange tree, to stand in wait for the Nameless One, for he shall one day return. And we, who are blessed with the flame, are her children. We remain.’

‘For how long?’ Tunuva asked.

‘Always.’

Her breathing deepened. Tunuva closed her own eyes, and against her will, she remembered someone else falling asleep against her, long ago. The thought held her in place until Imsurin came and led her away.